Comments, where are the comments?

I’m honestly not sure anybody wants to know these things, and if you knew me personally you’d know that’s never stopped me before so why change now? I mentioned in my last post that I had decided to disable and delete comments from the blog. I also said that I’d explain soon, and just to break with tradition and actually write about something I said I’d write about…here you go:

I don’t like trolls. Not the hairy beasts that live under bridges…I have nothing against them, it’s their online cousins that offend me on so many levels. The anonymity that online commenting grants has led to the adoption of multiple personalities by a large swath of the population. I like to think most people are kind in real life. Or at least passively kind, meaning that I don’t think most people would go out of their way to insult another or cause them mental or physical harm. I know there are exceptions, I’m talking about most folks. When these same people go online and are confronted with a comment box that lets them say things that aren’t attributed to them by name, it’s like a switch is flipped – from average citizen to hate-spewing-cyber-troll. I don’t begin to understand the underlying reasons for this, so let’s just chalk it up to human nature for now (I know, broad strokes, sometimes you have to be able to admit when you can only take a line of thought so far) – what I do want to look at is why so many of us DON’T go down this road.

Actually, I’ve already hit on it – I truly believe that most people are good. Or, like I said, at least passively kind. There’s a difference between “do no harm” and “do good” that I’m going to have to leave for another time, but for now I’ll settle for the fact that most people, whether or not it’s a conscious choice, live by the ‘do no harm’ motto. And I think that for most people, this extends to their online self. I’ve personally never even considered leaving an anonymous comment on a blog, and frankly I’ve never left a comment of any kind on a news story, I read the news infrequently and when I do I just want the news, not a conversation. Generally speaking, if I feel strongly enough to comment on something, I want it attributed to me so any arguments can be directed towards me and I can respond.

Own your words. Own your opinions. They’re the product of your brain, your environment, your upbringing. It took you years to form them into coherent patterns of thought, be proud of them. And if you choose to leave them as a comment to someone else’s thoughts and opinions be open to hearing what others have to say.

All this was a rather longwinded way of saying, yes, I’ve disabled comments on this blog. I never intended to post anything that folks would feel called upon to comment on in the first place. So when I started getting both spam comments and a few with a distinctly troll-ish feel I made the decision to disable them. I’m honestly not sure where I’m going to take this blog in the coming months, there are several directions I’m looking at – so I want to keep my options open for now. The only social network I’m on is Twitter, so feel free to come over there and hit me up with your thoughts and comments (@RebalancedLife).


Blog stats? meh…

Checked the stats for this here little blog just now and was chuffed by the increase in visits after each post is published (we’re still talking low double digits here, I do no marketing and like it that way). Then, since I was making some changes to the layout – actually I was removing all the links in preparation for rebuilding them on their own page – I opened the actual blog page to preview the changes. And then I saw it…I have email followers too! How sad that I never even thought about the fact that I set that option up back when I set up this site. I’ve actually got 36 of you readers out there that I didn’t even know about, all because you don’t have to actually visit the site in order to read…and because I don’t visit my own site often enough.

Lessons learnt? Reality is more than the sum of it’s parts. You’re reading what I’m putting out there, I knew about some of you but not all of you wonderful souls. I might want to look into some deeper stats, like if someone clicks through from Twitter, how does that get counted? If someone reads via RSS, but doesn’t click through, can I track that? I could draw on my SEO experience to delve a little deeper and try to drum up more readers.

Bottom line for me is this: How much time do I want to spend on any of this, when I could be thinking up a new post or taking some of my paper-bound ramblings and getting them edited and online for posterity? Or taking the dog for a walk in the woods? I think you know where this is going…I’ve got better things to do, so thanks to all for following my ramblings, and I hope at least some of them are helpful for at least some of you.

Oh – and if you’re looking to make a comment, please head over to Twitter (@RebalancedLife) to start up a conversation. For a variety of reasons I decided a while ago to disable comments, and Twitter is the only place you’ll find me in the “Social Network”ing world. There I go with the quotes again…I’ll work an explanation into a post soon if anyone cares. If not, comment away, ask questions, direct message me if you like, I’m always up for a conversation!


“What If” myths and the power of reframing

“what if” myths seem to hold more sway over our daily lives than just about anything else I can think of. Reading Patrick Rhone’s take on them in his ebook (not an affiliate link) brought this idea to the fore once again. After what I still see as the failure (I know, it wasn’t, it was an unfortunate confluence of bad planning, bad timing, and a good size helping of just plain bad luck – give me time, I’ll get there) of my Israeli adventure, I find it difficult to put all the What If’s out of my mind. Trying to change career tracks is staggeringly hard when each potential comes with a laundry list of things that I can imagine going wrong. Each and every time I think about finishing up my certification training and looking for work…up pops the list of What If’s…

It doesn’t make sense from a purely subjective, functional standpoint; there’s no reason I won’t be able to find work as a 30-something formerly fat IT guy who wants to help others escape the fate of diseases of modernity (ominously named Syndrome X). That statement of fact doesn’t stop the torrent of What If’s – What if I can’t finish loosing my own weight before I start interviewing? What if no gyms want that 30-something formerly Fat IT Guy? What if I make the rounds of community centers and nobody wants to run functional fitness seminars? What if I DO find someplace to run seminars and I can’t come up with a syllabus? What if…what if…what if…

It can drive a guy to distraction. Speaking of which, I am technically on the clock at work right now…

Oh well, onward – I stumbled onto a couple of quotes yesterday that actually fit quite nicely with this topic, they’re from Roo Mullligan and appeared in a guest essay at Tiny Buddha:

My point in telling you all this is that life happens regardless of our plans. When we strive and struggle to constantly be somewhere “better” or “further along,” we miss out on what we have now.

And she finishes the essay with this:

What does it mean for you to live your best life, right now—and who do you want to be in five years?

These two ideas – living your best life right now and reframing the common interview question “where do you want to be in 5 years,” as “Who do you want to be in 5 years,” struck a nerve. With all my mostly fruitless soul searching, life direction changing, and overall questioning of life, the universe, and everything…I’ve lost focus on the hear and now and haven’t even given a moments thought to who I am. These two things seem intricately intertwined. Who I am right now plays into what I’m doing and experiencing at this moment, not what I think I want to be doing down the road; especially not knowing where that road might be leading. and who I want to be in 5 years is a much better way of looking to the future than where I want to be or what I want to be doing. If I know what sort of person I want to be, and I know how what I do is tied to who I am, it follows that knowing who I want to be will help me figure out what I should be doing – both now and in the future. Going forward – instead of “What If?” I need to ask myself, “who will this make me?” or “how will this affect me?” I stand a much better chance of getting a productive answer than asking “What If?” and by definition not liking what I hear.

This takes “What if no gyms want that 30-something formerly Fat IT Guy?” to “what kind of person will I be if I don’t get a job in the health field?” Or better, “if I spend one more year working in IT, how will that affect who I am?” Are you seeing these as the much more productive questions that I see them as? It changes the perspective from negative to positive, from passive to active. And active positives sound a heck of a lot more useful than passive negatives.


Utilitaire ’12 control…11 I think…

Had another one of those epic Utilitaire days and thought I’d share.

Morning started out Seattle-ish. You know the sort, grey, drippy, windy, etc…but not unpleasant overall. I headed out across the Montlake cut and turned toward Fremont on the Burke-Gilman Trail. As you would imagine, it was pretty much just me and the birds. Aside from the headwind, made it to Fremont without a complaint. Crossed the Fremont Bridge and headed for the newly completed Ship Canal Trail. Can I just say this trail makes trips between Fremont, Ballard, Interbay, Magnolia, Queen Anne, etc SO much nicer!

New blacktop is smoooooooooth…

This stretch also included, you guessed it, a headwind.

After a brief moment of turned-aroundedness following the signs, I made it to the Cascasde Bicycle Club Seattle Bike Expo. I have no idea if that’s the officially sanctioned title, but I like it.

Covered Bike Corral just outside the front doors to the Pier 91 Convention Center.

Best part of the bike corral? watching all the folks who drove walk in from the other side of the Magnolia bridge (~.25 mile)! Insert smug self-satisfied smiley face here.

I was way too distracted to take any pics inside the expo so I’ll leave it to your imagination…but picture booth after standard trade show booth chalk full of bikey gadgets galore! I think I was in there nearly 2 hours…checked in with the fine folks of Swift Industries (makers of my Rando bag), chatted briefly with the owner of FreeRange Cycles (where I adopted the Vaya), and tried out the newest generation of commuter designed backpacks from Velotransit – yet another Seattle based bike biz!

Time to head out, retrieved the Vaya from the corral and backtracked out of Interbay and made for Magnolia. I had decided to make the return trip more scenic and cross back into Ballard via the Locks and a coffee stop. After making my way UP into Magnolia I located perhaps my favorite “I’m a local” semi-hidden trail and headed for the Locks.

Yes, there are signs leading to this trail, but I know local cyclists who still don’t know about it.

The trail leads to this bridge over train tracks and down to the Magnolia side of the Hiram Chittenden Locks (aka Ballard Locks). If you don’t know what the heck a Locks is or are…details here.

Sort of like the trail earlier, not much traffic at the locks today. Heck, there were hardly any birds.

Quick pose shot:

Control building at the locks dates to (if memory serves) 1917. Vaya is considerably newer.

From here it was a quick trip into and through Ballard and to my favorite bike shop/coffee shop, Dutch Bike Seattle for a cuppa and a breather. These folks not only know city bicycles and urban riding needs, but they can make one of the best cups of coffee in town. And in this particular town, that’s saying something! Picked up a lock for quick stops when I don’t really want to throw my back out carrying my U-Lock and was ready to head out.

Into yet another headwind.

Through the semi-once-light-industrial area and to the end of the Burke-Gilman and before you know it I’m back in Fremont. One last quick stop at PCC (food co-op) and back to the trail and home.

With the now ever-present headwind.


And an epic Utilitaire was had by…well me.

Well, an epic utilitaire in that I both rode a total of 22 miles running errands, hauled a ridiculous amount of stuff, and picked up an incredible Craigslist find that will play a part in future utilitairing…utilitaires…rides.

Let’s take the day chronologically, I started with a lovely 6 mile ride out to Ballard for the farmers market. I took the Trek because I knew what awaited me…a 30 pound box of meat. Pork to be specific. Pastured pork products from Skagit River Ranch to get right down to it. The market:

Keep in mind this is early march, and this is a year round market…so this is an un-crowded day.

Added the eggs and some hamburger to the order and headed off to the farmers for veg. The result:

Two VERY FULL ortliebs, a full front basket, and a backpack full of eggs.

Needless to say it was a shaky ride as I started for home, but after about a mile I found that the Trek actually handles really well with a load, especially the front basket now that I have it mounted to an actual rack. I think the VO bars help, they have about a 60 degree sweep and you can see the rise. This is what I hauled back from the market:

Yes, all that was either on me or the Trek.

I got home to an email reply, I had found the frame from an old Burley kid trailer on Craigslist for FREE. Wasn’t really expecting to hear back, but apparently I was the first person to actually respond when he wrote, so it was mine if I could get there quick. For this I borrowed a car so I could make it there in time and just in case the hitch wasn’t working. Behold:

I had to remove the side supports to get it into the car, but I’ll keep them around just in case I want to rejigger it later. It’s in pretty good shape overall, bolts are a bit rusty, but they all work, and so far the tires are holding air. My goal was to build this into a useable utility trailer using just things I already had in the shop/garage. I think it’ll work alright for now, here’s how it stands as of this evening:

I’m going to bolt on a plastic storage tub I already have, going across the back, then add a couple of u-bolts to the front as lash points for larger items across the front. I’m liking the set up, and it hitches up to the Trek just fine now that I removed the rack…just seemed redundant now.

I’m not done – after all this, I had to run to the hardware store for a couple things (not related to the project trailer) and hit up Trader Joe’s on the return, this is about a 10 mile trip as the closest hardware store is a little family joint that’s still closed on Sundays. So I headed back out, this time on the Vaya, for a return trip down the Burke-Gilman towards Fremont.

Had a headwind the whole way.

Turned up Stone Way for the mile+ uphill to the hardware store.

Had a headwind.

Picked up the bits and bobs and headed towards Greenlake.

With a headwind.

Turned down Ravenna then Roosevelt towards TJs.

Yup, headwind.

Stopped at TJs briefly and made for home.

Oh yeah, had to peddle downhill across the University bridge the headwind was so strong.

And now here I sit with stupid tired legs. Does anyone know how the whole circular headwind thing works???

Managed to forget a shot at the hardware store, so just picture the Vaya locked up next to the ladders and wheelbarrows out front of Stoneway Hardware. Here it is at TJs:

So if you’re keeping track of these things: 22 miles. 2 utilitaire controls. 2 stupid tired legs. One satisfied grin.


Analog vs Digital life

I had a coworker say something interesting to me the other day. He was looking at this little case I carry in my EDC (Every Day Carry) bag and said that I didn’t strike him as the “needs to carry a portable hard drive” kind of guy. I replied that I’m not, and opened the case. His response to what’s inside was what interested me most; he said “that sums you up perfectly.”

Here’s the case:

It’s an old Case Logic portable hard drive case. I used it briefly at a previous job when I did actually have to carry one around all day at work – being prone to dropping things, I was extra careful with company property.

Now, what is it that this guy saw inside that he thought was just the right juxtaposition that it summed me up so perfectly?

This:

the contents are:

headphones, chapstick, thumbdrive (no longer really used so due to be tossed), tiny multitool, cheap disposable pen, comfy writing pen, EDC fountain pen, charging cable for bike headlight/Kindle, and while I’m riding my pocket notebook (side note: why do most pocket notebooks have such flimsy covers? There’s supposed to be carried in your pocket, right?)

At first I wasn’t sure what to make of his comment, then I realized that he had just inadvertently paid me a compliment. I’ve been trying for some time to come up with a way to summarize and explain my Analog/Digital way of seeing life and he had just pointed out that I carry the perfect analogy in my bag.

On the outside, I’m an IT guy. Currently I work on deploying Windows 7 for various companies. On the inside, I write most of my thoughts out on paper before going to the keyboard, like how fountain pens feel when they scratch across the paper, but still have gadgets to charge (even if one is to help me NOT drive and the other keeps my library simplified).

Right now one of the biggest issues on my mind is how I’m going to reconcile these two parts of me in order to complete my trainer training, get through the internship I need before I can become certified, and start looking for work WHILE continuing to work full time in IT Monkey land. I know, if only all life’s troubles could be so…

Once this project gets off the ground, my days will be easily taken up with deploying computers and walking users through the nuances of Windows 7 (said with not the slightest hint of sarcasm) so it will be easier to not let my mind wander to cob construction, raising backyard chickens and mace swings (look it up). in the meantime I just have to do my best to look interested in meetings and be sure the last site I was looking at has something to do with work…or be sure to leave a couple of spreadsheets open and a few printed out scattered across the workbench I call a desk…and be sure to write every morning. I find it very cathartic to write for myself, I’m trying to do 500 words every morning, after I come upstairs and put on water for tea, but before I open email, rss, or twitter. Between the meditating and the writing, it’s hard to say which is having more of an effect, but I’m definitely starting to feel Rebalanced…


Where I go and get wild ideas in my head by reading a book

Heretical idea isn’t it? A coworker has looked sideways at me over our keyboards a couple of times now and asked, in a disbelieving sort of voice, “what do you do all evening?” This was in response to a conversation we had several weeks ago (he’s kinda slow like that) that included me uttering the sentence, “oh, I don’t have a TV.”

I think he had asked why I hadn’t seen the superb owl ads and my first response of “I don’t watch football” didn’t quell his curiosity. Which brings us to last week when he asked again about how I spend all this free time he envisions me having (sidebar, if you’re so jealous of all this free time, you can ditch the TV too, you all know that right??). To be honest, with the possible exception of a couple of prolonged colds suffered during my high school years, I’ve never really watched that much TV. So when it came time to simplify, it was only logical that the TV be on top of the donate pile. And even now that I find myself living right below the living room and it’s whopping 27″ tubed wonder – I’m just not drawn to it. There’s nothing being shown on that box that I wouldn’t miss in an instant if it meant I could pick up a good book, or play a board game, or talk with my family, or walk the dog(s), or wrench on my bikes, or (are you catching on here?)…

Which brings me to the actual topic I had in mind when I started this, the book I just finished. It’s called The Information Diet by Clay A. Johnson. I’m not a reviewer by nature, so all I’m going to say along those lines is this, read this book. Especially if you spend a substantial part of your day staring at a glowing screen of one sort or another. Johnson has a background in political activism and social media (including starting the company that built and managed Obama’s 08 online campaign). The punch line, if I can do as he did and plagiarize Michael Pollan:

Consume Consciously

What Johnson’s getting at is that we in the western world, particularly the often over educated middle class, have such a glut of information being literally hurled at us 24/7 – that we often don’t know when, where, or most importantly how – to stop. As someone who only recently put himself out there on Twitter, doesn’t have a Facebook account, only follows a handful of blogs and doesn’t really like any of the non-local news sites out there…it’s not like I was suffering as bad as others. But even so, I’ve already made a couple of changes: I uninstalled the Twitter desktop app that lights up with new tweets. I closed the ever-present gmail tab in Safari. And I organized my twitter feed into lists so I can just catch up on what’s most important at that time, like local news, and get the rest later. This way, when I’m trying to…oh I don’t know…write something for this little bloggy here – I’m not distracted by that little blue birdy taunting me with the possibilities.

Like I said, this wasn’t quite the issue for me as I’ve already cut most of these distractions from my life farther back in the simplification step of my Rebalance, but the fact that even I could take something away from this book makes it one I highly recommend. The more harried your day, the more important it is.

Don’t think I didn’t have my issues with some of his analogies, particularly calling what he advocates “Infoveganism.” He also makes some very weak comparisons between things like the FDAs MyPlate guidelines (formerly the food pyramid) that even after reading 3x I still can’t grasp. But overall, his point is valid, the book is well written, and I’ll be putting it aside to be referred to my future clients.

Oh, and I love that his first recommendation when starting an Information Diet is to cut the cable and ditch the TV.


Utilitaire 12…Feb 12th

I had such a good day Utilitairing around yesterday, I decided to actually post about it. I know, radical notion for a guy with a blog…shhhh.

Started out by leaving just after daylight peaked out over the hills (or mountains, depending on your perspective, also knows as the Cascades). What in the world drove me to get up and out that early on a Sunday? The Cascade Bicycle Club‘s annual Seattle Bike Swap of course. And I’m glad I did since as it was I was around 50th in line and by the time the doors opened at 9 the line stretched up the stairs, around the corner and down the entire length of the Exhibition Hall.

I was there for one main reason, Swift Industries was present with their “human error” sale items, basically a scratch and dent sale on their amazing bags and I’ve been planning on using one of their rando bags on the Vaya since I started dreaming of building up that bike. So I get in the door, and of course can’t find their booth. Where is it? In the last aisle I look in (side note, isn’t everything you look for logically in the last place you look for it? If you kept looking after you found what you were looking for…well that’d just be a little crazy now wouldn’t it?) and they have exactly one rando bag! Since it just happened to be waxed canvas and the nice subtle charcoal gray I wanted…it hitched a ride home with me in the front basket on the Trek.

Now I couldn’t just fly through a room chalk full of goodies without at least having a quick peak, could I? Of course not…so before I headed home I found myself a Banjo Bros grocery pannier for a 20 and a stool with a huge cushy bike seat for a seat for a 5. That will serve as my desk chair once I get it cleaned up a bit…too many years as a shop stool I think.

Loaded up Trek (awkwardly, see how the legs of the stool are sticking up all wonky? Yeah, that makes getting on and off the bike just a wee bit difficult. It also makes me understand the appeal of step through frames for cargo bikes) and headed the 5 miles home through the South Lake Union Balagan (Hebrew word, basically means Big Ass Mess). With streets closed and not knowing where they’ve added convenient bike/ped throughways…I ended up detouring into downtown and battling the street car tracks down Westlake. Until I remembered that it’s closed at Mercer, so there was more detouring to Terry where, thankfully, there’s still one of those bike/ped throughways to South Lake Union Park and I was able to hook up to the trail and was off.

Later that same day, I came to remember that I needed to scope out a couple of things at REI, you know, the one I had just ridded right past. sigh. So out the door, this time on the Vaya for some quality time breaking in the Brooks. I’ve got to figure out a better locking set up then carrying both my umpteen pound u-lock and a cable. Maybe I’ll order some locking skewers to match the ones on the Trek…then I can use a single lock…anyway after a fruitful REI stop (including a scouring of the gear garage of course, nothing good though, pretty picked through) it was back home again.

Total distance ridded: ~15 miles in two trips

Utilitaire 12 controls knocked off: #6 – any non-grocery store and one of the freebies for the bike swap

Pictures taken:

The Trek all loaded up and ready for the trek home (sorry, the pun was unavoidable) That’s the Swift rando bag in the front basket and the stool legs sticking out of the grocery pannier. No, I don’t know how I would have gotten the stool home if I hadn’t found the pannier.

This was just amazing to me. It’s February, right? It also happened to be a mildly breezy, high overcast day with temps in the low 50′s so in Seattle that means two things…everyone was wearing flip flops and the sailboats were out. Of course.

So that’s how I spend my Sunday, well that and yard work, cleaning up the yard (3 dogs remember) and some light house work (vacuuming…again, 3 dogs). I’ll return to posting my more philosophically oriented inane ramblings later this week. Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend and follows it with a great week!


ditch anxiety

Anxiety is the sacrifice of creativity in the service of security. It is the giving up of personal freedoms in return for the promise, never fulfilled, of comfort, cotton wool, air-conditioned shopping centres. Security is a myth; it simply doesn’t exist. This does not stop us, however, from constantly chasing it.

Tom Hodgkinson, The Freedom Manifesto p.11

Just free forming here…so if we want to lessen anxiety – stop striving for financial* security? Will this lead to everyone doing exactly what they love and were meant to be doing? Or will we all end up working fast food or in a call center**? I think that depends heavily on what sort of person you are.

If you’re the kind to stop blindly chasing security in the name of freeing yourself from the anxiety that comes with living in the modern world…

I’m going to wager that you’ll be just fine.

 

 

 

 

*I know he didn’t say financial…but let’s be honest, in the modern world what is the number one type of security we’re trained to strife for?

**No, I’m not knocking call center workers, I was one. It’s simply the most soul-sucking line of work I can imagine someone in the aforementioned modern world being in


update on the whole bike commute/transpo cycling thing

I’ve been so focused on things that make me say…well, duh! recently that I’ve neglected other aspects of this whole Rebalancing thing. For example I picked up my shiny new Salsa Vaya last week. “Salsa Whatta?!?!” I hear some of you muttering over your keyboards, let me explain. First, Salsa is not – in this case – the delicious condiment. It is in fact a bike manufacturer dating back to the formative years of the mountain bike craze in the early ’80′s. And the Vaya is a newer model of theirs designed as a “Road Adventure Bike.” They make this amazing machine called the Fargo that’s an “anywhere you can’t walk Adventure Bike” – but for my mostly urban adventuring, the Vaya was a better fit. Here it is:

Isn’t that a thing of beauty?

 

Here’s where I’m lucky enough to store it during the day:

It’s currently kitted out for winter commuting, come spring I’ll be ordering up a Swift Industries random bag for the front and I’ll be training for some longer distance rides and possibly some light touring.

I’m also participating is something called Utilitaire 12. It’s being hosted by MG over at Chasingmailboxes. She can explain the rules better than I, so I’ll just say that it involves riding for utility and transportation, like I already do; taking some pictures of your rides, like I already do; and sharing your adventures with like minded folks, which I’d love to do more of. So basically it’s a win-win.

I picked up the Vaya last Friday and have put ~100 miles on it so far, including commuting to work every day this week. Though, I do have to say it’s a lot easier to winter commute when it’s 55 and sunny… it is February in Seattle…right?!?!

I’ll leave you with that, I have a couple of other posts swimming around upstairs, but they’re not forming themselves into coherent sentences just yet so I won’t submit you to them until they’re ready.

You can thank me later.


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