I promised myself that I wouldn’t write about the current health crisis this week. People have had enough, myself included. I thought maybe, if I could work myself into a creative mode, I might be able to offer up a distraction.
Yesterday though, while stopped at an intersection on my bike, and looking at two older people in a silver Lexus beside me, both wearing masks, l burst into tears. It’s the only time I can remember freezing when seeing a red light turn green. I wasn’t able to move my feet or legs. I just gasped with deep breaths as a couple of tears fall from my cheek to my tongue. At some point, it dawned on me that green means go and I got back into the rhythm of the ride. But for the next 30 miles, I was stuck in that moment.
A couple of nights ago I sent a note to a friend, a surgeon in North Florida, checking to see how he’s doing in the midst of all this. He replied by telling me he was doing okay. Like me, he lives in a rural area where things aren’t so bad. But he included this quote in his reply…
”Yesterday, I watched a doctor in Spain crying as he reported on how they are letting people over 65 die so the ventilators can be used for younger patients. That was hard.”
That thought was still fresh in my head when I broke down at the intersection and froze at the green light.
I had already been reflecting on stories I’d seen from Italy, New York, and beyond. I’ve been thinking about my friend Gayle who lives in India — I’m very concerned for their plight.
Two mornings ago I was entering the local market when I passed a grocery cart stacked so high with food and supplies that I couldn’t see the person pushing it from behind. It was a friend and client. She ducked her head as I passed, so not to be seen by me. I didn’t let on.
In California, for now anyway, restaurants can be open — for takeout only. I’ve seen a number of social media posts suggesting we support these small businesses by purchasing some of our meals from them. I’m sorry, but if things are really this bad, then restaurants should be closed. If grocery stores are open, people can eat. Having restaurants open might be good for the restaurant owners and the few employees getting any work out of it, but it puts more people into the mix and right now, I think that risk far outweighs any reward.
The last day I worked was March 11th. I’m losing $300-$350 per day by not working. I can’t say I’m taking that loss with a smile, but I’ll figure it out because not working is the moral thing to do. I know of three fitness trainers/facilities that are still operating, despite the order that closed all gyms and fitness outlets. One is a multi-use gym, and the other two are private facilities like mine. One is directly across the street from me. I’m not bitter, truly, I just don’t understand.
Our often criticized governor, Gavin Newsom, was one of the first to invoke the shelter-in-place order. Whatever shortcomings he might possess as governor, taking that bold action so early has saved hundreds, and will ultimately save thousands of lives, though that may never be quantified. Newsom, in my opinion, has been an exemplary leader through this. Those participating in the effort to recall Newsom, might take a look at their children, spouses, or grandparents before taking another step.
I feel helpless. I have close ties to several nonprofits in the community. I’m on the volunteer call list for a few of them. However, I also care for my 90-year-old mother and need to keep my exposure limited on her behalf. I’m doing no volunteering other than for my own household.
In the meantime, the dog and the cat are happy and rarely without human contact. I’m giving mom more Coca-Cola than usual because, why not…? She’s 90 and is survivor of the great depression and World War II. Until further notice, Coke is a vegetable in this household — 3 servings per day.
As for me, my routine hasn’t changed much aside from missing work. I walk daily, taking dozens of pictures while Stroodle’s ‘hurry up’ eyes stare me down. I ride my bike because it soothes the chaos in my head, if only for a while. I write, because I feel compelled to do so and to share.
I’m hopeful, that this will be a turning point for our species. I’m not necessarily optimistic, but I’m hopeful. As I write this, I’m watching an episode of Love It Or List It. There’s a couple arguing about the color of backsplash above the granite countertop of the $900,000 home they’re considering. They’re a part of the reason I’m not optimistic.
The reasons why I’m hopeful though, despite not being optimistic, are all the people in the medical community who are literally putting their lives on the line right now and will be doing so for months, including my doctor friend in North Florida.
And when I contemplate what lessons, if any, we’ll learn from this, the only one that’s clear to me right now is to say I love you to everything that moves, because we truly are in this together.
This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb
This Week By The Numbers…
Bikes Ridden: 6
182 miles
7,800 climbing
15.0 mph avg
10,300 calories
12 hours 10 minutes seat time
Whether you ride a bike or not, thank you for taking the time to ride along with me today. If you haven’t already, please scroll up and subscribe. If you like what you read, give it a like and a share. If not, just keep scrollin’. Oh, and there’s this. After 12 years of waiting, a brand new album from Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks. Enjoy…
Yesterday’s ride was spectacular. I pedaled up Rice Canyon — a two-lane farm road just east of the Pala Indigenous People community. A cool spring morning with broken skies recovering from an overnight rain. The shades of green right now are stunning. It’s a ride I’ll remember for a long time, as well as the story that took place in my head.
I imagined a conversation between an expedition leader from a nearby planet and one of his lieutenants….
Expedition Leader: And what can you tell me about them, you know, as a species…?
Lieutenant: They weren’t like us. It appears they were an emotional people, overly reactive and lacked common sense. They put the individual ahead of the family, the family ahead of the tribe, and the tribe ahead of the species.
Expedition Leader: Did they have a golden age…?
Lieutenant: Oddly Sir, yes. It appears to have always been the one they had just come out of, or the one they were going into do next. Never though, does it appear to have been the one they were in at any moment.
Expedition Leader: What was their general behavior and what were their final actions like…?
Lieutenant: They appear to have spent most of their waking lives immersed in petty bullshit. They disagreed with one another on a regular basis and over little and unsolvable things, making it impossible for them to agree on the bigger things — the ones might have prevented their extinction.
They failed to learn from the past. They regularly looked beyond the obvious warning signs of danger, in favor of momentary relief. They liked shortcuts. They were relentlessly addicted to harmful forms of energy, easy credit, and cheap consumer goods.
They spent too much time focused on simple amusement, didn’t take the concept of work seriously enough, and had an inherent tendency to take more than they were willing to give.
Expedition Leader: Cool. Thanks for the hard work. I’ll arrange for a cleanup crew and see if we can get the remaining reefs, rain forests, rivers, and animal population brought back to good health and a complete comeback now that the humans are gone.
Lieutenant: Sir, would you like for me to archive their historical records…?
Expedition Leader: No, burn them. Our children should never know of such a species.
Lieutenant: Excellent point, Sir.
Expedition Leader: Oh, and euthanize all the monkeys and apes, just in case.
Lieutenant: Of course, Sir, right away.
This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb
Yesterday’s Ride…
Bike: Eleventeen Cupcake
31 miles
1,400’ climbing
14.4 mph avg
1,700 calories
Yesterday’s earworm: Babylons Burning, by The Ruts
I’m about to finish the book, The Second Chance Club, by Jason Hardy. The book is an inside look at the New Orleans probation system, seen through the eyes of a former probation officer, the author himself.
It’s a sobering look at what happens to young men in the inner-city when they find themselves out of work, pressed for money, and have too much time on their hands. As a point of clarification, the offenders Hardy covers in the book were all born into the circumstances that absorbed them. Most are the children of drug attics and dealers and never had a shot at a better life. A few were born already addicted. They were given losing tickets in the lottery of birth.
When I began the book a couple of weeks ago, I was self-employed, earning a respectable living, had more of everything than I need, and still had enough free time to enjoy life‘s rich pageant. By comparison to the offenders Hardy describes in his book, it seemed I’d won the lottery of life. Those who know me hear me say that frequently.
Now, just three-quarters of the way through the 260 page book, I have no source of income, too much time on my hands, and no immediate hope of getting out of this situation. Suddenly, I have more in common with the offenders in Hardy’s book than I could’ve imagined when I began it just a couple weeks ago.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sitting at the edge of my seat entertaining how I might make a living selling drugs or committing petty burglaries. My current plight though, offers me a context into this book about criminal life that wasn’t there on page-1. Suddenly, it’s all more relatable.
It’s interesting to think about — that whole lottery of birth thing. I think most people never give that much consideration — that our ZIP Codes at birth are our lottery numbers. Growing up, my older brother took time to help me understand how fortunate we were compared to kids in other parts of the world and other parts of the country. The older I get, the more I think Lottery Of Birth should be a class taught in early elementary school — so we all might have a better understanding from an early age.
Eternal is a ring — it has no beginning and no end. It’s a cycle, everlasting.
Never-ending is a line. It has a beginning, but extends without ever stopping.
Pointing out the difference between eternal and never-ending may seem like a small point, but when people talk to me about the prospect of an eternal hell, I’m quick to remind them the term they’re looking for is never-ending, not eternal. It often flusters them. I explain to them that hell has to have a day-one. I envision it something like this…
You show up, get in line, and get your ID number, then there’s probably a lot of waiting around. Eventually some unfriendly being or beings begin to have their way with you and it never ends.
Apparently that’s God’s way of teaching you a lesson you’ll never be capable of learning, in an environment where you’ll never be able to apply it.
Wait, what…? How could a god who created a human mind capable of logic wrap things up for us with a scenario that rejects it…? That’s a rhetorical question. Of course, the idea of heaven defies logic also.
I don’t believe in heaven or hell, but I’ve been thinking about them both lately — because so many people keep bringing them up. Honestly, I might be as fearful of heaven as I would be of hell, depending on what memories we’d take with us as contrast for our new surroundings and our new chores.
By the way, it’s not the Covid-19 I’m worried about. My age and fitness level would likely get me through it. My concern is growing though, of a global collapse. Although I still see that scenario as very unlikely, this is our Cuban missile crisis and it’s going to last much longer than 13 days.
Facing uncertain and possibly catastrophic times, I’ve been trying to get my moral bearings straight and my principles lined up. I’m focusing on how I should live in these coming weeks and months, should I not make beyond 2020. I’m not doing this out of a fear of hell or a desire to enter heaven. I’m doing it because it’s the right way to be, but it always has been.
If the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that I’m a much better person than I’ve given myself credit for. I say that based on my observations of all the people and all the nonsense which has taken place around me in an increasingly complex world.
Being raised in a society inherent with religious fright as the foundation of most moral learning, has done little to make me feel good about myself. Set against the backdrop of the end of daze, I think I’m in pretty good field position.
In just a few short years we’ve gone from Francis Fukuyama‘s The End Of History to Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny. Heaven and hell not withstanding, I’m going to steer my current course and continue to be me — it’s all I know.
This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb
This Week By The Numbers…
Bikes Ridden: 7
203 miles
8,600’ climbing
15.1 mph avg
11,500 calories
13 hours 21 minutes seat time
Whether you ride a bike or not, thank you for taking the time to ride along with me today. If you haven’t already, please scroll up and subscribe. If you like what you read, give it a like and a share. If not, just keep scrollin’. Oh, and there’s this from The Eurogliders. Enjoy…
In this time of Passover, Easter, and in the midst what might be the most critical moment in modern human history, God has been on my mind a lot of this week. And yes, I believe in God, though I make no attempt to characterize or define him, her, or it. I just feel there’s something bigger than humankind.
Rarely an hour passes that I don’t think about purpose and meaning. Those thoughts always lead me to God.
God, to me, is wonder and that’s where I feel all discussions should end. The question of whether or not God exists does little for me. The more important question is where does he take us from here…? A lot of people, myself included, might be discovering that in the coming weeks and months, and in numbers we haven’t seen in a long time.
I’ve never believed this is the only life we get, but like my feelings of God, I can only go on a hunch. My hunch is that we carry on. Where we land when we leave this world, I have no idea. Perhaps another body, another realm, into a different simulation, an alternate universe, or a new upload — I’ve got no clue.
I don’t believe in Heaven nor Hell, just continuation. I would simply hope that where and how we continue beyond this life is precisely correlated with how we lived here — graded on a curve of course. Nobody can predict how things will unfold in the coming weeks and months, but I’m somewhat at peace with it all — at peace with what might be next for me Apprehensive, but at peace.
In recent years I’ve learned the value of the volunteering. I’ve discovered great meaning in putting the needs of others ahead of my own, animals included. I’ve felt the joy in giving my last dollar to a friend in need. I’ve made friends with the local homeless, and make sure to remember their names. I took in a kitty who was left on my driveway and told her she’s a Cohen now too — and I’ve treated her accordingly.
I’ve learned that argument is almost always fruitless and that insults are a sign of weakness. I’ve learned that there actually is a wrong time to make a joke. I’ve learned to listen, to put myself in the shoes of others, and to say I love you to everything that moves and many things that don’t. In this social media era, I’ve learned that you can call somebody ‘friend’ having never met them.
I’ve often joked that in Mad Max world, I like my odds. I’m not sure I really believe that now, but in the next world, I think I’ll do okay — I hope so anyway.
This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb
Yesterday’s Ride…
Bike: Vasudeva
30 miles
1,300’ climbing
15.5 mph avg
1,700 calories
Yesterday’s earworm: Black Coffee, by Humble Pie
Most reading this will be stricken with its superficiality and are likely to file it under “first-world problems“ should they read it all the way through. I’m asking everyone to read this please, and do so with an open mind. Even if this doesn’t apply to you, it’s impacting somebody close to you — a family member, coworker, or neighbor.
Millions of people woke up today unable to go to the gym and exercise. On the surface that seems the epitome of first-world problems. In truth, missing a workout or even a few is not a big deal. However, we’re not talking about people missing one or two workouts. We’re talking about fitness centers and gyms around the country closed down indefinitely, for weeks and probably for months.
Why is this significant…?
Because for many, it’s not about having tight buns, bulging biceps, six-pack abs, or doing sinister justice to that little black dress. For millions of people, exercise is medicine, and for some it’s their only medicine. For many, it works far better than the pills that doctors prescribe them.
Exercise helps cope with the stresses of everyday life
Exercise helps in confronting depression, head-on
Exercise is a great way to deal with anxiety
Exercise is an alternative to drugs and alcohol — helping millions of people each day stay ahead of addiction
Exercise is used by many to thwart thoughts of self-harm and suicide
Exercise offers confidence to many who would not know it any other way
For many, and I fall into this category, exercise is about all of the above and more.
This is worth repeating — you probably know more than a few people who exercise for some or all of the reasons mentioned above. Their ability to do so, as they are accustomed to doing it, has been taken from them with no notice. For people who use exercise to combat depression and other maladies, this is tantamount to the pharmacy turning the off the lights and locking the doors — right as the person in need is driving up.
Many people who’ve lost access to the gym may have also lost their jobs with no notice. They may be in financial difficulties due to our current situation. They may feel weight of the world pushing them down harder than ever, during a time when they need the relief and the benefits of exercise more than ever. Their medicine has been taken from them.
For the people in your life who’ve lost that wonderful coping mechanism, the gym, they will need to be resourceful. Please encourage them and be patient with them. Be supportive if they complain about missing their workouts, don’t reply by calling it a “first-world problem“. Don’t complain if they do push-ups every 15 minutes, or run around the block 35 times a day. They may be medicating the best way they can, at a time when they may need that medicine more than ever.
Starting or tomorrow I’ll be doing a YouTube video of one exercise per day that can be done with minimal equipment which some people might have at home, or with no equipment whatsoever.
“The end of the world is just five years away — and it always will be…“ Every Optimist
I’ve never been a doomsdayer and I’m not now, despite legitimate concerns over the current global health crisis. It’s always bumping around though, in the bingo hopper of my head, that life as we know it might turn on a dime — to begin the downward slide that takes us out as a species.
In 1971, just before a Cub Scout meeting, my mom, who was also my Den Mother, showed me a newspaper clipping — an article about an earthquake in Los Angeles a few days earlier. The story told of a young boy, also a Cub Scout, who had been killed collecting soda bottles to raise money to buy a new uniform. It wasn’t her intent to alarm me, but I got the sense that all of Los Angeles had been destroyed by that earthquake.
Several years later in China, an earthquake was said to have killed 500,000 to 1,000,000 people. That number would later be amended down to roughly 250,000, though the exact number can never be known. Still, by the time I was 12-years-old, my science teachers and the nightly news convinced me that earthquakes were capable of killing millions. It just hadn’t happened yet. What a way for the world to end though.
Long before the movie Independence Day, in early elementary school, I often wondered if large spaceships might show up to annihilate us. That’s what happens when your 3rd-grade teacher makes the class listen to The War Of The Worlds on Halloween day, rather than practice addition and subtraction problems.
Each morning, when I step outside to retrieve the newspaper, before I return to the house, I always do a 360° pirouette, looking up for the spaceship that might be preparing zap us into infinity. I do that at other times during the day too, no joke, I actually do.
Just before Christmas in my 7th-grade year, The Missiles Of October aired on PBS. It was a well-made television show, which had actors, William Devane and Martin Sheen among others, use actual transcripts of meetings between JFK and his cabinet, to dramatize how Kennedy addressed Russia placing missiles on the island of Cuba. My brother and I watched it side-by-side in absolute silence. If the Cuban missile crisis had gone in the wrong direction, I might have died in a diaper 11-years earlier. Pfew…
In 2010, during the H1-N1 pandemic, I joked to a few clients that the Swine Flu couldn’t catch me because the Swine Flu wasn’t quick enough. After a short trip to Chicago to visit my daughter that year, I learned that the H1-N1 was not only quick enough, but had the stamina to go the distance with me. I ultimately won, but spent 11-days not ingesting a single calorie, and had a fever which hovered around 102° for over a week. The world did a good job keeping it at bay, but I had first-hand knowledge of what to expect if millions of people were exposed to it.
Today I live in Fallbrook California, less than a mile from the back gate of Camp Pendleton Marine Base. Part of living adjacent to the base means that we hear waves of ordinance being detonated regularly, often so loud that windows, walls, and pictures on those walls shake. Every-so-often there will be an explosion hard enough and loud enough that, no matter how well conditioned I am to think it’s Pendleton, I still run to the nearest window looking for the mushroom cloud that came courtesy of North Korea or Russia. So far, so good.
It’s always there — thoughts that on any given day, it might be my last day on earth, or the first day of the big downward slide that eliminates our specie. So far, so good.
When I was a kid, my dad placed a hand-written note on the bulletin board of my bedroom. It was my father’s liberty with the words of Rudyard Kipling, and it read precisely as follows.
“If you can keep your head when those about you are losing their’s, then my son, you are a man…”
I can’t say I’ve been perfect with those instructions, but the older I get, the more I find value in trying, pandemics included.
This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb
This Week By The Numbers…
Bikes Ridden: 6
174 miles
8,000’ climbing
15.0 mph avg
9,700calories
11 hours 27 minutes seat time
Whether you ride a bike or not, thank you for taking the time to ride along with me today. If you haven’t already, please scroll up and subscribe. If you like what you read, give it a like and a share. If not, just keep scrollin’. Oh, and there’s this from The Hoodoo Gurus. Enjoy…
A little something different this week. Since I write a daily version of this blog on Facebook, and many people who read this are not on Facebook, I’m going to share a recap of those original Monday through Friday thoughts here each Sunday.
If you’re interested in checking them out daily on Facebook, you can follow the the link here. If you’re not on Facebook but are interested in what goes through my head as I ride each day, you can read it here each Sunday.
Monday, March 2. Practicing Mistakes…
One of the best parts about riding early on Sundays is the streets are nearly void of cars. As my ride winds down though and I return to town, I pass several churches along the way. Traffic backs up as the parking lots begin to fill for Sunday services.
I take it all in.
For much of my adult life I’ve drawn many comparisons, and cultivated much of my worldview by identifying similarities between religious culture and fitness culture. On the surface that may seem like a stretch. However, the similarities between religious culture and fitness culture are numerous, and in my opinion, very telling.
It all starts with expectations.
There are expectations in society that we take care of our souls. Houses of worship, we learn at an early age, are the best place to prepare our souls for all that will confront them. There are also expectations, albeit to a lesser degree, that we take care of our health and bodies. Gyms, yoga studios, and similar places of worship are as numerous as houses of the holy.
It continues with expectations.
For many, whether we’re talking about protecting our souls or our bodies, it’s those social expectations that create intent. Whether we have a deep calling or not, many attend religious services because they feel it’s expected of them. Similarly, many exercise regularly because they feel it’s expected of them.
Location and leadership.
Because nobody is born with inherent knowledge of religious doctrine, they seek locations of practice and leadership who can teach and cultivate progress toward an increasingly moral life. In the same way, someone seeking to improve their physicality must seek a location of practice and a leader to teach them how to improve.
Ritual Obedience.
Again, whether we’re talking about the soul or the physical being, ritual obedience is necessary to make progress. Obedience to the doctrine and leadership, and consistent ritual practice of what is taught.
You go, you light the candle, you say the words, and you eat the cookie, you leave.
You go, you program the treadmill, you take the steps, do you drink the smoothie, you leave.
Clearly I’m not a priest, a rabbi, or an imam. I have though, made my living teaching different aspects of fitness and exercise for much of my adult life. I’m fortunate inasmuch as I do no group training. My lessons are all one-on-one, which enables me to teach in a way that better secures the expected results.
If there’s one doctrine that I teach above all others, it’s to execute proper form in all the exercises. I regularly tell students that if they’re not using proper form when they exercise, they’re simply practicing mistakes over and over again.
Though I don’t have occasion to enter public gyms too often these days, when I do I’m always struck by how many people are exercising outside of proper form — entire communities reassuring one another that they’re doing a good job, when in fact they’re not.
I know people will take offense to this, but when I think about that — when I think about the entire population of a gym practicing mistakes over and over again, I have to believe that happens in houses of worship as well. It’s just human nature I suppose.
If there’s a message in this attempt to compare the need for spiritual growth with the need for physical development, it’s that if we’re going to practice something, it’s probably best to not practice mistakes over and over again. Eventually, those mistakes become part of who we are.
This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb
Tuesday, March 3. Signs…
As if the joy and exhilaration of riding yesterday wasn’t enough, the skies were an additional reward for my effort. Gray, charcoal, varying hues of blue, and white combined to reflect the ground below in spectacular fashion. I know I say it all the time, but ‘stupid job…!’ I had to go back my stupid job.
I ride, in part, to escape the news of the day. These last few weeks though, the news has snuck in to my escape. Actually, it’s full-on molested me. The last 6-miles of my ride each day are a climb back into Fallbrook, up South Mission Road. Because it’s a steady climb, it’s the most ordinary part of my ride. I’m mostly head-down, churning, tired because it’s near the end, and this is usually where my feet begin to hurt. These days though, my eyes hurt more.
Leading up to Super Tuesday, South Mission Road gets transformed into The Alley Of Wasteful Politicians. It’s an assault to my psyche even worse than scrolling through my morning feed. Dozens of signs with the names of politicians or the numbers or letters assigned to the propositions this community should be voting for. The names Darrell Issa and Carl DeMaio pollute the 6-mile stretch. Not to be excluded is the good guy liberal candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar and some lesser judges, assessors, and so-on.
By the way, I’m not taking a political stand here, other than the fact that I believe these signs should be relegated to the past by way of a mutual agreement from all parties and by all causes.
For the second time in a few months I’ll run with my favorite quote from the 1972 book, The Limits Of Growth.
“If you want to protect the environment, stay out of it…“
Also, quit using it.
The game has changed. Political marketing has gone digital and I think that’s a good thing. I know these signs along people‘s driveways and on the sides of the roads buy bits of our brains that their sponsors hope register precisely when the ballot is in front of the voter, but but these signs are profoundly wasteful.
Signs require energy and multiple resources to be manufactured, need to be transported multiple times, and need to be disposed of when the campaign is over — if they’re collected at all. The only bigger waist than the signs themselves, are the wasted words of the politicians they pronounce.
Campaign signs should end tomorrow. The end, no justification, no rationalization, they should simply go away.
Crap. That’s just one more thing I have right that all the politicians in the country are still getting wrong.
This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb
Wednesday, March 4. Wearing My Plants Wrong…
Fun ride yesterday. Sleeveless t-shirt. Middle of the day. Everything is green. I’m getting my tan back. A fun little lunch-break, indeed.
I’m taking my fitness a more seriously these days. I know that’s an odd statement coming from a guy who does fitness for a living. Despite my so-called fitness lifestyle, I’ve got a weak link in the chain these days that I need to repair.
I’m consistent on my bike. I’m consistent in the weight room. I’m consistent with my stretching and with my balance work.
So what’s missing…?
My eating has been for shit.
I don’t mean that I eat junk food, that I overeat, or that don’t take my eating seriously. It’s just that my eating has become an identical reflection of my lifestyle — loosely organized, haphazard, and anything goes just to make it to the next day. In the scope of my fitness life, I’m eating good enough to get by, but I expect better of myself.
Riding as much as I do, getting enough calories is the only priority I have in eating. Balancing my nutrients and micro-nutrients is an afterthought. Because of my busy lifestyle — working and taking care of my mother, I get my calories as efficiently and conveniently as possible. This means I’m over-depending on rice, pasta, peanut butter, tofu, and convenient fruits. If you noticed a big void there, yes, vegetables are woefully missing — they only find their way into my system by way of the Thai and Chinese takeout I eat for lunch or dinner most days. I eat almost not vegetables but for a small serving of mixed frozen vegetables every 3rd day or so. In my (mostly) plant-based diet, most of those plants are wheat, rice, nuts, bananas, and soy.
I’m attempting to change that.
The biggest thing I have working against me is time. Eating vegetables, especially the better ones, takes time. It’s easier and quicker to throw down a spoonful of peanut butter and a bowl of pre-cooked rice than it is to prepare and chew on enough broccoli, zucchini, Brussel sprouts, and asparagus to sustain a 1,700 calorie ride.
Really it comes down to organization and planning, and that’s where I hope to improve.
Don’t get me wrong, I can still tuck in my shirt and make it look okay, and the blood panel from my last physical was above average for an old guy. Still, I haven’t been completely dialed in with my eating since I left Colorado in 2015. It’s time to get back on it.
That’s it. My lack of veggies has been weighing on me, so to say. I’ll keep you posted.
This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb
Thursday, March 5…
A Long Way From SeaWorld…
Second ride on the vintage Fuji yesterday. Not as fast as the first ride, but I faced a lot of wind heading west. Still, this bike is smooth and fun to ride. I’ll need to be cautious not to ride it too much — maybe twice a month or so.
I received a couple of unrelated emails recently, from two friends who live in separate parts of the country — each questioned me, asking why I say I live in San Diego when the pictures I show look nothing like the images they have. Let me clarify…
Most people, it seems, associate San Diego with Seaworld, Mission Beach, and our beautiful downtown waterfront. San Diego’s moniker is America’s Finest City, and I couldn’t agree more. However, I actually live about 50-miles north of downtown San Diego and 15-miles inland from the nearest beach. My home is in the unincorporated community of Fallbrook.
Fallbrook is a rural community known for its agriculture including avocados, plant and flower nurseries, citrus groves, and more recently, vineyards. And horses, we have a lot of horses. We are a community of 40,000 persons living sparsely among roughly 44 square-miles. We have a concentrated downtown with shops and restaurants.
If David Lynch built his own Mayberry, this would be it. I’m not citing this as an official statistic so just take my word for it, but we have more eccentric personalities per capita than any place on earth. We have a cross-dressing feed store manager, a cowboy poet who wears spurs everywhere he goes though I don’t believe he ever rides horses, and we have dozens more personalities who dress, speak, and behave just differently enough so they get noticed. We even have one guy who rides around town on a different bicycle, every day of the week.
Due to the hilly landscape and the large agricultural presence, there are only a few housing tracts here. Most homes have at least a little bit of land around them and some have grand properties. I often tell people the best way to see Fallbrook is to fly over it at low altitude, because there are so many homes and incredible properties that can’t be seen from the streets.
Most everyone grows some family fruit — avocados, citrus, and stone fruit, to be passed around and traded in a quasi-barter economy. Between March and early summer, it’s not uncommon for people to leave bags of fruit at the edge of their properties for anyone to take. Walk into out library or community center on any spring day and there might just be a bag of lemons or grapefruit with a sign beside it saying “take a few“.
Because this is the best growing climate in the United States, everything grows here — flowers, plants, fruits, vegetables, name it. The best part of that though, is there is visible Color 365 days a year. If fallbrook has a secret weapon, it’s the Bougainvillea. These transplants from India can be seen growing along fences brightening up the landscape in any direction one looks.
To ride a bike through Fallbrook, I often feel liked I’m on a tropical island. It’s truly that beautiful. Because most people have never heard of Fallbrook, I’m quick to say I live in San Diego. That’s true since I am in San Diego County. San Diego may be America’s finest city, but Fallbrook California is America’s most beautiful community.
Each day, when I could be doing many other things, I choose to spend a couple of hours in a bike, taking it all in at a speed which is on a more human scale than a car. This vehicle of choice, this bicycle, allows me to better appreciate all that captivates me. I smell the society garlic, the eucalyptus, and the citrus blossoms. If I see a blue heron standing in water or a turkey vulture sitting on a fence, I can stop without hazard and just take it in for a minute, and then move on to the next gorgeous scene. Fallbrook is my home.
This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb
Friday, March 6. If I Never Die…
It’s not always rainbows and unicorns in my head when I’m on the road. My mind goes to some peculiar places. Not necessarily dark or even bad, just strange. As I’ve said before, it’s hard to get on a bike every day for a couple of hours and not think about mortality.
I think about what might happen if I get hit by a car or if something falls off a truck and hits me in the head. As those thoughts churn, I think about my family, my friends, and any legacy I might leave behind. Sometimes though, I go the opposite direction.
I’ve survived a half-dozen legitimate near death experiences. I don’t seem to be any worse off for that wear. And that bodes the thought, every so often, what if I just keep on living…? I mean, my track record so far is 100%. By all accounts, I probably shouldn’t be here. Broken vertebrae — skydiving accident. Head injury(s) — skydiving, bike, river escapades. Notwithstanding, I once had an ER doc tell me my brain was swimming in alcohol and he wasn’t sure I was going to make it.
What happens if I keep on waking up, ongoing…?
That’s a question I think about often when I ride. Fifty-eight years old, 64 years old, 78, 93. When does that final day come…? What if it never comes…? 142 years old…? 210…?
I don’t mean that in a messianic way — that I’m not human, invincible, or that I’ll live forever. I just wonder, maybe too often, if I’ll be like Stroodle and just keep waking up each day and running like a deer, with only a little more gray on my face as time goes on.
And then there’s that deeper thought, the one that pops in and out of my head all day long and has haunted me for years…
Maybe this isn’t a life at all, just my purgatory. Perhaps I’m trapped in a waiting game that will only end as I allow it to end, by offsetting my previous wrongs by the actions of my daily rights. Purgatory plays out like Groundhog Day, right…
Wake up
Do more good than bad
Write
Do more right than wrong
Walk
Do more good than bad
Work
Do more right than wrong
Ride
Do more good than bad
Work more
Do more right than wrong
Take pretty pictures
Do more good than bad
Go to bed
Wake up, do it all again.
Each day a rebirth, but toward what end…?
Eventually, I do enough good while weeding the bad and I get to move on. Maybe that takes me 72 years. Maybe, 113 or 175 — I dunno, I just keep tryin’.
This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb
This Week By The Numbers…
Bikes Ridden: 7
202 miles
9,,500’ climbing
14.8 mph avg
11,500 calories
13 hours 36 minutes seat time
Whether you ride a bike or not, thank you for taking the time to ride along with me today. If you haven’t already, please scroll up and subscribe. If you like what you read, give it a like and a share. If not, just keep scrollin’. Oh, and there’s this. After 12 years of waiting, a brand new album from Cornershop — and it’s excellent. Enjoy…
I’ve been writing daily for much of my adult life. For nearly 20 years I’ve been sharing that writing via several platforms, most recently this blog. In recent weeks though, I’ve been struggling to find new ideas — new thoughts to write about and to share. In considering that, it’s clear that I’m either running out of fuel for thought, or I’ve lost the creative ability to make more from less.
Of course, it might also be that I’ve said everything I have to say. Nah, I don’t think so either. So like it or not, this is a brief piece of writing about my writing.
My reason for writing, more than any other, is to help me better understand my beliefs, or to talk myself down from them. Putting my thoughts into a digital record offers me the chance to distill them to their greatest purity and store them for future contemplation.
Sharing my thoughts, on any subject, is never about initiating debate or changing anyone else’s mind. It’s about me showing my work in the calculations if life that take place in my mind. Writing, in that sense, is much like my physical exercise — it’s something I do to improve me, not others. In the same way I ride a bike to make my lungs stronger and do planks to tighten up my core, I write to make my mind more fit. If others find value in my writing, great. If not, no biggie.
Many suggest reading is the best exercise for the mind and the only way to broaden and strengthen one’s worldview. Clearly reading is an important exercise for the mind and I read or listen to books daily, average completing, 5-6 books per month. However, reading someone else’s and thoughts, I believe, offers a lesser platform for self-appraisal. Honest self-appraisal, in my opinion, is the best way to broaden and strengthen one’s mind. Writing and subsequently reading my own words, forces helps me distinguish the sensible from the wacky.
In this age of increasing complexity, with more voices than ever continually shouting from every direction, writing down my own thoughts helps me distinguish them from the thoughts of others, and perhaps that’s the best way to illuminate the road to self-discovery.
I’ve said for a long time that I believe the world would be a better place if people spent as much time writing Bibles as reading them. I stand with that, now more than ever. I blog, therefore I am.
This is what I think about when I ride… Jhciacb
This Week By The Numbers…
Bikes Ridden: 7
204 miles
9,600’ climbing
15.5 mph avg
12,000 calories
13 hours 09 minutes seat time
Whether you ride a bike or not, thank you for taking the time to ride along with me today. If you haven’t already, please scroll up and subscribe. If you like what you read, give it a like and a share. If not, just keep scrollin’. Oh, and there’s this from Supertramp . Enjoy…
The Spoke And Word™ 