mmmm, coffee

     What a beautiful morning!  We had about 7" of snow here yesterday of the heavy, wet variety, so limbs were breaking off trees, often taking power lines with them.  We lost power here for several hours, but it was back on in a timely fashion.  Anyway, continuing with beauty, it is sunny and clear and the snow is breathtaking.  It is only 28 degrees outside now, so I'm holding off on the horses to let it warm up some to soften the snow.  My pellet stove is performing well, keeping the house toasty warm.  I was hoping winter would be a little later in its arrival, but weather makes its own rules.
     I attended the 90th birthday party of my neighbor last evening.  This man is a true wonder.  He is a mechanical genius and a genuine war hero, but more then that, he is a beautiful person and a perfect role model.  I am extremely fortunate to have him as a neighbor.
     Earlier this week I took a "mini vacation" and went to Ocean City, MD with my friend Mark.  We had a "soft" time, relaxing and talking about art, motorcycles and life.  We've known each other since about 1970, so have many memories to share.  Mark is my motorcycle riding partner.  Together we have hit just about every large motorcycle rally in the East: Daytona Bike Week, Daytona Biketoberfest (5 or 6 times), Americade in Upstate New York (12 times!), Laconia in New Hampshire and Myrtle Beach to name a few.  In addition, we have been to numerous smaller events and roamed the Eastern U.S from Maine to the Florida Keys.  Wow, over 40 years of traveling together.  I guess it's safe to say Mark is the brother I never had, or my brother from a different mother.  I met Mark at Towson State College.  Mark had an old Vespa scooter that he was kind enough to let me use to run many errands.  I think my real reason for the rides was to feel the wind in my face.  I already had a love of all things on two wheels, but was at the time too poor to own my own bike.  I will always be grateful for the confidence he had in me to lend me his scooter!  Maybe one day I'll write down some of our experiences.  I'm not too low to scoop to extortion!  (Just kidding, Mark.  You probably have more on me, so let's not go down that road.)
     Back from the horses.  All is well in the world of equine.
     At the birthday party last evening, I had the opportunity to meet a young gay couple.  They were giddy at the prospect of their upcoming nuptials.  As I laid in bed last night, I was reflecting on the experience.  This couple was truly in love.  Why is it that we as a society have such a difficult time with this?  I understand that some religions forbid gay sex, and I can understand that many feel the term "marriage" signifies a religious event, but I cannot understand why man, in the name of his God, has condoned acts so totally diametrically opposed to the concept of love.  How many wars have been fought, how many lives lost, how much hatred has been perpetrated on fellow man in the name of a loving God?  I ask myself, is this the religion of God, or the religion of man?  Maybe if we can get past the fear and embrace love; accept that, even if appearance is totally alien to our personal lifestyle, the life of others is theirs to live as they see fit, maybe then the love of our God may shine through our eyes.  Seems worth a try.  Heaven knows we are not doing such a bang-up job  the way things are now.  Comments?

Another step forward

I was feeling slightly depressed earlier today.  I fell into the pit of feeling that no matter what I do, I can never quite get on my feet.  I guess it is like when there is an earthquake happening; every time you try to stand to run, another shock hits and you're on your duff again.  I get in these feelings periodically.  I imagine it's a normal part of a mindset where we judge ourselves by what we possess, what the Jones' have, and the level of security we derive from this game.  This is not the game I want to play!  I want my vision of my worth to come from within, from that quiet space that resides in the here and now.  I desire my goals to be based on how I can be the person I see me as being rather then the possessions I can squirrel away.  Why is this so hard?  It seems like my daily ritual is to pull myself from the physical world into the spiritual realm.  I guess this is a natural state considering the culture in which I was raised and where I interact with my senses.  But, I think I have a possible solution, at least in a partial sense.  I just finished reading a book called "Born To Run" by Christopher McDougall.  Excellent read, especially if one is a runner.  The premise of the book is that our ancestors were designed to run.  Our bodies are the perfect long distance running machine.  As such, we evolved to hunt our food on the hot, dry plains by running it down over a period of hours.  It seems that the "average" distance to achieve this was around 25 miles.  In other words, earlier this month I could have bagged an antelope.  How interesting!  My point is that we as an evolved being should have a sense of joy in running.  In our modern sedentary lifestyle we open ourselves up to all the diseases which depilate our body.  While certainly not for all, I find the prospect of achieving the fitness required to run long distances with that joy my ancestors must have felt an exciting vision.  I have experienced this joy in some short bursts, but only to the extent to know that it is there, it does exist and I am capable of eventually getting there.  I have had times where I just seem to float over the ground, the rhythm  of my running a perfect meditation.  At times like this, I am totally in the moment.  And, being in that moment I find a perfect level of contentment.  So, how do I get there?  I have made the first step by throwing away my running shoes and running with a minimal cushioning between my feet and the ground.  Our feet are a wonderful shock absorbing machine, if we let them do their job.  The more we shelter our feet from the running surface, the less they can do their job.  In fact, the more cushioning we have in our shoes, the more prone we are to injury.  As our shoes have developed our injury rate has risen.  Strange.  I could go into this in greater depth, but I won't bore you with the details.  So maybe this is the answer, my answer.  I believe the process also includes simplifying my diet to exclude all the garbage we put in our bodies on a daily basis.  So, my goal is to get fit and eat healthy food, just those things my sensitivity to chemicals requires.  See, dealing with my disability may lead me to my ideal being.  How cool is that?  For those that haven't reached the conclusion that I have totally gone to La-La land I'll give updates periodically to track my path.  Who knows, it might just work.    

Crying time? I don't think so....

I've had a turbulent time lately.  I tried to refinance my mortgage this past week.  I figured with rates near all time lows, I could dump my 30 year loan and get a 15 year, and actually pay less money each month.  Sounds like a good deal.  One problem....the assessment.  It seems my house has lost over half its previous value.  Hard to believe, but sadly true.  So, once again, the easy road is not for me to choose.  It got me thinking about my life.  Now, I want to say up front that this is not a search for sympathy.  No, far from it, as I hope will become apparent further on.  Allow me to hit the high spots.  When I was born, I did not breath for some long minutes.  (I realize there are those of you saying something like "well, that explains a lot!", just keep it to yourselves, sil vous plais. sp?)  Anyway, then I almost died when the neighborhood kids fed me over a bottle multivitamins that happened to look like candy.  I again almost perished when a dry Christmas tree with hot lights ablazin' was pulled over onto a hardwood floor.  If just one of those bulbs had broken, that tree would have been a torch, and I was unfortunate enough to be under it!  In my accident  prone childhood I suffered through crashes on my bike and, believe it or not, a Christmas tree in my eye.  Something about me and Christmas trees!  When I was 14 years old, my Dad died a rather sudden and violent death which resulted in my coping by being in gangs and doing drugs.  The disappointment of flunking out of U of MD after the first semester was followed by my trade school being burned down in the riots following Martin Luther King's assassination, then being rejected by the army because of my speech impediment (did I mention that I stutter?).  After several years on the road I got myself together and began studies at Towson State College in 1971, followed by studies in St. Mary's College of Maryland and Salisbury State University.  I attempted to go to graduate school by starting my own horse shoeing business which failed miserably (I'll skip the bloody details, lets just say once again if I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all!)  Finally, I went to UMBC working on a doctorate in nucleic acid biochemistry.  After 8 years of study, I began a post doc position at Johns Hopkins University only to be called back and my degree rescinded because of politics.  I began seeking my doctorate again at U of MD School of Medicine only to have my professor leave in a huff taking my opportunity with her.  To add to the sting, she later published my research without telling me, after removing my name from authorship.  After 26 years of education I finally reached the point of payback with a research position at Merck Sharp and Dohme followed by my dream job at Fort Detrict for the Dept. of Defense.   Within 18 months I was sensitized to formaldehyde, and after seven years of fighting the system I sought and received disability status with U.S. Dept. of Labor, Workers Comp program.  Another nine years of being moved from job to job within the government finally resulted in my being sent home on permanent disability about five years ago.  So, I spent 26 years being educated only to work less then 23 years.  What does this mean?  Well, I talk about life being a series of lessons and how all things are good if viewed as such.  I use an abbreviated discussion of the trials I have faced to point out that I do not expound my beliefs because I have had it easy.  In reality, I have been told that if I write my autobiography, I would have to publish it as fiction, because no one would believe it to be true.  The events I list are only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.  In other words, one could say that my life has really sucked!  But I choose to not see it that way.  I choose to feel blessed with what I have achieved and the valuable lessons laid before me.  I am truly astonished with the abundance in my life.  I choose to look at what is, rather then what might have been, and I am grateful.  Maybe it does have something to do with the lack of breathing when I was born?  

I'm a winner!

I'm a winner!  I just won my game of solitaire.  Now my day is complete.  Actually, it has been one of those days where one is bedazzled by the multitude of little odds and end things that need doing.  They've been piling up lately and I've been doing a great job of ignoring them.  Today I started off fixing one thing, then it sort of snowballed.  Before I knew it it was late afternoon.  I had planned to go for a run and relax in the hot tub, then try to draw a person without it looking like a movie ad for a horror flic.  To you young souls out there, back in the day we called movies "flics".  In the still older days, older even then myself, the movies actually flickered when shown.  There was a time when sound was not even included.  When the big day came when one could actually hear the people on the screen talk (instead of subtitles) the slang became "talkies".  Wow, those were the days!  I remember my grandparents lived in Alexandria, Virginia back when it was just a little town "in the sticks" (that means in the country).  My Grandmother used to sometimes provide dinner for her friend that owned the local movie theater.  This friendship extended to my sister and I as well, so I took advantage of it.  Sometimes I would be allowed to go up into the projector room and "help" operate the equipment.  To a young kid, this was really cool!  The light for the projector was provided by generating an arc between two electrodes, much like an arc welder.  Without the opportunity to spend time upstairs I probably would never have known that.  What a memory.  I can think of several times when someone took a little time to let me "help".  Times like these were very special to me in my youth.  Sadly, now it seems these opportunities are no longer available to young people.  I guess the threat of litigation stifles even the most trivial of opportunities.   It's sad how lawsuits have become the order of the day.  What happened?  When I moved to my house back in 1988, there was a nice pond across the street from my house.  My wife used to take my son, his cousins and many of the neighborhood kids swimming in that pond.  The pond is gone now, a victim of potential lawsuits.  Oh well, guess it's another sign of the times.  Now I know what they mean by "the good old days".  

bitch, bitch, bitch....

Argh!  More rain!  Some years ago a comedian had a story he relayed about God getting ready to destroy the world by making it rain for something like 100 days, and the comedian recommended to God that He only had to make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights and have the storm drains back up.  It was a really funny riff at the time; I guess you had to be there.  Anyway, it seems like it's been raining here for the 100 days!  How bleak!  How do people stand Seattle?  Well, I'm having one of those days.  Everything here is mud.  Where there isn't mud, there is ankle deep goop.  Yuck!  I tried to do an oil change on my son's car yesterday.  No problem usually.  Well, the radar did not show any rain around the area, so I gave it the old college try.  Got it up on the ramps (I am a backyard mechanic, you know;  no warm, dry shop for me, that's where my truck sits waiting to be finished!) and drained the oil, and the rain started.  Again!!!!  Anyway, went to grab a new filter and, no filters.  Oh yeah, one of those days.  Mind you, this car is on ramps right in the middle of the parking area.  I looked up the filter on line and drove up to Auto Zone to get a new one, plus a spare.  Rechecked the filter reference, grabbed the filters and sped back home, to more rain. Discretion being the better part of valor, I decided to wait until today to finish.  People (read Molly) will just have to park elsewhere tonight.  When the rain temporarily paused this morning I ran out to finish the never ending oil change only to realize that the filter I have is about half the size of the old one I removed.  Hmmm.  In my haste to get things done yesterday, I seem to have decided that my son's car is a 2000 model (like my old VW), and not the 2005 that it really is.  Okay, back to the store (a 20 minute ride each way, I might add).  No problem, exchange them for two of the correct ones.  That is, if they had the correct ones.  Balderdash!  So, the car continues to sit on ramps in the middle of my parking area.  I'll go back to the store later today (did I mention 20 minutes each way?) and hopefully they will have the proper filters renewed in their inventory.  But, then again, it is raining outside....

And, more bitchin'......

I've heard the talking heads elaborating on the mixed messages of the demonstrators in some of the major cities.  They state with great glee how no one can agree on what to protest.  Has anyone stopped to consider that maybe things are so bad that they all have valid gripes?  I remember growing up with the belief that this is the greatest country in the world, and if one worked hard enough anything was possible.  What happened?  It seems like the middle class is withering away, the wealthy are getting obscenely so, and there is a feeling of hopelessness among our youth.  Our teachers have to buy classroom supplies with their own money while our sports heroes (you know, the fine examples for our children) get outrageous salaries for playing a game.  I know they are talented and they spent years working to achieve that talent, and I realize there are hazards involved in their profession, but come on now.  This is ridiculous!  To me, the American dream can best be described as the belief that your children will be better off then you.  Suddenly this is not happening.  It seems like our society is rapidly becoming of just two classes, the very, very rich and the just getting by poor.  And our prospects are dim.  Our elected officials seem to be either corrupt, incompetent or both.  Sadly, I am ashamed of the country I am leaving for my son.  I could go on, but why?  It's raining again....  

who is me?

I have spent the last several days attempting to describe my beliefs.  After multiple days of numerous rewrites and much thought, I have decided to abandon the idea, at least for now.  Why?  It seemed the more I got into things the more explanation was necessary.  Finally, I decided that this is not a subject to be taken lightly in a blog entry.  There have been books written on similar topics.  I have neither the will or the time for such an endeavor at this time.  Besides, everything I have to say has already been said previously many times in many ways.  So I will pull one short section from my abandoned tome to give the gist of the matter:  "It is my belief that I am in this life to gain wisdom, and in doing so to raise the level of my life energy.  I believe I am made from and by my Creator, and that as my reality becomes closer to my Creator's vision of who my potential predicts I could/should be, the level of my energy is raised accordingly."  There.  Clear as mud?
I am starting to look forward to my big trip next summer.  It is my intention to travel to Alaska by motorcycle.  In itself this is not particularly noteworthy; many do it annually.  The roads are, for the most part, paved and passable by most modern standards.  There are portions under construction each year as the winter weather does take it's toll; it is not unusual to face sections of gravel from hundreds of feet to multiple miles in length.  But, weather permitting, it is my intention to seek out those primitive roads yet to see the layering of asphalt.  One such road is the Dalton Highway, often called the "haul road" because of it's primary intended use to allow heavy trucks to carry supplies to and from the oil fields in Prudhoe Bay on the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean.  From Fairbanks the road extends past the Arctic Circle North about 600 miles with about 500 miles being gravel.  In addition, there are several other "primitive" roads to little outposts of civilization that I would like to consider as well.  The big question is the weather.  The gravel is of sort that gets extremely slick when wet and is prone to extensive ruts from the heavy truck traffic.  While I would definitely enjoy traveling these roads, I am not out to prove the validity of my manhood.  I will prudently take a wait and see approach.  So in the coming months I will be preparing my bike, my camping gear and myself for this endeavor.  In point of fact, the original purpose of this blog was to provide an outlet for photos and running commentary of my trip.  A little over seven months and counting!

Oh Dem Legs...

The morning after the big race.  I'd love to write about what a great day it was, and how I flew around the course to a record finish.  That would be a lie.  This was by far the hardest race I have ever entered.  The course was very difficult, the weather not favorable.  But to answer the big question, yes, I finished.  5:23:01.  Not a great time by any stretch of the imagination, but that's what it is.  I believe the fastest finisher in my age group was just shy if four hours.  Actually, I was pleasantly surprised at my time.  I had estimated 5 hours at my most optimistic, but more realistically about 6 hours to completion.  And letting my competitive side ooze out, there were many in my age group, and many far younger then myself who came in after me.  So there, I got it out of my system.  There was a song years ago about a guy on a motorcycle who was following a truck with a sign that said "I might be slow, but I'm ahead of you"!  I guess that sums up the competitive side of things.  For that I should feel ashamed, but no, I don't.  Sorry.  So I did complete the race, but oh, what a price I paid!  You ask about the gory details?  Okay, here it is.  The race started in cool but dry weather and I felt good.  About mile 7 the rain started, a cold rain, very cold.  The course ran up the C&O Towpath for about 12 miles, so this wasn't too bad because trees helped to shelter me from the wind.  But the Towpath held it's own hazards.  There was an abundance of leaves, wet, slippery leaves, that masked the rocks and roots.  A woman running ahead of me caught her foot on a root and went face first into the ground.  Not pretty.  For me, the biggest problem was the rocks.  My feet were quite sore by the time our stint on the Towpath ended.  At this point, the route turned up hill for about 1.5 miles.  That's when the wind came out of hiding!  It was a very cold wind, and virtually no one had any sort of rain protection.  Bottom line, it was cold!  Did I mention that the rain never really stopped for the rest of the race?  Yeah, cold, very cold.  I found myself fantasizing of hot showers!  My problem with the cold was that I was traveling a fine line between running fast enough to keep my muscles warm enough to not tighten up, but not so fast as to exceed the capacity of my lungs to provide oxygen.  I had assumed that I had some scar tissue in my lungs that would be "non-functional" for transferring oxygen, and I was right.  What I ended up doing was walking up the hills to be able to lengthen my stride and stretch my legs.  I guess that helped, though I'm not really sure.  By the end of the race, my legs were definitely hurting.  But, I crossed the finish line.  I did it!  I must say that today I am paying the price.  I am stiff and sore, probably more so then I have ever experienced.  I can say I am definitely feeling my age today!  I'll heal, and the medal hanging on my wall will be there forever.
Worth it?  I guess so.  I gave it my best, and I persevered in unfavorable conditions to accomplish a goal I set nine months ago.  Will I do it again?  I can't say, but I doubt it.  I have issues with my body that are very real and must be accepted.  This is okay.  My limits are such that I can still do those things I desire to do, so I am grateful.  There are many whose limits are far more significant than mine.  Plans?  I intend to get back to those things that are most meaningful to me.  I want to spend time in meditation on a daily basis to establish my best communication with my Creator and I will be attempting to improve my ability to draw people, and to make music with my guitar.  In addition, I will continue work on my truck and the renovation of my 1968 Airstream travel trailer.  Finally, I will begin preparing for my trip to Alaska by motorcycle next summer.

I want to thank my friends and family for their support in my training efforts for the marathon, and to those who braved the cold and wet yesterday to cheer me on, you will always be remembered with gratitude.  I thank you!