Day 3 - 100 Day Meditation Challenge

Day 3

Length: 10 minutes (timed)
Start: 12:15am (1/4/2013)
Experience:

Today was... a frustration. My car is dieing, taking a long time to start and twice in the parking lot at my job it stalls out before I can make it to my normal spot. I am stressed and this activity was pushed to the wayside so that I may binge on more pleasurable activities - gaming being one of my easiest setbacks. Oddly I manage to fold my wash before I've started the meditation. During the day today I felt a certain strange happiness as though I was more aware of the moments and reveled in them. I consider this progress.

During the meditation my thoughts run in bursts. It's late at night/early in the morning so the day has faded and I find it wandering into more esoteric thoughts about the nature of my relationships to others. Songs are stuck in my head again, inbetween the thoughts.

But this time if I force a buzz in my head and transition into focusing on my breath I can slowly ameliorate and blankly exist for short stints. During these times I can feel a deep relaxation set in. I prefer that to a state of thinking.

The conversation I plan to have brought me peace while being thought about. I have conquered, perhaps, the anxiety of that thought.

Closing thoughts: If I meditate at an extreme hour it helps to leave behind the day. I would rather not start this late because it will be disruptive to my upcoming day. Despite some major stresses I can find some relaxation in the practice. This is good. I am also improving both during practice and when going through my day.

Day 2 - 100 Day Meditation Challenge

Day 2

Length: 10 minutes (timed)
Start: 5:45pm
Experience:

My thoughts are torrential. It's late in the day so I've felt the full brunt of a working day, some bad sleep mixed in, and it wrecks my focus. I find myself constantly trying to refocus on my breath to try to get away but it doesn't work. I also made the stupid decision to play a game online before I started, which made me more irritated because I lost.

I recognize the drifting into the past, remember that I am supposed to be of the present, then realign myself with the breath again. Music is playing and occasional parts seed my conscious with lyrics.

I worry about a conversation I'll be having later in the week about possibly moving out with some friends. I don't dread the conversation but I think about it and realize it is a 'future state' that I need not concern myself with at the moment.

Closing thoughts: After work is not wise, but if I oversleep or am outside of my home it will be my only option. I'll need to cultivate a state of mindfulness that is not in competition with a long day at work.

Day 1 - 100 Day Meditation Challenge

Happy new year!

As part of my self-improvement for 2013 I decided to try meditating, and what better way to do so then to challenge myself to a 100 day stretch with some strangers over the internet. I’m joined up with some other meditators via Google Groups 100 Day Meditation Challenge.

I’ve had a few false start meditation plans before that generally resulted in twice a week attempts for a week or two in a row but it always falls off. I think that with this regiment and taking it slow I can really finally escape the rut.

Without further ado:

Day 1

Length: 10 minutes (timed)
Start: 8:50am
Experience:

I wake up and before I’m really completely together I grab a pillow and place it in front of a window in my girlfriend’s apartment. I’d prefer to meditate here because it’s quieter but I don’t live here so I want to make the most of a nice start. My mind is turbulent. Small sounds distract me. I try to remember the things I learned from reading about Vipassana meditation in Mindfulness in Plain English.

I hear my girlfriend moving inside and wonder if she’ll come out, how I’ll handle it if she wants to talk, and recognize fleetingly that I should be trying to understand why I’m preparing for a thing that hasn’t happened. I think about writing this, and wonder if anyone will be interested, then try to forget it again. I don’t remember having this much of an issue when attempting meditation in the past, but now I’m wondering if I was just ignoring the stream of thoughts that I’m tapped into now.

It’s never ending, thoughts of selfishness, pride, curiosity, worry, it’s all connected in this web. I return repeatedly to the feeling of my breath coming in and going out of my nose. It feels like a crescent on my left nostril, and helps me picture a moon. That keeps me occupied and is one of the few moments throughout the experience that I’m not busy concerning myself with things I don’t need to be thinking about.

Closing thoughts: The morning is a good time to aim for because it gives me ‘make up time’ if I miss it. I’m not really as peaceful as I thought. At least I can see it all and become more aware of it.

Google is the Future

Recently there's been a lot of reasons to want to make sweet, passionate love to whatever idol of Google you can acquire. Whether it be advanced cellphones, cheap and reliable internet infrastructure, their support of an open internet, availability of free and awesome apps including the collaborative online office-clone suite Google docs, Google maps, Gmail, blogger (the platform that this blog is written from), driver-less cars, the Google search engine, Google is the best and brightest that the technology world has to offer.

Technology people fucking love Google. If any company is going to take us into the future it's going to be Google. You can basically guarantee that almost* anything they put their effort into will be shaken to its core and innovated.

* Social media notwithstanding

So why not just throw in our lot with the Googs? Clearly they are the tech dynamo end all and be all, and basically can do no wrong.

What do we see when a company finally hits critical mass? There's always contraction and what appears to be calcification; companies lose relevance. We've seen it with countless other institutions, right now basically every cell phone company in the world at one time or another offered unlimited data plans for a large sum. As prices went down², our options to even have it dried up! I have an unlimited data plan because I was grandfathered in with my last contract but now if I upgrade I'll have to choose a plan that costs the same amount as my current one, but no longer offers unlimited data.

Forget that, unlimited texting costs me almost half my phone bill each month when the actual cost of sending and receiving a text is 140 bytes³. How much does a voice call cost? That information isn't freely available from phone companies but Skype, a leader in VOIP, claims you need 30kb per second⁴ just to maintain a call at low quality. As a point of reference, one kilobyte is equal to 1024 bytes. So you would have to send 219 text messages to equal 1 second of a voice call, and yet the price difference for these two plans is negligible. Ho-hum.

We are in a country where it pays to be lazy and mysterious. Telecoms want you to pay huge premiums on newer technologies even if those technologies are a hundred times more cost effective then anything else they offer. The United States infrastructure in third-world in quality and despite making hundreds of millions of dollars these companies are doing nothing to help you. Oh wait, Time Warner bumped a lower tier's internet speed up by 5mbps to 15mbps for free. They also started making people pay a surcharge of $5 to lease their modems, a service that has been free for the last 10 years.

Google is currently offering Google Fiber in small areas as a way of threatening these other companies with competition. Google's internet is a Gigabit upload download for $70 a month or free for life for a one-time construction fee of $300. If you'd like to compare Time Warner, we'd do the unit conversion of 1 gigabit = 128 mbs. Yes, you read that right. No, I didn't fuck up the math.

There is a sad thing that seems to happen when it comes to companies now, people think that no matter what you do you're a shill for them or you have some kind of vested interest in their well-being that supports a little fervor.

This post is no different. I'm definitely a shill for Google. But it you're going to be a shill for any company, let it be one that threatens you with innovation instead of stifling our progress.

1http://stopthecap.com/2012/11/05/time-warner-cable-will-increase-standard-broadband-speed-to-151mbps-nationwide/

2http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/capping_the_nation_s_broadband_future

3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_messaging

4https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA1417/how-much-bandwidth-does-skype-need

Hello again!

Okay, wow, so it's been a while huh?

I always considered myself to be really careful with things, finances, my words, my actions, all that other stuff. I like to temper my optimism with realism and sometimes that can come up and bite me in the ass. I try to take on like ten things at once and keep up with it for the briefest flash in the saucepan and next thing I know I got nothing again.

A few years ago after a breakup my cousin invited me to the gym and I got really into it. I had just spent a lot of time losing weight and I was excited to be working out, which was awesome. I spent many days of my week out with that group of people and lifting, we went to some shows in the city and off in some further away places and it was grand. At some point I picked up the guitar again and started taking lessons, and a bit further down the line started rock climbing and joined a book club. Everything was in balance, and I was improving myself in a wide arc. I could have mastered all those things over the course of a few years if I had the single-mindedness to continue with everything at once.

I met a very special lady, we hit it off and have been together ever since. We go on all sorts of adventures (some of which I wrote about in this blog - Ireland is a biggie!)

I picked up my writing more frequently. I'd never tried to give it structure before, instead working only when I fancied to on an impulse. So I picked two days a week and started writing on those days, which further locked down my weeks.

I overextended. six out of seven days a week I was spoken for and people were asking me to make time on the remaining day. The stress of all that was too much.

I finally hit the tipping point though, something had to give. I stayed with rock climbing but was running out of time to work out, so I toned it down to just running. I kept up with the guitar but I wasn't watching my finances. When I realized it I started cutting back - the lessons went but I tried to keep it up. I injured myself running and never really got it back together. I occasionally break out and go for one and realize I'm pushing it too far too fast and get frustrated. I promise myself I'll give more and never get around to it.

Life is hard. It's not supposed to be easy, not by a longshot. We all do the best we can, but at the end of the day we all have a limit. I push mine in leaps and bounds and sometimes need to take a break. It seems like I hit that point with this blog as well, and let it languish.

I'm going to try to resurrect it soon - I've got plenty of other projects I'd like to explore and work on. I'm especially interested in Buddhism at the moment, in addition to financial stuff I was going to explore in another blog but I realized I didn't have the experience to really work on that and give advice. I might need to consolidate and just give my personal experience in the areas of finance, spirituality and entertainment from a central spot. That doesn't jive with my original plan - that this be a blog for my writing - but I don't produce at the rate that a blog like this needs to be relevant.

So I'll be back, and will be posting things differently.

Looking out - How not to suck

In a previous entry I flippantly referred to my motorcycle side mirror that was missing a nut, and how I was a huge jerk for not just getting it fixed since I knew more or less what I was doing and exactly what I'd need to get it done.

Well, riding home from work one day last week I heard the familiar sound of a small metal nut loosing from my bike and dinking it's way to the street below. Now, this noise could have been anyting: I could have run over a screw, or a car could have been clicking nearby, it didn't mean that my bike had just lost one of the precious securing devices that keep it in one piece. But I knew, somewhere deep inside, what it really was.

It wasn't until the next morning that I found out for sure. My mirror was now free to do as unsecured major visual apparatus usually do in moving vehicles: cause havoc. During a lean it shimmied a half-inch out of it's hole and I overcorrected for what had appeared to be the bike falling over by screaming like a little girl and riding nearly into a ditch. The rest of my ride was a disgruntled attempt to keep the mirror secured to my jacket without punching two new screw holes in my torso.

I want to make it loud and clear that I was literally taking my life into my own hands by not fixing this earlier: that nut could have ended up in my chain or wedged into any moving part of my bike that would have resulted in a short and likely fatal lesson in dancing with traffic. I managed to scrape by and didn't even check to see what had happened, putting myself in danger twice.

That weekend I took the freewheeling device and the freewheeling girlfriend in the car to home depot to determine the nut sizing and grab a socket wrench extension. Anyone who has worked on a bike will tell you the less often you need to dismantle things the better, and the extension would allow me to tighten it without taking apart the entire head.

Home depot is the only place where I have no shame in talking to a sales rep. I don't know if it has something to do with the inviting atmosphere of warehouse/dungeon or the cheerfully colored Halloween vests, I just feel secure among the 5-story tall bathroom fixtures and grow op hardware. I cornered the first terrorized employee in orange and grilled him for information on where to find hardware.

"Good day good sir. Might you point me towards the nuts aisle that I might repair this symbol of my irresponsibility?"
"What? Uh hardware is in aisle 9."

Off we went and shortly I had accosted another victim. He took the mirror with only my muted attempt to inform him of its metric nature in mind and quickly located the nut I needed. Before leaving I told him I appreciated his handling of my nuts and asked where I could go to find a socket wrench extension. This is not a remark that the hardware isle reps find humorous.

Final stop was the tool section where I shopped extensions for ten minutes. Did I have a Husky or Craftsman back home? Was there a difference? What if one of them was metric and the other was imperial? If I buy one and I'm wrong I'll have to go through the intense embarrassment of a tool return, which as we all know involves surrendering your man card to the authorities.

"Hi, I want to return this extension."
"Was it defective?"
"Uh, no."
A pregnant pause.
"Is there something wrong with the device?"
"Nope."
The clerk becomes suspicious. He narrows his eye and sizes me up. "Sir, did you purchase the wrong extension?"
"Possibly."
"Get out sir."
"But-"
"Sir, don't make me repeat myself."

Becoming bored of my silent reverie of several minutes (I'm prone to retreating into a fantasy world when I've been given too many options) my girlfriend finally got tired and pointed out a full metric set with a snake extension that was about the same price as the solid extension I was agonizing over. We then narrowly avoided the armed Home Depot security guards and absconded with the merchandise through trickery and deceit.

Pictured: Trickery and deceit

There's not much to it after that, I reinstalled my mirror and fitted the nuts on by hand before turning to my new best friend to tighten them up. The mirror is no longer a problem and I learned a valuable lesson about not procrastinating.

Note: I was originally going to end this with one of those goofy half-sentences like I can't ever finish anything but then two weeks later I peeked at my post drafts and noticed I'd never posted it, so I think that seals it then, no?

Dodging Storms

A study in opposites: a computer tech programming websites next to a full-face white helmet, white armored leather jacket, black armored pants.
I hurry my gear on, throwing the jacket with the spine protector over a canary yellow polo. My wallet, phone, ipod, and car keys are nestled in the backpack beside 2 laptops and a kindle. A struggle later and it’s slipped over my armored forearm. I’ll be the most expensive thing on two wheels in a minute or two.
It doesn’t look great out, the clouds are a little too ominous, the air is a little too sweet for less than a mile off the parkway. It’s going to come down, and I’m not quite ready for slick roads on two wheels.
“Hold on, your backpack is open.”
“Are the zippers on the side? Can you put them there?”
“Huh?”
“Uh, can you pull the zippers around to the side? When they’re on the top it opens. I’ve gotten home two or three times and it’s been wide open.”
“Yeah.” He closes my backpack up and I can feel him pull the zippers over.
“Thanks man! Have a good weekend.”
I snatch my helmet off the desk and walk down the hall. It occurs to me that I look huge; the armor adds a good inch to my frame, riding boots add another to my height, and I’m moving fast. I smirk at the thought of secretaries hurling stacks of paper as they dodge me.
I wave to the security guard as I pass his desk then pull my helmet over my head, snug against my face. Every piece of gear is important, every piece protects. When I see someone on a bike with shorts and a wifebeater, I wonder how long they’ll have their skin.
My bike stands out among behemoth SUVs, a dwarf there in the center of its allotted space.
My visor collects tiny gems. The storm is here.
Grasping the right handbrake I throw a leg over and sit in the saddle, turn the key, and kick up my kickstand.
Ignition.
Now to dance.
I slip through the parking lot, weaving on the asphalt floor and slithering around cement islands. Is it coming from the West, or the East? How long do I have until downpour?
The light to the on-ramp is red and I can see traffic is stopped going East from my vantage point opposite. If I go left I can do a few traffic tricks and jump the gridlock, but I’ll miss the HOV entrance. And the rain is coming.
The light changes.
Now the race.
I pull around the car in front of me and take the inner lane, jumping to the speed limit with a throttle wring then jumping lanes again to get around an SUV napping at the newly changed light. If traffic is light at the overpass…
Bingo! I slip in before the light changes and ride the service road. Traffic is still backed up. What a mess.
I wring the throttle again and leapfrog a line of cars using the entry to cut off the traffic, nestling in to the highway and starting the slow migration left toward the HOV.
There’s that feeling you get in traffic sometimes, after you’ve made a decision you wouldn’t normally make because of some new data - a sign blinking ‘Two Lanes Closed Exit 53’ and you wonder how close to 53 you should go before jumping on to the service road to dodge the bulk of traffic - and I’ve got it.
Thing is, in the car I’d just be in for a boring crawl in climate control. On the bike I’ll be taking a shower. Soppy wet underwear in waterlogged khakis. Raindrops at 55 miles an hour hurt.
Should have made the left.
But, I’m not wet yet. Keep crawling. Still have time.
I look over at a woman in an SUV scowling at the backup. Everyone seems to notice when you look at them from a bike, or they’re always about to look at the bike and you only sometimes notice. She turns to me, looks down at my two wheels and gives me a snide look. You’re fucked. Yep.
The lane moves. We’re a good quarter mile off and I swing out to peer down the lane. It’s open, the cars are favoring the right. That’s an invitation, right?
A drop of rain on the back of my neck. Go!
The white striped pre-entrance zone to the HOV will be deadly in another five minutes, coated by rain and slick as oil. For now its an ally against the traffic. I pass over it like a bird gliding over the ocean. Before me the sky is open, bright and blue but behind it is dark, ominous and vivid.
The entrance opens and I transition, no one near me.
I pull the throttle all the way out and catch the wind like an open parachute: every gust shakes me, I lock my neck to resist the buffeting winds. The storm approaches, gnashing at my back. Always check the weather in the morning. Idiot.
Little gemstones populate my visor, headlights flash on in my mirror. The clouds dance above, wisps and tails twist like tendrils, a shadow growing behind. 56. 55. Exits and miles between. A midnight blue Honda Accord, a white pickup truck. I wouldn’t wish a white pickup truck on my worst enemy.
Green sign overlooking the lane. “Motorcycles Permitted”. Thank god.
It’s darker. Raindrops on my windscreen. You never know when the rain will make every strip of paint a frictionless plane. Coming up on a bumper and the HOV exit to my real exit approaches.
I dart over the dotted line and pull the throttle, popping up to 70 and jumping past about fifteen queued cars. The road at the head of the snake is clear, I swing out and migrate to the outside lane.
The sky roars, a fine burning slice of light in the dark behind me. There’s a particular way the front of a storm looks, like a haze masking the vehicles, the paint on each car a shade darker then they should be.
I jump into the entrance lane, discarding all pretense of politeness. I’m about to be soaked, you’ll all be warm and dry. Let me squeeze on by, I swear you won’t even see me in a quarter mile.
I come up on backup up traffic at the merge, pick my spot between two cars, and slow for it. But the car I’ve picked isn’t moving as traffic accelerates. Is he napping? I jam the break, slow to a stop beside him.
He waves, knows perhaps. Or realizes why I am urgently darting between the hulking metal death machines. I wave, throw into gear and move up a spot. No time for pleasantry's my good man. Storms to dodge and all that.
The traffic eases, unbinds. We move. Storms comes.
There’s my exit. What’s another traffic violation? Go!
The great round burn. Exit arc.
Green light at the intersection: Bonus time! Left turn and I’m parallel to the storm front.
Weave like a skier, burst like a sprinter. Those your strengths, wouldn’t you know?
A grand curve, a switchback. Heading back at it. Can you dodge something you’re driving straight toward?
Answer: Yes. Dodging storms.
Home stretch, coasting to my parking spot.
Cover it, protect it, engine’s burning hot.
But we’re safe and dry.