Our Home (The Planet Earth)

If you haven't seen this, PLEASE check it out asap. THE BEST videography ever, simply put. You will be moved. http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/planetearth/

Do a search at Amazon.com for used bargains or get the Blue-Ray (if you are so equipped). Prepare thy self.

Scooped again

This is what I had in mind all along, only a touch less pricey.

More here: http://www.spinning.com/spinning-shop-spinner-bikes/spinner-bike-espinner.asp

Hoop Hos

Our little island made the front page of the Seattle Times today. In two seemingly unrelated stories, the boys basketball team beat perennial powerhouse Rainier Beach in OT and four prostitutes were arrested in a five agency police sting. At this time an unnamed high ranking police spokesperson (speaking under the guarantee of anonymity) says that RCVman is not a suspect in either case. More here: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008717622_bainbridge07m.html

Grim Reaper

Wednesday was tough. The client said that the project I had been toiling over for 90 days needed more work. I was crushed like an ant under foot. I broke a personal rule and took it personally. I considered it a failure on my part and a disservice to the company. I felt like I had been fired, terminated, let go and RIFed all at once. It was a blow to my ego, a knife in the gut and a slap on the face. It seemed to me to be a sentence of death. Life, as I once knew it, was no more.

I have had dreams of dying before. Anxious, sweat-filled, heart-pounding dark and troubled visits from demons that only I could see. Long have I wondered what their message was, what did they portend?

The first once came on like a scene from the Matrix. Is this real, I wondered in deep REM? There was an atomic clock franticly spinning time down to the thousandth of a second, backwards, telling me of my time remaining on this earth. I hit the panic button, what do you do with thirty seconds left to live? 29, 28, 27....... Find a way to stop the clock, where are my wire cutters? 17, 16, 15.....Use your Swiss Army Knife, shit, I'm naked in bed, 9, 8, 7.....DO SOMETHING.....

All went black in the white light. Was I dead, in another world, or still dreaming? I guess if I can think this at least I have my consciousness, so maybe a little rest would help ease the transition, so r-e-l-a-x and b-r-e-a-t-h-e.

The second one was Groundhog Day all over again, the Deja-vu of the Dementors. There was the clock re-set to thirty seconds (am I getting another chance?) and as soon as my (new and improved) consciousness became aware of its presence (imagine that) it started. OH, I AM IN CHARGE HERE? This is a test of what I have learned? OK, fine, 25, 24, 23...I am going to spend the last twenty seconds of my life (this one) in perfect harmony with, 18, 17, 16....the spirit of light, energy and oneness with all, 9, 8, 7....and I do that by ACCEPTING THE CIRCUMSTANCE OF MY HERE AND NOW AND R-E-L-A-X-I-N-G AND B-R-E-A-T-H-I-N-G. This might even be fun.....3, 2,1.....

At zero I awoke in a state of wonder, joy and peace. If I was dead, this was a whole heck of a lot better that when I last went to sleep. Then the meaning of the dream came crystal clear, and for the first time in my four decades of dream practice, a message was as obvious as the snow is pure.

Three days later I still walk in the mirror-like glow of that moment. Grim Reaper, HA, from now on I'll call you by your real name.

More CH

Another clip from the CH ride last week. I finally got everything debugged, operating and cranking product. We'll spin to all 33 miles and two hours on Sunday, early at 9a, and again at 1pm. The two minutes is at Frog Rock where Tony perfects his steady-Flip technique. Everybody who completed one of the 4 two-hour session gets a DVD. Jacket is shown here also.

Gromphadorhina portentosa

The software that has been running so smoothly over the course of the last two years has apparently been infiltrated by a bug. Since last Sunday (Jan 25) I, and my G5, have been jointly laboring over the re-creation of the 33 mile Chilly Hilly bicycle course. I have done this no less than 50 times prior, from the five hours and 112 miles of Ironman Hawaii to the 18 miles of Escape from Alcatraz. It is a long, slow, tedious, and sometimes painful process that gobbles RAM like locusts devour crops.

I am on my third pass, the rendering process running 24/7. I hope to be done in time for Sundays two spins, but it is 99% out of my control at this point. I have tried several work-arounds all ending with the same result: failure.

So today, in keeping with the true didactic nature of the RCVman blog, I will leave you with this fascinating discourse on the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach, compliments of National Geographic.

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/bugs/madagascar-hissing-cockroach.html

I suppose the lesson is of tenacity as I have yet to see a cockroach give up.

Farrago

I have been remiss. Actually I have simply been very busy trying to finish the Chilly Hilly video for today's two spins. We did the two, two hour sessions and I am cooked. Had to make an executive decision at the 11th hour Saturday night and decided to show Northwest Triathlon 2005: Farrago as the opener and then 40 minutes of the CDA RCV. It was fun to watch all the triathlon eye candy that pretty much comprises the film. As I told the assembled spinners, there are a few moments of brilliance wrapped around long stretches of obscure noodling. Such is life. I am reworking the Chilly Hilly video so we can play it next week. Guess all I really lost is some sleep. I will leave you today with this from Robert Hunter/Mickey Hart as it seems somewhat appropriate at the moment.

Long-distance runner what you standing there for?
Get up, get off, get out of the door
You're playin' cold music on the barroom floor
drowned in your laughter and dead to the core
There's a dragon with matches loose on the town
Take a whole pail of water just to cool him down.

Fire-fire on the mountain
Fire-fire on the mountain

Almost aflame, still you don't feel the heat
Takes all you got just to stay on the beat
You say it's a living, we all gotta eat
but you're here alone, there's no one to compete
If mercy's in business I wish it for you
More than just ashes when your dreams come true.

Fire-fire on the mountain
Fire-fire on the mountain

Baby's in scarlet, her shackles in gray
If love's to love she's got it salted away
Out of the rat trap and under the wire
Out of the frying pan and into the fire
Put it down heavy, strip it down lean
Got to lay it down dirty and play it back clean.

Fire-fire on the mountain
Fire-fire on the mountain

I had also forgotten about the closing comment from the film:

May your farragoes never be dull.

Thanks to all who showed up and went hard for two today.