Triple Point

Morning weigh-in: 183.5# 9% BF

It's getting close to spring: I almost hit a deer on the way home last night. This time though, it was in the city of Easton, or rather Wilson Boro. Residential area, some woods nearby but if it wasn't quite downtown it definitely wasn't near the river either. On the way in to work today, I had to deal with all three phases of water: ice and snow, rain and flooding, and fog. The rivers are losing their "cold water" look, though I don't think I'd want to swim in them right now.

Last night was the gym. Dropped legs from the workout & added a cardio warmup -- I'd already reduced the weight and increased the number of reps a few weeks ago. This workout, with a little tweaking, will probably be my spring/summer "endurance" routine; it seemed to work out well last night. Tonight, if the weather persists in clearing, I'll do a road ride. I'm feeling kinda Hellertown right now.

Let's Talk About Flesh

Mia and Cici
Originally uploaded by Julie Cotton.

Morning weigh-in: 183#, 13% BF

Well, I signed up for the Perimeter Ride again, and it's getting closer so I better start toughening myself up... The ride's around 500-600 miles over a week, pretty tough but the physical aspects are really the least grueling: many of the riders are there because they lost someone and are seeking closure. There are the cathartic conversations at lunchtime, and the dinners where local survivors (or the parents of very sick children) thank you for what you're doing; "heartbreaking" doesn't even begin to cover it, but what always strikes me is the fierceness of the love these people have, you can feel it baking off them like a heat sometimes. (By the way, I found this particular photo in this flickr photo pool.)

For more heartwrenching, check out this post by Majikthise.

Perl Diving: I was supposed to do a ride last night when I got home, but I sat down at the computer and didn't get up until I realized it was after midnight. I restarted my web server, then started messing around with CGI and dynamic content, and then drifted into messing with perl's CGI module. Oh well, another training day shot, and it looks like rain for the weekend...

"How can flesh tumble and flow so, and never be any less beautiful?" -- Thomas Pynchon

By The Numbers

Morning weigh-in: 185.5#, 13% BF

Why yes, I did go out last night, and I had a good time based on the weigh-in, figures don't lie...

Met Doug & Lori for dinner at Which Brew after yoga (and some errands/shopping), had the pizza special (chicken, spinach) plus a cup of that African chickpea soup; jambalaya for Lori, chicken sandwich for Doug. Good conversation, nothing too intense or memorable... I guess the place cleared out between the time they arrived -- they got stuck at a tiny table -- and my own arrival, because it looked pretty quiet in there.

Reading: Still on Against the Day, getting close to finishing, and I started The Dharma Bums.

Oh, And Speaking Of Porn: I was shown two cameraphone pictures this past week, one explicit gay porn and the other bestiality. I also received received an email -- twice, from two different people -- with photos, apparently from a tattoo contest, of "Tattooed Granny," graphically proving that she was tattooed everywhere below the neck. The common thread? They all came from women. And they call us pigs...

UPDATED: For clarity.

Spooky Ookey Ookey

Morning weigh-in: 184#, 10.5% BF

So anyway, Boltzmann Brains... I guess the idea of sentient beings, arising out of minor random fluctuations in the disorder of the universe, reminded me of the "noncorpora" in David Mitchell's Ghostwritten, one of which is a being able to inhabit human minds like a parasite, moving from one host to another as it tries to figure out the mystery of what it is and where it came from, the other being a product of military "quantum cognition" computer research, which took its job of protecting the Earth a little too seriously, escaped its bonds and now calls a late-night New York City DJ to explain its actions. A total tour de force (like Mitchell's later Cloud Atlas), this book was spooky; reading it gave me goosebumps. Mucho recommendo, and that's all I have to say about that...

Yoga last night, yoga tonight, tuna & wilted greens for dinner each time.

Pattern Recognition

At the end of every yoga class is a part called "Savasana," which means "corpse pose." It's basically like a cool-down: you lie very still on your back, relaxing and just breathing; mentally you're supposed to stay alert (I've a heard a few people start snoring) but not think about anything, just letting go of any thoughts that come. Sometimes the instructor will lead the class in a "guided awareness" thing, where you focus your awareness on different parts of your body, or do imaging exercises (ie "think of yourself walking down a beach").

Anyway, in Saturday's morning class the instructor did a guided awareness in Savasana, and had us imagine being on a beach (among other things), but all that would come for me was the beach in William Gibson's Neuromancer, the virtual-reality construct of an artificial intelligence. For some reason this again reminded me of KIDDofSpeed, this time her stuff about the diggings near Kiev, probably because of parallels with Gibson's more recent Pattern Recognition.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind as I eat lunch today. Maybe tomorrow I'll talk about Boltzmann Brains, "quantum cognition" and David Mitchell's Ghostwritten.

Satyagraha

No weigh-ins, it's the weekend!

This is a photo of my brother Kevin and his children (Kevin Jr, Olivia and newborn Caroline Eileen), taken at the hospital when Caroline was born, probably by my mom. I think that's the first time they saw their baby sister.

Nothing much to say, just hanging out waiting for the snow and rain to start falling. I may go up for a hike at Lehigh before the storm, or before it gets too bad. Meantime, I got up late (had a late night), have been lallygagging all morning -- Doug called around 11:00 and induced me to turn on the computer, where I've been procrastinating ever since... I was thinking of doing a road ride this morning -- if I'd gotten up early enough to be confident about beating the snow-- but I did a brick workout again yesterday (yoga, gym, road ride) and think an easy day is warranted for today.