random thought for the week

They say everyone has an evil twin out there somewhere. I say: maybe I'm the evil twin...

Let me asphyxiate for fun!

Alright, so here a true musing by Obi:

During my bike ride to work today (which, I only mostly died as opposed to dying outright), I started thinkign about this growing sense of euphoria. I had been riding my bike, mostly uphill for the last 15 minutes, and started to feel my body become lighter. I was taken by a sense of everything being "just dandy".

As is typical of me, I started internalizing and observing what was going on to me. Euphoria! So this is what all the runners and cyclists tell me they feel when they do their cardio for awhile. Supposedly, it comes from some neurochemical release due to exercising in such a fashion. I'd like to put forth an alternative theory.

My theory: the sense of euphoria is experienced because the brain is oxygen deprived. Yes my friends - it's the equivalent to being in a room with too little air. After the panic of near deathness passes, you should start feelig like everything is just "dandy" - this is the equivalent of your brain being drunk.

Seriously - watching my heart rate monitor, my heart rate was racing. All the blood and the precious oxygen it was carrying was being sent straight away to my heart and legs. My brain was a secondary thing to biking - after all, it's just sitting there, floating contently. My heart and legs were like "screw you brain! We're dragging your fat lazy ass with us. What are you doing? thinking?! WTF?! that's not getting us up this god damned hill!". Or something along those lines.

So yes, my brain was oxygen starved. Hence the euphoria. A quick google search for scientific papers seemed to imply the same thoughts that were swimming in my oxygen starved head. Wait... but I need oxygen to think clearly. Oh whatever - I'll go hold my breath for a while until everything is "just dandy".

waaaah

Steph leaves for spain on Weds morning for 2 weeks (more or less). It's starting to hit me now. *sniff sniff*

In other news - setting routes for 5 y/o's is hard work. 4 hours spent on 3 routes and I don't think they're perfect. Oh well - lots of work to do on Weds night for the UCSD climbing gym

Never spank a cranky wet bear...

... and never bike 12 miles hung over.

Yesterday was my first day to start biking to work. Although the sensible person would elect to take the bus from Solana Beach to UCSD, thereby skipping the effort of biking up the HILL OF DOOM (aka Torrey Pines Hill - a steep .5 mile to 1 mile stretch of road), I chose to bravely (stupidyly?) take it on. Leaving an hour before I was supposed to be at work, I figured if things got rough, I could always walk my bike up the hill.

Ok - so first off, I think I made this decision while drunk. I had so much beer the previous night that I lost count of pints of beer I drank after the 4th. That's a lot for me. And sometimes when someone gets THAT drunk, they wake up drunk. And when you wake up drunk, sometimes you don't realize you're drunk. And when you don't realize you're drunk, you make drunk decisions. That was me yesterday morning.

Second, I decided to start biking on the warmest morning to date in the year (according to a coworker who bikes to work as well). Let's briefly consider: drunk = dehydrated. Warmness = more dehydrated. Aerobic activity = dehydration. 'Nuff said.

So here I am at the foot of the hill. I switch gears slowly to make full use of my momentum. But after a quarter mile, I'm pedaling as best as I can in some of the lowest gears my bike has to offer. Did I mention there's no shade? Anyways, a third of the way up this hill, I decide to get off my bike and that's when it hits me: I'M HUNGOVER (it needed to be in caps to overcome the buzzing sound in my head). I spend the next few minutes dry heaving, then as I feel myself fighting the desire to blackout, I slowly set my bike against a "no parking" sign, sit down in the dirt next to the road and very purposefully dig around to find my nalgene. My entire body, but my hands especially, are quivering from the extreme dehydrated state I'm in. The thought of water sounded nauseating - another sign of extreme dehydration.

10 minutes and 6 bikers passing me later, I finally felt moderatly ok enough to try biking again. I was committed to this ride.

20 minutes after that, three more rests in the sun and walking my bike up about 200 yards, I was past the HILL OF DOOM.

But the adventure doesn't end there!

I biked the rest of Torrey Pines road to UCSD. Sweet sweet UCSD - "almost there" I thought. However, let me remind you again - I'm hungover and still slightly drunk. The speed of which I made that thought was more like "al.. moooooosssht... th... th.. ther.....e". The time it took me to think that should have been spent deciding if I was to make a right turn or go straight past a major intersection. So by the time the thought ended, I was in the middle of the right turn lane, holding up half a dozen cars, whose drivers were probably late to finals, and suddenly I found myself in Frogger like situation where I had to dodge irate drivers swerving around me to make the light. When the dust settled, I was forced to go straight and down a hill towards the I-5 freeway entrance.

"Oh crap - I don't want to turn around and go up this hill back to that intersection... hey, wait - the UCSD forest trails are coming up. I'll just take those to my lab!" (dodging cars sobered me up such that the speed of my thoughts were like "Oc - I don't want uphill - trail! ahead! going now!").

The ride through UCSD's eucalyptus forest where I used to run twice a week was fantastic. I forgot my hung over state and enjoyed the cool shade of the ride. It was the first time I was on a non-paved road with my mountain bike, so that was awesome. Nothing technical abou the trail, but I still had to stay focused on where to take my bike on the trail to avoid sandy spots, rocky points, etc. I was a little sad to see the trail end at an intersection in campus, by the Marshall Uppers Apartments.

When I emerged from the trees and up onto the the road, I was immediately greeted by the sight of UCSD... and the stench of raw sewage. Seems my tranquil bikes ride through a natural trail must end in the assaulting setting of urban concrete and rennovation of sewage lines 20' to my right. I think the smell is still stuck in my nostrils after 24 hours...

the rest of the ride was uneventful. Made it to the lab about 10 minutes late, took a quick shower downstairs in the bathroom next to where they keep the cadavers for the med students and went to work... where I suffered from occasional waves of nausea and hungover-ness.

The End.

mission accomplished

Tonight I set out to be "retardely drunk" - mission accomplished. Pizza port, $2 pints and steph's old co-workers = obi being drunk. I think it worked out well. In case any one is wondering: yes - I am drunk while posting. This is breaking cardinal rule #22: never make any steatements on the internet whil eunder the influenece. Oh well - thank goodness alcohol attacke the decision making centers of the brain first. Be glad I'm not posting any explicit details (other than the room is spinning, along withmy head to compensate).

Not much more to report other than this is a first time experience for me (posting while drunkj). I set out to "retardly drunk" to celebrate the first day after a major deadline and I was successul.

This has gone on far enogh - mover along! movce along!

AFI's top 100 heroes vs villains list

As I sit here at work on a beautiful sunday afternoon, I try and find new ways to use my time "efficiently" while the program silently chugs away at my job requests. This is what I've found this afternoon:

http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/handv.aspx

AFI has a list of their top 100 heroes and top 100 villains. For the most part, I agree with their listing. But I found a little interesting imaginary diversion: What I suggest people do is take a look at the list - it's formatted into two columns side by side - one side heroes, the other villains.

Now imagine a square off between the heroe and the villain and let your imagination run wild as to who would win. For example, 2nd row has Indiana Jones (hero) and Norman Bates (villain). If the two were put in a movie, who would win? My bet - Indiana Jones. Norman's knife has nothing on Indie's hero whip, pistol + hero karma (the man has outwitted, outran and outmaneuvered ancient pitfalls and deathtraps. he can easily outmatch a crossdressing schizophrenic man who misses his mom).

Some of the more intersting match ups:

James Bond vs Darth Vader (power of the martinis and exploding pens or the power of the Dark Side?)
Han Solo vs the Alien
terminator vs Verbal Kint (who knows what could happen here)

Sigh... I think this is a sign that I need to go home...

Despair or enlightenment?

Zen masters speak of a point in one's practice when practice goes beyond just "practicing" and achieves a point where one stops trying. The desire to achieve, to be enlightened and to not fail all melt away to be left with a buddha-nature. Some speak of it in a way where you're faced with so much frustration with the illusions that the mind creates that the mind kinda implodes. Or so I've gathered...

The last 72 hours have been a nonstop "GO!" mode for me where last night culminated in a melt down. What have I been doing? Meditating? Practicing? Climbing? I wish - I'm faced with an impossible task of proving my PI right in a statement he made to some colloborators. These collaborators happen to control a sizeable chunk of money (probably millions) of dollars that funds my paycheck, along with half a dozen other people's paychecks. I need to prove my PI right, otherwise that flow of money may trickle. Stressful.

On top of just completing that task, I've had problems at work - everything from network harddrives failing on me, to 2 minute automated tasks turning into 5 hours of manual work for me.

Further on top of that, the lease on our old place ended today - Steph, Taryn and I had to completely move out AND clean the place enough so that we can just wash the carpets this morning (which we ended up being successful). Last night, I started work at 7:15 am, left work at 8 pm and cleaned from 8:30 till 12 am.

At the end of it all, I slumped against a corner, sat down and shut down. My mind and body was numb from being stressed, having an adrenaline high and forcing myself to keep going without question. All internal monologues shut down, my mind was quiet and nothing but sitting remained.

I woke up this morning after 6 hours of sleep feeling more refreshed than I have in a couple of weeks. Was what I experienced last night satori, a minor enlightenment, that Masters speak of? Have I glimpsed the ox as the ancient masters used to say?

More likely it was me, going to sleep while so utterly exhausted that I didn't stress if I have a job or not in a few weeks... Babies never slept better.

I'm reconnecting with myself

I have reconnected our DSL connection. I am now part of the 'net again. yeah.

On the bad side of things, I have to work this weekend. and finish moving out. and clean. and have fun. Damn having fun... it always seems to be included in all of my plans!!!

Worst. Movie. Ever.

Last weekend while moving, I intentionally attempted to waste my time, life and money by renting a blockbuster B-movie slasher film. I was successful to the nth degree where n is any number not imaginary. Stop imagining what n could be. Any case, this movie was called "Andre the Butcher". Basically it was softcore porn with slashing, but minus the porn (cept for a few closeup nipple shots), a scene with two girls making out, and Ron Jeremy dressed up like the guy from texas chainsaw massacre (replace leather mask with welder's mask though...).

You desperately wanted to skip past the dialogue to the porn scenes...
however, this left one completely in despair b/c THERE WERE NO PORN
SCENES. It was awesome.

Horrible dialogue, atrocious acting, unbelieveable plot line - if you
could give negative points, this would be the all time vacuum of
the movie point universe. It would absorb points from dvds that
neighbored it at blockbuster. Yet, I had fun being successful in my
quest.

Moving sucks sweaty monkeys

Moving is tiring. I wish it were over *NOW* - but alas, it won't be. Poor Steph - she has to deal with this plus her mom being in town plus planning a trip to Spain in less than 3 weeks. Glad I'm not in her shoes. Besides, her shoes are too big for me anyways.

Each morning this week I've driven my car to work thinking about something important / significant in my life. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting what it was 12 hours later. I guess it wasn't too profound - or I could also assume that I'll be able to experience the same cool relaxing sense of epiphany each morning (about the same subject of course!).

Went to bishop this past weekend. Tried cranking - failed miserably. Still had fun trying though - and the best part was taht my shoulder / wrist / knees (yes, I'm getting runner's knees now) held up fairly well. My new project in the Buttermilks: "Jedi Mind Tricks". How awesome would that be for someone to take a picture of me sending that - I would title the caption "Obi, the one, doing a Jedi Mind Trick in Bishop, CA".

This has all made me want to start training harder at the gym. Trouble is, I'm not getting sore at the gym - which implies I'm not pushing myself hard enough. I'll have to stay the course I'm on though - otherwise, I might reinjure myself again. And that'd be sadness with a double "p".