Rides, ramblings and rants on a motorcycle.
- We are scientists, too!
1.06.2011,8:11 PM
Walkabout in the Desert and Beyond
I'm back. Gone for two weeks to Home in the desert. Was it good? Wonderful. Actually, that is an understatement. This year begins a long transition, a year of change. At least it isn't an abrupt one; had too many of those. Near the end of the year, I will leave academia, perhaps for good, but not leave science; it's too much a part of me. I will be leaving this area as well to begin a new chapter elsewhere; perhaps that should be plural. Is 'elsewheres' a legitimate word? No, but who cares?
After I leave this area and before I move to the desert, a long walkabout will be in order; rather, a rideabout. Time to visit family in New England area. First time for me on a motorcycle.
Hence, I dub this year as the Year of the Walkabout. Why? The answer is in the post below, written in 2006 on my other blog, Whose Reality is This?.
Time for a Walkabout
The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling. – Robert Pirsig*
Every so often we need a change. We become so caught up in our own small box of existence, hurrying most of our time away, losing grasp of what is important to each and all of us. We repeat the same day-to-day routine, a monotony that becomes shallow yet comfortable for most. It’s as if we become robots on automatic pilot. Then at some point in our lives we wonder where all that time went and sorry that it is all gone. We can’t go back to regain it.
Familiarity is comfort to most; it is ‘safe’, reassuring and relatively risk-free. We tend to shy away from risk and strangeness. Yet the world is full of wonderful strangeness. And what makes this world so hard to see is its usualness. Familiarity can blind you, too.
We accumulate new information and experiences every day; sometimes it is overwhelming. Our perspective tends to become more narrow and smaller housed inside our little box of comfort. We become the center of the cosmos and familiarity shrink wraps us inside the nucleus of our own ego. Our ‘I’ is a small parasitic microbe that only moves to provide for our immediate physiological and psychological needs. In time we become bored with our own little box and find ways to fill the empty spaces as we implode inside ourselves. We become disconnected with others and our environment until the robot is nudged out of autopilot. And malfunctions. We become dehumanized.
Robert Pirsig wrote*:
You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame…… On a cycle the frame is gone. You are completely in contact with it all. You are ‘in’ the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.
Metaphorically our lives become like the compartment of a car: the passive observer, too busy to talk to each other, passing life by outside without really touching it, experiencing it. By the time we stop to look back and wonder where it went, it’s too late. This is a dead end.
The Australian adolescent aborigines (and many other indigenous peoples) go walkabout for weeks or months as a rite of passage. I often refer to go walkabout when I travel without a planned itinerary or even destination. It is all about the journey, not the destination.
When the spirit falters, when we find ourselves questioning, confused, or need to break the cycle of familiarity, go on a walkabout. At times I use a walkabout to break the distractions of my ‘box’ of life, or when life throws me a curve ball that hits me square in the heart. Sometimes the surroundings of silence and space allow me to hold and direct the construction of my thoughts. Other times it is the strangeness of the environment and the people that break down the walls of my box and allow me to expand outside again, refreshing my perspective.
Invariably, walkabouts give me the clearness and fortitude to open the door when Truth comes knocking.
Labels: ramblings
10.05.2010,8:10 AM
My Wildlife Prairie
While leaving my driveway early this morning (5:20am), the truck headlights momentarily froze the advance of a bobcat near the road. No mistaking the bobbed tail, spotted tawny coat and big face with pointed ears. I was ecstatic. I surely did not expect a bobcat to be living and hunting nearby, let alone see one.
Since the neighbors left for an extended stay in Panama, the coyotes have been coming closer to the house every evening and morning. Now I can hear their distinct individual voices instead of a cacophony of yips and howls in the distance. Many have distinct characteristics which I hope to discern their randomness or patterns.
I'm enjoying my own private wilderness here on my little slice of Texas prairie. I wish this was a much larger area rather than small and surrounded by a growing urban metropolis. And I mourn its future demise.
Labels: ramblings
6.14.2010,1:23 PM
Motoblotting
No, that's not a typo for 'Motoblogging'.
Being a science nerd, I smiled at the irony of an advertisement in the June issue of The Scientist journal. Flipping the page to read an article on the battle between pathogens and their hosts (or describing the immune system using the analogy of mafia wars), there was a full-page photo of a motorcyclist in helmet and leathers.
"What???", you ask. I asked, too.
Speed. Fast. Accuracy. Goals. Common words day in and day out, especially in today's highly competitive world. Even in science. Or, as Millipore puts it, "Research. Development. Production." It's all the same.
Someone in marketing took the metaphor of a motorcyclist and extended it to scientific pursuit. So far, so good. And nowhere else but in science does 'zero to publication' mean 'the edge'.
Reflected in the helmet visor are reagents and an apparatus used for Western blotting. The procedure involves transferring proteins from a thin layer of gelatinous material, in which proteins have been separated by their molecular size and ionic charges, to an even thinner slice of polymerized membrane. Proteins on this membrane are then probed with antibodies raised against certain epitopes (think of exact addresses on a map folded into origami) of each protein. The complex of protein and antibody form an invisible thin band down the length of the membrane. The membrane is then incubated in a substrate which allows imaging (by x-ray film, light of certain wavelengths, etc) the corresponding band of protein that the antibodies are attached to.
This entire process can take an entire day, sometimes more. It's an expensive and tedious but routine procedure that nearly all molecular biologists and most bench biologists are familiar with. It is also a standard tool to detect and measure proteins in tissues and cells, providing documentation (supporting evidence) in published journal articles in the life sciences. As the caption under the image claims, "Get results faster. Make decisions sooner." Fast, fast is important.
I doubt that most scientists will realize that the metaphor can be used conversely - nearly all motorcycles and much of their gear - such as tires, brakes, etc - are tested and proven on the track and elsewhere before released on the market with claims of performance. While not published in the same sense, everyone knows that Valentino Rossi has tested many race bikes and tires on the track, and tests his own skills as a racer similarly. And the end results are reported and shown in the media and culminate in marketing.
Labels: ramblings
6.01.2010,10:06 PM
Intermission
This episode is interrupted to deliver a not-very-important message. You can choose to go find some popcorn or wait several more days until I have time to continue the stories. Life has been busy.
This past weekend comprised of a return trip to Fort Griffin area which was by far, very rewarding. I was joined by Ed on his KLR and Brian on his Big Dog (BMW GS). Since my pelvis is still not completely healed, I remained bikeless. I did, however, go exploring in the Jeep Cherokee with Buck the Dog. But the rest of that story is for later.
I admit nearly all of my free time is spent tending a little veggie patch in the front cow pasture, reading and reading, building a deck/porch, culling through too many years of 'stuff' to go to a huge garage sale (Goal: Empty the house), and seaching for everything I can find on the Internet regarding the Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route.
The impetus for the latter is The Kid (TM), aka my dear lovely daughter the motorcycle mechanic, is getting married in September. The plan is for Ed and I to take the little bikes (DR350 and WR250R) to Oregon and spend nearly two weeks in the back country off-road. Yessiree! I am getting excited.
I will be posting more about Fort Griffin, Camp Cooper, the Butterfield Stage Station (which I found!), and other tidbits of historical legendary Texas. In the meanstime, I will unveil the work in progress (I'm slow as a turtle these days): Desert Rats 2009, a website containing stories, history, photographs, trials and tribulations of the Desert Rats riders in Big Bend over the winter holidays of December and early January. That might keep y'all busy for a little bit.
Labels: ramblings
12.05.2008,10:32 PM
Time for a change
I don't know if I have an internal cycle or clock or if I just thrive on change. But every so-many years (averaging about 12-14) I need a change, usually a drastic one.
Every time I return from a weekend bike trip, especially more than two days, a blue funk envelopes me. A combination of several things: a return to a mundane job that has lost its passion. I used to be a scientist with passion, and I still am, but it's not in the lab anymore. It's at the core, back when I realized I was a biologist as a kid; Life in the Great Outdoors. Being stuck in a concrete canyon is eating at me.
I was born in New York and I may have lived there for my first 18 years, but I have never considered myself a native of New York. In fact, when I left, I disowned it. I always say I am from New England. My mind operates in bioregion mode, not within political and artificial human-contrived boundaries. I don't consider myself a Texan either. But I am in love with many things about Texas, just as I am with Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Hell, I am a Westerner at heart and soul. I was born in the wrong region.
I've pondered recently where I want to live next. I still can't say that I know. I still haven't experienced enough of the West to know. I can call the entire western half of the continent my 'home'. Home is where ever I hang my helmet. If I were independently unreliant on a monthly income by trading all my time (note that I avoided using the common cliche 'independently wealthy'; I don't want or need to be wealthy), my druthers would be to travel around the country on my bike for a year, write about the land and people, and share what I see via photography. But I guess we are all allowed our fantasies, aren't we?
I had -and still have- hopes to semi-retire by 2010. Thrusting my middle finger at the trend of retiring at 65, when we are too old and feeble to enjoy life, my plan was/is to sell everything except for bare minimum necessities, put them in storage, and travel for a year. Then decide where to set up base camp, er, 'home'. Southern Utah? Northern New Mexico? Big Bend? A canyon on the eastern escarpment of the Llano Estacado? Maybe two bases? I don't need much to live in. But I still don't know where.
My thoughts now are to watch the job listings for the Texas Park and Wildlife, maybe even in New Mexico. My expertise is biology, but my experience ranges from forestry, veterinary pathology, botany, genetics, molecular biology, neuropathology, even exercise physiology and livestock management. I'm a jack of all trades, but that's what survives. The basis is the same: life. Biology.
I left (fled) the city when I was 18 and avoided them for 25 years. I've never been a city person. Spending ten years in two cities, or close enough in distance to classify as such, is enough. It was an experiment of sorts. A drastic change from living in a valley of the coastal range in Oregon raising sheep and horses, coupled with lab and field work in botany and plant pathology. But it was time for a change (lost my funding, blew a back disc, and divorced); might as well move out of state. (I also wanted to learn what makes people tick, since I've isolated myself in the woods and mountains for so long. I had plenty of time then to learn about myself.)
Now I'm here in Texas. Still. A place I never in my wildest imagination thought I would end up (more likely it was Arizona). I'm still a scientist at heart, but no longer a lab rat. I want out. Outside. I need to be out of the boxes and cement canyons. I want real canyons, dirt beneath my fingernails, boots and wheels. I want plants stuck in the ground that will feed me. I want to wake up and not hear trucks, cars and gas rigs. I want to hear coyotes yip and yap, owls hoot, crickets and frogs click. I want to smell sweet or acrid junipers, hackberries, and watch my footing for cactus. I want to watch the storms roll in with a force that makes you vibrate, and lightening that makes your hairs stand up. I want to heat with wood again, maybe even build my own cabin again (which I vowed never to do again).
Most of all, I don't want to deal with four (or more)-lane highways, cars and trucks riding your ass, the buffeting of big tanker trucks filled with salt water or oil, nor deal with strip mall traffic. I want the two lane roads with tall grasses flowing over the road edges, a center line that is barely visible, small towns and communities where people smile and say "Hello! Where are you from? Nice day, isn't it?" I want to be able to take a deep breath and not be asphyxiated with smoke, garbage, and natural gas. I want to rid myself of car alarms, incessant and ever-present cell phone conversations, booming vehicles bounced by bass speakers, and load mundane trivial conversations by people whose lives revolve around shoes, who's adulterating whom and how much they put themselves in debt to have this and that.
I need to get away from the cities. It's time for a change.
Every time I return from a weekend bike trip, especially more than two days, a blue funk envelopes me. A combination of several things: a return to a mundane job that has lost its passion. I used to be a scientist with passion, and I still am, but it's not in the lab anymore. It's at the core, back when I realized I was a biologist as a kid; Life in the Great Outdoors. Being stuck in a concrete canyon is eating at me.
I was born in New York and I may have lived there for my first 18 years, but I have never considered myself a native of New York. In fact, when I left, I disowned it. I always say I am from New England. My mind operates in bioregion mode, not within political and artificial human-contrived boundaries. I don't consider myself a Texan either. But I am in love with many things about Texas, just as I am with Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Hell, I am a Westerner at heart and soul. I was born in the wrong region.
I've pondered recently where I want to live next. I still can't say that I know. I still haven't experienced enough of the West to know. I can call the entire western half of the continent my 'home'. Home is where ever I hang my helmet. If I were independently unreliant on a monthly income by trading all my time (note that I avoided using the common cliche 'independently wealthy'; I don't want or need to be wealthy), my druthers would be to travel around the country on my bike for a year, write about the land and people, and share what I see via photography. But I guess we are all allowed our fantasies, aren't we?
I had -and still have- hopes to semi-retire by 2010. Thrusting my middle finger at the trend of retiring at 65, when we are too old and feeble to enjoy life, my plan was/is to sell everything except for bare minimum necessities, put them in storage, and travel for a year. Then decide where to set up base camp, er, 'home'. Southern Utah? Northern New Mexico? Big Bend? A canyon on the eastern escarpment of the Llano Estacado? Maybe two bases? I don't need much to live in. But I still don't know where.
My thoughts now are to watch the job listings for the Texas Park and Wildlife, maybe even in New Mexico. My expertise is biology, but my experience ranges from forestry, veterinary pathology, botany, genetics, molecular biology, neuropathology, even exercise physiology and livestock management. I'm a jack of all trades, but that's what survives. The basis is the same: life. Biology.
I left (fled) the city when I was 18 and avoided them for 25 years. I've never been a city person. Spending ten years in two cities, or close enough in distance to classify as such, is enough. It was an experiment of sorts. A drastic change from living in a valley of the coastal range in Oregon raising sheep and horses, coupled with lab and field work in botany and plant pathology. But it was time for a change (lost my funding, blew a back disc, and divorced); might as well move out of state. (I also wanted to learn what makes people tick, since I've isolated myself in the woods and mountains for so long. I had plenty of time then to learn about myself.)
Now I'm here in Texas. Still. A place I never in my wildest imagination thought I would end up (more likely it was Arizona). I'm still a scientist at heart, but no longer a lab rat. I want out. Outside. I need to be out of the boxes and cement canyons. I want real canyons, dirt beneath my fingernails, boots and wheels. I want plants stuck in the ground that will feed me. I want to wake up and not hear trucks, cars and gas rigs. I want to hear coyotes yip and yap, owls hoot, crickets and frogs click. I want to smell sweet or acrid junipers, hackberries, and watch my footing for cactus. I want to watch the storms roll in with a force that makes you vibrate, and lightening that makes your hairs stand up. I want to heat with wood again, maybe even build my own cabin again (which I vowed never to do again).
Most of all, I don't want to deal with four (or more)-lane highways, cars and trucks riding your ass, the buffeting of big tanker trucks filled with salt water or oil, nor deal with strip mall traffic. I want the two lane roads with tall grasses flowing over the road edges, a center line that is barely visible, small towns and communities where people smile and say "Hello! Where are you from? Nice day, isn't it?" I want to be able to take a deep breath and not be asphyxiated with smoke, garbage, and natural gas. I want to rid myself of car alarms, incessant and ever-present cell phone conversations, booming vehicles bounced by bass speakers, and load mundane trivial conversations by people whose lives revolve around shoes, who's adulterating whom and how much they put themselves in debt to have this and that.
I need to get away from the cities. It's time for a change.
Labels: ramblings
9.14.2008,9:31 PM
Come Home
To My Friends, the Great Horned Owls,
My dear friends, I miss you. Your hoots and conversations have been silent for some time now. I don't recall hearing your nightly conversations since before I was temporarily away from home for three months. And now you're gone.
I suppose you both have traded rent or tenant space with one of your cousins, lesser in presence but louder and annoying. The screech owl that has moved here in your absence lacks the respect of the night solitude and his voice cuts through the dark like a dull knife on a blackboard.
This evening he visited me on the fence post about 15 feet outside my windows and let me know, rather obnoxiously, that this was his place now. My efforts in rebuttal as I stood at the window failed to unseat him. Instead he stood his fence and screeched at me. Finally, my patience worn, I yelled at him. His reply was a rather long squeak. I really think he needs throat lozenges. I recommended some rats wrapped in eucalyptus but he ignored me and continued to squawk.
I fear, my friends, that my nights won't be as restful as they were with your gentle hoots. Yes, even as you two bickered on your respective utility pole tops. I miss seeing your large majestic forms silhouetted in the trees or on top of the posts. Your voices always made me smile and comforted me. You know this is your sanctuary as much as it is mine.
So, please, my dear large feathered friends; please return, boot out the screech owl and hoot to your hearts' desire.
Your friend always,
The Shadow
My dear friends, I miss you. Your hoots and conversations have been silent for some time now. I don't recall hearing your nightly conversations since before I was temporarily away from home for three months. And now you're gone.
I suppose you both have traded rent or tenant space with one of your cousins, lesser in presence but louder and annoying. The screech owl that has moved here in your absence lacks the respect of the night solitude and his voice cuts through the dark like a dull knife on a blackboard.
This evening he visited me on the fence post about 15 feet outside my windows and let me know, rather obnoxiously, that this was his place now. My efforts in rebuttal as I stood at the window failed to unseat him. Instead he stood his fence and screeched at me. Finally, my patience worn, I yelled at him. His reply was a rather long squeak. I really think he needs throat lozenges. I recommended some rats wrapped in eucalyptus but he ignored me and continued to squawk.
I fear, my friends, that my nights won't be as restful as they were with your gentle hoots. Yes, even as you two bickered on your respective utility pole tops. I miss seeing your large majestic forms silhouetted in the trees or on top of the posts. Your voices always made me smile and comforted me. You know this is your sanctuary as much as it is mine.
So, please, my dear large feathered friends; please return, boot out the screech owl and hoot to your hearts' desire.
Your friend always,
The Shadow
Labels: ramblings
2.11.2008,9:12 PM
Spring tease
Yesterday delivered spring fever to my lap like an anvil being dropped from the sky.
Plop!!
After a Saturday at work and spending the night at a friend's house in town, the ride home Sunday morning was nothing short of delicious. Warm, sunny, blue and bright. The 45-minute ride warmed my head and recharged my batteries as if I was photosynthesizing after a dormant sleep. All the voices in my head had running conversations:
"Where do you want to go?"
"Let's not go home!"
"Keep going! Don't stop!"
"But we have to patch the roof!"
"Let's ride to New Mexico!"
"I want to see mountains!"
"I want to see and smell water!"
"We don't want to go home........."
The big booming adult voice prevailed and we turned down one of my favorite roads home that runs the top of a high prairie overlooking the valley to the next rise. Fast, curvy, smooth, familiar odors of cattle and horse pastures are like perfume, and the wind whipping at my face. Scoot back, lean over the tank and roll that throttle open; ride that black ribbon like the back of a serpent.
It was a short ride, but sweet. It laid a good foundation for the rest of the day on the roof patching blown-off shingles and topping it off with firing up the grill to cook sausages.
Tease me, oh Spring. I know you're there ahead, not far now.
Thanks for the respite.
I look forward to playing in your warmth and sunshine again.
Plop!!
After a Saturday at work and spending the night at a friend's house in town, the ride home Sunday morning was nothing short of delicious. Warm, sunny, blue and bright. The 45-minute ride warmed my head and recharged my batteries as if I was photosynthesizing after a dormant sleep. All the voices in my head had running conversations:
"Where do you want to go?"
"Let's not go home!"
"Keep going! Don't stop!"
"But we have to patch the roof!"
"Let's ride to New Mexico!"
"I want to see mountains!"
"I want to see and smell water!"
"We don't want to go home........."
The big booming adult voice prevailed and we turned down one of my favorite roads home that runs the top of a high prairie overlooking the valley to the next rise. Fast, curvy, smooth, familiar odors of cattle and horse pastures are like perfume, and the wind whipping at my face. Scoot back, lean over the tank and roll that throttle open; ride that black ribbon like the back of a serpent.
It was a short ride, but sweet. It laid a good foundation for the rest of the day on the roof patching blown-off shingles and topping it off with firing up the grill to cook sausages.
Tease me, oh Spring. I know you're there ahead, not far now.
Thanks for the respite.
I look forward to playing in your warmth and sunshine again.
Labels: ramblings
1.30.2008,7:49 AM
Brave or stupid??
'Hmm.... Ride the bike or drive the truck?'
The wireless thermometer in my house indicated 24 degrees F outside at 4:15 this morning. The first thought in my head was to drive the truck. That was immediately overridden by 'Nnnnno'. But it was a slow 'No'.
The typical cold weather attire was topped off with a wool blend longjohn shirt and silk glove liners underneath the Triumph gauntlet gloves. I allowed extra time for the bike to warm up. Then geared up completely in the house before plugging the Wider vest's electrical coil into the Powerlet socket on the fairing. Turning the thermostat up to '5', the highest yet, I waited until I was wheeling down the drive to turn on the heated grips.
Not bad for a frigid morning until my fingertips started to get too cold. I flipped the switch to high for the fist time since the heated grips were installed over a year ago. In half and hour or so the grips were almost too hot, but my finger tips were not in danger of freezing anymore. Keeping a relaxed grip on the bars kept me from burning the palms of my hands.
With the balaclava pulled up over my nose in the helmet the visor had to be cracked open to avoid fogging. On the highway at speeds near 70 mph the wind into the helmet was enough that I could fully close the visor which kept my face warm.
As usual on my commute rides I kept an eagle eye on vehicles around me. Driving behaviour can reveal much about the driver's inherent personality as well as driving ability and conditions. I tend to mentally and systematically profile any driver near me that demonstrates aberrant driving behaviour. Why? Because I can strategically adapt my defensive driving when near them.
For instance, a truck in my lane in front of me this morning periodically veered over the dividing lines with one or two wheels. One time is excusable if overlap is marginal and quickly corrected. But several times rings alarm bells. After the second time wavering on both sides I concluded he was not attentive to his driving. Cell phone? Applying make-up? (yes, I have seen this more than once) Tuning the radio?
I increased following distance between us. When he changed lanes to my right without signaling I watched for the opportunity to roll the throttle open and pass on his left, keeping him in my peripheral vision. I cautiously passed him on the far left side of my lane and sure enough, he was wandering into my lane as I completed the pass.
I glanced inside the driver window to see an older Hispanic man with both hands rigidly placed on the steering wheel and facing straight ahead. Extrapolating from the condition of the truck -old, beat up, worn tires- I suspected he may not have a driver's license and/or insurance. The latter is very common here in Texas; the combination can be disastrous. "Warning! Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!"
I was concerned about drain on the battery with all the heated gear running at high, so I turned the vest off several miles from the train station and then the heated grips as I exited the highway. This reminded me of the need for a voltmeter on the dash to monitor battery charge and discharge. I've read that most bikes don't efficiently recharge their batteries until 5 rpm or over. I would like to monitor my battery status with all the modifications on my Whee. A voltmeter is on the list.
I sat on the bike waiting for my train with all gear on including my helmet with visor closed. It completely fogged up and all the lights in the dark looked like alien eyes with huge round and diffuse pupils. I snickered at this image with the cars entering and jockeying for parking spaces. Aliens with huge eyes running amok.
On the train one of the routine commuters tapped the armor inside my Joe Rocket Ballistic touring jacket and called me 'Ballistic Transformer'. Then he said, "I don't know if I should call you brave or stupid riding a bike in this damned cold weather."
I'm still trying to figure that one out myself.
The wireless thermometer in my house indicated 24 degrees F outside at 4:15 this morning. The first thought in my head was to drive the truck. That was immediately overridden by 'Nnnnno'. But it was a slow 'No'.
The typical cold weather attire was topped off with a wool blend longjohn shirt and silk glove liners underneath the Triumph gauntlet gloves. I allowed extra time for the bike to warm up. Then geared up completely in the house before plugging the Wider vest's electrical coil into the Powerlet socket on the fairing. Turning the thermostat up to '5', the highest yet, I waited until I was wheeling down the drive to turn on the heated grips.
Not bad for a frigid morning until my fingertips started to get too cold. I flipped the switch to high for the fist time since the heated grips were installed over a year ago. In half and hour or so the grips were almost too hot, but my finger tips were not in danger of freezing anymore. Keeping a relaxed grip on the bars kept me from burning the palms of my hands.
With the balaclava pulled up over my nose in the helmet the visor had to be cracked open to avoid fogging. On the highway at speeds near 70 mph the wind into the helmet was enough that I could fully close the visor which kept my face warm.
As usual on my commute rides I kept an eagle eye on vehicles around me. Driving behaviour can reveal much about the driver's inherent personality as well as driving ability and conditions. I tend to mentally and systematically profile any driver near me that demonstrates aberrant driving behaviour. Why? Because I can strategically adapt my defensive driving when near them.
For instance, a truck in my lane in front of me this morning periodically veered over the dividing lines with one or two wheels. One time is excusable if overlap is marginal and quickly corrected. But several times rings alarm bells. After the second time wavering on both sides I concluded he was not attentive to his driving. Cell phone? Applying make-up? (yes, I have seen this more than once) Tuning the radio?
I increased following distance between us. When he changed lanes to my right without signaling I watched for the opportunity to roll the throttle open and pass on his left, keeping him in my peripheral vision. I cautiously passed him on the far left side of my lane and sure enough, he was wandering into my lane as I completed the pass.
I glanced inside the driver window to see an older Hispanic man with both hands rigidly placed on the steering wheel and facing straight ahead. Extrapolating from the condition of the truck -old, beat up, worn tires- I suspected he may not have a driver's license and/or insurance. The latter is very common here in Texas; the combination can be disastrous. "Warning! Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!"
I was concerned about drain on the battery with all the heated gear running at high, so I turned the vest off several miles from the train station and then the heated grips as I exited the highway. This reminded me of the need for a voltmeter on the dash to monitor battery charge and discharge. I've read that most bikes don't efficiently recharge their batteries until 5 rpm or over. I would like to monitor my battery status with all the modifications on my Whee. A voltmeter is on the list.
I sat on the bike waiting for my train with all gear on including my helmet with visor closed. It completely fogged up and all the lights in the dark looked like alien eyes with huge round and diffuse pupils. I snickered at this image with the cars entering and jockeying for parking spaces. Aliens with huge eyes running amok.
On the train one of the routine commuters tapped the armor inside my Joe Rocket Ballistic touring jacket and called me 'Ballistic Transformer'. Then he said, "I don't know if I should call you brave or stupid riding a bike in this damned cold weather."
I'm still trying to figure that one out myself.
1.25.2008,12:09 PM
Sometimes there is no road
Darest thou now, O Soul,
Walk out with me toward the Unknown Region,
Where neither ground is for the feet, nor any path to follow?
No map, there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.
I know it not, O Soul;
Nor dost thou—all is a blank before us;
All waits, undream’d of, in that region—that inaccessible land.
Till, when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds, bound us.
Then we burst forth—we float,
In Time and Space, O Soul—prepared for them;
Equal, equipt at last—(O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil, O Soul.
- Walt Whitman
Then there are those of us that seek places like this for something we can't see or obtain within the microcosom of our every day world. Is it just the roads? All we want is to ride screaming down the tarmac or gravel? If that is so, many other places closer and with less discomfort can appease that desire.
Then, what is it? Why do we travel, by four or two wheels, hundreds of miles to ride here where there is, by many other perspectives..... nothing? Stop for a moment next time you are down there and ask yourself that question.
"Why am I here?"
It's not just the roads. Sometimes those roads are winding.....
bumpy.....
thorny.......
steep.....
rocky.....
wet....
and muddy.
Sometimes, there is no road.
It doesn't matter. It's more than just the roads, paths, and trails that draw us. It's an intrinsic, sometimes visceral, longing to be out there. In amongst the landscape and moving. Like a petulant and persistent pendulum inside of us, we have to keep moving. Moving into new tastes, smells, sounds and whispers. Even returning again and again to get more. Each builds a layer on the one before, and a foundation for the next. And our horizons broaden each time we do.
Maybe we can't go to Africa, Belize, the Amazon or Australia. But there are so many places around us, near and far, where we can go. Each can be our own adventure. Don't scale what is available to you to places that you may never visit. Most of us don't have the resources and freedom to gallivant around the world. But we do have the freedom to go places we've never been before. Even if it is only thirty miles away. All it requires is will and determination. If you have those, you can and will find a way.
Even if there is no road, follow your heart. You will create your own road.
and muddy.
Sometimes, there is no road.
It doesn't matter. It's more than just the roads, paths, and trails that draw us. It's an intrinsic, sometimes visceral, longing to be out there. In amongst the landscape and moving. Like a petulant and persistent pendulum inside of us, we have to keep moving. Moving into new tastes, smells, sounds and whispers. Even returning again and again to get more. Each builds a layer on the one before, and a foundation for the next. And our horizons broaden each time we do.
Maybe we can't go to Africa, Belize, the Amazon or Australia. But there are so many places around us, near and far, where we can go. Each can be our own adventure. Don't scale what is available to you to places that you may never visit. Most of us don't have the resources and freedom to gallivant around the world. But we do have the freedom to go places we've never been before. Even if it is only thirty miles away. All it requires is will and determination. If you have those, you can and will find a way.
Even if there is no road, follow your heart. You will create your own road.
Labels: Adventures, Big Bend, ramblings, Texas
1.19.2008,10:22 PM
Air
I spent the entire day at a local motocross track with good friends Bill, Ed and Ed's son, David. Camera in cold hands, stationed at strategic points on the course, I photographed them as they rode laps and over obstacles.
Watching all the riders, from eight years old to middle-aged, their varying levels of skills and sizes of dirt bikes, challenging themselves and going through the paces was almost as enjoyable as riding a bike myself. I almost felt myself in the air along with the many riders as they flew over the jumps. I would love to feel that exhilaration myself sometime.
In time, it will be my turn.
Watching all the riders, from eight years old to middle-aged, their varying levels of skills and sizes of dirt bikes, challenging themselves and going through the paces was almost as enjoyable as riding a bike myself. I almost felt myself in the air along with the many riders as they flew over the jumps. I would love to feel that exhilaration myself sometime.
In time, it will be my turn.
12.18.2007,9:38 PM
Living with owls
At home my connection with the rest of the world is a satellite dish which brings me the Internet and from which I spew forth things like what you see on this page. Although better than dial-up connection, sometimes it can be just as slow. During electrical storms, or low and heavy cloud cover with precipitation, the connection can be lost completely.
Lately the blue lights on the modem disappear, connection lost, when the skies are clear. I've wondered what the cause of this was, but have been unsuccessful in its uncovering. Until tonight.
Pulling up close to the house in the dark on the Whee, I usually gear down, switch to low beams and ride around the house on the prairie grass so that I am parked on the gravel drive towards the far road. As I turned the corner of the house a movement caught my eye. I looked up to see a Great Horned owl opening his wings and lift itself up into the air. It was sitting on the satellite dish.
I am aware of the nesting pair of owls that lives on my humble five acres. I have seen one or the other and hear them often. The last several months, they have felt comfortable and safe enough to roost on the utility pole outside my bedroom window. Or on a fence post outside the back of the house.
I enjoy their company. And I will gladly share the satellite dish with them.
Lately the blue lights on the modem disappear, connection lost, when the skies are clear. I've wondered what the cause of this was, but have been unsuccessful in its uncovering. Until tonight.
Pulling up close to the house in the dark on the Whee, I usually gear down, switch to low beams and ride around the house on the prairie grass so that I am parked on the gravel drive towards the far road. As I turned the corner of the house a movement caught my eye. I looked up to see a Great Horned owl opening his wings and lift itself up into the air. It was sitting on the satellite dish.
I am aware of the nesting pair of owls that lives on my humble five acres. I have seen one or the other and hear them often. The last several months, they have felt comfortable and safe enough to roost on the utility pole outside my bedroom window. Or on a fence post outside the back of the house.
I enjoy their company. And I will gladly share the satellite dish with them.
Labels: ramblings
11.26.2007,12:47 PM
Dirt School. Session One.
Laying prone over my fallen Sherpa struggling to free my right foot from between the rear wheel and the inside of the deep rut, I couldn't help but laugh. I was thankful when Theresa lifted the rear of the bike and freed my foot. I got back on, shifted down and was off again hoping to get out of that rut sooner than later. And wondering why these ruts claimed me for the third time.
Ed and I spent two and one-half days camping at a private cycle park before we were driven out by the rain and cold. It was my chance to learn and practice skills: choosing lines for the wheels to track, navigating sand and rugged trails, controlling the throttle on hilly inclines and declines, launching the front tire in a wheelie, riding cambered turns, and just getting seat time under me.
Ed and I spent two and one-half days camping at a private cycle park before we were driven out by the rain and cold. It was my chance to learn and practice skills: choosing lines for the wheels to track, navigating sand and rugged trails, controlling the throttle on hilly inclines and declines, launching the front tire in a wheelie, riding cambered turns, and just getting seat time under me.
They all say the best way to learn to ride dirt is ride, ride, ride. I did. I learned about balancing my weight on the pegs and shifting the center of balance over the bike depending on conditions and terrain, the importance of core strength and leg endurance, how to let the bike move underneath me, what to avoid (ruts) and how to pick the bike up when I and it fall down.
I ache. My right tricep feels like it tried to lift or pull a train. My back is tired and my shoulders ache from falling on them, sleeping on them, and push/pulling handlebars.
But it's all good. In fact, I'm hooked. I love riding off-road. But the cycle parks are schools for me, not destinations. There I learn and practice new skills and techniques on various terrains. The real destinations, where all these come into play, are in the forests, deserts, canyons and mountains. I got my taste of that in Tennessee last October.
I ache. My right tricep feels like it tried to lift or pull a train. My back is tired and my shoulders ache from falling on them, sleeping on them, and push/pulling handlebars.
But it's all good. In fact, I'm hooked. I love riding off-road. But the cycle parks are schools for me, not destinations. There I learn and practice new skills and techniques on various terrains. The real destinations, where all these come into play, are in the forests, deserts, canyons and mountains. I got my taste of that in Tennessee last October.
There's no going back now. I'm addicted.
9.28.2007,12:17 PM
Am I old fashioned?
Over the decades I've considered myself tolerant of many ideas and behaviours. I don't agree with all of them, but I respect other people's rights to their beliefs and opinions. That does not mean I have to respect their beliefs or opinions; just their right to posses and voice them.
Maybe I've been too tolerant. Or perhaps my values, personal and societal, are now archaic -old fashioned. Am I a dinosaur in this day and age? I don't think so; I've met other dinosaurs that share the same values and ethics. But they are becoming farer and fewer in between.
We're human. We are also big loud primates that have a knack for tools and throwing things. What separates us from our primate brothers and sisters is we have a cranium with gray matter that ticks differently. At some point in our evolution, a gene regulator conferred upon that gray and convoluted bologna-type mass the ability to think about thinking. Wham! Human consciousness was born and we all sat naked on rocks and chanted "I think. Therefore I am."
Then we all realized that if we stuck together in small groups we survived droughts, storms, and big-toothed cats, made each other laugh with stories, discovered the enlightenment of fermentation and avoided inbreeding (to some extent). Strength in numbers. And survival.
But any group of creatures has to have rules in order to avoid killing each other as well as facilitate hunting and gathering. We have morals. These may even be hardwired to some extent. We also have values; morals that extend beyond the individual and specific situations. They are universal across all contexts. Across all cultures. Across humanity. Consistency and practice of one's values imparts integrity.
The most important value, the most valuable, is honesty. Truth. No matter the times that one value has had positive and negative reinforcement over my life, I value honesty more than any other human trait and moral. Even if the truth hurts. Truthfulness, sincerity and respect are the first and foremost criteria in any relationship, no matter how superficial or deep. In hand with those traits is trust. The former are the foundation of trust. And the very fabric of any personal relationship; platonic and physical.
Over the past few years I have learned again the importance, and rarity, of those human traits. I've learned how fickle and flaky people are. Always cautious in trusting people, a few I have placed trust in have betrayed and deceived me. But I also have myself to blame for those experiences because I exercised poor judgment. Always be wary of a person that proclaims and professes he or she can be trusted. Invariably, the dragon will rear its ugly head and demonstrate they can not be trusted. Remember, words are words, actions are a demonstration and better indicator of the truth. And I should have known better.
More and more I am less inclined to trust people. But I can't stumble through the rest of my life not trusting anyone. If I can't trust anyone, I can't trust myself. And if I can't trust myself, I can't trust anything. But the sign on my back that says "Kick me here!" has come off and been thrown away. No more.
From now on trust will be measured by demonstration of honesty, sincerity and respect. I trust my best friend of ten years implicitly; because I know he is honest with me. No matter what, I can depend on him for that. Even when it smacks me in face. Although in the past three years I've lost a lover and another whom I considered a very good friend, I've also gained a few friends that I can rely on for their honesty and trust. They have demonstrated that, at their own offering. And it is these friends, few that they are, that I cherish the most.
When I see the day-to-day blatant disregard of simple personal respect and honesty, I ask myself repeatedly if we've changed that much as a society, that our respect for each other and our values have dwindled, nearly lost. Or if I'm just old fashioned.
If I am a dinosaur in that respect, I hope that some day, somewhere, those traits will not be viewed as fossils, but be rejuvenated. Because these are the very traits that comprise compassion. And what aided us to evolve as a civilization. And retain our faith in each other.
<walking away and throwing the crumbled "Kick me here!" sign in the trash can....>
Maybe I've been too tolerant. Or perhaps my values, personal and societal, are now archaic -old fashioned. Am I a dinosaur in this day and age? I don't think so; I've met other dinosaurs that share the same values and ethics. But they are becoming farer and fewer in between.
We're human. We are also big loud primates that have a knack for tools and throwing things. What separates us from our primate brothers and sisters is we have a cranium with gray matter that ticks differently. At some point in our evolution, a gene regulator conferred upon that gray and convoluted bologna-type mass the ability to think about thinking. Wham! Human consciousness was born and we all sat naked on rocks and chanted "I think. Therefore I am."
Then we all realized that if we stuck together in small groups we survived droughts, storms, and big-toothed cats, made each other laugh with stories, discovered the enlightenment of fermentation and avoided inbreeding (to some extent). Strength in numbers. And survival.
But any group of creatures has to have rules in order to avoid killing each other as well as facilitate hunting and gathering. We have morals. These may even be hardwired to some extent. We also have values; morals that extend beyond the individual and specific situations. They are universal across all contexts. Across all cultures. Across humanity. Consistency and practice of one's values imparts integrity.
The most important value, the most valuable, is honesty. Truth. No matter the times that one value has had positive and negative reinforcement over my life, I value honesty more than any other human trait and moral. Even if the truth hurts. Truthfulness, sincerity and respect are the first and foremost criteria in any relationship, no matter how superficial or deep. In hand with those traits is trust. The former are the foundation of trust. And the very fabric of any personal relationship; platonic and physical.
Over the past few years I have learned again the importance, and rarity, of those human traits. I've learned how fickle and flaky people are. Always cautious in trusting people, a few I have placed trust in have betrayed and deceived me. But I also have myself to blame for those experiences because I exercised poor judgment. Always be wary of a person that proclaims and professes he or she can be trusted. Invariably, the dragon will rear its ugly head and demonstrate they can not be trusted. Remember, words are words, actions are a demonstration and better indicator of the truth. And I should have known better.
More and more I am less inclined to trust people. But I can't stumble through the rest of my life not trusting anyone. If I can't trust anyone, I can't trust myself. And if I can't trust myself, I can't trust anything. But the sign on my back that says "Kick me here!" has come off and been thrown away. No more.
From now on trust will be measured by demonstration of honesty, sincerity and respect. I trust my best friend of ten years implicitly; because I know he is honest with me. No matter what, I can depend on him for that. Even when it smacks me in face. Although in the past three years I've lost a lover and another whom I considered a very good friend, I've also gained a few friends that I can rely on for their honesty and trust. They have demonstrated that, at their own offering. And it is these friends, few that they are, that I cherish the most.
When I see the day-to-day blatant disregard of simple personal respect and honesty, I ask myself repeatedly if we've changed that much as a society, that our respect for each other and our values have dwindled, nearly lost. Or if I'm just old fashioned.
If I am a dinosaur in that respect, I hope that some day, somewhere, those traits will not be viewed as fossils, but be rejuvenated. Because these are the very traits that comprise compassion. And what aided us to evolve as a civilization. And retain our faith in each other.
<walking away and throwing the crumbled "Kick me here!" sign in the trash can....>
9.19.2007,8:09 PM
Darkness, darkness
It was a heavy day. My head felt mired in nothingness, my heart was heavy and bruised, my body was a dead weight. My consciousness closed the doors except for the mechanics of putting one foot in front of the other and breathing. The past five months seemed like bricks on my back and shoulders that I couldn't shrug off.
Broken pieces of my heart taped together strained at their bonds and threatened to fall apart. The hurt and betrayals, the humiliation and sadness, the hope that died a violent death. I felt like a bucket of damaged goods. With a strong sense of deja vu. And wondering why......why did this happen again? I knew why, and I had no one to blame but myself.
I wanted to be away from the lab, from the city, the noise and the people around me. I needed to be alone. My heart needed to go on a ride.
I left early and went for a long ride on the bike. Away from the city and the noise. Sometimes the open road mends the heart, applying a gentle tourniquet, stemming the flow of blood loss allowing it to heal itself. So my heart and I went for a ride.
The gravel drive and all the night noises welcomed me home to the sanctuary that refreshes my spirit. I sit outside on the bench and watch the sun dip down into the horizon over the pond. My bike stands on the gravel like a waiting steed. The half moon beckons the night creatures and their presence is betrayed by the cacophony of chirps and clicks. While the two resident owls hearken the darkness of their nocturnal world.
There's a comfort in this solitude because I am not alone. The moon, the owls, the stars; they won't lie to me. And out here, I'm just another night creature. I'm happy that we share the same solitude. It's like a warm blanket that comforts me as I sleep in the bosom of the night.
Let it go.
I'm home.
Darkness, darkness, be my pillow,
Take my hand, and let me sleep.
In the coolness of your shadow,
In the silence of your deep.
Darkness, darkness, has me yearning,
For things that cannot be.
Keep my mind from constant turning,
Toward the things it cannot see,
Things it cannot see,
Things it cannot see.
-Jesse Colin Young
Take my hand, and let me sleep.
In the coolness of your shadow,
In the silence of your deep.
Darkness, darkness, has me yearning,
For things that cannot be.
Keep my mind from constant turning,
Toward the things it cannot see,
Things it cannot see,
Things it cannot see.
-Jesse Colin Young
Labels: ramblings
9.06.2007,10:15 PM
Reason 366 Why I ride a bike
Sunsets. I rode home today into the sunset and it was the most magnificent, beautiful, colorful, alluring, captivating, intoxicating, sensational sunset I've seen in a long time (since Big Bend). Puffy-shaped clouds overlapping sharply edged streams of magenta and white. Azure and brilliant blue sky contrasting the pinks, reds, magentas, purples, whites in an unbroken expanse of sky. Airbrushed over pastal chalked clouds. I wanted to press a button and let my head rotate 360 degrees the entire ride home.
All reflecting on the lake surface like a rippling mirror.
I rode my sweet road home differently, slower, enjoying the streaks of colors moving from the front to the side of me, and back again. Entering the tunnel created by the tree canopies red peeked through openings of the darkening green branches. I marveled at how the greens of the grasses and trees beside me turned shades unlike those seen in daylight but refusing to succumb to the coming blackness of the night.
Four vehicles were in front of me as I rode the last leg home and I wondered if any of the people in them saw what I beheld. Did they momentarily peak through the curtains of their day enactments to see and enjoy what I did? Or did they hide away from everything outside of them, safely tucked in their cages, like feral animals that have lost hope in their confinement?
That sunset, and everything around me, changed every minute that I rode. Nothing interrupted my view while I moved in my own changes rolling on two wheels. It was not just magnificent seeing that sunset, but I was a part of it. I am out in all of it when I ride. And that is what I love the most: being there.
I rode most of the way home with a grin so wide it stretched my face. Finally on home gravel, the side stand down, sitting on the bike catching the last glimpse and the remnants of color as they give way to the dark gray and maroon clouds. While lightening bugs fluttered around me.
I don't need to go fast. I don't always need winding roads and curves. I don't have to have a destination. All I need are these two wheels under me and a surface for them to roll.
That is another reason why I ride.
All reflecting on the lake surface like a rippling mirror.
I rode my sweet road home differently, slower, enjoying the streaks of colors moving from the front to the side of me, and back again. Entering the tunnel created by the tree canopies red peeked through openings of the darkening green branches. I marveled at how the greens of the grasses and trees beside me turned shades unlike those seen in daylight but refusing to succumb to the coming blackness of the night.
Four vehicles were in front of me as I rode the last leg home and I wondered if any of the people in them saw what I beheld. Did they momentarily peak through the curtains of their day enactments to see and enjoy what I did? Or did they hide away from everything outside of them, safely tucked in their cages, like feral animals that have lost hope in their confinement?
That sunset, and everything around me, changed every minute that I rode. Nothing interrupted my view while I moved in my own changes rolling on two wheels. It was not just magnificent seeing that sunset, but I was a part of it. I am out in all of it when I ride. And that is what I love the most: being there.
I rode most of the way home with a grin so wide it stretched my face. Finally on home gravel, the side stand down, sitting on the bike catching the last glimpse and the remnants of color as they give way to the dark gray and maroon clouds. While lightening bugs fluttered around me.
I don't need to go fast. I don't always need winding roads and curves. I don't have to have a destination. All I need are these two wheels under me and a surface for them to roll.
That is another reason why I ride.
Labels: ramblings
8.26.2007,12:53 PM
Let Wild Remain Wild
I don't understand people's 'need' to own a wild animal. Intellectually I understand the psychology (basically, a power trip or innocent curiosity), but I'm adamantly opposed to it for several reasons. Many of the felines at the Sanctuary were rescued from drug ring raids. Many had been disfigured and traumatized by their 'owners'. Many just abandoned.
While at Oregon State University I had a student intern for three years who had two wolf/dog hybrids, a male and female, and they were a constant headache for her. Granted, she rescued them as abandoned pups, but the natural instinct of the wolf reigned. She was not prepared for the special demands the two canines presented; they are not domesticated dogs. She finally had to take them to a wolf refuge/sanctuary in Washington.
I think, or more correctly, hypothesize, that wild animals tend to be more comfortable -less fearful, perhaps more trusting- on ranches and, as in my case in Maine, remote human habitations because the people who generally live there have a different attitude for wildlife. Not all, mind you, but a good percentage.
That attitude is usually one of respect. Animals can sense it. Even smell it. They smell our fear, our anger and anxieties. Anyone that has lived with animals and paid attention knows or has sensed that they are capable of 'reading' us. If we attentive and observe closely, we can do the same with them. The animal behaviorist at the sanctuary studies this in the felines. We were told that one of the male lions is considered what we would call 'autistic'. He displays no emotional body language. Not even facial features, and is mostly indifferent to everything.
My Dad learned to talk 'dog talk' and I grew up with at least one dog in the house (and I brought home all kinds of critters). Our dogs were trained to respond to single word (usually single syllable) cues with voice inflection. He also knew and used body language. I learned the same techniques when raising/training my horse, Shadow. And, excuse me for saying so, but these techniques (mostly the psychology) are also applicable to raising children. It's funny (aka ironic) to me that as adults we lose these abilities to 'read' others, including each other. I wonder how much an influence technology has had on that. Or we just don't care anymore.
At the cabin in Maine, for three years a mink would come to live 'with' me. It slept on the porch of the cabin and hunted the woods around it. I never tried to go near it; I let it come near me as I sat in the snow or on a tree stump, sat still, patiently, and watched it. And it watched me. We learned that we could trust each other. Eventually it often came up on the porch to sleep for a few hours where it was sheltered from winds and hard rain. I would watch it outside the windows overlooking the porch and smile. It was a tacit trust. Once it followed me to the outhouse and sat down on the trail while I watched it with the door open. It was a beautiful male and I suspect he eventually found a mate and established a den somewhere.
A Russian biologist experimented with a mating pair of wild fox to see how many generations it took to achieve domestication (at the level of our dogs). It took only six. When animals are very young, from the moment of birth on, they are more plastic to establishing close relationships to others than their own kind. My dog nursed a litter of kittens when the mother was killed (by a raccoon). A bummer lamb (bottle fed from first hour; the ewe tried to kill her) bonded to me and followed me around the ranch closer than the dog did. She even went to work with me.
Most horse breeders use a bonding technique called 'imprinting' where the colts/fillies are handled shortly after birth and become comfortable with human interaction. But not all animals are as easily adaptable; aka their natural instinct of human distrust and self-preservation overridden. Nor should it be because there is always the bad apple human that will kill or abuse them in a moment.
Any one further interested might enjoy the book Don Coyote by Dayton O. Hyde, a cattle rancher in Oregon who learned several valuable lessons about animals, himself, and other humans when he befriended a coyote pair and their six pups.
When confronting a wild animal, like these exotic felines, think about how you would like to be treated if you were in their paws.
"Walk a mile in my paws."
While at Oregon State University I had a student intern for three years who had two wolf/dog hybrids, a male and female, and they were a constant headache for her. Granted, she rescued them as abandoned pups, but the natural instinct of the wolf reigned. She was not prepared for the special demands the two canines presented; they are not domesticated dogs. She finally had to take them to a wolf refuge/sanctuary in Washington.
I think, or more correctly, hypothesize, that wild animals tend to be more comfortable -less fearful, perhaps more trusting- on ranches and, as in my case in Maine, remote human habitations because the people who generally live there have a different attitude for wildlife. Not all, mind you, but a good percentage.
That attitude is usually one of respect. Animals can sense it. Even smell it. They smell our fear, our anger and anxieties. Anyone that has lived with animals and paid attention knows or has sensed that they are capable of 'reading' us. If we attentive and observe closely, we can do the same with them. The animal behaviorist at the sanctuary studies this in the felines. We were told that one of the male lions is considered what we would call 'autistic'. He displays no emotional body language. Not even facial features, and is mostly indifferent to everything.
My Dad learned to talk 'dog talk' and I grew up with at least one dog in the house (and I brought home all kinds of critters). Our dogs were trained to respond to single word (usually single syllable) cues with voice inflection. He also knew and used body language. I learned the same techniques when raising/training my horse, Shadow. And, excuse me for saying so, but these techniques (mostly the psychology) are also applicable to raising children. It's funny (aka ironic) to me that as adults we lose these abilities to 'read' others, including each other. I wonder how much an influence technology has had on that. Or we just don't care anymore.
At the cabin in Maine, for three years a mink would come to live 'with' me. It slept on the porch of the cabin and hunted the woods around it. I never tried to go near it; I let it come near me as I sat in the snow or on a tree stump, sat still, patiently, and watched it. And it watched me. We learned that we could trust each other. Eventually it often came up on the porch to sleep for a few hours where it was sheltered from winds and hard rain. I would watch it outside the windows overlooking the porch and smile. It was a tacit trust. Once it followed me to the outhouse and sat down on the trail while I watched it with the door open. It was a beautiful male and I suspect he eventually found a mate and established a den somewhere.
A Russian biologist experimented with a mating pair of wild fox to see how many generations it took to achieve domestication (at the level of our dogs). It took only six. When animals are very young, from the moment of birth on, they are more plastic to establishing close relationships to others than their own kind. My dog nursed a litter of kittens when the mother was killed (by a raccoon). A bummer lamb (bottle fed from first hour; the ewe tried to kill her) bonded to me and followed me around the ranch closer than the dog did. She even went to work with me.
Most horse breeders use a bonding technique called 'imprinting' where the colts/fillies are handled shortly after birth and become comfortable with human interaction. But not all animals are as easily adaptable; aka their natural instinct of human distrust and self-preservation overridden. Nor should it be because there is always the bad apple human that will kill or abuse them in a moment.
Any one further interested might enjoy the book Don Coyote by Dayton O. Hyde, a cattle rancher in Oregon who learned several valuable lessons about animals, himself, and other humans when he befriended a coyote pair and their six pups.
When confronting a wild animal, like these exotic felines, think about how you would like to be treated if you were in their paws.
"Walk a mile in my paws."
Labels: ramblings
8.14.2007,7:46 AM
I can't read it!!!!
I have two issues with road signs: too many of them and either they are glaringly intrusive or I can't read them.
A recent blog post on Cognitive Daily caught my attention: Roadway psychology: selecting the right fonts for highway signs. Now why would that be? Because of two reasons: road sign overuse and ineffectiveness.
The absence of jumbled signs along the highways in Oregon and Calgary, BC (Canada) is a striking contrast to those cluttering the roadsides in Texas and elsewhere. The collective "Buy Me! Join Us! Do This! Don't Do That! You Are Here! We Are Nowhere! Take Me, I'm for Sale! Go There! Come Here! Oh My God!!!!" is not just information overload, but bullshit load. Somewhere in that mess may be some vital information for our direction or safety but it is engulfed by the plethora of competing "me! Me! ME!" signs.
Even on rural roads do the spawn of the Roadsigns exist. As I daily turn onto my country road, there are at least six or more signs. In addition to the obligatory road sign for speed, one states a weight limit of just over two tons and the next sign cautions drivers of rough road caused by large transport trucks. Well, if truck drivers would heed the first sign, the latter would be unnecessary and the road not so ridden with potholes, washboard and crumbled edges.
Then there are the four to six little demon signs of houses for sale. Oddly, some of these seem to be able to clone themselves or the contractors think that more signage, the same signs, is better. It's like nonstop shouting. Is everyone deaf but me? I want to clamp my hands over my ears, or in this case, my eyes. Or, like Edward Abbey, just stop and pull the damned things up and toss them in a big pile on the side of the road. Ironically, the sign bearing the road name is tiny; so small that I can't read it until I am almost upon it!
I've pondered over this need we have to overwhelm our visual sense by erecting signs; bigger, brighter, taller. And so many of them. I've posited that the visual sensory input of most people on the road reaches a saturation point where they no longer see them. Yet when we need road information, we can't find it because its drowning in the clutter of signs. Frankly, I find the jumbled mess distracting, irritating and bad for my blood pressure.
Apparently 'Those That Think' in Oregon and Calgary realized this desensitization and legislated a density and size limit for road signs. Or perhaps it was solely the aesthetic perspective: unblemished scenery. Regardless, I find such roads more calming and less distracting. And necessary roadside information is readily visible: "There's a sign up ahead. Pay attention! It's communicating something important."
Conversely, road signs bearing names are hard to read because the font is too small. The size for signs usually conforms to state and federal standards. But try fitting "Martin Luther King Blvd" on the standard-sized road sign. (Every city seems to have the obligatory MLK Blvd.) Sure, it will fit but then no one can read it.
Apparently, according to the blog post stated previously, the font itself can be an issue. Now that was news to me. The font and illumination at night may impede legibility by 'overglow'; when the tiny spaces in the letters cause the illumination of the letter to be indistinguishable. Letters form 'glowblobs' and the word or words may be difficult to read.
Now add that to the small space on the surface of the sign and we have a real problem finding our way around at night.
A new font has been developed, tested and approved for use in twenty states. Of course, I giggled at the name given to the old font: Highway Gothic. And nodded at the name of the new font: Clearview.
For an interesting read on the conception, development and testing of the fonts, read the article that appeared in the New York Times: The Road to Clarity
Now if we can petition to increase the size of the informative signs and tear down most of the advertisement signs, we might actually have a pleasant ride.
A recent blog post on Cognitive Daily caught my attention: Roadway psychology: selecting the right fonts for highway signs. Now why would that be? Because of two reasons: road sign overuse and ineffectiveness.
The absence of jumbled signs along the highways in Oregon and Calgary, BC (Canada) is a striking contrast to those cluttering the roadsides in Texas and elsewhere. The collective "Buy Me! Join Us! Do This! Don't Do That! You Are Here! We Are Nowhere! Take Me, I'm for Sale! Go There! Come Here! Oh My God!!!!" is not just information overload, but bullshit load. Somewhere in that mess may be some vital information for our direction or safety but it is engulfed by the plethora of competing "me! Me! ME!" signs.
Even on rural roads do the spawn of the Roadsigns exist. As I daily turn onto my country road, there are at least six or more signs. In addition to the obligatory road sign for speed, one states a weight limit of just over two tons and the next sign cautions drivers of rough road caused by large transport trucks. Well, if truck drivers would heed the first sign, the latter would be unnecessary and the road not so ridden with potholes, washboard and crumbled edges.
Then there are the four to six little demon signs of houses for sale. Oddly, some of these seem to be able to clone themselves or the contractors think that more signage, the same signs, is better. It's like nonstop shouting. Is everyone deaf but me? I want to clamp my hands over my ears, or in this case, my eyes. Or, like Edward Abbey, just stop and pull the damned things up and toss them in a big pile on the side of the road. Ironically, the sign bearing the road name is tiny; so small that I can't read it until I am almost upon it!
I've pondered over this need we have to overwhelm our visual sense by erecting signs; bigger, brighter, taller. And so many of them. I've posited that the visual sensory input of most people on the road reaches a saturation point where they no longer see them. Yet when we need road information, we can't find it because its drowning in the clutter of signs. Frankly, I find the jumbled mess distracting, irritating and bad for my blood pressure.
Apparently 'Those That Think' in Oregon and Calgary realized this desensitization and legislated a density and size limit for road signs. Or perhaps it was solely the aesthetic perspective: unblemished scenery. Regardless, I find such roads more calming and less distracting. And necessary roadside information is readily visible: "There's a sign up ahead. Pay attention! It's communicating something important."
Conversely, road signs bearing names are hard to read because the font is too small. The size for signs usually conforms to state and federal standards. But try fitting "Martin Luther King Blvd" on the standard-sized road sign. (Every city seems to have the obligatory MLK Blvd.) Sure, it will fit but then no one can read it.
Apparently, according to the blog post stated previously, the font itself can be an issue. Now that was news to me. The font and illumination at night may impede legibility by 'overglow'; when the tiny spaces in the letters cause the illumination of the letter to be indistinguishable. Letters form 'glowblobs' and the word or words may be difficult to read.
Now add that to the small space on the surface of the sign and we have a real problem finding our way around at night.
A new font has been developed, tested and approved for use in twenty states. Of course, I giggled at the name given to the old font: Highway Gothic. And nodded at the name of the new font: Clearview.
For an interesting read on the conception, development and testing of the fonts, read the article that appeared in the New York Times: The Road to Clarity
Now if we can petition to increase the size of the informative signs and tear down most of the advertisement signs, we might actually have a pleasant ride.
8.12.2007,8:23 PM
Why??
Every time I return to the city from a trip in the country, the rural areas, the canyons, desert, wilderness I feel like an alien. Another ant in a giant colony of more ants following blind trails leading everywhere but 'home'. And for what? I ask myself that question constantly. For decades.
It's a paradox. I see people in small communities or living in remote rural areas that have formed a partnership with their environment. They generally don't take more than what they need to subsist, and they try to nurture that which gives them their food, health, happiness and life. They are happy with less.
In the larger metropolitan areas, the cities, we take and take and never give back. And we treat each other likewise. We want a never ending "More!".
Then I look around me and see what we as a species are capable of accomplishing: beautiful giant buildings, ability to travel anywhere on this globe, music that makes one's heart sing or cry, art and literature to share our experiences, thoughts, history, ideas with each other and with millions, capable of healing diseases and illnesses that would have crippled our civilization, and so much more.
We are an amazing organism, a species like none other in the entire history of this planet. Our potential is boundless. We love, laugh, cry, birth, die, create, destroy, calculate, climb to the stars and outer planets. And we are suffering at our own behest and folly. What we consider as 'progress' is self-deceptive; we are decaying.
We propagate to the point that we suffocate ourselves and this planet with our very own and extract all we can from the environment that sustains us, which served as a foundation for our evolution and growth as a species and civilization. We accumulate more and have less, wrapped up in our own individual reality drama show. We destroy that which gives us life.
And I've wondered, asked, contemplated, tried to understand all these years: "Why?"
How can we be so blind?
I recall pondering this when I was young, living in a city and its suburbs. I fled the city to the woods in Maine to try and understand. Decades later I am still fraught with the same observations and questions. And I fear there may be no answers. Moreso that the meaning of the question has lost it significance not for me, but for everyone else.
While watching the first episode tonight of the TV mini-series "Battlestar Gallactica" (2003) -one of the most brilliantly written series on television- I was struck hard, almost physically, when Commander Adama gave a speech in commemoration of retiring the battleship. It rang true in nearly every aspect of our history and our relations with each other, our environment and all the other living entities on this planet.
"You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question "Why?"
Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed and spite, jealousy, and we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done, like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. And when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really.
You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore."
His speech was delivered just hours before nearly the entire human civilization was annihilated by what they had created.
A possible prophecy rang true and hit me as if I had been struck by a rock.
Is this our path? Not in the stars or in space, but here...... on this planet. Our Home.
It's a paradox. I see people in small communities or living in remote rural areas that have formed a partnership with their environment. They generally don't take more than what they need to subsist, and they try to nurture that which gives them their food, health, happiness and life. They are happy with less.
In the larger metropolitan areas, the cities, we take and take and never give back. And we treat each other likewise. We want a never ending "More!".
Then I look around me and see what we as a species are capable of accomplishing: beautiful giant buildings, ability to travel anywhere on this globe, music that makes one's heart sing or cry, art and literature to share our experiences, thoughts, history, ideas with each other and with millions, capable of healing diseases and illnesses that would have crippled our civilization, and so much more.
We are an amazing organism, a species like none other in the entire history of this planet. Our potential is boundless. We love, laugh, cry, birth, die, create, destroy, calculate, climb to the stars and outer planets. And we are suffering at our own behest and folly. What we consider as 'progress' is self-deceptive; we are decaying.
We propagate to the point that we suffocate ourselves and this planet with our very own and extract all we can from the environment that sustains us, which served as a foundation for our evolution and growth as a species and civilization. We accumulate more and have less, wrapped up in our own individual reality drama show. We destroy that which gives us life.
And I've wondered, asked, contemplated, tried to understand all these years: "Why?"
How can we be so blind?
I recall pondering this when I was young, living in a city and its suburbs. I fled the city to the woods in Maine to try and understand. Decades later I am still fraught with the same observations and questions. And I fear there may be no answers. Moreso that the meaning of the question has lost it significance not for me, but for everyone else.
While watching the first episode tonight of the TV mini-series "Battlestar Gallactica" (2003) -one of the most brilliantly written series on television- I was struck hard, almost physically, when Commander Adama gave a speech in commemoration of retiring the battleship. It rang true in nearly every aspect of our history and our relations with each other, our environment and all the other living entities on this planet.
"You know, when we fought the Cylons, we did it to save ourselves from extinction. But we never answered the question "Why?"
Why are we as a people worth saving? We still commit murder because of greed and spite, jealousy, and we still visit all of our sins upon our children. We refuse to accept the responsibility for anything that we've done, like we did with the Cylons. We decided to play God, create life. And when that life turned against us, we comforted ourselves in the knowledge that it really wasn't our fault, not really.
You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things that you've created. Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore."
His speech was delivered just hours before nearly the entire human civilization was annihilated by what they had created.
A possible prophecy rang true and hit me as if I had been struck by a rock.
Is this our path? Not in the stars or in space, but here...... on this planet. Our Home.
8.02.2007,12:58 PM
All the sky is a stage......
When I rode in last night, warm in my rain gear, a small hole in the clouds let sunshine flow down in angelical streaks of light. After removing my gear, I stood outside and watched the sky, this big huge Texas expanse of space. It's like a giant stage where all the elements play and cavort and I have a front row seat, all to myself. It's my own private show.
And I love it.
Labels: ramblings
7.27.2007,1:12 PM
Suspension 101 & Cagers' Perceptions of Bikes
In my quest for understanding all I can about suspension, and how to adjust it for riding conditions, I found this web page: The Motorbike Suspension Bible. VERY useful!!
Thought I'd share it with others.
An excerpt from another page of the website:
Threat perception and the average motorist.
The average motorist, when assessing a traffic scene, prioritizes things mentally based on threat perception. They don't know they're doing it, but it turns out that a tall, thin object, like a motorbike, is perceived as less of a threat than a short, fat object, like a car. There's some talk of the position of lights on a motorbike helping out this mental awareness. If you put bright lights further apart than normal - say on outriggers - a motorbike will be perceived as more of a threat, and thus register higher in the motorist's scene analysis.
This is all very well, but how does the average motorist's brain deal with the threat perception of a hot cup of Starbucks and a cellphone first thing in the morning. Apparently, clamping a phone to their ear and drinking coffee while driving is also not perceived as a threat, whilst most motorists consider a motorcyclist threatening to look at (leathers, helmet etc - oooooooohhh. Scary....) Yet the same motorcyclist actually on a bike registers so low that the average motorist will look straight through them.
I bolded the sentence in the first paragraph because I have observed the same exact behaviour since riding a bike, especially in parking lots. I had wondered if my interpretation of driver psychology was reasonable or just my own little bizarre deduction. Apparently I was not off the mark at all nor losing my mind.
This has led me to think about devising a space shield for bikes. However, I suspect that would infringe upon the Federation proprietary patent. I'd also like to try and steal plans for a Romulan Shield Inversion Beam so I could recharge my bike's shield (proprietary patent be damned), and a Borg Transwarp Gate to get out of Texas in a second and onto roads in New Mexico, Colorado and Arkansas.
Must have been the Anderson's barbque I ate for lunch.
Thought I'd share it with others.
An excerpt from another page of the website:
Threat perception and the average motorist.
The average motorist, when assessing a traffic scene, prioritizes things mentally based on threat perception. They don't know they're doing it, but it turns out that a tall, thin object, like a motorbike, is perceived as less of a threat than a short, fat object, like a car. There's some talk of the position of lights on a motorbike helping out this mental awareness. If you put bright lights further apart than normal - say on outriggers - a motorbike will be perceived as more of a threat, and thus register higher in the motorist's scene analysis.
This is all very well, but how does the average motorist's brain deal with the threat perception of a hot cup of Starbucks and a cellphone first thing in the morning. Apparently, clamping a phone to their ear and drinking coffee while driving is also not perceived as a threat, whilst most motorists consider a motorcyclist threatening to look at (leathers, helmet etc - oooooooohhh. Scary....) Yet the same motorcyclist actually on a bike registers so low that the average motorist will look straight through them.
I bolded the sentence in the first paragraph because I have observed the same exact behaviour since riding a bike, especially in parking lots. I had wondered if my interpretation of driver psychology was reasonable or just my own little bizarre deduction. Apparently I was not off the mark at all nor losing my mind.
This has led me to think about devising a space shield for bikes. However, I suspect that would infringe upon the Federation proprietary patent. I'd also like to try and steal plans for a Romulan Shield Inversion Beam so I could recharge my bike's shield (proprietary patent be damned), and a Borg Transwarp Gate to get out of Texas in a second and onto roads in New Mexico, Colorado and Arkansas.
Must have been the Anderson's barbque I ate for lunch.