What Fall Brings

Around my neck of the woods, we begin to notice Fall around Halloween, but the turning, falling leaves are not obvious until Thanksgiving, today. This year Fall is a true spectacle. The colors are much brighter than usual, and leaves are staying on the trees longer. Some opine that this is due to the Summer drought followed by recent rains. Most of us say that nobody really knows why leaves change color and are just content to enjoy the breathtaking scenery. Fall color must be one of God's tokens of love for us.

My favorite thing to do this time of year is to ride through the leaves piled on the side of the streets. I've been doing this since I was a boy, and still enjoy it. The bonus is actually riding through falling leaves... I always wear a big smile for that.

Around now I somewhat reduce my outdoors hiking and bicycling, and take up more indoor machines. This is mostly due to having history slipping on wet leaves and stepping on uneven ground. Also, created wind or apparent wind when bicycling is treasured in Summer but detestable in Winter as we create a sweatbox inside our wind shells. So, I just did my first home studio bike spin... puddles of sweat baptized my new hardwood floors. My bike commuting will reduce depending on the weather.

I just had a fitness assessment, and even though anaerobically I was 90-100%-tile, my VO2 was just "High." My goal is to meet the requirements for "Athlete," which means this Fall brings more focus, with more miles and a better diet... if I can stay motivated enough, and injury-free to boot, two big ones that have previously sabotaged me.

Hope you have some very happy holidays, a wonderful Christmas, a terrific new year... and better riding!

- © 2007 by Willy
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Once Upon a Time

True stories from my wonderful world...

After joking about my embarrassment during vasectomy, a surgical nurse friend of mine (who wants to remain nameless) told me a better story. They had scrubbed, gowned and masked, and were starting a hemorrhoid surgery. The poor guy's butt was on a jig, up in the air. The surgery room was busy with preparations. Wrongly assuming that the anesthesia had taken hold, the nurse says out loud "Nice butt!" and slaps it. The patient responds with "Thanks" to everyone's giggles. Then he got aroused, to even more giggles! She said it's a good thing she was masked so the poor guy would not recognize her later.

Upon hearing that I hurt myself at the gym, my friend Jim answered with this: "I hope you are feeling better soon. I do not want to rub it in, BUT, I have never injured myself getting my Lean Cuisine meals out of the freezer case, through the checkout line, and home to my freezer. Now I know you have been trying to entice me to commit suicide and join you at the gym. Well, I feel that I have chosen the better part. If you would like to accompany me on my next trip to the freezer case, I will come and pick you up, take you to the super market, get you a wheel chair, push you around the store and return you home safe and sound."

As a young man, painting my first house for the first time, I was at the top corner or gable end trying to paint the facia boards next to the roof when I noticed these eyes looking at me thru the slats. Not knowing the size of the teeth that went with those eyes, I decided to descend the ladder and find something to shoo the vermin. I found the wasp spray before I found the broom, so I went back up, sprayed the eyes from a safe distance away, and... lo and behold, it came straight at me! I fell off the ladder into the bushes. Looking up from the ground I see this bat fluttering slowly away. Surprised would be too mild a description.

My friend Roger... a source of constant fun and amusement... had a blind date this past Halloween. He tells me he actually scared her by showing up at her home on Halloween in a rubber mask of an eerie looking man. When he knocked at her door, the date, a very attractive woman, thought he was a bum from a slum area of town and locked her front door before Roger could come in!

Yes, it trully is a wonderful world, just as Louie Armstrong said.

- © 2007 by Willy
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And God said...

grad dot E = rho / epsilon-zero
grad dot B = 0
grad cross E = - del-B/del-t
grad cross B = 1/c-square times del-E/del-t
+ micro-subzero time J
... and there was light!

Similarly, have you noticed that sunsets are usually red but sunrises are yellow? This is because normally we are looking at the sunset thru the heated atmosphere, which looks red. Thus a modification is needed to the wave equations above.


And the three-dimensional standing waves made by any boat on a calm lake are also wave equations, though not of light, but following the same physics. It's all the same physics, the same laws, and the same equations.

We're trying to understand.

"I want to understand what's on God's mind, the rest are just details." - Albert Einstein.

Me too.

- some of this © 2007 by Willy

Nightmares

I have had a few recurring nightmares. When I was a young man, I worried about my work responsibilities in getting my engineering projects to succeed, and at home in raising and supporting a family.

From day one I was in a hurry to fly, even though my wings were just not there yet. I concentrated and tried sooo hard! Consistency, time and patience helped... I eventually did grow the wings and I soared with eagles... or at least other swan.

Nowadays my work worries are non-technical... getting everyone covered... and my immediate home stresses are to get on with my life.

One recent personal concern is how close I came to marrying my ex. She appeared innocent but was horrid. A profligate spender, she drove me crazy with demands and criticism, wanting everything her way with no compromise. I was insignificant to her. My recurring nightmares of finding a stranger in the house were based upon her inviting other men over, which was the last straw in a series of cruelties. Who gave her the right to be cruel to me? With her actions she hurt me but set me free. If I had married her, I would have put a gun to my head, which is exactly what she wanted, in issue being my will. How did I fall in love with THAT? And how do I prevent this nightmare from happening again?

I guess that we all stumble in some sort of way. We're not perfect. In mind and in body sometimes we stumble because of somebody else and sometimes it's our own fault. And when we do, it's usually painful. One solution is to stop the world and get off, quit dealing with people and go solo here too. In running, bicycling and triathlons, there's usually a crash at the last hundred yards to the finish line... if you are racing with other people. It seems, no matter what, that emotions and exuberance take over from the rational thinking process... and we crash and burn. Stumbling, in general, is a common concern and nightmare of mine and of many others.

Others have nightmares too. Another recurring nightmare shows me the results of somebody's lack of planning at work. I am a very good planner and even better multiplexer, which is why I am so busy with multiple tasks (I wear 5 hats), and can't understand somebody else's lack of planning. My workday is an orchestrated daylong heart attack, with little time to catch my breath before some "problem" pops into my office needing their shit unclogged. Most of these disasters could have been avoided if the guy had thought ahead to look around and plan. I now have several rolls of toilet paper in my office to hand out to THOSE people. I also tell them that lack of planning on their part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Let them have their own nightmares, instead of passing them to me.

Solutions? Besides going it solo, plan, and not be a co-dependent... two things I do to fight my nightmares are my daily prayers and my weekly massage. Massage is heaven on earth. Not only does it help my mind's anxieties, but also it fixes my beat-up body. I couldn't do my hiking, riding and lifting without it. Thanks, Jan.

Freud said that every dream is a wish. In between nightmares... in between tough parts of my life... I do have some wonderful, warm, peaceful dreams and great sleep. I have started to get these again, my favorite being slowly flying above nature's majesty. I wish for peace and calmness, solo.


- some of this © 2007 by Willy