Ironman: Who knew?

This post could also have been titled:

Ironman: Great for Physique, Bad for Hair.

Or,

Did I Do That?

Yes, I did that.

It took me a long time to start this. I struggle with finding adequate words to encapsulate what has so fantastically changed me as a human being forever. When someone asks me how Ironman went, a series of thoughts flash by like a matrix which finally will allow me to answer based on: who is asking, how much do I think they really want to know, how much energy do I want to invest in trying to describe this Magnum Opus to them, etc. Finally, after these microcalculations reach convergence, some sort of answer emerges. Inevitably my eyes fill and I choke, regardless of the length and depth of my description.

Writing about it is different. Here my problem is one of expression and quality of perspective. How do I impart to you reading this the how and why one day has altered the course of my existence, forever?

It was mile 60ish of the bike ride.

I eased into my easiest gear, which on my triathlon bike is not so easy, and lurched up yet another hill. I remembered it from the first loop; started steep, looked like it was going to level out, finally steepening again to the then-invisible crest which ended in an awkward right turn that flung down a nice, gradual 8% slope into a set of s-curves. I thought, momentarily, and for the 500th time that day, how nice it might be to have watched this from the safety of my desk at home. That thought quickly passed as I worked my way through the field on the hill and realized that, although my spirits weren't as great as they could have been, I was passing people every hill climb. That does a lot to boost the spirits.

One of the people I passed was the man who started to seem like he was following me, or like my new best friend on the bike. I thought I might be imagining him, for he was ever-present. He was 48 (as noted from the left calf) and his name was Jimmy. Our bibs at Ironman have first and last names on a separate number, so the throngs of spectators can confuse demoralized swim-survivors during the early minutes of the bike ride by yelling out your last name. Jimmy wore an entire LSU Tigers Tri-suit of purple and gold. It might have been bike shorts and a jersey. These are the little details that don't permeate on Ironman day. I did note, however, that Jimmy wasn't the fittest looking guy out there, but he was biking well. Anyway, I slowly passed Jimmy on the hill for probably the 8th time. I looked over and I said with a grin "Hey Jimmy, here we are again." I couldn't help loving this banter.

"I am too old for this!" Jimmy replied after shaking his head when he saw me again.

"I am too young for this!" I shouted back over my right shoulder to him. I knew that in a matter of time we would be going down hill and he would pass me, yet again. When this happened I yelled over to him "You big guys always pass me on the downhills."

"And you skinny twerps always climb too fast." We both laughed and he motored on ahead, the sweat visible on his legs now. We were all beginning to feel a little warm. We were all sick of the hills, sick of the 18 mph head wind every time we turned south toward town, sick of Gatorade, sick of being on the bike. We were sick of it together, and it was wonderful. That's the ironic beauty of Ironman.

It's amazing I slept at all.

When the alarm went off at 3:45AM on June 24th, 2007, I hesitated for a moment. Could this really, finally, be the day? I had been training and preparing and waiting for so long--is it really time to go do this thing? I leaned over and kissed my wife and got out of bed. I was immediately struck by how much I wanted to do Ironman just to get it over with at that point. This wasn't a very good motivation, so I thought about the excitement I felt picking up my race packet and doing the pre-race hype festivities. I looked at my bracelet and imagined it bashing in the impending waves. A giant knot emerged in my gut. I decided not to think about waves right then and went about my over-thought morning routine, which wasn't a routine for me yet. I noticed I was shaking as I sliced our 100% whole wheat english muffins in half and inserted them into the 4 slot toaster at the hotel. One other sleepy triathlete was slouched in the corner over a bowl of fruit loops. I wondered about her, later, during one of my darker moments in the lake.

Jan was wonderfully patient with me as I bumbled around with all of my stuff and took up all the extra space in our tiny room. Between my antics and the dog, I was imagining how big a coffee she would purchase later while I raced. We ate the same thing we always did before our 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 hour rides: muffins with peanut butter and jelly. I added cottage cheese and some mandarin oranges during the last week, and I am glad I had. The ironman's properly trained body is a powerful food eliminating device. Within a couple of hours I was already hungry again, and I hadnt even gotten into my wetsuit yet.

Dog walked, bottles stowed, car loaded, the three of us headed toward City Park. As we drove, the trees started dancing and debris was flying into the air. Wouldn't you know it, the wind actually got WORSE race morning?? Arrival at the swim start only served to worsen the effect. My stomach may have fallen, but it was still far above my heart which seemed to reside deep in the tip of my big toe, hiding. The lake was seething with a dark, angry temper this race morning, and I knew I had to master it. I had no idea it would be one of the scariest events of my life. The wind was whipping the water off the top of the white caps that were cresting 20 feet from the beach. The boats and kayaks beginning to line the course looked like even they were having trouble navigating.

I was praying the 2299 other suckers would soften the blow in front of me. They were looking at me thinking the same thing, wishing I weighed a lot more.

I volunteered for this? AND paid??

Ironman morning is an interesting time. There really isn't that much to do, but you have to get there early to avoid the hysteria. This leaves the average nervous wreck athlete such as myself plenty of time to calm down, or get more nervous. I decided to spend my time walking back and forth from the car because I forgot my sunscreen, had too much to carry, etc. Bullfrog--this is the best kept Ironman secret ever. I highly recommend this for any long distance multi-sport event that begins with being tossed around in a lake-sized whirlpool tub with 2200 other screaming nut-jobs, when the average sunscreen might get washed away. Not Bullfrog. Anyway, I did my due diligence, did my dookie, and acted calm as long as I could. It was when I finally didn't have anything else to do that I realized I needed to turn my back on the whole thing for a moment. Jan and I walked to a deserted park bench north of the transition area and I stretched and she took pictures. We joked and I pretended to be ok. I saw her well up in those pretty eyes a few times as she looked out at the transition area or the lake, and I knew she was as scared for me as I was for myself. I had a hard time not shedding some saline myself. I didn't fully know what was going to happen, all I knew was I would be ok back on dry land.

It was time to head to the water. I gave Jan a HUGE hug and kiss and enjoyed it immensely, as this was goodbye for potentially a long time. With some tears in my eyes, I dropped off my dry-clothes bag at the transition area, then wandered to the beach with the parade of other Iron-wanna be folks in our super suits and got ready for my warm up.

My warm up in the 4 foot beach break.

Then the voice started coming over the loud speaker telling us NOT to warm up. Apparently it was SO bad and loud from the waves and wind they didn't want dead bodies floating around BEFORE we started swimming...

Next time, Smart Guy, stay in the BACK!

I spoke with a nice man, Donnie, on the beach as the music droned on over the din of waves crashing 10 feet in front of us. Donnie was paranoid to the extent I felt over-relaxed--and that's really saying something. He warned me about so many things that I thought he was nuts, but it took only about 15 meters of "swimming" that morning to make me realize he wasn't so far off his rocker after all.

I have been in a fist-fight. I have swam in rough, cold, ocean water. Even swam around in Lake Samish near Bellingham in January.
The swim of Ironman CDA in 2007 was by far more brutal and scary than any of those experiences.

I thought I had followed my best friends instructions well enough. Jeremy told me "line up IN BACK, left side." In retrospect, if I had to point out one mistake I made on Ironman day, my failure to pay attention to where I was in space when the riot known as the "swim leg" started would be where the finger pointed.

The first lap was a blur of being pushed under water, smacked on every part of my body with amazing force, kicked, elbowed, grabbed, molested and cried on. It created my new image of what hell would be like. Imagine 2300 athletes lined up in a space about 50 yards deep and a quarter mile wide. Then imagine that all of the people in that quarter mile wide area being condensed into a space about 30 feet wide. That is an under-exaggeration of hitting the first turn on the first lap of the swim. The only positive thing I can glean is that the sheer fear of being annihilated gave me the motivation I needed to swim the first lap in probably PR pace for me. Of course, we surfed back in on the breaking waves, after making the turns, so it took an eighth of the time to get back to the beach as it did to get out.

I could describe the inhumanity of the swim, the cannibalistic mayhem, to greater extent-- but it makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

During the second lap, AKA "The 1.2 Mile Swim that Would Never End", I gulped so much water that I literally threw up 3 times while bobbing in the lake. At this point I realized how tenuous our position is as feeble, skinny folks on Ironman day, and I thought of quitting. That went away quickly. Quitting would not happen this day. Drowning, perhaps, throwing up, definitely. But not quitting. I didn't consider it again for the rest of my race. I bobbed there, getting pushed and swam over, gagging, and thought of the girl in the kitchen at the hotel eating Fruit Loops. I wondered for a moment if I would notice any colorful, soggy cereal bits floating past me. Seriously, that is the kind of mental detritus that happens out there. Just ask anyone who has done Ironman.

Peel me, Heal me.

My arms were strips of leather by the time I got back to shore... I did it!! I got back to shore! It was a delirious, cold, overwhelming experience all on its own. To stand up at the big swim exit arch was probably the most under-expressed happiest moment of my short life thus far. It was under- expressed because I was numb in brain and body, and I was mindlessly following everyone else up the slope towards the transition area. But it was a momentous victory for me, because my largest fear was behind me. The one part of this day I couldn't really train for was that mass swim in those waves. And, 10 minutes slower than originally planned in an excruciatingly long 1 hour 25 minutes, I finished. Not too bad. But I was in a serious fog, and cold.

The Peelers were waiting in force just up the beach on the grass, and unleashed their mastery of wetsuit removal upon me, leaving me laying on the ground, shivering, not quite sure of what to do next. Thankfully, yet another kind volunteer steered me in the direction of some long lines of plastic, colorful bags... Oh yes! I remember now, I am supposed to find my swim to bike bag and then change for the bike ride. And what's more amazing, I loaded the bag myself. This is exactly the thought process I experienced. Ironman is fun, I kept telling myself, but not in a happy, cuddly kind of way. Our brain's aren't meant for it, and the thought patterns kinda go haywire.

I entered the big transition tent and found myself in an alternate universe. I was freezing, bewildered, nauseous, and staring into a dark, cold, humid chaos. Yes, I used chaos as a noun. Rows of chairs covered by bodies in various states of nastiness. Clothing, grass, goop, bike stuff, bags and body parts flying in every direction. Yet again I am forced to admit that if it weren't for some wonderfully selfless volunteer I may not have made it out---with bike shorts on. But I did, and when I was ushered out of the tent, still freezing, slathered with sunscreen, and jogging to my bike--everything seemed better. I started to feel like I belonged on land, again. I took-off into downtown with a pack of about 15 people immediately surrounding me. I was riding way too hard. I remembered my training instantly and slowed to what appeared to be a crawl compared to everyone else through downtown. I sipped my beverage in the aero-bottle and just shivered and pedaled along, all the while becoming a little more clear in the head. I saw Jan a few blocks out of transition and smiled at her. She was a sight for sore eyes. I felt a little better.

The truth is I didn't get comfortably warm until 40 miles into the bike ride. I was shivering violently the first 25 and nearly stopped and got off the bike to warm up. I decided I would just keep pushing on, pedaling like I would in my training, probably 14-15 mph, sipping little bits of my Sustain sports drink. I kept shivering, and it was so bad sometimes that my arms were coming off the aero-bars. I was a little nervous that it would never get warm and that all of my energy was going to maintain 37 degrees celsius internal body temp. If I rode harder I might warm up, but I might be using up energy. If I ride the way I practiced I would have ample energy but maybe freeze the entire time...

Race your plan. Best advice EVER.

As simple as it sounds, people don't often have the discipline to do just that.

The sun was out and I was cruising down the twists of the Hayden Lake road system. It was beautiful outside, and amidst the forests, twists and turns the wind was hidden and the sun thawed my frozen joints and skin. I was being passed by people left and right, and it wasn't even mile 45. I let them all go on ahead and paced myself carefully over the hills. I knew in my mind that this was going to determine how the rest of the day went-- this first 60 of the bike, and I thought it was a no-brainer. Stick to the plan, race strong for 12-plus hours or go with the people passing me out of immediacy and potentially ruin everything you worked for. Yoda taught me well and reminded me "You may be fit, but you are not a Jedi yet. Stick to your plan, young Skywalker."

The immensely satisfying thing for me was just how fresh I felt going up the hills at that point. These were tough hills. I couldn't go fast before the internal "BEEP BEEP BEEP" intesity-o-meter went off, but I could go indefinitely at the pace I practiced. I thought to myself, as I watched some of the cyclists who had screamed past me already falling back during these hills, that maybe things would change for me over the next 50 miles. Who knows in this thing. But something inside told me that it wasn't going to.

Of course this is Ironman, so these wonderfully confident, soaring spirits disappeared rapidly when 3000 milliliters of pee collected in a bladder designed to accomodate 250 and I just passed a potty stop. For those taking detailed notes? Skip a bathroom break during the bike ride at Ironman if you really want to be in a bad mood. That turns things right upside-wonky real fast, don't ya know. I was the whiniest sonofabitch in my own head, at that point, until the first turn-around at mile 53. At that point I found a little side road with some easy trees nearby to serve as my rest stop. This is not recommended, by the way, but I considered it an emergent situation. I laughed while I relieved my aching bladder, now most likely resembling a deflated beach ball. It felt sooooo good to get back on the bike without that extra 15 pounds of fluid.

I rode easy back into town. I was beginning to loathe the idea of having to ride this all again, but realized at the same instant that I was slowly but surely having the best day possible. No problems of real consequence. No road rash. No mechanical problems. Eating and drinking. The head wind was a little troublesome going back south into town and again out east, but I again took it easy. My particular plan was 16ish mph for the first 56, then 17ish for the second 56 IF I felt ok. I rode these speeds so much in training that I didnt have a speedometer with me, but I knew when my speed was correct. In town I rode by a screaming Wife and Gerking family, which really made me feel great about things. I felt fast, which was nice for a change. My legs were a little tired, and somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered feeling like this in some other long bike rides and wondered if I had enough left.

You are what you eat. I hope Granola and Sustain are fast triathletes.

I was plenty hydrated, as evidenced by the 5 pee breaks I took on the bike ride. I had a nice system for fluids; my aero bottle up-front received pure water at aid stations and on my bottle containers behind my seat I kept triple-strength Sustain (from Melaleuca in case you want the best sports drink around). I would ask for a bottle of water at every aid station and fill the aero bottle part of the way and then reach back and add some Sustain until it tasted like I was used to. In this way I only carried two bike bottles and my aero and could control my salt intake with fluids before I resorted to my Endurolyte tablets. I didn't dig into those until mile 101. I ate two granola bars early in the ride; one at mile 35 and one at mile 50. I read somewhere that if you feel good: EAT. You will need it and its not often you feel good during Ironman. So I did. I ate a Clif bar over several miles. I followed the food with water. I even snagged some bananas and some yummy Chocolate Brownie Powerbar chunks. I was a well fed Ironboy. But the hills were starting to take a toll.

You might remember how I said the easy gears on my tri-bike are not so easy. This makes the hills we were riding very much more challenging. The gearing on my bike allows me to cover much more ground per pedal stroke than those around me, but the effort required to get the pedals around is quite large. I started to feel extremely fatigued at mile 70 and I started hearing funny things from the devils in my head. It became a challenge just to climb average hills and I debated whether or not I should charge up them just for the sake of getting them over with. This idea didn't win me over, thankfully, and I plodded along with the same group of cyclists until something extremely miraculous occurred. I remember it started when I stopped to pee for the last time on the bike, at the base of this hill--the last real hill we had, in fact. I asked the girl who was holding my bike (its amazing, the volunteers will hold your bike for you while you use the Honey Bucket and they actually will gather anything you ask for from the aid station) if she could collect a couple of PowerGels and a bottle of water, which she said she could. I thanked her a few too many times and did my business. When I came out, I felt pretty rotten about the state of my legs and having to try to suffer through a marathon. Thats when it started.

I realized I hadn't gotten to the marathon yet, and I put it out of my mind. I took the gels and water and ate one of them followed with a couple swigs. I put the other in my pocket. I stretched my glutes and hammies for a moment and then mounted my bike to head up the hill. Here is the amazing part: I felt completely different. I literally flew up that hill, as if it wasn't a hill and my bike was not gear-challenged. I decided not to tempt fate by pushing it, as I had already seen how quickly Ironman puts you on your ass for testing it, but it struck me heavily that perhaps all was not lost. I held a little higher tempo on the hills than I had the whole previous 80 miles. At mile 101 I rode up a gentle slope, not even a hill, really, to my friend Jimmy who gave me a hard time by telling me I really shouldn't play with myself in the bathroom so often. As much as I wanted to comment on his gravitationally enhanced racing belly, I remained silent and focused, and kept pedaling past him. Of course he was spurred on by my sudden energy and passed me when it leveled out. This time he didn't get very far.

We came down some curvy downhills back towards civilization. On a particular, slight uphill which came around a corner into a very long, level straightaway, I put my foot on the accelerator. It was a perfect moment for me. It was as close to art as I have felt on a bike ride. I had been patient until mile 105 and now it was time. I knew it. Jimmy disappeared behind me and I heard him say "Come back here!" I reeled in cyclist after cyclist that I had seen in the young miles of the bike ride and I seemed to be getting stronger with every stroke. I didn't push the speed more, but instead held a nice aero position all the way into town. I was flying through town and smiling the entire way. My Ironman race had arrived. As I pulled into the transition area I saw Gerking, climbing like a monkey on a wall, and he saw me smile. It was a terrific moment that will stay with me for a long while: I knew it right then, I was going to finish this thing.

Not so fast, soldier.

I looked up at the sky and measured the angle of the sun over the horizon. I hadn't worn any sort of time-keeping instrument and had absolutely no idea what my time was. I didn't care so much, but I was in a rough spot and needed something to pull me home. I needed a goal to shoot for that would continue to lift one tired foot in front of the other. I decided that I was going to finish before the sun set. I had about 30 degrees of sky left to work with. I estimated that would take at least an hour and a half for the sun to set, and I could finish before then.

I was walking. It was almost mile 22. I had been reduced to not only walking the aid-stations, which I did the entire marathon up to this point already, but also walking every other half-mile. I jogged for a while and caught up to a man also walking. I slowed and walked with him at mile 23, when I noted for the first time by way of a reader board that I had been racing for 11 hours and 57 minutes. "Its amazing how we have been out here for so long already, and here we are this close to the finish, and we can't seem to run!" I said to him, chuckling. Our walks both looked pretty convalescent at this stage.

"You are telling me." He looked at me and smiled in return. In Ironman its never really about you against everyone else, its you against yourself. And I loved sharing these moments with some of my fellow athletes.

I offered him my hand and introduced myself. "My name is Aaron. I don't know what you think, but I think we should jog to the bottom of that next hill and then see how we feel again."

"Yeah, that sounds ok." He chuckled. "I was thinking about that, too. Jes' needed some motivatin'."

As we jogged together, we had what I call the "Ironman Fireside Chat" which involves a short introduction and exchange of biography between two athletes doing the same thing at the same time for the same sorts of reasons from amazingly different backgrounds, and was repeated thousands of times during each event. I started thinking about all the people who were going to be walking and jogging over the same ground I was now jogging, but still in hours to come. I wondered what kept them going, what was their "reason." In the dark they would persist as long as they were allowed. They were the inspirational athletes, I thought.

At the bottom of the hill, my companion told me to have a good run and slowed to a walk. I slowed and shook his hand again and thanked him for helping me. Ironman showed me courage, showed me kindness, and showed me teamwork--in a sport that isn't supposed to involve teams. A short while ago I was smoking-fast toward mile 21, looking at potentially a 3:45 marathon. Two miles later I was walking, hurting, looking for that reason the get me running again. And I smiled because I was going to finish. Walking or jogging, heck, even crawling, nothing was going to stop me.

When you feel good, its fun.

I dropped my bike off to the great volunteers who were always smiling and so happy to do everything for you, and jogged over to my bike-to-run transition bag. I had just ridden the fastest 15 miles at the end of a 112 mile ride ever and my legs felt remarkably fresh. I was in terrific spirits and joked and smiled with everyone around me who gave me the opportunity. I saw a lot of other athletes not having good days and I tried my best to give them a reason to smile. I know, though, that when we are suffering nothing helps. Especially staring down the barrel of a loaded... marathon.

I entered the transition tent and cheerfully greeted me helper monkey, yet ANOTHER wonderful volunteer. He grabbed the bag from me and insisted that he do this for me. At that moment I thanked him for being there and for his kindness, and although I felt good, I bet there were a lot of folks NOT feeling good who needed him more than I did. Anyway, he dumped the bag and helped me sort through it, even fixing my race belt for me. As I was taking off my bike jersey who should run in the tent but my friend Donnie, who I chatted with on the beach. I laughed loudly and gave him a hug. "DUDE!" I yelled at him. It was like making it up the beach at Normandy with my best buddy who also lived through it. "Its great to see you here!"

"Wow, I am glad you made it out of the washing machine!" His exact words, no shit. "I couldn't believe that business! And you had a good bike ride, yeah?" He was grinning from ear to ear as he took care of his T2 business.

"It was according to plan, and finished better than I could have ever imagined. Now I am excited to run, can you believe it? What are you shooting for, 4 hours on the run?" I winked at him. I was giddy, truly, at this moment. I figured that you don't feel this good during Ironman too often, so I needed to enjoy it.

"I don't think so, boss. But I hope it works out for you, my man. See ya out there, Aaron."

I ran out of the tent to where a team of women volunteers were smothering us nasty, stinky, sweaty, tired athletes with sunscreen. It had gotten warm out there and running in the sun was on tap. I stopped and one of the women gave me a nice little rub-down on my legs, which I asked her to continue for a moment. She did, bless her heart, and it felt goooood. Next thing I know, I am running through a narrow chute lined with people just above the beach where the most awful swim on earth took place several hours earlier. I looked at the water, now calmer than it was while I was suffering in it, and thought, "I did it. You can't stop me now."

I passed the Gerkings again and tried not to run too fast. I wanted to make it to mile 18 as well as I could and then see what happened. I had run enough marathons to know that I don't really "feel" it until 10 miles or so. This was the beginning and again, I needed to race the way I trained. Jeremy told me I looked great, but I thought he may have been just being nice. I did feel pretty peppy, though, and hoped it would last. That thought sure did occur a lot that day.

The aid stations were amazing during the marathon. It was a buffet of drinks and foods. I opted to start slow and just sipped Gatorade the first 5 miles. I hadn't settled in, yet, and was scared to have that much fluid sloshing around in my belly. After mile 5 I started sucking on the bottles I was packing in Jeremy's race belt, which I enjoyed much more than the Gatorade. I felt terrific and decided to push the pace. Not a huge jump in effort; still within the plan. It was really getting warm so I started taking sponges and inserting them in my hat. That was nice.

My legs kept on feeling better. I drank more, and was holding it down, and even peed a few times. I think I was doing about 9 minute miles and holding steady. I was passing so many people it was unbelievable. There were a couple people running by me, and they were REALLY fun to watch--as if they were out running a 10K or something. I walked through every aid station, talking to people, enjoying a beverage, and started stretching every 3 miles after mile 10. I ran back into town, which was about mile 15 or so, and passed a guy who I had met in the pool recently. I hate to admit it, but I felt proud of myself and then immediately felt bad for my pride when I jogged passed him, because he had seemed so fit and was a dominating swimmer, and was already reduced to walking. Perhaps he would be jogging past me in a while. My wife was there on the east side of town with the dog, and it was really a pick-up to see them. I pushed the pace, probably up to about 8 minute miles, which was definitely NOT in the plan. Was this a mistake? I don't really know. I felt good, my goal was to finish, and it was pretty clear that I could finish. How soon would I finish? That was subject to debate.

I screamed through town, with spectators commenting on how strong I looked. Whether they meant it or not didn't matter. I imagined they did. I was running past an awful lot of tired triathletes at this point, and I still had 10 miles to go. On my next push through downtown I started to feel my strength dwindle just a little, but I still thought I was fine. I saw the Gerkings again, and Jan was there cheering loudly. I loved seeing them on the course. Once through town I stopped to walk at another aid station and definitely noticed something different. It was mile 18. I made it to the end of my race plan...

I slowed down considerably and jogged up to a woman who looked remarkably fresh. Her name was Andrea and she told me it was her first Ironman, and she was just on her first lap. She was radiant--she just seemed too happy, as if we were jogging around the park on a warm Sunday afternoon. I told her I was on my second lap and looking forward to getting done. She said she hoped she looked as good on her second lap. I smiled at her, and told her "...looks can be deceiving, but thank you." Her watch beeped and she told me it was time for her walk break. I admired her planning and her discipline, and continued to run on alone amongst the others running alone. It wasn't until I was on my way back in that I noticed she only had one arm.
If anything, Ironman teaches us humility.

A little help from my friends.

The same guy who I had seen run past me four times during the marathon was only about 20 feet in front of me. I increased my speed, now walking briskly. That's Ironman. I caught up to him at this particular corner just east of town, at about 24.5 miles into the thing. The Ironman Fireside Chat ensued. His name was Eric and he was a teacher/track coach from Oak Harbor, WA. As everyone seems to, during Ironman, we felt we had a lot in common at the moment. Maybe we did or maybe not--it didn't matter. What mattered is that we were each, to each other, an anchor. I anchored to him and him to me.

"I was thinking about running from mile 25 in, man." I said to him. We then rounded a corner at the water's edge and about 200 feet in front of us was the mile 25 sign. My heart did a back flip at being so close to the finish, but then sank as Eric replied,

"Well you are in luck, thats about in 15 seconds." He laughed and slapped me roughly on the back. He said he just wanted to finish in 13 hours or less. He said now he definitely would.

"Damn," I said. "I thought I had more time than that." I laughed and told him if he didn't start running now, it may not happen. He started to jog and so I reluctantly jogged with him. He jogged at a little quicker pace than I felt comfortable and I told him I might now be able to hang the entire way. It immediately struck me how incredibly stupid that statement was, because when, during Ironman, are you very comfortable?

"You WILL stay with me, man. Come on now."

An amazing thing happens at the end of Ironman. Eric and I ran together, steadily increasing in speed, until this intersection I had gone by 7 previous times during the day. The intersection has these cones and chalk words on it. The far right says "First lap, stay right." The far left says "Finishing Stay Left" with an arrow to the left. I had looked at that stupid writing all day feeling like I was never, ever going to "stay left." I told Eric my little story and he agreed, saying he had similar thoughts during the day. He thanked me for giving him the motivation to keep running. I couldn't prevent the tears that ensued, and neither could he.

"Aren't we a dandy pair of Iron-men??" He said to me, smiling.

The final turn of our almost 13 hour day was now 15 feet in front of us. Everything we had worked for, individually, over the last 4 or 5 months-- or maybe more-- had been building to THIS moment. The thought hit me hard and I was overwhelmed. We had been through enormous, cold, dark, nauseating waves filled with violent, swirling athletes; 112 miles of cold and then hot temperatures climbing hilly country roads in the wind on the bike; and now this roller-coaster marathon that would never end. The turn was now at our feet and I said to Eric, "Are you ready for the most amazing moment of your life?" I was smiling from ear to ear.

"Absolutely. This is going to be amazing." And with that, we turned the corner and looked straight down to what had to be heaven.

You could hear the announcer from mile 25, but it was too far, still, to feel good. After 139.4 miles, that one little 1.2 mile stretch felt like a thousand miles and a lifetime away. But then you turn that final corner and nothing matters.

Through the whole race the spectators crowd narrow paths for us to ride or run through. At some points, we could hardly see 20 feet in front of us with the crowd around the bike lane, cheering and waving their arms madly. The final stretch into the finish chute is different. We turn the final corner and look a quarter mile down this street where the onlookers are on the sidewalks, and to our eyes, the street looks about a mile wide. You feel like you are on stage, running slightly downhill, towards this concentration of light and noise. It is like running to heaven through a perfect dream. The screaming, the voice over the speakers, and the light all wait for you if you just can get there. The whole day they were there, but we couldn't acknowledge them. It was there during the swim, it was there during the hills, and during my desperate stops for cola in the aid stations at mile 22 of the marathon. But only now can I acknowledge it.

The flood gates open as I run down the final stretch toward the finish chute. My eyes flood with tears and I shake my clenched fists in the air. I did it, I tell myself. I did it. In that brief time I think about Jan and the time and energy she spent to help me get there. I think about the rainy rides and the early mornings and the miserable days she put-up with. I think about the swim and how hard it was. I really did it and I did it with help from wonderful people.

Jeremy appears on the side a few hundred feet before the stands, which are packed with spectators. It is incredible and breathtaking to see this. I have waited years for this moment, and watched others experienced it many times, anxious yet scared to try. I dreamt about how it might feel--and my expectations fell far short of reality. As I ran toward the glow and energy, I realized it was going to be over too soon, so I slowed and let the people in front of me get through the chute and across the line and try to enjoy it longer. My legs were numb and my heart was pounding as I entered the grandstands filled with screaming people. This is it, I tell myself. This is what it's about. The lights got bright in my eyes, and I was the happiest man on earth when I heard "Aaron Moss, from Kenmore, Washington--YOU Are an Ironman." Nothing else matters.

I am an Ironman.

I am an Ironman.

"Aaron Moss, YOU are an Ironman!"
~The official "voice of Ironman" as I crossed the line.





I did it. Its over. Its 9:45 PM and I am showered and feeling probably as lousy as I can ever remember, but its hard to feel bad because I am so ecstatic. I had to get online and let people who might read this know.

With a total time of 12:44:something, I finished. I finished healthy, almost in tears, and happy. And fucking tired.

I love Ironman volunteers. There should be a special award given, like the Oscars or Emmys, to the best volunteers. Ironman has the best volunteers on the planet, hands down. They made my race possible.

The swim was the hardest hour and a half of my whole life. I have never EVER swam in waves that big---even the ocean. They even gave us the option of skipping the swim and doing a duathlon because it was so bad.

I will write a full race report later.

Ready...or not. Its time.

"To follow without halt, one aim; there is the secret of success. And success? What is it? I do not find it in the applause of the theater; it lies rather in the satisfaction of accomplishment."
~Anna Pavlova





Its 2:30 PM on Saturday the 23rd of June. I am in Starbucks typing away, enjoying an "Antioxidance" Odwalla drink, trying to quiet the demons in my mind. And they are loud, with megaphones and freakin' lazers on their heads.

The jitters have disappeared more rapidly since I have left the race central area, where the tension is thicker than a nice mouse intestine slurry, 2:1 PBS to tissue ratio, of course...

Tomorrow is it. The big show. Now. There has been so much build up for so long and THEN the build up of this weekend; the meetings, endless lines, bike things, tune-ups, rests, meal plannings, numberings etc, that I am all Ironmanned out.

I just have to run the darn thing. So here goes. I am as ready as I can be.

The next thing I write will be my race report. Cheers. Thanks to everyone for your help and support. Loves.

The Eve of the Eve...

"Peace is not only better than war, but infinitely more arduous."
~George Bernard Shaw








Its 9:!5 and we just got back to the room after the MANDATORY Race Meeting. Yikes, that was a huge confusing waste of effort. I wont even go into details. I will instead go to bed because I am going to need my energy come Sunday.

Its been four and a half months of building up to this point, and I have heard everyone else's theories, stories, myths and advice and its time for me, now, to develop my own. I am scared, and thats ok. I have a quote on my desk at school that says courage is not the absence of fear, but merely the choice that something else is more important than fear. That applies now more than I could have hoped.

I viewed the bike course which is, to say the least, a beast. A hilly beast.

Peace is more arduous than war. I spent four months finding peace on my bike over long miles of hardship. Will I find peace on Sunday or will it be war?

Till tomorrow. Have to get my bags and bike race ready.

I am an Iron-Virgin.

"All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand."
~Steven Wright






Today was great.
Woke up at 7, ate a nice little breakfast, got the car loaded with swim stuff, bike stuff and dog stuff, headed to the race start and proceeded to freeze my ass off in 3 foot swells. Holy moly. I suppose it wasn't too bad. After about a half mile it felt ok; my brain was too numb to complain or feel nauseous from gulping down about 15 gallons of yummy lake water. Mmm.

My brave wife tried out her brand new wetsuit for the first time. Needless to say this was probably not the best occasion for a first time wetsuit try out open water swim session, but I assured her "it only gets easier."

After I got me land legs back, we hopped on our bikes and rode the run course, turn for turn. Beautious. Its perfect. I predict that I will be miserable for 26 miles. However, I will be much less miserable on this course than I would be on many other marathon courses. And, if I play my cards right during the 112 miles before that, I could potentially have a great run. It truly is sweet.

After all the exercise it was time to get my race packet. I stood in the line for about 40 minutes before I got into the STRING of tents, inside of which non competitors are not allowed. I peered nervously into the tent from my distant line-bound perch, but could make out nothing. When I got in the tent they had, after a few short forms, someone sit me down and chat with me, all while assembling my packet, about my Ironman/Triathlon experience...yeah. This was a little weird in that Job Interview feeling. I found myself wondering if maybe they werent going to buy my story and deny me entry or something. But no, on my way with chip, cool Ironman bag and official shiny Ironman wrist-band. Now its official: I am an Ironwanna-be.

Well its 8 and that means its bed time. Later, yo.

yes, made my reservations for Saturday dinner. The best part? Its at 4 PM. HA!

Arriving in Ironmanland

"I never set out to be weird. It was always the other people who called me weird."
~Frank Zappa







You know you are in an Ironman Town when...

...the 6 people in the line at the hotel's front desk in front of you try, and fail, to get rooms that same night and have been to every other hotel in town with the same result.

...the price of a $55 dollar room is $89. For one weekend out of the year.

...all of the cottage cheese, cream-hair-removal products, and bottled water are sold out of the "convenience marts" nearby, because no one knows there is a supermarket just three blocks away.

...the average body fat % drops to below 10% one weekend during the year whereas normally its 25%.


So its Wednesday night and I am in Coeur D' Alene, ID. Ironman is Sunday. I am nervous, but more tired than nervous. It was a long drive from Seattle and its hot. Very HOT.

Tomorrow morning I will be up at 7, down to RACE CENTRAL at 8:30, swimming by 9. Then a ride around the run course and then packet pick-up and perusing the expo. Should be a good day. I cant wait to go to sleep. We brought much of our own food so it will be easy to handle the morning affairs, for a change. Nothing like being an over-prepared Virgo.

Till Tomorrow.

Its Coming Down to This.

"Those who are warriors can master anything, but first they must master themselves."









4 months I have been training, but the build-up has been happening for 7 years. in 1998 a few of my friends did Ironman and every year since, with the lone exception of 1999, someone I know has competed in an Ironman event, somewhere.

I run out of fingers and toes before I am finished counting all the times some of these folks have urged me to "go long," but the truth is we are the only ones who know, inside of ourselves, when the time is right. Its startling to many when a person is so steadfast about something, some think its fear and others laziness. But I knew, all these years, that I wasnt ready. Until 2006.

I have been training non-stop since the first weekend of February of this year, but I really count the 9 previous years of triathlon as integral training as well. Without that background in humility, triumph, and tradition in the sport of triathlon I would not have finally been ready to jump in to the big dance. Ironman Coeur D Alene 2007. So I signed up.

I havent really written about this occasion much until today, for reasons I cant wholly describe. Some people who actually have read this might think its not a big deal. That is absolutely the farthest thing from the truth. Mainly,I feel it is the intensity of the situation I have placed myself in doesnt leave much emotional energy left each day to write about it. Its a very difficult thing for me to place into words. I have been so focused on this, Ironman, that the idea of stopping to spill my emotions and thoughts about it here on this blog feels like a "leak" of some of that powerful emotion that I have been riding toward June 24th, race day. Some people might believe I am making too big of a deal out of this.
I don't.

I have seen great and not-so-great Ironman days. The funny thing for me is, they all looked great. The miserable and the triumphant all are victory, as long as the finish line was crossed. I have trained for 4 months and taken thousands of dollars and hours for preparation and training. I am now a zen- master of my physiology at this point, with the exquisite ability to sense what my body is craving at a particular instant as well as how to suck every bit of energy from my starving muscles over the course of 12 hours. I believe that I owe all of the people I have counted on so heavily for this last 4 months to have a great day.

And, more importantly, I owe myself.

So I havent written because I did not want to "leak" any of the power and emotion I have been building up. And I see it as power. I do not see my emotional build up and focus as a "weird" thing or as dangerous, because I have kept it positive and constructive. I see this emotional build-up as one of the necessary ingredients to a successufl, maximized race day. I have not written, but the mental, physical and emotional journey has been relentless and incredible and wonderful. I feel on the brink of tears just thinking about the path I have traveled in 4 short months. To describe it would have taken the magic out of it, because you can not describe this sort of thing. You can not, absolutely can not, understand it fully until you experience it yourself. Period.

Surely it has been a balancing act; walking the tight-rope between training and overtraining. I became ill just after my biggest week of training, 2 weeks ago. Actually, I probably caught the virus DURING that week and it manifested the following week. I heeded the instructions of physicians, friends and heros and "took it easy for a week." I eased back into a sort of scaled-back training (we are less than 2 weeks out) trying to undo my sudden over-taper without killing my race day. The result is I feel better than ever today, 10 days before Ironman.

After the race I do not know what to expect. I cant even bring myself to think about post-race yet. It doesnt exist.

I do not even know what to expect when I stand in the water next to 1999 other freaked out, emotional, nervous wrecks waiting for the canon. But at that moment I know I will think back and remember seeing my beautiful wife in the swim lane next to me so many days, and think of her with me during so many bike rides of the worst weather I have ever ridden in. I could always look back and see that familiar cadence and that beautiful smile no matter how nasty the weather was, how many hours it took. Without complaint, without pause, she has been as relentless a training partner, coach and companion as she has a supporter and wife. She will be with me as I slip into the water beginning my day and I might feel a little sad that its coming to the end of the journey. I am more thankful than she will ever possibly know for the last four months we have had together. I know it wasnt easy to be with a wanna-be Ironman, and I love her for her constant effort and unselfish support.

Maybe I will think about all the times I have watched my best friend, Jeremy, going through this exact experience on his own race days. Even though I havent trainined with him this year, I feel closer to him than ever having gone through this. Now I have a little bit of insight into just how tough, how disciplined and how driven he is. He has always been a hero of mine, and now I feel, a little, like I understand him better: I am in awe.

So the countdown has begun. Its hard to think about anything else, really. I am nervous and excited and yet sad all at the same time. Jeremy described Ironman as like your birthday and christmas and at the same time the worst day ever all at once. Yikes. Awesome. Yikes. Awesome. I have certainly eaten enough for five families over the last few months, and I am looking forward to getting back to some normalcy, for sure. First I have an Ironman to do. I hope, I sinerely hope, I can stick to my plan well enough such that I can experience my day. I want to live it, not just get through it.

Thats it until sometime after.

Whispers of Home

"Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success."

~Oscar Wilde





As a warning, this entry is probably not worth reading. Thoughts to page, not a shred of filter. Most likely this will offend someone. Most likely it will make someone else laugh. Most likely it is crap all the way around.

Last week I lost my driver's license. It was gone, without any trace or hint of what might have happened to it. I had set my mind to the task of replacing it, because it had fallen into a void where things go once lost. It rarely happens to me; I put extra effort into being careful not to lose things, especially important personal things, and as a result this small, insignificant event disturbed me. That fact alone should probably be disturbing.

I do not generally have much faith in people--much faith that people will do the "right" or "good" thing by another person, especially if no one is looking or paying attention. What I generally see in my day to day existence is a species of being that will gladly step all over and poison its neighbor if 1) This will benefit their own position and 2) They can get away with it. By and large, number 2 seems to be an important driver of daily human choice--will I get away with this?

I assumed my license was gone and that I just should replace it. Instead I received a plain envelope in the mail, yesterday, with a simple note folded around--you guessed it--my license. Some person had kindly mailed it to the address on the license (which thankfully was current) and put a note. There was no name. No return address. Nothing but where they found it, and the license. I smiled from ear to ear when I opened the envelope, feeling quite sure I knew what was inside. I wasnt smiling because I had my license back and it meant less effort for me, that thought had not yet occurred to me.

I smiled because I had never been so happy to be proven wrong.

Earlier that day, yesterday, a woman was shot to death at the University of Washington where I am a graduate student, in a nearby building. Then the man who shot her shot himself. What, then, was the point of ending her life, if all he intended to do at that point was end his own? Logic does not even become a factor in this type of equation, however I just cant help but wonder what drives a person to make a choice like this. I would assume you would kill someone because you dont want them around anymore. So then what would be the point of killing yourself? I suppose I do not need to ponder or know these things, but I cant help but consider it. I spent much of the rest of the day after hearing about this tragedy contemplating my lack of personal safety no matter where I was, as a result of how ruthless, selfish, uncaring and immoral human beings are.

At any moment we really do not know what could or will happen, or when our last breath will be. We do not know any more than right here, right now. And another person can and does have the power to end it all whenever they want. I felt helpless thinking about having to survive among a whole earth teeming with people.

And then I got my license in the mail.

When my head stops swimming I will write something worth reading.

Brown Trout for Governor

"I think it's about time we voted for senators with breasts. After all, we've been voting for boobs long enough."

~Clarie Sargent, Arizona senatorial candidate








The Steelhead is the state fish of Washington. I bet many people don't realize this.

The Steelhead, pound for pound, is about the hardest fighting salmonid you can fish for in the Northwest freshwater system. Its a beautifully evolved hunting machine and when you are fortunate enough that one of these beautiful creatures graces you with its hard earned life, fought for over eons, they are pretty tasty.



I bet most people also don't realize that the state gem is Petrified Wood. Wait a minute, does that COUNT as a GEM, really? I mean, come on! I bring home a small white box for my wife. She opens it, expectantly, and then shreiks in horror. I ask her whats wrong and she holds up something that looks like a string of marbles. "Isnt it a beauty?" I tell her, quite proud of myself. "Its a Petrified Wood Tennis Bracelet, sugar dumpling!"

See, this just doesn't work. Petrified wood as our state gem? Why not petrified avian guano? Were all the good gems taken before we had a chance to pick? Idaho is "The Gem State" and I bet they have a sweet state gem. Its the "Star Garnet" which you can ONLY find in Idaho and India. Thats pretty amazing. The only other thing you find in Idaho and no where else is a Libertarian who actually collects more than 1% of the vote.

Washington? We preserve trees and bad governors for so long that they become rocks. Not that I don't think our waffling governor de jeur is so bad, but she is about as consistant as tapioca pudding. But I digress. Petrified wood is the topic, and its our state GEM. We collect this stuff in Washington, I guess. Then we apparently convinced someone that this is rare and valuable. Heck, there is a WHOLE FOREST of petrified trees somewhere in the southwest, I wonder if they are as proud of their collection as we are here in the Evergreen State.

While we are dumping on Washington I think we need a new State Song. No offense or disrespect to good ol' Woodie Guthrie--and maybe just having a state song written by a guy whose name is Woodie is enough reason to keep it--but, well, I don't know that it exemplifies the spirit I like to think about characterizing this state. I was thinking something more along the lines of "Burn One Down" by Ben Harper. Or better yet, to stay native to Washington, "Voodoo Chile" by Jimi Hendrix. Then again it might be better to satisfy the angry youth in our state by selecting a more well known, recent, local artist like Nirvana. We could be the first state with a State Music Video, and definitely the first that has won awards. The first state whose state song was written by a guy that has sold more albums dead than alive, altogether within the same 20 year span.

Not that I don't love my state; its really fun to sit on the computer and get good and frustrated as the ultra liberals of Western Washington clash with the scared liberals in Olympia. The scared liberals of our state government, I am convinced, are just a stones throw shy of being conservative. Its all a gradient and relative. In Utah, the most liberal liberal is still more conservative than our most conservative conservative. Did you get that? Heck, its all the same bullshit. The conservatives and liberals are so similar that its hard to tell who I am insulting anymore. So I insult everyone.

And then we have cookies.

I Was Told There Would be No Math.

“Evil requires the sanction of the victim.”

~Ayn Rand





When I grade the tests of 90 pharmacy students taking clinical pharmacokinetics and one of them writes an answer that doesn't "make sense," or is correct in concept but wrong in some details, the first thing I think to myself is "shoot, we didn't teach it well enough." How many times have any of my professors in this often wretched department ever said that?

Once.

Dr Levy, in fact, and he said it to me. Once during a journal review session and I was attempting to answer a question. I started out by saying "I know we heard this in this other class, but I dont think I remember it very well and I am sorry for that..." or something along those lines. Dr Levy interrupted me and told me that the faculty should be the ones apologizing, not me, for it is among their duties to instruct such that we can remember.

I have never heard such a peep from any of the other faculty. They would rather hide behind the excuse of Graduate School Level Expectations than take responsibility for being a shitty teacher.

So I sit at night grading tests, knowing exactly how hard it is for these future pharmacists with a humungous class load, and I wonder how well they are being taught. I see them miss easy computations and I first wonder what should have been done to prepare them better. Of course there is always the factor of the student spending time on the material, but these are a very select few in the pharmacy school and we have to assume that at this level of competition mixed with education that studying is occurring based on the prioritization of classes and grades and subject matter. And the variable that is left is instruction.

I have the advantage of knowing the material almost as well as the professors, at this point, for most of the subjects. Because of that I can watch them without the fear of not knowing, and it provides some startling illuminations on their own fears of inadequacy and lack of teaching ability. What scares me more than anything else is that the sense of ego is so strong for them all, with the exception of Dr. Levy, that it is more difficult for them to accept some responsibility and perhaps improve the learning of the students at their mercy than it is to point the finger at the students and assume they just aren't working hard enough.

I was told there would be no math. But the math happened and I didn't understand it the first time. Now its too late.

If Memory Serves Me Right.

“It isn't that they can't see the solution. It's that they can't see the problem."

--G. K. Chesterton







This morning I was struck by the beauty of memory. My memory. The power of memory and its uncanny ability to shape us through our perception of its part in our "becoming". Our perception of memory is an important thing to consider as a human, because in its strange, circular way, it shapes us. But then we shape memory. And then it shapes us again...we begin to see how people become insane when surrounded by nothing but their own thoughts.

How often we consider something in our past as important in our life is really only the sum of 1) how we have re-shaped that vision over time based on our other experiences and 2) how we "took" the situation in the first place. And over time our original perception becomes a smaller and smaller part of that equation until, at last, our original perception becomes virtually negligible--save for the commentary of storytelling.

I remember sitting on my front porch when I was young--somewhere between 7 and 10. I remember the mornings of summer when there was no school and the feel of the astroturf covering our front porch warming in the expaninding sunlight. The smell of grass and evergreen bushes freshly groomed mingled with the sounds of bees harassing me, dogs barking, and sparrows nearby finding breakfast in the lawn. I remember the sound of the screen door as it slammed shut because I was in too much of a hurry to be careful with it. Usually reprimanded for it.

I was a busy kid. Always busy doing something outside that inevitably got me into trouble. I guess somethings arent destined to remain in our past, after all...

I remember the way the dew soaked through my shoes and pants as I ran through lawns and mistakenly sat down, thinking it had been dry. But more than anything, the memory of sitting on the steps on my front porch in the sun in those young summers has stuck with me. Waiting for life, seeing small flying insects rising from the lawn in the space where shade meets light and not knowing anything about anything from anything. Its beautiful in retrospect. It brings me to tears. That particular part of my life was not exceptionally happy, for many reasons. I took the decay of my family upon myself, and as such I feel like I missed out on the youth I could have enjoyed. I would like to go back in memory and make that kid enjoy more and smile more and love more. I would like to go back and tell him that the things happening around him arent his fault, and this isnt how life really is. Some day he will have a memory of this moment so perfect it doesn't include the feelings of pain he does not yet understand.

Memory is a powerful tool, but it is also a very sharp sword. If handled improperly it can certainly be a means by which we distort ourselves beyond repair. I remember everything, I think, somewhere in my brain. But for some reason only certain parts leak out and at the strangest times. I feel like I have changed my outlook on things which causes memories to come back to me in a different light depending on where in my life I am. But then again, when I seriously consider myself, its only a skin deep fraction of my outlook that has changed, mostly involving my confidence in myself. But my basic constitution is still Me--it hasnt really changed. I think most of us are really who we are from day one and then forever. I just believe that we put on different faces for a while, and for some its a face for how we interact, for others its a face of being more optimistic, maybe for some its work ethic.

I remember and therefore I am. Without my memory I would have nothing. Therefore it is probably my most valuable asset even though at times it is certainly my worst enemy.

Twitchy.

"Time heals all wounds, unless you pick at them."

--Shaun Alexander





I have this chronically twitching eyelid. It started when I started grad school. I recently found this website regarding eye-twitching and am not surprised by what I found.

Medline Plus Medical Encyclopedia


"The most common things that make the muscle in your eyelid twitch are fatigue, stress, and caffeine. Once spasms begin, they may continue off and on for a few days. Then, they disappear. Most people experience this type of eyelid twitch on occasion and find it very annoying. In most cases, you won't even notice when the twitch has stopped."

Gee, really?


"Eyelid twitching usually disappears without treatment. In the meantime, the following steps may help:

Get more sleep.
Drink less caffeine.
Lubricate your eyes with eye drops.
If twitching is severe, small injections of Botulinum toxin can temporarily cure the spasms."


Again, what a shock.

Weathering the Storm.

"If you're going through hell, keep going."

~Winston Churchill






When I graduate from school I am first going to enjoy a keg of Guinness. Yes, all by myself. Well, that is to say, I will enjoy my very own keg of Guinness hopefully in the presence of some fine people. Such as my wonderful wife. (Happy Valentines day, girl!)

After recovering from Alcohol poisoning, in random order, we will go to Europe.

Sometime in the not too distant future a boat or two will become ours. I have agreed that the first will have a motor and be something we can cruise in, say, to Alaska and back. Something we can live comfortably aboard for some time. And then, THEN, after that we will get a sail boat.

Yes this is a lofty goal, and probably reading them has made you believe I need therapy. Its true, but who doesn't? And besides, anyone who has been sailing knows that the power of the wind in a sail has the uncanny ability to focus even the most scatterbrained of individuals, and provides the best therapy I have ever known. So therefore I need therapy because I want therapy... or something.

Anyway, I crave the water. I crave high seas and the sound of the winch winding up my jib. The slosh of water into the cockpit and the gurgle as it slowly drains. The squeak of the pulleys and rhythmic noises of a living sailboat...oh man, its therapy just thinking about it here at my desk. Somehow, the real cares of life disappear when you sail. And no one who has sailed has ever told me otherwise. I mean SAILED. Not just been on a sailboat or motored in a sailboat. And no one who hasn't will understand this.

My wife has never sailed. And while I am out of practice at this point for anything over 20 feet, I would gladly spend a day making mistakes to bring it all back. Someday it will be.

"If you do not know to which port you sail, there is no such thing as a favorable wind."

Freegan Living

“See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.”

--Robin Williams






Apparently there exists an entire group of people who survive comfortably on the by-products of other individuals. Usually wealthier individuals. I suppose the purpose is supposed to make some sort of statement, but, to tell the truth, it seems just weird.

I think I am just tired of people "making statements." And I guess there have always been these things, this tug-of war, for as long as we have had the ability to communicate.

Do people take up a cause for the right reasons?

Anyway, here is something new to me.


Freegans


And more freegans...

Flicks of Toothpaste on the Mirror

"There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad."

--Salvador Dali






I have a serious issue. More like a real problem.

I was watching a nice, young, hard-working UW student of some variety having a struggle. They were pacing, obviously distressed. The problem was they did not know in which bin to place their potentially recyclable material.

What does this have to do with me?

Here this person was; an obviously responsible, environmentaly friendly and concerned citizen who actually recruited a friend in this crusade. And there I was, picturing a convoluted scenario based on my problem.

I pictured this fine person (who eventually made a choice to place their valued recyclable into a certain bin) walking away from the bin feeling quite good about the world because the fate of that particular piece of plastic was now in the hands of some happy, well-mannered, caring individuals who magically turn plastic we use and toss into a bin back into some usable product once again. And that's good, because less is piling up in virgin forests or ice rafts and killing small helpless owls and baby seals. The responsible citizen is happy that their leadership provides the means for their involvement in caring for the world.

My problem is the following:
I pictured a different scenario after this fine person tossed the plastic into the "appropriate" bin. And this might be just a reflection of the helplessness I feel during this period of time in my life, true. But I picture this bin NOT full of exactly the appropriate recyclable materials as defined by the handy diagrams on the lid of the can, but more like a mosaic of items of which maybe 3% is actually going to be recycled. Even worse, I picture this bin being picked up by someone who DOESN'T care about the environment. They are pissed at the world because although they were a physics professor in Laos they couldnt get a job here in the good ol' US of A because they don't speak a lick of english. And so now they support their family by hoisting recylce bins around. Maybe that stuff ends up in the trash because its only more work for them to haul 60 lbs of leaking, stinky, half-rotten food in giant bags to a separate bin. To 4 separate bins depending on the type of material. So maybe it makes it to that processing station or maybe it makes it to the dump after all. Let us be positive and believe that our Laotion (could be any origin) friend cares and separates appropriately--and I happen to believe this is the case. But then the real fun begins.

A truck has to come and pick up this stuff. Assuming everything in the truck is recyclable, where does the truck go? Is there someone watching this truck and tracking its movements? Maybe it goes back to a station here at the fine institution of UW where this trucks load look so similar to other trucks loads that it really isnt worth the trouble to unload the truck into the properly labeled and well differentiated receptables. Its much easier to load it into the Big Green Bin known as the dumpster. Its not called a dumpster because it contains recyclable goods.

If you havent already figured it out I don't trust humans very much. After all, we have decided to torture and kill each other over footwear. People have destroyed everything to make room for more people and more places for those people to eat and put trash and murder and rape and kill other people. We put something in a recycle bin, someone comes and picks it up and its out of sight and mind. We are supposed to trust that someone is looking out for us, blindly we trust. And here on a LIBERAL college campus, its supposed to be EXTREMELY guarded. I say bullshit.

This is a situation that repeats itself in all levels of our lives. 30% of the population select people to do the talking for us and then 75% of those people stop paying attention. That very small fraction that is left, something like 7%, are the people who took genuine interest in the course of action our countries' leadership was taking, and this is supposed to be a representation of my views? But thats not what gets me. It's that the people who dont take part in the election process and can not show you on a map where North Korea is that bitch and complain when things are not turning out the way they want them to.

I don't trust people. I believe that if left up to someone else, I will probably get screwed because it seems to be human nature. I do not believe that I should screw before I get screwed, but instead I live a life in constant defense. I do not walk around assuming the worst about every person I see, in fact its the opposite. I assume the best about the people around me. The larger trend of human nature, however, scares the shit out of me.

I don't follow the people who pick up the recycling bin and make sure that it gets separated from the trash at each step right until the moment the magic happens to turn this into a reusable material. I don't lay awake at night wondering about that. What I do think about, though, is the overall nature of trusting that a governing body elected by a fantastically small group of people really cares about the same things I do.

"Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save."

--Will Rogers





Last night I thought I would be clever and kill two birds with one, um, salmon. I have a very difficult med chem test on monday, which I am much less prepared for than I care to even admit to myself. As well, I have a test tomorrow, Saturday, of the epic "CUMULATIVE" variety. It could be my last one. Haven't studied for that either.

Last night I had the opportunity to smoke about 10 pounds of salmon thats in the fridge, and since I knew it would take half the night I thought it was the perfect way to have time set aside to study. It was kind of humorous that after a few hours of it, at 12, the salmon in the smoker wasn't even close to being done. Smelled tasty, but not even close. I put another pan of wood chips on the burner and went back to chemistry land. Eventually it was 1:30 and I couldnt even keep my eyes open any longer let alone study med chem. I checked the salmon and again, not even close.

I called it a night and finished the salmon this morning.

I guess it seemed more humorous earlier this morning. Oh well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok, so now with a little bit of a clear mind (does it really only exist in my dreams?) I thought about WHY this morning it seemed funny to me that last night (this morning) the salmon was not finished at 1:30 AM.... the reason is that last night I had the --here is the funny part-- stupid idea that I would be "running out of time" for studying. And then, what happened? The salmon didnt get done until 5:30 and I couldnt stay awake any longer past 1:30. Hyuk.

Its still not funny, I know.

Hello and Goodbye. And good riddance.

"It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I just beat people up."

--Muhammad Ali







What if I don't love what I do to earn a paycheck?

Does the answer depend on:
A) What my field is
B) What was required to obtain the position
C) How much money I make
D) How old am I

I pose this question in this way because it seems foolish to spend five years working toward a PhD and then hate what you do. Truly, I do not hate what I am going to school to learn. And please pay particular attention to the careful phrasing of that statement. I am going to school to learn how to do something which will be useful in a career path later.

I hate school. Thats a fact.

I love kinetics. And, I think, I can like working. I will never lose sight of the fact that I work to earn a paycheck to support my dream of how life should be which I share with wife-person. But in the meantime I create my own reality and I should earn a paycheck doing something halfway interesting, and it happens to benefit human-kind in some way.

I have to honestly state that getting this freaking degree has removed 15-20 years of quality, enjoyable life from my total years previously available. The stress and strain involved in this endeavor have certainly created numerous perforations in my stomach lining and duodenum as well as a semi-permanent, stress-induced eye-twitch. I can only hope and imagine that once I retire from schooling with my PhD in hand (running and screaming from the UW, mind you) I can find gainful, well-compensated employment that I will enjoy. I can only imagine, based on the fact that I enjoyed working previous to returning to this hell-hole, that I will enjoy working again.

But...what if I didnt? Would that make getting this degree a total waste of time, or is it acceptable to invest 5 years towards a degree (which still produced some bodies of data and work that could benefit people at large) just so that I can make as much per year as I would after 15 years of working? Perhaps. People argue both ways.

Muhammed Ali went to work and beat people up, but every once in a while he got beat-up, too. Well, I figure even if I dont get to beat on anyone legally at work, maybe its suitable to just avoid my own ass-whooping.

And thats all I have to say about that.

A Little Meaning for Breakfast.

"Expecting life to treat you well because you are a good person is like expecting an angry bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian."

-- Shari R. Barr






I sat down to write at 7:10 AM this morning. Now its 8:35 AM and there is no time. I don't know what the hell happened in the last few weeks but, whatever it is? It happened and now I do not seem to have a single minute.

More later, I hope.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is now 7:10 PM, 12 hours exactly after I originally intended to add something meaningful and thought provoking to this, this collection of crap. I have since forgotten what that meaningful something was/is, so perhaps it isn't/wasn't meaningful anyway.
Yeah.

I handed back the first midterm in the clinical pharmacokinetics class I am co-teaching. I watched the 2nd year pharmacy students descend like vultures to fresh carrion upon the tests which I had taken over 12 hours to grade, comment on and coalate for them. And then one of them, and incidentally she is not a pharmacy student but a first-year student in my department (pharmaceutics), came up to me and was irate that she had gotten 97 and proceeded to argue her point. I told her why I graded it the way I did, to which she replied that there was a past midterm that had given the answer I gave PLUS her (and maybe 15 others in addition) answer to that type of question. Again I explained my point, but she rebutted. I sighed heavily and looked at her in the eyes and said "You got a 97. The most I could do would be to add one more point and that doesn't change anything. I am right, you weren't perfect, and THAT is what bothers you. Be happy with a 97 because in the program you are in, you probably won't see 97s anymore."

Yes it sounds brutal. But she pondered it for a moment and then agreed and went on her merry, A-student way, probably to go play with her abacus or re-write relativity for fuck's sake. It seemed like a brutal thing to say unless you have been in our department for a little while. The pharmacy students have a very tough curriculum, but what they go through is driver's ed compared to the pharmaceutics PhD training. More like PhD flogging. Its hard for me to feel sorry for them after the beating I have personally received, but I do respect them, and I am an easy grader. That being the case, I don't bend on the points I do take away. ESPECIALLY when its something we went over and over, and I even told them exactly that it would be tested. Weird.

I really enjoy being a teaching assistant, especially with all the actual teaching I get to do. I found myself pulling for them while I was grading their tests, and it was difficult not to take it a little personally when those topics I specifically spent so much time reviewing with them were some of the points on the test they missed. How it is.

It all goes to explain a little about how every teacher ends up the way they do. Albeit unique, they each have their own "take" on the students and their effort and what it has all meant. Sure, I am industry bound, and it will hardly be the same as standing in front of 100 future Doctors of Pharmacy and teaching them about why the clearance of a drug and the volume of a distribution are completely unrelated but combined create the elimination rate constant and therefore half-life of a drug... It feels good; especially when I realize that after my own beatings, failing so many cumulative exams, feeling like I was worthless for 6 straight months, after my slogging through the lectures and the homework and late night after late night, I can get someone else to listen to me and then say "Oh, yeah, now I see how that is..." and I feel like it wasn't so bad after all.

Responsibility for ourselves.

"Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance."

--Thomas Carlyle





What am I responsible for? Am I responsible for driving 45 in a 35, or does my temporary ignorance abolish all responsibility for knowing the speed limit? Am I responsible for my busy schedule which leaves me little free time or is it graduate school's fault? Am I responsible for the life I choose to live or can I blame it on my parents?

A person enters a contest. This contest poses a longshot, but present, risk of injury. The contest organizers provide forms which release themselves of liability in the case such injury should occur. Bystanders even point out the risk, but the participants continue. One participant tragically dies after this contest, as a result of the contest itself.



Any time someone dies unexpectedly from something so seemingly harmless it is tragic and it is a loss to countless people. The family is obviously devastated and nothing will EVER bring that individual back no matter what anyone does or says. This person is a child, a parent, a spouse and for all we know their smile and laughter will never ring in the ears of their loved ones again. Almost every one of us has an experience with losing someone and it may drive to fruition the strongest feelings we as humans experience. It is obviously plausible to vent these feelings toward the easiest target in the case of a sudden, tragic loss. Perhaps I might do the same in such a situation. I dont know.

So here we are. Who is the responsible party? Emotionally it seems so easy to lash out at the contest organizer, the provider of this barbaric ritual who did little to protect the innocent, unknowing contestant. The family is irate, the community is shocked, and by god, a head must roll. The easy target is the organizer and "officiants" of this contest. They provided the means by which someone died, right? There was nothing anyone could do, right? I mean, that person certainly had NO CONTROL over what they were doing.

When I take a step back and separate myself from the emotional loss and tragedy and innate human need for vindication and revenge at what occured, I contend that the individual is the responsible party when it comes to their own well being in this situation. If I consider a situation whereby the result of this contest is that you win a video game console, the prize does not seem high enough to warrant risking my health and life. If the contest prize were that your child would not be taken from you, or your dog would not be put to sleep, or something dire--then perhaps the risk you entertain is more warranted. But who decides the value, the organizer or the individual?

Am I considered a callous, heartless, cold robot without compassion because I feel the need to look beyond the tragedy and examine this issue? I will probably be dismayed to find that most people would agree to that. Oh well.

Just because the option is made available, does this mean an individual has to participate? Is anyone forcing them? Anyone can sky-dive; the risk of death versus the thrill of falling at terminal velocity; why aren't thousands and thousands of people pursuing this?

The world in which we live today is a sensitive place, and telling someone that the consequences they face are the results of their choices is not a popular platform from which to speak. However, it is my humble opinion that our world would be a much better place to live were people more able to accept responsibility for their choices.

Life in a Glass

Sam: What's new, Normie?

Norm: Terrorists, Sam. They've taken over my stomach and they're demanding beer.



There is always something standing between you and that which you so desire...

Beam Me Up

Captain Kirk Has Skills.

Thanks to Jeremy Gerking for this link. I wish I could take credit for finding it, but I really can't.



"In the game of life it's a good idea to have a few early losses, which relieves you of the pressure of trying to maintain an undefeated season."

-- Bill Baughan







Human beings have a remarkable characteristic that I believe to be unique among known life forms.

As a human I can stop at any point and analyze my history to see how I arrived where I now stand. Can any other organism really do this? It's hard to believe they could, but then again crows can make tools for a specific job and dolphins have been shown to do math. I guess nothing surprises me anymore. I think the difference between us and dolphins and crows may be that, even if they are able to look back at their lives and see that the choices they made are directly responsible for where they are, they do not have the reflective moments we have as people. If they do, what are the ramifications? Ah, I am getting off track.

My point is that its really easy to track my life back to some choices I have made. Its astonishing, really, to follow this and find the nuances that now describe and encompass me, Aaron, as a person, doing what I do today, right now. The next question that enters my feeble brain becomes, logically (right brain virgo at work), how do my choices right now affect my future "today?" And does that forethought enhance or diminish my choice making?

When I was 7 years old I made the choice to cut a popsicle stick down the middle with a brand new swiss-army pocket knife. This choice resulted in slicing my thumb wide-open from nail to wrist, veins and tendons hanging out for the world to see. My next choice was to dash into the bathroom so that my family would not notice this 5 inch bleeding mess that was my little hand. Stitches and the pain of healing taught me a lot, as does the fine scar that will forever remind me not to do such a stupid thing. I suppose that's called "learning." I look back now and shake my head at that stupid kid who, in all honesty, knew better. I made a choice and it still affects my decisions. And after many choices since then resulting in bodily harm and mangling of appendages and my face I now have little fear of injury or pain, which may or may not be a good thing.

I made a random choice when I was 21 to get a new apartment in Bellingham. I was making enough money to support the change from my 350 sq. ft. masterpiece, and I was nervous about the neighborhood. Whatever the reason, I moved to this nice little place with a view on the other side of downtown and this choice led to my meeting Scott. Scott ended up playing a very pivatol role in my life, introducing me to the Oil and Gas mineral leasing business and generally being a darn good buddy, to this day, almost 8 years later. Truly inflluential point in my life, all because of the choice to move. Scott rang the ships bell at my wedding in 2005, even.

When I was 23 I made the choice to leave my successful job as a software developer and return to the world of science, in the form of drug development. This meant moving from my beloved town of Bellingham to Seattle (Bothell) which had, at that point, a much higher cost of living. It also meant a pay-cut and inevitably was going out on a huge limb. I did not put the amount of thought one might assume goes into a decision with such weight (read as, i was dropping everything in my life for something brand new and untested) but inside I remember convincing myself that successful people take chances at the right times. I decided to take a chance. I started at Sonus Pharmaceuticals soon after making the decision and the unfolding of events was dramatic and has ultimately been the driver of where I am now. It didnt start out easy; I was confident but ignorant, my long-term, long-distance relationship ended very shortly after, and I was not making much money. However, the confidence and willingness to do whatever they asked of me paid-off well and soon I was making good enough money to support a fine bachelor/tri-geek lifestyle and was learning new skills that eventually drove me to make another enormous decision--the return to school for my PhD.

Moving to Bothell for work would be a lie. I was moving AWAY from Bellingham to explore. I knew then I did not have a destination; perhaps destinations are our greatest limitation. I truly believe I would not be married to the best woman on Earth right now if I had not moved. I would not have a beautiful house and the chance to earn my PhD (because it never appealed to me before I went to Sonus). Along the way it was difficult to change so much so quickly, and there were moments I didn't know where I was going and if I would like it when I got there (isnt that all of our fear, really?). I can only take comfort in knowing that I am still not there.



But the journey is terrific.

The Importance of Collaboration.

I have just received an email from Dr. Terri Brentall that she will be a collaborator for my doctoral thesis regarding the involvement of nucleoside transporters in Gemcitibine treatment of pancreatic cancer. Dr. Brentnall has been a featured scientist in the media for the recent confirmation that her teams have found one genetic link to inheritable pancreatic cancer, a mutation that can be screened in cases of familial pancreatic cancer history.

The position I am in will be to have access to her human pancreatic tissue samples and RNA/DNA samples whereby I would like to investigate the proposed link between the expression level of human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (hENT-1) and the effectiveness of Gemcitibine treatment.

Gemcitibine is currently a front-line treatment for Pancreatic Cancer and it is hypothesized that the more hENT-1 that is expressed the more Gemcitibine will have access into the cell, a necessary phenomenon for successful cancer-killing, and thus extension of survival. The issue could be that pancreatic cancer cells have a lower expression of these transporters for some patients, which serves as a built-in mechanism of defense for the cancer to survive in th face of treatment.

If it can be showed before a person begins treatment that they have less of this transporter, and therefore less chance of Gemcitabine being effective, then maybe the person can immediately have alternate treatments scheduled instead of wasting precious time with an ineffective drug.

A few references:

"Transcription Analysis of Human Equilibrative Nucleoside Transporter-1 Predicts Survival in Pancreas Cancer Patients Treated with Gemcitabine."
Giovannetti, et al, Cancer Res; 66: (7). April 1, 2006

"Functional Nucleoside Transporters Are Required for Gemcitabine Influx and Manifestation of Toxicity in Cancer Cell Lines."
Mackey, et al, Cancer Res; 58: pg 4349-4357. October 1, 1998

"The Absence of Human Equilibrative Nucleoside Transporter-1 is Associated with Reduced Survival in Patients with Gemcitabine-Treated Pancreas Adenocarcinoma."
Spratlin, et al, Clin. Cancer Res; 10: pg 6956-6961. October 15, 2004

The Most Difficult Path

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.”

--Ambrose Redmoon

Mike Holmgren is the head coach of the Seahawks. I have watched and listened to him for 8-9 years now, a tenure that seemed to have just started yesterday with much anticipation.

Coach Holmgren is not generally regarded as a great man in the sense that the men of history are judged. He is not, to my knowledge, a household name anywhere but Seattle--and probably not here in Seattle, either. Yet despite these things, his reluctance to rely on the running game and his wacky "what were you thinking" 3rd and short play calling, he inspires me and makes me feel "good."

I am fortunate enough to be able to tap into the inner circle of Seahawks information overload via a blog written by a enthusiastic newspaper journalist from Tacoma. He records and provides, for people like me, via his blog, the press conferences with Mike Holmgren in their entirety. Unedited and uncut.

We are now at the end of the regular season and into the second round of the playoffs. The Seahawks are doomed every game they play by the pundits and know-it-alls and ESPNs of the world, but somehow, they find a way to win. The team has been described as underperformers, as inconsistent, and as just plain bad. Yes, if you do not know the circumstances that have faced them this year,and you compare them to the 2005 team that rode an astonishing 11 game win streak into the Super Bowl, then you might also just deem them as a poor football team in 2006.

However, whether you care about football or not doesn't matter if you take a moment to understand what it takes for a pro football team to win every week, or even just half of their games. If you understand a bit of what it takes to have 11 celebrity-like, well-paid athletes concert their physical prowess with schematics and technique, all while staying healthy and travelling and learning in a classroom a couple days a week, you would see how, with the cataclysmic events of this season, its actually more impressive where the Seahawks are this year -- regardless of how they finish. And they do it in large part because of the atmosphere that Mike Holmgren has established and the people who he has helped put in place to surround them. He inspires these men -- men who could be just like the other loud-mouths we see on the TV all the time -- to play beyond their ego for the benefit of something bigger than themselves. We never see anything in the media about the Seahawks having locker-room issues. We never hear players on the Seahawks complaining they don't get the ball enough.


By the end of this year I have come to believe that Holmgren is a wise, loyal-to-a-fault man who truly believes in what he does. And although he will never be looked at as anything but a football coach by anyone but a few of us who wish to believe all men, in any profession or belief, have the capability to be great, he has made an impact on me as a person. He has inspired me because he is a man who sees that, in his own words, "its too bad we are often judged by where we end up, rather than by our journey."

We're number...ONE!

Ok, we didn't win a wild-finish wild-card playoff game against one of the truly EVIL teams in the sporting universe.

We didn't just utterly ANNHILATE the favorite team in the College Bowl Circuit.

But what we did do is establish a number 1 rank of graduate pharmaceutical sciences and medicinal chemistry programs. Here is the link to the new rankings. Pretty sweet.

Now if I can just finish.

UW PHARMACEUTICS!

I set out with this Blog to write a little bit, more often than not. Now I am finding myself so busy trying to get my project rolling and teach PK to pharmacy students and pass classes and train for Ironman and walk the dog and spend time with my wife and cheer the 'Hawks on that it doesnt seem to happen. I need to sleep less.

A Trail of Crumbs.

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin--real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

-- Alfred D. Souza

Sometimes in life you walk The Path with confidence. Other times you walk away from The Path and become lost. Still there are other times where you walk near The Path such that you can see it, but you don't know how to get back to it.

How do we get back to what we know to be true once we have venutured away? Why is it so hard?

The Grass is Greener?

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

--Sir Winston Churchill



Something startled me, today, as I made my way through the unusually drab, dirty-gray, abandoned-hospital-like hallway back to my office. This was after my Drug Metabolism cranial drubbing and I was feeling rather, well, beaten and walked slowly. I was heading towards the stairwell and I noticed a brand-spanking new incubator, still in the box, loaded on a pallet just at the base of the stairs. Being an opportunistic graduate student only truly interested in self-preservation and the propogation of my thesis to all science-deprived souls of the world (along with the end of oppression and world hunger, of course), I stopped to check it out. That's when I realized something odd about our world.

Something startled me on the box. The words "Round Euro Styling" was written in fancy font on two sides of the box. Apparently, for scientists in the US and other Non-European countries (yes there are others that value science)the styling of one's incubators is an important consideration.

This fact ALONE leads me to a plethora of concerns about the future of scientific discovery in the world. For example a concern that someday the value of my work will be diminished because my incubator did not have EURO styled corners. (And that, I know now, is round.) In addition to plots and data and pages of intelli-speak regarding my discoveries or proofs, I will have to submit a floor plan of my workspace with visuals of my equipment. Style points is now not only a measure of College Athletics Bowl Potential, but also a measure of our abilities to contribute on the global scientific stage.

Ok, so my real question is this:
Since we seem to have a fixation on Euro styling, do the Europeans driving around in Audis and BMWs gaze at billboards of Chevys and Fords and just think "Wow, that is the style I wish I had!" or "That US style is really where Europe should be!" Dream on. Who on earth tries to emulate the US anymore in style?


Do the scientists in Europe even CARE about the shape of their incubators? I would be willing to bet they do not. I would be willing to bet their incubators don't really have round corners. I would be willing to bet the results they get from their incubators, however they are shaped, are remarkably similar to our incubators. Sure, we Americans are infatuated with trying to be trendy or even up-to-date with technology, style and fashion (will never happen). Science certainly is not immune to this. There is "trendy" science all around us, and the hot topic will certainly change.

In my eyes, it is a poor musician who blames his instrument. Or, a poor scientist who cares about the styling of his incubator.

And when the scientists pull up to their offices for another day of whipping their graduate slaves, they are thinking "Man, I sure am glad I drive a non-american car."

And thats anywhere in the world.

Watch People, Watch...

I can’t think of a better way to get a handle on people than to just sit and watch.

It’s probably as addicting as coffee, cigarettes or making stupid, sarcastic one-liner jokes around friends. When you people watch, you get to witness a large repertoire of human characteristics and dysfunctions with the added benefit of not feeling guilty for paying copious amounts of hard-earned cash. That, and it doesn’t involve damaging anyone's fragile self-esteem which, as we all know these days, is one of the biggest problems when finding suitable means of self-entertainment.

Granted, people watching for me DOES NOT consist of sneaking up to windows at night and filming the poor, unsuspecting occupants therein. In which case I am sure the topics for discussion would increase both in number and in controversy, probably resulting in a much shorter essay -- in jail ones computer time is strictly limited. Or so I hear. No, my people watching is more like bird watching but not as holistic and not involving birds. Follow these simple steps and you, too, are on your way to fun.

Find a nice, open, public place where folks congregate or pass through in large numbers. It is important to avoid staring and following, as this draws unnecessary attention from the local law enforcement agencies who don't share your amateur interest and is generally thought of as strange. Simply observe the passers by and enjoy the free show that will inevitably ensue.

When we observe people in their native habitat a fascinating thing happens: an overwhelming feeling of normalcy within yourself after witnessing such a large amount of strangeness. When you people watch you hear conversations about things you never thought it would be possible to hear a conversation about.

An old man at the airport points at something in the distance, nudging Edith, his wife of 56 years.
"Edith, there's one right now."
"What? What are you looking at?" She scans the area blindly as though the lights just went out.
"That, there. Remember? We were talking about those."
"I don’t know what you're pointing at." Frustrated, her shoulders hunch and her arms wave madly.
Pointing becomes more vigorous, his brow creases. "That-- there! You can’t see anything, can you?"
"Well, not when you talk to me like that, I cant."
"Well, Jesus, never mind, its gone anyway."
"Good, I guess I don’t have to listen to you insult me anymore."

We can see from this example just what kind of entertainment people watching can bring. You actually find yourself becoming engaged for miniscule amounts of time while people fumble through small slices of life right in front of you.

A more advanced form of people watching involves having someone you know drive you around and actually people watch other drivers. Its as if they don't realize people can see them through their windows!! You will be shocked and awed as the most hilarious and disgusting displays take place in broad daylight behind the safety of their auto-glass, for the world to see.

I find it hard to believe that reality TV is gripping the general populous when there is reality all around us, and hundreds of times more interesting. But then again, the same people watching those hours of reality are the same folks providing me with my unique form of entertainment.