James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead

And we are done.

Alarm rings at 4:30 this morning and we scrape everyone up to catch the 6:50 flight to Allentown. We are all bright-eyed and such & such.

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Flight is easy enough other than being tired. We come out to this crap:

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Note: we'll need to teach Simon what "pretend to be grumpy" means. We drive home and our party of 5 totally explodes:

* Julia goes to her mom's
* D goes upstairs to take a conference call then work
* Simon goes to bed
* Zac does his homework
* I go to the basement and Zwift for 2+ hours & 50 miles

Felt good out there today, where "out there" is "in the house". Legs were fresh and I managed 230w for 2:20, 246 NP or something. Went all-in for 1 sprint and nailed 3rd of 950:

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Not much to report today. Ended the day with this because F this weather.

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Ok so some recaps/notes.

The Beach. I am not much of a beach person "by trade" but I enjoyed it more than ever this year. I think with work being what it has been, I really enjoyed disconnecting and not doing much of anything, other than shaping sand into...well, shapes. I jumped into the ocean a few times and got myself burned a bit, which is also not usual for me. I guess the sun was strong this year. But I am ok with that. I am ok with turning sand into more sand. Not doing anything. And getting a little lobstered. D mentioned this morning that she was surprised at how little I worked. I just had the "fuck its" this trip.

Universal. It was really good. In all we did maybe 2 dozen things over 2 days and for the most part, all of these are really well-done. With Simon at 8, and the older 2 at 12, the ages are really perfect for these parks. We ended up doing Universal (the original) and Island of Adventure, which I guess is the new one. Anyway, D managed to get us 2 days at 2 parks for 25% off using only credit card points to pay. I enjoy the stories that go with all the rides. Being that they are based around movies, there is a lead-up to all of them. They range from water rides to 3D/4D to roller coasters. A lot of good stuff here and I could see us coming back in a few years. There are also street performances and parades. We didn't do every ride we wanted to, but we almost did. The only thing is this: be ready to wait a lot.

At this stage we are in the prime of the kid's ages in terms of vacations. Between Seattle and this, I am really looking forward to the next few years of vacations with these guys. They are doing things, not being grumpy, open to new & random things, and they are all eating well enough that food is no longer an issue.

Space X. @Dominos asked if we saw the launch. No, we did not and after I read the question I totally kicked myself for not checking the schedule before we got there. This is definitely a total and complete brain fart on my part, since we may never get things to line up like this ever again. I was thinking about making a Space X rocket the next day day but went with the Minion instead. I guess they are similar.

Sand Ruins. Ok I guess in a way all my works were ruins but @rottin' I would ask this: Was he by chance in Melbourne/Indiatlantic over the weekend? It would be cool as hell if he was, as unlikely as it may turn out to be. I think I did the Colosseum on Sunday. I have to say that I was surprised at how few other castles were on the beach when we walked. We pretty much walked every day and I don't remember seeing anything other than a few holes or a buried person.

Spring Break 2018 - The End.
 
How often do you come back from vacation and say the words, "Man, I need a vacation after that vacation."? Well yesterday, today, and tomorrow marks the Long Weekend to follow our vacation. Today I woke up around 7:30 and didn't do much of anything other than come downstairs to boil water for tea, then go back upstairs to read. In the end I didn't finish either of the 2 books I brought to Florida because it turns out that the beach is too bright for me to read on. I got plenty of reading time regardless, so there wasn't a lack of time there. Just not enough to knock out 2 books.

Julia was back this morning and we let the kids brain-drain away for the morning. I hopped on Zwift for a lethargic 2 hours which was a lot more difficult to swing that the day before. I find that when I push hard, my left sit bone seems to get sore. I am sure it's not the bone but something or other attached to it. I have found this flare-up association over the years but I think today was the first day I really put it together. Anyway, that was my reality today. After about 45 minutes I warmed up and felt better, and managed to crush one of my PRs in the Surrey Hills climbs in London. Towards the end I went for the other one and wasn't remotely close. I was cooked.

The rest of the day was domestic stuff - trip to Costco with everyone where we randomly sent the kids to get stuff for us. Then we came home and spent 2 hours outside cleaning up sticks, burning said sticks, cleaning up various leaf piles that accumulate in the corners of the yard, and throwing out random junk that is weathered-to-death. Everyone was outside for about 2 hours and everyone was actually quite helpful. After the week we had, the kids needed a dose of reality where not every day is a 4D adventure.

Also booked my hotel for this coming week's trip to Duke. April travel looks like this so far - I will be on 7 individual airplanes all told, which is the same as it was in March. Florida split March/April so each month had 1 leg. This week is Durham, then in 2 weeks Minnesota, then the weekend after that we go to Toronto. At least this time, 3 of the 7 will be for non-work. Early preview of May has me only going to Austin and I don't see anything else on the plate other than that. For now I have tapped out all the possible places I could be sent for work right now.

I think tonight we are going to start season 2 of A Series of Unfortunate Events.
 
Have you checked out Barry on HBO on demand? Dark satire and well written. HBO just came out with this a few weeks ago, I think episode 1 is available till tomorrow. It's only about half hour but there ain't no filler.
 
Last night I finished, To Kill a Mockingbird. It was very good.

I don't know if it makes any sense for me to say much of anything about this book. It is a classic. Either you have read it before, or you have not. If you have not, it is unlikely you will buy it & read it now. You probably liked it, though there is a chance that you had to read it in school and because of that, hated it. But nothing I can or will say about the book will make any difference in what you think about it. It's like me reviewing War & Peace. Who am I to say if this is good or not? Just some asshole with an opinion.

I read this book 1 chapter at a time. Ok, let me rephrase that. I read this book 1 chapter at a time, but at the end of every chapter, I put it down. I didn't want to ingest the book all-at-once because I didn't think it would make sense to do that. While it is not a long book, I don't think this is something you should sit down and read in a single sitting. The words, the story, the movement of the narrative - I think - need to happen slowly in order for you to digest it properly.

In my younger days, I would have rushed out and bought Go Set a Watchman, which is a corollary to Mockingbird. If you are interested you can read all about it on Wikipedia but it would appear that this book is a first draft of Mockingbird, which holds no interest to me. In the end, Lee basically wrote a single novel in her life, and is astoundingly famous for that. In the great annals of books-to-classics-written ratios, she is pretty much on point with that, as this book is considered one of the best ever written. I have added it to my stack of "required" reading to pass on to the kids one day. I would put this in league with Catcher in the Rye and Catch-22.

All of this. Everything I have said is pretty much taken for granted these days. The book is a time-honored classic which has sold an estimated 40 million copies in 40 different languages. It is taught in schools across the country and tries to impress upon the reader the inherent wrong in racial & class injustice. And yet, here we are, living in a world where these themes are great to talk about in a classroom setting, but which we see time and time again drive the actions of the people in our world. It is a sad reality.

As a parent, this stuff matters more to me now than ever. Lest I slide down this slippery slope of preaching, I will stop now.

To those readers in the room, at the very least @jmanic @MissJR @ChrisG I ask of you this - what classic book should I try to bite off next? Currently I am also reading the 3rd book of The Expanse series.
 
I'll just get this out of the way:

I HATE CATCHER IN THE RYE!!!

well now...

I've always been a huge fan of dystopian novels. 1984, brave new world, the handmaid's tale, a clockwork Orange, etc. I also really liked the oryx and crake trilogy (although I guess that's not really "classic").

I also like Philip K Dick stuff (ubik is my favorite so far) but I always feel like his stuff is a rough draft and needs to be expanded.

And since you liked TKAM, try In cold blood (Truman Capote and Harper Lee were friends, right?)
 
MissJR said:
I'll just get this out of the way:

I HATE CATCHER IN THE RYE!!!

well now...

I've always been a huge fan of dystopian novels. 1984, brave new world, the handmaid's tale, a clockwork Orange, etc. I also really liked the oryx and crake trilogy.

I also like Philip K Dick stuff (ubik is my favorite so far) but I always feel like his stuff is a rough draft and needs to be expanded.

And since you liked TKAM, try In cold blood (Truman Capote and Harper Lee were friends, right?)
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my limited reading, but themes that i see reflected time-and-time again in current shows and films is 1984 and Brave New World.

i've never read i, robot. (asmiov 1991) and the following loosely related books. I like the questions they ask, which don't have answers.

Clockwork orange was a book? wow, was trainspotting? 😛
 
Are you up to speed on your Camus and Sartre?

And I'm with Joy- I only read Catcher after he died, so probably way too late in life for it to take hold. There are critical periods for these things, like when you can learn a to speak new language without an accent.

To my question, if not, it may be too late, but worth a shot.
 
jmanic said:
Are you up to speed on your Camus and Sartre?

And I'm with Joy- I only read Catcher after he died, so probably way too late in life for it to take hold. There are critical periods for these things, like when you can learn a to speak new language without an accent.

To my question, if not, it may be too late, but worth a shot.
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i'd watch vanilla sky again before reading more satre....maybe the translations are better now????
 
For some reason Animal Farm references keep popping up around me lately... I've never read it but maybe that's the universe telling me I should. We could do an MTBNJ book club analysis? I also keep meaning to read Fahrenheit 451 so that's another book club contender.

Oh. The wanting seed. That was pretty good too. I'll shut up now.

(I'm a lousy former English major BTW)
 
Animal Farm is great. Timeless. Fits with today's politics.

I liked 451 but preferred 1984. I have In Cold Blood in queue.

What about 40,000 Leagues? Mutiny on the Bounty? Grapes of Wrath?

I just watched a documentary on the sinking of the Essex, which was the inspiration for Moby Dick. The documentary was probably better than the book.
 
To keep the YA genre kick going Northern Lights/Golden Compass is a great book. Pullman’s Dark Series is good.

The movie did the book a serious injustice.
 
12 Angry Men. And if Carson meant 20,000 League Under the Sea, then yes to that.

Just kidding, reading is for nerds.
 
Another vote for "Animal Farm". What I like about reading it as an adult, is being able to understand it from the political perspective. This is something that I didn't really get in high school (despite the teachers efforts).

Also, if you haven't read it in awhile "Of Mice and Men" is always a nice flashback and an easy read on the "classics" list. Of course, you may already know how it ends.
 
Thanks for all the book talk but I need to do a 90-degree today.

Do you know where you were 1 year ago today? I do. I was in Chicago with my daughter. In fact, almost exactly a year ago to the minute (as I sit here now) I was finishing up dinner at Rudy's Bar & Grill after spending the day at the aquarium & the art museum. At least I believe that's what we did that day. In the grand scheme of things that part is not important. We'd been at Rudy's eating dinner. I had 2 beers with the meal that night, and a glass of wine back at the hotel when we got back.

Those are the last drinks I have had. The next morning I woke up feeling dreadful, and I asked myself what the fuck I was doing to myself. In due time, later that morning, I would realize that this feeling had nothing to do with the 3 drinks, and everything to do with some stomach uneasiness that I was later gotten rid of in a hurry, in the wrong way. I felt better after that but that is still a very stark memory for me. The feeling of total shit that day.

I did not swear off alcohol that day, or that week for that matter, or even that month. I never actively decided I wasn't going to drink anymore. I just kept not having a drink that day. And the next. And the next. And so on. Through conferences, team vacations, various parties and whatever else life has thrown at me, I have kept deciding to not have a drink. And now 1 year later, I have gone a year without drinking.

And today, I do not miss it at all.

Someone asked me last year if I felt a difference, and I honestly said not really. After thinking about it at the moment, I corrected myself and said that I was more mentally sharp than I had ever been before. I stand by that. After I was asked the question, it made me more acutely aware of how much more sharp I feel on a daily basis. With work being what it is, this helps me tremendously. I can wake up any day and be more or less ready to go, no sense of having to work through the self-induced fog in the morning.

Since that time I have come to realize that while 2017 may not have seen such a noticeable difference on how I feel, 2018 is a stark contrast to that. I can say that now, without question, I feel healthier than I have in some time. Maybe it took some time to really appreciate it. Or maybe it was the question last year that made me start to think about it more. But for sure, I feel both mentally & physically better than I have in a long time.

I never really decided to stop drinking entirely, but at this point in my life, I don't see a reason to have a drink today. Or tomorrow for that matter. I had a discussion about this with @Kirt last year. With the kids being the ages they are, how do we say to them that drinking is no good, yet we freely do it? I have never had a good answer to that question and when I was a kid, the answer wasn't good enough for me. "Just because" isn't going to work with many people, and kids are thinking people just like the rest of us. While this was not my reason to stop last year, it is surely something that makes it easier to not have another drink.

As much as I want to say that everyone reading this should stop drinking, it is not my place to say this. And it is not fair to say that the effect that it had on me will be the same as anyone else reading this. It may actually be exactly what you need to bring one end together with the other end on a daily basis. And it's not really my place to begrudge anyone this. Also, in being honest with myself, I tend to overdo things. While I was not really overdoing anything a year ago, it's easy to let things get carried away.

I don't know how much longer I will be on this planet. It may be a day or 50 years. But as I get older I try to make the most of the time here. And for me, this seems to be something that is helping me to get the most out of my days, every day. That all started a year ago, when I woke up one morning with the shits and felt like drinking was not doing myself justice.

Anyway, that was a year ago. Just thought you might like to know. I'll go back to writing about Zwift rides tomorrow.
 
Norm said:
I don't know how much longer I will be on this planet. It may be a day or 50 years. But as I get older I try to make the most of the time here. And for me, this seems to be something that is helping me to get the most out of my days, every day. That all started a year ago, when I woke up one morning with the shits and felt like drinking was not doing myself justice.
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Momento Mori Norm.

Good way to live.
 
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