Cobb

Two Cop Stories

So this week was fairly eventful. I got a mess of comments on Facebook after I tweeted the following:

"If minorities know racism when they see it, then patriots know disrespect when they see it. Own your speech."

That went on for several days and of course got acrimonious, but that's Facebook. Same bourgeois mix that loves this kind of drama. If Facebook cares to preserve it, you'll find that whole thread here. What's interesting of course is the extent to which most people talk about subjects that are presented to them via the slovenly media, and in particular this week's edutainment came from a sitting, standing, kneeling or absent NFL. If you're not already saturated in that fat, consider yourself lucky. Meanwhile, however, I've had my own interesting experiences with various police departments. You want to hear? Of course you do.

The first story was that I went out to North Hollywood this Sunday to the Gathering of the Pack. It was extraordinary. Some of the most thrilling combat I've watched in a long time. If you're not up to speed on how I think about combat, you can get a good introduction by checking out MindSmash. Anyway, so I take the long way home and I don't get back until about 9pm. As I pull into the driveway, I notice that my front door is wide open. I had an armful of groceries at the time. Without thinking too much about it, I drop the groceries into my living room. Then I come back to my car thinking that if there's somebody in my house, I'm going to have to kick their ass. Since I brought my sticks with me to the Gathering (although I wasn't registered to fight) I figured I'd go back in the house and be a badass. But suddenly I realized that I was tired and I had such a good day. As I'm walking back to the driveway a car is driving past quite slowly. People in the car are gesturing to my house, it gives me a hinky feeling. I watch them drive slowly up the street as I'm getting my sticks out. The possibility enters my mind that either they are casing the joint, or their expecting their buddy to come out with a TV. Crap. 

So I call the cops. The 911 operator takes my information and tells me to wait in my car until the officers arrive. And so I sit for about the longest 10 minutes ever. The first few officers arrive and ask me all the reasonable questions. What time did I leave home? Should anybody else be there?  The lead officer asks if I mind that they take the K9 into my place. No, of course not. I draw a map of the bottom floor on the palm of my hand, like a quarterback drawing a pattern for his receivers. A couple more officers show up. They call into the house and announce that anyone inside should come out with their hands up. Twice. Flashlights and pistols are drawn, they stack up around the front door and head in. Four officers and a dog.  I hang outside on the sidewalk, arms folded. Now there are 4 squad cars and an SUV, a couple more officers show up. It has been a while since they've gone in, about 20 minutes, and suddenly I remember that I didn't tell them about my pistols upstairs. Now I'm worried for them and pissed that I forgot to mention it. After all, my keys are right there. A bad guy could figure out how to unlock them, and then use my pistols on any of the officers. No gunshots. They come out looking something odd. Not bored. Not disappointed. I can't quite identify the expressions. I think it's how you look when you have to slow down your breathing and swallow your adrenaline. 

The lead officer wants to check the garage. Of course. It checks out. The supervisor has the lead officer go with me on a walkthrough through the house. Everything is how I left it. Relief all around. I think it was a good exercise for all involved. I say thanks. They say thanks. All comfortable and wrapped up. It's nice to live where it's nice. Redondo Beach cops are great. I text Doc. He doesn't get the message until the next day.  I'm glad my daughter hadn't come back home yet and ran out. It wasn't her. I call my wife and tell her it's all good, but that she probably left the door open. 

---

Today I'm working and trying to get some security stuff working on my machine again. Then Doc texts me and his daughter and my sister. He injured himself on the job. It turns out that while he was on duty, some woman tried to hang herself on an overpass. He rescued her, action hero style, but unlike the action heroes, it wrenched his arm. He's going to be on injured reserve for a week or so. Her life was spared, so that's the important thing. I'll probably head over to his place tomorrow and we'll talk about it in detail. I'll bring him a bottle of something nice. He called Pops who was kind of nerve-wracked because when he tried to call back, Doc was already motoring home. I think he left a message about needed a ride, but Pops didn't get the message until it was too late. Well, Doc made it home alright. Another day.

--

People have been griping about white privilege and cops and the NFL. I'm not even going to write an 'obligatory seriousness' essay on that one. This is my life. Yours may vary. 

 

 

Why Must I Chase the Cat?

Guys love dogs because there's something very similar about us we mutually understand. Dogs essentially have one track minds, and if you love dogs, then you love them for it. A dog will chase the ball for no good reason other than the fact that he can; he is compelled to catch it. Acrobatically if he can pull it off. Guys sexual attraction to women is just like that. It's all about getting the ball. We simply assume the ball wants to be gotten. How could it not? It's so much fun! If that ball turns out to be poisoned or horrible tasting, it doesn't deter us. We learn too late. Until we find another ball. Hey! It's on again! Just like nothing bad ever happened.

 

Whatever a man loves to prove he can do, he will be as predictable as that dog fetching a ball. In order to destroy a man, tell him that his ball fetching is absolutely meaningless and foolish. That he's like any other dogs are completely stupid for chasing balls.

 

That men are single-mindedly in pursuit of women for sex somehow doesn't make sense until you've seen a woman do the same thing. I mean, suit up and hunt women relentlessly. And then you realize how special that male energy is, because women just don't have it. You realize how ridiculously dauntless men are to go after sex with women, without which there would be no procreation. That's a lesson that clicked with me just about the time I turned 30.

 

Of course men overcompensate. What else would we do with that energy but indulge our lust for explosions and fast things? I don't really worry about men being socialized out of existence. It's sad that people try, but whatever. Men must be bouncy, energetic, relentless go-getters. Every sperm must desire to be first or die. That's how it works. It's all about getting the ball.

Advice to the Newbie Young Black Professional

Q: I'm a young black professional male from the hood. How can I feel more comfortable around whites? I do not know any whites in my personal life. I feel out of touch or unable to relate with them during conversations.

 

Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self: in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one's nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one's robes. —James Baldwin

Ground Rules:
You have to know with absolute confidence that there are whitefolks who would fight and die for you, more than anybody you ever met in your life. You just haven’t met them yet. If you believe otherwise, then you will fall victim to the one thing that kills all success, which is fear. If there is some part of you that honestly feels that all, most, or plenty of whitefolks are just smiling faces with ulterior plans to betray you, then looking over your shoulder will deter you from any goal. Bury that fear, and prove it every day.

So there’s a bit of paranoia in the following: “Anyone who doesn’t care if you fail is, by definition, an enemy.” This is a general rule in corporations and business. Everything is not dog eat dog, but trust in business is hard won and super valuable. You must have people who trust you, and whom you trust, with your career. It may not happen for 10 years. Work on that too. This is a two way street. You need to show people that you are invested in their success, and people need to show you that they are invested in your success.

Here’s my primary advice:
1. Don’t make work the focal point of your experiments in social relations. That’s too risky; it puts all your eggs in one basket. Make work the focal point of being excellent. Period. You can be as cold-blooded as you like at work. It’s not a good strategy but there is nothing wrong with being “all business”. In fact, if somebody tells you that, take it as both a compliment, and as an invitation to be friendly. But the point here is to learn, share, and all that offline. Then bring that game to work, when and if you are comfortable. Just because you lose your job doesn’t mean whitefolks hate you. Just because you have a white girlfriend doesn’t mean you get promoted on the job. Two different monkeys, two different circuses. But it’s more important that *in your life* you have real friends and associates of all stripes.

2. The world is never going to fully understand your black world. That includes me. The most comfortable way to communicate a particular or potential conflict of values is to phrase things like this. “Where I come from, respect was very important. So I hope you don’t mind if I hesitate to call you Bob, Mr. Fisher.” Sure, call him Bob, or Bob Fisher if you must. But don’t make it a sticking point.

But as a corollary, Americans will understand black culture, because it’s American culture. I can tell you that in 1992, if you said “What’s up with that?” in any business conversation, you might as well have had a bone in your nose. Today, pierced noses are no big deal. Well, they are with my customers, but I deal with finance and aerospace. Which leads to:

3. Every business culture is different. The only way you get to know American business, really, is to be in a consulting company. So say what you want about ‘white’, what works in New Hampshire does not work in Colorado does not work in Florida, and Texas and California have three different worlds each. Oil Services is not Health Care is not Finance is not Online Advertising. The only thing that works across the boards at all of those companies in the ‘consulting standard’, which is the nephew of the WASP standard. You know how that works, it’s just another mask.

And finally,
4. Be prepared to deal with the end of your blackness. As long as you have a dog in the fight of ‘race relations’, then you have to feed that dog. You may feel you have to be a role model. You may feel you have to take a stand ‘in solidarity’ with some political or social stand that is race related. But guess what, ‘blackness’ is not in your control. All you can control is the amount of emotional investment you put into showing and proving. How much you pick up that burden is entirely on you. The bottom line is that if you are being *yourself* somebody ‘white’ is going to tell you “You don’t seem black.” And somebody ‘black’ is going to tell you “You don’t seem black.” If you make that your problem, well then it is your problem. It sure the hell ain’t mine, because my name isn’t ‘Black Mike Bowen’. So I don’t have to answer to that name. Unless I want to, until I don’t want to any more, unless I do again.

The longer answer is here in my essay called My Black Life Doesn’t Matter[1]. I am in a very very comfortable place. You’ll get here. I’ll pour you a bourbon.

Footnotes

[1] My Black Life Doesn't Matter

The Black Whisperer

I entertained a daydream this morning based upon my killer Saturday workout. I brought my wife and daughter with me to my circuit training. Each Saturday we get a different coach. You can always tell what a coach is going to make you do by looking at their build. This morning we had GI Jane. She had man arms and man shoulders. Naturally she did handstand pushups against the wall. Did I say the workout was brutal? There were about 25 of us total in the class, many of whom I had not met before one or two others were black Americans. Some of these were newbs. Newbs always think they can hang throughout the whole hour. Newbs just don't know, but they find out quick. 

About halfway through the workout, Coach decides we should do something extra. Wait. Let me explain. At the beginning of the workout she demonstrates each of the eight stations and shows us the two exercises we will do for one minute each. All of those are written up on the whiteboard for all to see. But she also says that between each set, we'll do something extra and before we move to the next station. That extra thing is not written up on the whiteboard. It's a surprise after each set. GI Jane is different. So we're bulling our way through and about halfway through the workout, Coach decides we should do something extra. First time it was a few situps. Next time a few jumping jacks. This time, it's burpees. It's at that moment when one of the black women, whom I'd never seen before give the coach a look, that just screams, but does not say "This is BULLSHIT". Coach takes it in stride saying "I love your face". My wife caught the moment. I saw the newb face a few minutes later. 

I generally don't pay attention to the women in the class, but that's a discussion for another day. This morning I caught sight of another black woman whose face was new to me as I passed her while doing the jogging lap we often must perform. She may or may not have been the same woman. I don't know. But I daydreamed that she whispered to me, This is Bullshit.

People who know me, know that I am bursty. I am like war. Long periods of boredom followed by mind-numbing feats of extraordinary something or other. I don't perform constantly, but when I do, I don't leave anything undone. I'm a sleeper. At the end of the day I will have done a hell of a lot more than the average bear, but I don't look like it. We'll, I do look like it. Outside of circus acrobats, and professional atheletes most guys my age.. meh. What am I trying to prove? Bottom line is that I don't quit. I expect to leave it all in the ring, as they say. I give 120% 80% of the time. The other 20% I'm gasping and sweating and demonstrating clearly that I'm at my absolute limit. That's how I work out. And I never complain. The harder it gets, the harder I work. And I encourage everyone. That's how I work. That's how I play. And I have just about zero patience for people who say things like 'This is boooolshit". My immediate response is, then shut the fuck up and go home. Why are you even here? 

And so in my daydream, I am a Negro in the 1940s and I am in bootcamp being shouted at in the segregated Army working my way to go the Europe to fight the Hun. The Negro next to me is panting and jogging next to me. He's gassed. He asks if we are going to actually get a chance to fight. I say, I think so, keep running. Then I'm in Korea and the Negro next to me is shivering cold and he whispers in my ear, I think we're going to lose this war. I say, maybe but we're here to fight. Stay warm. Then I'm in Vietnam and the black soldier next to me is saying 'This is bullshit" and I ignore him. Then I'm in on my way to Iraq and a black protester is saying "No blood for oil". Right about this time, I am finishing my lap and I come back to reality thinking that there are no black folks in my circuit training class this morning because there are black history professors saying that circuit training is racist bullshit and African Americans shouldn't exercise because we're not farm animals. What a horrible stereotype I daydreamed. 

But the players in this drama are only black for the sake of this particular example. The weakness and fear and fight against brutal physical exertion is nothing specific to any so-called race. It's a character thing in all human beings. And so my attitude remains. On social media I hear the echoes all the time. This is bullshit they say. They don't like the coach, the challenge is too hard. And I listen. I don't tell them to STFU and go home, and why are you even here. I think it. But I don't say it. I just put my head down and do the work I came to do. I try to keep those 20% gaps to a minimum. I wonder how old I'm going to be when I just can't do it any longer. I focus on my own performance. I'm a 1940s Negro in that way, a Tuskeegee Airman. I've got something to prove, but not with my mouth.  I don't mind being a small cog in a big machine. I'm certainly not a monkey wrench in the gears. I'm doing my part. It's not about me. It's about us. 

--

I think in black American life, we all knew the somebody who took the extra time to whisper in our ear. There is a shared confidence we are presumed to have, and often enough somebody will call us 'brother' in an effort to engage in some heartfelt honesty. Sometimes the honesty is more than you wanted to know. Too much information. Sometimes the honesty is right on time, a confidence you needed to experience for once.  Sometimes it's completely wack out of left field. But it's always a reaching out for belonging, it's consequently a challenge to respond in kind, because as much as people like to pretend that black Americans are all the same, (even black Americans pretend), the reality of black diversity can be daunting. 

That moment. That whisper. It makes you hold your breath. 

 

They Said It Couldn't Be Done

I'm listening to the grinding sound of FUD over cryptocurrencies. It's annoying me to no end. I'd just like to review a few things I've heard in the past from the technically illiterate in consideration of the future of information technology. 

They said software would always and only be used by scientists for science, or by engineers for engineering but that business managers would never have computers on their desks. They said that only businesses would never use UNIX and that IBM would put all of those other guys out of business. They said that TCP/IP was never going to replace Banyan Vines in businesses. They said that AS/400 was an unbeatable operating system for business and that peer to peer networking wasn't necessary. They said that Token Ring was superior to Ethernet and would win in the marketplace.

They said that Triple DES was as secure as cryptography could get and that anything more secure than that could never be in the public domain. They said that MP3s and file sharing was only for piracy. They said the music industry would never go along with something like MP3s. They said that the taxes applied to the sales of blank CDs would satisfy the artists and labels to makeup for money lost to piracy. They said that the addition of digital music would shrink the entire market. They said podcasts wouldn't matter and could never compete with content on broadcast TV.

They said that AOL / TimeWarner would be the industry leader and determine the future of content delivery on the internet. They said the Steve Case was the most brilliant businessman who understood IT. They said that nobody would be able to solve the last mile problem of fiber to the home. They said broadcast TV would last forever. They said nobody in the mainstream would ever buy $2500 computers. They said nobody would sell personal computers to the public on credit. They said Scientific Atlanta was the only company that could win the settop box wars. They said there could be no possible business model that would satisfy the major studios and convince them to put their best properties online.

They said ecommerce was doomed because nobody would trust putting their credit card information online. They said that travel agents were here to stay because websites could never be sophisticated enough to handle airlines, hotels or car rental agencies. They said money lost in the dot com bubble proved bricks would always beat clicks. They said all of Silicon Valley was like Pets.com. 

They said that the digital divide was permanent and there was actually no good reason for black Americans to go online. They said that nobody would get news from online and that online advertising was not enough to sustain any real business model. They said bloggers could never influence real opinion. They said that Presidential campaigns didn't need to pay attention to 'netroots'. They said people who sat in front of terminals to write onto the internet couldn't be taken seriously, that it was all virtual and had no impact on real life. 

They said nobody would buy books online. Then they said nobody would buy shoes online. Then they said nobody would buy clothes online. Then they said nobody would buy groceries online. They said nobody would file their taxes online. They said nobody would pay bills online. They said nobody would buy cars online. They said nobody would rent apartments online. They said nobody would buy and sell securities online. They said nobody would contribute to charities online. 

They said Blockbuster was not threatened by online upstarts. They said Microsoft couldn't build a gaming console. They said the Blackberry was the business phone. They said Nokia could never be threatened by Apple. They said people would never watch video and movies on their phones. They said there was no use for wireless internet connectivity. They said wifi was only for the elite, not ordinary people. They said there would never be wifi on commercial airliners. They said a free operating system could not beat Microsoft Windows. They said separating the browser from Windows would kill Microsoft. They said applications run on browsers would never replace fat clients. 

They said open source software could not beat proprietary software. They said databases on mainframes would never be threatened by decentralized databases. They said no serious business could be run without a bricks address. They said ordinary people would not need or want 64bit computers. They said videogames could never make as much money as movies. They said tablets were ridiculous and nobody would have a tablet and a phone. They said Facebook was just for teens. They said Twitter was just for teens. They said online dating was just a fad. They said proprietary software was more secure than open source software. 

Today they are saying Bitcoin is worthless. 

So is a single bitcoin worth $500,000, $5,000, $500 or $0? I’m inclined to say $0, especially if bitcoin’s value depends on it being adopted as a global digital currency to replace dollars. There is no chance whatsoever that bitcoin can displace the dollar, for the simple reason that it is badly designed. Bitcoin can handle a pathetically small number of transactions, and uses an inordinate amount of electricity to do so, making it entirely unsuitable to replace ordinary money.

Even if bitcoin worked better, it is in a Catch-22 because of Gresham’s law, the nostrum that bad money drives out good. Given the choice of spending inflationary government-issued money or something which holds its value, everyone would spend the bad paper stuff and hoard the bitcoin. You wouldn’t want to be the person who spent 10,000 bitcoins on two pizzas in 2010, when a bitcoin was worth a fraction of a cent. Those bitcoins are now worth $40 million. But if no one spends bitcoin, it will never get established as a currency.

Bitcoin's value depends upon the genius of its invention and the conviction of those engineers and investors who understand that and their willingness to build upon its technology. Same as any other invention. The world will make room for it because it works better than the alternatives. The genie is out of the bottle. It will be adapted and perfected. It is inevitable. Why? Because the idea is entirely too massive to be ignored, just like open source software. Except digital currency is even bigger. It's bigger than junk bonds in the 80s. It's bigger than rural electrification in the 30s. It's about as big as double entry accounting. That's how deep this is going to go. I guarantee you. 

But there's basically one conspiracy, and that is to keep Coinbase as the only exchange in the US with access to a bank account. I can't imagine there will be no other bank to take on that challenge, but I can imagine people at the SEC being whispered to. 

The 250,000 Pound Monster

(from the archives October 2015?)

I just learned that there is actually a monster under my bed. Well, to be a little more precise, it's about a mile or so down the road from me in Torrance, CA. I didn't want to be afraid of this monster, but I can't honestly say that I'm not afraid. That's because of all I've learned about risk in the past few years by reading Taleb. It's very simple. There are over 10,000 tons of modified hydrofluoric acid sitting in a fancy tank in the oil refinery in my neighborhood. Last year, that fancy tank just missed getting ripped wide open in an explosion that blew a 40 ton chunk of machinery that landed 3 feet away. Scary monster? You bet.

Of course, everybody wants to bet. You can guess who is betting which way because it has come down to a war of will and words between a whole lot of anxious people. You see, Exxon Mobil, who owned the refinery when it blew up basically got the hell out of Dodge. Their bet was to sell the refinery to a company called PBF who is not nearly as well-financed. A local group of Torrance residents formed a group called TRAA, and they are betting that they can get the fancy acid tanks converted to something a lot more safe. The City of Torrance seems to be hedging their bets. On the one hand they'd like to say that everything is OK, on the other hand they may say something else in private. Of course some of us have just realized we may be betting our lives. But what, you may ask, is the big special deal about a fancy acid tank? Well, nothing really, it's more about the choice of acid. 

If you want to make high octane gasoline, and who doesn't want to make that, right?; you have to use a fairly well-known (to chemical engineers) process called alkylation. Alkylation requires some serious acid, and there are only two acids that are strong enough to make the good stuff. One is hydrofluoric acid, which the Torrance Refinery uses, and the other is sulfuric acid. So it's HF vs H2SO4, just like back in high school chemistry. No actually that was HCl. HF they don't allow in high school chemistry. In fact, most chemists are scared of the stuff, at least all of the chemists I could find on YouTube. But here's the extraordinarily dangerous part, as opposed to the moderately frightening aspect of HF stuff that you see on YouTube. The boiling point of HF is just below 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Used in the refinery at higher temperatures, it's a gas. Gas as in, blows whichever way the wind goes if it gets out. Now you know why I'm afraid of this monster. If it gets out, it can't be controlled. 

So in addition to YouTubery, I've got some Wikistuff. Check this out:

In a standard oil refinery process, isobutane is alkylated with low-molecular-weight alkenes (primarily a mixture of propene and butene) in the presence of a Bronsted acid catalyst, either sulfuric acid or hydrofluoric acid.^[4] In an oil refinery it is referred to as a sulfuric acid alkylation unit (SAAU) or a hydrofluoric alkylation unit, (HFAU). Refinery workers may simply refer to it as the alky or alky unit. The catalyst protonates the alkenes (propene, butene) to produce reactive carbocations, which alkylate isobutane. The reaction is carried out at mild temperatures (0 and 30 °C) in a two-phase reaction. Because the reaction is exothermic, cooling is needed: SAAU plants require lower temperatures so the cooling medium needs to be chilled, for HFAU normal refinery cooling water will suffice. It is important to keep a high ratio of isobutane to alkene at the point of reaction to prevent side reactions which produces a lower octane product, so the plants have a high recycle of isobutane back to feed. The phases separate spontaneously, so the acid phase is vigorously mixed with the hydrocarbon phase to create sufficient contact surface.

Notice the point where they say exothermic. I remember that from high school chemistry. That means if something breaks, then left alone you get higher temperatures and pressures. Imagine a shark; if he stops swimming, he explodes. So you've got to keep some machines running all the time. That's what makes the tank so fancy. So what do you want to bet that the fancy tank's machines don't sleep? What about the machine minders? Don't they sleep? I'm sure there are some work rules about that. Hey. I found some rules: HF is registered as toxic under SARA Title III section 313. 

Now let's dig into the weeds a little further. There's a difference between HF and modified HF. The modification is there because HF floats, whereas H2S04 does not. And this is the thing with HF, what makes it the good stuff is it's basic beastie-ass nature. You don't need so much of it because it reacts like a boss, whereas the sulfuric acid, well you need more. And at a measly $2000 per metric ton, the trucks keep rolling in to the refinery. (It's not like somebody's going to build an HF pipeline). Anyway, you may see MHF right next to HF, and people betting on the fancy tanks will tell you that there's a significant difference between MHF and HF.  So basically the M is for modified, and that's some kind of additive that you mix in to the HF in an attempt to make it less floaty. But the M also makes it less beastie too. So it turns out that once upon a time, by consent decree, the refinery was order to add 30% M. It turned out that that formula of MHF was not beastie enough to run the refinery's process. They watered it down too much. So a decision was made to change the MHF mix down to 10%. So now it's more like mHF than MHF. Or basically 90% HF rather than 70%. 90% HF is basically HF. Just like 90% octane is basically premium gas. Well, add 1% more it is, but nobody sells 70% octane gas. That's too watered down. And that's what the guys at the refinery said about their MHF. So, yeah, they want to tell everybody that MHF is safe, but they spiked their own formula, so...

H2SO4 on the other hand, doesn't float away on the breeze. In fact it's kind of syrupy. 

Now you may remember, Cobb readers, that when the refinery went kaboom. I immediately ran out to see what was going on. If the HF had gotten out, I would have been dead.  So that's why I'm kind of pissed off to actually look in a bit closer to this toilet and smell the smell of something smelly. 

Suckers for Adjectives

This morning I ate a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast. I changed from Cheerios which was for last week. As I opened up this new box, I noticed the words. Prime Ingredient Whole Grain. Now being an American, you know and I know that there is something supposedly healthy about 'whole grain'. In fact, 'whole grain goodness' is some marketing phrase I'm sure you are familiar with. Whole grain what? 

Today's gripe is that we're all hung up on adjectives. So long as it's the 'Top 10', then we'll pay attention. We don't care if it's the top ten worst one-hit wonders of the 70s or the top ten blunders of the Trump White House. So long as it's the top ten, or the Best or the Coolest or the Guinness World's oldest bodybuilder. 

What happened to the value of nouns, and where did all the proper nouns go? I know we don't teach kids in public school how to diagram sentences any longer, but you'd think at least a majority of us would... I can accept that we're all about extremes and the extremes are interesting, but it's always easy to look at the extremes of whatever. Sometimes the solidity of a mediocre fundamental good is worth more of our attention.

This is, I think, the Kant in me talking. I don't know for sure, and I'm not sure I want to. There's no easier way to jump meta than to guess what a famous philosopher said about it. Hmm, is it the easiest? 

 

Reaching Higher Ground

As I'm getting in shape, losing weight and flattening the old gut, interesting things are happening.

 

First. I can do five pull-ups. Basically any time. I know for a fact that for the past five years I could only do two, and then I'd be hurt for the rest of the day.

 

Second. And this is really weird. I can sense that my center of gravity is moving up. When I walk I feel it. There's more of me in my arms and chest and shoulders and less of me in my belly.

 

Third. I'm starting to notice a big difference when I'm warmed up vs just getting started. There's a kind of ramp of performance I can feel. It used to be (and to a certain extent it still is) that I try to workout and I just get more and more tired and it takes a day to recover. Now I get warmed up in about 20 minutes (which used to be all I could go) and then the blood and adrenaline is pumping and I can really push myself. 

 

There's a weird new sense of self taking over which is a combination of many things. There's something very different about getting in shape in your mid fifties than at any other age. I have (half) a lifetime of athletic experience to judge what my body is doing and how well. I'm pushing myself to do what I remember I could do, and I accept that I'm slower and get more winded quickly, but I approach it from a very different set of reasons. What I think about now is how meaningless feats of strength are to me. Form is so much more important. Balance is so much more important. Fluidity of motion and the ability to withstand pain. These are things that matter.  Being able to do a double somersault seemed to be a pinnacle of achievement when I was a teen. I don't even think it's impressive to chicks any more, if it ever was.