Day 140 - Puerto Vallarta, Jal., Mexico

“A fool will ask for a glass of water while he is drowning” - American Dictionary of Proverbs

As I lay back in the kayak and stared up at the sun, paddle laying across my legs, I realized I was having a Moment.  I’ve developed this particular aspect to my life philosophy; this idea of Moments.  It all started when I was running the San Francisco Marathon for the first time.  It was as I stepped off the curb on to The Embarcadero, at about mile 25.  I suddenly realized that the moment I was living in, that particular moment, was one I would remember the rest of my life.  Time slowed down and all the details of the moment got burned into my brain; the way the curb looked and felt, the aching in my legs, the finish line banner up ahead.  I had recently completed some meditation training and I think I was looking to live in the moment; *working* at it when suddenly it just naturally clicked and washed over me.  I realized it was a special moment, and even though I didn’t know quite what it meant, I swore I would look for more of those in the future.  That moment felt like a beginning.  I’ve since had one other; when I was on my bike ride and I stopped at a river outside of Sweethome, left my bike along the banks of the river and went and sat down on a rock and let the water flow over me.  Again, I didn’t ask for the moment; I suddenly felt it again; this sense that this particular moment was worth the pursuit.  It was like a sign that I was on the right path.

And now, here in Puerto Vallarta, I had my third.  In that moment I realized that it was all building up to this.  It’s hard to put into words, but they’re like lights at the feet along a path, illuminating just enough to get you near to the next one, so that the leaps of faith are a bit less scary.  This one felt like an inflection point; a sort of beginning, but maybe more like a transition between acts.  In that moment, I realized that only three things really mattered to me; the people I care about, the beauty of teaching, and the joy of personal fitness.  Nothing else much matters to me.  And so, one of the reasons I’m mentioning that here is that I think it will inform how this blog works going forward.  I may still write about philosophy and life.  I’ll certainly be writing about travel while I’m on my bike trip.  But increasingly you’ll find more here about health, fitness, nutrition and a lifestyle that blends body and mind.  Not to sound like a hippie.  I think my engineering background will still inform my desire to stick to science and things that make concrete realistic sense.  But the goals have shifted; it’s less about success and more about the feeling of the sun on your back, kayak paddle gripped in both hands, arms burning and a smile as big as the bay around Puerto Vallarta.  So look for more along the lines of exercise science, nutrition goals, outdoors knowledge and the active lifestyle here in this space.

Day 126 - Jacksonville, FL - Consumerism

I know, I know.  It's boring.  "Buying things is bad".  "Americans buy too much stuff".   Thing is, though, like a lot of boring stuff in life, it's still true.  Sitting here in BJs, waiting for my parents to finish picking out...actually I don't know what they're picking out...I feel like this makes a good theme for the blog today.  What I've figured out is, it isn't buying things per Se is bad.  Here's the issue: things we buy control us.  Partly that's because of the ownership; they take space, they need maintaining.  Possessions take work.  But more crucially, every dollar we spend is like a tiny little cage.  It obligates us to then earn that dollar back.  The more dollars we spend, the more we have to earn.  The first few dollars aren't so bad; we can do what we love and still make some money.  But as we start to spend more dollars, we work ourselves into a corner.  Either we have to deal with the anxiety of being broke or in debt, or we have to find something really lucrative to do.  If you're lucky enough to genuinely love doing something that also turns out to be lucrative, then more power to you.  But for most of us, being forced to make more money really limits our options.  And many of us wind up doing something we don't love to support our possessions.  And then, the irony is, if you're me anyway, you wind up spending a lot of that money trying to forget your unhappiness at what you wind up doing with your life.  Which is a vicious cycle.

So, you know, like your mom always said, when you pick it up, think twice about whether you really need it.  And maybe spend less time at BJs. 

Day 125 - Jacksonville, FL - Planet Fitness

Here to train for my up coming ride (http://tinyurl.com/AdamBikes) in addition to visit my family, I wanted to join a gym.  My home gym is 24 Hour Fitness, and I like them very much, but they don't exist out here yet.  The closest gym to my parents' place is a Planet Fitness, so I decided to give them a try.  Planet Fitness has a really interesting model/niche; they are the gym for people who have never joined a gym.  Their gyms are very basic, by a gym rat's standards.  There are no swimming pools or hot tubs or saunas or towel service.  There aren't even any classes, which are a staple these days.  The equipment, in scope, resembles a hotel workout center: cardio machines of various stripes and then weight machines.  A real gym aficionado would turn up their nose.  However, they have a few huge advantages.  First, they are really clean.  They smell good.  All the equipment works and is identical and easy to use.  They clearly contract out their workout equipment; it's all done up in their own colors and uses a coherent and consistent system.  They have messaging all over the gym about how "You belong", "Judgement Free zone", etc., etc.  Unlike most gyms, the clientele is generally older and out of shape.  They're open 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and staffed at all times.  They teach "training classes" which are small-group (5-1 max) training classes about how to use the machines and work on different muscle groups. And maybe most importantly, they are dirt, dirt cheap.  All of this is set up to appeal to the person who traditionally made excuses not to go (too expensive, too confusing, too many beautiful people).

Day 124 - Nashville, TN - Prince's Hot Chicken Shack

I swear this isn't going to turn into a food blog.  The thing is, though, when you're flying through a city, the one thing you always have time for is a hot meal.  And, in this case, we drove all day to go to Prince's Hot Chicken Shack.  I loved this place.  First of all the food was amazing.  The chicken was fried in very hot grease which keeps the flavor in without making things greasy.  I got the Hot and my Dad got the Medium but they were both hot enough to make our lips hurt and the tops of our heads sweat.  But you knew it would be good because there was no attempt to butter you up with decor or anything.  The place was very real.  I commented to my Dad that one of the things I liked about places like that was you could feel their relationship to the local community.  I guarantee they were providing a bunch of jobs, and probably to people that needed them.  And the woman sitting at the front selling her baked goods makes a mean chocolate chess pie.   

Day 123 - Columbia, MO - Braum's

Kansas, y'all.  Kansas.  As I rode across that great state, I got excited for the return trip on my bike.  Boy, it sure is flat. 

Anyway, one nice thing about sailing through KS is that I got to return to one of my roots; Braum's Ice Cream.  Braum's, for those who didn't spend significant time in the Kansas/Oklahoma/North Texas area, is a chain of fast food-ice cream restaurants that have grocery stores inside them.  It's a weird combination that works for them because most of them got their start as small stores in small towns.  And they still have that small town feel.  Most importantly, though, they make an absolutely killer hot fudge sundae.  Worth the drive.​

Day 122 - Denver, CO - Arches National Park

I'm mostly going to just let the pictures speak for themselves today.  Arches is really cool (obviously).  We also got to drive through Moab, and I really would like to get back there someday; there's a company called Boutique Air that can get you there from Denver and I'd like to spend a week there biking, rafting, and climbing.  Arches is a reminder of the power and the ephemeral nature of the natural world and I'm glad I got to see it, however briefly. 

Day 121 - Salt Lake City, UT - Panic Button

Today was an interesting day.  Taken as a whole, we had a good day of travel, making it over 600 miles.  I got to show my Dad the John Day Fossil Beds, which are amazing.  And the terrain was beautiful.  We had a few issues with the car.  Essentially, we ran out of oil, and we have no idea why.  I happened to decide to make a stop to get off at Culver's for ice cream, and it's a good thing I did, because if I hadn't, we might have had the engine seize up on us on the highway.  We ended up bouncing around going to Walgreens and Walmart looking for oil.  It was one of those experiences in life where there's moments of sheer panic and confusion but everything turns out all right in the end!  I'm learning to try to roll with those moments more; everything always seems to turn out all right, so what's the point of panicking?  It was great to have my Dad around; he was a big help.  We still have no idea what - if anything - might be wrong with the car.  But it's a beautiful day, we made good progress, and the world is a happy place. 

Day 120 - Mitchell, OR - Eastern Oregon is cool

Yeseterday and today have been really dense and it's going to take some time to unpack them.  Right now I am in the Oregon Hotel in Mitchell, OR.  This is a place I've been before; in fact, I know what day it was because I left my name in the Guest Book on July 17, 2014.  That was the day I chased the Forrest fires that had closed Highway 26 by riding my bicycle on Forest Road 22 around through rutted pathways and hung out with a wagon train in the Oregon forest.  It's so fun to relive those memories; it's even more fun to do it with my Dad.  Life is full of bizarre coincidences and weird moments; right now my Dad is using my virtual reality helmet to watch great white sharks in a hotel I stayed in 2 years ago.  We're here because we ran out of gas, and a trucker here in Mitchell had to help us refill our tank, and while we were at it, somehow we ended up with a hotel room.  Skeeter - the woman who rented me my first room - is still here.  Sadly her husband had a stroke so now she runs the whole hotel.  126 people live in Mitchell, and I think we met half of them. 

I forget sometimes how great life can be.  Today is an exercise in remembering. 

Day 118 - Portland, OR - Taking Yourself Seriously

A few days ago, I was talking to my Dad - you can always count on my Dad to get to the heart of the matter - and, deep into the conversation, he made the throwaway observation that I "take myself too seriously.  It's just life."

At the time that observation didn't make much of an impact on me, but as I've had time to sit with it, it's occurred to me that he is really, really right.  The last 7 or 8 years, I've felt this sense that I'm on a journey.  This journey has led me to do things like run marathons, climb mountains, lose weight, move around, date a lot, get another Masters degree, try to become a teacher, learn to rock climb, etc., etc.  All of which is great.  But a creeping trend has started to seep in around the edges: I don't really have as much fun as I used to.  It's not something that happened all of a sudden.  I never sat down and said "fun is bad".  It's just been an outgrowth of getting older, of spending a lot of time alone, and of generally finding that I mistrusted people more than I used to, combined with this sense, this drive that somehow I had to accomplish something, get something done.  I think it's made me grumpy, and I need to course correct away from it.  Not in a rictus smile "Mandatory Fun" kind of way, but just in a genuine, natural way.  For example, I used to play video games for fun.  Now I rarely do that, and when I do, I'm really type A about it.  I used to read murder mysteries, just for kicks.  I liked to eat and drink a lot.  I threw parties.  Now I go out and hike; which is great, and awesome.  But sometimes I just don't let my inner child out.  I used to do theater.  I even tried to learn to sing.  Now I don't even sing in the shower. 

I was reading this really interesting story in the New York Times today about psychology in China, and there was the following passage, about the oppression of people, but it resonated with me: "the pressure to succeed is enormously high. They hope that with success they can protect themselves from the arbitrariness of the rulers. They strive like this to avoid becoming helpless objects. Basically this obsession with success is a fearful way to live." [emphasis mine].  That's pretty deep right there. 

I tell this story to remind myself, but also as a cautionary tale to anyone else out there who, like me, might be headed into their late thirties and maybe has lost the drive to just be stupid, to go out and have a good time, to let loose and not take things as seriously. 

Day 117 - Portland, OR - I Voted

Today I voted in the Democratic primary as well as the Multnomah county local elections.  It felt really good to vote.  One of my takeaways from the process was that it is really just too hard.  Not only was it complex to figure out how to register, but the process of voting by mail is just too complicated.  Now, I know, many of you will scoff.  Yes, in theory, if you know what you're doing, it's not a big deal.  But I'm reminded of a conversation I had with a friend years ago about check cashing places and how hard it was for many people to conceive of going into a bank and opening a checking account.  I can easily see how somebody like a working mother who is busy and stressed would not have the bandwidth to deal with the election process.  Which is a shame because I want to hear from everyone; that's what makes democracy strong.  I think it should be incredibly easy to vote.  It should be easier *not* to vote.  You should be able to vote anywhere and anyway you want.  Everyone should get automatically registered and there should be smartphone apps for voting.  Yes, I am aware that there are privacy and fraud issues.  But this is a smart country.  Let's figure it out. 

Day 116 - Portland, OR - A Plea for Help

But not for me.  I promised I would not turn this blog into a giant series of requests for donations, and I believe I've stuck by that promise.  But I'd like to take one more opportunity, with only a month to go before my ride, to ask anyone who feels able to donate to Multiple Sclerosis on behalf of my ride, and all the people who can't ride.  I've encountered two people in my personal life recently who both have the syndrome, and it's been really illuminating.  It's not something only for kids and old people; it actually affects those of all ages but especially can be hard for those of us still in the prime of life.  And, encouragingly, I've seen a lot of promising things recently about treatment options, including a cool new one where they do some outpatient brain surgery that has a 73% chance of removing all symptoms, forever.  But these treatments, and researching and approving these treatments, are not cheap.  I know not everyone is in a position to donate, but if you are and can, please do, at http://tinyurl.com/Adam Bikes.  And thank you!

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/268055.php

Day 115 - Stevenson, WA - Dog Mountain

Today I took a hike up Dog Mountain.  It's considered a classic Gorge-area training hike and a way to measure your performance so I wanted to set a baseline and just see how I could do.  I went pretty much flat-out, at least 90%.  I probably could have shaved a minute or two here and there; I stopped to chat with a few folks and take a couple of pictures, especially up near the summit where the flowers were just amazing and I couldn't resist.  But I think 2:20 is a pretty good time.  It was fun seeing so many people out on the trail; one cool thing about the Portland area is nobody seem to have a day job.  :)  And, of course, there were a lot of dogs (although the name doesn't actually come from that; it's actually a bit of a sad name, google it if you want to know more). 

Day 114 - Portland, OR - Jamie's visit

My friend Jamie has been here visiting for the last 2 days and will be here through tomorrow morning, which is why I haven't updated the blog much.  I'll have more meaningful things to say later perhaps, but I just wanted to leave a placeholder about her visit.  She's been really great about taking pictures and posting them so I'll only have a few here.  It's been great to see her (obviously!) and fun to play tourist and to see the city through her eyes.  The weather has been really mixed but we've had enough good weather to get outdoors and see the Gorge and even all the way down to Bend.  When you see things through other people's eyes it can really change how you see things but for me the biggest thing has when reconfirming my new commitment to the outdoors and to fitness..  I just love both those aspects of this place and even if for no other reason that will always be a huge part of my Portland experience.

Day 111 - Portland, OR - Prince

Well, we seem to be on a roll for celebrities passing away.  Prince was only 57.  He had much more to give.
I've written about this before, like when Bowie passed, but it's worth repeating.  Other than the natural grief anyone would experience at the passing of someone like Prince, what always strikes me in this moments is a lesson I learned from, of all places, Kung Fu Panda.  Which is this: be the best possible you, you can be.  Prince was not the best artist (whatever that means).  He was not the best man.  What he was, was the best possible Prince.  He was the best at being Prince that anyone could be.  He was kind, he was compassionate, he worked hard, but most importantly he was always, unfailingly, Prince.  He did not try to be Michael Jackson.  He did not run for Congress.  He didn't advertise for Geico.  He just rocked faces, dressed like a crazy person, and partied like it was 1999.  Nobody would ever confuse Prince for somebody else.  When you heard his music, you knew it was Prince.  There was just something indefinably Prince-y about the guy.  And all my favorite celebrities are like that.  Chuck Klosterman.  John Linnell.  Edward Snowden.  These are people who are unique.  Most of them work hard at being their unique self.  They make sacrifices.  They turn down opportunities others of us might jump at, just because it's not who they are.  They take less, work harder.  And yet all of them are, in the end, successful, not in spite of their uniqueness but because of it.  That is what I find inspiring.  Yesterday I was speaking with a friend about a business idea she has.  She said that it was a good product because it filled an unfilled need.  I agreed with her, but I pushed her a bit: Given that this should exist and someone should make it, what, I asked, makes *you* the best person to deliver this product?  How is this a unique expression of who you are?  She has business talent and a drive to teach yoga; that's a pretty unique combination.  So I agreed with her that this is what she needs to do.  The universe, if you will, needs her to do this, as a unique expression of her her-ness.  As another example, most of the people who will read this could not imagine riding their bicycle across the United States.  I can't imagine *not* doing so.  That doesn't make me better than anyone else.  It just makes me better at being me.  Which is all any of us can do.  

Day 109 - Portland OR - Cement Sidewalks

This probably seems like a silly thing to complain about to some of you (#firstworldproblems), but I'd like to spend today talking about cement sidewalks.  As someone who lives in cities and likes to run, they are the scourge of my existence.  From the moment I started running, back in Austin, I noticed that when I ran a significant distance on cement, everything hurt, but when I ran on pavement and/or dirt or trails, it did not.  And this is not a small difference; a few miles on cement is enough to make my calves tight, my knees twinge, and my hips ache.  I've run 5 marathons, and if I stick to pavement or dirt or grass, I can go 15-20 miles easy before I have any significant pain.  And yet, almost every single sidewalk I've ever met has been made from concrete: good old cheap, white concrete.  And if you think I'm making this problem up, here's a couple of links for you: Runner's World, Run Addicts.  And there are many more.  Concrete is bad for the joints.  And, if it's bad when you're running, it just stands to reason it's bad even while you're walking.  Much less bad, of course, because it's less impact and less distance - but still.  Why do we intentionally make our side"walks" out of something that hurts to walk on?  I don't know, but I'm guessing it's a combination of history, cost, and ease of maintenance.  Asphalt can't be that expensive, though, I mean we make all our roads out of it.  And history is not a good reason.  So...ease of maintenance?  I guess?  Anybody know?

For those of us that run, the options are few.  Personally, I choose to run in the road.  But there are certainly downsides to that plan; it's dangerous, drivers hate you, and sometimes you just can't do it because there isn't room.  I also believe it's against the law.  But I do it anyway; I feel like I have no choice.  (Just remember; if you're driving and see someone running in the road, it may not be because they're an asshole.  They may just value their knees).  Of course, if you're lucky enough to live near trails - like the one I used to live next to in Golden Gate Park - that's a great option.  But most of us don't have that choice.

So, the road it is!

Day 108 - Portland, OR - Money

I'm sitting here in a Portland vegan bar having just finished a bowl of tofu and broccoli with peanut sauce, which seems like as good a place as any to pen my treatise on money.  Now, I am not likely to become a marxist (although I did go on a date with a polyamorous communist while here).  But money is an interesting aspect that keeps winding its way through my life lately.  Take my bowl of broccoli and tofu.  When you add on my diet coke and the tip I left (20%), it cost me $14.  Now, if I was working at my computer programming job, that would probably take me about 20-25 minutes to earn (after taxes).  But if I become a fitness instructor, I'm guessing that will cost me more like an hour.
Today a friend of mine contacted me about an app idea she has. She doesn't know how to start.  I do.  I can help her.  But if I charge my "market rate", there's no way she could afford my services.  I won't do that, of course.  I'll charge what I think is fair, and what she can pay, if we get to that point.
A few weeks ago I wrote a check for my rent for my last month.  It was $1600.  To live in Portland.  For a month.  When people put stickers on their cars that say "Californians go home", this is what they mean.  As a programmer, I could afford that. 
Last week I met a bartender at one of my favorite spots who I was telling about my plan to get out of the rat race.  He heartily approved; he was opening his own recording studio, and working as a waiter just to make ends meet and fill in the gaps.
Money is not necessarily the problem.  To mangle a saying and paraphrase somebody famous (I forget who), money is the worst possible solution to the problem that money solves, except for all the other solutions.  Nobody has yet come up with a better way to figure this out.  We need people to do things for us.  No man is an island, etc., etc.  But if we do things for other people for free, than we don't have any way to indicate that value to anybody other than the person we did that thing for.  Barter sounds nice, but if I'm a programmer, well, not everybody needs things programmed.  In fact, most people really don't.  So...that won't work.  Thus: money.
But the thing is, like most solutions, money then looks around for nails for its proverbial hammer.  We try to solve other problems with money.  Like being happy, or well adjusted.  Instead of just a stand in for societal work value, it becomes a proxy for education, or good looks, or suitability as a mate, or success, or whatever.  In fact it's none of those things.  It's a very narrow solution to a very narrow problem; how to remember that something of value happened so that we can time-shift or location-shift it somewhere/sometime else.  That's it.  Money has no value over and above our need to have somebody do something for us or to acquire something we need.  Money that sits in a bank someplace is literally of no value unless and until we spend it on something we actually need.  Putting money in a bank and then not using it is a little like making a to-do list but then not doing any of the things.  The list is of no value.  It's what we cross off the list that counts.
It's taken me 39 years to understand this.  In some ways I feel like life is beginning over again solely based on that understanding. 

Day 107 - Stevenson, WA - BCEP Rock Weekend

This weekend was my BCEP Rock weekend.  Not rock concerts, outdoor rock climbing skills.  We went out to a place called Horsethief Butte.  It was beautiful.  Just picturesque.  The kind of weekend that you live for.  I don't think I'll ever forget climbing around the little bowls and valleys inside that magical place.  Part of what made it so amazing was the weather, which was just perfect.  The kind of weather that makes even animals cluster around and just sigh in deep relief, like that scene in Bambi.  Gentle breezes rustling your hair, clean, cool air with a slightly desert tinge, and perfect beginner rock cliffs.  On the way back we stopped at Hamilton island and went through a compass and map navigation course, and again, it was just perfect. There's a few things that will stick with me: 

- Sitting around the campfire while Frank made peach cobbler and Tommy played guitar, and we were all just drunk out of our minds. 

- Cresting over the top of a fixed line with only a prussik to save me from instant death, palms sweating like crazy

- Tommy incessantly saying "AF".  I can't publish what that means, but I can't stop saying it now​

- This feeling of deep inner peace on the drive back into town, a kind of feeling that all is right with the world​

- Stabbing through knee high grass while Frank followed behind, yelling at me not to twist an ankle​

- Tommy eating Erica's leftover breakfast at the diner attached to the Shell station​

- The crazy happy look on Melinda's face basically all weekend​

- Erica and Melinda telling me that I should load up porn on the VR headset I brought​

- Tyler telling me that Adams wasn't awesome enough for me to climb after riding my bike across the country​

And on and on.​  The perfect weekend, honestly.

Day 105 - Portland, OR - Samsung Gear VR

Today I picked up a used Gear VR.  Some of you may not know what this is.  It's one of the new set of VR kits, and it's the most consumer accessible one (read: cheapest).  All you need is a Samsung phone and this headset accessory.  I was expecting it to be kind of cool.  But it was way cooler than that.  Some of you may know that I started in VR 15 years ago when I was in graduate school, back when VR was clunky and stupid.  It is no longer clunky and stupid.  Here are some big reasons why I think Gear VR is a game changer:
   1) It's cheap.  Relatively speaking, of course.  But if you already have a Samsung phone, the Gear VR accessory is only $100.  And I picked up the Gear and the phone for under $500 total.  That's way cheaper than any useful VR has ever been before.
   2) It's easy.  It's not intimidating at all.  There's no cables or anything.  You just put your phone in the headset and then strap it on your head.  Set up was just downloading an app.  I was using the thing inside of 15 minutes.  Your mom could do it.
   3) It really works.  There's a threshold for this sort of thing, where it crosses over into "it just works".  Is it perfect?  No.  But it passes the smell test.  You feel like you're really there.  Some people complain about nausea, but I never had that issue.  The software was flawless.  There was no weird flickering and it never lost tracking.  It just worked.
   4) Largely because of those first 3, there's actual content.  I downloaded this free thing where I was walking around Nepal and it was just really really cool.  I could feel like I was really there in a way that watching a documentary just doesn't quite give you.

It would be really cool if you could actually walk around, of course (you can't).  And pick up stuff (can't do that either).  But man.  We're finally getting there!  Our kids will just think this stuff is normal.  It's coming, folks.  It's coming.  Actually, it's kind of already there.

Day 104 - Portland, OR - Middle-Ring

Yesterday, a friend of mine (thanks, Kelli!) sent me this article in the New York Times: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/opinion/how-to-fix-politics.html.  The article is well-written and I recommend that you read it.  It's a topic that I've thought about a lot and noticed myself as an element of modern life, and this author does a good job of putting a name to it.  In the old days, people had a few really good friends, and then they divided their time among a number of acquaintances and other groups, what the author calls "middle-ring organizations".  Maybe you were a member of a few clubs, or a weekend volleyball team, or your kid's PTA group.  Few people had tons of loose acquaintances unless you worked in something like sales or travelled a lot.  There was no Facebook.  Nowadays, we know a lot more people.  We have a lot more connections.  But we don't have any more time or brain capacity, so those connections have to come at the expense of something.  Some of us lose some of our ability to make really close connections.  Some of us sacrifice those medium connections; we don't participate in alumni groups or sports teams.  We don't join professional organizations.  In the article, the author talks about the effect this has on politics, which is essentially to polarize it.  People connect with politics either at a very surface level (the outer ring) or at a very intense level, by making it part of their ego identification.  They rarely have a healthy, mid-level amount of contact with politics.  I'm familiar with this phenomenon, because I've always enjoyed medium-ring organizations, and I've watched them kind of wither and die in favor of Facebook groups.  Who needs to meet with like-minded folks in person when you can meet them online?  What's true of dating is true of other things; we either connect at a very surface level, or very intensely, but hardly ever in-between. 

I can't claim to have an answer for this.  Even if one tries to live a life that bucks this trend, you face an issue: to keep organizations moving you need the support of a community.  It's all well and good to commit to "medium-ring" activities, but unless those around you do as well, it will die on the vine. 

Which doesn't mean it isn't worth it to try. 

Day 103 - Portland, OR - Climbing Resume

One of the cool/interesting things about Mazamas and their mountaineering activities is that the process of signing up for climbs is very formal; it involves filling out physical paper forms and sending in a "climbing resume", which is essentially like a job application.  I was working on mine today and updating it to send to a friend, so I thought I would post it here, both for posterity and in case it interests anyone what I've been up to and how I describe myself in mountaineering circles!