Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Monday, January 23, 2006

After a long weekend that was too short (I'll let you figure that out) I've decided to fulfill a request from my wife to discuss five things people might find weird about me.

(1) This one is obvious to anyone who knows me. I ride my bike more miles than many people drive their cars and I like it.

(2) I was once a Boy Scout, a Girl Scout and an Explorer all at the same time.

(3) I like blue food.

(4) I liked college a lot. I would go back if I could afford it just to study all the things I didn't have time for the first time like architecture, engineering, more theater and political science. I would finish my history and philosophy degrees and maybe get one in psychology or sociology. I would do geology, meteorology and more astronomy. I would definitely combine archeology with religious studies.

(5) I think science is about the coolest thing in the whole world to study. I wish I understood it a whole bunch more, especially math, but I love figuring out how the big machine works.

Maybe not totally weird to everyone but make to the majority.

Thanks for reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Sunday, January 08, 2006

My Grandfather, Lowell Ira Pitcher, passed away yesterday morning after a long, debilitating battle with Alzheimer's disease. I've known this was coming for a couple of years and his passing is a mercy for both him and my family. While I'm not at the point where I can write a true eulogy for him I can say that he was an amazing man. His first name was Lowell but everyone called him Pitch. When various and sundry authors write about "the greatest generation" or the "builder" generation, my grandfather was a member of that generation that typified everything they did. He rode the rails as a 12 year old hobo during the depression. He served on the USS Arizona as a radio man until asthma almost killed him in early 1941. He moved to northeastern Nevada and set up several businesses and in his spare time bought run down houses, fixed them up and then sold them for a big profit. He worked as a mechanic on the railroad after he sold his businesses until he retired to Arizona. I've never known a man with the drive and energy he had. His mind was always working on a solutioin to something and he was always, always always building something. He was handiest man I think I've ever seen aside from maybe my Dad. After my parents were married, they and my Grandparents bought an old railroad town (yes, the whole town) and used moved the buildings to build a cabin in the mountians and a house in Elko.

My most cherished memory of my Grandfather is a week when I went to visit my Grandparents at their cabin in Lamoille, Nevada. The cabin sits in the Ruby Mountians which look a lot like the Alps I'm told. Each morning, he and I would get up early, get our fishing rods and reels and head down to the creek that runs through the canyon to fish for trout. He taught me how to river fish with waders. We caught something every morning and then went home to have fish for breakfast and then spent the day working around the property, doing some hiking and talking about life. We didn't always get along because we are both strong willed people but I never doubted his love for me, nor how proud of me he was.

He and my Grandmother had a huge influence on who I've become. They reinforced everything my parents taught me, even when my parents lives sometimes didn't. I don't smoke because my Grandparents didn't and I've stayed physically active all of my life because my Grandparents did. They showed me the grand scale of America and instilled in me a love of traveling across it's varied vistas. They were pioneers that never lost that spirit and they passed that spirit onto their oldest grandson. My Grandad showed my that all of the old ways society wanted men to look at women were silly in how he lived with my Grandmother. He encouraged her to go back and get her education when she decided to do that. She let her handle her own money and he let her work her own jobs. Rather than trying to reign in her energy and drive he allowed her to express herself in her own wonderful way. They had one of those loves of the ages. Not the storybook kind where nothing ever seems hard and is actually a Disney storybook fake but a real love that carried them through those difficult stages of life when they didn't always get along and they didn't always agree. You could see their love in everything they did; even when he badgered my randmother to take her medicine and made her angry you could tell it was because he loved her.

I've missed my Grandfather for a while now. Several years back he began to lose his eyesight and that was a hard blow for him, but the slow fade of Alzheimer's is what took him away. I've missed his fire and his energy and that great crooked smile he had. I'm a very lucky person to have known him.

Now I pray for my Grandmother whose heart is broken and who must go through the rest of her life without the man she has known for over 60 years. She's an incredibly strong woman but her hurt is deeper than I can possibly imagine. Last night would have been the first night she has slept in her bed knowing that her husband will never share it with her again and that nearly breaks my heart. I have no doubt that they will be reunited on the other side and will love each other in the light and love of the Lamb Himself. For now though there is sorrow and loss and grief as there should be for such a man's passing from this world.

For now our family will lament and we will be cleansed through our grief. We will be brought closer to our God who will comfort us and we will remember Pitch's life.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Friday, January 06, 2006

Wow...long time no post. Lots to talk about but not too much of great importance. I'll probably break it up over a couple of posts if I can motivate myself to get it done.

Cycling: Last month was a good training month. Over 1300 miles and almost 60 hours with a strong average. Got a lot of good efforts in at the tempo riding level. It felt good to go harder than I did in Base 1. Near the end of the month I swapped my 39 front ring for a 42. When I first started riding I had a triple front ring with a 30/42/52 set on the front and got to pushing the 42 around a lot. I think that's what made me a good time trialist so when I upgraded to a double ring set for racing I kept the 42 and paired it with a 53. Anyways, about 14 months ago I was going to do the Six Gap Century and swapped the 42 for a standard 39 small ring for the climbs. All last year I rode with that and never really felt like I had the punch I wanted so I swapped back. It's made a huge difference. I feel so much better riding right now. I'm guessing that since I first started riding hard with a lot of time on the 42 my body got used to the gear ratios and efforts. This month is Base 3 which means I get to start climbing now. Lots of 4-6% grades while staying seated. I don't get to do uphill attack intervals until next month but I'm glad to be able to push my heart rate up to LT again.

Health: As a matter of fact, on my last climbing interval set I got caught in the rain and got chilled doing some descending. So now I have a really annoying cold. I'm managing the symptoms but I hate how I feel. I've taken two days off the bike and the symptom remedies mess up my sleep cycles so I'm struggling. I'm going to spend a little time on the rollers tonight while I watch NUMB3RS (you had to know I'd be geek enough to think that the show's cool, even if the professor type knows just a little bit too much about too many fields of mathematics) to see if I can break the pattern.

School: We start back again this coming Monday. I'm not ready; at least not mentally. I'm still tired and a bit cynical from last semester so I'm not really enthused about being back in the classroom. For the first time ever, I feel like there are more important things than teaching students in the classroom environment. This isn't to say I don't want to teach but I think I'm beginning to lean more towards the mentoring/coaching side of things. I'm really tired of trying to reach students who don't seem to care. I wonder how much of this has to do with getting close to my 40th birthday. More on that later I think. I like the idea of working in people's lives on a personal, one-on-one level right now. I want to partner with people to help them reach their goals. It's been kind of odd that over the break I got several emails from former students saying thanks for how much I helped them. It has been very encouraging but it also makes me resent the time I have to spend with students who just can't seem to be bothered to take an interest in their own lives. I find myself much more interested in being an academic advisor than I do in being a professor sometimes. Some of this has to do with being energized by someone else's enthusiasm and the fact that for a lot of the students I taught last semester, that enthusiasm was completely lacking. Part of me wants to contact someone like Franklin/Covey to see if they're hiring but the other part of me sees that what I do in a setting like this is really, really important. I was going to retire as a college professor after 20 years and go teach high school. With the way high schools are right now I think I'd rather go and work with the Covey people as a second career. I know that I'd have a lot to offer a company like that with the diverse skills, talents and life experiences I have.

Anyways, that's enough for now. More soon on MTB race series, thoughts as I approach mid-life and New Year's resolutions.

Thanks for Reading.

The Physicist   Link Me    |