Back to my home trails today.

http://www.strava.com/activities/98821658

St. Helens looked especially fetching from the turnaround. I could just make out the silhouettes of Adams and Rainier.  With the cloud level, anyone up top would have been treated to a lovely undercast and seen the other stratovolcanoes peeking out like islands north to south.

It’s quite simple really – spin a 360 from where you’re standing (helps to be outside). Over there! That looks like the highest point, right? Now run up it. YES!

One of my favorite runs in Albuquerque is the La Luz trail race. 9 miles from about 1,900m up to 3,200m. The race starts on tarmac for the culling before you enter the Cibola National Forest and hit the singletrack, then it’s a knife fight to pass people – you pretty much have to run them over (best to gain pole position on the road).  Good fun.

I saw one other runner this afternoon, about 2 miles past the MAC trail intersection. In those conditions (it was just under 30 degrees) the only thing to do is a nod and throw a low Harley wave. It’s the brotherhood (and the sisterhood). The further out you go, the smaller the tribe becomes. And the closer.

No matter how difficult it is to make it happen (whatever it is for you), if you take the first step – make it happen, you’ll find your tribe. I’ve found this to be true nearly every time with few exceptions. You’ll never find them sitting on your sofa reading the Twitters. Never.

Anyone who ever did anything worth doing  never felt the best course of action was follow the herd. Embrace your inner snowflake.  And…

DFW: “Try to learn to let what is unfair teach you.”
Me: But it’s just not fai….. sigh.

http://www.strava.com/activities/98464596

Great run this morning in Palo Alto. There are times when I’m unsure that I’ll be able to do a route. I have it in my mind and all I can do is start… and fall … and catch myself again. After all,  what is running other than falling and catching yourself – over and over again? Then I notice my watch beep and vibrate and I look down – 5 miles have gone by and I’m far from home.

Sometimes I feel gravity more than other days – it’s a similar feeling to riding a bicycle when perhaps the tire is flat – it feels flat – but no, the tire is fine, it’s just my legs that are flat.

This morning it was quite windy,  running up the steep hills (one is called the ‘Hill of Death’) I was blocked from the wind, but it was so steep and I swung my arms to propel myself upwards. Never look down at your feet –  always look up to the crest of the hill and imagine an invisible cord connecting your head to the top of the hill…pulling you upwards. It’s a trick learned long ago. After cresting the hill, I anticipated rolling like water down the other side giving me a chance to catch my breath. But it wasn’t so. I was met by a strong headwind that forced me to work just as hard as running uphill.  The beauty came when I turned toward the the rising sun (wave hello), followed the trail around a bend and then the wind was at my back. Yes!

For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say “I’m going to sleep.” And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own, until I myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book: a church, a quartet, the rivalry between François I and Charles V. This impression would persist for some moments after I was awake; it did not disturb my mind, but it lay like scales upon my eyes and prevented them from registering the fact that the candle was no longer burning. Then it would begin to seem unintelligible, as the thoughts of a former existence must be to a reincarnate spirit; the subject of my book would separate itself from me, leaving me free to choose whether I would form part of it or no; and at the same time my sight would return and I would be astonished to find myself in a state of darkness, pleasant and restful enough for the eyes, and even more, perhaps, for my mind, to which it appeared incomprehensible, without a cause, a matter dark indeed.

-Marcel Proust,  Remembrance of Things Past

For me to read later (when I have time):
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2004/01/hitchens.htm

As always, a solid obit from The Economist.

“She hated expectation: that burden that made you a prisoner of circumstances and dragged you along like a fish on a line.”

2 days at the mothership this week. This should be it for travel for the rest of the year. Maybe.

Was reading Alpinist 33 this morning and found this great quote by Mark Newcomb retelling his first ski decent of Polarity on the Hossack-MacGowan route on Grand Teton’s North Face:

Success in ski mountaineering rests on the polarity of a molecule of water. If the difference in charge were any stronger, we wouldn’t have vapor and clouds; any weaker and we wouldn’t have ice crystals and snow. As it is, H2O morphs with a freedom that few other common molecules have, and its ephemeral nature creates a staggering array of ever-changing crystalline shapes. These varied forms in turn lead to a continuum of snow conditions from blower powder to glit (half glue, half shit). Within that immense spectrum, there’s a window of firm yet forgiving snow that engages a ski edge and enables a secure turn.

When I was 8 years old I tried to build hovercraft.

I started with my sister’s blowdryer, took the fan out of the plastic housing and fitted it into a hole I carved into a soapbox derby car .

So here’s how it went down. I sitting on the edge of my bed leaning over and working on the floor. I was holding onto my hovercraft while reaching over to plug the dryer into the socket. So far so good.

Next I grabbed the switch dangling between the wire from the wall to the wire routing to the fan and flipped the switch to High. I wanted this hovercraft to fly.

I must have been touching one of the hot wires when the circuit closed.

I remember hitting the back of my head on the wall of the bedroom and everything going black for a split second, then just stars and spinning. When I regained my senses I looked down and the switch was black and melted. The fan never came on.

I’ve done some light electrical work as a homeowner, tapping into existing lines to wire new switches, installing ceiling fans. If the jobs are any bigger than that, I call a professional.

Today I’m cleaning out the electronics bin. It’s comprised mostly of power cords, vga to dvi cables, usb cables, cat5 cables – but also some things that I’ve carried around for a long long time. A Canon film camera, a tape (tape!) personal recorder, 2 VTBooks – essentially graphics card on a chip used to run multiple monitors prior to… all the manufacturers supporting multiple monitors and all these hard drives.

Apparently I copied a Morcheeba album to all my computers because I’ve found it on all but 3 of these drives.

Today I’m voiding warranties, wondering why I thought the files on these machines were so important and reformatting hard drives before I recycle them… made think of that time I tried to build a hovercraft.

Here’s a Morcheeba song.

Beautiful cinematography from Camp4Collective: