Emotions 11

When much of your life is dark it is easy to go to the dark side emotionally. More like when you try to look at true emotions you tend to go bleak. I cannot claim any great art in my works. I have a good eye for photos but not the dedication to selling shit. I enjoyed the glass making but the hauling around and selling killed my back while we were doing it. That was not particularly fulfilling artistically anyway, grinding out trinkets for the crap collectors is in the end soul killing. The consumer society we have created is going to fail. Not in my lifetime but I am not going to be around that much longer, 20 years if I am extremely lucky.
The two Americas is a reality that most folks don’t want to deal with. I have already failed financially so it doesn’t matter to me in the end. I am of a status that they cannot cut off completely as a veteran in the system. As long as I can stay out of prison the plutocrats are stuck with me. I am angry but not, “mad bomber” crazy so odds favor freedom for the long haul.
It is that anger at the system that I am no longer going to indulge. I need to try and put some serious effort in to finishing one of my literary projects. I do not feel very well at the moment, lots of pain in the joints and short of breath do to being way too heavy. For the first time though I am free of other peoples problems. This is I feel a last shot. I have staved off homelessness for the short run and can ride and write for a while with a bit of security. So I am giving the political ranting up and making another run at disciplined work.
This brings me back to the dark side of my emotions. The Socrates code is of a lighter mood and even though it is further along I feel that working on the Quantum Portrait project will bear more fruit. I find that the only way to get better is to write more and so if I beat the funk I may switch back. On the days that I can’t find the hole I have a travel project that I wish to work on. A photo diary of the Redwood National Parks trip. This is a test project of sorts. Can I generate a travel project that I can sell? Can I find an outlet to sell it through. The blog deal has eluded me. I had google ads but never made any money from it. When I was starting to generate hits they yanked my account and I never got a good explanation as to why but that is the new media. Slave labor under the guise of open source. The only people I know making money are selling naked pictures and they are for the most part scraping by on pretty thin margins.

Memorial Weekend

Road over the bridge to Manila to watch some of the 40th Kinetic Sculpture Race. This was one of the newest floats the Octo-mom. There was music and lots of folks despite the truly abysmal weather. The vendors stayed away, no Co-op with free giveaways and only one hot dog stand. The music was mellow and the racers as usual had gone all out "For the Glory"

Manic Murals

Windows Live Spaces
Decided to ride around town and take some photos of the many murals that add to the local color. In keeping with my desire to become a new media douche bag I thought I would co opt the creativity of another to express myself. Thanks to the Ink peoples center for the arts for sponsoring many of these.

Samoa All Bike Weekend

Windows Live Spaces
Went on a nice ride to the Pacific side of the bay and the all bike weekend at the dragstrip. The show was pretty good for this area lots of bikes a few impressive hot rods. They had a bike race a helicopter, the bike won but it was kind of a bs kind of start. The weather was cold and foggy with a bit of breeze but I had a good time.

Radmul Rounds a corner

I am resting up today and must confess I am in a huge amount of pain. 7 days, 200 miles and 10,000 feet of climbing have worn me out but that is a good thing. Last time I went north it only took 4 days to put me in the same condition so while I am not ready to hit the road for the east coast yet I am getting stronger each trip and seeing some spectacular scenery in the bargain. A lot of the time I spend buckling down to fight the wind or trying to pull the next hill but that is only a small part of the experience. Most of the time though I am cruising along listening to music or the sounds of the woods and wondering what will come up around the next corner. this trip was no exception as around the corner was an amazing sight. I had just pulled the first big hill of the day and was coasting down the other side. 1000ft plus so it qualified as a mountain but just barely. the morning had been gray and misty wet but coming down into Klamath the sun came out and I stopped for a massive hot chocolate at the Pew Mia fuel stop run by the Yurok tribe to warm up. With a few more miles I moved away from the river and back to the coast and a spectacular scene. The rocks and the beach with a pounding surf, blue water and blue sky with a few wisps of clouds racing across the sky in a driving wind. The mountains loomed with another 1400 foot climb up to Mill Creek with the coastal redwoods and old growth but I had to savor that spot on the beech. Even being right on the highway the ocean smell was overwhelming in this little cove. There must be one hell of an undertow based on how the 6 to 7 ft surf was pounding and I doubt if many folks have been foolish enough to swim at this lonely spot on the north coast. For those that never have the chance to see the pacific you have my sympathy and I hope this video can convey a bit of the energy I get from spots like this. Later in the trip I rounded a corner to find a small herd of Roosevelt Elk Bulls grazing and that video is in the post from June 10th. I have yet to plan the next trip, probably going to head south to the Napa Valley and the wine country, but wherever the road takes me I will look forward to what is around the next corner. Click the link above to see my first impression of the spot on youtube, here is the same spot on the way back.

Some Elk Bulls

The first Video from the trip to Crescent City. Two hundred miles round trip it wore my ass out but the scenery was great and the wildlife cooperated as this vid testifies to. The roadkill report showed it to be a bad week for rocky raccoon. Twelve of them one so bloated it must have been five times normal size. A few deer a sparrow sized bird one domestic cat round out the carnage. On the live front I did much better. Whales two gray and one humpback out at Patrick's point two sea lions and some brown pelicans while I was waiting on the whales. A redtailed hawk a few buzzards and an angry jay. The California Jay was pissed about something as he was scolding me while I had lunch. The pictures will be up at photo bucket in the next few days but I am sore and worn out from the ride so a recovery day is needed before I get everything up.

Stream of Radmul Consciousness

Will head north again after casting my vote in the election tomorrow. I plan to get an early start and will be out for about eight days. From the look of it. WiFi is limited so I do not know how many updates I can post from the road but I will do what I can. The plan is to push hard for distance each day with the Oregon border or bust the theme of this adventure. Not sure what bust would be lets hope I don’t find out. In the meantime here is a little stream of nonsense for your perusal, the type of things that run through my head as I search for answers in the world of Ideas. I will try to figure out what happens to our friend Mr. Dunbar along the way. Feel free to send any questions or even better any answers you might have my way. Radmul@aol.com or comment below. Enjoy your week I know I will enjoy mine.
Does my pessimism derive from my deterministic view of the world? Why do people think they have a choice? The empirical evidence all points against it. Why do people not realize that the choices made are generally not the result of a freely made choice. How do we decide whom to hold responsible for something and whom to absolve from guilt. Group evolution how does this play into holding people responsible? Deciding which norms are valid based on how getting rid of them effects the norm is that a valid argument for discrimination? I would argue no. Justifying the oppression of the one for the favor of the many must be based on the premise of the burden of proof being on the discriminator. You should be required to show that my wanting to do something you don’t like harms you in some way before you get to arbitrarily prohibit it even if now allowing it may damage the existing norm. Even if you could demonstrate some harm to marriage between a man and a woman deriving from the legalizing of gay marriage it still does not justify the discrimination. Why is your life more valuable than another’s that is the crux of the argument. If you take the position that the societal benefit outweighs the harm done to the minority how can you argue against extending that principle to everything. Is this just an academic argument with no value as we have no choice in the matter? Did the big bang produce homophobia? I would contend that the belief in an afterlife leads the discriminators to self justify their bigoted behavior. The mistaken concept that in the next life the underdog will get his happiness allows them to deny the victim their full pursuit of happiness. In the here and now. This destructive meme must be abolished.
The concept of an idea being viral in nature I find intriguing. The idea that language is a reproducing entity that an idea works to ensure its own survival for good or ill. These questions need further investigation. Some thoughts in support of memes, like genes that change over time due to minor modification, descent with modification is the actual term for evolution, language is passed down with minor changes over time some good some ill. The lower brain and higher brain operate differently to some extent independently of each other. Did the cerebral cortex evolve in conjunction with memes, is our higher brain simply a meme machine? This concept is harder to falsify the it appears on the surface, try to prove that fire is not alive. It is self replicating, it uses energy consuming oxygen and giving off CO2 much as we do and so on. Makes for an interesting thought experiment. In Darwinian terms what is the survival advantage to being able to engage in abstract thought like philosophy in the first place? The history of everything is such a tough nut to crack. We have the basics but the details are still as mysterious in some ways as they were to the first being that was capable of asking itself , “Why am I here?”.
Even in that there are more questions than answers, or so it would seem. There is research being done with bonobos, a form of ape, that indicates that they are self aware. They take care of their dead to some extent or at least they seem to feel the loss at the death of their young. They use tools, learn from and teach each other and use sex as a social instrument. Bonobos are the only animal other than us that has been observed enjoying sex in the 69 position, both hetero and homo. The harder one looks the less unique the human animal turns out to be.

Dual rant

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Heat wave

The weather has changed in radical fashion. The temp hit 100 yesterday and mid 90's today. I have never seen it that hot here even in August let alone May. 1oo on the bay is so muggy it is hard to breath but what the hey it is what it is. After the last long ride I broke down and picked up a pair of bike pants. I hate looking like a yupster but the jeans chafe like a bitch and the new pants are very nice. With the underarmour shirts and new helmet I no longer have that hobo look and it is really quite amazing how different people act towards me now. I find it very sad that to be treated as a person one can't wear jeans and a T-shirt on a bike. Still waiting on new part so I am hanging close to home, also Don blew up his Jeep yesterday so we will be working on that this weekend.
On the horizon next weekend the Kinetic Sculpture Race. After that I have Camp Obama a training session to work on the fall presidential campaign. I am still not thrilled with all of Barack's positions but he is so much better than the alternative I will put in as much time as I can to get him elected.

Touring the Unknown Coast

Rode the 100k of the Tour of the Unknown Coast and I am worn down a bit. Left here noon on Friday and went first to Fortuna for some carbo loading and then to Ferndale. Fortuna is an odd place, seems that I see something strange every time I am there and this trip was no exception. As I headed down main street to find someplace to eat I happened upon a knife fight in a gas station. Two morons going at it with the typical white trash woman yells and sirens wail in the background. When I moved to this area we checked out Friendly Fortuna and picked up on a very odd vibe so we went further north even though the rents were major cheap down there. Guess that’s the reason why, rednecks abound.
After the freak show I ended up at a KFC buffet to pack on some starch. It was the first place I came to that wasn’t filthy and as the wind was rising I did the “devil chicken.” I try to avoid fast food but I am not into dirty restaurants and I was starving.
Full I rode back to the Humboldt County Fairgrounds in Ferndale and pitched my camp. The vids will be up on You Tube for your viewing pleasure including a ride through a section of the Avenue of the Giants. The wind kicked up to 15 to 25 MPH so it took about 45 minutes to ride the three miles Fernbridge to Ferndale all with a pungent manure smell permeating the breeze.
The weather was perfect for the actual ride with clear skies and almost no wind but the minute I finished the worm turned. I crashed in the tent when I finished the ride before showering and heading to dinner, killer burritos, and after a short nap I emerged to fog and drizzle. Rained all Saturday night with wind and a bit of lightning. I stayed dry but slept poorly and packing up and riding home sucked the big one. At least the rain stopped mid morning.
Once I had set up camp and did the registration thing I took a little ride to shoot some of the Victorians but I was under whelmed. Did see a killer mountain ash in full bloom so it wasn’t a total waste but the houses I shot in town here impressed me more.
The tour ride was awesome for its scenery and for the challenge it presented. The amount of total climb was thousands of feet. Up down up down hit a top speed of 32 mph. The hairpin at the end of that was thrilling and I was glad that I had good disc breaks. Only one person ate it there as far as I know.
I enjoyed the experience but I don’t think I will be doing a lot of that type of thing as it was a lot of yuppie types that wanted to dress up and talk about high tech gadgets and compete with each other and that is not my thing. I enjoy sitting around the campfire with the homeless guys at clam beach more, they have a lot more interesting stories.

A little more southern radmul

I encountered a wide range of people on the southern ride. I am not particularly social but I find that people want to talk to weirdoes on bicycles. Neither am I antisocial and I am an amiable fellow so I indulge people’s questions and listen to their stories. One young lady in the Miranda Market told me about her late grandfather taking up riding at an older age. I munched a Popsicle and cooled down while she told me her tale, she had an infectious smile and brightened a morning that was already going very well.
At the Richardson Grove campground I met some folks from Hanover Germany. The worlds fair was there in 2000 he said. They were driving up the coast in an RV from San Francisco. One of them had gone to school in Berkeley and loved California. Hard to blame the guy, it is the coolest place on the planet that I have seen myself.
While waiting for my breakfast in Garberville I had a conversation with a tourist from Aurora Colorado. He was digging the big trees so I recommended the giant sequoias near Santa Cruz to him. Hope he makes it they are truly spectacular. It is on my list of places to ride to so some in person pics will be forthcoming.

For those that are interested in the details the ride lasted 4 days and covered 162.4 miles. For fans of hills there are 3 600ft climbs within about a 4mile run so there is definitely some challenging portions to Hwy101 thru southern Humboldt County.

The Black Mina project

I have the plan for the south trip. Day 1to Humboldt State Park. then down to Standish Hickey on day 2. Day 3 I head north and east out hwy 36 to Grizzly Creek. Day 4 back to the house. A short trip but I need to get back for Jury Duty next week and this way I can always extend.

The picture of the little cow palace got me thinking about going south when I was a kid to the Cow Palace in SF. Saw the circus there and that seems an apt metaphor for my current endeavor. Although I want to avoid the lions and tigers and especially the Bears I have been called a clown on more than one occasion.

I have posted a piece of fiction called the Black Mina on my Rude blog. It is more adult than might be appropriate here and will be serialised over several parts. It does require a sign up but it is free if you are over 18. Check back next week for picks from Phillipsville.

A quick flick

Here is a little taste from my trip will write more tommorow but I am a bit tired at the moment.

Part One of, “My night at the top of the world.”

Blog nonsense.
Went out and found a water purifier today so next trip we can avoid the crypto and whatever. A good day for a ride and I got a few more pics of the local merchants I have been finding supplies at.
I have as of yet not been able to get back into the state of mind I found yesterday. The creative process being what I am interested in exploring I thought I would share a little on the subject before I post the first part of that story. I am enjoying blogging and the linking thing is very interesting. Something audaciaray said on twitter got me to thinking, “working with video is interesting in a different way than working with text.” Working in Blog is a subset of text that is unique from standard prose. I think about the telling differently in some ways. I think it has the potential to be very creative but it also has a tendency to break my focus. Looking for the link I have lost the train of the story but that can be part of the fun. The synthesis of original and sampled material can work well but I think it will take a great deal of practice for me to do it well.
I find that I am a bit verbose in some of these posts and I think in this case size is important. Too long can work against readership in an ADHD world 700 or 800 words should be a max I am thinking. On that note here is Part One of, “My night at the top of the world.”
It was a bad time for me. I was heading to Newport News to stay with my dad. He had colon cancer and needed more help than my sister or his wife were willing to provide. I had flown out to see them and hung out for 3 wks and they talked me into moving in with them for the duration. I needed to store the motor home and if I was going to deal with my family for any length of time I needed to get some Green. It was a stressful time as I was also giving up tobacco. The quitting smoking stuck after about 6 months of off and on with the help of nasty skin patches and gum. At least as far as tobacco anyway. There were no storage spaces that I could find in a hurry so I took the rig east and stored it in Hampton roads. I will get to my eastern adventures in the future but I felt it important to set the tone a bit before I take you to the top of spine of the dragon.
In Le Morte d’Arthur Merlin refers to a rocky mountain range in Britain as the spine of the dragon. The men that built the transcontinental railway thru from the west, mostly recruited in southern China brought their legends of dragons to the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the valley before it. As a teller of tales I feel free to blend those legends into my own as I tell the story of a cold dark night of the sole spent on spine of America’s dragon.
Vail pass on I 70 is 10,666ft and near its top there is a rest area that I had all to myself on this particular night. The contrast from my day was profound. I had driven thru Arches National Park or as I like to call it Wiley Coyote National Park after the roadrunner cartoons. Out of Utah and up the Rockies it gets greener and fresher and the sky becomes a deeper purple blue as the sun sets in the backup cam. I like driving at night when I am trying to make time and because I didn’t want to get were I was going I had stalled as long as I could without sticking it to my sister. That and when you stop in highway rest areas in a motor home the freakin trucks run their engines all night but they leave early so I like to pull in late.
I will post part two in a few days in which our hero comes to a decision. No mean feat for a world champion procrastinator

Springtime for radmul

When did reporting the news and telling the truth become mutually exclusive pursuits? I was watching the reports of the recruiting station bombing and the reporter was saying that there was no sign of terrorist involvement. Hello? Then I see that Susan Powers had to resign from the Obama campaigned for telling the truth about the Clinton strategy.
Spring is in the air?
The urge to begin spring cleaning has hit and the layers of filth are beginning to come down. The last few days the sun has been out and the riding has gotten my energy flowing again. I am way over weight from the layoff but I am still committed. We lost the Mite war and now will be going to the coop but we need to find a local non va doctor to get an Rx form and do paper work and it saddens me. The end of an era deserves to be acknowledged. Dreamsicle has been growing for over three years but is probably down for the count. The final leg of the third man trip to Canada has come to an end with the realization that we will never have that strain again.
On the plus side I found a camera for the crisis. A Fuji s700 that seems to be really cool. The first video from the road will be up soon as I finish configuring the software so the travel video quality should improve. I got a fantastic deal at Radio shack with a 1gig memory card cheaper than I had found it on the web.

Groundhog plus 3

Found a cover for the bag today. Heavy green vinyl it is waterproof and adds 10 degrees to the temp rating. I think it will double as a tarp covering the trailer while I ride. Found it locally at 10 bucks less than I had seen it for on the web so that was cool. Hope to get back out soon, three weeks till the equinox and the weather has warmed a bit. Have been getting in some good rides but need to start stretching the distance again to get my wind up again. Also picked up some fire starter for the next night at the beach.
I wanted to share a few more thoughts on the Bison at Yellowstone but that post was getting out of hand. I still wonder what the beast was thinking or if he was thinking at all. It seemed obvious that we posed little threat to him, I doubt he would have come so close if he was even remotely threatened. The animals in a park like that are pseudo wild in that they are used to the presence of people, (the bison are rounded up and vaccinated each year) but they interact minimally. The last thing I will add is that they seemed to be very contented. The calm air of the self satisfied permeated the groups behavior. They just seemed very cool as opposed to the bored glazed over look that cows have.

From electron to Idea?

I am back to daily rides and working some of the kinks out. The weather is still lousy but I am beginning to get out of the funk. I am not sure I will ever get by the time of Cary’s birthday without getting bummed out but this year it seemed to start right after Thanksgiving. Being sick did not help but enough whining.
The death kiss of Radmul proved ineffective against Obama and in fact may have operated in reverse as the Senator from Illinois has been on a roll since I voted for him. While he lost the state he carried my district and got our delegate. Since Ca he has swept the caucus states so he may get the nod and that will be interesting.
I am back to thinking about Ideas and consciousness and how one gets from an electron to an idea. I want to organize my thinking a bit more and then I think I will record a question for think big. WWW.bigthink.com and see if anyone can give me some input. The web has proven ineffective for me but I have some dialogs and will keep trying. Everyone is talking and no one is listening is a problem but if I come up with something to say I will develop a wider audience I think. The bones of my thinking involve the ways in which the brain cells interact. What are the surface proteins on neurons and how do they interact based on position and proximity and surroundings in addition to action potentials. This comes from a story I saw about bacterium communicating without contact. I still have not found enough research on this subject to put my idea together but I have not found that anyone else has put this together but I am still reading. It seems to explain some of the extra complexity that neuronal connections alone do not explain. It also is possible that this explains the movement before action potential effect of Libet. The number of things I need a deeper understanding of to explore this is long. Entanglement of electrons, surface protein communications I have a pretty good handle on in general but specifics get hairy. I need to look at advancements in neurophysiology and evolutionary biology as this give rise to questions of group selection or at a minimum a complicated co-evolutionary process. I also have to improve my online data sharing and gathering skills.

A day for deliveries.

Spent the day on the road going to Arcata. Went to get a stove that was on sale. It is a brunton raptor
canister, super small and light weight. it came with a lantern also for about the same price as the stove itself in Eureka When I got back Dan from Sportcycle had left a message that the Burley was in so I took a break for some lunch then picked it up. The trailer is sweet here is a picture of it loaded for the trail.http://www.flickr.com/photos/radmul/1767592364/
Did the ride, 24 miles in all in 2 and 1/2 hours with about 30 minutes at the square in Arcata to shop and pack.