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November 25, 2013

My quickie to Rio

I had a short work trip to Rio this week – down by the red eye on Sunday night, and back by the red eye on Tuesday night. Though I wasn’t looking forward to the long (9.5 hours from Atlanta) flight, there were several good things.

1. Pre-check. I got pre-check status on another recent flight, and this time I happily concluded it was not purely by accident. Pre-check means you can keep your clothes on and keep your computers bagged when you do the security line. For me, it also meant a much shorter line. Should I feel guilty about being such a privileged character? Maybe, but I don’t.

2. Zone two. For some reason I had my priority boarding status seriously downgraded this year, and have been put in zone three (the last group) on several flights. I’m always pulling a roll aboard and toting a knapsack, which means I need a significant chunk of overhead storage space. Boarding with the last group means all overhead space may be gone. This makes me a little anxious and grumpy. Getting zone two means a positive attitude adjustment, and there was more than enough space for my bags. Whew!

3. Use of electronic devices. Because of the recent FAA rule change, I didn’t have to turn off my tablet device and MP3 device when they shut the cabin doors or began the descent, and was able to use it throughout the flight. One of things I actually like about flying is the opportunity to do some reading and listen to music, but as more of my reading has migrated to the ebook format, the no-devices rule was a real inconvenience. So, one small step in the direction of rationality and happiness.

4. Delta’s Boeing 767-400. A handsome plane with four aisle seats per row and a reasonable amount of leg room, even in the prole seats. Delta communicated the regulation pre-flight data with a video that had some quirky understated humor. But they still include a careful explanation of how to fasten a seat belt. Really now, is there anyone who needs coaching on that?

5. Zolpidem. I usually have trouble sleeping on planes, but 12.5 mg of generic Ambien really did the trick. I got a solid six hours. I considered getting one of those horseshoe-shaped pillows. I decided against it, based on the principle of when in doubt, leave it out (lighter is better when traveling). This was not a great call – I got some neck soreness from sitting-sleep. Next 9-hour-plus trip, I want that pillow.

6. Rio de Janeiro. After working late on Monday night, I finished with what had to be done early Tuesday afternoon, and got a quick tour of Rio. My guide was Mr. Fred, who didn’t speak much English, but was cheerful and a good driver. Highlights were the tram up to Sugarloaf mountain, the little train up to Cristo Redentor, and drive-bys of the big beaches, including Copacabana and Ipanema.

Rio is a sexy city, with lots of curves and indentations, as well as many upthrusting hard places. There are spots where you can see at one time mountains, forests, cliffs, massive high rises, giant slums, beaches, boats, and ocean. It is spectacular.

7. Girl with a Pearl Earring. I read most of Tracy Chevalier’s book on the plane, and liked it. I picked it up in preparation for a short trip to New York in significant part to see Vermeer’s famous painting of the same title. The book consists of a historically informed imaging of the possible backstory of the painting.

The girl narrates the story of going to work as a maid for the Vermeer household and becoming involved with the painter’s work. I learned some interesting things about eighteenth century Dutch domestic life and painting techniques, and also something about how to look at those remarkable paintings. I was surprised how involved I got with the girl, whose life was narrow in a way, but also rich in texture and feeling. Note, the movie of the book with Scarlett Johansson was enjoyable but no substitute for psychological subtlety of the book.

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November 16, 2013

My handstand near disaster, re-reading Shteyngart, and seeing Captain Phillips

That’s the crane for the new Citrix office in the Raleigh warehouse district as viewed from our balcony on Saturday morning. Below is the new apartment building going up facing us from Boylan Avenue. It’s good to see construction all around. Things are happening!

As was probably evident last week when I mentioned doing my first handstand, I was fairly proud to finally get it. From the first time I saw another boy in my neighborhood do one, a small part of me secretly yearned for this skill. Why? I’m not entirely sure. It’s different, and it’s good to be a little different. I like to turn things upside down and see how they look. I also like to dial in to another aspect of bodily control and strength. There’s also something bracing about facing down a bit of fear.

So I looked forward to mastering the handstand skill against a wall, and perhaps eventually unassisted. After my initial success, I did a few more over the weekend. On Monday morning I went up for a workout in the small gym on the top floor of our building. No one else was around. After a half hour on the elliptical machine, still breathing hard, I attempted another handstand. Something went wrong. My right shoulder gave way, and unable to lean quickly, I fell straight down. I tucked my chin and hit hard on my neck and shoulder.

It hurt a lot. I lay in a heap, and wondered if this was what a broken neck felt like. After a bit, I tried to wiggle my toes and fingers, and noted with relief that they seemed to be working. I rolled over and tested my neck, which throbbed, but could still move. I felt stunned, but more or less OK. I was sore for the rest of the week, and a bit shaken. I decided to give the healing process a few days before forging ahead with handstand work.

Super Sad, Funny Shteyngart

This week I finished re-reading Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel, by Gary Shteyngart. A couple of years ago I left my original copy in a hotel room with just 60 pages left, and found that I kept thinking about the world it created. After the mild disappointment of reading The Circle, I decided to download the ebook version of Super Sad, and realized this time around that it’s not only an entertaining read, but a feat of Nabakovian brilliance.

It’s hard to categorize. It’s set a bit in the future, like science fiction, but I wouldn’t call it science fiction, because the world and its technology are not very different from ours. It’s sort of a comedy, and at times hilarious, but also keenly observant, dark, and shocking. With an ease that conceals virtuosity, Shteyngart exposes a underside to our fun technology, and shows it transforming society in a way that not only seems believable, but prophetic. Keep in mind that it was published in 2010, before Occupy Wall Street and before the U.S. first threatened to default on its debt.

A quick note on the subject matter: Lennie is a 39-year-old nebbishy, smart guy who works for an outfit selling life extension services to super High Net Worth individuals. He falls in love with Eunice, a 25-year-old Korean-American who seems to spend most of her time surfing on GlobalTeens shopping sites on her apparat and obsessing over luxury brands like Juicy Pussy handbags and Onionskin jeans. They live in New York City, where there is extreme income inequality, with unemployed veterans of the war with Venezuela and other Low Net Worth individuals camped out in the parks opposing the one-party surveillance state, which is financially teetering and close to being taken over by China.

There are technologies that signal your credit score on surrounding Media Poles and also show your sexual desirability rank in any grouping (“RateMe Plus” technology). Along with new apps there’s new youth slang, which is marginally cruder than our youth slang. Recent college graduates are mostly unemployed and trying to get a job either in Media (a very long shot) or Retail (just a long shot).

Lennie is a bibliophile in world where books and reading are socially toxic. Cool people have mostly stopped reading, and paper books are considered bad-smelling. Colleges teach skimming in place of reading. At one point there’s a blackout, and Lennie and Eunice read some from Milan Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being (as it happens, a favorite of mine, as it clearly is of Shteyngart’s). Eunice can’t at all follow the complex ideas, and even Lennie finds his ability to understand a literary text has grown dim.

A large part of the pleasure is not just the ideas or the plot, but the texture and quirky beauty of the language. Shteyngart is a writer’s writer. I’ll just add that the title will discourage some people who would enjoy the book, but it really is, in part, a love story, in the sense of dealing with human feelings, and with how those feelings are transformed by technology and social context. Obviously I loved it.

In a postscript that would have pleased Shteyngart, when I finished the Kindle version of the book on my iPad, my Twitter account appeared with a tweet that said, “I just finished reading Super Sad True Love Story.” I did not write those words, nor did I want to send such a tweet. And I didn’t. But I could imagine just pushing send, since the message was completely accurate, and something I wouldn’t mind sharing (though not on my professionally-oriented Twitter account). It gave me a slight chill. Is this the first bomb to fall in a new phase of post-literacy, where your machines not only correct your spelling and grammar but actually do your thinking and writing?

Captain Phillips

On Friday night we saw Captain Phillips, the new movie about Somali pirates taking a cargo ship with Tom Hanks. It was not what I expected, but much better. With remarkable directness and economy, it establishes the desperate and impoverished lives of the young men who become pirates, such that they can never be viewed as pure evil. Hanks has made a long career as a leading man who’s not particularly good-looking playing normal people confronted with outsize problems or puzzles (WWII, mental retardation, shipwreck, adolescence, etc.). Here, he does so again with seeming utter naturalness.

As the captain, Phillips seems a decent guy who doesn’t aspire to much more than doing a solid job transporting goods. But under attack, he turns out to have above-average grit and resourcefulness. Trying to manipulate the pirates, he seems like a bad liar, but good enough to fool these guys, who are not diabolically clever. But both the pirates and Phillips and his crew are by moments astonishingly courageous. This is an action movie with true feeling and heart, and also a lot of adrenaline.

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November 10, 2013

Ecstasy and agony: a sweet homecoming, my first handstand, a good massage, a difficult dental appointment, and some beastly Brahms

Happy birthday to Gabe! He’s 29 today, and his mumsy and popsy are proud as can be. He came out from Telluride to visit us for a few days, and it’s been good to catch up.

He’s working hard on his music, experimenting and doing some recording with his band mates. In high school, he got to be a strong drummer, but then lost interest. But he’s come back to making music! All those music lessons were not wasted! And he’s learned the secret of getting better at his instrument (and other things): practice, practice, practice.

Along with his music, Gabe has been experimenting with photography using his iPhone and Snapseed. He starts with something straightforward and does various color processes for a new look. It’s lively and interesting. He’s also following others on Instagram, including someone called yoga_girl. He showed me a couple of yoga_girl’s yoga feats, which included some extraordinary handstand variations.

I hadn’t mentioned that I’d made up my mind to learn how to do a handstand against a wall. I’d gotten a short lesson from Larisa, my wonderful functional fitness trainer, and also gotten Suzanne, my wonderful yoga teacher, to show me her approach after a recent class. And I’d given it several serious tries, which were close – but no cigar.

But after seeing Gabe and yoga_girl, the next morning I had my 5:30 a.m. session with Larissa, and amidst her other challenges, requested another handstand lesson. She suggested approaching it like a cartwheel. We worked on cartwheels for a bit, with some improvement, and then tried again. And I did it! Thanks, Larisa!

When I told Gabe of my milestone the next evening, he was of the view that I also owed some thanks to him and yoga_girl. True enough. He was inspired to try his own handstand. Without a wall. He was there by the third try. That’s my boy!

The same day I did my first handstand, at lunchtime, I had my first massage with Kirsten Bachmann. After a massage hiatus, I’d decided to audition some new massage talent, and possibly get a regular routine for taking care of that part of my make up. I liked Kirsten. She started out with this surprisingly effective machine called the Thumper, which gives you a good Thumping. She did some great work on my right shoulder, which needed it. I look forward to our next session.

But not all my experiences with new technology this week were as wonderful. I was two months late for my six-month tooth cleaning, and drew a new hygienist who used a device called the Cavitron. The tool vibrates at a high frequency, which, she said, “blasts the bacteria.” Maybe. But my it also caused my tooth nerves to vibrate at a frequency resembling a root canal. I like to think that I have a fairly high pain threshold, and tried hard to bear up, but finally had to say, no mas.

Also unpleasant was the piano soloist at the N.C. Symphony on Friday night. Beforehand we had tasty empanadas and margaritas at Calavera, and we enjoyed the first half of the program, which featured Sibelius’s moody and quirky Third Symphony.

But the second half of the concert, Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, featured a Finnish pianist named Olli Mustonen, who was almost comically bad. For the first few minutes, I thought perhaps I was simply not understanding his radical conception, or was just put off by his ridiculously broad gesticulating and other affectations.

But I ultimately concluded that he wasn’t listening to the orchestra, or even to himself. At times he shrugged off the conventions of normal musical phrasing and shaping, and what was left was just not musical. To me, it was painful. I should note, though, that many in the audience apparently found his waving, swaying, banging, and jumping around exciting, since a majority stood up and clapped at the end.

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November 3, 2013

Find out your fitness age

Jocelyn came home for a visit on Thursday, and she was glowing. After six months in New York, she’d (1) learned her way around, (2) found good friends, and (3) got a job she really liked. Also, she’d joined a gym and started working out regularly, and gotten focussed on nourishing herself in a healthy way.

This was music to my ears! My messaging on healthy habits, which I realize can be annoying, has not been all in vain. I’m delighted that my beloved offspring (including also Gabe) are taking good care of themselves.

That same day I came across an article in the online NY Times about assessing your “fitness age,” defined with reference to peak oxygen intake, which apparently is a strong predictor of future health. A large-scale Norwegian study examined oxygen intake levels at ages between 20 and 90, and also developed a tool using indicators including resting heart rate, waist size, and activity levels to determine fitness age.

The article had a link to the fitness age calculator. Needless to say, I gave it a shot. My fitness age? 28! Not bad for a guy born in 1955, right? But I soon began considering how I might get it down to 27.

In our neighborhood, Glenwood South, there’s been a fair bit of construction, and also some destruction. Sally told me that an unattractive building on Glenwood across from the Creamery and catty-corner to the Armadillo Grill that had just been demolished, and I went over to inspect the site on Saturday morning. They’d walled off the site, but I got a good view from the adjacent parking deck. Sure enough, all that was left was rubble. It was overcast, but there was still a nice quality to the light, and I took some other pictures of the neighborhood on my walk over to the gym.

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October 28, 2013

The State Fair, The Circle, and James Turrell

It was clear and brisk in Raleigh early Saturday afternoon when Sally and I got on the bus for the N.C. State Fair. My last fair visit was with Jocelyn when she was in elementary school, about 14 years ago, and just before she began to much prefer going with friends rather than dad. In the years since I haven’t expected that the fun would outweigh justify the headaches of traffic jams and crowds. The convenience of the bus, which stopped on Hillsborough Street just a short walk from us, made us re-do the fun/not-fun calculus, and off we went.

Our main objective was the agriculture exhibits. With most days full of hurry and technology it’s good to slow down and reconnect a little with the rural past. It’s terribly sad to think about mistreatment and needless slaughter of farm animals, but there’s also something sweet about getting close to the gorgeous prize-winning animals at the fair. The chickens and turkeys were amazingly varied, and the cows were generally good-tempered. I’m with Whitman: “I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self-contained; I stand and look at them long and long.”

We also enjoyed the people watching. There were, of course, rural people, but it seemed like the crowd was much more ethnically diverse than years ago. We took in a free show by a troop of acrobats, including a handstand master. \
We also so a free show of stunt BMX bikers and motorcyclists. These guys were awesome.

Also on Saturday I finished reading Dave Eggers’s new novel, The Circle. Set just a few years into the future, it’s about a young woman who goes to work for a tech company, the Circle, which sounds like a combination of Google and Facebook, and which has some cult-like qualities. It seeks total involvement and devotion from employees and may have a dream of world domination. The Circle promotes a vision of extreme transparency, pushing public officials and others to live completely on camera, open to full time universal internet scrutiny.

The idea is interesting, but the writing had about as much charm and verve as Newsweek. The subject of the book is how technology affects the human mind, but there wasn’t any depth to the characters, or much in the way of psychological insight.

Still, I liked the central thought experiment: what would happen if everyone’s life was totally visible and potentially viewable by everyone else? As The Circle notes, it would probably reduce crime. It would probably initially bring a feeling of a new kind of community. But would it destroy the possibility of human intimacy? Probably. And without intimacy, what would remain of meaning?

On Sunday morning I flew to Los Angeles for the annual meeting of the Association of Corporate Counsel, where I’m doing a presentation. In the afternoon I went to the L.A. County Museum of Art, where I wanted to see the special exhibit of the work of James Turrell. He’s best known for his work involving light and space, including environments that completely baffle our understanding of boundaries.

Turrell expects his viewers to enter into his work, literally and psychologically. I found it rewarding to do so. Although the work is primarily concerned with perception, it also inspires a surprising amount of feeling. For me it had some of the calming effects of meditation. I found myself looking at light differently as I left the museum.

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October 13, 2013

More cute cats (sorry), improving vision, getting fitter, web retail news, and tech trends

Isabel

This week Sally spotted this bumper sticker: Life is a little better with a cat. That isn’t a very grand claim, which is what makes it appealing. “A little” seems about right. Our three (Phoebe, Isabel, and Rita) have been good sports in serving as my models.

Rita

I’m happy to report that my vision, while still blurry in the left eye, really improved this week. That eye is actually providing some useful signals for the first time in a long time. Also, my eye doc cleared me to resume normal exercise, and I happily did so.

Phoebe

After consultation with the ski friends, we agreed this week that the big ski event of 2014 would be a return to Telluride, Colorado, in February, where I’ll try to keep up, or semi-keep up, with young Gabe. And so at my early morning gym sessions I began focusing on some ski-oriented activities – lunges, side lunges, side kneel lunches, squats, with weights one-legged extension balances, duck walk with two big bands, step up onto medium table and balance, and jump up (landing softly) on the medium table.

I bought a speed jump rope and doing a few dozen speedy jumps between these activities, then worked on core matters with various species of crunches, reverse crunches, planks, and side planks. Finally, half an hour of straight cardio. I’ve been doing 10 minutes on the treadmill (with an incline), a few minutes on the ski (sideways push) machine, a few on the stairs (escalator type), and then some intervals on the elliptical. If there’s time after that, I’ll do 10 minutes of stretching and foam rolling.

I like using a heart rate monitor during work outs, which can confirm that I’m working hard, or at times show I’m not working as hard as I think. I got one when I began going to spinning classes, when I worried that keeping up with super fit young teachers could cause me to drive my poor heart into an extreme and dangerous state. But it’s gratifying to take it up into the red zone from time to time, which for me is in the 160s. I usually feel great afterwards.

My Polar heart rate monitor finally wore out this week For some months it had been behaving erratically, but I didn’t feel good about throwing it out while it was still sometimes working, so I was glad when it finally quit. I immediately went Googling to vet the options. I had some interest in finding a model that didn’t require a band around the chest, but learned that such models are not as accurate and do not give continuous read outs. I settled on a relatively cheap one, a Timex T5K541Personal Trainer, that did the two basic functions that I needed (tell the time and tell how fast my heart is going). I bought on Amazon, where as a Prime member I get free shipping, and had it two days later.

This isn’t quite instant gratification, but it’s close. I put this type of Internet retail plus efficient delivery in the pantheon of life-sweeting innovations, right up there with pay-at-the-pump gas, cash machines, and the lickless stamp. Amazon is now familiar, but we tried a similar new service for the first time last week called drugstore.com.

It does exactly what you’d expect. It has most of our preferred consumer products at normal drugstore prices, and can get them to us in two days. Shipping is free for orders of $35 or more. A bottle of Crew shampoo that I ordered had leaked a little in transit, but everything else arrived in a proper and timely manner. Ordering online made me realize I don’t particularly like chain drugstores, with all their household goods, toys, cards, and snack food. I’m perfectly happy to stay out of those places and just send out for the stuff. (For actual medical stuff, I do like my little neighborhood drugstore, Hayes Barton Pharmacy, where you still get the personal touch.)

Speaking of the constantly new, there’s a piece in the current New Yorker about the young tech entrepreneur scene in San Francisco. For those interested in tech business trends, this is a must read. (This link worked for me, but I’m afraid that non-subscribers will not be able to get it without paying.) The piece, by Nathan Heller, describes people who are starting one new business after another and working with a rock band, doing something arty, or going on meditation retreats in between their ventures. The very shape of business and finance is being transformed, getting smaller and faster. At the same time, the entrepreneurs are not only making money, but also having fun, and asking good questions about what makes life meaningful.

Stuart — the best dog

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September 29, 2013

Eye surgery, yet again, and some bluegrass and big cats

Looking southeast at dawn, September 28, 2013

On Monday at 5:15 a.m. Sally took me over to Duke Eye Center in Durham. It was my third eye operation in the past 10 months, and the routine was familiar. Again the hospital gown didn’t quit fit, and again they checked the various systems (temperature, blood pressure, reflexes, etc.). There were several checks to make sure they were working on the right eye – that is, the left – and checks to make sure I had no allergies or other ailments. As my preop nurse observed, I was a very healthy man, except for the eye.

The operating room was cold. I asked my nurse anesthetist if this was purely for hygiene, and she said it was also good for the surgeons not to get too hot. That sounded reasonable – I wouldn’t want them dripping sweat. As they got me situated and draped my face, I asked if they were planning to listen to music (which they did last time), and someone asked if I cared to hear anything in particular. I said that some Brahms would be good. There was no reaction, which I think meant this was not a choice they expected. Anyhow, there was no Brahms, or anything else. This was mildly disappointing, but at least they didn’t put on anything awful.

It is odd to be conscious when there’s work going on inside your eye. I could hear everything, and feel movement, but it was not painful. From time to time they asked how I was doing, and I gamely said, good, good. The surgeons’ comments mostly related to the job at hand, and there were no indications of unusual difficulties. The surgery took almost two hours. The nurse anesthetist held my hand, which I appreciated.

Dr. M and me

At my check up the next morning, Dr. Mruthyunjaya said that things had gone well both for the retina repair work and the cataract removal and lens replacement by Dr. Vann. My performance on the eye chart was not good (couldn’t see any letters), but I could distinguish one finger from two at three feet. It will be some weeks before healing is complete and it’s clear how much vision I’ll have in the left eye. I’ve gradually come to terms with the likelihood that it won’t ever be the same. There’s an irregularity in my macula that’s here to stay. I’ll cope.

Dr. M also enjoined me from vigorous exercise for two weeks. I tried bargaining about this (how about just the elliptical?) but he held firm. And so I missed yoga on Tuesday, my regular gym workout on Wednesday, my personal training with Larissa on Thursday, and my spinning class on Friday. I missed the movement, the stress, the relaxation, and the pleasant endorphin effects afterwards. And I missed my teachers, classmates, and adjacent strangers. The activity and the people are a part of me, and I look forward to getting them back.

On Saturday I drove out to Cary and took some pictures of ducks at Bond park, then came back to Raleigh for a walk through the IBMA festival, which we’re told is the biggest bluegrass conclave on the planet. We’re on a run in Raleigh with street fairs – in previous weeks we’ve had motorcyclists, SparkCon, and the Hopscotch music festival – and its great to see all the activity. For me, a little bluegrass goes a long way, but it was nice to hear a little, and do a bit of people watching.

On Sunday, we drove out to Chatham County to Carolina Tiger Rescue, where we saw tigers, lions, cougars, servals, and caracals, as well as an ocelots, a bobcat, a binturong, and kinkajou. It was worth the trip. They were beautiful animals.

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September 22, 2013

How important is an afterlife?

A short essay in the NY Times today proposed an interesting thought experiment: imagine that you knew all humanity would cease to exist in 30 days after your death. Would your view of your life’s significance change? Samuel Scheffler of New York University thinks the answer is yes. Even those of us who can’t take seriously the view of an afterlife in which our own consciousness continues after death still believe in another sort of afterlife – that is, that after we die the human race will continue for a good long time. If that were not the case, would anyone bother to seek a cure for cancer, or to make great art? Big projects, and especially ones that we know might not be completed in our lifetimes, depend on the assumption that the human race will continue.

Scheffler notes that even the most selfish and narcissistic of us almost certainly share this basic concern for continued human existence, for the selfish aims would also lose most of their meaning otherwise. He wraps up his elegant essay by noting this foundational assumption gives us a powerful incentive to address the very real threats to continued human survival – climate change, environmental degradation, and nuclear proliferation. The incentive isn’t just the abstract sense of duty to future generations, but our present reliance on those future beings to give life meaning now.

My eye surgery is scheduled for 6:00 a.m. tomorrow. I’ve managed not to think too much about it, but for the last few days I’ve felt unsettled. The operation on my left eye (my third in the last 10 months) will involve two procedures and two surgeons. One is my rockstar retinologist, Dr. Mruthyunjaya, who will remove the silicon oil in my eye and do some retina clean up, and the other, Dr. Vann, will work on what he described as “a big, honkin cataract.” I’m confident that the surgeons know their business. I’ve been touched by the kind support of friends and colleagues. It should go all right. I hope.

I took a walk this morning along the boardwalk that goes out over the small lake off of Raleigh Boulevard, where from time to time I’ve seen herons, kingfishers, various ducks, and lots of turtles. I wanted to try out my new Sigma 150-500mm lens with my new Manfrotto monopod, but there weren’t many water birds to see this time. The lens is a four-pound behemoth, challenging to handle, but the magnification is dramatic, and the image quality seemed generally good. I started to get comfortable with it, and look forward to taking many more and better pictures of birds and other wildlife. These are a start.

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September 15, 2013

Saturday: the Farmers’ Market, the gym, physical therapy, and SparkCon

It was a particularly intense week at work, and I was glad we hadn’t planned any major travel adventures for the weekend. The weather turned cooler on Friday night, and Saturday morning was sunny when I went over the N.C. farmers’ market. It was colorful, with gorgeous squash, peppers, beans, tomatoes, and apples. I bought some kale and collard greens for smoothies and a basket of peaches.

After that I went to O2 Fitness, where I did a work out inspired by my session earlier in the week with Larissa. Along with a variety of lunges, bends, squats, hops, balances, twists, pulls, and pushes, I worked in some high intensity rowing (two-minute intervals) and jump roping. I rigged my TRX cord device to a chin up bar, put my feet in the grips, and did some side planks, level planks, and a complex core series including pikes. Then 10 minutes on the treadmill and 20 minutes on the escalator-style stairs. The stairs device looks ridiculously retro but gets the heart to seriously pumping. Then stretching, and finally some foam rolling. All this took a little over two hours, during which I listened to most of The Marriage of Figaro. I felt really good afterwards.
–.

Good health is a fundamental element of happiness, and you can’t take it for granted. It’s a moving target, and it can get away from you quickly. My right arm has been feeling not so good in recent months, and my various attempted home remedies (rest, ice, stretching) were not successful. Twisting and lateral movements were particular problems. As it got worse, I began to have some trouble turning the steering wheel when driving and lifting a fork from plate to mouth. This caused an intimation of mortality, and reflections on how life would be much more difficult without the ability to use arms for, say, eating, dressing, driving, typing, golfing, piano playing, hugging, etc.

Larissa, probably tired of hearing that she had to take it easy on my arm, referred me to Jeff Vajay at Impact Orthopaedics, a physical therapist with a specialty in arms. I’ve had good luck with physical therapy, which I mention because I suspect there are many people who have no idea it can be so effective. There is a species of physical problem that MDs have no idea what to do with, and well-trained, experienced physical therapists do. I’ve had complete long-term cures to lower back and rotator cuff injuries. It took an investment of time in each case, and a continuing commitment to special exercises, but it was a small price to pay.

Anyhow, Jeff ultimately diagnosed my problem as muscle related, and he worked on it with some intense massage and dry needling. The needing involves using small needles to penetrate muscles and release tension. In places it hurt a bit. But the results were positive. Now, after three weekly visits, I feel 90 percent cured and optimistic about the last 10 percent.

In the afternoon I practiced the piano with a view to getting ready for a lesson on Sunday with Olga. I considered playing a few holes of golf, but didn’t leave quite enough time, so intead I walked over to Fayetteville Street to see the SparkCon street fair. There were several musical groups performing, the loudest of which were, wouldn’t you know, the worst. There was a circus group and various craft and food stalls. My favorite part was the chalk sidewalk art. It’s not so much about artistic profundity as energy and life. Most of the artists were done by the time I got there, but a couple were still at work.

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September 9, 2013

Diving out of Wrightsville — the good, the bad, and the ugly

We had a dive trip this weekend out of Wrightsville Beach with Aquatic Safaris. We were scheduled to go to two wrecks on Saturday afternoon, the Hyde and Markham, but rough seas prevented that. Plan B was the Liberty Ship, which sits just three miles offshore. Things were bumpy with some current, and I found my heart rate and breathing increasing as I went down the anchor line. There were still a few leftover thoughts of my near death experience of a few weeks back.

Visibility was quite bad – perhaps 5-10 feet. We followed a line laid out by the mate. There wasn’t much we could see besides the line. It was nice to be diving again, but this was not pleasant diving. The second dive was similar. There were several divers taking a wreck diving course who laid out lines, and we got their lines confused with the mate’s line at one point. We finally figured it out and made it back to the anchor line and the boat.

Saturday night we stayed in Wilmington with Sally’s sister, Anne, and went to Cichetti, an Italian restaurant. We had a nice meal and a lively conversation. We discussed Shakespeare’s concept of evil, Greek playwrights, and youthful experimenting with psychedelics and pot.

We also talked some about slavery, which I’ve been reading about in a new history of the pre-civil war and civil war period called Ecstatic Nation by Brenda Wineappple. The book brings vivid life to the 1850s when there were slave states and free states, and it was by no means clear which would ultimately prevail. It require real imagination to understand the pro-slavery viewpoint. Wineapple is certainly not pro-slavery, but she gives a sense of the incredible intensity and complexity of the struggle.

Early Sunday morning the skies were clear and calm, and the seas were calm as well. We left the marina about 7:30 a.m. and made it to the wreck of the John D. Gill in about an hour and half. The Gill was a tanker sunk by a German u-boat in WWII. Visibility was pretty good – perhap 50 feet. We saw several barracuda and thousands of small silvery fish, and we also spotted two large flounder.

For the last dive, we went to the Hyde, a wreck that still look like a ship, though with lots of things growing on it and lots of fish around it. Visibility was less good – maybe 30-40 feet – but the wreck itself was interesting, and we could see thousands of little fish, along with many barracuda. One sand tiger shark passed close by.

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