After two fun kayak excursions last year, this spring I ponied up for a season membership at Charles River Canoe and Kayak despite my unemployment, hoping that it’d both save me money and incent me to spend more time paddling on the river.

So how did it go?

Kayaking and cycling compete for good-weather days, so even though I had the whole summer off, I wound up going out 9 times: once in June, August, and October, and twice in May, July, and September. I went three times from CRCK’s Kendall Square location, and twice each from Nahanton, Allston, and their primary facility in Auburndale.

With a total of 30 hours on the river, my average outing was 3 hours and 20 minutes. I paddled a total of 90 miles, averaging 10 miles per excursion, with my longest being 15 miles. GPS logs of my paddling trips can be found here.

Had I paid for my own rental time, that would have come to $458, but the season pass only ran me $292. If I include the discount my brother and niece got on rentals via my pass, that’s $173 less than what it would have cost renting by the hour. So the pass wound up saving me 33 percent.

Having a pass also allowed me to stay out as long as I cared to, without worrying about how much each excursion would cost and when to get back. As such, I found it not very difficult at all to go out and do 10 or 12 miles per day.

Kayaking Boston

I encountered a surprising amount of wildlife (muskrat, painted and snapping turtles, great blue herons, hawks, cormorants), on the river, even right in the middle of the city. Tho I didn’t see either the harbor seal or the alligator that were discovered in the river this season! I particularly enjoyed playing in the shallow rapids below the Watertown and Newton dams, and in the huge waves kicked up on windy days in front of Community Boating.

The next step in my paddling evolution would probably be excursions out into Boston Harbor.

It was fun exploring the river, and I covered just about the entire expanse of water accessible from the CRCK locations. However, it wasn’t quite as interesting returning a second time to areas I’d already covered. For that reason, I don’t feel the need to buy my own boat right off, since I’d quickly tire of endlessly paddling around the Charles River basin. So I don’t think I’ll buy a boat of my own until I have a car, so that I can transport it to new and interesting places.

While I thought that kayaking’s upper body workout would be a good complement to cycling, it wasn’t quite what I expected. If you do it right, the proper kayak paddling motion mostly works the hips and core abdominal muscles, rather than the arms. So unlike true upper body work, it wasn’t a perfect complement; on the other hand, paddling was actually of direct benefit for cycling, since you use those same core muscles to steady your torso and back on the bike.

Will I buy another membership next year? Actually no, not unless I’m unemployed again. When I’m working, I only have nights and weekends to ride, which makes it hard to get sufficient training time on the bike. So I wouldn’t spend enough time kayaking to make buying a membership work financially, though I will probably take a boat out a couple times on an hourly basis.

But I’m very glad I took the membership out this year. It definitely was a great way to spend the “rest days” built into my cycling training schedule. And there’s nothing like spending a sunny Monday afternoon paddling alone on a quiet stretch of river, thinking about all one’s wage-slave friends trapped in crowded office buildings, far from nature.

Last night I attended the Reel Paddling Film Festival at the Kendall, a three-hour collection of the best kayaking and canoeing films of the year.

On the way in, organizers asked attendees to register for two raffles. I didn’t bother registering for the national raffle, both because the odds are long and because I have no use whatsoever for a car rack. But I filled out an entry for the local raffle, since the prizes included a PFD, Teva footwear (ironically, I’d bought a pair just last week), and various passes to Charles River Kayak, the guys I rent boats from.

Over the years, I’ve developed a belief that rumpled raffle tickets have a much better chance of getting pulled from a hat than crisp, uniform tickets. So before I put my entry card in the box, I creased it both lengthwise and breadthwise, then creased each corner in opposing directions: forward, backward, forward, backward.

cap

By now you should be able to guess where this is headed: when the intermission came around and the raffle was held, my ticket was the very first one pulled. Bingo!

Unfortunately, the first items they chose to raffle were Headsweats race caps, so I didn’t win any Tevas or boat rentals or the PFD. But as caps go, it’s a very nice one, since it’s made of the same CoolMax fabric used in most cyclingwear. In fact, it’d make a nice cycling hat, except that I’d have to cut back the brim, which was made extra long for paddlers of course.

With about 150 people in the audience, the odds of my winning weren’t astronomical, but it’s very interesting that after taking such care to differentiate my ticket from everyone else’s, my name was the first one chosen.

Poe Poori

Oct. 23rd, 2009 06:38 pm

Haven’t been inspired to write much lately, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been idle. So I guess it’s time for another potpourri posting. I’ll try to be brief, although there are a lot of little things to go over, and a few lengthy ones.

Everyone always asks me about employment first, so… I haven’t found anything yet. I haven’t been too worried about that, since you learn as a consultant to save during good times to get through the bad, and there’s nothing like taking a year or two of your retirement when you’re young enough to get out and enjoy it. At the same time, it’s really time to make this a top priority, now that summer’s over.

However, it amused me to no end to find a TED talk by a designer who totally espoused my beliefs about taking time off during one’s working years, and demonstrated some fabulous design work that came as a result. Check out the nice, eloquent, short talk here.

Ironically, my net worth right now—nearly a year after being laid off—is the highest it’s been in seven years. More surprising still is that if I go back to the last time my net worth was this high, it was December 2002, about a year after I was laid off from Sapient. What is it about being laid off that causes me to get richer, when one would normally expect one’s savings to be depleted in no time?

Well, actually it makes sense. Tech and consulting layoffs correllate pretty closely with stock market bottoms, and the market usually recovers nicely in the following twelve months. So although my savings has eroded somewhat, my mutual funds have appreciated much more. So remember: buy stocks whenever I lose my job!

The next most common inquiry concerns biking, and I have such a tale of woe about the incompetence of my bike shop. Sparing you the details, my bike has been in and out of the shop since the Fourth of July, and has been completely out of commission since early August, while two major components were shipped back their manufacturers (one of them twice).

Meanwhile, I’d been putting a lot of miles on my Bike Friday folding bike, including my first century ride on it. The folder isn’t bad, although I will complain that it’s heavy, which means I can’t climb hills as well on it.

Thankfully, I just got the reassembled bike back from the shop, and after all that travail, it’s running fine. Just in time for cold weather, of course. There’s a lengthy writeup about the whole long ordeal here.

Since I measure my cycling year from mid-October to mid-October, I just concluded my 2008-2009 season. I wound up with 4,000 miles on the road and about 500 more on the indoor trainer. With five centuries under my belt, it was a really good year.

In other news, Boston’s bike coordinator has targeted my street, Commonwealth Ave, for some very non-standard bike lanes. I’ll be curious to see how they pan out.

The deadline for PMC fundraising has passed, and this year I raised a total of $8,266, which is pretty good for a recession year. My lifetime total is now $52,657. The check presentation isn’t until December 5th this year.

This also seems to be the year I started sea kayaking. After expeditions with my brother and my CIMC friends, I also spent three hours recently on a very choppy Charles River basin, having rented from Charles River Canoe & Kayak’s new Kendall Square location. My obliques got a real heavy workout. Once I’ve got an income, I really do have to start thinking about picking up a boat. Meanwhile, I’m looking into my storage options, which are limited in my condo.

Indoors, I recently re-read Alan Watts"Wisdom of Insecurity", an awesome little tome that was my first serious exposure to Buddhist philosophy, back in January 2003 (original review). I’ve also just re-read Robert Anton Wilson’s 1975 "Illuminatus!" trilogy, which was interesting, especially when some of the details of his dystopian future turn out to be accurate predictions of policies enacted by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11. Here’s an excerpt:

"Their grip on Washington is still pretty precarious. […] If they showed their hand now and went totalitarian all the way, there would be a revolution. Middle-roaders would rise up with right-wingers, and left-libertarians, and [they] aren’t powerful enough to withstand that kind of massive revolution. But they can rule by fraud, and by fraud eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish the job of killing off the Constitution."

"What sort of tools?"

"More stringent security measures. Universal electronic surveillance. No-knock laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. […] The people reason—or are manipulated into reasoning—that the entire populace must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can’t be trusted."

Online, I’ve put some time into finally revamping OrnothLand. The new version can be seen at http://www.ornoth.com/. I was pleased to be able to easily include my most recent Twitter tweet, Livejournal blog and cycling blog posts, and Flickr photograph by parsing their RSS feeds. And I’ve implemented (although not perfected) long-desired features like the ability to search through past entries as well as see only what’s new since your last visit.

A couple notes on Facebook, while I’m here. A while ago I stopped getting notifications when a friend added another friend to their list. I miss that feature, which was sacrificed to one of Facebook’s rewrites; however, now it seems to be about to come back. On the other hand, I also recently stopped getting notifications every time a friend took a quiz or took an action in one of their applications, and I have to say that’s been a godsend, and saved several inane people from being un-friended. I’d already manually ignored 787 applications, but I haven’t added to that list in several weeks.

I’ve also spent some of my free time expanding my cooking repertoire, which has paid nice dividends. I started with basic stuff that I’ve cooked before but hadn’t in years, like roasted beets, roasted potatoes, sour cream cookies, tollhouse cookies, brownies, and my family’s traditional spaghetti sauce, which I modified to include a bit more heat. I added steamed broccoli to the list of things I’d make, and I continue to experiment to figure out how to make stir-fry that doesn’t produce allergic headaches. Sadly, I think garlic and onions are the culprits. I also just made Hi-Rise Bakery’s vanilla loaf, which came out nicely, but boy is that one expensive piece of bread!

People often ask about Grady… He’s doing okay. Nothing really to mention there. He’s mellowed out a bit, even to the point of tolerating being held, but he’s still quite the little athletic hunter, especially when it comes to wadded up balls of paper. I should probably take and post some more pictures of him.

Speaking of photos, this photo of mine will be displayed in two five foot long resin displays at the Red Rock Canyon Visitor’s Center outside Las Vegas. Very cool thing to add to the resume/portfolio, and it’s another paying client. And made another photo expedition to the top of Boston’s Custom House tower; results (here).

On a side note, my friend Inna is DJing a show on Duquesne student radio. Visit wdsr.org Fridays from 5-7pm.

Closer to home, this is a big year for Boston politics. There’s a big mayoral vote this year, plus the election to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat.

The autumnal equinox has passed, which means the end of summer, which I hate to see go. The fourth quarter is always the worst time of year for me, starting with my birthday, which as usual I’ll thank you not to observe. I’ve been kicking around ideas of what to do, but I suspect it’ll look a lot like last year’s observance… hopefully with the same result!

October and November look to be very busy at the sangha, as there are two big events coming up. In October I’m participating in a metta (lovingkindness) practice group. I’ve sometimes scoffed at metta practice for being simplistic and pointless, but at the same time, all the challenges I encounter in my practice are pointing me in that direction. So this’ll be an interesting experiment. And there’s also the annual Sandwich Retreat in early November, which is always revelatory. You can of course expect writeups. And there are several interesting topics and speakers at CIMC’s Wednesday evening dharma talks. So it’s going to be an intense couple months of sitting motionlessly with one’s eyes closed.

That’ll be quite a change, tho. The center was closed for their usual summer hiatus, and until recently I’d seen very few of the people in my dharma circle since July. I miss that. Unfortunately, the previously copacetic dynamic has deteriorated after some of the usual adolescent antics. It saddens me, even though I know that change is, of course, inevitable.

I should take a second to record a couple interesting tidbits from the most recent talk, given by John Peacock. There were three key points he made that resonated with me, each from a context outside Buddhism, in addition to coming from completely separate contexts from each other.

One of his main points was to approach life with a sense of wonder, to see things deeply and anew as they are encountered. By looking at a tree and seeing "a tree", our minds see little more than our pre-existing conceptual model of "a tree", rather than the specific instance before us, which might differ radically from that mental construct, and is certainly much more vibrant and alive. This obscures reality and inhibits one’s ability to see special and meaningful details that make this tree unique. It’s these kinds of penetrative insights that also give a fiction writer the experience and the vocabulary to build a compelling mental image of a scene, which is a belief I’ve held strongly since writing an article about Tolkien’s use of vocabulary for a fanzine thirty-five years ago. You can see one incarnation of that particular rant on the DargonZine site, at http://www.dargonzine.org/dpww/docs/wonder.txt. So you can imagine how John’s words about wonder and careful observation resonated with me.

Another interesting bit was John’s response to a question I asked that went something like this:

Having a background in Tibetan Buddhism as well as Theravada and IMS, you seem singularly qualified to speak on the topic of viewing Buddhism along a continuum from extremely rational and scientific to extremely superstitious and ritualized. I don’t know how it is at IMS or Oxford, where you teach, but here at CIMC we hear almost nothing about jhana (concentration) practice, despite the fact that it is very heavily emphasized in the Pali canon. Where on that spectrum do you see jhana practice falling?

The response was that jhana practice is useful in developing concentration, but he seemed skeptical about the existence of the specific sublime mind states described in the suttas. He also said that the suttas actually equivocate, pointing specifically to Majjhima Nikaya Sutta 26, the Ariyapariyesana Sutta (The Noble Search). That sutta includes the Buddha’s unsatisfying search for enlightenment by studying under other Indian teachers, many of whom taught concentration practice. So the canon seems to imply that concentration practice is helpful, but not sufficient.

Finally, John was presented with the standard Buddhist question that sets Buddhist virtues of patience and acceptance of life as it is against the human desire to correct injustice and make progress (positive change) in the world. The answer is, of course, that wise action is virtous, but the important factors are that one perform such actions with a wholesome intent rather than coming from a place of aversion, and that one must perform all actions without becoming so attached to a specific result that it causes suffering if it does not come about. This relates very closely to managing one’s expectations. I first learned the importance of expectation management in my professional consulting career at Sapient, where common knowledge held that one should always under-promise and over-deliver, so as to always exceed clients’ expectations. A yogi should bring that same attitude to the actions they take in the world, letting go of the attachment to a particular outcome, and being delighted if things transpire in a positive way.

Finally, I’ve taken a bit of time to do some formal goal-setting for 2010. Here’s what I’ve got:

  • Get a new job
  • Travel to the Bay Area and:
  • Complete my 10th Pan-Mass Challenge
    • Possibly crossing the entire state by starting in New York State
    • Exceed $60,000 lifetime fundraising
    • 5th consecutive heavy hitter
  • Participate in at least one week-long residential meditation retreat

So those are some of the things that have transpired over the past couple months. Although my cycling blog will be a bit less active in coming months, hopefully this one will get a little more attention, even if it may not be the most exciting reading in the world.

I have an older brother who lives in Victoria, British Columbia. Every other year, he flies back to Maine to visit family, and on the opposite years my mother goes west to visit them. However, my mother is 83 now, and for the first time she really needed someone to travel with her. I actually haven’t been out there myself since 1993, so last week I accompanied her on what will probably be her last trip west.

Last Thursday I took the T to Logan, where I met my mother, who had come down from Maine by bus. She was pretty anxious about the trip, and doubly so because she was having some health issues. We flew from Boston to SFO, then north to Canadia. The advantage of flying with someone in a wheelchair is that you are the first people to board the plane; the disadvantage is that you’re often the last people off.

The flights weren’t too bad, although boarding the regional jet north from SFO was a challenge due to the 5-level ramp from the gate down to the tarmac. In Victoria, we were the last people in line at customs, but we finally got to my brother’s house at 11pm Pacific… sixteen hours after I left home.

Friday I was the first person up, which was poor judgment, since my 15 year old neice’s pet bunny decided to throw a tantrum when it realized that someone was awake but not feeding it. We drove into town and picked up my rental road bike and miscellaneous other supplies for the week.

Around noontime, the family drove off to enjoy high tea at the Empress Hotel, which I was delighted to escape, preferring instead to explore the Saanich peninsula by bike. The weather was cool, but improving from misty rain to mostly sunny, a pattern which would repeat throughout our stay.

I warmed up by climbing 400-foot Mt. Tolmie, which was a nice little knoll with a beautiful view of Vancouver Island. Next I made my way to the top of 850-foot Mt. Douglas, which was a major challenge. It’s very reminiscent of Great Blue Hill or Prospect Hill in Waltham, but instead of ascending in short leaps with flats in between where you can rest, it was the most monotonic climb I’ve ever done. I finally gave in to the unforgiving incline, making two brief stops to let my legs and heart catch up with me. After admiring the view, the descent was bone-jarring and filling-loosening due to the horrible patch job they’ve made of the (and I use the term loosely) road.

Victoria Highlands
Brother kayaking in the mist
Sailboat
Brother kayaking in the mist
Sailboat in the mist
Full Photo Set

From there, I followed the Seaside bike route north through Cordova Bay, then hooked up with the Lochside trail, which hugged the coast and took me from Victoria’s suburban Yuppie warrens into very rustic farmlands. However, the path degraded to a gravel rail trail, then dirt singletrack before I arrived at the Victoria airport. I took a more inland route back home, aiming to climb Mt. Newton but missing the turn. However, I did climb 750-foot Little Saanich Mountain, aka Observatory Hill, which was a steady, manageable ascent up to an astronomical observatory and the “Centre of the Universe”. The smooth pavement made the descent an absolute joy, in contrast to the crappy surface on Mt. Doug.

In the end, I logged about 45 miles. It wasn’t the most scenic ride in the world, but the hills were nice, and it was good to be back on the bike after all that time cramped up in an airplane… even if the bike was a heavy steel loaner!

I was especially pleased when we decided to order Thai take-out for supper. After Day One, the trip was going pretty well!

Saturday was a grey day, and we had nothing planned but seeing the musical The Fantasticks at a local theater. The play was reasonably interesting, the cast did a good job, and the music was tolerable (which for me is saying a great deal).

Aside from that, I was able to handle some key errands, including the all-important grocery run and a trip to the bank, where I was surprisingly able to obtain fistfuls of small US bills for entry into Where’s George. When the weather cleared again, we had a wonderful supper of steaks on the grill. It was a good way to let my legs recover from all the hills I’d ridden the day before.

Sunday’s weather was a reprise, starting out rainy but ending sunny. We began the day with brunch at The Marina, a fairly upscale establishment in Oak Bay that hosted a surprisingly good all-you-can-eat buffet. I utterly stuffed myself with waffles, french toast, bacon, sausage, ham, smash browns, cookies, chocolate cake, and probably a half dozen other things I’ve already forgotten. Gotta build my strength back up, see? Because…

Then it was off on a bike trek through Victoria’s Highlands district, which featured a lot of hills, but nothing quite as excessive as Mt. Doug. Despite being a single lane road (Millstream Lake Road) for much of its distance, the Highlands route was very nicely paved and a pure joy to ride, swooping up and down and around for kilometer after kilometer through mossy, rocky, majestic Pacific Northwest woodland. At one point a young deer crossed the road no more than 10 meters ahead of me. It was arguably one of the most beautiful rides I’ve had, and one I’d be delighted to revisit.

But there was another whole half of the ride to go, with a very different feel… Returning to town, I briefly followed the Galloping Goose trail, which after crossing a trestle bridge over Victoria’s Upper Harbor, rapidly disintegrated in a deluge of construction. I found another bridge into downtown and suddenly found myself in front of the Empress Hotel, the British Columbian Parliament buildings, and the soulless tourist hell that is any cruise ship terminal.

I followed a tour bus as we skirted the James Bay coastline until I reached the Ogden Point Breakwater and Beacon Hill Park. From there, the Coastal route brought me around several well-developed but scenic rocky headlands and small, rocky beaches, then back to my brother’s neighborhood around UVic. I logged another 45 miles, and had a frozen lasagna for supper, which was plenty after the huge brunch at the Marina.

My brother had signed us up for a kayak expedition Monday morning, but I wasn’t really looking forward to it, because the forecast called for rain and temperatures below 60 degrees. Nonetheless, we bundled up and drove up to the rental place in Brentwood Bay, where things weren’t quite as bad as advertised: it was foggy and misty, but not actively raining, and the temperature was quite tolerable. We met up with our guide, a savory young Scotian named Trish, and another gentleman who would accompany us on our paddle. I was delighted to find that we were given standard fiberglas sea kayaks, rather than cheap and worthless composite boats.

After a skills refresher, we followed the coast north for about five miles, exploring the coves along the way. It was quiet and scenic, and generally a pleasant experience, save for getting a bit wet (I’d foregone securing my skirt in favor of access to my camera) and developing a blister (from windmilling and too tight a grip on my paddle). But we saw eagles and herons and a waterfall and several oceanfront mansions, and admired the mist rising from the steeply wooded hillsides.

The return trip was more direct, as we’d seen everything once on the way north, and also because a breeze had kicked up out of the south, making the paddle back a bit more arduous. However, we returned to the dock after three and a half hours, soaked but satisfied with the effort.

The remainder of the day included returning the rental bike, packing, and an excellent meal at the 5th Street Bar & Grill. We were up Tuesday at 4am to catch our 7am flight home, which passed reasonably uneventfully, save for the constant sharp ache in my hamstrings from the kayaking.

Overall, I think the trip was quite successful. My mother enjoyed it (especially after her health issues resolved themselves), and I found my usual preferred balance between activity and rest, complementing my bike and kayak expeditions with a couple rare talks with my brother and his wife. Had we spent more time in Victoria, I might have enjoyed a full-day bike ride further afield (probably the Malahat) or some window-shopping downtown, and we lacked time to fire up the Vandercook for the letterpress project my brother and I had talked about; but on the other hand, it’s best to leave before one strains the host’s patience, and my mother and sister-in-law’s mobility issues would have made a longer stay more trying.

Thus ends (to my knowledge) my only major trip this year, and the final use of my current passport, which will need to be renewed soon.

Frequent topics