Apparently I am an "Elitist"

This evening while I was having a drink or three at my favorite bar near work it was explained to me by someone I don't know that I'm an elitist. The context here is that we got started on a conversation related to the bartender, call him Brian. Brian was talking about what the situation is like when a recruited "shopper" comes into the restaurant and sits at the bar and evaluates how he does his job. If he does it well, he gets a $100 bonus. If he doesn't do it well, he doesn't get a bonus and may get heat from his boss. My point on this was that if I were Brian and some secret agent were evaluating me in my job and then turned around and started to rag on me, I'd tell my employer where they could stick it and find a job somewhere else.

My point to the guy sitting beside me was that Brian is a great bartender. If he doesn't get respect from where he's working now, so what; he can get a job at the bar down the street, all his customers will figure it out and go buy liquor from him down there and he'll make just as much money as he does here. What's $100 to a great bartender? A great bartender probably earns 3x that in tips each night. The guy sitting beside me's point was that, in this economy there won't be a job for Brian down the road, because they won't be looking for a bartender.

So here's where I become an "elitist". My whole thinking on this subject is that if you're good at what you do, you're passionate about it, and you have a drive to succeed you'll find a place for yourself. For example, sure the bar down the street might not be looking for a new bartender; however, once they gave Brian a chance they'd quickly discover that the guy paid for himself because he's so good at his job. Brian's talent and aptitude for his job would mean that people would buy more liquor from the new bar, Brian's customers from the previous bar would move to the new one, maybe the new bar would even discover that they could dump one of their existing bartenders and give Brian his job instead.

My over-riding philosophy in all of this that each of us has a talent. Whether we realize what our talent is and where we can apply it to our maximum benefit is another question. Personally, I've been in jobs that I absolutely sucked at. My time at Xerox was a good example. Yes, I had some big months, but I had to work like a dog in order to achieve those big months. I wasn't talented at sales. After being there for 6 months I saw that the people who really did well at the job were working 20 or 30 hours a week and making twice as much as I was. These guys would actually go watch movies during the day. On the other hand, I was working 50 hours a week and making half of what they were. The thinking of the guy sitting beside me at the bar was that I should have just stayed working at Xerox, worked 50 hours a week and earned way less that what felt like equal compensation to the effort I put in. I'm sorry, but I just don't get it.

These sorts of experiences should be a signal to people that they aren't in a position that is in alignment with their skills. Yes, it sucked when I realized that I wasn't cut out to be in sales. At the same time however, I was realistic with myself and realized that I needed to go in another direction. If I really loved sales:

1. I would have done better at it.
2. I would have felt like I was being paid a reasonable amount of money for the skin I put into the game. i.e. If you love to flip hamburgers (fyi - a job I did once and I'm not looking down on it) and you get paid $5/hr, maybe that's just fine. If you're doing something you love, what you get paid to do it, shouldn't be a deciding factor.

In my case, I went back to school, got a post grad degree in IT and never looked back. I look at myself just like I look at Brian. If my current employer were to treat me in a way I found inappropriate I'd quit and within a week or two be employed somewhere else, probably making even more money.

The guy sitting beside me at the bar however didn't see it that way. His thought was that if Brian left his current job he'd have to now slide in at the bottom of the totem pole at his new job. He'd be taking a cut in pay and it would take him years to recover. This kind of thinking I don't get. If Brian is good at his job (which he most definitely is), sure he might have to start at the bottom; but so what? Through his aptitude for tending bar, he'd quickly be back to where he was when he left his previous job.

In the words of Eric Cartman, "follow your dream, you too can reach your goals, Beefcake! Beefcake!!!"

Up then Down

I took off from work in good time today, completed my massive 10 minute commute home, got saddled up on my bike and went for a 2.5 hour ride up the coast and back. As I was riding I was thinking to myself how these sorts of rides are what it's all about. Get away from work, get outside and do something I love to do, and enjoy the suddenly cooler weather we're finally experiencing here in San Diego.

Then, when I was less than a mile from home, I somehow dumped my chain off the top of my biggest gear, into the space between my cassette and my hub. I have no idea how that happened, I don't even think I was changing gears. The net result was a near instant stop. My chain was jammed into that gap so tightly that as my rear wheel continued to turn it ripped my chain right off my front chain rings with enough force to slam it right through the bottom of my front derailleur. After spending 5 minutes on the side of the road ripping my chain out of there I was able to ride the rest of the way home, very slowly however.

BTW, I love how you can be broken down on the side of the road for 5 minutes, be passed by 20 cyclists and not one of them even asks if you need any help. It's bad enough that people can't even seem to say hi to you when you say hi to them as you pass them on the bike path, but not offering to help someone who could well need it really bothers me. I've gotten to the point with people on the bike path that when I say hi to them and they don't even react, that I now yell a second hi at them, just to make my point. Note however, that my more aggressive action with the hi's doesn't appear to be making a difference; at least not yet.

So now it looks like my powertap hub is messed up, my front derailleur needs to be replaced for sure, and who knows what else is done for. Stay tuned for another $400 trip to the bike shop. Dammit!

Highly Recommended Movie

If you know my taste in movies, you know I love a great documentary. The other night I watched "American Drug War: The Last White Hope". This is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, not so much because it's the best production you'll ever see in a documentary, but because it covers material that I think the vast majority of America just can't get their heads wrapped around. It also exposes things about the American government's role in the war on drugs that most people don't even know about.

I've long been a proponent of the complete legalization of drugs. The reasons being pretty simple:

1. Since the beginning of time, you've never been able to stop people from doing something, simply by enacting a law. Making drugs illegal doesn't do anything to stop their use.
2. Look at all of the crime that is created simply due to the fact that people can make huge money selling something that people can't buy anywhere else. If people could walk into 7-11 and buy their drugs for probably 1/10 of what they pay now, drug related crime would end instantly. Seriously, instantly!
3. America spends billions of dollars each year funding the war on drugs, when the war on drugs is the stupidest idea in the history of war. Even a retard can figure out that you can't kill an industry by trying to eradicate its supply. The way to kill an industry is to control its demand. On the other hand, one can easily also see how it is in the best interests of those who make their hay "waging the war on drugs" for the war to never be won. And there's the rub.

Whether you think that drugs should remain illegal or not. Even if no one can say anything that will change your mind, you owe it to yourself to watch this movie and learn what the war on drugs is really all about.

Kinda Wonder How it All Worked

I question how it was that I used to be so good about sticking to my 10+ hours a week training program. I had a really good weekend last weekend, getting out for 3+ hours on both Saturday and Sunday. Once the work week started though, I'm again stuck in the mud with little happening on the cycling front.

I don't really feel like I'm necessarily more hectic at work than I have been in the past. I am seeing more unpredictability in the time requirements work is throwing my way. I'm also seeing some of my time being sucked up by my responsibilities as Sponsorship Director for the bike club. This time of year is the time when we need to get sponsors finalized for the 2010 jersey, so there is a lot of pressure to get deals closed.

In some ways I think the work variability is a big part of the problem. I do well with predictable plans that I can stick to and follow. For example, each year when I put together my training program it went onto my fridge, onto my office cork-board, and onto this blog. I knew what I needed to do each day and I seemed to find the time to do it. Now I'm in more of a pattern where on a slow work day I need to be able to have the variability to swap out what might have been a 30 minute speed workout for a 3 hour aerobic ride and vice versa. That's where I'm struggling.

Anyways, things are headed in the right direction. I just need to close the gap from the "somewhat got it together" pack that I'm riding in now, up to the "got it together" pack. Maybe I need a faster bike or something ;-)

Trailer Park Boys - I'm Hooked

A few years ago my sister gave me the 4th season of the Trailer Park Boys as a gift (Christmas or my Birthday, I can't remember - sorry). When I first tried to watch it, it never really made too much of an impression on me. With the new TBP movie, Count Down to Liquor Day coming out and all the previews on the Canadian web sites that I frequent, I gave the 4th season a more serious look. I've gotta say, this show is one of the funniest things you'll ever see!

Caveat - If you are my Mom, and you're reading this post, now is probably a good time to stop reading, or at least, proceed at your own risk!

The story line of this show is pretty simple, at the start of each season some combination of Ricky, Julian and Bubbles gets out of jail. They then go back home to their trailer park (Sunnyvale) in Nova Scotia. They then spend a couple episodes with Julian pontificating about how he's going to go clean, get a real job and not go back to jail. By episode three, Ricky is back to growing dope in one of the trailers in the park. They then spend the rest of the season trying to avoid getting busted by Jim Lahey, the drunk trailer park supervisor. By the final episode they're getting busted by the cops and heading back to jail.

When you watch the show, you're reminded of the differences between Canadian and American senses of humor. Just my impression, but most American comedies are all about relating to the characters and laughing along with them as they go through life. Canadian comedies are about something different, they're about laughing at some sorry SOB as he goes through life. The Trailer Park Boys fit this perfectly. You don't laugh along with these guys, you laugh at them as they grow dope, steal and re-sell meat from the grocery store, open up a used furniture store where they sell stolen furniture (stolen from a hotel and a government office), make pornos starring people from the trailer park, steal shopping carts from one mall and sell them to the other, etc. All while trying to out fox the permanently drunk Jim Lahey and his side kick, burger boy Randy.

The other thing that you're reminded of when you watch this show is how things are a little different in Canada. Since I've been watching this show I'm back to swearing a lot more, urinating in public as appropriate, and having a general sense of dislike for The Man.

If you haven't ever watched this show, I highly recommend giving it a shot. After watching season 4, I hit Amazon and bought the entire series. Definitely money well spent.

Here are some funnier clips from the show:

After dishonestly letting Bubbles take the fall for his own work of burning down his dad's trailer, Ricky is convinced by Julian that they should do Bubbles a favor by doing what he want's to do for the day. Starts out as badminton, ends in playing space.



Shit Hawks, they're flying in low:



Never Cry Shitwolf; Lahey thinks he has the boys nailed, it doesn't quite turn out that way:



Problems with the cable guy:



Lahey and Shit Moths:



Ricky destroys Lahey's place over a chicken:



5 swear words you didn't know:

Finally!

Once upon a time there was a Pacific Northwest college football program that went all the way to the top. The Washington Huskies were national champs as recently as 1991. There have been some good years since then; Rose Bowl wins in 1992 and 2001, ending Miami's 58 game home winning streak in dominating fashion, and numerous other dramatic victories.

There were of course some rocky roads that the Huskies have traveled recently. A two year probation from the NCAA in 1993. This was followed by the ultimate axis of evil; namely Barbara Hedges and Rick Neuheisel. Normally when people who are as devious and incompetent as these two put their heads together, the end result is the end of a civilization, mass destruction, or something similar. In this case, Washington football fans took one for the rest of the planet as they watched their beloved program turned into a laughing stock.

Sure, Slick Rick took the team to a Rose Bowl win in 2001, but once he had to depend on his own recruits and management of said players, it was all over. Crappy players and even poorer discipline of said players. There are a few articles out there on the internet that detail some of the complete lack of human decency that existed in some of Neuheisel's recruits, and even worse in how he turned a blind eye to it all. I'll leave that for you to find on your own.

No worries though, with Rick fired just as the NCAA was about to nail him to the wall (note he left Colorado in exactly the same sort of fashion); the ultimate slack ass, Ty Willingham would restore order and take the sleeping giant back to the top. Too bad it never worked out that way. 14 straight losses and the worst ranked defense in the entire county later, Ty finally got his marching orders. Ty's reign was kinda like being a stock market investor over the past couple years; just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, sure enough it did. And that didn't happen once or twice; it happened on a weekly, or even daily basis.

Finally at the end of last season, Washington hired a guy in Steve Sarkisian who we all knew was the right guy for the job. The only question was how long would it take for him to turn around the train wreck that Willingham left behind.

With the Huskies starting out their season against perennial power house LSU, anyone who had been paying attention for the last few years expected another 56-0 beatdown; just like the one that USC put on the Huskies last season. Even worse, it was all going to unfold on national television. Funny enough, the Dawgs only lost to LSU by 8. Realistically, with some better tackling, they might have even won the game. All of a sudden one began to quickly question whether they needed to change their expectations for this team. Last season while going win-less in 12 games, Husky fans learned that they should just be happy seeing their team not get blown out. We all knew we were going to lose, but at least maybe we could keep the losing margin under 10. Now you had to wonder if you should start being a bit upset when the team didn't win. Maybe even expect them to win. Even be a critical when the team made some mistakes because who knows, maybe one or two less mistakes and we wouldn't all have to accept losing any more.

Week two brought Idaho to town, no big deal, the Huskies won pretty easily, ending their 15 game losing streak. Give Sarkisian and his coaching staff credit though. If Ty were still running the show, this would have probably also been a loss.

Last weekend, week 3, brought the big, bad, 3rd ranked USC Trojans to town. Before kick-off I joked with Carol that she might want to get a diaper ready for her USC loving brother Joe because the Dawgs were about to break his heart. Unless you've been living under a rock somewhere, you realize that Washington in fact beat USC 16-13! How crazy is that? Sure, USC was without their starting quarterback, but hey what can you say? Rather than snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as this team has done so many times over the past few seasons, the Huskies actually drove down the field with the game on the line and kicked a field goal to win the game.

Up next Stanford. I kinda laugh when people speculate that the Huskies are going to have a let down after beating USC last weekend. These folks obviously have no idea what it's like to lose 15 football games in a row. It's impossible for this team to ever get too high on themselves. They've seen things as bad as they can possibly be. They are the team that went a whole season without winning a game. They know what's out there waiting for them if they ever even consider believing their own press clippings. Let's just hope that Sarkisian can pilot this thing all the way to a bowl game this season.

Time for Action

This is going to be the week when my riding finally gets back onto a regular schedule.

On the plus side of things, my eating has been much better the past couple weeks. I'm down from 188 to somewhere around 183. I've still got a long way to go, but I've definitely made a good start. Most import is healthy eating. Losing some extra weight is nice, but certainly not the primary goal.

I also spent two and half hours on a nice slow ride today. Up the coast to Leucadia, where I ran into Wells, one of my team-mates. He was riding south at that point, so I turned around and rode back south to Del Mar with him. We also passed the one and only Matt Marshall on our way back south. Nice guy, but he's got to get himself a better looking team kit. Something white and red, with a few yellow stripes are what all the chicks are digging these days, or at least that's what I'm told.

On the riding front I've been pretty regular with getting out to the Saturday SDBC Club ride, but I haven't been doing anything else. i.e. no base miles, no aerobic endurance, and in general very limited fitness. Now that work is winding down a bit, it's time to start making time to get out on the bike and get my aerobic base back.

I don't know about everyone else out there, but nothing frustrates me more than the feeling of having no aerobic base. It means that when you do get on your bike the littlest amount of effort causes your heart rate to quickly climb. Also, when you do ride hard, your heart rate races right past your lactate threshold and pegs at or near your maximum heart rate. I can't tell you how many times on the SDBC ride I look down and see that my heart rate is up around 195 (my max). If I were in shape it would be somewhere between 175 and 185.

Which then leads to the catch 22 of not being motivated to ride. I'm not motivated to ride because I'm frustrated about how far my fitness has fallen, plus when I ride my bike I see first hand how slow I need to ride to keep my heart rate under control. Yet, the only way to get it better is to ride.

Anyway, enough excuses, it's time for action. This week my goal is the following:

M - day off
T - 1 hour of endurance
W - 30 mins. of speed
Th - 2.5 hours of endurance
F - off (maybe do some weights)
Sa - 1 hour endurance
Su - 2 hours endurance

Let's see how I make out.