Wanderings and Musings

I am really enjoying the relaxed atmosphere of this part of the country. I want to say “again” because it feels so much like the Pacific Northwest. The trees are lush and green and thickly line the road. There is a feeling of life and vibrancy emanating from the woods as I ride through.

Because I’ve got a possible CS up in Burlington VT tonight, I am heading in that general direction through the back roads of New Hampshire and Vermont. There is no specific destination in mind today other than Burlington by evening, so I’m off adventuring.

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** I wrote this back in August of last year, and never got around to finishing my journal of my trip. I will endevour to complete the articles again… **

Tuesday, June 30th, 2008 – It is so NICE to get out of the city and the traffic I have been bothered by for almost the whole east coast!! I feel free and easy. The weight lifts off your soul and you relax into your life again. I wonder at the people living permanently in those areas… how do they do it? I suppose it’s mostly my personality that just doesn’t deal well with the lack of freedom and nature to connect with. To my mind it seemed that the feeling of my surroundings changed instantly when I entered Maine.

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Ultimately all computer access and all the programs you use is about your data. Getting to it, saving it, finding it easily, and modifying it. The same holds true for physical files like papers as it does for computer files. But paper files can easily get out of hand and worthless since the information you might require is so hard to find when you need it.

Thus, I decided to go 98% paperless. Everything that comes in that I want to keep, I scan and file into my on-line storage. It is put into a very organized folder structure with a well named and dated filename, so that finding it is easy when it’s needed. The files can also be emailed, or printed out whenever I want and I can access them from anywhere with an Internet connection. Read the rest of this entry »

My Hayabusa along the St Joe River

I just love my Suzuki Hayabusa! Not only is it an incredibly sexy looking machine, but it’s also a marvel of engineering.

I’ll explain where my passion for this bike comes from…

How many other machines can be: purchased for $10,000; ridden at 200 mph; easily take corners at over 100 mph and more than a 45 degree angle; run constantly and truly for many hours while the engine is revving from 1000 to 12000 rpm and doing speeds from 20 to 180 mph; and go over 32,000 miles with all the internal workings of the engine in perfect alignment…?

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Wow! I quickly found that the hardest part of this was keeping the blog up to date! I find myself torn between the desire to keep a record and let others know of my progress… and the drive that these trials are for me alone to continue improving myself, thus seeming like a very private and personal matter. It’s not that I want to hide it, but rather I don’t want a feeling of obligation to be the motivation behind my actions, rather my inner desire and/or awareness…

I will post this one, but don’t plan at the moment to continue the practice.

As a final update: I finished the 30 days, and for workouts did very well… Overall working out every day was a breeze and enjoyable. No problem there. Drawing didn’t keep coming quite as easily. I love doing it, but I often get stuck on a drawing and feel like I need to finish it, but don’t really want to. And meditation I ended up converting to tiny breath meditations throughout the day instead of blocks of time.

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January 4th, 2009 – Another drawing out of my animal book. It’s where I go for inspiration. This African Moon Moth is from a small photo where the moth has just hatched and it’s wings are just finished drying out.

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Continuing on with my 30 days of Meditation, Drawing and Workouts. I’ve gotten some decent meditation time in, and lots of workout time. Drawing probably needs more than 20 minutes to get into the flow and really produce though.

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Meditation

A friend of mine asked if I could post some meditation links for him, so I thought I’d explain a little more about what type of meditation I am trying.

I have tried meditation off and on, but never stuck with it for very long. This month I am doing it for 20 minutes every day and recording more about what happens or how it affects me, so I’ll learn a little more.

The first 2 weeks I’ll be doing “Deep Meditation”, the second two weeks will be “Connecting with the Inner Body” explained below. Both styles are about quieting the mind and finding the stillness within you.

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Drawing

Meditation

Workout

For the month of January I have chosen 3 places to focus my efforts on my 30 day trails. Usually I would want to focus on just one item, but I’ve done these 3 before. Namely: Drawing, Meditation, and working out.

I want to really establish these activities as part of my daily practice, along with testing out what kind of physical shape I can establish with a full 30 days of working out.

I’ll be consolidating the reports on each day into batches of 5 days or so.
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Contemplation

Although I don’t do the standard “New Years Resolution” each year, I have been doing something similar but much more limited in scope and more often. It’s called the “30 day trial.” I’ve been doing this “30 day trial” for a couple of years now off and on.

This has included tons of various improvements in an attempt to either start a new good habit, or break an old bad one. Examples of ones I’ve already tried are vegetarianism for 2 months, writing daily in a journal, recording my dreams, morning exercise, getting up early, flossing, no alcohol, and more.

I’ve had some success and some were not so successful. Most of the unsuccessful ones were because I didn’t stick to the full thirty days and gave up. To help alleviate that, I am going to take the next step forward and publicly post my progress on my trials to hold myself accountable and keep a log of how well I did.

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