Scare yourself and shake the cage

Don't let fear stop you from doing anything

It didn't occur to me until today, how much of a baby I am starting to become. Is it old age? I went mountain biking today and at the start, I didn't want to hurt myself, and I seemed to be letting fear stop me from experiencing the true rush and gratification of the moment

So I'm telling myself this - Do at least one thing every couple of months which will take myself out of my fear comfort zone. Be the George Gordon Byron mad bad and dangerous.

Woodhill in New Zealand is pretty amazing. Mountain bike trails in a beautiful pine forest. In fact, they were filming Yogi Bear the movie today. The tracks were pretty tricky - jumps, tree roots, drops, sand, sharp turns, fierce downhills. At the start of the day, I kept pressing the brakes, afraid to fall off, afraid to go hard, afraid to hurt myself. What a baby!

It wasn't until I had to slap myself, learn the stable lean back position, fall off a couple of times and ignore my fear that I really started to enjoy the experience. It was a fantastic rush.

It was apparent that its so easy for me to just want to keep into this little world of mine, and not push the boundaries. I can imagine the people that get held back by fear, and it stops them from achieving great things. In fact, we were talking about it today, it seems the best in the world in mountain biking, skate boarding, surfing, gymnastics, whatever, are the ones who are able to master themselves and can overcome their fears.

D was flying down the mountains and popping jumps - it looked sweet! He was recollecting it, saying he was going too fast but told himself "don't panic, don't panic", he hit the jump with too much weight back, "don't panic, don't panic", and pop - huge air time and he sticked the landing. DON'T PANIC. He also did a tricky course which involved riding over two overlapping seesaws - while he was able to explain the theory of not slowing down, getting in the right gear - he just couldn't do it. He just didn't have the boldness to manage the fear and trust it will work out. Instead of continuing to peddle, he stalled and after 2 attempts, he also ended up smashing his derailleur. Good effort though

After the session, I felt different. It was similar feeling to a saturday morning on my road bike - I was a little weary but feeling pumped from a solid ride, with a full weekend of relaxation ahead of me. This time round, there was another level - I was buzzing. It was the adrenaline which road riding doesn't give to the same extent. Awesome!

So lessons
- overcome your fear and be bold to experience the best of the situation
- throw out the preconceived ideas and just do it - don't be afraid to eat some dirt

Sunday night thoughts

Veni Vidi Vici - I came, I saw, I conquered

I shall passed this way but once; any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Essential items for camping - outcomes
- Getting things done / sorting through mess / unpacking - Basic essentials - A method, buckets for common items, an eye for patterns, motivation to start, drive to push forward, attention for optimising your method/other peoples methods.
- constant repetitions

Great Vic wrap up
Wake up around 6am. Alarm clock is just the shuffling movements of 5000 people camping next to me beginning to wake up and get moving on the road.

Pack up. Big wins first. Deflate and roll my air mattress.
Roll up my sleeping bag. Into my suitcase.
Pull out 1 plastic bowl, spoon and knife for breakfast. Put it in the corner.
Pull out my day's cycling gear. Change. Put helmet, spare tubes, shoes in the corner ready to go.
Pack up remaining clothes and odds and ends.
Bags out of tent.
Pull all pegs out of tent.
Take tent fly off. Fold into approximate tent bag width
Pull down remainder of tent and roll tarp with fly into bag. Into suitcase.
Sunscreen on.
All cycle gear on. Pump up tyres.
Bag onto truck.
Breakfast. Porridge base, muesli and nutrigrain on top with fresh fruit and milk. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Danish if lucky.
Fill up bottles.
On the road.

Passing. Passing on the right. Beep the horn.
Slowing.
Car up. Car back.
Follow the wheel. Stick to the wheel.
Take my turn up front.
Crank the gears on the hills.

Lunch spot by 9:30 to 11am.
Eat. Stretch. Ice. Toilet.
On the road.

Stick to the wheel.
Legs burning.
To the top of the hill.
Coast.
Do we need to stop at the next rest stop?
Power on
Arrive at camp
Camp closed

Waiting on the side of the road
Honking horns
Coffee
Sprint to campsite
Mark territory with the bike and gear
Deflate tyres
Unload truck 2 with human conveyor belt
Where the f*** is my bag.
"anyone seen a black bag!?"
- "yeah it was on the road ripped to pieces"
- "yeah, truck 7"
"do you want me to carry all your bags for you?"
- "woah, thats a bit rich! Someone take a pole out of his arse"

Top off
Pitch the tent - tarp, poles, clips, flys, pegs.
Set up clothes line and hang up wet clothes
Finally get out of cycle gear! Wave of relief from below.
"cycling hurts your balls"
- "tell them sit on your hand for an hour and see if it goes numb"

chill out. Ice. Snooze.
More sunscreen on. Beach.
Recovery. 15 minutes walking in cold water.
Swim if the waves are pumping
Go into town for food.
Optimum shower window at around 5:30pm - everyone is heading to dinner and showers are empty. Snigger at those who queue for 20 minutes in line for a shower at 2pm
Moisturize sunburn. Groom.
1 plate. Knife, fork, spoon.
Look out for people in front of me to see which people are being served big portions of food, or for the younger, more generous food volunteers. Tuck into that line.
Banter over dinner
Drink at spokes bar.
Drink at the pub
Late night till pub closes
Bed at 1:30am

Nine days.
550k. 0 punches. 0 stacks. The worlds best vanilla slice. Banana-gasm.

Day 1 - Portland, 53k (Portland-Cape Bridgewater-Portland). Raining. Lunch has dill in it. Quietly impressed by food. Marshall said turn right for rest stop and left for campsite. Turn left. Draft with guy from Qld. Get to camp first out of my team. Yellow jersey. Find out later the course incorporates going to the rest stop and back tracking. Missed the cape bridgewater blow hole. Still claim I have a yellow and even green jersey. Tired from 2 hours sleep, and 4am departure from RNF's house. Bus from Geelong racecourse. My group is last to arrive and everyone on the bus is waiting for us. Have a bit of a private laugh with group.
Always bring a book when camping!

Day 2 - Macarthur, 66k.

Day 3 - Port Fairy, 48k.
Everyone at camp is pumped for an easy day. Route profile shows it is all down hill and a short ride. Ride on. It is pretty much all uphill. Call the guys for a recovery trip down to beach. It works wonders. Legs feel sore but recovery makes me feel refreshed.
Worlds best vanilla slice. Tastiest fish and chips. Buy hayfever medication and knocks me out while I'm at the pub.

Day 4 - Port Campbell, 100k. Tough.
First real stretch of downhill. No speedo but I must have been doing at least 70km/hr. Shitting my pants. Other team riders must have been doing closer to 80km/hr as they pass me.
Almost drop off but manage to hold on. Full team sticks together and forms a massive pack into town. Good work. Slap in the face with a final turn into the camp site. It is a big hill. Struggle. Mel gives me a power bar and a couple of gels. Good for recovery. Straight to cove for cold water beach recovery. Legs feel weary but fresh again. Rain. Bottle of wine at spokes bar. Quiet one in preparation for another big day.

Day 5 - Apollo Bay, 97km. 2 massive climbs. The famous notorious Lavers hill. Then sneaky heart attack hill. Painful. Little champ tells me to grab handle bars and pull it forward a little. Good tip.

Day 6 - Apollo Bay. Rest day

Day 7 - Anglesea. 78km
Altered traffic conditions on Great ocean road to allow full use for cyclists. Drafted with AT. Beautiful stretch of coast. Highlight of trip so far. Wish I had my camera
Second last night out. Big night.

Day 8 - Queenscliff, 64km
Straight into water with cycling gear.
Last night out. Big night. Pizza.

Day 9 - Geelong. 41km
Hammer it into the finish line. Flat ride but into a head wind. Nice weather.

The slogan of the great vic is a week in another world. It truely is.
Great fun, great group, great laughs, great rides, great packs.

I'm home. Tired. A little sore.
Finally a proper shower and brushing my teeth.
No need to set up the tent. My own bed.
Comfort
Recovery

Plug into the world again. Phone on. Connect to internet.
Work tomorrow.
Back to reality
NZ on Tuesday
Good ride

Weekend funnies

Incredibly busy weekend. Skipped work today because I was pretty exhausted, and my knee was not playing nice. Started at 6:30am in Carlton, froze as I rode through the shadows of the cbd buildings with a mate. Rode 100k around the bay, felt a bit sore after about 20k on the flats, but it was great fun chasing the packs. Finished the day off with a chocolate brioche and a coffee at seven seeds in carlton.

Had a dinner party on saturday night, then again on sunday night, both involved about 4 hours worth of prep, including shopping at the prahran market. Had two great nights with pretty much the same people haha. Sunday night involved also drinking some Moet Chandon Grand Vintage 2000. These people are great company, achievers in their own right and a good laugh.

Some stories which came out were
- R's family used a bag of peas for every sort of injury that required an icepack. They used this sacred bag of peas for years, so much that the outside packaging turned white. One day, they couldn't find the icepack. After some investigation, it turned out that grandma who was visiting for the weekend cooked the aged many-time-defrosted peas for the family.
- R's mum was staying over at her parents, and cooked a mince for them. Grandma and grandpa ate the mince while mum went out for a dinner with friends. Unbeknowst to mum, grandparent's dog ate pet-food mince, which happened to be stored in the freezer. So mum accidently fed grandparents dog food
- M has a work colleague who is really crazy when he visits uncle charlie. He came into work with a sore shoulder one day, and he volunteered this information, that he was in the shower enjoying himself, but being so coked up, he didn't receive responses and violently had his way with his shoulder.
- M's colleague also broke his ankle as a result of falling off a balcony. Turns out he was angry with the noise of scattering feet on his roof for months, and as revenge tried to piss on a possum while having a few too many beers.

Wish weekends were longer

Hitting the corner

Spent 7 hours on the bike last weekend. Was the most pain I've ever felt on a bike. The Tawonga gap hill, with elevation up to 10-15% over several kilometres, told me to stop multiple times. I almost did. Multiple times. The lactic acid was heavy in my already 100km weary legs, I was cramping, and I was fresh from spending the last 2 months overseas working in kitchens and eating. I suffered. But I didn't stop.

When I look back, the things that kept me going were
(a) try to get into a rhythm. 8-10 pedals standing, then pedaling 10-20 strokes seated (till my legs were too tired). 8-10 standing, 10-20 seated. Repeatedly
(b) Literally grunting out the pain like a weightlifter pushing out every single ounce of strength to lift the bar over their head. Except my grunts were painful, shorter and more frequent.
(c) Telling myself to pedal just to the next corner, and there is surely a downhill. Was probably the one thing that got me by.

I made it to the top, and collapsed. My mates told me they heard me coming from a mile away.
"Pain is short-lived, but victory is forever"
Its been on my mind now for the last week. Hitting the shortterm goals for the longer term gain. If I thought about the distance left on the hill, I would have just jumped off and wouldn't bother. But I kept trying to hit the corner. Corner after corner, pounding and cranking the pedals without looking up beyond an occasional safety peek.

With Christmas coming around the corner, I'm gearing up to achieve the last few things I can before it comes. Don't give up!

Dali

Went to visit Dali. Very inspirational.

The life of an artist intrigued me. After every milestone, good or bad, a painting is usually produced. So when you look back at the last five years, you can literally travel back and see your progression, in a series of still frame visual representation, captured, full of passion and emotion. How beautiful!

Highlights / Things that stuck in my head / My thoughts
- Lobster phone - Dali was intrigued that behind such a hard casing of a lobster shell was soft delicate flesh. Dali represented this as a lobster phone - a hard telephonic ear/mouth piece, capturing people's soft and delicate words.
- Galatea of the Spheres - beautiful painting of his wife, inspired by the nuclear physics of world world II
- The famous Persistence of time and The Disintegration of Persistence of Memory
- Dali compared Jackson Pollock's (million dollar) work to indigestion
- Dali sort to be one of the greats to move art into the next century. He even moved to Paris and befriended Picasso.
- Dali designed the original Chupa Chups logo in 1969
- Dali didn't care about what other people thought. In fact, you have to step out of the real-world or conscious realm to truely admire his work
- Para-phrased Voltaire quote - "To care what people think is to give them your power"
- Dali crafted his moustache based on the integral (calculus) symbol

Finding things

Last Friday I finally found him. The guy who I heard about, and subsequently looked for but could not find. I found him last Friday.

Mr Mushroom. One of the best mushroom retailers in Victoria. I felt like a kid in a candy store, and I don't even like mushrooms that much! It was a small little shop, but I was caught up in the magical land of mushrooms, fascinated at the different kinds. I ended up with 3 giant horse mushrooms, which I cooked up by saute-ing with oil, finishing off with butter, then adding to the oven with a splash of soy and parmesan shavings. I was in mushroom heaven. And again, I don't even like mushrooms that much! I was inspired by one of the best mushrooms I've ever tasted, when I ate at the Argo a couple of months ago. My brother is coming down next month, so I will be sure to add this to the menu!

On Saturday I explored the South Melbourne Market and was quietly impressed. Not quite as big as Queen Vic, but plently of produce and niche products that make me buzz with excitement.
Finally tasted the famous South Melbourne Dim Sims, which have been in existence since 1949, and is regarded as some of the world's best. Apparently Dim Sims were first made in Melbourne (not to be mistaken for the similar Dim Sum).

I bought 1 steamed and 1 fried. The fried one started fantastically, with a crunchy top that I still vividly remember right now as I type. The steamed Dimmy finished very well with a hint of pepper. For a Dim Sim, they were very good, with quality "stuffing" (whatever mystery ingredients are in there). They definately don't have that cheap taste which budget mass produced Dim Sims have. On a side note: Chef's Hat across the road is a kitchenware playground, and I'll be spending a lot more time there in future I'm sure!

All done - Hello again

Project has been closed out! Goodbye long hours, hello life. Its been the toughest 6 months of my career, and I'm glad its over. Looking forward to a holiday next month, and time to just relax after the gruelling battle I've had to fight.

My 60+ hour weeks has given me an appreciation of coffee. I've had up to 4 coffees (plus additional energy drinks) a day, and my list of favourite coffees around the office, in no particular order are:
- Grinders Coffee - myGoodness cafe on St Kilda road (comes with a free muffin)
- Capri Cafe on Wellington St, St Kilda
- Jasper's coffee in Prahran Market (also in Smith St, Fitzroy)
- Italcaffe coffee - Barista off chapel st (Carlton St)

Additionally, in the city, my 2 favourite places are:
- Cloud 19 (using Grinders coffee)
- Expresso Bagels (using Mokador coffee - currently only 1 in Melbourne)

Commuting vs Happiness

In a 2004 study of German commuters, psychologists found that the longer people spent getting to work, the lower their general life satisfaction tended to be. The malaise brought on by commuting was not being balanced by work satisfaction or higher income.

If commuting makes us so unhappy, why do North Americans keep buying houses in distant suburbs? Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert suggests that it is because humans are just not very good at predicting what will make us happy.

“When we make predictions about happiness, we typically fail to consider adaptation – the process by which the brain gets used to things,” explains Prof. Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness. “It is much easier to adapt to things that stay constant than to things that change.

“So we adapt quickly to the joy of a larger house in the suburbs because the house is exactly the same size every time we come in the front door. But we find it difficult to adapt to commuting by car because every day is a slightly new form of misery, with different people honking at us, different intersections jammed with accidents, different problems with weather, and so on.”

So the misery of the long commute will almost always trump the happiness of that spacious den, Prof. Gilbert says

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/article766908.ece