These are some of my favorite things… (That I miss about California and hate about Colorado)

Last night I talked with my Dad. We chatted a while, and I headded out to the dog park (Berkely park, way the heck up in Highlands but it’s a great park) with Tactic. It was real late, and the sun had gone down just as I got there. Tac played with the other dogs (One Ridgeback started to really irritate me- He was playing too rough with TAC, and Tac was in full teeth mode- Making it clear that he was getting pissed too… When TAC bars his teeth people get scared) but all in all it was a nice way to wind down the evening.

We got in the car and headded back home to Wash Park.

We hit the I70->I25 interchange and suddenly traffic was stopped. No big deal, I’ve got audio books that I listen to on my ipod and that has made driving livable, traffic ceases to be an issue. Tac just likes to stick his nose out the air and smell the exhaust.

As we roll up to the accident that caused the backup there were two fire trucks, two ambulances, and a half dozen cars pulled off to the right. They had the entire freeway blocked, and people were inching by on the shoulder. I glanced briefly (I try my best not to rubberneck) and saw two people on stretchers. They were working on a woman in jeans. The other guy was flopped there, jeans and a t-shirt. No one was working on him. Spooky.

Now this was just another car accident, right? Everyone tries their best to stay safe, some people do dumb things like tailgate, but this was odd- There were no towtrucks there. All the cars looked fine… No dammage. No debris on the road. So what the hell happ…

As I passed the end of the accident I saw it.

A brand new GSX still with temp tags lying crumpled in the middle of the road, forks pretzled and pices of fairing everywhere.

In Colorado there is no helmet law. You are free to ride without a lid. That is simply incredulous to me. No helmet generally means no leathers, or armor either.

Now when I rode, I admit that I rode fast. I like going fast. But I tried my best to ride safe. In the old days before Lard Ass, my venerable old Pacific Coast, self destructed my girlfriend at the time had a rule: “You are not to go above 85 with me on the back”, and it was tough to stick to that rule. That bike wanted to fly. But we both wore armor. We both wore Shoie full face helmets. My armor (I rode every day) was a garish yellow, and my helmet an unbelivably ugly pylon orange. You could SEE that helmet.

Most riders in Colorado ride without helmets or armor. No leathers, no padding, jeans-and-a-t-shirt. Now I admit, that I can see the appeal of the open road, wind in your hair (If I had any) but the thought of sliding down the road at 85mph while the pavement slowly ground away my jaw or worse…

I saw the bike lying there, and nearly vomited into my lap. Suddenly the brilliantly strobbing lights, the paramedics calmly running back and forth the cops taking statements and directing traffic… Suddenly this all had tremendous meaning for me.

My Dad wrecked his Indian when he was a teenager in Toronto. He started to spin on wet street-car tracks, caught the pavement, and the bike went up and over. I don’t think anyone actually even made helmets then. To be honest, it’s a miracle (For this and a large number of other reasons) that I am even here. Dad never rode again. Lard Ass blew up. Seriously, I pulled the clutch in, becuase I knew something was wrong, and at that very instant the motor blew. The crank arms came through the casing and pieces of metal went everywhere. 1 second later and I probalby would have high sided into the car in front of me. I coasted off the freeway, called a wrecker, and sold the carcass the next day. The guy that bought it was a real asshole. After working on lowballing me for an hour and a half, he then asked me to kick in my helmet and body armor. I told him to go fuck himself.

All the guys I knew in California, all the guys who raced to live, and lived to race, they all wore full body leathers, even commuting to work. They had special hangars in their cubes for these suits and when they were hung up while they worked, it looked like someone was waiting in their cubes. Me, I always wear/wore armor. I didn’t wear leather because leather didn’t have the kevlar padding I wanted in the shoulders, back, knees and elbows. I remember driving home from a business meeting in Sacramento in the summer, sweat dripping from my head all the way down to my legs, broiling in the summer heat, but would I do more than open the vents? No fucking way was I taking off my riding pants, or my steel encased boots (which I had to change out of for my business meeting- Lard Ass had a trunk). If the guys that really knew how to ride went out dressed, why on earth would a squid or a weekend rider do anything different? I admit I am nowhere near the rider that those guys (Or several people I know at work) are, but I have a rule: If someone that really knows their shit is does it, there’s probably a reason.

For the record- I’ve wrecked four times on motorcycles. Three times on my Honda when I lived in Bermuda, and Lard Ass. I know what it feels like when the thought hits the lizard part of your brain: “I can’t recover from this, I’m going down.”

So I will probably spark the ire of a few people I know in Colorado by saying this, but California Riders are SO MUCH MORE SAFTEY ORIENTED than riders in Colorado. There are, of course exceptions, but who IN THEIR RIGHT MIND in Cali would hit 101 in rush hour without as much between them and the cages as humanly possible?

Please, please, Coloradins, wear your gear if for NO OTHER REASON than so I don’t have to see another dead body on I25.

“You know Mark, when I first met you…”

To be honest, dear reader(s)[if necessary] I’m really quite irritated about myself for a first impression I made recently. I knew I botched it pretty much right away, and to undo a first impression takes a lot of work.

Today’s story:

I have led two Passover Seders. One at Kath’s place this year, and one when I was living with Meg. Both of them were personal success stories. My dad led the Seders every year as I was growing up with my Orthodox Zede sitting beside him to read Kadish. Dad actually did the bulk of the blessings himself- The Hamotzi and the blessing over the wine he had down cold. Not bad for a man who put “Anarchist” on his Marriage Certificate under “RELIGION:__________”.

So even though no one at those Seders had been at one of my Dads I always felt like I had enormous shoes to fill. We would PACK our living room. There were at least 25-28 people at every Seder, and dad would cook the turkey and stuffing himself. Mom would take care of the rest of the logistics, I would make Matzo balls and ended up often singing the four questions.

Right now you’re asking: “Who cares, Earhard, Pesach was months ago.”

Well, that’s the background to today’s musings.

Amongst the guests at my (I think more accurately this would be “our” but since we are no longer an “our” I think it’s both of our “My”) Seder in California was Lazarus.

My mom has an icebreaker she uses every year to introduce everyone. Basically everyone turns to their right and asks what is one thing that they are greatful for from the last year. Then they announce to the table what the person to their right said. We did a modified version of that, we all said our own thing. Example: This year at Kath’s Seder I said that I was thankful that I’d met Kath, because she’s been a huge index point in my life.

So that particular Seder Lazarus sits back and says to the table “Well… You know, Mark, when I first met you I thought you were a real asshole. But you know what, you are actually really a great guy, and I am grateful for being your friend.”

Well, I tell ya I nearly died.

So what does that have to do with anything? Well, I make a really tough first impression.

“Love me or hate me, but for the love of G-d don’t be indifferent.”
–Tennyson

Some people like me, some people hate me. Nobody leaves without an opinion. Now over time I generally expect people see through my unbelievably loud voice (maybe I should have been in theater, but with no talent that might be tough), Bravado, and faux arrogance to see that I might have something to offer. Here’s my thought- It shouldn’t be that much work to see that I try to add rather than remove from people’s lives.

“Arright, Mark, what exactly are you prepared to do about that?”

Well, to be honest, I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. I DO know I don’t like it.

Free at last, free at last, Thank G-d almighty we are free at last…

I am finally off call. Finally. An hour late, but I’m still off call.

Tonight I’m going to take his lordship to the dog park, and I’m going to sleep. I am hoping I don’t actually sleep AT the dog park.

TAC is seen here receiving the ultimate punishment (getting a bath) for digging where he is not supposed to:

Before I chained him to a wall and started with the hose I said “Now Tactic I know you’ve been to “the Joint” before (I got Tactic from the Denver Dumb Friends League), so you know the drill. This is going to hurt me more than it is going to hurt you. Well, on second thought, no it’s not. And as a bonus you won’t stink anymore.”

Here’s a great photo of his best bud, Blitz as a bonus- Tac hasn’t seen him in a while and of course misses him:

I was digging through photos looking for the one of TAC as a wet furball and just thought the above really captures Blit’s personality.

As a side note, because I’m so incredibly tired (I fell asleep at the restaraunt at lunch), bitter, and overall in a really unbelieivably pissy mood:

The final Omer, Number 49: Malchut ShebeMalchut: Sovereignty of Sovereignty

I thought I’d just count the Omer backwards, as I only outlined a few of them. In retrospect something about this idea just doesn’t make sense, so while I am going to discuss the final Omer today I think I’ll probably start at #1 and work forward.

I think I am also going to hook up with my… Mentor? (I don’t know what to call him, so I’m going to have to ask him next time we meet) Nachshon again.

So here we go… Sovereignty. Besides being impossible to spell, this word has remendous impact- It is not just “command over” or “king/queenship”. A “Soverign” is someone who not only commands his troops and subjects (ourselves in this case) but a “Sovereign” is also someone who not only commands respect, but deserves it.

Many of us “Command” respect, but do we truly deserve it? Do our actions and what we bring to the world really imply that we deserve the reverence of others? These, in my opinion, are secondary questions. The real question is this:

Do we deserve resepect from ourselves?

After all, this is Malchut ShebeMalchut, Sovereignty over our own Sovereignty- We may think we have it all together, or that we are masters of certain domains of our lives. Does that Sovereignty come from hubris (which yours truly has had plenty of lately) or from truly being in command of our total self, of all of our Omer? Do we truly know from which our Malchut transcends, and is it in keeping with our goals, true nature, and own inate genius?

For this particular Omer I have no personal moment to illustrate this point, because my Malchut ShebeMalchut is challenged on a moment-by-moment basis. It seems as though every time I think of something, or do something, I ask myself “Is this in keeping with being Sovereign over myself?” It is my constant “reality check”. Of course as most people who know me already are aware, I often ignore that reality check. There seems to be some tremendous part of ourselves that can overwhelm common sense and good judgement. I did not used to be like this- Three years ago I was very different.

I said, a while ago, that it is about time for a change. Maybe more explicitly it is time to change back.

Knock, knock, Neo, Change is at the door.

Need… Sleep…

I am on call this week.

Oncall sucks.

No, I mean it really sucks. I get called at all times of the day and night, and it keeps me from getting my regular work done. Basically any time something breaks in our gear our Operations Ctr. calls me. Before last night I’d gotten six hours of sleep since Monday morning. Last night was more quiet.

Friday/Saturday/Sunday are usually quiet as well. We’ll see what happens.

The funny thing is that my X, Meg, actually got used to the phone ringing all night, and the pager going off every 25 minutes. I don’t know how she did that, because I sure as hell never did.

The really funny part is that we actually have to be released from a call. If the emergency bridge is about something having nothing to do with me I am not actually allowed to hang up until I get permission, lest they call on my team and I’m not on the call anymore. So sometimes if the issue is big and there’s too much traffic on the phone I can end up on a call for hours that I am not really adding to. Eh, it’s a great job, so I’m not complaining, but I’d sure like to go home before 8:30pm today.

Agua, Hombre

In order to get my training/fitness back on track I’ve stopped drinking all beverages that aren’t water. I’m alergic to nutrisweet, so I can’t consume that gook. The other interesting thing is that I think the throat irritation I’ve had recently is from drinking coffee, so I’m not going to drink it for a few days and see what happens.

Other than that, this is a pretty boring post.

SHUT THE FUCK UP

Sometimes life feeds you little lessons. Every once in a while I nearly hit another car, or do something else stupid. I call these little lessons “jolts” because they jolt me back into reality. They remind me that staying sharp, staying on the edge, is not a matter of training, but a matter of discipline and focus.

I went on a camping trip this weekend. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, however there were two incidents that colored the overall experience.

The first one wasn’t so much an incident as something I did to myself. You see, I am terminally shy. I expect some people that know me in person may laugh at this statement, however it is very true. People terrify me. Social situations terrify me. I don’t mean they are generally just things that give me anxiety, I mean that they are petrifying. Going out to a dinner with friends would normally make me catatonic were it not for an overwhelming force of will. I have used this quote before, but here again I believe it is apt:

“The driving force of all action on the battlefield is human will”
–USMC Warfighting Manual

Now on the one hand you may say “Polite conversation is not battle, Earhard,” and normally I would be inclined to agree. I have come to believe, however, that any time fear is involved, we go to battle on a personal level.

“Bravery is not a measure of the amount of fear in a man’s heart. Bravery is a measure of the amount of fear in a man’s heart that he overcomes.”
–I don’t know, but if you do please tell me.

So for me, polite conversation involves a great deal of fear, and a great deal of struggle. To go away for four days and be around the same people (very pleasant, polite, charming people I might add) becomes a teeth chenching, squint eyed, charge against what are for me simply overhwelming odds.

So this leads us to two questions:

“Why do you do it if it is THAT difficult, you moron?”

Becuase I don’t want to. The biggest rewards in my life come when I stretch, so when I don’t want to do something I know that that’s when I need to do it most. Of course, this must be tempered with common fuckin’ sense.

Secondly:

“How do you deal with it? Every time you’ve been around people you seem to be in complete control of yourself, and you can be very engaging. I enjoy the things you have to say, Mark,”

This question is easy to answer. I talk. I talk non fucking stop, and I don’t wait for others. I just had a long conversation with Blondie about this recently. We talk a lot about our personal struggles with ourselves, and this is one we discussed recenlty because we both do it. She remarked that she didn’t see this in me, she didn’t see me talking constantly and stopping others from adding to the conversation. I told her that’s because I often catch myself. As soon as I find myself waiting for “my turn to talk“, I stop myself, and ask the other person another question in order to surpress my urge to lecture. I have found that through doing this I have been slowly re-wiring my brain to avoid talking non stop in groups. I have a lot of work left to do.

I bet you have at least one last question:

“What’s your point, Mark, and what was the other incident that happened this weekend?”

My point is that this weekend I was simply overwhelmed, and couldn’t stop myself. So it’s time to work even harder at reprogramming myself.

The other incident was something I observed between two people. I have been studying a certain type of interaction for a long time. I am not going to give the details here to avoid embarasing those involved because those people may come to this site looking for photos of the weekend. It basically has to do with how two people interact with one another assuming certain subtexts. More specifically it has to do with the exchange of “power” or “status” between those two people during these exchanges. I have read a lot about status, with respect to how people establish “rank” between each other during social interactions.

When I saw this one particular exchange I was amazed, because there it was- The status exchange. The way it basically went was that person A asked person B a question that would establish status. Person B answered in a way that relinquished status, and person A did not respond. The non-response basically established that person A had assumed a higher status. Further, another four or five minutes into the conversation between these two people person B said something that actually acknowledged that they had lower status. Persion B actually ASKED person A if they still had status. Again a non response by person A indicated that person B had lost all of their status. The conversation was fascinating to watch.

Obsessive Compulsive…

I gutted my back yard. Over time TAC had destroyed it. Here is a “Before” photo, where TAC had just come to Grant St. and hadn’t dug several large trenches in the grass. Most of the grass was a really pretty brown color:

And here is what it looked like while I was actually rebuilding it. I pulled up all the grass, put down weedblock and chicken wire (to keep him from digging), then experimented with different types of bricks:

After that I finally settled on certain types of bricks, and had two rings- The outer ring is wood chips which he enjoys lying on, so I figured it would be nice to give him some space around the outside, and only take a portion of the yard as the “off limits” area. The cobblestone is to keep him off the central area- He hates walking on it. The big issue here was that he sometimes digs in my planters, destroying my herbs. This way he gets his portion of the yard, and I get my corner garden:

Another view: Here is the central brick area where I will eventually put a large Buhdda or a bench. I was also thinking of putting a large rock in the middle as a hommage to the Taoist idea of “The Uncarved Block”:

Another view to give an idea of space:

Between the planters and the bricks I planted little plants that live well in cracks. I am experimenting with several different types in different levels of shade. I also drilled holes in the planters for drainage, but I drilled them so that the water drains into the cracks where the little plants are, so they get watered at the same time:

Here we have one of my main herb planters. We have large amounts of Basil, rosemary, sage, and I think thyme:

In this planter we have French taragon, oregano, chives, and lavender.

Some tomatoes and a few flowers:

More of the little plants between the cracks:

Another view of all the planters:

And some of my favorite: Zuchinni!

Tactic loves his new wood-chip bed:

How Much Can You Take…?

Natzach ShebeYesod Endurance in Bonding

What are you prepared to take? How far are you willing to push yourself, and someone else to develop the kind of bond you have always dreamed of? I think most poeple dream that marriage will lead to some sort of deep, intrinsic bond (If you ask the bulk of men what they want, it is a stable relationship with someone they generally enjoy being around, so I consider this a level playing field). I don’t think it does. I think most people go into marriage thinking that that is the goal, when in fact I believe (as do most married/divorced people I have asked) it is just the beginning of the race. Ask a black belt in Karate how to begin in Karate and it is likely they will say “Get your black belt, then Karate begins” Before you reach a mastery stage you are simply learning technique.

Netzach, endurance, or victory, in Yesod, bonding. What are you prepared to endure to achieve the deepest bond? How long are you willing to stick with it? Even two people that “never fight” have conflict, they just resolve it in a different manner. Conflict arrives in every relationship or friendship, it is simply a matter of time. Hell, I’ve fought with my dog.

Let us look at another take on this, asside from the obvious, and perhaps a view from one period of my life:

I used to live in Bermuda. Before you say “aaaaw, how hard that must have been for you!” let me tell ya- Bermuda is not all flowers, mopeds, pink sand and dark ‘n stormies (Bermuda black rum and ginger beer, mmmm). In fact, Bermuda marks one of the low points of my life, but that is not where we are going here-

In Bermuda the population of expatriates generally feeds on itself, with the odd crossover from the ranks of the real Bermudians. If you go to the Robin Hood Pub on Friday night you are likely to see 80% expats and 20% Bermudians. I had some amazing Bermudian friends that I met in that pub, by the way, so don’t take that the wrong way. Hell, Jason Bracewell, a long time diving partner and I had our first serious conversation in the Robin Hood one drunken evening. Just to get numbers straight when I was there there were about 60k Bermudians and 10k expatriates all living in 21 square miles. No, I didn’t make a mistake by a factor of 10, that’s 21 square miles stretched out over nearly 300 tiny islands all stuck close together on the mouth of a volcano.

Every Friday night at the Robin Hood I would meet a wide variety of people, but I would meet them EVERY Friday night. Every Friday night I saw that un-nervingly hot girl with the unfortunate overbite, and every Friday night I’d undoubtedly run into my Scottish friends and we’d start a real piss up. Bermuda is Rife with Canadains, and the token American, John Mullin from Philly. John was, believe it or not, my first real mentor when it came to dealing with members of the opposite sex. Ok, that story another time.

Here’s the thing- Let’s say you and your wife/husband move to Bermuda. You’re having a great time, drinking in the Robin Hood on Friday nights, and meeting people from all over the world.

Then something happens. Your spouse meets someone at a party, and they spark an unbelievable chemistry. Now of course they are dedicated to you, so they wouldn’t do anything more than go home and boff your brains out while contemplating the other person “Of course I was thinking of you honey”. So what? It’s like that everywhere. Except here you go out the next Friday night and they meet the same person again. Then they’re in the supermarket (there’s only one or two big ones) and they see them again. They’re walking down Front street, and they see them again. This is not like a big city where you meet someone incredibly sexy at a party and then never see them again, this is a teensy town where everyone knows and sees everyone all the time. The only time I didn’t see the hot girl with the overbite was when I stopped going out alltogether for about a year. When I went back to the Robin Hood it was like the tide had come in and washed out the cruft, and washed in a whole new crop of people to meet.

So here you are- Your spouse has connected with this other person, and now they are bumping into each other all the time. Bermuda was the destroyer of marriages. A friend, Eric Graham (Whom afaik is sitll with Jeannette Lennon, his then GF and a former co-worker at Ernst & Young) and I came up with a theory- Bermuda makes a stable relationship unstable, and an unstable relationship unworkable. Something that was “better than nothing” in “The Real World” turned into a disaster in Bermuda. Temptation was everywhere. I know one Marriage that survived Bermuda, and from what they have been through nothing could ever bust them up. But the number of couples that destructed shortly after arriving is staggering.

How does this translate into the Omer for tonight?

What are you prepared to do when presented over and over again with that person that sets your heart racing, when it used to be the person at your side that makes you weak in the knees? How much temptaion are you willing to endure without succumbing to it? How much Netzach can you produce to keep you from destroying the Yesod you have built with your significant other?

A friend of mine asked me a couple of days ago: “Mark, what are you prepared to give to have everything you ever wanted?” I replied: “Screw that, I know I can have everything I want, and I WILL have everything I want. The big question is what are you prepared to give to KEEP everything you ever wanted, once you get it?”

Can you overcome not feeling like you want it anymore, waiting to be reminded of how precious it is? The answers here seem obvious. The questions, however, they are not so straightforward.

Getting what you want is simply a matter of will. Keeping it takes what aquiring it cost to a factor of a billion. I think the TRUE Netzach of Yesod is not about building to what you want, but about keeping what you want once you have it in your pocket.

“The poet charms himself…” –Cyrano De Bergerac

Ok, in the interests of doing something dumb I am going to post an email I wrote to one of the three people that read this blog. She basically said: “I really don’t understand where this spiritual thing is comming from, or what an Omer is… Have you been huffing glue again?”

So here is my response, which may answer a lot of people’s questions:

I have not done a great job of actually describing what an Omer is, mainly because I think you are possilby one of three people that read that blog.

Think of it this way… There are four levels (At least this is the way I think of it) of Judaesm- The first is basically the secular Judaesm that I grew up in. The second level is Orthodoxy, the third is Chassidim, which is kind of how my Grandfather grew up. They do a lot of things like numerology and that sort of thing. My Grandfather could do numerology in his head, and was one of three people in my synagogue that could read from the Torah. He had books that were so old that they were basically pieces of brown paper in a pile held togther with an elastic band, not a single word of English anywhere to be found… Then there is the fourth layer, Kaballah. IN MY OPINION Kaballah is to Judaesm what Quantum Physics is to driving a car. It is spirituality on a subatomic level. It defines the structure of the universe.

A friend of mine went to a seminar on Kaballah, which has only recently (in the last hundred years or so) become popular. Keep in mind that this is an aspect of Judaesm that typically was restricted to men over 40 that were married and had Rabbinical training.

The reason it has come out recently is that the Chassidim, the ultra-orthadox, are basically waging a war against secularism. Since many Jews have been turning to Buhddisim recently (called Jew-Bu’s, and for a long time I have been one) they figured that now was the time to release the secrets of Kaballah, as people were ready for it. I always thought the guys in black hats and long coats were insular and cold towards outsiders, but apparently not- It seems as though they have this huge outreach program to try and convince Jews to become more “Jewish”. I’m not sure it’s working on me, but it sure has me thinking.

There is an old story about Kaballah- Four of the most learned, revered, mystical Rebbi’s went to [what translates to] “The Orchard” to look on the true nature of the divine. One went mad. One went deaf dumb and blind. One died instantly. Only Rebbi Akiva left “at peace”. This was the attitude towards the secrets of Kaballah for thousands of years- If presented to the uninitiated they could go mad.

So that is background part A. Now for part B:

What is an Omer? Like everything in this damn religion you need a little background first…

In Kaballah a person’s “spirit” is broken down into ten Sephirot (plural of Sephira). These are all of the different aspects of a person, and they intermingle in different ways. The “Tree of Life” from my most recent post illustrates how they all kind of fit together.

So the Sephirot are divided into two groups- Three having to do with intelligence, and seven having to do with more esoteric things that touch on emotions, motivations, and desires.

The latter seven are part of the “counting of the Omer”. They are:

Gevura- Restraint, or self control, discipline
Chesed- The unbridled outpouring of love and or joy
Tiferet- Compassion
Netzach- Endurance
Hod- Knowing oneself, or humility
Yesod- Bonding
Malchut- Sovereignty, or how one connects the other six to oneself, or the outside world. It is different because it is not actually an action, but a connection, or “state”.

Ok, so with that background…

Between Passover, when the Israelites left Egypt, and Shavuot, when they received the Torah on Mount Sinai is “The Counting of the Omer”. Each night a different pair of Sephirot are contemplated. Each pair of Sephirot is an “Omer”. The Sephirot interact with one another, and we rarely act on them alone. In order to see different perspectives on how they combine we look at them in pairs.

There are 49 Omer of course, being 7 Sephirot times 7 Sephirot, and there are 49 days between Passover and Shavuot. So each day I am basically documenting my thoughts on the evening’s particular Omer, or combination of Sephirot. Basically I’m hoping that Jewish chicks will think I’m hot.

Tonight’s, for example, is Gevurah sheb’Hod — “Restraint in Humility” which if I get a free moment today I’ll drum up a contemplation and an example, if I can, from the amazing adventures of Mark. Too bad my mom reads this damn thing (she’s one of the three people that read this) or I’d talk a lot more about sex.

Mark.