Human Powered Transportation

This morning, while Charito was cooking the pancakes, I finished reading A Monk Swimming, a memoir of Malachy McCourt, who I've never heard of, but who knew other famous people in the 50's and 60's.

Then I went for a ride on my bike, stopped at Diniwid Beach, a beautiful beach with a SCUBA dive shop, where I talked with Angela, the instructor, about spotting me while I practice freediving, then rode my bike to to Puka beach. It's on the north end of the island and the sand is composed of crushed puka shells.

Then I rode back south, racing the Filipino tourists who rented four wheeled vehicles for god knows what reason. Maybe it's fun. Looks stupid to me. Anyway, they had me on a couple of the steeper hills, but I passed them eventually, even breathing their blue exhaust for a time.

When I lived in California I actually remember thinking about how cool it would be if we actually did run out of oil. Many believe we'll be powering our homes with windmills and solar panels and driving battery powered cars. But don't believe this bullshit. Check the math. It won't work. Duracell doesn't have the technology and bringing wind from spinning turbines to your light bulbs and battery chargers indeed works, but not in the quantities necessary to maintain anything near our current lifestyles.

No sir, we'll all be riding bicycles. And we'll all have tighter asses for it. This is what dawned on me back in California. So many of our huge American asses will be gorgeous, firm and perky from riding bicycles. And we'll be happier because Human Powered Transportation reduces stress and brings us closer to the journey than to just the points A and B. We'll all be traveling rather than just commuting!

While in college, twice I went to Mardi Gras in pre-Katrina New Orleans. The first year I didn't know what to think. It was just crazy. I thought everyone was insane. The second year I was ready. But the weather wasn't. It was raining and chilly. I noticed that the atmosphere was quite different. Everyone was moving, walking "somewhere" trying to keep warm. Not the prior year, with good weather. Everyone was just where they were, having fun, getting drunk, and kissing strangers.

When we're going somewhere, we're all just commuting with no interaction to the journey or our fellow travelers. It's easy to honk the horn and give someone the bird from the anonymity of your car, like it's the titanium cockpit of and invincible tank. Try doing that to someone's face while walking or on a bicycle. It's not the same because it's too personal.

Anyway, I stopped on the way home and bought two chicken's and had them chopped up at the market, stopped at another dive shop to say hello to some friends, and rode home.

After lunch I watched Pontypool. A unique zombie movie set in a radio station studio. I have a near obsession with zombie movies. There are many of these movies out now, but I was hooked back when I saw the remake of Dawn of the Dead, which I watched at a theater in Mexico a few years ago. I was on the edge of my seat and loved it. I've heard that the actor Christopher Walkin also has this same obsession as me, but don't remember really. Anyway, Pontypool's a good one. Not scary, but a very interesting take on the genre.

I also watched a documentary on Richard Feynman, the famous physicist and my biggest role model. Read one of his books, perhaps "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman." Or "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out." Better read both.

Also installed Alcatesh's BPM Studio jukebox DJ software on my laptop. Highly recommended! Only problem is that it doesn't play .flac files, but perhaps there's a more recent version that does. You can set up multiple play lists and switch back and forth, easy to mix up and switch when your mood changes.

I'm not bored today, and a bit more relaxed since I got my breathing going riding the bike.

I also logged into my old Facebook account, which by doing so re-activated it. I'll have to spend a few minutes to see what the hell I put on my profile. I doubt you'll find anything interesting there, but you can send me a note or something I guess. Search for Carmichael James.

I need to start chilling out my life and getting rid of drama so that I can relax more for diving longer in the ocean. But it doesn't really fit my true desires; What I really want is $20,000, a pound of cocaine, a really good camera, and six weeks in Tokyo. Now that would be fun and I can get in lots of trouble and have great stories. Meditating by the sea is hard to do for any number of days in a row. For me anyway.

I was wondering the other day, can you sneeze while you're asleep? If you're induced to sneeze it's almost voluntary, but I've never been woken up by a sneeze. Anybody have any experience with this?

Brian, get this story from Shannon, something about his brother impersonating, or rather claiming to be the son of Rudy Sarzo. I don't remember the details, but I remember the story actually involved Rudy Sarzo. (bass player for Quiet Riot, Ozzy Osbourne, etc.)

Okay, better go. I still think that Hall & Oats is very underrated.

-james