Argh.

You ever have those periods of time when you feel like there are things you should be doing, and you're not doing them?  Or where you can tell there's something intangible pulling at the back of your head, but you just can't place your finger on it?  Or maybe you come home from work and feel like you should actually be doing something, but instead you just sit in front of the TV?

I'm sure you have, because we're all human, and this is just a natural part of the cycle we go through on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis (the frequency is different for everybody).

The more I learn to practice GTD effectively, the less often I feel this way, as I can allow my brain to embrace the mind like water ideal, and return to old ideas when I see fit.  Still, it is impossible to feel and act productively one hundred percent of our time, and so the goal must be to maximize the amount of time we can exist in this state, and learn to accept (and yes, minimize, though this is less important than acceptance) the times when we do need to feel the way I currently do.

As an exercise to break out of this mental state, I write.  As of late, two things have been on my mind more anything else: squash and dancing.

I hav been dancing a lot lately, as we are running two jam sessions a week at Vibestreet Dance, and that requires that I come up with something to teach twice a week.  I can't even rely on teaching the same thing twice, as the same students may show up, and I end up feeling guilty about not being able to provide something new to them.  Maybe this is just something that I need to get over, as part of this whole exercise should be of benefit to myself, not just my students. A teacher that is not gaining something from each lesson that they teach is not missing out on part of the teaching experience, as are their students.

I have taken a couple of workshops lately, and they have been very helpful in showing me new ways of teaching something, as well as many new techniques that I would like to work on and incorporate into my own styles of movement.  Recently, I've been given lessons in breaking, locking, popping, and house dancing.  That's a lot of stuff!  Getting lessons in these new styles of dance is awesome, and is opening up my awareness and broadening my own inspiration to a great extent. However, this only results in frustration if I can't find the time to actually practice what I'm learning.  House, locking, and breaking are all very new styles to me, and really require that I take the time to sit down by myself and practice the basics. This is hard to do at home because of the way I have been feeling.

Even though I'm a reasonably experienced popper, I will never be fully satisfied with my level of skill (this is kind of a general theme for my approach to things I'm truly passionate about).  I often hesitate to teach something in class that I haven't had the time to sit down with and internalize. Part of the solution here, I suppose, is just accept that nobody's perfect, and that even if I'm still learning something, I can help the class with it.  One of the things that I really want to avoid is attempting to show my students something that I'm still learning myself, and in doing so, teach them bad habits, or end up getting them frustrated as I cannot break it down very well.

If you've read through the paragraph above, you've just seen me provide myself with some therapy, as I think I've come up with the solution to my first problem - just do it, and don't worry about whether or not the class is disappointed that I'm not perfect at a move.  We all need to learn, and there's nothing wrong with learning along with the rest of the class. Even better if I can provide a tiny bit of direction to help them along the right path.

The other thing that I think I probably need is a couple of sessions in the park with my ipod to just go over the techniques that I've been taught lately and internalize those. In GTD we have the concept of an open loop - something that requires action and is tugging at our mind.  Everything that I've learned lately is sitting in that same space.  It's occupying space in my head, saying "You should put some time into working on me, otherwise you'll lose this knowledge".

The other thing tugging at my mind has been squash. Although my opportunity to increase the amount of time and effort I'm putting into dancing has been incredible, and something that I've wanted to do for a looooong time, it's taken away from my ability to play squash. Although I've certainly been keeping myself fit (dancing requires a lot of energy, and I'm riding my bike as often as possible), I can feel the rust starting to creep up on my squash game, and this drives me nuts.  Part of the reason for that is because I trained so hard this past season, and was really feeling good about where my efforts had led me. 

Although all of our hobbies should be things that we do for fun, and don't become a burden on our mind, it's difficult for someone like me to make that leap and just let something be.  That's the nature of life though - if you want to do more of one thing, you are going to have to sacrifice something else.

In an effort to have my cake and eat it to, one of the projects I have set aside for myself to take on once I end my tenure at work, is biphasic sleep.  The notion of biphasic sleep sounds extremely silly when you initially hear about it: go to sleep more frequently in order to sleep less overall.  With one single phase of sleep during a twenty-four hour period, our body generally requires eight hours of sleep.  However, by breaking our sleep up, we are able to train our body to fall into REM sleep more quickly (which is the part of sleep that is evidently important), and thus require less sleep overall.

Although some people are absolutely insane and have managed to function quite effectively (arguably more effectively, if some of the blogs out there are to be believed) on as little as six twenty-minute naps a day (that's a mere two hours of sleep in a twenty-four hour period!), the goal I'm setting for myself is quite a bit more modest, and is based on the Hispanic tradition of siesta. The aim is to reduce my core sleep period to about five or six hours, and supplement that with a twenty-minute nap in the evening.  In doing so, I will be able to create (as though by magic) an extra two hours of spare time, everyday.

This almost sounds too good to be true, and it very well may be.  However, I enjoy an experiment as much as the next guy, so we'll see how things go.  I could end up with an extra two hours of spare time every night (which may also be essential, if the workload required for Law is what I'm told it is), or I could fail spectacularly, in which case I will have spent a couple of weeks deprived of sleep, and return to my normal monophasic sleeping schedule.  The worse-case scenario doesn't strike me as that bad, so why not try it right?

Anyhow, I think that's a sufficient ramble.  Our drop-in sessions at Vibestreet have been growing steadily, and last Monday we had about twelve people in attendance to learn some popping from myself, and some breaking from Steve (good strength training!).  If you're interested in learning more about any of this, drop a comment and I can blog and elaborate further.

When I graduated from University, my parents offered to get me a graduation present, or to just give me some cash to do with as I pleased.  My family is very practical this way; you can ask for gifts and have us find something along the lines that you are asking for, or simply get the money and spend it how you choose.  Some people think that this takes away from the spirit of gift-giving, and if that's how you feel, that's cool.  We've always found that it eliminates those awkward situations where you hint about something all year round, then get annoyed when you open something that is not at all what you wanted.  I've also found that there's plenty of room left for surprise in this approach, so it's all good with regards to that.

Anyhow, I'm digressing.  The point is that about 5 years ago, I got a bike for graduation.  For the first three years of my post-university life, Bay and I rented apartments that were very shy on storage space, and we had to leave the bike at my parent's place.  As a result, it really didn't see much use.  The next year we moved into our condo, in the process of moving, painting, buying furniture, and everything else, I kind of forgot that I even had a bike waiting for me. 

Towards the end of Fall this year, I remembered I had a hog waiting for me at my parents and brought it back with me.  I started riding the bike the same way I do everything - gradually.  However, as time has passed, and the weather has improved, I've become more and more enamoured with the sport, to the point that I no longer see it as simply a way to cross-train fitness to play better squash, but as a something worth pursuing on its own.

I'm going to mention some of the benefits of biking, and give a quick run down of what your options if you think you may be interested in getting a chopper yourself.

The Benefits

Biking offers a number of obvious benefits.  Chief among those is that it's an excellent form of cardiovascular workout.  Cardiovascular workouts are ones that keep your heart rate at a moderately-elevated range for a decent amount of time.  They exercise and strengthen your heart and your lungs, and are efficient workouts to burn fat (and we all want that right?). 

Biking gets you out of the house, and it doesn't require a lot of preparation on your part to start.  This might seem like a small benefit, but the longer and more involved the process is to actually begin your workout, the more chance you have to talk yourself out of actually doing it (I'm sure we can all remember times when we've talked ourselves out of going to the gym, simply by thinking about the annoying walk there before we even start the workout).  Grab your bike and your keys, and leave the house.  Start riding.  Worry about where you're going to go once you're on the bike. 

Riding also fits very easily into other parts of your life.  Although I initially started riding to train my cardio, I quickly started making it my primary means of transportation.  Instead of driving to my friend Steve's on a Friday night, I started asking myself, "Why wouldn't I just bike there?".  Instead of driving to the store to pick up a few select groceries I need for dinner tonight, why not bike there?  Why not bike to dance class instead of driving?  Once you start hopping on a bike regularly, you'll notice a couple of things: you start to see other places where it makes sense to take your bike instead of a car, and it takes a lot less time to get somewhere on a bike than you might think.  Riding from our place downtown to Town and Country shopping center, near the start of the Island Highway, takes roughly the same amount of time on a bike or a car, given that a bicyclist has the benefit of taking the Galloping Goose trail and avoiding all traffic.

Unlike jogging, the motion used to propel yourself forward on a bike is one that is impact-free.  Don't get me wrong - I like jogging a lot.  It's just murder on the knees, especially if you're on pavement.  A biker doesn't have to worry about these problems.  Riding every day will strengthen the muscles around your knees and activate the joint, ensuring that you retain mobility for a long time to come.

One of our favorite things about biking is that we see so much more of the city that we live in.  When you're walking, you're constrained to a small area, as you can only cover so much ground in a given amount of time.  When you're driving, you're focus is on the road, other drivers, and getting to your destination.  But on a bike, you can explore.  You've got the time to seek out new areas that you haven't been before, and explore new streets.  Since starting to ride, I've become much more acquainted with Uplands, James Bay, Esquimalt, Ten Mile Point, and Oak Bay.  It may seem trivial, but it is kind of neat to develop a familiarity with your home town.

Your Choices

Okay, enough wanking about the reasons to start biking.  What are the choices you have when buying a bike?

Your choices are generally three-fold, with some less-common and more trendy variations on top of those first three.

The Mountain Bike

A mountain bike is a bike that is specifically targeted for off-road riding.  They generally have a well suspended frame, which allows the bike to absorb a lot of shock that comes from riding on rocky terrain and taking drops as needed, and a frame that can take some (lots of) punishment.

Mountain bikes also come equipped with a hefty set of tires, in order to better grip the uneven ground that you'll be riding on.  You can take a mountain bike on the road, but you're going to notice some disadvantages.

For one, the extra thickness of the tires, and the multitude of treading, is going to mean that you have extra friction with the road, which will slow you down.  It won't feel like riding in sand, but it'll feel a fair bit soupier than if you were on one of the other options.

The heavier frame on the mountain bike is also going to lead to added weight that you need to pedal around.  On off-road terrain, this isn't going to be a problem, as you don't really have any other choice, and your riding is more geared to short spurts than to longer endurance riding.

The suspension on a mountain bike's frame will mean that riding on a road feels a little soggier.  Every time you turn your pedals, some of your downward momentum is going to be absorbed by the suspension.  It won't wreck your ride, but again, the little things add up.

A mountain bike is a great choice if you're a thrill seeker and like going for that kind of ride.  Downhill, highly technical riding, with a potential to fly over your handlebars and hurt yourself.  It's not for me, but it's a lot of fun for those that like it.

The Road Bike

Road bikes represent the antithesis of the mountain bike.  Their frames have zero suspension, because they are designed specifically to be ridden ... on the road.  Our roads are designed so that they provide as smooth a ride as possible, and so suspension is only going to slow you down.

The frames on road bikes are much lighter than those of a mountain bike, as you will not be putting them through much abuse.  The alloy that they use to make the frame will also be more rigid.  The composition of the frame and the lack of suspension on a road bike means that they won't be able to withstand nearly the kind of punishment that a mountain bike could, but they will provide a much crisper and responsive ride when you're on the terrain that they are intended for (roads, obviously).  When I talk about "punishment", I don't mean something akin to riding off a sidewalk's curb.  I mean taking the bike off a six to ten foot drop.  Road bike frames can handle some abuse - just not a lot.

The tires of a road bike are optimized for riding on the road, which means that they will have narrow tires with as little tread as possible.  The width of the tires are optimized to minimize the amount of friction you have to overcome, but provide enough that you can accelerate and pedal at a good speed.

Road bikes often come with a set of drop handlebars, which are designed to allow the rider to lean forward when they ride, creating a streamlined shape.  The handlebars are also closer together, bringing the hands closer, and creating a V shape relative to your elbows.  This also serves to streamline the rider and allow for faster rides.  Road bikes obviously come with shifting and braking components that work with these kind of handlebars.

All of the features of a road bike make them great to use in the confines of a city, where you are guaranteed well-maintained roads.  These features also make the bike suck as soon as you get off of pavement.  While it's possible to take a road bike on to trails, even the slightest bit of loose gravel can cause problems for your tires ability to stay in contact and provide you enough friction to effectively pedal.  The rigid frame and lack of suspension on a road bike will make a ride on a bumpy trail quite a bit less comfortable, as each shock will be transferred up through the frame and into your arms and legs.

The Hybrid Bike

A hybrid bike represents the midpoint between the two bikes mentioned above.  The frame is slightly less rigid than a road bike's, and will usually have some form of shocks on the front forks, and possibly on the seat.  These shocks will often have a feature allowing them to be locked out so that you can turn them off when you're riding on the road, which means you can have the benefit of shocks when you need them, and turn that off when you want the more responsive ride on the road.

The bike's frame will be a fair bit sturdier than a road bike, but not as much as a mountain bike, providing a good compromise between the ability to take some abuse and a bike that isn't too heavy.

Hybrid's usually have handle bars that are more similar to those of a mountain bike, and are outfitted with tires that are smooth in the middle (allowing for good riding on the road), and treaded on the outer edges (giving you good grip whenever you dip to the side, especially useful on trails).

If you don't have a specific use in mind for your bike, I think the hybrid is your best choice.  It's never going to be a good as a mountain bike for off-road technical riding, and you'll never be able to ride quite as fast as a lightweight road bike on the road, but you won't be prevented from doing either of these activities.

These are the main three types of bikes, but there are a few more esoteric offerings out there as well.

The Townie

Townie bikes have been popular in the past five years or so, especially with women. Townie bikes are designed as commuter bikes, and are designed for comfort.  The handlebars are generally built for the rider to sit fairly upright, rather than bent forward, and often come with other attachments like handlebar baskets, or a basket behind the seat.

Some people refer to these bikes as commuter bikes, and I think that's probably fair.  If your primary intent in owning a bike is to get from point A to point B, this is a bike that will do you well.  The upright design of the handlebars will provide a comfortable ride, and this type of riding is rarely about pushing yourself. 

These bikes have a very romantic appeal to them, and evoke images of cycling through Paris streets on a sunny weekend, with fresh-picked flowers in the handle basket, along with a couple of baguettes.  If you primarily intend to use your bike to ride casually around the city, this is a great choice.

However, the things that make this bike romantic also make it impractical for serious exercise.  Upright handlebars create a poor rider profile for getting any decent speed up, as you will not at all be streamlined.  If you want a bike that looks cute and is comfortable, this is the one for you.  If you think that you may want to use this bike for an actual workout, I wouldn't recommend it.

The Single Gear and the Fixie

The Single Gear bike (not the correct name, but I don't know what it is) and its counterpart, the Fixie, have started to replace the townie as the latest trend.  Both of these bikes have grown out of the minimalist and bike courier movements, and are in abundance in Victoria.

The single gear bike is exactly what it sounds like.  A bike with just one gear position available to the rider.  Bikes like this will be lighter than most bikes, because the added weight of a the gears and a shifting mechanism are not present.  These bikes will typically come with drop handlebars, and two brakes, and that's it.  Pretty minimal right?  Although these bikes are certainly very trendy, I don't personally think they are a good idea.  Having gears allows you to make your mechanical work as efficient as possible.  I'm a big fan of minimalism, in general, but I think that this approach unnecessarily cuts out a useful function on a bike, and by buying a bike like this, you limit where you can take your bike.  Having said that, I suspect that bikes like this would probably cost less, due to the fact that there are less components being purchased.

Think that sounded minimal?  Well, the fixie goes one step further, fixing the pedals to the rotation of your tire, meaning that one full circle of your pedals correlates directly to one full rotation of your tire.  For this reason, fixies do not allow the rider to coast or back-pedal, and are not as mechanically efficient (meaning you require more energy input to achieve the same amount of work) as bikes with a system of gears.  Some claims have been made that this encourages better biking as the rider is forced to pedal through corners and adjust their speed appropriately.  I personally think this is a needless contrivance, but if people enjoy riding them, that's cool.

Depending on how far you want to take it, fixies can be found with two brakes (one for each tire), only one brake (I'm not sure which tire you would put this on - presumably the back?), or no brakes at all (in which case you are completely reliant on using your legs to slow down the rotation of the tires).  As of late, it has been popular to replace the drop handle bars with a completely straight handlebar.  This is about as minimal as you can get: Two tires, a frame, a piece of metal for a handlebar, and pedals.

Although minimalism and trendiness certainly have their appeal, it's still possible that the single gear bike may serve you well.  However, I don't personally see the value in a fixie, other than for aesthetic appeal.  If that's your game, then go for it.  If not, treat the purchase of your bike as an investment, and go for something that will serve you in the short- and the long-term.

Get a bike!

That about covers as much about bikes as I'm comfortable discussing with my own knowledge.  If you consider your options and choose wisely, a good bike is an investment that will serve you well for a very long time, and, provided you are the type of individual that will use one if you have one, will directly correlate to you leading a healthier, happier life.

I picked Bay up from the airport yesterday at 2:30, fresh in to town from her three week trip to Brazil.  It sure is nice to see the person you've chosen to spend the rest of your life with when you've been separated from them for any length of time.  The sequence of events for our day went like this:

• 2:30 - Pick Bay up.
• 3:00 - Grab something to eat at Boston Pizza
• 4:00 - Get home, unpack a little, look at souvenirs and some photos
• 5:00 - Go for a bike ride
• 7:00 - Get home
• 8:00 - Go and meet some friends downtown at Whitebird to see Jess off before she goes to Ottawa for her summer co-op job
• 10:00 - ZZzz..
  

That's a pretty full day - I'm not quite sure how Bay managed to pack it all in after having traveled for the better part of an entire day previous.

Because Bay was away this past weekend, we missed the opportunity to take part in the marriage preparation course that we normally help out with.  This course is something that Bay and I have been doing for just shy of two years now, but I've never written about it, so here's where the curtain gets drawn back, and the magic is exposed for what it really is (pro-tip: At the core, it's about effective communication).

Background

When you get married in the Catholic church (While I'm best described as a secular humanist or agnostic, Bay is a practicing catholic, so this was a requirement for us), you are required to take part in a two day marriage preparation course, and to present the certificate you receive to the priest officiating your wedding.

Interestingly enough, before I had even met Bay, the first co-op supervisor I had had told me that her and her husband (one of the owner's of the company I currently work for) had gone through a similar course as well, and found it quite valuable.  Being a big fan of any opportunity for self-improvement, I had always felt that there was no harm done in taking a course like this before getting married, and had planned all along that it was something I wanted to do, regardless of who I was marrying and what religious beliefs they held.

When Bay first mentioned it to me, she was somewhat surprised to hear this, thinking that I would be adamantly opposed to any kind of course like this being imposed upon us by the church.  In any case, what really mattered was that we both felt this was a good idea, and went ahead with it.

As it turned out, we really enjoyed ourselves, found the course fairly helpful.  The people that were leading the course when we took it were actually friends of Bay's from her church (and came to our wedding), and shortly after, asked us if we had any interest in helping out.  The two couples currently running the course were all aged above fifty, and their feelings were that having some youth in the mix as well would help round things out.

The Course

So..  That's how we got to the point where we were actually teaching the course, but what exactly is it that we're teaching? 

The course itself isn't about sharing feelings with a group - it's about each couple getting an opportunity to discuss things with each other.  Some of the topics that are covered include:

• Resolving conflict (a sticking point for many people, whether they realize it or not)
• Discussing plans for the future
• Managing finances as a couple
• Aging together
• Some of the things to expect in the future

These and a few other items are all tackled using videos (hilariously cheesy '80s videos actually, although they still have a strong and valid message), handouts, some discussion, and a lot of individual talk between the couples.

Bay and I lead one quarter of the course, specifically going through efficient ways to resolve conflict in a relationship, and managing finances as a couple.

Resolving Conflict

The most potentially embarrassing part for Bay and I is always at the very start of the course, when we have to introduce ourselves to the class and mention the fact that we've only been married for a year-and-a-half.  However, we have been together for five years previous to actually getting married, and though the Catholic church may not like people living in sin, it's undeniably going to lead to a lot of growth and experience for a couple.

As I said earlier (and it's pretty cliched by now), the real key to any successful, happy relationship is effective communication.  However, merely stating that is a bit of a platitude, and doesn't really get us anywhere.

How do we effectively communicate?  Is it simply through yelling at each other when we're upset (well, that's not always a bad idea)?  The process that we go through is a fairly simple and effective way to begin with an issue and to iterate through it, performing the following things:

• Choose a time to discuss the problem

This seems like an obvious item to many people.  "Right now!" is typically the response people have initially.  However, there are many times when you're much better off waiting:

• One or both of you have been drinking
• One or both of you are hungry
• One or both of you are tired
• You're not at home or in a place that lends itself well to discussion
• You have something that absolutely has to be dealt with

All of these may be fairly obvious, but there are plenty of other reasons that it may not be a good time to discuss the problem that you want to deal with.  If either of you isn't able to commit the time right now, set aside some time to deal with the issue specifically the next day, or sometime soon.  Reneging on this appointment isn't an option - you both need to commit to sit down and discuss at this time.

Above all, ignore the old saying that "It's better to stay up and fight and go to bed angry".

• Identify the problem

This step is typically a bit deceptive.  People often begin arguing with each other, assuming that they're both talking about the same thing.  Half of the battle can simply be getting on the same page, and talking about the same thing that bothers you.

Perhaps I hate it that Bay is friendly with other attractive guys, but Bay hates how jealous I act when she is simply being friendly with people that she works with (this is hypothetical).  It could take some discussion before we're both aware of what is upsetting each other (you'll notice that the hypothetical issue above is really two different perspectives on one thing).

A real key to this step is learning to pick and choose the thing you are going to work on.  One friend of mine mentioned that when he would bring up an issue with his girlfriend, she would counter by saying "Well, I've been holding back bringing up all of these things, but this really bothers me, and this upsets me, and that is annoying...".  Each of those items is something that probably needs to be dealt with (it's not fair to you, your significant other, or your relationship to simply harbour issues you may have), but you can only work on one thing at a time.

• Brainstorm solutions

Now we're getting to the actual meat of resolving a problem.  Although this is the part where you're actually going to start figuring out how to resolve an issue, the previous steps are really about laying down a good foundation to do that.  Without a strong foundation, a building will collapse, and you should put the same amount of importance into establishing a good foundation when you are aiming to resolve conflict.

This is exactly what it sounds like.  In school we used to start writing projects by brainstorming ideas.  I thought it was cheesy and stupid.  Nowadays, I use brainstorming whenever I'm getting stuck trying to find focus.  By dumping out all of the ideas that come into my head, I get a quick overview of my thoughts.

Brainstorming solutions to a problem should be no different.  Just blurt out ideas that come to mind, and write them down.  In the course, we usually end up with a number of jokes that get shouted out, but that's okay too - behind every joke there can be a nugget of truth.  Don't allow yourself to get caught up judging or thinking about a given solution during this phase.  Write it down, and move on to the next one.

• Choose and contract a resolution

Now you get a chance to go over all of the ideas that you have brainstormed.  Evaluate each item and see if it's a valid solution to the problem you've identified.

As you start to come up with a possible solution, the most important thing to keep in mind is that you are looking for solutions that are measurable.  Good intentions are great, but they're a very poor way to reach a solution.  An example:

• Good intention: "I promise to pay attention to you more often"
• Measurable solution: "I will give you a big hug first thing when I get home from work, and devote at least ten minutes before I start doing chores to talking with you about your day"

Does that sound kind of cheesy to you?  It does to me as well, but that's okay.  The key item here is that it's something you can specifically look to in order to determine whether or not your solution has been successful so far.  You can also see that it is much easier to make sure that you're keeping up your end of the bargain with a solution like this.  It's pretty near impossible to ever truly prove or disprove that you are "paying more attention to someone every day".

Once you've chosen a solution, set a date a couple of weeks from now to evaluate your progress, and see if it's working.  If necessary, mark it on your calendar so that you don't forget. 

When that date comes...

• Evaluate your progress

Here's the semi-last step of the process.  A couple of weeks after you've contracted your solution, get together and determine whether or not you've been successful.  How do you both feel about how things are going? 

If things are going well, then hey, that's great - you've resolved a small amount of conflict.  This is what you're aiming forever.  That's not always the way things work out though.

Maybe the solution you've come up with is just imposing too much of a burden on your time, and you need to scale back a little bit.  Maybe you're both abiding to the solution you came up with, and the problem still exists.  This is when you move on to the next step:

• Iterate, if needed

As I'm fond of saying, failure is just an opportunity to re-evaluate your goals and determine if you need to adjust them.  It doesn't mean that you failed as a couple, or that you'll never be able to work things out.  It could mean that the solution you contracted simply wasn't realistic for both of you to stick to.

Often, people will identify what they believe is the problem, only to then later discover that this was just the symptom of a deeper problem.  Maybe the problem Bruno Mexidando identified was that his wife doesn't kiss him enough, but the real underlying problem is that Bruno is always going to kiss Betty-Jo when she's in the middle of a conversation with someone that makes him feel insecure.  The deeper problem here is likely insecurity and jealousy on Bruno's part, and a lack of sensitivity on Betty-Jo's part.

Start back at the top, setting aside time to discuss, identifying the problem, and moving from there. Be willing to accept that maybe you got the problem wrong the first time, and be willing to iterate over these steps for the sake of your relationship.  They really are important.

So that's the main gist of the process.  We have a number of examples that we go through with the class, iterating over these five main points, as well as bringing up some scenarios from our own past (we've certainly had our share of conflict).

We also review a number of common pitfalls that couples run into that can create conflict.  Things like round-robin fighting and dismissing each other's complaints ("Here we go again, you always get upset about this!"), and the one I think is most important: avoiding the temptation to put each other down, even jokingly.  This last one is especially important, as it's a very unfair way to treat your partner.  By putting them down as part of a joke, you preemptively take away their ability to respond and indicate that you've hurt their feelings ("What, I'm only joking - can't you take a joke?").

What we get out of it

I get an interesting assortment of looks from people when they find out that we do this.  Some people are interested in the process.  Some people could care less.  Some people appear a little skeptical, as though the notion that you can teach an effective way to resolve conflict is silly, and some people even come off a little resentful ("Who are you to tell someone how to solve their problems?".  The distinction is that we're not telling someone how to solve their problem.  We're teaching them a method for solving their own problem.)

Precluding any of this is of course the fact that you will get out of this kind of thing no more or less than what you are willing to put into it.  When we took the course, we approached it without any preconceived notion of what to or not to expect, and took away from it a number of good ideas.  Each couple's mileage will vary, depending on how willing and open they are to new approaches to these kinds of things.

Although we volunteer our time to teach the course, the benefit we derive from doing so easily makes it worth our while.  Everytime we iterate over these ideas with the class, it helps solidify our own understanding, and internalize the process.  After every class, we leave having new insights into how conflict can be resolved, and how a successful relationship can be managed (or fall apart).

The single biggest reward out of any of this though is the most obvious one - it's a chance to spend a weekend talking and thinking about our relationship together.  The longer you're together, the less often that seems to happen.  Opportunities like this one are easily worth the small amount of time that they demand of us.

That's all for now.

I came into work today to see the following in my inbox:


We have good news for you. Shaw is committed to bringing you the very best products and services, and that includes the FASTEST Internet at the best value. As a result we are making significant upgrades to our network in your area which will allow us to increase your Shaw High-Speed Xtreme-I Internet download speed by 50%, from 10 Mbps to 15 Mbps! This will not affect your monthly cost for High-Speed Xtreme-I; your bill will remain exactly the same.

You will also continue to enjoy PowerBoost™, an extra burst of speed while downloading at no extra charge. The best part is you don't have to do a thing. It will all happen automatically.

Our network upgrades will take place over the next month. Once we have completed the upgrade in your area we will notify you by email to let you know.

What you will notice is how much faster you can download photos, videos and large files, giving you the best online experience. We hope that you enjoy the 50% download speed increase.

Immediately my skeptical hackles are up.  Why is Shaw doing this?  Is this just part of natural upgrades to their line, and it makes more sense to put in 15 Mbps capable cable instead of 10?  This note comes from internet.notifications@shaw.ca, which seems legitimate.  However, it just seems so unusual for a company to do something like this without any financial kickback beyond the optics and better perception it will generate for themselves.

In any case, it's nice to see some positive news related to a telecom company amidst the near-constant news items about secret fees, sneaky contract-changes, and general client-reaming.

My new iPhone comes out of the box with the all-awesome, all-knowing Google Maps, which immediately prompted me to try and figure out how far Bay and I run, how much I walk to and from work every day, and other useless bits of trivia.

Once I started doing that, I figured I might as well compile a list of the daily exercise that I'm getting, and try and determine what my caloric requirements are. Why? I don't know, just because.

Here is my daily activity:

• Walk to and from work/downtown



Distance: 1.3 kms, each way
Calories burned: 65 calories, each way
Daily Average: 2.6 kms, 130 calories


• Climb up two flights of stairs



Amount: 4 times a day
Duration: 1 minute
Calories burned: 11 calories, each time
Daily Average: 8 flights of stairs, 88 calories


• Squash



Amount: 4 times a week
Duration: 1 hour
Calories burned: 1034 calories, each time
Daily Average: 591 calories


• Jogging



Amount: 1 time a week
Duration: 30 minutes (4.5 km)
Calories burned: 450 calories
Daily Average: 64 calories


• Biking



Amount: 1 time a week
Duration: 10 minutes (5 km)
Calories burned: 125 calories
Daily Average: 18 calories


• Weight lifting



Amount: 4 times a week
Duration: 20 minutes
Calories burned: 86 calories, each time
Daily Average: 49 calories

So, the grand total appears to be that on a daily average, I'm burning 940 calories each day of the week, when I average everything I'm doing for the week. Based on my at rest calorie burn rate of 2280, I need to eat an average of 3220 calories a day. I suspect I must be getting somewhere close to that figure, because although my weight rises and falls on a daily basis, it's usually fluctuating around the same point of 185-195 pounds.

That, is an attention-grabbing title.

I'm often mildly disappointed with our education system, because it fails to teach a lot of the scientific literacy that is needed in order to understand some of the concepts that science is discovering today, and to appreciate just how cool some of this stuff is. Today, we're talking about light, the speed at which it travels, and the closest thing to a time machine we'll ever actually see.

Let's start with the speed of light. Light is a funny thing. Einstein realized, and then proved scientifically that no matter how fast you're travelling, no matter which direction you are moving in, you will always measure light as moving away from you at 300,000 km/s. This speed is referred to with the constant c. This is counter-intuitive to the way we humans think. Let's say I'm standing still, and my friend Davey runs by me. Let's say I measure that he is moving away from me at 10 km/h. Now, in scenario two, I'm running at 5 km/h in the same direction as Davey. When he passes me and starts to move away from me, I will measure him as moving away from me at 5 km/h, rather than the previous 10. This is because I am moving foward at 5 km/h myself, rather than standing still.

Here comes the counter-intuitive bit - in both of those situations, if a beam of light travels past me and starts to move away, I will always measure it as travelling away from me at c (300,000 km/s). Interestingly, the scientific experiements and evidence collected also shows that this is the theoretical speed limit of the universe. As far as we can tell, nothing can travel faster than this speed.

Okay, we're past the first bit of math.

Let's get into the time travel I alluded to in the title. Because of the rate of speed at which light travels, most of us think of it as travelling instantaneously. That is to say, you turn on your desk lamp, and the light doesn't travel to light up your desk, it's just there. This is a convenient way to think about light on a day-to-day basis, our daily lives do not involve interacting over distances greater than 300,000 km. However, once we start to talk about the stars in the sky, things get a little bit different.

The thing about stars in the sky is that they are very, very far away from us. Sirius, one of our closest neighbours in the galaxy, is about 9 light years away from us. Light years can be a bit of a confusing term, because they contain two concepts: distance and time. A light year means this: The distance that light can travel in one year. So, even though the name includes a notion of time, a light-year is always really a distance measurement, and one light-year will always take one year for light to move that distance.

What this means is that if Sirius the star were to suddenly dissapear from the universe and stop producing light (this is highly implausible, but will work as an example), it would take us nine years before we had any idea that this had occurred. The coolest thing about this is that when we look up and see the star Sirius in our night sky, we are actually seeing it as it looked nine years ago. Remember, it takes nine years for the star's light to reach us.

So, we've got the speed of light down, and we've talked about Sirius. Let's take things up to the next level and talk about stars that are much further away from us. Astronomers these days have some incredible tools at their disposable. The Hubble space telescope is able to look at stars that are billions of light years away. This is incredibly far, but not only that, it means that we are looking back at light that was created and sent on its heavenly journey billions of years ago. This is the most incredible part, and the most difficult for many people to wrap their head around. The further away from us that astronomers are looking, the further back in time they are seeing the state of the universe.

Perhaps some ascii art to help clarify?

1. (Sirius) * ---light travels 9 light-years---> * (Earth)

2. (Starry McOldey) * ---light travels 10 billion light-years---> * (Earth)

The most important thing to remember here is that once light has been emitted from a star, it doesn't matter what happens to the source of the light - the light itself will continue to travel on its path, eventually reaching us.

I've got two helpful analogies too! Think of a really powerful sprinkler: the sprinkler shoots out a blast of water, and then changes its position and shoots a second blast of water. The first blast of water is still travelling in the original direction, regardless of the fact that the sprinkler has now changed its orientation. Analogy number two - imagine two cities that are separated by 1000 km. The first city sends out a messenger to the second city, and it takes him two weeks to get there. By the time the messenger arrives in the second city, the information he's bringing with him is two weeks older. For the sake of this analogy, you can think of light as acting like a messenger from a star (though a messenger that has done an insane amount of steroids).

So, I, and possibly you, think this is pretty cool. By looking into deep, deep space, scientists are able to see the universe as it was when it was very young (most astronomers, through scientific evidence, place the age of the universe to be roughly 13.7 billion years old). They aren't really traveling back in time, but they are able to see a universe from an earlier time.

Interesting stuff right? No? Whatever. If you like reading about this kind of thing, you should check out the Bad Astronomy Blog. Phil Plait, a widely-known astronomer in skeptic circles, runs the blog and mixes things up with the latest cool astronomy news, reviews of bad movies using bad science (his review of The Core is pretty good), and skepticism regarding things like the Moon Landing Hoax. Worth a browse!

Just stumbled across this cool site showing photos of an abandoned Russian village:

http://englishrussia.com/?p=1784#more-1784

I find this kind of stuff fascinating - it's like a little pocket that got frozen in time, but without Jean-Claude Van Damne to travel back and right the wrong that was committed there.

This has been a really good weekend, and I've done nothing but play squash, do chores, practice dancing, and sit down on the carpet and play Magic the Nerding with friends. Bay and I are ever more busy with wedding preparations, so it feels good to be able to spend a day to sit down and hammer many of those details down. I've done a bunch of other boring shit as well, none of which makes for interesting blogging, as I'm discovering reading back through this paragraph..

I had a good dance session with Steve and Graham this Sunday morning, and that got me revved up and ready to go for the rest of the weekend. Most of the footage that we captured this time around was really dull. Watching someone practice variations of one particular technique over and over is lame, and all watching that really accomplishes is letting people understand that dancing, like anything, requires time and effort to improve upon.

However, Graham has been missing in action from the dancefloor for the past millennium or so, so it's good to see him come out and throw down some moves with us. I'll be editing some footage tonight or during the week, and hopefully I'll have something worthy of putting up by the time the beer festival rolls around (after which I will be completely out of commission until Christmas-ish).

One of the things that is on my "to-do" list now is to go through this blog and give it a little re-vitalization. This sort of thing takes a while for me to actually work up the energy to tackle, but there's one thing in particular that has been nagging me - the archived entries.

When I first started blogging, it was me writing for a very select audience. I passed the esoteric link (at the time, http://fresh.ath.cx/~adam/blog) around to my small group of my friends, and then just continued to write. If people checked it out, that was cool, but I mostly wrote because I made myself laugh. If you go back and look over the old entries, you can pick up on this. Lots of the jokes are sophomoric (that means low-brow, pretty much), but they had enough of my own angle to them that re-reading many of them still gets me giggling. (Can guys get away with giggling, or do we need to chortle?)

Whenever I say something that is meant to be funny, the one rule I abide by is that it makes me laugh. If no one else laughs, then that makes for a slightly awkward situation, but I can't second-guess the way every person I talk to is going to react to me, or the kind of sense of humour that they have. The only thing I can rely on is that I make myself laugh, and, apparently, a lot of other people agree with what I find humorous.

Anyhow, there are a lot of people out there with a great sense of humour, but far more out there with a sense of humour that competes with that of a carrot. I'm not worried about the people with a sense of humour. They may (or may not) go back through my archives, laugh at a couple of entries that I've written, turn their nose up at points when it gets crude, and understand what I was doing. However, the carrots are not so easy to deal with.

My cat literally just spilled beer across my whole computer desk.. So long thirty minutes spent cleaning.. If this cat wasn't so damn cute I would teach him the hard way how to correctly execute the move called cat suplex of doom.

Anyhow, the carrots - those guys (and girls) are the reason that I can't just leave everything wide in the open.

The thing is, I've left my archives fully accesible for the entirety of my blog's existence. I'm not ashamed of how I used to be, who I am currently, nor who I will be as I continue to grow. I'm proud of who I am, and I can look back on the highs and lows of my past years and think "Hey, if it all lead to where I am now, I must have been doing some things right" (as I clean beer off of my computer desk and notice that my printer now prints in "Sticky", rather than "Portrait" or "Landscape" modes).

I like leaving my archives there because they give me, as well as other people, an opportunity to look back and see how I've changed, grown, and, perhaps most importantly, stayed the same. Acting like the past didn't happen, or didn't shape who we are now is a guaranteed way to ensure that we minimize the wisdom that we can gain as we age. I'm all about gaining wisdom (seriously, I would be an awesome paladin or cleric - anyone need some buffs?).

But the carrots.. Damn those carrots! One day, I'll be applying for a job, and one of those damn carrots will think "Hey, maybe I'll Google this joker and see what comes up". They find my site, look through a couple of the archives, and decide that Korglied War Robots isn't the right fit for me.

Anyhow, the best compromise that I can think of is to relegate the archives off to a link. If people want to go back and look through them, I don't want to stop that. Like I said, I think it's important to acknowledge our past and what we've become - however, by moving this off to a separate link, it at least requires a little bit of effort to track them down, and maybe in doing so, they get a chance to read about the person that I currently am.

And I guess this brings me back to one of the main reasons I keep incessantly spouting off into the digital web-a-tron - it keeps reminding me that I'm learning. Squash, dancing, reading, marriage, friendships - these are all things that I do first and foremost because they help me learn and develop. In practicing each of these things, I gain wisdom and knowledge, and better myself as a person. But, in the process of learning, there are peaks and troughs, and sometimes, those troughs are pretty damn deep. Having a reference to look back upon is a good way for me to re-calibrate myself and go "Wow, I'm a fricking genius."

Oh shit, I just spilled beer again...

I talk a lot.

Whenever I find myself with groups of people, it is the conversation that is holding my interst more than anything else (well, hopefuly - it's gotta be an awkward group if I'm not paying attention to the conversation).

People participate in conversations on all different levels. Some people are talking because they have a deep underlying need to feel a part of the group. Some people are talking because they want to express themselves and receive recognition. Sometimes there's someone that is just hanging on for dear life and doesn't want to come off sounding stupid. Some people take it as an opportunity to entertain, and there's overlap across all of these motivations.

Conversation is a weird thing. Most of us just take it for granted that we are a social species. Some people are terrified of talking to strangers, some people love it. Conversation and interaction is such an integral part of our daily existence that we rarely take the time to think about it.

As I start to take a deeper glance into the many parts of my daily life, I notice more and more the underlying details that have been invisble to me up until this point. There is such a thing as a good conversation, and, conversely, bad conversations.

What makes a conversation good? Balance, comfortability, the right touch of levity, and a hodgepodge of other things. People that are charismatic are generally very good at making other people feel comfortable around them. There are many ways to accomplish this - using people's names is a good way to establish immediate rapport with someone, while using someone's name too much is a way of making them feel uncomfortable (think about a conversation with one of your friends... how often do you use their name? Hearing your own name too many times almost feels like a breach of intimacy).

Laughing genuinely at a joke someone has made is another way to make people feel at ease - and again, doing it too much makes people feel uncomfortable. You lose the feeling of genuinity, and have moved beyond the realm of flattery to contrivance. People love to be flattered, but no one likes feeling that they're being humoured or patronized.

It's always a fine line, and the more people you have involved in a conversation, the easier it is for that line to get crossed. Everyone has different comfort zones, and it's the responsibility of everyone in the conversation to do their part to avoid stepping on anyone else's toes.

We're getting to the heart of the matter, and after only 6-7 paragraphs. My english teacher would be so proud.

Like I said, everyone participates on a different level. Some people are completely oblivious to the effect that their words have on other people. Some people can tell when they've said something wrong, but don't see the warning signs leading into it.

I'm at the far end of the scale. I think too much, and about everything. I think about minor details, and I love doing that because it constantly presents new opportunities to learn. However, this is a double-edged battle-axe that cuts both ways (it's got a very nice handle too). The more time you spend thinking and analyzing something, the better you get at understanding how it operates, and the patterns that are inherent to it (and believe me, there are patterns in everything, I saw it in a movie called A Beautiful Mind). Seeing the patterns and flow of a conversation almost forces upon me the need to help it along.

It's kind of like the paradigm of ignorant bliss. Adam and Eve had not eaten from the tree of knowledge, and had no awareness of their own shame (shame is bible code for penis and vagenis). Once they'd eaten that delicious brainfruit, they became aware of their nudity (and Adam had a rather embarassing erection at the time as well, making things even worse) and felt the need to hide it. They could no longer remain blissfully ignorant, because they now possessned the knowledge and awareness of their situation.

Being aware of the nuances of a conversation, and seeing the path that it takes has removed my ability to remain blissfully ignorant. Going through school, I had a poor understanding of how conversations worked. I was awkward, I made people feel uncomfortable (until I got to know them better), and I didn't understand what I was doing wrong. Next came a time when I had figured out how to talk to people, but didn't understand the deeper levels of a conversation, and so I was as close to true blissful ignorance as I could be - I could talk to people, but didn't need to worry too much about the line.

But as time has passed, it's become more and more apparent, and now it is impossible for me to participate in a conversation without helping steer it. Some people will hate hearing this. "That's so manipulative! That's not how people should interact". Mmmm, this is the first thing people often think when they hear about this kind of thing. It's a knee-jerk reaction.

The reason this makes sense to me comes from my stint at university. Whenever I would get put into a group project, I'd be sitting with at least four strangers working towards a common goal. Almost every project that I ever got done succesfully was the result of myself or someone else picking up the reins of leadership. I'm not stroking my ego here, or fooling myself into believing that I'll be the next manager at KFC (those guys get free chicken!), it just means that I saw the need for some kind of leadership and stepped into that role. Conversations are no different than this. Many of you may never realize it, but there is a tug back and forth in every conversation, and just like a project, it's ultimately about a group of people achieving a common goal (the goal in a conversation is much less tangible than a project, being simply to enjoy company, reach an agreement, discuss something, or meet any of the other goals I mentioned at the start).

Someone talented at steering a conversation will be able to identify the goals that everyone involved has, and make an effort to have them all met. It's a constant dance, weaving the conversation subtly and delicately to ensure that everyone gets their fair share, and everyone gets the chance to express their opinion. I enjoy playing that role, but it can get to be a bit trying without a break from it.

This is the conundrum I'm faced with. Like I said, I like talking to people. I'm very social by nature, and verbal conversations are one of favorite mediums for interaction. But, conversation can be tiring. Steering the direction and paying attention to each nuance can wear you down over time. We need time to recharge, and that's why we have good friends. We can hang out with these people and let the conversation flow much more of its own momentum, because we're much more familiar with each other's comfort zone (I can make fun of my friend Graham's cellphone ringtone, but not his shitty beard).

Ah, you're thinking "well, or just don't do that". No... nonono.. remember, I can no longer remain blissfully ignorant, and think back to our analogy; How well is a project going to go if I were just to say "Ahh, I'll just let the reins slide this one time"? It's going to suck horse, and I know that. I could just let things crash and burn, but then, someone's going to need to pick up the reins to fix up the wreckage. I prefer preventative solutions to curative ones.

People sometimes look at me with confusion when I tell them I don't want to have to spend the evening being "on". "Well, just don't be". I can't!

The people that don't understand this end up thinking I'm aloof, or a snob, or some other cute label. I understand, they're just trying to protect themselves and react defensively to their own hurt feelings.

Next time you find yourself in a conversation with a group of people, take a moment to think about it, and to look for the patterns. They're there. Just remember that once you've seen them, you can't go back.

Update: My friend Davin pointed out that my CAPTCHA (that's basically the code that I have people enter whenever they want to write a comment) was not working, and was preventing anyone from comments. This has been fixed, and I expect a deluge of penis enlargement spam comments to follow closely at the heels.