I'm a firm believer that you should often seek out opportunities to experience new things, especially when they force you to exit your typical comfort zone. Unfortunately, this is not something I often do; it's so much easier to stick with what you know and what you're good at. However, this past weekend I got the chance to exit my own halo of understanding and learn a skill that I've long coveted at the same time.
Friday night through Sunday afternoon, I struggled through the 14 hours of instruction involved in the Basic Rider Skills class offered by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. I say "struggled" because that's exactly what I did. The classroom instruction--over on Friday night--was valuable and simple. Beginning at 7AM on Saturday, I boarded a motorcycle for the first time in my life and things got a little crazy.
I felt in over my head from the beginning: I was the only person in the class who'd never been on a bike before (most were experienced riders trying to get the MSF endorsement for either insurance reasons or so they could get their bike on a military base). Several of my classmates had never been in the front, but had years of experience as passengers behind their spouses/significant others, so they still had an advantage of experience over me. I'd always known that riding a bike was a complicated feat, it is an intricate machine that requires the constant use of both hands and both feet for basic operation...not to mention the required physical effort to maintain upright.
The class started with the most elementary steps (I'm very thankful that the riders with experience were patient). We started with "mounting the bike" and learning the basic controls. It was over an hour into the lesson before we even moved the bike with our feet off the ground. After this first exercise I felt quite elated: I joked with a classmate that as long as my final destination was always a dead-straight line from where I started I'd be just fine.
Of course, the experience became quite humbling from there. We moved rapidly through a series of 16 drills (over two days) that were designed to teach the basics of starting, stopping, shifting, cornering, etc. Each was challenging in its own way and one in particular (the off-set weave) demolished my morale for a short time.
At the end of the first day I gave myself a 50-50 chance of passing the final riding exam. I called my brother Mark (who took the same course in Connecticut years ago and just bought a new bike) to tell him that my hat was off to him for surviving the experience. He laughed and assured me that he "barely" passed himself and that he remembered well his amazement at the difficulties of bike operation. We'd finished our morning lesson at 11AM and I was so drained--physically, mentally and emotionally--that I was basically useless until about 6PM.
On Sunday, things were better. I expected as much; your mind can assimilate new experiences so quickly. In the end, I never dumped the bike and only had a few embarrassing moments. One time I was sitting with my bike in neutral and I was running through the procedure for an emergency stop in my mind. I was so focused on the steps that I unconsciously started doing them: popping my right foot onto the shift lever and engaging first gear. The bike jumped forward a foot before stalling. My classmates got a good chuckle--for which they apologized--I explained that I'm always dangerous if you give me idle time.
Miraculously, I got a 95 on my riding test and 100 on the written. I successfully navigated the U-turn box, the obstacle avoidance swerve, the emergency stop and the corner. After I finish this blog I'm going to the DMV to get my official motorcycle endorsement on my license (passing the MSF course is the same as passing a DMV licensing exam). I'm not sure when I'll get a bike or even if that will ever happen (though I definitely want one today even more than I did before the class). Even if I get a bike, I don't consider myself ready for the street yet. I'd probably practice for a month or two on parking lots and small roads before ever riding in real traffic. None-the-less, four days ago I didn't know how to ride a motorcycle and now I'm licensed to do so in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In all, I considered the experience to be at once humbling, challenging, exhausting and satisfying. The instructors were great and I'm thankful for their patience and encouragement. It was also a great chance to be around a whole group of people that I don't think I'd otherwise have gotten the chance to know. Typical "bikers" are very different from me...frankly a lot cooler and more grounded. It was also the first time in recent memory when a ten-minute smoke break meant that everyone actually had a cigarette. This was another little bit of being out of my comfort zone, and it was really satisfying.
I'm really glad for the entire experience. I know that hot-shot bikers can be annoying (and oftentimes dangerous) on the road. These are obviously only a small portion of the riding community, though they tend to be the most visible and memorable part of it. From now on though, whether your cursing a bike on the road or just sharing your lane with one, I advise you tip your hat at the very least to the skill required to successfully handle their ride.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Random Chance
I feel like if you've spent a little time studying Statistics (or maybe even if you haven't) it's difficult not to become a bit fascinated with the concept of random chance. In the classroom, of course, randomness is an academic concept that must be defined and implemented as you examine data; it's a bit difficult to wrap your mind around, since our minds are not random instruments but tools that we use to sort out the world into series of discernible patterns.
If you pay attention, though, you can see random chance as more of a metaphysical force in the world. I was reading a book on airline incidents and policy called The Plane Truth by Roger Cobb and David Primo (Yes, an offshoot of my obsession with airplanes is a corresponding morbid interest in plane crashes). The authors, in their introduction to the issue, exorcised our general need to know the "cause" of a plane crash. Knowing the cause, we feel, means that future incidents will be prevented and we as a traveling public will be made safer on the whole.
Cobb and Primo, however, offer a single explainable cause for every air disaster: random chance. Of course, there could be mechanical issues or pilot error, but the possibility of preventing every last one of these misfortunes is non-existent. Aircraft are incredibly complicated pieces of equipment, and a series of concurrent failures will abruptly end a flight in an unpleasant way. When this happens, we search to connect these combined failures in a way that makes sense out of them. Cobb and Primo explain:
"[The public] perceive links between rare events that occur close in time, even if none exists, so they can avoid accepting that randomness is to blame." (Page 10)
Denying random chance inside the aircraft is a helpful way of keeping people flying. It's difficult enough to cede control over your safety to a team you've never met--pilots, flight attendants, ATC, etc.--without having to cede control over your safety to randomness.
On our street right now is a rather striking reminder that it's not just inside the aircraft cabin that your life is subject to the harrowing nature of random chance. A few weeks ago, we were hit with a short but ferocious thunderstorm. During the storm, Holly heard an odd sound outside, which we quickly discovered had been one of our neighbor's trees falling into the street on top of a car. From our perspective, is seemed like an impressive but innocuous scene out in the street.
The next morning, however, we saw differently. The tree had not just fallen over a car, it had basically obliterated it.
Random chance at work on East Cummings Ave.
If you pay attention, though, you can see random chance as more of a metaphysical force in the world. I was reading a book on airline incidents and policy called The Plane Truth by Roger Cobb and David Primo (Yes, an offshoot of my obsession with airplanes is a corresponding morbid interest in plane crashes). The authors, in their introduction to the issue, exorcised our general need to know the "cause" of a plane crash. Knowing the cause, we feel, means that future incidents will be prevented and we as a traveling public will be made safer on the whole.
Cobb and Primo, however, offer a single explainable cause for every air disaster: random chance. Of course, there could be mechanical issues or pilot error, but the possibility of preventing every last one of these misfortunes is non-existent. Aircraft are incredibly complicated pieces of equipment, and a series of concurrent failures will abruptly end a flight in an unpleasant way. When this happens, we search to connect these combined failures in a way that makes sense out of them. Cobb and Primo explain:
"[The public] perceive links between rare events that occur close in time, even if none exists, so they can avoid accepting that randomness is to blame." (Page 10)
Denying random chance inside the aircraft is a helpful way of keeping people flying. It's difficult enough to cede control over your safety to a team you've never met--pilots, flight attendants, ATC, etc.--without having to cede control over your safety to randomness.
On our street right now is a rather striking reminder that it's not just inside the aircraft cabin that your life is subject to the harrowing nature of random chance. A few weeks ago, we were hit with a short but ferocious thunderstorm. During the storm, Holly heard an odd sound outside, which we quickly discovered had been one of our neighbor's trees falling into the street on top of a car. From our perspective, is seemed like an impressive but innocuous scene out in the street.
The next morning, however, we saw differently. The tree had not just fallen over a car, it had basically obliterated it.
Random chance at work on East Cummings Ave.We later learned from our neighbors that the driver of the car had been sitting in it just moments before the fall. He had waited for a "lull" in the rains before running into the house and had done so a few heartbeats before his car became a carefully crafted paper weight.
The car is still sitting in the road, giving our street a bit of a war-zone feeling to it. I don't consider it an eye-sore, but an ode to the random nature of life. How many times have we heard that inside a car is a "safe place" during a thunderstorm? Yes, safe from lightning, but not from the ton of wood that could be waiting to pounce on your chassis.
The natural human response, as Cobb and Primo note, is to take this as a lesson: "Okay, if I'm in my car during a violent storm, I'll just make sure I'm not under a big tree." This is a valuable bit of strategy, but misses the point of the discussion. There are so many variables that control where, when and how that tree fell that the odds of it falling on top of a sitting car are infintessimal. Being caught by such an event would make you a dazzlingly tragic victim of a magically random event.
Don't get depressed though, because sometimes random chance makes really good things happen. Oh, and keep flying: based upon current FAA safety statistics you'd have to take a flight every single day for 35,000 YEARS before you could expect to be involved in a major incident. You'll be fine.
The car is still sitting in the road, giving our street a bit of a war-zone feeling to it. I don't consider it an eye-sore, but an ode to the random nature of life. How many times have we heard that inside a car is a "safe place" during a thunderstorm? Yes, safe from lightning, but not from the ton of wood that could be waiting to pounce on your chassis.
The natural human response, as Cobb and Primo note, is to take this as a lesson: "Okay, if I'm in my car during a violent storm, I'll just make sure I'm not under a big tree." This is a valuable bit of strategy, but misses the point of the discussion. There are so many variables that control where, when and how that tree fell that the odds of it falling on top of a sitting car are infintessimal. Being caught by such an event would make you a dazzlingly tragic victim of a magically random event.
Don't get depressed though, because sometimes random chance makes really good things happen. Oh, and keep flying: based upon current FAA safety statistics you'd have to take a flight every single day for 35,000 YEARS before you could expect to be involved in a major incident. You'll be fine.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
In Defense of Lameness
In my lifetime, I've noticed a bit of a pattern. New things emerge in the world or become popular on a wide scale and I scoff at them. I might even let loose a diatribe on how ridiculous they are or possibly attack them with my particularly snide brand of sarcasm. Of course, time passes and I find myself with the opportunity to try these new treasures for myself, at which time I invariably fall in love with them.
Historically, the best example of this is with my coffee drinking habits. When complicated espresso based drinks were made popular by such chains as Starbucks, I was still in high school in Eastern Connecticut. Being relatively rural, we were not infiltrated by the tall lattes and venti caramel macchiatos as quickly as more "cultured" areas, so these new drinks kept the sense of "otherness" that made them foreign and dangerous. I can remember defending the simplicity of a Dunkin Donuts coffee (at the time Dunkies did not offer café options, as they do now) as the way a real American drinks coffee, vowing never to succumb to the allure of the new "fancy" drinks.
Now, of course, I often enjoy a grande latte with no foam. If you put foam on my latte I am going to pour it on the drink counter and storm out (not really).
Having recognized this pattern, I would like to share the two most recent things that I have opened my eyes to that I initially dismissed as "lame."
The first is the Wii Fit: the next step in Japanese-based Nintendo's quest to take over the world. It's a video game for the Wii that, along with the accompanying balance board, guides you through a series of exercises and focuses your attention on things like balance, core strength and endurance. My initial reaction to this contraption was that it's ridiculous: yet another way people could make exercising more convenient. Well, I survived enough basketball practices to know that exercising should be anything but convenient. Furthermore, the concept of working out to a video game seems like the kind of thing that would make Red Auerbach roll over in his grave.
Now, Holly and I own the Wii Fit. I used it one morning and I was very impressed. As a former personal trainer, I know that there are some very simple concepts to focus on when building basic fitness, concepts that people tend to ignore. These revolve around having a strong core and building functional strength while balancing your muscle groups. The Wii Fit "trainers" do a great job teaching these basic concepts while helping you work through an exercise routine...not to mention that the balance games are really fun. So, I retract my initial declaration of "lame." I was wrong and I now see the light.
The second example from the past month comes from the TV show "Battlestar Gallactica." (The new one, I'm not interested in the 70's version yet.) Beginning a while ago, Holly became a fan of the show after watching the first season on DVD while on duty on her ship. She became quite involved in the show, to the point of interjecting stories or lessons from BSG into our daily lives. As you can imagine, I rode her pretty hard about this. I'm not necessarily sure why, because I actually like science fiction (Star Wars, Star Trek, Ray Bradbury books, for the most part) but I couldn't help being a little cynical about the whole thing.
So, one day I offered to watch an episode with her. I was confused, terribly confused. The storyline of BSG is ongoing and jumping in at a mid-point is rather difficult. Early on, Holly would have to stop the show and explain to me some backstory item that made the action onscreen understandable. As I got into it, though, the show gathered me in it's momentum. The effects are good and the characters are engaging (an essential component for me) and it's a lot of fun.
Most important, though, is that the writers and producers have used their medium to tackle some major issues: things like how we define loyalty, freedom and justice. Many of the issues facing the crew of Gallactica can be drawn back to the challenges we've faced in our real world over the past decade. If you're willing to let it, the show really get's you thinking.
So, call me a turncoat or a flip-flopper if you want. I just like to think that I allow my eyes to be opened to my own ignorance. I guess the lesson is that stereotypes and snap judgements can be useful (we'd never get anything done if we carefully weighed all information in the world) but every now and then a little investigation will bring you a nice surprise.
If you disagree, you can go frac yourself.
Historically, the best example of this is with my coffee drinking habits. When complicated espresso based drinks were made popular by such chains as Starbucks, I was still in high school in Eastern Connecticut. Being relatively rural, we were not infiltrated by the tall lattes and venti caramel macchiatos as quickly as more "cultured" areas, so these new drinks kept the sense of "otherness" that made them foreign and dangerous. I can remember defending the simplicity of a Dunkin Donuts coffee (at the time Dunkies did not offer café options, as they do now) as the way a real American drinks coffee, vowing never to succumb to the allure of the new "fancy" drinks.
Now, of course, I often enjoy a grande latte with no foam. If you put foam on my latte I am going to pour it on the drink counter and storm out (not really).
Having recognized this pattern, I would like to share the two most recent things that I have opened my eyes to that I initially dismissed as "lame."
The first is the Wii Fit: the next step in Japanese-based Nintendo's quest to take over the world. It's a video game for the Wii that, along with the accompanying balance board, guides you through a series of exercises and focuses your attention on things like balance, core strength and endurance. My initial reaction to this contraption was that it's ridiculous: yet another way people could make exercising more convenient. Well, I survived enough basketball practices to know that exercising should be anything but convenient. Furthermore, the concept of working out to a video game seems like the kind of thing that would make Red Auerbach roll over in his grave.
Now, Holly and I own the Wii Fit. I used it one morning and I was very impressed. As a former personal trainer, I know that there are some very simple concepts to focus on when building basic fitness, concepts that people tend to ignore. These revolve around having a strong core and building functional strength while balancing your muscle groups. The Wii Fit "trainers" do a great job teaching these basic concepts while helping you work through an exercise routine...not to mention that the balance games are really fun. So, I retract my initial declaration of "lame." I was wrong and I now see the light.
The second example from the past month comes from the TV show "Battlestar Gallactica." (The new one, I'm not interested in the 70's version yet.) Beginning a while ago, Holly became a fan of the show after watching the first season on DVD while on duty on her ship. She became quite involved in the show, to the point of interjecting stories or lessons from BSG into our daily lives. As you can imagine, I rode her pretty hard about this. I'm not necessarily sure why, because I actually like science fiction (Star Wars, Star Trek, Ray Bradbury books, for the most part) but I couldn't help being a little cynical about the whole thing.
So, one day I offered to watch an episode with her. I was confused, terribly confused. The storyline of BSG is ongoing and jumping in at a mid-point is rather difficult. Early on, Holly would have to stop the show and explain to me some backstory item that made the action onscreen understandable. As I got into it, though, the show gathered me in it's momentum. The effects are good and the characters are engaging (an essential component for me) and it's a lot of fun.
Most important, though, is that the writers and producers have used their medium to tackle some major issues: things like how we define loyalty, freedom and justice. Many of the issues facing the crew of Gallactica can be drawn back to the challenges we've faced in our real world over the past decade. If you're willing to let it, the show really get's you thinking.
So, call me a turncoat or a flip-flopper if you want. I just like to think that I allow my eyes to be opened to my own ignorance. I guess the lesson is that stereotypes and snap judgements can be useful (we'd never get anything done if we carefully weighed all information in the world) but every now and then a little investigation will bring you a nice surprise.
If you disagree, you can go frac yourself.
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