This Weeks Adventures

This week was a goodie. Business as usual during the weekdays. Nothing major of note. Work was a bit dry, but hey, what’s new? Nah, the real excitement came from the weekend.

Saturday, Sabado as my Spanish speakers call it, had something juicy in store this week. 2 weeks ago I bought a road bike. 1 week ago my roommate Rex pitched the idea of a super long bike ride together. 2 days ago we agreed to do it Saturday. The 3rd of December, 2022 was one for the books. My 3 roommates and I were all on board to bike 100 miles.

We mapped the route on Friday night, picking one that looked the flattest. We could’ve gone along the coast but figured the beach would get pretty un-pretty, pretty fast. Rex had met this one biker who recommended a ‘secret’ route.

It was relatively flat, with decent scenery, was nice and green, but the best of all? The roads felt like they were paved by a memory foam pillow. I’m not sure who was in the middle of Mississippi taking their cement job seriously, but they need a raise.

The ride was awesome. It was painful, but it was awesome. At Mile 91, I thought I was going to pass out. Turns out you need to drink water while riding. It was a fun experience. Not too many cars. A fun ride. Just hanging out with some cool people.

My favorite part was that all 4 of us were just down to do it. 100 miles sounded like a stretch, but Rex and Collin had sent (and survived) 60 miles about a month earlier and it had gone well. Seth has ridden before, and I was on board to try it out. Rex and Seth had a small bit of riding experience before, but we all like a good challenge and figured this would get us out of our comfort zone.

The ride was a success, although generally, I would advise some training or some in-depth mental preparation before attempting 100 miles.

Quotes I Liked

“You have to teach people how to treat you”

Couldn’t find who this quote is originally attributed to but I love it. Nobody knows you better than you. It’s your job to know you. It’s also your job to help other people know you. If you want to live life a certain way… If you like living life a certain way, it’s up to you to create it – that means teaching others how to treat you. I have to remind myself of this sometimes. Create your own reality.

Ideas to Contemplate

Information is ever prevalent but the quality of information is hard to come by

Dang, this dude spitting facts. It’s so true. At the start of writing something I plan to share, I oftentimes worry that I’ve fallen into this trap. I wonder if I’m just parroting things I’ve read or heard. Does that really do anyone any benefit?

Maybe. But I think the realness comes from sharing feelings that are internal to you and you alone. People can’t fault you for sharing what you know to be true and sharing how you feel about it. The hard part is verifying what you “know to be true” to actually be true and not something just passed down by someone you trust.

Rationality is completely predictable

If humans were perfectly logical then we would be tremendously predictable. From an evolutionary standpoint, we would be too easy to kill. This is potentially why economics seems simple at first but also gets incredibly complex incredibly fast. I’ve always tried to make decisions based on rationality and remove the emotion… But that’s the whole thing that makes us human. We’re not purely rational, and that’s alright.

Random Things I Learned

• People are thought to have first discovered the Americas anywhere from 18,000 – 33,000 years ago. New research is suggesting 33,000 according to this article by New Scientist
  
  

This sorta blew my mind considering the Earth was formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago (according to NASA). Like 33,000 is nooooottt that long at all. It just puts everything into perspective that we’re really not that significant, as a species, in the grand scheme of things.

A Great Podcast – Charlie Walker

This dude is nutty. He’s a crazy biker. He’s a British dude who lived on a bike for 4 years. He traveled to over 61 countries off a bike he started his journey on for 100 British lbs. He reached the farthest north point in Europe, the farthest point in Asia, and the farthest point in Africa all by bike. His stories are pretty crazy. Inspirational to say the least.

Definitely worth it.