One of my favorite sayings and one I live by. Some examples:

Running. I run a lot of races. I'm not that great, but I have fun. I am competitive, but more with myself than against others. I never win, but I improve my times often. I have a lot of friends who are runners that are at least as fast as I am, but skip races at the last minute, have mishaps during the race that destroy the race or just plain don't race well. Some of these guys are too focused on perfection - it all has to be right, or you might as well quit. I have fun running. They make it a chore.

Work. I used to implement a large software solutions for major airlines. One airline spent millions of dollars for several years and never really implemented the system. A different airline implemented it and reaped the benefits. The difference? The first airline could not get over the fact that the sales figures were off by a little on some days (by small, I mean well less than 1%). Because the numbers were so large and transactions were in the millions daily, we had trouble determining the reason for the discrepancy and could never say for sure whether it was the result of the old system or the new system. This problem made the project a failure. The second airline looked past this issue as a barrier to success and while they continued to refine that reconciliation process, they implemented the system and found success.

Public Policy. School vouchers, Social Security privatization and the Fair Tax - All good ideas that may never see the light of day. Why? Critics will shoot holes in it. Some argue that the bad outweighs the good, but others just shoot holes. No one REALLY knows whether any of these programs would be a boon or a bust, but the losers are the people, us, saddled with a government that can't make revolutionary changes ever again because there will always be voices that tout the "problems" with the so-called solution.

Marriage. It's interesting reading some of these blogs that talk about love and marriage. Young kids saying they love their honey, happily married people, divorces and then just some plain old aberrant relationships. I've been married almost 12 years, happily. I'm no expert. I'm sure we've been "lucky" in a lot of ways, but it seems quite simple to me. I know there are bad situations and circumstances that don't apply here, but I honestly believe it comes down to expectations for most of us - perspective. I could write a whole post on this, maybe later, but suffice to say if you think you're unhappy in your marriage and it won't get better until your spouse changes to meet your needs, then you're looking at it the wrong way.

I continue to live my life this way. It's a bias for action. I get things done because I don't necessarily wait to make sure it's 100% right first. If it doesn't work out, I'm not afraid to fail. Failure is merely another step along the path to success. And I have failed, but I don't regret anything I've ever done (other than yelling at the guy in Home Depot for jumping in front of me at checkout).

Don't just live your whole life, LIVE it TODAY!

Well, today was the day! About 700+ riders convened at the Roswell City Hall to start the 20+ mile trek to the Georgia State Capitol. There were people and bikes of all types and ages. Some couriers, serious racers, leisure riders, mountain bikers, recumbent bikes, tri-bikes and of course road bikes.

The line up begins. Police escorts await.

In downtown Atlanta, Mayor Shirley Franklin (2nd from left) and Roswell Mayor Jere Wood (just right of Ms. Franklin) show their Atlanta spirit and biking skills.

Some bike messengers decorated the statue!

Lunch at the capitol - Willie's provided 700 burritos - yummy! Capitol ("golden top") in the background.

Well, it was an awesome day overall. I had hoped the turnout would be bigger, but it is a work day. After being addressed by some state legislators, we got a police escort back toward Roswell. I turned off and went to work for the rest of the day. 50 miles total. I've done a lot more, but not for a couple of years and although the ride was slow I was worn out by the end and made my wife come pick me up from work

UPDATE: The Atlanta Journal Constitution has a brief mention of the Georgia Ride to the Capitol event.

well from me at least...

Well, Katrina tops the news again thanks to some videos and other info that is coming to light. The AP has spared no biases in making the claim once again that it is all Bush's fault. Many of the points can be explained away, but if you really care to read them, you can find those arguments at several right-wing blogs. The basic fact of the matter is really quite simple:

• Katrina was the worst hurricane disaster ever. I don't mean the response, I mean the storm and physical devastation from the storm. The huge storm coupled with geographic implications of N.O. made it so. Had this storm hit 100 miles east, it would not have been as big a story.
• The local, state and federal response was not sufficient, however, it was probably as good or better than any other hurricane response in history (that's not saying much I understand, but if you don't believe me, you can read some of the info here)
• You can blame Bush all you want, but the only thing that another president would have done better (i.e. Clinton) is a better job at PR and empathy.
• This goes to show, as most Republicans and Libertarians would agree, that relying on the Federal Gov't for this or anything else is a recipe for disaster. While some people do have to rely on others for assistance, if you don't make it someone other than the Feds you can count on being disappointed. So don't. Period.

The travesty of this is that in the failure to mount a sufficient rescue effort and the cries of failures and tragedy the result will be MORE of YOUR MONEY going down the drain of federal waste. Unlike a business where when something fails you move on rather than sinking money into a bottomless pit, the government likes to throw more money at it. It will be wasted.

Just as some say that the gov't does bad things in the name of patriotism, the same can be said in the name of tragedy. So blame Bush all you want. Give the gov't more of your money and smile. The next hurricane response will not improve due to any additional money, but it may improve because politicians now know everyone is watching.

UPDATE: I read the whole article that I linked above and it's the best one I've read. Busts some myths, offers solutions, provides some relevant facts and stays apolitical. Why the rest of the MSM couldn't be more like this is beyond me. The link is to a Popular Mechanics article. If you are interested in knowing more, please read it: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2315076.html

 

I complain about my wife interrupting my work day to tell me what she had for lunch, but here I go telling you guys some really important stuff...

Rode my bike home from work last night. Felt good, the weather is AWESOME right now. Took about 50 minutes which is all of about 10 minutes longer than it takes to drive. Wow. The best part of my ride is when I get home and my little girl comes running up to me yelling "daddy home, daddy home"

Watched War of the Worlds with the family. The movie was great fun. We were a little worried about our 9 and 8 year olds, but they were fine. I'll make a gratuitous political comment. My guess is that Tim Robbins, known and vocal lefty, was brought in for his bit role only to bash Bush's foreign policy with his silly line "occupations have never worked. For 10,000 years they've tried, but it never works." Yeah, this movie was not about occupation, it was about annihilation so I can't help but to think that the comment was a little tongue in cheek jab at Bush (update: I did a quick google search and LOTS of sites go into the "potential" politics behind the whole movie - interesting? not enough for me to spend any time there). But those things don't bother me, just thought it was funny. Really enjoyed the movie.

This morning on the Today Show, they had segment about 11 moms that had gotten together due to something in common - the same sperm donor. Wow, they had 14 kids between them all with the same donor! I didn't get to see all the kids and whether or not there was any resemblance or common thread, but the moms were a varied group. Frankly, while I fully support the process, I don't think I could give up my sperm only to find out that I had "fathered" 14 kids. My 8 year old daughter said something about the women being gay. I have no idea whether she got that from the womens' appearance or because they were impregnated in a different way. But I did ask her how she knew what that meant. Her answer? Sponge Bob!! Don't think I left it at that, but no need to share my fatherly response.

I'll add more in a minute...

I'm so worn out from political posting and commenting that I have to move on to other topics at the risk of leaving behind all 2 of my regular readers

The weather today was awesome with highs in the low 70s. Days are getting longer and so training is going to ramp up. I'd posted frequently in my early days about my work rides, but with recent minor injuries I've not posted much about any of my training. Unfortunately, I've gone a few steps backwards, but I'm hopeful that things are on the way up now.

Ultimately, my training buddy and I are going to try to qualify for the Boston Marathon. For our age group, the qualifying time is 3:20 and my best thus far is a meager 3:52 (my wife has run a 3:40). Our goal race is the Chicago marathon in October. For now, I'm planning on a tune-up marathon: the San Diego Rock N' Roll Marathon on June 4th.

So, this is my official statement of objectives. I want to run San Diego in 3:45 or better (that's about an 8:35/mile pace). I ran 5 miles the other day in just under 45 minutes , so I have about 13 weeks to get my act together.

Wish me luck!