OMYLII

I’ve released about thirty six songs over the past few years under the name Old Man Young Lii. You can find the music on just about any streaming service.

The “Stony Man” EP was my first, released on March 24, 2024. I was nervous, but I did it, and I’ve been chasing the muse ever since; exploring genres and production techniques, spending too much on plugins and virtual instruments and releases, and trying to improve my production skills.

Since then, I’ve made about $19 from streaming listens. That ain’t much. It doesn’t even cover the cost of releasing a single song (not to mention the DistroKid subscription). But if you assume that one stream is ~.005 cents (five thousandths of one penny), that would mean that my music has been streamed about 4,000 times.

And here I thought I was the only one who listens. (Making music can be like cooking. You can practice your craft for others, but you also feed yourself.)

But I love it. And I get to work on photography, visual arts and writing, along with composing, songwriting, playing instruments, and producing. A lot of my hobbies come together to make it all happen.

Do I use AI to generate songs?

No.

I write all of my music and lyrics. I’m not above collaborating but usually I get inspired or I’m playing guitar and, if I’m lucky, I get swept up into a flow state, and it all unfolds — finding the angel in the marble.

“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

― Michelangelo

Hm. I’ve been spelling Michelangelo wrong for my whole life.

For the vocals, I use AI voice transformation (mostly Audimee) to convert my croaky voice into another voice. Or I literally handcraft the notes in ACE Studio (or record them by playing an instrument, and then use that MIDI or audio-to-MIDI), add the lyrics, and “sculpt” the output.

There are lots of tools in the music production workflow now that are AI based, or at least machine learning. Some of it isn’t what it’s cracked up to be, but a lot of it is absolutely amazing. Not without frustration, but amazing.

I do not use Suno or Udio or things like that to create my music. In other words, I’m not creating songs by AI prompting. For my songs, I don’t do “make a hit song of the Summer about clubbing in Ibiza” and then 30 seconds later release it to streaming services.

I don’t know if it matters anymore these days, but this is all me. Even when the technology is involved, and there is a lot of it, to be sure, it’s me. Every song is days or sometimes weeks of obsessive creating, editing, listening, tweaking, and beating up my ear drums. That’s why I say it’s handcrafted.

Vibe-ish Coding

But this web page was definitely vibe coded.

Web development is my profession, but I’m lagging behind the industry again, so this was a good way to dip my toes into AI-assisted coding. That’s why some of the copy is a little, um, typical. But some of it is right on the money.

I used the Cymatic AI service to analyze each one of my songs. It generates something like the following, which is absolutely fascinating because I’m a data nerd, but I didn’t know what to do with all of that info: genre, sub-genre, mood, valence, tempo, bpm, energy level, male/female, and so on.

I took all 36 or so of the music tag/genre analyses and put them into Notebook LM, along with the song lyrics for each song. Then I asked it to find themes and patterns, and then to write a listener’s guide. After that, I thought, how can I share this with people? I set out to organize it by genre, but instead I got something more personal. I got a listener’s guide to my music. My soundscape. My musical vocabulary.

That’s where I used Claude AI to take the listener’s guide and turn it into a web page, fixing bugs, and nudging it along the way. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than what I originally had in mind.

Thank You

If you read this, or if you listen, thank you. Enjoy. I’m making more. Some of it might be a little more normal, but you know me. I’m okay with doing my own thing.

Do your own thing. Don’t chase trends and fleeting attention. Make the music you want to hear. That’s how I went from dozens of streams per month to zero.
-Old Man Young Lii

You can find my music on most music streaming services. Twenty three of them, according to DistroKid.

Old Man Young Lii – A Listener’s Guide

Just sit there, shivering feverishly, some of kind of throat demon mercilessly death-gripping your larynx and lymph nodes, and watch the pounds melt away.

I wanted to talk about motivation. About two months ago, I switched up my gym program, requesting a script-flip for my training program from strength-focuses to conditioning. Gotta put that muscle to real-world use.

And wouldn’t you know it. Guess what my body seems to be responding to. Ridiculously long and intense workout sessions. There’s no way around it.

It’s been … challenging. I mean, I’ve always had trouble knowing when to rest and when to push it. I do know that often it’s the days where I least feel like going to the gym that are the most rejuvenating: headaches clear, joints loosen up, mood improves, appetite is suppressed (as long as I don’t wait too long to refuel), I sleep better that night, etc.

Still, it’s been a good while since I’ve been gung-ho about getting my ass kicked. My motivation and energy levels have been less than optimal. Haven’t been sleeping well. My gut hasn’t been quite right since I was sick. Not sure what to make of that but there’s a silver lining in there somewhere. My lungs still aren’t completely clear.

I’ve been trying to remember the days when I had leaned out some, was training three times a week, doubling up with kettlebell classes, doing mental toughness, biking, hiking, and running. I was sore all the time, which wasn’t fun, but I had momentum and fire. I like numbers and seeing them improve plus the social motivation at the time was on point.

That’s the thing about tough workouts, though. You have to be up for them, otherwise it’s pure suffering. Your batteries — physical, emotional, inspirational — at least one of those has to be charged if you’re going to do more than just survive. If you’re physically ill or depressed or stressed, hard work/challenges will manhandle you. You can dig deep and make it do what it do, but we can only draw on our energy reserves to a certain point.

The other day — you know how it is — I was worn out. I thought it would be a strong day. It was not. My heart rate was shooting up and being very stubborn about coming back down. Not the best.

But during this program — maybe I’ll video a session — it came back to me. I remembered what makes a brutal effort worthwhile. What makes it more than just existential pain that makes you question your life choices. I caught a breath. My heart rate was at 95%, according to MyZone, my legs were burning, billows pumping as much as they could.

I felt the buzz, the tingle. The feeling of a deep breath reaching down into my cells and exchanging fatigue and burn for energy and strength.

Then it came rushing back. That’s what makes it more than just work for me. When I hold it together and hold my own. It was a fleeting moment but every time I feel improvement my motivation comes rushing back in. When my body can say, “I know this hurts but you’re bigger than this.”

SWIMMING 0

I haven’t been swimming lately. I should be. I love being in the water and I need to practice. But you know. Believe it or not, my self motivation is not great.

I’ve got an ever-growing list of things, near and far, that I want to do but the thought of having to do them alone is demoralizing.

Food tours, restaurant weeks, jeep camping in Sedona, snorkeling, kayaking somewhere warm, the Caribbean, road trips, last minute flights to cities I haven’t visited yet, hikes, backpacking trips, camping, climbing, swimming practice, museums, festivals, music festivals, concerts, photography.

I mean, look. You know me. I can lone wolf it with the best of them. Exploring alone is sublime, sometimes meditative, and there’s a spontaneity and synchronicity when you allow yourself to be carried on the wind, so to speak. But it has a cost. You burn bright but the fuel is yourself.

Pragmatically speaking, there’s a tax on being a singleton: single supplements when you travel, no cost-splitting for anything, reservations being canceled because the cost of operation isn’t worth it for one person, being shooed off from tables, being seated in dank sight-obstructed corners, having to be extra vigilant in terms of personal safety.

It’s exhausting when it’s not a choice, is what I’m saying.

LOOK TO THIS DAY, GRADUATE

I don’t deserve this certificate.

I’m much more comfortable and competent in the water but I still have very little swimming stamina and it’s endlessly frustrating. I can swim, though. Hm. I can’t downplay that. I can swim. I couldn’t but now I can. New feature downloaded and installed. Would you like to continue? Y/N

Last week I took a full, hearty breath while my face was in the water. Fifteen months of classes and practices and it still happens every now and then. My long term swimming plan didn’t go the way I hoped and thought it would. If it had, I’d be taking Swimming XII and I’d have gills and webbed digits by now.

I’ve regressed in some ways. Maybe it was the 9am Sunday time slot, but I didn’t look forward to the class like I have in the past. One swimming class a week versus two has its pros and cons.

Like I’ve said before, I do not have a swimmer’s build. A swimmer’s build is long, lean, streamlined, big lungs, big feet and hands (paddles), flexibility in the shoulders, ankles, hips and knees. Think shark, dolphin, whale, diving bird, seal, torpedo, submarine.

My build is more like a city bus. Or a cement mixing truck. Or a Dollar General Store. But in the water.

Everybody’s different and will have unique, if unoriginal, challenges. But on to…

THE AWESOMENESS REPORT

Dig it. I am doing flips in the water (practice for kick turns), diving from the side of the pool, pencil diving from the higher walkway, sometimes my breaststroke kick (i.e. frog kick, whip kick) actually propels me forward (I’ve watched many YouTube videos), I found a good breathing pattern for freestyle today. It could be a game changer. Every once in a while I get two or three strokes or half a pool length that make me think, “Is this a breakthrough?”

I was able to find a super relaxed breaststroke across the pool today, and that was an epiphany. I realized that I’m still fighting the water in the other strokes and I suddenly remembered, “Soft style, not hard style.”

I am NOT ready for Swimming V

The question is, how much time and effort (and money) would it take to be a strong swimmer. I had a goal of being able to pass the PADI (scuba diving) swimming test by Spring. There’s no way that’s going to happen. By Summer or the end of Summer? I don’t see it. Not unless there’s some magical tipping point.

Is there?

This is a sad state of affairs. REI experiences were the backbone of my outdoor life, especially before the pandemic. The places I’ve seen. The people I’ve met. Over the years, I invested good time and money, well spent, to be around like-minded people in the outdoors. It also gave me the opportunity to take my photography into the wilds of the Mid-Atlantic.

This was kind of the start of it all for me. From the lowest of lows in life, to finding the gym, and then these kinds of events were what I did with all of the gym gains. Not just at REI — there was L.L. Bean and lots of meetup.com meetups and anything else I could find. I took it outdoors. I learned to kayak, standup paddleboard, camp, backpack, navigate, tie knots, snowboard, cross country ski. I learned locations and destinations, including breweries and wineries.

Let me see if I can find some of the things I did — some indoors, some outdoors, mostly paid, some free. Oh, here we go. In reverse chronological order (and starting in 2013). These were the halcyon days, the golden years. But first, a few pics.

1. Sunset Kayak Tour – National Harbor
2. Mountain Bike Skills Session – Level 2: Tight Turns.
3. Hike And Hops: Little Devils Stairs And Pen Druid Brewing
4. Mountain Bike Skills Session – Level 2: Wheel Lifts
5. Hike And Hops: Sky Meadows And Dirt Farm Brewing
6. Sunset Kayak Tour Of The Dc Monuments
7. Map & Compass Navigation – Level 2: Next Steps
8. Winter Overnight Backpacking On The Appalachian Trail At Annapolis Rock
9. Introduction To Map & Compass Navigation Class
10. Making The Ultimate Cup Of Camp Coffee
11. Neabsco Creek Boardwalk Clean-Up
12. REI Campout at Pocahontas State Park
13. Campout for All at Patuxent River Park
14. Tunes at Noon
15. REI Campout at Northwest River Park!
16. Sunset Kayak Tour of the DC Monuments
17. Campout for All at Patuxent River Park
18. REI Campout at First Landing State Park
19. REI Family Campout at Pocahontas State Park
20. REI Club Carnival
21. What Knot to do Camping
22. Co-op Member Jam
23. Full Moon Hike and Mixer
24. Meteor Shower Hike to Annapolis Rocks
25. International & Adventure Travel Basics
26. Mountain Bike Skills Session – Level 2: Wheel Lifts
27. REI Culinary Campout
28. Stand Up Paddleboarding: Beyond the Basics (SUP Level 2)
29. World Travel 101 with Hostelling International
30. World Travel 101
31. Planning Your Overnight Bicycle Tour
32. Introduction to Outdoor Rock Climbing Class – Level 1
33. Backpacking in Dolly Sods
34. Cycling the C&O and GAP with Adventure Cycling
35. Chesapeake Coastal Kayaking Class with Lighthouse Paddle Tour
36. Map & Compass Navigation – Level 2: Next Steps
37. Elevated Camping: Hammocking Basics
38. REI Campout: Patuxent River Park
39. What Knot to do Camping
40. Winter Camping Basics
41. Advanced Map & Compass Navigation – Level 2
42. Shenandoah Overnight Backpacking: Fall Foliage Edition
43. Overnight Kayak Tour: Patuxent Water Trail
44. Full Moon Kayak Tour
45. Full Moon Kayak Tour
46. Essential Camping Skills Class
47. Advanced Map & Compass Navigation – Level 2
48. Introduction to Map & Compass Class – Level 1
49. REI Mid-Atlantic Campout: Greenbrier State Park
50. World’s Greatest Summer Dayhike: White Oak Canyon
51. Winter Hiking Series – Catoctin Mountain Park
52. Winter Hiking Series – Harpers Ferry & Maryland Heights
53. Learn to Ski or Snowboard Class
54. Winter Hiking Series – White Oak Canyon
55. Fall Foliage Hiking Series: White Oak Canyon
56. C&O Canal Overnight Cycle Tour
57. Learn to Stand Up Paddleboard (SUP) Class
58. Learn to Kayak Class
59. Kayak Day Tour – Jug Bay
60. Kayak Tour – Ghosts of the Potomac: Mallow’s Bay
61. Learn to Kayak Class with Tour

Mini-Rant

For some reason, this upsets me on a political level. It’s a troubling and growing trend. The pandemic was brutal in so many ways, and the economic repercussions are still playing out.

Just about every business or organization that organized these kinds of outings has shuttered its operations. I feel a little lost. The ways I used to find people to commune with is going extinct.

I used to like visiting cities and going on Segway tours to learn some history and learn my way around. Hard to find. I don’t even know if they do them anymore, especially since Segway went out of business. 

I’ve been looking for in-person classes for UX design and Figma. It’s all virtual now unless you want to travel to a major city in another state (or country).

meetup.com have raised their prices that makes it untenable for regular people — people not making a profit or running a business — to volunteer their time to lead a meetup group. Local meetups have been slowly shutting down, one after the other. And the ones that remain have have to charge money or have dues to continue.

If I’m ever a billionaire somehow, I’ll fund organizations that can bring people to the outdoors and the outdoors to the people. In perpetuity.

This endgame of capitalism is playing out in full effect. Community is not profitable for these companies. At one time, businesses were expected to be part of the community. Now, once they go public their only mandate is maximum-profit-infinite-exponential-growth. And then shutter once they drain all of the resources possible.

It’s infuriating. But it be like that sometimes. So, what to do.

Adapt

Anywho, I haven’t been very outdoorsy lately, to keep it real with you. Trying to work my way back into some basic level of fitness. Granted, these types of paid outings are for people who are willing to pay good money for things they could do for, more or less, free. And that’s the good news.

You don’t have to pay $50+ dollars to go for a hike. Or $90+ to go kayaking or paddle boarding. or $250+ to go backpacking. But if you want/need a guided experience, or want to learn skills, and maybe be transported to the spot, and sometimes get a free lunch — well, that’s the kind of thing you pay for.

I guess that’s a wrap. And a life lesson.

If you want it, you have to make it happen.

Obviously, I’d be voted out of office after my first term for being too centrist.

I.

My fellow Americans.

We live in troubled times. America is at a crossroads. Rarely, have we faced bigger challenges. Our mettle and our ideals are truly being tested. And yet, rarely have we been more polarized and more divided. A crisis that should have united us, we have allowed to divide us.

No one will be satisfied with what I have to say here tonight. I don’t have the ability to solve our problems or heal our wounds with words.

In the past month, the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breanna Taylor, and George Floyd have come to the fore of our attention and national discourse.

I will not tell you to be calm. You’re right to be angry. I’m angry. Still, as your President, I’m expected to walk a fine line of compassion and empathy without appearing to be weak.

I’m expected to comfort and console some of you, be righteously indignant in solidarity with some of you, while somehow not offending our brothers and sisters on the political Right.

I condemn criminal acts of vandalism, rioting, and opportunistic looting, while identifying with the rage of dreams deferred, as Langston Hughes penned.

This isn’t about black versus white. This isn’t about black and brown and poor people versus the police. This isn’t about Millenials vs. Boomers. This is bigger than Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives. This is about all of us versus injustice.

This is all of us versus the violation of the most basic of human rights. This is about all of us versus a system of longitudinal injustice and inequality where this can happen again and again while we resist and pay lip service to reforms.

It doesn’t matter if you’re from the big city or the heart of the Bible Belt. We all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have the right to a fair and speedy trial. We have the right to make it to a fair trial.

Our rights aren’t given to us by politicians. Our rights are inalienable. We aren’t guaranteed those rights because you or I are perfect and without sin or trespass. You don’t have to be a model citizen. There’s no bar to meet for your inalienable rights to be respected.

Cities across this great country of ours are literally and metaphorically on fire. While the protesters protest, others embrace violence, chaos, and even anarchy.

“The governors of these states should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal.”

I can not condone destruction of life or property. I urge you all to channel that anger into constructive effort. Justice for George Floyd seems a long way away and your skepticism and cynicism is well-earned.

However, we can not let the country burn indefinitely. People need access to grocery stores and pharmacies. Destroying these resources makes it harder for everyone, particularly in the midst of a pandemic and for those without the means to travel many more miles for the basics of survival.

II.

To our men and women in blue, our law enforcement professionals. I want you to know that we have your back, as well. We do and will ask much of you. We expect you to run toward danger and death, and to be the first on the scene of all manner of atrocities, and we expect you to be there quickly. We have put you in a position to deal with the most disturbed and the most dangerous situations imaginable.

We hold you to a higher standard while criticizing you and expecting perfection. But we know you’re only human, and your experiences on the job will inevitably take its toll.

We appreciate you. We love you. We need to look out for you; you are our first responders.

You have more leeway than the ordinary citizen, because we expect you to make split-second life and death decisions. That is a heavy burden that most of us can not imagine and will never know.

With that, we also have to hold you to a higher standard because you and your community have to have trust, or at the very least, grudging respect.

We can not tolerate abuse or corruption. We simply can not. We have recently seen behavior that — and I hope we can all agree — is beyond the pale and it is devastating to your function in our society.

We want you safe, healthy, and effective so you can serve your respective communities. We want to give you the help and resources that you need to be alive, safe, and healthy on the job and off the job.

III.

As the President of the United States, I serve you, the people. Your wellbeing and ability to pursue your livelihoods, health, and happiness — the health of our union — is more important than whether I am reelected in November.

While my goal here today is to unite and to heal and — if I could have one prayer answered here tonight, it would be that we see each other with empathy, patience, and the knowledge that we are so closely connected to one another.

The denial of the right to live — the bare minimum of ideals — is “our” problem. Justice for some is no justice at all.

As a public figure, as with all of us in professional roles, we put on a behavioral uniform. In a meeting or conference call, we don’t speak the same to colleagues as we do to our friends over a beer and barbecue. But maybe it’s time I loosened my tie right now.

We’re so divided that we choose sides and issues, not because of any inherent quality, but because it’s the opposite of our political opponents. Our viscerally held political positions, even on minutiae, are often, in essence, viral.

As the President, if I were to say #BlackLivesMatter, and I will, some of you will hear it as a threat to your well-being — a threat, instead of what it is — an invitation. It’s an invitation to make sure that you, your loved ones, and fellow Americans are treated equally under the law.

When you defy your governor’s Stay at Home order, you deserve fair, equitable treatment even if law enforcement is involved. You don’t deserve a boot on your neck, a rough ride to the precinct, or excessive punishment.

If I were to qualify #BlackLivesMatter and say, “Of course, all lives matter,” some of you would take offense, insisting that it’s giving an inch.

I’m tired of rhetorical games. There’s too much at stake.

Many of you hate me for the comfort of having an enemy. Nothing I say will change that. That’s actually freeing for me.

So I say this. Black lives matter! And until black lives matter to you, then saying all lives matter is a cynical slogan and not a truly, closely held belief.

For hundreds of years, black Americans and others who are oppressed and disaffected — including many of our white brothers and sisters — have fought for equality and justice. Not revenge or payback. Not an eye for an eye. Justice, equality, and liberty.

A lot of progress has been made to that end, but it’s the progress itself that many find threatening.

IV.

As a boy and young man in the working class neighborhoods skirting Baltimore City, I have experienced racism. I’ve been threatened. I’ve been followed. I’ve been chased. I’ve been racially bullied and slurred. Some of our European American brothers and sisters were quick to threaten to call the police on sight. I’ve seen how some talk when they think no one is around to hear. I’ve been threatened with death. I’ve seen hatred in the eyes of strangers. I’ve been told that I don’t belong here or there. I had friends who let me know that their parents didn’t want black people in their house.

If I were to share the experiences of my relatives in the generation before me we would be here until Election Day. The stakes for some were literally life and death if they stepped out of line.

So if we’re honest with ourselves, we know that racism, bigotry, and prejudice still abound in our families and social circles and our society, and we know that beliefs don’t only exist in those social circles. Beliefs affect lives.

Individually, we all have some inside of us. It’s human nature to be wary of the “other”.

But as a society, our lesser beliefs have been ingrained in our political and economic systems. Legalized Jim Crow and segregation were the law. Some of those laws are still on the books even though they can’t be legally enforced.

We are collectively growing and learning. Together. It is stressful, painful and uncomfortable at times — and not without setbacks — but I’m heartened to see the support for one another. In these troubling times, it lifts my heart to see that the passion for justice knows no bounds and reaches across all demographics and even borders.

V.

George Floyd deserved better. He should be alive today. Rest assured, those who took his life will have their day in court.

We can also do better at honoring George Floyd. I’m calling for peace. A loud, boisterous, defiant peace, as may be the case.

I’m calling for peaceful protests. Not because we don’t have a right to be angry, and we’re all aware that, unfortunately, it’s conflict that most quickly affects change. But violence will always lead to violence, and even what is considered understandable will spiral into senseless and random tragedy, as it already has in too many instances.

Protest. I will protest with you. Peacefully.

A peaceful protest doesn’t mean meek. A peaceful protest can be loud. A peaceful protest can express all the frustration, pain, and the heartache of being disaffected and denied. A peaceful protest can be in your face. A peaceful protest will inconvenience people. A peaceful protest is righteously defiant and will push back against and break immoral laws and unjust practices.

A peaceful protest can change the world.

I recognize also that a peaceful protest will likely, ultimately, be met with violence and the violence in the face of peace, ironically, is what shocks the world into self-reflection and change.

So be careful, be safe, don’t be easily manipulated, check your sources and facts, don’t fall into traps, or give into mob mentality. Deescalate when you have to so you can go home and come back to fight for all of our rights another day.

Most of all, be patient with each other. Listen, learn, share, and allow room for mistakes and missteps.

We have to move forward and create something out of this tragedy. Justice will not happen today or tomorrow. We must find our equilibrium and channel our energy into rebuilding what was torn down, seeing to those who have been hurt or can no longer make ends meet. Check on the elderly and the less fortunate and those affected by the coronavirus pandemic and the disruptions in their towns.

I love you even if you don’t agree. Even if my words here tonight offend you, I love you like I would an ornery family member who makes family holidays interesting and challenging.

I invite you to come rally with us so that these protests against injustice can turn into the largest celebration of freedom and unity the world, if only for a moment, has ever seen — a celebration of liberty and justice for all.

Footnote

My office has prepared guidelines for state and local agencies to follow. Grants will be made available to organizations working to rebuild their communities, and bridge the divide between law enforcement and the citizens they serve….

Godblessusandgodblessamericawashyourhandswearamaskinvenueswhereyoucan’tphysicallydistancegoodnight.

GEAR DUMP

1. REI backpack (it’s amazing) with detachable daypack and J-zipper so you can get into the bag from the middle (and not just the top and bottom)
2.  3L water bladder
3. Cap
4. Buff
5. 50 ft. Paracord with prusik knots and mini Bic lighter on Spool Tool
6. Toilet paper
7. Stuff (night light, bug repellant wipes and…)
8. Toiletries
9. Electronics (wires, charger) & fire starters
10. Rain cover
11. Platypus water “bottle” x 2
12. Hammock, tarp (in snake skin), straps, gear storage, bug net, ridge line organizer
13. Sleeping bag 15 degree
14. Under quilt
15. Stakes
16. REI Flexlite chair
17. Compression bag (to act as a dry bag)
18. Socks and underwear
19. Folding bowl
20. Gloves
21. JetBoil Mini Mo
22. Trowel
23. Folding saw
24. Compass
25. Energy gels
26. Head bug net
27. Alleve and salt pills
28. Snacks in odorless bag
29. Life Straw (water filter)
30. Camp knife – Buck reaper

35 lbs. including water so about 29 lbs. without. Like hiking carrying a 16kg kettlebell. Notice that I’m missing food and a first aid kit. And no SPOT gps. Also, no camera in the pic. I need to condition myself more if I’m going to do this more than once a year. You definitely feel the weight. It’s work. I wouldn’t mind shaving 10 lbs. off of here, but I like to go plush. Base weight is all of the stuff except for consumables and what you’re wearing.

• Below 20 lbs. is considered lightweight backpacking.
• Below 10 lbs. is ultra lightweight backpacking.
• 30 lbs. is … backpacking.
• 40 – 60 lbs. is packing for two or 20 to 30 years ago.

Trade offs, y’know.

PACKING YOUR FEARS

If you want to go light, you’re not supposed to pack in terms of “what if”. Someone said it’s called “packing your fears”.

What if there aren’t any good trees for hanging a hammock? I’d better bring the longer (heavier) straps. What if other people don’t bring xyz? I’d better take super extra water.

There are lessons to be learned: knowing one’s limits, comfort, goals, skills, and companions (or lack thereof).

I’ve been doing intermittent fasting for about four weeks now. 16/8. In other words, I have an eight hour feeding window, usually from 2pm to 10pm, give or take.

I’m not sure how much progress I’ve made. Sometimes I feel like I’m getting results. Other times, not so much. When I see the family today, I’m sure someone will comment on my weight or physique, or lack thereof. Haha. You know how fam’ly do. I have an end-of-the-cycle weigh-in the next time I’m in the gym so we’ll see. I’ll be disappointed if the scale or body fat numbers haven’t improved. Then I’ll have to pay closer attention to the other numbers: calories, macros, micros, quality of food.

It’s easier on days when I have something specific to do that keeps me busy. Weekends aren’t necessarily the best for that, although a free day isn’t the worst thing in the world and it lets your body know that you aren’t actually in danger of starving to death or in our culture, not in danger of feeling particularly peckish or hangry.

There are things IFers drink and eat but … to tell you the truth, I’m trying to find the easiest way to have a lifestyle that gets me to my goals. Yeh, I’m lazy. Sure, I could go all in and buy all the bone broth, vegetable powders, juicing ingredients, free range hand-brushed tubers, and eat only the flesh of animals who are swaddled, play educational iPad games, and are lullaby-ed to sleep every night until the day they’re gently murdered by holy child monks, and measure everything that goes into and comes out of my body. I could do that. But since that’s not the only thing I want to do with my time… I need sustainable habits.

Eat between this time and this time. Try not to eat crap. Go do your training. Go outside. It’s getting warmer and sunnier; no excuses. Don’t put that in your mouth! Sleep.

See? Lifestyle.

Here’s where it gets confusing, though. You’re supposed to have good fuel before you exercise, right? And you need to eat appropriate nutrients after you exercise, right?

But the tenets of Intermittent Fasting say you should train fasted so your body relies on fat for fuel instead of glucose, is it? And if you really want to become a fat burning machine, don’t eat for a while after your training.

Swimming IV is today’s training and I am f-ing hungry right now, is the point. It’s Sunday, though, and that is technically my free day so I may pig out (UberEats –> Cheesecake Factory brunch) — I mean, eat responsibly, mindfully, and authentically in alignment with my goals as soon as I finish writing this, namaste.

It’s been a while since I’ve been in the water. February’s class was full so after a year of swimming classes I was a landlubber for a month. So I had a month off and never went to the pool for — reasons. I missed the first class of this session last Sunday because, well, I didn’t feel like going. I was just not feelin’ it, y’all.

Not cool, because I do what I say. It takes a while sometimes but I try to stay true. I’m a strong believer in being true to your word. You have no power if your words have little meaning.

I briefly thought, maybe I’ve done enough for a while. Do I really need to get aqua-wrecked again? Do I need more classes? Do I really want to be the slow, drowny one with the lame-ass kick again? And you know what? Yes. Yes, I do. I’ve still got work to do. I need to get out of the damn apartment, get some vitamin D, stop being so sedentary, interact with people, learn to swim well and competently. Get your complacent ass out of bed and go get in that damn pool and swim your ass off, G. Swim! Swim to glory! Swim to see your enemies driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women!

Of course, when I got to the pool today I didn’t know who was teaching or where to go, and since this class is on Sunday morning instead of weeknights, the deeper part of the pool is open, which means we’re in can’t-just-stand-up territory. That’s a good thing, but I was nervous. Like when I needed to tighten my trunks the only way I could re-tie the drawstring was to stand on the bottom of the pool and then I tied it wrong so I had to do it, like, three times but there’s no air down there and all. You know how it is. Same feeling as riding public transportation during rush hour.

I had a plan to make sure that my endurance improved over the last month before class started, but due to some confusion and my not being specific enough, that’s not how my gym program was written. I wonder if it would have helped much.

As always, Swimming IV is exhausting. There are some teenagers this time who are putting the grown folk to shame. I’ve had worse days in the pool, though. And I’ll have better days so it’s all gravy.

We’ve got work to do, people. Let’s go!

November 23, 2017

Kicking uses up all of my oxygen.

Something has me worried. I don’t know if it’s real or science or just in my head.

Class 10 of 10. I had a bad swim class. It was a workout class.

• Warm up with 150 yards of freestyle.
• 25×4 kickboard fast.
• 100 yards freestyle, counting strokes, aiming for one less stroke each length.
• 100 yards of something else.
• 150 yards freestyle cool down.

I didn’t get far. I couldn’t swim a length without stopping 3/4 of the way, at best. And I can’t count while I swim, apparently.

It may have had something to do with the benadryl-like pill I took the night before. That definitely has affects on focus and energy levels. My lungs feel different on antihistamines — slow.

But it’s the legs. Using MyZone in the gym, you can see your heart rate on the monitors. My heart rate hangs out in the greens and blues. As soon as my legs get involved it’s up into the yellows, even with relatively light loads. Any sustained effort, high reps, and I’m quickly in the red.

As soon as I start kicking my heart rate goes up, oxygen being demanded faster than I can breathe? Seriously, ten strokes and I’m wiped. Too tired to breathe rhythmically. Let me tell you from experience, the last thing you want to do is try to take a breath prematurely.

If that’s what’s going on, I have no idea what to do about it. And it’s kind of important. YouTube videos say that kicking provides a minimal contribution to propulsion. For pro swimmers their kicks provide 10 – 12% of their locomotion. For regular folks, it may be more like 3 – 5%. So some swimming techniques only use their kicks for balance. But our instructors encourage us to use relaxed but energetic kicks.

December 6, 2017

Shoulder glitch.

Swimming can be hard on the shoulders. Our instructors have mentioned it but I didn’t feel it until tried to swim fast. There are forces involved.

I’ve got a glitch in my shoulder. Rotator cuff, I’ve been told. I tweaked it on a cave rappelling tour (they didn’t mention that we had to climb back up the muddy, slick rock we rapelled down — tricksy guides) a few years ago and whatever I did to it, it’s not the kind of thing that’s going to heal without medical intervention. It’s not nearly bad enough to need it, though.

I don’t know when/how to breathe during backstroke. That’s partially because I’m constantly splashing water in my face, and when I try to focus on more controlled, better-aligned arms, my kicks get all spastic. I’ve noticed that when I rotate to the side my kick falters. All those kick drills are defenestrated. Getting there, though.

When I can relax, it comes easy. Easier. Soft style not hard style.

December 15, 2017

Perspective is important after a rough time in the water.

I don’t know about this. It’s just not happening. It’s — okay, I need to keep things in perspective.

Positives

• I know how to swim.
• I can float. (I floated on my back for, like, three minutes in class the other day. Had to scull a little bit at the hips but I impressed myself.)
• I could fall in the middle of the deep end of a pool and have a very good chance of surviving and even enjoying myself. (A year ago that would have been a death sentence. That’s not hyperbole. I mean funeral, pall bearers, in the ground at Cedar Hill Cemetery dead. From a few feet of contained, calm, clear water. Ridiculous.)
• I’m worrying about how far I can swim, which means I’m not worrying about if I can swim.
• I love being in the water.

Negatives

• I don’t swim well.
• I’ve taken many classes this year: Swimming I, Swimming II, Swimming III (x4). Excellent instruction, excellent progress, but I can’t make it across the damn pool (25 yards) consistently.
• I can’t swim without maxing out my heart rate.
• I can’t breathe; I’m not replenishing oxygen or maybe I’m not expelling enough C0₂. My backstroke isn’t great and it wears me out, too, even though you can breathe any time you want, in theory.
• Breast stroke is … let’s not talk about that yet.

All those classes adds up to about 60 classes. That’s a lot of classes, but in terms of acquiring life skills it’s “only” 60 hours, to put things into perspective. That’s like one and a half work weeks and, to be honest, I haven’t practiced on my own at all since swimming II. I still do the semi-private land-based training at UA two to three times a week also, but nothing makes you better at swimming except swimming.

I just … I can’t imagine being able to swim 200 yards (8 lengths) or whatever the PADI Open Water Certification requires. Float or tread water for 10 minutes?? I’m still working on treading water for 15 seconds (granted, I haven’t practiced at all but that’s because I’m intimidated by going to the deep end of the pool alone and navigating my way around all the serious swimmers).

It’s like if someone told me that I had to bench press 750 lbs. or acquire/save/earn half a billion dollars in order to [insert life goal here]. I suppose it’s in the realm of possibility but it doesn’t seem realistic. At all.

Okay. Bite size chunks. New goal. One lap of freestyle. 50 yds. Down and back. Backstroke goal. One length. 25 yds.

December 18, 2017

I got approval for Swimming IV.

We did the “test” for swim III. I treaded water for 15 seconds in 14 feet. Did freestyle for a 25 yd. length in 7 feet. Twice. And backstroke in 7 feet for 25 yards (with two rests floating on my back along the way but I’m still counting it). I’ve finally found my breathing rhythm for backstroke, which amounts to “exhale while I’m splashing water in my face and inhale during the non-self-waterboarding phase of the arm strokes.”

In other words, the instructor will recommend that I move on to swimming IV. Progress! It’s all deep end, which is intimidating because of how tired I get. Oh well. So long and thanks for all the fish.

December 20, 2017

Video is brutally honest. Aesthetics are functional.

The New Year will bring a new level of class. I asked the instructor to take some video at the end. I really wish I had done that a long time ago. It’s ugly and kind of embarrassing. I do not look good in the water but — eff it. Beauty is functional. Ugly form equals inefficient and energy-draining technique, or lack thereof. I clearly see what I’m struggling with. Clearly I can’t think of two things at once.

Backstroke. There’s a lot of time between my strokes. That explains a lot. I was thinking about breathing rhythm and the instructor’s advice on a cleaner, less water splashy stroke. Didn’t even realize I was pausing. A smoother, continuous stroke and I wouldn’t have to try to power myself through.

Freestyle. Again, I was thinking about breathing, namely breathing to my left. So something else inevitably had to suffer. Look at how short my left arm stroke is. It’s coming out of the water around my rib cage as opposed to down by my pocket. That happens when I try to go fast. That explains a few things.

Kicking. My kick spazzes out during the rotation, mainly because I’m consciously thinking about breathing. And it’s not a tight kick, but that may partially be just a “my body” thing.

I’m not reaching nearly as much as I think I am. And so on. Blah blah blah.

Why doesn’t every class involve video and review? I know I can definitely improve my stroke efficiency when I think about it. I can usually fix things on the spot when I’m aware of them. At least that’s the way it worked when I used to do martial arts.

Pretty cool, though. If you want to get better at something you need a coach, and every now and then you need to be able to see what your coach sees.

Learning to swim is … involved. It ain’t easy. It’s one of those skills — like learning a language — that’s best to pick up when you’re a childrens. It’s doable, but damn.

Over the Summer I went to White Oak Canyon with friends and their kids. I waded out into the water next to the falls, taking photos. The kids got in and were swimming in the deep part like it was the most natural thing. I wanted so badly to be able to do that. I suppose I could have tried but — naw, son. Wasn’t quite ready to attempt to swim in the wild in a frigid not-a-pool.

November 6, 2017 – Reasons & Excuses

Breast stroke. Nope. I’ve never worked so hard to go nowhere and sometimes backwards in my life. Except for on eHarmony. Haha. It’s kind of funny because it’s kind of true.

I’ve been told and am learning that certain builds are better suited to swimming. Long, lean, pliable, webbed digits, with big, efficient lungs or gills, dorsal fins, swim bladder. For recreational swimming, just being buoyant goes a really long way toward being relaxed in the water even if your form isn’t the greatest.

Guess who does not meet any of those anatomical specifications. This guy.

This is where I have to be careful. Not just in swimming, but in life. There’s a fine line between reasons and excuses. A perfectly legitimate reason turns into a lame excuse when you fail to address it or fail to earnestly seek a solution.

I mean, this is life. We don’t all get dealt the same hand. If we want something we have to do the work. The fact that it comes easily to others is irrelevant. Hell, the fact that some people get something handed to them that I may have to work like a dog for is irrelevant when it comes to my individual efforts. If I have to take Swimming III four times in a row to get it, then I’ll take the same class four times in a row. If I’m going to be the slow one, as humbling and frustrating as that is, then I’ll be the slow one. I’ll read whatever, watch the videos, encounter shameless locker room nudity, risk athlete’s foot, get advice, get help, swallow pool water, find company, or go it alone and become a lonely amphibian. (And if I ever have kids, they’ll know how to swim before they know how to read.)

Brain blast!!!!

So I’m going to try something new. I’m going to try training at UA before my swimming class. So I’ll do an hour of semi-private training at the gym and then make my way to the rec center. I’ll be all warmed up and limber and not struggling to adjust from the transition of sitting at a computer to maximum effort, thereby squandering the first quarter of the class. There’ll be a half hour in between. Might cool down more than I want but that’s better than going in cold.

We’ll see.

November 16, 2017 – Supplemental Learning Materials

If you’re trying to learn and you like to watch videos and find supplemental materials, here’s what I’m realizing.

For basic tips and drills you can watch just about any instructional swim videos. There’s a lot to choose from. I like ones that have slow motion. Recent videos tend to have much better video and audio quality.

Olympians are always a good bet. Can’t go wrong there.

I’m a sucker for Total Immersion and things like it, e.g. Chi Running, although you just get a little of their materials on YouTube because they sell their videos. Plenty of effective drills to choose from.

But, you have to check out the triathletes. A lot of triathletes got into swimming later in their lives. Some pick it up for triathlon-sake. They know the score. Sometimes it’s the details that are critical when you’re learning.

For example, people who are swimming veterans, like instructors, will tell you to try to keep one goggle in the water. Makes sense. If you lift your head up to breathe instead of turning to the side, your balance will be thrown off, your lower half will sink, and you’ll have to waste energy recovering your balance and momentum.

Wait a minute, though. If half of your face is in the water, how do you breathe without taking in water? Out of half your mouth? That seems like an obvious question but I have yet to hear anyone ask or answer that question in a class. The fact is, sometimes you’re going to get water in your mouth. If you’re lucky you can expel while exhaling. If your luck is running chaotic neutral you’ll be drinking that water. If things aren’t going your way during that particular stroke you’re going to choke or get water in your nose and sinuses. Not conducive to being in the zone.

Or that for your catch, you’re not just “grabbing” water with your cupped hand, you’re using your whole arm, at least for the first part.

Lifelong swimmers forget to tell you things like that. Or sometimes they’ll mention a detail just once. They do a lot of things automatically that you do not and will not for a long time. They also try not to overwhelm you with information because they know that beginners are mentally overtaxed trying to consciously coordinate all the necessary positions, movements, tweaks, and watery intrusions.

In a swimming pool you generally don’t have to worry about sighting things in the distance to navigate or making sharp, efficient turns around buoys. You usually don’t have to think about waves and wakes and how that’s going to affect your breathing rhythm.

It’s a much more practical perspective. Of course, I wouldn’t rely on one school or source. Triathletes may not have the best form and are more fit than, say, me, so they can compensate with brute fitness where I can’t. We all have to find what works for us.

Here’s my YouTube swimming playlist. It’s always in flux and I need to prune it but there’s some good info.

PROGRESS

I’m able to streamline on my back. That’s an accomplishment. I still can’t make it all the way across the pool like that, though. Just kicking. Sometimes I’m cruising along on kicks and the next second I’m not going anywhere. I’m not sure why. Pointing the toes and clenching the cheeks a little helps keep things in line, but every now and then I’m kicking on a road to nowhere. Come on along.

I have moments of relaxation. Even during kicking drills. I have to find it but it’s there. Then I remember to remind mysef what one of the instructors told me one day: “Come on. Have fun.”

My freestyle is definitely improving. I made it across the pool, like, three times the other day. I was gasping by the end, which is not supposed to be happening, by my own standards, but it is.

I still get winded very quickly even when I’m in relaxed, takin’ it easy mode. It’s gotta be the breathing. Too much, too little, too frequently, not frequently enough. One of those. Or all of those. I can’t avoid it anymore. I have to nail my left side breathing. Hm. My left side is my drowny side.

Damn. I need to practice. I keep saying that but I don’t make it to the pool, for some reason. But tomorrow is a new day.

November 21, 2017

One down and one to go
Another town and one more show

We were all up in the deep end last night. With waist floats and then one go at swimming freestyle across without. My lats were burning all night from the (assisted) pull ups in the gym the other day.

I can do a length now somewhat consistently but still haven’t found my breathing rhythm. I’ve been trying to breathe less. Take a perfunctory breath and exhale fully. If I take a big, exaggerated breath like “I need all the oxygen just in case”, it’s harder to exhale fully so I end up gasping, CO2 compounding, more than breathing. (Soft style not hard style.)

Backstroke? I can streamline and kick on my back now. I’d like to thank my shoulders for becoming a little more mobile. But my backstroke is rough like the high seas. The idea is to reach, elongate, rotate, and to not forget to kick while I’m thinking about all the rest of it.

Anyway, one more class to go in Swim 3 before Swim 3 starts again next week. I should be ready for Swim 4 in January.

Stay hydrodynamic out there, everyone.

October 23, 2017

I start Swimming III a third time next week. Two nights a week for five weeks.

Swimming IV happens in the deep end and I can’t quite get across the pool consistently so I’m not ready. And backstroke — forget about it. It’s mainly my endurance holding me back. Well, inefficiency means I’m expending a lot more energy than I should be. A LOT. I’m awful. Even when I do reach the other side of the pool, if it were 26 yards instead of 25 I wouldn’t make it. I’m trying to muscle it and continuous pumping of the legs uses so much oxygen and energy. I have to fix that.  Look at this.

That’s what I get for not hiking, cycling or doing any kind of steady state exercise. It shows. Every class is like 55 minutes of HIIT for me.

It’s weird because I can float. A li’l bit. It’s still not effortless. To the contrary, but intellectually I know that if I get into trouble I can float. I haven’t practiced treading water much but I hear that’s a thing, too. In praxis, once I get fatigued and miss a breath or two in the rotation — I haven’t been able to recover. I stand up. But you know. That move has limited applications: shallow end of the pool, bathtub, shower, sauna, calm stream, unfortunate puddle. That’s it.

I’m still waiting for that magical “all of a sudden” moment that people talk about when their body decides it’s a swimming machine. Frankly, I don’t see it. I can’t see myself passing the PADI Open Water Certification swim test any time soon. Maybe not even by next Spring/Summer at this rate. Either way, I need the exercise and the interaction. Something to do during the cold, dark evenings that gets the blood flowing.

I did get sick a few weeks ago and there may be some lingering effects. I’ve been generally fatigued lately and I never know the correct balance between resting, recovering and moving. I just haven’t been able to recharge. Let’s put it that way.

Naught to do but keep moving.

FINALE

The finale of swimming 3 the other night was fittin’ to be a good one. I’ve been trying to warm up beforehand. The elliptical at the rec center doesn’t cut it as a warm up for swimming. It doesn’t hit all those swiming muscles. So now I roll out, do some kettlebell half get-ups, swings, one arm swings, presses, and static lunges to stretch.

Tonight I thought I was more ready than usual. Debateable. I did make it across the pool on the first freestyle warm up length. We did a bunch of drills working on side breathing and other things that the group needed to work on.

Then there were a lot of lifeguard whistles and people telling us to get out of the pool. Now. “What’s going on?”

Someone pooped in the beach area. My favorite quote of the night, by the way:

“How long does it take to clean up?”

“Well, it depends on whether it’s mostly solid or mostly liquid…”

Poop in the pool. Poolp. Poopl. At Oak Marr all of the pool areas are connected. It’s one big body of water with substantial partitions. From the diving area all the way over to the beach area. Apparently, after removing any visible, um, particles they have to flush the pool with chlorine. So I went to the spa and watched the proceedings for a while.

I want to know who did it. That’s just human nature. But pooping in a pool is also just human nature, apparently. What can you do.

Since all the classes ended abruptly there were a lot of naked people in the locker room and a lot of locker room shenanigans. People are weird. Can I say that? It’s okay that people are weird (within a certain tolerance), but still.

Maybe the next session will be the one.

October 26, 2017

LATER…

For all you stout swimmers out there, I finally found some good swimming trunks. As usual, the key word for me is “stretch”. They don’t have inner mesh but I wear athletic briefs under, which is actually more comfortable.

Volcom Men’s Macaw Mod Stretch 20″ Boardshort

Switching gears, I saw my first glimmer of hope for backstroke. Whatever stroke I’m doing, I know I’m doing something right when I rise to the surface and it kind of feels like cruising. I briefly cruised for the first time ever during backstroke. I think my shoulder mobility is improving. Maybe. After I get warmed up. I still didn’t make it across the pool but it’s a good start.

By the way, I’d swear on a stack of kick boards that there’s a current in the pool. In the lane next to the wall that separates 5′ from 7′. Right in the middle. People think it’s ridiculous but it’s true. There’s a Bermuda Triangle or Rectangle you have to push through. A spot where you stall out and have to work harder. The Oak Marr Triangle.

By the way, having a cold bottle of water and electrolytes at the pool’s edge makes a huge difference. I mean, in addition to the copious mouthfuls of gross pool water that I swallow. Nothing like a band-aid or two floating by to remind you that bodies of water are kind of gross.

November 2, 2017

MUCH LATER…

I bought a Total Immersion book over ten years ago. (Unfortunately, the founder, Terry Laughlin, recently passed away.) I review it every now and then. I watched swimming videos before class the other day. Oak Marr flipped the script, though, with a substitute instructor so I didn’t get to practice a lot of freestyle. We mainly worked on breaststroke, which is interesting. My frog kick — not very productive yet.

My goal was to focus on lengthening out, being hydrodynamic, the catch, and kicking less or maybe less frantically. If you watch those Total Immersion style swimmers they barely kick. A far cry from the churning and thrashing I’ve been doing.

At the end I practiced freestyle for a bit and my catch was suddenly much more effective, focusing on pushing water instead of pulling it. I could feel it. Feel the resistance and drive forward. Too much to think about at once, though, and not enough time to experiment. Maybe I’ll go in tomorrow and practice.

I really need a video of myself. I need to see what I’m doing. I’m not sure how to do that yet.

Tim Ferris has an interesting blog entry and YouTube video about his experience dramatically improving his swimming in just a few sessions.

Here’s his blog entry.

I purchased the episode of the Tim Ferris Experiment where Terry Laughlin and Tim Ferris teach a woman to swim in open water. If anyone is struggling to learn I’ll gift the iTunes video to you. A few of you. A very few.

I’m frustrated right now but I’m determined. I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna get it.

Bish

noun

1. Scientific appellation for a female dogfish shark.
2. Portmanteau of the words fish and bitch.

One of those is true.

Ladies and gentlemen. Bishes of all ages. You know and I know that I don’t need anymore expensive hobbies.

A few months ago someone asked if I was interested in scuba diving. I was like, “Bish, you crazy. I ain’t gettin’ in no deep azz water.”

Obviously, that was before my ascension to King of Swimming*. I haven’t been in a pool since the swimming III class ended. Still on the wait list for one, I think. There’s nothing stopping me from driving or even walking across the street, practically, and getting in the pool. Self-motivation isn’t my forte, particularly when I’m operating solo, which is the norm.

The water is on my mind a lot, though. No joke — I have woken from a night’s sleep frog or side kicking more than once.

I’m not saying that I planned things out this way. I signed up on a whim a few weeks ago. Because it was there. A gentle intro to scuba diving? They do that? I’m in, if not a little anxious. But the PADI Scuba Discovery Class by Blue Planet Scuba gets me closer to my goal of swimming in the Caribbean and closer to swimming with, like, seals or dolphins or sea turtles or those cute beach pigs or brain eating amoeba or krakens.

To get an open water certification you have to be able to float/tread for 10 minutes, and you have to be able to swim 200 yards/meters (or 300 yards/meters with fins, snorkel, mask). So that’s a goal now. Last time I was in a pool I could swim 25 yards non-stop. Apparently, I only have one swimming speed or gear — desperate. I just need to improve by 800% or 1200%.

I did read somewhere that swimming fitness improves quickly if you work at it three to four times a week. You huff and puff and struggle and then boom. That’s a lot of pool time, though. A lot of locker room nudity. That’s a lifestyle.

I would say that I have a healthy fear of water. There’s definitely a mental burr of trepidation. Like having a small pebble in your shoe. It’s never as big as it feels but it’s there. In all honesty, I can’t say that I’m not afraid of these things.

Fear is the mindkiller.

But you know. It’s calculated risk. We walk across the street all the time. We cross a stampede of metallic, giant buffaloes with inattentive, impatient and emotionally unstable pilots all the time, but in general we pick the optimal conditions (location, timing, regulations, control points) that are most likely to result in success and least likely to result in injury or death. Same deal.

Scuba Discovery

The dive pool was 3’6″ at one end and about 5’0″(?) at the other end. That was awkward during the snorkel or skin diving part of the scuba class. I kept getting water in the snorkel and when my timing sucked I ran out of air to clear the snorkel. I would grab the lane line, forgetting that I could float or side breathe or whatever. I think I want a dry snorkel when the time comes. Trying to breathe through water is not the best feeling.

Sentence of the day: Resume breathing with caution.

The highlight of the class for me was the dive well. After going over the fundamentals and a few adjustments we swam across the pool. It was surreal and magical, gliding along in the blueness. Holy crap, I’m breathing underwater. I’m underwater. Breathing.

As we crossed the pool, we came to this thing that I thought was a big underwater window. Like the windows at the zoo that let you watch polar bears swim. That was just a trick of the light, though. It was the dive well, a much deeper adjoining room of the pool. All of a sudden there was an edge as the floor suddenly dropped away another fifteen feet. Whoa. Whaaaaat. It was intimidating and inviting. Intimiviting. John, our instructor, had toys to play with and toss to each other. I can’t throw worth a damn underwater, apparently. The motivating factor for me to reach the bottom was the toy shark, semi-articulated and about the size of a loaf of bread. When you threw it, it glided like, you know, a shark.

The trickiest part was maneuvering, including getting snagged on the lane lines. The tank, vest and weights weigh on the order of 30 lbs. so you have to account for momentum. Whatever direction the tank is moving in, it wants to keep moving. Stopping, turning, leveling out. All a bit tricky due to inertia. You’re a projectile. A projectile whose foot can cramp after being in fins for a while.

I was never exactly where I wanted to be, or at the depth I wanted to be … clear your ears … or oriented exactly how I meant to be, but I got around. I got that shark, anyway. (Unfortunately, John didn’t want me putzing around with my camera or GoPro in the deep end so I don’t have any shots of it.)

Opening Doors

I have this list — an actual written list — of things to do. It’s categorized and everything: hiking, cycling, camping, paddling, swimming, experiences, entertainment, music, dining, classes, locations, parks. Fantastic Experiences and Where to Find Them. None of it is out of reach or exorbitant. It’s a very down to earth affair. It’s kind of my “cool/fun things that I don’t want to do alone” list. And some of it is “places I want to go with someone special”. Some of the stuff would require circumstances that will never happen. That’s life. Ironically, the more I do, the longer the list gets.

Go camping and there’s so many places to choose from that will reset your calm, each with its own personality and flavor. Get a taste of backpacking and it opens up a world of outdoors to explore and soak your roots in. Paddling. Kayak camping lets you get to nearly pristine places that you can’t get to by land. Scuba diving. My god. Some of the most beautiful places on this planet unfurl when water is a recreational option. Since Sunday, people have been telling me about locations in the DMV that I didn’t know existed, not to mention all of the tropical locales.

The list has a whole new category now and has grown a lot over the past few days.

So of course, now I want to get my own mask, snorkel, and fins. And of course, the equipment is different for scuba diving vs. snorkeling. Or maybe it’s just the fins that are different? Luckily, there are plenty of reputable venues to take advantage of when I’m able.

The Scuba Discovery Class is an introduction to what it’s like to be in the water. The Open Water Certification class (and the in between class) involve a lot more of, “Here’s what you do when something goes wrong”. What if you run out of air? What if water gets in your mask? What if the regulator comes out of your mouth mid-dive? What if your BCD detaches somehow? I mean, imagine all the little things that could malfunction — or big things — while you’re 100 ft. below the surface of the water. (Personally, I’d be content to stay where it’s warmer and full of light.) What do you do, hot shot?

Next stop: Mariana Trench.