I almost always get to work in a good mood. I commute even. 20 minutes minimum, 2 freeways, and one stop before I walk through the door of the Reno Collective and plop down after some snide remark, dirty joke, jovial geek greeting. How do I manage that? Drugs.

Used to be endorphins. I used to commute by bike. Sometimes riding along the Truckee River Bike Path, sometimes spinning a 35 minute commute that took me through a nice urban park with nearly a mile of dirt trail. Even with the frustration of motorists getting too close, cutting you off, yelling out the window, a bike commute is inherently less stressful than a car commute because of the endorphins expressed during exercise. At least it is for me.

That was three years ago. My life is different now. I still ride a lot, but my commute involves a car, sometimes a dog, my son and a stop at daycare.

It can be stressful and frustrating being self employed. Deadlines are a bit more important when you’re the only one responsible. Days that stack up with more work than you think is possible are as overwhelming as days with nothing on your calendar and nothing to bill. Forgetting my computer cable can cost me an hour of my own time. But when I drop Bowie off at Daycare and spend just a few minutes playing with him and the other kids, my mood instantly improves.

The Drug

Paul Zak’s Ted Talk, Trust, Morality and Oxytocin, starts of talking about morality, then trust, then gets into love and hapiness. He uses the body’s production of the chemical oxytocin as a proxy for measuring our ability to trust, bond with other people and treat each other better (be moral). He’s another guy who has spent a lot of time and energy and money learning something my mom knew a long time ago.

Zak conducted experiments that measured subjects oxytocin levels as they performed trust experiments and found that people with higher oxytocin were more likely to be more trusting, altruistic and moral. He also figured out how to trigger production of oxytocin in the body.

In the talk he tells about two experiments that illuminated the role of oxytocin in everyday life. First he tested the participants in a wedding. The oxytocin levels of the weeding party were pegged to their role in the ceremony with the bride at the center with the highest levels. Second, he predicted that a male subject tested while interacting on facebook attained an extremely high oxytocin level by chatting with his girlfriend.

He concludes the talk by telling the audience that manipulating your oxytocin level, and in turn your trust, altruism and morality is easy. Close physical contact, even when we know the expected outcome, can trigger oxytocin, make us feel good, and improve our mood.

Everyone gets a bounce

At the end of his talk Zak prescribes 8 hugs a day to increase your oxytocin.

We have found that people who release more oxytocin are happier. And they’re happier because they have better relationships of all types. 8 hugs a day: You’ll be happier and the world will be a better place. [Watch the TED video]

When I walk in the door at daycare things get a little loud. I’m that guy. There are three little girls, from 1 to 3 and three little boys, a 10 month old and my son and his cousin, 22 months. And they all get a bounce. The bounce is easy and I’ve trained them now, they hold my hands and get three swinging bounces, as high as I can without hitting the ceiling fan or another kid. The little kids get a hug-bounce so I don’t gank their arms.

That’s it. One catch: before they get a bounce, I get a hug. Strictly quid pro quo. Some adrenalin for them, some oxytocin for me and a much hapier Wolfy for the rest of the world.

-M

I can’t engage with reality anymore

Not sure why. And by reality I don’t mean actual reality. The Real world. The one that fills your nostrils with fridged air. The one that cuts your skin and makes the blood flow out. The kind where light fills the sky and your heart quickens as you make an exposure, write something down or just form a memory.That is just fine. I mean the kind on TV.

I just finished reading City of Thieves by David Benioff and thought it was a really great book. It’s about a real life story that took place in Russia during the Siege of Leningrad. (New York Times Book Review of City of Thieves.)

From 1941 to 1943 the Germans Isolated Leningrad bombarding it, killing more than one million Russian army soldiers and one million civilians. It was brutal. There were shortages of materials and supplies. Citizens of Leningrad had to survive not only privation, but extreme weather and temperatures which got as low as -30 degrees. There was cannibalism, teenage snipers and apartment bombings in the middle of the night. This shit really happened.

The story is not about all that. The main Characer, Lev, is caught 1) looting a fallen Germain soldier of his knife and 2) doing that looting after curfew. That’s two offences for which his own army would kill him. He is taken to the The Crosses, a notorious prison, where he assumes he’ll be shot and heaped in a pile of deserters and looters. In the cell that night he meets Kolya, a soldier arrested for desertion.

In the morning they are taken to see the Colonel. Who offers them a reprieve on one condition, that they supply him with 1 dozen eggs before the wedding of his daughter the next week. This presents problems, as there are no eggs in Leningrad, as far as they know as all the egg laying chickens have long since been eaten for their meat.

But what can they do? They head out with a small wad of cash in search of the eggs. I don’t want to spoil the story so I won’t say any more about what happens. I will say that it is a very well written book, is short 258 pages, and is broken up into small chapters and sub chapters that you can easily blow through in a few minutes making it easy to read this book in the short time between when you get into bed and fall asleep.

The characters are well developed, full of surprises, realistic, and magnetic. You become attached to them and to their mission and their survival becomes important to you. The main character, Lev, is timid, quiet, inexperienced and young. Kolya is a bold carousing, literary know-it-all who is very unlikeable at first, but you come to understand him and like him a lot. Like isn’t right. You come to understand his value on multiple levels. Which is something that is important in literature and reality as well. Being able to get past the things that are off-putting or distracting to a person’s true value can have it’s rewards.

Reality again. What was my point? Reality is the every day. It’s going to work, dealing with douchey people on the street, interpersonal bullshit, competition. There’s is nothing remarkable about it no matter the camera angle. When you cross a boundary into a story, it’s not reality anymore. When you have to say, “True Story,” it gets even farther from reality, because the story is being told for a different reason, a different truth. When that true story is slightly implausible, When you have to assure your reader, “these events really happened” it becomes an adventure. And that’s something worth reading.

-M

You take your kids to daycare and go to the office. You make phone calls, go to meetings, write on white boards with colored markers. Then, at the end of the day, (at the end of the work day) you pick up your kid and head home. This is the way of the world for most of us, and it isn’t bad, but it just feels wrong to spend the lion’s share of the time you and your family are here together on this planet apart, doing separate things in separate places for separate reasons.

Blogs and Blogging

Some of you may have noticed me “liking,” tweeting and generally buzzing about posts on a new blog called The Gizzard Stone. This is my new blog venture that actually represents a step back for me.

Years ago, I started a blog called The Bacon Strip as a place for a group of my dirty hippie mountain biker friends to get together and share funny things, stories, news and stoke about skiing, mountain biking and life in general. Shortly thereafter I started this blog as a personal journal/creative space for myself.

Both blogs have changed and evolved, but more or less remain true to their original purpose and format. The thing that has changed is me and the amount of time and effort I put into maintaining them. I had thought that becoming self employed would reinvigorate my dedication to writing and blogging, and it has, to a limited degree. I still enjoy writing and sharing the interesting things I come across on the web, but my interests have shifted and I find myself with someone else’s interests to consider, namely, The Dude.

The Gizzard Stone

So I’d like to introduce you to my new blog, The Gizzard Stone: a directory of cool stuff to show your kid. This was born of one of our favirite things to do together at home which is look at animals on the iPad, then search for videos of animals on YouTube. It’s fun, simple, engaging and gives us things to talk about, questions to ask and answer and things to explore. Why “The Gizzard Stone?”

Since his first weeks though, Bowie has been a good partner for going out and exploring the real world. A role he has filled with more and more enthusiasm and skill with each passing week.

Many times I see families doing things together, but separate. Going to kid birthday parties, sidelined at a sports practice, etc. But my mom and dad were largely participant parents. They were far more likely to create experiences for me and my sisters that were engaging for themselves as well. Either directly, in the moment, or deferred gratification, creating skills and love for things like camping, skiing, the outdoors, that would pay dividends well above the investment.

The Gizzard Stone started out as just “cool stuff on the web,” but it’s going to expand in scope to just “cool stuff to show your kid.” Could be on the web, could be on the iPad, could be in real life. So I’ll be posting reviews of books, apps, places and things. All with the connection of things that both you and your kid will enjoy together.

I showed Bowie MonkeyMoon last night. He sat, completely attentive in my lap watching the short video. I said, “look! a monkey!” he said, “monkey.” I said, “Look! Rockets!” He said, “rocket.” I said, “look! the Moon!” He said, “Moon!” (he loves the moon…) Then when it was all over I said, “woah, dude. What just happened here? He said, “Cow” and started tapping the picture of the cow on the iPad screen.

I include more than just a neat photo or video on The Gizzard Stone. More than just a comment about it’s origin. The content is just a starting point. The spark that makes you curious about something, the map to get you started exploring, and a question, or two, to get you asking more.

Please take a look, show your kid. If you don’t have a kid, borrow one, and let me know what you think. If you would like to be a contributor, please contact me.

-M

Yesterday Rob and I ICEd McDowell. Fairly and legitimately and it gave me almost unlimited chuckles for at least 8 hours.

Even changing disgusting diapers @ 12, 2, 4 and 6 last night i was still chuckling. McD and his little buddy Kevin attempted to ice me this morning. They failed. Their failure was one of both imagination, though i have to give them credit for the “baby gift” plot, but also one of simple addition. They failed to properly calculate the number of ICEs in a six pack and didn’t realize that I had one with me for just such an emergency.

Here’s how it went down…

I have to admit, you totally had me. It was Rob who gave it all away. Kept asking me if i was in the office and asking me for the picture and all that. Rob is the real douche here and we are all the victims. But also, I’m a victim. And Kevin will be next…

Couple of questions about this though:

1) Can you use the block if the ICEr is not present?
2) If you block do you BOTH have to drink?
3) Wasn’t this ICE technically for a 5 week old infant? Bad form guys!!!
4) What the hell does all this mean?

-M

Well, it’s down to the wire. The Seamonkey is going to emerge any day now. We’re only ONE WEEK FROM DUE!!!

Sara took some awesome photos of Danielle in front of the Nevada Museum of Art last weekend and has posted them on her blog. Be sure to click over and post a comment about how awesome the photos are and how beautiful Danielle looks!

photo by Sara Newkirk

Here’s a very short essay I wrote in hopes of winning a Bike from Public Bikes.

My Passenger

The wind blows in our hair as we round the corner. I check my passenger. A helmet sways as potholes rock the bike, neighbor dog barks, leaves blow down the street. A car slowly passes, it’s driver smiling at us.

Pedal crank. Climb the hill. Ring the bell. Hang a left towards the park and head down. letting it go. letting it coast. Speed builds, and the fall air is so cool and new that it’s the first day of school, the first sunset, the first red leaves, the first fall evening ever.

My passenger’s first time wearing a helmet. First time rolling on two wheels. First time seeing the city from a bike. Feet kick, arms waive, I hear a laugh, I feel a tug at my shirt tail. I turn and see a smile, hair blowing in the wind. I see a face that is familiar, yet still unknowable, still uncertain. Though everything else about this future memory is as sharp and clean and familiar as the diamond lines of our bicycle and the sound of catalpa seed pods crunching under the tires and exploding in a puff, my passenger has yet to show his face.

Her face?

March, 2010

That’s all for now.

-M

It’s getting that time of year. The ten day forecast shows sun and 60′s for the next week. With that change in the climate, we can expect an increase in Cougarhunter predation in downtown Reno. First one to spot Chestie McCougarhunter and verify the sighting with photo or video wins. What do you win? You just got a photo of  Chestie McCougarhunter. What the hell else could you want?

• Who is Chestie?
• Where did Chestie come from?
• Where am I likely to see Chestie?

Photos of Chestie McCougarhunter

-M

So often things get lost in translation. Other times you find things that you never knew were there. Here’s an example of both sent by my uncle in Texas, complete with the original comic sans type:

When you are in a book store and cannot find the book that you want, you are obviously in the…

Not Much…

I remember thinking hashtags were a bit useless on twitter when I first started seeing them. So I, along with most of my Twitter A list, started making fun of them. Some, like @edadkins, have been known to hashtag every word in the tweet! There are resources to track hasntags on Twitter, Hasntags.org and elsewhere, and plenty of articles explaining it.

Anecdotal experiment

So did an experiment yesterday. When Jay-Z and TPain were the top two trending topics on Twitter I sent the message below.

Then I sat back and waited for this awesome photo of my grandmother I took on a visit to Virginia City last weekend to get thousands and thousands of views.

What I got was about the same number of views I get when I post a funny and slightly ambiguous one liner and a link to a photo.

Anecdotal conclusions

Honing in on hashtags is pointless. No one will click on a spurious link in a bogus tweet using an inappropriate hashtag. Perhaps if you actually write a out-and-out lie like “Tpain and Jay-Z photographed having sex in an alley,” You might get something.

No one reads hashtags. If they did, i would suspect a significant number of them would investigate every possible lead, but clearly (anecdotaly) they are not.

No significant amount of people read the trending topics page on Twitter. Same reasons as in conclusion 2.

Anecdotal summary

In closing: Hashtags, while occasionally funny, are useless for marketing; Trending topics are uninteresting except for giving us something to talk about when we give social media presentations; and this photo of my grand mother kicks ass.

-M

Nordeen is telling us what we’ll see in the desert which he draws on a napkin at a Tinnerhal café: the dunes, the Berber nomads, the Black Desert, the Algerian border which looks like a demilitarized zone, a defensible space, a silent dry and desolate line of danger and intrigue.

We’re waiting for the car. There are 6 of us. Danielle and me, after 7 hours of a 9 hours bus ride that included 2 mountain passes, and several vomiting Moroccans. There is also Thiago and Nelma, the Brazillians who i had already begun referring to in my mind as those who “got us into this mess.” Nordeen and Mustafa, the other two at the table, approached them first about taking a short cut to Merzuga, the place we were eventually heading to make a camel (dromedary) trek into the Sahara dunes of Erg Chebi.

While we wait at the café for Nordeen’s Sweedish girlfriend we are discussing our desert trip on camels we later find out are really dromedary. One day or two? One night or two? The first price he quotes us is high. Too high. And the shiftiness and impatience of him and Mustafa, who is wearing a blue Tuareg wrapped around his head with a tail dangling down his chest puts us off and makes us doubt what they are telling us about the Kasbah, and camels and guides. Nordeen is in modern hipster clothing with necklaces, styled hair and an Adidas shirt. He’d look like a normal kid in any big city except for the yellow leather Moroccan slippers that he and 9 out of ten other men in the country are wearing. They have pointy toes and a hard leather sole and do not match the rest of his outfit.

I remember when Thiago and Nelma got on the bus in Ouarzazatte, which is pronounced wharzaazaat like a strange beast from a Dr. Seuss book. They looked a little flustered and big eyed like I imagined we looked when we got on in Marrakesh. We exchanged brief looks of the fraternity of strangers in a strange land and they took the only empty seats further back in the buss.

Excuse me, they keep saying, excuse me. “We are good people,” they say. “The bus driver; he credit us; he said to you.”

It’s true, at his insistence I asked the bus driver if Nordeen and his friend could be trusted. The bus driver spoke no English or French, though his rotund face, attentiveness and his tight government sanctioned uniform gave him an air of authority, and benevolent uncle-nss that made me want to trust him despite the obscurity of that recommendation. There was no way to translate except for the universal thumbs up, which I asked for with an inquisitive look holding up my thumb. If Nordeen was a movie, he’d have passed the test.

That’s when we got off the bus and sorted through the luggage hold for our bags and pulled them out onto the dusty ground in an alley behind a café. In Morocco any place that sells beverages and has at least one plastic chair is a café, this was more of a quickiemart, but it did have tables.

Nordeen and Mustafa look happy, like they have won, as we unzip the straps for our convertible travel bags and heft them onto our backs. They lead the four of us Nelma and Thiago (who turn out to be very good people) Danielle and me to the corner café as the bus honks once, blows the airbrakes and roars away into the sand.

-M

photo by: minifig

I’m making the executive Decision.

When: Thursday July 30th  6:30 to 9:30 PM

Where: Imperial Bar & Lounge

What: Blogger Meetup and Dinner

Why: To talk about Soccer and Blogging

How:  Facebook Event

These events are usually fun.  So please come! -M