If Apple invented it, it would be called iRony

This morning one of our tech guys was in my office. We were discussing the social networking phenomenon and the sometimes tricky divisions between the personal and professional with regards to online persona. The we talked about how resourceful people - and search engines - have become these days, and how all sorts of seemingly personal data can be pulled out of the ether and into the real world.

A few minutes later, I got a call from my bank telling me there had been some suspicious activity on my online account. It seems someone had cracked my account and was browsing through my transaction history. Luckily they seem to have caught it before any serious damage was done. My account has been frozen and a new one opened, and my extremely humble balance is still intact. But the sense of violation remains, and doubts about what else they may have accessed will linger for a while.

As much as I love the online world, every once in a while something like this happens that makes me want to go back to the stone age, back when we used phones with cords, when we actually went to the bank, and when wireless meant radio.

Then again, I'm blogging these thoughts, so...

Sick

The only thing that's more of a bummer than being sick over the weekend, is being sick over a three-day weekend. That, and being sick over a three day weekend...while trying to make big decisions...while being broke.

OK, maybe the sick thing isn't that big a deal.

Would Narcissus Blog?

I can't decide which is more narcissistic:
Writing here when I think someone will read it,
or writing when I know no one will.

Black Tuesday

Today, the first wave of layoffs hit. My humble little department, with six employees, lost two already. One more will probably be reassigned to another area, and two more of us are still vulnerable. So our department, whose purpose is so fundamental that it's listed in the college's mission statement and all of its promotional materials, will be, at best, reduced to levels of service we were at five years ago when enrollment was half its current level. And the cuts are happening as badly or worse in other areas.

It's a strange thing working in education. Everyone agrees that supporting education is a critical need that is in the best interests of the economy and the society. Yet it is an intensely politicized field, with external oversight and influence that is often characterized by the best of intentions and the worst of execution. And unlike most private industries, the factors that fuel a huge spike in demand for our services are exactly the things that prevent us from being able to provide those very services. It's as bass-ackwards as it gets, and is the perfect storm for a societal disaster that will lock tens or even hundreds of thousands of people into an under-educated underclass.

If you swallow the red pill, go through the looking glass, and jump down the rabbit hole, you'll probably end up in Sacramento.

Finally: Surf

For the first time since moving back to the beach, I managed to get up early and squeeze in a surf session before starting work at 8:00 a.m. It was nothing remarkable; in fact, it bordered on getting skunked. Swell is solid, but it was pretty chunky and there was a ton of current. My hope of getting 4-5 waves was reduced to a pair of closeouts, but it still felt great to get up and get out there, and to start the day right. But after a pretty grueling bike ride yesterday, I am pretty fatigued.

I've always believed that energy breeds energy, but we'll see.
It's only 9:30, and I'm yawning at my desk...

The Tao of Dean Martin?

I used to try to live by a motto that went something like: "When faced when an important decision, imagine the two people you most respect in the world are in the room with you, and act accordingly." Now, I've certainly made some choices in my life - some rash, and some considered - that violated that ethic. But I've also made some choices and grown in some great ways when I ignored that idea as well. So which is the better guide: One's inner voice, or a set of ideals based on the behavior of those you admire?

Deepak Chopra,* in his book "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success," advocates the following:

"Remain in the state of self-referral. This means remain established in the awareness of your true Self - your spirit, your connection to the field of pure potentiality. It also means not to look at yourself through the eyes of the world, or allow yourself to be influenced by the opinions and criticisms of others."

Taken literally, that is a bold approach to life. Is he suggesting that we should ignore the counsel of those who we admire? Should we hold to our own individual sense of wisdom or morality, even if it alienates those closest to us or isolates us from the community? Or is Chopra suggesting this on a micro, rather than macro scale? Should I refer only to my inner self when making mundane choices like selecting a new dry cleaner or choosing to wear flip-flops to a funeral, but heed the wisdom of the surrounding culture in larger issues, even if it impinges upon my sense of pure potentiality? I would hope that he is not advocating such hypocisy, yet in a dozen ways per day, we each make private choices that we might not if they were to be examined under the glare of public review.

Which brings me back to my original guidelines of making choices as if those you admired were critiquing your actions. Could that possibly be a valid approach? Assuming those two people whom I admire most aren't in the room when I make a decision, then I could only suppose what they might think or do if they were in my shoes. And those suppositions would be based on their relatively public persona: Since we usually don't usually have insight into the dozens of private choices that others make each day, can we really know with absolute certainty which way their moral compasses point?

And that leads the question of consequences. Chopra goes on the suggest that after embracing self-referral, we should "relinquish attachment to the outcome" and appreciate "the wisdom of uncertainty." He also suggests that we "let the universe handle the details." I don't think he means that we shouldn't care about the consequences of our actions, nor could he possibly mean that when faced with a choice, we should imagine everyone in the universe is in the room with us. I think that he's just trying to say to make your choices, stick by them, and let the chips fall where they may. If that sounds more like the wisdom of the Rat Pack than of Eastern philosophy, then so be it. If so, then it just goes to show how underrated Dean Martin really was.

* I've read exactly 78 pages of Chopra to date, and I still can't decide if there's any respectably original thought in his book, or if it's just fortune cookie wisdom. I'm leaning toward the latter.

Bittersweet

When you work in education, graduation day is always happy but with a slight tinge of sadness. It's great to see students cap their career on our campus and to move on to new stages of life and new goals. It's great to see them relish in their achievements, sharing the relief and joy of the moment with friends and family. But it's also a bit sad to know that after a few years of developing relationships and watching them grow, most will leave and never be heard from again.

This year included an additional challenge as an air of great uncertainty hangs over our campus, and over many throughout the state. The down economy combined with California's byzantine and moronic governance and budget process has created fear and doubt throughout the world of education. Massive cuts in funding look to knock hundreds of thousands of students out of college in the coming year, while others will need more time to graduate while paying much higher fees (and thus graduating with more debt). And today as I wished our graduates well, I struggled to avoid saying that I might not be back in the fall either. Layoffs are on the horizon - perhaps tens of thousands statewide - and there are few of us who feel truly secure. On top of it all, many of us have worked very hard throughout several years of rapid growth, building new programs and creating new opportunities for students, only to see our work and our dreams crushed as the funding dries up, not only for new initiatives but even for maintaining the core resources needed to serve only half as many students as we actually have.

It is a deeply demoralizing time, yet a sense of family endures. I love where I work and the people I work with, and I know that those who make it through these cuts will come out stronger, smarter, and closer.

I just hope I'm there to see that day.

Is Blackstar Really Cursed?

The rumors are that Blackstar Canyon, a very popular mountain biking route here in Southern California, is cursed. As the story goes, there was a massacre involving Native Americans who once inhabited the area referred to as Hidden Valley, about halfway up Blackstar Canyon Road, and that ever since there have been spirits at work in the area. There are also accounts with varying degrees of believability which claim everything from crazed locals setting booby traps for unwary hikers & bikers, to UFO sightings. I'm guessing Elvis also uses the canyon for a little target practice with his pearl-handled revolvers now and then.

For me the curse is different: Fear. Not fear of alien abduction and anal probe (though I don't look forward to that either, thank you very much), but fear of solitary riding in the wilderness. I have no problem doing rides of 10-30 miles in the various county and state parks around Southern California, but I'm a big believer in the buddy system when it comes to more remote locations, and Blackstar just plain spooks me. Every time I ride there my heart rate is a little higher than normal, not because of climbing a couple thousand feet, but because I imagine there's a mountain lion or a gun-totin', banjo-pickin', pig-squealin' hillbilly terrorist waiting around every corner.

In reality, Blackstar is a wide road, an easy though extended climb, and an easy and fast descent. In reality, I should have more fear of a collision with another rider than of a collision with a jug-totin' redneck. In reality, the place is so heavily traveled at peak times that the buddy system goes right out the window. In reality, I'm just being a big pussy about it and I should go ride the place anytime I want.

Today was supposed to be the day. Solo. By myself. Alone with my bike, my thoughts, miles of winding dirt road, and 2,000+ feet to climb. Nobody but me and the 30 or so others who'd be likely to ride it on a Wednesday evening in June. I was over it: Fear aside, I was gonna ride.

So I walked out of work, geared up and ready, only to find raindrops on my windshield, dark clouds surrounding the area, the ridge above Blackstar lost in clouds, and the static of nearby lightning popping on the radio as I start to drive out of the lot.

The curse strikes again.

I've learned from experience not to take riding in the Santa Ana mountains lightly. Even though they are a stone's throw from suburbia, and top out at less than 6,000 feet - with the top of the Blackstar route being much lower - the conditions can change dramatically from bottom to top and back. Hypothermia and heat stroke can be very real concerns, and sometimes it seems like you could get both in one ride! And if there's electricity in the air while you're riding there, you could easily find yourself straddling a rolling lightning rod with little cover in sight.

So I turned around, tail between my legs, telling myself that I would fight my fear another day. Off to humble little Peters Canyon, the stomping grounds of every iPod wearing jogger in SoCal, along with hordes of middle-aged Asian ladies wearing wide hats and even wider sunglasses, and seemingly hundreds of people walking dogs using 20' retractable leashes (who's walking whom?). Peters Canyon, which I've ridden between 50 and a hundred times now. Peters Canyon, where solitude means 15 minutes without having to run slalom between the local cross-country team. Peters Canyon, which is to serious mountain bikers as junk mail is to literary critics.

And you know, I had a great ride.
Curse it all.

Pain, uncertainty, loneliness, and confrontations with myself and others.
Those are the definitions of my life.

This is pain I can believe in. I have to, because at the moment I don't have much else to which I can cling. This is what is real, what I know, and what I can learn from. From this, the future begins.

To all who I have disappointed, I am sorry.