Success

You will succeed because most people are lazy.

~ unknown

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24 hour challenge prep

Mike and I were planning a 24 hour climbing challenge; Basically, an attempt to keep moving (hiking from one climb to the next) and climbing for 24 hours straight.

These photos are from way back in July 2014 when I was rock climbing in Colorado with Mike Bowyer. I’m only just now getting back to going through the rest of my photographs.

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Aspen Glenn campground — where we were camping — is tucked into the trees at the base of this mountain.

Our plan was to get up before dawn (4:30 to be exact), hike the 1,500 vertical feet through the forrest (starting at about 7,000 feet above sea level mind you.) There’s no trail to the base of the climb; The plan is to just go straight from our campsite to the climb, and arrive at the base of the climb at dawn — a test of our planning and navigation in the dark. Climb the nose — that prominent line between the sunny and shady faces of the big beautiful hunk of rock. Then hike down (there’s a trail from the top that curves around the right shoulder) and back through our campsite for water and food.

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At the campsite, we’d pick up a pre-stuffed extra gear bag and hike across the valley floor. On the north side of the valley is MacGregor slab; It’s just this big ‘ol gently sloped blob of granite with about 12 different climbable lines. We planned to stash our gear bag at the base of the slab, and then start doing laps of: climb-up, and walk-off around the shoulder, all day and night. Again, there are no trails that lead to the climbing on MacGregor. It’s just a bush-wack “that way”. If everything went perfect, we hoped to get the last climb to end on the top of the slab at the next sunrise.

 

As the sun set on our day of planning, I set up my camera to take a long, time-lapse of the first thing we planned to climb the next day. This isn’t a “fade to black” at the end, it’s a “sun went down, it got pitch dark” end. (6 seconds of video.)

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Fast way to better health

This entry is part 8 of 25 in the series M. Eades' Blog

When researchers restrict the caloric intake of a group of lab animals to about 30 to 40 percent of that of their ad libitum (all they want to eat) fed counterparts, they find that the calorically restricted animals live 30 percent or so longer, don’t develop cancers, diabetes, heart disease, or obesity. These calorically restricted (CR) animals have low blood sugar levels, low insulin levels, good insulin sensitivity, low blood pressure and are, in general, much healthier than the ad lib fed animals.

~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/intermittent-fasting/fast-way-to-better-health/»

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Science, religion, wonder, awe… and Carl Sagan

It is a great tragedy that science, this wonderful process for finding out what is true, has ceded the spiritual uplift of its central revelations: the vastness of the universe, the immensity of time, the relatedness of all life, and life’s preciousness on our tiny planet.

~ Ann Druyan from, Ann Druyan Talks About Science, Religion, Wonder, Awe… and Carl Sagan

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Advice from Bill Watterson

It’s surprising how hard we’ll work when the work is done just for ourselves. And with all due respect to John Stuart Mill, maybe utilitarianism is overrated. If I’ve learned one thing from being a cartoonist, it’s how important playing is to creativity and happiness. My job is essentially to come up with 365 ideas a year.

~ Bill Watterson from, May 20, 1990

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…from May 20, 1990: Advice on Life and Creative Integrity from Calvin and Hobbes Creator Bill Watterson

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Communities versus networks

Unfortunately, true community in our modern world is hard to find for soldiers and civilians alike. Instead, we increasingly live out our lives as members of networks. This transition from community to network life is truly at the heart of the increasing feelings of loneliness, anxiety, and anomie that many people experience in the modern age. We’ve never been so “connected” — and yet so isolated at the same time.

~ Brett McKay from, Communities Vs. Networks

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Ethics, Integrity, Courage, Dignity

• A man does the job no one else wants to do.
• A man lives with integrity every day.
• The most important form of courage is moral courage.
• Live with quiet dignity.

~ “Atticus Finch”

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Hobie poetry

Soul Sailer

Hobie Cat, Hobie Cat, where are you bound?
Silently streaking over the sound.
Your sails standing high,
Proudly contrast the sky,
It’s not just a boat;
I know it can fly!

When she gets up to speed,
She’ll sing you a song.
But if you’re weak in the knees,
You’d best not go along.
For there’s always a thrill,
And sometimes a spill!
Hobie Cat, Hobie Cat – go where you will!

The world that we know
dwindles down to size
on the shoreline behind us.
We sail along on the song that
is the wind.

~ Bruce W. Constantine

To the best of my knowledge, this is the only piece of poetry my father wrote. Whatever possessed him to pick up a pencil and write this, I’ll never know. However, I would bet that it was the result of long hours chatting with one of his sailing buddies until they had it down pat; Followed by him writing it out. I see no errors or erasures, and I know his handwriting well enough to suspect that he simply wrote it out straight through. The last verse – oddly indented – looks like it was written separately, or at least later than the first two verses. I think it’s the better of the three, and I fear it might be a song lyric… but I’m not searching the ‘Net because I like the idea that he wrote it.

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How does life fat thee?

This entry is part 7 of 25 in the series M. Eades' Blog

A group of scientists from multiple institutions looked at a number of other reasons that we could be in the midst of an obesity epidemic that have nothing to do with diet and exercise, or as they call them, the Big Two. They make the case in an paper published online in advance of print in the International Journal of Obesity that so many have so fully accepted the Big Two that pretty much no one has bothered to look for any other causes.

~ Michael Eades from, «http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/weight-loss/how-does-life-fat-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/»

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Westbound commute

Slow going this morning, but at least the traffic is light — or should I say “white.”

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