Screws In My Coffee

I was doing my weekly floor exercise today.  No, I am not a gymnast, I was vacuuming and mopping the floors in my house.  I was listening to Pandora Radio and a U-2 song came on, "I Still Have Not Found What I Am Looking For".  I purchased this CD when it came out last century.  I was living in Southern California at the time and I use to hang out in Joshua Tree and the desert a lot. Anyway the song got me thinking about the bumper stickers that I see a lot here in Albany, Georgia, "Wise Men Still Seek Him".  I always get dumb founded at religious advertising and I have pondered what is the intention of this sticker.  I have come up with my own sticker as a reply.

Yesterday I watched some YouTube videos on how to fine tune a derailleur.  I had not cleaned my bike in over a month.  It has been cold and I have just been putting White Lightning on the chain when it got to loud during my commute to work.  Well Sunday evening I decided that instead of watching my girlfriend Ellen host the Oscar awards, I would clean my drive train. First I wanted to restore movement to my lower gears so I watched a few videos to remind myself of how to do it.  Down here in the flat lands I do not shift much and I wanted to use my small 12 tooth and 13 tooth rear cog on my commutes.  After about 10 minutes of adjusting I was satisfied with my work so I cleaned up the chain. This morning I rode to work on my 25 mile commute in my smaller cogs and it felt great.  I have been riding in this "single" speed mode for some time as it gives me a chance to get my legs strong for hills and then I will shift gears.  Today was a fast ride and...

Working on some of my artwork using Adobe PhotoShop CS6 Here are my goals for this year.  These goals are personal goals and are not intended to replace any of my normal goals for being the best that I can be in all of my relationships.  I have found that I can have fun playing a game with my life and setting goals that I want to achieve.  Sometimes I make my goals and sometimes I do not, but I still am inspired to go for my dreams. I rode 8,000 miles in 2013.  My goal was to ride 6,000 miles.  In 2014 I want to ride 10,000 miles.  I have not ridden 10,000 miles since about the mid 1990's. I will not drink soda with corn syrup this year.  I will not have sugary drinks during my lunch. I will ride my bike at least 5 miles each day. I will frame at least 5 of my pictures. I will sell at least one print of my artwork.

All links in this article support my point of view.  As with anything on the Internet do not believe what you read just because it is on the Internet.  I believe all of this stuff about the actual birth of Jesus because my dad explained it to me at a very young age. This is why I really miss Austin, music and free thinking culture.  It was a rare occasion that I was driving my truck to work instead of riding my bicycle and I heard this interview on NPR about For An Ex-Christian Rocker, Faith Lost Is A Following Gained .  It really hits me and made me realize that as a son of an African Methodist Episcopal minister that I too have become an atheist or humanist . I have always had a big problem with not living life for now instead of living life and putting off everything because you are waiting for something better after your die.  Believing that some entity has control of your life or believing that all you have to do is wait for some help wi...

I am really inspired about my latest drawing. The image on this page is the bottom right corner of my current work in progress. Most of the time I have a vision of what I am drawing, but there are times when I turn my mind off and let my emotions and artistic ability flow onto the illustration board through the colored pencils without thinking about what is going on. It is in these times when I am at peace. When I tune out the voice in my head that tells me I'm doing it wrong or that I am using the wrong color or that I'm not good enough, this is when I have the freedom to draw like I want. I rode my bike 134 miles this week and my odometer for bike rides in Georgia since January 2010 is at 1,142 miles.  This year alone I have ridden my bike 835.09 miles. I am getting to the point with my cycling just like my drawing where I have tuned out the voice in my head that tells me that I'm too old to ride a bike or that I will never be as strong of a rider like I was in Oregon...

This blog entery gets it title from a phrase in the song Accidents by Thunderclap Newman . I have come to realize that my attitude towards life was shaped in a large way by the music that I listened to as a teen.  This song did not fully materialize into my consciousness until after I had completed the  Landmark Forum .  Once I realized that I could make up games and set goals for myself to help me get what I wanted out of life I truly felt liberated. The key paradigm shift to the accidents song is that when you are complaining about the game you need to hear this as being coached by yourself or your environment.  Let me give you a real life example. Right now I am playing a game that I have not played in a long time.  The first time that I played this game was when I lived in Portland Oregon.  The name of the game is  Bike Commute more miles to work than you drive your truck to work . The rules are simple, I will ride my bike to work more than I drive my truck to work.  Instead of com...

Every once in a while I get to a point in my life when I know I am in the sweet spot.  The sweet spot is sometimes hard to define, but I know when I am in it.  When I was younger I could only know where the sweet spot was after I was out of it and I was in the middle of tough times and I found myself thinking of better times.  For a while I accepted the fact that I had no control over when or where or how long the sweet spot would last. Now I know that there is a difference between random occurrences and choice. The sweet spot on a bat is different for every bat so the sweet spot in life is different for all of us.  What is a sweet spot for you could very well be hell on earth for someone close to you in one part of your life. Ideally the sweet spot is an enjoyable zone that does not infringe on anyone's space in a way that is detrimental to them. This morning after an enjoyable ride to work a calm rush came over me as I was changing from my riding gear and getting ready to prepare...

This morning I ran for one hour without stopping.  This is not the first time that I have accomplished this feat.  In fact I have run for several hours just 4 years ago when I was an avid trail runner.  What is significant for this one hour run for me is that I am slowly repeating what I did before in that I am building up my endurance so that I can run a marathon. Setting goals in life is very beneficial to the quality of how you live.  If you are successful in one area of your life you will also see benefits in other areas.  The flip side of this is also true, if you have barriers in one area of your life those same barriers will exist in other parts of your life. My goal for the year was to walk 1,000 miles in 2012.  I am modifying this goal to state that I will travel 1,000 miles or more under my own power (and not on a bike).  I have had the experience of great running coaching when I lived in Austin, Texas.  One of the challenges for me now is that I do not want to over train and...

Disclaimer: This Blog post is the opinion of the author.  Be warned that this article may challenge your beliefs in theology and the after life.  If you have a firm belief and practice a particular brand of religion do not continue to read this Blog post as it may offend you. It is not the intent of this article to deny or challenge anyone's choice in believing anything they want.  This article is just for fun and means nothing. This summer I started watching one of my favourite TV shows on NetFlix, Star Trek: Voyager . Like all of the Star Trek series and science fiction in general I like the way the stories challenge you to think differently about what you think to be real. Sometimes what we continue to believe can be a blind spot to acquiring new information. A lot of scientific breakthroughs in the history of this planet have had to face opposition from the established beliefs that were being challenged by new ideas. [caption id="attachment_2228" align="alignlef...

Well I have survived another holiday season and lived to see 2010. 2009 was a year in which I set my sights on financial and fiscal empowerment. I wanted to reduce my credit card debt and increase my salary at day job. I thought about this all year. I put my recreation activities on hold. I stopped trail running, bike riding and drawing so I could focus on reducing my debt and increasing my income. I wanted to do this without selling my truck or trailer. I am happy to say that I have come a long way to accomplishing these goals. It took 12 months for my goals to start happening. First, I worked to sell some rural property that I shared with my sister and half-brother. I put the property on the market in August 2009 and a buyer materialized in December. Property is du to close in January 2010. My share from this sale will wipe out my credit card debt. Second, oil was discovered close to the property. I worked to negotiate a lease agreement with the oil company so that my family...

Where ever you are in your exercise plan is where you are suppose to be.  There is no right or wrong there is just you. One of the nice things about just being yourself (I repeat this to myself a lot so it is positive re-enforcement for me to write it as well) is that you do not have to rely on what others think or about what the voice in your head thinks about you.  You have the freedom to be you, whatever you chose.  Sometimes I have let the voice in my head tell me to do things because of what other will think.  More often lately I have been breaking out and discovering a lot of nice things about the world including meeting people that I would normally not talk to. My co-worker Stephanie introduced me to getting me beyond the barrier of just running and not being social.  I sue to run by myself until I started running with Stephanie.  Running and talking is actually fun.  Now when I run I always seek out a group and I love to talk.  Now for a woman talking in a crowd may not be a ch...

Technical Yesterday I ran from 7 AM to 4 PM and a distance of 37 miles.  This is the longest that I have run to date.  I ran in the Barton Greenbelt in Austin, Texas . The last time I attempted a long 30 mile training run I ran out of fuel and only completed 28 miles.  During that 28 mile run on 10/25/2008 I now know that the lack of fuel for my body directly affects the ability of my brain to focus on running. There are several hurdles that I will overcome in my quest to do my 62 mile run at Bandera in January 2009 . One of these hurdles was how to fuel my body on long runs.  During my run yesterday I tried Spiz for the first time.  I used Spiz exclusively for fuel with the exception of two handfuls of cashews and two sticks of dried sweetened papaya. The Spiz really helped because on my last lap at mile 30 from Zilker Park to the Hill of Life I was able to run the whole way with confidence and energy.  I only slowed my pace to go over the really rocky spots because I really wanted ...

I am training for Bandera 100k Trail Race in January so this is why I am running this race in Palo Duro .  I have been preparing for endurance running since last year.  Currently my longest run is 20.36 miles.  When I was in my forum the leader, Steve Zaffron was 70 years old and he was doing 100 mile runs in the Rockies.  His goal was to be the strongest man for his age.  This really inspired me. I had stopped running in my early thirties because of knee injuries.  I am 56 years old now. I had been telling myself that I could not run. So after Landmark Education training I started creating some possibilities and my life was being transformed.  There were several areas that Landmark provided me with tools to make my life fulfilling.  I transformed relationships at work, home and with my children, but I wanted more.  I wanted to really challenge myself to do something that I had no way of figuring out how to do it except that I was going to take a big leap of faith and say that I wan...

May 10, 2008 I rode in the  Armadillo Hill Country Classic and it was the first time that I rode my bike over 100 miles in one day in Texas.  I have not ridden a 100 mile ride, or century ride in about 8 years.  My last century ride was in Oregon.  I rode 105.5 miles in 7.5 hours and I averaged 14.2 MPH.  I rode the first 30 miles in 1.5 hours and got to mile 42 in 2 hours. So what make a person ride 100 miles?  Well for me there are several reasons.  One of the main reasons that I did thsi ride is because I wanted to reinforce my power to create reality with my words.  I have ridden 100 miles several times in the past but for some reason I had this voice in my head that kept telling me that I would never ride 100 miles again.  The voice is always there telling me stuff, some of it is positive but a lot of it is negative.  We all have this voice and being aware of the voice is key to breaking the control that it has over your future reality.  So this ride was a way to create a breakth...

I have never been a person to make New Year's resolutions. This year is different and I am starting the year by creating the possibility of being a runner. I have set similar goals for bike riding in the past. One year I had the goal that I would ride my bike to work more miles than I drove and I did it. I rode almost 5,000 miles that year. In one month I rode 1,000 miles. Today I ran 10 miles around Lady Bird Johnson Lake in Austin. this was the first run of the year. My last run of 2007 was a 2.5 hour run along the beach in Port Aransas, Texas.  So in order to make my goal I will have to run about 20 miles a week for 52 weeks.

Well I am starting the New Year married for the second time. I married my long time girlfriend Sylvia McCormick on December 27, 2007 in Port Aransas, Texas. We invited our close family and friends and surprised them with a dinner wedding ceremony at a the Lisabellas Bistro in Port Aransas, Texas. Sylvia and I created the possibility of Romantic Adventures and that is what we are living into.  Mike Rhinehart performed the cermony that included traditional wedding vows mixed with Landmark Education references to relationships.  Sylvia and I are committed to creating our future together each day and we are including our family in our possibilities for the New Year and beyond.

I am drawing a portrait that may be a self portrait.  I have been working on the drawing in the hotel after my training.  I never know where a drawing is going until after I finish it.  this drawing depicts a male with dreadlocks and a checkered shirt. I started the drawing on Wednesday and I worked on it Thursday after class from about 4:00 PM until 2:00 AM on Friday morning. This is the second portrait that I have done in recent years.  I have a limited arsenal of things that I like to draw that can be easily recognized in my art, but portraits of humans is one that I like.  Usually my drawings are so abstract that they mainly consist of wild blends of color that leave the viewer with the task of figuring out what they are looking at.  That is the main goal of my drawings, I want to draw nothing that the viewer has seen before and at the same time draw something that allows the viewer to feel that they see something in the drawing that is fa...

Who am I? I am a problem solver. I have always solved problems for hire and other people’s problems before my own. I have solved computer problems with a vengeance. Listed below are answers to a problem that I will solve on my truck. My possibility is to create my ideal truck. I have always envied folks who have taken the time to express themselves with the vehichel that thy drive. I waited until my old Toyota was dead and gone to pain it. I told myself that I would wait until it was too old to sell and then play with it. Well the waiting game does not cut it. I want to have fun with my truck while it is still running. I will always keep this truck running. Anyway here is the information and technical reasons for dual wheels that are larger and look cool. BTW, my truck has 17 inch rims with 8 bolts. The conversion to a 10 bold will require an adapter plate. This company is in Houston. http://www.chromewheel.com/dominator.htm Top Ten reasons to convert to the Big Wheels! #1: Most 4x4’s ...

Sometimes I wonder what a super hero thinks when he  or she wakes up eack morning.  I was driving to work this past week and I started imagining what a super hero thinks when he wakes up each day. Each day he knows that someone will need his help and he will have to solve a life threating situation at the last minute.  Does he dread this or does he just accept that way things are? I have the same way of being when I go to work at Huston-Tillotson University.  I use to complain about the way things were.  now I take complete responsibility for my actions and I am prepared to create from nothing a solotion to any problem that I may face.

This was a very interesting month.  I created a new web site and logo for Elite Land Works . I dusted off my Wacom tablet and converted a sketch that I had drawn into a digital logo for the company web site.  I drew the logo while I was assisting a Landmark Education Advanced Course (LEAC).  During this LEAC I really got a chance to re-discover my act. My act is "Don't tell me what to do, I can handle it!" The birth of my act is when I was about 5 years old and I was in the car waiting for my dad to close the garage door.  I pushed in the cigarette lighter and then put my finger inside of the hot element.  My dad said, " Don't you know if you play with fire you will get burned?"   That was the birth of my act.  Ever since then my act has been setting up my view of the world so that I can say "Don't tell me what to do, I can handle it!"