I am a student and a father. It just continues!

There’s a literary magazine that I enjoy occasionally called The Believer. At the beginning of articles they have a short paragraph or a few lines displayed thusly: Discussed: and then key words or phrases are listed.  An example from Steve Silberman’s piece in the Aug./Sept. issue about Bill Evans and the song Nardis partly goes as follows:

Discussed: “Reeves Sound Studios, A Musical Vacuum, The Mind That Thinks Jazz, Collective Sympathy,...”

I’m going to try and follow that practice on the blog, so that readers can catch something of the content before plunging in.  So here goes:

Discussed in this post: United Bicycle Institute, Cognitive Grooves, Morning Pages, A Son Has A Party

Ashland, Oregon: I attended the week-long course Introduction to Bicycle Maintenance. It’s really interesting what happens when I am in a learning environment.  I get anxious and my cognition gets into a groove resonating with the idea of poor performance, or something like that.  You know, glancing over at the adjacent workbench and noting that my student neighbor is already starting on the front brake while I am puzzled and having to start over on the rear.  I’ll tell you: writing this blog is part of my “therapy” because the same could be happening to me if I was in a blogging class.  I want this experience and plan to keep the confessional stuff down and focus on content.  But here’s a confession and a vow to take it to another level.  Over the years, I have done some journaling, even doing Julia Camerons’s morning pages daily for a couple years.  I kept it all, and occasionally would review it.  This theme of “poor performance” runs pretty consistent.  So it’s true that very early in my psychological development I came to believe I’m pretty flawed.  Various Buddhist teachers over the years have noted this to be a common feature of the western psychology along with self-centeredness. “I’m a piece of shit, but a piece of shit at the center of the universe!” So maybe you have some of that in your cognitive grooves.  In any case, I’m not denying or hiding from that and if sometimes that colors the blog, OK.  But I’m not spending time there on purpose.  I want to write about other things. 

Introduction to Bicycle Maintenance: United Bicycle Institute has a great reputation.  I have a habit of dropping into bike shops across the country and all the “wrenches”, the slang for bike mechanics, have heard of it and several times I’ve encountered alumni.  I loved the pace of the course and the comprehensiveness.  The time split between lecture/demonstration and hands on practice was perfect, and there was an amazing amount of time for questions, which was important and a big part of the learning experience.  We had 3 different teachers, and they were all educators, as skilled at teaching as they are at wrenching. Anyone interested in understanding bicycles and applying this understanding to basic repair and keeping the bike running safely will benefit from this course.  I also enjoyed getting deeper into what’s new and developing a better appreciation of the old. What you need is to be able to come up with 5 days of free time in either Portland or Ashland, both in Oregon.  And $1000. At the end, you leave with an excellent handbook and invaluable new skills, along with “pearls” of insight to enable your diagnostic and therapeutic efforts with bikes.  Once I am in a place for more than a few days at a time, I plan to seek out opportunities to hone my skills along with others, to keep those machines out there safely and efficiently taking people where they want to go.

Our Camp at Emigrant Lake, just outside Ashland

Salem, Oregon: Carol and I attended my son’s wedding to Heather Smith on August 31, held at a retreat/event center just outside Portland called Horning’s Hideout.  It was a great experience.  My son Tyler and his wife! Heather didn’t want to have a wedding ceremony, really.  But they did want to put together a spectacular party featuring friends, family, and creativity.  We couldn’t have enjoyed it more.  Here were all of their friends, our friends, some new friends, and much of our extended families, all sharing an experience that we’ll all treasure in memory.  There were rules, well, really just two.  Have fun and no toasts!  The event staff had set up a PA system with an excellent mic and good sound, so I figured eventually someone would find their way up there and hold forth with stories and testimony about the bride and groom.  It never happened!  The next day I did get in a few brief words about building a life together, at a lunch the two families shared in Portland the day after.  Tyler and Heather are creators and builders.  They applied these skills to the wedding and my wife Carol and I were glad to be able to spend time at their home before and after to help out.  Fearless.  Here’s a list I saw on the kitchen table a few days before the wedding:

Tyler's List, August 2018

I use lists frequently and they come in 2 types, things to buy and things to do.  Tyler and Heather have another category because they are both DIY people.  Things To Build.  When work on the microwave installation and the kitchen counter back splash held up our breakfast one morning, I was surprised.  But now I realize that these tasks in and around the home are an integral part of living your life in the Salem RG household.  You are  at home, but you are also at work.  That's fantastic!  Just one more thing on the list for them.  Did I mention high energy?

What can I say?  We love our sons Tyler and Jonathan, and their partners Heather and Samantha.  We talk about them a lot, we hope others aren’t bored when we do so.  They help us to understand just about everything, and we especially love it when our friends can share time with us and our kids together.  Let’s have more of that!  My toast was essentially this: here’s to your continuing project of building a life together!