Purge

Some people are nothing more than a walking disease.  Every now and again it's healthy to cleanse your system.

Time out.  Toxin free.

Green means Go!

As some of you may recall, a little while ago I decided to make a substantial investment (when measured against my income) in order to make an effort toward long-term savings.

I went green.  Literally.  A lime green, 24 speed, top of the line mountain bike designed specifically for city riding.  The short term goal is saving on gas, the long term goal is saving wear and tear on my vehicle.  I've been on the "bike initiative" for a couple weeks, now.  Riding has changed numerous aspects of my life - time, money, testing physical limits, awareness, and so on and so forth.  With the ipod on shuffle, I speed through intersections - backpack stocked with water bottle, wallet, and bike lock.  I ride an average of 3 hours a day and even though it's time that takes away from writing - it's incredible how many thoughts I generate on my rides.

I've been thinking a lot about the physical as well as mental aspects of riding.  Obviously biking is one of the best exercises you can do.  But, more so than that - it increases the powers of observation and awareness.  It commands full attention at all times - attention to your body, upper and lower, attention to the ground, and identifying any activity around you.  While riding, you're more involved in the world than while driving or even walking.  A car helps you to feel impervious enough to lose a necessary element of fear, and the pace of walking puts most individuals out of trouble by increasing ones reaction time to any impending danger.  Biking decreases the reaction time, while keeping the element of fear that comes from an open exposure to all elements - most importantly, large speeding hunks of steel with someone texting behind the wheel.

I'm certain that all of this isn't anything that others haven't gone on about ad nauseam - however - it's the technological aspect that I'm interested in.  Biking has presented a very interesting situation for me - it's the first time that I've ever had to ignore my phone for a period of time.  While walking, driving, while in class or at work, while reading or listening to podcasts and writing - my phone is always no more than 3 feet away from my hands.  Without going into why I feel so connected to my cell phone (why I think that it's not a problem and actually very important to the aspect of technology rhetoric I'm interested in), I've suddenly become enthralled with the fact that the intoxication of biking has usurped my plug-in and more so, the fact that it has no choice.

Is it a coincidence that demanding physical activities require a certain technological disconnect?  As a friend of mine says, there are no coincidences.  If you don't hear from me in the next week or so, trust that I'm riding my bike somewhere, connecting the academia dots.

No blogs in 1984

George Orwell's diaries are going to be published online.

They're now suggesting that 70 years after these diary entries were written, the posthumous translation into blog form will add "blogging" to his massive list of literary accomplishments.

I'm not sure whether to think this is incredible, or just incredibly ridiculous.