Yo Soy Marinero

Of the past 4 days, I've spent at least a few hours each day on a sailboat.  My head, here on land, doesn't quite feel stable...  As I sit here writing, I kinda feel like I'm still moving.

Thursday night/Friday morning we sailed from Soloman's Island up the Chesapeake Bay to Annapolis.  Sailing in the middle of the night on the bay was cool.  It was also my first real experience sailing, and was cool.  After we got to Annapolis, I went to work all day.

Then, Saturday and Sunday I went to sailing school on the Potomac.  I went to the Belle Haven marina, and had a great time.  I actually feel pretty comfortable with sailing on the little 14' boat we were practicing on, and came away feeling good.  At the end they gave me a certificate and a card showing that I took a class and know the basics...

NYC thoughts

Several years ago, when I was deciding where to go to law school, I had 3 choices.  Santa Clara California, New York City, and Lubbock Texas.  I'm grateful I chose the third.

The reason I bring this up right now is because I just, this past Tuesday, went up to New York City.  This was actually my first time going up to NYC since moving to the east coast almost 2 years ago.  I've been up there a few times, but I gotta say, I'll take the empty, wind-blowing nothingness of West Texas over that place anyday.

Lots of people seem to dislike NYC because of the crowds.  I've never had that problem.  While I've heard stories of people being slammed into overcrowded subway cars, that's never happened to me.  Most of the time I'm walking around and, unless I'm in a crowded, touristy area (like Time's Square), its pretty empty.  Walk a couple blocks away from 5th and 7th Avenues and its just a quiet street, with some tall buildings.  Other people dislike NYC because of the smell, or because of the people (I've never had a problem), or because its expensive. 

Lots of people seem to like NYC because of the food options.  I don't care about fancy food one bit.  If you want to spend money on fancy food, cool.  I don't.  I've had it, and while on occasion its nice, I certainly don't crave it one bit.  Lots of people seem to like NYC because of theater options.  OK, that could be fun if I had a girl on my arm, but without one, forget it.

Honestly, pretty much everytime I go to NYC, with or without friends who "know the city" or live there, I end up walking around most of the time from one restaurant to another.  I end up tired, and frankly bored, because its just a city, and I don't need to eat that much.

This trip, I rode the train up, ate, took the subway to the battery, went to a meeting at the Ritz, walked around a bit, rode home.  It was about as short as you could plan, and I was still bored.  How do people stay there for days?!?

The next time I go to NYC for any reason, I'm going to see if I can't get an underground tour to see the mole people.  That sounds fun.  I'll leave the rubbish up top to everyone else.

Life and Stuff

So what have I been doing with my life?

Well... Last weekend I went to the Crossfit Level 1 trainer seminar, and after 2 days passed the test, so I am now a level 1 Crossfit Trainer.  Essentially that means that I can... tell people I'm a Crossfit Trainer, coach friends, etc.  I can also teach/coach at an affiliate gym (box) if I want to, though I really just did it for personal knowledge, not so much because I want to coach.

Other than that, I've been working hard, trying to get a little ahead on my work assignments.  That's not happening, but I have been working hard.  Its strange to think its been almost 2 years since I graduated law school.  Time is flying by.

Yesterday I had to pay for a bunch of work on my truck.  She's been a good truck, but if she keeps having trouble she won't stick around too much longer.  I plan on doing some stuff to help her out (swapping out the distribution cap/wires, spark plugs, filters, etc.) but if it gets too expensive, adios.  While I was waiting I went to the bowling alley next door and played 3 games.  The first 2 games were pretty bad, but the third was a little better.

Oh, last weekend I went to a dinner with Condoleezza Rice for the BYU management society.  That was cool.  And I'm getting ready to sail to Bermuda, which is exciting although a little daunting.  Anyway, those are the quick updates.

The 2012 Open

As anyone who regularly speaks with me knows, I kinda talk about exercising, and specifically Crossfit, a lot.  I like what it preaches, specifically being ready for any situation at any time, whether it be strength, endurance, speed, flexibility, agility, accuracy, etc... And I like it because I'm decent at it.  I'm certainly not the best at any of those things, but I'm decent when you look at all of those things together.

I entered the 2012 Crossfit Open a couple weeks ago.  This is the start of a competition Crossfit puts on once a year to find the fittest man and woman on earth.  Here's a video that explains it...

My goal was simply to be able to do everything in the Open.  Last year I didn't have time, and certainly didn't have the skills/strength to do it.

So how did I do?  I finished (as of this writing) # 13,725 in the world, out of 22,421 men.  In my region (mid-atlantic) I finished 1146 out of 1836.  Of course, that's 13,725 and 1146 out of people who A) did the workouts and B) reported their scores.  Here's my link...

They only take the top 60 athletes in each region on to the next level of competition, so I'll start prepping for next year.  On the whole it was a great experience, and I look forward to getting faster, stronger, and more efficient.  While it would be awesome to qualify for regionals, I have to keep in mind that most of the top athletes are former professional, or division 1 athletes, and certainly not 33 year old patent attorneys.  That said, I think I can do better, and I want to.

Dirty Snake

Yesterday I stepped on a snake.  It was a little baby garden snake, nothing too big, and certainly not a rattler (I live in DC, not the west, so the thought of a dangerous snake seems almost laughable...).  It happened while T-Rav* and I were hiking on the Appalachian trail just outside of Harper's Ferry.  We had hiked out to a nice cabin that Trav had heard about, made some raman noodles and ate lunch,

met some weirdos, and were headed back to the car when I saw the snake about a 1/4 second before my foot landed on it.  I said "snake" just then, followed by "SNAKE!" as the little fella coiled up and tried to bite my leg.  Luckily I had jeans on, so no biting occurred, but both Trav and I were jumping down the trail for a second.  Plenty of laughs followed.

 

We got back to the car, went in to Harper's Ferry, explored a little bit, got some funnel cake, and came back into town by about 3PM.   

It was a little chilly, especially before the sun really came out and we were hiking up the backside of the hill (mountain? seems a little small for a mountain...), but it felt good to be out in the crisp clean air and hiking uphill for a ways.

Trip to Northern CA

The Golden Gate yo

Yup

Half Moon Bay

I went out to San Francisco and Palo Alto/Stanford for the JRCLS conference.  It was great - and Northern California is beautiful.  I visited out SF office, which was downtown and very high up, and very cool.  I saw the Fisherman's Wharf, the Golden Gate bridge, the Pacific Ocean, and drove down the beach to Half Moon Bay. 

The conference itself was nice, made friends with lots of really good people, saw old friends, and ate too much food.

Injured Shoulder

So a week ago yesterday, I hurt myself doing Crossfit for the first time in 2 1/2 years of doing it.  Oh sure, there have been times where I was sore, where I could tell my form sucked and I needed to stop, or I wasn't sure what I was doing and I backed off.  But I haven't actually been injured.

I think the last time I was actually injured was about 2 1/2 years ago when I ran the St. George Marathon.  I developed plantar fascias in my right foot, which took a long time to cure (thanks Merrell running shoes!). 

I hurt my shoulder, somehow, doing a workout called Helen.  3 rounds of a 400m run, 21 kettlebell swings w/ a 53# weight, and 12 pullups.   I think it was the KB swings that did it, and now I have rotator cuff issues...


This comes at a bad time.  I've been prepping to participate in the CrossFit Open, which starts in 3 weeks.  But today I read this article about training through injury, and I'm going to continue to get ready as best I can in the next 3 weeks.  My goal with the Open is to compete and finish as strong as I can... I know I'm not at a point where I can realistically compete, but compared to where I was a year ago I've come a long way.  And maybe in a year I won't injure my shoulder right before the competition.

Math

I've been thinking lately about the how we see the world, and how so much of how we see the world is affected by our knowledge and experiences.

For example, the other day I was having a conversation with someone, and they mentioned that they saw absolutely no need for Calculus in the world, to which I replied, "I use calculus everyday.  Not the actual equations, but how I look at the world."  Knowledge of how rates and changes occur based on other factors plays in everything and everywhere I go. 

Similarly, people who have studied foreign languages sufficiently that they can think in that language gain a different way of viewing the world and forming their thoughts.  People who study music, architecture, politics, or any other subject area all have nuanced views.

Of course, the danger of those nuanced views is that they diminish the ability to know, appreciate, and often even understand the importance of the other views.  For example, engineers and scientists generally lack social aptitude, whereas getting lawyers and politicians to solve an algebraic equation, must less an incredibly difficult equation like the national budget, can be insanely difficult.  Both lack the skills to do the job of the other, but in both cases a wider education would, I believe, aid the situation.

This all got brought up because I was mentioning to a friend that here in DC I have to be particularly careful not to mock people for the inability to do basic math, because chances are most of the people around are similarly lacking in math skills.  I certainly found that to be the case in law school.  It simply doesn't attract people with math based skills. 

So, just like my obsession with Crossfit, I'm trying to be as well-rounded as I can in my education.  And hopefully enough other people will become similarly well-rounded that we can have a more comprehensive view of the various issues and problems in our lives...

Yuk!

So as I battle my 3rd or 4th bout of illness in about 6 weeks, I broke down today and drank a coke.  This new law suit makes me question my decision.  Apparently Mountain Dew will actually dissolve mice should one be canned on accident.

Do the Dew!

Bring it Mayans

So... its 2012!? Weird, huh?

So I was reading something somewhere... I don't remember where, about the difference between goals and resolutions, and how at this time of year lots of people state resolutions as goals and goals as resolutions. So this thing I was reading stated that goals are definable objectives - "I want to run a marathon" "I want to lose 30 pounds" "I want to go to Egypt", whereas resolutions are less quantifiable - "I want to be nicer" "I want to eat more candy" "I want to watch less TV".

While I have some goals posted for this next year of life posted next to the light switch in my room, one of my resolutions is to be more adventurous this next year.  I want to get back in the habit of seeing America, of going unique places, and getting outside the DC beltway.  This (hopefully) will similarly result in increased blog postings about the fun things I'm doing here, and the things happening in my life.

On that note, I updated the blog for the first time in about 3 years.  I wanted to take advantage of the new Blogger posting options, and since I had heavily modified customizing my previous template (which was based on the original template from 7 years ago) I was afraid I might break something without switching.  Hopefully it looks and feels like something I would be posting to, but I imagine further modifications will come about soon.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Ironic that I bought my first Apple product within an hour or so of Steve Jobs' death. I got home from the Apple store, looked at my computer, and found out.

Associate

Last month I had some big news - the firm I've been working with as a contractor hired me on as a full-time associate! Ironically, it was a year to the day that I had moved into my current house. It was a hard year, well... it was a hard 4 years giving up my job in Salt Lake, moving to Lubbock, graduating without a job, moving to a new city with barely any money, and just working and trying to meet people and get my name out there.

But I feel led to where I'm at. The partner I work under is an LDS Bishop. The founding partners of the firm both went to Texas Tech Law. The work is good, the opportunities are good, and people are asking me to do more and more. The work I did before finding this firm, patent research, is paying off in the work I'm doing now. I'm grateful for the time I did that.

Here's my work profile page: Ryan T. Ward

Understandably, I'll probably try not to put anything too inflammatory on this blog - no reason to burn bridges - though links to Economic pieces may continue. I do hope, however, that having this job will allow me to afford to do more adventure stuff than I've been doing. I feel like when I was in the Utahs every week, and sometimes every day, was an adventure, and that's been lacking. I'm hoping I can do a little more exploring and see some stuff now that I have a job.

Life and junk

So I realized I never posted any pics from Florida, so here's a picture of Dave and I on the boat coming back from fishing.

Then last weekend I was sick, but had already signed up to run a race called the MetroDash. It was an obstacle course involving cargo-nets, flipping tires, jumping obstacles, carrying stuff, etc. It was a lot of fun, and Travis and Kelly came out and took pictures of me doing stuff. I was pretty happy with my performance, especially since I was pretty sick all week before the race.

Why the Jobs Situation Is Worse Than It Looks - US News and World Report

Here's a 'fun' follow-up to my previous post. In other news, I went to Florida and went deep-sea fishing with Dave last weekend. Pics coming soon.

Why the Jobs Situation Is Worse Than It Looks - US News and World Report

Decline and Fall of the American Empire

"Above all, America must rediscover the qualities that originally made it great. That will not be easy."
- Larry Elliot, Decline and Fall of the American Empire, The Guardian, June 6, 2011

Back to the ISLAND - LOST

I loved the television show LOST. Over the 6 years it was on, I had dozens if not hundreds of conversations with people about the show. Usually these conversations formed one of two types:

One type concerned what was actually happening on the show - "What is the Smoke Monster?" , "Are they dead?", "I hate Ana Lucia."

The other type concerned why I liked the show - the characters, their relationships, their struggles, all while dealing with this crazy, "I'm on an island with no flip-flops" experience.

Of course, usually these questions were broken down almost exclusively by the type of person that was watching the show. Some people really did care that there were polar bears on the island and wanted a reason why, other people didn't care at all. I was in the second camp. Usually when someone would come up to me and start going off on the list of unanswered LOST questions, I'd actually feel bad for them. They wanted answers to something they weren't going to get answers.

It was like they didn't get it. The show's producers and writers weren't out to answer every question and make sure you understood exactly what the island was or did, or how some dude turned into the smoke monster. If you want answers to everything, there's this show called Mythbusters you should check out.

Now that I've complained about the complainers, I think there are some things that LOST could have done, particularly that final season, to not frustrate so many fans. The whole Daddy issue with Jack I felt could have been resolved better, and not so awkwardly at the very end of the very last episode. I really thought it was lame when Sayid and the Man-in-Black/Fake Locke were talking, and everything was explained to Sayid, but they skipped out on the conversation and all of a sudden Sayid's crazy. I thought Crazy Claire was a little too crazy.

But here's the thing, despite those changes I would have made, I loved it. I loved the relationships, I loved Sayid taking one for the team, and I really enjoyed seeing Sawyer and Miles play cops the final season. I loved Hurley being Hurley.

Obviously this write-up's been hanging around for awhile. At first, I didn't just want to be another person writing about the end of the show... and then life happened and I kinda forgot about it. But the 1 year mark hit last week and I got thinking about it again, and I'll tell ya - I loved waiting for the new episode every week. It was the only show this decade I've watched as it aired ('24' lasted a little while), and I question whether that will ever happen again.

Offroading in Duck

Last weekend I went down to Duck Beach, NC, for an annual gathering of East Coast single Mormons. Got in Friday night, spent all day Saturday on the Beach and then at parties, went to church on Sunday, took a nap in a hammock, and then I went offroading on the beach in my truck. After that, hung out with some friends, went to a party/crabbing on the beach, and the next day went paddleboarding before racing back to DC for dinner with my parents.

The weekend was good, and pretty much exactly what I expected - it felt like a 3 day long party, with moments of solitude interrupted by lots and lots of eating and conversation.

My favorite moments were 1) Offroading on the Beach and 2) Stand up Paddleboarding

When we went Offroading, we had 3 four-wheel drive trucks in case anyone got stuck, and sure enough, we got out on the beach, I slowed way down, and the truck behind me got stuck. Then we deflated our tires and were off to the races! I loved speeding around 30 mph on the beach, only a few feet away from the surf, listening to a little Johnny Cash.

We had been looking for wild horses, and didn't find any, but not for lack of trying!

Stand up paddleboarding was hard. A little nerve racking to be standing up on a board in the ocean with the waves bouncing you a little. Once you got out past the breakers it was pretty easy, but getting through the surf was a challenge. Really enjoyed it, and hope to do it more in the future.

A number of people have asked me what I thought of Duck, and the overall 'Mormon weekend' experience. For the most part, I thought it was exactly what I was expecting. I will say, I was way tired by the end, so maybe that idea of relaxing at the beach was totally off.

Jackson + Ragnar

This weekend was great. It started Thursday about noon, when I left work to see my new nephew, Jackson Javier Ward, who was born Thursday about 8:30 AM. That was cool. Matt and Raquel were kind to let me in for an hour or so and see him, hold him, and get to know him a little bit.

And looking at this picture makes me realize just how pale I am.

Then I left DC with some friends and ran a Ragnar relay. It was 197 miles long, and we had 12 runners on our team. I was the first runner, with legs of 5.8, 7.6, and 8 miles (in that order). The hard part of a Ragnar is the lack of sleep. I got about 5 hours in 2 days, and going into that last 8 mile run I was not in a good place mentally. Afterwords, after running like 21 miles, I got a little tight, but I'm doing better now.
The other hard thing about this race was the weather, which I was a little underprepared for. It was supposedly going to be 75 degrees and sunny on Friday when I was running. Instead when I started running at 8 AM on Friday there was a slight drizzle and it was about 50 degrees. And I only had short sleeves and shorts to wear. Eventually I made it to a Wal*Mart, where I got a long-sleeve T-shirt for $7.

Unfortunately, as you can see from the picture above, it says NY Giants on it. YUCK. It may have an encounter with either a trash can or some paint in the near future. Boys from Dallas don't wear Giants shirts around. It ain't right.

Talents

So as I was talking with my Mom last night, I told her that I think one of the talents I've been given is the ability to see (and when I get upset, point out) the flaws of others. In other words, I can put people down and realize what sorry wastes of human flesh they are like nobody's business.

Thinking about it the past day or so, I've decided that I need to make more efforts to lift people up and encourage them. It's easy to break or destroy things - anyone can break things. The challenge is making something worth having.

Spring in DC

So I realized the other day that I haven't posted in awhile... I've been staying busy. I joined a Crossfit gym, I've been doing contract work with a law firm, I went to Dallas, and lots of other stuff. I'll post more about the job and stuff if/when it becomes permanent, but I'm excited to be working there.

But I have been enjoying DC as the transition from winter to spring occurs. A month or so ago we had a good snow, and I snapped the pic of the Lincoln memorial, which I think turned out well.

Today I went mountain biking after work. This was effectively the first time I'd been mountain biking since leaving Utah 3 1/2 years ago, and it was awesome. Even when I was getting cut up by thorns carrying my bike around a foot deep, 200m long puddle. I will bleed for the price of Glory. I actually think that mountain biking in the East might be more my style, other than the lack of slickrock and huge vistas. I like the rolling hills, the dirt.