Goal #34

Goal #34: friends.

I have a busy week planned this week, but it's good stuff.  Movies, drinks, and food with friends every night.  So rather than stress about not accomplishing enough stuff, I'm just going to enjoy it.

Recap of goal #33: my new bike has not arrived yet, so I got a pass last week.  Whew!

Skydiving!

Earlier this summer, our climbing group decided we needed to get a little higher.  We went skydiving!

A few things:
1. You have to sign a million papers (thanks to those damn lawyers).
2. We had to wait around FOREVER for our turn (regular, non-tandem jumpers have priority), and we all had to go up on different planes.
3. There was never any doubt in my mind that I would do it.  I knew I would.
4. It was awesome!

Me and S, pre-jump

Practicing the "falling out of the plane" position with my instructor

 Our trusty (?) aircraft

It is hard to describe the sensation that I had when I got to the door of the plane (except that, given the quality of the plane, I may have been safer outside of it than inside).  My instructor gave me the signal.  The air rushed by and filled the plane and my ears.  The ground and the clouds were below me.  We rock forward, backward, and then I'm falling.  We're barreling towards the ground.  I checked the altimeter on my wrist, and my instructor gave me the next signal.  I grabbed at the rip cord, and the parachute was out.  We jerked to a near-stop, and everything went completely quiet.  The rushing air disappeared.  The image smoothed out, no longer jerking around as we rushed downwards.  We twisted and spun and fell through the clouds.

And all too soon, it was over.

Goal #33

Goal #33: my new bike!

I acquired a new bike while in Durango.  Now...where to keep it?

Recap of goal #32: not all the recipes got recycled, but a lot of them did.  I picked out a few that E recommended or that I just really have to try (chai ice cream!), but the rest are on their way to becoming pulp.

Goal #32

Goal #32: recycle.

Since I can seem to get around to organizing, I'm going to handle it a different way: recycling.  Seems like the greenest alternative.

Recap of goal #31: see above.

Summer Shakespeare

I have had a theater-heavy summer this year, mostly compliments of P and her Muny tickets.  But just because I haven't written about it, don't think that I didn't have my usual Shakespeare Festival outing with Grandpa and the crew.  E was even in town for it this year!

I packed up a picnic dinner in my little rolling cooler, including some delicious beers which E picked out while we were at The Wine Merchant.

The show was decent.  Not the best they've had in recent years, but a worthy way to spend three hours.  And I think it was the first time I had ever seen Antony and Cleopatra performed, so that's a win for sure!

Goal #31

Goal #31: recipes again?

I'm wondering if maybe I should just start giving myself two weeks for all my goals.  It just seems that things are going that way lately.

Recap of goal #30: I'm pretty sure I just addressed this....

Quote of the Day

'In most couples there is the person who wins and the person who doesn’t. The winner isn’t necessarily stronger or smarter or righter. The winner is the person who won’t give up, and the non-winner (“loser” is not the correct word for the person who does not win), at a certain point, realizes the battle is a silly one, and the spoils are not worth the extended warfare.'
  -- Heidi Julavits, The Folded Clock

What I Watched -- Skyfall

On a day last weekend when I felt like doing nothing, I went over to T's house, where he was doing some paperwork.  I pretended to work on my computer, but really I was spending most of my time watching Skyfall.

I have lost track of the order of the recent James Bond movies, and I know I haven't seen all of them.  This is one of the ones I hadn't seen, and I don't know why.  I won't even bother explaining the plot.  Every Bond movie goes like this: 007 suffers some setback.  He has to catch a bad guy in order to save England.  There are girls in tight clothes, or nothing at all.  Bond wins.  Bad guy doesn't fare so well.

And as with every Bond film every made, this one is a ton of fun.

Bottom line: I think I just said this: a ton of fun.

What I Watched -- Foxcatcher

Foxcatcher is not the movie I expected.  I didn't even know it was based on a true story, although there has been some controversy about that since the movie came out. 

Here's the rundown: Channing Tatum plays Mark Schultz, an Olympic wrestler in need of a patron.  Mark Ruffalo plays his older brother David Schultz, also an Olympic wrestler.  Steve Carrell plays John du Pont, an eccentric millionaire who sponsors the younger brother at his family's estate, Foxcatcher Farms.

As Mark's fame increases, du Pont pours and increasing amount of money into his own training program at Foxcatcher, eventually enticing David to live there as well, to train and coach.  He also became a major sponsor of USA Wrestling.  du Pont's behavior becomes increasingly odd, and (SPOILER ALERT, if you didn't know the true story) he shoots and kills David.  The closing text of the film lets you know that John du Pont died in prison in 2009.

Now, to the controversy.  du Pont was convicted of the murder of David Schultz, and he did die in prison.  There are some historical inaccuracies though.  David was killed in 1996, and the entire movie (including David's death) is set in the 1980s.  This was done so that the film could portray Mark and Dave as living at Foxcatcher concurrently, which does not appear to be the case.

Probably the most contested issue, though, is that of whether a homosexual relationship developed between Mark and du Pont.  I felt like the movie implied that one did, but that point has been vehemently disputed by Mark.  Mark's reaction to the film has been strange though: first he liked it, then he blasted the director, Bennett Miller, for telling lies about him (specifically related to the suggestion of his intimate relationship with du Pont), then he apologized for blasting Bennett Miller.  He is using the film as a tool to sell his book, and his Twitter feed is full of identifications of the inaccuracies in the movie.

Bottom line: there were some excellent performances in this movie, but it is not one I will watch again.  Disturbing.

What I Watched -- Happy

Want to learn a few things about happiness?  Happy can teach you.

Here's a sneak preview on how to get yourself a jolt of happiness:
-- Find a way to make your body release dopamine.  One surefire option: aerobic exercise, especially if done in a novel way (like participating in a gorilla run).
-- Do an activity that allows you to find your "flow."  Experiencing that energized focus that comes with being "in the zone" is great for your state of mind.
-- Count your blessings.
-- Perform acts of kindness.  It's contagious.

Some other fun facts:
-- Our baseline level of happiness is about 50% genetic and only 10% situational.  The other 40% is due to our behavior or other aspects which are under our control.
-- Happy people aren't always happy.  They have a normal response to adversity in the moment, but they come back to their baseline of happiness more quickly than unhappy people.
-- Hedonic adaptation is a major enemy of happiness, insofar as our expectations tend to rise as our condition improves, which leads to little or no recognition of "how far we've come," and hence, a general blindness towards those blessings we're supposed to be counting.

Bottom line: good lessons, that's for sure.