Trailblazing with Non Sequiturs

I made my way into the Russian White House in the middle of a coup attempt when [Boris] Yeltsin was President. No one was being allowed in the building. I went up, and the guard said women would not be allowed in the building. And I said, "I'm not a woman. I'm an American journalist." There was a momentary perplexed look on his face, and he said, "O.K." It worked. Sometimes a non sequitur is as good as strategy.

- Diane Sawyer

From her interview with Time.

Bill Moyer on Public Broadcasting

The mission of public broadcasting was to create an alternative channel that would be free of not only commercials, but free of commercial values...[NBC, ABC, and CBS] had made their peace with the little fantasies and lies of merchandizing... There are things in this country that the market will not provide: public education, public art, public schools, public broadcasting, public toilets. I mean there are things that are not profitable but that still serve a value. I think the most important thing we [public broadcasting] can do is to continue to treat Americans as citizens not just as consumers. If you look out and just see an audience of consumers, you want to sell them something. If you look out and see an audience of citizens, you want to share something with them. And there is a difference.

- Bill Moyers on Fresh Air 4-30-2010.

Do You Have Time to Love?

To love is, above all, to be there. But being there is not an easy thing. Some training is necessary, some practice. If you are not there, how can you love? Being there is very much an art, the art of meditation, because meditating is bringing your true presence to the here and now. The question that arises is: Do you have time to love?

I know a boy of twelve whose father asked him one day: "Son, what would you like for your birthday present?" The boy did not know how to answer his father, who was a very rich man, able to buy anything for his son. But the boy did not want anything except his father's presence. Because the role the father played kept him very busy, he did not have time to devote to his wife and children. Being rich is an obstacle to loving, When you are rich, you want to continue to be rich, and so you end up devoting all your time, all your energy in your daily life, to staying rich. If this father were to understand what true love is, he would do whatever is necessary to find time for his son and his wife.

The most precious gift you can give to the one you love is your true presence. What must we do to really be there? Those who have practiced meditation know that meditating is above all being present: to yourself, to those you love, to life.

Do you have enough time to love? Can you make sure that in your everyday life you have a little time to love? We do not have much time together; we are too busy. In the morning while eating breakfast, we do not look at the person we love, we do not have enough time for it. We eat very quickly while thinking about other things, and sometimes we even hold a newspaper that hides the face of the person we love. In the evening when we come home, we are too tired to be able to look at the person we love.

We must bring about a revolution in our way of living our everyday lives, because our happiness, our lives, are within ourselves.

--Thich Nhat Hanh

Surprising Results from The Marshmallow Challenge

Tom Wujec compares the performance of various teams in a marshmallow building challenge and discovers a few results that might shock you.

The task is simple: in 18 minutes, teams of four must build the tallest free-standing structure out of spaghetti sticks and one marshmallow on top. The apparent simplicity of the task trips up many teams; about 40% of the teams end up with structures that buckle and collapse under the weight of the marshmallow.

Interestingly, kindergartners perform better on this task than business school students, lawyers, and CEOs. Kindergartners "produce not only the tallest structures, but also the most interesting structures of them all."

Why? The key to the kids' success is their "iterative" process -- trial-and-error that gives the team instant feedback on what works and what doesn't. Business school students, on the other hand, tend to rely on a single plan that ends up failing.

Wujec also finds that incentives have a strong impact on performance. When he "ups the ante" and offers a $10,000 reward, all of the teams during one challenge fail to build a standing structure. When he offers the same reward to the same group of design students four months later, the structures are much better than most other groups. Wujec concludes that
incentives + low skills = failure
incentives + high skills = success

Interesting stuff. If I were still a teacher, I'd run the experiment on my own students. You can view the instructions for the Marshmallow Challenge here.

Blast from the Past

My former roommate from college visited me in Oakland this past week. We visited a few neighborhoods in Oakland and Berkeley, ate at my favorite restaurants, and caught an A's game at the Coliseum. Since we're both Mets fans, we went mainly to scope out the stadium and root against the A's opponent, the Yankees. The highlight for us was booing A-Rod every time he came up to bat. Unfortunately, he responded by belting a 3-run homer that put the game out of reach. Bummer. The stadium, though, was a pleasant surprise. It's not as fancy as the newer ballparks, but it has a good atmosphere and great sight lines. We scored $40 seats in section 110, 25 rows up from 1st base -- an unheard of price in New York.

Mark flew out from Florida to attend Stanford Law school's admitted students weekend. He's going for a dual degree in Electrical Engineering and Law, and that's already on top of the masters in philosophy he received at Cambridge a year or two ago. Even though those sort of goals and achievements make me feel like a bum, I'm certainly not jealous of the work he's going to be putting in the next few years. Hopefully, we'll still both have time to go to a baseball game every once in a while.

Hang Gliding in Yosemite

Yosemite, Glacier Point from Ryan Goebel on Vimeo.

"September" Cover by Pomplamoose

Babies The Documentary

The Road to Recovery

A week and a half has passed since my accident. On Sunday, my friend (and M.D.) Bing removed the stitches under my chin. On Wednesday, Cleanpants and I replaced the basetube and downtube on my glider. It still needs to be flight checked by an instructor, but it looks like it's ready to fly again. As for me...I'm still a bit sore, particularly the ribs on the right side of my chest, but I think I'll be able to start exercising (and flying) again next week.

Here are a few pics from Soggy Bottom's photostream:

"You have amnesia. Look at the paper in your pocket before you ask any questions."

A list of FAQ I carried around until I got my memory back.

Broken basetube and downtube. Better the glider than me.

Dunlap at sunset

The San Francisco Zoo

Hang 5 Spot?

Factory Made: Hang Gliders

Discovery Channel - Factory Made ep. 6 from Søren Ladegaard on Vimeo.

The Discovery Channel films the construction of a T2C glider inside a Wills Wing factory.

John Milton Quotation

"The mind
is its own place,
and in itself
can make
a heaven of hell,
a hell of heaven."

- John Milton, Paradise Lost

Dunlap Trip Report

My glider clipped a tree on my final approach to the landing zone on my first mountain flight in Dunlap, California. I was supposed to do S-turns (figure 8s) between two markers: a cluster of 150 ft. cottontail trees and a small tree-lined hill, both upwind of the LZ, to burn off enough altitude and land cleanly in the field.

I ended up performing one too many turns. I flew too low on my final turn and clipped one of the trees with my wing tip. I fell twenty feet to the ground. When Daniel M. arrived at the scene, I wasn’t breathing. My instructor Kurtis, who had launched me from the top of the mountain, witnessed the crash from above. He was ready to dial 911 and call in a helicopter to rescue me.

Daniel reported to Kurtis via radio that I took my first breath one minute after crashing. Soon, I was conscious and responsive, so Kurtis took Anthony’s glider and harness from the top and flew down to give me a full body check. Two things stood out: (1) I had amnesia. (2) My body had escaped the crash unscathed. The rest of the students drove down and Kurtis, Anthony, and Clay took Kurtis’ truck and took me to the regional hospital in Fresno, about an hour away.



At the hospital, I had CT scans of my head, chest, and pelvis. They all turned out negative. The doctors in the ED had never witnessed head trauma without any concurrent body injuries. Even though I couldn't remember conversations for more than a few seconds, I claimed to be free of pain and was perfectly lucid. The physician diagnosed me with a concussion, stitched up a cut underneath my chin, and prescribed some painkillers for my headache and bruised chest before releasing me that same day.

I don’t have any memory of my flight, crash, or visit to the hospital. My memory “rebooted” at the restaurant in Pinehurst, where I treated everyone to dinner (a BHGC tradition: you crash, you buy everyone dinner). Almost all of my memory is back now, but I will probably never remember my flight, crash, or visit to the hospital.

Even though I can’t remember my flight, I know some of the mistakes that may have contributed to my crash. (1) My body was poorly rested. I had run a marathon less than a week ago, and 16 miles on top of that just one day before my flight. (2) My mind was poorly rested. All seven of us on the trip slept on a tarp outside “like a pod of walruses.” Someone started snoring immediately, and shifted throughout the night to keep me awake. I probably slept less than 4 hours that night. (3) I didn’t see the flight plan. Daniel M. demonstrated the flight first, but I was stuck behind a few other students with my glider and I couldn’t see him fly. I flew right after Daniel, because the conditions were best for the person with the least experience -- me. (4) I was worried about overshooting the landing zone. I thought I had to be below tree height to bring my glider down into the LZ. I was overly concerned about overshooting the LZ and crashing into the fence or power lines behind the pasture. (5) I adjusted my harness a few days before the trip without testing it out. Anthony and I took out the delimiter on my harness, so that I flew more horizontal when I was kicked in to the harness. I should have taken a few test flights at lower altitudes before going to the mountains. (6) I was willing to overlook all of these concerns because I was excited about getting my first mountain flight under my belt.



I come out of this entire experience remarkably fortunate and thankful. My glider, helmet, harness, and reserve parachute took the brunt of the fall, and left me intact. The BHGC took care of me in the hours and days following my accident, and I know I've been in good hands ever since.

As soon as my injuries heal, I plan on being in the mountains flying again. I know that I am capable of being a safe and skilled pilot. I just need to incorporate the lessons that I have learned and avoid making the same mistakes.



Update: Read Soggy Bottom's trip report here.
Update #2: There's a short video of me at the hospital, asking questions while "perseverating." Check it out here.