finbarrio

Best wishes Seasiren!!! We're thinking of you and sending positive thoughts.

Great thread! Very interesting. My sister took aikido and I took TKD. My TKD instructor was very into learning techniques from other styles, particularly self-defense techniques. When I went to a couple of classes with my sister, I quickly realized where my instructor got some of his self-defense techniques, especially with weapons self-defense. Cool stuff. My sis is a cop and there were a lot of cops in her aikido class. I guess it makes sense for cops considering some of the close quartered/neutralizing types moves.

Welcome, vagabond I think you need to post some pictures of those mountains and hikes you were talking about. Sounds awesome! And some of your dogs too.

Hippie!

Good stuff.

I guess you're so huge you scared all the kids away from the playground!

Cool! Hey, you have hair!

Bingo! I agree with this 100%. Same with other products like moisturizers, lip balm, antiperspirants, and many other products that provide temporary relief, but then you find yourself needing them again.

Which speaks to the root of the problem with most politicians - they don't speak the truth about anything - they just say what they think will get you to vote for them. Period. I've had the displeasure of watching Mitt Romney pander votes from everyone from the religious right to the liberal left and anyone else in between that will listen to him distort his position on anything in order to get votes. He's a f-ing liar, blindly ambitious for power. They all are.

Ego. Ego. Ego. How many of our decisions/attitudes/emotions are direct products of our egos? "I took that job because it's a good career move, and now I'll be able to afford that Lexus "; "I deserve that promotion more than him"; "I hate that arrogante jerk!" -- all of these can be tied directly back to a desire to inflate or defend our ego. Our egos are carefully nurtured from early on as we're taught to be better, to get ahead, to exert our power over others. This literally warps our sense of reality - we see reality from the viewpoint of our ego, rather than as simply an observer of the happenings of life. The ego viewpoint sparks emotions in us that don't match the reality of a situation. Think about some decisions and emotions you made or had recently. Maybe you applied for a new job, got in an argument, felt cheated or spurned by someone. How did it tie back to your ego? If you took ego out of the equation, how might you have decided or reacted differently? How would that have affected your attitude? Get pissed off at someone in traffic? Is it because they were impeding on your precious progress? There's ego! Think about how your ego prompted your reaction and affected your attitude. So maybe you start to get a hold on how YOUR ego affects YOUR attitude or decisions. Now consider that others are also driven by their egos. Let's say your coworker gets pissed at you for an invalid reason. If you take your ego out of the equation, and then resign yourself to the fact that it's likely THEIR ego at the root of the problem, how might you react differently? Will you be calmer than you otherwise might have been? I know I would. And then invariably the person will see the err in their ways - and either apologize, or spiral deeper into the ego abyss. Either way, you'll move on with a clearer sense of what really happened, and a satisfaction that you handled the situation well. Ego can often be a hindrance to happiness. It can ignite negative emotions inside of us, or puff us up with false pride so that we make decisions NOT based on how it will affect our happiness, but how it will "make us look." Try to remove ego from your path, and see if it results in a calmness, a clearing of your viewpoint and intuitive abilities, and a general enhanced sense of contentment.

Wooo hooo! http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/06/legislators_vot_1.html

There are some theories out there about the evolution of consciousness. Some say that humans are currently in a stage of "power" consciousness, whereby we are obsessed with controlling and exuding power over others. The next stage of human consciousness would be one quite different - an "ethics" consciousness, where compassion and love rule the day and displays of power and control over another are revolting. This theory make a lot of sense to me. It seems definite that there are many people obsessed with power and control in this world. But it seems like every day I see the ethics consciousness challenging that. More and more people becoming veggie/vegan, eating organic food, buying fair trade items, advocating for the poor, for gay rights, the list goes on. While it'd be nice to live in a world where ethics was more prevalent, I'm definitely glad I'm contributing to the evolution of this consciousness. The evolution of our species seems much bigger and more important to me than any religion or political system. In fact, but for their hold on the majority of people in this world, those seem almost trivial in comparison.

Cool pics. Liz is in killer shape.

out of curiousity, what gear ratio are you running on the track bike?

Robert - now you got the kids posing in the pics too! Looks like it was fun night. Brings back memories of VV1.

Besides veganism, animal welfare/rights, and biking , lately I've been really into thinking. I mean really deep reflections on the state of the world and human race; what we're led to believe is true vs. what really is true; the state of, and evolution of, human consciousness. As distracting and deceitful as the media, politicians, corporations, and society in general can be, I feel like there is a growing trend towards considering bigger issues than whether or not Paris Hilton should be freed from prison and how much healthier Subway is than BK. I want to contribute to the evolution of human consciousness, not be a hindrance through apathy or ignorance. So, yeah, I've been into that lately. Thanks for asking - it's interesting to see what others are into and what differences and similarities there are between us.

Awesome. Thanks for sharing. I'm amazed at trials skills. I know the bikes are different and set up different, but some of those skills would help so much when I'm out on technical trails on my full susser.

Great job . Hey, what does the banner say (translated to Eng)?

That's what I was alluding too with my T-2022 days (now 2021 days). The end of the long count. I figured that's what it was, but I wasn't sure and didn't feel like counting ( ).

Well my Sydney trip is postponed. I was going there to interview candidates for an open position with my organization, but we haven't had any candidates apply. So it looks like we'll be delaying for 3-4 weeks as they recruit more heavily.

Yes, something like that. Interesting you use that word, as that's exactly how my friend describes his "awakening". It's a bit hard to fathom how the world could suddenly wake up - like, picture what it would take for that to happen. Maybe a huge natural disaster, like what Lotus is talking about. Or more on the fantasy side as Kon said - aliens revealing themselves and kicking all the carnivores off the planet would certainly serve as a wake up call . On the Edgar Casey thing - the earth actually "wobbles" on its axis. The Mayans figued this out a couple thousand years ago and their calendar is partly based on this "precession". Their calendar actually ends in Dec 2012, coinciding with several astronomical anomalies. Google "Mayan Calendar" and you'll find some pretty interesting reading material.

I think those things could happen in one way or another. But I was talking about something more related to the world's consciousness. My friend thinks we're on the verge of an awakening of sorts - that people will start seeing and understanding that SO MUCH of what they "know"...is bullcrap. It could be that one of those things you mention, or a combination of them, results in that awakening.

That guy FREAKED ME OUT. Bad memory, bad memory. I've been thinking a lot lately about how untruthful our society is and I think a lot of it boils down to the fact that the media, our politicians, corporations - they have no interest in being truthful, they just want to make you do something - watch their show, vote for them, buy their products. And in doing so, you're under their control. And when you're under their control, then you will live your life not knowing any better and will die having lived a false, apathetic existence. My friend is convinced that something BIG is coming, something that will put everything on its head (he's not the only one who thinks this). And the people who understand what's really going on will trust their intuition and live through it fine. The rest will either learn quickly or...I don't know what.

Powerful stuff. As you know, I was just there about a month ago and the thing that struck me the most was the extent of the devastation, and how it seems as though progress is barely creeping along. There are just miles and miles and miles of empty, destroyed houses, abandoned neighborhoods. It's sad that it could be like that anywhere, but even sadder that it's in supposedly the most advanced country in the world.

My condolences. I think he was off-line for a while - that's the only reason I figured I could slip that in without him seeing it. I think he's back online now, though. Hope he doesn't post me to death.