Up Early, Saturday

The title explains the situation. It's the weekend but I can't sleep in, simply stewing too much on everything to allow sleep to wrap me in its weekend arms. If I step back and view things objectively, I really have an ideal mix of ingredients for the perfect life, yet (as is typical for me) I'm mired in stress about my job, my fitness, my family, my... who knows? Sometimes I can not even identify what I'm grappling against; a disconcerting thought to imagine feeling this way for no reason for the rest of my life.

Nah, there is at least a fleck of reason for my uneasiness. The ol' dream job I've bragged about in this very blog has shed roughly 70% of its workforce. Start up company that experienced meteoric growth then scaled back down when the cosmic explosion vacuumed in on itself. From an engineer's humble viewpoint, it looks like there are too many cooks in the kitchen, as they say, too many creatives at the top chiming in on what to pursue next with no ability to narrow down and prioritize. To give some credit where it's due, once our CEO was fired (at the end of June) our CFO jumped in and proclaimed a product to focus upon and we're still chugging forward on it... the problem now is the ridiculously fictitious deadline given our grossly reduced engineering team. Bah.

If the company goes under, obviously I'm out of a job. Not the end of the world but disturbing nonetheless on multiple levels. I really believe in my job; I believe in my work mates and I believe in our ability to push the boundaries of robot-human interaction. Much of my sadness emanates from such potential going unfulfilled due to such crap-ball leadership. Now, there's also the very frightening realization that finding another engineering job in Boise right now would be near-friggin' impossible. Micron is sloughing off engineers daily like unnecessary skin cells, and HP is operating at the fine knife-edge of efficiency after doing the same a couple months ago. I'd have more luck getting a job at Home Depot than in an engineering firm, though even that may be difficult if I don't dumb-down my resume in fear of over-qualification.

Woe is me, right (or... whoa! is me?, woisme). Pshh... I can quit my bitching. I think things are just snowballing and it's always been easier for me to feel suppressed than triumphant. On the positive side of life, um... my beautiful wife and I are really clicking and communicating better than ever (she's still in bed, snoring this very moment as if ascertaining my claims, bless her soul). I've started fabricating steampunk-style contraptions on the side with a group of friends, and I'm about nine classes in to this hot-yoga program down on State Street. Life's really not too bad.

I sure miss my family though. Alaska is a long ways away and the ailing airlines aren't making it cheap to travel lately. My sister made it up here last weekend and we had a blast, but such visits always make the gap apart more difficult. This Thanksgiving we have zero plans; I've joked (more like tested the waters, unsuccessfully) about cooking up a perfect 1/10th scale model dinner for Lauren and I, which I think is hilarious but no one else seems to. What do you think of this: a roasted quail or Cornish game-hen, baked in a shallow bread pan with a variety of teeny side dishes like mini-marshmallows (SwissMiss style) over candied yam(letts), side salad incorporating those little baby corns and breadcrumbs for croutons, a dollop of jelly representing cranberry sauce, and maybe a "spiral-cut" piece of summer-sausage in representation of honey-cooked-ham. Hmm? We could arrange little Lego men around the food and watch their unblinking eyes stare in disbelief of such a feast. No?

The dog is snoring now, in stereo with my beautiful wife, and I'm going to go roll them both over. I feel better, somehow, having whined a bit. Later then.

Halloween 08

For Halloween this year I wanted to be Kip from Napoleon Dynamite. The results you see are, obviously, far from Kip... but hilarious nonetheless. We threw a good pre-party with a close small group of friends. Not too shabby.

Life's been decent. Things at work are somewhat shaky but I'm rolling with the punches. Lauren's kicking serious butt in school and I've transitioned out of riding and into running/lifting/anything. More detailed update on its way because, well, why not.

Bike racing, parts two, three, four....

I realize I never got to the "Part Two" of my bike racing recount. I had a pretty good chunk of it written but ended up scrapping the whole thing for various reasons. Part two was set to summarize the Elkhorn Cycling Classic over in Baker City, Oregon, where we finished 2nd and 3rd in GC and I had a couple really great rides. But now, all of that seems so very far away and somewhat trivial during this NRC race in Bend, Oregon. Come to think of it, this is the first NRC race I've hit since Tour of Utah in 2006; to say that I'm being humbled is an understatement.

I have good fitness. Nearly great fitness, in fact. And yet I've been barely cracking the top 1/2 of riders in the past couple of stages. The Prineville Road Race on Wednesday, 83-miles in distance, was over and done in about 2 hours and 50 minutes. You can check my math here, but that equates to roughly 29.5 mph average speed... like trying to keep pace behind a motorbike with zero room for error. Santiago Botero won the stage and hence took the overall lead (you remember Botero, right?) I finished a couple of minutes down. I had made a commitment to get in a break early on, which worked out and didn't work out. I was involved in two really solid breaks that looked primed to stay away, but for who knows what reason we got brought back each time. Proof pudding can be found here, and here. I had a very poorly timed mechanical that required stopping, getting off of my bike, and manually "adjusting" my front derailleur and chain, maybe 1 km before the only major climb of the day. It was a bummer.

Yesterday, that is Thursday, I felt 10x better and was sure that I'd cracked the top fifty riders at the hilltop finish. I again tried to place myself in a breakaway but (dang it) I missed the one that went. I decided to just sit in the group, focus on efficiency and fueling and give it a go on the finishing climb. It was a rad stage and I felt like a protagonist instead of just a survivalist; I was even up in a move with a Bissell, HealthNet, Toyota United, and Type1 pro while blazing through the town of Sisters. When we hit the climb I set a good pace and dieseled up for a respectable finish....

Well it turns out that my respectable finish was about 70th place. Unbelievable. I think what has me bajito (a tidbit down) at the moment is that leading into this event I 1) underestimated the level of these top-drawer professionals and 2) overestimated my own level. I'm not throwing in the towel, nor am I spiraling down into some pity-party; but I don't feel like I was being realistic. These guys do this for a living, and it shows. So right now I'm juggling a whole lot of feelings; when I step back mentally and think of my fitness versus theirs, I am not intimidated nor feel any sort of confused frustration over the disparity. Instead, I feel that the difference between us is a result of miles logged in racing and training, and that is all.

Now, if I scale that thought back one more level and consider the big-picture balance of life, I am pleased and satisfied in the wonderful mix I've obtained. I love Lauren, I love my job, we have an amazing house and dog and a cute little Jetta wagon to drive. I would not relinquish any of those to go 20-spots faster in an NRC event... but I tell you what (and this is the struggle), I'm very much removed from my bubble of satisfaction right now. I'm here in Bend and it's all about bike racing and I love it but I'm frustrated. How's that for a mired mess of conflicting thoughts?

This morning is a time trial. I like time trialing and I think I can turn the screws on some of those skinny kids that have outclimbed me over the past two stages. Tonight is a crit, and ditto on the screw turning. They can exact their revenge tomorrow when we crest over Mt. Bachelor, twice.

-Calvin

Bike Racin' Part One

All right, I know I try to avoid purely cycling-related posts, but things are just going to well not to share it with my fans (hah! shouting into the vacuum). These past couple weekends have presented some great rides for me and my team, and since this is a personal blog I'll take the opportunity to embrace, and embellish upon, my personal rising fitness.

I was worried about my China trip and its potential effect on training, but if it set me back it is all but undetectable. In fact, I suspect that such a respite from intense training allowed the fitness to ferment somewhat. I touched back down in the states on Saturday afternoon. An easy ride that day and the next prepped me for an intense week of leg-ripping intensity (my own legs, for time being). Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday were interval days and the jet lag made for some rough sensations.

That following Friday evening was the Tour of Eagle criterium. Being a few blocks from where I work, I could not resist the temptation to invite the entire Ugobe workforce down to the event. In the end, a handful of them showed up and suffice to say they now view me in a different light (strange to see someone in a tucked-in button-up shirt and slacks every day, then suddenly tight lycra and tech-wear the next). Back in the day I feared friends and family seeing me race and felt a lot of pressure to perform. Not so anymore; I suppose I realize they don't care so much about my results; I also feel a heck of a lot more confident in general.

So I won the criterium! I'm still waiting for some pictures to appear, when they do I'll make sure to post them. We raced VERY well as a team and had the victory in the bag a few times with at least two guys up the road each time. For various reasons each break got brought back until I went with about 8 laps remaining. My personal hero story stems from a broken derailleur cable I suffered 10-minutes in to the 45-minute race. Having to race in my hardest gear for those 35 minutes made me re-think how I race crits... you simply can not afford to scrub any speed unnecessarily; it is much to difficult to re-accelerate. It made for some difficult strategery, as local pro Remi M. was paying a lot of attention to anyone with good legs. When I went I went super hard and opened up a large gap in a lap. The race was actually neutralized with two laps remaining due to a massive, severe crash in turn one; fortunately no one was injured beyond some road burn and a concussion. At that point I had about 2/3 of a lap's advantage on the main field and was awarded the win. Yahoo!

That night was also the onset of Ron Miller's bachelor party weekend; following the crit I ventured downtown to the Balcony, then to the Neurolux. Five mixed drinks and approximately 4000 dance moves later Lauren and I walked back home to our North End cottage and called it a night. A 3:00 AM bedtime wasn't ideal for recovery but was ideal for the soul. I went up to Sun Valley with Ron and his cronies the next day and logged some beautiful mountain bike rides, marvelling at some great legs juxtaposed with my rusty technical skills! My shins are still bumped and bruised 10 days later.

China Notes: June 2008

I kept meaning to post some of these. So, well, here you go:

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China: En Route

Somehow I figured I would last a bit longer before fully cracking. Not so. It's about midnight, Boise time, though I can not tell you the exact “World Time” since we're somewhere off the coast of Japan and the International Date Line gets pretty screwy. I do know that we're scheduled to touch down in Hong Kong around 6:30PM Sunday evening; that should be about four hours from now, though who knows.

The trip has gone pretty well so far. We are just beginning. I woke up crazy early this morning to finish packing and to sneak out for a snappy little mountain bike ride. It was a phenomenal way to start the day! I had forgotten just how beautiful the Boise foothills are on early summer mornings. That faint whiff of dew and sage, ~60-degrees F, and the crisp pinched-yellow morning light. I took a quick lap around the Corrals loop, really going for it ascending and descending. Anyway, got back from the ride, gathered up my belongings, and rode with Holly to the airport. Since then has been pretty standard; standardized boredom: board plane, taxi, sit on runway, head back to gate to adjust cargo weight and distribution (wha?), fly, fly fly. The leg from Boise to San Francisco was delayed an hour plus we had to go into a “holding pattern” for another twenty minutes above SFO before landing. Good news is that the layover was shorter than it could have been.

And yes, I'm aboard a wicked-huge aero-plane now, flying non-stop to Hong Kong. Seven thousand five hundred miles in one big 14-hour chunk. I actually thought we were scheduled to arrive Monday morning and subsequently head straight to meetings. Thank goodness I was mistaken and we will have a full night's rest in the hotel to prepare for Monday's chicanery. All I have to do is survive the next four hours. I am praying for a more entertaining movie this next round. So far we've watched The Golden Compass (might have been cool but the sound was screwed up), 27-dresses (yank), The Water Horse (AKA Free Willy Redux), and finally Jumper. I thought I had more movies on this work laptop but I'm down to a couple favorites. I guess I'll have to watch Idiocracy again... not too shabby.

Fun fact about Calvin's first trip to China: I'm wearing compression socks and leggings. Yessir, you know those god-awful flesh-toned knee-high socks that big ol' ladies wear to fend off varicose veins or diabetic distress? Yeah, I got a pair. Pooling blood in the feet and legs equals trouble for athletes. Another fun fact or two: I've eaten three apples in the last two hours, mostly due to boredom! Exit row seating is not all it's cracked up to be (passengers are stretching and loitering two feet from my face this very instant). Liquor drinks are free on this flight (not sure if that's a standard United Airlines international thing or what) though I'm flying sober tonight.

Lots to share over the next week and I plan on writing a ton.

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China #2

Yeah! Brief little breather between meetings, good time to update. I'm currently sitting in “Meeting Room Number2” in one of the hundreds of buildings at FoxConn's Gongguan campus, killing some time until we head out to gorge ourselves over another seven course meal. This campus is the very same that manufactures the iPod, iPhone, and iWhateverElse though there's no way in hell any of us will see that production floor. FoxConn is a gargantuan manufacturer for a reason: they are very serious indeed about product confidentiality; no exceptions.

I am having a very good time. Overall I feel that my visit to Thailand in September inadvertently prepared me for Asian exposure; that's a good thing and a bad thing. Nothing seems shocking or out of the ordinary here as compared to Thailand. Tons of people all over the streets, constant construction on all roads buildings and storefronts, zany drivers (no traffic rules), and some goofy foods for breakfast lunch and dinner. So yes, it's good that I feel plenty comfortable and settled in, but bad that I'm not experiencing that “oh my gosh everything is so crazy” newness.

I have not gotten to see much since we arrived. We flew in around six thirty on Sunday night, had to go through customs three times (leave airport, leave Hong Kong, enter China), then drive another 40 minutes to our hotel. By the time we got to the Goodview Hotel it was 9:30PM and I hadn't slept for 30 hours! I could seriously rant about the customs program in Hong Kong, but I'll save that for another day. The point is, by that hour on Sunday evening I was not in the mood to wander around the hotel to suck in some culture. I just laid in bed, watched Chinese MTV for a few minutes (priceless), ate a granola bar and some fruit, and konked out.

I think I slept maybe 5 hours that first night. Jetlag is a brutal phenomena. At 2:30 AM I actually got up, brushed my teeth, and popped my contacts back in before waking up enough to realize I was out of my freaking mind and needed to continue sleeping for a few hours. Same thing nearly happened two hours later. At 5 AM I finally just got up and surfed the net until the gym opened. I was worried that I'd have no means by which to exercise, as I've been on business trips before that resulted in all food and no caloric expenditure, but this weight room is just fine. Each morning I've had the StarTrac lifecycle all to myself. Two things would improve it, however, namely 1) if I'd remembered to bring my iPod and 2) just a teeny bit (anything give me a morsel) of airflow. Oh yeah and maybe if I could read Mandarin and run the control for the TV.

The Goodview Breakfast buffet is pretty gourmet, reminding me much of a hotel Lauren and I experienced in Krabi. I really dig having Dim Sum for breakfast along with a bowl of rice krispies and some lychees. OK, I don't necessarily love those things every morning; I'm saying that I love the variety. Pancakes, egg roles, pickled eggs, green salad, fruit compote, fried noodles, twinkies, bacon. All for breakfast? Yes please.

Later: FC took us all out to dinner tonight. Crazy thing I ate was a chicken foot. Not too bad, but not worth the act. Lots of effort to pull the meat off the bone, not really worth the trauma encountered when putting a cadaver-esque wiggling appendage in your mouth. Spitting phalanges out is a little weird. Else dinner was awesome and of course excessive. Here was the flow: sit down, drink beer, eat peanuts and pickled green mango, Jasmine tea, beef dish Sezhuan style, bok-choy soup, marinated muscles, sweet and sour cod, glazed duck, ginger chicken, marinated tofu....

....eggy soup, garlic rice noodles with scallops, curried seafood with potatoes, buttered broccoli... sheesh.

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China #3

Thursday now, still hanging out at FoxConn. Big breakthrough at the gym last night when I finally deciphered the remote control, not only managing to turn it on but also locating the Discovery Channel amongst the 80+ Chinese channels. Yeah! An hour on the elliptical trainer goes WAY faster when you're not just staring at a paneled wall in front of you. Unfortunately the Disco channel was broadcasting this tribal documentary that really bummed me out.

Great progress on our project, too. All of the gears and gear boxes arrived last night; Kim-yung made some poor peon stay here all night assembling the pieces so we could evaluate today. I asked who it was that stayed, wanting to offer my appreciation and pity, but they actually let him take the morning off to recover. They are not as monstrous as I'd heard many Chinese manufacturers can be. It's quite the trip to see the difference between their first-generation prototypes and our own; funny the difference it makes when you have 5x the number of product development employees and 10x the amount of resources. I'd share more details but don't want to let much out of the bag. Not yet at least.

Speaking of secrecy, it is killing me to be SO close to Apple's iPhone production line but not have the opportunity to check it out. In fact, I doubt I'll get to see a single manufacturing assembly operation while I'm here. Wha? Not the purpose of our trip, but I can't believe I am here and won't see anything. We did have the chance to tour FC's testing facilities yesterday which was entertaining/educating, but I'd heard so much about these rooms with 10,000 19-year-old kids standing shoulder to shoulder assembling parts almost too small to see.

I've just learned that our dinner tonight will take place in a bustling city some 20 miles from here. I can't remember the name but I'll let you know later; point is that we'll hopefully be eating light then hitting the streets to do some light shopping. Yeah, finally!

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Sunday evening notes

We'll see how many words I get down before the battery dies. Or before my brain dies. I'm a bit fatigued at the moment. The fourth and final race of the Lyle Pearson Spring Series (road racing) wrapped up out in Emmett a few hours ago. Good ride but oh my goodness I'm cross-eyed now.

Looking back, I haven't updated in some time. I've been "journaling" somewhat on my own, electronically, but have not felt the urge to post anything. I read a funny stat in Esquire magazine about "the ratio of blogs to humans rapidly approaching 1:1". That summarizes it; I can not claim to be an original blogger, as I hopped on the trend and followed the example set forth by a prior team mate back in the day. Now, however, everyone and their dog has a blog. It has changed the dynamic of living.

Case in point: by approximately 10 PM tonight I should be able to read a minimum of seven distinct perspectives on today's race posted by participants on their personal blogs. The allure of blogs is the intimate soul-dump that occurs, unclouded by any fear that others will challenge your personal point of view on various topics. That illusion of privacy, of this being a personal journal, really allows you to put your foot in your mouth.

Racing 2008

A few of you have asked (OK, just one person, and they're family but I still feel special) what team I'll be riding for next year:

http://www.teambobs-bicycles.com/

I don't think they'll have anything posted until our big team camp/photo shoot in mid-February. Should be a good setup. Racing starts in about three weeks at a small event in Western Oregon...

http://www.willamettevalleycycling.com/cherry_pie/cherry_pie.html

More details to follow. The race is about 77 miles from the current residence of my aunt and uncle, so I hope to turn the race trip into a good visit. Thoughts?

Olde Poste - 13 Days Back

Welcome to Wisconsin.

Here for work, just for a few days, and darn glad about both of those facts. The work trip is fantastic in terms of personal growth, career development, and so forth, but Wisconsin in the dead of winter (I'm beginning to learn) is not conducive to enjoying one's self in anything extra-curricular. It's four degrees F outside at this moment. I would give anything to go work out, even a nice little jog somewhere, but this Best Western is not equipped with a cardio room and outdoor exercise in this temperature would count as reverse-training.

Plus, I'm actually on a conference call this very moment, listening in to a group of our employees sprinkled around the USA and China. Eighty percent of the conversation does not apply to me but I'm keyed in to respond to anything that crosses into my realm of importance. An international conference call is worth experiencing: lots of people speaking over one another, each individual's voice either amplified or insulated by respective personal surroundings, glitches in language translations, and random connection/disconnection noise sprinkled on like allergen frosting, all adding to the frenzy. One of our marketing guys sounds like he's in a WalMart bathroom (think massive echoing resonance and an assemblage of background voices of all pitch and age); a boss is apparently driving in a car as evidenced by sporadic honks and shouts; one gent is speaking so quietly I am unsure he even wants to be heard; yet another speaking so loudly he may have ingested the microphone itself. There is an incessant pinging that symbolizes persons joining or leaving the call.

Work here is awesome, however. We flew out for a brief two-day visit with an industry expert in gear design, touching down yesterday evening in St Paul, Minnesota and driving 100 miles NE into this Mac 'n Cheese state of Wisconsin. It is a visit that had me preparing with nervous anxiety for the last two weeks; the guy is a guru and I wanted to be educated and braced to answer any question presented. This stage of our design requires a great deal of technical input, but we are also struggling with substantial project and process management issues so I am getting some experience in that as well. I realize I am not being very specific, but those are the details I am privy to share and will have to suffice. Regardless, the point is I am being pushed in technical abilities, project management skills, and interpersonal skills all at once and not doing too badly (as far as I know). Don't ask anyone else, just take this as gospel.

I was actually hoping that I could ramble out a few hundreds words before latching on to a thought worth pursuing literally, but it has not happened so I will now bow out of this one-sided conversation. Enjoy whatever your eyes find next in this wide world of waste. I'll let you know if anything crazy happens here in Siren, Wisconsin.

OK, Ok. Back in the airport, currently physically pointing North East but soon to fly South West back to the heartland (joke ha ha). The trip is drawing to a close and only 2.5 hours of plane-ride-time remain. Today's schedule went well and our meetings cut short, so we managed to bump the return flight up by four hours... yeah! With any luck I'll be able to return home, visit with the ol' lady for some time, and maybe get in some form of exercise before it is time to get some shut-eye. Overall I am so so pleased with the trip and feel like I've gained some credibility with my boss and clients.

Credibility? An explanation: You know that feeling you have for the first few days/weeks of a new job, knowing your true worth but also knowing you are being watched and scrutinized by those who hired you? Normally that feeling is fleeting and consumed by one's latent self-confidence in capabilities, proportional decrease in paranoia, and resultant sense of job security. Whereas this feeling, for most, attenuates and disappears after a fortnight I tend to carry the burden of “measuring up” for a couple months at least. This time around the feeling is more persistent than ever due to the elite/genius workforce and my comparatively limited real-world experience. In a nutshell free of such prolix explanation: I am an overachiever with low self esteem. Sha la la la, at least it is on the mend and changing for the better.

So yes, I did well. There may be an eminent trip to China looming, where I will meet directly with motor/gear/transmission manufacturers as a company representative. Holy cow! This is great and I never expected such opportunity so early on. I'll still need some hand-holding of course and can't be trusted alone with the Chinese, huh-huh, but it is another step up the long ladder of my career development and I am excited. This airport terminal is intumescing with fellow travelers so I'll likely cut this short (mostly because I look like a dork when blogging [see prior blog entry when I couldn't get past my own reflection on the laptop screen]). Not sure why you made it to this point in reading, but I hope you enjoyed.

Stimuli (current):

1. Smells: Overwhelming odor of cheap lotion (St. Ives, perhaps), stale air from above head-vent, Whopper from approx. 12-foot distance, personal slight body odor (sharp yet subtle) from overheated conference rooms and 100-mile heat-coffin-car ride. Onion breath from super lunch salad.

2. Noise: Blips and pings from cells, PDAs, and security scan-ins, though not ever-present; numerous children gobbling mumbling hoo-diddly squawking all blended together into a base noise suchlike a farmhouse chicken coop; hiss of aforementioned ceiling vent; lower frequency ubiquitous grumble from outdoor taxiing 74x's; (2) distinct individuals with wicked chest colds causing intermittent coughs, sniffs, and lung-scraping expellings (eh?).

3. Sights: all cast in yellow-curd shade from low-quality neon tube-lights and intruding (overcast sky) grayness from outside; once blue now gray short-nap carpeting underfoot and midway up surrounding walls blanketed with some sort of stick and bird pattern in darker gray; 40+ passengers, most well-bundled in thick yet comfy puff jackets, sweat pants, scarves and beanies awaiting their boarding opportunity; patience yet lethargy;

4. Sense: no more feeling in my backside due to absence of chair cushion, excessive ambient temperatures for this techy jacket I've donned, and slight pain due to oniony super-solid lunch from item number one, above.