Adam Bahn is a scientist and a pilot working on a prototype hovercar. When a militant group forces their way in the lab, seemingly intent on stealing the experimental craft, Adam steals it himself to keep them from getting it. Pursued by the militant group, he crosses the country trying to lose them. Secrets are revealed, about his former employer, about his experimental craft, and about his origins, as he flies from one point to another looking for somewhere safe. Safe places are not abundant for those who steal from the government, even if the theft was justified at the time.
Fourth Order
Breathe new life into your conversations. Learn what 4th order communications are and how to avoid them. Learn how to communicate closer to the higher 1st order.
Have you ever sent a text message telling someone you’re sick and they sent you a thumbs-up in reply? They were operating under the 4th order of communication. They “liked” your message without realizing that they were liking the content of the message and consequently liking that you are sick. Maybe they hope you will die. If so, it’s time for some new friends. All it takes to bring that thumb-heap up to a higher order of communication is for the thumbs-up person to think before they send anything. A lot of people are in the habit of sending the reaction emojis in reply to everything without thinking about what the reaction means in the end. Do they really like it when someone else is sick? Do they really approve of the sickness? Are they the Roger Ebert or the Gene Siskel of viruses? Probably not. At times it might even be better to just write out what you mean to say. Instead of a vague yellow thumb, send a quick, “My thoughts and prayers for you. Get well soon.”
Have you ever had someone ask a nebulous question like, “What are you doing with this thing?” Perhaps the thing in question is a unicycle. The unicycle is horizontal on the floor of your warehouse apartment. You haven’t ridden your unicycle in a while so it has a thin layer of dust on it. You notice a single string of a spider’s web extending from the seat to the floor, which prompts you to be clever with your response. “I’m raising spiders.” The person who asked gives you a sour expression and says, “That has nothing to do with my question.” So you apologize and tell them you aren’t really doing anything with it since you have a two-wheeled machine in mind and that two-wheeled machine takes up more of your time than any other vehicle at this juncture in your life, though that may change if you happen to want to join the circus and pick up the skill of juggling while riding the unicycle or perhaps riding the unicycle on a high wire. The person gets really frustrated then and claims you never have a straightforward answer to a question. You might admit they’re right and then you’ll ask, “What kind of answer were you aiming for anyway?” Then they tell you they just wanted to know if they could ride it. You slap your forehead and ask, “Why didn’t you ask that in the first place?” The answer, we know, is because they were operating in a lower order of communication, weren’t they? If you want a direct answer, ask a direct question.
Have you ever received a business email and then someone in your office resends that email to everyone? Aside from making everyone on the list wonder what exactly the job description of the email resender is, there is a measure of frustration because it looks like a new email, but it’s only a repackaging. Maybe you start reading—only to find you’ve already taken in the information. This is a lower order of communication, but it’s also a resource draw. It creates inefficiency. If you’re the boss, you need to discourage the email resender from resending.
Have you ever spoken to a homeless person and they replied to your normal conversation with a siege strike of profane proportions? It’s not the words which are conveying the message here. It’s the emotion behind the delivery. The person would probably be more civil if they didn’t have so many worries and struggles and trials. Their entire catalog of possessions is currently in a pack or a cart. Their bed is generally not in a permanent structure, nor is their bathroom. All of the bottled frustrations come out whenever they try to communicate with anyone. We might not blame them for the outburst, but we can definitely learn from it. Heavy emotions don’t often let anyone convey the real message. Instead of, “$@*!,” we mean to say, “I’m hurt, I’m tired, and I’m scared.” To get to a higher order, though, may require getting through the initial outburst.
Mountain Biking Bentonville versus Coquitlam
Bentonville Arkansas is the so-called “Mountain Biking Capital of the World”. Let’s check out the claim, made by some residents of the town.
What would make a place the capital of anything? Well, the capital is where the president or the governor resides. Maybe even a senator might reside in the capital, or possibly work there. But then we’d have to ask: what exack-ick-ly is the president, governor, or senator of mountain biking? I know plenty of beer-drinking fools who would claim to be the Presidential Elite of Mountain Biking, but giving yourself a title doesn’t necessarily make it fact. Calling your pet dog “Pig” doesn’t make it a pig.
Is there another kind of capital? There’s the kind of capital in which something dominates. Like how France is the cheese-eating capital of the world. Apparently they eat lots of cheese there. I haven’t personally seen any French cheese-eating festivals or competitions or even daily feasts. I’ve only heard through people who have visited, or lived there, that France is where people consume and consume and consume cheese as if they were required by law to do so.
Let’s take that second one into account. The idea that Bentonville, Arkansas has some attribute making it the dominant place where mountain biking exists.
If you have read my recent post on trail names, you’ll already know I claim some authority in the arena. Maybe I am the President Elite of Trail Names—in my own mind.
So, trail names first then. Bentonville has some good ones. There’s Thunder Dome, Victim of Gravity, Schoolhouse Rock, Conjunction Junction, Interplanet Janet, and Dragon Scales. Most of the trail names are mediocre, such as: Master Plan, and Bone Yard. And then they have a lot of lame trail names, like: Bushpush and Tech Hub Connector. Schoolhouse Rock may not even be original or clever, but it’s a refreshing new way to use the overused word ‘rock’ in a trail name.
We’ll grant Bentonville six good/great trail names. That’s not a lot.
In contrast, let’s travel north and west to British Columbia, Canada. We’ll take our bikes along and we’ll look for interesting trail names to determine which trails we ride. We’re not going to ride all of BC, since it’s bigger than Europe, so let’s just focus on Coquitlam. Coquitlam mountain bikers, or at least the people who named the mountain bike trails there, have an obsession with therapy. Some examples: Couples Therapy, Psycho Therapy, Shock Therapy, and Massage Therapy. Those are fun by themselves, but they have more great names that make you want to see what the trails are all about. They’ve got a Mama Bear and a Papa Bear. They have a localized name: Coquitlam Crunch, which I love. They have El Dingo Blanco, Four Lost Souls, Loosey Goosey, Manhandler, Shaloam, Tom Janks, Voltage, Woodburner, and The Dentist. That last one makes me clench my teeth in fear, by the way. But these aren’t even my favorite names. They also have Bullet Dodger and Misery Whip—two trail names that roll off the tongue with sheer frisson.
To sum up, good/great trail names in Coquitlam, Canada: 14; Bentonville, Arkansas: 6.
As far as trail names are concerned, Coquitlam wins twice over and then some. Now we need to look at the actual, physical trails.
We’re already traveling on our imaginary bikes, but we can at least check out some YouTube videos to get a view of the terrain. First we’ll go to Bentonville and see Dragon Scales, then we’ll go to Coquitlam and see Bullet Dodger. Be aware that Bullet Dodger is only part of the second video.
The last video is just a bonus view. It shows more trails in Canada. Now that you’ve seen three trails to make a comparison, you can be as much a part of the judgement as me. What did you think?
For some facts and stats on the trails, Bullet Dodger is around a mile, while Dragon Scales is closer to half a mile. Dragon Scales, according to Trailforks, has a berm, a jump, and a rock garden. Bullet Dodger, again according to Trailforks, has a berm, a jump, a gap jump, a bridge, a log ride, a rock garden, and a skinny. What that means on Trailforks is there is at least one of each of those things. Obvious in the video are, in most cases, multiple instances of the features listed. The steepness of the grade for each is Bullet Dodger: -34 at its steepest, and Dragon Scales: -18 at its steepest. Bullet Dodger is called a double black diamond, while Dragon Scales is called a single black diamond. Bullet Dodger’s elevation above sea level, at its highest, is 1,299. Dragon Scales hits 1,239 feet above sea level.
These comparisons aren’t perfect, but I feel they’re close enough statistically to show whether one or the other could be located in the “Mountain Biking Capital of the World”. I’m going to ignore the black diamond rating since it seems too subjective for any kind of judgement. One person’s black diamond is another’s green. For instance, Bentonville has seven total double black diamond trails. Coquitlam has eight. But if we got into the average steepness of the trails or the number of actual features on the trails we would see that Bentonville is nearly flat, while Coquitlam trails are built like bobsled racetracks. The reality of the difficulty is in the eye of the resident.
What is the point? The totals just don’t add up to let me leave the claim alone, made by someone in Bentonville, Arkansas, boasting Bentonville as the “Mountain Biking Capital of the World.” Naming your dog “Sparrow” won’t make it fly.
Lastly, in case you heard the marketing for Bentonville in which they list the total miles of trails (150+), then you might want to understand Coquitlam has about the same total (153 miles, according to Trailforks). I didn’t even mention Whistler, Canada (’til now), but they have 160+ miles of trails. So if the total miles is how it’s measured, I’m sure Whistler has the upper hand, or should we say, the dominant attribute.
The final word here is definitely undecided since it would take some serious investigation to find the Mountain Biking Capital, but it’s not likely Bentonville Arkansas.
Childhood
Along with the magic of Christmas, there are a fair amount of benefits to childhood. You aren’t expected to know much, or be responsible for much, or even to lift much. Everyone around you expects very little of your little body.
You are required to uphold all the laws of childhood, but even those aren’t difficult to follow. They’re only difficult to remember.
Aside from the one childhood Proverb, “Mother is the name of God on the lips of children,” there are the ten commandments of childhood, which are understandably much less serious.
10. Thou shalt never, ever, ever say anything is your fault.
“The weasels put those green beans under my chair, not me.”
9. Thou shalt discover new places to hide bogies.
8. Thou shalt scream “Stranger Danger!” whenever those aunts and uncles you don’t like come around.
7. Thou shalt not eat the last of a package of anything.
6. Covet not thy neighbor’s chores.
(And avoid your own at all costs.)
5. Thou shalt always share things that adults don’t want you to share.
Cough, cough, wipe, wipe.
4. Thou shalt not wait ’til you’re old to drive a car.
At six you can do anything.
3. Thou shalt own it if you lick it.
No matter what it is, if you want it bad enough, put your DNA on it.
2. Thou shalt cross your eyes whenever a camera is near you, or aiming your direction.
1. Thou shalt not let a good white wall be without crayon.
—
And it’s so easy to slip up, to fall short of a commandment or two, but don’t worry, it probably just means you’ve grown out of childhood and you’re now a teenager.
Boxes
Putting things in a box.
Portions of daily life require it.
Schrodinger enjoyed boxes so much he was like a cat. Cats love playing in boxes. Schrodinger always wondered what the cat was doing in the box.
We put things in boxes so we can move them from place to place.
Things we want to sell go in a box.
We stack things when they’re in boxes. It’s especially helpful with items that by themselves would be unstackable, like beach balls, pinto beans, or cats.
Another thing to do with boxes is to put in items which you never want to see again. Here’s how it’s done. Take those pieces of your life you never want to see again, put them inside the box of choice, tie it, tape it, strap it shut, then take that box to an out of the way place, like an attic. Attics are basically box magnets. One is attracted to another. Attics seem to have been invented to collect boxes. Boxes just go there. No doubt about it.
Boxes are great for gift-giving. Not only can you not see what’s in there, but neither can the person to whom you’re giving the gift. It’s that whole dual state idea all over again: it could be a pile of money inside the box, or it could be a dead cat (yeah, that Schrodinger was one sick dude; speaking of Schrodinger, wasn’t it weird that his whole hangup was that he feared the quantum realm was having loads of fun until he happened to be looking its way, then it played dead?).
The world of child’s play can make 100 uses for boxes that adults haven’t thought of for decades, sometimes centuries. A pirate ship, a tank, an airplane, a spacious mansion, a gold mine, a racecar, a choo-choo train, a general store, a place to hide the green beans from dinner, a dollhouse, a swimming pool, a dance studio, the prop for many a magic trick, or even a hat. The ideas of childhood don’t stop there. They’re limitless.
Perhaps we even find the lost trinkets of our childhood in a box our mother made for us.
Of all the things she collected, why that?
How many of our everyday purchases are boxed? Most of them?
What if they weren’t?
Boxes surely make life better. And yes, boxes make Life better. Without the ever-present cardboard box, many of us would go hungry. Not that we eat the box, but that we eat what is inside it.
Sometimes boxes are transported via a vehicle known as a “box truck.” There’s poetry in that.
When you don’t have a sack lunch, you might be enjoying a box lunch.
And one more guy who liked boxes was a gentleman who went by the name Dr. Seuss. He imagined a fox in a box. No cats for the doctor. He preferred the fox for obvious reasons. Obvious, but I’ll tell you anyway—because they rhyme. That fox even had socks, which also rhymes. A fox might like the box for the same reason a cat does, but I wouldn’t know. Other than in books, I haven’t seen a fox in a box. I’ve seen many a cat in a box, and believe me, they are very much alive. You wouldn’t want to observe them (like Schrodinger wants us to), unless you like having your eyes scratched. That is to say, when you imagine Schrodinger’s boxed-up cat, you should imagine it leaping around in there, because that’s much closer to reality. The reality of a boxed-up fox would be poetic to say the least.
Anyway, Christmas is coming soon, as is Boxing Day. What will we find wrapped up in so many boxes?
Tinsel!
No, I’m just kidding. I don’t know what you will find. I hope it’s a great surprise.
Xenosthesia.com 