It all started with somebody else’s dream. A friend of mine has always dreamed about crossing the alps on a mountain bike. This guy was definitely not new to mountain bike adventures. He has already cycled, over a period of three months along the rockies from Canada to Mexico. One evening in February 2010 we decided that this is going to be the year to do it. In the few months to follow we gathered a group of friends together and in July we left for Austria.
Mountain biking has been a hobby of mine for a few year then, though I cannot really say that I have been serious about it. In the three years preceding the trip, I had about 6 mountain bike weekends in the Ardennen and an occasional ride in the Netherlands. Actually, I was way more interested in snowboarding and longboarding at the time. Also I was not very fit, while the rest of the group where all very fit people. All this led me to expect, upon returning, that I would probably want to throw away my mountain bike, or at least not see them for a long long time.
As I expected, I was dangling behind the group a lot, but as the week progressed, that distance became smaller and smaller (My stamina was improving while everybody else’s was decreasing). More interesting was that with each day I was enjoying myself more and more. At the end of the week, I wish it would not end, I want more. A lot more.
Upon returning to the Netherlands, instead of storring away my bike, I just wanted to ride them. All the time. So I decided to try a marathon race. Together with Erwin, who also got the mountain bike bug during our transalp adventure, we signed up for the Houffamarathon. The Houffamarathon in Houffalize, Belgium is one of the hardest in europe. Since I have mountain biked there before I knew the area was great for riding. Erwin opted for the 117km, I went with the 77km.
It was cold and rainy, the course was full of mud, and it was an absolute blast. For some weird reason, I found out that though my body was in pain I was having the time of my life. It is then that the words of Dean Karnazes came back to me”Somewhere along the line, we mistook comfort for happiness”I was definitely not comfortable, but I was very very happy. After the fun I had at the Houffamarathon, I participated in two more before the season ended. The dutch mountain bike marathon championship at Groesbeek (Hel van Groesbeek) and the Bart Brentjens challenge. Again, each race was an enjoyment. It was hard, and I was in pain quite a lot, but as a whole I was feeling very happy.
It was not just races though. After returning from the transalp, I started cycling to work (A 22km ride) almost every day, and riding trails as much as I can. Some weeks I was exceeding the 200km. I was feeling happier, and as another nice side effect I was loosing excessive fat. It is next to impossible not to be motivated when all this is happening.
Winter is now at full force here in the Netherlands with temperatures under freezing most of the time and a lot of snow, so even though I do try and ride trails I have not been able to do a lot of it as of late. The good news is that spring is coming closer inch by inch, and this time I will be ready. I have applied for a racing license and this season I intend to compete in as many races as I can physically and mentally manage.
The changes that I have gone through this last 6 months have been way more then simply a newfound passion for the sport. I am more confident, my focus has improved and all in all I am happier.  Loosing a few Kgs extra weight has also been very appreciated.It would be to far of to say that I have, in a sense, reinvented my life. My priorities have shifted, I live more fully and I am fitter an healthier.  My intention here is to keep myself motivated but also to try and help other people started in this wonderful sport.

This I believe is exactly what happened to justice Scalia. He lost sight of the reason he is there. To serve society. Executing an innocent man does not do that in any way. Look at it from the other direction, and you can see how he reasons.

One must ask himself if someone who completely lost sight of what its all about could, or should, remain in his position.

For more information on this case read this.

These last six months I have been working with, almost exclusively, quite religious people. Since I work at the IT branch this is something that is note worthy. Most IT people I know are not religious. Some of them believe in the existence of a god, others don’t, but I would definitely not classify them as religious. However, as I stated, I found my self in a team in which I was pretty much the only non believer. Coming from Israel, religion has always been something that is there. Though I am not a believer, I always thought that there is a lot of good coming from all these people. You could say my disposition towards religious people was positive.

I now have a strong dislike towards anyone that is considering himself religious. and let me tell you why.

In the first few weeks I was completely fascinated by these people. My friends are not religious, neither are my parents. You could say I grew up with little direct influence from any sort of religion. I do realize a lot of the traditions I was raised with come from the Jewish belief, however they were, at least for me, nothing more than that. A tradition.

And here I was surrounded by this group of true believers. We talked about faith, about why they believe, about what they see and how they experience the world. All 4 of them (note: 3 Christians and 1 Muslim) renounce evolution. I got answers like “Are you a dog?” and “I do not come from an ape”. And that was about all the proof they had. That was all the proof they needed. Well that and the holy scripts. It bothered me that I could not get through with rational thoughts to these people. Yet at the time I did not know quite why I was so bothered by this. I noticed I slightly shifted from being slightly positive to getting angry with them. Here was a group of people who are capable of thinking, that at some trail of thoughts completely lost touch with logic. That transaction was making me frustrated and angry. why is this happening? Why can they be perfectly logical one minute then completely break with logic the other. They brought up their arguments, I blew them away with pure and simple logic and so we always ended up with two things:

1. God’s plan is impossible for us to understand, or Gods way are mysterious, or things that to us seem illogical or impossible are actually logical and possible to a God.

2. I just know it is, or, it says so in the bible.

And that was that. There is nothing to be brought against those arguments because they are just like “because”. No logic, no thinking, no reason, just “because”. After a few of these talks I started to see what was making me so upset. It was that these, otherwise intelligent people were CHOOSING to see it like that. For the life of me I could not understand why anyone would want to do it. Then again if I could I would probably be a religious person. That was when the last shift was starting to happen in my attitude towards them. I moved from getting angry at them to feeling sorry for them. And then it finally hit me. The difference between how they think and I think.

I look at the world, and then shape my ideas of it

They have their ideas, then shape the world so that it would fit.

And that was that. These people, and this is the worst part, by their own choice are blind to the world. They know for sure how everything is, it is for them just a matter of interpreting everything in a way that matches their idea of how the world is. I now understand how people can do all the terrible things that they do in the name of religion. They do not see it as terrible things. I am actually convinced some of them see it as a good thing. A just thing. My colleges think that being gay is a choice, and that its bad, because it says so in the holy bible. I’m serious.

So now all I do is feel pity for them. They have chosen a path that was a bad idea in the middle ages, let alone in modern time. At the same time I am growing anti-religious by the minute. Look at the conflicts we have in the world now. Look at how many of it is religious based. What’s that you say, “Religion is just an excuses given to the masses”. Maybe, possibly. However, remove that excuses and it becomes a lot harder to get so many people to do so many horrible things. Religion might be misused, but if it is, than it has been for centuries. Maybe its time we realized that the only way to stop making religion an excuse is to reduce its power so that it can’t be used as such. Think I am being to harsh, look at the world map again, think of the conflicts that are going on now in the world.

How many are not religion related?

How many are?

Exactly

I rest my case.

Last note. There is still hope. Every generation there are more of us thinking people, and less of then bling people. One day, relgion will be a marginal group. That will be a good day.

Clay Shirky’s talk on Cognitive Surplus at the Web 2.0 Expo. Something to think about.

Summer came, and summer is almost gone now. I have been quite busy and so neglected my blogging commitment. Here to make it right is a post about this wonderful summer.
During this summer I had two major vacations. Two weeks in Berner Oberland, Switzerland, and a week in Israel out of which 3 days were taken by a dive safari in the Red Sea. Before I start telling about these two thought, I’d like to say that the actual travelling start with two visits to Fontainebleau within a month. Bleau is always fun, and every time I come back I find myself wondering why I don not go there more often. I hope this new trend of vising at least once a month on average (more in the summer, not so much in the winter).

Berner Oberland, oh, Berner Oberland. Home of the Jungfrau, the Eiger with its world famous north face and the Aletschhorn glacier to name a few. Paula and me spent a day in Bern, which was nice, but I was feeling restless. I wanted to see the Eiger. So the next day we left for Launterbrunnen, which lies in a dale starting close to Interlaken. It is a place out of a fairy tale. The dale has walls of a few hundred meters high. A few waterfalls flow from the top to form magnificent waterfalls. It is a place that, at least in me, steers a feeling of magic. The next two days we spent mountain biking in the area.

The first day we went up from Launterbrunnen to Muren. That proved to be a somewhat difficult day. In total its 900m of a continuous climb. We were not ready for that much climbing. By the time we reached Muren it really felt like a victory. We were quite tired, and, failing to find an apple shtrudel had to settle for a cup of coffee. The way down was fun. Those 900m went flying by. There were a few places with warning signs instructing us to get of the bikes. We didn’t. It was fun. The next day we went for a somewhat flatter route, going only 400m vertical. It was still bloody difficult. Our legs were tired but the scenery was so beautiful they were easy to ignore. The third day we were expecting Bas and Charlotte to arrive at the afternoon. Seeing as we were about to embarke on a 8 day hike we decied to take it easy. The day’s activity consisted of getting provinces and getting the bag ready for the coming hike. Bas said they would be there at around 16:00. So we expected them at 19:00 the earliest. We were caught by complete surprise when Bas and Charlotte actually arrived on time.

The hike itself was amazing. I have almost forgotten what a wonderful feeling it is to walk in the alps, sleep in huts, and just generally be out, in nature. Every day I was having more fun. We walked in 7 days from Grosse Scheidek to Oeschinsee. I find my words fail me when I come to describe how it was. The nature was so there, all around you, taking you in. Making me feel small, and at the same time as free as can be. Standing at the foot of the Eiger north face, looking at a wall 1700m high, its exhilarating. we were also very lucky with the weather. We had almost exclusively sunny days. Till 16:00. then it rained, hard. Then at 16:45 it became sunny again. Apparently it has something to do with the area’s micro climate. Lots of glaciers and a warm sun will do that.

The second vacation was the diving safari in Sinai. I am a new diver. Its less then a year since I followed a diving course during our trip to Thailand. Less then a year and already I have dives in some of the est places in the world.
Coming from Israel I am no stranger to the Red Sea. This was however the first time I properly dived in it. The safari was a 3 day, live on-board(as in on a boat). Every day there are 4 dives, except the last days which can only have 3 because of time constrains. I don’t know if I can conclude from this first experience about all live-onboard safaris, but I believe they are all pretty much like this. And by this I mean totally relaxing. You have zero worries. All you have to do. All you can do is dive, eat sleep and read. Oh and setup discos to dance into the night, but I think that was a bit unique . It is an wholly relaxing, and energy filling experience. I highly recommend it as an anti-stress treatment.
Thats it for now, I’m all written out. Ill write some more in the weekend.