Month: November 2011

Since it’s my rest week, I’ve been loading up on the jobs.  I’m still working at the theatre for the time being, and at the hotel too.  But I also posted a “Hire a  Cyclist” add on Craigslist via advice from my wise guru coach, Same Johaneson.  I basically said I’d be up for any sort of manual labor and I’ve made a nice wad of cash in doing so.  I posted the add a few weeks ago and have had a few people call, one of which I’ve been helping for the past three days.  He’s extremely strange and he keeps talking about the same exact thing every single day.  It’s almost like talking to a cyclist.

His old house is up north of Boulder about 15 minutes away from me, so it’s pretty far.  Luckily he’s been picking me up every morning after my bike ride, otherwise I’d have to ride out there.  He’s in the process of moving out of his recently sold home, which he had to sell due to losing his job and not being able to keep up on the mortgage.  It’s a massive old house, white with dozens of columns, double outdoor/indoor wall fireplaces, a huge outdoor theatre thingamabob, a pool, and tons of greenhouses on a five-acre plot.  He built the house himself 20 or 90 years ago.

After losing his small business back in 2008 or 2009, he decided to crack down and FINISH HIS NOVEL, which he started 18 years ago.  It is now published and he carries a heavy cardboard box full of his novels everywhere he goes to show anyone who will listen, which is exactly what I plan on doing once mine is complete.  It’s a pretty cool story idea (I read the back of the book and he also explained the plot to me) but after reading one and a half pages, I found out that he cannot write.  Go figure.  I guess you don’t need to know how to write to get published, you just have to have a cool cover picture and a lot of words inside spelled correctly.

Anywho, the first day of work included a lot of lifting and throwing things into a gigantic dumpster.  He’s been supplementing his bookkeeping job with raising and selling plants, which he still has hundreds of.  Judging by the number of plastic plant pots, there used to be thousands of plants.  So I spent a lot of time picking them up and stacking them, along with picking through a bunch of tiny scraps of plastic littered all over the place.  Fun and exhilerating work.  Stuff I can really wrap my mind around.   Though for 10 bucks an hour, I’ll do just about anything.  Just ask Spencer.

After that we took a moving truck to his new house and unloaded it.  It was packed full of bricks.  I think I moved and stacked about one ton of bricks, all by hand since the wheelbarrow had a flat tire.  Next up: we drove back to his hold house and I re-loaded the moving truck with another load of crap.  Note to future movers: take your move as an opportunity, nay–a message–that you have too much worthless shit as it is and you should get rid of almost all of it instead of lugging it to your next home.  WHO NEEDS SEVEN DIFFERENT FANS WHEN YOU LIVE IN THE MOUNTAINS!?????

The next day was easy.  Just did another load of stuff in the moving truck.  It only took an hour and a half.  Then I went to the theatre and stood behind the popcorn machine shoveling popcorn into people’s mouths for seven hours.

Today was definitly the most frustrating.  After a nice hard ride up Sunshine Mountain (I kept it short and sweet–besides it’s supposed to snow the next two days here)—after the climb I had a big pot of rice and lentils.  If plain rice and lentils don’t taste good to you, you’re not hungry enough.

Then the guy, we’ll call him “David” (since that’s what his real name is) picked me up for another day of work.  At the end of it, we found ourselves back at his new house re-assembling a broken greenhouse that I’m assuming was originally built back in the 70’s.  The damn thing was laying in about 187 pieces after being blown apart in a wind storm a few weeks ago.  Upon realizing that he had no tools to fix it, David took off to Home Depot and left me in the backyard to figure it out by myself with the few tools on hand.

The backyard was filled to the brim with dog shit.  And not the good-smelling kind either.  After 15 minutes my boots were caked, my hands were covered, my jeans were smeared, and my spirits were broken…with dog shit.  I kept laying the tools and pieces of the greenhouse in big piles of dog shit by accident, though eventually I decided that I didn’t care anymore.  I began getting hungry despite all the dog shit everywhere.  I continued working on and cussing at the greenhouse, which was by now a “brownhouse.”

As the dog shit aroma continued wafting up into my nostrils and the warm afternoon faded into cold evening, I began to get even hungrier than I was earlier.  This always seems to happen to me.  One moment I’m hungry, then an hour or two later I’m even hungrier.  I don’t get it.

I spent an hour screwing with the stupid greenhouse before I slammed a large wall section to the ground after it had fallen apart in my hands (the wall was the only thing I’d accomplished in the last hour).  It was one of those stupid inanimate objects that you just want to smash and yell the F word at over and over until the dog in the next door neighbor’s house starts barking.  This—I did not do. Instead, I went inside and began raiding the kitchen.

I originally planned on retrieving an orange I’d brought with me, but remembered that I’d left it in the car, which David was currently using to go to Home Depot.  Without a second thought, I turned to thievery.  The first thing I spotted was a bunch of bananas on the counter.  They were already sitting out in plain view just asking to be confiscated, so I didn’t feel too guilty for eating one.  After I finished the banana, I spotted a cabinet that wasn’t quite closed all the way.  Big mistake, David.  I carefully pried it open the rest of the way to reveal a box of cheese-its and a container of pita chips.  The time for stealth had passed; now was the time to vanquish and consume as quickly as possible. I began rummaging through the other cupboards and found a big thing of trail mix and cranberries.  I wolfed it all down fast.  I stole a peak around the corner out the front window to see if I could spot David.  No sign of him yet.  I continued raiding the food cabinets like a pigeon raiding a box of pigeon food.  (Okay, not the best simile but you get the idea).  The key to a successful raid (when you don’t have permission) is to eat just enough so that the person doesn’t realize that any food is gone.  So in order to get a decent amount of food, you have to eat a wide variety of items.  When you begin to forget how full things originally were, that’s when you have a problem.  I always end up having a problem.

I started getting worried that he’d come home any minute, since he’d been gone a long time by now, so I loaded up my pockets and went back outside to work on the greenhouse some more.  It took me about a minute before my bravery built back up and I ventured inside again for more snacks, since I’d finished everything in my pockets.  I loaded up again, twice, and went back outside into the cold to curse at the greenhouse and dog shit some more.  And not a moment too soon, for David got home just forty-five seconds later.  I had a mouthful of pita chips when he asked me how it was going.  “Mot good,” I replied, cheeks stuffed and crumbs falling out my mouth.  “How mush dove anew one  *swallow* cost?  I don’t think it’s worth spending any more time on it.”  The fact that I was getting paid by the hour, not by the job, shows just how much I didn’t want to be there anymore.  My cracking point occurs while trying to fix or assemble things on an empty stomach in the cold.

I’m not sure if he knew I was eating the food from his kitchen or not, or if he recognized the trail mix and cheese-its I continued cramming down my throat as being his, but David never said anything.  He just went to work on the greenhouse.

Even with the new tools, screws, and bolts, the greenhouse still resumed being a son of a bitch.  Within 10 minutes David took my advice and decided to just buy a new one.  I smiled and said thank god.  “I was ready to smash that thing about an hour ago.”  I went to go use the bathroom, where I quickly ate the rest of the food in my pockets.  Another perfect execution of a classic “host-house raid,” though in this situation it wasn’t a host-house.

 

I’m testing out whether I get more site hits when I use exclamation points in the title.  I got a lot of seemingly random hits the other week when I used them in my Occupy Denver Rally!!! blog post.  So if I notice a positive trend, I’ll pretty much use them in every title in the future, in which case readers will most likely grow accustomed to them over time and begin to tone them out, making the exclamation points mute (irony).  So then I’ll have to start adding more and more exclamation points every week until finally no amount of them will satisfy my readers.  When that happens I’ll switch to question marks and repeat the process until those no longer work, then after that I might start using all CAP LOCKS, then maybe italic, then when enough time passes I’ll be able to start recirculation by using exclamation points again, though of course I’ll have to market them as something cool and retro.  The quality of my writing won’t improve and I’ll have to invest so much time and resources into market research and branding that my writing will, in fact, begin to deteriorate, but that won’t matter because I’ll have so many readers and blog site hits that I’ll be rich!  If I get enough hits while using cheap tricks like exclamation marks to sell my product I won’t even have to worry about the quality of it.  Quantity vs. quality?  Quantity wins every time in our great society of buycrapitalism.  Who wants to read something meaningful anyways?  I know I for one DON’T want to get depressed by sad news :-(  in SUDAN or have! to think about an issue??!!  Are you distracted and entertained?  Good…

…Which leads me to my next topic: entertainment–the industry I now work in.  As some of you may know, I landed a pretty sweet job at the Cinemark movie theater in the 29th St. Mall.  Yeah, I’m kind of a big deal now.  I get to wear black slacks ($6 Goodwill), black shoes ($10 Goodwill), and a sick name tag on a lanyard, which allows me to see free movies if I so desire.  Yesterday was my first night on the job, and I made a cool $43 bucks for six hours of work.  Not too shabby I say, especially when I get to eat all the free popcorn and kettle corn I want for my dinner break!

Everyone who works at Cinemark starts out in concessions—the one and only place where the movie theater makes any profit.  Why they start the newest, untrained employees here, for that matter, makes very little sense.  But I found out why they do it though.  Concession workers, aside from the couple people who sell the tickets, are the only people that do anything.  The movie theater’s metaphor of society depicts the lowest class as the hardest workers and the only people producing anything of value.  The “ushers” pretty much just walk around finding menial tasks to occupy themselves with while the managers sit in their locked office room all stroking their gigantic egos.  Concessions workers are stuck with all the cooking, cleaning, and selling.  Unfortunately the only thing we sell is junk food.  The employee turn-over rate at the theater is amazing.  The longest-lasting employee in the entire theater has been there a grand total of two years.  Half the managers have only been there eight months.  Cinemark: congratulations on creating such a shitty work environment, hierarchy system that instills dissent among the management and employees, and low wage pay system that you successfully keep anyone from ever working there longer than a year or two.  The food they sell is disgustingly bad for you.  There are 910 calories in a large, un-buttered popcorn.  Around 1,500 with butter.  The small hot dog has about 500 calories while the large has 700.  The pretzels are soaked in butter and salt.  A large soda has 500 calories (comes with a free refill like the large popcorn).  For every customer that wants a small popcorn, we’re supposed to upsell them on a medium or a large.  Last night I refused to do this, despite the guy next to me doing it with every single person.  I’d say about 50% of the time it worked too.  No one said anything about me not doing it last night, but I’ll supposedly get “written up” for not doing it, whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean.  Kind of like a referral in school.  Just an empty punishment that carries a negative connotation and therefore serves as a scare tactic to keep kids in line.

“Hey now Kennett,” you may say.  “People who go out to the movies don’t care about eating a little bit of hydrogenated junk food once in a while.  They’re here at the movies to have a good, stress-free time outside of their real life.  That’s what movies are for.  Escapism.  It’s not like they’re eating giant butter-drenched tubs of popcorn on a nightly basis.  A little self indulgence is fine!  Quit complaining and pump on that nacho cheese, it’s not like one extra snack is going to cause a heart attack!”  I like watching movies for escapism and my life is pretty damn good.  And I like eating junk food and I’m not fat, so maybe you’re right.  Maybe selling popcorn isn’t that immoral.

Well, maybe.  In many cases, this is probably true.  Especially in Boulder, which is one of the healthiest, fittest cities in the nation.  But even here there are plenty of overweight people who don’t need to be eating hundreds of salty calories late at night.  It’s this attitude of “It’s not like our customers eat like this all the time” that fast food restaurants and junk food manufacturers have that has lead to the obesity epidemic the world is now facing.  Because people DO eat like this all the time.  When junk food is the only food advertised in commercials and the only thing we see driving down the street, of course people are going to self indulge, and on a daily basis too, not a bi-weekly occurrence like the theater says (I read some stuff Cinemark had in an article when I got home that basically said that).

I also read that a number of movie theaters switched to air-popped pop corn, which is very low calorie compared to the movie-theater oil popped, to give their patrons a healthier snack.  The movie-goers overwhelmingly called for the regular oil movie popcorn to be put back on sale, preferring to be fat and happy than skinny and…unhappy? I guess.  This just confirms to me that people don’t have their own self-interests in mind and that as a population, people are not fit to make good decisions for themselves, even when presented with good options.  Unfortunately, we’ve let even less-qualified people make the decisions.  A country of imbecile sardines electing a pod of great white sharks (great white sharks DO hunt in pods at times).

So what are my options?  How do I improve the movie-industry to reflect the healthy lifestyle that Americans should, and need, to adopt?  Should I quit and refuse to be a cog in the machine?  Do I continue working at Cinemark but try to get people to buy less?  I mean, they’ll just hire somebody else in my place if I quit.  And it will probably be person who won’t care that the non-stick spray they use in the kettle corn machine contains hydrogenated oil, when there’s no reason why it should.  At least if I’m there I can help people avoid buying the large popcorn and go for the medium.  This seems like the easy way out though.  I need to have more impact than that if I really want to make a difference.  This leaves me only one option:

My grand master plan is to climb the corporate ladder and dismantle the corruption of the company from the inside.  It will require years of work and careful planning.  I’ll have to work hard to make it up to the corporate office with years of tedious work in the theater.  Or a lot of ass-kissing.  One of the two.

Actually, nah.  I don’t really care that much.  Forget it.

There are basically three different possibilities that this job will see a person go.  The first, and most unlikely, is to quite early on because it sucks.  The other new guy last night lasted for about two hours then left with a “stomach ache.”  We’ll never see him again.

The next option is to work as a simple domestique like the majority of the employees do as an usher, a ticket salesman, or concessions employee, living in fear of the managers (who we have to address as “Mr. and Ms.”  One of the managers introduced himself (very seriously) to me last night as “Mr. Johnson” or something like that and I laughed, and asked, “Uh, what?”  He repeated himself, very seriously and now somewhat offended.  He was probably 20-25 years old, like most of the managers, who began working here in high school or just after it instead of going to college or doing anything important with their lives.  So they take the “Mr.” thing and all the benefits of being in charge, very seriously.  I find it extremely condescending that I have to say Mr. or Ms. to them, and have therefore made it an effort to not learn anyone’s name, which actually won’t really require any effort on my part at all.

The third option of employment here is to suck up to the managers and become one yourself.  I asked Josh, the guy who trained me last night (training takes only a single night.  Even a blind koala could do this job–that’s how simple it is)…I asked him why he wasn’t a manager yet.  He seemed to be the hardest worker, he’d been there there the longest (two years), and he was STILL working in concessions!—the hardest job (the only job where you have to do anything).  I didn’t understand it, until I realized that just about everyone working in the theater had no ambitions in life and he was likely one of them.  And then I found out how stupid he and everyone was.  The it all made sense.  Okay, upon re-reading this I see that I sound extremely arrogant and self-rightous, not that I’m not, but everything I’m saying about the place is all very true.  After only one night, I’ve discovered like 20 things that would be much more practical and efficient than the way things are currently done.  And when I commented on them, all I got back in response is, “well that’s just the way we do things here.”  To me, that’s fucking stupid and lazy.  Anyways…

Josh told me the only way to become a manager is to get the other managers to like you.  I asked him if you had to work harder or take initiative in anything, and he said no.  He’d trained our concessions manager  that night (Ms. Mock–age 21 or so) just six months before when she first started working at Cinemark.  Now, as a manager, she was bossing him around, making sure the counters were clean and the melted butter was wiped away from the self-serve butter pump when the night was over.  I could tell she was not a harder worker, friendlier, or even a better butter-pumper than Josh…I know that last one from experience.  Hey-Ohhh!!!!

As a manager, you can pat yourself on the back for your prestigious accomplishment with an extra $1.50 to $2 more per hour, dress yourself in a luxurious special suit that makes you look like nothing at all like a Grade A douchebag, entertain yourself all night long with a fist-full of keys kept constantly swinging around your fist on a lanyard, earn the respect of your minions and have them show it by calling you “Mr.” Peterson, and all the while enjoy the satisfaction of a hard night’s work while locking yourself, along with your colleagues, in the manager’s room all night long doing jack shit.  Oh, and you get a walkie talkie.

I predict that I won’t last long enough to accomplish this since I found a much better, higher-paying job at a four-star Hotel, but I plan on working at least a few weeks more at the theater to make sure I have enough cash to get by until I start at the hotel.  As for the theater, I plan to carry out as many social experiments as possible while I’m there.  The popcorn shoveling part of the job isn’t actually that bad.  I enjoy talking to the customers, giving out free samples (which I’m not supposed to do) and being extremely sarcastic.  I don’t think the customers expect the guy shoveling popcorn to make jokes, so most of what I say goes right over their heads unfortunately.  At least it’s funny to me though, which is all I really care about.  I thought it would be pretty funny if I ironically (for me ironically since I care about people’s health)–If I sold kettle corn to people who didn’t want it.  I convinced a couple people to buy the large kettle corn, which contains double the calories (1,800) of the large popcorn, by giving them some free taste tests.  I was amazed at how well it worked.  I think it was from guilt.  I was doing them a “favor” and they felt bad about taking something for free, especially when I told them I wasn’t supposed to be giving it to them. And while earlier I said that I wasn’t upselling anything, by the end of the night I was–only ironically though so it’s okay.  I definitely convinced people that the large was the best deal because you could get a free refill.  “I mean, that’s the size I would get!”  This tactic worked so well that I eventually began feeling guilty for using it and went back to just giving them what they asked for.  Tonight I’m going to see if I can convince them to go down a size.  “You sure you want a large?  You know, the medium has 350 fewer calories, and by the looks of things, you could use a few less.”

If all else fails, at least I’ll be strengthening my own personal value in the world in the from of self-improvement through depravation of others.  I’ll be making otherwise healthy people, fat.  And in doing so, increase my chances to win races, get a good job, and find a hot wife.  Success is all about weakening your opponent’s legs, not strengthening your own.

My new roommate, Greg, is a great cook, very generous, a master pianist, smart, and an all around nice guy.  But he’s a smoker, caught deep in the web of the most successful marketing scheme the world has ever known and he’s too addicted to free himself.  I can hear him hacking and coughing in his sleep right now as I type this.  His lungs are failing in their pitiful attempt at coating themselves in phlegm to protect against the cancerous toxins in those Marlboros he spends hundreds of dollars on every month.  He knows cigarettes cause cancer.  He knows they’ll kill him.  And he knows he should stop before it’s too late, though in reality it might already be.  But he won’t quit, because his denial is so strong that his rationality has been overrun by his positive-thinking.

Staying positive is supposed to be a good thing.  It’s one of those things that’s supposed to get you out of any jam.  Of course it can be a useful, because denying the inevitable is the only way to make the impossible possible, which can’t actually happen by the way–the impossible IS impossible–but you know what I mean.  Deep down, most of us know we won’t win a stage at Redlands or Gila, but we trick ourselves into dreaming, hoping, and then planning for victory.  Without denial we’d never show up to the start line.  There would be no point.

But in many cases denial (overly positive thinking) is one of human-kind’s largest flaws.  As the population of the disgustingly overpopulated world surpasses seven billion, living conditions for the third world continue to deteriorate, the environment continues to be raped by capitalists, and the devision of wealth grows ever larger, the denialist will tell you to look on the positive side of things, letting you know that A) the sky is still blue, B) you have all your limbs, and C) you have food on the table and friends and family that care about you.  To that I say thank you.  Thank you denialist, for avoiding the bleak, troubling subject of inevitable doom our world faces if we don’t get our act together and abolish corporate greed, false democracy, and our unwavering avoidance of talking about people living in huts with Haliburton bombs looming overhead.  Thank you for your ignorance and cowardice.  The world certainly does keep spinning, as you so eloquently put it, but whether or not it continues to spin with us aboard is a question you’ve failed to ask.

Greg convinces himself that he won’t get cancer because his grandmother smoked until she was 84.  He thinks he’s exempt because the doctor said he has extra large lungs due to his large torso, and that having larger lungs makes him capable of dispersing the toxins that he’s currently hacking up as I type.  He’s yet another rational person thinking irrationaly due to looking on the brighter side of life, and in doing so, losing a day for every puff he takes and every excuse he makes.

The world doesn’t need more extreme optimists.  It doesn’t need more followers, unquestioning and unthinking their ways into creating more problems to arise every time their impassioned consumption, brought on by a not-so-witty commercial, tells them to buy something without stopping to think about what they’re doing or how that product got on the shelf.  The world needs more critics, questioners, and skeptics.  What happened to the six W’s?  (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and sometimes hoW).  If everyone’s religion tells them that everything happens for a reason, why can’t they see that everything they do has a consequence?  I don’t understand why people STILL shop at Walmart, STILL buy SUVs for driving themselves (and themselves alone) a short eight miles to work, STILL believe in politicians, and STILL think there are actual terrorists out to get us.  I mean, come on.  It’s like believing in Santa Clause or Jesus!  Give me a break.  You’re in denial.  Smoking will kill you.  Complacency will get us nowhere.  Simple as that.  Question, disobey, and demand change.  At least stop shopping at corporate whore houses like Sears and Target and JC Penny.  It’s the least we can do.  I, for one, will not be buying a damn this this coming Black Friday, and if I did I would at least make sure it was from a small, locally-owned business.  Like Whole Foods.

With winter’s jaws closing around, storms’a brewin’, the cold creeping, the bones creaking, the last of the mild autumn days gone and their scarlet-ceilinged canopies now barren, revealing the dark sky above, it is now the time to get back on the bike and begin training.  It doesn’t make much sense, but so it goes.  Whoever thought the race season should end in summer and begin in February must have lived in the south of Spain.  Wouldn’t it be smarter to start the race season in April, end it in November, take December off, and start training in January when the end of the winter is at least within sight?  Yes it would be smarter, but I’m not complaining.

It’s a grand feeling to be riding again.  A grand feeling indeed.  I like the word grand because it signifies that I’m too intellectual to use the words “good” “great” or “cool,” which is true; I am too cool to use those low-class words.  What brings on this sudden class clash in me?  Answer: I’ve inherited two wool sweaters–the utmost necessities in high society, especially at this time of year.  Yes, one is too small and the other too large, but I still wear them as if they were strangulating turtle necks, hold my head high and my nose turned up at the dirty, lawless, uncivilized masses at Safeway while I pass by on my way to Whole Foods…to eat the free samples.

I’ve been in Boulder for two weeks now, which marks the date I began my winter training.  I’ve ridden more than I had originally planned, but exactly as much as I originally wanted.  The first week came in at a cool 17 hours, the second week being 20.75 hours (including some hours from a hard hike).  I’ve held myself back further than I ever have, starting my training as late as the second week of November.  I’m proud of myself, and can see that delaying the start this year will only mean that I’ll be fresher later on, since I’m already hitting fairly good power numbers even if the altitude isn’t taken into account.  It feels grand to smash the legs again, and even grander to smash my riding buddies’.

I’ve been reading up on a lot of altitude studies lately.  I don’t trust any of them, since they all contradict each other.  Actually, if there are two contradictory studies, I guess I do trust one of them, I just don’t know which one.  What I do trust is my own judgment. I already notice a significant change from the first week I was here to the second.  The first week, especially the first couple days, was rough.  250 watts felt like 350.  Now 250 feels like 280, which is still off but not nearly as bad.  Some of the benefits of training at altitude and some of the ways your body deals with altitude:

Upon the first few days:
-Erythropoietin (EPO) production dramatically increases, telling your body to produce more red blood cells, though it will take much longer for those red blood cells to mature and be of use.
-Hyperventilation and increased cardiac output (breathing and heart rate increase).
-Blood plasma decreases, increasing the ratio of red blood cells to plasma. The reason for this is that it will make it easier on your now over-stressed heart to pump that blood throughout your oxygen-starved body.

Within 3-4 weeks:
-Hematocrit (% of red blood cells to overall blood) rises due to maturation of red blood cells. I’m not sure how much, and it really depends on the person and the altitude.
-Increased number of muscle capillaries help with oxygen transport.
-Blood plasma levels begin to rise back up to what they were before you pissed it all away.
-The buffering capacity of muscles (to clear waste such as H+ ions) is improved. I’m not completely sure what the mechanism is.

Within months:
-An increase in mitochondria and myogloban help with the metabolic efficiencies that are caused by the strain of transporting oxygen to muscles at altitude.
-Lots of other stuff that I don’t understand.

From what I’ve heard people out here say, it takes four months to become fully acclimated. That’s good, since I’ll be here for 4.5 months.

I just found out why the best effects of altitude training only last 3-4 weeks once you come down to sea-level. The typical red blood cell has a life span of about 2-3 months in a hard-working athlete’s body (much shorter than a sedentary person’s blood cell life of up to 4 months). So shouldn’t the benefit of having extra red blood cells help you for 2-3 months, not 3-4 weeks? They would, except for the stupid fact that your body doesn’t like all the changes that were made living up at altitude. It only made those changes because it had to, and now that the living is easy again down at sea level, it wants to go back to the way thing were…ASAP! Within 3 weeks those excessive new red blood cells made up in the mountains will have been pissed and pooped away on purpose, making things easier on your metabolic system. Now your body can sit fat and happy once again, working only just hard enough to keep you alive. Damn lazy POS body!

One thing that I’ve come to believe is that living at altitude is not the biggest contributor to those physiological improvements up above. I think that training at altitude is more important than living at it. This comes from my own experience. The Japanese believe this too, and employ live-low train-high practices that they say work.

The opposite (the live-high train-low method Spencer and I employed last winter up at Big Bear) did not seem to work. Two things that might have messed it up were that we weren’t living high enough (6,700 ft is much lower than the recommended 8,000 feet) and I also got sick right before racing, so any benefits I might have received from it were negated by being sick. The “stress” of driving up and down the mountain to train every other day did not seem to come into affect though, as stated by many studies. I didn’t feel any more tired from that than a regular day of training. My other experience with live-high train-low comes from sleeping in an altitude tent off and on for two years. My blood values were never changed by the altitude tent, despite sleeping at 12,000 feet for weeks and weeks. I later learned that while EPO serum levels do increase upon the first signs of lack of oxygen, it won’t do enough to make new red blood cells unless you regularly spend over 12 hours a day in it, and 12 hours is the bare minimum for red blood cell production to increase. This basically means that altitude tents won’t work. A nitrogen house (a house made into an altitude tent by sealing off leaks and pumping vast amounts of nitrogen in) might be another story, since you can spend all day in it and even do intervals inside on a trainer if you wanted to (though that wouldn’t be considered live-high train-low anymore). I can’t count out live-high train-low for good, but for now I’ll admit that it doesn’t seem to work like the “experts” say it does. If I really want to see if it works I need to find an 8,000-foot mountain to live on for a month.

From my five weeks spent training and racing at altitude in 2010, I can definitely say there was a HUGE improvement in my fitness. Although I never had my blood values checked (idiot!), I know that it was the altitude that made me fast. It showed with good results and good power numbers when I came down to race at sea level. Hopefully I can replicate those gains again this season.

You’ve all thought about doing it.  You’ve all been feeling guilty for not doing it.  You’ve all thought to yourselves, “I better not let this monumental uprising pass me by without being a part of it because this COULD be the defining moment of change in our era of war, greed, destruction, pollution, and inhumanity towards the third world and lower class.”  But you’ve all been too chicken, too busy, or too lazy to get your ass down there and go participate.  At least I have.  But finally, I participated!!  I did it!!!  I went to Chipotle and made such a huge burrito that they couldn’t close it properly!!

I also went to Occupy Denver’s November 17th “Day of Action.”  And what a day of action it was.  For me the day started late, at roughly 9:36 am.  My alarm never went off since it was set for PM and not AM, resulting in a cascading wall of tardiness and high cortisol levels that lasted throughout the day and is still following me even now.  I was late, am late, and will forever be late unless I can find a way to add a nonexistent 36 minutes into the span of my lifetime.  Unfortunately this is not possible since time is not a commodity or a physical thing, only a relationship between speed and matter…present and known to us solely based on our “productivity” and the productivity or movement of the matter surrounding us in the ever expanding universe(s).  Maybe if I hold real still…

The rally in Denver started at 12pm.  I woke, made my oats, made a map to Denver, ate my oats, listened to Rage Against the Machines (in my head), dressed in my cycling clothes, and began the ride down to the shit hole that is Denver.  Denver is an urban sprawl nightmare.  If you hate its airport’s rediulous and confusing terminal branches, just imagine that times four.  Or maybe even five.  Yeah, it’s bad.  No bike lanes.  Tons of traffic.  Tons of careless drivers.  Lots of Kennett flipping cars off and yelling at people.  Good anger-building for an angry demonstration.  I spent a mile or so on the freeway by accident.

I got to the Occupy rally, which began at the Mayor’s building, about half an hour late.  Luckily everyone was still there.  Ha.  “It’s not like they have jobs to go to or anything”, says CNN, ABC, FOX, etc.  Actually, many of them did have jobs.  And more people joined on their lunch breaks.  I leaned and sat on my bike while people took turns using the microphone, chanting out a sentence and waiting for the crowd to chant it back.  Some people had inteligent things to say, some did not.  Everyone’s heart was in the right place though and I enjoyed the leaderless-ness of it all.  There were a few key people that took charge in getting things moving along, but they didn’t really have too much authority compared to the group consense.  At one time a large group of people started chanting something when one of the key people was talking.  He tried to get them to be quiet, but ended up just waiting until the chanting fizzled out.  Majority DID seem to rule here!  Mic check!

I got a bit bored, and was hungry from my ride down there, so I took off in search of the Chipotle, which I’d google-mapped that morning of course.  In the process of riding off, a couple bike cops jokingly gave me a hard time about getting to leave already when they had to stand there all day in the cold.  “Hey, I’m hungry.  I’ll pick you up something at Chipotle though if you give me six bucks,” I said.  They laughed but said no thanks.  Judging by the look of them, they probably didn’t NEED to eat that anyways, assuming they wanted to be able to catch anyone on those bikes.

I found the Chipotle and ate my GIGANTIC burrito inside in the warmth of the bustling restaurant.  There must have been 100 people in there, almost as much as the Occupy rally.  I was almost done with it when I saw a crowd and a thousand or so police cars, bikes, horses, and motorcycles come down the street just past the Chipotle.  Perfect, the rally had followed me.  I ran outside, got my bike, and crammed the rest of the delicious burrito down while I caught up to the protesters.  The size of the group had grown ten or twenty fold in the last half hour and now there were well over 1,000 people all chanting, yelling, talking, laughing, and carrying signs.  It was pretty cool.  But the amount of police was staggering.  Simply ridiculous.  To me it was obvious that they were there in an attempt to antagonize, humiliate, and scare the protesters.  Their presence was nothing more than intimidation, sent from Wall Street itself.  If you think we live in a free society, think again.  Yes we do have it better than a lot of other places, but by no means are we a free democratic society.  And free speech does not exist here.  Just spend some time searching for recent police brutality on youtube if you don’t believe it.  The way the news portrays the protesters is sickeningly corrupt.  Corporate news is a means to distract the populace so nothing gets accomplished in government and the corporations who own the media, government (and police)  continue to get exactly what they want.

We stopped in front of some large monetary building or something and more people took turns using the “people’s mic” while everyone chanted along with them like the Borg.  I felt a bit awkward doing it but decided to give it a try.  In the end I came to the conclusion that I didn’t like voicing another’s thoughts, even if I agree.  I prefer to stand back and speak my own mind if anyone cares to listen, though again, I did like the process of how things were run.  No true leader, not really any arguing, friendliness yet impassioned anger at the same time.  Lots of it geared towards the puppet police, who, here in Denver, have carried out many heartless beatings, macings, pepper spraying, gassing, and imprisoning of the Occupy People.

The crowd pressed on again after 20 minutes, heading off to some other iconic destination I presume.  I rode along with them until a bike policeman asked me if I was with them.  I told him yes, I was.  He said, “Don’t you think it’s a bit strange that you’re here on an $8,000 dollar bike?”  I told him no, it wasn’t.  And that it wasn’t an $8,000 dollar bike, it was my only form of transportation, I rode 35 miles to be here, and that despite riding an expensive bike I was not part of the 1% by any means.  And by the way, “how much does your car cost?”  He then asked if my sponsor would approve of me being here in my kit.  I said yes, “I’m pretty sure he would.”  I told him my team’s sponsor isn’t a Wall Street banker or a heartless corporate leader of Wall mart (Both tainting the word wall), and that my sponsor was in fact a class action law firm.  They were the first to sue big tobacco, the suers of Exxon for the Exxon Validez oil spill, and currently the law firm going after the criminals responsible for the gulf oil spill, BP.  I told him Hagens Berman would most likely be proud of me being here, since they’re in the business of standing up for the little guy.  I didn’t say it so elegantly, but I got my point across.  That shut him up.  It was obvious he was oblivious to the reason why we were all out here.  Just another dopey cog in the machine.

Then we got to talking about cycling.  Turned out he was an ex-kilo track rider (explains the dopiness) in the 80’s and a former member of the national team.  We soon began talking shop about the Tour of Colorado and such.  After some chummy conversation I snuck in a question asking him what he thought about the Occupy Movement.  He said he was confused about what it was all about and I could tell that he didn’t fully support it, though I’m betting this was the kindest he’d ever talked about it and probably didn’t speak that kindly about it in front of his colleagues.  I told him it was unfortunate that it had become a cops vs. protesters thing, and that I hoped he saw that that was not at all what it was about.  He agreed.  I said goodbye and took off since I had a job interview at 4.

I got lost.

Denver is big.

I found a cyclist and asked him where highway 121 was.  He took me through the city and eventually decided to ride up to Boulder with me.  Good Samaritan #1 of the day.  We had to stop off at his house first so he could fill his bottles.  There was a huge afternoon headwind to do battle with.

As we wound our way up to Boulder, going a much different and much more zig-zaggy way than I’d come, I grew more and more anxious about how late it was growing.  My oversleeping was still haunting me and it looked like I’d be late to my interview at the movie theater.  He couldn’t hold my wheel in the wind and I eventually dropped him (but explained my situation first).  From then on it was Kennett  vs the Headwind.  I spent much time cursing.

I got to the movie theater late.  Only about 11 minutes.  I was in my cycling kit, which hadn’t been washed since…..?

I left 10 minutes later.  The woman who I was supposed to interview with said that since I was late we’d have to schedule a time for tomorrow.  Ironically, I left having possibly lost the job due to being at a protest about how there are no jobs available.

But never fear, I did get a re-schedule for tomorrow.  And I’ve never not gotten a job after getting an interview.  Oh wait, that’s the exact opposite of what happens.

Over four hours of ride time plus a couple hours standing around in the cold I was a hungry Kennett.  I had no food at home so I went straight to Safeway (passing by the eco and socialy friendly co-op for the cheap food of an evil corporation–yes I see the irony).  But I ate plenty of “free sample” bulk food to make up for it.  And, as a gift for my protesting, the gods sent me two more strangers to help me out.  One guy loaded all my food from my cart onto the conveyor belt in the checkout line while I was absent searching for some lotion.  (The exact opposite thing had happened in Belgium a month ago when a guy moved my cart out of the way and took my spot in line.  I had to physicall push his cart out of the way to get my stolen spot back).

Next a hot cougar gave me her reusable shopping bag so I didn’t have to ride home with all my stuff in plastic bags, which she said might rip open.  So there you have it.  Despite the world being run by heartless people, it’s populated by good people.  The few who destroy the economy, destroy the environment, and destroy the huts in Iraq and Afghanistan to make themselves rich are few and far between.  There are still plenty of good people left in the world.  Rich AND poor.  I’d say they make up at least 99%.  Well, maybe more like 23% in reality.  I was buzzed by quite a few dickless assholes in jacked-up pick up trucks today.

Whoa! A normal-sized picture!  I just figured out wordpress’ new picture technology I think.

Much has changed since my last post, for I now have a job AND a place to live.  Two things that many would consider necessities, though in my opinion they’re definitely both optional.  Firstly, my job, which I found using:

Boulder Craigslist—>gigs–> “Wanted Taste Testers”

Turns out there is a god.

After an email and a couple phone calls I was all set up to become a professional taste tester for a market study on mints.  Like the candy type of mint.   Yesterday, my first day on the job, I rode my bike to the mint-tasting location, the Courtyard Boulder hotel.  I walked my bike in the lobby, immediatly got confronted by an employee but before they could tell me to leave the bike outside I told them I was here on business.  Mint business.  The let me pass.

I was pretty surprised by the turnout.  I imagined I’d be in a room with like three other people, but there were about 25 in the room, with more people coming and going every minute.  The pay is $100 for four nights of taste testing, each night being 30 minutes of work.  That’s $50 an hour for all you mathless people out there, which is more than I’ve ever made per hour before.  I eagerly anticipated consuming pounds of mints, but alas, the quota was only four mints a night along with a thick booklet of multiple choice questions.

I took my seat, was served a plate of unsalted saltines (talk about your stupid buffalo) and a cup of water, then got down to business.

1) How do you like the APPEARANCE of the mint?
2) How do you like the SIZE of the mint?
3) How do you like the COLOR of the mint?
4) How do you think you’ll like the TASTE of the mint? (I hadn’t consumed the mint yet at this point)
5) How do you like the AROMA of the mint?

Now take a bite of the unsalted cracker and a sip of water to clear your pallet.  Then eat the mint, consuming it however you like.

Then there were another 15 or 20 questions after you ate the mint, including two questions where you got to write a couple sentences. I took full advantage.

What did you LIKE about the mint?

“I really enjoyed the high quality mintyness of it.  It had a nice sweet taste, more like a dessert mint than your regular old breath freshener mint.  I like!! (in Borat’s voice).”

What did you DISLIKE about the mint?

“Nothing!! Nothing at all HAHAHAHAH!! I ‘et that mint right up!”

After the questions you were supposed to wait one minute and eat another cracker to “clear your palate” and then take on the next mint and its set of questions.  The whole time I felt like I was in some sort of secret social experiment with the mint-tasting as the cover for the real study, which could have been anything.  I looked for hidden cameras, one-way mirrors, kept conscious of anything strange I was supposed to or not supposed to notice.  Were all the other people part of the experiment or were they the experimenters?  Would someone fake a heart attack and see what I’d do when everyone else ignored it?  Was this actually a cracker taste test to see if we noticed the amazing quality of the oxymoron unsalted saltines?  I paid close attention to the details of the questions to see if they were trying to slip something by us without us noticing, like a random curse word in the middle of a sentence placed their to see if we were still paying attention, maybe even just an incorrect usage of the word “their” when they really meant “there”.  I found nothing.  Maybe all these mints have the same exact taste and they’re seeing if we can tell the difference?  Nope.  I think.  Maybe they’re releasing a gas into the room that will make us have crazy, wild hallucinations and what we’re actually eating is peppermint not mint!!  No on that one too, because I remembered that we were sampling all the mints in the mint family, including peppermint and spearmint, which I’ve decided is my favorite of the mints. For some reason, spearmint is always green. Peppermint and regular mint can be any or all of the colors of the Italian flag.

I grew bored of looking for abnormalities and became preoccupied with the speed of the person next to me who just sat down.  They seemed to be flying through the test, flipping pages at twice the speed I was.  I wasn’t going to let her beat me so I began rushing through the test and dropped her good and hard.  I walked out with fresh breath and an air of importance that you only get by being a hard-working, wage-earning, productive member of society. It feels good to do your part, ya know? I held my head high. I also took one of the fruit candies placed in bowls on the tables.  This was my final idea about there being a secret test going on: that no one would want to take one of the hard fruit candies after eating a bunch of mints.  I grabbed a fruit candy just to spite them, but dropped it on the ground by accident and threw it away.  That pretty much sums up my job.  I went again tonight and go two more times this week.

The place I just moved to this evening was also found on Craigslist (of course).  The rent is cheaper than anything else I’ve seen but still twice what I was hoping to pay.  Boulder is expensive.  Gotta find some more taste testing gigs.

A few days ago I went snowshoeing up in Breckenridge with my then roommates Philip and Justine and a couple of her friends. Philip and I took off on our own and somehow made it up to the top of Buffalo Peak, elevation 13,000 ft, despite not following a trail and starting late in the day. I haven’t been that high in a while. I spent the whole day and night being very excited about the high elevation and the amazing amount of red blood cells my body was busily making. Breckenridge itself sits just above 9,000 ft! That’s a lot of ft!!

What’s up with WordPress’ new weird picture set up?  I don’t like this.

I have no idea why I haven’t been hired yet.  I mean, look at my job qualifications:

A) I’m EXTREMELY good looking.  I mean like really,really, really good looking.

B) I’ve been told I have a great personality.  Probably much better than yours.

C) My VO2 is in the 999th percentile.

D) I’m super smart.  Even smarter than a dolphin.

E) I’m very modest.  I’m probably the most modest person I know.

Today was my rest day, which I spent all of riding around town looking at places to live and places to work.  In the process, I also stopped off at Occupy Boulder’s “11-11-11 Gathering” at the intersection of Baseline and Canyon.  There were more BUMS holding out cardboard signs for money than there were Occupy protesters.  I was the only Occupier person there.  A few minutes after I was there one woman showed up with her five-year old son.  Luckily she had made a sign to hold, otherwise we’d have just been two random people standing on the sidewalk of a busy intersection.  We talked about politics and whatnot for about 45 minutes, then said our goodbyes.  It was sunny and warm out, so I had a good time.  I think there’s something bigger going on in Denver on the 17th next week so I might catch a bus for that one.

I spent the rest of the day looking for jobs.  Two of the places I filled out applications for made my day much better than I’d anticipated.  First I got an entire pizza for free at a pizza restaurant, then I got an extra large cappuccino at a coffee shop for free.  Unfortunately both those places, and neither of the 20 other places I went to, were handing out free jobs.

First off, this here is a strangely good song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX01Rlt2vBc, which I’ve listened to well over 100 times in the past week alone.  I like to leave it on repeat while I’m writing my novel/riding my bike/interviewing for a job.  I don’t really like the lyrics though.  In fact, they sort of upset me a bit.  But what’s substance anyways?  I for one am completely content with being distracted by the shinny lights and new car smell.  For if I really knew the terrible truths of the world, I’d likely crap my pants.  <—These are the words of past Kennett, for I’ve recently stumbled upon those terrible truths…and they’re more gruesome than even I could have fathomed.  Here they: (             ).

Riding update: I’ve been riding my bike.  Up some mountains and down some mountains too.  It’s been good.  Cold but sunny and dry.  My red blood cell production is in overdrive, what with the high elevation and this cold, refreshing Coors Rocky Mountain air, which, BTW, smells like a rotting pile of fecalized hard neck garlic.  I rode by one of the Coors plants today.  At first sniff it reminded me of Campbell’s tomato soup.  Then the stench hit my nostrils like an abusive drunk hitting his wifi antenna.

Job update: 36 is the number of applications/resumes I’ve filled out or emailed.  Maybe even 136.  My goal is 2,000.

House hunt: Apparently I’m too low class for the Craigslist folk of Boulder.  $975 for a single bedroom??  Which is in a haunted basement??  Which is flooded??  With pickled jalapeno juice??  Dang.

Modeling update (since deciding upon writing a novel, I thought it would also be a cool, possibly even novel, idea to start my modeling career as well.  They’re two trendy things that require no signs of progress, which I like, because in that sense they’re both like cycling): I made sure all my pimples were popped and the spinach was out of my teeth today.  Okay I only did one of those things.

Since beginning this post I’ve now listend to the above song eight times.  I’m a slow typer and thinker.  But what comes out is pure silver baby!

Speaking of changing the subject, you know what I have a problem with?  The fact that “hippies” are somehow viewed as a bad thing and that the only people out protesting in the Occupy Movement are dirty hippies.  First of all, hippies are from the 60’s.  They don’t exist anymore except as 65-year olds.  And more importantly, what’s wrong with a hippie?  Why is there such a negative connotation that goes along with the word now?  Isn’t being a free thinker a good thing?  Haven’t the masses always strived for and thought of themselves as being original, going against the grain, not running off the cliff with the rest of the herd?  Of course the masses could never accomplish this, because that would be contradictory, but still.  Hippies want peace, equality, freedom, environmental gradation, and love.  Who the hell isn’t for these things?  Today, anyone who speaks out against the obvious inequalities and corupt society we’ve created is seen as being lazy, dumb, needs to sack up, or is just a plain old waste of space and time: aka a hippie.  And no one wants to be grouped in with a deadbeat hippie, so they keep their mouths shut while banks continue pilfering tax-payer cash.

When did the snubbing of the hippie begin?  It began with poor journalism, like most of the world’s unseen or marauded stories.  Even educated, rational thinkers seem to be easily manipulated into believing whatever they’re told.  99% of people I talk to say that the Occupiers “just don’t have a centralized request.”  Bull shit.  The request couldn’t be more clear.  It’s to end corruption, create equality, and strive for a better society.  It’s a protest against the status quo.  A protest for justice.  Those damn bankers should hang!  Another one I’ve been told: “They’re just lazy.  I mean, I have a job.”  Congratulations.  Here’s a medal.  You make minimum wage and you have a college degree.  Shouldn’t you be a little more outraged?

With all these “smart” people playing along like mindless drones, maybe the problem is that it’s too good of journalism.  We’ve become so entranced with media outlets, our days so saturated with someone else’s ideas, that everyone’s been convinced.  That’s the point of journalism isn’t it?–to get people into seeing things your way without them knowing that it wasn’t their idea.  As it is now, journalists (advertisers) and most other media forums (TV, songs, movies) are bought, hired, and manipulated by the powerful few that shine the lights in our eyes and convince us that the new car smell actually smells good (volatile organic compounds).

November 11th (this Friday) is a good day to protest, as it’s going to be a big one from what I’ve been told by facebook.  Come join the herd.  I’ll be hitting up the Occupy Boulder protest for an old fashioned Bank of America window-smashing good time.  I wish.  Boulder is probably more inclined to have a couple wine-tasting tables set up with an assortment of fine cheeses.

As you can see, this global event has a staggering guest list of over 700 attendees.  Don’t worry, I checked the math.  738/7,000,000,000=99%.

 

 

I flew into Denver last night. Took the bus to somewhere in Boulder. Called a cab, which took me to somewhere else in Boulder, where I snuck in the back sliding door of what I hoped was the apartment I was going to be staying at for the next week. I figured it was the right place, but didn’t find out for sure until the first roommate got home a couple hours later, long after I’d depleted the house’s PB&J resources.

The next morning myself and Philip, one of the people I’m staying with who’s a cyclist, headed out for a group ride, which met at a coffee shop. There were quite a few cyclists milling about the place and I ended up heading out with the wrong group. I kept looking back wondering where Philip was as we rode out of the city. Luckily he eventually chased us down to inform me that I’d left with the wrong people. Reminds me of when I was little and I followed a woman in the mall whom I mistook as my mother, last week.

The riding here looks like it’s going to be pretty amazing. We didn’t hit any mountains today, fortunately–since the altitude is killing me, but even the flat stuff was pretty scenic. The temperature was in the low fifties, high forties, sunny, with a bit of snow still melting in the farm fields from a storm they had last week. I was told that it won’t get too much colder than it was today. There’s a Shootout type ride on Saturday that starts up in January and there’s plenty of fast people in town to ride with the other days of the week.

After grocery shopping I spent the rest of the day shopping for a job. I rode to a Fedex, which I never found, printed out my resumes, and then rode home dropping them off along the way, which was basically strip-mall territory. Places I tried: 1) REI because it was right next to the place I printed out my resumes. 2) Starbucks because to work there would be cliche, and also because it was on the way to the…3) UPS store. Because I heard they were actually hiring people. The were not. And they were closed. So actually they could have been hiring people and I just didn’t find out. But I didn’t like the look of the place. Gave me a bad vibe. Seemed like the sort of place that was run by an old, old, old cranky man–the long lost descendent of a 49’er. His great great grandfather never made it as far west as California because he lost both his legs in an unfortunate sleeping accident, his body having accidentally built up calcium deposits in his knee joints while he slept one night. That actually happens by the way. Anyways, the UPS man’s lust for gold had been passed down the generations, growing stronger with each passing year. So the UPS man secretly invested all his money in gold and began stock-piling it in the mountains up above the city. Raccoons and ravens love shiny objects, as everyone knows, and one day when the old man was up in the hills stashing a few gold nuggets he bought from ebay, both a raccoon AND a raven happened to see him. They waited until he was gone then dug up his gigantic pirate-treasure box full of gold tid bits. The raccoon did all of the digging, so the masked bandit thought he deserved a bigger share of the gold. This was not to be, because, as everyone also knows about ravens, they’re highly argumentative animals that poses great debating skills. This particular raven was the grand master of them all. He was the master debater, if you will…aaaaaaaaaaand a thank you. 4) A ski and snowboard shop because I passed it on the way home. 5) An Ethiopian restaurant because their food smelled extremely good, though if it’s authentic I’m guessing they serve tiny portions. 6) Barns and Noble because I like read books goodest. 7) Whole Foods because the Whole Foods in Boulder has an insane infestation of wild cougars. 8) A co-op next to Whole Foods because co-ops smell like spices. And I like smelling spices. 9) a fancy restaurant. The manager looked at my resume and commented that I didn’t have any experience with food. At this, I laughed. Very hard. I’m crossing my fingers for this one because their food smelled really good and they actually seemed interested in hiring somebody.

My novel is coming along pretty slowly. I started writing the one about the zombies, but stopped when I realized that to make a mockery of Twilight, I’d first have to read Twilight. Or at least see the movies. So then I started me next novel idea, which will remain a secret in case any body out there tries to steal my ingenious idea–like the French did with the trebuchet, which I was planning on naming “extra big cat-a-pult.” Anyways, the progress on it is really coming along well. I’m basically just fleshing things out in my brain right. It’s going to basically just write itself once I finish with the creative aspect.

One thing I wonder about book-writing is if the authors just randomly start writing about things that pop into their head just that moment. Say you have a good story idea. You run through the beginning, middle, end through your head and maybe even write out a brief list of events that are going to happen in your book. You write a few thousand words and suddenly you find yourself at the climax of the story line, which of course is near the end. You realize that unless your book has extremely large font, it needs to have about 70,000 words. So you think to yourself (just like you did in English class), “shit, I’m gonna have to have a lot of filler,” at which point you just start typing whatever comes to your mind that instant. That’s basically what I do all the time, even right now in the very paragraph and this very sentence and I’m wondering if actual novelists do this too, or if they let their ideas stew more and create a highly detailed outline first. I like stew. My favorite stew is probably mexican-inspired steak and potato stew. Onions, carrots, and green bell peppers of course. Maybe some tomatoes or tomato sauce. Lots of hot sauce and chili powder. Garlic. What else…a few soft boiled eggs. Damn it! Just popped into my head like bad filler in a book!