55 Word Story

I scour at Usain Bolt, the man who's bested me the previous 5 races. We take our marks, the starter fires his gun and we take off. His pre-loosened spikes cause him to loose traction and balance. I effortlessly run to a gold medal, but it will bring me no sense of accomplishment; only guilt.

Adam's Rant

In British Columbia strict regulations for teenagers seeking driver licences have been put in place in efforts to make our roads safer and to save lives. It is called the Graduated license program and it takes 3 to complete and requires you can't get a single ticket or you are forced to restart. This seemingly well thought out and perfected plan is one that actually contains countless flaws. Firstly it is a 3 year program in which you are tested a total of 3 times, which is essentially once a year. However after you have acquired your full licence you aren't required to be tested for the rest of your life. This seems appalling to myself because by watching my parents and other adults around me drive, that dangerous habits develop and if they where re-tested around age 30 many people would fail. Another flaw is the length of the plan. You are eligible to take the test when you are 16 and if you make it through perfectly which is unlikely you still don't have a full driving license till your 19. This poses many problem such as you can't acquire many jobs because they require a full license. Also it isn't economical for the reason that we are unable to car pool to school or to work inevitably increasing our carbon foot print. Cost is also a huge factor in getting your licence and often feels like a cash grab. The tests are made so they are easy to fail and many people do, which would be fine if it didn't cost you $50 each attempt. But it doesn't stop there. If or when you finally pass you are expected to pay another $30-$40 to get your picture taken and put on a wallet sized piece of plastic. There are many horror story's that have come out of these strict regulations as well. One very unfortunate one was a young man 20 years old had not found the time to go for his full licence and was one day pulled over and ended up being breathalysed. Even though he was of age and only blew .01% he lost his licence due to the zero tolerance policy. As a result he gets his licence suspended for 6 months, must restart his 3 year program, pay a very large fine and pay and install a breathalyser ignition starter, which costs $2000. Since he is was just starting a realtor for a job, he will be out of work for 6 months and even when he's back it won't look very good to breathalyse yourself when your driving clients around. Finally what is really messed up about this system is the people who make these regulations are more than likely +55 years old people who got there licence in a 2 week span and complain about young peoples bad driving and thought they should fix it. Maybe its time for them to look at there own driving ability's for a change.

A Road Less Travelled

In my life I have seen the value of having passion for a job and how much it increases the your quality of life if you have a love for what you do. A job takes up such a substantial part of your life that if every morning your wake up dreading going to your job it makes being motivated for each day very tough. My Dad is someone who lacks a passion for his job and although he never complains about it, he has said many times that if he could do it all again he would not have taken the same path. His day to day life includes many sports and activity's to compensate for having a job he's not passionate about and the activities become his motivation for each day. But when a job takes such a significant amount of time out of your day it's a hard void to fill and he always seems very joyous towards the thought of retiring. As far a my career I want to pursue in my life I have been torn between 2 choices. I have had a passion for skiing my whole life as well as a passion for for the outdoors and this made me wanted to become a ski guide. When I investigated it further however I found job availability to be a major issue and no matter how many courses you take towards it, the chance of you getting a job is based on your connections. It is also very expensive to become certified and with the slim chance of getting a job right away the last thing I wanted was to end up living in my parents basement. For those reasons I decided to go with a job that's more secure, this being a mechanical engineer. From a very early age I was always taking things apart and I would always take thing apart to see what was inside and how it all worked. Still having this passion today I believe I will be satisfied with my career choice for years to come. It is also very expensive and is 4 years of university but the reward is most often getting a job straight away. Another advantage is it pay better than a ski instructor but this is at the cost of the adventure aspect. I have come to realize it is also a lot of work to get your diploma from watching my brother but I believe I want it bad enough to and put the effort in I will succeed.

Research Into Super Hero's

Watchmen is a book based on the idea of masked avengers with superpowers going around fighting crime and the trials that go along with it. This made me wonder is this purely fiction or are there people that actually try to copy their fictional hero's in real life. As I investigated I was astonished by the number of examples so I narrowed it down to 2 particularly interesting examples. The first is a man that doesn't actually have a super power but instead just an ordinary angle grinder. Angle-Grinder Man does not fight bank robbers or villains but instead he fights meter-maids. When ever a car gets clamped from being illegally parked he soon appears wearing blue tights and a gold cape with of course his trusty angle grinder to bust off the clamp. Just like a true super hero he asks for no money in return as well he conceals his identity to prevent a hefty fine. The second hero is a man that does not where a cape nor does he fight bad guys instead he has a true power. Like many fictional hero's he acquired his power from a dramatic event his turned out to be a series of epileptic seizures that severely altered his brain. This transformed him into a human calculator. Daniel Tammet does incredibly long calculations in very short periods of time. He accomplishes this by not memorizing the number but instead feeling the number and actually seeing flashes of lights that reveal the answer. It seems like a little bit of a hoax but you can't argue with his world record, which is reciting pi up to 22,514 digits in 5 hours. This is similar to the smartest man on the earth from watchmen in that they both have the ability to learn. Daniel Tammet was also put to the test by having to learn Icelandic know as one the hardest language in only a week. To test if he succeeded he went live with interviewers in front of millions and was able to carry on a conversation. This shows that to some degree super powers and masked avengers exists but in different ways than they appear in the comics. (youtube: Daniel Tammet to see full story)

Bike Reveiw: Nomad vs Remedy

The Santa Cruz Nomad and Trek Remedy 8 are two very comparable bikes in the sense that they are intended for the same purpose, which is a free ride bike that can still take on any climb you want to throw at it. I recently test road both of these bikes and was very impressed with both of them however there was a clear winner. Firstly an overview. The Remedy is equipped with the Fox Talus which is arguably the best all mountain shock on the market, its superior technology allows you to drop the front fork 1 inch which changes the geometry of the bike.This change of geometry is incredibly easy to do and allows the bike to climb like a cross country specific bike. The Rock Shock front fork on the Nomad also has its advantages and is still a quality item but still not on the same level as the Fox Talus. It does not allow you to drop the fork which makes it uncomfortable when tacking on steep technical climbs. However I found it to take on burly rock gardens better than the talus because of their ability for absorbing large impacts; making a more stable feel. In the aspect of the front fork the edge went to the Trek Remedy's Talus fork. As for the rear shock they are an absolute tie because they are identical Fox float R23. They both tie in their weight as well; tipping the scales around 30 pounds. When these 2 bikes are compared purely on specifications alone it seems that the Remedy is the superior bike for the $3,500 price range, but this changed as soon as I test road them. Initially on the climb the Nomad felt sluggish but this was my fault for not using the lock out feature on the rear shock which prohibits "pedal bob" and I realized its importance for climbing for any significant duration. As soon as I flicked this seemingly magic switch the bike became incredibly efficient and I effortlessly coasted to the top of the hill. The Remedy also climbed admirably but when you stand up to pedal and really dig in, it tends loose it firm feel almost as if the bike can only be pushed so hard. It was on the descend the nomad flourished and as I dropped in and railed the first berm the Nomad had taken the competition. It was it's snappy, responsive handling and the tacky maxis tire clung to everything it came in contact with. It furthered itself from the competition when it took to the air, it took off lips with no awkward back tire kick ups and seemed very stable on landings using it's burly shocks to its advantage. The Remedy had little to offer in the air mostly due to the frame height and it's frame design seemed to always be in the way on the take off's of jumps making it awkward and unbalanced. This being said it was a pleasure on the high speed trail carrying tons of speed and tracking very well but did not hold its own in tight sections of trails and seemed unresponsive. Over all it was a very close comparison but the Nomad takes it because of the huge variety of terrain it is able to over come and the confidence it gives you while tackling any obstacle.

Perception is everything

Many events in our lives are thought to be carried due to necessity but in reality there are very few that are; instead it is the context that surround these daily events that make them seem mandatory. An example that shows this concept is how girls in today's society wear make-up because they want to look like all the supermodels and to fit in with all there peers who are also follow this trend. Through repetition girls have turned this into such a norm that spreading potentially harmful chemicals on their body's seems acceptable because of the context and knowledge based around this subject. Beau Otto uses optical illusion's as a metaphor for this idea. He does this by taking 2 exact coloured dots and puts them on a white sheet and a black sheet, the end result is that they appear to be different colours. A situation that shows this is how 2 seemingly identical children could be born on different sides of the world but grow up to be totally different. They could differ in jobs, religion and over all character. The reason for this is not because they where born to become a doctor or a janitor instead it was the influences around them that made them pursue their careers in different ways. Parents are also responsible for creating the context that forms the child's thought and ultimately their outlook on life. This goes for religion as well for example, a child isn't born Muslim instead they are born then taught to be a Muslim. It is this ideology that shows that it isn't the colour on the dot or the baby being born that decides how it is perceived, instead it's the context that surrounds it that ultimately creates the perception for an individual.

The Hazards of Becoming Detatched from Society

At the end of the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson a gruesome public stoning takes place and leaves many wondering how she could write such a thing. It isn't until one analyzes their own life until they realize how capable they really are of carrying out this horrific act. An example of this is when seemingly normal Kids carry out a comparable act of violence, that fortunately doesn't result in a fatality. It's called the game of "Red Butt" or "Peggers" and it involves throwing a ball against a wall until some one fumbles it, this results in having to run to the wall while everyone gets to whale the ball at you, whether you want them to or not. Just like in book everyone follows these rules without question and will throw the ball at their friends or sibling because of someone started a tradition or in this case a school yard game. Most people believe that if they where a character in the story, they would stick up for the individual being stoned. In most cases the fact of the matter is that they are no different than the kids playing "Peggers" in the sense that if its what you have been taught growing up and you don't know that what your doing is wrong you'll carry out the act without thinking twice.

The message in the text "Perils of Indifference" by Elie Wiesels closely relates to "The Lottery" in trying to show how important compassion really is. One example of this similarity is in "Perils of Indifference" he talks about how not caring about others is often even more dangerous than anger. This is perfectly illustrated in "The Lottery" when the lady draws the black dot, which is a death sentence and instead of people consoling or comforting her they instead all scramble to find a big enough stone. The characters in the short story clearly did not feel the suffering they where causing and often complained how they wanted to get it over with so they could get on with their day. Elie points out that the very same thing happened during the Holocaust in the sense that the German soldiers killed thousands of Jews because they had no empathy for their lives and carrying out their orders was more of a priority than a human life. This shows if one lacks compassion for others it can lead them to carry out horrible acts.