Making use of suffering

Funds raised as of Wed, 6/30: $1210 or 3.025%
Left to raise: $38790 or $862/wk

What a rollercoaster of a week! In the middle of  Friday night I kept myself awake for an hour or so feeling like a total idiot for wanting to raise $40G and telling everyone about it and then yesterday my fundraising total literally doubled over lunchtime.  And then I had an email waiting for me from the gang at Cedaron Medical Inc. saying they would match the first $1000 of donations in October AND an email from one of my friends volunteered to start investigating grants I could apply for.

   Last summer when I was training for and racing in my A races for the season and dealing with being laid off (two weeks early, thanks very much!) from my job, I came across this quote from Swiss philosopher and poet Henri-Frederic Amiel: "You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: Make use of suffering."  [Disclaimer: Beyond what's written about him in the wikiverse, I don't know anything about this guy.  So please forgive me if he happens to be an A1 nutcase who espoused all sorts of hateful junk, in addition to writing something that resonated with me at the time.  I promise to go down to my public library to learn more about him in the next few days.]  At the time it was very comforting to try to turn my frowns upside down and take advantage of the learning and growth opportunities I had in front of me because of all the new sorts of suffering I was going through.  That, and knowing that, in the very grand scheme of things, the suffering I was feeling could have been a lot worse:  Ann and I were a long way from the street even when I was without a job and, after all, I still had the time, health and $$$ to spend gobs of time racing on a couple thousand dollars of rubber, welded steel, and sex appeal.

   So fast forward to June and getting started on this $40,000 fundraising adventure.  If the past week is any indication of what the next 10 months will be like, I'm in store for a whole lot more opportunities to suffer even before I hop onto the new tandem (pictures coming soon, I promise!).  From the sleep-depriving worry of whether or not it's even possible; the wondering for the millionth time, 'why don't they F-ing donate already? Can't they see I'm suffering here?!?!'; the stress of staying organized and on top of the entire campaign while also balancing the other important parts of my life like, oh yeah, my wife, my friends, and my job to the frabjous joy of friends coming through with unexpectedly big donations and offers of assistance, these intense mood swings are tough to handle for someone like me who's still working on identifying and expressing strong emotions.  Even after just one cycle of this up-and-down-and-up I'm feeling like I might like to pull over and have a little barf.  But I guess the good thing is that I'll go through lots more these emotional suffering cycles before I'm done with this project and with each one maybe I'll get a little better at handling it.

Making use of suffering at the top of Cardiac Hill

or

What the end of an LT set looks like

Thank you, Wheelworks! For the $1G and that Felt

Fundraising update: $460 raised; $39540 to go
B3FI: $859.57/wk

  It's a good fundraising day today!  This morning I received the following message from Joe S., the owner of Davis Wheelworks: "Quick reply here...taxiing on airport runway. Will do $1k."  Nevermind the fact that he's probably texting well after the flight attendants told him not to, that '$1k' means he's committed to matching the first $1000 of  donations made until the end of July.  Thank you, Joe!
   For those of you who aren't from Davis or aren't cyclists, out of the 7 bike shops in town, Davis Wheelworks is the most high profile and high end shop in town.  It caters to road cyclists and triathletes looking to put something really fast between their legs.  My relationship with Wheelworks goes back to 2002, when it was owned by Steve Larsen, a Davis native and former pro road cyclist, mountain biker, and triathlete.  I wandered in there in January 2002 not having a clue about what I was looking for.  What a noob I must have looked, dressed in felted Birkenstocks, mismatched socks (socks! with Birkenstocks!), torn Grammicis, and a big UPenn NROTC cotton hoodie.  Steve himself helped me and spent several hours, including two of them past closing time, talking to me seriously about bikes and sending me out on test ride after test ride to find the one that worked best for me. 

  I finally settled on an entry level Felt 75 and that was pretty much all she wrote.  I rode that thing like the devil after I got it, getting in over 6000 miles in my first year of riding.  What I remember most, ironically, was the lack of pain.  My knees have always given me problems when I exercised, but for some reason cycling, for the first three years at least, didn't bother them at all.  I still remember the sense of speed and joy and freedom I felt just hammering my brains out on the road for hour after hour.  Especially after my dad died later that first Winter, it seemed like all I really wanted to do was ride and ride and ride.  I had almost all of my significant cycling firsts on that bike: first ride out to Winters and back, first rides up Cardiac and Cantelow and Mix, first rides up Cardiac and Cantelow and Mix without stopping, first crash on the way down Mix, first ride on the American River Bike Trail, first metric century, first century, first double century, first flat tire (at mile 196 of my first double century!), first Tue/Thu race ride.

  I sold that Felt after about a year of riding on it and Steve sold the shop to Joe S. and moved back up to Bend soon after that.  Awesomely, as far as I know that Felt has been the first road bike for two other people now, including another NorCal AIDS Cycler.  And I still see it around Davis occasionally, going fast between someone else's legs.

$40G's a nice round number

   Okay, I'm all registered for the 2011 NCACycle, the blog is finally up, the tandem is purchased, and there's already some $$$ in my fundraising account (Thanks, you two!)  Let's see...I've raised $125 so far, leaving me $39875 dollars left to raise and...46 weeks to raise it in.  That comes out to an average of $866.85/week between now and next May.  Zoinks!
   Joaquin's Big Fundraising Plan is also starting to come together. So far I've got four different strategies for raising hunks of that $40G - $10G in donations from individuals; $10G in donor matching from local businesses and philanthropists to match the $10G from individuals; $10G in a series of slammin' fundraising events in Winter and Spring 2011; and then the final $10G using some combination of luck, divine intervention, the teeth-and-dimples, and finding out that, yes, it is possible to find the end of a rainbow and, yes, there is a little leprechaun there who wants to share her pot of gold with me. Admittedly, the plan needs a little work, but that's what I've got so far.
  I've got two businesses and an anonymous philanthropist all set for donor matching in the months of June/July, August, and September.  Thanks Davis Wheelworks and CustomerLink!  I'm hopeful that I can find folks to donor match for the other 7 months before the NCACycle.  Also, Beth at B&L Bike Shop is donating a cruiser bike to raffle off to jumpstart the fundraising.  I'm hoping to have a ton of other stuff available to motivate and reward donors along the way. So stay tuned and feel free to donate early, late, and often!
   At this point, there are all sorts of popular sayings that come to mind about long journeys starting with a single step or eating elephants one bite at a time or birds in the hand versus them being in the bush, but right now what comes to my mind is: "WTF were you thinking when you said $40G?!?!?!"  Reminds me of my favorite scene in Cool Hand Luke:

DRAGLINE: Why'd you have to say fifty [eggs]? Why not thirty five or thirty nine?
LUKE: Fifty's a nice round number.

  I'm sure I'll have more to think and write about that over the next year or so as I start whittling away at my goal.  I hope to explore that as well as what it is about bicycle riding, HIV/AIDS advocacy, taking on huge projects, tandem riding, etc. that are so attractive and compelling to me.  And maybe inspire readers to get involved and/or donate by clicking on one of the links at the bottom of the blog. So stay tuned and thanks for reading!