Jason's Log

Time to collect signatures...

I spent about 30 minutes at the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters office today. In that time, I picked my Candidates Information packet, and the Petition In Lieu of Filing Fee form. The Petition forms are what I will need to get in front of at least 49 registered Libertarians in the 22nd Assembly District in order to qualify for the ballot.

Let the fun begin!

Running for office. No really.

Yes, that is right. If all goes as planned (I will be at the Santa Clary County Voter Registration building tomorrow), I will be your Libertarian Party candidate for the 22nd Assembly District in the State of California.

I haven't decided yet how active a campaign I will actually run, but my first goal will be to obtain the 45 (or so) signatures from registered Libertarians in Sunnyvale/Cupertino in order to qualify for the ballot.

More information on the Libertarian Party can be found here. Information on the 22nd State Assembly District can be found here.

Lost in Translation

Got to see Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation this weekend. A really wonderful movie. Although I'm not sure if it made me want to visit Tokyo or never go near it, Bill Murray was totally amazing. You really should go see this film.

And keep your eyes on the two Japanese women in the upper-left of your screen during the scene where Bill Murray is sitting in the hospital waiting room. Totally priceless.

Trail work at Henry Coe

Spent the day yesterday at the IMBA (see imba.com) Epic at Henry Coe State Park in Gilroy. The event was put together by ROMP.org, and was meant to spotlight the needs of mountain bikers in California.

I had to get up at 5am in order to be there by 7am to help get things setup. The turnout rate of particiapants was fairly low. Of the 100 or so that had originally signed up for the event for it's first scheduled date in May only 20 or so made it. I'm sure the heat had something to do with it also. It hit 100 degrees on the Dutch's Trail where were doing the brush removal work.

The group got through 7 miles of trial before calling it a day and heading back to the main camp site. Pictures of the day can be found here. Not bad given the conditions.

Henry Coe almost killed me

For some completely insane reason, I decided to participate on an exploratory 21 miles ride through Henry Coe State Park near Gilroy, CA this past Saturday. That would be the day the recent heat wave here hit its peak. Which basically meant we spent the better part of 4 hours pedaling uphill, slowly, in the baking sun and temperatures in the mid-90's.

When I finally returned to the car, the thermometer registered 103 degrees. I consider myself lucky to not have cramped up or dehydrated during the event. I went through nearly all of my 70 ounces of water, as well as a pair of Promax energy bars in the process. I'm thinking Henry Coe would be better left to the early spring or later fall. Maybe during those times the smell of the skunkweed won't be so intense.

That being said, we came across only one other person on the trails during that entire 4-hour ride. And he was a solo mountain biker. Nuts if you ask me. Way too dangerous to be riding solo in those conditions.

Oh, and I got another flat tire in the process. I really do need to invest in some of that tube goo stuff that protects against thorn punctures. Going through all these tubes is starting to add up.

Leading my first ROMP.org ride

If you live in/around the San Jose/Sunnyvale/Mtn View/Palo Alto area, please come out for my first romp.org ride leading. The ride is scheduled to leave from the Russian Ridge Preserve parking lot at 10:00am on Saturday, October 11th. It will be a gently-paced ride, and nobody will be left behind. The estimated distance is 10 miles, with about 1000 ft. of vertical climbing. The terrain is mostly fire road and smooth single track.

It should be fun!

The causes of muscle cramps...

After my bout of muscle cramping after my last epic mtn bike ride, I decided to look into what caused muscle cramping. I had assumed all along that it was primarily caused by the loss of sodium, calclium and potassium through perspiration during exercise. And because those two moleculres, in their ionic forms (Na+, K+, Ca+) are essential to the process of muscle contraction (especially Calcium).

After a bit of research, I found this article, which was written by someone with a vested interest in selling electrolyte replacement products, which lists three reasons:

1. Electrolyte depletion.
2. Dehydration
3. Energy depletion

His explanation for Dehydration as a cause of cramping makes sense- If the volume of water in which these ions exist is distorted greatly, it will have a direct impact on the absolute concentration of the ions in solution. When that happens, lots of unintented consequences may ensue, one of which is muscle cramping.

The energy depletion explanation also makes sense, and in retrospect, I should have suspected it. As I learned as an undergrad, the process of muscle fiber contraction consumes Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) as an energy carrier produced by glycolysis (the Krebs cycle, etc.). What I had forgotten was the fact that both fiber contraction and fiber relaxation consume ATP. That is why rigor mordis affects dead people- no more ATP around to keep the muscle in a relaxed state. So if your muscles run out of ATP and the immediate prerequisites to ATP production like glucose and glycogen, you can also experience muscle cramping.

So what does this tell me about my next ride? I should probably eat a bit more during the ride to prevent energy depletion, and I should also consider adding an electrolyte replacement to the water I bring with me.

First ride at Henry Coe

This Saturday I'll be meeting up with old friend and former co-worker (Ten Square era) Paul Hammer for a 15-mile ride in Henry Coe. It'll be good to see Paul again, and to get a general feel for Henry Coe State Park.

I'm also in the process of planning to lead a ride for romp.org. It will be a 'B' level ride, which means it is meant for beginner to intermediate mtn bikers, should be between 10-12 miles on mostly fire road and easy single track. I'll probably do the ride at either Atastradero or (most likely) Russian Ridge in Palo Alto. We'll see how that goes.

Long time, no post

I've been slowly making progress through my introduction to international politics. It's fairly dry stuff, and hard to get through. One of the recent chapters that was particularly interesting was an analysis of the Cuban Missle Crisis from three different points of view. Each point of view highlighted a different approach to studying international conflict:

1. The realist approach in which states act as rational unitary actors to do what is in the best interest of the state.

2. An organizational viewpoint in which the outcome of the event was depicted in terms of the functions and limitations of the beauracracies that were involed, such as the military intelligence community which first established the presence of Soviet MRBMs in Cuba.

3. Lastly, from a cognitive psychology viewpoint which attempted to depict, in detail, the content of thoughts and ideas of the important actors and in doing so describe how the incident was resolved peacefully.

I'm still not sure about how I would answer the question: Do ideas held by individual actors matter in the overall outcome of international politics?