Mark is passing through rural Pennsylvania. He’s in farming country. Google delivers some beautiful panoramas when I search his location.
Yesterday, we spoke by phone. He was in good spirits, as he usually is. We talked about the Amish.
The Amish are primarily rooted in Lancaster County, to the east of where Mark is right now. However, he said he’s seen a number of them pass in their horse and buggy get-ups.
One foot in the past and the present.
Americans love their bulleted lists. As if there really are “three steps to success,” or you actually can make $100,000 and never change out of your PJs in the morning.
Yet, there are steps that you can take that may deliver positive impacts on health, offering up benefits now, and as you get older. Eating right has its perks.
Six weeks ago, I decided to see if I could take a sabbatical from meat and dairy. I blogged about this nearly three weeks ago. Since then, I’ve been trying to set a few things straight relative to the depressing election of 2016. A lot of good that did.
So back to health and what we eat. Dr. Michael Greger, along with writer Gene Stone, published How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease. It could also have been subtitled, “The Medical and Scientific Reasons to Adopt a Whole Food, Plant-based Diet.” Both subtitles lend the book sound overly scientific and textbook-ish air. How Not to Die is far from either category. It’s a primer for anyone considering adopting a diet centered on whole foods and plants, with plenty of data, but also many humorous anecdotes from Greger’s own life. I’ve found it invaluable in getting started and immersed in a brand new way of living. Continue reading
There is an oft-quoted time frame that’s become accepted in many self-help circles, and among those coaching others to make changes in their lives. We hear over and over again that for something to take root and become habitual requires a minimum of three weeks, 21 days, or something longer—like a month. Where did this come from?
One never knows for sure, but the interwebs coughed up the name Maxwell Maltz.
In the preface to his 1960 book Pycho-Cybernetics, Maltz (a plastic surgeon turned psychologist) wrote about how “it usually requires a minimum of 21 days to effect any perceptual change in mental image” following plastic surgery to get “used to a new face.” Apparently, when an arm or a leg are amputated, the “phantom limb” can persist for about 21 days, also.
Dr. Maltz highlighted a number of other phenomena that clock-in around 21 days, or three weeks, to take root.
James Last, a writer focused on “behavioral psychology, habit formation, and performance Improvement” mentions that it was Maltz’s book that influenced a host of self-help gurus, from Zig Ziglar to Tony Robbins. Last equates it to that game we played when we were kids, “Telephone”—where a story gets started and by the end, Maltz’s “a minimum of 21 days” has now been turned into a gospel aphorism that “it takes 21 days to form a new habit.” Continue reading
In 2010, Mark Baumer crossed America on foot in 81 days. While my research isn’t extensive (or exhaustive), I’m not sure anyone’s completed a coast-to-coast journey across the U.S. sans gasoline any faster than he did six years ago.
Mark is a writer and poet. He chronicled that first trek in a new book that has a very limited print run. The book, I am a Road, will be available to purchase for another week in print form, so don’t miss out.
Two weeks ago, Mary and I learned that our only son was being beckoned by the road once again. This time, his latest cross-country trip will be done for something larger than what motivated Mark during his first walk. Oh, and he’ll be doing this without shoes, too.
Since Mark’s taken the time to articulate and frame it in narrative form (much better than I can), I’ll send you directly to him, so he can explain the “why” of his latest journey.
Mark Baumer will cross America on foot, once again.
Last Thursday, I got on a plane headed to Omaha, Nebraska. On the way, we had to stop in Charlotte because the airline said it takes two planes to make it halfway across the country.
My travel companion was headed to Omaha to swim, bike, and run. This was for the 2016 USA Triathlon National Championships in her age group. She had qualified at last summer’s Challenge America Triathlon held in Old Orchard Beach.
Initially, I wasn’t bullish on going to Omaha, Nebraska. But a vacation is good once in awhile, even if I think they’re overrated. Plus, Warren Buffett lives in Omaha, and maybe he’d give me a pile of money if I saw him on the street.
Miss Mary (my travel companion and wife) swam in some water on Saturday morning. This was Carter Lake, and I think it was actually in Iowa, but I’m not sure. Iowa is really close to Omaha—it’s just across the river, truth be told.
After her swim, Mary biked. She did really well. Mark (our son, who met us in Omaha after coming down from Vancouver, headed to Providence, RI) and I cheered every time Mary went by us. We took lots of pictures, too. Continue reading
Re-calibrating my blog settings.
After publishing like clockwork for 50+ weeks since last year at this time (I think I’ve varied twice), the week following Christmas finds my blog schedule set on “random.”
How was everyone’s holiday? Despite my downer post, pre-Christmas, I actually rallied Christmas Eve and managed to keep the cheer rolling through Christmas Day. Perhaps it was my sister’s Baumer Bingo and assorted prizes (although, I came up empty). It might have been my ability to “screw up” whatever emotion is called for, whether I’m “feeling it,” or not. It might have simply been the magic of Cointreau and some holiday cocktails I tossed together over the two days of our holiday celebration.
Spending December 25th at the beach was a new experience. Miss Mary and I drove to Popham Beach State Park, along with what seemed to be everyone else in Southern Maine, as 60 degree December weather doesn’t happen every year on Christmas. Cars were lining the road as we approached the park gate (locked, as all park personnel had the day off). Many others decided to take their afternoon celebrations to the seashore. Continue reading
I’m entering my third year as a triathlete. Most of the triathlons I’ve entered are of the sprint variety—the distances being 750-meter (0.47-mile) swim, 20-kilometer (12-mile) on the bike bike, and finishing up with a 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) run.
After competing in three sprint triathlons at Point Sebego in Naples the past three seasons, Miss Mary and I are off to the Cape and Hyannis/Craigville Beach for our first out-of-state event, and a good early season test.
My spring hasn’t been my most memorable. Thankfully, training with an eye towards this weekend’s event, and my umpiring, have kept me on an even keel most days, and allowed me to push through some adversity.
Seth Godin would be proud.
Sunrise at OOB, Rev 3, 2014
Mark is 31-years-old today. It’s sounds clichéd to say it, but it feels like only “yesterday” that I was driving Mary to the hospital like countless other nervous fathers-to-be before. We were living in Indiana at the time, 1,500 miles from family and familiar surroundings. To a then 21-year-old dad-in-waiting, this was terrifying. It was also one of my high-water life experiences
Mark at 18 months (I think).
I enjoyed being his dad. I still do. Continue reading
The start of day number two without power.
Being without power and being inconvenienced by a lack of electricity is admittedly a first world problem. However, when you live in the first world, electricity is an expectation. So, being without electricity generally sucks.
Not really missing my television.
“But it is much later in the game now, and ignorance of the score is inexcusable. To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidity plain and simple.”
-Neil Postman, “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business”
For 19 days, I’ve been on a television fast. For the first 11 of those days, I watched no television whatsoever. On the 12th day, I couldn’t help myself and had to watch five minutes of the morning weather forecast (I could have gotten it somewhere else, like my smartphone or computer).
Since then—a week ago, Thursday—I haven’t turned either one of our two televisions on. Neither has my wife.
Each evening, after dinner—a time when our television would always be on for two or three hours until we decided to go to bed, Mary and I have been reading. We are both avid readers, but without the television, even more reading is taking place. So are conversations that don’t have to compete with the 32 inch flat screen. Continue reading