A tweet I read this morning, from @betsycurtin last night (July 23), just took me back…. she typed:

Looks like getting out of salt lake is going to be challenging today b/c of pioneer days. Get a cab early #orsm09

ORSM09 is the acronym for the trade show/event Outdoor Retailer Summer Market 2009, held in Salt Lake City. The show closes today, July 24.  Pioneer Day is an annual event that commemorates  the day Brigham Young and the first group of Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. Pioneer Day is a big day in Salt Lake – businesses close, parades take place,  fireworks are fired, etc.

The tweet wouldn’t have meant much to me (other than I wanted to be there at the show but couldn’t) except that bunch of years ago, I happened to be in Salt Lake City on July 23 – the day before Pioneer Day.

That year I was racing pro for the Fuji mountain bike team. I had flown into SLC with teammate and friend Thomas, then a top 10 ranked Junior, to compete at a National Championship Series race up in beautiful Park City (back before the super fun trail ‘Spin Cycle’ was covered in condos).

Unfortunately, our bicycles had not gotten on the same plane as us in Newark, NJ. Luckily, they were on a following flight that would be arriving in a few hours. So, with a couple of hours to kill and a rental car we started exploring Salt Lake City.

Driving through a residential neighborhood we spotted a stone tower atop a small mountain. What would two bored mountain bikers with no bikes do with a few hours and a stone tower looking down at them? Go for a hike! Why? Because it’s there!

A little driving around to find a trail head was unsuccessful so we parked on the street, quick-walked through somebody’s beautiful green backyard and started scrambling up the dusty mountain. At some point our scramble put us on a trail and we got up to the tower.

A plaque on the tower told us we had hiked Ensign Peak and told of it’s historical and religious importance…

As we sat and looked over Salt Lake valley a woman and her teenage daughter came up the trail. We chatted a bit and they told us that “tomorrow this place will be packed with people.” Unbeknown to us we were at the monument on July 23, the day before Pioneer Day. Hundreds of people would hike up Ensign Peak on July 24 to honor and remember the Mormon pioneers.

After a few more moments quietly enjoying the view we said our goodbyes, made our way back to the car and picked up our bikes from the airport. I don’t remember how Thomas or I finished in our respective races. I don’t remember exactly where we slept or ate on that particular trip. What I remember clearly are Ensign Peak, its story, the women who told it to us and the time Thomas and I had together on that peak on that particular sunny, warm day in July.

I’ve mentioned before that I often read things about a similar topic from different perspectives on or about the same day. Odd coincidence, brain damage or too much reading, I don’t know but today’s “similar things from different sources”  links U.S. international policy to hip hop and the Tour de France.

A tweet by @cassondra this morning alerted me to a National Public Radio piece comparing Jay-Z and the hierarchy of rappers to the United States’ super power role in international politics. It was an interesting read to start the day. Here’s an excerpt…

The conflict in question is between established rapper Jay-Z and and up-and-comer known as The Game. Jay-Z has been attacking other rappers for using Auto-Tune software,  which corrects pitch while singers record. Auto-Tune is widely used in the industry, but Jay-Z is making a call for authenticity.

“He’s saying ‘these are the rules of the international system. If you want to be a civilized member of our international society, you have to not pursue nuclear weapons,”’ (Marc) Lynch (author of a piece on this topic at Foreign Policy.com) says.

The Game is using the opportunity to tag Jay-Z as old and irrelevant.

There’s a history of this in the rap world: 50 Cent rose to power by destroying the career of Ja Rule. Jay-Z did that to a number of people while he was a rising power.

“If you go back to, like, 19th century bounce-power politics, this is how rising powers would make it,” Lynch says, citing conflicts between Japan and Russian as well as among rising powers in Europe. “If they wanted to get somewhere, they had to take someone out.”

Later in the afternoon after the 17th stage of the Tour de France, VeloNews  interviewed the Schleck brothers – the agressors  in today’s stage.

Today’s stage climbed four mountains in the Alps in what is considered the toughest stage thus far in the three week contest. Brothers Andy and Franck Schleck attacked current leader Alberto Contador and 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, dropping the American and keeping Contador from adding to his lead. A race against the clock and another tough day in the Alps, climbing the infamous Mont Ventoux, will decide podium positions – or not – for Armstrong, Contador and both Schelcks.

VeloNews: Have you conceded the overall win to (current race leader) Contador?

ASchleck: It’s a bike race. We saw at Paris-Nice (stage race in France) that Contador can have a bad day, like his sugar flat. He is a big champion, but he made a mistake. It’s not going to be a secret to tell you he is very strong and it will be hard to beat him. But he is a human being and humans make mistakes. We will wait for his mistake, and if we don’t make mistakes ourselves, we will be there and take the opportunity. We have to believe or we might as well stop racing here. We are here for the competition. We will keep on attacking.

VeloNews also posted their report on what could be to come as the race heads into the final days. VeloNews interviewed Pedro Delgado, a former pro cyclist and 1988 Tour de France winner, whose comments on usurping the established leaders echoed the Schleck’s and those in the NPR rap piece.

Once someone shows a crack, that’s when the rivals will pour it on. And when the cracks become visible, it’s usually in the third week when someone just cannot hang on anymore.

That’s what Pedro Delgado – the 1988 Tour winner – said he saw in Sunday’s stage when Armstrong couldn’t respond to accelerations from Andy Schleck and Contador. When rivals smell blood, they tend to gang up and go for the kill.

“That respect that they had of (Armstrong) when he was on top is no longer there. When you saw the attacks coming (Sunday), everyone was attacking him, one after another. You never saw that before,” Delgado said.

“All the little dwarfs started to believe in themselves, enemies were coming out of the woodwork. If one goes, then another, and suddenly Armstrong looks beatable. It wakes everyone up.”

Bicycle racing, hip hop, International politics, marketing, business – it’s all the same. Look for a weakness and attack.

Oddly, as I finish this and prepare to hit the “publish” button, Blondie’s One Way or Another comes across Pandora….

One way or another I’m gonna lose ya
I’m gonna give you the slip, a slip of the lip or another
I’m gonna lose ya, I’m gonna trick ya, I’ll trick ya
One way or another I’m gonna lose ya
I’m gonna trick ya trick ya trick ya trick ya
One way or another I’m gonna lose ya
I’m gonna give you the slip

Woot! In early June I received an email from Bret, Program Manager at Stoked that I had been accepted as a mentor in the program. Apparently (and as anticipated), my interview, background check and references all were fine.

So back into NYC via bus and subway to the Stoked office for orientation. This time I was unable to leave the office early. Ugh. The Lincoln Tunnel was backed up pretty bad making the 15 mile trip to Port Authority Bus Terminal last nearly two hours – if there were an easy way to commute by bicycle, I’d have been there in less than half that time. 

Here’s a sample of Lincoln Tunnel traffic…

Needless to say, I arrived late and the orientation was in process already.

I walked in on a role playing exercise where we were “active listeners.” Bret paired us up and then one person in each pair asked the other person a question. As the question was answered everyone was silent. Four minutes were allocated for the answer but didn’t need to be used. Silence was OK.   Then we discussed how the person reacted, their body language and talked about their answer.

After a few of these excercises we were asked to write down what we want to pass on to the next generation. My page said, “Life is great. Don’t allow the disappointments and negativity get in your way. Overcome them and choose the best you can so you can follow your dreams.” 

We discussed these several sentence long ideas.  Bret interjected where appropriate. Since he had interviewed each of us before he drew out certain information and asked specific questions. In my case, he knew about my unconventional 12 year long college career that I had so I could race mountain bikes professionally. He plucked out my thought on “follow your dreams” and related it back to my college/bicycle racing experience.

From there, we were asked to focus these ideas further into a personal “mission statement” of sorts for our mentoring; our “goal” message that we’d most like to communicate to our mentees. The phrase “What I want to pass on to my mentee is…” had to precede the goal. Mine ended up as, “What I want to pass on to my mentee is to overcome your challenges and follow your dreams.”

In retrospect, now, my “mission statement” seems kind of simplistic. But, maybe that was part of the exercise, focusing our varied thoughts.  I was impressed with the openness of the other “mentors in training” in the room and the amount of self-inspection they had done. The exercises we completed at this orientation also helped us to really get to know these other mentors very well in a few hours time.

In closing we discussed upcoming dates and what we would be doing at the next session – mentor training. Oh yeah, and surfing sessions at Rockaway Beach will start in July!!

While we were inside getting oriented with Stoked, a foggy drizzle descended on NYC diffusing the light at the top of the nearby Metropolitan Life Tower making it look like a torch in the night sky. 

With our “mission statements” and a little more Stoked mentor training we will soon be meeting our mentees and attempting to provide a positive light for them.

After filling out an internet form expressing interest in joining Stoked as a mentor, I received an email from Bret, the program manager, inviting me to interview for a mentor spot. 

Several emails back and forth and I was pretty confident that I could hold up my end of the deal for the one year commitment to mentor a NYC based teen. That commitment includes spending at least 4 hours a month with my mentee plus surfing (4x), snowboarding (4x) and skateboarding (4x) with him at Stoked events over the course of the year. 

The Stoked NYC offices are located in the Marc Ecko building on 23rd Street so I had to figure out the most time/cost efficient way to get there. Bus to Port Authority and subway was the best bet. Bonus: my employer encouraged me to leave the office a little early!

I arrived in ample time to get off the subway at the wrong stop, walk a few extra blocks and make the 6:30pm  interview just about on time.  The Stoked office is in Zoo York’s space in the Marc Ecko building. It was Zoo York brand immersion! Clothes, skate decks, shoes, hats, NYC & grafiti inspired art all around.

After completing all the expected paperwork like a medical form, mentor agreement and liability and photo releases, we started the detailed interview process.

Obviously, the questions asked help Stoked to learn about my background, my motivations to join and to determine if I would be a good role model / mentor. Some were “standard” where’d you go to college stuff, others were “scenarios” like if your mentee did this, what would you do? Some made me think about how I felt about things in my life in ways I hadn’t before. The questions were very well organized and Bret did an awesome job listening to and encouraging my responses.

One of the most thought provoking questions for me was whether or not I regretted my “non-traditional” college career.  While spending 12 years taking classes part-time and racing my mountain bike professionally certainly cut out frat parties and spring break activities I have to say that I have no regrets following my passion. It is one of the main pieces of advice I would offer to anyone and especially to young people.

It was more of a conversation than an interview -  so much so that I’d like to have the interview ’script’ to use as a road map for conversations with a bunch of important people in my life. Using the interview questions as a ’script’ would allow me to ask questions that I wouldn’t neccessarially pose in a regular chat.

After over an hour of conversation it was time for fingerprinting (and then handwashing in the grafitti coated restroom). A background check was the next step. I would have to sit tight for a few weeks and wait for word from Stoked – not to worry though, there are no skeletons in my closet that would keep me from becoming a Stoked mentor. 

 While waiting for the elevator down stairs I snapped the two pics of the Zoo York lobby. Next up would be a series of training sessions with fellow mentors and then a meeting with my mentee.

I realized the other day that I don’t doodle as much as I used to.  My notes used to have all kinds of drawings in the margins sometimes spilling in between the words on the page.  Now, there’s hardly a star or smiley face penned on my papers.

A pen and paper (be it a note pad, newspaper or magazine) was always on the table or by the phone and always put to use in scratching out some figures. Doodles could be found on, as well as in, the phone book for example. Now, their pages are all clean except for some number changes or addresses written in the margins.

I think technology, hand held devices and social media have killed doodling. Sometimes my notes and drafts now are simply typed on the computer and so pen doesn’t even meet paper.  Time I used to spend thinking and doodling is now spent lightly rapping on the keys and wiggling the mouse while I stare at the computer screen or out the window.

For some, I bet hand held devices have killed their doodling. Now instead of drawing little drawings on scraps of paper I find my self updating twitter, sending text messages or scrolling through the pictures saved on my cell phone. If I set it up, I’d be updating facebook and playing games on my hand held too.

I wonder if this “doodling deficiency” makes us less creative or less visual?  I wonder if we “think better” (you know left/right brain engaged at same time) when we doodle?