Am Spending Time In The Cabin

It's cold, but not so cold that I couldn't be out there busking, even in just a pair of shorts; if I were to follow the Wim Hof Method and start buying bags of ice every morning, to fill my tub with, adding just enough liquid to cover my body, then submerging myself in it for maybe 44 minutes a day. 

I think I would be out there, busking in this current weather, if I were that far along with the Wim Hof method. There would be money to be made.

There is a certain function that statisticians are familiar with; especially the ones who use statistics to debunk certain theories that are based upon fallacious assumptions, based upon statistics.

In the case of the Wim Hof method; you might think that jumping into a tub of ice every morning is having great and positive effects upon those disciples of Wim's that are all in on the program.

But, the statistician might posit that, the types of people who will submerge themselves in ice baths every morning as an extreme measure to bring about an improvement in their health, are not the average people; they might have something else going for them. In other words, the same will power that drives them into the ice bath may overlap into other areas of their lives; they may have the discipline to stay on a rigid diet and to force themselves outside to jog x miles a day, etc.

So, the Wim Hof Method, which could ostensibly help anyone to boost their immune systems, alkalize their bloodstreams and cure their mental illnesses, winds up not helping everyone, but only those who have the will to do whatever it takes to become healthy. And, it might be argued that those individuals already have a strong mind to begin with.

The scientific way to test Wim's method would be to grab some sickly person who could never bring themselves to get in a tub of ice water on a cold morning when they are already shivering upon waking; and only desirous of a mug of hot chocolate and sitting by a roaring fire to start their day; and to physically grab that individual and throw him or her into the ice water, against their will. They might hate you at first, and would probably avoid you the next morning; but, if they developed a strong immune system; then they would be improving the sample of data used to determine the effectiveness of Wim's program.

The same variable comes into play when considering such a thing as "generous people are generally more happy" than stingy people. The same statisticians might conjecture that the people's generosity is an outcropping of their happiness, and not that the act of being generous is what, in turn, is causing them to be happy. 

I didn't want to rely upon any other person today, so, instead of walking to the store with Dom, where he would be the only person with money, and would be able to use that as leverage, to basically purchase the company of the person who is broke and hanging out with him to a good degree because of wanting to get something off him; I decided to just ride to Patrick's house, where he would have been laid up for two days since I last saw him; and the half gallon of milk and dozen eggs, etc. would be just running out.

This turned out to be a pretty good decision, over the one of hanging out with Dom all night, just in hopes of getting drunk and stoned.

The 34 degree night was kind of a blessing for me, as I didn't have to wonder if I should be out there playing; I was able to sleep like a baby knowing I wasn't missing anything out there; there wasn't a group of tourists wanting to sing "American Pie" in its entirety and then throw a fifty dollar tip; the tourists were all inside, somewhere, just like me; so I was able to do the guided meditations and the breathing exercises and wake up feeling refreshed.

No need to ruin that with Dom's cheap whiskey.

At least Patrick is an interesting person; he has a pet bird as well as a half dozen pet fish in a huge 90 gallon tank. And so, he's interesting.

He seems knowledgeable on a variety of subjects; but has been argumentative in the past, especially when I disagreed on one, and one time had become angry after I had started talking about an idea that I had just thought up for a device that would allow hobbyists to run their little electric powered cars around their plastic tracks in times that would be groundbreaking in the sport.

It basically involved measuring just how fast the little car could go around the corners, without flipping over, and then setting a maximum speed marker on the little joystick device that racers use, so that, when the kids (or grown man like Patrick's) car came to the corners in the track, he could put his joystick into a certain notch which would keep the speed at the maximum possible for negotiating the turn.

Patrick had become angry and accused me of trying to take all the fun out of the great sport of electric Hot Wheel racing, or whatever it was that he was referring to as a hobby that even grown men persist, in as a hobby. Everyone has seen those black plastic tracks with the grooves and the electrical strips.

But, Patrick was showing me a track that he actually has, and telling me that there are serious, competitive races with prize money involved, held at certain times and places, where people race their little electric cars.

It took me only a while to wonder why nobody ever tested the cars to see what their very maximum speeds could be in negotiating the corners and then to set some kind of regulator in the joystick, so a person could use that to win races and prize money.

Patrick had almost kicked me out of the house, that time. Why couldn't I just leave an innocent hobby alone, why try to hack it with a high tech improvement?

Well, because I remember racing those cars as a ten year old and how the thing that took the fun out of racing was that you had to be very careful not to flip your car over when it came to the turns. If you knew exactly where to put the control lever so that your car would go the maximum speed around the turn, without flipping over, then that would be very useful, I was thinking.

Patrick seems more reasonable, these days, if not maybe just a little more sober.

He still claims to have hung out with Jim Morrison, and the bass player from Credence Clearwater Revival, and has several stories involving famous people. He was a roadie, or something, for Sly And The Family Stone; and somehow hung around with Doctor John, and also wound up backstage at Stevie Ray Vaughan shows -said the guy sweat a lot in those silk shirts he always wore, and that he "stunk" after playing his show and coming backstage where Patrick somehow was there to smell him.