Bike. Family

We took an easy start to the new year, going to Dim Sum with friends. In a casino of all places. That's the second time in my life I've been in one. I'm in no hurry for #3. Outside I've never seen so many handicapped parking spots in one place. I didn't count, but there were more than a dozen. We weren't sure what that said. Rather than the little carts, you actually ordered what you wanted. Pretty good Dim Sum. Oddly enough the wait staff in the restaurant were all white people, and the various casino people for the rigged money vacuums were all Oriental. Not sure what that says either.

Today was a 45 minute core session, including 100 good crunches, 14 pushups, plank, but no squats. I realized when I was doing 300 crunches that the last of them were getting pretty sloppy, so I've decided to do good ones instead. I left squats out because I wanted to get on the bike and see what my knee thought. I started very, very easy, in a very very easy gear, and slowly spun up. About 20 minutes in it was feeling really good and I realized I was doing about 100 rpm, with my knee feeling just fine. I tried one harder gear, just to see, but I got a few twinges as my muscles started firing out of time with the spin cycle. Back to the easier gear to let my legs spin. The 30 minutes were over pretty quick, and I could have gone on. That is super progress for me! This coming week I'll try a couple of easy runs and spin sessions and see what my knee thinks. If all that goes well I might get a bit more serious about setting some goals for this year.

My massage therapist thinks things are going well. No really bad spots, nothing she had to really work over. Well, there was that one spot in each shoulder that was pretty sensitive, but she didn't have to work it. Just resting her fingers there was almost enough to make me whimper. Now lets see what the prolotherapy doctor thinks on Wed.

One of my cousins that I don't know well recently Facebook friend requested me, so I've been thinking more about family the last little while. I don't have any immediate family in Calgary, though I know I have a cousin that moved here recently. We haven't got in touch yet, but I hope that happens soon. I've been picking up threads with other cousins, which has been fascinating. I knew a bunch of cousins when I was a child, but had lost touch with all of them. Then I met several different ones (worked with one of them in fact) when I lived in Streetsville. One of them is almost exactly my age, and we've been buddies since. We phone and write and have visited several times. One of my nicer vacations was to visit her during a quiet period, and we just hung out together, visited a couple of her sisters, and we did some other stuff. We band together for mutual support when we visit our Granny.

There's one of my friends that I've become quite close to. We've talked a lot over a bunch of years now, mostly MSM, but phone and skype too. By any measurement we have a closer relationship than I have with most of my actual relatives. Do other people have relationships with friends that are in fact closer than family? If you were to construct a family chart based on the people you actually hang out with, and talk to, and visit, and share gifts with because you like them and want to, and not just because you have to, what would it look like?

Then I got to thinking about Facebook relationships. There's an app that builds a map of them. I went looking through the friend lists of my FB friends. For the record, at the moment I have 81 friends, only 5 of whom I haven't met in person, and would go to some effort if there was a chance to meet. No celebrities, no triathlete pros, though there are a few business people. I've no idea if my list of friends is a representative sample. But the largest friend list is 576 people, and the shortest is 10 though they haven't been on FB long. There were a couple people who have hidden their friend lists. I could do a bunch of stat stuff out of this, but won't bother.

My point is that Facebook friends are voluntary associations. Not necessarily close. In fact some of my friends are people I haven't seen since I left high school. But they were interesting to me then, and if we had the opportunity to meet again, they'd likely be interesting now. The lists are limited in that not everybody wants to be on FB, or were on and have left. Since I'm new to FB, there are probably all sorts of reasons to friend other people, but I'm assuming there is at least some interest in that other person. If you're on FB, how do you decide who to friend or not? What's it like FB'ing with siblings or parents? An ex? Does it impact what you put there?

I'm not big on making new years resolutions, but I'm thinking this might be the year I try to build closer relationships with people. It's never been easier. Though one resolution I'm trying to follow is #62 on a list I saw. (Not my list.) Spend less time fooling around on the net and more time working.

Hmmmmmm. Considering that my work often is fooling around on the net, and that the net can be a tool for building relationships. Hmmmmmmm.