SAILBOATS

If I'm ever riding alone down at the docks of Santa Cruz my favorite thing to do is take a break from training to coast up and down the rows of sailboats from all over the world. It's one of those deals where you feel such a strong yearning to have something that it almost gives you butterflies...usually I only feel that way when I ride with a cyclist here that's stronger than me, and I think, wow I want to be stronger RIGHT NOW! Or when I'm listening to happy apple and I want to be Dave King....but seeing the boats does it to me too.

Have you ever read 'Scuppers the Sailor Dog'? It is one of the finest books I have ever come across. It was one of my top picks for bedtime stories when I was younger. Well anyways, Scuppers searches far and wide for his one true passion and finally finds that he is meant to be a sailor dog. So he has his little sailboat with a cozy little bedroom below deck that is lit by a kerosene lamp at night, and he sails all over the fricken place. The sailboat is his home.

Well that's what I daydream about when I see these beautiful ships down at the harbor. One day I hope my house is a sailboat, at least for a few years. As C. P. once wrote,

Without just one nest
A bird can call the world home
Life is your career.

And by the way, as long as I was on the subject of children's books, an equally brilliant story is the one by Maurice Sendak about the naked little boy who in his dream is at the bakery with the two bakers who both look exactly like Oliver Hardy, and with the dough from the bread, he makes an airplane in which to fly over the city at night, while everyone is sleeping. I think Radiohead could write the perfect soundtrack to that story. So you know, man, you should check that one out sometime.

P.S. If anyone knows the title of the Sendak book I'm talking about, why don't you just go ahead and let me know what it is

THE NORTH OF THE ISLAND

Today I went to the very northern tip of the island, which is the steepest, most green, and most chilly area in Tenerife. Poli and Sonia took me on a little tourist trip through the most amazing switchbacks, each bend revealing some little village below. The houses seem to barely grasp the mountain side, so steep are the slopes! The most incredible thing of all was when I asked about two or three little houses several hundred feet below us in a dense green ravine. There seemed to be no access to them at all...that is, by car anyways. Poli answered that the only way to descend to the little farms was by foot, by means of a snaking trail of not more than 12 inches wide! The inhabitants are subsistence farmers, without electricity, running water, or radios. How strange that only a few kilometers away sits Santa Cruz, a city equally developed and modernized as Minneapolis or Saint Paul! So the huge steep mountains act as a sort of barrier to the modern world, because its basically financially impossible to create enough roads to reach these tiny little pueblos. Picture the cliff faces in the opening scenes of Jurassic Park...that's what the North looks like.

Tenerife is like the island of extremes...There's the old and the new Spain right next to each other (like the mountain villages in relation to Santa Cruz, for example). Then there is the array of micro climates...from rocky barren desert to snowy mountain tops to dense evergreen forests to sandy beaches. In the south of the island, you can be swimming in 85º weather in January, while at the top of Teide the temperature is 0º with blowing ice storms. Lastlyly (cause I have to go to bed), there is the micro culture effect. For example, a tío from Santa Cruz will have a distinct accent from a tío in La Laguna, only 8 km away!

CODY DARLING MAIL

Cody Writes:

That happiness can only be squeezed from the divine fruit of sam's
brain, fertilized by the wisdom of collective ignorance, sifted in
flour.

Thankyou Cody

MAD COWS STRIKE BACK

I just heard on the news that Japan has stopped imports of US beef. Last year Japan was the world's leading importer of US beef. Also, Mexico, other parts of Asia, and other leading importers, are considering at least restricting their imports of US day by day. All because a couple cows were a little off the deep end. Well, I think that's just great...I mean, if I were a cow, I would want to have mad cow disease so that the person who ate my muscle tissue would pay for it. These bovine gone bonkers are the Matyrs of their kind....and to them, I say, god bless you mad cows. Burger King, you can just shove it.

FELICE NAVIDAD

Merry Christmas (No, Spain is not politically correct...there is no 'happy holidays') to all. I hope everybody's day is just swell.

POLI AND SONIA

My bicycle racing team leader, Poli, and his girlfriend, Sonia, just dropped by to give me my Christmas gift (though in Spain, gifts are usually given on the day of the three Kings, January 6th). Poli and Sonia, who are in their mid twenties, have been more than friends to me here...they have been like my older brother and sister. We see each other all the time, to go for training rides, to eat out, or just to take a drive. Below I typed up what they wrote in my Christmas card...it shows what incredibly kind and warm individuals they are, and what today was one little thing that helped me not miss home so much:

I hope you understand my 'own' English but I'm trying to do my best! We (Poli and Me) would like to say to you the biggest 'thank you' you've ever heard, absolutely! We still wonder how and why we met each other....but it happened and that's wonderful, Samuel. We're not going to forget you and we hope you remember us every time you see the watch!! Don't forget Tenerife, your friends here, the daily trainings, the food, the sea, Rodazul...everything will be waiting for you if you decide one day to come back. Sam, you're the most marvellous person we've met, kindly, friendly, happy, smiling...just being yourself: Sam Starr.

To my little brother: I hope that in the next Christmas I will recibe a postcard from USA with your name! Congratulations Samstar (Yanki)

Tus hermanos mayores de Tenerife te desean mucha suerte en la vida, alegria y felicidad.

OLD SCHOOL SITCOMS

One of my great Spanish pleasures is enjoying outdated 80's sitcoms on television. The best part is the extremely cheesy spanish overdubs. Such classics include the likes of Doogie Houser, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Married with Children, and Who's The Boss? ....But I would say this top's them all off...

MY SPACEBALL SESSION : KANT

The empiricist Hume theorized that knowledge was a result of one’s perception of sensory data; that is, all thoughts and ideas stem from the life experiences one sees, hears, smells, tastes, and feels. That seems natural, right? Where else could knowledge come but from the senses? Upon further analysis of Hume’s reasoning, however, two problems arise: that of substance, and that of causation. First, if all knowledge of substance comes from the senses, what exactly is this substance itself? To fathom the nature of substance apart from our sensory perception of it is impossible. And secondly, how is that one can recognize cause and effect between two events? Causation certainly cannot be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or felt; and yet, one can hypothesize as to the cause of event A in reference to event B. To be sure, the senses grant us knowledge of both events, but the relationship between the two remains something our minds must forge without the aide of the senses.

The quandary is resolved by Immanuel Kant in his ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ when he asserts, ‘That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. . .but though all knowledge begins with experience it doesn’t follow that is rises out of experience.’ The aspects of reality not applied immediately by the senses Kant refers to as a priori- a sort of intuition which our minds use to put sensory data into patterns we can understand. Referring back to the earlier example, our a priori knowledge made it possible to formulate a hypothesis regarding the cause and effect relationship between event A and event B. Although we applied the a priori knowledge as we received the events’ sensory information, the source of a priori is not from the senses, but from our intuition. That’s not to say a priori knowledge doesn’t grow as our experience grows; indeed, it grows as sensory experiences accumulate in the memory. From this memory our a priori knowledge can extract more and more patterns to apply to sensory data we receive. In this manner, our circumstance (life experience) plays a key role in our perception of the world.

Now, finally we can return to our discussion of fate. How in the world does all of this talk of Kant and Hume and a priori relate to fate? In Latin, a priori literally means from the former, which makes sense because a priori knowledge is based in large part on past experience As previously noted, the concept of knowledge from non-empirical sources is essential to an analysis of circumstance. This non-empirical knowledge is quite significant- it determines the manner in which each person interprets his or her sensory experience. In other words, it determines, along with the knowledge of the senses, what will compose each person’s version of reality. It’s as though each mind is a separate little world, with its own set of rules written by the minds intuitive sense, though each world is united by a complex web of occurrences resulting from one another. And it seems we have arrived at a point similar to where we left off. That is, the circumstance with which each soul comes into being determines the make-up of each person’s a priori knowledge, which in turn determines each person’s empirical knowledge of the world. Thus, each person has a different perspective of reality.

SCOTT

Yesterday I had the pleasure of writing back and forth with Mr. Scott Melamed after finally arranging my instant messenger correctly. Although our time was limited by my younger host brother's fiendish addiction to computer games, I got a brief update of what is going round in Scott's world. See inside the mind of this deranged Oberlin student gone mad here: scottmelamed.is.dreaming.com

MY NEW BICYCLE

When I return to the states in June, I will be purchasing a new road racing bicycle. It's sold retail with almost the exact same set-up which Simoni used to ride to victory this past Spring in the Giro d'Italia. Full Record, Cinelli one-piece full carbon stem system, U.S.E. Alien seatpost, Mavic Ksyrium SSC Wheelset, Cannondale´s patented System Integration (SI) bottom bracket, and Fi:zi:ik Carbon Saddle are just a few of the parts group highlights. What could be better? Drool over her beautiful dark red finish here: Saeco Team Replica Photo

WELCOME

TODAY AFTER EATING A CRUNCHY PEANUT BUTTER AND PEACH MARMELADE SANDWICH FOR 'DESAYUNO' (THATS SPANISH FOR 'BREAKFAST'), I SQUEEZED OUT MY NEW BLOG. THATS ALL I HAVE TO SAY RIGHT NOW.

NOSE HAIRS

I WAS JUST SITTING ON THE BUS THE OTHER DAY, MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS, AND THIS GUY DECIDES HE FANCIES THE SEAT NEXT TO MINE. WITH A QUICK STEALTH GLANCE OUT THE WINDOW NEXT ME, I NOTICED IN THE REFLECTION THAT HE HAD A MASSIVE HEAD OF HAIR. YEAH, SO WHAT YOU ASK. WELL I WILL TELL YOU IF YOU WOULD JUST HOLD ON FOR ONE SECOND. IT WASN'T ON HIS HEAD (WELL, ACTUALLY, I SUPPOSE THE EAR IS PART OF THE HEAD), IT WAS IN HIS EAR HOLE! I AM TELLING YOU THE TRUTH, THIS REALLY OCCURRED. THERE, SPRAWLING OUT ALL THE WAY DOWN TO THE LOBE WAS A NICE BIG GREASY MESS OF BLACK FUZZ. SO NEXT TIME YOU LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND FRET OVER THE FEW FOLLICLES PROTRUDING FROM YOUR NOSTRILS, HAVE NO FEAR; AT LEAST YOU CAN HEAR!

OK , SO IM HAVING SOME MINOR TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES....WELL, NO, MAJOR ONES. I AM TRYING TO FIGURE THIS THING OUT, MAN SO JUST CALM DOWN.

THIS IS SAM STARR'S THOUGHT GALLERY ONLINE.