Escape your TV

To add to my end-of-year TV rant, I just found this link on the TV-B-Gone site...a guy blogging about his attempt to get off television. He's almost at the four-week mark : )

I like this idea of blogs that take you through a process with someone, as opposed to just rambling (like this one). I've seen journals of everything from weight loss attempts to the guy trying to get a job at Microsoft.

I've been toying with the idea of setting up a separate blog just to record the process that Bert and I are going through to train our new horses using the Parelli natural horsemanship system. It's a lesson in physical, mental, and emotional development for both the human and the horse (mostly the human), and because of the way the lessons are set-up, you have something new to accomplish almost every time you play with your horse.

One interesting thing about the program is that it's really an attempt to understand how the horse is thinking, and especially how the brain of a prey animal operates differently from the brain of a human (predator). It's a great way to understand humans as well, though, because one thing they make VERY clear--you can't be simultaneously terrified and still use your logical left-brain. Taking the time to think is all the time you need to die, so when instincts take over, left-brain shuts down. To make a horse less afraid, you need to give him logical puzzles to solve... you need to get him to think. Conversely, to make him (or a human) less logical, just give him a reason to be terrified. Terror and logical, rational thinking are almostly completely incompatible.

That reminds me of something... what is it... oh yeah. The recent election campaigns.

I suppose I could blog my attempt to learn to ollie, but that would consist of probably 42 entries of me landing on my ass, followed by the one successful attempt where I get so little air you'd need a nano-scale measuring device. So, I'll keep that to myself. I know it shouldn't be this hard, but considering that I didn't ride at all for the last, oh, 10 years... it's a Big Deal to me. I finally got a new board, now I just have to get on with it.

I'd love to hear what other people are doing in the temporary attempt-to-do-something blog world.