Friday, July 15, 2005
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Travel games
As someone with perhaps more than my share of obsessive-compulsive behavior patterns1, I have always engaged in various informal personal challenges when it comes from getting from one place to another. In my younger years these typically revolved around exact routine and/or counting. For example, one long-running challenge was to make the number of steps in my walk from home to school an exact power of four. There were numerous rules to this challenge: The starting and ending points were exactly determined (threshold of the front door of home, threshold of the school door). I also had to proceed with a (fairly) uniform stride throughout (no giant steps or baby steps to artifically reach a target), although this rule was somewhat flexible in that I could walk faster or slower (but naturally so) in order to maintain a uniform stride. I also had to proceed "directly", rather than taking any detours solely for the purpose of adding to the step count (I allowed myself to select the angle at which I crossed streets, but in practice the route only allowed one such decision as it was a fairly straight shot). Finally (and perhaps most importantly) I had to keep the challenge secret from others. That wasn't so hard; my attention to walking may have been noticed, but it was easily disguised as a (childish, I thought) attention to avoiding stepping on cracks (which, by the way, offered an excellent means of assessing and controlling stride length). Sadly I have no memory of how well I did (even though I remember keeping track of my day-to-day performance on graph paper), but I'm sure I did quite well.

Nowadays, though, I'm very different. I do occasionally count my steps, but not for personal challenges! Instead it provides a good answer to questions like "which shop is closer?" and "exactly how much further is it to walk than to take the bus?" and "how many steps is it to the pub?" (errrrr, scratch that last one). But I do occasionally participate in challenges like those of my youth, and I'm happy to say that I completed one today. This challenge is bicycle-related and can be described very simply: Ride to work without touching a foot to the ground. Of course there are many fine-grained details: it's ok to MOMENTARILY come to a stop and balance, but only MOMENTARILY. Trackstands (and their ilk) are considered cheating. It's also not acceptable to ride in circles or loop back and forth to wait for a gap in traffic, and definitely not acceptable to do things like riding up onto the pavement (sidewalk) to avoid a line of traffic, a stopped vehicle, a traffic signal, etc.). Due to the many different reasonable paths from home to work, however, I did allow myself to take alternative routes to achieve this challenge (it's best to avoid high-traffic routes unless they have few traffic signals, definitely wise to avoid areas with lots of pedestrians, and the fewer crossings of major streets the better). Well, today I completed the challenge for the first time from my current residence (even though I still needed to take several blocks' detour around police cordons). This means I can lay the challenge to rest, at least until I live somewhere else. It's pointless to consider more difficult alternatives (getting to work without braking? Far too dangerous and practically impossible; I braked at least thirty times on my way here) so I have a feeling of (very minor) success.

1Pulling up my knee-length tube socks until the tops frayed to death, pushing up my glasses continuously, counting for the sake of counting, creating histograms of surnames by frequency in the telephone book, memorizing from the (1976) Guinness Book of World Records, and many more. Good thing I married a "checker" and not a "counter".
bike
Friday, July 15, 2005 12:22:12 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [6]  |  Related posts:
an idea of my commute
An impossible cycling challenge
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Nowy Sacz - Krakow (Day 7:Poland - Slovakia)
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"Blogging for the obsessive-compulsive sort" (Confederacy of a Dunce) [Trackback]
Friday, July 15, 2005 4:50:11 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I have been known to trip to avoid cracks and yet still keep my walking rhythm even. I know it's not counting steps and all, but it's a little compulsive...

And am I creating trouble when Mark and I try to get a tic-tac-toe of vehicle colors that drive by the house? Yesterday we succeeded, but we counted a bicycle that had a heavy red frame to accomplish it...
The sister
Saturday, July 16, 2005 2:38:44 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
You're one of those scary ones, aren't you? The worst I ever did was eat small foods in even numbers (cookies, crackers, candies) and attempt to chew evenly on both sides of my mouth -- so as to not wear out one side of my molars faster than the other, of course.
Heather-in-law | hfbwilliamsAT NOSPAMcomporium dot net
Monday, July 18, 2005 1:44:43 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I remember having counting races with you as children. I never, ever won. Even when I cheated.
Your Brother, the not-Dunce
Monday, July 18, 2005 1:56:45 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
One of the biggest secrets to success in counting races (i.e., who can count aloud to X fastest, where X is a lager number) is all about breath management. Keep in mind that it is possible to continue counting while inhaling, but it takes a lot of practice to continue uninterrupted (and intelligibly) while switching the direction of breath.

A related note: it's probably not much fun to play hide-and-seek if the person who is "IT" can count to 100 in twelve seconds or less. Unless that person is a nerd person unlikely to catch anyone in a chase.
The Dunce
Monday, July 18, 2005 3:33:02 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
P.S. I replicated the cycle challenge on my way home as well. Definitely time to retire the challenge as it's no longer challenging.
The Dunce
Monday, July 18, 2005 8:27:18 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
I'm afraid that you may be suffering from "Male Child Fantasy Play Counting Syndrome (MCFPCS)"--this puts you on the 'counting game spectrum.' Adult symptoms include an unusual obsessive interest in computing, good maths skills, blogging, etc.
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