Game Theory: The Potluck Dilemma
The Potluck Dilemma offers various insights on producer behaviors when attending one of Cherylâs snooty gatherings. The individual determinants of compliance are so complex for each agent from game to game that a Nash Equilibrium is all but impossible. Few constants exist. Except that Drew will drink too much and fire off that unhinged laugh at all his own jokes. Thatâs a given.
I have two GORUCK Tough patches in my collection, one for Class 157, the other for Class 1073. Both were tough in their own ways, but I felt significantly better prepared physically for 1073. I had a good idea of what to expect mentally, so I could focus on being physically prepared.
In Jason McCarthyâs advice for preparing for Selection, he wrote:
Ruck More.
I figured if that is what the mastermind behind the GORUCK Challenge and the even more demanding GORUCK Selection recommended for the more difficult of the two events, that training plan should work.
First, a definition: âa ruckâ is a military style backpack, âto ruckâ is to march with a ruck, most likely weighted.
I rucked as much as I could. I would walk to work at least three times a week with 6 bricks in my ruck, three miles round trip. In addition to âRuck Moreâ, Jason recommends rucking heavy. Five weeks before my Challenge, I upped my weight, adding home made five point sandbags, first one, then two, ending up with four sandbags to complement the 6 bricks. The idea was that if I trained heavy, the load wouldnât be as bad during the event. One day, I added more weight, my Brick Bag filled with my remaining home made sandbags. I stepped on the scale after getting home and I was rucking with over one hundred pounds. No wonder the walk home felt tough.
I would ruck with my ruck buddy around a 5-mile trail every Saturday. The terrain isnât rough, but uneven, enough to keep it challenging. I always brought my Brick Bag full of home made sandbags. It wasnât heavy, but it kept my hands occupied and my arms engaged with weight. It also forced me to focus on keeping it balanced and finding places to rest the weight on my ruck.
One Sunday, following on from my Saturday ruck, I did a road march to the trail, around said trail and back, a full 10 miles. It was long, but a good test, not only of my endurance, but also my gear setup. It was a dry run of my clothing and load out. I did this about a month out from my Challenge to make sure I didnât stress myself too much before the event.
The last part of my training was a more GORUCK specific Crossfit style workouts. Lots of grinder style triplets:
Buy in:
Workout:
All with weighted vest
Cash out:
Normally, Crossfit workouts are intense short affairs, but these were long, slow grinders. I worked to get through them. The emphasis on bear crawling was particularly helpful during the GORUCK Challenge.
While there is nothing that can fully prepare someone for their first GORUCK Challenge, being more physically prepared can make the whole experience a better brand of âgood livinââ.
Mental Floss explains the pronunciation difference between Kansas and Arkansas, which was a favorite pronunciation flip flop in my grandfatherâs patois.
A colleague brought me an interesting issue yesterday: an embedded Google Map was not showing with the location marker centered. It was showing the map zoomed out and in the wrong position. At first, I thought Oh great, Google has gone and changed something. But after googling around, it appears to be a known issue. Iâm just not sure how it didnât manifest itself earlier. After trying to play with jQuery to get the map to reload/re-center upon tab load. I found this comment which explained it. I had read the same thing last night, but it must have been too late in the day for my brain to make sense of it. The CSS fix:
.ui-tabs-hide {
/* display:none; */
position: absolute !important; left: -9999999px
}
I have been using Delegated.scpt, an Applescript developed by Guillaume Cerquant, in my OmniFocus setup for years. I have even developed Applescripts that utilize it. Sadly, it appears as though Guillameâs website has gone offline. I have put it out on Github (with a minor modification of my own), and I am posting it here:
(*
Delegated - V1.2 - 9th, may 2008
This script duplicates the selected task to a WFor context, and mark the selected as completed
Use case: When completing a task by delegating it to someone, and waiting for its completion
Eg:
You've just finished the task "Mail Bob about contracts to buy some land on the Moon - Great opportunity: don't miss it"
and are waiting for Bob's opinion.
Select the task, and execute this script
=> it will duplicate the task into the WFor context, and mark the original one as completed
HOW TO USE
Edit the settings in the configuration part of this script
UPDATE
You can find updates at: http://www.cerquant.com/software
FEEDBACK
I would love to get feedback on this script. I really do.
Please contact me to tell me what you think about it, what you want in next versions, what's wrong...
AUTHOR
Guillaume Cerquant - gcerquant@gmail.com
Copyright © 2007, Guillaume Cerquant
LICENSE
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
âą Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
âą Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
CHANGELOG
v1.0: First release
v1.1:
Add a prefix to the title of the task created in WFor
If no document is open, open one
Growl notification
Warns users if the task selected isn't a leaf
v1.2:
Option to reset the due date
Warning when trying to delegate an inbox task
TODO Set the start date
TODO Duplicate just after the current task
THANK YOU
Tim Wood from Omni, Curt Clifton, Sandro Pugliese and all users who gave feedback.
TODO:
? Handle the selection of several tasks
? Duplicate just after
? Project / Folder name => Association
*)
-- CONFIGURATION
-- Edit this line with the name of your Waiting-For context ; The task duplicated will be moved in this context.
property WForContext : "Waiting"
-- Edit this line with the value of the string that will be prefixed to the title of the created task in WFor
-- If you don't want the title to be prefixed, edit the line like this: property thePrefix : ""
property thePrefix : "Waiting For: "
-- Copy the due date of the delegated task on the created task?
property copyTheDueDate : true
property theStartDate : "05/12/07"
-- Set to false if you don't want any growl notification
property useGrowl : true
-- END OF CONFIGURATION (Nothing to edit past this line!)
-- Growl properties
property growlAppName : "Guillaume's Scripts"
property delegatedNotification : "Delegated script"
property defaultNotifications : {delegatedNotification}
property allNotifications : {delegatedNotification}
property iconLoaningApplication : "OmniFocus.app"
property growlVerboseLevel : 1
tell application "OmniFocus"
-- If no document is open, open one
tell default document
if number of document window is 0 then
make new document window with properties {bounds:{0, 0, 500, 500}}
end if
end tell
-- Check one and only one task is selected
tell front document
tell (first document window whose index is 1)
set theSelectedItems to selected trees of content
if ((count of theSelectedItems) < 1) then
display alert "You must first select a single task." message "Select a single task before running this script." as warning
return
end if
if ((count of theSelectedItems) > 1) then
display alert "You must select only one task." message "Select a single task before running this script." as warning
return
end if
end tell
end tell
set theSelectedTask to value of item 1 of theSelectedItems
if theSelectedTask is in inbox then
display alert "You can't delegate a task still in the inbox." message "Process the task into a project before running this script." as warning
return
end if
set MyDoc to first document
tell MyDoc
if (WForContext is "") then
my wrongContextError()
else
set contextList to complete WForContext as context maximum matches 1
if (contextList is {}) then
my wrongContextError()
else
set theWForContext to context id (id of item 1 of contextList)
end if
end if
end tell
-- Warns users if the task is not a leaf
if (tasks of theSelectedTask is not {}) then
if button returned of (display dialog "The task you selected for delegation has sub-tasks.rThe task and its subtasks will be duplicated and marked as completed, however, only the context of the root task will be set to the context '" & WForContext & "'." buttons {"Cancel the delegation", "Continue"} default button 1 with icon 1) is equal to "Cancel the delegation" then
-- If user wisely canceled, exit the script
error number -128
end if
end if
display dialog "Who should be followed up with?" default answer "Someone" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2
set delegated to (the text returned of the result) as string
display dialog "When should be " & delegated & " be followed up with?" default answer "1/1/2099 8:00 AM" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button 2
set delegateddue to (the text returned of the result)
set delegatedduedate to (delegateddue as string)
if (not copyTheDueDate) then
set due date of theDuplicatedTask to delegateddue
end if
-- set start date of theSelectedTask to theStartDate
set FollowUpTask to the name of theSelectedTask
set FollowUpTask to "Follow Up with " & delegated & " re: " & FollowUpTask
set theDuplicatedTask to duplicate theSelectedTask to end of tasks of containing project of theSelectedTask with properties {name:FollowUpTask, context:theWForContext}
set due date of theDuplicatedTask to date (delegatedduedate as string)
set completed of theSelectedTask to true
end tell
-- Uses Growl to display a notification message.
on growlNotify(theTitle, theDescription, theNotificationKind, errorLevel)
if (useGrowl) then
if (errorLevel †growlVerboseLevel) then
tell application "Growl"
«event register» given «class appl»:growlAppName, «class anot»:allNotifications, «class dnot»:defaultNotifications, «class iapp»:iconLoaningApplication
«event notifygr» given «class name»:theNotificationKind, «class titl»:theTitle, «class appl»:growlAppName, «class desc»:theDescription
end tell
end if
end if
end growlNotify
-- Display error and quit
on wrongContextError()
display alert WForContext & " context not found" message "Your waiting-for context: '" & WForContext & "' wasn't found.rPlease edit the line 'property WForContext' of the script."
-- Exit the script
error number -128
end wrongContextError
Oxt weekend,â in other words, means ânot this coming weekend but the one after.â âThis weekendâ still means this weekend. The ambiguous term ânext weekendâ can be disregarded entirely.
Via Vox
Talking with my boss the other day, I found a way to describe both a work situation and the somewhat life changing experience of the GORUCK Challenge. The lessons learned from the GORUCK Challenge:
A few months a go, a buddy from the gym, Guy, said that he was going to do a GORUCK Challenge on his birthday. The stars aligned and the date coinsided, so he signed up. He asked a couple of his friends to do it with him, and while they said they would, none of them signed up. About a month out, I asked him about his training was going, how is friends were getting ready. He let me know that they all hadnât signed up. He was still committed, but now he was flying solo. I had been one of those friends, so I registered that day. I wasnât going to let him down.
I had done a GORUCK Challenge (GRC) before, but I had spent months prepping, this time, I was getting ready from a relatively deconditioned state in a month. Having read a lot of the After Action Reports from people who have completed a GRC or longer events (GORUCK Heavy, GORUCK Selection), I took the approach of rucking a lot, with weight. The first week was four brick, the second week was six bricks, third week was six bricks and additional sandbags. At the most I rucked two miles with a 100lbs in addition to my body weight.
Guy and I spent most Saturday mornings hiking around the Noland Trail trying to prep both physically and figuring out how to pack our rucks. I found that I could fit four of my six bricks in the âlaptopâ compartment of the GORUCK GR1. This kept the weight very close to my back, this point will be important much later. I would have loved to have spent more time in the gym, working on basic PT actions, like pushups and flutter kicks, but the amount of coaching that I had on my plate made almost all of my gym time coaching others, instead of working out.
Guy and I drove up to Richmond and headed to Penny Lane Pub to meet the rest of our group for the pre-event âruck offâ. As much as I wanted to have a beer, I didnât. Not that I donât think that my stomach could handle it, but going into the âwelcome partyâ with a little bit of a buzz seemed like a bad idea.
Guy and I got our gear and met our Cadre and class across the street from John Marshall House in downtown Richmond. Cadre Matt told us a little bit about himself and he is a man who has seen the world and fought against bad dudes. He laid out the rules for the duration of the Challenge, which are:
1. Rucks do not touch the ground
2. Coupons do not touch the ground
3. The American flag leads the group
4. We are law-abiding citizens, follow traffic rules
Simple. Right?
Then we rolled into the âwelcome partyâ, pushups and dive bomber (or cobra) pushups and squats with our rucks over our heads. My pushups started sucking early, that is something I knew would happen. After getting into two columns, we marched on a parking lot that Guy and I had tried to park in earlier. We lined up in two long horizontal line and all 28 of our class members started walking lunges down the length of the parking lot. When we reached a light post we switched to bear crawls and at another crab walk. I was an honest Abe, trying to make the lunges quality movements, with my knees touching the ground, that was dumb.
All of our movements had to be in sync, our lines needed to move together. We did a pretty good job. When we finished, Cadre made us run wind sprints between a start line and the poles sunk into the parking lot. We had a specific amount of time to complete the task (a âtime hackâ), which we just failed. As payment for failure to make the time hack, we had to box jump up the stairs to the John Marshall House. After 10 rounds, we did pushups until everyone in the class could identifiy themselves and what the did for a living, leading us to 29 more pushups 1.
We formed into our two columns and moved out to the Richmond Coloseium. Cadre Matt gave us our first mission, survey the Edgar Allen Poe house. We had 45 minutes to get there, record as much data about the structure, number of doors, windows, etc., and return. The time frame was going to be a difficult one to make if we didnât run the entire time. I was one of the flag bearers, leading the group, with the class Navigator close behind me.
We eventually made it down to the Poe House, took some photos, recorded our data and started to hustle back. We couldnât find a good rythym, so we had to stop and start to keep everyone together. This was also one of the factors as to why we didnât make our time hack.
To work off our failure, we bear crawled up an entrance ramp to a parking deck. Iâm not sure why, but I didnât find the work to be that hard. In the little bit of training that I had gotten in before the event, bear crawls were prominently featured, so that might have helped.
Again, we didnât make our time, so we took casualties. Four members of our group were âdownâ, so we had to transport them to the top of the parking structure to âget them a medivacâ. Our group was chaotic and disorganized and we struggled to make it to the top as a cohesive unit. Along the way, we ended up losing a couple of our classmates. Cadre slyly tapped them on the shoulder and told them to hide. Everyone was so concerned about carrying the people to the top that we didnât notice until we were a few decks above them. We broke off a group and went to try and recover our missing classmates. This was one of our first lessons. 360° awareness and always knowing the number of people you are with are critical, particularly for the team leader.
We only had a few minutes to get people to the top of the structure and we failed. We had to do flutter kicks and leg raises to work off our failure, after which we got a rest. Some classmates were already wondering what time it was, in my mind, it was only 9:15pm, we had a long time to go.
This brings up an interesting twist in the GORUCK Challenge environment: The availability of watches and smartphones. When I completed my first GRC, watches, phones and device that could provide time or distance, were forbidden. I checked with a classmate who had done multiple GRCs and she was under the same impression, but lots of people had their watches on and phones accessible. Sure, I was carrying mine, but it was powered off and inside a case, inside my dry bag, so a pain to get out.
After moving off the roof, again, losing two people, we collected two logs about 3 feet long and large enough round that it was difficult to bear hug them. With these fine coupons in tow we headed to another set of stairs. We had to box jump up the stairs and crab walk down the stairs, 10 sets in 10 minutes. Luckily. Cadre was a generous man. He offered us a 5 minute extension if a particular classmate, âAlphabetâ 2 could answer what were the five original X-Men. She couldnât get the answer from someone else, but we could give her hints. That didnât work, but when she asked the Cadre if he could ask her a more feminine question, he asked âWho wrote the Great Gatsby?â and indicated that the guy next to her if he knew the answer. He threw out F. Scott Fitzgerald like it wasnât a big deal, so we got our 5 minute extension. Thank goodness.
Moving South, we had to start working on getting the logs moving efficiently, which was very difficult. We didnât make as much progress as I thought we would, but eventually we made it to a gas station to refill out water and take a rest.
We overwhelmed this poor gas station, 28 people raiding their Gatorade/Powerade chillers, all of us crammed in their at once. I know the woman behind the counter was a little weirded out by it. While I was waiting to buy a pack of Skittles and a little Gatorade, a âex-marineâ3 told me about a path to get to a little historic island in the middle of the river. I was trying to be nice and he had been drinking, so when I finally got my stuff paid for, I only had a few minutes until we were ready to move out.
Moving out after a break is hard. It is enough time for you to relax and get comfortable, but then âthe suckâ continues. The class re-hoisted the individual logs and started moving out. While we were underway, we passed under a railway bridge, and Cadre had us stop. He found a railroad tie and let a few classmates who didnât have a chance to use the restroom make use of a port-a-potty near by. Ah! we had finally found our log. At this point our coupon count is climbing: two âindividualâ logs, one railroad tie, a sledgehammer that appeared out of no where, and a rock.
We started moving North, slowly, trying to find a way to efficiently trade off people under the railway tie. I was in a crappy place, I was too short to work with the âtall guysâ and I was too short for the âsmall guysâ by like an inch or two. I tried to rally a group of ladies to get under the log, because they were more my size, but that didnât materialize. I felt kind of crappy about not being effective on the team log, so I took an individual log and found that this was going to be my coupon.
Remember my decription of how my bricks were packed? That was crucial to me being able to carry one of these individual logs for about 12 blocks over the course of the evening. It sat on top of the bricks, which only pushed the bricks into my back more, providing better support. I had to kant forward at the hip, but it wasnât too strenous on my back. The only thing that I needed was a handle to hold the log, but that wasnât going to happen. I did manage to find a balance point where I didnât need to use my hands to hold the log. All in all, I found my place under the log and it was efficient.
The class made itâs way to a Brown Island Park. We dropped our coupons and played the game âIt Pays To Be A Winnerâ. We split into two groups, 14 each and we were directed to take photos of the statues of the 5 wise men on the grounds of the State Hosue. The first group back wins, and it pays to be a winner.
My team had the American flag, so I guess that mades us Team âMerica. We started heading to the State House, which was about a mile away. Underway, we realized that we were a person short. One of our team mates thought that we should just rush on and get back, maybe Cadre wonât notice.
That is just a stupid idea. Cadre will notice. We broke off two people from our group to go and find our missing person and we would continue to creep towards the State House. Eventually, three people were catching up with us and we made it the State House which was all locked up. We took as good a photo as we could, and then talked to two State Capital Police officers. They were doing their rounds and we asked them if we could get in. They lets us know we couldnât, they took photos of us, we took photos of them and then started back.
We couldnât see Team GORUCK. We were trying to get a sense of where they could be. On our way back, we thought we heard them around the corner and we were ready for a race, but it turned out to be another person, with a backpack, running from the State Capital Police. When a bike officer shouted, âHey, you, with the backpack!â Our entire team stopped until we realized that he was talking to the obviously drunk man who was beginning to cheer us on. Whew!
We made it back, finished getting our open source intel and reported to Cadre. I was sure that we were going to be caught out by Team GORUCK, I was sure that they were hiding off to the side and we were going to be doing some sucky PT. But that was not the case. We were first! That meant we got a nice break while waiting for the other team.
When Team GORUCK reported, Cadre compared our gathered intel versus theirs and determined that we both failed. Our punishment was to low crawl across a field and when finished that buddy carry a classmate back. I thought the field was 100 yards, but after consulting a map later, it turns out is was more like 150 yards, not that a rounding error makes much of a difference. Low crawling was painful, I can attest to that in the aftermath. My arms are rug-burned to heck, and while it didnât feel that bad during the crawl, it was pretty tender after.
I didnât want to be the last person to make it across the field, but I was definitely in the last couple of people. When I did finish, the buddy carry options were pretty sucky. I called one of the ladies over to buddy carry her, figuring I could carry her almost the entire way. I started to get her up on my shoulders, but her ruck shifted and we both went down, on concrete, her head first. Talk about a way to feel crappy. She is fine, but was shaken up and not wanting to do a buddy carry. I canât blame her and I felt like crap about it.
This cut my number of buddy carry options down further. I could carry Guy, who is about 230, or Adam who I sized up at about 240. I told Adam that I was going to carry him first. I got him in the firemanâs carry and got him about 150 maybe 200 feet down the field. I was surprised that I got him that far. After a second attempt and shuffling a little further down, I had to swap with him. He carried me on his back and crushed the rest of the distance. Iâm not sure if we made the entire task in the 20 minutes that were alloted, but immediately after we finished Cadre said we were going to take dip in the James.
We scrambled down a steep bank to a sandy beach, where we promptly went in the water. The temperature was perfect, slightly warm, but cooling, like a swimming pool at the perfect temperature. Remember, those forearms? Those stung like crazy. There were a bunch of bricks and rocks that we were all stumbling over. There were a couple of times classmates went under, heck, I almost went under a couple of times. We had to do some PT, pushup, squats with our bag over our head and burpees in the water. To do these we had to have our head above the water in the up position, and then we went under for our exercise. Lovely.
We struggled to meet the Cadreâs criteria for us to get out of the water, but we got it sorted eventually. We scrambled back up the bank and collected our coupons, getting underway, headed further north along the river. As we got underway, Guy pointed out to me that we could hear a couple of birds chriping, which meant that dawn was near. This is a good sign. We ditched the âindividualâ logs on the way and we moved north until we were close to the Virginia War Memorial.
Cadre had us drop our coupons and told us that we had to earn our right to see the war Memorial. We could accomplish this by bear crawling as a group up the hill to the War Memorial. In the word of Cadre, âThe people memorialized up there sacrificed everything, we can sacrifice a little bitâ. Never were truer words spoken.
The hill was about 600ft long and I kept going further down the hill to bear crawl up with the people who were in their hurt locker. I settled on bear crawling up with Carrie, the woman I ended up dropping. She was working her way up the hill, but I could tell she needed a little help. I took her ruck and carried it on my front, my own ruck on my back and we moved up the hill. Eventually, some of the people who had finished came and took her ruck from me. It wasnât unbearable, but it was appreciated.
We got to the top and Cadre gave us a pep talk, reminding us that we are going to be on hallowed ground and that we could rest while we paid our respects. We walked around and looked at the Virginia War Memorial. It was a beautiful place, only made better by watching the sun rise of the Richmond skyline having earned our right to be there.
The moment had to be broken, we said fair well to the War Memorial and started moving out towards Belle Island, team log, rocks, sledgehammer and now half cinderblock in tow. We had to cross a narrow foot bridge to get there and it was weird when the bridge was swaying with our movement, it was really screwing me up. While we were crossing, we had lost the priviledge of using our straps, which had been a theme of the night. About a third of the way through Cadre had us pss the half cinderblock back and when it reached the last person, they had to run to the front and pass it back. Usual GORUCK Good Livinâ.
At the island we were giving another time challege, follow a running path around the island in 20 minutes or less. By this point, it was sunny out and people were hurting. Adam, the guy I buddy carried, was cramping bad and moving slowly. There was discussion at the front of our element regarding trying to carry Adam around the loop so we would be guaranteed to finish on time. I was frustrated with this, first Adam was trucking for being in such pain and it really didnât matter if we finished before or after the time hack. Either way, there was more work to do. Cadre could burn us with PT regardless of how we finish.
Part way through the discussion about how to make the time hack, Adam came blowing through the ranks, heading up to the front of our element. It was inspiring. Adam earned his arrowhead patch right then, for digging deep. He led us running the back third of the path and we rolled in front of the Cadre with time to spare. Cadre sent us to get wet in the river and we regrouped, getting electrolyte tablets to those who needed it.
Once we picked up the team log, we had 45 minutes to get back to the Coloseium. That was pushing it. We were moving well, though. Underway log changes were smooth for the most start, we were really starting to gel as a team. During our push, I took Adamâs ruck and the team weight for most of the push back. I wasnât going to give Adam an excuse to quit even though he was suffering. We had to keep fighting the light cycles so we could use the pedestrian crossings, a coulpe of time we needed to fudge it, other times Cadre gave us a pause on our time limit.
We made it to the Coloseium, but Iâm not sure if it was within the time limit. We were given our next tasking, to take the railway tie, find a place to leave it, then go and complete our earlier mission, photographing the five wise men as a team. We were given 20 minutes, which wasnât enough time given how ragged some of us were moving. We moved as quickly as we could, but it wasnât going to happen. When we finally got back, Cadre had a set of pushups waiting for us. At this point I was fried, my pushups looked terrible, but I was angry, so I hammered them out the best I could. We then had to run around the Coloseium as a team in less than 5 minutes. We were starting out fast, but when we realized that it was an easily achievable task, we quick stepped it around the building. Lastly the Cadre had us doing burpees. We were all done, starting to lose cohesion, but managed to get through. When we stood up after our sixth burpee, Cadre Matt congratulated us on completing 11 hours and 19.5 miles. We were done. We shook hands with Cadre, collected our patches and started to the slow walk back to the car.
This was my second GRC. On the way back, Guy and I were discussing whether or not he would do another one. Considering the text messages that I have been getting, I think Guy is hooked. I know that I am too. Iâm going to take some time to let my arms recover, build up my upper body strength, but I am definitely down for another one.
Trying to explain to people why do a GORUCK Challenge is hard. Why would you pay for it? Why do it at all. Part of what Cadre said is true: âWe honor those who have served their country, by doing stupid things, because we can, because they didâ, the other part is pushing myself both physically and mentally. There werenât nearly as many dark times where doubt was creeping in this time. I knew I could do it, but I was going to work to make sure that everyone else could. To lead, one must first serve and having to work as team, to gel with 27 strangers, work with them to achieve a common goal, serving them when they are hurting, all serve to make me a better leader.
The slogan for the GORUCK Challenge is: Building better Americans. It is true. Not easy, but true.
My daughter was told that she couldnât be part of an activity because she was a girl. It was a race. You had better be damned sure I made sure she finished first.
There are somethings that are just easier to do from the command line. I have created aliases for the most common things that I do, particularly when they arenât done frequently or the syntax is something that I frequently forget. All of these live in my ~/.aliases file which is part of my ~/.bash_profile.
nosound
alias nosound=âsudo pkill coreaudiodâ
Iâm not sure why, but occasionally the audio stack gets jacked up. I can turn up the volume and I see it working via the on screen display, but no volume up or down. Killing coreaudio fixes this.
rule2
alias rule2=âuntil ping -W1 -c1 8.8.8.8; do sleep 5; done && say the internet is backâ
When the network is flaky, this is the command that will let me know when things have stabilized. Rule 2 = Always blame the network.
dnsflush
alias dnsflush=âdscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponderâ
I can never remember how to flush the DNS cache.
disableitunes
alias disableitunes=âsudo chmod -x /Applications/iTunes.appâ
I prefer to bind the media keys on my Mac to other software, which leads to a problem, unless iTunes is set to not execute. This makes it easy to disable iTunes.
enableitunes
alias enableitunes=âsudo chmod +x /Applications/iTunes.appâ
When I have to use iTunes, which is hardly ever, this is the script that re-enables it.