In my last term of university, I co-founded Suited Media with my best friends. We set out to build a social network, ‘The Facebook for poker players’ called Pokerspace. We spent the next 2 years in Accelerator Center grinding out the entrepreneurial dream of building something that would change the poker market. We got close, but in the wake of new legalization by the US government, everything changed overnight as we saw our revenues cut in half. We couldn’t pivot fast enough and we faced difficult times during the end of 2008. We no longer had a shot of crossing the chasm.

Shortly after, I joined an incredible start-up company called Miovision who snowballed from 15 employees to over 100 in next four years. During my time, I worked with a resilient team to bring products to market and created company wide business infrastructure. The company persevered through many growth pains but it has made them successful in their own right. This was something I inevitably wanted to replicate.

So why now?

The trigger point for me occurred when I read Richard Branson’s book called Losing my Virginity last Christmas. I was awestruck by his ability to generate large momentum in life and set outrageous goals like going across the Atlantic Ocean in a hot air balloon. Branson’s catalyst was Virgin Records, the company he founded. I knew that starting my company would create a catalyst for myself. So I wrote out the reasons why I wanted to do it again:

1. The timing felt right (I’m not getting younger!)
2. Build an awesome product where I am the customer
3. Create a path to financial freedom
4. Build a network that spans globally
5. Live in a big city, preferably warm

I should preface before going into details that each of the items individually can be attained over the short term, including financial freedom. It’s easy at this point in my life to travel & meet people, play poker, or just outright move. That would cover 3/5 points. However, I’m motivated by laying the groundwork to do them all synchronously – like Warren Buffett’s Snowball.

The Timing Felt Right

Spoiler alert: In a few years I’ll be 30. Yikes. It was only six years ago that I sacrificed a lucrative life by giving up poker to start Suited Media. The Poker Boom was in full effect and I was riding the wave. However, I had a vision by 30 I’d be running a successful company to fund my future travel and projects. Ultimately, I’d be my own boss. Now the time gap is narrowing. And, as for most, it makes sense to take risk as early as possible in life. Going for broke at 25 is much different than at 35 or 45. You can bounce back very quickly when you’re young. So in the words of Marc Suster, ‘Just Fucking Do It.’

Build an Awesome Product Where I am the Customer

I’ve wanted to work in a market where I could relate to my customers. In fact, creating a product that I would use myself is the ultimate win. Pokerspace was exactly that. A social network for poker players to learn, chat and live the high stakes dream. This was a mirror image of the last few years of my time at university. I felt the need at a visceral level of what my end users were looking for and could work with team to build the user experience around those ideas. It was extremely gratifying. Now, I have the opportunity to this again, and I couldn’t be more excited.

Build a Path to Financial Freedom

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.”
- Ayn Rand

I’m no stranger to money. I’ve had lots and I’ve had little. Lots is WAY better. Certainly it didn’t change my level of happiness greatly but it brought me the freedom of time which I loved. With that time I played my guitar, read lengthy novels and wrote late into the night. And later on in life, I’ll use this time to travel endlessly around the earth and be a photographer, invest in entrepreneurs and contribute heavily to society – all while providing for a family. The best way to freedom of time is money. Or a society loosely based on Burning Man.

Build a Network That Spans Globally

When Pokerspace was in high gear, I got to meet a large number of new, talented and interesting people. There were lawyers, investors, mentors, accountants, founders and customers. My product was stamped on my forehead and any new person I met got the elevator pitch. It made for a great conversation starter since poker was getting a lot of hype. It was a small adrenaline rush at every corner. Many of the people I met were from all over the map including Las Vegas, Germany, and other parts of Canada. However, as I transitioned from an employer to an employee my network snowball wasn’t picking up the momentum I desired.

I calculated I met 3-4x fewer people on average. I felt the need to re-expand my network once again. In the last few weeks while my new company has ramped up, I’ve had the fortune of already meeting with almost a dozen new mentors, investors, advisors and potential customers — a few of which are from California, Washington and New York.

Live in a Big City, Preferably Warm

This is certainly tied to my personality. I love the buzz of big cities, the large crowds and culture. As a kid growing up in Vancouver we always got to experience new foods, places and meet people. Not to mention, Vancouver has magnificent mountain landscapes and in the summer the beaches are packed. Never a dull moment.

Combining my love for big city culture and technology three cities jump to the top of the list. Toronto, NYC, and San Francisco. Although I’m Canadian to the bone, its hard to compete with California sun.

I’ve had so much fun in the last four years working with all the great people at Miovision. They’ve taught me a great deal and it’s a tough goodbye. But a new chapter awaits and I’m excited to start with my uber talented co-founder Tomas. We make a great team and we are out to change the world, in a big way.

“I think a lot of becoming an entrepreneur is something which people have to learn just from getting out there and giving it a go, and having to learn the art of survival.”
-Richard Branson

Its been exactly 6 months, 5 days, and 13 hours since I woke up in agonizing pain. It was the day after I had a 30 hour weekend performing  a product launch that led to my troubles with RSI. It was dreadful experience and put my life on hold in an unimaginable way.

For anyone who has ever had RSI, opening jars, brushing your teeth, using your mobile phone, lifting heavy objects, and steering a wheel were now augmenting my pain.

Thankfully, I’m now been completely pain free, although the healing has happened over the last 4 weeks. Before I tell my journey, I must give my significant gratitude to Evan Weaver for personally emailing me and sharing his thoughts that ultimately led to my cure. (My comment on his blog.) He also shared the blog of Aaron Iba, whose story close resembles what I’ve been through.

The Jump Off:

March 26^th, the Monday after my product launch I went into work and told my CFO that something wasn’t right. I had pins and needles running through my arms, forearms and most notably, most elbows. I decided immediately to see a Doctor at the local clinic who diagnosed me with tendinitis. The list of therapies that followed proved to be limited in their effectiveness, and expensive with my time.

Occupational Therapist:

After my visit with the doctor, I called around to physiotherapists in the area for an appointment – one recommended I come in and see an occupational therapist given it was a work related injury.

The OT immediately agreed with the diagnosis made by the doctor at the clinic. She recommended performing lots of stretching to reduce the pressure on my nerves that run from my elbow into my shoulders and spine. That meant avoiding bending my elbows and weight lifting at the gym coupled with rest and ice. Additionally, she pointed out my workstation was not ergonomically friendly and recommended a new setup. The OT said moving forward I should see a physiotherapist and chiropractor.

Chiropractor:

Between the two chiropractors I saw over the next 3 months (about ~ 15 visits), I had ultrasound, a mild version of ART (Active Release Therapy) and then biofreeze applied to numb my arms and elbows. This provided temporary relief, but within hours I would be in acute pain all over again.

Physiotherapist:

I staggered my visits between my chiropractor and physiotherapist. Staggering had been effective during my back injury I sustained while dead lifting in 2008, so I tried it once more. My physiotherapist was a jolly fellow who was well spoken and had worked with the Canadian curling team. His diagnosis, although independently assessed was exactly the same as the doctor, OT and chiropractor. Over the next of 3 months, I received acupuncture (sometimes with an electrical current), ultrasound, and the “Thumper” (electrical machine). My homework involved nerve stretching, and strength training with light weights.

Similar to my chiropractor, the short term pain subsided (Placebo effect?) but going to work for even an hour in the afternoon was unnerving – pun intended.

Massage Therapist:

We all love our massages. Great music, soft hands and lavender scents. I saw my massage therapist about four times during the first 3-4 months but the results were again, minimal. This is when I became skeptical of my diagnosis. My muscles and nerves are fully relaxed, yet I was still in severe pain. Alas, I kept pushing on hoping persistence would pay off.

Shiatsu Massage:

I was recommended to see a Shiatsu Massage Therapist after 3 months of trying the therapies mentioned above. My drive to his office was over 45 minutes and sometimes 1.5 hours in traffic. I had 6 visits with him which included a deep tissue massage targeted at nerves and muscles around my elbows, arm and back. The latter half of my visits included acupuncture with a minimal of 20-30 needles covering my feet, back, elbows and arms.

The results were similar to the therapies above.

Orthopaedic Surgeon and Physiotherapist Evaluation:

As you could imagine, the difficulties of not typing and working became a problem. I am a Product Manager which means a large portion of my job was typing. I was put under Workers Comp to get a third party diagnosis and evaluation.

The evaluation was long and you guessed it, painful. They had me squeezing, gripping and working my arms to the maximum. Their recommendation was to start lifting light weights to re-strengthen my muscles. I told them I was doing already does to which they responded: “Don’t give up.”

Typist to the Rescue:

For those folks who know me, slow is not an option. Neither is country music, but let’s save that for another day. After months of being inefficient, I advocated for a typist and my employer agreed. For the last 10 weeks I had someone come in for over 5 hours/day to dictate my emails, engineering and business requirements, design work and ERP projects. It was certainly much more efficient that before, but a far cry from the good old days.

Software:

RSI Guard is a tool that I found to provide me with frequent breaks when I was doing a limited amount of typing. It locked down my screen periodically, about 1-5 minutes every half-hour, and gave me the opportunity to stretch and walk around the office to decompress. Certainly something I continue to do since it provides a space to think and solve difficult problems.

Osteopath:

A recommendation came in about a miracle worker –yes please! The Osteopath did a very thorough medical history and her diagnosis differed from the previous specialists. Her diagnosis was referred to as a “Cork in the bottle” in which the lymph fluids that carry the “itis” or inflammation was not being properly circulated and released from my body.

She performed various contortions on my body and guided pressure to move fluids around. After three visits, there were no visible changes and I was back to square one.

Tim Ferriss & Active Release Therapy (ART):

Tim Ferriss is an entrepreneur and author who I admire greatly and has spoken at length about health in his latest book called The Four Hour Body. Given that the traditional therapies were not working, I turned to his book to find anything that might be useful.

As it turns out, Tim Ferriss has had over 20 fractures and 20 dislocations so I took his recommendations to heart. I started doing ART throughout the summer which involves a very painful massage for about 30 minutes. ART likely induced the placebo effect because it was so painful that “It must be working.”

Again, the results were negligible.

Naturopath:

I went to see naturopath doctor and she immediately thought stress was the cause of my pain; a different diagnosis again, but this time something that made much more sense. (Foreshadowing…) I got some blood work done and my cortisol levels were substantially lower than average meaning I had adrenal fatigue. My long-term stress indicator (DHEA) was 11.9, where the average should be 6-7 meaning my long term pressure (likely to succeed) was very high. I never considered ambition to be a negative thing, until it actually had a negative physiological impact.

Evan Weaver:

I stumbled upon Evan Weaver’s blog on Hackernews and started commenting on some of therapies I was about to try out given nothing had worked in the last 5 months. This included invasive therapies such as Prolotherapy, Biopuncture, and Platelet Rich Plasma.

Evan stopped me in my tracks and recommended I read Dr. Sarno’s book The Divided Mind. He also forwarded me Aaron Iba’s blog which was a near replica of my situation that virtually sealed the deal.

The Divided Mind by Dr. John Sarno:

The man is a genius. Its been only 4 weeks and I’m back to 100% as of yesterday. I lifted weights without the tingles crawling up my arms into my shoulders and back. I’m now sitting on my couch while writing this blog in a non-ergonomic position – zero pain. So how does it work?

Dr. John Sarno theorizes that TMS (Tension Myositis Syndrome) is a defensive reaction of the unconscious mind to prevent expression of repressed rage and anxiety and that the pain is created when blood flow to the tissues is restricted by the autonomic nervous system.

The unconscious mind creates a distraction in the form of pain and the cure is to simply acknowledgement the repressed anxiety which subsidies the pain. My naturopath was close in her diagnosis, but instead of taking natural remedies I followed the treatment in Dr. Sarno’s book.

Some of the techniques included journalling causes of distress or anxiety and then spending time each day to reflect on those issues. I often used contemplative meditation in the morning’s to help focus my mind on what was truly being repressed and acknowledging its presence.

If you come from a scientific background like myself, you will be skeptical. And rightly so you should be. However, if you can understand that stressful periods in your life were surrounded by the onset of your injury, reading the booking is far less harmless than ART and the cost of medical therapy.

Conclusion:

I am not a Doctor and of course, you will likely want to talk to yours about TMS. For anyone dealing with pain, I hope you discover this book as share the same successful experience.

Improv will really screw with you, in a good way. Your dangerously funny subconscious comes out to play and your right brain is doing mental gymnastics endlessly. After my last two years engaged in public speaking, the obvious next step was to enter Second City in Toronto for improv acting. Colin Mochrie, watch out.

Improv has one fundamental rule: “Yes and.” Never reject or deny one someone says (also called an “offer”), only build on it. An improv skit can always take a positive turn, as long as you keep building. If it’s a weird idea, keeping building, if it’s boring, keep building, if it’s funny, keep building! You get the idea.

If we “Yes and’ed” everything in the world, we might not actually have productive conversations, although we might be in constant laughter and disarray. In improv “Yes, but” or “No” actually make conversation terribly difficult. Using these phrases in regular conversation in response to someone’s idea can sound negative and confrontational. People can pick up a “tell” on your attitude towards a situation based on your initial comments.  Conversely just having mere subtle optimism makes you approachable!

So what’s the magical key?

Make your first thought positive in every conversation or encounter.

I have way more fun agreeing with people than disagreeing, especially when I’m “Yes, and’ing” them. Don’t you? Here are some openers to try on when presented with an idea in a workplace or even a bar:

“Yes”
“Good idea”
“Very cool”
“I hadn’t thought of that” (they love this one!)
“Love it”

Not too painful I hope. After each of these, make sure you never say “but” otherwise it defeats the whole purpose of this exercise, which in that case I will send Chuck Norris after you. Or if you want to take it to the next level the Buddhist Marshall Goldsmith? Watch yourself.

So what if the idea is actually terrible and your brain cringe? He…is…so…wrong…must…correct…him.

Then follow up with leading questions such as the following:

How does X come into play?
Have you considered what happens to Y?
What does this means for Z?

Remember, it has nothing to be with being right or wrong. Good ideas will prevail and people who prime themselves with positivity will creative frontier.

Learning is fun and addictive especially when its material you enjoy. I spent most of university starring aimlessly at chalk boards covered in nonsensical organic chemical equations, but spent hours at home learning poker strategy – something I find rather engaging.

Post university I realized most successful people were learning what they loved at astronomical pace regardless of how busy they were. I never asked them how they found time since their face was plastered on the inside of a book cover.

So where do I did find time to take the equivalent of 5 universities when the day is crammed with 1,500 tasks?

Simple: My Car. (Ode to my Car)

The average person in North America spends 541 hours in their vehicle annually! I calculated that I spend about 250 hours in my own car this year and I listened to about 140 hours of material, most of which are from iTunes Podcasts. Here is my estimated breakdown:

I estimated this is equivalent to 5 university courses if the lectures for a course are 33hrs and their respective assignments and exams are about 30 hours. Then add a 50% time inefficiency factor since I didn’t attend class and slept in the library.

RoundUptoMakeYourselfLookGood(140 hrs of Podcasts / 32 hrs  = 5)

The Podcasts cover everything from debates on economic and political issues, time management tips, interviews with business wizards to scientific breakthroughs. Of that list my top picks are 60 Minutes, Harvard Business Review (short interviews), and Freakonomics Podcast (living tales of strange truths in the world).

So how does one go about turning their commute or car into a vehicle of learning? (Excuse the deliberate pun)

1. The Setup – First, get a dedicated iPod for your car and download every Podcast that appears interesting. You can filter the out the ones you don’t like after you’ve listened to them. Then add all the content to your iPod and Bazinga.

2. Plug into Radio – Buy this device: FM Transmitter. It will run you $25-$75 depending on which brands you buy and most of them have a USB port for charging iPods. Now you’re plugged into the Matrix.

3. The Ride or Commute – When I started listening to Podcasts in my car, I only listened to them about 25% of the time since the combination of music and driving remains impulsive and energizing. I found I can only listen to Podcasts about 60% of the time. I simply couldn’t endure 1 hour+ drives without a little Trance. Find your happy medium!

What’s your favorite way to learn?

Being productive and focused is becoming ever more difficult with our senses being overwhelmed by daily distractions of technology. We love to react to a new email in our inbox or responding to that IM message. And often we have those busy days where we forgot what we accomplished. It’s a constant struggle to find a balance and get things down.

I’ve found it’s practical to break down everything whether mentally, on paper or a tool like Orchestra, and understand that three types of categories exist for a particular task.

Rocks – The Rock of the day is the task that trumps everything. Successful individuals I’ve observed have the ability to make sure no matter distraction comes their way, the task gets done. Its gratification can only be surpassed by its difficulty.

Stones – These are the mid-size problems that are largely annoying, distracting and time consuming – but they have to get done. They include activities like purchasing good / gifts, attending impromptu meetings and filling out applications and documents. They provide a sense of relief and little pleasure is derived.

Pebbles – These little tasks are spontaneous in nature and we react to them even if it’s not urgent. They include activities such as email, phone calls, texts and one off conversations.  Days that include lots of pebbles are the ones that go by fast and you don’t recall what you did because you were so “busy.”

So how do you handle these types of tasks?

In reverse order, Pebbles require lots of mental energy since we have to switch mindsets to address an issue different than the one we are working on. This is known as context switching and it’s an important skill to have, but only when working on Rocks.  Pebbles should be worked on in chunks. Instead of checking email ten times per day, check it once before lunch and at the end of day. Any incoming calls you can simply ignore and make sure to follow up by end of day. Do not set the standard that you’re on call for everyone 24/7, unless you’re in a support function.

Stones can also be managed similarly to Pebbles with one exception – they can and should be outsourced to a virtual assistant. For those who haven’t done some rough math on time-value calculations, your time and well being are increased if you avoid having to carry your own Stones.

Rocks are typically broken down into two categories. The first are the fear hurdlers that may not take long, but you’ve mentally convinced yourself not to do them. Whether these include writing an email to a customer that’s been difficult, getting that gym membership, or spending the day cranking out the new website design. These Rocks require self-motivation and deep sense of optimism, even if you’re a bit diluted.

The second type of Rock has huge positive impacts on your life but require uninterrupted time, hard work and creativity.  This Rock may drive you into high productive environments such as a coffee shop, library or park. It lets you put huge dents in projects and gives you a nice serotonin release. Oh, and no pebbles to trip over. I believe the number of these Rocks you complete are directly related to your success.

A final thought.

I recently listened to an interview with Tim Ferriss who talked about the death of Time Management. The simple argument is that the highest prioritizes (Rocks) require an entire day or weeks focus and all other tasks (Stones/Pebbles) should be victims to Pareto’s law – and that was simply an attitude held by successful individuals.

Further distillation on this leads to one simple idea:

If there is one task that if completed, made everything in sight look minuscule, then that is your sole purpose for the day.

Find your Rock for today and crush it.

I recently re-watched Jason Fried’s TED video on how meetings and managers suck up time and resources within a organization. Thankfully, I’ve worked with companies that transition away from these vices, but they replace it with another one: E-mail (…or Gmail, if you hang with the cool kids).

Not only is it unproductive, it’s the new virtual cigarette and it’s harmful to productivity. Since I’m science geek, I propose a few simple experiments to test your tolerance to e-mail.

1. Keep your email open and LEAVE it alone. The first time I tried this my blood pressure was above average and my mouse was no longer controlled my conscious self. In fact, my sub-conscious took my right hand and moved it onto the email thread without my conscious mind knowing it and opened it. My left eye read then proceeded to read it while my right eye continued to work.

2. Close your email during productive hours. My productive hours are between 8:00am-12:00pm and I avoid checking email at all costs. (I also book an event in my calendar during this time so no one schedules meetings with me). But what if that important email comes through? Yikes! Unless you’re a support rep handling customers or a sales rep closing quarter end, you have no excuses. If it’s truly important, you’ll get the phone call.

3. Screw it, leave your email open! In this experiment your goal is to start a task and see how many times you catch yourself checking email. Context switching eats up many neural connections and will slow you down. My attempt with this experiment lead to 17 interruptions – in the morning. Anyone guess if I completed my one hour task?

Once you’ve completed the 3 step program, it’s time for a lifehack moment:

Setup a schedule to check your email less than 3 times a day.

My personal preference is 11:59am before lunch for quick responses, 1:00pm for mid size chatter, and 6:00pm for longer emails. Find whats right for you and try and stick to it.

…and remember to turn off those push notifications on your mobile. It’s the crack of email!

After 3 weeks of Peruvian Mania I bring to you my epic journey in written form!

Upon my arrival into Lima I felt like I was in Karachi, but with a bit less poverty. Filled to the brim with Peruvians, the town had short buildings to withstand earthquakes and permanent cloudy skies for the duration of our trip. It’s busy place with 9 million people but my first priority was to indulge in the famous Pisco Sour and get inebriated. Success!

Ash arrived the following day and we spent the next week touring around Arequipa, Puno and Cusco. The air was thin at 4000m above sea level and walking up stairs burned the thighs like a leg press workout. Arequipa and Puno were small cities with many wonderful sites including a full day tour of Lake Titicaca. At Lake Titicaca we visited Urus a floating island (literally!) and learned about how they built the Islands and their native culture. After the tour the President came up to me and said “The small instruments are 5 soles, the big ones are 15.” What the hell? He speaks English and he is trying to hustle me!? I was pleasantly surprised.

Cusco is the magical city of Peru – not by definition, just my personal and important opinion. It invokes the feeling of the Inca culture and their awe inspiring accomplishments. The Inca’s are the only civilization to never face a famine and were a society full of engineers, scientists and architects. They paid their taxes in labour and were surely unmatched in their creativity. Sites in the pictures below were marvelling considering they managed to arrange and maneuver 100 tonne rocks from 7km away down a mountain. To this day archaeologists still don’t know how they did it. The Inca’s reign ended when the Spanish came in and wiped them out for their gold.

Over 100 Tonnes!

During our tour of the Sacred Valley, we spent a day Ziplining. We endured a one hour hike up the cliff side of a mountain while gaining a spectacular view of the Sacred Valley. Then we zipped down on metal wires for about three hours till we reached the bottom. By the last few Ziplines, I was trying to do fancy tricks holding myself upside on the wire. Superbad!

The pinnacle of the trip was the infamous Saltankay trek to Macchu Picchu. Most people we met the week leading up mostly spoke about how they were taking the bus and bypassing the trek. We were de-briefed the day before and realized this trek was going to be 70km over 5 days through the mountains and jungle. Cool! We were in a group of 16 with two folks from France, two from French-Canada, seven from Argentina, two from Ireland, and two brown Canadians (YeYa!).

Day 1 was 17km and a long first day which ended in me with a pulled growing. Of course Day 2 was 23km and it was no easy trek going up to 4600m reaching the tops of Salkantay Mountain. The morning started at 5am and I had zero sleep and was walking on one foot with my left foot dragging. I opted to take the horse up the steep part (3hrs) with Ash and we walked the remaining 8 hrs. We ended the day in stiff conditions but we survived the worst of it. Day 3 and 4 were easy trekking days with beautiful sites including a hot springs in the Peruvian mountains and a small rave for 30 people with techno beats and the great beer of Peru called Cusquena.

In minus 15, he walked up in shorts and a hat to 4.6km above sea level.

Day 5 was the final and last day in which we visit the awe inspiring Machu Picchu. During the trek I spent time contemplating what the Inca’s persevered through to really appreciate what it takes to build an entire city in the middle of the Jungle. I can’t think of a more profound human achievement than Machu Picchu. That morning of Day 5 we would wake up at 4am and climb 2,000 Inca size steps (not small!) it was the only pure way to experience and appreciate what it takes to get one rock up to Machu Picchu as the Inca’s did. However, at 3:50am I was puking my guts out and had diarrhea. I was sweating profusely and although Ash offered to take the bus up with me, I knew that I could not live with myself not having that experience. I grabbed my iPod, put on some DMX and Cam’ron and the rest was history.

A view from the Inca steps approaching Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is best experienced in my opinion through meditation and contemplation. If you do visit, take a tour and spent at least 2-3 hours on a terrace (in the shade) and just take it in. It’s truly a spiritual experience.

That night we said our goodbyes to a great family and some amazing people that we trekked with.

Crazy 8's!

The following morning we flew into Porto Maldonado where we took a boat 15km upstream into the Jungle. Although this was supposed to our relaxing period after 70km+ of trekking we certainty had our work cut out. Our group was a size of nine, five of which were the most typical Indian family and their 70-year old grandma. (Remind me to send my kid to boarding school when he is 10). The other was an older couple from the UK and they were awesome. James, the husband runs all the refurbishing projects for the underground tube stations and we talked a lot about business.

Instead of listing all the species I saw, here are the pictures of everything we saw!

Taranchula

A Walking Tree and move up to one foot per year.

Parrots feeding on clay

Less than 2,000 of these Otters left in the world

Praying Mantis

Canopy Walking!

Canopy Walking Part 2!

Jaguar

Jaguar playing

Toucan Sam

Monkeys!

Funny Monkey

Monkeys playing

Final Story (The Bolivian Road)

Okay, most people know I prefer not to drive along a cliff edge with no guardrail since a small slip is the end of your existence. Here is how the story goes: We were driving from dinner to our campsite on Day 3 of the Saltankay trek and we had crammed 16 people into a vehicle that ten would be rubbing their neighbours skin. Our two guides and cook were sitting on the top of van as we drove through a one way road with no guardrail close to a cliff and the driver CLEARLY thought he was Michael Schumacher with a indulgence for 80′s pop music. Soon we approached another vehicle in a game of chicken and our driver had to reverse – of course he didn’t do this slowly and we were as close to the cliff as humanly possible. After we survived that we went into another game of chicken with the military police that caught the 3 illegal passengers sitting on top of the van (our guides and cook). Worst of all, the cook was wearing an army shirt thats worn by drug dealers who work for the cartel not far from where we were driving. After 15 minutes of interrogation they confiscated their ID’s and papers and we were potentially losing our guide for Machu Picchu! The next day we went down to the station and managed to sort everything out but it was a bad ass day for the Saltankay crew.

He is eloquent, smart, and educated. He is a world renowned chess player. He is also flat out wrong and inept at understanding the theory of evolution. His name is Jonathan Sarfati.

Let’s start with credibility. If I need to learns about physics I listen to Laurence Krauss (a physicist), and if I need to learn about body building I read Arnold. But I won’t go to either of these folks to learn how to play the piano. Sarfati is stepping out of the world of a 8×8 chess board and chemistry to embark on evolutionary biology – of course the fact he is on a show that no one recognizes and if anything he was saying was worth nothing he would have no trouble getting on TED stage – arguably the most intellectual stage in the world with sound ideas based on logic and evidence. It’s no wonder Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have the top ranked videos here.

That all happened in my brain prior to watching the video – but let’s look directly at what he says. I’ll pick on the big ones of natural selection, baiting and switching and some fun quotes.

Bait and Switch: Jonathan early on points out that Dawkins uses this technique and that the real problem with evolution is the “all living things from a single cell… and that’s theory under dispute,” not the change in gene frequency. Of course if he believed any of what he just said then he could still believe unequivocally believe that evidence showing the early is 4.2 billion years old is true, that the Universe is 13.4 billion years old since those processes are independent. He disputes that fact we came from a single cell organism and his logical next step is intelligent design. How does one make such an erroneous leap? How about looking at experiments that try to figure out how we originated from a primordial soup or if you simply don’t know, say you DON’T know.

[3:56] “If you don’t believe in evolution you’re a fundamentalist….kiss your brains goodbye weirdo.”

That’s not entirely true. I do think it takes a certain level of education and understanding about natural selection and experimentation analysis to understand this concept. This is easily backed up by the fact that almost 40% of Americans think the world is less than 10,000 years old. How do think they oil companies find oil to drive their hummers? By chance? They use geological techniques to find the ages of rocks millions of years old that correlate with healthy oil. I think most people are just fed up with the lack of open-mindedness and overbearing nature religion plays to dispute fact and evidence in its face and win the minds of many.

[5:20] “Einstein and Galileo were minorities at one time and they went against the conventional wisdom of science.”

This is true. They did break conventional wisdom. Of course their theories actually added as another layer as opposed to breaking the actual theories. In the case of Einstein on time and space it didn’t replace Newton’s three laws, but added another fundamental layer within them. With Galileo people thought the world was flat – and of course, there was no prior theory in place so there was nothing to replace! People’s intuition about the earth being flat is not considered scientific.

[10:45] “Natural Selection is not a creative force because something else must create the material for it to be selected.”

He uses the example that genes are removed from the gene pool and that does not help us in our understanding of how natural selection. Please see mutation and gene duplication.

[p2. 1:25] “Not enough generations have gone on for us to have evolved from apes.”

I’m sure he managed to come to this conclusion reading one of the 68,900 studies supporting that we come from apes.

[p2. 4:30] “There is a huge internal consistency in the biblical world. It gives an answer for where we came from. Why we are in the mess we are in today…Jesus rose from the dead…Death is not the end.”

The bible in its entirety is internal consistent. I actually feel a bit of pity for Jonathan at this point. Of course for something to be logically consistent all of it has to be true. I could sit and here all day and talk about Genesis but Ricky Gervais does it in 9 min. I don’t think I would stand behind talking snakes as logically consistent. If he argued that I cherry pick what I want and then interpret it with my own mind I might give him some points for being truthful.

[p2. 6:00] “The universe is orderly. Atheists can’t justify the order in the universe.”

This is a profoundly offensive and uneducated statement. If you assume the definition of order is the consistency by which the laws of nature never change then you have a sound model called the Standard Model that explains EXACTLY why it is orderly. It’s a first year physics course or a quick search on Google.

I left Waterloo at 5:15am to catch the 8:20am flight on Friday morning from Toronto to Mexico City. I left my iPhone, computer and technology addiction at home and purchased a small notebook and a pen from the Toronto airport. The notebook cost me $8 and contains a hundred blank pages. Talk about margins. (Get it.. margins in the notebook – ahh nevermind.)

I decided to make this little “blue book” my gatekeeper for all things important. Upon purchasing the friendly black lady working the till said in a joking voice, “Need to store all those ladies numbers when your travelling?” To which I replied, “Its for writing down train times, names of locations I’ve visited and important things.” She laughed and replied with “Ohh, I didn’t realize that those books were for.” Its okay, humans haven’t fully evolved out of stupidity – likely because it provides an immense source of laughter.

I landed in Mexico City and it reminded me of Los Angeles in that, you can’t see anything when your flying over because its only smog. After checking in, I did few shots of black label since the ladies of Johnny were handing them out for free – it was delicious. Then I had some beans, rice and chicken – Mexican style.

The flight was 6 hours to Lima and I watched Thor mixed in with some reading and sleeping. Upon landing I met the grandmaster Julio (who runs Karikuy tours) whom I would spend the next 2 days with having Pisco Sours (wow!) and touring Lima. We had an awesome time trading war stories while we got inerbirated. Also, an Indian fellow was at the house as a volunteer for Julio by the name Hiraj joined us for the festivities. In his spare time he works for the UN as an interin on escavation sites for archelogical digs.

Tonight is the city tour of Lima and then Arequipa tomorrow!