I’m usually pretty good a following through on my plans.  When I give myself a goal — the triathlon, the 100/100/100 challenge, vegetarianism, and Isle Royale, to name a few — I typically see it to fruition.   There have been some cases with ambiguous outcomes, like the 15-week photo challenge (which morphed into a still-unfolding stint at photojournalism) and Zoitz (which has a remarkable ability to find new audiences whenever I consider killing it).  Then there are situations that, at least on their face, are failures.

The century falls somewhere between the second and third categories.

I started with the best intentions, going so far as to pay my registration fee, but my enthusiasm waned after about a month and a half.  By the time school started in mid September, it was becoming clear that my training schedule wouldn’t bring me the century experience that I desired.  I was fairly certain that I could go the distance, but I wasn’t sure what the cost would be on my body.

As the October 18th date drew closer, the likelihood that I would participate got lower and lower.  Then, about a week and a half before the event, it became clear that I was facing a nearly impossible workload from school and contract commitments.  I lived that last week in coffee houses, pumped up on caffeine and working like mad to write the papers, finish the reports, and complete the homework that I had promised to do.  I took a few hours on the weekend to relax with some sports photography, but that was the extent of my recreation.

In the end, I got everything done.  Everything, that is, except the century.  I spent all of last Saturday, the day of the century, sitting at a desk and plowing through some extremely math intensive computer science homework.

What could have been done to help the situation?  I suspect that the greatest benefit would have come from having a daily training partner.  I find that my chances of success are much higher when I know that somebody else will be affected by my actions.  Voda provided some great encouragement and enthusiasm, but he lives far enough away to make daily training unrealistic.  Perhaps I should have joined a cycling club.

I didn’t do the century.  The good news is that I started cycling more, and I had some nice rides with friends, like Voda.  The unrealized goal spurred me to get in several hundred miles of riding that I otherwise might not have done.  It also got me in better shape for my daily commute to campus on my bike.

No, I didn’t complete this century, but that means it’s still available as a future goal.

With the front-month contract for light, sweet crude at $87.81 today, oil has fallen over 40% from its high last July.  In other words, this oil bubble seems to have popped, providing vindication for those analysts who said that the rapid rise in oil prices was unsustainable.  It also made fools of those who had forgotten or ignored what happened after a similar price spike in the early 1980s.

The drop is bittersweet.  On one hand, it eases the pressure on the budgets for low- and middle-income families around the country.  As a grad student, I certainly have felt the impact on my wallet.

On the other hand, it reduces the drive to find alternative energy sources by eliminating much of the economic motivation.  It means less money will be spent on mass transit.  It means consumers will be less likely to buy efficient vehicles.  It means that industrial companies will feel less pain from having production facilities overseas (which incur high shipping costs), and thus it means that one more salve for the atrophy of America’s industrial might will be removed.

Cheap oil cannot last forever; some day, it will be so expensive as to no longer be a viable source of energy.  By having that day of reckoning pushed back, we have been deprived of an opportunity to lead the charge towards alternatives.  Somebody, somewhere, someday will solve those problems, but those of us living with cheap oil will not have the chance.

It’s easy to get lost in the libraries at Stanford.  Though not the largest university library system, it still holds almost 9 million volumes.

I was wandering through the stacks in the Green library today.  Many books appeared to have gone years without feeling the loving touch of human hands.  The situation called for an experiment: how ignored were the volumes?

I went to an obscure corner of the library and selected a very old book, one that seemed to have sat idle since not long after its 1923 printing.  I opened it to a random page and slipped in a note to myself:

The note says: “I have tried — therefore, I have succeeded.  <Signed> Jeff Keacher, September 25, 2008”

I plan to visit the book again, some time in the future, to see if the note remains in place.

Yet again, just when I think about mothballing the project for good, a new influx of traffic hits my webcomic, Zoitz.  I keep thinking that its 15 minutes of fame should have expired long ago, but it seems to have remarkable staying power.  This time, the traffic is largely to a strip that pokes fun at the career opportunities for English majors.

The comics in the series have now been viewed by about a million unique visitors, driven mostly by popularity on Stumbleupon, multiple front-page appearances on reddit, and a mention in a front-page story on Slashdot.  Thanks to everybody who’s added a link!

I wonder how I can develop funny ideas with greater regularity.  I’ve tried brainstorming techniques like mind-mapping, but the bits that have gained traction have all come to me in moments of inspiration:  I see the joke instantly as a completed entity.  It seems like there must be a more efficient to develop funny ideas.  How do the other artists and writers do it?

Related problem: how to monetize the strip without destroying its soul.

Time is marching on.

A year ago today, I was settling in for my first night at Stanford.  It seems so far in the past and at the same time, so recent.

The past 52 weeks have brought me new friends, a rejuvenated interest in photography, much knowledge, and a modicum of fame.  Most important, it has been a time of personal discovery and reflection — refining not only who I am, but who I want to be.

In about three months, I will be done with grad school.  What then?  I’m looking forward to the surprise.