Author: James Vornov

I'm an MD, PhD Neurologist who left a successful academic career on the Faculty of The Johns Hopkins Medical School to develop new treatments in Biotech and Pharma. I became fascinated with how people actually make decisions based on the science of decision theory and emerging understanding of how the brain works to make decisions. My passion now is this deep explanation of what has been the realm of philosophy, psychology and self help but is now understood as brain function. By understanding our brains, I believe we can become happier, more successful people.

Steps Toward Mastery

Self Portrait in Steel, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I’ve got shelves of books on time management, leadership, and, of course, decision making. In the last two years, working as more of “A Creative”, I’ve moved more toward reading about personal achievement. Biographies are good and I just finished “Snowball” which will probably be the the definitive contemporary biography of Warren Buffet.

I’m now reading “Effortless Mastery” by Kenny Werner. It’s aimed at jazz musicians, but takes an approach to creativity that resonates with me. I was reading it on a plane trip home yesterday and realized that since I was going to in meetings during daylight, I didn’t bring a camera. As I was walking through the airport I realized that the iPhone I was holding was a camera and went into a visually receptive mode. The reflections in the steel columns were visually interested and I captured a few images during the long walk toward the car.

Thanks to 10001 Noisy Cameras

My thanks to 1001 Noisy Cameras for again featuring my Flickr photography as part of their flickr member showcase They’re the best photo news aggregator that I know of and provide a nice hub for keeping up on the latest gear rumors and reviews.

I for one have too many good cameras for now. The Sigma DP1 really provides me with an almost effortless experience as long as I can slow myself down to its speed of capture. I had a nice groove last week in Cambridge and came home with a small number of images that fit together nicely.

Too Cold

OC Pipe, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I had a short trip to the Boston Area. I brought the Sigma DP1 along. It was too cold to comfortably take photographs, but the DP1 proves itself over and over to me as a great travel companion. A small package that produces unique, high quality images. I found myself falling into the rhythm of single shot composition quickly. Base ISO, auto focus and program, evaluative metering. Easy.

Back to 8 Second Intervals

Rocks in the Grass, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

January 1 and I’m back on the bike. With 26 degree F tempertures and gusty winds, it was an indoor training session.

Just a year ago, I wrote about my first experiments with 8 second intervals. There was a buzz about a publication from Australia showing that very short high intensity interval training was effective training both for improving fitness and weight loss.

What I liked about it was that it was a relatively easy way to get my work levels up to high levels rapidly on the bicycle trainer in a way that was hard work but seemed easier to achieve and maintain.

Interestingly on the bike today I didn’t get up into as high a heart rate zone today as I did a year ago. It felt like a mismatch between aerobic fitness and leg strength. The effort I was able to put at the pedals wasn’t enough of a demand to really push my heart rate up.

Unfortunately it may not be due to improved fitness but rather loss of power from being off the bike for a few months. I think this workout will be become a weekly staple for a while, so I’ll be looking for rapid improvement as I build back muscle strength specificity on the bike.

2008 Fitness Summary

Concrete Study, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

I use Ascent to track my training recorded by the Garmin Forerunner 305 Since it organizes by weeks, months and years, when Jan 1 rolls around a new training year begins.

I actually bought the 305 in February 2007, so 2008 is the first full year I’ve recorded. I was just short of 200 hours in 2007, so I would have accumulated somewhere around 215 had I started Jan 1. I started 2008 wanting to average at least 5 hours a week, which would be around 250 hours. As it turns out, I did 242. Had October and November been more typical and consistent, I would have topped 250 pretty easily.

In 2009, a 10% bump seems to be an attainable goal, so I’ll shoot for 275 this year. I hope to put some of the lessons I learned this year to good use in attaining it.

What did I learn?
1. Consistency is the single most important factor for improvement. In December my fitness for running built nicely with 5 or 6 runs a week with most sessions under an hour. By using daily, moderate to easy runs as the base pattern, I avoided days or weeks off due to longer recovery or lack of motivation. The overall energy level was good.

2. Keep working at a given level until adapted. I have a tendency to push myself to the edge of my state of adaptation continuously. I think I need to consolidate gains by staying more consistent within a comfort zone.

3. My greatest weakness is muscular endurance. I’ve always had pretty good stamina, an ability to work at a level of intensity for a long time. But I’m not a gifted athlete. No matter how long I work at low levels, I don’t see large improvements. My workout schedule is limited by time.

I’m going to try to keep the slot on Sunday as my long session at lower intensity, but I’m going to push intensity to the upper aerobic level for the other weekday workouts. This month I’ve done that with running exclusively and am getting more comfortable with working for 20 to 30 minutes at about 80% of maximum. I’d like to be able to push for an hour at that level on the bike during training sessions.

This is the upper end of what Joe Friel calls Zone 2:

Joe Friel’s Blog: “Maximize 2-zone training time each week. For now, try to get about 40% of your training time each week in this zone. “

At this point, with a constant power output, my heart rate drifts up after about 20 or 30 minutes. I don’t have the aerobic fitness that I should at what for me is a higher level of effort than I usually awm working at. During the summer I’ll then see whether the longer rides are faster having spent as much time as possible around aerobic threshold.

4. I’m better off mixing up the training modalities. I lost out because I stopped the bike abruptly and started running. It took too long to build up running ability to maintain my overall fitness level. This year I’ll try to switch gradually to the bike through March, but run at least once a week through the summer. Then I’ll transition in fall to mostly running, but stay on the bike weekly.

Year End Fitness

Lichen on Log, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

Sometime in August, after the family vacation, I turned entirely to running, putting the bicycle aside. I had declared the start of the bicycling season to be January 1 last year, so I thought I would try a break of a few months this year.

In the end, the plan did not work out as intended. Between holidays, travel and a cold, October and November ended up being my two lowest volume months of the year. This month, I’ve become consistent again, so I’ll end up with December being a more typical volume month.

I’m just now feeling like I’m getting the strength in my legs to run effectively. Last year at this time I had been running more frequently through summer and fall, so I can’t claim to be in better shape now than last year. Perhaps I was able to build up the running strength faster and more consistently this year, but that could be just wishful thinking on my part.

So my plan is to start on the bike again in the next few days, knowing that I’ll have to spend time building up specific leg strength. At the same time, I’ll keep on using the running as cross training, switching roles of the two once the weather becomes conducive to longer bicycle rides in a couple of months. Using the summer for base training worked out well in 2008, so I’ll try it once again. That means, shorter, higher intensity tempo workouts through the spring building strength and what Joe Friel calls “muscular endurance”, putting out high power for many minutes in the higher end of the aerobic zone. Once summer comes, then it becomes time to build more stamina with longer rides.

On Deciding . . . Better : Imagination as Simulation

On one monitor tonight I’m watching Garry Winogrand’s New School interview via 2point8. His work was just taking pictures. He transformed the ordinary by capturing it.

On my other monitor, Dave Rogers reminded me just how long we’ve been at this. The Edit This Page group is now going on 9 years of online writing.

Groundhog Day: “Tomorrow will mark the ninth anniversary of my effort in this thing called ‘blogging,’ or, as I tend to think of it, ‘ranting into the void to no discernible effect.’ Not sure if longevity counts for anything, but there it is. Been here longer than Scoble. Go me.”

I think Dave can safely assume his writing has been toward some end, as we have all moved to occupy different spaces than we did 9 years ago. We’ve gotten somewhere, but not where we imagined back then. I still enjoy reading Dave’s work on figuring out exactly how that works.

Since my original weblog is now lost to time and the discontinuation of the ETP servers, I go to the Internet Archive every once in a while to read what I wrote back then. From Dec 5, 1999:

On Deciding . . . Better : Imagination as Simulation: “Simple solutions to complex problems are usually wrong. Complex problems usually require complex solutions. In a complex situation it can be hard to know which variables are important. We tend to act from simple biases based on simple analogies once complexity becomes too great.

When decisions involve uncertainty, multiple goals and multiple effects technology can help amplify imagination. In my own life, I’ve been exploring how this technology can help me clarify my goals, understand my assumptions and help me act in a way that is most consistant with what I believe.”

My set of concerns are very different now and my approach to this complexity is also very different. My decisions are now much smaller and short term. They are less focused on getting someplace, less focused on defining path. More taken with what to do rather than which to do.

The problems are no less complex and the uncertainty is just as great. Yet rather than looking at the pieces analytically, I’ve moved to a wider view in which emergence of choice dominates analysis of options.

Extremes

Trunk Detail, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

This image was pushed very hard in post processing The right side of the image was in poor focus compared to the center/left. I assume it was mostly due to the angle that I captured it at and a wide aperture.

Instead of throwing it out, I took the image way down with what Vincent Versace calls a dark to light curve- a heavily convex curve that pulls the values down. I then selectively lowered the effect on the sharp portions of the image, illuminating the areas I wanted the view to see. If you look, the out of focus areas are still there, but they are not where one looks first.

It’s not a great image, but I like the idea of painting with light well enough to create one that is at least passable and reads as a believable reality.

Taking It On the Road

Canal, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

Because of traffic, I decided to take the long way round to suburban NJ. Interstate 78 goes past Bethlehem, PA. We had stopped in Bethlehem on a vacation trip, actually looking for coffee after a night’s camping in the Lehigh Valley.

The city is spit down the middle by the river. On the south side are the old steel mills, where there’s an interesting mix of hilly old, small housing and the old steel mils. There seems to be condo development along the river in some of the old industrial sites.

On the other side of the river is the upscale, historic side of the city. This image is from that side of town.

Taking It Easy

Leaf, Sky and Water, originally uploaded by jjvornov.

The other day I wrote about how equipment and workflow combinations either seemed easy or put obstacles in the way.

The other side of this of course is subject matter, locale and light. There’s a set of conditions that make it easy for me to create images that I like. I’ve always struggled against going the easy way, seeking growth in pushing myself to do things that are out of my reach. Over the last year, this included moving my images into three dimensions from the flat formal compositions that I mastered long ago.

For example, this image is near flat, but renders depth and subtle perspective. It’s a victory for me because a year or two ago I would have tried to take it straight down and flat. I now know that I would not have been able to compose the leaf plus tree reflection plus walkway into a coherent whole by limiting the angle of view.

My audience in this is primarily myself. I’m grateful for the new internet mediated means of sharing my work. Dozens of people see my work everyday on Flickr or here- something that wouldn’t have been possible if I depended on the old physically mediated world of galleries and books.

As I’ve been mastering one area, I’ve been pushing less successfully in another. While my subjects are more in the world, having setting and three dimensions, they still are not of the world. My subjects are generally insignificant, having themselves no real meaning. They reflect my visual world well, the suburban landscape, cities, sometimes landscapes.

To myself, I think of this next challenge as capturing a sense of place.