On TILFs

Came a little bit close to trouble today on the way to Turkey Fry.

I was driving down, listening to the Planet Money podcast on Lance Armstrong's doping scandal. I forget how it related to economics. Maybe because it was run like a business? Anyway, they get to describing exactly what Lance and his team did to win in graphic detail. I decided to write an email to the people who make the show. Some friends convinced me it was a good idea to send it after some edits...

I love Planet Money. I love the interesting topics, the approach, and the quality. I've emailed you several times before and am overjoyed when I get responses. And this still is the case, despite what I feel I should mention that happened to me today.

This most recent podcast about Lance Armstrong, in which you vividly describe the lengths he went to keep his team on top, specifically blood transfusions, almost made me pass out while driving my car on the highway. I pulled over as my vision got blurry, waited for 10 minutes to recompose, and continued on just fine.

I should have stopped the episode much earlier, but I pressed on, thinking I could handle it. Turns out that wasn't the case. I'm not sure if this is a phobia, much less what of exactly, but if there's a chance that other people had this reaction, I felt it important to at least say so. If others did, perhaps this was a topic that deserved a warning of some kind.

Again, I love your show. And I don't want to stifle branching out into less directly-economic-focused topics. It's my fault that I didn't stop it when I knew it would be going into bad territory for me. I'm not demanding action or anything. I just felt it important, if this problem is more than just my own, to put my voice out there. And to offer my usual praise despite it.

I also really, really hope this isn't severely out of line. I debated for a while about sending this.

 - Ross Llewallyn

I honestly used to roll my eyes at the disclaimers before radio programs or television shows. But I so obviously understand part of their purpose so much better now. Shouldn't be so quick to judge.

Turkey Fry itself was awesome as usual. I'm amazing at how little it actually takes for me to totally recharge my self-esteem and outlook on life. Just being with people who enjoy having me around and helping out to make things run smoothly gives me this immense sense of belonging that I seem to lose at times. It's totally true that you only value something when you don't have it, and that support structure is so obvious to me now. People who laugh at my jokes, people who are fun, people who are easy to talk to. People with whom I have a history. That's something to hang on to. Closely. Dearly.

Saturday was fun, as well. I went with a friend to our first Atlanta Skeptics meet-up, where I watched a presentation about Martin Gardner. They were a delightful group, and the presentation was very interesting. I even got a free book, and lots of stuff to give out at our next Campus Freethinkers meeting. Yay!

Oh, and the Rainbow Pages, which was a surprisingly fun piece of extended conversation. Hope Guam hangs onto it.

Man, what do I do now? I ended on a reasonably positive note. What could possibly capture that emotion in song? How about something I bought recently:

Now, Ross, let's not get crazy with the positivity. The ups and downs all seem so fleeting, and who knows where you'll be next weekend? But I do love this song.