Gets the blood pumping

Hey, what do you do for excitement around here?

Seems like kind of a funny question to ask, but I’m curious. I’ll tell you what I do. I like to expand my mind. For example, I’m taking a UNIX class up at TMCC. I don’t really know what came over me; I guess you could call it a wild hair, but I started learning about Linux—a computer operating system like Microsoft Windows or Macintosh, only free—and got irritated with Bill Gates’ business tactics about the same time, and the next thing I knew, I was back in school. Oddly, all I really wanted to take was a welding class.

It wasn’t very long ago that I would have scoffed at the idea that taking a class to learn something new was an adventure. Nowadays, everything, including recreation, has to be analyzed from a cost-benefit standpoint. It seems the very definition of “adventure” implies having something to lose—wasted time, wasted money, wasted effort. In some cases, there’s the chance that the adventurer will be physically damaged. (What’s the danger of a computer class, carpal tunnel syndrome?)

My idea of adventure probably seems pretty tame to many people, but I still want to know what you do. Go ahead, send me an e-mail: What do you do when you need an adventure? Do you climb rocks? Go to a place you’ve never been? Hang glide? SCUBA at Lake Tahoe? Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro? Board the backcountry? Commit crimes?

I’m asking out of more than just curiosity. We’re going to put together a story package in coming months, so I’m looking for sources and adventurous recreations that I’ve never heard of or thought about.

RTV No. 14: The legislators you select decide things like the number of hours in a work week, mandatory vacation amounts and minimum health insurance benefits.