So about last Friday.

I spent about an hour writing a post that was supposed to go on this blog last Friday. It was all about the latest bob the angry flower cartoon, entitled "Gaps in my security" (take a look). The article was a comically serious look at the cartoon in detail. A movie review for a single comic strip.

And yes it was hilarious and poignant. Brilliant yet easy to understand.

Of course, somehow it not only didn't get posted, it got eaten. I'm not sure if it was my computer or the internet, but something swallowed that document whole and has yet to excrete it out anywhere. By the time it does reappear it will probably not be worth considering.

According to my wife, this happens to me a lot. That is, I often have things destroyed by computers because I'm an idiot. I don't even remember this, although I'm sure it hasn't happened with anything important in quite a long time.

ANYWAY:

I don't know about anyone else, but I find that getting up early in the morning makes me more productive. I don't just mean that if I get up early, I'll get more done because I'm working when no one else is (although this does happen). I also mean that I'll just get more done. I work more effectively. Even when other people show up at work, I still continue to be more effective if I've started the day at, say, 5 o'clock.

So that's what I've been doing. The difference is so stark that I hesitate to dwell on it. I mean, last Friday I decided to work from home, and since I'd gotten most of what I needed to get done for the week finished by Thursday, I opted to sleep in until 7. Big mistake. Not only did I end up sleeping until 8, but when I finally got up I felt like half the day was gone already, and my brain felt all muddy. I managed to finish the last project I had for the week by noon, and then my brain just shut down in the afternoon, and I even ended up sleeping for another 3 hours.

I always feel like that when I've slept too long. Why is that? Does the slight stress of getting just a little too little sleep keep me sharp?


ON another note:

I've always played a lot of video games, but lately I'm running out of interest. I continue to play, but it is almost like a habit. I'm not really sure what I'm getting out of it right now, more like I'm just too bored to do anything else. I've started the Page-A-Day project, but I missed yesterday, so that's already a little derailed. Other than that, and work, I really have no hobbies right now (except reading). I certainly don't have any hobbies that let me rest my eyes.
Apparently video games are just losing their appeal. Well, what the hell am I supposed to do now?

Team USA

While everyone in the USA is ignoring it, the rest of the basketball world is watching the World Basketball Championship with some real interest. The last time the Worlds took place the US's 55 game internation winning streak with NBA players was ended by Argentina.

And yes, I just happened to be there when it happened. Considering the arena was damn near devoid of Americans, and the thing took place in Indianapolis, I'm in a pretty damned select group.

I haven't had the chance this year to watch Argentina, but in the Indianapolis Worlds and in the last Olympics, I saw a lot of the Argentines. Let's just say: I'm impressed.

I'm 100% certain that if international rules were used, that Argentina team from the Indianapolis Worlds would be able to destroy any NBA team from the past 10 years. I've got no doubt about that at all. Given a 7 game series, I'm not sure the 2nd dynasty Bulls could take a game.

Of course, if NBA rules were used, and NBA refs were used, I would be surprised if the Argentines could even keep it close.

And since the style of basketball played by the Argentines is roughly 65,000 times as entertaining as the style of basketball played by those Bulls, Spurs, Lakers, Detroit, and Heat teams that have won titles over the last 10 years, I think change of rules is in order.

Bring back the short three point line, widen the lane, give us referrees that don't speak the language and are from another country.

Imagine: An NBA where Shaq and Tim Duncan can't just camp out forever on the low block. An NBA where practically everyone is a threat from outside (no more clogging up the painted area if you've got to cover your man for a three). An NBA where Kobe acts like he's been foul, turns to the referree, and then has to get back on D because the Chinese ref doesn't really care about this "Kobe Bryant".

Is anyone else with me on this? NBA: Make the switch! International rules. Not only will we begin to dominate the international game again, but hello! We'll finally have a product worth watching!

A paper...from HELL!

I've been working on writing up the results of research I've conducted over the past four years for, well, most of the past three years. To put it another way: I'm not a fast writer. The process is an act in recursive thinking, as new insights I put onto paper require going back to the beginning of the paper and writing introduction for them. Those new introductions inevitably lead to new trains of thought and new ways of thinking about particular issues. Of course this leads to new insights, and the cycle begins again.

Passing off a draft of my paper to another unfortunate soul merely means that I have stopped the process, not that this process has reached some kind of equilibrium. No, my mind continues to work through the implications of every statement I made, and when my draft is returned I must correct not only the red marks and 'suggestions' by whoever read it, I must also correct the foolishly idiot thoughts that I was dumb enough to committ to paper.

To sum up: I can't stop writing a paper. I envision my writings as evolving artifacts. They should be posted online and updated weekly...maybe daily. Committing these works to the printed page just confines the usefulness. Even working my way through the review process at a major journal is agonizing, because I can't really change anything major. Not if I want it to be published (and I do want it published).

This little bit of non-sense was precipitated out of my brain by the agony of working through my last paper as a graduate student. I've changed everything about it. Almost the entire body of the conclusions and half of the results have changed, and that means long hours of re-writing. The entire cycle of thought has begun anew. I'll have to go, once again, through long recursive trails of thought.

Agony.

And now a bit more rational.

I'm serious, by the way. There is no place on Earth more beautiful than Kansas, although a lot of people seem to have a hard time believing that. I'm not really saying the people are always beautiful (inside or out), but nowhere is that true. I'm not even saying I would necessarily want to live there.
But I sure like driving through.

Lots of weird, random stuff happening in the world, but I'm going to leave it alone.

4 days our house has been on the market...4 people have looked at it. Sounds like a good start! No offers yet, but we're optomistic.

Let's just hope my patch-job on the upstairs ceiling continues to hold!

A little bit of poetry here..

There is no place on earth like Kansas in the summer.
Take away the mountains, the lakes, the forests,
Replace them with staggering hills,
With fields as far as the eye can see,
And you begin to know just how far the eye can see.

For true beauty,
The kind that you can only really hope to see,
Just drive down I-35 from Emporia to Wichita,
On a sunny, August evening,
The few trees and bushes clinging to the small, dry riverbeds,
But the open fields stretching out like the holy infinite mind on both sides.

This is landscape, in its truest sense.
You'll never see this in the mountains,
Or the forests,
You'll never find this on beaches or lakeshores,
You can't find it in cities.
When a storm comes sweeping across the plains, you see it,
You see it form, miles distant, unbelievably huge.
You see the rains falling underneath distant clouds,

There is horizon here, where it exists few other places.

This is where you go to contemplate God,
To contemplate the mysteries of life.
To see a glimpse of what infinity really looks like.

In the evening, in August, you are particularly blessed.
The day was hot, and the setting sun is finally relenting,
Nothing feels better than prairie air post-baking.

I drove through Kansas on a sunny August evening,
And I realized what I have been missing.

I drove through the Flint Hills, past semi's and pickups,
Past cattle and prairie chickens,
Past it all.
And remembered.

In case you missed it...

...the United States is now officially a place where doing strange things will get you arrested.

Take the cases of the guys going around and buying prepaid cell-phones for resale purposes.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4117318.html

I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. These guys just walked into a store and bought 80 prepaid cell phones from a Wal-Mart. Uh...yeah. That's weird. But weird enough to make national news and spark fears of a terrorist plot against the greatest bridge in the world (see here)? Damn, that isn't even weird enough to call the cops, yet call the cops someone did. What ensued from that phone call?

Well get this, these three guys, from Texas, happened to have pictures of the bridge on their digital cameras (hey, I've got pictures of the bridge on my computer!!). And they had over 1000 of these phones in the back of their car. And some idiotic, shit for brains, dumbass cop put 2 and 2 together and came up with 18,000.

It goes without saying that these must not have been white guys, because if they were, then nobody would have said anything at all. I don't even think racial hatred has anything to do with it. Just a case of mass hysteria propogated by our government, and endorsed by every idiot with a platform and nothing to lose.

So good morning.

Welcome to the new United States.

We're no longer living in the land of the free...

...security reasons (you understand).

Can't keep focused

Obviously last night was a new low...a long-winded diatrabe about whether or not it is unethical to not-pay people for services was sorta needless.

Oh well, let's change everything by linking to diesel sweeties!

Yeah. That really hit the spot.

Apparently I'm updating regularly now...

From the "What a surprise" file:

l'm sure anyone watching late-night cable television has seen those 'Girls Gone Wild' videos being advertised. The owner of that company is actually a younger guy by the name of Joe Francis. He's been featured in various publications and video shows (I remember watching a show about him on VH1). The guy's ridiculously wealthy, and gets sued all the time. The Los Angeles Times sent a reporter to hang out with him for a few days. The story is amazing (link). This might be the best thing I've read that was written for a newspaper in my entire life. This Joe Francis guy is just a total scumbag. He's borderline delusional, and completely disrespectful of women.

The killer is that he's put himself at this nexus of hormones, alcohol, and inexperience to make money in a (mostly) legal way.

The 9 trillion dollar question is: Is he exploiting these 'girls gone wild'?

I guess this requires we look up the exact definition of exploitation:

1 : to make productive use of : UTILIZE <exploiting your talents> <exploit your opponent's weakness>
2 : to make use of meanly or unfairly for one's own advantage <exploiting migrant farm workers>
From Merriam Webster's online.

If we assume that "nudity" is a productive use of these girl's assests, then clearly, Joe is making productive use of them. I don't think anyone is really arguing that what he is doing fits the first part of that definition (except maybe Joe, who doesn't seem so bright). There is the second part of that definition though. "meanly or unfairly".

Let's start with unfairly. I would say that unfairly implies that the benefit Joe Francis receives is greater than the benefits that the girls receive. The article I linked to above includes some brief interviews with girls who did, in fact, "go wild". These girls indicate that they expect some combination of the following: personal liberation, exposure to movie directors, fame, and/or an article of clothing with the Girls Gone Wild logo. Quantifying the market value of the apparel is easy: These items are going on ebay for between $1 and $15. Quantifying the market value of the personal liberation, exposure and fame are more difficult. These are items which have different value to different people. Still, I'm pretty certain that I do not know of a single movie actress who got their start appearing on Girls Gone Wild. I'm pretty sure we would have heard about that. So let's say that the exposure is essentially valueless (maybe you could get into the pornography industry?) and the fame is pretty weak.

So what does Joe get out of this? Well, according to the L.A. Times article, Mantra Entertainment (the business producing and selling the videos...yes the initials are ME) pulls in at least $40 mil a year in profits (wow...I hope I never have a daughter...seriously). I also am embarassed to say that I saw a show on some network about Joe's house. Let's just say this guy must be making some serious buck.

Let's see, let's see. Joe gets money, girls get personal liberation, some worthless exposure and fame, and a t-shirt. You see I (and probably most people) think this could be construed as an unfair exchange. I would even suggest that many women who appear on the videos would agree, when they are sober. That's not the case here though. The whole setup for Joe's operation is that they throw a big party and provide a lot of free booze. Enough alcohol (did we mention these are mostly hormone-driven teens?) and value of that worthless exposure, personal liberation, and, quite frankly, t-shirt begins to sky-rocket (it is an ugly shirt...they must keep the lighting bad).

Still, I think this would all be very difficult to show in a court, which is why this scumbag isn't actually in jail right now.

Ok, let's switch to the meanly part of that definition (I'm not sure meanly is itself a word, but whatever). Is he mean about how he uses this exchange? Oh hell yes. The bastard has been charged, multiple times, with rape. The L.A. Times article describes a rape that occurred while the reporter was in the area. This doesn't seem like the actions of a guy who really gives a crap. The VH1 special I saw about him was similarly barbaric. The guy treats women like they are all idiots.

Joe does that trick that lazy clever people like do to make other people look stupid...want to know how it goes?

OK, start out by learning one really obscure factoid. Joe pulled out the qwerty keyboard stuff. In case you don't know, the arrangement of keys on the keyboard was originally designed to space out the letters on the typewriter so that commonly used keys struck in quick succession would not stick together and screw up the page. Now, don't you feel a little inferior because you didn't know this, but I matter-of-factly just stated it as if it was obvious? That's the trick. You just non-chalantly work your precious factoid (which must be very obscure) into conversation, act surprised that the other person doesn't know, and then (if you're a real jerk) make fun of that person for not knowing. Needless to say, Joe Francis is a real jerk.
I've now read 1 article and seen 1 TV special on Joe Francis, and he pulled the trick twice.

We need a name for this trick. From now on, I christen this the Oscar Wilde Trick. Why? Cuz it feels like something Oscar would do...although I don't actually know this.

Back to the point, since I seem to be digressing here. Joe Francis is clearly mean when he exploits these women.

Was this all just a long, convuluted way of saying: Joe Francis is a worthless bastard who deserves a vicious venereal disease because he is exploiting young women?

Yes.

I found this pretty interesting

Apparently America isn't #1...

http://www.citypages.com/databank/26/1264/article12985.asp

I'm not entirely certain about some of the numbers (I think a lot of the actual ranks would vary year to year), but having spent about six weeks this summer poring over WHO health statistics, I'm pretty sure these numbers are right on.

There are some other stuff we are number 1 at: lots of negative stuff like energy consumption per capita and pollution per capita.

So....A pretty good article I'd say. Stuff like this should help us set priorities for the future.

And what have we here:

Ahh, back from the absolutely stunningly hot Oklahoma-Texas border. While there I sweated, got extremely ill, and got pretty excited about future research possibilities. And I just realized my list of project ideas was written down in the car and I haven't seen it since...I better go look for that.

Nothing in particular today, just some ideas, thoughts and plans:

1. Let's just say we have been cleaning (out) our house for the past two weeks. As it turns out, I now know exactly what I don't need anymore of because I've thrown away or given away a lot of stuff: books (other than those by Terry Prachett or Stephen Baxter), long sleeved shirts, shirts that don't fit, books, socks that fit weird, torn-up shirts, garden planters, original Nintendo games, and books. Let's just say that if my house was a country, and books were a commodity, then we just flooded the market with excess product. I had twenty odd editions of the Guiness Book of World Records. If you were in the market for a new sci-fi book last weekend and happened to stop by the church's rummage sale...well, you probably wet yourself. From now on: libraries!

2. The Page A Day project. Over the upcoming weekend I am putting together another blog. This one will be called "Page A Day" and will be me writing books one page at a time. I have always wanted to write one book in particular, and I've never gotten further than a couple of chapters. Hopefully by putting this up on the web for everyone to see, I will be too embarassed to not finish. I'm going to come up with the outline this weekend and the format. I'll include a link from here once I do, and once the story-line gets interesting I think I'll even advertise it (only costs 5 bucks to post an ad on Fark).

3. And yes, I've accepted a job at Lake Texoma. With a little bit of hard work and luck I'll be there in November.

4. NBA: Ok...I'm at a loss. I don't know how I missed this. Did Team USA really put together a group of players exactly like the previous three teams that just sucked? Yes. Yes they did. I'm not sure this particular collection of players would be able to stay within 50 points of the Dream Team.

5. There were other things floating around in my head this morning, but apparently they won't crystalize into words.

6. Oh yeah, the Food Project is on hold (probably the only thing people have actually asked me about). While we're trying to sell the house we've been emptying things, as a result our kitchen has alternated between staging area and desert. The cooking has been dramatically cut back and a fair number of our pots pans and dishes are packed up. So for now, the Food Project is on hold. We will resume it once we get the house cleaned and/or we move.

A Basketball Post

Sort of a strange time to talk about the NBA, but I'm sick and tired of thinking of other stuff today. The world seems a dark and forboding place and my statust within it feel shaky and uncertain.

Let's talk about something that doesn't matter.

This is that wonderful time of the year where NBA fanatics start obsessing over the tiniest little things. Take NBA free agents. How often does free agency bring teams a key component? Or even more rarely, how often does free agency change the NBA landscape? Not that often. For instance, take a look at the analysis by Kevin Pelton of 82games.com. He concludes:

"When it comes to free agency, there's no need to stay out of the water, but proceed with caution."

This is especially true for young, marginal players. For every Shaq-signed-by-the-Lakers and Steve-Nash-to-the-Suns deal that alters the NBA landscape, there are fifty Rasho Nesterovic to-the-Spurs disasters.
Marginal players, for some unknown reason, seem to look like future All-Stars in the summer. Look at this summer's list of ridiculous NBA signings:

Mike James 4 years and 25 million. In other words, a guy who played extremely well last year for a terrible team and has never held a starting job before in his career is making over 6.25 million a season. Did we mention he's 31? Does anyone wonder why KG has never gotten to the Finals?

Matt Harpring. 4 years and 25 million. Is there another team in the entire league that would have paid this guy over 6 million a season? What were the Jazz thinking?

John Salmons, who signed for a whopping 5 years and 25.5 million bucks. I can't envision any scenario where plays out this contract with the Kings. I didn't even realize this guy was a starting calibur player (he's not). We'll cut the Kings some slack, because at least they didn't end up signing Bonzi Wells for 36 million over 5 years.

And this just in: Jared Jeffries signed a 5 year, 30 million dollar deal offerred by (just guess) the New York Knicks. I'm not even saying he doesn't fill a need, but Jared F***ing Jefferies? Career averages of 6.1 ppg, 4.8 rpg and 1.6 apg in 24.1 minutes? Plus, he's got the distinction of being a guy who is totally unimpressive and doesn't really seem to have a position.

And those are just some examples from this year. I'm leaving out some really ridiculous signings (I'm looking at you Nene and Kenyon Martin), because I just think the GMs of some teams are mentally handicapped (Tim Thomas??? The Clippers??? That's a guy who should never have longer than a 1 year deal).

Let's put it this way: Most NBA players are overpaid. I'm not saying that the players, as a whole, get an unfairly high share of the NBA revenue. If anything, they get too little of it. What I'm saying is that while rookies are way, way underpaid (LeBron and D-Wade made in the vicinity of 6 million last year) while a lot of veterans are vastly overpaid (Eddy Curry made 12 million and Jerome James made 6).

But teams keep making these stupid summertime deals. For some reason GMs fall in love with guys who were ok with former teams. Guys who might blossom in "the right system". Guys who've never made it before but who could suddenly turn a 30 win team into a 60 win juggernaut.

See how silly it sounds when you say it out loud?

Lake Texoma

There she is, Lake Texoma. With a little bit of luck, and a whole lot of work, in just a few short months I'll be immersed in understanding how a tiny little algae could destroy the mighty stripers for which Texoma is famous. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a little nervous. I'm much more accustomed to working on streams you can spit across, in less than a foot of water. What's this business about waves? Sinking? What do you mean, sinking? Damnit man, I'm a stream ecologist, not a fish!

Ok, so I'm not that nervous, and apparently I'm not really a stream ecologist. I'm more like a, well, more like an aquatic ecologist. Really, as long as the ecosystem is wet, I sorta know what I'm talking about...kinda.

The thing is, if this all works out (and it might not), then people will believe that I actually do know what I'm talking about. That's pretty crazy. In fact, that's get-me-a-shot-of-Tequila crazy!


Wow! That was great! I love me some fermented and distilled agave!

Ok, what was I talking about?

Lake Texoma. And the fact that I've never worked on a lake before. Well, I don't think that's a big deal. Why not? Because.

Yeah. Because.

And I'm off to find me another shot of tequila. Apparently Mr. Cuervo is potent, cuz I feel funny already.

The Food Project Update:

Ok, so our week without eating out was cut short by a trip up to Muskegon, MI to look for housing/apartments for the job I didn't end up accepting. That means we went 6 days without eating out (ignore my transgressions on my own trip to Muskegon for the interview: It took longer to get to Muskegon than I thought and I was starving! Besides, I paid for it later by becoming quite ill)...not quite what we were shooting for, but enough for us to realize that we hate not eating out. I suppose that's the kind of thing we're going to have to get used to while living in the middle of nowhere in OK.

Also, I'm sick of chicken salad sandwiches.

That didn't work out as well as we hoped. We might try again next week. This week we've been eating out like crazy (Indian, mexican, other). And I actually feel kinda sick after those big meals following a week of eating reasonable-sized meals at home.

We'll give the no-eating-out thing another try.

On the "making things from scratch" front, this weekend we made pesto sauce, but I'm not sure that counts since it was so easy. Hmmm...toasted pine nuts are good! Our pesto came out so potent that it could, in raw form, kill a horse at thirty paces. One teaspoonful was enough to season an entire bowl of noodles. Ok, I'm exaggerating some, but it was potent!

---

Job info: They won't let us have a cat on-site at the field station. That sucks, but I guess I'm not surprised. Stupid policies.

Jobs and such

Yes, a new job offer. This one from Oklahoma, where, relatively speaking, its warm all the damn time. I"m excited, I'm pumped.

This job comes with a certain amount of personal validation. I had to write a proposal to get in, and the relevant faculty members thought that proposed idea was really great. That makes 3 different pools of money I've recieved for variations on the same larger idea, and I tied with my officemate for a first place award when I presented the early results of this idea.

Clearly the idea is sound. The whole concept is what I've been calling (to myself at least) toxi-stoichiometry. Ecological stoichiometry (see wikipedia article here) is all about how nutrient linkages affect biological systems. Toxicology...well you should know what toxicology is all about. I've been thinking about how stoichiometry affects toxicology and vice versa at the individual and ecosystem levels. I've got all kinds of pretty graphs and figures to illustrate this if you're interested, but the basic point is that I think toxins are probably altering nutrient retention and allocation at the organismal level. These changes to individual physiology are then translated into changes in nutrient cycling at the ecosystem scale (and possibly a lot of other related changes).

Ok, so maybe nobody who reads this followed that.

The point is: I'm not a total idiot! And someone is going to pay me to prove it!

Oh yeah...

Check out this overhead view of Seward, Alaska. Note the huge ice fields on either side of Seward. I was there. Yesterday I was scrolling around on Google Earth and realized again: Wow. I was a long way from home! (click to enlarge)

Early workouts

The good thing about early morning working out is that you're done with your workout before the day has even really started.

The bad thing about early morning working out is that you're done with your workout before the day has even really started.

Why is this both good and bad? Because you forget you went to work out! I've been doing this for 3 weeks. Every morning it feels like "Man, have I ever done this before?" Once I'm at the gym, I usually snap out of it, but the night before it will be 12 30 and I'll suddenly realize: "Crap, I'm going to have to get up at 5 30 tomorrow!"

Also, although I intend to be working out to build up strength, I didn't expect to be gaining weight. I'm not grossly overweight, but I weigh more than I should. I thought I would lose fat quickly and gain muscle mass slowly over time. Instead, I think I'm gaining some muscle mass, but I don't think I'm losing any fat at all. This is the first time I've ever really worked out with the intention of doing strength training, so maybe I'll have to add some cardio on my 'between' days.

Maybe I'll have to quit eating six bowls of pasta on the weekends as well!

Well, I'm done with my workout for today. In another three hours I'll have forgotten I was ever at the gym. Apparently, so will my body.

Picture of the Mini-House

There's the main floor of our some-day to be cabin. The scale is 1/4 inch = 1 foot. The outside walls are 24 by 24 feet. I'll post the completed version sometime.

Picture of the Mini-House

There's the main floor of our some-day to be cabin. The scale is 1/4 inch = 1 foot. The outside walls are 24 by 24 feet. I'll post the completed version sometime.

Ahh...Last week.

A lot happened in the last week, allow me to present 'a lot' in the following bullet points.

- I was offered a Job. A real Job. I would be working for a research institute (in MI) on the effects of non-point source pollutants on aquatic ecosystems. Basically just looking at how fertilizer run-off affects the base of foodwebs. I like this project a low, but the pay is very low, the position is only guaranteed for 1.5 years, and I'd be coming into the project half-way through. Those are things that make me uncomfortable. I've been talking with another research institute about a different job recently. That job is in Oklahoma (much, much warmer climate). That job would be a project I came up with, up to 3 years of funding, and starting from the beginning. I'm hoping to find out in the next week that they are interested in me. Basically, I'm going to have to make a decision by the end of next week, and I'm not sure the OK job will have made one by then. My options are either to accept the Muskegon job and not worry about the OK job, hold off on the Muskegon job as long as possible, or to turn them down and roll the dice that either the OK job or some other job will come along that I'll like better. I'm uncertain what I'll do.

- A woman from Jehovah's Witnesses came by this morning. She had come by several months ago. She was talking about these being the end-times and things being so bad. When I protested that I didn't think times were any worse than they have ever been before, she's like "Oh, you're too young to know." I asked her how old she was. She said 70 something, and started talking about the 1920s (Hello? 70 something puts the 1920s before your time!) and so I asked her "Well aren't things better now than they were in WWII?" She's like, yes. I think that's when we reached an impasse. She started talking about the war between god and the devil in heaven. If I remember my Bible right, that happened in the past, or in the future, or always (depending on your interpretation). It didn't happen recently. She was a nice lady, so I didn't ask her if she was reading in the original Hebrew (anything else would be pointless). I was surprised how easily she gave up the conversation. Apparently my disheveled appearance was intimidating (I was barely awake). Anyone starting any conversation from the premise: "Things are worse now than they've ever been." is automatically losing my respect. I can agree that the statement is true for particular aspects of reality. For instance, I can agree that, when speaking global oil usage, "Things are worse now than they've ever been." But I'm not sure that really matters. Even most environmental issues (excepting biodiversity and habitat destruction) were worse prior to the USEPA. So please, just get off my porch.

-2 big experiments went down this week. Hopefully everything worked out, cuz they were very difficult to do.

- I didn't see Clerks II...Damn.

- I tasted my rasberry infused vodka. Wasn't that good. Pretty harsh bite.

- We've been talking about building a cabin, so I built one out of foam board to see how it would look. I think I'm going to make our house out of foamboard as well, to get some kind of comparison. Our idea is to spend ~$100,000 on 2 cabins after we move and sell this house. 1 will be our semi-all the time cabin, and the other will be a summer/vacation cabin. I'm thinking we'll want to spend about $50-60K on the permanent one, and around $30-40k on the vacation one. Maybe in the short term we'll just build the permanent one and buy land for the other one. Needless to say, they will be small. I'll post a picture of the little foam board building at some point.

- Not sure what else is happening. I've been playing a lot of Diablo II (I know, that's an old game). Sorta fun.

- For the first time ever we watched an episode of 'The Sheild' last night. Uh, I don't think I'll do that again. My brain is dirty after a graphic depiction of a sexual assault. That's pretty much the reason I quit watching Law and Order: SVU. So hopefully I'll forget about that soon as well.

- Maybe wine will help.

Later

Back to Coherence

Or something like it.

Let's just assume that the Denali chapter of my Alaskan adventures is not going to be forthcoming. The experience has been had. I've looked at the pictures. I'm done thinking about it. I am certainly done writing about it. I will be happy to tell grossly embellished stories about the grizzly bear attack and climbing up sheer cliffs to avoid packs of roaming dogs. If you're willing to buy me a shot of vodka, I'm willing to tell you about the moose. Otherwise, no luck!

Let's talk about something else. A new project. I've been bored lately, which is a sure sign that I'm going to do something ridiculous, stupid, or amazing. Now, if I could only figure out which way these things were going to turn out before I started.

Listening to the advice of other people is right out.

Let's call this the: Food Project. There are going to be several steps. I may have to open another blog and post these publicly (or didn't you know you were part of an exclusive club?).

Step 1: Quit eating out.

I like to cook, but I have a very academic approach to cooking. I want to try things and see how they turn out, but once they work I'm kinda bored with them. As a result I don't cook a lot, even though I have some very good cooking experiences. I might have even made things before that other people actually liked! For me, cooking is a hobby. Obviously eating is not. Since I'm the one who likes to cook in our family, we eat out a lot.
The first step is to not eat out anymore. For the next week we aren't going to eat out at all. Not once. This should be really interesting as I'm going to Muskegon on Wednesday. I'll have to pack a lunch in a little cooler with ice. Yay!
If we don't kill each other in a week, then we'll make it a month, and move on to:

Step 2: Try organic foods.

We actually do this already, but now we're going to be sharing what we learn with you guys. I like the organic ethos: Do less harm to the environment. Sure, there are complications with organic farming, and I'm aware of them, but the bottom line is that eating organic is almost always better for the environment than not eating organic.
However, I'm the first to admit that when it comes to processed foods (cereal, cookies, crackers, mayonaise) the 'organic' versions often leave something to be desired. So what we'll do is comparitive tasting of different organic and non-organic foods with our friends to see if we can find out what foods are healthier for the planet and don't taste like it.

Step 3: Cooking from scratch.

Have you ever made bread? Me too, all the time. But what if that was the only way you ever got bread? What if you made your own yogurt? Your own butter? Your own mayo?
In this step we'll try to prepare foods that we would normally buy only from the store and make them at home, from 'scratch.' I've never made ravioli noodles at home (I have made them in a cooking class) but I'm eager to try!

Come, join us will you, on our (deep, James Earl Jones voice) Food Project.