10/29/2006
About 6 months ago I got poisoned by Raid Deep Reach Fogger (which you can buy at
any corporate grocery store) which left me with numb arms and legs, and a host of other
problems, for 3 months. This product is one of the "bug bombs" you
use (if you're insane) to kill bugs in your house. My housemate used it in the garage
to kill some bugs... you set it off, seal the room, and stay out for a while.
Trouble is, the garage is connected to my room via a laundry chute, which no one
remembered existed. The chute was closed, but not sealed... so as I slept overnight,
I was breathing in the fumes.
As I went to sleep that night (I had been working in my room for a few hours already),
I felt really bloated and yet incredibly hungry. I also was seeing some kind of weird
sparks when I closed my eyes. I had totally forgotten about the bug bomb, though, and
just shrugged it off. In the morning, my arms and legs were extremely numb. My lung
capacity felt like it was at about 20%. And my IQ had dropped about 30 points. I could
hardly hold a conversation! I also found out (a bit later) that I was completely and
totally impotent. And surprisingly, this was the most tenacious of all my symptoms,
taking about 4 months to get back to normal.
I went to urgent care, who told me to go straight to the ER. Due to my low IQ and a
recent string of disenchantment with western medicine, though, I didn't take that advice.
(My main beef with western medicine - although I acknowledge it has a lot to offer at times -
is that it's built on patching symptoms, rather than
treating root problems. Usually a treatment creates a new problem. In practice, a doctor
rarely considers diet, lifestyle, etc - they'll give you a drug without even asking about your diet!
I find it hard to get them to listen to me (they're busy
and often power-tripped). And finally, finding holistic health with your average western doctor
is like pulling teeth, and even if you try to get it out of them, they often won't tell you common
sense information due to liability concerns! Anyway, that's the end of that rant, for now...)
So instead of going to the ER, I did it my own way. I took it easy, got good rest, ate super
healthy organic food for a good while, drank lots of carrot juice, got moderate exercise (to sweat),
and took plenty of vitamin support, as well as milk thistle (which is *the* herb for liver detox).
Whenever you're cleaning toxins out of your bloodstream (mainly via sweating/fasting), you need liver and kidney support, because
those filter your blood, and get overworked.
So, back to those gnarly symptoms. The lung and IQ issues tapered off to mostly-normal within about
a week. The numb arms and legs, however, lasted for 3 months. Even at the end of the 3
months they phased in and out. One interesting thing is that taking B vitamins daily *really*
helped with the numbness. Vitamin B is the main supporter of your nervous system, and you can't
overdose on it because it's water-soluble (B and C both are).
So, after about 4 months, my arms and legs felt normal *most days*. But one night I went to a sauna
with a few friends, just for fun. It's 220 degrees in there and you sweat unbelievably. Well,
the next day, when I woke up, my arms and legs were all numb again - for two whole days!
Putting two and two together, I realized that the sauna must have expunged a lot of my fat cells,
which is where toxins and pesticides are stored in your body (and in non-organic dairy products,
too, for that matter). Once I realized what was happening, I wasn't as worried. But this exemplifies
why it's important to take liver/kidney support herbs whenever you fast or go to a sauna - because
you're putting all that stuff back into your bloodstream, and your liver/kidneys will have to
process it all.
The symptom that lasted the longest was impotence. I wasn't super worried since I had seen something
allegorically that helped me understand it, and that was, of all things, the movie Supersize Me.
In that movie, he eats exclusively McDonalds for a whole month. After about two weeks, he goes
completely impotent. I inferred that it was because his body was so busy dealing with toxins
and rebuilding cells and preventing cancer, that it said "no no, sir, no sex for you. This body
will not be spending precious resources making seed (a very energy- and mineral-intensive
process) while there is more critical healing work to be done!" And sure enough, once my other
symptoms had (luckily) all gone away, that one went away as well. But it did still scare the living
shit out of me.
If you read the label for Raid Deep Reach Fogger, it sounds pretty harmless. Those fucking
assholes... this stuff is NOT harmless. If you read the pesticide fact sheets (all over the web) for Cypermethrin, the active
ingredient, you find that it's mildly (?!) toxic to mammals. However, it's HORRIBLY toxic (like, 20
times more toxic) to aquatic life. So when you open your window to let that stuff disperse into
the air, and it goes and lands in a stream or the bay, you can feel just super about it. (Or you
could just not ever use this crap in the first place!)
I went to a neurologist eventually, thinking, I at least want to hear what they have to say.
He said that because my motor reflexes still worked when it first happened (...the urgent care
tested those out), that there should be no permanent nerve damage. What had been damaged were
the myelin nerve sheaths, which take about 3 months to regrow - about the time it took my symptoms
to go away.
I recently went to a very very good acupuncturist (Adam Atman, in Campbell, CA). He has a radio
show every week, that I've listened to for years, where he discusses all the scientific studies
that came out that week, compares them to previous studies, and so on. (Finding a doctor / L.Ac.
that has deep knowledge of both eastern and western medicine is a huge bonus, in my book.)
Anyway, I finally went to him. I found he has amazing intuition - he basically knew all of my health issues the moment
I walked in the door. After a nice long consultation, he recommended I do a 4-day water fast to get the rest of the toxins
out of my fat cells, because if they sit there for years, that's what causes cancer. And
really, the *only* way to clean out your cells is to fast and sweat.
FASTING
So here I am, writing this on day 4 of my fast. It's about noon on sunday,
and I haven't eaten anything (except for a tablespoon of green stuff per day) since thursday's lunch.
Aside from slight light-headedness when I stand up quickly, I feel fine.
I've been living a normal life, biking around,
talking to people, being very productive, and so on. I've noticed my brain is in a
"low-power" mode, conserving energy it seems. It can't do math as quickly, but I seem to have
gained elsewhere - my mind has a much stronger grip on conceptual things. There is also a trememdous
amount of creative stimulus; I have thought about many, many things I've never thought about
in my life before. It's quite an experience. I have felt blissful, and happy, and comfortable
the whole time. (I practiced a bit beforehand, skipping a few dinners the week before the fast,
and avoiding dairy and bread and any kind of sugar).
Then when I started it, thursday afternoon, I never had a *single* pang of hunger, or sensation of
low blood sugar (which I am normally quite susceptible to, being a person who rarely skips a meal)
the whole time.
I honestly can't believe it.
Actually, I don't expect you to believe me (that I am doing great after 4 days without food),
because I wouldn't have believed it until I experienced it myself. But I am being 100% intellectually
honest with you. I don't want to spread misinformation, I am not attached to the dogma that
fasting is good. But I am finding that it is. But I do wonder why I feel *good*, with 28 years of
toxins being dumped back into my bloodstream. Perhaps my body is cleaner than I thought. Perhaps
that sauna did the trick. Or perhaps
I don't feel worse because my body is so happy that it's being healed... maybe it knows what's going on
more than my brain does.)
To be honest, the only reason I was open to the idea of fasting was because of my
sauna -> numbness experience. But that, plus the thought that almost all ancient wisdom cultures
involved periodic deep fasting, and that animals naturally fast when they are sick or toxified,
made me open to trying it. I have learned that I can go a LOOOOOONG time without food and feel
great (...handy for traveling!). I now understand that we mostly eat for pleasure - that
the body really only needs trace amounts of vitamins and minerals to be healthy and rebuild cells;
most of our energy must come from oxygen (...I infer this because visibly, after 4 days, I look virtually the same,
still with the same little band of fat at my belly and love handles that I've always had, and no
noticeable loss of muscle mass). If you want to be healthy, it's not a matter of eating lots of
uber-healthy foods - you need very very little of them (a tablespoon a day if it's the right stuff!
- Vitamineral Green in my case). It's more about avoiding toxin-laden foods. Plus, eating less is
healthier in general - rats that are fed less live 30% longer. It seems that most of
that copious eating we do (I'd guess at least 50%) is to support our high-blood-sugar addiction, which creates a
false sense of energy when you get a fix. But once you're no longer addicted to 3 sugar spikes
a day (and note that bread counts as a mild sugar here), you find out what your body really needs,
and it's quite a surprising thing to experience. (Another thought - if your blood sugar is so much
more stable without bread (or sugar), maybe we shouldn't really be eating bread?)
I recommend you see a smart holistic doctor before trying a fast. I don't think everyone has
this easy a time with it. My acupuncturist told me I have a good constitution for fasting, whereas
others might not. Plus, for brevity, I've left out details here (sorry - this thing is long enough
already).
Anyway, I hope this story helps you in some way. Be choosy about your doctor; don't use poisons
in your house, trust people who say chemicals are mostly harmless, or trust a chemical to be
harmless just because it is legal. Eat less,
and specifically, eat less toxin-laden food; and occasionally take some milk thistle and go sweat
your ass off in a sauna. And although the jury (for me) is still out on whether the fast is necessary for
flushing toxins (although I can't imagine it wouldn't help some), I still recommend fasting just
for the experience... it is an amazingly wonderful spiritual, educational, and creatively inspring
experience. Perhaps the most healthful benefit of fasting is in what you learn about
your body, which you can then use for the rest of your life to improve your health. You learn things
that are so counter to our cultural beliefs that the only way to actually learn them, most likely,
is by experiencing it yourself.
To your health, friend! :)
10/28/2006
Posted Hawaii photos!
10/15/2006
Wow... I haven't updated this thing in almost 4 months? Yeesh!
This weekend has reminded me how very special Santa Cruz is. Saturday night
I went to an A-Cafe (anarchist cafe) gathering at a house... it was remarkable.
Tons of super nice people, good conversation, not a single drunk or obnoxious person
(but plenty of delicious home-brewed beer drinkin'!), skill workshops, a riotous puppet show,
tons of home-press literature, lots of fiddle playing and dancing, and a chicken.
Can you ask for more?
Yes! Followed by a brazen squaredance today, where a few fiddle players and
many dozens of people infiltrate common spaces and have a blast squaredancin'
like a bunch of idiots. It was too fun.
There are two other special things about Santa Cruz that people in other cities
might want to know about and start up wherever they are. The first is the Guerilla
Drive-In, where they project movies every friday night, outdoors somewhere, usually
on a large warehouse wall. People (mostly on bicycles) bring blankets and chairs and
beverages and enjoy a good (usually subersive or thought-provoking) movie. If there's
nothing like this in your city, maybe you should start one...?
The other thing is Free Skool (at tribe.net)
(in Santa Cruz)
(wiki). The wiki
article makes it sound like an official school, but it's not. You just grab the
calendar and drop by whatever classes you feel like.
It's all totally free - they're classes taught by people, for people, and not for money.
It's really awesome. They have it in a lot of cities, actually. Classes include
bike repair, spanish conversation skills, survival gourmet, trash orchestra!,
knitting, baking, yoga, and (truly) all kinds of other stuff.
This kind of stuff gives me hope in a world that is increasingly becoming one
giant corporate monoculture. When everyone consumes the same digital entertainment
produced by a handful of people, how can you expect to learn anything new or useful,
or feel connected in meaningful and human ways? It's no wonder everyone is on
anti-depressants. Maybe they should prescribe fiddles.
6/30/2006
Found this great article today on Warren Buffet's recent decision to give his
billions to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for them to philanthropically allocate. Counter to many computer geeks, I've long been a huge supporter of Microsoft. I think a lot of people are anti-Microsoft just because they're the top dog. But I've always thought they did an amazing job (once you get past an initial learning curve) of enabling developers and giving them amazing tools. (That was further bolstered recently by their DX10 reference rasterizer I'm using at work; it is so robust my jaw is permanently buried two feet in the floor.)
Anyway, the other - and much bigger - reason for my support has been due to what Bill & Melinda have been doing with their fortune. Maybe eight(?) years ago I read that they had decided to leave only $10 million to each child, and to give the rest back to society. Then I started to read articles on how they were doing the giving, and I was blown away. They've been using this vast wealth in the most efficient ways possible. They don't have the ethnocentric or nationalistic giving barriers that most people have. And they're logical about it; they don't just give where it feels good to give - they allocate the money where it will make the biggest difference. And they don't just give - they create infrastructure and organizations and set up conferences to bring in experts and get them solving problems that are tractable but yet unsolved, because rich white people would have no benefit in solving them.
So - go Microsoft! I hope you earn as much money as possible. Maybe you don't do everything right, but in the end, you have my support all the way. (Sorry Linux guys. I think Linux is great too. But I hope you see my point!) Warren Buffet's decision to let the Gates Foundation handle his fortune is a testament to how amazing it is. Hopefully it will inspire other rich people to put their fortunes in good hands as well. You can't take it with you, and it would likely just ruin your children...
6/14/2006
Hey, it's been some time, maybe I should post something here eh?
Life has been (mostly) wonderful lately. I've been playing with a
Gamelan orchestra which has set my brain on fire. It's way too fun.
I would probably call this my first real exposure to playing music,
and it's absolutely wonderful. We played at an all-weekend hippie rave event
in the redwoods recently, called Raindance (photos here),
which was a super blast.
I'm taking a few days off this weekend to go camping in Sequoia National Park & Kings Canyon, which are down in the Sierra Nevadas. My friend Beth from high school has driven out here for a few weeks and we're heading down there with her son Cade (he's 2), it should be a blast. They have the largest trees (by volume) there in the world - by far. They're *huge*. Some have circumferences of over 100 feet and are almost 300 feet tall. (Up north are the tallest trees - around ~320-330 feet tall - but they're not nearly as massive.)
I have a public service announcement to make. DO NOT eat mushrooms you find in the woods. Some you can eat and feel fine for a while, and then three weeks later you will suddenly die of organ failure. There are about 20 different types of unpleasant death from eating unknown mushrooms. So don't do it! (Don't worry, I didn't. Sort of.)
I saw An Inconvenient Truth (the Al Gore global warming movie) this weekend. It was fantastic. You know you're a freak if this movie makes you cry at the end! It was really good. I even learned a few things. I didn't know some of the nuances of ice shelf melting, and it never occured to me that the earth would have an annual CO2 cycle ("breath") because most of the land is in the northern hemisphere! It's a fantastic movie and it seems like it would even be palatable to conservatives, thankfully - except for the longer-than-they-should-have-been scenes about the 2000 election. ** One thing I was very disappointed in, though, was that I didn't hear the word "extinction" once. People on the other side of this debate love to mention that the atmosphere has had higher CO2 and higher temperatures before. This is true. But the difference is that those changes all happened slowly, over thousands or millions of years. This is happening fast - REALLY fast. Species don't have time to adapt, and they go extinct. The longer the lifespan of the species (plant OR animal), the fewer generations there are to absorb the impact of the change (through genetic adaptation), and the less likely it is that the species will survive. Not a word about this. And honestly, this thought occurred to me only recently - I haven't heard it mentioned anywhere yet. Maybe you heard it here first...?
The other thing I'd point out is this: in the end of the movie, they mention a few dozen ways you can reduce your global warming impact. They mention buying carbon credits (green tags or CarbonFund/Terrapasses), and they mention buying a hybrid. But what no one talks about is that if your main concern is carbon (and not our limited supply of fossil fuels), buying a hybrid is a HUGE waste of money. You could spend the same $ on green tags and sequester (or prevent) many many times more carbon! You won't be driving the cool car, but you'll be making a much bigger difference. (Or you could do both. If you're overpaid for whatever it is you do.) Anyway, I would love to see a chart plotting all the things they mentioned, in order of cost ($) per ton of carbon saved.
You might have noticed that I redesigned the front page to the website here a few weeks ago. I hope it's easier to navigate now. My site had grown into cybersprawl (gasp, I hate cheesy lingo) for the last 10 years and was due for an overhaul. Now you should be able to jump to anything within two clicks, like a good website. =)
It's hard to believe the solstice is right around the corner. Life flies by so fast. I am 28 now, whoa! It feels like a nice age. I feel good. I have realized lately that this is my life - all the little moments, likeable or not, including all the things I'm doing and my attitudes toward them - and that if I want my life to be better someday, I need to change it *now*. So, I've been doing that, and it's been great! There is no future... there is only this. Woot, brother. Woot.
4/2/2006
I just picked up what is perhaps the most awesome masterpiece ever worked by human hands (in my opinion, of course).
UPDATE: I posted a movie of Lee solving the puzzle. It's quite amazing, check it out.
UPDATE 2: Awesome! A podcast interview with Lee where he talks about some of his puzzles and how they're made and solved. You won't believe it.
It's a barcode burr puzzle designed & made by my friend, Lee Krasnow.
It's a wooden cube, about 3" to a side, made from six identical crazy-looking shard-like
pieces. There is no empty space inside. On the faces where these six pieces
interface, there are pins in some faces, and grooves in others, for the pins to
ride in, making little mini-mazes. The effect of this is that one piece's motion
will be restricted by the position of another piece. All in all it takes a giant
binary sequence of 127 moves to entirely disassemble the puzzle into its six
pieces. Check out some pictures I took, showing it in various stages of
disassembly:
To get the hang of it at first, I had to stick numbers on that identified the
six pieces, otherwise wrapping your head around this thing is impossible.
Also notice the piece of paper behind the puzzle; that is the list of moves
(64) required to get the first piece out. Then it takes 32 more to get the
second piece out, then 16 for the third, and so on - for a total of 127 steps.
I simply can't believe it is possible to build something like this.
I think he has a few left (and he doesn't think he'll ever make any more!)
if anyone is interested in picking one up. =)
3/18/2006
Just updated the Veggie Guide! [ view in web browser ] [ download Word document ]
2/18/2006
I just wrote this letter to some of my friends. Thought I'd share. It's kinda fun.
Hey hey hey hey friends!
My housemates and I did something super fun tonight. We went to Safeway (disclaimer: an uncommon destination) and were standing in the checkout line and noticing the horrible assortment of magazines they put in your face at the checkout. So we hatched the idea to go to the magazine isle and pulled a few copies each of: Scientific American, Yoga Journal, The Economist, Sunset Magazine, Utne Reader, and so on - the magazines that help empower or educate people, rather than making them feel insecure or obsess on stupid celebrity gossip. We then took this fresh assortment to the endcaps at the checkouts and put them in front of the most sickly-looking-girl magazines we could find. It was a strangely delightful thing to do.
Hopefully that little maneuver encouraged people to buy magazines that are better for their mental & physical health, as well as sent a message to the store manager. It's not a super genius new idea, but it's subversive, harmless, positive, and SUPER FUN. I really highly recommend it. =)
May the universe massage your spirit in seductive ways.
Love,
Ryan
1/30/2006

I had a bright idea. I recently ordered about a dozen different decently-priced
compact fluorescent light bulbs, of a variety of brands, from two websites.
Then I rated each one of them based on:
- color - the light from most CF bulbs is either too stark white (fluorescentish) or too yellowy yellow; I wanted bulbs with a nice in-between shade, which is usually a gorgeous, slightly rosy tone. I judged how the light hit both skin and walls/furniture.
- length - how long is it? important so that it will fit into smaller sockets (remember, CF's have that big base) and the ugly spiral won't be visible.
- start delay - how long does it take the bulb to kick on (when cold)? (they can range from instant to almost a full second)
- cost - the cheaper, the better
- packaging - the last concern, but still a concern. Less packaging (cardboard) is better; so is (plastic) packaging you don't need a chainsaw to open!
Then, once I'd picked the best ones overall, I bought a ton of them and gave them away.
My friends
are pretty happy with their new bulbs! :) Anyway, if you're like me and really like
saving huge amounts of money (and time, because they last for years) by using only CF bulbs,
but are annoyed at how many oversized
or too-white/too-yellowy ones there are out there, now's your chance to piggyback on my
research and order a big load of good ones! So without further ado... the winners were:
best 15W bulb
- The ultra-ultra-compact (4.25") Maxlite Micromax Spiral at bulbs.com, for $4. This one is very bright, comes on instantly, is the shortest bulb I've ever seen, has the perfect color, and even has good packaging. Order a whole bunch of them!!
- The also-very-compact (4.50") Maxlite Spiral at Aubuchon.com, for $2.50. Just as good as the Micromax (delay, color, etc.) but 38% cheaper and only 0.25" longer.
best 20W bulb
- There was no clear winner in this category; none of the bulbs were worth special ordering.
best 23W bulb
Well, I hope somebody out there finds this useful! Please remember that CF bulbs have a small amount of mercury in them and should be set aside
for special disposal!
11/29/2005
It's that time of year again, when tens of millions of Americans go outside and chop
down perfectly healthy, carbon-absorbing trees to place indoors for a month, and then
chuck to the curb. Why not buy a smaller (and much easier to manage) one with the
rootball intact, and plant it when you're done? Then it can have a long life of
carbon-absorbing goodness. (That's even better than getting a plastic tree!)
Killing Christmas trees sure was fun back in the day, but things have drastically
changed, and we need to rethink our traditions before we destroy our environment.
That means changing our own behaviors AND talking to others about it, encouraging
them to do things differently, and more sustainably.
While you're at it, think about this as a gift for a loved one this holiday season:
a Terrapass. For around $30-$50 you can make
their car carbon-neutral for the whole year! (It will make up for the ~8,000 pounds
of CO2 emissions their car generates from burning gas.)
UPDATE: I used to recommend Terrapass, but now recommend Carbonfund for several reasons. First, they have better prices (per ton CO2). Second, they're a nonprofit (which means you can deduct your donation). And third, the types of sequestration they do are more effective and long-term than Terrapass's.
While I'm ranting, I want to point something out. It's about tax cuts and trickle-down
economics. You always hear the rich saying that we need super-low taxes to encourage
economic investment. Sure, that's true, it does encourage investment. The implication
is that without it, economic investment will be discouraged, and the economy will
crash. But think about it for a second. Think about a billionaire. Do you think
he or she decided to be a billionaire over being an artichoke farmer because of the tax cuts?
No. He likely did it because he's either obsessed with money and power, or because he's
naturally driven to succeed and produce and create. Those are the preconditions that drive
people to become super rich and powerful, and they're the ones handling 80%+
of the cash, and hence the investment, in our economy. Now... imagine that taxes
go up (gasp). Do you think he's suddenly going to call it quits? Hell no! He'll
just work harder. Invest smarter. Sure, he might divert 5% to foreign investments.
But not much of it; the U.S. already has some of the lowest tax rates in the developed
world. We'd have to seriously hike our rates to start driving investment overseas.
Meanwhile, allegedly-temporary-but-usually-permanent tax breaks are handed out every 7 years when the market crashes. When are
they to be repealed? It's pretty hard to take that back out of somebody's pocket once
you've put it there. (and, and of course, the economy would crash and the world would
end, or so they will tell you.) So on we slog, forward march, into a future of ever-dropping tax rates and
ever-declining social programs and safety nets... more costly
and poorer quality education... ever-widening gaps between rich and poor...
more struggle for hardworking low-income people, more crime,
more unhappiness. Even the
handsomely profitable corporation I work for (yes, I am a stinking hypocrite) almost
never pays more than 20% in taxes... less than a poor person. Is the economy
really the only thing that matters? But the real question is... does THAT even matter?
Would the economy really crash if we hiked tax rates? I don't believe so. I think
it's a rich status quo that's aggressively propagating that belief, and no one is
challenging it.
I'd also like to say something about the gap between rich & poor, and our standard
of living. Right now, the distribution of wealth is very polarized (more than
ever... it's been increasing for 80 years and is still increasing at full speed).
Lots of people are buying $50,000 luxury SUV's while others are struggling to afford healthcare,
education, or even decent housing. Haves and have-nots. What are the haves doing
with their excess cash? They're not (usually) giving it to charity. They're not
solving the world's problems with it. They're buying cars and yachts and mansions
and vacations... stuff that gets them off. We are surrounded by it, it's the norm -
if you have money, you blow it on this kind of stuff. Now, granted, you worked hard, so spend
a little on yourself. But how about spending a little on NOT yourself, eh? If
the money flowed more in that direction, we'd have hundreds of thousands more people working on
renewable energy technology, efficient organic agriculture, recycling, pollution
control, curing disease, building houses cheaper, etc. - instead of building iPods,
designing expensive advertisements, and building SUV's. It would be a different
world. And it's all driven by... each of us. By me, and by you, every time we buy
something. By where we spend our almighty dollar. Should I buy a $10,000 wristwatch
or 200 car-years worth of carbon credits, for the same price? Well, at least one
can shove the wristwatch up one's ass...
"Vote with your dollar." It's worth far more than your electoral vote.
10/24/2005
Updated some photos!
10/19/2005
Hello hello! I guess it's been a while since I last posted. How sad,
lots of great stuff has happened that I should have been writing about!
Life is good. We had our first drops of rain in six months just a few nights
ago, at night, and they made the most beautiful sounds as they fell. And the morning sun has been unobscured by fog lately,
allowing that gorgeous golden sunlight to hit things before 10 am, which is quite a treat
in this often-foggy-in-the-morning little place. The full moon has been gorgeous this past week,
too.
Laura had her baby! Little Ruby ("Roo") is the most adorable little creature
I've ever seen. Super mega congratulations Laura, Chris, Forrest, Anaiis, and
Cosmo! :)
Some friends and I did a KFC protest a few weeks ago and a nice man named Bradley from Santa Cruz Indy Media came by and covered the event.
He and a young lady doing a film project interviewed me on animal rights stuff: what the
KFC protests are about, vegetarianism, health, making moral decisions, etc. If you know
me and I've never ranted to you about it (ha! right) or if you'd like to hear some of my
thoughts on the subject, it turned out really well, and you can get the 12-minute interview here in .mp3 format.
My friend Luke sent me a link to some funny dinosaur comics at qwantz.com. There are hundreds of them. They are neat. That is why I like it.
My friend Rob had a loft-warming party recently up in San Francisco and I met a
nice young woman named Natalie there. She promised to send me a cool DVD and I
promised to send her a magical Mountain Goats compilation. Which we both did.
Little did I know that the DVD would have one of the funniest things I've ever
seen on it. (And I haven't even found the short she meant for me to see yet!)
My mom is in Italy right now, believe it or not! She called me today - she was
having a *blast*. I am *so* happy for her. (She's never been to Europe
before.)
I also have been meaning to share some insights into getting better gas mileage.
(Boy am I glad I have a hybrid these days, with gas at $3 a gallon!) Anyway, I've
learned that by capping my rpm's at 3,000 when I'm driving up a really steep hill will
improve my (long-term average) gas mileage from 43 to 46; and by trying not to drive much above 65 mph, I get
a whopping 48.5 long-term average (for my last 2,000 miles!). I knew
wind resistance was roughly proportional to V^2 (velocity squared), but I didn't
realize it would make that big of a difference! (Oh, and I also keep the tires
pumped up to about 35 psi cold / 40 hot - the car handles much better and it
makes a ~2 mpg difference.) I also take a spot behind a fast-moving giant truck
when I can get it - that makes another 2-3 mpg difference as well (on the highway
- this one's all about the wind).
Ok... I think I'm out of steam for now. Notice it's been 5 months since my
last post... I love programming but I hate doing other stuff on the computer
(even though I often do because it's more efficient), especially when I'm
at home, and that's the reason I seldom update this thing.
I leave you with a wonderful poem about endings: