Fat Guy on a Little Bike

Screw Google

2006-10-10T06:02:00.000-07:00

Google has decided in their empirical wisdom that I violated the terms and agreements of the Adsense service and therefore am no longer eligible for the service.

Because they have not told me what I did wrong I'm pissed at them. (I’m saying this in very nice terms. Last night when it all came to a head I was less than g-rated.)

I’m not surprised. My recent post where I discussed the ads was probably what caused it. But they need to be man enough to tell me what caused it and not refer to the terms and conditions over and over, and send me form letter after form letter. Besides, according to their terms and conditions my post the other day did not violate a single one of them. But what can you do? They have a monopoly service and no need to give a shit about me.

I’m not going to waste my time on them anymore. I copied my blog over to Wordpress. (Surprisingly easy to do. Took about 15 minutes.)

Here is the new location.
http://fatguyonalittlebike.wordpress.com/

I just set this all up last night so it isn’t finished, but at least you’ll be able to read what I write, if you are interested in doing that. Sorry for the change up.

I also will never use their services again. I have little respect for companies that treat people like this. It seems to flash in the face of their motto about being “nice” to everyone.

Fuck you Google.

Oh yeah, hey Google! Before you spend $1.6 Billion buying a company with no profit you might want to have some attorneys review your deal. I’m sure all the companies with copyrighted material on You Tube are super happy that you and your Billions of dollars of cash just bought a company that previously was not sueable. Idiots.

FGLB

Weekend cooking

2006-10-09T10:26:00.000-07:00

This weekend I spent some time in the kitchen and I thought I would share.

I’ve been buying butternut squash at the market to store over the winter, but last night I cut one open to try to roast it. My recipe called for me to cut the squash into chunks, remove the skin and roll it in a roasting pan with melted butter, onions, salt, pepper and dried rosemary. I decided to use a red onion wedge I had because I like red onion, a lot, and it was already mostly cut, and I smashed the dried rosemary under my meat mallet to crush it up. It was quite outstanding. Everyone loved it and I actually regretted that I had only cut up one squash. Here is the recipe in its entirety.

3 butternut squash (about 1 ¾ lbs each) 1 inch cubes with skin removed.
4 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion-diced
1 3/4 teaspoon salt
3/8 teaspoon pepper
1 ½ teaspoon crushed dried rosemary

Set oven at 400 degrees. Melt butter in pan. When butter is melted add all the ingredients and stir to coat. Bake until squash is tender. Adjust spices to your preference.

The red onion that I used made a nice sweet-salty mix on the squash. Quite tasty. I wouldn’t change anything with this recipe.

I also cooked up some soup. It was good, but I think my 2 year old liked it the most. He had 3 bowls of it. And he was so busy eating the broth from it he was actually eating the zucchini, which is the first time he’s eaten that vegetable, even after we present it over and over. It was kind of a strange soup taste. It had a Chinese/Japanese like taste that I think came from either the Zucchini or the Ginger. I’m not really sure which one. Recipe:

1 large carrot-julienned
1 medium zucchini-diced
1 can of chicken broth (13oz)
1 package frozen ravioli
2 teaspoons ginger
A bunch of watercress

Bring broth up to a boil. Add carrots and simmer 5 minutes. Add ginger and zucchini and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender. In the meantime prepare the ravioli per the package directions. Add water cress and ravioli to bowls and ladle broth and vegetables over. Serve.

My thoughts: I think I would add more vegetables, although this number is pretty sufficient. This soup is really an appetizer. I tripled the recipe and it barely fed 5 adults and 2 kids, albeit one that was hungry. Keep that in mind. Next time I’m just going to add the ravioli to the broth mixture and perhaps increase the broth by 50% to make up for the broth the ravioli will absorb. Next time instead of water cress I’ll just use spinach or even better, arugula. I love that stuff.

Also, on Saturday night I made some chili. Well really, it was quite a long process. Everyone and their dog has a chili recipe but I figure what’s one more? I’ll discuss it here.

This is really the first time I’ve made chili for the whole family for about 4 years. I’ve been afraid my kids wouldn’t eat it because of how spicy it is, but after seeing them tear into the salsa I’ve made this summer it’s clear that my wife is the wimp in the family. I still took it easy so that no one would have any problems.

I cut up a beef roast. (No ground beef in this recipe) I estimate it was probably about 3 lbs but I’m not really sure. After these pieces were sliced I coated them with flour. In the bottom of my biggest soup pan I added some vegetable oil and put in the beef pieces to brown. To this I added 4 cloves of garlic and ½ of a medium red onion, diced.

After all this had cooked a bit and the meat was sufficiently browned I used a slotted spoon to move the beef to a bowl and left all the juice in the pot. To the pot with the browned bits I added 1 can of beer as my deglazing liquid. By the way, per Ms. Child the cook always samples any alcohol before adding it to a dish. Helps ensure that everything works OK. Then I proceeded to furiously scrape the pan to get all the yummies off the bottom.

Once this was all together I added 3 packets of chili seasonings (I know, the easy way. But I didn’t have all the spices I needed and didn’t want to make a special trip to the store.) along with some crushed red pepper, cayenne pepper and hot chili powder. I also added a little BBQ spice mixture (a sweet/salty mix for grilling) and a few quick worstershire squirts. I didn’t measure. I just dumped them in and tasted. I also added 3 8 oz cans of tomato sauce and 24 ozs of water.

After this had all blended together for a little while I resampled and adjusted the spices along with salt and pepper until I had them where I wanted them. Then I added the meat and bowl drippings back to the soup pan. Then I left it on a very small simmer for about an hour. A small simmer is a simmer that you would use to make stock. Perhaps a bubble up to the surface per minute or so. I was hoping to cook the meat as slowly as possible so that it would be pretty tender.

After an hour was up I portioned off the chili mixture. A set up a smaller pan of soup for my wife and oldest child who don’t like beans. (I know, the horror) Into the biggest pot I poured one large can of chili beans and left the mixture to simmer for another 30 minutes or so. Let me tell you, this was certainly not a soupy chili. It was a thick rich chili sauce with beef in it.

Even if I was rusty at chili making I need to be rusty more often. This turned out really good. I looked over at the youngest child during dinner and he was using both a spoon and fork to eat it as fast as he could. When he noticed me looking at him he smiled and he had chili all over the lower part of his face. If the camera hadn’t been in the car you would have gotten a picture. I spooned my chili over some cooked ditaliano pasta while others made a sort of non-walking taco with theirs. And I have enough leftover to enjoy all week long. Definately good eats.

FGLB

Homecoming at Iowa

2006-10-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

Last night was homecoming time in Iowa City. Since we have small children any chance to attend a parade is well received in our house.

The funniest thing I've noticed about Homecoming at Iowa (this is year #2) is that it pales in comparison to the Homecoming parades at the little school I attended down in Missouri. (You can see a pic of a float if you follow the link and click on the Homecoming tab)

I think this is a good thing because in college we spent way, way too much money on useless Homecoming decorations to compete between the Greek organizations. Not to mention the impact to our grades for all the work time over study time, and our wallets for all the beer. After seeing the fantastic floats and house decorations at my college it's kind of a downer though to see how it is at Iowa.

It's too bad too that it's an election year because a lot of the parade was candidates parading up and down the parade route. The even more unfortunate thing is that most of them were Republicans. HA!!

One thing that rocked about Iowa Homecoming was that they had a free concert on the Pentacrest. They had Guster and Kansas. I had never heard of Guster but I've heard of Kansas and we were both bound and determined to see them.

The concernt didn't start until 8 and we had to listen to Guster first. They were actually pretty good. The poor guys were playing on rented equipment because their intstruments didn't make it when they flew in. Gotta love those airlines!

But we were waiting for Kansas. The first rock band to incorporate a violin player. The people that invented Dust in the Wind so Will Ferrell could sing it for Blu and become the stuff of legends. Of yeah, we were excited to hear Kansas. But we had two little kids to contend with and Kansas wasn't going to be on until way, way past their bedtimes. But Mom and I were determined to hear them, even with crying kids and temperatures in the upper 40s at an outdoor concert. So we waited. Outside, in lawn chairs. With a blanket and no hottie totties in sight.

While we waited we had some time to make plenty of observations.

My assumption about the college kids would be that most of them would be two sheets to the wind after a hard day of partying, but I think most of the early ones were relatively sober. As the night progressed we watched girls in halter tops and t-shirts come out and watch the concert. Obviously they were a little sauced otherwise I don't know how they could ignore the cold. And watching them walk across the lawn to the concert was high comedy. Between the beer and heels I was sure someone would turn an ankle and there were plenty of stumbles. Oh the days of yesteryear.

We saw this lady. She was interesting. Yes, she is wearing a cape. And a pleated pink skirt. And a green t-shirt. An interesting mix. The funniest thing about her was her "dance" moves. When she danced she kind of swung around in circles letting her cape fly and billow around her. Kind of like how little kids will sometimes put their hands out to their sides and swing around in circles. It was eerily reminescent of how a superhero would fling their cape around too. If I had a cape I would do the same thing. Wouldn't you? You know you would. Come on now, don't lie to us. But I'm really questioning her thoughts of pairing a t-shirt with a pink skirt. I don't think it really matched well with the cape.

By the time Kansas came on we had finally gotten one child to sleep in a stroller (using my coat for a blanket) and the other was on my lap wrapped in a blanket and starting to fall asleep. I think the hypnotic effect of their stage lights was helping. And so we listened to Kansas with two sleeping kids and at the end when they FINALLY played the two big songs Rachael made her way up to the stage for a few pics of the band and I rocked out while holding a 2 year old, well, as much as I can anymore.

All we are is Dust in the Wind.

FGLB

Mapped history of Iraq

2006-10-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

My friend Tom sent me this. I thought it was rather neat. Check it out.

http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html

They have some other neat stuff too.

FGLB

The rest of the story

2006-10-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

I came across two different soldier stories. I always find it interesting to hear the real deal from the people who are actually doing the hard work over there.

What I find most startling is the sharp differences between how they say things are happening and what we are told about how things are happening.

Check them out here and here.

FGLB

Odds and Ends

2006-10-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

I needed to purchase a new back light for my bike recently and luckily I came across this review by Doug of his new rear tail light and decided I should pick one up. Unfortunately my LBS didn’t have that version in stock so I got this one instead. (I am American, I don’t wait for things you know) It’s very similar and it includes a reflector, which is required by law apparently, even with a light. Not to mention this one was $10 less than the CatEye. Let’s hope I rave about it like Doug and Pete have been about their light. All I know is that it’s as bright as a frickin’ laser beam. I swear it seared my cornea when I looked at it flashing in the display.

Along those lines, some of you may have noticed the increase in ads appearing on the blog. I just wanted to let you know the basis behind that. When I started blogging my wife and I decided that any ad revenue that I received from these ads could be put towards bike related purchases for me to feed my habit. This worked out great as it paid for my recent fixed gear project and the check I’m receiving shortly paid for the leftover fixed gear “bill” and this light. I’ve expanded the target of the revenues from the ads to also include things related to my other endeavors such as paying for gardening supplies above and beyond normal levels, home improvement projects related to “off the wall” ideas and other things that are not really things that we would both fall in line on. Really, these ideas are more like things that I don’t feel like negotiating their acceptance and this is my way around the negotiation. If you’re married you know what I mean.

For example, I’m currently working on a design for how to use the excess heat from my corn stove to pre-heat our water for our water heater. If I can get it all worked out then I certainly will detail it here, but since it is kind of an off the wall project the revenue we receive from our ads will pay for these types of projects. I don’t expect the cost to be much, but after my last plumbing incident I’m barred from making plumbing repairs to our house, so I’ll have to hire a pro. Not to mention the solar hot water heater I want to build next spring and possibly hooking a solar panel up to our pool pump so it will run for “free”.

So, I hope you will tolerate the ads and feel that the information I share with you is valuable enough to put up with their appearance.

FGLB

Fall garden work

2006-10-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a beautiful day (today is shaping up to be just as nice) so I spent the day outside in the yard.

I had decided I wanted to make my garden space a little larger. I decided to dig out some stupid peonies (or whatever they're called) and I wanted to move a couple of raised beds over to that area along our fence line. I took this opportunity to double dig the beds too since I was digging it up pretty well to get at the peony roots. Then I backfilled the raised beds with grass/leaf clippings from my mowing and then spread on the compost mix to hold it all down. Hopefully over the winter all the clippings will decompose and add matter to the beds and next spring I'll top coat the beds with compost and plant away. These beds are right next to the tomato area from this year which you can see on the right. Miraculously when I went out to the tomatoes yesterday morning to introduce them to the reaper I found about 2 dozen cherry/grape tomatoes on them so they currently have a reprieve in their forthcoming execution date.

I also decided that while I was doing this I might as well get started on the garden expansion. I decided to make a traditional garden area for the plants I have that are larger plants and take up a lot of space. This would be tomatoes, zucchinni, broccoli, squash, melons, etc. I marked out a general area that I wanted to make into this garden area and I cut out an outline with the shovel. Now I'm focusing on rounding up all the grass clippings, leaf clippings and any other stuff I can. My plan is to fill that area up with 3-5 inches of material. Over the next few months it should breakdown and add a nice base of material to the area as well as kill all the grass in that area. (Hopefully) Then next spring I plan to mix this material into the ground along with more compost and get going. I might put a tarp over it for the winter to keep it warmer in there so all the material will break down more quickly. I'm open for comments if you want to make suggestions, well, other than using a tiller to mix it all in. I plan to do it all by hand, although the way I feel today after the digging yesterday I think I'll need to stretch it out over a few days.

In the picture you can see the clippings from one day's mowing along with some of the leftover raised bed material from the beds I moved over against the fence. And if you look closely you can see the lines I cut out in the grass to mark the general outline of the garden area.

FGLB

Watch out for the military

2006-09-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

Update: I have some more stories for you to read if you wish.

Here is a Time blog where the terror bill has been a topic for a while. Good reading if you want to scroll through it and read all of it.

Here is a story about Bob Woodward. He wrote book (a whole book) about the military under-reporting the number of attacks in Iraq. Are we repeating what we did in Vietnam with under-reporting the death figures?

Here is a quick link to a discussion of the torture devices they wish to employ. I got this from the Time blog.

Tuco has something to say too. A Canadian perspective.
_________________________________________________________________

Well, they have approved the terror bill allowing torture and coercion and making it legal to hold "suspects" indefinately without cause or a trial. I thought we would take a look around the web to see what people are saying about this.

The general news media is here.

Here is another explanation. (HT: George)

And still another one here. And more thoughts here. (Bush interpreting anything on my behalf is scary.)

I guess Bushie doesn't believe this anymore. (HT: George)

There will be more on the blogsphere about this I'm sure. I'll update if I see something to post.

FGLB

Fun with Customer Service Reps

2006-09-28T12:46:00.000-07:00

I recently had an interesting run in with a customer service rep for our primary credit card. I thought I would detail the discussion here.

We had the misfortune of running a little short last billing period to completely payoff our primary credit card. It was just a timing issue as the bill was due the day before a paycheck came in and we were a little short. I figured this is no big deal really because we could pay off about 80% of it on the due date and then I would send in the leftover amount a day later. (We pay electronically so I can't play the mail/check float game, but should have in this instance)

I figured we could handle the couple of days of interest for the 20% until it got paid off. No big deal. I should explain to you now that the way we budget our income is to put everything that we possibly can on our cashback credit card. (maximize cash back) If the card stays below our specified target balance each month we pay it off and then know that we are doing OK budget wise. This is a lot easier for us compared to tracking down every single penny like some people, and works well for us because we always pay ourselves first. Not mention that we typically use the cashback aware to pay for our Christmas presents so we automatically have a predetermined cap on that spending. Anyway, this leads to us having a large balance each month that we payoff, and have, since we got the card about 8 years ago. Except this time.

I thought that we would be charged a couple days interest on the remaining 20% balance and that would be all.

But then I got my bill. They had charged me interest on the entire balance, and on some of the balance we had racked up in the new billing period, and hadn't given me any credit for my paydown. I was less than pleased with the situation. While I accepted that I would need to pay some interest on my remaining balance I have a real problem paying interest on money that I had paid them already prior to their imposed due date. Not to mention they are charging me interest on the money I haven't even been billed for because they use the stupid average daily balance thing. So I'm being charged interest for money I have not even had a chance to pay them yet because they haven't told me how much it was.

So I pick up the phone. After about 15 minutes (pretty quick I think for these companies) this is where we start.

CSR: How can I help you?

Me: Can you explain how you calculated the interest on my card?

CSR: Sure. You see the average daily balance figure on your statement? We multiply that by the daily interest rate figure and then add up each day's interest and summarize it on the front page.

Me: Ok. But how did you get the average daily balance figure? It's way higher than the amount I was billed for.

CSR: Well sir we keep a running tab of your balance each day and then multipy it by the daily interest figure and summarize it for the front page.

Me: I understand how you figured the interest. I have a Finance degree. I can do simple math. But how can you charge me interest off a balance that I haven't even been billed for? Your average daily balance figure is a lot more than what you requested I pay you. How can I be charged interest on that balance when I haven't been billed for it yet? On top of that, I was charged interest on a chunk of the balance that I paid you before the due date. Shouldn't I only have to pay interest on the leftover amount from the previous month?

CSR: Well sir, we charge interest from the beginning of the month and waive it when you make your full payment.

Me: How can it even be legal to charge me for money I haven't been billed for and on top of that give me no credit on my balance when I make a payment?

CSR: It's in your cardmember agreement sir. That's how we calculate the interest.

Me: Oh, that packet of legal mumbo jumbo you send me occassionally that no one but attorneys can understand?

CSR: Yes sir.

Me: Well that sucks. I've had this card for 8 years and this is the first time I didn't pay it in full and you totally took me to the cleaners.

CSR: Sir, I would be happy to waive that interest for you if that would make you happy to be a cardmember.

Me: (Good answer) Yes, that would make me very happy.

CSR: OK. Hang on. (Pause) Sir, I waived that interest and also the residual interest that would have appeared next month.

Me: Great. Thanks. Have a nice night.

Ha! Take that credit card company! You'll get no interest money from me! I know why they did it. The percentage kickback they get from each retailer we use our card at equals more than this amount of interest in about 4 months. They just want me to keep using the card so they can get their 2.5% of each dollar I spend, or whatever the amount is.

I just found it humorous that they caved on the interest so quickly. I mean, they are in business to make money right?

FGLB

Eco-bucks?

2006-09-27T20:06:00.001-07:00

I was reading through my recent Fortune magazine and they had a little blurb about the social responsibility of Starbucks and how they have finally developed a cup with FDA approval that has recycled paper in it. (This bodes well for other companies to use the cup going forward) The article peaked my interest to go out and hit the Starbucks site to see what else they were doing. We can debate the merits of Starbucks for a long time, but I found it interesting that such a large company had such an intense social responsibility part of it's being.

To read more click here.

Burley?

2006-09-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

I didn't even know Burley was having trouble.

FGLB

Scary shopping

2006-09-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

My wife sent me to Target last night to get some jeans for the boys.

I don't want to do that anymore. It's scary. They have racks and racks of clothing. All poorly labeled. There isn't anyone around to help you find what you are looking for. You have to dig it up yourself. Very scary. I'll take cooking and yard duty anyday.

I would much rather go to Old Navy where someone will walk me to the section I need and pull out what I need. That is much safer. At least once I looked through the section I was able to slink over to the food section where I feel more comfortable.

She gave me a pair of jeans as an example. I came back empty handed. Turns out I was searching for jeans for the wrong boy.

As I was checking out at the register a couple of teenage boys were behind me with 4 18 packs of eggs. Me thinks they weren't making a big omelet.

FGLB

A big question finally answered

2006-09-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we took a little road trip down south to visit my parents. Although they give lip service to their excitement to see us we know it's really all about the grand kids. And who can blame them. With kids this cute you have to be excited to see them, right?

Anyway, because the Arkansas Razorbacks were playing Alabama in nearby Fayetteville every hotel room in the 4 state area was full. This doesn't impact me as I wouldn't pay for them anyway when I can stay for free at my parents, but my grandparents were there too (for reason see grand kids above but insert great grand kids) and they weren't able to get a hotel room like usual. So they stayed at my parents. This necessitated that I sleep in my sister's room with my wife. (she was relegated to sofa city) No big deal. I can handle this. Sleeping in an almost out of teenage years sister's room can't be that bad. Besides, she's away at college so she can't have much there anyway.

But when I walked in I was unprepared for what I saw.

I saw something that I had only heard about. Something I thought existed only in fairy tales. Something I never thought I would see with my own two eyes.

Staring back at me from the top of the TV was a real life copy of the movie Crossroads. One that someone actually bought. One that my sister apparantly had decided was worth her hard earned money.

The disbelief I felt was intolerable. I couldn't believe someone in my own family would do something like this. How could she? How could she support these spawns of Satan? I would have felt less contempt if she had told me she thought Dumbya was the best President we had ever had. At least then I would be able to look her in the face for having an opinion. But how can you defend this? You just can't.

At least I finally know who the person was that bought the one copy that was sold. You know, just in case it comes up in Final Jeopardy or something.

FGLB

New posting

2006-09-25T17:25:00.000-07:00

My first feature article is up over at Groovy Green.

Check it out here.

FGLB

Plant update

2006-09-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

Well it looks like they survived the frost last night. I was up this morning to take off the towels and the towels were crunchy with the frost, but I was hoping that the plants would come back with the sunny day we were going to have. They appear to have pulled through. At least most of them.

I'm heading out of town tomorrow for the next few days so you won't hear much from me until the middle part of next week. I'm sure you will enjoy the chance to catch your breath after the crazy amount of postings I've been doing for the summer. I've been so busy I haven't been riding my bike much but I'm hoping that things will slow down soon. I am closing on the delayed sale of an investment property on Friday so my workload should be reduced after work and that should help too.

If I could just get the sun to stay out longer I would be able to do something outside. By the time I eat supper now it's almost setting and I can't get anything done out there. Grrrr.

FGLB

Frost warning

2006-09-19T17:55:00.000-07:00

I went out to cover up the peppers and tomatoes because it's going to get cold soon....

I had to use towels because I don't have any old sheets. This winter I'll sick my bargin hunter (aka mother in law) on it so I'll be ready next year.

I started digging through the pepper plants pulling off peppers, just in case they were ruined, and look what I found. An actual red one!

One of the peppers on my plants actually made it all the way to the red stage!!!!

Holy freaking cow.

It was buried inside the plants. You couldn't see it from the outside, but I found it, and seeing one that actually made it to be red affirms for me that my peppers were a success. I'll plant them again next year, just not 6 plants. 2 should be plenty.

Ethan looks kinda surprised that it's red. Yeah, me too.

FGLB

Book Reviews

2006-09-18T11:22:00.001-07:00

I recently finished reading a few books that I thought I would mention and share a few thoughts on them.

Preserving the Harvest
I’m not even going to attempt to describe this book, I wouldn’t do it justice. Just know that if you have any interest in preserving garden goodies from the summer to eat in the winter you need to own this book. It’s going on my Christmas List so I can use it for the next 50 years.

Cutting into the meat packing line
This was an interesting sociological experiment written about a writer’s experiences when she became employed at a meat packing plant near her home to gather experience for this book. The focus on this book is Iowa centric as the writer is an Iowan who lives in Iowa and worked at a plant in Iowa. It was an interesting read as she gave history about how meat packing plants came to be, how they ended up like they are and she revealed a lot of information about how they treat their employees. She worked there for 4 months and she was one of the last few who remained in her job from her orientation group when she quit. It was sad to read how the companies treat their employees and how they abuse any system they can to make a few extra bucks. If you read this book don’t expect any big revelations about how they handle their product, because there weren’t any, but you can expect some revelations about how these companies run their businesses.

Better Off
This was a great book. I really enjoyed it. It was one of those books that I had a hard time putting down. The basic premise is that an MIT graduate student studying engineering moves to an Amish like community with his wife to experience and understand how life works without all the technologies we take for granted. He also has a goal of learning how to live a life that is low tech, so to speak. It was really just a great book to read about his thoughts on how the technology that is making our lives better is actually making them harder. He compares his previous life to his life on the farm and how he and his wife both thought they had more time now than they had before. He explores how time in the Amish like groups isn’t so rigidly divided as we consider our time now, and his experience helps him redefine what is and isn’t critical in his life, as far as technology goes. I had hoped the book would have more information about his experiences and learning steps as he learned the older methods. Even the mundane details of our lives where we are hungry and we open the fridge to get something to eat are a lot different in this world where a ready supply of food isn’t sitting around. And how do you deal with leftovers or when you have an abundance of items? He addresses those things a little but leaves them short as well. Overall I think it was a interesting read but it fell short for me from what I was hoping he would talk about, and that is how do you live in a world like that with no refrigeration or easily tapped energy source to do things when you need them done?

FGLB

Local summer meal--the last one :-(

2006-09-16T17:57:00.000-07:00

Well, my meal this week looks oddly like the meal last week.

We had mashed potatoes, carrots, broccoli and round steak.

Round steak isn't something that I ever really cooked before we purchased this quarter of a cow and I'm having a hard time learning how to cook with it. It's a tough cut so it likes to be cooked slow. The crock pot is all that I've found so far that makes it turn out good. I'm open to ideas if you want to submit them.

I made homemade biscuits to go with our meal. I have never made them from scratch before. The closest I've come is a Bisquick box. But I used whole grain organic flour and kneading the dough and everything. I think I kneading it too much as they turned out like hockey pucks, but you could slather a real hockey puck with rhubarb/strawberry preserves and I would wolf it down. As a biscuit they were edible. As a preserve delivery device they worked great. And the leftovers will be great tomorrow as biscuits and gravy after the gravy soaks into them and softens them up. MMMMM

This is the last local meal of the contest so you won't see pics of the meals up anymore. Well, maybe you will once in a while, but not every week. Thanks for putting this together Liz. It was fun and I am definately not going back to the way things were.

FGLB

Apple Orchard visit

2006-09-15T11:36:00.000-07:00

We visited an apple orchard last night. We had to hustle so we weren’t able to take any pictures, but it was great! My wife and kids had gone before with some of her girlfriends, but this was my first time. I wanted to share my thoughts about it.

1.) Buying apples at an orchard is not more expensive than the store.
I had always thought this to be the case, but in reality this place was less expensive per pound than the big grocery store chain around here. Granted you have to pick them yourself but that’s more fun than choosing between 5 kinds at the store that are from Washington or New Zealand anyway. (They had them picked too if you didn’t want to do the work) I’ve been buying them at the farmers markets, but going into the orchard is a lot more fun. And they have free samples. I think I ate 3 or 4 whole apples sampling different flavors. The Song of September flavor was our favorite. If you were willing to buy them off the ground (and I was but we didn’t have enough hands to carry all the necessary buckets) you can get them for just under half what they cost from the tree. Now that’s a good deal!

2.) Kids will surprise you.
My wife said the first time out there the kids whined a lot about all the walking, but this time (I think it was a shorter amount of time though) they had a good time running around the trees and picking the apples. Until the baskets got too heavy they carried them and they took great pleasure in closely inspecting all the smushed apples and looking at the sweat bees. And they ate plenty of apples. It was honestly one of the more enjoyable experiences that I remember having with the boys. Give it a try with your kids. They may not think it is that cool at first but you can make it cool for them, well, unless they are teenagers and then you are just out of luck. You’ll never be cool to them.

3.) Sometimes strange things happen
When we were walking out to leave we were leaving one section of trees and crossing a bridge over a creek. We stopped to watch the water as boys like to do and I had noticed a guy walking around out there without a basket and eating an apple. He walked by the bridge so I waved to him. He waved back and came over. He turned out to be part of the family that owned the orchard. He was doing his final walk through inspection and he spent a ton of time standing there talking to us. We talked about apples for storage (Gala and Honeycrisp and to buy them now at their freshest and they will last 10-12 months in the fridge) and our favorite (Song of September, his too) and how he liked working with the trees. He said he spent a lot of time walking around the orchard looking at the trees, determining what’s ripe and eating apples to “try them” (he eats up to 20-30 a day. I feel bad enough with the 6-8 I had yesterday). It was great talking to the person responsible for growing the trees you were eating apples from and he showed such great pride in them. You know what else was great? He walked the orchard instead of riding a 4 wheeler around (it was so quiet and tranquil) and he readily plucked apples from the trees and ate them while he was walking. It shows me that he is concerned about what is put on the trees and he must be comfortable with what is put on them or he wouldn’t just pick them and eat them. We learned a lot about his orchard and apples in general just from a 5 minute walk back to the office area. Neat experience. They even use soy bio-diesel in all their farm equipment and the house that his parents live in above the office is a passive solar designed house. Good to be around people with similar ideals.

4.) Cars can’t ruin every experience
Even in the middle of the orchard there were people who chose to drive around the orchard to pick their apples. This disturbs me. Have we gotten this lazy in America that we can’t even walk around an orchard? You drive up to the tree, get out, pick a few apples and then get back in the car? I did see one family that had two little babies in car seats, and I’ll give them a pass because that would be hard, but the rest should be ashamed of their behavior. I can’t believe the orchard people even let people drive back there, but of course they don’t want to turn away customers. But even cars back there couldn’t ruin the experience. Of all the places I expected to have to deal with cars the middle of an orchard is pretty far down the list.

Have you thought about going to a local orchard? Check out your local paper for classified ads about orchards; usually in the “good things to eat” section or they may run a special ad in the paper. It’s the perfect time as the weather starts to cool down again. I know we are going back at least one more time.

FGLB

Investing Summary

2006-09-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

To read parts 1, 2 and 3 of my investing series click on the respective number.

At the end of the part 3 I mentioned that I was going to follow up the first 3 posts with a follow up summary post to detail what I see the future like and what my personal plans for the future are. After completing those three brain dumps onto you all I think I’ve formulated a decent (or descent, to play on a common Peak Oil term. HA!) strategy for the future.

Objective #1
My first objective is to pay down our family’s debt as rapidly as possible. I’ve already taken the first steps in this direction by selling my entire real estate portfolio, save for one. I have lowered our 401K contributions to the minimum percent necessary to receive the maximized company match and the excess funds will be directed toward debt repayment. I have a debt waterfall structure in place to allow us to focus on the debt most easily paid off first, than it will go in order of highest interest rate until they are paid in full. I imagine this will take a number of years unless I get lucky and win the lottery or something. (Hey, I play occasionally, “You can’t win if you don’t play!”)

Objective #2
Increase immediate savings to the point that we have 6-12 months of immediate living expenses saved. This is a lower priority than debt repayment because the interest earned is less than the interest paid on the debt. I’ll need to ensure that this savings is in a reputable bank that I have a good comfort level will still be operating in the long term. I’ll set these up in a laddered system of 6 month CDs so that each month a CD will expire and can be reinvested at the current interest rates. This will allow me to take advantage of interest rates as they rise. It also ensures that once each month my cash becomes available if I did need quick access to it.

Objective #3
When I’m making a decision about investment positions to hold or purchase the importance of Peak Oil will be prevalent in my decision. I’m going to allocate a larger percentage of our portfolio to international stocks and international mutual funds (401K included) than is normally recommended by most “experts”. I’m also going to maintain our domestic positions in companies with large international exposure. That means mostly large cap stocks will be our domestic holdings. I’m also going to start exploring some emerging market funds for opportunities.

Additionally, some recent information I have gathered has helped me realize that nuclear power and solar power might be able to hold their own in the period just after peak while energy is still readily available, only more expensive than it is now. I’m going to explore utility companies with a large amount of nuclear generation capabilities and also start to delve into solar companies for investment opportunities. My plan is to focus on solar companies that make solar products that are smart products and have more potential for mass productions. Examples of these would be solar ovens and solar water heaters over solar panels, because of the cost to benefit differential for the average consumer.

Objective #4
If I’m so convinced that upon Peak Oil the market will decline than I should just short the market. This is easy to do by purchasing some ETFs and selling them short. (When you short sell something in the market you are betting it will decline rather than “going long” and betting it will rise over time) There are a couple problems with shorting stocks though; 1) If it continues to rise you may have a call by your brokerage to add cash to your account and 2.) We keep our portfolios in Roth IRAs which I’ve been told can’t be used to short sell stocks. On the other hand, some places say that it can be used that way.

I’m going to need to think more about how best to handle the drop I forsee so we can maintain our asset positions without us losing a corresponding amount of worth.

To summarize:

Maintain asset positions in companies with substantial international operations and in internationally focused mutual funds.
Increase cash position to 6-12 months of expenses and then ladder CDs of 6 month terms to increase yields on cash and have cash available.
Apply excess cash to debt repayment to facilitate the removal of monthly obligations and to lower future cash flow needs. Pay back debt in a waterfall scheme starting with the debt with the most easily paid off balance and then proceeding down in order of interest rate.
Determine effective strategies for capturing returns when market descends after Peak Oil is a proven fact. These strategies could be short selling stocks, ETFs or buying puts, or something else I dream up.

I hope this series helped. It might not have been the best investment advice the world has ever seen, but I do hope that it made you think about the future and how something like Peak Oil can affect your current situation in ways you may not have imagined. I hope that you took at least something away from this as you make decisions for the future.

FGLB

The stronger species

2006-09-14T13:27:00.000-07:00

“I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. That's what kind of man I am. You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science.”
(Don’t know the movie? Click here.)

It’s official, men are smarter than women.

It’s true. Click here for the story.

Everything on the internet is true so it has to be true. Right?

Even if it is true (and really how much is 4 IQ points anyway?) I’m not so sure that men really are smarter than women.
Example 1) White House
Example 2) Congress.
And men seem to have a general lack of common sense when compared to women, myself included. I’m just saying…

But, I guess it’s a proven fact now that men are technically smarter than women.

FGLB

Train ad

2006-09-14T08:05:00.000-07:00

You remember in my post a while back that I stated that trains can pull more freight for their fuel load than trucks?

Well in my recent Fortune magazine there was an ad from Norfolk Southern railway that stated that their engines get 410 MPG. Now this caught my attention, so I read the ad. (I have tried all over the place to find the ad or get it scanned onto here but haven’t been able to make it work) Basically they are stating their trains can pull one ton of freight 410 miles on one gallon of diesel fuel. I’m curious what trucks can do.

I tried to find the mileage on trucks but it doesn’t seem they really put that information out there, so I’ll be very nice to semi trucks and say they get 10 mpg. That seems fair don’t you think?

How much weight can a truck carry? I really have no idea. Perhaps 5 tons on average? Maybe more? What constitutes a “heavy load”? Let’s just assume they haul 5 tons. Some probably carry less. I imagine a truck full of Fritos weighs very little while a truck load of cars or Pepsi’s would be very heavy.

But if a truck holds 5 tons and it gets 10 MPG then wouldn’t it be able to go 50 miles on one gallon of fuel if it only had 1 ton?

So, a train is 8 times more efficient per ton of freight in its use of diesel fuel.

Now, I know that this is a seriously simple exercise and there are plenty of variables here and we don’t even know how accurate the train company’s number is, but it still bears weight about showing how much more efficient trains are than trucks.

You know what else is cool about trains? They pay for their transportation needs as part of their business. Yeah trucks pay use taxes and tolls, etc, but that doesn’t come anywhere close to covering the cost of the roads they travel on. But trains bear the cost of their rail system completely. They might get some tax breaks here and there on it (and I bet trucks do too) but that is a huge difference to our society from trucks. One maintains its own system for its use and the other acts like a parasite on a system funded by tax dollars.

FGLB

Groovy Green

2006-09-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked to become a contributor at Groovy Green, a website about living a more green lifestyle. I'm pleased to be joining their group and I'm looking forward to contributing to the website. Make sure to check out the site frequently as it is undergoing some changes and will be bringing forward a lot of great diverse information.

My first posting is up at their site. It's a rehash of my green links post from here, but as a teaser, it does include some revealing information about me that you may not know...

FGLB

Review of the energy expo

2006-09-12T08:33:00.000-07:00

I showed up at the IRenew Energy Expo 2006 at around 8:45 or so. The main reason I came to this was to hear Steve Andrews speak about Peak Oil as the keynote speaker at 1:00 on Saturday, but there were some other workshops that interested me as well.

I attended 3 workshops that I’m going to just mention I attended them so I can save space for the 2 that held some merit. I attended Me and Mother Earth, Energy Efficient Strategies and Financing your RE investment.

I went to a solar hot water heating workshop next. This workshop at least mildly covered its intended topic. (I won’t address whether or not the speaker did a very good job of conducting the workshop) The speaker started with some discussion about how much money he had saved using solar hot water heating since 1977. It has been quite substantial and was enough to pay for his system 4 times over. He explained that he now has expanded his system so that he also heats up his domestic hot water for his hot water heating (a darn good idea) so that he barely uses any natural gas in the winter to heat his house or to heat up his water.
He then went on to explain how the solar water heater works and how it would be schematically laid out in a house. I thought this was great because while I had a picture in my mind I wasn’t sure if it was completely accurate or not. At this point our hour was up. I had a few problems with his presentation though.

He basically poo poo’d anyone doing anything other than a complete hot water system that relied on antifreeze to heat up water in a completely separate water heater from the main water heater. These are commonly referred to as “Drain down” systems. These systems range from $3,000 to $5,000. He wasn’t interested in Thermosyphic s ystems or batch systems, both of which are considerably cheaper and still pretty darn efficient. He didn’t think that they were good options as they were mostly warm weather choices. I figure, who cares? If they work most of the time and your cost invested it less than you can still get an acceptable payback. If you are trying this for the first time and just want to test it before you really sink a bunch of capital into it I think these options are perfectly acceptable. Besides, some people use these as their only systems and are quite pleased with them. Why is the most technological way always the preferred way in America? Well, that doesn’t work for me. I don’t just go along with what people tell me. I have to understand all the other options before I’ll make a decision about what other things to do. That kind of turned me off to this guy and I wasn’t sad when the workshop was over.

During lunch I walked around and looked at a few things. They had a lot of biodiesel exhibits set up, along with some information about other local places you can work with for your renewable energy needs. I was interested in the solar oven so I spent some time talk to the gentleman about that. I’ve spent a lot of time researching these ovens online so it was nice to see them up close and personal. Good use of technology to free people from the demands and expense of fossil fuel based cooking. I’ll probably get one of these someday.

The real reason I was there was for the key note speaker, Steve Andrews from ASPO-USA. Unfortunately they only gave him an hour to talk because he could have held the floor for at least 3 or 4 in my book. I’m just going to give a few highlights that I scribbled down from his speech.

He started off discussing Natural Gas and the peak in Natural Gas. He mentioned that it experienced its first peak in 1973 and its second peak in 2000 and has been declining since, even though there are 3X as many NG wells now as there were in 1973. He talked about how the government put out statistics in the early 90s about how NG production was going to steadily increase by about 15% from then to now, when in actuality it was decreased by 4%, even accounting for the run up to 2000 for the peak. (This is why all the utilities built NG plants. They had bad data from our own government.)

In the battle for our declining NG supplies the fertilizer companies have lost out and they’ve bad to shift production overseas to be closer to the supplies. Right now we have enough NG to feed our power plants and fuel our needs for home heating. As it continues to decline which one will start to be used less?

After that he talked about the new Jack 2 well that was found in the Gulf and how it would only supply America for 21 months if it really did have 15Billion barrels in it and they were able to extract every single ounce of it. If you have read any Peak Oil information you already knew this information. These new discoveries aren’t the answer folks.

After these two topics he spent his time discussing Peak Oil. He had a ton of great graphs; I wish I could have captured some for here.

Did you know that Exxon Mobile is the 11th largest oil company in the world? Yes, 11th. The Saudi company (nationalized) is the largest at 11.0 million barrels per day, followed by the Iranian Company at 6.0 million barrels per day. Exxon Mobile pumps 2.5 million barrels per day. Yes, Exxon Mobil is basically 25% as large as the Saudi company.

Can you figure out now why those people in the Middle East have so much money now?

He stated that the US uses 21 mmb of oil per day, 14 mmb of that in transportation and 9.5mmb of that makes gasoline.

The last chart he gave us that I wanted to share was his projections of where we will get our “oil” from in 2015. By this I mean all the means other than actually buying barrels of oil. So if you think some of these great technologies will be our savior, here are the hard numbers.

Efficiency increases: 1.5-3.0 mmb
Oil Sands: 1.0-2.0 mmb
Gas to liquids .5-.75 mmb
Ethanol <.5 mmb
Coal to liquids .2-.5 mmb
Biodiesel .1 mmb (maybe)
Plug in hybrids 0-.2 mmb
Oil from shale 0-.1 mmb
Hydrogen 0 mmb (yes, zero)
Mode shifting 1.0-3.0 mmb

So basically he assumes that we will be able to garner, at most, 4.1 mmb (mmb is million barrels per day) from our fabulous technology and we could garner at most 6 mmb if we choose smarter cars (efficiency gains) or changed our method of transportation (mode shifting—moving to bikes, mass transit, walking, etc).

It seems like the easiest answer is to be smarter with your transportation needs. Buy a car that makes sense and use it only when you really have to. If we started doing that we could cut our daily oil usage by over 60% (6.0 mmb/9.5 mmb). (Alert, serious math numbers coming up) On top of that, we currently produce 40% of our oil needs (8.4 mmb—21 mmb *.40) so if we were smarter with our transportation uses we would have excess oil resources of 4.9 mmb (8.4 – 3.5 (reduced fuel use)) for other uses so we would only need to import 2.1 mmb instead of our current amount of 13.1 mmb.

Now that’s smart thinking. What kind of impact would that have on the world and our economy? I’m glad you asked. At our current rate of consumption and with the current price for a barrel of oil we are sending $851 million (13.1 mmb * $65) per day out of our country to buy oil. If we reduced our daily need to 2.1 mmb of imported oil it would be $136.5 million. A difference of $714.5 million PER DAY!!!!! Over a year that amounts to $257,220 million ($714.5 million * 360) or $227 BILLION per year. If would be nice to have that kind of pocket change back for our schools or for companies and people to have here in the country instead of being used for who knows what around the world.

It’s time for us to put on our smart caps instead of our dunce caps people.

FGLB

Garden blues

2006-09-11T07:49:00.000-07:00

I've got a case of the garden blues.

I can't believe garden season is already over. I know some of you who have large gardens are probably excited and happy that things are winding down, but for some reason I'm not. I feel like I was just ramping up. I'm starting to learn more about things and I actually finally have things ready to pull up and eat. I actually kind of understand how things are working too. It's kind of sad that I have to stop soon and wait for the cold weather to go away and for the snow to melt before I can really even start thinking about the garden again. Combine that with a Monday and here I am.

I’m waiting for the spinach and arugala to come up for some tasty dishes. Those are great with eggs and I think I’ll freeze some up to add to soups this winter. I’ll be planting the garlic this week if it ever stops raining. I’ll keep harvesting whatever I can get off the plants but I’m not expecting a lot as the temperatures wind down.

If I can come up with the resources I’m hoping to double the size of the garden next summer. That will take a lot of work so we’ll see if I can get it all together or not. It’ll involve ripping out some existing plants and digging them up and building some new raised beds over the tops of those spots.

We had a busy weekend. I attended a renewable energy expo in nearby Solon, IA. I took copious amounts of notes and I’ll write those up shortly. I was both happy and disappointed with the expo, which I’ll discuss in more detail in my post.

We also put up even more food. What space I had in the freezer is now gone. I was only able to get 5 lbs of green beans, all my carrots, a dozen ears of corn and 9 zucchini fruits (is that the right term??) put up this weekend. I still have 3 lbs of green beans to do but I think we might just eat those this week. I hope more peas come in. When they were plentiful this spring we were eating them faster than I bought them so not very many were put away for the winter. I was also planning to do up some applesauce but time constraints kept me from even picking up enough apples. Perhaps this week I’ll get that done. I used the Food Saver this time around when I bagged them so they would stay fresh until they are needed in the late winter. It was nice to use it again since the first month I got it about 5 years ago. I hope the pears at the neighbors are ready soon. I definitely want to make up some pear sauce for this winter.

In other news, my most recent Adventure Cycling magazine has a review of the Surly Long Haul trucker touring rig. I’ve been salivating over this bike for the better part of 2 years. They gave it a glowing review as a touring or all around bike. I expected as much from what I had heard from people who had them. Perhaps someday I’ll get one.

FGLB

Local meal week 11

2006-09-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

I neglected to capture a photo before we ate it all so you'll have to make do with a description and use your imaginations. We were in a hurry last night because we had tickets to the circus and I knew I didn't want to fool with cooking something as we were trying to get out the door with two little boys, so I used the crockpot.

(By the way, the circus was a little disappointing. It was far from the greatest show on earth. I guess they have multiple circus shows and we got the minor league team. It’s still a nice family experience, but not what we were expecting when we entered the arena. We were going to buy the boys some popcorn or cotton candy as a treat, but the prices made me long for a movie theater. $10 for a box of popcorn? Um, excuse me? How about you just take my first born? Here, just take him.)

The local meal this week was:
Roast beef (55 miles)
Potatoes (0 miles, given to me by a friend)
Carrots (0 miles)
Cucumber (0 miles)

Non local ingredients were some salt and pepper and some seasoning salt sprinkled on the cucumber.

FGLB

Friday's links

2006-09-08T07:08:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start compiling links that I think everyone might be interested in and posting them on Friday's so you can have some extended reading over the weekend. Enjoy!

Here is a story about a fuel cell powered bike light. Seems pretty cool. I wonder how you get the hydrogen though. It’s not like that is being sold down at 7-11 next to the Mountain Dew.

This is kind of cool way to grow herbs for use year round. Anyone have any ideas on how to save a basil plant and overwinter it? I have a fantastic basil plant in my garden that I would love to keep going all winter. Is it as easy as just repotting it and putting it in a sunny place inside? Seems too easy…

On the same topic, I need to preserve some of the basil and I'm not really interested in making pesto. Anyone have any other ideas, other than drying?

Organic milk is more healthy than other milk. In other news, the world is round.

Here is an entry about eating locally. Follow the links for some info about a farmer putting up a greenhouse and other Treehugger stories.

A Toyota Motor Company subsidiary has developed a green roof system. Looks pretty darn cool. Also, some American groups that have them are Green Grid Roofs and ELT Green Roofs. The attic space in our house in unbearable in the summer because even with insulation the heat comes through and it is stifling. Maybe having a green roof would help that…

The blue Mega Mart is trying to get people to switch to compact fluorescent bulbs. I like the initiative but I’m not sure how they are going to get people to switch. Make sure to follow the link to the actual article which was a lot more detailed and was really, really good. Currently I see more emphasis at the hardware store for these bulbs than the last time I was in Wally World. Have you switched yet? You should have. Check with your utility company. Ours gave us a rebate back up to 50% of the cost of them. You need to switch, you’re just throwing money away otherwise. If you have money to burn let me know, I’ll give you my address.

New study by Edmunds says that Hybrids pay for themselves in less than 2 years. While the numbers work (statistics are what they are) they are assuming that people drive 15K miles a year. Hey!! If you want to save money drive less. It doesn’t matter if you have a fancy hybrid or not, you’ll save money. Break out that rusty bike for the short trips around your house.

After reading Garbageland and noting in my post the other day how much industry fills up our landfill this story about Subaru recycling and reusing items in its factory was kind of a nice read. Of course, they still make cars, but it’s a start.

I think this is a great idea. All that greywater going down my drain has been bugging me for a while…I’ll have to see if they sell it in America…what Uncle Sam doesn’t know won’t hurt them... right???

I’ve been mulling this idea over for a while. One of my projects this winter is to get something like this built and running for next spring. We have an electric water heater and pre-warming the water that enters it should greatly reduce our need to heat the water up. And I’ve got a perfect spot lined up in the backyard where the logistics of the pipe runs will be fairly easy. You’ll see the information here for sure.

Why work so hard to grow non-native plants when there are native plants that are easy to grow? Jerusalem Artichokes next year in the garden me thinks. They sound good. Easy to grow and taste good. I was going to grow sunflowers to attract beneficial insects but perhaps this one can take that place instead.

Will “green” fuels work?

Need a program to reduce your carbon output on the world? Follow the PHD diet.

FGLB

Investing update #2

2006-09-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

This is part 3 in the series. 1 and 2 are linked if you want to look over them.

Energy
What to discuss in this area is quite a mystery. Obviously the oil/natural gas groups can be discussed. As I've said before I can't morally invest my assets in these areas, but if you don't have a problem with that these areas will be good areas, at least until they aren't able to obtain the natural resources. If you believe in Peak Oil then you obviously have no trouble making the leap that oil at $150 or $200 a barrel is quite possible, and if that happens the profits these companies are seeing now will be a distant memory compared to the profits then. But you would also need to remember how quickly the usage of oil would slow down with oil at those prices. So they will sell less oil, but most likely for a higher margin. It would basically be the same thought process for the Natural Gas companies, of which the big oil companies are heavily involved as well. The only real difference is that Natural Gas is expected to peak about 5-10 years later according to all the information I've seen to date.

Coal would be another possibility, but I don't see how coal will be a bonanza for the future. I know that America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, but how easy will it be to attain? Today they use huge machines to mine it. All these machines run on oil. Will it still be economically viable to continue to mine coal when oil is twice as much per barrel? Or three times as much? I don't see how it can be. Coal is a little too cloudy for me right now. Perhaps this would be something worth being involved in for the next 20 years but each year that oil is more expensive I think coal becomes less profitable. Perhaps it won't since it will be the fuel that most likely will be fueling a large portion of the remaining electric infrastructure. Currently 30% of our electricity is generated by Natural Gas. As Natural Gas declines it will have to be replaced by something. My first thought would be coal. (I also think we'll see large increases in the cost of electricity and thus, more conservation of electricity by its consumers) Coal is extremely polluting both in its burning and it's mining. For me, coal isn't an option because of these factors.

The last option I see would be renewable energy sources. There is obviously a lot of buzz now about wind energy, solar power, biomass, wave energy capture, etc, but I see a lot of problems with these sources. They are great now when oil is inexpensive and it is relatively easy to manufacture and transport these items. But what happens when that is no longer the case? Will the generation of electricity be a higher priority than other types of manufacturing, and thus they would be eligible to whatever resources are mined? Building wind turbines or solar panels requires massive amounts of inputs. Copper, silicon, steel, aluminum, etc that will all be difficult to produce in an environment where it is hard to mine for the resources and expensive to expend the energy to manufacture them. In these kinds of environments how will these great energy generators be built in the first place? (Life after the oil crash discusses this fairly well.) and amount of energy needed to manufacture parts of our life that we take for granted now) I don't know what the answer is. I'm interested in investing in this arena, but I need to answer some more questions before I can safely walk down this path.

Financial Services
Financial Services is a tough industry to analyze too. On one hand the services offered by these companies are extremely important to society, but on the other hand these companies should experience serious discomfort Post Peak Oil. I'm just going to come out and say that companies like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other investment banks will suffer mightily after Peak Oil, and if they survive at all will be shells of their formers selves. The huge mega banks we have in place today will also suffer. Banks like US Bank, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup should all experience a lot of problems and will likely meet their demise. I can't imagine running businesses that size in an environment of depleted energy supplies. How do you do it? In reality I think all banks will suffer mightily. Massive defaults for all types of loans and incredibly high interest rates should force banks into the same problems they had in the late 70s when interest rates went sky high and they weren't able to adjust their rates of return quick enough. Economic activity will grind to a halt and this will seriously tap out most of these banks. Most of them are running with their capital structure in such a situation that they are loaning out $4, $5, $6 or more for every dollar they keep back in reserve. When the loan payments stop coming in they won't be able to meet the demands of their account holders and they will have cash flow problems.

Another problem they will have is the massive devaluation of their assets/collateral. Real estate especially is going to experience a rapid devaluation so even a loan that appears to be adequately valued today will appear not to be in 6 months, and 6 months after that it will be worth even less. Their asset bases will deplete rapidly as loans are defaulted and they are given back properties that are worth a fraction of what was expected just a short time before. And as business' go under their loans will be defaulted, and borrower's who owned real estate to lease to business will default and the cycle will continue until it reaches a point where the level of activity is sustainable. And don't forget about all the loans that banks make for real estate development. Those loans will be defaulted for the most part, and the banks will end up with massive amounts of real estate on their books.

Bonds and stocks will experience a similar fate. They are both valued on Wall Street and are valued thousands of times per day so their drop can be even more quick and frightening. Banks and insurance companies hold plenty of stocks and bonds in their portfolios. These will have a large impact on their asset bases. Not to mention all the revenue and profit that comes from trading in these markets that will vanish very quickly.

Long term I think financial services is a great place to be invested, but I wouldn't get involved until the Peak Oil aftermath is stabilized and you have a fairly clear picture of what the future holds. I see in our future a lot of smaller companies serving our needs on a more regional basis and companies that will be more in tuned to the needs of their respective local economy. You'll see a return to a world where we will have all local/regional banks supporting our local economies followed by local/regional insurance companies serving the areas.

I'm expecting massive defaults, bankruptcies and divestures in the financial services are Post Peak Oil. Because of these defaults I would recommend moving your cash out of the large mega banks and into lowly capitalized local/regional banks that are more conservative on the hope that when things teeter they won't fold and take your cash with you. Granted bank accounts are FDIC insured, but I'm not sure if the FDIC (or Uncle Sam) will have enough money to pay out all the claims I would expect them to have during this period.

Clothing
How do you determine what clothing would be deemed "necessary" by the masses after the time of Peak Oil? While I doubt it would be places like Abercrombie and Aeropostle, I also can't be completely certain that the clothing would consist of only Carhartts and Levis. (Which aren't publicly traded companies anyway.) It would seem that in a time of financial contraction clothing appearance and style would seem to be less important than what is expected today, but perhaps people will cling to their appearance as the last means of showing the world how things were in the past and flaunting their wealth? I'm not sure. Besides, clothing is not within my circle of competence as anyone who has seen me dressed can tell you. I'll take a pass on clothing as an option, personally, but if you are someone who understands clothing it might be a good option if you can figure out where the market would head.

Personal Goods
Personal Goods is something that I think holds quite a bit of merit. I think Personal Goods can be broken down into a myriad of different categories. One category would be personal care products. By this I mean razor blades, aspirin, shampoo, medicines, etc. While it's true that a lot of these objects can be made at home, a lot of them can not. Even when people are in dire financial straits it stands to reason, to me, that they would still take care of themselves. (Using personal care products seems like a little inconsequential way to brighten up your day in you are struggling with your lot in life too). Now there are issues, such as how to manufacture these products and transport them in a world of dwindling oil supplies, but the manufacturing was more localized in the past and it could be in the future. Because these products don't expire (for the most part) they can be transported using slower methods like horses or trains. Companies like P&G, Clorox, J&J, Church Dwight and Co (Arm and Hammer) could all stand to benefit as they manufacture common products that we all use in our everyday life. Granted, some of these products are frivolous and might disappear, but a lot of them will stick around for the foreseeable future. These companies also have the benefit of having significant overseas operations. While I think Peak Oil will be felt the world over I think the impacts in America will be the greatest and the impact to Europe will be much less because they have done a better job of being less dependent on oil. Although they are seeing more suburbanization lately. I would expect these companies to see a pretty large drop in revenues though to correspond with the drop in population we will most likely suffer, but I still think they will be a valuable part of our economy.

I also think there is a future in the changeover from our current mechanized world to a future of less mechanization. Stores like TSC (Tractor Supply Company), Farm and Fleet, Theisen's and others could potentially benefit from this changeover, provided they adapt quickly enough to our reduced need for motorized items and refill their stores with appropriate items. I also think we will see a resurgence in the localized hardware store of the past which will be better able and more suited to fill the needs of each individual town's demands. Currently it's easy for a Lowe's or a Home Depot to fill the needs of a lot of consumers, because we all have needs that are similar and easily grouped together for purchase. But going forward I would think we would see a branching of the consumer into a lot of different groups based on how able and willing they are to adapt to the changes in the world. Some people may need a nice straight forward type of hardware store and these big box retailers may fill that need. But I think a lot more consumers will be more interested in maintaining items they own then they are currently. I think advice will also have a lot more importance in the future. These things are the bread and butter of the local hardware store. Already I've stopped going to the big box retailers in favor of the local Ace because it's A) closer and B) full of people who know what they hell they're doing. It's smaller and as soon as I walk in the door someone asks what I need help with and directs me to that area of the store and answer my questions. That never happens at the blue or orange stores. Frankly, I think it's worth a few extra bucks for the information.

The unfortunate part of this whole thing is that local hardware stores aren't public companies for you to invest in. ACE or True Value would be good options as they are the providers for most of the local hardware stores that are left, but they aren't available. TSC is a public company. I don't think Orscheln's, Farm and Fleet and Theisen's are. Are there any other stores in this category that I'm not thinking of?

One area that I hadn't thought of before was newspapers. As energy costs rise I would expect to see the Internet disappear (sorry folks). The internet is a huge suck of electrical use, which should be prioritized to other areas, and people are going to be too busy working and trying to live to spend excess hours on the internet getting information. While this will be too bad for our communication and information needs (the internet is a great tool for this) shifting back to more localize information will help rebuild local communities. Part of this will be the resurgence of the local newspapers. I wouldn't expect that TV will hold such an important place in our society after Peak Oil either (not to mention the idea of how important would all of our sporting events be then?? Or video games?? Or cell phones?? How will all our young people survive??). Newspapers will take over this role as the information source for the majority of people in America. I would also expect that we will see a return to magazine/periodical/book reading as a means of entertainment and information gathering. Investment wise this will be a good thing after the initial fallout, but there will be some rejiggering of the newspaper business as right now it is massively consolidated. There should be an initiative underway to localize the operations to take advantage of the newspaper advantage on a local level. Of course, newspapers are energy intensive too so they could have problems in a world with less available energy.

As this post is long enough, I'm going to detail a 3rd post to summarize all this information into one easy to use page and give a basic outline of my personal plans on how to handle this approaching time period.

FGLB

Garden pics

2006-09-06T18:38:00.000-07:00

So, I'm heading into the backyard to mow the lawn when I figured I'd swing by the garden and pick a few things. I went away this weekend and while I was gone some cucumbers grew, not to mention a little broccoli (finally!! It only took all freaking summer!!) and of course some tomatoes. I finally have something other than tomatoes in the garden. It finally feels like a real garden. It's pretty exciting!

I started to dig around in the carrot patch. My carrots have been a little disappointing so far this summer. They have all been really small little things that were really hard to work with. I guess I just didn't give them enough time to grow, cuz they look fine now. Now that they are gone I have room to slide in the garlic.

Come on peppers, hold on a just a little longer. You can make it. You can get finished before the frost comes. I planted 6 pepper plants which I think was a few too many. Hey, it was the same price to buy 6 as buying 2, so I went for the value. Anybody need some peppers?

Do I have the most ugly spot of tomatoes ever? Chicken wire to keep out the rabbits and an old bed frame for the tomato plants to climb up. You won't find that on Martha Stewart!

Post Peak Oil transportation

2006-09-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

Nathan sent me a link that I wanted to share.

You remember from my investing update post where I wonder how transportation would work Post Peak Oil to ship goods around the country? Well, there are some people already thinking about that. Click here and here.

I'm feverishly working on my next investing post. I hope to have it completed sometime this week.

FGLB

A different perspective

2006-09-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

My wife rode her bike to work yesterday, and she had a few thoughts that I thought I would post for a new perspective, and because it's a biking blog and it needs a little biking. I have added my comment in italics.

Being FGLB's wife, I have had the first experience of what it feels like to be in his shoes. Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of riding my bike to work every day. Instead, I load the kids in the car, rush to the daycare, drop the kids off and then rush to work. Never enjoying the smell of fresh air or feeling the wind on my face. (In my defense, I work late right now which will be changing next week and then we are already set to switch off on the bike riding.)

I hurry to work like most Americans. I get out of my car, go to my office and sit on my hinny all day. I am conscious of my sedimentary lifestyle so I take my allotted 15 minute breaks and walk around the area. My office is set amongst other businesses, but also residential areas. Until today, I did not realize how BORING walking is.
I only live a mile from work, so I never get the true feeling of what it is like to really ride your bike. And when we go with the kids, I am busy making sure that they are safe and having fun. (Funny, I don't worry about that...) But today. Today was different. I decided for my allotted 15 minute break I was going to ride my bike to the local pharmacy and pick up a prescription. So, I get on my bike and I am off. Zoom, zoom.

I never realized how much time you have to think about things and really think about yourself. As I am being passed by cars, I think about what must have been like years ago. Before the invention of cars, before factories with smoke producing chimneys, before anything that polluted the precious air we breathe. I bet breathing that air was a completely different feeling than that of today. Clean air. Air that makes your lungs breathe deeply. The kind of air that my lungs and the generation's after me will never know.

Then my thoughts move on. I think about all the other pathetic stressed out people like me that go to jobs and sit all day behind a computer and go home to take care of loved ones and do nothing for themselves. We are stuck in this mundane schedule that we call life. When you are on the bike, the stresses of the world seem to slip away and it is just you, the wind and the road. Your heart is pumping, your blood is flowing and the stress just lifts from your body. You feel ALIVE!!!!

Then I come to a stoplight. My thoughts are concentrated on crossing the busy intersection without looking like a squashed bug on a car windshield. (Who hasn't felt like that before??)
Cross the road I do, and ironically go through the drive thru at the pharmacy. I get my meds and am headed back to work. (I guess they don't have a problem with people riding bikes through the drive through.)

Thoughts linger back to how much happier we would be if we could all just get away for 15 minutes to ride, feel the blood moving, wake up with the wind on our face and breathe the fresh (or not so fresh) air. Cars race by me like they are in this huge hurry. "Take a second for yourself and get on a bike" is what I am telling myself. Rid yourself of all your worries and get out there and LIVE!!!! Thoughts of FGLB blog come in my mind and I realize now, finally, I know what it is like to RIDE!!!!

(Me thinks it will be less difficult to get an OK nod when I want a bike related item now...)

FGLB and FGLB's wife.

Now that's local!!

2006-08-31T18:24:00.000-07:00

Pictures of the apple and pear trees in my neighbor's backyard. They've agreed to let me have what I want from them.

To repay them I pick up all the ones that have fallen on the ground and aren't edible so they won't fall when they are walking around the yard. They're elderly and they don't have any business being out there doing that kind of stuff.

So far it's great! I've made two batches of applesauce/pear sauce and the trees have hardly had any fruit ready yet.

My mother in law just brought me a Victorio strainer so I'm ready for some saucing action!

FGLB

Misc information share

2006-08-31T06:19:00.000-07:00

I have a few links that I wanted to share with anyone who wants to read them

Here are a couple of links about our dear President. Click here and here.
(Thanks for the links Donut Guy)

Contrary to your possible belief, I am not expressly anti-Bush in my leanings. I am anti-lying, anti-stupid decision, anti-strong arm tactics and anti-deception in politics. Unfortunately Bush uses all of those tactics in spades, and worst of all, he doesn't change his path or thoughts when presented with facts that his path is wrong. That's unconscionable in my book when you are supposed to be a leader.

It's unfortunate because during his original Presidential campaign I think he had a lot of good ideas. Somewhere along the way he got off track and hasn't been able to stop the train since. (Or hasn't cared to stop the train since)

This group is a left leaning group, but it's still a good comparison of then vs. now.

My only hope for the future is that we will end up with Congress and the White House controlled by different parties so that they will be locked in a stalemate and can't force things through like we have experienced for the past 6 years. Hopefully then things won't get worse.

Another link about Cuba and their food after their Peak Oil experience.

A link discussing a "Revolution" that I bet we all wish had never happened. And more here.
(Thanks for the links Ka-bar)

Enjoy!

FGLB

Investing update

2006-08-30T10:35:00.000-07:00

I thought I would update this story based on some recent revelations I had while riding my bike. (It always seems to work out that I do my best thinking when riding.) Thanks to all of you who commented on that posting by the way. I decided to break this down into a two part posting. If you aren't interested in reading all this I promise I won't be offended, it is quite long.

How do I invest my assets leading up to Peak Oil and it's aftermath, in the short term?
My general assumption is that after Peak Oil most of America's financial community will be on an overall downward trend. It may not always be down year after year, but overall the trend should lead to lesser financial returns. As Americans we have become accustom to nothing but growth in our financial markets.

Most of the decline we will experience will stem from the broad application of conservation of our remaining resources (I would hope) and less focus on continual expansion of everything around us. I would also expect that the world will experience a population decrease over time and this would lead to less need for these products, compared to now. This will obviously lead to less "growth" each year which could take on inflationary or deflationary trends, depending on how consumers and the Federal Reserve react to the situation. I think one way to be successful with this type of investing is to focus on what people must have to live, find companies that have operations around the world and focus on a strategy of conservation of your financial assets over continual growth of your assets..

I think if you break down what people will need to survive in a Post Peak Oil world it breaks down fairly simply. Food and Shelter. Additional minor pieces would be Transportation, Financial Services, Energy of some sort for heating and cooking, Personal Goods and Clothing.

Food
Shelter
Transportation
Financial Services
Energy
Personal Goods
Clothing

But even before we discuss investing for the future we should take care of some general housekeeping. Moving into a period of possibly unstable monetary policy by the government, potential for debt defaults by scores of individuals, companies and governments and a period of time that might just generally be unstable it is important to put your personal financial house in order, in my opinion. By this I mean, you need to own your house and have an extremely low level of debt. When you are thinking about how to plan for Peak Oil these two things should be your primary goals. Now I know, a mortgage is "good debt" (if you want to believe that I have some land in Florida I'll sell you) but the sooner you pay it off the sooner you will quit giving the interest to the bank and start making the interest yourself. The interest you pay and the tax savings from the interest will never equal out. On top of that, if things really get bad I would want to hold title to my house free and clear so that I'm not dependent on anyone else in any way and can be assured of having a place to live that couldn't be taken away from me very easily.

Having a low debt level is also important because you can't guarantee that you'll have a job through this period and the lower your monthly living needs are the more likely you are to make it through the rough period unscathed. Think about your life currently. Are you basically living to payoff the debt you've accumulated? The house, the car, the computer, the braces, etc. It's enough of a struggle now let alone if or when the future is uncertain. Especially if you may have a household income that is dramatically reduced. Something to think about.

Paying off your debt is living by the old theory of paying yourself first. Everytime you pay more principal you are shifting value into your positive asset column and removing it from your negative column. Most of the debt you have will be in the 6% or greater APR range. I think it would be difficult to generate a return higher than that (after tax) for the forseeable future. For every dollar you pay down you are generating a tax free 6% investment return. Which would be roughly 9% before taxes. After we hit Peak (if we haven't already) I think it will be hard to generate returns in excess of 9% due to the instability, high oil prices, interest rate swings and other general factors of a world without access to cheap oil.

Now that we have that out of the way let's talk about what sectors to put your assets in after you've done all these things.

Food and Shelter
These are the two most difficult of this group to become personally invested in. Obviously you have the choice to invest in yourself and attempt to raise more of your own food goods, which I imagine all of us will be doing, and really that is one of the best returns available even in today's markets. Today you could easily invest in Food and Shelter by picking any of the publicly traded grocery stores, or Wal-Mart/Target. And there are a plethora of public home builders to choose from. But as I think about what logically should happen in an environment of conservation and slower growth (or no growth) these don't seem like good choices.

It would seem that with reduced oil resources for Grocers to transport goods to their stores that the large retail stores we are accustom to should either contract/disappear, be divested or take on a decidly local flavor where they would almost be local stores selling local products but sending the profits back to corporate. It doesn't seem likely that these companies will change their method of operation to reflect the higher transportation costs so I would think that they would just close stores one at a time as they became less profitable each year. This is what Wall Street expects and most managers walk lockstep with how the Street expects them to act. This obviously leads to short term thinking, but could benefit local companies. The grocery void would be filled by local entrepeneurs who will bring back the local general type of stores and farmer's selling direct to consumers. I can also see that some local private grocers might be able to withstand this time period because they won't need to answer to Wall Street and can make the necessary changes to their stores to reflect the new world we will live in.

The home builders make their profits by continually building new houses on new land in the suburbs, or possible mixed use projects in the city. These don't seem like very good options just for the simple fact that I don't imagine that a lot of people will be buying new houses, and I would foresee interest rates being quite high which would make borrowing money quite expensive, for anyone. It would seem more likely that people would buy older houses in the city and remodel them if they needed housing. Unfortunately I don't know of any remodeling firms that are public that someone could get involved with. I am going to lay off home builders just because I can't see anything very clearly with their future.

Another aspect of shelter would be REITs. REITs are an asset class that could experience some serious discomfort during this period. REITs rely on financing to acquire properties, and to keep the properties they have. Financing will be difficult to obtain or expensive if you can obtain it. REITs also work because they lease either apartments or office/industrial buildings to individuals or companies. If the economy is in a downward trend and we are experiencing a population decrease I would expect that REITs will experience significant vacancies in their properties as time progresses. These vacancies will lead to lesser valuation of the properties (commericial real estate is valued based on the income it generates. Less renters = less income) which could lead to massive losses in their portfolios. I think this sector could possibly be a valuable addition to a portfolio once the situation stabilizes, but I'm unsure when this might be, but it also encompassess a lot of risk because it is really hit or miss on which companies, propeties and areas of the country will experience the most sudden downturn.

Transportation
This grouping could be broken down into automotive/trucking, trains, boats and planes. I'm going to skip automotive/trucking and planes because I don't see those being a potentially lucrative area and want to focus on other areas. If you think of how things were shipped in the pre-oil days it was by wagon, train or boat. Well, trains still exist today and are easy to get involved with. It stands to reason that trains could be converted back to running on coal (or even better, electification. Electrification is much more efficient than any other method of transportation. By the way, if I read this on your site let me know and I'll give you credit. I can't remember where I read this now.) and trains can be used for the majority of our transportation again. Actually, it would seem that this is something that really should happen and should have already happened. Trains can carry a large amount of goods per load vs. a truck which really carries the same amount of goods as one railway car. To me this smacks of an obvious situation where trains should return to our country's primary means of goods transportation, however, don't forget that we would be living in a time of decreased consumption so I wouldn't expect any growth. I would expect that it would mostly be a means of maintaining the funds you have put into this group. In order for trains to handle more cargo (and possibly passengers) the rail system will need to be upgraded and expanded.

Another method of transport that could be discussed is by boat. While I imagine there will be new companies started up over time that will use the waterways more to transport goods, we have done a very good job of damming up our rivers and these dams may limit the rivers that could be used for navigation. Additionally, the rivers now are much more channelized because of flood protection. I'm not sure how this would affect their ability to transport goods, but it might be something to think about. I'm not currently aware of any boating companies that specialize in transport of goods by river. If you spend any time on the Missouri or Mississippi rivers you will see plenty of barges moving around, but I can't figure out who owns them. Perhaps train companies? I don't know. Either way, this seems like something that will be worth keeping an eye on in the future as there could be potential to get in on the ground floor of some new businesses this way.

Stay tuned for part 2 where I will discuss Financial Services, Energy, Personal Goods and Clothing and hopefully wrap it all up.

FGLB

I hate it when...

2006-08-30T05:46:00.000-07:00

I ride to work and forget my towel.

Air drying after a shower is not much fun.

Grrr.

Aug 29
10 miles (commute)

Local meal week 10

2006-08-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

This week's local meal was fairly simple.

We enjoyed a grilled T-bone steak.

Fried potatoes with red onions, salt and pepper.

Sliced apples and pears.

All ingrediants local except olive oil, salt and pepper and the steak seasoning spice rub.
I decided to stop feeling bad about us eating so much beef (especially steak) because even when we eat it we eat way less than most people. This one T-bone was enough for the whole family and there was enough leftover for my lunch tomorrow. My impression of most Americans is that they would have eaten the whole thing themselves, or at least most of them would have. And besides, all the beef we eat is grass fed which is way healthy compared to a lot of meat products, even fish.

Want more info about eating grass fed products? Click here and search around the site, including info about providers near you.

FGLB

Book review

2006-08-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start doing book reviews of books of books I've read that I think have some general relevancy to the public. With the cold weather approaching I'll be able to pick up my reading so this is something you should see more often going forward, although it will taper off when the weather is nice outside.

I recently finished reading a book called Garbageland by Elizabeth Royte. I picked this book up to read after seeing it recommended on the Hen Waller website. I found it to be quite interesting. The author decides that she wants to track her garbage and see what kind of impact her family is having on the environment. This leads to her starting to monitor and weigh her family's trash (yes, really) and to her studying the future home of her trash. She visits landfills around her house, recycling centers and sewage treatment facilities. She begins composting her organic refuse, albeit not completely successfully, and she spends a lot of time talking to environmentalists about the impact our disposable lifestyle is having on the world around us. She spends some time riding with some NYC sanitation workers learning about trash and recycling habits of people, and she traveled to Berkeley to learn about their extremely successful sanitation program.

Two things from the book that really stuck with me
Only 2% of the trash generated today is municipal garbage, meaning garbage generated from residences. The rest is generated by industry and commercial groups. This is mind blowing to me. Think about how much trash is generated by households and it's only 2% of the trash generated each year? Wow. For us to reduce our trash generation as a country the key is to reduce trash generation for the 98%, not the 2% where we currently are trying to focus all our efforts.

Currently most types of plastic can only be recycled one time. Once. Then it has to be throw away. (I figured plastic could be recycled over and over.) In a perfect world plastic could be recycled over and over, but for that to happen you have to maintain the purity of each type of plastic to a certain integrity, which won't happen because too many people commingle their recycled materials. Makes me think about buying more products wrapped in cardboard (extremely easy to recycle and can be done many times) or glass which can be reused by me over and over. (Glass has no recycle value because it is cheaper to buy glass made from scratch than recycled glass in our current world, and according to this book, a lot of the glass we put in our recycle bins is just broken up and dumped in the trash at the recycling centers.)

I would recommend this book to everyone, but only if you have no interest in continuing the American consumerism lifestyle. Once you read this book and see how much trash people generate while maintaining their current lifestyles you will definitely feel differently about how you live. Especially those of you who live in areas that don't even recycle their trash at all, or even compost your organic materials.

Enjoy

FGLB

Market differences

2006-08-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

As I said yesterday I was down in KC this past weekend. I attended the Farmer's Market Saturday morning in Overland Park, KS, which is the town I use to live in when I live in KC. I thought I would discuss the differences as I saw them from Saturday.

The market in OP was in downtown OP and was really integrated into the area and part of an event. Not only were there produce vendors but also some people selling baked goods, honey and homemade pasta. The market here in CR is much more removed. It isn't downtown and it's basically just a building (especially for this purpose) that is full of people selling their products. There is no attempt at making it an event. It is mostly akin to just a normal store visit. (We do have a downtown market once a month this summer which was very similar to this one. Maybe it will happen more next year. It was more of an event.)

I noticed that the market in OP was selling produce from all over the country, not just locally produced produce. And in fact, because of the disgusting sprawl in KC even the locally produced items came from quite a long way a way. I did see some people selling things from their neighbor's farms too. In CR everything is required to be locally produced and must come from that person's farm. You can't sell your neighbor's produce (this rule seems rather harsh. Why have two people drive the same distance if one can?) and in my experience I've never seen any produce at the CR market from more than 50 miles away, let alone Colorado, Texas or Minnesota. I think this might have to do with differences in the soil to grow crops and also with the reduced sprawl around CR. (The whole state of IA has less people than just KC does)

I also noticed a difference in the size and appearance of the produce. All of the produce in CR is bigger, cheaper and from the few I tasted, more flavorful. I guess this might relate to the soil differences again? Or possibly the distance traveled by the produce to the market? I'm not sure. I was excited that they had a farmer's market there at all. They do a poor job (as does CR) of promoting the market though. I lived there for 4 years and heard nothing about it. I was more familiar with the market in downtown KC, which was about a 30 minute drive from our house in OP.

The last major difference I found between CR and OP was that at the market in OP there was no meat or eggs being sold. I did see some honey but it was mostly produce for sale. Perhaps there are some state laws in place that I'm not aware of but it's something to mention. I also thought the range of choices is larger in CR, but perhaps that is because of climate differences. It was noticeably hotter down there then up here.

Overall, I liked the festive event type atmosphere of the market in OP, but I liked the choices, prices and taste of the market in CR. If you really compare the reason you go to a farmer's market, which is to purchase food, the market in CR is a better market. It's just a lot less fun.

FGLB

Not just frowned upon

2006-08-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

I went to KC this weekend for some personal business and my car was acting up on the way. The temperature gauge was pegged past the H. I was slightly worried, but still drove it for the next 3 hours or so to get to KC and get it fixed. (It never did overheat and have steam come out of it) Hey, I had to get there.

When I first noticed the problem I figured that it might just need some radiator fluid. No biggie. I stopped a gas station and picked some up. But I encountered some problems.

Problem 1--The hood on the car is wedged shut from an accident that I was in last year (it was a bad year for me accident wise) and instead of fixing the car I replaced my water heater at my house and paid some other bills. Fair trade, but now it takes two people to open the hood because of the dents. Being the ingeniusly crafty person I am I found a Home Depot pencil in the car and shoved it in the hood to hold the tension tight as I pulled up the hood release. Hood popped. Problem solved. Didn't have to bother any of the bikers parked outside. Sweet.

Problem 2--Engine was very hot, thus I shouldn't open the radiator cap with my bare hands. I dug around in the car and found an old pair of baby jeans to use to turn the cap. (This is where the fun starts) I had always heard that you weren't supposed to remove the cap when the engine was hot, yadda yadda yadda. But I figured, what's the worst thing that can happen? I know it's hot and some steam will come out, so I'll just crank it and then turn away.

So I cranked it and the freaking cap shot into the air like Mount St. Helens had just blown it's cap again. I did wisely turn away, but I turned back to watch the shower of fluid spurting all over the engine bay. It was like a volcano erupting and like the Bellagio fountain going at the same time. It was quite cool. (I felt really bad about all the fluid all over the ground though, and I wasn't sure what to do with it. I told the workers inside but I think they did not care at all.) I thought all that would come out would be steam not actual spurts of the actual fluid.

So, I guess it's not just frowned upon to take the cap off like that, it's just kind of stupid. I did fill the car up and it didn't seem to help at all.

Problem 3--I took the car to a place by my friend's house and the shop must be run by some kind of crazy communist. He seemed to not have any concern that I was in town for one day, that my car was overheating and I needed to have it looked at and I wanted him to look it over. He said he would look at it and he didn't really seem to care to fix it (as the owner it would give him more profit so where is the entrepreneurship??) but I left it there with the understanding that he would look at it on Saturday and let me know what was up. Finally 90 minutes before the shop closes (not open on Sundays) I stop in and harass him and he was just starting to look it over. He finally determines that it's most likely some thermostat thing. 10 minutes later he orders the $10 part and starts fixing it. It didn't cause any problems on the way home so he was right. I couldn't believe this guy would bo so cavalier about it when he knew I was under a time contraint and I could easily have taken it to a different store that WAS open on Sundays so they could look it over. If he wasn't interested in looking at it he should have told me that on Friday when I called and asked him if he could look at it and I would have gone somewhere else.

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is, I'm just writing about it. Cars suck by the way.

FGLB

Local meal week 9

2006-08-25T04:36:00.000-07:00

This week we had a beef and vegetable stir fry. I followed a recipe that did not have anywhere near enough veggies. Next time I'll use about 3x as many veggies and about half as much meat.

Dessert was some local apples from an orchard trip my wife and kids made.

Non local ingredients.

Soy Sauce
Corn starch
Garlic powder (why didn't I use fresh garlic? I don't know. I just blindly followed the recipe.)

Local ingredients
Round steak, carrots, celery, onions, zucchini, apples.

FGLB

Compost

2006-08-24T08:47:00.000-07:00

Prior to my recent adventures in gardening I hadn't really given composting much thought in my life, and really, why would I have? I didn't like gardening or yardwork. (And still don't really, but I do like growing my own food. Why grow flowers when you can grow food?) I wanted to grow my food organically. This necessitates that I learn to compost. So I got busy reading about composting and what to do and how to do it. That was this past winter. The first thing I wanted to do was figure out how to start composting my kitchen scraps, even though it was the dead of winter. My research lead me to worm composting which is what I wanted to talk about today.

Basically, worm composting is using red worms to compost materials. (click link for a Wikipedia definition) It is most commonly used in areas where a compost bin can't be placed or to compost small amounts of materials. I was using it to compost my kitchen scraps because I figured that a normal compost pile wouldn't really be active in the winter around here. (Apparently compost piles are still active in the winter but they need to be built up before winter then so they can generate their own heat through the winter) Anyway, I used an online guide to build my own worm bin and populated it with some worms I bought from a local vermicomposting place.

The results have been really fantastic. Just recently I dumped the contents of the bin and the worms into the big compost pile to give them more food to eat and so that I only have to take scraps outside instead of maintaining two places. These worms went through a lot of material and they made a lot of good hummus (worm poo) which is actually twice as strong as compost, from what I read. When winter comes I'll transfer some worms I catch back into my bin and put it back in my basement for them to eat away at my scraps through the winter. Then in the spring they go back in the pile. And we repeat the cycle over and over. It's a great way to start composting on a small scale. Kids love it. My boys loved to "feed" the worms. You should give it a try.

If you are already buying compost to use you can at least start doing this and start saving yourself some cash. The biggest complaint I hear is that people don't like the way the piles look. Well, if that's the case get yourself a premanufactured compost bin. Yeah they are expensive but in the long run you'll save money over buying compost all the time.

And if you do buy compost at least find a nursery or greenhouse locally that you can cut down on the plastic packaging and support a local business. Why buy the stuff from a plastic bag from the National Home Center? So many places locally make it too and it's great stuff with a lot of diverse inputs. That's what I use in my garden and I've noticed it works better than the other stuff.

Check out this link if you want to read some real information about composting and see links to other resources.
Composting Link on Groovy Green

FGLB

Consciousness of thoughts

2006-08-23T13:24:00.000-07:00

As I've gotten more and more into Peak Oil, living sustainably, cycling, eating local and other types of associated activities I've gotten more and more contemptful (is that a word??) of how other people around me are living.

When I see people buying all their produce at the Mega-Mart when the farmer's markets here are loaded with goodies it makes me sick. Not only veggies and fruit, but eggs, pork, chicken and beef are all available there too.

When I walk down the parking lot at work and can count the economical cars being driven (let's just say over 30MPG, hwy) on one hand I feel even more sick.

When people tell me that they don't have time to go to farmer's markets or it's just too hard to go there and shop, it makes me sick. Even worse when they tell me they don't want to buy from the market because they don't know where the stuff comes from. Huh? Do they actually think the store owns the farms that it gets it's produce from?

When I see people driving their cars to work when they live less than a mile away I almost throw up on their shoes.

When I hear people raving about the good deal they got when they bought a plasma TV on sale for $3500 I want to shake them from their stupor and ask them what they are doing with their life. (It was no payments no interest for a whole year!!) Why are they not out living it? Why would would they rather be spoon-fed these fake dreams over the cable lines? You only get one life folks. What you do now matters because you don't get a second chance.

When I talk to people in other towns and they tell me that their farmer's markets don't restrict what is sold there so anyone who buys a box of produce from anywhere can pawn off their produce as local just by answering the questions a certain way, I feel even more sick.

I've got to figure out how to get a handle on my contemptfulness. It hasn't impacted my everyday life yet, but I wonder when or if it will. How long before I snap and just fly off the handle when someone says one of these asinine things?

All my readings lately seem to show that more and more is being made in the mainstream media about eating locally and sustainably (and also Peak Oil), but I can't be certain if the information is going mainstream or if I'm just hearing more about it because I'm immersing myself in it more. You know how it is. You aren't looking for something and you don't notice it, but as soon as you need it you start seeing relevant things all the time. I didn't notice how many bikes were sale at yard sales or just in front yards until I bought one that way and then I'm like "Wow, bikes are being sold all over the place!"

Gotta figure out how to handle it.

FGLB

Crunch!!

2006-08-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

I visited the crunch today (you might remember this post where I discussed the crunch) and I'm feeling great. My legs haven't felt this good for at least a year, possibly two.

I would definately recommend seeing one if you are having any strange problems that no one else can figure out what is wrong. And especially before you were to have surgery for something.

We walked up to the park last night so the boys could play on the play equipment. Child #1 wanted to ride his bike up there so I let him, on the sidewalk. (He's only 4, still a little too young for the street, even if I am there). I was surprised how much fun he was having riding his bike. Especially when we got to the park and he could rip around on it on the playground. Our driveway is only about 10 ft long so he doesn't get much room usually to stretch his legs out. He was really having a great time hammering down on the pedals.

Child #2 also wanted to ride his "bike" to the park. Unfortunately his bike is a big wheel, and he refuses to pedal it, so he makes do by Fred Flinstoning it around. Needless to say it took forever to get to the park. We were smart enough to bring the wagon for tired kids, which was good because Child #2 was really dragging on the way home, and finally had to park the bike and ride.

The first of many I'm sure.

Aug 21
10 miles (commute)

Aug 22
10 miles (commute)

FGLB

Born to be wild

2006-08-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday when I left work from the bike parking area of the buildings I noticed I had a free rider. There was a little grasshopper sitting on my brake hood. He (to ease the writing I'm making it a he although I DID NOT check) kind of sat there looking up at me while I was pedaling down the parking lot. I imagine he was wondering where this large yellow blob came from.

We were content to share our space together just riding along. Eventually he must have tired of getting the wind up his tailpipe because he turned around and was facing forward. He looked a lot like a dog with it's head out the window. His little antennae were plastered back to his head. I imagine he was humming a little Born to be Wild while we motored down the road.

"Get your motor running...get out on the highway...lookin' for adventure...and whatever comes my way..."

He was the Dennis Hopper to my Henry Fonda.

Eventually we ran into traffic and he must have tired of the slow pace of our ride. He flew away. I wished I could fly away at that moment too. Traffic sucks

"Yeah Darlin' go make it happen...Take the world in a love embrace...Fire all of your guns at once and explode into space..."

This morning as I was almost at work I came upon an accident. (for lack of a better term I used accident but it had to be someone's fault) It looked like one car turned in front of the other. I have no idea who was at fault as it was just two officers, me and a tow truck driver. But both car owners were gone, perhaps in an ambulance? The cars appeared to be completely totaled. Just flat out destroyed I can't imagine how they got that much damage in that area. It's a 35 MPH speed zone. I wouldn't have thought you would get that much damage from a crash at that speed.

As I was waiting for the light to change I was scanning the road for skid marks and didn't see any. Perhaps both parties were speeding and were otherwise occupied and weren't attentive enough to even hit the brakes before they collided? I don't know. I didn't see any news cameras or ambulance chasers so perhaps it wasn't that bad after all. Cars suck. Check that, inattentive people driving 4000 lb killing machines suck.

Strange 24 hour period. The joys of life and the vulgarities of life intersect in less than 24 hours and almost in the exact same spots.

FGLB

Mother knows best

2006-08-21T06:36:00.000-07:00

For the past 6 months I've been experiencing a lot of pain and stiffness in my right knee and ankle. All the Drs. I've been to see haven't been about to detect any problems, except a little arthritis in my knee. It's quite debilitating. When I wake up in the morning I hobble around like I don't even have an ankle. It's like my leg and foot are fused into one big unit. Not to mention the pain (I was eating 6 ibuprofen a day) and overall discomfort when doing anything physical. Even if I sat around for a while and then got up they would be locked up and didn't want to work.

But not anymore.

I went to see the Chiropractor, hereafter referred to as the crunch. I was skeptical because well, my experience with them hasn't been that great in the past. My mom has been going to them for 20 years and she never seems to get better. They just fix the problem for a while. I've been in the past and it's always a line of "I need to see you 4 times this week and 76 times next month and I'll take your first born as a down payment on the cost blah blah blah", which turns me off. I expect the problem to be fixed if I come to see you. I go to the Dr with a problem. She gives me a solution. Dentist, same thing. I expect that with the crunch. They haven't normally been like that.

But this one I found is a little different. He adjusted me and told me to come back when I was feeling poorly again. This is really the same thing as the other people, but I really have the power to determine how often I go in and it's determined by my body not by some generic formula he has in his mind to fix my problem. Not to mention, his adjustment fixed my problem.

Anyway, when he was examing me he mentioned that my right leg was 3/4 of an inch shorter than my left leg. (I'm like yadda yadda yadda. This is one of your hooks to get people to use your service. blah blah blah) But then he adjusted my right hip (my family has a history of bad right hips) and then when I was standing up I felt like I was going to fall over to my left. He explained that was because I was really leaning over to the right when I was standing "straight" (because of the height difference) and when he made my legs equal lengths my body took a few minutes to shift it's balance back to where it should be, so I felt disoriented. Not to mention as soon as he adjusted it I immediately felt pressure leave my whole right leg. It was the wierdest feeling. And my problem is mostly fixed. I still have some discomfort in the ankle but it is way, way less and the whole ankle feels a lot more fluid. I have thought it was strange that when I was riding my bike that my right leg had soooo much trouble pedaling the bike. I couldn't reach the pedal for the whole stroke and my foot was always on it's tip toe at the bottom of the stroke and jerking in a circle. The left was never like that. Now I know why. They weren't the same length. This morning on my ride in my right foot stayed firmly planted on the pedal the whole time. (He also recommended I start taking glucosomine sulfate to lubricate my joints and that might be helping too) Now I'm wondering what caused the hip problem. I wonder if it's my Costanza wallet...

Then he mentioned that my right shoulder was about an inch and quarter lower than the left one, showing compression on the right side of my body. This seemed to make sense to me too because whenever I sit I fall or lean over to the right side. I just figured that's the way it was. But he smashed on my back and ribs and my shoulders got more even and my ribs opened up and I could breathe better. I feel like I have more energy now and I can breathe deeper when I'm pedaling and sleeping, meaning less tiredness for me. I'm surprised how much of a difference it has made in just a few days.

I've been having migraines too and he adjusted my neck but I haven't noticed a difference there with the pressure in my head. So I don't think that was the cause of the migraines. But we'll see if that gets better over time.

I'm pumped that I'm feeling better after these fixes. I'm going back on Wednesday to have him check to make sure the hip stayed in place (I don't feel like it's moved) and we'll keep assessing it week by week. My only regret? I should have listened to my mom months ago when she told me go there. Kids, listen to your mothers.

FGLB

Short delivery

2006-08-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

It sure makes me feel good that the only truck my son's tomato was in before he ate it was the one he used to drive it up to his mouth

Local meal--week 8 (I think)

2006-08-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

My picture didn't turn out very well, but here is a pic of this week's meal. I had some 8-ball squash (or buttercup depending on who is telling you what they are) that my friend gave me that her father grew. And I knew of a recipe that stuffed a squash. So there it is.

The quick run down if you want to see the ingrediants:

1 pound local pork sausage
1/4 cup finely chopped celery (market)
1/4 cup chopped red onion (market)
2 eggs (market)
2 cups coarsely chopped cauliflower (market)
1/2 cup diced yellow squash (market)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan (not local)
1 tablespoon chopped parsley leaves (store, farm in Grinnel, IA)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh sage leaves (store, farm in Grinnel, IA)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves (store, farm in Grinnel, IA)
1 tablespoon minced garlic (market)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
After this was all mixed together I put it in the squash bowls and put it in the oven at 300 degrees for about 30 more minutes just to heat up and solidify the stuffing. (You cook the squash first) And it was done.

We also had some muskmelon.

Every ingrediant was local except the Parmesan Cheese, salt and pepper.

For future reference, the cauliflower wasn't cook and I wasn't sure I really liked it in there anyway. I think perhaps a little actual stuffing would make this go a long, long way. We also thought broccoli, carrots and zucchinni would be a good addition. You can tell the recipe was developed with ground turkey in mind because all those spices and the sausage were almost too much flavor. But it was darn tasty.

Enjoy!

FGLB

Peak Oil movies

2006-08-17T13:29:00.000-07:00

Trailer for end of suburbia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHr8OzaloLM

Also, in case you haven't heard, Cuba went through a sort of Peak Oil situation back in the early 90s when the Soviet Union wasn't able to subsidize their oil. There is a documentary that details that situation and how they dealt with that over the past 15 years or so. The link to that site is here.

http://www.communitysolution.org/cuba.html

I'm going to try to get my library to buy these documentaries but if that doesn't happen I might just buy them to see what they have to say. Either way, once I get my hands on them I'll get a review up here for you all to enjoy.

FGLB

Stunt biking video

2006-08-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

Video

What?

2006-08-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

Lunch time ride today. Only 5 miles, but it was crazy hilly. I had to walk twice. I'm not too proud to admit it. I'm not sure if I would have made it up those hills with low gears even. But before I walked I pushed myself to the limit I'm proud to say.

Aug 16
5 miles (lunchtime ride)

FGLB

Warning labels

2006-08-15T19:06:00.000-07:00

They should put warning labels on bikes.

CAUTION: Use of this product may produce shit eating grins and increase your bug consumption. Please exercise caution.

Bugs. Yum. I need to remember this. Ate two moths on the way home today. They taste like chicken.

Aug 15
10 miles (commute)

FGLB

Lots of helpers

2006-08-15T11:28:00.000-07:00

I've noticed a change in my normal group of contacts over the past few months. As I keep having small discussions with people and make small changes to my life moving it towards living sustainably they have, more or less, been dragged along with me and are also making these changes without thinking about it. And they are all helping me meet my needs to move towards that type of lifestyle.

My kids like to help in the garden (I don't know any boys who don't like to get dirty) and also to help "process" the food once it is procured. I think a lot of this has to do with them still being young, but I also hope it is something that they find somewhat enjoyable too. I know I do as it's fun to sit with them and shell peas and snap beans and talk with them about what they are thinking.

My wife has also started to help more. She is watching the boys a lot (she's always watched them more than I have), which is a tremendous help to allow me to do all these different things, but she is also helping me prepare the food more, and helping pick some things (I think the tomatoes being ready helped here) and she is taking an interest in eating more local and organic foods, without even realizing it, I think. She's also taking a bigger role in backing up my thoughts on what we should do as a family to move towards these future goals. It's great having a united front on this subject, and such a great partner for our future.

My friends have started to get in on it too. I have one friend who has been sharing with me the bounty from her father's garden. (I'm not sure how he feels about this but I appreciate it) I appreciate the potatoes and squash she has shared and also the great discussion with her about cooking different foods from what grows in a garden. I have another friend who has been great help setting up my compost pile.

My in-laws have been great sharing their truck with me so I can transport a lot of compost, and just this weekend they shared peaches fresh off their peach tree with us. (I've decided that canned peaches suck. Fresh peaches rule.) They are always ready with a bag of veggie scraps and such for my compost (they need to start their own though. Stop paying for it).

My parents have been a big help too. Answering questions about growing your own food, how to cook things we've grown, providing books and most importantly this weekend, how to locate the wheat moths we were invaded by (they were in the leftover corn we burn in our corn stove) have been a tremendous help.

Bloggers have been a great source of information too. Reading about their trials and tribulations, their recipes, their interactions and their information about growing food has helped me to become more aware of what is happening and how to prepare for it, and how to make a bigger impact on my life by growing my own food. Reading about other people who ride their bicycles for their basic transportation needs makes it more reassuring to make that step. Reading about other bloggers making changes to their lives has made it a lot easier to feel less alone in this journey.

I guess what I'm trying to say is thanks to everyone. I guess a community of helpers still operates in America today, it just looks a little different than it did 150 years ago.

FGLB

Financial link

2006-08-15T09:40:00.000-07:00

This is a great financial post about our country's financial house.

FGLB

KIDS!!!

2006-08-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

Kids can be so annoying and exhausting and stressful and time consuming. And then they smile at you, or tell you a funny joke and you forget about all of that.

Well, not the exhaustion.

Our oldest is the blond one here who built the building. It was his version of a skyscraper apartment building. It looks like a building that Dr. Seuss would have drawn.

This is a picture of our youngest one playing with his Thomas train. He's building a new set of tracks to drive it on. He loves to have his picture taken. The dog is supervising things back there in the back.

Group hug!

FGLB

Local meal--week 7

2006-08-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

This week's meal is:

Top Sirloin from our locally purchased cow quarter.

Steamed corn on the cob.

Grilled zucchinni (one of my new favs)

Canteloupe or Muscatine Melon (whatever you want to call it)

You probably all think we eat a lot of beef, but right now beef is the only local meat option I have. I don't have room in my freezer yet for any pork or chicken (although there are plenty available to buy which I buy for immediate use but haven't worked out for this challenge for the most part) because the beef, and what was already in the freezer, have filled it up. Not to mention all the vegetables that are going into it at a fast rate too. So rest assured that I know we need to not eat as much beef and we are working in it.

Our little one helped his mom shuck the corn. We teach 'em young how to handle corn here in Iowa. He's just over 2.

FGLB

RAGBRAI pic

2006-08-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

No comment is necessary.

LINK

FGLB

Investing for the future?

2006-08-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

Lately something has been plaguing me and I can't get it out of my mind.

How do I invest and plan for the future when all I see in the future is the turmoil caused by Peak Oil and our unsustainable lifestyle?

You see, I do all the financial planning for my little familia. I assist my parents with their 401K choices. I help my friends with their choices. I make all my own personal stock, bond and mutual funds choices too, not to mention checking, savings, cds, etc. I'm not in any way a licensed financial planner, but I have received plenty of college training on these subjects and they are of interest to me so I spend some time reading about them and keeping up on things during my little spare time.

Frankly, I think I stack up better than most "advisors" who are nothing more than trained sales people pushing stocks the company tells them to push. Which is why I never got into that field. I can't stomach doing that with people's hard earned money. I've seen how bad advice has big consequences to the individual but not the person giving the advice. Sorry about that...where were we...oh yeah. How do I continue to do that with all these big ideas swirling around in my head?

I don't know. It's hard to do. As oil gets more expensive all products will become more expensive. This leads to inflation, which is bad. But, will it force some companies to just shut down? Possibly. What happens as people start figuring out what is happening and they start staying home and quit eating out or buying so much food from a long way away or driving less or buying smaller homes? While I want those things to happen morally, financially I can't figure out how to plan for them or use these ideas to my advantage to maintain or grow my wealth for my future generations. Even if I'm not invested in those industries directly, my mutual funds probably are, and if things start to teeter than it would seem feasible that even companies with little direct impact from the changes would be affected, at least in the markets, as the country enters a pretty deep recession, or possibly even a depression. But the difference here is that it won't be temporary like the depression of the 30s. This will be a permanent change. Without cheap oil nothing will be as easy as it had been, which means less leisure time for people, less available disposable income for people, smaller markets for products and less overall financial wealth. (We will ignore personal/spiritual wealth for now) While there could be a boom as maufacturing is shifted back to America from other countries and it becomes more local the entire economy will be a fraction of what it currently is. How does someone plan for a future like that when so far all we've ever known is growth, growth, growth? How did people save money 100 years ago before so many people were invested in the market? Just by putting it in a savings account? This is something I'm struggling with all the time.

As I've continued to invest I have drawn some moral lines in the sand where I personally have forsaken potential profits because I morally disagree with what is going on in those businesses. I can't own a cigarette company or an oil company directly (I obviously don't control what my mutual funds purchase) because of my moral standards about those businesses. (This is in direct violation of my financial training but that's OK) This choice has caused me to pass up a lot of profits in the past, and probably a lot more in the future. But now there are a lot of companies running up against what I believe, even ones I own. I thought for fun I'd run through my portfolio and detail out every stock and the problem I have with it.

Sprint (S)--(Full disclosure, I use to work there and that's how I got most of the stock) While telecommunications is an essential part of our life's is it sustainable? On the surface I say yes, but the biggest part of their business is mobile phones which contribute to car accidents and encourage our wastefulness when we throw away a phone every 2-3 years, especially with all the manufacturing that went into everything revolving around phone calls with the components, shipping products all over the world and especially the batteries on phones.

Embarq (EQ)--This was spun off from Sprint recently. It is Sprint's old local phone division. I don't have much too say here. It seems to be relatively straightforward. Other than the use of resources wiring up the phone lines I can't see much to complain about here.

Entertainment Properties Trust (EPR)--This is a real estate trust that owns movie theaters that it than leases to movie companies. It would seem that this would contribute to our countries sprawl as they mostly are built in new shopping centers that keep being built on the outskirts of towns. Additionally, I'm concerned that as our world keeps changing we will have less available cash to attend movies so that could cause problems here.

Investors Real Estate Trust (IRET)--This is a real estate trust that owns apartment buildings and commercial buildings in the upper midwest. See EPR for concerns.

Lions Gate Films (LGF)--This is an independent movie producer that makes movies that are then sold or distributed by the large movie companies. I'm concerned about the resources they waste making movies and disposable cash in the future.

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B)--This company has tons of different companies under it's umbrella, but one of the largest is GEICO. What happens when or if people stop buying cars? How does that affect this company? There are also plenty of other companies here that are concerns to me but I could spend 50 pages talking about them all.

But even after my little piece of the world I'm running into companies like automotive companies, fast food companies, food conglomerates, construction companies, banks, manufacturers, real estate companies and defense companies that I'm having a hard time justifying, even if they are compelling values. How do I find suitable choices? I can't. That's my problem. Everywhere I turn it's waste, waste, waste. Even the company I work at now contributes to these concerns.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how to do all this and plan for the future. Anyone have any ideas?

Early morning grumpiness

2006-08-08T08:33:00.000-07:00

On the way to work this morning I had an interesting experience. All the more interesting as I had just read this post yesterday...

I was riding to work plugging along trying to catch my breath a little after climbing a hill, and I get passed by one of those guys with the shaved legs, aero bars, fancy road bike, the whole 9 yards, but he says nothing to me as he passes me. Not even an "on your left" or anything. I don't say anything because I don't usually talk unless I'm spoken too, and honestly, I was checking out his ride mostly as he went by. But after watching him fade away a little and thinking about Jim's post I decided to see if I could catch him and talk to him.

I was surprised, but it didn't take long. (I never really catch anyone who is riding) It's usually kids who just had their training wheels removed and old people on cruisers (and sometimes the old people pass me too) that I can catch and pass, but for some reason I was burning up the road catching this guy, and then the road went uphill...and I caught him even more quickly. I was really shocked about that. I didn't even stand up and he was standing on his pedals. (I noticed I was churning my legs about twice as fast as he was while going up the hill) At this point my messenger bag flopped over around my shoulder and fell between my legs. Now, I'm not accustom to a bag that big between my legs and when that happened I almost ate the pavement but I was able to get it under control and flip it back onto my back while cruising up to him.

When I finally caught him we hit a red light and I said to him "I haven't seen you out here before. Do you ride along here a lot?" (In retrospect, this seems a lot like a pickup line...) All I got back was a stare and he turned back around. So I kept on going. "I notice you have aero bars, are you training for a triathlon?" Still nothing. So at this point I decided to lose the Midwestern niceness. "Hey, (I think he's ignoring me at this point) I notice you have a pretty nice bike. It's kind of sad, don't you think, that I caught you on my $200 bike even though it only has one gear and I'm grossly overweight?" Pause. "Maybe you should be training a little harder." (serious riders hate to be challenged about their speed) At this point he is pulling away as the light is green, and he is moving quickly now. So I just amble down the road to work.

Good way to start the day.

8/8/06
10 miles
Commute

FGLB

Tri-athlete team

2006-08-07T19:41:00.000-07:00

This guy has a nice post about a tri-athlete father and son team.

Check it out.

FGLB

Back in the saddle again

2006-08-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

I'm back to commuting to work again. I've gotten over my laziness for now and climbed aboard the fixie to commute into work.

I really need to name her. Yes, she's a she. Maybe that's unmanly. I don't know. I do know that if she did have a name it would probably be Jessica because Jessica is the first name of 60% of the people that would be on my list, if I had a list. You know the list. The list of 5 people that a committed man or woman can sleep with with no repercussions because the person is the best the planet has to offer. That list.

I'm going to start riding again every day for the rest of the summer and then my wife and I will start switching off and on days so that some days she can ride and the other days I'll ride.

That's pretty nice.

Anyway, I'm going to add a quick feature to the entries sort of like Pete's (see bottom of his post) that detail the date and the length I rode that day. Pete will admit he stole it from Jill Up in Alaska originally, but it works so I'm going to do it too. On days I don't ride to work I'll probably ride over lunch (corporate bureaucracy mandates I take an hour lunch) so something will happen. And I don't have a bike computer so my distances are mostly estimates or something I got from Gmap.

August 7
18 miles (commuting and lunch miles)

FGLB

Oil fields are depleted?

2006-08-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

The Moral Equivalanet of War blog has some interesting things to say about Peak Oil. Check out his recent posts from Sat Aug 5 and Thursday Aug 3.

It would be interesting how fast our world would change if it became public knowledge that the Saudi fields were depleted.

I've often thought it was strange that the Saudi's keep saying they have excess capacity even when oil is around $70 a barrel. That's billions of dollars they are just letting sit out there if they really do have excess capacity. Doesn't seem right that anyone could pass up that kind of money.

FGLB

How to cook an overweight cyclist

2006-08-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

When you've decided that you want to cook your overweight cyclist the first thing you need to do is build a good base of low level exhaustion. You can do this by having your overweight cyclist play some softball, swim for a few hours, do yardwork for a few hours and play basketball in the days leading up to the day that you want to cook your cyclist. Also, make sure he gets up numerous times each night to assist with children having nightmares about bugs and smoke detectors and other nonsensical scary things.

Good, now that you have a nice base established let's get started.

1.) On the day you want to cook your cyclist have him get up early and ride his fixie to the market, load up his messenger bag with about 12 pounds of goodies, strap it on his back, and then pedal back home (uphill home you know, the market is along the river...he he...) to stock up the fridge.

2.) Allow your cyclist to rest for about 30 minutes.

3.) Then put your cyclist out in the sun for about 3-4 hours while he works on scrapping paint around windows at his apartment building. Then allow him to rest for about 30-60 minutes, but no sleeping. It is suggested that you add some food and water to him at this time to assist with the cooking process.

4.) At this point your cyclist might realize that he has free time in his afternoon and rather than taking a nap he'll load up and go to ride the mountain bike trails for 2 hours. It's important that you allow him to do this on his own so that he can contribute to his cooking and thus, will be more thoroughly cooked when completed, and you hopefully won't hear any complaining because it was his decision to ride in the afternoon.

5.) When your overweight cyclist gets home from riding his bike pick him up with a quick blast of cool water in the shower. And then take him outside to play baseball with his kids.

6.) At this point your cyclist should be pretty darn tender and very moist from the extreme amounts of water he'll be drinking. If further cooking is needed you can play cards with him for a couple of hours.

7.) Now your cyclist should be very well cooked. He should be like putty in your hands at this point. The best thing to do now is to place him in a car for 30 minutes so he can get some rest.

If you think you're cyclist needs more cooking prior to step 6 or 7 repeat steps 2, 3 or 4, but not all of them. You run the risk of seriously overcooking your cyclist and then he will be very bitter and crabby.

CAUTION: When your cyclist is completely cooked you run the risk that he will be prone to serious overeating when presented with food. You must monitor his food intake unless you want to deal with the aftereffects of the massive food intake. Side effects may be: lots of groaning, drowsiness, irritability and shortness of breath. Cyclist may also be prone to complaining when in this position and suffer from an enlarged stomach.

When your cyclist is completely cooked make sure to enjoy promptly as the leftovers the next day are not very pleasant.

FGLB

Local meal--week 6

2006-08-04T19:21:00.000-07:00

It was unbearably hot this week and I didn't feel like cooking so this is what we had.

Simple grilled zucchinni, squash and potatoes tossed with some salt, basil and olive oil.

Mashed potatoes (I have wwwwaaayyy too many taters), watermelon and canteloupe.

Simple, easy, local and not too hot in the kitchen.

FGLB

Fixie debut

2006-08-04T05:42:00.000-07:00

Got the fixie back last night and took it out for a little cruise. I thought I would share a couple of observations.

You don't know how much you coast until you have a fixed gear bike. When I was approaching the end of the driveway, approaching a stop sign, moving my hands on the handlebar, signaling a turn, slowing down, drinking water are all times I would normally coast but I can't anymore. I didn't really think I coasted that much. It's interesting having to relearn how to do these things while still pedaling and not make a spectacular show hitting the pavement.

I LOVE the simplicity of the bike and how quiet it is. I was churning away down the road last night and I couldn't hear anything but the wind in my ears. That is a really nice feeling, and it's totally intoxicating. Way better than hearing a noisy derallier (sp??).

The hills will be a little challenging but not as hard as I expected. I ended up with a 40-16 ratio on the bike and I think it was about right for my legs, terrain and total bike weight (including fatty). I haven't tried any really killer hills yet, and I expect I won't be able to climb some for quite a while, but for my commute I think I picked the right gears.

Braking with the pedals is much more difficult than I expected. Those pedals just do not want to stop. I'm glad I left both sets of brakes on. Right now it's easiest to use both brakes to slow down while I also lightly push back on the pedals. Hopefully I'll get better at this so I can use less braking but for now that's what works.

If you don't have one you should get one. It is like a totally new biking experience.

FGLB

Answer to zucchinni problem

2006-08-01T06:15:00.000-07:00

I've found an answer to my zucchinni problem. It appears to be squash borers. A Google search yields this kind of information.

It turns out these things are pretty darn hard to control. Mother Earth News has some hints about how to protect yourself.

What this all boils down to is that I most likely won't plant them again if they are this much work. Or at least I'll make sure to plant each single plant away from each other plant to make it harder for the borer to move around and get them all.

Good thing I wasn't relying on this garden to actually feed me. I haven't gotten much food out of it yet. :-)

FGLB

Evil has a new name...

2006-07-31T12:44:00.000-07:00

And it's name is caffeine. I decided to give up caffeine starting today, and my head is paying for it now. Man, that's a powerful little drug.

I'm doing this in a further attempt to remove processed foods (and drinks) from my diet. Even though I was drinking diet pop for my caffeine fix I think I'll feel better (after the initial tough few days) when I don't have a gnawing need to get my fix each morning. And besides, it will save me a ton of money. I don't drink coffee so that isn't something I have to worry about.

After I get past these first tough days I'll be fine. And then I'll just have to watch what I drink from now on. (And eat to a certain extent)

But it doesn't feel like a very good choice right now.

You better watch out candy, you're next.

FGLB

Do you use oil?

2006-07-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

If so, you need to check out this story.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-oilsafari2-htmlstory,0,3163462.special

FGLB

Blogs I've come across to share

2006-07-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

I came across this article on Cleverchip's website. Thought I would share it here also. Cleverchimp writes about biking and living sustainably if you are interested in another place to read that kind of stuff. I just recently stumbled onto his site.

As an add-on to the article, when our family moved up to Iowa we lived with my in-laws for 7-9 months and it wasn't nearly as bad as it has been portrayed in the media. We laid down some ground rules about the situation, the house was easily large enough for all 6 of us, (and all the crap my wife and I were moving) and it allowed me to move at my own pace when I was finding a job and a place for us to live. I think this is easily something that more families can do, but speaking from experience, each group of people need some personal space occassionally.

I'm not sure if I would feel differently if I knew that we would be living together forever. Hispanic families live this way in America, until they get too Americanized.

This blog is about energy dependence and Peak Oil, etc.
Moral Equivalent of War

FGLB

Interesting composter

2006-07-28T06:10:00.000-07:00

Check out this link.

http://www.rolypigusa.com/index.html

It's a home composter that's shaped like a pig. I bet my neighbors would appreciate something like this rather than my unsightly pile. Might be an interesting way to get your children interested in composting and helping in the garden.

FGLB

Zucchinni problem

2006-07-26T17:22:00.000-07:00

Remember when I said I was going to have a zucchinni problem? Well, based on these pictures I don't think I'm going to have a problem anymore. It appears that I will have one plant left because something has gotten ahold of them and they are all dying. My green bean plants are also getting eaten alive and are dying. Anyone know what the heck is going on here? I'm reading something about a disease brought on by aphids but I'm not sure that is what it is.

Green beans

Zucchinni plants wilted

FGLB

How easy is it to steal a bike?

2006-07-26T12:44:00.000-07:00

Check this out. (Link takes you to YouTube via Time)

Thanks to my buddy Tom for sending this my way.

FGLB

Food article

2006-07-26T07:27:00.000-07:00

I saw this article on Oil is for Sissies. Check it out. It's about all the oil that appears in our food that we don't even see or recognize.

I've read this book and it is top notch. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in our country's agriculture system.

(Thanks to Jim for the link)

FGLB

New ride

2006-07-25T14:18:00.000-07:00

I got a new ride folks. It's nothing special really, but should lead to some fun adventures.

I picked this up out of a gentlemen's front yard for $50. It works pretty well, although the shifting is a little clunky and the seat is not the best. It's been about 15 years since I rode a road bike so just getting use to the way it behaves compared to a mountain bike will take some work.

It appears to be a Schwinn World Traveler but I wouldn't mind having some second opinions. The frame fits well and most importantly, it's steel with some nice looking lugs. STEAL IS REAL!! It appears to be from the mid 80s, possibly 85-86. 10 speeds, 27 inch wheels, rides nice and cold air...oh wait...that's a used car...

Side note:
I am aware that this is most likely a women's bike, but I don't really care. I like having the low step through for when I'm loaded down for the commute to work and all bulked up with winter gear for winter commuting. I'm tired of hefting my meaty tree trunk legs over the top tube. Why should I be stuck with society's expectation of what kind of bike to ride? I say not me! I'll ride what's comfortable and what works for me. Besides, I'd just like to see one of those leg shaving carbon fiber punks make a comment to me. I weigh twice as much as they do!!

Anyway, it's a project bike. The plan is to make it a fixed gear bike (won't have to worry about shifting then!!!) and swap out the drops for some bullhorns. I'm starting slow and just getting it running as a fixie for now. Then I'll swap out the pedals and handlebars. Then it should be all set. I like the idea of taking something that was old and basically forgotten and making it useful again.

It doesn't have any braze-ons for water bottles (didn't people drink water while on the bike back then???). I dropped it at the bike shop and they are going to redish the back wheel, put in a 16T cog (start low, I'm using the existing front crank, it's a 40), remove the deraillers and extra cogs on the back, replace the chain and remove the shifting cables. Oh, and also true up the wheels. Even though a lot of true fixies think you can go without brakes because you can push back on the pedals to stop you (remember the skid marks you use to leave as a kid?? Oh yeah) I'm not that brave and we're leaving both brakes on for now. After I can ride pretty well I'll remove the back brake but I would never go totally without a brake. No way. I have too much to live for.

I'll let you know how it turns out. I can't wait to get it back. It's going to take forever to get it back and I am itching to get on it and give it a try.

FGLB

Eating local is so nice we did it twice.

2006-07-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

Pretty easy meal this week. We had some friends over to swim in our pool and this is what I made for dinner. (yes, I do all the cooking in our little household)

Marinated broiled Round Steak (from the 1/4 cow we bought)
Roasted red potatoes (farmer's market)
Zuchinni and Summer Squash (farmer's market)
Blackberries (farmer's market)

Round Steak marinade
1/2 veggie oil
1/2 apple cider vinegar (should have been red wine vinegar but didn't have any)
2 tbls steak sauce
1 clove garlic (market)
1/2 medium red onion (market)
1/2 tsp salt and pepper
I marinated it for 5 hours but longer would have been better. It had a ton of flavor but wasn't really that tender.

I wasn't all that pleased with the way it turned out broiled on my grill pan. I'll probably just use the grill pan on top of the stove from now on.

The red potatoes, zuchinni and squash were rolled in a flavor mix which I stole and modified from here. (This is the same spot I got the salsa recipe from. Put this in your favorites. She comes up with great recipes). Anyway, the potatoes were roasted almost completely and then rolled in the mix and put back in to finish up (probably about 20 minutes) and the zuchinni and squash mix was rolled and put in the oven at the same time. I've made this recipe before and it is great. The zuchinni and squash have tons of flavor.

Modified flavor mix
Some olive oil (I didn't measure it but you know how much you need)
Finely minced garlic-I used about 2 cloves (market)
Finely chopped fresh basil--I used about 10-12 leaves (garden)
Sea salt and pepper to taste

I thought I had made more than enough to enjoy leftovers this week but sadly it wasn't meant to be. Our friend was heading to do his National Guard drills the following day and I think he was happy to have one final good meal before eating on Uncle Sam's dime for two weeks.

Our second local meal this week (in reality our meals are mostly local. Only little parts here and there aren't. It's usually chicken that isn't local because I haven't gone to the final step of buying some yet, or our fruit portion) was a meal of the other piece of round steak I had defrosted, egg noodles and a corn/green bean saute.

I put the round steak (cow from farmer) in the crock pot with some red onion (market) and a can of cream of mushroom soup (does this count as a spice????). About halfway through cooking (and it turns out, too early) I put the leftover Amish egg noodles (23 miles) from last week's meal and some water. When I got home from work I cut some corn off the cob (market) and sauteed it in a little butter (not local, but from Iowa based company), garlic (market) and red onion (market) and threw in some green beans (market) to cook through (we like them crunchy so not too long). Turned out pretty good with really not a lot of work.

Some of you may already know this based on the ingrediants, but this turned out a lot like Beef Stroganoff. Heck, maybe it IS Beef Stroganoff for all know. All I know is it was pretty good and it was a good use of a fairly tough, inexpensive cut of beef, although the picture doesn't do it any favors. We'll do this one again. I didn't have any local fruit so we went without for this meal.

There you go. Entertaining while eating local is easy. Cooking easy no fuss meals for the work week while eating local is possible too.

FGLB

A bicycling tragedy

2006-07-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

A bicycling tragedy has occured, but first, did you hear that Ullrich has been booted off the T-Mobile team? Wow. I wonder who they will pick as their main man in the future. If you ask me they were just looking for a reason to get rid of him anyway.

Back to the tragedy.

I'm not going to be able to ride RAGBRAI. I know. It's a shocker. But I think it's a good reason. My wife (she who makes and maintains the social calendar) made a boo boo and scheduled a wedding for this weekend (which is good because that fit into our schedule really well) but unfortunately we found out today that the wedding is next weekend. Her boo boo was messing up the deat, not scheduling the wedding. The same weekend I was going to ride RAGBRAI. Not good. Not good at all.

So we were running around crazy this morning trying to figure out what to do. Can we even find a sitter for next weekend? What do we do about RAGBRAI? What about my sister who was coming to visit? What about RAGBRAI? OOOOO NNNNOOOOOO I will now flush my head down the toilet.

At first I tried to convince my wife that she should have her friend move her wedding up to this weekend because it works better for us and dammit, that's all that matters. But then I remembered one of my solemn rules in life, don't screw with a woman and her wedding. At all. Even though this is my wife's friend I'm sure my wife would be more than willing to end my life on behalf of all woman for even suggesting that I change anything with her friend's wedding. It's HER WEDDING YOU IDIOT. Men do not have any say in wedding preparations, other than to say yes. So after realizing that changing the date was out our choices came down to this small list.

Ride RAGBRAI, wife skips wedding, watches kids.
Skip RAGBRAI, watch kids, wife goes to wedding.
Both go to wedding, find someone to watch kids.
Nobody does anything so we are all miserable.
Ride RAGBRAI, wife goes to wedding, kids are otherwise disposed.

In the pantheon of important things a wedding easily trumps a bike ride (even one like RAGBRAI) so sending at least my wife to the wedding was a fairly easy decision. But we weren't sure if we would both be going or just her. (Hey, if we both go it's like a mini-vacation for us. When you have kids you take what you can get. A few hours in the car with no kids talking is glorious. Plus, I lived there for 6 years and was kind of excited to see some friends.)

So we both decided to go rather than her go and me do RAGBRAI. (the thought of being kidless and wifeless is too much for me. I would spontaneously combust I think)

My in-laws stepped up and agreed to watch the boys for us so we can both go. They are also hosting 16 RAGBRAI people at their house when it passes through town on the 28th so we need to send them some major cycling love.

As they say, the best laid plans of mice and men...

FGLB

Spam comment

2006-07-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

My recent post on tax cuts was spam commented for an advertisement. Twice. I deleted the comments.

Additionally, I have implemented the word verification step of the blog to hopefully filter these losers out. Sorry you good people have this extra step.

There are extra steps I can take but I'm only going to go that far if I don't have any other choice.

I just wanted you to be aware of the changes I made so you weren't wondering what was happening.

I have a zero spam policy!

FGLB

Tax cuts?

2006-07-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

Liz over at Pocket Farm wrote an incredible piece about the recent tax cuts and who is benefiting from them. I'm not even going to say anything about it to muddy it up.

Click here for the story.

FGLB

Eat Local meal #4

2006-07-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

Chicken noodle soup and BLTs.

I used some leftover chicken carcasses (I cut up my own chicken most of the time and save the bones, naturally. That's good German stinginess in action.) The chicken wasn't local, but it was SmartChicken (which is good because if there is one thing I hate it's a dumb chicken) that I had been saving to make chicken broth. Threw in some onions and carrots from the garden and a couple cloves of garlic from the market. Let it simmer for a while and I had homemade chicken broth.

After all the necessary filtering of the broth (of which I had a ton leftover for the freezer. Poor freezer.) I grabbed it out of the fridge last night and threw in some chicken that came from the bones, carrots and some onions (sadly no celery as I couldn't find any local) and brought it up to a boil just to make sure any nasty critters that might have been in the broth were dead. Then I mixed in some store bought Amish egg noodles (I want to make my own but I just don't have time this week) which are made in Kalona, IA (23 miles) and let it cook for a while.

As this was going on I toasted up some bread from the local bakery and fried up some local bacon (72 miles) for BLTs. The lettuce is from my garden, which is surprisingly still producing lettuce, and the tomatoes are from the market. Put it all on the table and there it is.

No fruit this time because I came home from work and my wife had finished off all the watermelon, to my surprise.

FGLB

Pics of Lebanon

2006-07-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

Pictures of Lebanon. Some are graphic.

FGLB

Lemonade?

2006-07-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

I bought a bottle of something called Lemonade out of the machine in Vendoland today. I say it's called Lemonde because that's what the bottle says. It's even "Made with real lemons." But in reality it doesn't really taste like any Lemonade I've ever had. It mostly tastes like a pale version of something lemony with no real bite. Kind of like crystal light or something. I guess Lemonade was too lemony so they had to tone it down or something.

Anyway, the real thing I wanted to share was a rundown of the ingrediant list. This is unholy. Where are the lemons they speak of on the front of the bottle? Does lemon concentrate count as "real lemons" because they WERE lemons at one point? If there are "real lemons" in the drink they aren't on the ingrediant list.

And what the hell is Glycerol Ester of Wood Rosin? Is this like the stuff in the rosin bags on a pitcher's mound? Why the hell am I drinking that? The most telling thing? They added yellow food coloring to this to make it yellow!!! That is totally wrong. It should be yellow on it's own you idiots!! You have messed up your "Lemonade" if it isn't yellow completely on it's own!!

You can tell I'm all hopped up on HFCS. My arms and legs are all shaky. I feel like I could run through a brick wall right now. I'm like JoJo the idiot circus boy. Imagine all the kids in America drinking this stuff right now and everyone is thinking "It's not so bad, it's lemonade."

The bottle says "Shake well and enjoy". Yeah right.

FGLB

Special skill

2006-07-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wished you had a special skill that you could have developed? And I don't mean a special skill like being invisible or x-ray vision, but something real and tangible, like being able to fix drywall without seeing the seams or being a good runner or being the guy who always wins at foosball. (I hate that guy)

Ever since I started getting into music when I was 12 or 13 I wished I could play the guitar. You would think playing the guitar is something that someone could train themselves to be good at. And you are right, if you're the right person. I, unfortunately, am not. I have no musical talent. None at all. Zero. I can listen to music and that's about as far as it goes. I do a good job at karaoke, but then the point of that is to be funny, not really serious. (I hate the people who get on karaoke and sing like they are on Star Search. Get a life) I can not carry a tune. I can't read sheet music. I can't do anything musical. I can only sometimes carry a beat. Yes, you heard me right. Only sometimes can I carry a beat, and usually that's when it's painfully obvious what the beat is or my wife starts out the beat for me. Frankly, I doubt I have enough patience to learn. I'm not the kind of person who sits around and can practice, practice, practice. I guess that's why I've never tried. (I've also never really wanted to pay for lessons) This practice thing is probably why I quit doing a lot of stuff now that I think about it...

I abhor the idea of paying for a guitar and then sucking and then I have to look at this guitar for the rest of eternity. Or all that wasted money on lessons? No way. I can't stomach it. Better to not try than fail and have to see my failure all the time.

But playing the guitar would be so awesome. Maybe I think it would be great because I SOOO love guitar music. Led Zeppelin, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Van Halen, G'N'R, Lynard Skynard, Jimi, Joplin, Eagles, CCR, Don Mclean and all the others from the 60s, 70s and 80s. The heyday of the guitar gods. Oh man, that music was awesome. Back before everything is prepackaged and gift wrapped for our use. I have day dreams sitting around ripping off a nice little Pride and Joy riff or picking up a guitar I see lying around and setting up a little Freebird. Man, those are great dreams. Someday maybe I'll do something about that.

FGLB

Rain, rain go away, come again..wait don't go...

2006-07-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

Oh rain, glorious rain. Come on baby. Bring on the rain. Daddy's veggies need some water.

Sunday Dinner

2006-07-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

So yesterday we all went out for a little lunch. I wasn't feeling ambitious in the kitchen and I was planning for meals later this week and just didn't really want to whip up anything. We were all kind of tired already because we had already swam in the pool that morning and it kept getting later and later so my wife finally made the executive decision to go out to eat. (I know, we said we wouldn't go out to eat anymore but stay with me) We decided if we were going to go out it had to be something that I couldn't really make at home. (I don't mean to toot my own horn, but honk honk, I'm a pretty darn good cook, for most things) So we went for Chinese (still on my too hard list, except stir fry and fried rice) which is always a crowd pleaser for me and hit or miss for the boys.

But yesterday we scored a direct hit for both of them. After our first choice, a buffet, was closed we went to a place I had seen before but never tried. We weren't sure what to expect. After sitting down and seeing the menu it felt like we were in bizarro world or something because the prices had to be from 20 years ago. An iced tea for $.99?? You can get a whole meal for $4.99?? And it comes with an egg roll, crab rangoon, soup and the main dish? Unbelievable. By the time we were done both our boys (4 and 2) had eaten crab rangoon, egg rolls, egg drop soup and shared a huge plate of beef and broccoli, and we were all completely stuffed. I couldn't believe how much food there was and that they were eating it all. As far as I can remember this is their first try of the egg rolls, crab rangoon and egg drop soup. Not to mention Zach (4 yr old) has pronounced in the past that he doesn't like soup and he won't eat it no matter what.

When I went to the bathroom to hose the boys off after they ate I mentioned to Zach that he should tell his mom that he was hungry like a wolf and that's why he ate so much. He ran back to the table and did it. Kids are so impressionable when they are little.

Your welcome for introducing that song to your head. Now you can suffer along with me.

FGLB

Everyone salsa!

2006-07-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

I decided to try to make up some fresh salsa today from a recipe on a blog I read. (click here for the recipe, halfway down the page) I figured I had most of the ingrediants and I've been itching to do it for a while. It turned out pretty good. I haven't really been a salsa guy in the past. Mostly I just go for the soupy flavored water on my chip, but I was really digging this stuff. We had quesadillas for lunch just so we could use them to scoop up a ton of salsa. (The bowl was full before lunch...I think my kids love salsa more than my wife and I...)

The one deviation I used was to use a can of chilis instead of fresh jalapenos. I couldn't find any locally and decided not to spend the prep time on them when I can just get them canned. Using a can might be the reason this didn't really turn out very hot. My wife thought it was plenty hot but it didn't have much bite to me. Besides, I'm not sure if I'm quite ready to work on a real pepper yet.

FGLB

In difficulty

2006-07-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

I have a difficult time at work this time of year. Not really difficult because I have more work to do (My work consists of mostly the same thing every day on repeat the following day. Kind of like the movie Groundhog Day, only not as funny. My favorite part of that movie is when he's letting the groundhog drive the truck and telling it not to drive angry. Don't drive angry!!) but it's more difficult to work because it's hard for me to tune into the Tour De France while also trying to do my work and trying not to appear to be a total slacker who does nothing but surf the net. (In reality I do surf the net a lot, but this is because I'm an extremely efficient worker and get all my work done quickly and no one will give me more to do even though I ask over and over and over for more work. I know, it's wired.)

Anyway, I'm forced to monitor the Tour online through reading play by play action as it's updated because I'm too cheap to buck up for full cable. We have basic cable at our house, mostly to insure I can watch CSI on Thursdays and be able to use PBS for the kids when I need a minute of peace and quiet. I don't mind doing this because I still get the gist of what is happening and it doesn't cost me a thing. But the British accent I use in my head while reading the updates isn't as good as the real thing.

Fun stuff

2006-07-12T06:40:00.000-07:00

Here is some random fun stuff that I've come across that I thought I would share.

Funny video

Fun with kids

Water show

Shining parody (clever editing and music make this movie appear to be a love story)

It's tough being a mascot (does have a little language)

And a joke:
Donald Rumsfeld goes into President Bush's office to alert him to the fact that 3 Brazilian men were killed in Iraq. The President's face gets all white and he places his head on his desk as he starts to cry. Everyone in the room kind of stands back in shock about his reaction, at which point he raises his head with tears still in his eyes and asks "How many exactly is 3 Ba-zillion?"

Ba da ba bum. I'll be here all week.

This joke, by the way, in no way attempts to demean the sacrifices are soldiers are making on the battlefield. It is merely intended to poke fun at our fearless leader.

Thanks to the Bike Riding Donut Guy and the Sports Guy for the things I stole from them.
FGLB

Local food challenge--meal #3

2006-07-11T04:02:00.000-07:00

Meal #3. I was jealous of this meal so I copied it for this week.

Our A/C broke about two weeks ago (we didn't fix it. Too much $$$. We do have a little room one if it gets too hot but it hasn't really yet) and I haven't felt much like firing up the stove or oven to cook, especially yesterday when it was about 90 with 150% humidity, so I used the crock pot to cook a roast (from our cow), some potatoes and some carrots (both from the farmers market) while I was at work. Yeah!

The melon is from the guy I bought the sweet corn from (he swears he grows it himself), the bread is from a local bakery and I had milk to drink from Heartland Creamery which is the most local milk I can find so far. The milk is really good. It comes in glass bottles and it's hormone free. Tastes sooo good. I'm still on the hunt for local butter and cheese if anyone has any suggestions.

In other news, since I watered the garden yesterday morning it fits that it rained last night and appears that it will be rainy all day today. Doh!

FGLB

Obesity through the years

2006-07-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

Click this link, follow the directions and watch America get fatter by the year.

Weary weekends

2006-07-10T07:25:00.000-07:00

Why am I always happy to go back to work Monday morning so I can get some rest? I guess because I'm so busy cramming all my stuff to do into the weekends that I exhaust myself.

I spent the weekend at my apartment building painting the trim around the outside of the windows. And boy are my arms tired. HA HA Oh, OK. Anyway, it wouldn't be that bad except that it is plenty hot outside now and the front of the apartment building (the side that needed painting the worst) is in the direct sun for most of the day. So needless to say I got waaayyyy too much sun this weekend. I'm feeling the after effects of it today. I feel like a slug moving around right now. (I drank so much water the past few days you would swear I had been out in the desert on a horse with no name.) But, I must say it sure looks a lot better and should hopefully make the tenants more proud to live there. I'll be spending my free time over there for the next few weeks trying to get it finished up. I'm not really that excited to spend more time out in the sun and on a little ladder but hopefully it will be worth it eventually.

We were also able to get about 4 pounds of green beans and 13 ears of sweet corn frozen up for the winter. We are starting to put some things away for this winter. Unfortunately for us everything we put in the freezer needs a spot so we have to take something out. We are just under prepared with our freezer space. I'm pretty sure we'll be picking up a small little freezer this week for all the fresh produce we want to freeze for the winter.

On the same subject, sort of. I've come to the realization that I will be swimming in a sea of zucchini soon. I planted 5 plants (along with 3 summer squash plants) and I think I could have done with just one. I like zucchini, and can probably eat 1, maybe 2 per week, but I think when it starts coming in I'll have a lot more than that. (if the amount of flowers on the plants are any indication) Lucky for me you can freeze it (according to my books, and use it in zucchini bread) but I still think after this summer we won't want to see a zucchini for a while. Guess I should have listened to mom when she questioned why I planted that many plants. If you have any ideas on interesting ways to prepare it pass 'em along. I'm happy to take suggestions.

Went out to eat last night and I was roundly disappointed. We've both come to realization that restaurant food just isn't as good as the food we eat at home. The food we are eating at home is fresher, better tasting and most times, more healthy for us. We've decided to give up on eating out. Why continue to pay someone to cook food for us that we don't enjoy and isn't good for us? That just doesn't make much sense.

We are having our local dinner tonight so stay tuned for a posting of that later tonight.

On another note, does anyone have any knowledge about how to freeze Spinach? If you do please drop me a note. I've got some from the market I need to save and I'm not sure how to do it.

I ran over a rabbit this weekend driving to my apartment. As much as I hate the little things for the havoc they are wrecking on my garden I still feel bad about running it over. I swerved to miss it but it hopped right into me. Poor thing. I hope you enjoyed your short time on earth.

FGLB

Zucchinni Bread update

2006-07-07T05:58:00.000-07:00

After taste testing an end piece I was disappointed in the bread. It was really dry. I was afraid to even serve it at work, but I decided to take it anyway since it was ready and I was running late this morning.

But I just tasted a piece from more towards the middle and it was fine. Really good actually. I don't know why the zucchinni is in it because as far as I can tell the bread just tastes like cinnamon. With banana or pumpkin bread you can tell what the fruit adds but I can't tell here.

Oh well, at least I know it's good now and I won't be afraid to make it in the future. My mom was worried about what I would do with all my zucchinni when I told her how many plants I planted. Well I know now what I'll do with it!

FGLB

FGLB attempts to make zucchinni bread

2006-07-06T18:47:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is food day at work and I decided I wanted to bring something homemade. I normally bring something homemade but the last few I've stopped at the store or just plain forgot. But what to make...

Hey! Why not some zuchinni bread? I got some zucchinni cheaply at the roadside stand and it will be semi-local since I made it myself. I've never made it before but that's no big deal. My mom is the worlds best banana bread maker so some of that skill has to have ended up in my gene pool right?

Well let's see...follow the recipe on page 43 of my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook and here are the results...

Looks pretty good. We'll see how it tastes in the morning.

FGLB

It's time to make a change...for once in your life

2006-07-06T14:05:00.000-07:00

With apologies to Michael Jackson...

CAUTION: Political rant/diatribe to follow. You have been warned. Read on at your own risk.

OK. Now I can get this off my chest.

Can someone explain to me what is going on with our world? What has happened to us as Americans that has completely warped our sense of right and wrong? Why do we think it is OK to deny "political prisoners" their human rights at Guantanamo Bay? Why do we think what we are doing there is any better than what Kim Jong Il is doing to his people? Or that Saddam did or that Hitler did back in the day? Why are we OK with one but not the others?

Remember what those brave soldiers fought for in WWII? Why are we now treating people the same way that Hitler did, only now it's OK? Why is our government now treating it's citizens like Hitler treated his? How is this different? Why are we trading all our freedoms away for protection from potential terrorist attacks that all stem from our horrible international policies in the first place? Wouldn't it be easier to change the policies? Why aren't any of our "leaders" willing to be leaders and make changes? Instead of focusing on important issues they bring up stupid little meaningless issues to try to steal the headlines for a few days and skew the world to their view. Why do we accept this? Is it because we don't see any other way?
Why does our news coverage have so much information about celebrities? Are we nothing more than gossip rag reading mindless drones made to work in artificial work environments being spoon fed processed food and processed air? Are we supposed to like this? Why aren't more people seeing what is happening? Is our world so unimportant that newscasters feel no greater need with their news broadcast than to maximize their Nielson ratings to make that extra $1 of profit?

Why is our world so generic? Everything looks the same. All the stores are the same. All the buildings are the same. Is this what we want? Why would we want to live in a world lacking uniqueness and beauty? How did we get this way?

Why does the most terrifying weapon of mass destruction in the world live freely in the White House? Why is our political system controlled by corporations with big pockets? The court system is skewed to protect the little guy, shouldn't the political system be skewed as well? Why do I feel like all they want to do is get re-elected and could care less about any "issues"?

Why is it OK for our "leader" to hi-jack his religion to fit his political desires but we aren't OK with Muslim groups doing the same thing for their beliefs? Because we agree with one but not the other? I don't see the difference. And while we are on that topic, why does anyone think it is OK to deny someone a human right that they may want because of their particular religious belief? Why do people have such a hard time saying "You know, I wouldn't ever want to do that myself (for whatever reason), but just because I wouldn't want to doesn't mean that it shouldn't be available to you if you should want to"? Why do we try to force people to think like us? Why can't we embrace that which makes us different and celebrate it?

Why oh why can't I be a mindless drone like so many people and just plod along through life accepting it for the way it is or enjoying the artificial world piped in on my cable box? Why do I have to challenge things and contemplate things? Why do I have to always have a thirst for knowledge and change? Was I designed to hold up this heavy burden about our world? Concerns about local food, peak oil, living sustainably, reducing TV, reading enough, raising kids, recycling, reusing, living efficiently, reducing my impact on the earth, reducing car use are all great, but it is such a drag when I think about how everyone else is living and why can't I be like that? Why do I have to be the one to sacrifice? Why does one sacrifice matter? Why does your sacrifice matter?

Things like these are things I wonder about on a daily/weekly basis. Most I can't do anything about, but some I can, and by banding together with others who are similarly sacrificing we can make a difference. God made me with sturdy legs and broad shoulders to do my part, and he created the internet so that people with similar beliefs can get together and feel the support from each other rather than feeling like an outcast in this big world we live in. If you ever feel down or despondent about the world or what you are doing in your part of it think about the individual sacrifices you are making (whether it is eating local food, driving less, removing the TV, etc) and think of the other people around the world who are making the EXACT SAME sacrifices you are and you all have the same focus in mind.

WE ARE ALL FOCUSED ON MAKING A DIFFERENCE.

FGLB

A couple rides

2006-07-05T07:02:00.000-07:00

I went out at 5 this morning for a quick little ride around town. I figure I better get off my ass if I'm going to ride 50 miles on the 29th and halfway enjoy it. Riding in the mornings is great. Nobody around to bother me and it is so quiet. All I can hear is the clicking of my freewheel.

Then the stars aligned and I was able to hit the Sugar Bottom Mountain Bike trails tonight. I can't believe how sweet it is to ride some nice singletrack, but man, doing that kicks your ass. (or at least mine) Up and down the hills and pedaling away like mad to go forward over all the tree roots and branches in the way. Careening down hills and trying like mad to steer quick enough to miss the trees and making sure to maximize my speed for the next uphill (and the sweet jumps) takes a lot out of you physically and mentally.

But it's worth it. Riding on the trails is so much better than churning away on the street.

I make so much noise laboring up the hills that if someone was in the woods and heared me pedaling away they have to think Sasquatch is giving birth. It's unreal. It sort of sounds like a cat being strangled mixed in with a fat guy trying to breath and also sounds like an alien child. I finally quit because my arms were just too sore to hold me up and move the front wheel on the bike.

I'm going to hit the sack.
FGLB

I Love the smell of sweet corn in the steamer

2006-07-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

I'm submitting my second picture for local meal #2 this summer.

Yesterday on the way home from work I saw one of the many farm stands that are popping up here and I turned in there like he was giving away gold. (In a way I guess he is) He had tomatoes, sweet corn, zucchinis and melons. I picked up 3 zucchinis (3 for a $1) and some sweet corn (12 for $4). I regret not picking up a melon today. Doh!!

I decided to make a little stir fry with the zucchinis (I used one that was fairly large) and also mixed in an onion from my garden, a few carrots (garden), some leftover potatoes and broccoli, and a clove of garlic (all local). I have to admit, I did use some oyster sauce, soy sauce and a little corn starch in it too for flavor and thickening. I think those are condiments though. As that was cooking I steamed some sweet corn (I know, it's a wierd combination but I just have to eat sweet corn when it's available). So, that's what we had for lunch today. A stir fry made from local veggies and some sweet corn. I'm proud of myself for only having 3 ears of corn. And it was a vegetarian meal to boot.

I snapped a quick pic today of my carrots after I yanked them from the garden. I also pulled up a little onion that had dislodged itself from the dirt. (I threw these in the stir fry) The carrots are pretty darn small, even though they are at their maturity date. I think I'll just have to leave the others out there longer to see what happens. They tasted just fine. Very carrotty, as my wife said.

It's kind of exciting as these are the first things I've harvested except greens. Yeah!

Have a good 4th.
FGLB

The smoke cooked it good

2006-07-01T17:01:00.000-07:00

Things turned out really well. Those are the slabs on the bottom right. They are baby back slabs. I usually cook spare ribs which have a lot more fat so these were a little dry. They were quite flavorful, but they needed to be sauced. On the bottom left is the first helping of pulled pork. That turned out fantastic. I smoked it for just about 11 hours and then put it in the oven wrapped in aluminum foil for about 2.5 hours more. Turned out really great. Nice and smoky and moist and very very tender. On the upper right is the leftover shoulder. 10 lbs makes a ton of pulled pork. I had enough after shredding what is still wrapped in the pic to fill that bowl up again. It's in the freezer waiting for the next time I get a hankering for some que.

We also had some roasted new potatoes, cheesy corn and baked beans. It was a good dinner.

Fatty rating on ribs: 7 for flavor but 4 for dryness. Overall a 6 I'd say. Next time I'll sauce them while they cook and see how that goes.

Fatty rating on pulled pork: 9 for moistness and flavor. When you put a little sauce on them it was over the top. Easily over 9 with the sauce. Very happy with those results. Maybe I don't need to be such a stickler to smoking it the whole time to get good results.

FGLB

Do you smell what the smoke is cooking?

2006-07-01T01:56:00.000-07:00

It's 3:45Am and I just tossed a 10lb pork shoulder on Ol' Smokey for later today. There's plenty of room left on that grill for some ribs. Good thing I have them ready...

The tour is rocked!!

2006-06-30T07:03:00.000-07:00

Big news about the Tour De France. Ullrich and Basso have been suspended along with 50 others. Wow!! I haven't heard if Hincapie, Lanids or the Crazy Kazak (sp??) are included but if they aren't they have to be the hands down favorites now. More than they already were I mean.

Summer eat local challenge-meal #1.

2006-06-28T17:57:00.000-07:00

Liz over at Pocket Farm put forth a challenge to eat one completely local meal a week for the whole summer. I figured I would give it a shot so I signed up to be part of the group. (Free prizes for eating more healthy? OK) Check out the details here. This is coming on the heels of the eat local challenge for the month of May.

I hereby put forth a snapshot of my first completely local meal.

I used my grill pan to cook up 2 ribeyes (they're pretty big, we only ate one) from our recent cow purchase. Then I slid the whole thing under the broiler to finish up after they had a nice "grilled" outside.

At the same time I sliced some new potatoes in half and boiled them. Then I got the cast iron skillet nice and hot, threw in a little veggie oil and browned the bottoms (flat side). Sprinkled on some salt and those were good. Since the skillet was hot I threw in some frozen corn we had cut from some sweet corn ears last summer and fried that up. I usually follow an Amish recipe for the fried corn, but since I didn't have local butter or onions, yet, I just left those out and fried it with some salt. (Veggie oil and spices are on the exclusion list)

It was deeeliisssh.

FGLB

Post Topics

2006-06-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been mulling the idea of starting a second blog to help differentiate subjects and focus the discussion on specific subjects.

I wanted to solicit your inputs on this. The breakdown is as follows:

Fat Guy: This blog would remain a mouthpiece for random crap that spews out of my head, not to mention biking and living a life that focuses on reducing car use in the world. I imagine that this blog would be more free ranging and less focused on specific subjects than the second blog.

Blog #2: This blog would be mostly about cooking/food/eating local/eating fresh/gardening and other associated topics similar to those subjects. I imagine this blog would stay more focused on those specific subjects than FGLB would.

I know there are some bikers who read this blog and I wanted to solicit your input specifically. Would you like to have two separate blogs so you can kind of know what to expect when to visit each one? Or is it preferred to have one place that just ranges all over the place and no one cares because my writing is so witty and such compelling reading that it's must read internet?

What about those of you who are just reading because it's me and you want to see what I'm saying? (ie, friends and family) Do you care?

Post a comment and let me know what you think. Or feel free to drop me a note to bikingmatt at yahoo.com.

On another topic, my computer has been going haywire the past few weeks. It apparently has been taken over by about 6000 worms and viruses. I'm trying to get that cleaned up, and also get it to recognize my camera to post pictures, but the posts will be sporadic because of that. I'm about to go Luca Brasi on it.

FGLB

Holy Cow!

2006-06-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder what 209 lbs of pure American cow looks like? Check this out.

Here is a pic of our oldest son, he's 4 and 40 inches long. This is so you can compare the size of the cooler to him and know how big it is. The cooler is huge.

The locker had our cow ready last Friday. I spent the afternoon in the car going to pick it up. (It's within the foodshed at 55 miles away.)

Total Cost: $2.15 per pound.

You can save money by eating local.

Had one of the roasts in the crock pot the other day and I'm fairly sure that it was the best roast I've ever had. The meat was crazy tender. I haven't had a roast that tender before.

FGLB