A Running Fool

I'm getting there. Slowly, but getting there. A dozen miles here, a dozen there ... and pretty soon, you're at 30-40 per week. It's slow, and it's frustrating, but I feel a bit better every time I run (although after a four-mile run early this morning, I'm pretty wasted. Still getting a bit of energy back, and a ton of of work done at the day job).

And here's my personal moment of Zen. It's epic viewing, if you haven't seen it:

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It's Been A While

... but I've been busy. Odd how busy you can become when your company announces plans for layoffs in the spring. And unlike every other company in our industry, mine doesn't have plans for buyouts, which traditionally have eased the pain of getting fired.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Spent a chunk of this afternoon with the chainsaw, taking down a few final trees. I'll spend most of tomorrow hauling them out of the woods, dumping them on the driveway, loading them in the Outback, taking them up the driveway, throwing them out of the Outback, and stacking them underneath Will's window.

If nothing else, a good upper-body workout.

No. 300

A busy, busy month.

Bought the new goat. She's an Alpine, giving us about two quarts of milk every day. Will loves the stuff. John hates it. I saved up enough milk to make a two-pound wheel of goat's milk cheddar over the weekend that's ready for aging. I'll provide a report when it's ready.

Garden worked out OK. The corn was flattened by what was left of Hurricane Ike, but we have more than 100 pints of tomato sauce canned and ready to go. We've got about 50 pints of salsa verde with tomatillos and onions from the CSA. We've got about 50 pints of carrots and about 50 pints of green beans. We've got onions, scallions, blackberries, blueberries, peaches, nectarines, celery, broccoli, bell pepper, herbs and pesto in the freezer. We'll soon have 50 broilers -- they're getting huge -- and three pigs.

I'd say we're ready for winter, but not quite.

The chainsaw blew a piston, and fixing it ran about $200. I took a few days of vacation from the Day Job to finish up this week. The blade was getting a bit dull -- that'll happen when you pinch it in a tall beech tree, like I did -- so I took it to the shop for a quick sharpening. Turns out the replaced piston now needs replacing. Ack. Anyway, at this rate, I'll have our winter wood done by April or so.

We're certainly not ready for the Greater Depression.

But it's not winter just yet, nor has the Greater Depression totally kicked off. And it is gorgeous. The leaves are peaking in southern Vermont this week:





A nice story from this week's WSJ that reminds me I need to get off my ass:

• OCTOBER 7, 2008, 9:52 A.M. ET

Crash Survivor Scores Rare Triathlon Invite

Wall Street Exec Trains for Legendary Ironman Race

• By JEN MURPHY

A.C. Morgan will line up among 1,800 other racers to test his body's physical and mental limits in Kona, Hawaii at the Ironman World Championships Saturday. The grueling race is the Super Bowl of triathlons, consisting of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run in crosswinds that can reach 60 miles per hour and temperatures that can reach 95 degrees with 90% humidity.

A.C. Morgan

A.C. Morgan, seen during a triathlon in Rhode Island in July.

Ten years ago Mr. Morgan wasn't even sure if he'd ever walk again. A plane crash left him with two broken vertebrae in his neck and 30 percent of his body covered in burns. "I had a 50-50 shot at life," Mr. Morgan recalls. "I had to learn everything all over again -- how to brush my teeth, walk, go to the bathroom." Mr. Morgan's entire left arm was burned except for one spot. "I have a complete outline where my Timex Ironman watch was. It is the only spot on my arm where I have hair." The outline reminded Mr. Morgan of Timex's old ad, "It takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'." He called the company to pitch himself as the subject of its next ad only to discover the campaign had been discontinued. But company representatives said if he ever wanted to do the Ironman he should call back. Mr. Morgan recalls thinking, "I can't even go to the bathroom by myself."

Before the accident Mr. Morgan had competed in sprint triathlons. After physical therapy he returned to the gym five or six days a week to lift weights and ride the Lifecycle bike for 30 minutes. In 2006, Mr. Morgan found himself listening to a client describing how he had competed in the Ironman and it made him remember the Timex offer. He wrote the company to retell his story of the plane crash and his watch "tattoo." In June 2007 he received a surprising call from Herbie Calves, Timex's vice president of sports marketing, asking whether he wanted an Ironman World Championship number for 2007 or 2008. He opted for 2008.

The 38-year-old Mr. Morgan, who co-manages U.S. equity sales trading at J.P. Morgan in New York, has since reprioritized his life to focus on training. He lives in Darien, Conn., and is married with two children. He stands 6-foot-1 and weights 180 pounds.

The Workout
Sponsorships allow many Ironman competitors to train full time. Mr. Morgan doesn't have that luxury. Before he began training for the race, he awoke at 4:30 a.m. to catch the 4:50 a.m. train to midtown Manhattan. Now, he wakes up at 3:20 a.m. three days a week to ride, run or swim for an hour before work. In January, Mr. Morgan hired a personal trainer who creates workouts he can download to his Blackberry. He can call her any time he has questions or needs motivation. "The other day I wasn't feeling the 22-mile run and she tells me, 'Think 22 miles plus 100% humidity on black lava.' I pay for that," he says. In addition to his morning workouts, he sometimes tacks on an additional run or bike ride after work, depending on what his trainer recommends.

On weekends, Mr. Morgan swims at his local YMCA and bikes 100 to 120 miles, followed by a 30- to 40-minute run. In bad weather, he puts his bike on a trainer so he can cycle inside while watching episodes of the HBO comedy "Entourage." According to the Ironman media guide, the average competitor trains between 18 and 30-plus hours per week: about seven miles per week swimming, 225 miles per week biking and 48 miles per week running. Mr. Morgan says his typical week sees him swim five miles, bike 150 to 170 miles and run 30 miles. To prepare himself for race day, he competed in two half-Ironmans, one in May and one in June.

Sample Workout

Mon. – Rest day

Tues.-Thurs. – 60-minute run, bike or swim

Sat. – Bike 120 miles followed immediately by a three-mile run.

Sun. – 20-mile run; swim.

Mr. Morgan hit a hurdle last October when he developed plantar fasciitis, a painful inflammation in the foot most often felt in the heel. "I can't get rid of it," he says. "You really have to walk away from [training] for it to heal, but I can't afford to." He goes to a doctor in the city once a week for laser treatment to break down the scar tissue and has also ordered custom orthotics for his sneakers. He stretches daily to ease the pain.

The Diet
Eating more and more often is Mr. Morgan's new dietetic challenge. "I could go home and eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's every night and still lose weight," he says. Mr. Morgan estimates that he has lost 15 pounds since he started training. To maintain his energy, he tries to eat every three hours. In the morning he has Raisin Bran topped with a banana and skim milk, followed by a cup of coffee and an energy bar. After his workout he has a recovery drink. He eats lunch at his desk, usually a turkey sandwich on whole wheat, which he orders in. "I probably eat chicken, vegetables and pasta seven nights a week, 365 days a year," he says.

Many athletes drastically change their diet during training. "I don't have free time to weigh everything and I'm not a bad eater," says Mr. Morgan, who instead paid Trismarter.com, a company that specializes in designing nutrition and exercise programs for triathletes, to create a diet plan specifically focused on the two days leading up to the race and the race day. He says it recommends hydrating every 10 minutes during the cycling portion. Mr. Morgan set his watch to beep every time he needs to rehydrate or refuel, ingesting calories from Gu, an energy gel, and Fig Newtons. During the run he ingests Gu every hour and drinks water or Gatorade at every mile marker.

The Cost
Tens of thousands of athletes try to get one of the coveted 1,800 spots through a lottery or by winning a spot at one of the qualifying events held around the world. "Spots are sold on eBay for up to $60,000," Mr. Morgan says. Timex covered the majority of Mr. Morgan's costs, including the $300 entry fee, and provided him with his jersey, hats, and a Timex team Trek bike.

Since January, Mr. Morgan has bought four pairs of running sneakers, costing between $80 and $110 per pair. After his wife pleaded with him, he also bought a new pair of cycling shoes, which he wears without socks. Triathlons are a gear geek's dream sport. "It's like a different version of golf," he says. "I could come home every day and go on one of 30 sites and buy a new water bottle holder or Gu or visor." Timex supplied Mr. Morgan with his bike, which could run from $3,000 to $20,000. He spends $250 a month on his personal trainer and paid $300 for his Trismarter.com nutrition evaluation. Membership at the YMCA is about $100 a month.

The Effort
Mr. Morgan says his biggest issue is time management. Making time for family and staying on top of his game at work have been a challenge. "I'm struggling to prioritize it all," he says. "My wife is so done with this." He works out at 4:30 a.m. on weekends to get in his training before his family wakes up. Mr. Morgan started at J.P. Morgan in June. "Any time you start in a new environment you have to prove yourself again," he says. "If I had been there six years it might be easier to take more luxury, but I pride myself on my work ethic and am one of the first people there in the morning."

The Benefit
Mr. Morgan's family and friends will join him in Hawaii to cheer him on. They are staying four days after the race to enjoy Hawaii. "I may not move the first two days," he jokes. Mr. Morgan says one of the professional triathletes gave him his best advice yet: "He told me the biggest waste is running down hard that last mile to the finish line. He wasn't telling me to walk but just to slow down and absorb it because I'm proving the impossible possible."

Write to Jen Murphy at workout@wsj.com

An Update

Feels like forever since I've blogged.

They say dogs become a lot more like their owners over time. This is probably true, unless you own border collies. Then, I suspect, you become a lot more like your dogs over time. Today was very much a Pepper sort of day.

Woke up around 545a, giving myself time to take a shower. Dropped the boys off at school and was in Brattleboro by 730a. Picked up some groceries and bought a couple of new tires to go with the snazzy new windshield I needed to pass inspection. Drove by the feed store on the way out of town and picked up eight bags of pig, chicken and goat feed.

Home by 930a, at the inspection station by 10a, where I realized ... I didn't have my registration.

Most non-border collie humans would've punted. Gotten it another day. Nope. I ran into Bennington, on the other side of the state, and got the car registered. Stopped by Wal Mart to grab a new pair of jeans and some miscellaneous things -- new oven light, drinks for the kids, light bulbs, etc. Home by noon, plugged away on the day job until 6p, chasing stuff in circles. Fed chickens and got two dozen eggs. They've been on a tear this week.

Ran out with Lisa to get the pig bucket -- pumpkins, corn tortillas, tomatoes and lettuce, a real cornicupia! Fed pigs, fed goats. Back to the day job for a few hours.

Hell, I wish I just had to chase sheep.

Getting My Goat(s)

Insanely busy day.

Up early this morning to clear out the rabbit shed and make room for goats. Worked in the morning.

Off at lunch to check the school bus schedule, pick up a pig bucket from the market and dicker with Gordon for fresh, local, organic wild blackberries. (My wholesale price is $3.75 for 10 ounces). Worked in the afternoon.

Wrapped up around 530p and headed to Springfield to get the girl La Mancha (Sheba) and boy Alpine (Heba). Brought them home. The border collies are in love with their new friends. The goats, not so much.

First day of school tomorrow. First fruit CSA pickup. Introducing goats to pigs. Blackberry delivery. Pick up some more pine shavings for the goat shed. Fix the pig watering bucket. Continued lots of work on the day job. It'll be a busy one.

Almost the Season

A question from a colleague reminds me that I haven't blogged in a while -- all manner of things going on. I'll try to list them sequentially:

*** New boss at work. Always fun trying to figure out what they want.

*** Major eruption of vegetables. We have picked 64 pounds of blackberries so far this year. We've got more than five dozen jars of carrots and green beans; a couple dozen jars of potatoes (already!); strawberry and peach jam; about a dozen jars of home-made salsa; and a couple dozen jars of bread-and-butter pickles.

The tomatoes haven't been totally washed out, lots of dry beans are coming up, our sweet corn is doing well, the potatoes might wind up being all right, and the chard and kale have exploded. We might do some fall broccoli, although we've got plenty in the freezer -- next to the five dozen bags of frozen pesto, celery, onion, scallions and bell pepper.

*** Quest for firewood. I took a week off just to cut firewood, and only made it five days before the chainsaw crapped out. I used a generic brand of two-cycle oil with an ethanol mix, and it ended very badly. I got maybe -- maybe -- three cords of good wood before the Dolmar blew a piston and head gasket. Repair is going to be about $260. Sigh.

*** The 50 broiler chicks are outside in the small coop. Obnoxious as hell, too. I'll be doing the universe a favor when I fill my freezer (bought a used Montgomery Ward 16 cubic footer for only $60!) with them. The 15 feather-footed bantams are still in the bathroom brooder, so I haven't yet gotten rid of the peep-peep-peep sound in the house.

*** Planning to get out Wednesday and pick up two dairy goats, a La Mancha doe and wether. They're only four months old, so it'll be a while before we get any milk. We're hoping they'll do some more clearing that the Three Little Pigs have missed. We'll breed the doe later this fall and hope for milk by early spring.

*** The kids start school on Wednesday, which means I'll be back into a morning running groove. The best thing about morning running is that there aren't any excuses; you run, and you're done. Can't put it off. And it'll be gorgeous here soon, which means I need to get going on more bike time.

*** I finished a book draft. We'll see if it's worth publishing. More about that later, though. On to the next book project ...

It's Been A While

Caramba! It's been a busy summer.

New bosses at work. Lots of things to plant, weed, harvest and feed. Fifty broiler chicks and 15 feather-footed bantams coming in the mail this week. Near-catastrophe avoided this morning; I chopped down about 100 pin cherry trees in the back pasture without knowing that they're toxic to pigs. Moved them before the leaves could wilt and pigs could get poisoned.

Going for an occasional run, but not so much lately. Hoping to take a week or so off soon and get firewood for the winter. Hoping to make more cheese; my first big cheese came out kind of dry, so we used it in the 42 servings of pesto that are now in the freezer, along with basil from the CSA, local sunflower seeds and olive oil.

Boys are being teen-age boys, skulking about at odd hours. Collies are being collies, skulking about at odder hours.

More later. It's just been Too. Damn. Busy.

Cool Stuff

So I've not been posting for a while. Busy with work. Busy with children. Busy with garden and fruit trees and bushes and other life-like things. We regret the inconvenience, as they say, and to atone, here are some very cool things:

*** Dara Torres. The woman sounds like a complete emotional basket case, but good for her for making the Olympic team at 41 -- and good news for middle-aged sloggers (and we know who we are). As an aside, I'd like my abs back. It appears she stole them:


An excerpt from the story:

UPON HEARING THAT TORRES is likely to make the Olympic team at age 41, many people have the same question: How is this possible? Kinesiologists counter with a different query: Why are you so surprised? “Dara is extremely impressive, but she’s not as unique as people think,” says Michael Joyner, a competitive athlete and anesthesiologist at the Mayo Clinic who writes scholarly papers about aging and sports. “Ted Williams hit .388 when he was 39. Jack Foster did very well in the Olympic marathon when he was 40. Karl Malone earned a triple-double in an N.B.A. game at 40. Jeannie Longo won a French time-trial championship in cycling at age 47.” Torres’s events — short swims — are also well suited to competitors of advanced age. Compared to, say, running, swimming is more technique-intensive and produces fewer injuries. Sprints are also kinder to older athletes, in that strength falls off more gradually than aerobic power. In April, at 37, Mark Foster, a freestyle sprinter in England, came out of retirement and earned a spot, for the fifth time, on the British Olympic swim team. “For those of us who pay attention to this stuff,” Joyner said, “Dara’s performance is unusual but not totally unexpected.”

So why do we assume a middle-aged swimmer must be all washed up? Because for nonelite athletes, sporting achievements fall off precipitously with age. Body composition changes toward more fat and less muscle. Strength and aerobic capacity decrease as well. But a primary reason that athletic performance degrades in adulthood is changes in priorities. People tend to devote more time and energy to jobs and families than to sports. Even committed athletes downgrade their workout goals from achieving personal bests to staying in shape. Academics refer to this reduction in physical activity as hypokinesis. The phenomenon is not limited to humans. A 1985 study showed that rats with unlimited access to running wheels exercised less as they aged. “But look at people who maintain activity levels,” says Joel Stager, a professor of kinesiology at Indiana University. “It’s a different story! A lot of what we assume is aging is just progressive hypokinesis. How many people at Dara’s age have maintained their training consistently? I’m going to say there are very, very few.”

Even childbirth needn’t be a sports-career killer. In 1972, in The Journal of the American Medical Association, E. Zaharieva published a study of 13 women who were pregnant and then competed in the 1964 Olympic Games. Most resumed serious training between three and six months after giving birth. All said, Zaharieva wrote, “they became stronger, had greater stamina and were more balanced in every way after having a child.” Last September, Lindsay Davenport was back on the pro tennis tour and winning just three months after giving birth, while in November, Paula Radcliffe won the New York City Marathon less than 10 months after having a baby.

So how long can peak athletic performance last? Hirofumi Tanaka, the director of the Cardiovascular Aging Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin, found that both elite and nonelite runners and swimmers could maintain personal bests until age 35, after which performance declined in a gradual, linear fashion until about age 50 to 60 for runners and 70 for swimmers. Deterioration was rapid from there. Tanaka also found that swimmers experienced more modest declines than runners and that swim sprinters, like Torres, experienced the smallest declines of all. At Yale University, Ray Fair, a runner and an economist, crunched statistics on aging and peak athletic performance and created what he calls the Fair Model. The model provides a table of coefficients that enable an athlete to take a personal-best time and compute how long he or she should expect to take to complete that same event at a specific point later in life (assuming he or she has continued to train at the same level). According to the Fair Model, a woman who swam a personal best 24.63 seconds in the 50-meter freestyle at or before age 35 should expect to clock 25.37 seconds at age 41. “I am struck by how small the deterioration rates are,” Fair wrote in a paper titled “How Fast Do Old Men Slow Down?” “It may be that societies have been too pessimistic about losses from aging for individuals who stay healthy and fit.”

*** Next. Russell Means profile in the Washington Post. Eh, Russell -- have your tribal people get with my tribal people and see who got screwed over first (and longest). And general note to the part of your frontal lobe that deals with PR issues: Don't call the white reporter a racist. At least, not before the story runs. Your Dolce and Gabbana shades will be mentioned.

At our first interview, over breakfast, Means was surly from the get-go. Within five minutes of shaking my hand, he accosted me for my "[expletive] white racist arrogance. There's only one reason you people came to this continent," he said. "Greed! We Indians have our spirituality. We have our land, but Americans have no culture except greed."

I changed the subject, asking Means how many Lakota backed his independence claim. "That's not germane," he barked. "In all my years of international relations, not once has anybody ever questioned my sovereignty. Even if I am only speaking for myself and my brother, and I'm not, my sovereignty exists. It's spelled out in the treaties."

Eventually, I'd learn that Means has only six or eight active Lakota supporters scattered throughout North and South Dakota. Many other Lakota quietly share his contempt for the U.S. government; some even long for a return to the hallowed days of Lakota independence. And, while Means won 46 percent of the vote when he ran unsuccessfully for Pine Ridge tribal chair in 2004, he has not endeared himself with his desperado-style secession.

*** Interesting Ben Stein column in the NYTimes on wage deflation and the price of oil. Wish it were all that simple, but it's a good point, nevertheless:

But the trend is dismal. The average private worker now earns very roughly $600 a week, not counting fringe benefits. For this worker, gasoline might well account for close to one-tenth of his or her earnings. If the price of gas goes up 25 percent, the effect is serious. To put it mildly, people making $600 a week do not have a lot of leeway on spending.

As I see it, the problem is not the price of oil generally. (I think that the price will decline somewhat before long, but the long-term trend is very much up.) The problem is the stagnation of wages. Please bear in mind that the numbers I gave are averages. Skilled workers make much more. Lawyers, doctors, investment bankers, accountants, dentists — they all make more. ( I just paid two dentists a total of more than $10,000 — I am not kidding — to have one poor old tooth get a root canal and a crown, and I’m not finished with that miserable tooth yet. I paid for 90 percent of it out of my own pocket. I do earn more than the ordinary citizen, but nothing by Wall Street standards.)

But, obviously, a heck of a lot of workers make less. Imagine what it means to minimum-wage workers for gasoline to surge past $4 a gallon.

What is to be done? The federal government can do little to make the price of oil fall in the short run, except, perhaps, for one basic thing: balance the budget. The world price of oil is denominated in dollars. The dollar is weak for many reasons, but a big one is the immense budget deficits run by our government. If President Bush and Senators John McCain and Barack Obama were to stand together in front of a camera and solemnly swear that they would balance the budget in four years, even if it required tax increases on people earning millions, the dollar would rise against the euro, and oil would fall in dollars.

*** Final cool things. Went by the co-op to get some cheese, and they were giving away Silk, which (I think) is basically soy milk. They were giving away a lot of it because it was close to expiration. So we got 35 gallons of free Silk. Bad news is, it's no good for cheese or ice cream. Good news is, the pigs love it.

Went by a flea market last week and found an extraordinarily sharp crosscut saw for $20. Also, a first-edition copy of "Remember the Alamo" by Robert Penn Warren. Sweet.

Youngest son made it to Arizona and back for the national youth leadership conference. Seemed to have a good time. Is still skeptical of adults in power. This is generally a Good Thing.

I'm off for a few days to get some serious day job stuff done.

Busy. And Busy. And Very Busy.

No kidding. Haven't posted in forever.

Been to New York. Been to Boston. Bought rhubarb. Cleared out more garden for corn, beans and squash. Fixed chicken fence. Yelled at collies. Talked with boys. Planted blueberries. Got peach and pear trees. Found a free canner driving to the feed store. Built garden trellises. Worked on a book. Lots of day job stuff.

Since I don't have any pig pictures yet, here's a cool story until then:

A post-petroleum world On this Andover farm, little worry about fuel or food prices

By CHELSEA CONABOY Monitor staff

June 15, 2008

With gas at $4 per gallon, most people in New Hampshire can feel their wallets draining along with their car tanks. Not Nelson Lebo. He doesn't have a car. He's not worried about the cost of home heating oil either. And soaring food prices? Not much of a problem. Lebo, 40, lives in a 1782 farmhouse in the woods of Andover that he has dubbed Pedal Power Farm. He heats it with wood cut from the property. He gets around on a bicycle. He grows much of his own food and buys locally otherwise. He gets his electricity from solar panels. Lebo is no typical homesteader, content to stay tucked away in the woods, living off his land. He thinks he has ideas the rest of us could use. And he's ready to share them. "I've been living in a post-petroleum world for the last 18 years," he said. "Everyone else is going to start living in a post-petroleum world next year." Lebo has been a fixture in Andover since he was hired to run Proctor Academy's environmental program in 1991. He stopped working at the private school last year because of a herniated disk, but he still manages the organic gardens there. He was a part-time dorm parent this year. But his teaching days are far from over. Let Lebo talk, and he will engage you for hours - he verges on ranting - about energy policy, American consumerism and the design principles around which he has built his life. One thing you won't hear much of is a holier-than-thou attitude.

Memorial Day Weekend

... a nice, three-day weekend. Lots of sun. Not so much rest. Cleared about 750 square feet of garden by hand, with the amount of potato-sized rocks getting steadily larger. Really didn't even need flat rocks for paths -- just tossed the dug-up rocks into the middle of the garden for a path. Bitch of a job, but I plugged away and listened to Bill McKibben's Wandering Home on the iPod to keep from going insane.

So far, the garden seems to be happy. The chard is going great guns, and the onions are shooting up. Carrots seem to have survived, broccoli, peas and kale are pushing up. Not sure about potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers or melons, since they've just been planted. Next move is to put the Three Sisters -- beans, corn and squash -- into the just-cleared garden. If there's time to clear any more, it looks like we'll throw in some sunflowers and maybe more potatoes. You can never have enough potatoes.

The animals all seem happy. The collies are actually respecting the invisible fence. The tails on the pigs are getting curlier by the day, which I understand means that they're happy. Even the chickens are mellowing a bit.

Weekend was a real washout for a lot of the locals. The market where our eggs are sold was doing OK, not as good as last year, but OK. The rest of the area looked like a ghost town. I guess $4 gas will do that to a tourist economy.

All in all, it just felt like a nice calm day before a really wicked storm.

The Good Old Days

Personally, I think $12-$15 per gallon is a bit optimistic, near-term. I've been telling folks that $4 gas is cheap (hey, can you get a gallon of milk for $4? No? Rest my case), and I'd brace for $7 by late 2009.

Here's a transcript snippet of Robert Hirsch on CNBC:

HOST: You know, we've been talking all morning long about energy prices. Watching crude oil prices touch above $127 for the first time overnight leads a lot of people to start wondering about peak oil and the peak oil theory. You've been writing about peak oil for some time, so did you see this coming?

HIRSCH: Yes we did. Not quite the way it's turned out, but this is not a surprise.

HOST: You say, "not quite the way it's turned out". What's happened that's different from what you were predicting?

HIRSCH: Well, I wasn't particularly predicting. I'm a student of this and have focused on what we do about the problem after it really hits. Peak oil--the idea is that it would hit a sharp peak and then production in the world would hit a sharp peak then drop off. And what's happened is that we hit plateau in world oil production, and that plateau has been ongoing since about the middle of 2004.

HOST: Dr. Hirsch, there are a lot of people when we talk about peak oil who say there are going to be technologies that are always developed. There will be new ways to get oil, whether it's from coal, whether it's from the oil shales, and they say that means we will never actually hit peak oil. What do you say to those people?

HIRSCH: They're incorrect, and the reason that they're incorrect is that they don't understand the magnitude of the problem and how long it's going to take to bring substitute liquid fuels on and to introduce energy efficiency on a massive scale. That's something that we analyzed and it takes decades. And the reason, simply, is that the magnitude of the problem is enormous.

[McTeer says we should drill more.]

HOST: Dr. Hirsch, what do you say to that--the idea that we should be drilling in places like ANWR and drilling offshore. Would that solve this problem of a plateau in oil production?

HIRSCH: There's no single thing that's going to solve this problem because it's as massive as one can possibly imagine. And the prices that we're paying at the pump today I think are going to be the good old days because others who watch this very closely forecast that we are going to be hitting $12 and $15 per gallon. And then, after that, when world oil production goes into decline, we're going to talk about rationing. In other words, not only are we going to be paying high prices and have considerable economic problems, in addition to that, we're not going to be able to get the fuel when we want it.

Glad I planted one of my apple trees this morning. A little work on the garden, too, but not much. Too busy with the day job.

I Don't Get Out Nearly Enough.

Duty called. Had to drive to Boston early this morning for the Day Job. Put on my coat and tie, and went out before leaving to check on the pigs. Saw three curly little tails sticking out of the hay and remembered, I needed to get them some corn.

Stopped by the feed store en route to Boston and picked up two bales of hay, two bags of chicken feed, and a bag of corn. Nothing unusual about this, other than throwing hay into the Outback while wearing a coat and tie.

Made it to the city without too much incident. Met up with a coworker who was a bit taken aback by a colleague with hay in the car. He probably doesn't live in Vermont, I thought. Stopped to get some fast-food on the way out of town (hey, I was starving). The guy at the window peered into the back of my car. "You raise cows or something?" he asked, genuinely puzzled. Certainly he doesn't live in Vermont, I thought. Stopped for gas in southern New Hampshire. Came back from grabbing a Coke to find four people standing around my car, wondering if my bike and kayak racks were somehow related to the hay in the back of the car. They confessed; they were tourists from Missouri.

Drove back into Vermont. Stopped for groceries. No one stared. Ran by the market to pick up a pig bucket -- I'm giving the local grocer a break on green eggs in exchange for a bucket of old fruits and veggies every day or two. Again, nothing unusual about a guy in a coat and tie with hay and animal feed in the back of the car (although I'm sure the pig bucket added a certain je ne sans quoi to an establishment owned by a British gentleman). Anyway, nothing to see here, folks, move along.

I guess the moral of the story is, people who don't live in Vermont are strange. Or something like that.

Speaking of people who don't live in Vermont. The blog has been getting a lot of attention from Texas, almost certainly due to the latest triathlon tragedy. One reader was concerned that I was blaming the guy who died. Well ... no. But I'm not hugely crazy about huge events. And I think it's simple math. Bigger the event, bigger the chances for trouble.

Just philosophically, I don't think everyone should be able to enter a triathlon. Or a marathon. I'm not even sure I shouldn't be banned as a menace to others for my swimming/flailing in the water. Not to be elitist, but I think the sport would mean more if there's a minimum bar. Not a hugely high, Boston Marathon-like one, mind you -- but a minimum, so nitwits like myself don't try to enter one when they're woefully out of shape and hurt themselves or others.

This is NOT to say that the Conroe triathlete who died was out of shape, or a danger to anyone. I don't know -- maybe if there hadn't been 1,000 other people in the water, something could have been done. Or not. I don't know. But I do know a lot of these events are just too damn big. That's all. I'm just sayin'.

I'll step off my soapbox now. It's hard to stay on the soapbox anyway, when the Wall Street Journal has this to say about your neighboring town:

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. -- Policeman Robert Perkins received a complaint the other day. A man was standing near the tourist information kiosk in this quaint New England village, in the nude.

Officer Perkins spotted the perp and issued a warning: Keep your clothes on, or risk a $25 ticket. The man "was unaware" that being naked in town was illegal, Officer Perkins says.

1

Shefali Anand/WSJ

On a blackboard in downtown Brattleboro in November, some residents expressed their opinions against the ban on public nudity. NOTE: Some photos in this gallery include nudity.

In fact, until just a few months ago, public nudity was perfectly legal here -- as it still is in many Vermont towns. However, over the past two years, Brattleboro, pop. 12,000, has experienced sporadic outbreaks of naked bicycling, naked hula-hooping, and nakedness in general. That, in turn, triggered a period of civic navel-gazing, both literally and figuratively.

Last month's incident by the tourist kiosk was the first report of public nudity after months of wintry weather. But now that spring is in the air, Officer Perkins says, people are starting to wear less clothing. "We'll see if they take it all off," he says.

Brattleboro's troubles started in August 2006, when three young men went skinny-dipping in a swimming hole outside of town, then decided to see what would happen if they went into town and got naked there.

So the three headed to Harmony Parking Lot -- a popular hangout for kids just off Main Street -- and took off their clothes. "It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing," said Chris Corry, 20 years old and a member of the group.

... Love the Journal to death. Really. But "Brattleboro's troubles?" What the hell, it's Belfast or something? Summer=People take clothes off. Winter=People put them back on. No troubles here.

Chance of snow showers tonight, wind blowing like a damn Banshee out of the north. Damn, will it never end? At least I haven't yet planted the two apple trees or blueberry bushes I got over the weekend.

Sigh.

But a cool site here, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. Here's hoping I never need them (and I probably won't, since I'm not selling or even producing raw milk). But knock on wood, anyway. And read Salatin's book, Everything I Want To Do is Illegal.

I'll shut up now.

Some Days Just Suck

And that's all I'm saying about that.

Pig Things

Got a call last night from a guy who can sell us three Yorkshire piglets, so I spent a couple of hours early this morning on the fenceline, trimming brush. I'll put the electric fence up this weekend and assemble a quick, pallet-shack for the beasts. Also have to get a trough and watering barrel. Lot of stuff to do.

On the goat front, the Southern Vermont Dairy Goat Association is right up the road from us. I've been doing some back-and-forth with them, and one of their members may be selling a couple of yearling goats. They wouldn't be ready for milking until fall, but ...

Need to rent a rototiller in the next week, too. We got flurries yesterday (!) and the last freeze shouldn't be for another couple of weeks, but we'll have to have everything in the ground by then. I've done just about enough hand tilling to last, oh, a lifetime.

Hoping to get back on the running track next week. Looks like physical terrorism is just about over.

A quick tip of the hat to Frances Bolles, Don's child (Don was the Arizona Republic reporter who was killed in 1976 by a car bomb planted by some major assholes, one of whom is 78 and asking for parole. And shouldn't get it). She's right about the cute little centerpiece in the Newseum:

She's married and has a son. She's a successful author and career development expert. Nearly 32 years have passed and still, at any moment, it's once again June 2, 1976. Like when she read that the recently opened Newseum in Washington, D.C., has her father's bombed out car on display.

“That is just grotesque,” Frances said. “I can't tell you what pain it is knowing that people are going to walk by and gawk. It reinforces the idea that my father is a footnote, and I rail against that. Over time, a victim is forgotten so that in something like a clemency hearing the focus goes to the person who is living rather than the person who was killed. My father was real. I don't want anyone to forget that.”

Back to the day job, aka making little rocks out of big rocks.

So. Not. Good.

At $200 bbl, US gasoline is about $7 per gallon. Not. So. Good. Here are some of the ugly details from the Financial Times:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4200dc9e-1521-11dd-996c-0000779fd2ac.html

The good news is that we extended the garden another 30-40 feet on Sunday. Took some of the pressure off the indoor flats, putting some broccoli and kale into the new bads. We're going to keep expanding until we run out of space, probably rototill the back yard and plant a mix of squash, beans and corn along the driveway.

The Saturday was a little more entertaining -- spent it learning to make cheese at Ricki Carroll's seminar in Ashfield, Mass. Went home and promptly started a big batch of cheddar, which is currently aging under cheesecloth and an asparagus steamer (keeps the cats and mice out) on a high shelf. I'll know how it comes out in, oh, two months or so.

Anyway. I'd recommend Ricki's class highly. The only downside is, there's not an opening until September. And they're crowded. Very crowded. Must've been 40 people at this one. It was an interesting group, though. Most of the people younger than me were in it for the sustainability issues -- they want to be able to make more of their own food when they have to make it. The folks older than me were more, eh, it's something fun to do in retirement.

Still scratching my head a bit about that one. But I did get a fair amount of supply -- some more cultures (thermophilic and mesophilic), propionic Shermanii for the Swiss, more salt and calcium chloride, and some butter muslin. All in all, I was restrained. Seriously.

Got a lot to do this week, barely time to take a break from the day job. But just saw the FT story and thought, yeeesh. I'm only commuting upstairs and downstairs, and thinking I'd better get more livestock. And one of these crosscut guys, since even a chainsaw is about to get mighty damn expensive:

http://www.lehmans.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=26&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=836&iSubCat=847&iProductID=26

Raining like hell, and supposed to get back down into the low 20s by midweek. Springtime in Vermont ...

The Doomers Are Out This Week

... and how.

Feeling better. Have the cheesemaking class on Saturday, and will hopefully rent a rototiller on Sunday. The crud is just about gone, and the shoulder feels a tad better. Been going hammer and tongs at the day job, at the expense of enjoying some truly gorgeous weather.

Here are the reads du jour, beginning with the quite inspirational and winding up with the utterly doomed (but yes, I did go to the co-op tonight and get a 25-pound bag of brown rice. And no, the Brattleboro Food Co-op was not limiting its customers).

First, the inspirational:

April 23, 2008
Starting His Retirement With a Splash
By PETE WILLIAMS

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Jeff Conine could have filled the first months of his post-baseball career with golf, fishing and travel — the usual pursuits that a 41-year-old with financial security might enjoy.

Instead, Conine, a 17-year veteran of six big-league teams, has spent long hours swimming, cycling and running in preparation for an ambitious triathlon schedule that will culminate in the Ironman world championship in Kona, Hawaii, in October. Several former teammates, accustomed to the less rigorous conditioning of baseball, have questioned his sanity.

“Guys in my position are supposed to sit back and relax, not do something ridiculous like this,” said Conine, who lives in South Florida and will make his triathlon debut here Sunday at the St. Anthony’s Triathlon.

The race attracts more than 4,000 competitors and is considered the kickoff to the sport’s national calendar. As an Olympic-distance event (0.93-mile swim, 24.8-mile bike ride, and 6.2-mile run), it is a small fraction of the grueling Ironman distance race, but longer than entry-level sprint triathlons.

Conine spent the final six weeks of last season with the Mets and is best known for his role as a first baseman and outfielder for the Florida Marlins teams that won the World Series in 1997 and 2003. A longtime follower of the Ironman world championship, he was inspired to take up the sport by David Samson, the Marlins’ president, who finished the event in 2006.

Conine, who stands 6 feet 1 inch, finished last season at 220 pounds, heavy by triathlon standards, and until recently had limited swimming experience. But he was regarded as one of baseball’s better athletes, having played professional racquetball as a minor leaguer.

He certainly looks the part, having been told for years that he resembles Lance Armstrong, a likeness that seems more pronounced as Conine loses weight while training.

Though baseball is an anaerobic sport with short bursts of activity, unlike the long aerobic nature of triathlon, Conine believes the experience of playing a mentally taxing sport over a 162-game season will ease his transition.

“It’s all about being mentally tough,” he said. “With long-distance triathlon, it’s all about knowing when to push your body and when to rest and persevering through these boring six-hour rides and three-hour runs.”

Next, the amusing:

Green Acres II: When Neighbors Become Farmers
Suburban Arugula Is Organic and Fresh, but About That Manure...
By KELLY K. SPORS
April 22, 2008; Page A1

BOULDER, Colo. -- When suburbanites look out their front doors, a lot of them want to see a lush green lawn. Kipp Nash wants to see vegetables, and not all of his neighbors are thrilled.

"I'd rather see green grass" than brown dirt patches, says 82-year-old Florence Tatum, who lives in Mr. Nash's Boulder neighborhood, across the street from a house with a freshly dug manure patch out front. "But those days are slipping away."

A growing number of suburban Americans are earning extra cash by growing food in their backyards.

Since 2006, Mr. Nash, 31, has uprooted his backyard and the front or back yards of eight of his Boulder neighbors, turning them into minifarms growing tomatoes, bok choy, garlic and beets.

Between May and September, he gives weekly bagfuls of fresh-picked vegetables and herbs to people here who have bought "shares" of his farming operation. Neighbors who lend their yards to the effort are paid in free produce and yard work.

A school-bus driver, Mr. Nash rises at 5 a.m. and, after returning from his morning route, spends his days planting, watering and tending his yard farms and the seedlings he stores in a greenhouse behind his house.

Farmers don't necessarily live in the country anymore. They might just be your next-door neighbor, hoping to turn a dollar satisfying the blooming demand for organic, locally grown foods.

Unlike traditional home gardeners who devote a corner of the yard to a few rows of vegetables, a new crop of minifarmers is tearing up the whole yard and planting foods such as arugula and kohlrabi that restaurants might want to buy. The locally grown food movement has also created a new market for front-yard farmers.

"Agriculture is becoming more and more suburban," says Roxanne Christensen, publisher of Spin-Farming LLC, a Philadelphia company started in 2005 that sells guides and holds seminars teaching a small-scale farming technique that involves selecting high-profit vegetables like kale, carrots and tomatoes to grow, and then quickly replacing crops to reap the most from plots smaller than an acre. "Land is very expensive in the country, so people are saying, 'why not just start growing in the backyard?' "

And on the "we're doomed" front:

Load Up the Pantry
April 21, 2008 6:47 p.m.

I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.

No, this is not a drill.

You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.

Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.

"Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs."

(Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)

Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash.

Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.

Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.

And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.

These are trends that have been in place for some time.

And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate.

I'm Back, and Tired

... so a couple of days in Washington, and I'm beat. I didn't run, I didn't exercise, I didn't do tourist things -- although I was there for the pope's visit -- I just worked. And my shoulder (wah!) feels like hell. But it's gorgeous weather out there. Spring's here. Finally.



First things first. Rockets, in six. They just can't lose to a team that plays defense like this:

The Jazz. Like Indiana Jones: "The Jazz. I hate those guys." The Rox need another 22-game streak, although (I think) 16 would do quite nicely.

Wendell Berry has an awesome essay in this month's Harper's. I'm going to reprint a few relevant snippets. If you don't have a subscription, get one. Between the Index, Berry, and this months' Kevin Phillips story on how the government cooks economic numbers, this month's issue alone is well worth the $16.97 annual subscription price:

And so, in confronting the phenomenon of “peak oil,” we are really confronting the end of our customary delusion of “more.” Whichever way we turn, from now on, we are going to find a limit beyond which there will be no more. To hit these limits at top speed is not a rational choice. To start slowing down, with the idea of avoiding catastrophe, is a rational choice and a viable one if we can recover the necessary political sanity.

Of course it makes sense to consider alternative energy sources provided they make sense. But also we will have to re-examine the economic structures of our lives, and conform them to the tolerances and limits of our earthly places. When there is no more, our one choice is to make the most and best of what we have.

More reading, from the NYTimes:

April 18, 2008
Sticker Shock in the Organic Aisles
By ANDREW MARTIN and KIM SEVERSON

Shoppers have long been willing to pay a premium for organic food. But how much is too much?

Rising prices for organic groceries are prompting some consumers to question their devotion to food produced without pesticides, chemical fertilizers or antibiotics. In some parts of the country, a loaf of organic bread can cost $4.50, a pound of pasta has hit $3, and organic milk is closing in on $7 a gallon.

“The prices have gotten ridiculous,” said Brenda Czarnik, who was shopping recently at a food cooperative in St. Paul.

Of course, we think we have problems? Read on ...

April 18, 2008
Across Globe, Empty Bellies Bring Rising Anger
By MARC LACEY

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti’s presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country’s prime minister packing.

Haiti’s hunger, that burn in the belly that so many here feel, has become fiercer than ever in recent days as global food prices spiral out of reach, spiking as much as 45 percent since the end of 2006 and turning Haitian staples like beans, corn and rice into closely guarded treasures.

Saint Louis Meriska’s children ate two spoonfuls of rice apiece as their only meal recently and then went without any food the following day. His eyes downcast, his own stomach empty, the unemployed father said forlornly, “They look at me and say, ‘Papa, I’m hungry,’ and I have to look away. It’s humiliating and it makes you angry.”

That anger is palpable across the globe. The food crisis is not only being felt among the poor but is also eroding the gains of the working and middle classes, sowing volatile levels of discontent and putting new pressures on fragile governments.

I'm guessing not even everyone in our own country is concerned about the price of organics. Lots and lots of rough times out there:

April 18, 2008
Workers Get Fewer Hours, Deepening the Downturn
By PETER S. GOODMAN

Not long ago, overtime was a regular feature at the Ludowici Roof Tile factory in eastern Ohio. Not anymore. With orders scarce and crates of unsold tiles piling up across the yard, the company has slowed production and cut working hours, sowing worry and thrift among its workers.

“We don’t just hop in the car and go shopping or get something to eat,” said Kim Baker, whose take-home pay at the plant has recently dropped to $450 a week, from more than $600. “You’ve got to watch everything. If we go to town now, it’s for a reason.”

Throughout the country, businesses grappling with declining fortunes are cutting hours for those on their payrolls. Self-employed people are suffering a drop in demand for their services, like music lessons, catering and management consulting. Growing numbers of people are settling for part-time work out of a failure to secure a full-time position.

The gradual erosion of the paycheck has become a stealth force driving the American economic downturn. Most of the attention has focused on the loss of jobs and the risk of layoffs. But the less-noticeable shrinking of hours and pay for millions of workers around the country appears to be a bigger contributor to the decline, which has already spread from housing and finance to other important areas of the economy.

No. 250

I hadn't run this weekend, so I woke up this morning and decided to be unkind to myself. Did eight miles. Felt pretty good, too. I just kind of zoned out and relaxed, something I really do need to do a bit more. It started out cold, but by the time I finished (no global warming jokes, please), it was mild. Headed into Brattleboro and got some chicken feed and corn, milk, and a new shovel to replace the sorry, busted-ass implement that couldn't lever a 15-pound rock out of the garden.

Plugged away at work all day, taking a break at noon to get Stink out of the pond and pull taps out of the maples. It's been cold at night, so I believe we'll go for one ... more ... half-gallon. We can stop any time we want. Really. We've already got 5 1/2 gallons (and would have had six, if we hadn't let one batch boil over and burn). But we can stop. Honest.

You don't have to agree with him, but give Kunstler props for another hilarious rant:

A President Hillary will also go a long way to defeating the popular delusion that a world ruled by female humans would be heaven-on-earth. (It would be more like one of those chaotic single-parent households in Section-8 housing, ruled by a harried and distracted mom, with a shadowy man in the background molesting the little ones while she was off working at the WalMart.)

Better get to sleep at a reasonable hour. I'll have an insanely busy next few days. Off to The Big Apple and Our Nation's Capital. Sigh. Haven't even packed, and I'm already quite certain that I'd rather be sitting out on the front porch with Gray Kitten on my lap, watching the ducks torment collies and the chickens scratch in the dirt.

Five-Oh

Thought real hard about skipping the run this morning. My shoulder was still stiff, I didn't get to bed until 11a, I had a lot to do at work, and it was likely to be the last clear day until the middle of next week. Then I had a thought:

Pansy.

So I dropped the boys off at school and did five miles. Went to physical therapy -- the therapist said my shoulder and neck were pretty stiff. Felt much better after some stretching and ultrasound.

Came home and picked up about five gallons of sap. It looks as though the end is near, as far as the sap season goes. The syrup is becoming progressively darker -- not quite Grade C, but close. I believe even after propane and paying for buckets, spouts, felt, etc., we'll just about break even with five gallons or so (and at $50/gallon, it's pretty steep).

Plugged away at the day job, called about some pigs, got my eggs together for market, and ordered pig waterers. It looks like it'll be raining too much this weekend to get the electric fence installed in the back pasture, but we'll see. House needs serious cleaning, anyway.

Some Shameful Shit

... to quote Gus Haynes.

I didn't run this morning -- shoulder still hurt. Slept late, possibly because I was up working until 1a or thereabouts. Shoulder feels a bit better, but meh. Plugged away at the day job, mostly.

No wonder people are pissed. Here's some truly shameful shit:

April 9, 2008
Economic Scene
For Many, a Boom That Wasn’t
By DAVID LEONHARDT

How has the United States economy gotten to this point?

It’s not just the apparent recession. Recessions happen. If you tried to build an economy immune to the human emotions that produce boom and bust, you would end up with something that looked like East Germany.

The bigger problem is that the now-finished boom was, for most Americans, nothing of the sort. In 2000, at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau’s inflation-adjusted numbers. In 2007, in what looks to have been the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, seems to have made less — about $60,500.

This has never happened before, at least not for as long as the government has been keeping records. In every other expansion since World War II, the buying power of most American families grew while the economy did. You can think of this as the most basic test of an economy’s health: does it produce ever-rising living standards for its citizens?

In the second half of the 20th century, the United States passed the test in a way that arguably no other country ever has. It became, as the cliché goes, the richest country on earth. Now, though, most families aren’t getting any richer.

“We have had expansions before where the bottom end didn’t do well,” said Lawrence F. Katz, a Harvard economist who studies the job market. “But we’ve never had an expansion in which the middle of income distribution had no wage growth.”

More than anything else — more than even the war in Iraq — the stagnation of the great American middle-class machine explains the glum national mood today. As part of a poll that will be released Wednesday, the Pew Research Center asked people how they had done over the last five years. During that time, remember, the overall economy grew every year, often at a good pace.

... followed by this. I'm appalled that if you eat seven eggs a week, you've increased your chances of death by 23 percent. Apparently, six is just fine, though.

Sigh. I'm going to have to start peddling my product on street corners ... dodging law enforcement authorities. Following today's "The Wire" motif, I'll have to hook up with some of the other distributors and get a little Prop Joe-style co-op going.

As the late, great Clay Davis might phrase it: Sheeeeeeeeee-it.

Seven or more eggs a week raises risk of death
Wed Apr 9, 12:19 AM ET

Middle-aged men who ate seven or more eggs a week had a higher risk of earlier death, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

Men with diabetes who ate any eggs at all raised their risk of death during a 20-year period studied, according to the study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The study adds to an ever-growing body of evidence, much of it contradictory, about how safe eggs are to eat. It did not examine what about the eggs might affect the risk of death.

Men without diabetes could eat up to six eggs a week with no extra risk of death, Dr. Luc Djousse and Dr. J. Michael Gaziano of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School found.

Oh, but wait!

Men who ate the most eggs also were older, fatter, ate more vegetables but less breakfast cereal, and were more likely to drink alcohol, smoke and less likely to exercise -- all factors that can affect the risk of heart attack and death.