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 ...

Get Off Her Ass, Already

For some reason, a bunch of bloggers are beating up on this poor woman. But I'm betting we've got more canned green beans, carrots and peach preserves than she does.

Maybe.

July 31, 2008

She’s Ready: Just Add Water

By STEVEN KURUTZ

Cummington, Mass.

ONE Friday afternoon a few weeks ago, as cable news channels carried bulletins that two government-sponsored mortgage lenders might go bankrupt, Kathy Harrison stood in the kitchen of her two-story, 19th-century farmhouse here, about 20 miles northwest of Northampton, laying out herbs from the garden.

With commentators throwing around phrases like “mortgage meltdown” and “peak oil,” the American economy seemed, at least to some, at the edge of an abyss, but all was calm in the Harrison household. Two loaves of bread, baked fresh that morning, sat on the counter. Mrs. Harrison’s daughters, Karen, 14, and Phoebe, 5, were laughing and playing dress-up, while her husband, Bruce, 62, stood at his wife’s side.

Plenty of Americans, to be sure, have kept their cool in the face of the recent crises, believing that troubles bubbling up around them will not, in the end, be all that severe; or will not touch their own lives in a significant way; or, if they are and if they do — well, that’s a bridge to cross later. The obvious peace of mind in the Harrison household is of a different order, and has something to do with the provisions Mrs. Harrison has stockpiled throughout the house, which include cans of powdered milk; several hundred pounds of wheat berry, oats, flour and rice; water purification tablets; shelves of toothpaste and toilet paper; a solar oven; packs of hermetically sealed seeds; and other items to sustain the family in an emergency.

Mrs. Harrison believes in home preparedness, and after readying her own home for a worst-case scenario — be it a flood or a nuclear or bioterrorist attack — she has written a book, “Just in Case: How to Be Self-Sufficient When the Unexpected Happens” (Storey Publishing, $16.95), to help others do the same.

Written in the information-rich style of a manual, the book is full of practical tips. What affordable bedding preserves heat best? PrimaLoft comforters, according to Mrs. Harrison’s informal tests. What company makes “the Cadillac of nonelectric lamps,” using kerosene? Aladdin, Mrs. Harrison notes.

Her wisdom is delivered in a tone of pioneer optimism. “In a time of crisis you want to start the day with a good breakfast,” she writes, introducing a recipe for something called cornmeal mush. The book, which draws on Mrs. Harrison’s wide reading in the literature of preparedness, as well as books on narrower subjects like canning, cheesemaking and felling trees, is notable for discussing what to do in the event of a chemical attack without detouring into panic-mongering territory.

“I don’t expect someone to drop a nuke on me,” said Mrs. Harrison, 56, an energetic and upbeat woman who calls herself a prepper rather than a doomer. “But after 9/11 — and certainly after Hurricane Katrina — I realized that, holy smoke, the cavalry doesn’t always charge in to rescue you.”

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.

How I Spent My 2008 (Summer) Tax Rebate

Devil pig photos tomorrow. But for today, here's another of my contributions (or maybe my children's contributions? Arab investors' contributions? Random Chinese bondholders?) to the American economy, courtesy of the rebate check that arrived last week. Only a few more months until I wish I'd gotten this baby in, oh, March or so:

Labels. Annoying and Silly Labels.

So, if you're concerned about peak oil, you've got to be a "survivalist."

Energy fears looming, new survivalists prepare

By SAMANTHA GROSS – 2 days ago

BUSKIRK, N.Y. (AP) — A few years ago, Kathleen Breault was just another suburban grandma, driving countless hours every week, stopping for lunch at McDonald's, buying clothes at the mall, watching TV in the evenings.

That was before Breault heard an author talk about the bleak future of the world's oil supply. Now, she's preparing for the world as we know it to disappear.

Breault cut her driving time in half. She switched to a diet of locally grown foods near her upstate New York home and lost 70 pounds. She sliced up her credit cards, banished her television and swore off plane travel. She began relying on a wood-burning stove.

"I was panic-stricken," the 50-year-old recalled, her voice shaking. "Devastated. Depressed. Afraid. Vulnerable. Weak. Alone. Just terrible."

Convinced the planet's oil supply is dwindling and the world's economies are heading for a crash, some people around the country are moving onto homesteads, learning to live off their land, conserving fuel and, in some cases, stocking up on guns they expect to use to defend themselves and their supplies from desperate crowds of people who didn't prepare.

The exact number of people taking such steps is impossible to determine, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the movement has been gaining momentum in the last few years.

These energy survivalists are not leading some sort of green revolution meant to save the planet. Many of them believe it is too late for that, seeing signs in soaring fuel and food prices and a faltering U.S. economy, and are largely focused on saving themselves.

And if you want to grow more of your own food, you must be a "localvore."

Growing the zero-mile diet

With fears of GMOs and widespread carbon guilt, cultivating your own veggies is poised to be the new competitive sport

FIONA MORROW

May 23, 2008

VANCOUVER -- So you've bought into the 100-mile diet. Eco points to you. If you're looking for serious ethical kudos this season, however, you're going to have to dig even deeper - literally.

Serious locavores are working on a zero-mile diet, courtesy of the old-fashioned vegetable garden. As Canadians break ground in many parts of the country this month, concern over the carbon footprint of the global food trade is inspiring them to reach for their spades. And the hunger for a diet free of genetic modifications means the demand for organically grown and heirloom varieties has never been so great.

Dan Jason should know. The owner of Salt Spring Seeds has been promoting an intense local diet for 20 years from his home on British Columbia's Salt Spring Island. After he was interviewed by Vancouverites Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon for their groundbreaking book, The 100-Mile Diet, Mr. Jason was struck with an idea.

"I thought, 'What is this 100-mile diet? We should be aiming for a zero-mile diet.' "

I'm just saying: Whatever happened to people? Yeesh.

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.

Cold, Wet and Rainy

Only been able to plant one of the apple trees. Still waiting to take Lisa's tomato and pepper plants out of flats and put them into the ground. Also need to dig up another 300 to 500 square feet of garden. Here's how it works:

1. Break sod into squares with pitchfork
2. Pull big rocks from ground
3. Get on hands and knees, pull up sod
4. Pull big rocks from ground
5. Turn soil over with pitchfork
6. Pull big rocks from ground

See the pattern? Pre-Columbian gardening, that's us.

The pigs are cracking me up. They sleep late. When I go to look at them in the morning, they've usually burrowed under the hay, and all you can see are little curly pig tails sticking out of the hay. The really good news? They're eating less grain that I'd expected. They've been around a bit more than a week, and haven't gone through an entire bag.

(I expect that'll change).

They eat a ton of leaves off bushes, and they're doing very well with old veggies and fruits from the market. We went to pick up the pig bucket tonight, and were warned that we'll need to start making daily trips very soon, when watermelon and fruit sales pick up.

I'll hope they do, and not just for the piglets' sakes -- I worry that this is going to be a slow summer for folks who depend on tourists. Four dollar gas ain't nothing to sneeze at, and I don't think it's getting better any time soon. Saw a story today where some analysts said oil might get as high as $140 this year. Given that it's at $132 today -- up from $129 yesterday -- um, yeah. I think it might hit $140 at some point this year. Like, before Memorial Day.

Back to the piglets -- I'm wondering if I should introduce them to the collies. I'm not utterly stupid; I know that nothing good can come from this. But I just know that Stink in particular would enjoy playing with pigs.

Maybe it'd be a name thing.

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.

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.

Restating the Obvious

From today's NYTimes:

April 7, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Grains Gone Wild
By PAUL KRUGMAN
These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there’s another world crisis under way — and it’s hurting a lot more people.

I’m talking about the food crisis. Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last few months. High food prices dismay even relatively well-off Americans — but they’re truly devastating in poor countries, where food often accounts for more than half a family’s spending.

There have already been food riots around the world. Food-supplying countries, from Ukraine to Argentina, have been limiting exports in an attempt to protect domestic consumers, leading to angry protests from farmers — and making things even worse in countries that need to import food.

How did this happen? The answer is a combination of long-term trends, bad luck — and bad policy.

Let’s start with the things that aren’t anyone’s fault.

First, there’s the march of the meat-eating Chinese — that is, the growing number of people in emerging economies who are, for the first time, rich enough to start eating like Westerners. Since it takes about 700 calories’ worth of animal feed to produce a 100-calorie piece of beef, this change in diet increases the overall demand for grains.

Second, there’s the price of oil. Modern farming is highly energy-intensive: a lot of B.T.U.’s go into producing fertilizer, running tractors and, not least, transporting farm products to consumers. With oil persistently above $100 per barrel, energy costs have become a major factor driving up agricultural costs.

High oil prices, by the way, also have a lot to do with the growth of China and other emerging economies. Directly and indirectly, these rising economic powers are competing with the rest of us for scarce resources, including oil and farmland, driving up prices for raw materials of all sorts.

Third, there has been a run of bad weather in key growing areas. In particular, Australia, normally the world’s second-largest wheat exporter, has been suffering from an epic drought.

O.K., I said that these factors behind the food crisis aren’t anyone’s fault, but that’s not quite true. The rise of China and other emerging economies is the main force driving oil prices, but the invasion of Iraq — which proponents promised would lead to cheap oil — has also reduced oil supplies below what they would have been otherwise.

And bad weather, especially the Australian drought, is probably related to climate change. So politicians and governments that have stood in the way of action on greenhouse gases bear some responsibility for food shortages.

Where the effects of bad policy are clearest, however, is in the rise of demon ethanol and other biofuels.

The subsidized conversion of crops into fuel was supposed to promote energy independence and help limit global warming. But this promise was, as Time magazine bluntly put it, a “scam.”

This is especially true of corn ethanol: even on optimistic estimates, producing a gallon of ethanol from corn uses most of the energy the gallon contains. But it turns out that even seemingly “good” biofuel policies, like Brazil’s use of ethanol from sugar cane, accelerate the pace of climate change by promoting deforestation.

And meanwhile, land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis. You might put it this way: people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering: all the remaining presidential contenders are terrible on this issue.

One more thing: one reason the food crisis has gotten so severe, so fast, is that major players in the grain market grew complacent.

Governments and private grain dealers used to hold large inventories in normal times, just in case a bad harvest created a sudden shortage. Over the years, however, these precautionary inventories were allowed to shrink, mainly because everyone came to believe that countries suffering crop failures could always import the food they needed.

This left the world food balance highly vulnerable to a crisis affecting many countries at once — in much the same way that the marketing of complex financial securities, which was supposed to diversify away risk, left world financial markets highly vulnerable to a systemwide shock.

What should be done? The most immediate need is more aid to people in distress: the U.N.’s World Food Program put out a desperate appeal for more funds.

We also need a pushback against biofuels, which turn out to have been a terrible mistake.

But it’s not clear how much can be done. Cheap food, like cheap oil, may be a thing of the past.

200, 100, -15

In no particular order:

It's my 200th post.

Oil hit $100 per barrel today.

And it's supposed to get down to 15 below zero tonight.

I geek myself out sometimes, I really do.

Quiet day. Took the kids to school, ran home and showered. Ran into Brattleboro to drop off cans at the recycling center, picked up rabbit and chicken feed. Stopped by the post office to get egg cartons. Listened to NHPR most of the way (VPR signal is kinda faint in the mountains). It occurs to me that next week's primary is like living next to a halfway house that's closing. You just hope the parolees won't decide to wander over and see if they can stay with you for a few years.

All that, and at my desk working by 10a.

Strange experience last night. Went out for my late afternoon walk around 415p. Got about a mile down the road and noticed ... no color whatsoever. It was getting dark, so the only colors were white, gray and black. Very strange in a monochromatic sort of way.

Kids home at the usual time. John poking around, asking about animistic religions. Will arguing that he doesn't need new shoes (he's got duct tape holding together his current ones; it's a bit embarassing). We decided we'd go into Keene Friday night and spend some of their Christmas money, browse at the bookstore and eat pizza.

Again, very quiet day. Quiet is good. We like quiet.

End of the Year

No great thoughts or resolutions; just the end of the year. Walked, cleaned, baked, cooked, did laundry, kept the woodstove going, scolded dogs, fed chickens and rabbits today -- Lisa's gone to Florida for the week to visit her dad, so it's just me and the boys.

An unholy bunch of snow on the ground, with another foot coming tomorrow. We probably got 10 inches today, on top of the 20 inches already this year. It's about what we got during all of last winter. Tourists are out in force, with all the subtlety of a Bastille mob. There were out-of-state SUVs lined up five deep in front of the gas pumps at the main store this afternoon.

Which is a not-too-elegant segue into Kunstler's 2008 predictions. Even if you don't agree with him, he's a hell of a lot of fun to read. I think you might see his photo in Webster's, under "schadenfreude."

For the tiny fraction of people who actually pay attention to real events -- those, for instance, who know the difference between Narnia and Kandahar -- the final hours of 2007 leading into the fog-shrouded abyss of 2008 must induce great racking shudders of nausea. Has there ever been a society so exquisitely rigged for implosion? The whole listing, creaking, reeking edifice stands like one of those obsolete Las Vegas pleasure palaces awaiting a mere pulse of electrons to ignite a thousand explosive charges perfectly placed to blow away the structural supports.

The inertia holding everything together that I described in last year's forecast finally melted away at mid-summer and events began spooling out of control. Specifically, the massive tonnage of debt-backed securities circulating through the financial sector stood revealed for the mostly worthless bales of paper they truly are, and the investment community was left suspended in mid-air, grinning unconvincingly, like Wile E. Coyote thirteen yards beyond the edge of the mesa, with a sputtering grenade in each hand and an anvil tied to his ankles ...

I suppose I do have a couple of minor resolutions -- more time with the kids, more production on the day job, finish my books, grow more of our own food, a speedy and complete rehab, etc. -- but nothing really too terribly profound. Hope that's not jinxing things somehow.

Here's to a decent 2008, anyway.

Postscript: Wouldn't you know it. The folks down the road are doing their own fireworks show. And Pepper is now sitting on top of my head, shaking like a damn jackhammer. A good dog, but not excessively fond of loud noise.

Sloshy

Rained a good chunk of today, then warmed up. Snow melting into sloshy stuff all over the place. Not terribly cold, though. Went for a moderate walk this afternoon, probably for another one tonight.

Spent most of today talking with Lisa about plans for 2008. Four pigs or six pigs? What kind of seeds? Hard or soft cheeses? To tap maple or not to tap? More chickens, just for meat? Thinking about going to the NOFA-Massachusetts winter conference mid-month. Frustrating part will be getting bunches of really good knowledge -- beekeeping, preserving, sugaring -- and probably not being able to do anything about it for six months. Sigh.

Also am thinking about how I'll want to spend my rehab. It's looking as though it'll be a month (and maybe two) before I can even think about training, looking at a computer, writing, cooking, or working on the land; in other words, any of the things I do with my time. I suppose I'm very capable of sitting on my ass, getting fat and watching endless loops of "Law & Order." About the only series that I haven't seen that I'm interested in seeing would be "The Wire." I'll hope for a good Amazon or Craigslist deal.

All in all, I suspect my best bet will be to whip out the library card and pick up a ton of books next month, maybe a trainer stand for the bike. That'll help, but there's got to be something I can do to keep from going completely batshit. Maybe some sort of volunteer work that only involves one arm?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me and a bunch of guys from Iraq. I got no problems, I know. Wah. Poor me. And bright spot! The collies and I are back on speaking terms. Actually, I'm on speaking terms with Pepper. She seems very pleased. Stink is still ... a Stink. With a capital 'S.' He isn't sorry in the slightest for having eaten the better chunk of a Christmas ham.

On the frugal front, here's an interesting concept -- energy resolutions for the new year.

Off to do some writing.

Frosty

Woke up Monday to a half-foot of snow on the ground, and more falling. All told, we probably got about 10 inches. At least we've now got firewood -- the guy finally got his truck in working order and dumped a cord on the driveway. It's the small things that count, like not having frozen pipes.

Worked like a dog on the day job all day while the kids slept late and enjoyed a snow day.

Have I mentioned that chickens are not so fun to take care of in the winter? The metal water buckets tend to get a bit icy, and the peeps are kind of testy. It's a wee bit chilly for them -- I'm thinking the wind chill is close to zero this morning -- so they're not venturing out of the coop. And after I built a nice little straw-lined 2'x4' windbreak box for the ducks ... they're just hanging out in the open, freezing their butts off.

Got a call from John's guidance counselor. He's struggling a bit, which, we agreed, is not unusual for a 16-year-old. Sigh. But he is trying harder this year than last, so I really don't have too much to complain about.

Speaking of which, this is just a really neat NY Times story and almost makes me feel badly that I had no idea there was a show called "America's Next Top Model." I suppose this would make me a cultural doofus. Anyway, this woman should've won, for being really brave if nothing else:






December 4, 2007
Well
Asperger’s Syndrome Gets a Very Public Face
By TARA PARKER-POPE


Heather Kuzmich has the neurological disorder known as Asperger’s syndrome. She is socially awkward, has trouble making eye contact and is sometimes the target of her roommates’ jokes.

But what makes the 21-year-old Ms. Kuzmich different from others with Asperger’s is that for the past 11 weeks, her struggle to cope with her disability has played out on national television.

She is one of 13 young women selected by the supermodel Tyra Banks to compete on the popular reality television show “America’s Next Top Model.” The addition of Heather Kuzmich to an otherwise superficial show has given millions of viewers an unusual and compelling glimpse into the little-understood world of Asperger’s.

The disorder, considered a form of autism, is characterized by unusual social interaction and communication skills. Aspies, as people with the condition like to call themselves, often have normal or above-average intelligence, but they have trouble making friends and lack the intuitive ability to gauge social situations. They fail to make eye contact and often exhibit a single-minded fixation that can be both bizarre and brilliant.

By definition, people with Asperger’s are outside the mainstream. Even so, in recent months the syndrome has been cast into the limelight. “Look Me in the Eye,” a memoir about living with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison, who once created special effects for the rock band Kiss, has been a best-seller. In August, the Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Tim Page wrote a poignant article for The New Yorker about life with undiagnosed Asperger’s.

Mr. Robison says the popular appeal of these stories may be due, in part, to the tendency of people with Asperger’s to be painfully direct — they lack the social filter that prevents other people from speaking their minds.

“It’s important because the world needs to know that there are tremendous differences in human behavior,” said Mr. Robison, whose brother is the writer Augusten Burroughs. “People are all too willing to throw away someone because they don’t respond the way they want. I think books like mine tell the world that there is more to us than that.”

But while Mr. Robison and Mr. Page tell the story of coping with Asperger’s from the perspective of men in their 50s, Heather Kuzmich is just beginning her life as an adult with the disorder. And it is often painful to watch her transition from socially awkward adolescent to socially awkward adult.

A gifted art student from Valparaiso, Ind., she has a lean and angular look well suited to the fashion industry. But her beauty doesn’t mask the challenges of Asperger’s. The show requires her to live in a house with 12 other would-be models, and cattiness and backbiting ensue. Early in the show, she appears socially isolated, the girls whisper about her within earshot, and viewers see her crying on the phone to her mother.

One girl is frustrated when Heather, concentrating on packing a bag, doesn’t hear a request to move out of the way. At one point, the others laugh when they stake out their beds and Heather has no place to sleep.

“I wish I could get the joke,” Heather laments.

“You. You’re the joke,” retorts another model, Bianca, an 18-year-old college student who is from Queens.

If there's such a thing as karma, then perhaps Bianca will soon become Long Island's Next Top Crack-Addled Prostitute. Keep your fingers crossed.

And, just because I can't go a day without seeing something genuinely worrisome:

Riots and hunger feared as demand for grain sends food costs soaring
· Expert to warn industry of threats to world supply·

Biofuels and Chinese boom put pressure on harvests

Jonathan Watts in Beijing

Tuesday December 4, 2007

Guardian

The risks of food riots and malnutrition will surge in the next two years as the global supply of grain comes under more pressure than at any time in 50 years, according to one of the world's leading agricultural researchers.

Recent pasta protests in Italy, tortilla rallies in Mexico and onion demonstrations in India are just the start of the social instability to come unless there is a fundamental shift to boost production of staple foods, Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute, warned in an interview with the Guardian.

The growing appetite of China and other fast-developing nations has combined with the expansion of biofuel programmes in the United States and Europe to transform the global food situation.

After decades of expanding crop yields and falling food prices, the past year has seen a sharp rise in the cost of wheat, rice, corn, soya and dairy products.

"Demand is running away. The world has been consuming more than it produces for five years now. Stocks of grain - of rice, wheat and maize - are down at levels not seen since the early 80s," said von Braun, whose organisation is the world's largest alliance of agricultural researchers, economists, and policy experts.

So far, crises have been averted because states have eaten into national stocks, but this could be set to change because China, in particular, has run down its supplies.

"Over the next 12 to 24 months we are in a fairly risky situation. Large consuming nations, particularly China, will feel pressed to enter international markets to bid up prices to unusual levels," von Braun warned ahead of a speech today to the institute's AGM in Beijing.

Me Tube

Worked all day, actually got quite a bit done.

Took off around 3p to go to the hospital for X-rays and MRI. The X-rays were a pain. Had to do contortions all over the table so they could get a good shot of my shoulder. Hurt like hell. Then, into the tube, which is about the size of your average Manhattan studio apartment. Finally got comfortable about 30 minutes into it, then fell asleep for the last 10 minutes. They'll have results next week. Part of me hopes it's arthritis and can be rehabbed. I'd be amazed, though.

Other depressing news: Ali Samsam Bakhtiari died recently. He was one of the few folks from the Middle East who -- I think -- got the idea that we'll eventually run out of oil. He took pains to disassociate himself from the "peak oil" community, but the message was pretty clear. Here's a link to testimony before the Australian Senate:

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S9515.pdf

Cold tonight, with snow showers.

Bake It

A good piece from The Simple Dollar on baking your own bread. Why? Here's one good reason -- look at the ingredients in store-bought:

Enriched wheat flour (flour, barley malt, ferrous sulfate (iron), “B” vitamins (niacin, thaimine mononitrate (B1), riboflavin (B2), folic acid)), water, sweetener (high fructose corn syrup or sugar), yeast, wheat bran, whole wheat flour, wheat gluten, molasses. Contains 2% or less of: soybean oil, salt, sweet dairy whey, butter (cream, salt, enzymes), maltodextrin, honey, corn syrup, calcium sulfate, soy flur, dough conditioners (may contain: dicalcium phosphate, calcium dioxide, sodium stearoyl lactylate, ethoxylated mono and diglycerides, mono and diglycerides, and/or datem), yeast nutrients (may contain: ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, calcium carbonate, monocalcium phosphate, and/or ammonium phosphate), cornstarch, wheat starch, vinegar, natural flavor, beta carotene (color), enzymes, calcium propionate (to retain freshness), soy lecithin.

It's sometimes a pain in the butt, and it's always time-consuming. But it's worth it. We do pretty much all our own bread; sometimes, buying hamburger buns, or as a treat, potato bread for the kids. But for day-to-day stuff, we do all our own. The kids snack like fiends on it.

It also, of course, takes fewer calories to produce.

So I'm looking at the "all-new Chrysler Town and Country minivan" while reading about a new game: "Peak Oil Shock Me."

An increasingly popular parlor game among peak oil activists is to see who can serve up the most shocking morsel of peak oil news at any one sitting. There are now plenty of morsels to choose from on an almost daily basis. Here are some recent samples:

A former Saudi Aramco executive said he believes the world has peaked.

Production at the large international oil companies appears to be dropping like a stone. (Recent reports on Shell, BP and Exxon tell the story.)

Greenland's offshore undiscovered reserves are estimated to be far less than previously thought.

Persistent new highs in the oil price of late only add to the end-times quality of the game.

Just a bit of cognitive dissonance going on ...

Speaking of which, the price dropped a bit today. Be entertaining (if that's the right word) to see what happens on Wednesday when the next inventory report comes out. Seems as though lately it drops on Monday and Tuesday, then goes up midweek.