Figueroa Produce: Provisioner for my Inner Caveman

For several months, I have been transitioning my food intake (I dislike the word 'diet' because it is usually used to connote a short-term change of eating habits in effort to lose weight, which is neither my strategy nor my goal here) to correspond to what it generally described as 'paleo'. 

In short, the paleo diet food intake strategy is based on the idea that there were certain foods at the center of the diet of our ancient ancestors, as they emerged from the primeval jungles, millions of years ago, to become hunter-gatherers.  These are the foods that our bodies' DNA is coded to respond favorably towards, because these are the foods that our DNA itself was mutating and evolving in response to.  Foods in this category include fresh meats and veggies.

Then there are other foods that entered the diet later, which, although easy to grow, turn out to be pretty bad for you.  These include grains and legumes, which entered the human diet at the onset of the agricultural revolution, which was only about 10,000 years ago, roughly.  Apparently there is lots of anthropological evidence that human nutrition took a nose-dive when this happened.

Lately (and here I mean the past several decades), there have been even more additions to the diet that are also highly destructive to your metabolism, like all the modern oils derived from grains, sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, processed starches, trans-fats, and the like.  For more in-depth info on all things paleo, including a blog and lots of links + resources, check out the website Modern Paleo.

So I have been transitioning to this mostly-meat-plus-some-veggies diet, and haven't felt this good in a long time.  I used to have heartburn, indigestion, and all kinds of stomach discomfort.  Now these are very rare, and are pretty much confined to lapses of judgment when I eat something completely ridiculous like pizza or pasta (and which happens less and less.) My weight has stabilized around 178, which is pretty good for being 6'-1" tall, and my body fat is pretty low.  I don't know exactly how low, but you can kinda see my abs peeking through.  My energy has been great, and I feel, overall, really healthy.

One thing that has made this whole new way of eating a really fun part of my everyday routine has been the discovery of a great little market, right in my neighborhood, called Figueroa Produce.

 They sell everything a modern-stoneage caveman could want!  

The produce is gorgeous, and they have a wide selection of both organic and regular:

 
They sell raw milk, Lurpak butter, and Greek Gods yogurt, in addition to a great selection of other dairy products:

But the thing that is the most amazing of all, to me, is the meat department.

They have both regular and grass-fed beef.  The grass-fed comes from a local California family farm called Open Space Meats.  I have really enjoyed the grass-fed beef, and it doesn't seem strong or gamey at all to me, like I have heard some people describe grass-fed beef can be.

 Check out that giant grass-fed marrow bone! 

But wait - it gets even better: they make all their own ground beef right there in the store, daily.  Even their regular, non-grass-fed ground beef is better than any ground beef I have bought outside the Midwest (and I have lived in California for 19 years.)  Or, if you prefer, you can ask Rick, the friendly butcher peopleguy, and he will take any cut of meat right out of the case and grind it for you on the spot!  And their prices are far lower than a certain well-known, big organic supermarket chain (that no longer sells raw dairy products by the way.)

I realize at this point this blog post is starting to sound a bit like a commercial.  That's because it is!  Seriously, I have a selfish interest in seeing this store succeed, so I can keep shopping there.  Also, there's my natural enthusiasm for seeing an enterprise start up from scratch, and watching the owners, Anthony, Luis and Ruben, in there working hard day in and day out to make it succeed.   I really value their efforts.  If anyone deserves success, they do.

One last thing, I almost forgot.  If you give them your email address, they'll email you a coupon for 10% off your entire order.  So if you live anywhere near Highland Park, South Pasadena, Pasadena, or Eagle Rock, start getting your caveman supplies at Figueroa Produce!

Light Weekend Welding: Baseplates and Barstools

For me, Easter is like the beginning of Summer.  I can skip Spring.  In L.A., there's always something blooming year round, and not many trees lose their leaves, so the traditional signals of thaw and rebirth don't really apply.

Summer, for me, means spending as much time outside as possible.  Winter is for bundling up and listening to the rain, while knitting or spending time at the piano.  Summer is for gardening and welding.  I don't abandon my piano in the summer, or set aside my yarn and needles altogether, but these activities definitely yield to the warm weather and long days.

Yesterday I had a great day in the workshop, clearing out stuff that had piled up over the winter, getting things set up to make it into a working shop once again.  Adding to the fun, my buddy Alan came over for a welding lesson in the afternoon.  It was the first time I had had someone visit and hang out in the shop with me, and we had a lot of fun.

Sometimes I go very purposefully out to the shop, to construct a design that is fully preconceived and sketched out.  Other times, I am spontaneously inspired to make something new as I look through my scrap piles and inventory of metal and parts.  Some of these impromptu creations are more successful than others, but my ratio of successes is steadily improving.

Yesterday was a good day for impromptu creations.

Generally, if I haven't welded anything in a week or longer, I take something small and simple to work on as a warm-up project.  Yesterday, after I got things organized and straightened around to where I could get to work, I decided, as my warm up, to take a little step stool I had made a couple of years ago, and weld a back onto it to make a kid's chair.

 Left: Orange chair made in 2007.  Right: Base made in 2007, back added yesterday.  

I decided the cute orange chair needed a companion, perhaps to be painted red.  These chairs are made from discarded base plate templates.  What's a base plate template, you ask?

On the right, in the photo above, is a complete base plate template. In building construction, the metal plate is used to position and hold the L-shaped bolts while concrete is being poured.  After the concrete cures, the plate is removed and discarded, and then a steel column is set into place and bolted down.

I have been using them as plant stands around my back patio ever since I scavenged rescued them from a construction site where they were being thrown out.  Apparently they had ordered too many of them, or they were the wrong size, or both.  These were in the discard pile.  That happened to be a government job.  Go figure.  I should say a special "thank you" to all the L.A. Taxpayers who funded my materials for this blog post.

Some of the plates were made into chairs, including the orange one above. These were made as kiddie chairs, specifically for my nieces and nephew when they visited (along with my sis and bro-in-law) for Thanksgiving, 2007.  But somehow, one of the chairs never got a back.  Then it just became a step stool and was languishing in the garage, until it became my warm-up project yesterday.

Here we are playing "Will It Float?" in the driveway.

We had a lot of fun making predictions and testing them out!

The kids made good use of the chairs.

My excitement over the re-discovery of the Orange Chair of Cuteness, and the creation of its mate, and a desire to make a bunch more of them, led to the dismantling of a few more plant stand/baseplate templates.

Then things took a different turn, when I looked at the growing pile of L-shaped bolt-legs sitting there, and I got a completely new idea:  I envisioned a weirdo swiveling adjustable-height bar stool, using the L-shaped bolts from the template but inverting them to become the legs for the stool.  At first it was going to have 3 legs, but when I saw that piece of square tubing, and decided to make it the seat, I realized it would look better with 4 legs.

Thus, my latest creation was, well, created:

Behold the Robot Bar Stool!

I think its best use will be as a seat at a BBQ or garden party, where you can hold a plate of food while you sit on it, and have your drink stashed inside the compartment.

Seen here with the whole gang.

Presented here by Spokesdogs Paul and Todd:

I told them to pretend it was a Calvin Klein ad.  I think they did pretty well.

And finally, demonstrated by the author:

Hi, Mom!

Showing off my latest hand-knit gloves as well!

I still want to make some more kiddie chairs. There's always next weekend!

Delayed Moonrise

As I was watching and waiting on Monday evening for my friend Cathy to come over for dinner, the full moon rose from behind my neighbors' house across the street.  I ran for my camera and caught it just in time!  I had forgotten I had taken pictures of it until just now.

Since I don't want this blog to be only about long essays, I decided to post it.  Enjoy!

We Are All Coloradans

Recently, the Colorado legislature passed, and their Governor signed, a law that authorizes the state to collect sales tax from Amazon, based on their Amazon Associates program.  That is the program where bloggers have ads and links on their blogs, and if a click-through results in a sale, the blogger is paid a small commission. 

I haven’t had time to read all the analysis, but essentially the new law declares that the Amazon Associates establishes a business presence for Amazon in the state, making these sales subject to Colorado sales tax that Amazon would be required to collect.  There is apparently a huge amount of red tape holding the whole thing together.


Immediately, Amazon dropped all their Colorado Associates.  Can you blame them?  Why put your face intentionally in the way of a swinging fist when you can just leave and take your toys someplace where they place nicely? 

Also, how is the Amazon Associates program, which is essentially just an online advertisement, any different from, say, taking out a magazine or newspaper ad?  If Amazon decided to take out an ad in The Denver Post, would that give them a business presence in Colorado?  The very notion is absurd.  How is a blog that happens to be written by someone who lives in Colorado any different?

Now, the bloggers are fighting back.  Notably, Diana Hsieh and Ari Armstrong, two leading Objectivist intellectuals/writers/activists, have taken up the cause.  Ms. Hsieh has launched a website, Repeal The Amazon Tax, where they have begun a campaign to have the legislation overturned.  There is also a Google Group that you can join to get updates on the campaign; Mr. Armstrong has been heading up that front.  My hope is that they succeed.

Why should I care, sitting here at home in Los Angeles?  What dog do I have in this race? 

Here’s why I care:  Because the intrusion of government, (at all levels: federal, state and local,) into the lives of the normal, law-abiding citizenry, cannot keep accellerating.  It’s not just growing, it is accellerating.  It’s like a Prius, careening out of control (if you believe any of that hype.)

I have been doing a lot of soul-searching, as I watch, to my dismay, as my fellow Californians vote to pass stupid tax increases and pointless bond measures like it's nothing at all.  From sales tax increases for pointless mass-transit projects, to Governor Arnold and his complete inability to manage his way out of a paper bag, let alone manage such an enormous entity as the State of California.  Then you have the L.A. City Council and local government, wasting money and playing favorites left and right.  The City Attorney has found a neat way to quash both property and free speech rights by cracking down with his regulatory iron fist, upon those giant supergraphics that they like to wrap buildings with these days.  (That one is a real shame, since the supergraphics often improve the buildings' appearance too.)

Through it all, the voice in my head has been getting louder, asking with all seriousness:  do I really want to stay in California, if this is going to be how it's going to be?  But then, is it really going to be any better anywhere else?  Should I stay and fight?  But that is a another question for another time.

The issue at hand for today is:  Can a small group of dedicated, principled, freedom-fighting Coloradans  defeat this tax?

If so, then I might feel like there’s some hope for the rest of us.

And, I pledge my solidarity, by declaring that

We Are All Coloradans

or, at least, this blogger is.

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I remember, as a small child (first or second grade-ish), wanting to be very creative when I grew up. When I was around 12, I decided I wanted to be an architect.

Next week I am taking the final of 10 exams required to be a licensed architect in California, and I have completed all the other requirements as well, so I am really close!

I have to go get back to my studying now.

Ask me anything

Presidential Hypocracy

I was just driving home, half-listening to the news on the radio, when I was jolted to full attention by the following quote, spoken in the voice of President Barama:

“...because nothing should get in the way of a family and its doctor.”

As I said, I had only been half-listening, (maybe even only one-third-listening,) and the news broadcast switched to another subject after the quote ended.  Still, it didn’t take any effort at all for the news junkie in me to realize that he was talking about his latest efforts to get Congress to pass his healthcare legislation.

I wanted to jump up and point at the radio and shout “You Lie!” but since I was driving and it was raining, and driving in the rain in L.A. is pretty much like driving in an ice storm anywhere else in the country, I couldn’t really jump up and level my accusation.

Come on people, let’s do a little reality check here.  Is there not already a MASSIVE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY and ENDLESS REGULATORY RED TAPE bogging down our healthcare system (and getting right in the way of a family and its doctor?)  For the President to make this particular statement, on this subject, in the context of what he is trying to do with healthcare in America, is utterly outrageous.  You can see it on YouTube here and if you scroll to 2:57 you will get the quote.  It is preceded by a pretty standard rant against the evil insurance companies, which of course completely drops the context of all the regulation that has them boxed into the dreadful state they are in these days.

Back when my Mom was still working as a nurse (Hi Mom!) I remember how shocked I was to learn that it was about a third of the man-hours of a doctor’s office that was given to regulatory compliance.  I’m sure it’s much higher now, probably close to half (or more?) as that was probably about a decade ago. 

Do we really need more of this?  How much red tape is enough?  Is there EVER enough?  The answer (from those holding the tape dispensors) is:  Clearly Not!   The problem with red tape is that the more of it you have, the more you need, to try to fix the unexpected problems that inevitably spring up as a result of the red tape applied to the problem in the first place. 

The red tape must be unraveled, not augmented.

And, there are so, so, so many good ideas out there for reforming the system, from tort reform, to reducing mandates and allowing interstate insurance competition, and encouraging those medical savings accounts, and many others, that there’s really no excuse for pretending that expanding the existing MASSIVE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY and ENDLESS REGULATORY RED TAPE is the way out of this mess.  (Yes, I realize that if the RRT is really ‘endless’ then it is a logical contradiction to characterize it as ‘expandable’ but there are far worse contradictions at work in the halls of Congress, and believe you me, they will find a way to do it.)  And if you think this bill will somehow streamline things or pay for itself with its own efficiencies or some such nonsense, you are living in Fantasy Land.

I also fully realize that the kind of contradictory double-speak exhibited by President Barama in this example is the norm these days, and it practically comes out of just about every politician’s mouth all the time, but he is the President after all, and as such it makes him a pretty clear target for criticism.

Gloves!

My sister, Emily, is one of the most Amazingly Fabulous Knitters You Will Ever Meet.  She is constantly modifying complicated sweater patterns to better fit her, or give a more flattering neck line, or whatever.  Then she blogs about it, very matter-of-factly, describing how she somehow managed to knit this complicated sweater and get it all done in a week's time, in spite of also having to plan and execute some volunteer after-school art class thing for her kids' school, and while also entertaining visiting in-laws.  She is a great case study in persistent, incremental action yielding great results.  She is also a fast knitter.  You can read her blog here (and you should, but not until after you finish reading my blog.)

In addition to running a household with a husband and 3 kids, she also has a nice little business dyeing sock yarn, which she sells at her Etsy shop.  Not just any old sock yarn, but amazingly beautiful sock yarn, called Sophie's Toes Delicious Sock Yarn.  It is, in fact, delicious.  As you might imagine, she is also quite expert at knitting socks.  I have tried knitting socks and just don't have the knack for it.  I have made a grand total of 3 1/2 socks and don't really have the desire to make any more of them.  This is a shame since I enjoy knitting and have a really great source for some of the best sock yarn ever.

At long last, I think I have discovered a workaround for this problem:  Gloves!

Some knitters really get into making socks.  I'm not sure why I don't like making them. For the most part, socks are relatively simple in construction, although the heel can be tricky.  Hand-knit socks are really wonderful-feeling on the feet.  Gloves, it would seem, with all those fussy little individual fingers to knit, would be a pain and take forever to make.  Yet, as much as I dislike making socks, I love making gloves!  I think one of the main things I enjoy about making a glove is studying the geometry of its construction, and fitting the glove to the hand.  In the end, I guess I'm just more into hands than I am into feet.

Glove 1.1 actually started life as the beginning of a sock.

Glove-in-progress:  December, 2009

I started it as my first foray into sock knitting, and my first try at knitting on dpn's (double-pointed needles, for you non-knitters.)  I started it years ago and promptly lost interest.  Then I picked it up again last summer, when I was between projects, and started adding more colors.  This made it a little more interesting to work on, and I made progress.  I think I was somewhere in the dark green section when I decided to try making it a glove instead.

 Glove 1.1 in C minor.

The construction of this glove is pretty crude:  It is basically a tube of 2x2 rib divided up into fingers at the end, with a simple tube knit perpendicular to the hand, for the thumb.  I left the opening for the thumb as I worked my way towards the fingers, and then came back and knit it later.

 

Glove 1.1.  Note how the thumb looks 'stuck on'.

For Glove 1.2, I improved the shape by increasing the number of stitches into a series of V's along the thumb and little finger.  I had never done this kind of increase before but I just made it up as I went along.  It worked relatively well.

 

It's hard to take your own picture of your own hand.

These were knit using Cascade 220, one of my favorite yarns, on size 4 needles.  I have a fair amount of Cascade left over from some scarves and experiments with felting that I did when I first learned to knit.

Even though they don't completely match, they share some of the same colors, and they fit about the same, so I consider these two to be a set, even if they aren't strictly a pair.

After these two, I decided to dig into some remnants of Sophie's Toes that Emily had given me.  Since her yarn is a much thinner strand than the Cascade 220, I had to adjust the pattern from worsted weight and #4 needles to sock weight and #2 needles.  I started Glove 2.1 while I was in Tennessee last month, and used the plane ride back to L.A. to work out the increase at the wrist and write it out as I went, so that I could repeat it accurately for Glove 2.2.

 The Airplane Chart

Here is Glove 2.1 in progress.  Doesn't that Sophie's Toes just look delicious?!  This colorway is called American Patchwork.  All her colorways have great names.

 

 In-progress, on the needles, taken 2/10/10.

See how the thumb shape is integrated into the hand?  Big improvement over Glove 1.1.  After working the thumb I decided to add an accent color, because I liked the blocks of color from the first two gloves.

Can I get a big hand for Glove 2.1?!

Perhaps I should incorporate brass reinforcements at the knuckles!

Also, notice how the middle and ring fingers are slightly more blue than the rest?  I ran out of American Patchwork and had to substitute with another color.  It isn't really very noticeable.  I showed it to my best friend, Deb.  She works as a costumer and has a fierce eye for color.  She zeroed right in on it.  "It looks nice.  How come those fingers are a different color?"

After reviewing Glove 2.1, there will be still a few more mods before I consider the pattern to be perfected.  Namely: figuring out the finger division.  Thus far I have had a hard time dividing the hand stitches among the 4 fingers, because a) I always want the rib pattern to relate visually to the fingers in an elegant way,  2) thus far I haven't really worked out the finger stitch division in advance, I have waited until I got there to figure it out, and 3) you can't just divide by 4 and call it a day, because the pinkie and index fingers, each being on the outside, use up more stitches.  It seems like you would be able to, but it doesn't work.

Now I have started Glove 2.2.  All three of its predecessors have been slightly loose-fitting in various ways, so I am starting with 56 stitches around as opposed to 72.  This will knit up much quicker.

Glove 2.2 in progress: Koigu just isn't as much fun as Sophie's Toes.

But, I am running low on Sophies Toes, so I started it using another sock yarn.  Big mistake, it hasn't been nearly as much fun.  I tried to liven it up by introducing a contrasting stripe, but it's not really helping, and I don't like how it looks.  So, I will probably frog it and start over.

Part of my problem is that this brown Koigu just isn't a very good color, but I have a lot of it.  I have heard of a technique where you knit something using a bunch of leftover, mis-matched yarns, and then overdye it to give a uniformity to the color (any guesses as to who told me about that?)  Maybe I'll make a pair of gloves in the bland brown and then get someone I know, who is expert at dyeing, to help me fix the color...

To be continued...