Welcoming Endeavour to the City of Angels

Every New Year's Day I enjoy getting up early and watching the B2 Stealth Bomber do its annual Rose Parade flyover, to kick off the New Year. Today I looked to the skies over Northeast L.A. and the San Gabriel Valley for an even more dramatic spectacle. Space Shuttle Endeavour, flying piggyback on a Boeing 747, did an extended tour all around L.A.'s far-flung airspace, paying tribute to places and institutions that were instrumental in its development and missions over the years, and greeting the city that will be its new permanent home.

There had been considerable buzz about it all week, and many people made plans to go watch it from various vantage points around L.A. My sister Allison, who lives over on the West Side, considered going up to the Getty Center to watch for it from there, but ended up finding a parking structure rooftop right in her neighborhood with clear views of the area. I had a meeting with a consultant here at the home office (I have a great dining room table that doubles as a conference table at the drop of a hat) and couldn't get away to go sky-watching at any of the announced flyover locations. Furthermore, I recently ordered a new plasma cutter for my shop and was expecting it to be delivered today, with signature required. Being pretty much stuck here at the house, the best I could do was head up to the roof after my meeting ended.  Little did I know, I would have one of the best seats in town!

As my meeting was wrapping up, Allison texted me. The timestamp was 11:53 and she wrote "On its way. Spotted over Malibu." I was searching for my camera, scrambling to change my shoes to something more pitched-shingle-roof friendly, and unhooking the screen off of my bedroom window, when I heard a loud aircraft in the sky. As I scrambled up from the lower roof to the upper one (going where I had never gone before - kind of thrilling and terrifying at the same time) I saw that my neighbor was up on his roof too. He said that he had glimpsed it just then, in the western sky, but it had banked and flown back away again. It was probably passing by Griffith Park and the Hollywood Sign at that point, but we weren't sure where it went after that.

The reports were that it was supposed to do a flyover up at JPL, which is just northeast of us, so we continued to watch and wait. Several minutes passed. Then we heard it again. Suddenly they emerged in the western sky, coming right towards us.

RIGHT TOWARDS US!!!!

I took about a zillion pictures, and tried to shoot some video too, but I just wasn't any good, stability-wise, and I'm afraid the video isn't blog-quality (unless one's goal is to spread nausea among your readership, which mine is not).

Pretty soon they were right over us.  I heard on the news that one of the fighter jets was filming it and the other was the security detail.

They went pretty far to the east, and I'm guessing they may have passed over CalTech before making a hard left, hooking back around and up towards JPL.

Then she flew back towards the west again. The 747 and Endeavour looked great framed against the mountain range.

Then she lifted and banked, and came back our direction, heading towards the southeast.

We got an awesome profile view as she departed for points south, possibly Disneyland, which I heard was on the list of flyover locations.

I love that you can make out the NASA logo on the tail fin of the 747.

Welcome to Los Angeles, Endeavour!  I'll be in the crowd cheering you on next month when you make your way to the California Science Center!

2012 Rose Parade B2 Stealth Flyover

Sunday was New Year's Day, as everybody knows, but didn't really register as such with me, since there was no Rose Parade, and consequently no B2 Stealth Bomber flyover to watch from my front yard, slightly groggy-eyed, at 8:00 a.m. sharp.  I've come to rely on it for the past several years, as my marker for the start of the New Year.  It's a much more exciting way to 'ring in' the new year than staying up until midnight on New Year's Eve. *yawn*

Monday morning I finally got my flyover.

Here's how it goes down: First, the Goodyear Blimp appears on the scene.  Last year it motored right over my house en route to the parade; this year it flew in from the southeast and I spied it over my neighbors roofs across the street:

The blimp usually appears 10-15 minutes before 8.  Then you just watch the northern sky and wait.  This year I was getting a little antsy when, according to my iPhone, it was a couple minutes past 8, with nothing happening. I was about to tweet my frustration when I heard the roar approaching from the west.  It's tricky, because the sound somehow seems to precede the plane in a weird way. It's hard to describe.

Then it got very still, almost like you're in the eye of the storm.  I almost thought I'd missed it, when I spotted the B2.

Again, the whole thing is a little hard to describe.  It just appears to glide without any effort whatsoever, and makes very little sound at all at this point. It gradually descends, on a perfectly controlled trajectory, as it approaches the parade route.

Once it goes below the edge of the mountaintops, it becomes extremely hard to see.  Then I run inside and watch it swoosh over the Rose Parade on TV.

On a lark, I just did a quick YouTube search, which turned up this really great video (not by me) of the Stealth on approach; you can see it banking and everything, and it's extremely cool:

Happy New Year from Creatures of Prometheus!

"The Event" Filmed in my Neighborhood

Last night, as I was walking P + T around our neighborhood, I noticed some of those temporary NO PARKING signs posted about, with the forbidden day written in as Thursday.  "Something's afoot," I thought to myself.  Then I spotted some of those rent-a-cop-type security guards hanging around on some of the street corners, and a weird looking line of porta-potties all lined up on a trailer.

I had a very strong suspicion about what was afoot and tweeted:

They're setting up to do some filming on Aldama Ter., between Raphael St + Aldama St. I'll investigate further tomorrow. #90042

Today was a fairly busy day, and I was either engrossed in work or out running around for a lot of it, and completely forgot all about my special assignment until about 4:30.  All at once, I remembered.

Paul and Todd were napping.  "Quick, get your leashes!  We've important investigative work to do!  Something was afoot today, and we may have already missed it!"   They scampered to get their leashes hooked onto their collars and assemble themselves at the front gate, while I stumbled around frantically looking for my keys.

"Look on the kitchen counter under the dish towel!" called Paul to me from the front yard.  "HURRY!"

Raw Milk Event Rescheduled and I Can't Go :(

Great news from the folks over at my favorite local paleo foodsource, Figueroa Produce. The Raw Milk Event has been rescheduled for Saturday, July 17th, at 5:30 p.m.

The not-so-great news is that it looks like I will not be able to attend. I am very disappointed, not only because I wanted to see the presentation myself and taste the samples, but also because my earlier post on the event seemed to generate some real interest, both over at Modern Paleo and on the OEvolve Google group.  I hate disappointing my gentle readers.

Then I had a great idea this morning at the gym. (I do some of my best thinking at the gym, and am planning a whole blog post on why I think that is. Stay tuned.) The idea I had is to get a guest blogger to cover the event for Creatures of Prometheus! How cool is that?! So, I'm putting it out there. If you would like to cover the Raw Milk Presentation for C of P, and have your guest post appear here (and probably over at Modern Paleo also, although I have to check with the admins over there before I can promise anything) please email me thru (my first name)DOT(my last name)AT gmail DOT com.  You don't particularly need to have your own blog or any blogging experience per se.

I have a few specific questions I wanted to ask at the Q&A session, which I would like to have addressed by my correspondent, and I also want the post to have pictures. I would be more than happy to help with resizing, editing etc. of the photos if that's not in your bag of tricks.

Also, I would prefer to have someone who shares either (or preferibly both) my Objectivist and/or Paleo views of things in general.

So, if you can attend, take some pictures, ask some questions, and write up a short report, please be in touch!

In other related raw milk news, Fig Produce has expanded their product line to include Caravale Farms raw Jersey milk and cream:

Pure, Raw Jersey Milk - Mmmmmm

I have had milk from jersey cows before, and I can tell you that if you like milk, you haven't lived until you try pure Jersey Milk.  I don't know what those jersey cows have going on that makes their milk so delicious, but it is definitely an experience!  That, combined with this milk being raw, makes this stuff a true delicacy.

And, as an aside, it's a true delicacy that you won't find at that big expensive national organic supermarket chain store that no longer sells raw milk, for reasons completely unrelated to the wholesomeness of the product, and in spite of the growing demand for it as more and more people realize how much better it is for you than regular milk.

Raw Cream, how great is that?

Raw Butter too!

In addition to the Claravale Farms products, they have expanded their Organic Pastures section as well (those are the folks who are presenting on the 17th.) Now they have raw butter, raw cheese (which you can see the edge of in the cream photo above) and I think a few other things I'm forgetting about.

Also, the produce at Figueroa Produce has been particularly lovely lately.  These chiogga beets were so beautiful I hated to cut them up and eat them!

Who knew beets would be so photogenic?!

All I did was coat them in olive oil and roast them for about 45 minutes at about 350, stirring and turning them about every 15 minues or so.  I think I covered the pan with foil also, to help keep the moisture in.

Here they are with the sea bass they shared the oven with.  The sea bass was drizzled with the juice of a grapefruit I picked from my own tree, as well as olive oil, and then baked.  The beets took longer to bake than the sea bass.

This was a pretty good pairing, and the sea bass was quite affordable at only about $3.59 a pound.  The beet greens got cut up and mixed in with lettuce for salad.  They were slightly firm, almost like spinach, but not at all tough.  They could be served sauteed, but I think they were delicious raw.

Good stuff!

Anticlimax: Raw Milk Event Postponed

I was all ready.  I was set.  I was going to cover the Raw Milk Event for two blogs.  Two!  (Since my paleo-lifestyle posts here at C of P usually get cross-posted to Modern Paleo.)

Today having been primarily a work-from-home-in-an-old-comfy-t-shirt type of day, I had gone upstairs and had a brief wardrobe crisis due to lack of clean laundry (I almost tweeted "What does one wear to a Raw Milk Event?" but thought better of it).  I didn't just want to show up in a shlumpy old t-shirt, if I was going to be a Reporter On The Scene.  I settled on my red shirt since it was clean festive and I was going to a Cinco de Mayo thing afterward.  Then I found my camera, composed my list of questions, in case I forgot when I got there, and finally made it out the door for the 3-minute drive over to Figueroa Produce.

Upon arrival, I got rock star parking.  Normally this would be seen as a Good Thing, but my immediate thought was more along the lines that this didn't particularly bode well as an indicator of strong attendance for the event. They weren't exactly lined up down the sidewalk or anything.  I only tweeted this thing about a million times - where was everybody?

Then I saw it: there was a sign on the door.  "Event canceled, we hope to reschedule soon."  I had to read it like 5 times.  Apparently Organic Pastures had canceled that morning.  Wanting a better explanation of some kind, I went on in anyway, and, not seeing any of the owners hanging around the front area, headed back to the meat department.

I figured that if there wasn't going to be any raw milk sampling or raw milk information to be consumed, then I might as well gaze at the beautiful grass-fed beef in all it's glorious array.

Rick, the chief butcher peopleguy, was there.  We chatted and he didn't seem to know much about the Raw Milk Event or why it had been canceled.  By now, my disappointment was sinking in.  I had been really excited to take pictures of the Raw Milk peopleguy in action, and check out the sample table, and explain in a really cool voice that I was covering the event for my blog (two blogs, actually).

I decided that some retail therapy was in order, of the grass-fed kind!

I checked over the meat in the case and there was a fantastic, thick chunk of gleaming red meat right there, calling to me.  "What's that one?" I asked.

"Chuck" said Rick.

"Will you grind it for me?"  I asked.

"Sure, no problem!" he answered.

That piece turned out to be 3 1/2 pounds, which was a little much.  The piece next to it was only just over 2 lbs. and I settled for that instead.

He put it in the grinder.  My gloom lifted as I watched it emerge from the nozzle.  He expertly caught the whole mass of it with one hand, and put it back through a second time before he bagged it up and put the sticker on it and I was on my way.

I got home and pulled off a small hunk of the freshly ground chuck, salted it, and popped it into my mouth.  I've always liked my beef rare, but I'm beginning to think that cooking it at all pretty much ruins it.  (Plus it's a lot easier to eat this way when you've recently had a tooth pulled, which is my case.)

I guess if my big event for today isn't raw milk, the next best thing is a little raw grass-fed chuck.  I'm still a little disappointed, but what can you do?  Stay tuned for future updates...

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, they are looking to hire a part-time butcher peopleguy, experienced only.  If that's you, call Anthony, Luis, or Ruben at Figueroa Produce at 323-255-3663.

Upcoming Raw Milk Event at Figueroa Produce

I just found out that there will be a special educational event on raw milk this week at Figueroa Produce.  I shop there often, and wrote a separate post about them here.  You can check out their website here.

The event will feature a powerpoint presentation by Mark McAfee, founder of Organic Pastures Dairy Company.  The event is free and will feature free samples.  Here is the info from the flyer at the store:

Location: Figueroa Produce Market, 6312 North Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90042
Phone:  323-255-FOOD (3663)
Date:  May 5th, 2010 (Wednesday)
Time: 5:00 p.m.

Come learn how to build and nourish your immune system through raw milk!  Share the Secret is an exciting Raw Milk educational outreach program provided free to the public by Organic Pastures Dairy company and its founder Mark McAfee.

Share the Secret combines colorful power-point presentation, free raw milk samples and high energy speaking...to enlighten and inform.  Armed with the truth and knowledge your health will never be the same again.  Join the 50,000 raw milk consumers in CA that have made this choice and have never looked back.

I have purchased Organic Pastures raw milk on more than one occasion, and found it incredibly wholesome and delicious.  Raw milk advocates argue that it is healthier than regular milk, and that it contains beneficial nutrients and properties that are destroyed in the processing that regular commercial milk undergoes. 

Currently, the FDA seems to have stepped up its war against raw milk producers.  The truth is that individuals are capable of making their own choices about what is good for them and what is not, and they (we) have the right to make such decisions for ourselves, and we have the right to buy from and sell to each other freely, by mutual consent and to mutual advantage, without government intervention or coercion.  The FDA is in violation of these rights when it seeks to ban products like raw milk from the marketplace (in fact, the FDA is in violation of these rights by its very existence.)

Also, consider that regular milk can be produced under unsanitary conditions that make it drinkable only after it has been processed; whereas raw milk can only be successfully produced and sold under extremely sanitary and healthful conditions (otherwise, you would open the bottle, take a whiff of the contents, and promptly empty it down the drain.)  I'm not saying that all regular milk is produced under unsanitary conditions, but is does give one pause to consider the implications of this difference.

I'm looking forward to the presentation, and will give a full report here at C of P next week!

Dogfight!

So here's how it all went down:

Paul and Todd were at the fence barking like mad at another dog.  I looked out to see what was going on, and it was a white boxer, wearing a collar, hanging around, interested in my dogs.  Being the good neighborly dog owner that I am, I figured that someone's pet had gotten loose and I would try to see if I could figure out if it had tags and call the owner.  If it had not had a collar on, I would not have attempted this, but it did, which to me says, "I'm someone's pet, and I'm lost."

When I opened the gate, careful to keep P + T back, it ran away from me.  That often happens with strays: their interest in Paul and Todd is overcome by their fear of me, and they run away (or follow us around on our walk but stay 3-4 houses behind.)  This dog was clearly not wanting anything to do with me.  He started off down the sidewalk, but some other person was coming towards us walking their dog, and the white boxer ran across the street and went away.

About 20 minutes later, it was almost 5:30, which means evening walk and then dinner.  In hindsight, I think there was a little voice saying, "don't go out there, there's a loose dog running around" but the fact that it ran away from me before, and that it had had plenty of time to move on by now, made me think it was probably safe to go around the block.

So off we went, just like it was going to be any other walk.  Todd yelped in excitement and did his happy dance as I reached for the leashes and hooked them up, and we were out the front gate.  Down to the end of the block and made our usual left turn, and then down the North side of our block.  As we approached the end of that segment of the block, there was a guy standing there, who said something like, "Did you see a loose dog?"

"That white dog?" I answered.

"Yeah that dog.  We're trying to catch him,"  He said.

What I thought was "good luck with that, I already tried," but what I said was "Oh, well maybe I can help" as we started around the corner.

Then he said (mumbled?) something like, 

"maybe you shouldn't go down there, 

that dog could bite you."

Gentle reader, I implore you to learn from my mistake.  If someone suggests that the loose dog running around might bite, at least inquire further before you insist that you know better and proceed anyway.  Who knows, maybe it's his own dog and he actually knows what he's talking about.

Also, if you own a dog that bites, which actually escapes and becomes a menace to the neighborhood, please be more informative and direct than this guy was in his "warning".  Say something to the effect that it is your dog and you know what you're talking about.  If you throw in that you don't want to be the responsible party to an E.R. visit, that would REALLY get my attention.

We made it about halfway down the block, past the little yappy black dog behind the gate; past the light brown dog that hurt his paw when he was a puppy and now limps, who lives in the yard with the orange trees; past the house with the weightlifting bench on the front porch that I have only seen being used once; past the house with the pretty white and pink watsonia blooming in the garden; till we were right in front of the house that used to have 2 ducks named Felicity (who turned out to be a boy, by the way) and Dharma living in the front yard.  That was where we met our Waterloo.  Right in front of formerly Felicity and Dharma's house.

The white boxer saw us and came right over to us, and if I had wanted to get away at that point it was too late.  It lunged right for Paul.  It happened so fast.  It was seriously, seriously bad.  Suddenly, from out of nowhere, there was a lady yelling for someone to get a hose.  Get a hose?!  Yes, that would break up a dog fight, but really, I couldn't imagine how anyone would be able to show up with a hose in time to make a difference.  I tried to separate them, which I know you're not supposed to do, because you can be seriously mauled.  Yet, I wasn't about to have that dog hurt my best buddy Paul if I could help it, which it seemed determined to do (or worse).  At one point I had the roughly 80-lb boxer up in the air, holding him suspended by his hind foot, but I couldn't break him out of attack mode.  Plus, Paul was fully engaged at that point, which kept me from removing the other dog from the fight.  Then the bad dog had Paul by the collar and he was choking him!  It was really awful.

Then, again from out of nowhere, the nice lady who had been calling for a hose was pulling Paul out of the fracas by his hind legs.  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered hearing this advice before.  Grab the hind legs and pull them out of the fight.  Easier said than done, and yet here she was, doing just that.  Suddenly, I saw an opportunity, and grabbed the boxer by the collar at the scruff of its neck.  That was really scary, because your hand is way too close to its mouth at that point.  The collar was pretty tight, but I twisted it around my clenched fist as hard as I could, and lifted the dog off the ground, his mouth facing away from me.  That finally subdued him.  I held him there, choking on his own weight.  Then, the warning guy from before was there with a leash, and took him away.

Then I gathered Paul from the nice lady who was so amazing and had known just what to do.  Then I looked up and there was Todd.  The 10-year-old daughter of the owner of the bad dog had picked up his leash and held him off to the side, keeping him out of the fight.  The nice lady was calming me down.  I looked at Paul and his ear was bleeding.  Then I realized that my right hand was bleeding.  I had 3 punctures and I had no idea which dog did it.  The nice lady wanted everyone to exchange names and phone numbers.  I took P + T home and washed my hands, then went back over to meet back up with her.

She gave me her name and explained that she was a dog person too, and happened to be installing some landscaping across the street.  She was older than me and seemed very calm and wise.  We exchanged names and phone numbers, then she took me over to the house where the guy and the bad dog lived.  I think she had followed him home when he took the dog away, and had gotten his name.  Then I realized that I see that dog every time we go on that walk, but out of context (I have only seen it from across the street, behind the fence) I didn't recognize it.  He showed me the papers for it's license and shots, and we exchanged information.

I went home and got Paul and Todd and we went to the nearby emergency veterinary clinic, which I highly recommend:  Eagle Rock Emergency Clinic

They are great.  They're only open from 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 a.m. and only take emergencies.  We got there around 6:10.  Had to wait a little bit but not too long.  I had to fill out forms while clutching a bloody rag and trying to make my shaking, punctured right hand function correctly.  The vet was really nice and she explained how they were going to have to sedate Paul so they could stitch his ear back together, and keep him overnight.  She checked out Todd too, but he was fine.  Then I had to dash to make it to the urgent care place before they closed at 7, or it would have meant the E.R.  I would have gone to the E.R. if it were my only choice; I learned that lesson when I sliced my finger open during Thanksgiving dinner preparations in 2006.  But, if I can avoid the E.R. in favor of some other option, I think it's better to leave it for people who are in imminent danger of death.  Todd waited for me in the car.

My hand was throbbing and I was really afraid the doctor (I almost wrote Vet :) ) was going to have to dig into the wounds to clean them out.  He was really nice and reassuring, and told me to just soak it in warm salt water 3x a day and watch for signs of infection.  He said that in only about 5% of the cases do dog bites get infected.  So I went home.

Having read of our plight from my facebook updates from various waiting rooms, my neighbor knocked on the door with a get-well-soon white-chocolate-raspberry-crumble bar thing.  It went down great with the bottle of Charles Shaw Cabernet I had just opened.  My other neighbors across the street and lots of friends were chiming in on facebook and, I have to say, the moral support was incredibly uplifting.

Paul is on the mend:

And Todd is standing by.

Overall, today was pretty quiet around here.

 Poor Booby looks like he's going to audition for Grey Gardens.

I was in a bit of shock myself for most of today, I think, just from the trauma of it all.  I took a nap this afternoon.  But I have to say I do feel like a bit of a badass for having subdued an 80-lb marauding boxer with my bare hands - with the help of a nice lady.

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!