Life in Slow Motion

(title from a song cause Solobreak has predictably abandoned his long running web log entries using song titles... anyone name the artist - okay so its more a album title anyway here's the entry hammered out on monday...)

So here it is – the last day of a long weekend. Glorious I might add. Mellow. Productive and actually like a vacation.

Maybe because I read a book cover to cover in the span of two days (altered carbon, a great sci-fi book I might add). Had a bit of wine, slept in, stayed up late (watching football and reading books).

Not a lick of cycling. Thought about it. But the wet drizzle wasn’t incentive enough. The rides with the crew were at times when I was hanging with the family – getting items for the house and everything in order.

Chillin to some David Gray. Nabbed three CDs from my little bro today – needed a bit of diversity from the standard fair I have here.

Unfortunately the sporadic but generally there unsecured Linksys wireless that can be snagged from the house has vanished. Could have to do with a guy moving out of a duplex this week across the street. So there really is no way to even pop on and do a quick upload over the weekend.

Brings up the debate. Do we need to get it at home. And then because we have neither a home phone or cable activated, what route do we take to get internet hooked up here… those wireless broadband cards from the cell companies seem rather sort of attractive, subscription where ever we are (that has cell coverage) – but locks us in to one laptop (more or less). But the alternatives aren’t that much less money. Ah heck not pressing now. I can do this sort of thing and do a quick dump in the morning.

Winter is supposed to be getting here finally. We’ll see what it brings. In a way I’m looking forward to a bit of coolness. Change up the cycling challenges. Or not I guess its just the same.

The odd thing I find is that this long weekend really feels like a vacation. Its sort of kinda saying – okay lazy bones, next week and the next 4 months are going to be brutal, you’re going to be up to your eyeballs at work, the weather is getting warmer – sooner than later races will begin, training will have to take a more focused and specific mentality. Life goes on, challenges to be met, nothing gets easier – ya just get better at dealing with it.

I keep thinking about two projects, neither have funding, both probably would need some, and both I think even despite my involvement would be pretty spectacular. So if anyone knows anyone who’s looking to fund an art project or two send em my way. But I guess I have to actually have a decent accounting for the potential costs of the projects. Now speculating could just leave me with nothing more than hot air and ideas – but right now that speculation is inspirational. Movtivating. Stimulating creativity. Making the brain fire and focus and think. Helps me focus on the work at hand. It also drives the desire to teach. To try and impart a little bit of art in the teaching of microscopes..

Made a wicked damn good pot of soup on Saturday:
Onions (1/2 med sweet), celery (2 stalks), carrots (4 large), parsnips (2 med), turnips (2 sm), sweet potatoes (3 sm), butternut squash (1 v.sm), red kale (1 bunch), peas (1 cup frozen), garlic (6 cloves), red lentils (1.5 cup), extra virgin olive oil, soy sauce, sea salt, seasoned rice wine vinegar, dried basil, dusting of curry powder, water… dats it…

Vegan, uber tasty… and once its all cooked in, ya take a stick blender and make it all smooth and serve over cous-cous (which I typically make using 1:1 ratio of water to French style cous-cous with 1 teaspoon of organic chicken stock (that better than bullion stuff in a jar). Alternatively it can be served with rice.

Must haves to go with it are (for me) Hot sauce, fresh ground black pepper and a hard cheese, aged emmenthaller or parm or romano… and shaved into thin strips… obviously omit the cheese and chicken stock base for those vegans.

Cause vegetarians are just fooling themselves. “Oh I’ll just eat dairy and eggs.” Yeah. Like that is a good idea. Or a rational idea. Ya either vegan or ya an omnivore. Sure plenty of people fall into the no red meat or just fish or something… but I dunno that all is just wicked hypocritical for the most part- esp the ones with “moral” objections. If ya got moral objections, ya’d better be full hard core Vegan.

And that argument “but I can’t be fast as a vegan” “its too hard to get a balanced meal” Bullshit. I say that’s bullshit. Well maybe if your idea of cooking involves pre-packaged foods. On the other hand even those challenged in the culinary arts can survive and thrive on a vegan diet. Just takes a bit of education and effort initially. Like all things worth while, there is an investment requirement. Effort. That paleo diet mr Boulder was talking about is somewhat intriguing. But the problem with that diet is the pre-historic man’s diet was wildly dependent on seasonal offerings. Supermarkets here in the US/Canada and the world have pretty much made the consumers who shop there oblivious to what is in season and what isn’t.

Problem is which Paleolithic group do you pick? Which climate do you choose to model your diet after. I got started thinking about it when cleaning/unpacking book box after book box of anthropology, archaeology, and history books. And ya know, their diets may not have been super healthy all year. We have options to stay healthy more easily. Eat more consistently. Not to mention, when paleo folks ate a hoofed animal or what ever it was that they caught/slaughtered… they ate the whole damn thing. That’s pretty critical for their survival. The liver and other organs are important sources of minerals and vitamins you don’t get from just eating muscle tissue. That and just eating muscle tissue ain’t so good for ya. Some folks say protein is a poison to the system, at least in high amounts. There is some truth to that. Someone’s recent diet that was lacking in lots of carbs who was trying to race was definitely not a good idea. Following a diet purported by those with one goal (vanity) is stupid. Unless you are a purely vain person. Plant based foods, really for the most part can provide most all cellular basis of nutrients. Why? Cellular processes are just that. They are very well conserved. That Darwin book had a great point towards the end. Talking about the fact that Humans and Mice share pretty much 99% of the same genes, yet, a mouse and a human are rather different in rather striking ways. Ways that come down to the fact that: all biology is really evolutionary biology. Every new bit of knowledge about gene expression is related to evolution and the differential expression and how we adapt and change. We not humans, but we being more global, we being all living life on this planet.

Creationists must there fore disregard any modern understandings of viral genetics, antibiotics, and heredity. The question that’s hard to answer is why would a mouse and human have identical genes, but be so different? If we were created differently why not use different genes. I dunno – I’m just incredulous that anyone could, in light of knowledge, facts, testable, demonstratable fundamentals of biology dispel all that from one book. Its pretty depressing in a way. Extremely scary in others.

And yeah – so while the expression of the gene patterns are different (between mice and men) the genes are the same, and if you put a mouse cell cross section from a TEM (transmission electron microscope) next to a human cell cross section (in TEM of course) it would be near to impossible to tell the difference. Food, and fuel comes down to a few things, energy and nutrients. If you are conscious of what you are eating, avoiding shit that’ll fuck you up (trans fats and heavily processed shit like High fructose Corn syrup and the like) ya be way better off. Calories in = calories out for maintenance. And there’s the basal rate right? Then activity you add calories per that activity to maintain weight. If you increase slow twitch activity for along time you will (over time) chew up the fats stored in your system (assuming you don’t go over the caloric requirements). Now… segue (that’s pronounced 'se-(")gwA, 'sA- ) back into Darwin and evolution. Understanding your diet is not more complicated than evolution and science…

Well time to cook up some dinner – gonna be a Mexican night, beans, rice, and yes, meat. No seasoning packets, all from scratch. Okay – I’ll use a bit of enchilada sauce.

Peace out
g