Don't Run So Hard!

I'm all about running, and even running hard, but these pour bastards are not enjoying themselves.

In my humble and completely non-validated opinion, if you're just running for the heck of it, as I imagine most users of the Map My Run service are, you have no business looking this miserable.  Unless you're being paid by a shoe / apparel / whatever company to spend all your time thinking about running, or you're being chased by something that can do you some serious harm, and you're still this unhappy looking, you should probably find a new hobby.

I mean, I don't always love every minute of my runs, but there are four people in this picture who are clearly not enjoying themselves.  They are sprinting for their lives, trying to advertise for a "challenge" that involves running an average of about 12 miles per week.  Nothing to shake a stick at, but not exactly Olympian territory.  Wouldn't a picture of a group of runners who look like they are enjoying their chosen pastime and might, just possibly, have a life outside of running really hard in your particular brand of running gear be a tad more inclusive and encouraging?

Folks who are going to run more than 600 miles this year have figured out some other source of motivation, and watching others struggle probably isn't it.

Now, take a deep breath, smile, and have a nice jog.  Or walk.  Or swim.  Or read.  Whatever makes you happy, even if it's a struggle.  :o)

Final Fantasy XV Glitch Run

There is an "out of bounds glitch" in Final Fantasy XV that has been making the nerd-news rounds recently, and some players have made videos of the seemingly unused spaces in the game. The video in the Engadget post is just an hour of the main character running around this world, showing it off to other gamers and those of us who don't even know Final Fantasy from Zelda. It's pretty mesmerizing.

And it really makes me want to go outside and run.


It also seems like too much work for the designers and artists for this part of the game world to not have a greater purpose. But that might be getting in to a much deeper philosophical conversation...

Transit perspectives

Sometimes I get so bent out of shape when the DC metro is broken and Uber is surging or there are no taxis to be found and I'm already late and frustrated. But really, I should be grateful that, even with all its downfalls, I live in a city with a lot of options to get where I need to go. Even if they're not always as convenient as I'd like.

If I were back on Colorado, my opinion would be to drive myself, walk a really long way, or to not go.

I'm really quite spoiled, and if I would just leave a little earlier for things, it wouldn't be nearly as frustrating.

Although, in places like Colorado, there is ample free parking. So there's that...

Can't wait for a new Ford Ranger

Road and Track (along with pretty much everyone else in the automotive press covered Ford's announcement today at the Detroit Auto Show (er, North American International Auto something-or-another) that the much missed (by me) Ranger will make a return in 2019! Read their coverage here.

While it's very reasonable that the "new" US Ranger will just be the world model with a different grill and headlights, and I would still theoretically love to have one, I think Ford could still do well in the US with an even smaller pickup.

Many people associate height with car size, bit width is the main determinimg factor in how big a vehicle really is. A narrower vehicle can go places that a wider one can't, but it will also feel smaller inside. My 1992 Ranger is only 67" wide. The current "T-6" Ranger sold in the rest of the world is 73" wide. That 6" growth has probably lead to a safer, more comfortable truck, but I imagine I would still miss the feeling of being able squeeze through just about any gap that such a small truck gives you.

Even a 2016 Focus is 72" wide, only an inch narrower than the current Ranger! If Ford were to build a truly small pickup on an existing US market platform, it would have to start with the Fiesta, which is only 68" wide.

I could definitely imagine a Ford Courier throwback built in a Fiesta platform -- unibody, front wheel drive, and all. The whole thing would only weigh around 2,800 lbs if they could keep it a two-seater, and if it had a payload capacity of 1,500 or so, that would be more then enough for a whole lot of folks to cart around their "active lifestyle" accessories, still get 30mpg, and park anywhere. It wouldn't be fast and you wouldn't be doing any off-roading, but few new vehicles ever see a dirt road anyway.

I know Ford would never build this kind of a car for the American market, but I can dream, right? In the meantime, I suppose I should start saving for a 2019 Ranger, even if it's a bit bigger than I would prefer.

Making blogging easier...

...Maybe.

I'm not very good at remembering to blog. Which isn't really that big of a deal, because it's not like the Internet is short on mediocre content that most people will never see. But sometimes I think that I want to share something that I have thoughts on, but I don't want to just Tweet it or share it to Facebook. There's just too much friction involved in the process of sharing something a little more in depth than a tweet. Unless it's a picture, because Instagram is awesome.

So, in this post I'm trying out an Android app that posts to my old Blogger blog. I'm also going to try to share a link to an article directly from Chrome and maybe post a picture!


Here's a picture of the nail that I pulled out of the work van's tire. No wonder it was going flat all the time! I managed to "fix" it with a plug kit, but I haven't had a chance to check to see if it's still holding air.

That's all for now. We'll see how it turns out!

Ho Hum

While TheNextWeb seems to think that "This short BBC documentary is the spookiest thing you’ll see today", it really isn't.  Unless you're very easily spooked, I suppose.

What it is, is a very well done piece on The World Hum, or simply The Hum, which doesn't try to draw any conclusions of its own.  This is good, because possible explanations range from mental disorders to government conspiracy.

The Hum is an unexplained worldwide phenomenon where certain people experience a very low, very annoying humming noise that can't be pinpointed and most people don't hear at all.  While I have never heard this noise, I have on occasion been able to hear my own blood flow and other internal sounds that could otherwise be hard to explain.

It also reminded me how much I love that the BBC video player's volume control goes to eleven.

Neglectful blogger... Again

Wow, over a year since my last post.  I really am a neglectful blogger!  Although, calling myself a blogger at all is really a bit of a stretch.  But that's another story.

There are a couple of main reasons that I haven't been updating my blog recently.  For one, I don't feel like I have much to say these days.  But a lot of people write stuff on the internet all of the time who really don't have anything to say, and that doesn't stop them!  Some of them are even paid for it, theoretically.  I guess I'd just like to think that I hold myself to a slightly higher standard when I actually "publish" something online.  (Haha)

Another reason is that I just don't spend much time at an actual computer anymore.  My job is such that I'm always up, moving around, dealing with all the minor disasters of a busy coffee shop; not sitting at a desk.  If I have idle time between tasks / disasters, I may pull out my phone and check the news / weather / Instagram, but I can't just pop open a new browser tab and work on a blog post.

Well, I guess I could work on a blog post from my phone... but... really?  There are so many more friction-free publishing and sharing platforms that were created for and optimized to phones, that it's just not worth the effort to try to write more than a few lines from my phone in between everything else.  I post to Instagram only a few times a week, occasionally Tweet, and only rarely do anything on Facebook, so actually writing a blog post is a bar too high.

Plus, I loose my train of thought too quickly!

This is actually a perfect example of reason number one for not blogging!  I've written half a page, and I haven't actually said anything that is of any use to anyone.  Oh well, at least I can be pretty sure that no one will actually take the time to read my maunderings!

Microsoft's True Opt-In

Microsoft announced a release date for Windows 10 recently (July 29th) and rolled out their free update program as well.  Current users of Windows 7 or 8/8.1 will have one year to claim their free update to Windows 10, after that they will have to purchase a update.  

I received the little windows icon in my tray yesterday telling me to "Get Windows 10", so of course I clicked it.  I clicked through their info screen and was ready to put in my email so they could confirm my "reservation", when I noticed the omnipresent advertising/marketing opt-in was unchecked by default!  

Many (most?) software companies leave this box checked and hope that you won't think to change it so they can get your "permission" to send you junk email or install some other, probably unwanted, program along with the primary one.  (I'm looking at you, Adobe.)

I just thought that it was admirable that Microsoft took the high road and didn't rope users into opting in to even more junk email that they don't need and won't read anyway.  Thanks!

This Running Thing

This running thing appears to have become a thing recently.  I know it's probably just an observation selection bias - because I've been running more, I notice running more - but it really seems that running has become more mainstream recently.
I used to never run.  Unless I was being chased by something that could harm me, of course.  But growing up, going to school, and working on the Front Range of Colorado offered very few opportunities to literally run for my life.  Thank God, because I probably wouldn't be here if that were a regular occurrence.  I remember playing soccer in elementary school and not liking it because I was such a bad runner.  And our "track" unit in middle school gym class was also a disaster, because I was so lanky and uncoordinated, that if I ever did get going fast, I would just end up kicking myself or something.  Then by high school, running during your lunch break was the punishment dealt out for missing a session of some class, which didn't exactly encourage my embrace of the sport.

Even in college, when I finally started to catch up to my own body, I still preferred to walk or ride a bicycle if I needed to get somewhere or play basketball (with its minimal running) if I wanted to be sporty.  When swing dancing became my primary extracurricular, that provided more than enough cardiovascular activity for me to feel fit and active.  I did do the typical lunch hour gym routine for a while when I had a desk job that was convenient to a fitness center, but even then I'd just hit the treadmill for ten minutes to "warm up".

It wasn't until 2012 when I started dating my girlfriend, who was/is into fitness, and moved to China, where I had lots of extra time on my hands, that I even started to go to the gym regularly and doing more than just a cursory 15 to 30 minutes on the elliptical or treadmill.  The air in Shanghai isn't as bad as many people think (most of the time, at least), and I got super bored of running in place in the carpeted gym of the apartment building we were living in.  Plus, I had to "train" for the 5k fun-run that I got roped in to doing by my girlfriend's colleagues, some of whom were real runners.  And as it turned out, it was kinda fun after you got used to it.

That was a really long way of saying that running seems to be more popular, even though I probably notice more running since I am "part of the problem," so to speak.  The emergence and proliferation of the obstacle course race phenomenon has certainly helped put running into the spotlight of our collective consciousness, even if it's one of the ultimate First-World things people do.  I am also currently in one of the US's top running cities, apparently, so that must cloud my judgement a bit too.  (They say it's nice to run in DC because it's so flat... they obviously have only run on the Mall.)

But since I am more in to trail running, I notice things like TrailPorn.com and this video about "The Joy of Running in a Beautiful Place".

Running has definitely become a thing for me.  I try to run three or four times a week and was even upping my mileage a bit.  Google Now suggests I read articles from Competitor and Strength Running and YouTube wants to help me improve my technique and speed.  I was even inspired to sign up for my first real race, a trail half marathon run in northern Virginia along the Potomac.  Good thing it's not until the spring, because I might have a stress fracture in my second metatarsal.  I'm not sure what kind of vigorous exercises I can do that don't involve loading and unloading that part of my foot...

...On that note, this post has officially wandered away from where it was headed, so just go look at some trail porn, watch that video a couple of times, and call it a day.

100k Follow-up and a fight with Tendinopathy

[TL;DR version: I did it, I hurt myself, but I'm fine.]


Today is the summer solstice, yay!  Or, "June" solstice for those of you not in the Northern Hemisphere.  That gets capitalized, right?  Anyway, I've talked about my mixed feelings about the first day of summer before... A holy-crap-long-time-ago, actually.  They're still basically the same, just less Emo.

Being the summer solstice, it's also nearly my birthday!  Which also means that it's been almost a month since I said I was going to try to up my running game a bit and set a goal of running 100 km in 30 days.



I'm pleased to say that I met and even exceeded that goal by just a little bit, and that I even worked through my first real running-related injury doing it!  After a long-ish run on June 7th I developed some pretty good pain in my left Achilles area and I immediately started nervously Googling for a diagnosis and treatment ideas.  (What, you think I'm actually going to go to a doctor?!  Bah!)

Apparently Achilles tendinitis isn't a real thing, because the tendon itself is incapable of swelling.  It's actually tendinopathy, because the tendon is actually frayed slightly.  That made my stomach do a back flip.  I wasn't only afraid that I would need a surgery that I couldn't afford, but that I wouldn't be able to keep running and meet my 100 km goal!

Luckily, what I had (have?) was/is pretty mild, and there have been some pretty good studies on non-surgical, strength based treatments for Achilles tendinopathy, including those mentioned in this long, un-dated, poorly titled, but otherwise very good article.  I have stuck pretty closely to that program for the past week and can happily report that I ran over 20 miles this week with only minimal discomfort.  I'm obviously going to keep up the calf strengthening work for at least another couple of weeks and see how the pain is, because honestly, your calves can never be too strong.

Ever had anything come between you and your goals?  Maybe just a running injury story you want to share?  Let me know!

Also, if you're interested in running (and not just racing), I highly recommend checking out Jason Fitzgerald's Strength Running website.  Run happy!

100K Before My B-Day

I don't usually set goals, especially time based ones, but here goes!  I decided that I will run 100 km in the month before my birthday, May 24 to June 24.  I know some crazy runner folks knock that out every week without breaking a sweat, but since I only run three times a week max and I'm not that good, this should be a real challenge. Also, since I took today off, I'm already behind.

I'll be keeping track of my runs using Map My Run's app on my phone, so everything should be tracked pretty well and I won't be able to cheat.  Not that I would.  This goal of course is dependent on my not getting injured or really ill in the next four weeks.  I'm obviously not that hard core.

You, dear Internet, don't have to do anything. I'm just putting this out there as a little motivation. But, if you want to try to set a goal, running or otherwise for the next four weeks, we can try together!  (Let me know if you do!)  Luckily, I happen to be in one of the "top cities for runners", so I won't be alone on the trail.

If you do make a goal, remember to make it "SMART" - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.  You'll have a much better chance of succeeding if you make your goals that way, and if you don't make it for some reason, you will more easily be able to determine why.

Jambalaya!

Jambalaya, a-crawfish pie and file' gumbo
'Cause tonight I’m gonna see my ma cher amio
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar and be gay-o
Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the bayou 

Okay, actually just the Jambalaya part of that.  But I've got Hank Williams III on the stereo, so that's gotta count for something.


Jambalaya is fascinating, delicious, and easy to make.  I'm not sure why it's not more popular outside of the South (a place I've still never been), but maybe it's considered lowbrow or something because much easier to make than it's fancier cousins, gumbo and étouffée.  If you're a subscriber to the Alton Brown school of knowing the background of your recipes, definitely read the Wikipedia entry on Jambalaya.

Since I've got some on the stove right now, I'll tell you how I usually make it...

• Cut up a package of store-bought andouille sausage into approximately 1/2" sections (kitchen shears work better than a knife for this!) and drop them into a large stock pot over medium heat.  Let them cool through (ten minutes or so), moving them around once in a while so they don't burn too bad.  In the meantime, chop one or two bell peppers (in your choice of color - I'm partial to red), one medium onion (yellow or white), and one or two cloves of garlic (I just use the garlic press).  (Obviously celery is missing from the "holy-trinity" here, but it's tough to buy just a couple of ribs, so I usually leave it out.  Put some in with the onion if you're so inclined.)
• Once the sausage is done, remove it from the pot and set it aside in a bowl, leaving the drippings and any stuck bits in the pot.  Saute the onions in the sausage drippings until tender, scraping up the sausage bits as you go, then add the bell pepper and garlic and cook for a few minutes more.  Add the sausage back into the pot.  
• For the rice, I cheat.  I use packaged yellow saffron rice, which is both lazy and non-traditional, but it tastes good, so who cares?  Add the rice, stir to coat it with whatever liquid is left in the pot, and then add whatever amount of water the rice package calls for and finish based on the rice's instructions.  That probably means bring to a boil, stir, reduce to a simmer, cover, and let it cook for twenty minutes or so.  

So there you have it!  It's a whole meal in one pot, and it's definitely of the "stick to the ribs" variety.  And it takes just long enough to cook, you have time to clean up the prep stuff before the rice is finished.  If you haven't been typing the whole time, that is.

People who read the Wikipedia entry would know that this is "brown" or Cajun jambalaya.  If you prefer the "red", or Creole, variety, add some canned or fresh tomatoes before you add the rice.  This one is actually rather yellow because of the saffron, but I digress.

Sound tasty?  Have a better version?  Questions?  Lemme know.  :o)

Maunderings for October 20, 2013

The World is Out to Get You!

Well, apparently breathing China's air isn't as bad as we thought... At least compared to many places in the Middle East. The World Health Organization released their latest research on outdoor air pollution recently and Quartz was nice enough to break it down into a nice chart. The worst Chinese offender doesn't even come close to breaking into the top ten worldwide. Not that it can't get bad in China, but at least they aren't blaming it on the U.S., like a certain four letter country seems to be. I guess that what happens when your entire economy is based on pumping oil out of the ground.

And if you're lucky enough to survive the air pollution, it's your vitamins that are going to kill you. The BBC reports on overuse of dietary supplements this week, and I tend to agree that taking a ton of something that you are not sure what it does can't be good in the long term. Especially given all the new research into the microbiom, aka: our elusive gut bacteria.

Also on the Beeb, and reiterating something I blogged previously, you really don't need to drink more water than you feel like you need. Australian researchers recently proved it. If you live in a temperate climate, you probably need six to eight cups of liquid a day, but that can come in the form of food, coffee, beer, or (gasp!) tap water. If you're thirsty, have a drink, but don't force it on yourself.

Today's moral is pretty basic: Don't believe the marketing hype; your body is amazing and can usually take care of itself as long as you listen to it. As long as you don't live in Iran.

Don't let baijiu happen in America!

...Actually, do let it happen.  The resulting debauchery could be really entertaining.

Baijiu (pronounced 'bye-jyoh') is China's national drink and also the most popular liquor in the world, with sales over double that of the next most popular, vodka.

I've not drank very much baijiu during my year in China, which I see as a personal victory.  But I have (1) drank baijiu from a bottle that had a scorpion in it and (2) drank baijiu on the Great Wall of China, north of Beijing.  And I've never drank it to excess, which, since it can be up to 130 proof and not exactly free of contaminants, means I've only had a couple of shots at a time.

Yes, I said shots, because that's how you drink baijiu in China.  You yell "ganbei" and everyone at the table finishes their glass.  And you do it over, and over, and over...  The actual Chinese men's drinking and toasting culture is a little deeper and more complex than that, but since I don't speak much Chinese and don't go to many banquets, that's my interpretation.  Also, you can't really sip something that is 65% alcohol, even if it is tropical flavored.  Just holding it up to your face starts to burn the hair off the inside of your nose.

All that to get to the point, described in this article from Yahoo! Finance, that a few geniuses have decided that sorghum liquor needs to come to the American side of the world.  While I'm all about choice and the freedom to drink what you wish, I don't think that their reasoning passes muster.

"Sake has become ubiquitous with Japanese dining and tequila with Mexican," Dor said. "Chinese cuisine has never had this natural complement. We see a great opportunity to change this."

Anyone who has eaten Chinese food in China knows that cheap, cheap pijiu (beer) is the correct pairing for Chinese food.  Especially anything from northern or western China that has lots of "ma-la" spice to it.  Mmm... Hot Pot...  I'm making myself hungry here and I just finished breakfast!

Anyways, if you happen to see some baijiu on the shelf at your local liquor shop, you probably want to steer clear.  Especially for $30 or more.

Simple Raised Bed Gardens

It's already pretty late in the growing season here in Colorado, and if you're going to put in a garden you've probably already done it, but I just wanted to share these tips about building a raised bed for flowers or vegetables.

Colorado's Front Range soil is almost universally poor - mostly bentonite clay which, is virtually impossible to dig when it's dry and doesn't allow proper drainage - and makes gardening an act of will.  Raised beds offer a relatively easy solution for small scale backyard gardens because you add in the soil of your choice instead of trying to till amendments into the existing ground to make it usable.

There are a ton of different how-tos on the internet on building a raised bed, but these are the ones that stood out to me.  Below I have elaborated on the instructions that I thought were most helpful.

This Sunset Magazine one is pretty good, but it's a little over the top (How to Build a Raised Garden - Sunset.com).  It's 4ft by 8ft and uses 4x4 posts at the corners that are set into the ground to keep it in place, which is probably not necessary for most small beds.

The Better Homes and Gardens instructions are for a 4ft by 4ft bed that be taken apart (Raised Bed Gardening - How to Build a Raised Bed Garden - BHG.com).  The instructions are a little vague, but it's a cool design and would be great for someone who is renting and would like to take it with them when they move.

This video from Lowes (How To Build A Raised Flower Or Garden Bed - YouTube) is probably the simplest and is explained really well.  This one is 3ft by 5ft, which is also a nice size for a starter garden.

Basically, all of these instructions involve attaching some longer two-by-somethings to some short 4x4 posts, leveling the ground, setting the frame inside, and filling it with dirt.  In the dry Colorado climate you can use plain, untreated lumber instead of treated "green" wood (which you can't grow veggies in because it's poisonous) or expensive, but rot resistant, cedar or redwood.  Most people will loose interest in this little raised bed before it rots out in a few years anyway, so you may as well save a few bucks.  All of these instructions also enable you to start with readily available 8ft pieces of lumber and not have any waste, which is nice.  Depending on your level of handiness or ability to enlist a friend's help and power tools, I would have everything pre-cut at Lowes or Home Depot (or your local lumber yard) to the sizes you want and then follow the instructions in the Lowes video to pre-drill the planks and assemble the box.

Here are the materials you would need to build the 3ft by 5ft raised bed from the video:

• (6) 8ft 2x4s, each cut into 3ft and 5ft lengths at the store
• (4) 10-1/2" lengths of 4x4 post, cut from whatever 4x4 lumber is cheapest (2x4s are not actually 2" by 4" anymore, they're about 1-1/2" by 3-1/2", hence the 10-1/2" posts)
• (1) 1 pound box of 3" deck screws - you'll need at least 48 screws, plus the ones that get messed up in the process 
• 6ft of weed barrier cloth
• Aprox. 15 cubic feet (5/8 cubic yard) of garden soil - the bagged stuff is about the actual size it says on the bag, the loose stuff tends to settle down, so you may need a little more; also, you don't need to use all potting soil, just whatever is easy to get

Here are the tools you will probably need:

• Shovel to cut away the grass / sod (or just lay the weed barrier right on top if you've got a dead spot that's already level
• Drill driver (corded or cordless) with a 5/32" drill bit (to drill the pilot holes) and at least one #2 Phillips driver bit (to drive the screws)
• Level
• Tape measure (to make sure the box is square, measure the diagonals when attaching the sides and make sure they are the same) 

There are no limits on the ways you can modify, expand, or customize your new raised garden, including adding hoops for a makeshift greenhouse or bird netting or attaching it to anchors to keep it from being bumped by the lawnmower.  

I hope you enjoy your new garden, and don't trip over it in the winter snow!  Maybe next time I'll elaborate on the slightly more complicated one that my family built this spring.  

Maunderings for June 19, 2013

I've unintentionally taken a little while off of updating (again) while I spend some time at home in Colorado.  It's really nice to be back breathing the thin, dry, clean air and drinking good, fresh beer.  Drinking seems to be a theme today...

Even though China is a huge country and the wealthy seem to be obsessed with high end whiskey, 99.5% of all hard liquor consumed in China is baijiu.  So when the Economist graphed the top ten consumers of real spirits (vodka, rum, Scotch whiskey, gin, tequila), China doesn't even rank.  Unsurprisingly, Russians drink the most of anyone by a large margin.  What did surprise me was that the French drink ten times more Scotch per person than Americans (but non-Scotch whiskey wasn't mentioned, so that could have something to do with it) and that Filipinos drink nearly five times more gin than us.  Since gin and Scotch are my liquors of choice, I'm trying to bring our average more in line with global standards, and I encourage you to do your part.  ;)

This article about the worst charities in the U.S. will make you both want to drink and not feel bad about spending money on booze instead of donating it to these scams than donate less than 1% of their proceeds to their supposed beneficiaries.

This could either make you want to drink more or make you feel a little better about your situation. In China, graduates from Chinese universities are four times more likely to be unemployed than those with only an elementary school education. At least it's not just American college graduates who think that they're entitled to a better job than they are qualified for:

Jason Zhang, the recruiter who has years of experience hiring people, rolls his eyes at this type of candidate. "Chinese college graduates these days think they’re really special," he says with a smile. "The problem is -- they’re the only ones who think that." 

Zhang says Wang and many others in China’s class of 2013 will go all summer thinking they’ve got lots of options, and will probably end up unemployed.

Aaand, I forgot to hit "post" a few days ago, so here's bonus drinking related update, just for good measure. According to Telegraph in the UK, via Gothamist, the world's gin supply is in dire straights because of a fungus that is attacking juniper berries, the pungent herb that gives gin its gin-ness.  I regard this as a real emergency, but I am also surprised that there's no synthetic alternative available for desperate times like these.  But, necessity is the mother of invention, so maybe Britain will start to be innovative again and there will be.  In the meantime, enjoy your gin while you can, people!

Maunderings for June 1, 2013

According to the Wall Street Journal, Chinese hot pot chain Hai Di Lao (pay wall) is planning to expand into the U.S.  Owner Zhang Yong started Hai Di Lao in Sichuan in 1994 and opened his first international branch in Singapore last year.  As someone who has recently spent over a month in Chengdu, Sichuan and ate the hot, mouth-numbing local specialty there more times than I can remember, I hope his particular brand of hot pot will find a niche in the U.S.  I think they'll have to work on their menus and educate Westerners on how hot pot works if they're going to be successful.  It is scheduled to open this September in the ritzy Los Angeles neighborhood of Arcadia.

I just ran a 5k charity race this morning wearing semi-generic cotton blend socks, and they didn't give me any trouble, but in case they did, the WSJ was kind enough to enlighten us on the booming high-end sock industry in the U.S.  Apparently the "Thread Architects" and R&D shops at these companies are turning out socks that fit like a glove, resist "trail grime", and can withstand three weeks of wear without washing, and only run $25 a pair(!).  The socks on my feet cost about $2.50, but I do need to wash them every time, so maybe it's worth it.

Luckily I didn't eat hot pot right before the run, or else my socks may have been the least of my worries.

Speaking of food... regarding Paleo Dieters, you know, the folks who have apparently confused personal health with evolutionary success as an excuse to eat nothing but steak, a semi-recent conference of archaeologists and other assorted smart people made some good clarifications on what humans can eat: "You want to know what the ideal human diet consists of? Everything. Humans can and will eat everything, and we are remarkably successful not in spite of this fact, but because of it. Our adaptability is the hallmark of the human species. We’re not called omnivores for nothing."  Read this guy's post, it's good.  Good like a bagel.

Maunderings for May 22, 2013

As Moore, Oklahoma continues to clean up after last weekend's disastrous tornado, the Atlantic has put together way more than you really need to know about tornadoes in America.  The short version: the May 20th Moore tornado was bad, but not the worst; and no, tornadoes are not increasing in frequency or severity.  The long version is still worth a look and is notable for its level-headed thoroughness.

Scientific American takes the recent Dove soap adverts to task and concludes that you really aren't as beautiful as you think.  They call it the "above average effects", but I prefer the "Lake Wobegon effect".  (You know, "where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.")  But either way, a little bit of thinking you're awesome can probably help in real life situations that benefit from self-confidence.  Just don't let it go to your head.  ;)

And if you're like most residents of mainland China and are tired of Hong Kong's "two-tin" limit on imports of powdered baby formula, maybe you should go to New Zealand and start buying up all of theirs instead.  Or maybe Chinese companies could stop poisoning their own citizens (and everyone else's pets) and put some of their vast resources into producing safe products for domestic consumption.  Right after they start enforcing their own constitution.  :/

Maunderings for May 21, 2013

This is a little behind the times, but apparently Jon Stewart is has recently become big in China. ...And not just because he's tall. (Couldn't resist, sorry.) The New Yorker wrote up an interesting little piece, and you should probably watch the video clip they link to in the second (and 6th) line. Also, Jon Stewart is called Jiong Situ, a.k.a. 囧司徒 in Chinese. I like the Jiong character - 囧.

Even though you've probably been working out like a MoFo for a while now, it only takes about a week to loose your new-found cardiovascular adaptations.  Luckily, a couple of intense max-interval workouts a week will at least help the maintenance.  

In more recent, but basically worthless news, foreign fashion models who want to work in the U.S. are in the same skilled worker category as actual skilled workers.  Since the overall cap is so low, that's causing some grief for the less beautiful I.T. workers, even though only 250 of the 65,000 H-1B visas went to models.  There was legislation introduced in 2008 to reclassify the models out of the H-1B pool, sponsored by Anthony Weiner (insert lewd joke here), but it never made it to the floor.  

Kaffestugan - Definitely a Cheng-Do!

Since I've been in Chengdu, China, I've been trying to collect a few dos and don'ts that I want to remember and/or share.  I call them Cheng-Dos and Cheng-Don'ts.

Kaffestugan is definitely a Cheng-Do.  

Located on the First Ring Road, a bit east of North Kehua Road, Kaffestugan is a Swedish cafe transplanted into Chengdu.  Owned by a Swedish / Korean couple, they serve excellent pour-over coffee (excellent by American coffee standards, not just Chinese); along with snacks, brunch and lunch items, and a good selection of liquor.  The prices are very reasonable, and even though the cafe is located on the second floor of a strip mall, the interior is inviting enough to spend the afternoon barely noticing that you're in China.

I was unable to find their location on Google Maps, but fortunately they are right next to a dental clinic (called Huashan Oral Cavity in English) that is listed.  Click here for a map.


Address: 2F KaiYueXinCheng, No. 9 First Ring Road, South, First Section (opposite Hong Wa Si)
Chengdu 610021, Sichuan, China

邮编: 610021
中国四川省成都市一环路南一段9号凯悦新城2楼

Telephone: +86 (028) 8544 3365
Email: kaffestuganinchengdu [at] gmail.com
Web: www.kaffestugan.com