Troutmaster

I finished the book, "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan yesterday and I have to say that it really opened my eyes.  It talks about the industrialization of the American food supply and goes on to make the case that putting our food choices and habits in the hands of scientists who tell us "Low Fat", "High Fiber", "Low Cholesterol", "No Butter", etc... is a foolish thing to do.  Most of the book is spent dispelling myths about food studies purporting new understanding of nutrition and then the food industry rushes to reformulate the processed foods to include that ingredient.  Think about it, high fiber, antioxidants, omega-3's?  What will the new health flavor be for 2009?  I saw a talk show the other day that recommended replacing regular onion rings with new and improved onion rings which had less calories and high fiber.  High fiber from onion rings?  I don't think so!  It wasn't until the end the Pollan got into rules of thumb for eating.  I'm going to save you some time by listing them here, but be warned, most of them are not exactly as the bullet points make them sound.  For example, the bullet point that says "Eat Meals" has a lot more to it than face value.  If you want any detail or explanation you are going to have to read the book.  So the rules are:

• Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
• Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) Unfamiliar, B) Unpronouncable, C) More than 5 in number or that include D) high-fructose corn syrup.
• Avoid food products that make health claims.
• Shop the peripheries of the supermarket and stay out of the middle.
• Get out of the supermarket whenever possible.
• Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
• You are what what you eat eats too.
• If you have the space, buy a freezer.
• Eat like an omnivore.
  
• Eat well-grown food from healthy soils.
• Eat wild foods when you can.
• Be the kind of person who take supplements.
• Eat more like the French, or the Italians, of the Japanese, or the Indians, or the Greeks.
• Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism.
• Don't look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet.
• Have a glass of wine with dinner.
• Pay more, eat less.
• Eat meals.
• Do all your eating at a table.
• Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.
• Try not to eat alone.
• Consult your gut.
• Eat slowly.
• Cook and, if you can, plant a garden.

On Christmas Day Timber and I went over to her parents' house and had dinner.  The menu itself was a bit non-traditional, but is was very good.  Here is what we had:

1. Two different kinds of tri-tip
2. Teriyaki chicken
3. Baked beans with ham and steak in it
4. Fried rice
5. Lumpia
   
6. Steamed Broccoli
7. Pumpkin pie

I'm full just thinking about it.  :-)

I've been talking with Timber about this lately and I saw this op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman in today's paper talking about need for a gas tax.  The gas tax (in my mind) would directly do a few things:

1.  Keep the price of gas at the pump high enough so that people are willing and able to take public transportation and/or user alternatives to the one person per car commute.
2.  Take that money from the tax and put it towards public transportation and alternative energy research and development.

Indirectly I think the gas tax would do a few additional things:

1.  Get people to think about gas mileage when it comes to buying cars (which they don't do when gas is cheap).
2.  Send less money to the countries that we buy oil from.
3.  Keep people thinking about energy policy and national security every time they fill up at the pump.

I can think of a few arguments against the gas tax, and I have responses for them.

1.  The government should not be trying to modify our behavior through taxes.  My Response:  This one is easy, the government already does this through crv taxes, federal income taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, cigarette taxes, etc...  The precedent for the gas tax has already been set.
2.  There are struggling families out there that can't survive if we have a gas tax.  My Response:  This argument can be used against any existing tax, and the various government entities don't seem too concerned about it, so my lazy argument is that with all taxes, some people will come up just short.

The core problem, which is why we need a gas tax, is this:  We, Americans, are very price driven people.  When the prices of gas was high, we did change our driving habits, opting for less trips, more gas efficient vehicles, public transit, working from home, etc...  But with gas prices going WAY down from their highs we are starting to forget about all that stuff.  And I'm worried that we are going to go back to our big, bad, SUV driving ways.  If you don't think that will happen, look at the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis.  If we forget these lessons yet again we have no one to blame but ourselves. 

Timber sent me a link to this NY Times article about innovation in the packaging of milk and the feedback it is receiving.  All in all I thought it was interesting.

Merry Christmas everyone! Be thankful for your blessings and hug your family.

For Christmas this year we are going deviate from the tradition a little bit by having Chicken Cordon Bleu as our main dish instead of Turkey or Ham.  We are doing that because we don't want to have as many leftovers and want to have something a little different.  Other than that we are probably going to have lots of traditional side dishes like mashed potatoes and stuffing, but since Timber is out getting the ingredients right now we may end up doing something completely different.  :-)

I recently read this San Jose Mercury News article which talked about cloud computing and why it was becoming so popular all of a sudden.  If you are not familiar with the term "cloud computing" it essentially means moving applications off into the "cloud in the sky" instead of running them locally on your laptop or desktop.  Some examples of cloud computing include Google Docs, cvsDude, Flickr, Smugmug, etc...  The best part of the article was a quote by Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, saying:

"The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do,  I can't think of anything that isn't cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?"

In some ways I completely agree with Larry.  In my mind, the question is not whether or not to move some application off into the "cloud", but instead the question should be "How USEFUL would it be to move some application off into the "cloud".  And on top of that, is this any different from the old mainframe days?  Also, how secure is this data on the cloud?  I really don't care if someone can see my todo list for work or around the house, but I do not want my tax return information freely floating around for anyone to see, at least not until I decide to run for president.

Thanks to Donna for telling me about this video. Since I've been annoying Timber with this song lately I thought I would share it with everyone. Try playing this song 3 times in a row and see if the song sticks in your head for the rest of the day. :-)