the minimalism movement

Around Christmas time 1988, I was chubby 12-year old kid. During those days, my parents, sister and I drove down the hill and a few miles to my grandparents’ home to eat tasty treats, visit and watch a movie. This was an annual event which took place the during the week after Christmas, but before New Year’s.

I don’t recall how many years in a row we did that, but I do remember three of the movies we watched: The Mission, The Last Emperor and Empire of the Sun. Mission and Empire of the Sun had a profound impact on me as a kid. But one visual from Empire has remained with me to this day.

After Jamie and the POWs leave the air field prisoner camp and hike days and days, they arrive at a sports stadium. It is filled with cars, pianos, golf clubs, dressers and lots and lots of statues … . The visual was stunning – here are these starved-to-death British citizens, who just a few years ago “had it all”, then it was taken away and now here all of it sits – theirs for the re-taking. But they don’t need it. They need water; they need food. If ever there was a poster for the ‘why’ of Minimalism movement, this would be it.

As has been noted over and over again on the minimalism blogs, the movement is not about getting rid of stuff and living on less; rather it is about thinking about what joy and happiness means to you.  In my lifetime, happiness has meant having it all: the fancy car, the nice house, nice clothes, the pool ... all that.  But what we have learned and are still learning is that having possessions does not bring happiness.  Consumerism and all the gorging that goes with it only leaves people broke and empty inside.

Minimalism forces you to ask what it is that make you happy?  What are your priorities in life?  What should you spend your money and time on?  Do you really need all those possessions to achieve that goal of lasting happiness?

Living on less strips away all the irrelevant and unimportant and leaves only the truly valuable and worthwhile.

James Allen said, "The man who shrinks from self-crucifixion can never accomplish the object upon which his heart is set ... the sole and supreme use of suffering is to purify; to burn out all that is useless and impure"

And when all the useless has been burnt out, the pure gold - the pure joy is left.

Excel Links

I'm not an Excel expert, but sometimes I pretend to be one.  And in those times, I usually do what every other "Excel expert" does: Google

But some sites are good for the advice repeatedly and I'd like to list those as part of my Tech Tuesday series.

1. Chandoo.org
2. MREXCEL.COM
3. Ozgrid.com
4. Peltiertech.com

And if you don't find what you're looking for at those sites, always Google ... and if you don't find it then ... well, you may not be able to even do it at all.

Yard of the Month

This muse was from six years ago, when we lived in a home that had a quarter of an acre back yard.

This morning I mowed our yard ... it is a HUGE yard and takes me over two hours to finish. I'm not big into yard work. I do the minimum and spend the rest of my time combing the hair on my chest and back.

This week, our neighbors down the street received the "Yard of the Month" prize. Their reward: A sign posted on the front lawn that says, "Yard of the Month" I don't know if they receive prize money for this or not. The main reason they do the YOTM stuff is to encourage people to keep their yards nice.

What kind of people pursue these accolades? Perhaps it is the lady of the house that pushes the man to work so hard. Mrs. Gibson down the street must have shoved poor Hal into a corner and threatened him.

"You listen and you listen well chump! I want that prize! You better pull through this month or else!"

Hal would melt to the floor sucking his thumb.

Every morning when I go out for my jog, I see Hal out there slaving away. A couple of weeks ago, he was up at 5:30 in the morning planting red tulips! I waved to the poor fella. He took one look at me and vomited all over the flowers (I had my shirt off). Tough luck. I was about 50 paces from Hal's house when I heard Mrs. Gibson.

"What in the Sam-hell are you doin' boy?! Get the hose and start cleaning this up! I want these tulips planted YESTERDAY!"

The car door slams and Mrs. Gibson peels out of the driveway and passes me going 45mph in a 35 zone. Poor Hal.

Then last week while I was mowing, I saw ol Hal out there mowing and trimming his yard too. It was a hot and humid day. I stopped several times to drink water. One time I saw that Hal had stop to rest too. The poor chap ... Mrs. Gibson came storming out the front door hollering at Hal. This time she had a whip. She snapped that thing over Hal's head and he jumped five feet in the air. In a split second, he had thrown down his lemonade, put his hat on and started the lawn mower. Mrs. Gibson was screaming at the top of her lungs, while Hal was criss-crossing across his velvet yard looking behind him every other second. It was a sad sight.

I hope for Hal's sake he wins the Yard of the Month next time.

april nature

we had quite a nice walk today
found a very cool turtle (three-toed box turtle)
enjoyed some beautiful and fragrant flowers (lantana & night-blooming jessamine)
tasted a handful of wild dewberries

Writing Initiative

Somewhere along the way, I lost the time to write.  Life gets busy.  I used to keep a journal religiously, but now it gets updated every so often.  I still intend to keep a regular personal journal, but I also feel the need to write more outside of my journal.

Today I was inspired by zen habits to write more - why you should write daily

Thinking about this a bit more, I feel motivated to write about some topics I have opinions on as well as to let out the inner muse in me.  I think it will also help me in my work and personal life as I think things through.

So, I'm going to try this and see how it works ... I have very low expectations, but we'll see.

Mondays will be Musings (see past musings here)

Tuesdays will be Tech - I'll write about some aspect of technology that is cool; opine about something I've read at wired or tech dirt or wherever; maybe even talk about something I'm doing at work.

Wednesdays will be Whatever I want to talk about.

Thursday will be Thankful For day.

Friday will be Fantasy; where I fantasize about what I would change in the world if I were supreme dictator. Sometimes it might be a true self-inquiry about what it is I would or could change in my life.

I'm not sure I'll write so much on Saturdays or Sundays.

Of course I'll continue to blog about other stuff (minimalism, diet and exercise, what I'm reading, book reports, etc).  And I'll continue my photography series.

trees removed in last 4 years on boylston street

 i was curious to see what the bombing scene looked like before the bombing.

google maps shows a nice quiet boylston streen with lots of young-looking trees.

boston.com (the big picture) shows a similar view with no trees.

according to this article, those trees died a few year ago (supposedly between 2009 when the google image was taken and 2010 when the article was posted).

the last picture below shows at least some trees are still alive - you can see the branches.

New Report on Brisk Walking ... just as good (even better) than running

I was a big runner up to about 4 years ago.  The goal was to run a marathon, but a persistent stress fracture forced me to reconsider the amout of running I did.  I later found out that my back is so whacked that it was causing mis-alignment of my hips and therefore the cause of my constant right foot/ankle/knee pain.

Over the last two years, I've turned to hour-long (4 mile) walks and I've found that I really enjoy them and the pain is non-existent.

This year, my wife and I have started a habit of getting up at 4:45am 3 times a week to go on a 4 mile walk with the dog.  We love our time walking.  This is an activity that we both can do well into our retirement.

Half Sigma / Lion of the Blogosphere is always good at pointing every time a person dies at a marathon race.  And, yes, taken in isolation, most people think a death at a marathon race is very rare.  But think about this: when was the last time you remember someone dying in football, baseball or basketball?  Cycling?  The only example I can recall is Len Bias.  Whereas, if you google 'marathon deaths', you get quite a few articles and examples.

Anyway - the whole point of the post was to point out another study that bolsters the opinion that walking is better than running.  And by "better" I mean it is good for you and sustainable.  You get all the benefits of running without the stress on your body and heart.

Link: Brisk Walking Equals Running for Heart Health: Study

mushroom

march sunset

lizard

spring in february

there are blossoms everywhere and it's only feb 4

normally, these blossoms come out in march

cooper

 our friends came over tonight.  they brought their new puppy - cooper.

cooper and our friends' other dog - missy - played with our dog - fritz.

after about an hour of playing around, cooper found a nice cool spot on the tile, nudged his nose in the corner and fell asleep.

i love the 2nd shot ... with is big furry paw

cooper is an airedale.  when our dog fritz moves on to the next life, we're thinking of getting an airedale.

5:15pm sun on trail

pinewood derby 2013

we have two official cars this year.  one for my son in webelos and the other for my son in the wolf den.  this is my oldest son's last pinewood derby car and my youngest son's first pinewood derby car.

we consulted a "professional" pinewood derby car-maker.  we'll see how well i've ... ahem ... we've followed directions for making fast cars.

Shangri-La Diet in a Nutshell

Reading Seth's blog post (link here) led me to this forum (link here) where on this page of that forum I found the following two summaries of the SLD:

The theory seems to be that the body finds 2-300 excess calories and can't figure out where they came from, so shuts down your hunger and resets weight setpoint over time. Kind of like your body thinks you went from eating slim pickin's in winter to having plentiful food in summer...it just knows you are getting more energy from the food you are currently eating so it can up the metabolism and lower the weight setpoint since it figures you found a good supply of chow and wants you to keep eating without getting fat.

...

The idea is that flavourless calories do NOT give the message of abundance, as they would in nature. So the body reduces the weight setpoint as a survival mechanism in hard times. Once your body weight is sitting above your setpoint, you naturally are not hungry, you eat less and your body loses weight to the setpoint. If your actual bodyweight is sitting below your setpoint, you are excessively hungry and eat until you regain to where your body wants to be. A protective mechanism.

How many times have we lost 5 or so lbs below where we usually sit, through a major struggle of restraint and intake reduction, then blow it all in a fit of uncontrolled appetite and eating and regain the weight? I know that 148-152 lbs is a huge sticking point for me and the first time I started SLD, I slid right past that point, going from 150-146 in a few days and then remaining with the lowered appetite for months, as I lost to my goal of 133-135 lbs. Took only 3 months. It was rather amazing.

Seth Roberts took the theory of the impact of flavourless calories on setpoint and bent it in various ways to try and "trick the brain" into lowering the setpoint. He tried things like flavour without calories, calories without flavour, using a flavour that is sometimes taken calorie free, then combined with calories at other times of the day. "Platinum Calories" as devised by one of the forum readers is a twist on the theory. It is based on the idea that fat calories provided alone will provide calories without triggering any insulin response at all - not such a strange concept around here. They are tasty (coconut oil in coffee, "oilmilk" - oil and water blended with lethicin, as examples), but I never found them as effective as the flavourless calories. Bulletproof coffee is the same concept - lots of fat without any other dietary calorie sources, and hence satiety that lasts for hours.

I want to try this one more time using Spectrum's refined coconut oil.  I think I saw a jar of this at the local Kroger, selling for about $7 or $8.

the perfect week failed miserably last week

so after that post, on tuesday i went out and lifted weights ... nothing aggressive ... just some bench pressing, bicep curls, etc.  i was fine all day long until the end of the day.  the pain in my left neck/shoulder area was extreme.  i assume it was a pinched nerve.  i could hardly turn my neck and at night, i was in extreme discomfort.  it took about a week for the pain to subside.

this sort of thing regularly occurs when i lift weights.  i'm just not sure i want go through this again for the 100th time.  i may just focus on simple push-ups and sit-ups along with long walks and spinning.

the perfect week

this would be my perfect week:
- i followed my planned workout routine; weights mon, wed and friday morning with 30 mins of spinning tues, thurs and saturday.
- i ate minimally every day, eating when i need to and not ever out of boredom.
- playing two chess games during the week and annotating them
- 20 tactics every day

if i could accomplish those goals in a week, i would be pleased.

day 2 of getting in the groove

today was ok.  i felt horrible in the morning ... headache, grumpy, head in the fog.  so i drank some caffeine via crystal light, and then i took some migraine meds.  i waited a couple of hours and then i ate 4 jimmy dean patties.  finally by 3pm, i was feeling good.

dinner was at 530pm, which was scalloped potatoes, meatloaf and veggies.  after dinner i ate 3 tart cookies.

as expected, the after-dinner itch came around.  i drank a full bottle of water, and then waited an hour before drinking some hot blueberry/vanilla tea with some agave  in it.  that seemed to do the trick ... its 11pm as i write this and no cravings or itches.

i now begin an extended fast that began at 6pm and will go all through friday and will end saturday morning at breakfast.

thoughts on fasting

so i did pretty well yesterday.  my goal was to not eat until 6pm.  i drank lots ... water, tea, crystal light.  i went on a walk early in the morning for 30 minutes and then on another walk in the afternoon for 30 minutes.  when i got back from the walk at about 4:45pm, i was really sleepy-tired.  by 5pm, i was in one of those dazed-in-a-trance states and i just sat on the couch.

a little after 5pm, i got off the couch, went into the kitchen and ate some chips and cheese dip.  then i ate dinner with the family at 6:30pm - we ate this ham-green olive-swiss cheese salad and some breadsticks and cheese hotdogs.  i had mostly salad with 3 small breadsticks and one hot-dog.  i then ate some almond roca candy.  i was satisfied and it was just before 7pm.

then about 90 minutes passes and all during that time, i'm feeling fine.  but right at 8:30pm, after the kids and i have been watching lotr:fotr, i get this itch.  there is no better way to describe it.  it's an itch to eat something. now, i would normally drink a lot of water or tea, but at 8:30pm at night, i really worry about having to pee at 1am in the middle of my sleep.  i've got to do something about at 8:30pm itch.

some potential solutions:
- drink tea; but maybe not in such a big cup ... and drink it while playing chess or doing tactics
- listen to music

the bottom line is i've got to just eat a simple dinner and then be done until 6pm the next day.

i'll see how tonight goes.  i think i'm going to try the smaller portion of hot tea if i get that itch.

gray day