May Shrink or Fade

Vision Quest

2012-01-14T10:37:00.008-05:00

Last summer, pal J.T. and I spent a week canoeing down the Allagash. Afterwards, I noticed something strange: for a brief time, maybe a week or so, something about my vision was different. Better. Mostly I noticed it while driving on the interstate through rural Maine. I kept seeing things way back in the woods that I normally wouldn't have seen: an unusual shrub, a bit of bark texture on a tree, a distant leaf falling, a porcupine moving. A porcupine! The porcupine was what really hit me. I know with certainty that I wouldn't normally have seen that. Or noticed that. Or-- well, which was it? Seen, or noticed?

That is where my latest psycho-physical intellectual expedition began. I couldn't say whether I was seeing better, or noticing better, or both. I pondered what, on the canoe trip, could have changed my vision. Was it being outdoors, mostly? Was it being in so much daylight? Was it focusing more on distance, and less on near things (though I did do a lot of reading, at night)? Was it being in a canoe, with the entire world in motion for most of every day? Was it being on vacation, relaxed, unfindable by my patients? Was it the good company? Was it the Canadian whisky and chocolate puddings I'd consumed on the river?

Aside: My vision is horrid. I got glasses for myopia at age 8, and have worn them essentially every waking moment since. The prescriptions grew incrementally stronger, almost every year, for 30 years. I am long since past the point where, if it were not for corrective lenses, I would be "legally blind". A person with my vision could not possibly navigate the world normally. I have always considered myself extremely fortunate to live in this century, and in this society-- because if I lived in a time or place without opticians, I'm pretty sure I would be dead by now. The sense of having a severely defective body part (two of them, actually) has been a subtle but persistent part of my whole life. If my eyes were teeth, they would be sticking out of the mouth perpendicularly and useless for chewing. If they were legs, then would only bend halfway at the knees, or one would be 6 inches shorter than the other. Sometimes, it has made me angry-- but, because the problem can be "corrected" (and so miraculously well), and because so many others are walking around with the same problem, I never really considered it a "disability", or something to feel sorry for myself about.

Still, it has puzzled me enormously-- how did natural selection let this happen? How did my myopic ancestors manage to find each other in order to reproduce? How did my ancestors even survive long enough to reproduce? Why hasn't this been weeded out? Is there some unsung evolutionary advantage to being nearsighted, a silver lining like sickle cell anemia's protection against malaria? My dozens of past eye-care professionals have not been very interested in these questions. Mostly they have chalked my bad eyes up to, basically, "bad luck". The prevailing attitude has been, "Why worry too much about what caused the problem, when it's so simple to fix?"

Back to the post-canoe experience: Something was better. I realized that I could not at all say whether I was (physically) seeing better, or (mentally) perceiving better. I realized there might not be much difference. I thought about how the eyes are directly hard-wired to the brain with nerves almost half a centimeter thick. I thought of experiments in which people wearing distorting, inverting, or reversing lenses were able to adapt to seeing the world "normally" again. What else is possible?

This all led me to an obscure book by Aldous Huxley called The Art of Seeing, as well as unorthodox reading. I have a strange sense of optimism. More later.

Book Review, Weight Loss Experiment -- or, How a slightly flabby guy lost 20 pounds in 60 days without really trying

2011-06-11T15:14:00.025-04:00

[If you want to see the weight- and fat-loss graphs before reading anything, scroll down first.]

Some months back, my pal 2 loaned me a copy of Tim Ferriss' book The 4-Hour Body. She knows of my experiments of living in a cold house, and thought I would be interested in a chapter of the book in which the author reviews the idea that chilling your body (e.g., by ice baths) can induce rapid fat loss. (Other people have postulated, from the other direction, that being too warm could a factor in the obesity epidemic). "The author," 2 said, "is a nutjob. But so are you, so you might like the book."

I left the book in a trunk for a month and didn't bother to open it until 2 asked for it back. After an hour of reading, I was intrigued. Mr. Ferriss immediately irritated the hell out of me with his cockiness, slangy phrasing, and name-dropping. But, I was drawn to some aspects of his personal approach to self-improvement: (1) Question dogma, (2) Experiment on everything, especially yourself, and (3) Data is critical.

It so happened that at the same time, I was growing a bit displeased with my body habitus. For the first 3 decades of my life, I'd been blessed with the ability to eat anything and everything in sight while still remaining some version of "skinny". I cannot tell you how much ice cream has gone down my hatch. About age 30, though, this miracle started to ebb. At age 42, I was 25lbs heavier than in high school. I wasn't really concerned about the health implications-- I was still well within "normal" body mass-- but three things were bothering me: (1) I had small love handles bulging over my bike shorts; (2) I could feel my thighs touch in the shower, which had never been the case before; (3) As a stomach-sleeper, I was starting to feel like I had a half-deflated beach-ball under me while sleeping.

I decided to try out the 4-Hour Body "slow carb" diet, along with the author's other whacky low-effort strategies. It has been a remarkable success. Much beyond what I expected. Here I present first the data/results, then the methods, then some observations.

RESULTS

On Mr. Ferriss' insistence, I decided to measure my body fat during the experiment. I opted for the method of a Tanita scale which uses measurements of electrical impedance to estimate your % body fat (it also reads weight, in 0.1lb increments). This method can be variable with hydration level, and is considered more useful for monitoring your relative body fat over time than for getting an accurate single reading. But it's cheap and easy (going for a DEXA scan didn't really fit into my schedule or budget.)

So, starting four days before the experiment, and continuing through the next two months, I took daily readings of weight and body fat, always right after I woke up (post-pee, but before drinking or eating.) And here are the two beautiful graphs of what happened. First, simple weight in pounds:

So, right. I went from about 168lbs to 148lbs. With some ups and downs, but, in the macro, in an almost linear fashion. The red dot was the day the experiment commenced. The orange dots are my weight the mornings after "cheat days" (see below). Next, a graph of the scale's body fat readings:

Again, a pretty linear drop. Again, I was quite astonished that these things were changing with almost no actual effort on my part. I had not expected much; if had I not seen a clear trend within 10 days, I probably would have quit. But now, in only 8 weeks, I am back to the BMI I had 20 years ago. I feel really good. My three issues have all resolved. I'm amazed, and yes, even though Mr. Ferriss definitely does NOT need your money, I'm proselytizing for his book.

METHODS

If you're going to do this, you really need to read the book (only fourteen bucks on Amazon, or go to the library). I can't do justice to the detail, or the motivation, of the book. But I'll summarize the plan, to give you a sense of how simple it is at the core.

For eating, five rules: (1) ONE DAY A WEEK, EAT WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT. Really. On the other days: (2) No simple ("white") carbs-- no wheat, rice, sugar, corn, quinoa, potatoes, none of it. (3) Eat the same few meals over and over. These must consist of vegetables + legumes (beans or lentils) + protein (lean meat or eggs). (4) Don't drink anything with calories. Exception, for some reason, for 1-2 glasses of red wine nightly. Diet Coke okay (luckily) in moderation. (5) Don't eat fruit.

Beyond this, Mr. Ferriss offers other strategies that I employed selectively:

-- He promotes cinnamon for its salutary effects on blood glucose. I routinely added cinnamon to my coffee throughout the experiment (delicious, btw). Just today I discovered how good cinnamon + Diet Coke tastes. Wish I'd tried that earlier.

-- He discusses research on the GLUT-4 glucose transporter (discovered since I was in med school). GLUT-4 transports glucose into muscle cells, and may brought into action for a period of time after vigorous muscular contraction. So, Mr. Ferriss prescribes 60-90 seconds of vigorous exercise a few minutes before a meal, and ideally again about 90 minutes after (when blood glucose peaks). This helps move glucose into muscle cells, rather than (via insulin) into fat storage. To comply, I did as Mr. Ferriss suggests: a whacky series of air squats before each meal (sometimes in restaurant bathroom stalls, as he also did.)

-- He discusses some supplements that increase insulin sensitivity (policosanol, Alpha-lipoic acid, garlic extract, green tea flavanols.) I picked these up at Whole Foods, but used them only on "cheat days"-- and even then, not reliably.

The plan does not require you to keep track of or limit how much you eat (calorie-wise), and I didn't. It doesn't require any specific exercise, other than the 5-10 minutes a day of air-squats. I did about my usual amount of biking for this time of year, which amounted to an average of 6.75 miles/day over the two months. Pretty much no other exercise to speak of. I did not take any ice baths, either.

OBSERVATIONS

The first and most remarkable thing: I was never hungry. Really, just about never. In fact, I was less often hungry on this diet than I was when I ate my usual way. My "usual way" is actually quite "healthy", but much heavier on whole-wheat bread, granola, brown rice, and other carbs.

I did get carb cravings now and then-- but I could tell they were more psychological than physical. I missed bread a lot. But it wasn't so bad.

Plus, whatever I felt I was missing, I knew I could have on Cheat Day-- which was never more than 6 days away. My day for cheating was Saturdays. On Saturdays I didn't go out of my way to seriously binge, but I didn't hold back. I ate stacks of banana pancakes with syrup, I ate danishes, I had lattés, I drank many beers and gin & tonics, I ate halves-of-pizzas, I had big sandwiches with mayo and whole bags of cheezy-poofs.

I typically gained 3-4lbs on Cheat Day, showing up as a huge spike on the weight graph-- but less notable on the body fat graph, suggesting it was mostly water retention. Invariably, the weight came off again after. Every day-before-cheat-day was lower than the previous day-before-cheat-day. It was hugely, hugely motivating to have this level of data to reinforce that going on was worthwhile. (You might think it could all be done faster without cheat days. Two reasons this is not true: first, you'll go bonkers and quit, and second, according to Mr. Ferriss' theories, you might actually need one day a week to "convince your body that you aren't starving" and keep the weight loss from halting.)

Outside of sanctioned Cheat Days, I cheated very little. Once or twice I substituted a no-sugar mohito for a glass of wine. Once or twice I had a forbidden beer on a Friday night. A few times I mistakenly ate bits of fruit that came with a salad or whatever. But I was 95% compliant.

In the book, Mr. Ferriss advises people to eat canned beans and lentils, for convenience. Normally I do use canned beans, but with the quantity of beans I was headed for these months, I switched to cooking up my own from bulk dried. Soak a pound or two Saturday night, boil them Sunday morning, and then you've got enough in the fridge for the week.

What I ate:

Breakfast: Always the same. One egg, about 1/3 cup additional egg whites, a cup of chopped frozen spinach, mustard greens, or other veggies, and about 1/2 cup black beans. Occasionally a bit of bacon in there. Mixed up with salt, pepper, seasonings, fried up with a splash of olive oil. Water with a splash of lime, and coffee.

Lunch: Typically some sort of salad with sliced chicken and beans (I kept a tupperware of beans at work to add to whatever I found for a salad.) Diet Coke.

Dinner: Some staples were fish tacos (using romaine lettuce leaves as a taco shell), turkey & bean chili, chicken curry, lentil stew or dhal, grilled fish & veggies... pretty much what I'd be eating anyway, just minus the bread/rice/corn/beer. (I did take up the wine option, though. And occasionally I substituted a sugar-free mohito.)

Snacks: Almonds, celery with some peanut butter... not much. I didn't really feel much need to snack.

So, that's it. If you have a few pounds to lose, and don't mind having people think you're kind of odd, you should try this.

Should Have Antique Plates

2010-04-23T13:58:00.003-04:00

Today is the third day of commuting on the new-antique bike. Yesterday, at a slow corner on the bike path, a man coming the other way on one of those crazy folding bikes with tiny wheels flagged me down, evidently just to look at the Raleigh. "How many speeds do you have?", he asked. "At the moment", I replied, "four that work, and one that doesn't". "Wow", he said in a tone of voice I generally reserve for admiring large wooden boats built before the Hoover administration , "A Sturmey-Archer five...." Yessir. And 80% functional, too.

Patient Scrabble™

2010-04-22T10:57:00.002-04:00

I've been in private practice now for three years. Strangely, I still don't have any clients with last names beginning with E, I, J, Q, U, X, or Y. If you know of anyone with one of these surnames, please inquire whether they need a psychiatrist. I'm trying to complete my file-cabinet alphabet.

Equally strangely, I have a dozen clients with "W" last names. And they aren't all the same family.

I can haz new bike

2010-04-18T15:59:00.004-04:00

I'm pretty excited about this. It's older than me. It has five gears, internal, in a peculiar arrangement. It's a really pleasant ride-- a feeling I don't think I've had on a bike since "10 speeds" became the must-have fashion.

Xmas

2009-12-02T06:31:00.002-05:00

All I want for Christmas. I'll probably lose my two front teeth, so that's what I'll be asking for next year. Thanks Santa!

Slight Dilemma of the Burbs

2009-12-01T22:03:00.004-05:00

Since the recent move, I now find myself in a situation where going to Wal-Mart for a needed item (say, a piece of rope) is a 1.5 mile round-trip drive (or scoot, or bike, or walk), while going to the nearest independent-ish hardware merchant for the same thing involves 10 miles round-trip. Which is the better choice?

Brrr

2009-12-01T09:55:00.002-05:00

December 1st, and still no snow-- so still commuting by scooter from the New Suburban House to the office! Today was the first below-freezing commute (29º when I left) but it was sunny and fairly pleasant.

Here's a fabulous fact I learned recently: if you're using those disposable iron-filings-with-charcoal hand warmer packs, and you only need them for a short period (say, four miles of scootering), you can seal them up in a ziploc afterwards and they abort their heating process until you re-open! This is great. One set of hand warmers can last a week of commuting this way!

Deflation Warning

2009-11-18T13:13:00.001-05:00

A medium latté downstairs from my office has been $3.00 since I moved my practice here two years ago. I liked the evenness of the price. I could go down with three one dollar bills and get a latté. No pesky change to deal with. I knew some day the price would increase, and I'd have to go down with four bills and come back with a quarter-pound of annoying coins.

But yesterday, they told me the price had dropped to $2.94. What the? For reals?

I suggest: Sell your stocks. Sell your gold. Sell your house. Sell every tangible thing you can. Put it all in cash. Housing prices dropping might've been an isolated event; but when coffee prices drop, too, you know deflation is coming.

Take The Quiz!

2009-11-12T13:40:00.001-05:00

Take the I-Just-Moved Competition Quiz, and see how you rank against others!

[ ] All of my boxes are unpacked or moved in proper storage locations
[ ] I have cooked at home at least one of the past two nights
[ ] I know where my toothbrush is
[ ] The bank knows my new address
[ ] The DMV knows my new address
[ ] I am registered to vote in my new location
[ ] I have keys for all the locks on my house, and I know which lock every new key goes to.
[ ] I did not almost trip over an unknown object and nearly kill myself in the dark last night trying to get into bed.
[ ] I have finished enough of the items on the first back-of-an-envelope to-do list I made to warrant making a new list on the back of a new envelope.
[ ] I have actually calmed down enough to take a walk around my new neighborhood.
[ ] I know where the hot water heater, circuit breaker box, and furnace (if any) are.
[ ] The hot water heater, circuit breaker box, and furnace are all working fine.
[ ] If someone visits and needs a needle and thread, a band-aid, and a box of tissues, I could find these all within five minutes.

Now just add up the number of checked boxes. Add to that 1/2 point for each new neighbor you have met. Multiply by 10. Divide the result by the number of nights you have been at your new address. What is your score?!?

0-5: You are an utter failure! You should never move again. You should never have moved in the first place. Worse than amateur.
6-10: You are basically no good at this. You should consider living in an RV for the rest of your life.
11-15: You are below average, but you will probably live through it. Next time, make some sort of plan.
16-20: You are mediocre. No one will mistake you for a professional, but there will probably be no long-term psychological damage.
21-25: You are doing above-average. You might even fool someone, such as your dog, into thinking you have been at your place several days longer than your really have.
26-30: You are an excellent mover. In fact, it's kind of suspicious. Possibly, you were actually "moving" into a house you already sort of lived in, such as a boyfriend's or your own summer place.
30 and above: You didn't move. You just thought you did. You're really in the same place you were before.

Product

2009-11-02T06:28:00.005-05:00

Moving to the quasi-suburbs next week. Will have a garage, soon. Need to fix the garage-door opener. Went to Sears website looking for the part. Found this, for $5.99, and started cracking up:What is it? It's an object on a string. You dangle it from the ceiling of your garage so it bumps on your windshield when your car is far enough in. A useful idea-- but do people actually buy these, rather than tie an object to a string and dangle it from the roof of the garage? Particularly amusing is that the product is advertised as being "completely automatic" (much in the way that, say, a coffee mug is "automatic") and that "complete installation instructions are included". (I am envisioning the "troubleshooting" section of the "instructions" as being especially potentially amusing.)

Sad story

2009-10-28T07:10:00.003-04:00

A sad story from Boston today. Hard to know what to make of it, without more information. One thing, though-- you'll never read about this happening at Green Acres. Because the security guards there aren't allowed to put their hands on the patients, let alone carry weapons.

Funny #2

2009-10-26T07:36:00.007-04:00

Dragonfly's comment on the last post reminded me that, in addition to the carbon-free sugar, J. also brought home this product:
Yes, it appears to be canola oil in a can-- and yet it is "calorie free" and allows you to undertake "fat free cooking"? How can this be? We view the back of the label:
Here again, confirmed: there are 0 grams of fat in the product. We read further to the list of ingredients:
What the H? The main ingredient is confirmed to be canola oil, a substance known to science to have 5g of fat (and 40 calories) per teaspoon. In fact, it is known to science to be fat, all fat, and nothing but fat. So how can the contents of the can be fat-free, calorie free?

Evidently, and this makes smoke come out of my ears, if you define the "serving size" of your food product to be so small that the amount of fat delivered is "less than 0.5 grams of fat per reference amount and per labeled serving of a food", then you can call the product "fat free"-- even if it is, in fact, nearly 100% fat. And this is what we find on the canola spray: "serving size" is defined as "1/4 second spray", or "0.25 grams" (or 1/20th of a teaspoon, if you can image a quantity that small). In fact, the little 6-ounce can contains 557 servings! Yeah, sure it does. If you can make a stir-fry using this product every night for a year and half before it runs out-- well, I'll be very impressed.

Just Funny

2009-10-25T21:16:00.002-04:00

J. brought this "carbon-free" sugar home from the store the other day. Hilarious! Carbon-free carbohydrates? What will they think up next-- hydrogen-free water?

Phone Conversation

2009-10-19T16:03:00.001-04:00

I called Favorite and Only Nephew prior to his 5th birthday party.

Turbo: So are all your friends coming to your party?
FAON: No. Only the ones I like.

Satanic Lyrics

2009-10-14T05:46:00.004-04:00

I was listening to some Joni Mitchell, as I am wont to do-- specifically "This Flight Tonight"-- and was perhaps paying more attention than usual to the lyrics. Hidden deep in the last verse is this:

"Up go the flaps, down go the wheels
I hope you got your heat turned on baby"

(Italics mine.) How terribly disappointing. I may have to re-think my whole Joni Mitchell fandom. I may have to re-think my whole Canadian fandom. Of course, this song was written after she had already moved to the U.S.-- specifically, southern California-- which might explain why she had, evidently, become feeble of mind and constitution and required the heat to be turned on.

Or is hoping that her "baby" has "turned on" his (her?) "heat" here not supposed to be taken literally?

A Green Acres Interlude

2009-10-07T05:43:00.003-04:00

Suppose someone offered you one day of work, with this job description:

- Arrive at 8am, leave at 4:30pm, half an hour for lunch, two coffee breaks.
- Candidate will talk to 4-6 people to hear what is on their minds.
- Candidate will attend several meetings, 30-45 minutes each. Meeting topics will range from tedious to fascinating.
- Candidate will write a 1-2 page report summarizing each interview and meeting above.
- At 2pm, a large, unpleasant man unknown to you will be held, by staff, approximately two feet away from you. The man will scroff up a huge guggle of saliva and will spit it all over your face.

What sort of payment would you find acceptable for this day of work? Just throw out some numbers. Because I'm having trouble deciding what fair market value is. Sometimes it seems less like going to work and more like being on "Fear Factor".

Ideal

2009-10-04T21:01:00.002-04:00

A scooter is perfect for many things. But of all, the thing it is perhaps most perfect for is bringing home take-out Brit-Indian on a cool fall evening. Because you can just roar up to the place and slam on your brakes and run in with your helmet to get the food, then put the bag in the under-seat compartment that stays warm from the engine, and get home and eat it, still hot. It really is perfect.

A House Divided

2009-10-02T21:35:00.004-04:00

Yesterday after work I returned to my scooter, which was parked in one of the [fantastic] new Smallish City scooter-parking areas. I noticed that every other scooter there had a little white paper notice attached to it somewhere, but mine did not. I pulled one off a friend's Vespa to investigate. It was a crudely photocopied invitation to the first-ever Smallish City scooter rally! To be held on Columbus Day, at the oceanfront park!

At the bottom of the invitation, it said "So that we can all ride together, maximum engine size 150cc. 50cc preferred. [italics original]".

So. My scooter is a 150. Looks just the same as a 50, just has a little more juice under the hood. Believe it or not, I can ride just as slowly as a 50cc scooter. But apparently, I will be, at best, tolerated at the scooter rally. Clearly, the person passing out invites purposefully skipped over my little red scoot. Not invited.

Well. I don't like the way they play. I may just show up anyway, with my bad-ass monster-engine scooter, wearing my black leather, smoking, and lurking on the fringes of their little party, revving my engine menacingly. They best be careful.

Experiment

2009-09-27T19:05:00.003-04:00

Wonder what happens if you feed green M&Ms to a neutered animal?

Escalation

2009-09-20T19:08:00.003-04:00

Accordion Neighbor is out on his back stoop giving yet another involuntary "concert" for the neighborhood. This time, as a new twist, he has supplied one of his daughters with [what sounds like] a a steel pie-plate and big metal spoon to bang it with. It's really hard to believe this is not some kind of social psychology experiment.

But it will not be part of my life for long. I'm moving to the suburbs. Really (sort of. Barely.)

Stay tuned.

Google Maps Bloopers, Part I

2009-09-08T21:21:00.002-04:00

A few days after returning from 10 nights on the boat (!!), I asked Google Maps for directions to the Knox County Airport (I got a glider ride for my birthday! It was excellent!). This is the map I got:

The corresponding text directions to this route would read, roughly: "Take old abandoned railroad tracks and generally cut cross-country to Rockland. Then hie on out across the bay for Owl's Head. Take a bee-line across Owl's Head, then hang a left out into Penobscot Bay and keep going-- stay dry!-- until you get close to the Fox Island Thorofare. Then sharp right through the water and drop anchor somewhere around Hurricane Island."

It's almost like Google knew where I'd rather be...

Up On The Roof

2009-07-14T13:05:00.004-04:00

There's little to no sun in the Turbopalace backyard, and the soil is (I assume) infested with lead, so I've never considered having a vegetable garden. But this year I decided to try farming on the roof, which gets plenty of sun. Getting to the roof involves a ladder climb and some scrambling, which would be a bit annoying on a daily basis-- so my parents kindly sent me a "self-watering tomato container kit" (this was before we knew that any old flowerpot put outdoors this summer would be self-watering). I also planted several pots of peppers and some basil. The tomatoes got knocked down by wind several times, and I'm not sure they're going to produce anything. But the peppers are doing great up there.There is also another experiment happening on the roof, which you can read about on the sub-blog.

Kids These Days

2009-07-12T20:46:00.004-04:00

Finally had a nice (weather-wise) weekend. My whole family was here for a few days (hi!). After everyone left, J. and I took the kayaks out for a late afternoon paddle up a bucolic river a few towns north. As we came around a bend I saw a group of teenagers taking turns jumping off an old railroad bridge into the river. There were four or five boys, and a similar number of girls. My first thought was, "That's great. Young people outside in the summer, flirting and jumping into rivers in the sun, just like in Springsteen songs and Stand By Me." My next thought was "I hope they don't think we're terrible old people who are going to spoil their fun by calling the police to say there are some delinquents on the railroad bridge."

As we approached, one of the kids yelled out "Kayakers!" I was impressed that they cared enough to hold up their fun while we passed, and tried to return the respect by pulling over to the side of the river away from their group as we came towards the bridge.

But I had it all wrong. They were waiting not for us to pass, but to arrive. A boy-teen came over to my side of the bridge and waited until I was just at the bridge, then cannonballed himself from the considerable height to land right next to my boat. J. was right behind me, and another youth did the same to her. I was so surprised by the sudden antisocial behavior that I didn't do what I later wished I had-- kayaked back up to the swimmer and beat him senseless my paddle. J. did have the presence of mind to yell "Assholes" at them, but that just brought chuckles.

I wished, in the end, that I had brought my cell phone so that I could've called the police to say there are some delinquents on the railroad bridge.

Mine. You can't use.

2009-07-08T11:24:00.003-04:00

I'm amused to see that Starbucks has trademarked the phrase "Shared Planet". Just a little ironic to claim intellectual property rights over those two words, isn't it?

Looking Forward To Friday Night

2009-06-30T03:41:00.007-04:00

Sorry to be so tediously boring. I don't think I'm going to have much else to talk about until this stops.
It's reassuring when charts and graphs confirm what your fallible senses have been telling you. In this case: that we normally get about 5cm of rain during the month of June, but this June we've had close to 20cm. What the graph doesn't show, though, is all the additional days this month where it's been overcast, foggy, and barely spittling rain-- not enough to add appreciably to the accumulation total, but enough to make you look outside and say "FUCK. It's raining AGAIN."

Really? Really?

2009-06-26T07:05:00.002-04:00

Not that you care, or can do anything about it, but after two weeks of rain the current forecast is really unacceptable. Please send sponges, mops, desicants-- whatever you got.

Trail Name?

2009-06-25T13:05:00.004-04:00

I'm sure everyone has heard by now of South Carolina Governor Sanford's disappearance, how he reportedly was out solo-hiking on the Appalachian Trail, but turned out in fact to have flown to Argentina to perpetuate an extramarital affair.

It doesn't really bother me much, his affair. It amuses me, since he comes from the political party that is so affixed to "family values" and attempted to impeach Bill Clinton for being morally corrupt. In comparison to the carryings-on of various foreign politicians, a little tryst in South America well out of the public's eye seems downright trivial.

What irks me, though, is that he used solo hiking on the A.T. as his cover story. I thought it was really cool that he was doing that. I thought, this Governor Sanford, he's my kind of guy-- getting outdoors without his Blackberry, soaking in some natural beauty, probably meeting some interesting people on the trail. But he wasn't. Dorkhead.

As you may know, there is a long tradition of A.T. hikers adopting pseudonyms known as "trail names" along their trek. Often these are bestowed or suggested by others based on observed traits or behaviors. One friend, for example, was dubbed "Librarian" by fellow hikers because she carried so many guidebooks at the start of her through-hike. So I think it fitting that Gov. Sanford should be given a trail name reflective of his behaviors while "on the trail". Any suggestions?

Carbon: Facts and Lies

2009-06-23T10:22:00.005-04:00

I was reading "Natural Home" magazine in a waiting room the other day. It's a slick publication full of articles like "Our Favorite 10 Green Gifts" and "Simplify, Redesign, Go Green". In general it purports to show you how to lower the environmental impact of your life and home, albeit it in a rather yuppie-oriented way that usually seems to involve buying expensive, nice-looking things.

Anyway, flipping through the pages, I came across this sidebar tidbit which instantly puzzled me:

This says that the leaf-blower emits 513 times more carbon, per hour of use, than the car. And it implies that this is carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas which is usually under consideration when people talk about "carbon emissions" and "carbon footprint".

But neither of these is remotely true. Machines are not magical carbon-creating devices. You can't produce more carbon from a combustion process than you put in as fuel. If the blower emitted 513 times the carbon per hour as the car, it would be using 513 times the gas. You would need roughly an 80 gallon tank just to run the thing for ten minutes. You don't see this in practice.

In reality, leaf blowers use very little gasoline. The Husqvarna 225B, for example, uses 470g of gas per hour-- which is 0.17 gallons, or about a half-liter. If we assume that the "light-duty vehicle" being driven at 30mph gets 22mpg, we find that you'd need to run the leaf-blower non-stop for four months to produce an equivalent carbon consumption (and, hence, emissions.)

So how does Natural Home magazine come up with its pronouncement? I suspected the answer, and confirmed it by reading the actual California EPA report. What the leaf-blower actually produces much more of is not net carbon, nor CO2, but unburned hydrocarbons (and, to to a lesser extent, carbon monoxide.) This is true of most small two-stroke engines; about 30% of the gas you put in gets emitted unburned. Four-stroke engines, such as in most cars, spill very little unburned fuel (and, for better or worse, their catalytic converters transform most of the CO into CO2 before exhausting it.)

Now, this unburned gasoline vapor is, of course, probably not great for the environment either. But that's a whole different story. The fact is that a gallon of gas put in a leaf-blower produces the same amount of carbon as a gallon of gas in a car. And, if you want to be technical about it, less of that gallon of gas gets turned into CO2.

I don't mean to be an apologist for leaf-blowers. I think they're ridiculous. And don't even get me started on the noise. What pisses me off is the careless misrepresentation of facts. And what scares me is that there is probably more than one person who read this magazine and thought to himself, "Wow! By just leaf-blowing a tiny bit less, I can drive my SUV a whole lot more!"-- and is now proceeding to do so.

(P.S. In case you were wondering-- yes, my scooter has a 4-stroke engine.)

Mandatory McMansions

2009-06-18T12:16:00.004-04:00

I was browsing a real estate website and came across a listing for a two-acre piece of land near the shore a bit south of here. It was described as "attractive, well-wooded, on a private road, and close to the beach." The photo was appealing:The land is not cheap, of course. But I thought to myself, well, you could buy that nice spot of land, but build just a very small, inexpensive house there. Like maybe a Tumbleweed Tiny House.

But as I read further, I found this would not be allowed. There is some sort of homeowner's association which stipulates "minimum home size of 3,000 sq.ft." No joke-- if the house you're planning to build isn't sufficiently monstrous, the neighbors will block it.

I wonder, if I built a 200 sq.ft. house with a 2,800 sq.ft. deck, would that suffice?

Laws Of Nature

2009-06-12T12:08:00.004-04:00

Turbo's Law Of Psychiatric Appointment Keeping Probability (loosely translated from the original Danish):

"The more urgent is a person's expressed need for an initial psychiatric appointment, and the more accommodating the psychiatrist is in arranging said initial appointment as soon as possible, the less likely the person is to show up for the appointment."

Corollary:

"If the person calling to arrange the appointment is not the patient for whom the appointment is made, the probability of the patient showing up for the appointment approaches zero asymptotically."

Corollary:

"If the person calling to arrange the appointment uses any phrases such as 'I need', 'You need to', 'We need to', 'You can', 'Tell you what', or 'Couldn't you', the chance of the person showing up for the appointment approaches zero asymptotically."

Massive Chaos! Social Unrest! Revolution Must Be Televised!

2009-06-12T06:57:00.008-04:00

We haven't had a TV at the Turbopalace for the past four or five months (previously we had a little one on loan from Stay Of Execution, but she needed it back.) Haven't really missed it, much. But on very rare occasions there might be something worth watching, such as the PBS documentary on Neil Young that was going to air this past Wednesday.

On Tuesday, we were taking a walk around the neighborhood (this is what people without TV's do after supper) and saw a tiny little tube-type TV sitting on the curb. We stopped and gazed at it. A man came down the driveway and urged us to take it away. "It works fine", he said. "But I can't give it away." We debated, sort of the way you might debate if someone was urging you to adopt the cute little boy from The Omen. But in the end we decided it would be okay. We'd just watch Neil Young, then consider putting it back on the street.

Back home, I plugged in the little set and affixed my old rabbit-ear antennas. Unfortunately, I couldn't bring in PBS. Or anything else, except one channel, barely. Then I remembered that all but one local station had already switched over to digital broadcasting. You need a little "decoder box" to get reception on an older TV. I was well-aware of this (and of the government program which heavily subsidizes the purchase of these boxes, and of where to get the vouchers for the subsidy, and of where to buy the boxes) but it had slipped my mind, because it didn't really affect me.

This is the point I was trying to get to: I, a person who almost never watches TV, was well aware of the switch-to-digital and decoder box program. I've been well aware of it for at least a year. Far more aware of it than I care to be. News about it has been plastered everywhere. The few times I've watched TV at friends' or hotel rooms, there have been "public service" announcements about the program at least every hour. It's been in the newspapers, magazines, all over the web-- unavoidable.

But, apparently, the publicity has been insufficient. The original transition date, February 17th, was pushed back to today (by act of Congress, no less.) The date change was urged by various groups, including Consumers Union, which warned Congress that "millions of at-risk consumers, including rural, low-income and elderly citizens across the country, could be left with blank television screens". At risk for a blank TV screen. Oh, the horror. Wouldn't it be more accurate just to say, in the immortal words of Gil Scott Heron, that they "will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out"?

Anyway, with four extra months added to the transition, there seemed to be plenty of time. But, apparently, chaos, suffering, and unrest are still feared. MSNBC today warns that "Confusion expected as analog TV signals end", and "shutdown likely to strand more than 1 million unprepared U.S. homes". "Strand unprepared households"? Isn't this language a bit hyperbolic? There's also a slightly amusing photo, with the following caption:

"Community educator Ali Radheyyan, middle, shows Hussian Ali, right, and Wafa Nuaiman, both from Iraq, how to switch over to digital television at the Immigration Refugee Community Organization in Portland, Ore"

It is of course delightful to see someone helping newly-arrived residents figure out how to live here. But somehow it's just sad to see what that consists of. It almost looks as though Mr. Radheyyan is just going to plug the new immigrants into the Digital Reprogramming Machine and leave them to be electronically brainwashed into our superior culture. "When the machine detects that your brain has begun to crave an SUV and a McMansion, the buzzer goes off and the operator will unplug you. Later a Community Educator will come to your home to ensure that you have your digital TV reception operating. Please make sure that it is, otherwise you will have to return for another session at the Center."

Compost

2009-06-11T08:15:00.007-04:00

I have a compost pile out in the side yard which, historically, I've pretty much just ignored. It's just a circular cage I made with chicken-wire. I throw stuff in it and walked away.

But lately I've taken a bit more interest in it. Last month I bought a bag of worms from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm and tossed them in. Then I ordered a "real" compost bin through a Smallish City program. That came with a crudely-made tool for stirring and aerating the compost-- a steel stick with a folding barb on the end. You poke it deep down into the heap, then pull up. The barbs unfold, pulling up on the compost, and (I found) splattering the operator with glumps of half-rotten vegetables.

I was distracted from being having half-rotten vegetables in my hair by the observation, after I stirred it, that the old compost pile was steaming hot. Amazingly hot. It was like a Yellowstone hot-spring of compost. I was actually sort of frightened it might catch on fire, though objectively that seems unlikely. It was really pretty cool.

I guess when this sort of completely normal natural phenomenon impresses me so much, I should take it as a sign that I've become a bit too citified.

When The Psychiatrist Dreams

2009-06-11T07:20:00.005-04:00

I was reading a recent post from The MSILF about her deliberations on what medical specialty to choose, and which residency program to aim for. In part of it she discusses comparative "on-call" schedules, i.e., the frequency with which you have to stay at the hospital working through the night.

Medical students aren't exactly encouraged to consider this, or other "lifestyle" aspects of residency programs (such as how much of a stipend they're going to give you) in making a choice. In fact, even asking about these things is (or at least, used to be) a risky move-- there were intimations that this would indicate more interest in your own comfort and luxury than in being a good doctor. And reading the post, I couldn't help but do what all older doctors do to younger doctors-- think "Well, it was worse in my day..." (In that, for example, we started with call every third night, rather that 7-9 times per month, and we had to work both the full day before and after an overnight, rather than going home the next morning after a meeting-- so, sometimes it was 36 hours awake and on-duty.) And of course, my mom certainly had it worse than I did when she was a resident.

But: call sucks. It really does. And it has, potentially, very negative impacts on your own mental and physical health. At its best it can be a collegial, invigorating learning experience. More of the time, it's like being kicked in the head. You get so tired that you could easily doze off in spite of the head-kicking, which would be a relief-- but you also have to wear an electronic device that prevents you from falling asleep. If you want a doctor who has put him or herself through the most rigorous and taxing training schedule possibly available, you may be accepting a doctor who is, or has become, a masochist. And that person may have little in the way of empathy for your minor medical issues.

I sometimes used to come home from call, make a plate of food, and fall asleep before I could eat it. Other times, after having been awake for who-knows-how-many hours talking to people who wanted to blow their heads off or have their children locked up or sue me I would just come home and cry. One OB/GYN resident I knew crashed his car three times during residency, trying to drive home sleep-deprived.

After reading The MSILF's post I had a nasty nightmare. In it, I was starting the first day of residency, on a neurology rotation. As sometimes happened, the first day consisted of taking call on a Saturday. Typically that means arriving about 7am on Saturday and working until Sunday morning. But somehow in my naiveté I thought I didn't need to show up until 5pm. Somewhere around 9am, lounging at home, I realized, with horror, that I was mistaken. I realized the the person who had been on Friday night was still stuck in the hospital hard at work, waiting for me, no doubt exhausted and furious (there was, in residency, no greater crime than being late to relieve a compatriot from call; this was almost unforgivable behavior.) My heart leapt into my throat as I realized I was screwed-- I hadn't even started residency and already I had made an enemy and ruined my hopes of a good neurology evaluation. I woke up in a panic. It took a while to calm down.

Unusual Sight In The Smallish State, Part II

2009-06-10T12:10:00.003-04:00

So, this doesn't really compare to the Maybach I spotted near my office last year, but this morning I saw a BMW 750Li parked on my own street. And it had North Dakota license plates. So I just couldn't help wondering, "what's up with that?" I mean, this is a nearly-$100,000 car. Who in North Dakota owns such a thing? And why did they drive it here? And what are they thinking, parking it on the street in my crappy little neighborhood? What kind of people with $100k cars visit people who don't even have a driveway?

These are the sorts of things I wonder about.

Scary Radio

2009-06-08T15:25:00.003-04:00

Awoke Sunday morning on the boat, in a secluded anchorage 30 miles from home. Everything was calm, the sky a bit gray, the water smooth and shiny. I turned on the VHF radio looking for a weather forecast. Cutting in to the middle of a report, I heard "... Sunday, high of forty-four degrees, with winds of 45 to 55 miles per hour..." I practically had a heart attack. I think I stopped listening in a panic, picturing the impending whole gale that was, apparently, going to blow in out of nowhere in a matter of hours. Then I heard "This is NOAA weather radio WKZZ41 broadcasting on a frequency of 162.5 megahertz from the summit of Mount Washington..." Yeah. Way to scare the sailors. This is part of a strange trend this year, in which my marine radio is picking up terrestrial weather forecasts, but not marine forecasts.

The day turned out to have very pleasant winds and temperatures. And ended, beautifully, with a bald eagle flying the length of the boat, stern to bow, just above the masthead, as we were making the final leg to home.

Med School: Was For Fun?

2009-06-03T09:50:00.003-04:00

Conversation this morning with a patient, who had just glanced at my diplomas:

"So, you have an M.D.?"
"Yep, I do."
"So you're an M.D. who decided to become a psychiatrist, huh?"
"Yep."
"So why did you go to medical school?"

I Spit On Your Scooter

2009-06-01T22:09:00.003-04:00

I parked my scooter downtown this afternoon to run in and do an errand. As I was getting off a guy came up the sidewalk and asked if he could "ask me a favor." I asked what the "favor" was. It was, could give him some money, because his car had "just run out of gas"?

I wasn't too impressed. First of all, if you've run out of gas, asking a guy on a scooter to help is probably not the best choice. Since it costs about $1.90 to fill the scooter tank, so we don't usually need to beg significant amounts of money to do it.

More to the point, this particular fellow had "run out of gas" and come asking me for financial assistance more than once before. So, I said to him "Sorry, I can't help you today." I ran in to do my errand. Five minutes later I came back to my scooter and found a huge glob of spit in the middle of the seat.

I'm trying not to rant. I really am. But I'm having trouble with humanity lately.

Things That Are Just Plain Inappropriate, Part I

2009-05-28T13:52:00.002-04:00

Going to fetch a sandwich just now, I saw a Ford F-550 with a 6.8 liter V-10 engine pulled up outside a local hotel, for the purpose of delivering some boxes of pansies.

Stuff

2009-05-27T11:59:00.002-04:00

I've been writing a lot of rants, lately. Rants about credit card legislation. Rants about the so-called "First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit". Rants about health insurance companies, and drug companies. And so forth. But I don't publish them, because I realize how incredibly cantankerous and pissed off I am about things, and I don't want to be that. But I am. But I'm trying not to be. Any suggestions?

Signs of Civilized Cities, Part II

2009-05-20T15:28:00.006-04:00

London, I read today, just created 900 free, dry, indoor parking spaces for two-wheeled vehicles in its downtown garages. It also lowered the existing cost of an all-day street parking pass for scooters and motorcycles to £1 (while cars pay £4/hr.) London is slightly behind such forward-thinking cities as Lancaster, PA, which created similar spots two years ago. But apparently the mayor of Lancaster owns a scooter, so that might explain that city's lead. In Christchurch, NZ (population: just slightly more than the Smallish City) there are 34 outdoor parking locations, and in the garages scooters are "fine"-- they just have to find a corner that doesn't take up a car space, and pay half the usual parking fee.

Meanwhile here in the Smallish City, I'm pretty sure our mayor doesn't drive a scooter. Winter is over, but scooterists are still without any legal place to leave their vehicles downtown for longer than two hours-- and that only outdoors, at parking meters, for the same price as parking a Hummer. Ironically, if you're going to be in town for an 8-hour workday, you can bring your Jeep Grand Cherokee and park in a garage-- but your scooter is banned from the garages, so you can't drive that to work (unless you're willing to go move it to a new parking space every two hours.) We await the implementation of a city council directive to create 8 free outdoor parking locations; there was an indication that this might happen by Memorial Day, but that's this weekend and I haven't seen any action at street level yet.

And scooters will still be banned entirely from the covered garages here, rather than invited in for free as in London and Lancaster. Which really makes no sense if you're trying to have a city with fewer cars, less congestion, less pollution, easier parking, and less acreage dedicated to vehicle storage, and you would like people to opt for a scooter rather than a car even if it might rain today.

On the other hand, it makes sense if-- well-- if I don't know if what. Maybe on another planet.

Scoot

2009-05-14T16:22:00.002-04:00

I don't believe I've mentioned that about a year ago I bought a second-hand Vespa scooter. Actually it was barely used; the 69-year-old woman I purchased it from had won it in a raffle and put only 80 miles on the odometer before running it off a corner on her dirt road and crashing it into a horse pasture. She was okay but felt no further interest in scootering.

I, however, adore the scooter. It's cool-looking and extraordinarily fun to zip around on. In spite of having only a 0.125L engine, it has pretty much cured me of the desire for a sports car. It can get up to 60mph but gets roughly twice the gas milage of a Prius, three times that of a Civic, and five or six times that of a Hummer. I would never say it's better than riding a bicycle, environment-wise, but in city traffic it sure feels a lot safer.

I've pushed its limits a bit. A few weeks ago I drove it to Green Acres, which is 118 miles round-trip. It took a bit longer than driving, but only because I wasn't on the interstate. It was a much more enjoyable sensory experience, though. Word spread quickly at GA that the crazy shrink had ridden "that little thing" all the way from Smallish City. People were impressed, but they don't know that other people have driven scooters all the way across the country. Now that sounds fun. Partly. I might try an interstate-trip soon.

The one frustration I've had, ironically, is parking. The downtown business area of Smallish City is truly littered with perfect scooter parking places on the sides or nooks of various plazas, alleys, etc. Also each parking garage has many areas of "leftover" space, too small for a car but perfect for a couple scooters. But all of these options are illegal. Any place that isn't at a two-hour street meter is either defined by the Parking Department as "sidewalk", or is private property (often it's hard to know which.) And the garages forbid scooters and motorcycles altogether. I've tried various strategies to bring my scooter to work. For instance, I've tried parking it at right angles to the curb, at a double meter, exactly between two parking spaces and thus leaving space for cars to park in both. In my mind, I'm taking up no parking space at all. But the mind of the Parking Officer, evidently, I am in both spaces, and thus fair game for a ticket if either meter is expired.

To their credit, the Smallish City Council passed a resolution last month authorizing the creation of 31 street scooter/motorcycle parking spaces. I wish they'd give us some space in the garages (parking out of the rain being somewhat more important for a scooter than a car). And I'm a bit perplexed at some other aspects of the plan-- in one place, for example, they are turning 18 feet of curb into just two parking spaces, when you could easily fit four or more. But it's a good start. Or will be, if it turns into reality.

Possibilities

2009-05-11T12:10:00.004-04:00

It is possible-- possible-- that at some point in the next few weeks all of the following will be simultaneously true:

- I will have no overdue bills, parking tickets, or hospital paperwork;
- I will have no cavities awaiting fillings;
- Both the cat and I will be up-to-date on our immunizations;
and
- My house, car, boat, and scooter will all be free of serious mechanical problems.

I'm not saying it's likely, just possible. And that alone is quite unusual.

Revolution Will Be Televised, But Not Announced In TV Guide

2009-05-06T11:09:00.003-04:00

In the "I didn't realize they could do that" category, today we learn that GM plans a "100-for-1 reverse stock split". The result will be that current stockholders, such as myself, will go from owning 100% of the company to owning 1% of the company. Or, as Reuters puts, it, "GM plans to wipe out current shareholders." The U.S. Government and United Auto Workers will, by receiving newly-minted stock, become the major owners of the company.

For me, this will likely mean losing several thousand dollars. I currently own about 0.0004 % of GM; after, I will own 0.000004%.

Karl Marx said the revolution will be recognizable when the people-- or more specifically, the proletariat-- come to own the means of production. I can't think of any more obvious example than the UAW owning a third of GM. And taking my share in the company away seems not much different from the proletariat breaking down the door to my bourgeoisie house and hauling off my jewels for communal ownership. I guess it's slightly better than taking the current shareholders via ox-cart to the guillotine; but if I had all my money invested in GM, it would be about the financial equivalent of execution.

I would, of course, prefer that they start with the really wealthy people of this country, rather than people such as me. In fact I just did a bit of research and found that the average UAW electrician made considerably more than me last year. Also, though I'm generally in favor of it, I would've liked a bit of warning before we started in on socialism. But I guess that's sort of how it is: revolutions don't involve advance notification.

Query

2009-05-05T21:01:00.000-04:00

Do I have any readers in NZ these days? Could you please raise your hand?

(Do I have any readers anywhere these days?)

Where I Invested, and What I Invested For

2009-05-05T18:03:00.002-04:00

Last fall I decided to empty out my change-jar and purchase some stocks. Here is what I bought, why, and how they have performed so far.

1) General Motors. Purchased because: It was cheaper than any time since before WWII, it seemed patriotic, it was a fun conversation item, it seemed possible that it might actually go up. Return: -28.5%

2) Johnson & Johnson. Purchased because: Someone told me it was a good investment. She also said that birth control was a recession-proof product, and J&J makes that. And other stuff. Return: - 6.5%

3) Petroleo Brasileiro. Purchased because: Its stock symbol is "PBR", which is the same as the abbreviation for Pabst Blue Ribbon, which is a beer I was drinking a lot of at the time, because it's what GirlTuesday drinks. Return: +101.5%

Black Monday

2009-04-22T10:08:00.004-04:00

The recession came to my door last Monday.

That was the day I received the results of a recent appraisal of the Turbopalace, which judged that it is worth 90% of what I paid for it. After making a 20% initial downpayment, and paying the mortgage (not to mention property taxes) for seven years, I now own (according to the appraiser) 21.7% of my condo. Which, according to the mortgage broker, is not a sufficient percentage to qualify for refinancing it (that, aside from depressing myself, was the whole point of getting an appraisal.) So overall this was glum news.

The same afternoon, I received a letter from a large bank (let's call them "Bank of Amscareica") which issues one of my credit cards. The letter indicated that I am a "valued customer", that they "appreciate the opportunity to serve me", and went on to inform me that they were cutting my credit limit by 50%. The letter indicated that this decision was "based in part on information provided by TransUnion Consumer Relations."

So I went over to our friends at TransUnion and downloaded my annual free credit report, which showed not a single late payment or other flaw, and my credit score, which was lovely. Then I called the bank and spoke to several people. All of them confirmed that my credit is indeed lovely, that there are in fact no concerns whatsoever about my finances, but that, still, they intend to cut my credit by 50%. The best explanations I could get are "We're doing this for everyone" and "We're doing it because you don't need more than that." I pointed out to the valued customer service people that I had had a checking account at the bank for 17 years, and the credit card for 5, and that this sort of shenanigan does not help to keep me as a customer. Still, they would not change their decision.

It's kind emotionally painful to be told that yesterday you were considered dependable to pay back up to X$, but today you're only good for 0.5X$, for no reason. And it pisses me off to the point that I may indeed close my accounts with them.

But what pisses me off the most is that a few months ago, when the bank itself was having a spot of financial trouble, and needed a loan to hold them over, I sent them $146.92. I did, and so did every other living U.S. citizen. That was money I really could've used for something else. They haven't paid me back for that yet, and I kind of doubt they ever will. So they really have a lot of nerve, after taking my helping hand, to write me a letter saying they're cutting my credit.

Signs of Civilized Cities, Part I

2009-04-20T22:40:00.002-04:00

Population, Auckland NZ: 1.3 million
Scooter parking spaces in Auckland NZ: 266

Population, Smallish City: 235,000
Scooter parking spaces in Smallish City: 0

Scooter parking spaces Smallish City would need in order to match Auckland, pro-rated for population: 46

Taxes

2009-04-16T09:59:00.002-04:00

In residency, we were all encouraged to be in therapy ourselves. And most grown-up shrinks I know have a shrink of their own, at least on an intermittent basis. I have one myself. I used to see him weekly. But the economy has caused my clients to cut back on seeing me, which has led me to cut back on seeing my therapist (it's not cheap.)

Calling therapy a tax-write-off business expense would certainly make it more affordable for me. That's perfectly acceptable, if the therapy is of the "supervision" sort-- in which one shrink sees another to help get perspective/wisdom/guidance to help manage the strains and interpersonal weirdness of being in this business. But if the therapy is purely of the "personal treatment" sort, it is not a business expense.

Mine falls squarely in between. It helps me personally. But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't need to be there if I wasn't in this line of work. And, more to the business-expense point, I don't think I would function very well in this line of work without checking in for therapy/supervision/whatever it is, now and then.

So I've been mulling the legality/ethics/appropriateness of making this a "business expense". Then I came across this article noting that cosmetic surgery can be considered a business expense for people in "sales, customer service managers/executives, public relations managers, CEOs, and VPs who are involved with business negotiations and other face-to-face presentations."

Yeah? Really? Then I think my involvement in negotiations that involved brain-to-brain presentations should justify the business expense of a little touch-up therapy.

Dinghy Permit Camp-out: LIVE FEED! Par II

2009-04-11T08:25:00.002-04:00

Well, they've finally made it so miserable to get a dinghy permit (hypothermia? sleep deprivation? Aren't these considered forms of torture in some countries?) that this year only 29 people showed up for the 30 available permits. The Second Richest City in the Smallish State is succeeding in its apparent goal of driving non-residents away from its territorial waters. But I have permit #3, for one more year. I'm going home.

Dinghy Permit Camp-out: LIVE FEED!

2009-04-11T00:59:00.003-04:00

1:00am. In the back of the car, outside town hall. 42ºF. It just started raining. Seven other hardy sailors here in the parking lot. Only three and a half hours till they hand out the goodies. I have coffee, girl scout cookies, a PB&J, and two home brews from Brushfire. They still have WiFi. I still have nothing good to say about this "system".

Cold And Bored And Pissed Off Just Thinking About It

2009-04-09T20:19:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow night is dinghy-permit camp-out night. With a forecast for wind, showers, and temps around 36F/2C, this year's event promises all the fun of last year's.

Anyone who shows up with hot chocolate, bourbon, snacks, entertainment, or just general companionship will be rewarded with an afternoon of sailing later on. Just let me know & I'll send you a Google map to town hall...

Chimp Prostitution

2009-04-08T07:44:00.003-04:00

Interesting story today about male chimps "exchanging meat for sex". It's tempting to replace "meat" with "money" and start down a long and depressing discussion of possible human parallels. Let's not go there.

But even the chimp thing alone raises interesting questions. Are the males really "exchanging" meat for sex, or are they just rationally providing sustenance to the females who are most likely to be bearing their progeny? Who is really deciding who gets to have sex with who, and how often?

Also I found this statement thought-provoking: "Since female chimps do not usually hunt, they have a hard time getting it [meat] on their own." It leaves unanswered the quesion of why female chimps usually not hunt. Is it because they can't, for some reason? Or have they just discovered that it's more convenient to withhold sex unless a boy-chimp brings them a rotting warthog femur?

Just As I Said, Part II

2009-04-05T08:44:00.006-04:00

About 15 months ago, this blog alerted you that the stock market appeared to be graphing the face of a cat, and suggested that you pay attention.

Six months ago, this blog noted that the graph was proceeding as expected, and predicted (based on a continued belief in the cat-face model) that the S&P 500 would bottom out between 800 and 900.

Yesterday, the long-term graph of the S&P 500 showed its first uptick since mid-2007. Just above 800. Completing the left ear. Fulfilling the prophecy. Validating this blog's preeminence in strategic investing. But leaving open the question of what happens next.

Warning: Don't Read Before Lunch

2009-04-05T07:29:00.006-04:00

Every year about this time I complain about the tiny but loathsome minority of dog-owners who don't pick up their dogs' turds all winter. When the sidewalk snowbanks melt, an enormous quantity of previously-deep-frozen doo-poo precipitates out. It's nasty.

This year I learned that the saintly owner of a local pet store was organizing a volunteer dog-shit pick-up event, with brigades to form at both ends of the city. I resolved to help. So I got up at 7:30 (a.m.) yesterday (Saturday) and headed for the rendez-vous location.

Five people showed up (including the brigade captain.) Two of the five didn't even own dogs. Our combined assigned "beats" represented only a small fraction of the 'hood's sidewalk area-- but I picked up somewhere in the vicinity of 150 dog shits. I filled one garbage bag until it was too heavy to carry comfortably, then filled another to the same point. I had to pass over quite a few that had liquified beyond the point of being taken by hand. Some had weird contents that looked like mattress stuffing. Two I found with wads of toilet paper on top of them-- I don't even want to know. In summary, I did about six months of dog-owner clean-up duty compressed into two hours. In the process, dozens of saturday-morning dog-walkers strolled past me. Not one asked what I was up to. In fact, none of them even said hello.

Overall, this was the single grossest thing I've ever done, medical school experiences notwithstanding. I came close to vomiting several times. I don't think I'll be doing it again.

The Smallish City Code of Ordinances very clearly requires dog owners to pick up after their dogs. Violation, in theory, leads to a penalty of $250, or alternatively 25 hours of community service, which "shall consist of removing canine waste within the city."(!) I doubt this punishment has ever been meted out. But it should be. If each offense that I personally rectified yesterday had received the legal sentence required by ordinance, it would represent $37,500 of income for the City. Or nearly two years of free, full-time sidewalk-cleaning labor. And I think they should have to wear orange jumpsuits. Reading "CONVICT". And smeared in shit.

Off By Two Days

2009-04-04T10:53:00.002-04:00

Backyard crocuses arrived today. 2 days late. But I did say +/- 3 days, on my estimate.

April Fools Prank Report

2009-04-02T20:42:00.006-04:00

A. Unsuccessful Pranks (with Reason For Failure and Suggested Future Improvements):

1. Balloon duct-taped to rear tire of car to simulate "tire explosion" when victim drives away. (RFF: Victim noted balloon. SFI: Do not use bright-red balloon. Suggest using clear-colored inflated condom.)

2. Ping-pong balls in bucket balanced on top of slightly-ajar door. (RFF: Victim noted bucket. SFI: Get place with higher ceilings and taller doors.)

3. Short-sheeting of bed. (RFF: Victim was so wary by end of day that she carefully inspected bed, in spite of its completely normal appearance. SFI: Keep trying till it works.)

4. Insinuation of several custom-made "warning" sheets into office photocopier paper-feed tray. (RFF: No one used the damn copier all day long. SFI: Ask an officemate if she would make me a copy of something.)

B. Moderately Successful Pranks

1. "Blood" gushing into the toilet when flushed [red food color in toilet tank]. (Victim was not much impressed, except to comment "That's going to stain your toilet bowl, you know.")

2. Salt-infused toothbrush. (Victim not phased, apparently likes salt.)

3. Washing machine water intake turned down to a trickle. (Victim said was "just annoying.")

C. Highly Successful Pranks

1. Pile of "fresh cat poop" in the hallway, artisan-crafted from melted Tootsie roll material. When distraught victim brought perpetrator to see the mess, perpetrator examined, smelled, and then tasted "poop". Victim horrified. (Inspiration: Caddyshack.)

2. Victim's car "ticketed" for "No Parking Between Signs" (no actual signs in vicinity) using actual Smallish City parking ticket, cleverly altered. Victim pissed off but did not put it past Smallish City parking officials to ticket for absolutely no reason-- thus was fooled.

3. Clothes-dryer exhaust vent removed from wall and redirected to aim back at front of dryer. Vent filled with large quantity of foam packing peanuts. Peanuts blew violently out at victim's head when dryer "ON" button pushed.

And, the worst one that was done to me: My whole spice drawer rearranged in reverse order. You can imagine the effect. I practically blew a gasket.

Still Time To Wish Belatedly

2009-03-31T08:54:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was National Doctor's Day. Not that this gets much attention. I didn't even manage to get a single "happy National Doctor's Day!" out of the people who were unabashedly notified, by me, of the fact that it was National Doctor's Day. Even my doctor mother did not wish me a happy National Doctor's Day (nor, to be fair, did her doctor son call to wish her one.)

National Nurses Day, on the other hand, is only a prelude to the festivity-filled National Nurses Week (May 6-12) That one gets a lot more hoopla, or at least it does at Green Acres (donuts every morning, ice cream parties, games, pizza, awards, new car for every nurse, etc.) Not to sound bitter. I know nursing isn't easy. But neither is doctoring, sometimes.

Didn't Work

2009-03-30T11:52:00.004-04:00

"Anonymous has left a new comment on your post 'And I May Stop Walking, Too': one word solution to your problem: ipod"

Okay, so I tried Anonymous' suggestion this morning. It seemed at first to be working pretty well. The iPod didn't do anything about the cigarette smoke, or dog-doo, or pedestricidal drivers. But at least the music drowned out some of the city din, and having headphones in seemed to dissuade some of the perennial panhandlers from targeting me for cigarette money.

A few blocks from my office, I was striding rapidly along enjoying some James Taylor, namely "Sun on the Moon". Just as the lyrics "More, more, daddy gimme some, gimme some more, more, daddy gimme some more" came on, a guy approached and, using hand motions, indicated that he needed to speak with me. He was pretty well dressed and groomed; I was a bit annoyed to be interrupted, but on the assumption that he needed directions, or something similar, I stopped and took out my headphones.

"Sorry, do you have 35 cents?", he asked.

"No," I answered quite truthfully, "Sorry, I don't have any change." (All I had with my was one $20 bill.) I started to put my headphones back in, thinking that was the end of the interaction, but he continued. Holding out a hand already full of change, he said, "Really, you don't have 35 cents? Because listen, I..."

At that point I didn't give a flying eff what he was about. I walked off.

And I May Stop Walking, Too

2009-03-26T07:25:00.006-04:00

My scheme of moving my office downtown and becoming a foot-commuter from my urban(ish) home was supposed to reduce my stress level and result in myriad physical and mental health benefits.

Unfortunately, after 15 months on the new plan, I find it isn't really working out. Walking to work is not especially relaxing. In fact, it's turning me into a bit of a crank. I find myself perpetually and increasingly pissed off about the hazards and annoyances that confront me on the walk. They're all small, almost trivial, but they add up. Here are a few:

- People who walk in front of me smoking (almost everyone on the sidewalks of the Smallish City seems to be smoking), wafting the tarry cloud back into my face.
- Ne'er-do-well 20-somethings flying down the sidewalks on BMX-type bicycles built for 8-year-olds.
- Dog poo (this season is the worst.)
- Noise assaults (firetrucks, idling diesels, screaming people, barking dogs...)
- Sidewalks completely obstructed while boats, or hot tubs, or lawn tractors, or whatever, are moved in or out of the city arena for whatever consumer "show" is on this week.
- Drivers who completely ignore the large, day-glo "STATE LAW - STOP FOR PEDESTRIANS" signs at intersections.
- Drivers in Escalades and Grand Cherokees flying out of parking garages without looking for pedestrians (I've taken to bashing them on the rear fender with my fist or umbrella when they do this.)
- People asking me for money (I mean, now and then, fine... but the same people, every day, both directions, starts to wear off.)
- Making mental lists of pedestrian-related maintenance the city has chosen to ignore (e.g., crosswalks which have completely disappeared for lack of re-painting.)
- People who can't figure out how to use the sidewalk (veer side to side when approaching from the opposite direction... gather in an impassable, smoky clump in front of bars and coffee shops... come to a complete and sudden stop in front of you when something interested happens on their cell phone... etc.)

Ironically, I think park of the problem is that we just don't have enough people on the sidewalks. I lived in Manhattan for a year, and always enjoyed walking the city. There was a great energy to the mass pedestrian river there. The sidewalks were crowded, but people knew how to enter the stream, float along with the flow, and ease themselves into a back eddy if they needed to take a phone call or make a turn. Here, not the same. You might have the sidewalk to yourself for 50 yards ahead-- but you can see that one person coming the other way, and you can just tell that, in defiance of all laws of probability, he will at the last moment steer himself in your direction and almost bump into you.

I kind of miss my long, quiet drive to work, listening to the radio, watching the trees. I'm not moving my office. But I need to find some way to get over my sidewalk-rage.

Interesting Things I Heard Today

2009-03-24T16:02:00.001-04:00

"Wellbutrin is bad. It made me burn a smiley face in my hand with a cigarette."

"I was using three oxycontins a day. But I cut back to one and used the extra money to get cable."

Rant. Only Slightly Like Andy Rooney.

2009-03-24T12:57:00.007-04:00

Does anyone walk to school anymore?

When I was in elementary school, my brother and I walked (or biked) to school most days. It was about three miles round-trip, and there were two big hills. There was also one very hazardous intersection, requiring crossing about 8 lanes of traffic via stepping-stones of four traffic islands. It was a lot like playing Frogger. But there was a nice crossing-guard lady who helped us across and said good morning and told us to be safe.

The other day, going to Green Acres, I passed the elementary school of a small town en route. Up and down the street by the school, kids were standing out on the sidewalks waiting for the school bus. None were more than a quarter-mile from the school. Some were within sight of the school. I don't get it.

It's similar in my residential city area. The elementary school is smack in the middle of the neighborhood, surrounded by houses in all directions-- but I almost never see a kid walking to school. We do have crossing guards in the neighborhood-- at least ten of them-- but like the unneeded Maytag repair man, their job is very dull. In cold weather, some just sit in their idling cars parked near their assigned intersection. One fellow (across from my house) lounges in lawn chair in warm weather, listening to the radio. His hand-held STOP sign fits conveniently under the chair. I have never seen him have to get up to walk a kid across the street.

I was particularly appalled yesterday when I saw one of the crossing guards with a cigarette dangling from his lips. He needed both hands free to operate the lottery scratch-ticket he was using. His STOP sign was parked under his armpit.

Cash Extractions

2009-03-24T10:47:00.004-04:00

There was a newspaper article this morning discussing how the Smallish City is having some bond-rating issues, and how our City Fathers are taking steps to "increase cash reserves" to address this problem.

The article didn't say how, exactly, the cash reserves are bieng increased, but I can tell you one strategy they're employing: sudden, utter ruthlessness on the part of the Parking Divsion. Reports are coming in from all directions of Machiavellian ticketing practices which seem designed to extract every possible dollar from the city's residents.

I myself have had only one brush with this so far: I tried to appeal a $25 parking ticket from my scooter. It had been parked in an out-of-the-way cranny of a large public plaza while I was at work. My grounds for appeal were: (a) the ticket was for parking "on the sidewalk", but I was obstructing no place that one could walk; (b) there were no signs indicating that scooters could not park in that area; (c) several scooter-commuters had been parking in that area for several months without any issue, until the day they suddenly decided to ticket us all; (d) there is no legal place for a scooter-commuter to park for the day downtown (scooters and motorcycles are banned from the parking garages, and there is a 2-hour limit on all street parking.) Anyway, my appeal was summarily denied.

Next, Housemate had her car towed away for accidentally violating a snow "parking ban". This is not unusual, but it is extremely annoying and costly. What was truly maddening, though, is the city did not actually remove any snow from the street that night. Just towed cars and collected money.

Next, the city suddenly started enforcing the one-hour parking limit on our residential street. In order to avoid this limit, you theoretically need a resident parking sticker-- but for many months, if not years, this has not been enforced. Housemate has lived in the neighborhood and parked on the street sticker-less for several years, she says, without incident. She and was not even aware that there was a parking-sticker program. Indeed there are no signs on the street mentioning resident stickers.

Anyway, Housemate returned home from work one day last week to find a $25 ticket. She wasn't even sure what it was for. The next day she put her car in a different place on the street, but came home to two $25 tickets. Now we're hiding her car in the driveway until she can get to city hall to get the stupid sticker. The irony is, she has a parking space at work. But she got tickets at home because she chose to commute on foot.

Next, I heard of some elderly neighbors down the street who got a parking ticket in their own driveway. They were unloading groceries from the trunk; in order to be able to access the trunk without ice and snowbank obstruction, they had briefly left the rear of the car slightly protruding into the sidewalk area. While they were between grocery loads up stairs to their apartment, BAM!-- ticketed.

Then this finale: I was walking home last night and saw a tumultuous confrontation going on between a couple on the street and a parking officer, whose pickup truck was pulled up behind their car. There was a great deal of agitation and shouting. The woman was sobbing "Why are you doing this?!", and appeared to be trying to physically strike out at the parking guy. The man was physically restraining her from doing so. The parking guy was shouting "NO EXCEPTIONS! THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS!"

As I got closer, I realized to my amazement that the man was actually Dr. W., a physician colleague from the neighborhood-- a mild-mannered, grandfatherly teddy-bear of a fellow in his sixties-- and the woman was M., Dr. W's diminutive, kind-hearted, grandmotherly wife. As I finally arrived at the corner, Dr. W and the parking guy were both driving their cars away; M. was on the sidewalk tearful and shaking. I went up to ask what was going on. She grabbed my arm, still crying. She explained that she and Dr. W had been parked at the curb for a minute in order to help her 92-year-old mother out of the car in front of the theater, but in the process, the parking guy had come up, started writing them a ticket, and refused to be dissuaded. "She hasn't been out in town all winter, because she can't walk well and the sidewalks are too dangerous with the ice.", M. said. "She just wanted to go to this concert. But they want to ticket us for it."

I'm giving serious thought to moving out of the city.

Just Weird

2009-03-20T11:42:00.003-04:00

Overheard today:

"My husband's business is trying to declare bankruptcy. But it's going very slowly. His lawyers keep putting it off. Apparently they are too busy with bigger, more lucrative bankruptcies."

a further indication of just how bizarre our economic world has become.

Backyard Countdown

2009-03-20T08:38:00.006-04:00

Days to Crocuses: 12
Tulips: 50
Lilacs: 56
Clematis: 70
Irises: 77
Poppies: 81
Day lilies: 100
Morning glories: 110
...

Last frost: 46
First frost: 200

Economics of Opiates

2009-03-12T06:18:00.009-04:00

I've recently started treating some people with opiate dependence in my private practice, using buprenorphine. This is something most docs in the area don't do, partly because you need to get special training and certification, and partly because most docs would just as soon not deal with opiate addicts if they can avoid it.

I decided to give it a try, partly out of curiosity, partly out of civic responsibility (there have been appeals from the state department of substance abuse pleading with us us to get certified and start treating people), and partly because business has been slow and I really need more income.

That last aspect is definitely tricky. Most people doing this treatment in private practice don't take insurance for it, and most of people who call me asking about buprenorphine don't have insurance anyway. Most, if not all, have a terrible story of woe and financial ruin, and would like be seen for reduced fee, or half fee, or free.

I researched what other docs and clinics charge for buprenorphine treatment. It's not cheap-- somewhere on the order of $1,000 for the first month, and $200-500 a month thereafter, for office visits (medication comes from a pharmacy, so is separate-- might be in the $300 a month range depending.) I've set up my rates to be considerably less than what seems to be the national average, but still, I'm not free, because doing this work isn't easy.

So a year's worth of my help in keeping off street drugs might cost someone $2,000, plus another $3,000 for their meds. Seems like a lot, until you compare it with the cost of using street drugs. My last new client told me he spent over $50,000 on oxycontin last year. Heroin isn't free either. So the argument goes, if an opiate user can afford a steady street drug habit, he can surely afford treatment to stop using. Here's a hard-nosed missive on that topic from a doc who is a recovering addict himself.

But here's the rub: to pay for their drug habits, these patients have almost universally done bad stuff. Unless they happen to have a huge trust fund, by the the time they seek serious treatment they've almost certainly drained their own bank accounts. Most likely they've borrowed extensively from friends and family, who are not not going to loan them another nickel. Quite possibly they've been stealing, cheating, and/or dealing in order to pay for their habits. In other words, they do have ways of paying for their street drugs-- but it may not be pretty, or legal, or anything that a doctor wants anything to do with.

That poses a real ethical dilemma for me. Let's say, for example, that someone is embezzling $10,000 a year from his employer to pay for oxys. And he comes to me saying, "I'd really like to kick my habit, and stop being a criminal. I'm totally willing to pay you your full fee-- I'll still have to steal $5,000 a year, but that's okay. If you could see me for half fee, though, I'd probably be able to afford it without stealing. I'd feel really good about that. If you can't help me I guess I'll just go on stealing $10,000 a year and using oxys." The only option that doesn't leave me feeling guilty at all is the one where I don't make a living myself. Of the other two, I'm not sure which makes me feel least guilty.

And this isn't an exceptional scenario. This is, in one form or another, the usual story. A new patient last week had discussed payment with me in detail on the phone prior to her first visit. Then, at the end of the visit, she was shocked to "learn" that payment was due; she said she though I was going to bill Medicare for the fee. She had called so many doctors seeking treatment, she said, that she must've gotten confused about who had which policy. She rummaged in her purse, pulling out some cash, and said she could pay me about half. She went to see if she could borrow some money from her friend in the waiting room, but not surprisingly, he was unable or unwilling to loan her any. She had another $20 she could give me, she said, if I really insisted, but it would mean she couldn't buy diapers for her baby this week (I declined the $20, unsure if that made me compassionate, or a total sucker.) She said she would have more money in five days, and would put an envelope of cash in my mailbox as soon as she did. I didn't expect to see it, and didn't, and didn't hear from her.

But then a month later I found an envelope with $60 in my mailbox. "Sorry this is so late", was scribbled on it, with a smiley face. Sometimes people surprise you. I had a warm and humanity-loving feeling. Until it occurred to me that her kid might be without diapers, or some cash register might be short $60, or one week's worth of the prescription I'd written her might've been sold on the street to pay me. Then I started thinking about getting out of the opiate-dependency treatment business. Then I thought of the plea from the department of substance abuse. Then I went to bed and tried to stop thinking.

Canadians... again...

2009-03-11T17:06:00.002-04:00

I just discovered that my favorite childhood film was Canadian. Of course.

The scene where the canoe slides down the hill of snow into the icy stream has been in my mind for decades.

The part about having children breathing fumes of molten lead no longer seems like such a good idea, though.

Blizzardy Monday

2009-03-02T09:08:00.004-05:00

I'm at Green Acres today. There's a normal-sized blizzard going on this morning. I've noticed that hospital employees' ability to drive in the snow varies considerably based on profession. At least that's the conclusion I draw, based on a survey of who shows up for work on snowy mornings. From highest winter-driving skill to lowest, the ranking is roughly thus:

1) Nurses
2) Housekeepers / Food service workers /Building maintenance (tie)
3) Doctors / Mental Health Techs (tie)
4) Clinical supervisors / Recreation Therapists (tie)
5) Social workers
6) IT department
7) Administrators of all flavors

You should take this list into consideration if you are a young person aspiring to become a good winter driver. If you decide, for example, to become a state human resources administrator, you are very unlikely ever to figure out how to get your car out of the driveway between November and April. If you go to nursing school, on the other hand, you will be able to drive a Yugo with two flat tires and a broken defroster 20 miles through two feet of snow in under 15 minutes.

Doctors: Good Source Of Free Healthcare

2009-02-27T15:22:00.005-05:00

Times are tough and money is tight. Many of my clients have started spacing out their appointments more than is ideal. Some have disappeared altogether. The pharmacist across the street was telling me that people are starting to forgo their cholesterol meds.

One client left a voicemail to cancel an appointment, asking me to call her at the scheduled time so we could "just have a phone appointment instead." I returned her call, saying if she was feeling stable we could occassionally have shorter phone appointment in lieu of in-person meetings, but that the usual fees for my time would apply. This seemed to surprise her, as she asked why there would be a charge for "just checking in on the phone."

Hmm. Why? I guess for the same reason that take-out food isn't free?

But apparently this is a common idea. I was reading an article yesterday in Women's Day magazine (don't ask) entitled "How To Save $1,000's On Everything!". One suggestion was this: "CALL FOR YOUR FOLLOW-UP: It's common for a doctor to ask you to come back in a couple of weeks for a follow-up. Ask why this is necessary and whether a follow-up phone call will suffice. Usually it will, and you'll avoid the cost of a second visit."

Can I just say, obnoxious? How about instead: "Ask how much risk there would be from not having follow-up for the condition the doctor has just started treating you for, and then decide whether you'd rather pay for her help or take your chances with your health."

How To Pay Off That Pesky Mortgage-- FREE!

2009-02-12T11:00:00.002-05:00

This ad totally cracks me up. Could this couple possibly look any happier about the prospect of being dead and debt-free?

Making Love In A Subaru

2009-01-18T11:57:00.001-05:00

Not surprisingly, Subarus and "sexy" have never really gone together in anyone's mind. Perhaps because the cars are, well, not sexy (much as I love them). Which makes this ad from the 70's all the more amusing. "Take hold of her rack..."? For real, someone wrote this? Man, I need to trade my wagon in for one of these old GL coupes...

P.S. I think of the whole ad, I laughed loudest at the part describing the "relentless power" of the 1.4L engine. Uh... yeah...

Economics of Psychiatry

2009-01-13T10:45:00.006-05:00

The other day I called a psychologist colleague, to check whether he had space in his practice for a couple I wanted to refer to him for therapy. He's excellent, highly experienced, and in the past often booked up, so I wasn't optimistic. But his response was unequivocal: "My practice is shot completely to shit. Ever since the stock market crashed. Send over anyone you can."

Another other day I was having coffee with a social worker colleague. "How's your practice going?", I asked. "Well", she replied with a sigh, "I put in an application for a part-time job at Starbucks. If that answers your question."

When you have a regular job and the economy tanks, at least you have a steady paycheck until they lay you off. And then at least you know you're unemployed and need to look for a new job. When you're self-employed in private practice, though, you start getting laid off incrementally, and immediately. No one sends you a notice, or tells you what the plan is. Right now, it's pretty uneasy and uncomfortable. I definitely picked a bad year to start my own practice.

I keep a log of weekly receipts from the practice. It's very irregular, but overall my new practice was growing until the end of the summer-- and has been going down the toilet since then. You have to think there's a direct correlation to people's savings evaporating this fall. Here's a graph of the S&P 500 for 2008 (light red line) and my weekly gross income (jagged light blue line). The heavier, smooth lines are 4th-order polynomial trendlines for each. It might just be a coincidence, or seasonal variation. But I doubt it.

Inexplicable Behavior

2009-01-12T11:49:00.003-05:00

When you walk in the door to our waiting room, my office is the closest one. My door is straight ahead. When you leave my office, the door out is, therefore, also straight ahead. It has an illuminated sign above it reading "EXIT".

Off to the left, leaving my office, there's also an open doorway, leading to a long hallway with more offices.

Strangely, an astounding percentage of my clients leave my office and immediately turn left down the dead-end hallway, instead of proceeding about three yards straight ahead to the very obvious door they came in through. Believe it or not, I would say 80% of people do this on their first visit. And a good 30-40% do it even after they've been here many times. People head down the wrong hall, stop, turn around, look startled and/or confused, then seem to question their senses. Quite routinely now I say to people, "Oh, don't worry about it-- almost everyone does that."

As a shrink, I can't help but wonder what this is about. My theories so far (none of them very plausible):

1) People are innately so lazy that, faced with the choice of a closed door going where they need to go, or an open door going where they don't, they will take the open door;
2) People in our culture are so indoctrinated towards clockwise motion that, faced with the choice of going straight or turning left, they turn left. (Possibly this is opposite in the southern hemisphere?)
3) There is a local magnetic disturbance in the vicinity of my office building which causes people to lose their sense of direction.

I am open to other explanations...

More Economy-Related Depression

2009-01-06T15:16:00.002-05:00

This unhappy story from Germany today. There's also one J. sent me from Canada, but it's too sad to share. You can probably find it if you look. Suffice to say, this despair happens at both ends of the wealth spectrum. And in between.

Redirection

2009-01-03T14:36:00.002-05:00

Sorry, not much posting excitement here lately. It's all been going on over at the Cold House Journal. Yeah, I know, it's sort of become my winter hobby.

Downturn

2008-12-23T16:50:00.002-05:00

I've thrown up a few posts lately on correlations between economic downturns and mental health (here, here, and here.) Today was the first news I've read of a suicide which, one would have to imagine, was a direct result of financial catastrophe. Here is the story. It's strange to think how, once you amass a certain amount of money, you don't feel like you can stay alive without it.

Bakenachronism

2008-12-23T02:54:00.004-05:00

So this was kind of funny.

My Little Brother and I had made a plan to bake gingerbread men (a downsized project from making a gingerbread house, which I knew would require vastly too long an attention span.) At the largest supermarket in town a few days ahead, I thought I'd look for some cookie-cutters. Surely Largest Supermarket would have some sort of cheap gingerbread-man-shaped cookie cutter at this season. But I could not find them. In fact, I could not find any cookie cutters whatsoever. I looked in the Baking aisle, next to the sugary sprinkles. I looked in Kitchenwares/Gadgets, next to the cookie sheets. I looked in Seasonal, next to the red and green frostings. I even checked these places twice. No luck. The utter lack of cookie-cutters, or even an empty space where they should be, was so peculiar to me that I figured my own thinking must be off. I stopped in a quiet aisle to ponder. I hadn't looked for cookie-cutters in decades. Perhaps things had changed. But people must still make cookies at Christmas. How? Then it hit me: pre-made cookie dough in a tube. Yessss. I went and found it. And that's where the cookie cutters were. In the refrigerated ready-to-bake-items section.

Only, they didn't have a gingerbread man (what is this world coming to?), just some stupid plastic Santa things. So I went to a local kitchen store and found five sizes of gingerbread man cutters, along with the Smallish State shaped cutter.

Anyway, I'd been so obsessed with finding cookie cutters at the grocery that I forgot some of the cookie ingredients. So after I picked up Little Brother on baking day, we went back to the store. As a game, I had him help me track down the things we needed (flour, molasses, brown sugar). LB also suggested mini-M&M's for decoration, so we took a bag of those. Then we went through our basket checking off the ingredients. "Okay, looks like we're all set", I said. "Anything else you think we need?" LB looked at me like he thought I was pulling his leg (which I often do) and said, "Don't we need some cookie dough?"

I guess I shouldn't be shocked that kids born since the 1980's would not know that there was another, "old-fashioned" way to make cookies. As we walked to the car I explained it to him, feeling like a relic telling tales of "the olden days". He was pretty intrigued by the whole idea, though, and rather enjoyed throwing the flour all around the kitchen.

I bought him a chef hat for Christmas.

The Monkey With The Biggest Posse Wins

2008-12-22T11:11:00.003-05:00

Last summer, before the financial crisis hit everybody, I had an unexpected phone call from a friend on the other side of the world I hadn't spoken with in a couple years. He had made a great deal of money in business, but now was threatened with the possibility of losing most of it. He was panicked as if he was in physical danger. "I'm fighting for my life", he kept saying.

I talked to him for an hour or two. I hope it helped-- I'm not sure. But it really got me thinking about the connection between wealth and anxiety in the modern world. Last week, Laura Rowley at Yahoo Finance wrote an excellent article about status anxiety, which I found fascinating.

An intriguing idea that calls into question a lot of what we believe about "progress": "Financial failure has become associated with a sense of shame that the peasant of old, denied all chances in life, had also thankfully been spared."

Whoa... snow...

2008-12-22T10:46:00.004-05:00

Just fought my way out of 36 miserable, fever-hazy hours on the sofa (thanks to Cat for barely leaving my side for the duration) to find that I seem to have landed on a foreign planet.

That lump on the left used to be my car. I think.

Seriously Going To Snap Soon

2008-12-19T12:13:00.002-05:00

Okay. Now they have not one... not two... but THREE people with THREE bells ringing outside my office. This has been ongoing for two weeks, 8+ hours a day. I am starting to twitch. Please, someone make it stop...

Honesty: Not Best Policy

2008-12-19T12:11:00.003-05:00

Cashier at sandwich shop: "Weren't you in here this morning? I overcharged you $5! I'm really sorry!"
Me: "Um, no, that wasn't me..."
Cashier: "Oh, okay."

What? No free sandwich for honesty??

Honesty: Best Policy

2008-12-18T13:20:00.004-05:00

We had a good sized ice storm here last Friday. Big mess, lots of folks without power, heat (which is important, apparently, to some people), drinking water.

My patients all cancelled that day so I never came in to the office. And because I didn't come to work, I didn't return a DVD to the video store across from my office. So when I finally took it back after the weekend, I owed them $2.00 in late fees.

The guy at the counter said, "But we'll waive the late fee if you kept it because you lost power in the storm and couldn't watch your movie."

I said that was very thoughtful of them, but that no, remarkably, I had never lost power.

He said, "Well, in that case we'll give you a credit for a free rental for being honest." Value: $3.50. Nice.

Foreign Travel

2008-12-16T10:45:00.003-05:00

I haven't left the country in a long time, but yesterday I went shopping at a local Chinese market, which was almost as much fun. I found many exciting and useful items, such as elusive black sesame seeds, and one-pound bags of dried lily buds (for hot-and-sour soup.) I was tempted by many other products, such as the packaged "White Fungus Dessert", the vacuum-sealed frozen "Big Gluten Balls", the "Pig Fat Snack", and the eminently useful "All-Purpose Prickly Sauce".

Here's some of what I came home with.
I am fairly certain the bag at top center is dried wood-ear mushrooms. That's certainly what it looks like. However, it is identified as "Vegetarian Snack". If you read closer, you find that the ingredients of "Vegetarian Snack" are... well... "Vegetarian Snack".

2 came over for dinner last night. She tried the Snack (straight up out of the bag) and does not recommend it.

100% Partly True

2008-12-16T10:39:00.003-05:00

This paper coffee bag came from the local yuppie-organic-type supermarket. I thought it was pretty funny.

Yeah, and my body is 100% molybdenum... after removing the parts that aren't molybdenum...

Magical Thinking?

2008-12-16T09:58:00.003-05:00

About a month ago, I started finding "missed calls" on my cell phone from a mysterious 800 number. After several of these, I tried calling the number back, but got only a recording that revealed nothing and would let me go no further until I "entered my account number". When the calls persisted, I finally answered the phone. A woman named "Kim" asked to speak with "Maria Stone". I told Kim that she had the wrong number, and asked that she please stop calling me.

But she/they did not. After seeing the number come up a couple more times, I answered again, this time encountering a woman named "Gina" who also wished to speak with "Maria Stone". I asked what it was regarding-- she said "A personal financial matter". I explained to Gina that I do not know Maria Stone, that my telephone number has no connection to her, remarked that I had already asked for the calls to stop ("Well, it wasn't me you asked", she said), and stated in no uncertain terms that they needed stop calling me.

The next day, more calls. Finally I answered again, speaking with "Alicia", also (no surprise) looking for Maria. I asked where she was calling from. She replied by asking me if I was Maria's husband. I asked again where she was calling from. She replied by stating it was a "personal matter" and asking again if Maria was my wife. I told her I do not have a wife, I do not know Maria, stated that I had already requested twice not to be harassed from this number, and asked where she was calling from. She replied that she had never spoken to me before, and was not harassing me. I pretty much screamed at her to ask, again, what company she was calling from. Barely audibly, she said "HSBC", and told me to calm down. Never having heard of "HSBC" before I asked where her agency was located-- she replied "We are not an agency, sir", and hung up.

HSBC stands for Hong Kong - Shanghai Banking Corporation. A little Google research revealed that my experience with HSBC is not unusual. Based on the vitriol of complaints from people harassed by HSBC who don't owe them money, I hate to think what they do to people who actually do owe them money. Needless to say, I starting wishing ill on this bank.

So I cannot say I was unpleased, this week, to read the news that HSBC may lose a billion dollars from investing in Bernard Madoff's pyramid scheme swindle. Ha! Ha! Why don't you guys call Bernard's house-- maybe you can get his wife on the phone and pressure her for your billion back! I entertained a fantasy that my cursing of HSBC had led to this pox upon their house (or at least, that it was karmic retribution for their evildoings).

But if I have that effect, I really need to be more careful, because it is equally possible that my rantings against the bell-ringers caused this. Which I would feel really, really bad about.

'Tis The Season To Drive Working People Bonkers

2008-12-10T17:22:00.005-05:00

Well, they're back to ringing the bell outside my office. All day Monday. All day Tuesday. All day today. It's 5:25, dark out, and they haven't taken a break yet. It seems worse than last year-- now, they often have two people ringing bells at once. Or one person, with a bell in each hand. Something about the high-frequency pitch of these little bells seems to come right through my windows, then burrow into my brain like auditory maggots. By the end of the day I am tense and grouchy and it takes me a few minutes to realize why.

One of my patients (none of them can ignore the noise) told me that the bell-ringers are often recruited from the ranks of junior associates the large local local law firms. I don't know what to make of this. Except to suppose that walking across the street and punching them in the face would probably not end well for me.

I am trying so very hard not to be Grinch-like. But for real, this is getting out of hand. Please, let it be Christmas already, so my patients and I can talk in heavenly peace.

Sort Of Kind Of Famous

2008-12-10T14:18:00.000-05:00

Thanks (I think) to Vigorous North for this.

Toilet-Water Heating: Last Crackpot Post For A While

2008-12-08T08:27:00.015-05:00

Last night was the first really good cold one here in the Smallish City. The temp outside when I got up this morning was 13F/-11C, with a windchill of 0F/-18C. Brisk!

However, this will be the last post for a while on the topic of home-heating/cold-adaptation/practical thermodynamics. Not because I've lost interest in the subject (or turned on my heat). But just because I'm getting tired of hearing my name and the word "crackpot" in the same sentence. So I'm going to try to give it a rest for a couple weeks. Rest assured, however, that I will not be firing up the furnace just yet.

Before we move on to some lesser topic, though, I do have one more question for my cold-region-dwelling readers to ponder. And that question is: how much energy does your toilet-tank-water heater use?

Yes, you heard me-- how much? Oh, you don't have a dedicated toilet-tank water heater? Then you are using your home furnace to heat your toilet tank water. No, for real, you are.

Every time you flush, the room-temperature water in the tank goes bye-bye, and the tank refills with cold water. Which, over the next couple hours, pulls heat out of the bathroom until it, too, is room-temp... and ready to be flushed away again.

How much energy are you wasting this way? Well, I got to thinking about that. And came up with a nice formula. First you need to know these simple things:

1) Volume (in gallons or liters) of your toilets' tanks (this is in the range of 4-5 gallons for traditional North American toilets. Less for Europeans, of course.) Call this "V".
2) Number of flushes per day in your house. Call this "n".
3) Difference between your room temperature and your incoming cold water temperature. (Use ˚F if you used gallons for V; ˚C if you used liters). Call this number "Td". (My cold water, incidentally, comes in at 48F/9C)

Calculate this product: V x N x Td. Call that "P"

Now you can find the how much warmth your flush down the toilet in winter . One way to think of it is to imagine what equivalent wattage of light bulb you could have on, 24/7, all winter, to use the same energy. That is P/10 (if you used gallons/Fahrenheit in your calculations) or P/20 (if you used liters/centigrade). Imagine that little light bulb right in the sewer pipe leading away from your house, warming it away 'round the clock. Certainly seems useful, no?

If you're actually heating with electricity, you could estimate how much coal your powerplant burns daily to warm your toilet water. That number is P x .0021 lbs of coal (if you used Imperial units) or P x .001 kg (if you used metric units). (This assumes an average North American power plant, which is about 30% efficient.)

Or, if you heat with oil, you could figure how much oil you burn, over the course of a winter, to warm your toilet water. For those using Imperial units, that number (in gallons) is N/100. For those working in metric, it is (in liters) N/50. (Assuming your furnace, like mine, is 83% efficient, and heating season is six months long.)

So, under present Turbopalace conditions (Room temp = 55F, Water temp =48F, no housemate, toilet using 5 gallons per flush, estimating four flushes a day), I'm burning a 14W lightbulb equivalent, which represents 1/4lb of coal a day, or wasting 1.4 gallons of oil a winter. If I got a housemate (doubling the flushes) and turned the heat up to 69F, the result changes to a 84W bulb, 1.75lbs of coal a day, or 8.4 gallons of oil. Which starts to be significant, no?

If you have a family of five, and everyone flushes three times a day, and you keep your bathrooms at 70F... well, now you're talking about 16.5 gallons of oil. That's enough fuel to drive a diesel Jetta from Philadelphia to Atlanta!

What can you do about this horrendous waste of energy? I have several suggestions, which I present in order of least to most likely to make you look discernibly like a crackpot:

1) Insulate the toilet tank to minimize heat transfer into the tank water. You could affix some closed-cell foam to the inside walls of the tank... or tape a some bubble wrap to the back. Or even just casually pile a bunch of magazines on the back of the toilet! Yes, insulating your toilet is totally crackpot-- but because the modifications are unlikely to be detected by friends and family, you will likely get away with it.

2) Reduce the volume of water in the toilet tank. Ideally, you could install new low-flow toilets-- but that's very pricey. Instead you could use the old brick-in-a-bag-in-the-tank method, or one of the many gadgets from the hardware store to reduce tank volume. Friends and family may notice a change in flushing power, which could cause them to wonder if you've done something strange. But you could probably just blame this on the water company or something.

3) Try to cluster toilet use in time, and/or minimize how many toilets in the house get used. As it take a couple hours for a tankful of cold water to get warmed to room temp, using the same toilet several times in within a couple hours is much more efficient than flushing three separate toilets and letting all of them warm up again. However, unless done with extreme subtlety, family and friends are likely to notice your efforts at this sort of behavioral modification. You might get away with sabotaging one of the household's toilets and not getting around to "fixing" it until spring.

4) Maintain the rule of "If it's brown, flush it down; if it's yellow, let it mellow." Okay, for sure this will get you labeled as a nutjob. But it would be hugely more efficient. First, you are heating far fewer tanks of water per day. Second, you get to reclaim some, um, biological heat from the, er, unflushed warm liquid in the toilet bowl. Depending on personal daily urine output, and how warm you keep the house, this free, otherwise-flushed body heat amounts to between 6 and 25 grams of coal per person per day-- that is minimum of a kilo of coal per winter per person.

5) Ditch the toilet and build an outhouse. This is by far the best idea, but one which will be noticeable not only to family and houseguests, but also to the neighbors and city health inspectors. So it's a bit out of reach here. But if you live in the country, consider it.

He Can Haz Geography Lesson?

2008-12-04T10:38:00.002-05:00

By George Jahn, Associated Press Writer:

"Oil prices have tumbled about 69 percent since peaking at $147.27 in July. But trader and analyst Stephen Schork suggested that the price decline had some ways to go before bottoming out, despite the arrival of the cold season in the U.S. and elsewhere in the Western hemisphere, which traditionally drives up demand."

I believe it is also "cold season" in much of the Eastern hemisphere-- at least, that part of the Eastern hemisphere which is also in the Northern hemisphere... such as Siberia... and Europe. And I'm pretty sure that Chile, despite being in the Western hemisphere, is not now in "cold season".

Comparison

2008-12-04T09:43:00.002-05:00

Some people have questioned whether using an electric space heater is actually better (more efficient, more economical, more saintly) than turning on my central heat. As a rough guide, I decided to compare the costs. Here are the results:

At current prices*, 1kWh** of actual heat in the house will cost 6.3¢ from oil (central heat), vs. 15.8¢ from electricity (space heater).

Obviously, heating the whole Palace with electricity would not be cost-effective. But so long as I am heating less than 40% (=6.3/15.8) of the house at any given moment, electricity becomes more economical. My kitchen "bunker" represents only 17% of the square footage of the house. My biggest bedroom represents 12%. My larger bathroom, 6%. So even if I had heaters going in all three places at once (35% of house) it would still be more efficient than turning on the furnace. So far, though, I've not had a heater going in more than one room at a time.

And, should oil prices return to their recent high point ($4.22/gallon, here) the balance point goes up to 80% of the house.

---------------

* $2.14/gallon for oil, $0.15/kWh for electric. Calculation assumes 98% efficiency for electric heater (approximate) and 83% efficiency for oil furnace (latest measurement).

** For visualization purposes, 1kWh is approximately enough energy to heat a big kettle of soup from refrigerator temperature to not quite boiling.

Much Better Than The "Unreliable" Stuff

2008-12-02T13:52:00.003-05:00

Found this new brand of toilet paper in our office restroom today. Kind of cracked me up. Nope, it's not soft, or pretty, or pleasant-smelling... but it is reliable, and isn't that the most important thing to look for, in toilet paper?

Heat Update

2008-12-01T11:09:00.003-05:00

December 1st and I still haven't turned on my central heating (with the exception of setting it at 45F while I was away for Thanksgiving, to make sure the pipes didn't freeze.) I think this can easily continue until Christmas, maybe longer.

It's been in the 40s, 30s, briefly even 20s outside. I've been keeping my kitchen around 54F/12C, which has become comfortable for me. The bedroom I have left to its own devices; overnight lows in there have been between 36F/2C and 46F/8C.

Following is disclosure of all sources of heat coming into the Turbopalace.

Sources of intentional heat (have not yet had more than one on at a time):
1) Oil-filled electric radiator, 1500 watts maximum, usually run at 500 or 1000W power level.
2) Forced-air ceramic electric heater, 1500 watts max, usually run at 750W power level.
3) Hairdryer, 1800W, only a few minutes a day.

Sources of incidental heat:
1) Electric lights: Incandescents in the kitchen throw some warmth. Compact fluorescents elsewhere, not much.
2) Electric appliances: Refrigerator generates a bit of heat, though it barely needs to run anymore. Laptop, a few watts. Others, not much.
3) Natural gas: Cook stove and oven warm the kitchen a few degrees when making coffee & oatmeal. No pilot lights.
4) Oil: On-demand hot water turned on for about 30 min/day. Showering & doing dishes release some heat.
5) Solar: Minimal. No southern wall (see below). Black roof might be picking up a bit, but is shaded by neighbor.
6) Human: Just me. No one seems to want to visit anymore.
7) Feline: 14 pounds of metabolism. But is well-insulated.
8) Other: Turbopalace shares one wall with neighbor who owns the other half of the house, so I'm probably poaching a bit of heat from her side. But she has the whole south-facing side of the house. I suspect she gets more solar heat through her windows than gets passed to me through the wall.

Psychology Of Water Vapor

2008-11-30T10:17:00.007-05:00

Now here's another fascinating tidbit I came across in my cold-adaptation research: Did you know that the "relative" in "relative humidity" is "relative to how much water the air could hold, at the current temperature"? Hot air can hold more moisture than cold air. So if you keep the actual amount (mass) of water in the air the same, higher temperatures give lower relative humidities. And since the relative humidity determines how fast damp objects (such as our bodies) dry out, this is what we perceive. From a human perspective, the absolute amount of water vapor in the air is fairly meaningless, unless you know the temperature.

From the limited data I can find out there, humans seem to feel physically and psychologically best at relative humidities between 40% and 60%. More than that starts to feels "muggy" in hot weather and "dank" in cool weather.

At the other end of the spectrum, people around here often complain that the "air is too dry in the winter", causing dry eyes, chapped lips, etc. But it seems that to at least some degree, this perceived "too dry"ness is primarily indoors, manmade, and a result of (guess what?) artificial heating.

Take this morning, for example. In the Smallish City right now it's cool and cloudy outside. A small sleet-storm is edging its way towards us for later in the day. The temperature is 28F (-2C) and the relative humidity is 78%. Walking around outdoors, you certainly don't feel the air is "too dry". The cold air can't hold much absolute moisture, but it's holding about as much as it can-- so your body isn't drying out quickly. If anything, it borders on feeling "dank" out there. And when the sleet starts, it will surely feel downright wet.

Here in my kitchen, however, I have a space heater running to keep the temperature at a toasty 51F (10.5C). The actual amount of water in the air is about the same as outside. But at this indoor temperature, the air could hold a lot more water vapor. The relative humidity drops to 32%-- feeling just a bit on the dry side, but still fine for me.

I look out at Accordion Neighbor's house, though, and notice that he's got his woodstoves cranking. He probably has it up to 68F (20C) in his house, like "normal" people. At that scorching temperature, the relative humidity in his place right now is a parching 17%. The water is being sucked out of his family's bodies into the hot air. He probably has chapped lips, his kids might have bloody noses and dry throats (indeed, I haven't heard them scream in several days), and they are all probably going through hand-moisturizer at a rapid clip.

A.N. is probably trying to counter this problem with an old trick: keeping a kettles of steaming water on top of the woodstoves to get some extra humidity into the air. (A similar old trick is used around here by those with radiator heat: narrow buckets of water that hang from the radiator, getting warm & evaporating moisture into the air.) This trick isn't necessarily a bad idea, for human comfort-- but from a standpoint of energy-efficiency it's very much a losing battle. In an old house, it won't be long before that water vapor makes its way back outdoors. And, as we learned in a previous thought-experiment, evaporating water costs you temperature, and energy. Every gallon of water you purposefully evaporate costs you a couple pounds of nice firewood, or cup of fuel oil.

So, call me a crackpot, but: one way to keep yourself feeling dried out in winter is to keep your house cooler.

Home For Holiday

2008-11-28T07:50:00.002-05:00

6:20 am. Sleeping. I dream of a Klingon tractor beam, boring into my eyes.

I awake to find Favorite And Only Nephew shining a flashlight at my face.

FAON: Grammy said I could wake you up.
Me: She did, huh?
FAON: Yes. You have to open your eyes, so I know you're awake.
Me: Okay. Please turn off the flashlight, though.
FAON: Well, I'm going to turn on the lights then.
Me: Please don't turn on the lights. I'm still waking up. Grown-ups wake up more slowly than kids.
FAON: That's not true. Grammy and Grandpa wake up fast.
Me: Uncles are different.
FAON: Oh.
Me: What are we going to do today?
FAON: I don't know. No one likes to think of such things.

FAON turns on the lights and exits the room.

Physiology Experiment, Part I: A Turbo History of Central Heating in New England

2008-11-26T15:35:00.006-05:00

So, over the past few months, I got to thinking, you know, about Peak Oil, and about how-- or even whether-- people are going to live in New England after. We use a crapload of oil (and natural gas) staying warm up here. Everyone talks about how much fossil fuel cars burn up, but that really pales in comparison to what most around here burn up heating our homes (not to mention other buildings). Mid-winter even a small home of average age is likely burning four, six, eight gallons of oil a day or more. Crazy. Some people heed suggestions such as "turn your thermostat down one degree to save up to 3% on your heating bill", but in the big picture that doesn't add up to much.

In winter, here, we run from warm place to warm place. We keep our homes somewhere between 65˚ and 72˚F, maybe turning it down to 58˚ or 60˚ just before we dive under the warm bed covers. Our offices, malls, supermarkets, and other enormous buildings are kept on the warm side of the range. In our cars, where the heat is "free", we tend to really blast it. Many people even have remote car-starters so the car can be run for several minutes before they leave the house, avoiding those few moments of cold driving before the heater kicks in. We grudgingly tolerate bits of cold between racing from house to car and car to office, but generally (with the exception, for some, of weekend outdoor recreation) we makes no bones about avoiding cold as much as possible. Most people with means take a mid-winter trip south to "warm up". Even the words "warm" and "cold" have clear positive and negative connotations in our language.

But the reality is, this is not a remotely sustainable way to live in this climate. The ongoing (increasing) population of this region is attributable, mostly, to good fortune in heating-fuel developments. Let's review the history:

When Europeans first arrived here, there was plenty of wood to burn. There were huge trees everywhere, and not many people. In the 17th century, massive, inefficient fireplaces burned massive quantities of wood to keep homes barely warm. Burn all you want, they made more. Slowly, though, there were more people, and fewer trees. The remaining trees were increasingly far from the population centers, and it was not so practical to transport wood (which is very bulky, for its energy content) over increasingly long distances. For a while, the wood-heat economy was sustained by 18th-century improvements in technology, particularly the Franklin stove and Rumford fireplace, which burned wood more efficiently.

These innovations only staved off the inevitable. By the 1840's, the majority of land in every New England state (with the exception of remote parts of Maine) had been cleared of trees. Widely-dispersed rural citizens still had enough enough nearby trees to heat their own homes and villages, but acquiring firewood wood in urban areas became increasingly difficult to untenable.

Luckily, about this time, along coal and railroads. Coal has far more BTU's per pound than wood, and the railroads were more efficient than ox-carts for transporting heavy loads. And the supply was plentiful. In addition, it was more convenient: coal was so compact that an entire winter's worth could easily be stored in the cellar. And a coal fire could be "banked" before bed to provide heat all through the night without re-loading. In response to these pressures and advantages, metropolitan areas rapidly switched over to coal heat.

Initially, coal heat came from coal stoves which provided local heat in the house, much like their wood-stove predecessors. Later, a crude sort of "central heat" was employed in which a massive coal stove in the cellar sat under a grating in the floor above. Heat rose up through the grating to the first floor of the house, where daytime living took place. A second floor was likely to contain the bedrooms, which received only residual heat, either through a second set of grates or, more likely, just an open staircase. Warmth in bed depended on quilts, pets, spouses and (shocking) siblings.

This system was not especially efficient, however. The basement must've been the warmest place in the house. And upstairs, some rooms would've been much warmer than others. The next advance was steam heat. In this scheme, you still have a big coal furnace in the cellar. But instead of heating the air, it boils water to produce steam. The steam is led by a system of pipes to radiators throughout the house, where it condenses, releases its heat, and flows back as water to the boiler. Radiators and pipes could be sized and located in such a fashion as to produce "balanced heat"-- every room roughly the same temperature, and even each part of each room roughly the same temperature. All the homeowner had to do, when he wanted to warm up the house, was go down cellar and throw a shovel-full of coal into the furnace. The rest was more or less automatic. As an additional benefit, the precision with which steam could be moved upwards allowed houses to reach up to more than two floors, while keeping all the heat-stoking machinery in the basement. This, I'm sure, was one factor which led to the boom of New England triple-decker construction starting in the 1870's.

The advantages of central steam heat, it seems, were so compelling that all new construction employed it, and everyone else retro-fitted it. Growing up in Major Metropolitan Area in the 1970's, steam was still by far the most prevalent method of residential heating. Hundred-year-old steam radiators are still at work in the Turbopalace, in my parents' house, and in millions more homes. The disadvantages-- primarily, the habit of the pipes to bang and clank-- were sufficiently minor as to still be tolerated today.

But coal as the source of the heat to provide the steam was not to last. In spite of its improvements over wood, coal had several detractions: it was dirty to handle, it was dirty to burn, and it could not easily by fed into furnaces by automatic machinery, Perhaps most importantly, you could not readily turn a coal fire on and off-- you could crudely control the heat upstairs by shoveling more or less coal under the boiler, but that was about the limit of thermostatic adjustment.

The appearance of oil (and later, natural gas) solved all these problems. With oil, you never have to see, let alone touch, the fuel that will heat your home. Instead of a dusty coal bin in the cellar, you have a sealed oil tank. Instead of shoveling the coal into the furnace by hand, it flows through a pipe to the burner. The burner runs on electricity, has a powerful blower, and can be controlled by a thermostat upstairs. The only remaining tasks for the resident are selecting a preferred temperature, setting the thermostat, and paying the oil bill. Truly miraculous. Sometime around WWII, virtually everyone retrofitted their steam systems to run on oil burners instead of coal. [The suddenness of this seems to have been a bit Pompeii-esque, and has left considerable evidence of the earlier era. Often the old, disconnected coal boiler was left in place for decades next to the modern oil one. And often a partial-season's worth of coal was left in the cellar. I remember as a kid that there was still a coal shoot, and some lumps of coal, in our basement. V., over at Life In The Slow Lane, reports the house she bought a few years ago has a pile of coal downstairs to this day.]

In theory, this has been "progress", and everything has gotten more efficient, wasting less and less of the heat contained in our fuels. But, in typical American fashion, that efficiency has been tapped more to increase comfort and convenience than to reduce fuel use. This seems, to me, directly related to the increasing physical and psychic distance we have from the fuel. We've gone from being able to count the trees out back, to having coal rolling across the landscape from West Virginia in open hopper cars, to having oil delivered from Saudi Arabia in tankers and pipelines that are largely unseen. We've gone from having every member of the family handling pieces of firewood throughout the house all day long, to one person handling coal in the cellar once or twice a day, to never touching or even seeing it. We've lost direct connection to our heating fuel, and that makes us much much more likely to waste it.

In my opinion, our current trajectory and attitude is wholly unsustainable. All else being equal, if oil goes up to $6 a gallon, or OPEC clamps down the supply, people will not feel it's worth living here. I envision New England rapidly depopulating.

If we could burn fuel with the efficiency of today, but with the habits of yesteryear, we'd be in much better shape. In my parents' older house, and my grandparents' even older one, there has never been a source of heat in the bedrooms. The only heater on the top floor of the house is a small radiator in the bathroom-- and that, I surmise, only as a necessity to keep the water pipes from freezing. When my parents bought their house in 1972, there weren't even ventilation grates to the heated floor below. Bedtime was cold time. Sometimes really, fucking, bone-chillingly cold. I well remember when, some years later, my parents caved in (slightly) to the modern concept of warm bedrooms and had some small gratings cut in the floors, to let a speck of heat upstairs. That was a big luxury. But the other day I was researching what the definition of a "bedroom" is (for property-tax purposes) and found that in many modern jurisdictions a "bedroom" is required to have heat. Things have changed.

There is no doubt about it: People here in New England used to be colder all winter. And yet they didn't move away. Even before the softy Europeans discussed above, Native Americans somehow found winter here tolerable-- and they didn't even have the benefit of metal tools to cut trees, or stoves to burn them in. How can it be that the Abenaki and Penobscot and Wampanoag made it through hundreds of winters here? How can it be that the Pilgrims didn't abandon the region as uninhabitable, after the first winter?

The only good explanation I can think of is that people in the past used to adapt to cold, while people of today just avoid it. I am on a bit of a quest to discover whether this might be true.

A Song I Can Get Behind

2008-11-26T08:30:00.003-05:00

"We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing
To work for a world without fear, without war
Unite all our people, bring peace to every nation
We pledge ourselves in fellowship firmly to stand."

These, anyway, were the lyrics sung at the Shady Grove School, in my youth, and still sung to this day on Thanksgiving by the Turbo Family (sometimes, even, in public.)

Only just now, researching the hymn on the web, did I learn that these are not the usual lyrics. In fact, as far as Google is concerned, this version of the lyrics don't seem to exist at all, outside of any fading purple-mimeographed copies which may still be filed in the long-lost binders of my grade-school classmates. Probably, the lyrics above were penned by one of our barely-ex-hippie music teachers, quite possibly in a cloud of cannabis smoke. The standard lyrics, while still reasonably pleasant, are considerably less world-peace-and-happiness. The lean considerably more towards God-is-on-our-side-and-will-bust-the-other-guys.

In fact, I was somewhat distressed to learn, the original lyrics were written in 16th-century Holland to celebrate a Dutch military victory over Spain. Granted, it seems that the campaign was one of self-defense/liberation for the Dutch-- but still, this was not the origin I had in mind for what I've always thought of a most peaceful song.

And speaking of lack of peace-- if you do see the Turbo Family preparing to perform this in public, I advise you run and/or apply earplugs immediately. It's going to be disturbingly off-key.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the locals. And to those elsewhere: give us a little time, we're trying to catch up.

Things I Like (Winter Version)

2008-11-25T21:11:00.003-05:00

Apples cooking, any sort
Balsam
Brown paper packages, tied up with strings
Christmas Wrapping
Clementines
Coffee
Crampons
Down
Dreaming of sailing
Fire, any
Frozen ponds whooping
Hissing radiators (eventually)
Hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps
Hot tubs
Oatmeal
Sauna / Snow / Sauna / Snow
Scarves
Simmering soup
Ski wax
Sleeping bags
Smallish City's Whacky Xmas Lights
Snowbanks
Snuggly cat
Thermometers

[Concept credit: Life In The Slow Lane]

Factual Data

2008-11-21T11:05:00.002-05:00

My estimate of 1.5 gallons of residual water in a load of wet laundry was slightly high. I did an average-size load of darks yesterday (including two towels) and took measurements:

Weight before washing: 13.5 lbs
Weight after washing: 22.0 lbs
Weight of residual water: 8.5 lbs
Volume of residual water: 1.06 gallons

No Free Thermodynamic Lunch

2008-11-19T13:44:00.008-05:00

Just an addendum to the last post, with regard to comments suggesting air-drying clothes as an eco-friendly alternative to using the electric dryer:

Air-drying is great for outdoors. And maybe even indoors in the summer. But is it really "free"/super-eco-friendly to dry things indoors in winter? My data says, no. It says that drying clothes in your house cools your house down, and not insubstantially.

Consider: turning liquid water to water vapo(u)r takes energy, and a lot of it, no matter how it's done. If you've ever tended the fire in a maple-syrup evaporator you know how much firewood it takes to boil 10 gallons of sap down to a one gallon of syrup. Similarly, if you've ever stood outside on a cold day getting hypothermic in wet cotton clothing you have a sense much energy water evaporation sucks out of you. And, just as in melting ice to water, the vast majority of that energy is not to make the water warmer, but to change its phase from liquid to gas.

So-- maybe you want numbers. Well, the first question is: how much residual water is left in a big load of wet laundry, when it comes out of the washer? I am going to determine this when next I do laundry, using a bathroom scale-- but for now let's guess maybe 1.5gal = 6litres? Which doesn't seem like that much... until you do the thermodynamic math*, and find that it takes 3.76 kWh = 3,234 kcal to dry up that much water.

Perhaps you don't have a sense of how much heat 3.76kWh is. It's about 3.4lbs / 1.5 kg of nice, dry maple firewood, if you have an efficient woodstove. It's about 1/2 a liter of gasoline, burned efficiently. It's 125 sixty-watt lightbulbs, left on for half an hour. It's the energy my particular electric dryer uses if you run it for 40 minutes.

And unfortunately, when you rack-dry clothes in a house that you're trying to keep warm, that energy doesn't come from the kcal-fairy. It has to come from your furnace, or woodstove, or space-heater, or whatever fuel you're using to keep your house warm, running longer or hotter. Really. Disbelieve? Close off one room & try covering the radiator there with wet towels... see what happens.

But I have no contest with the argument that line-drying is better for your clothes.

(* Johanna: I will send you the math, if you insist.)

Heat Reclamation

2008-11-18T17:59:00.006-05:00

You may be saying to yourself, "I wonder what kind of whack-o schemes and projects that wing-nut Turbo has been up to lately?" Well, I'm glad you asked.

For one thing I (and some hardy friends!) have been trying to see far into the season we can go without turning on the central heat in our homes. This is based on several motivations, including an interest in human physiology, and the fact that the price of heating oil was over $4/gallon when I thought up the idea. But that's all for a different post. Anyway, I'm aiming now for December 1st, and so far, doing quite well-- right now it is 32F (0C) outside, 51F (11C) inside, and I'm typing quite comfortably. We're allowed to use space heaters, judiciously, but for the most part I haven't needed to. I have noticed that my house is forming icicles sooner than my neighbors'. Good sign!

So, as part of my overall strategy to reduce oil use, I decided to fashion my kitchen into a winter-bunker. It's a large kitchen, and already has the sofa, DVD player, etc. in it-- not to mention all the food-- so I really could just spend the winter in this one room. I made a insulated curtain for one kitchen doorway from a thick quilt, and have bought an old salvage door which I am working on installing in the other doorway. When done, I'll be able to seal off the bunker from the rest of the house, and, I hope, just stay warm with a space heater. Cool, no?

In the process of all this I got to thinking about the clothes dryer, which is right under the kitchen and vents outdoors right next to the window. In past winters I've enjoyed watching the dragon-breath of steam wafting up past the window, and admired the snow-free zone which was kept cleared around the vent all winter. The other day I looked at the dryer to see how much energy, exactly, it uses in doing its thing. Guess what? 5,600 WATTS! Yeah... that's a lot! Also I got to thinking about the huge VOLUME of air the dryer sucks out of the cellar, which is being replaced by frigid outdoor-temp air rushing in through all the gaps in our cellar windows, etc. Terrible!

I'm considering some type of clothes line for the summer (though my yard is awfully small and shady), but in the winter line-drying isn't a good option at the Palace. So, for this season, I started to think of ways to reclaim the heat from the dryer, rather than dumping it outside. First idea: just undo the vent hose from the exit hole, and redirect the warm air back into the cellar. E-Z, and stops the air-sucking-out problem, but it seems no good to be humidifying the very air you're trying to use to dry things. Plus, what good, really, does warm air in the basement do?

So I thought next about instead running the hose up to the kitchen, where the warmth would be useful, and even the humidity might be desirable (in the winter). But as I pictured the amount of humidity involved, and envisioned the dank, dripping windows, etc., as well as the pleasant-only-in-small-quantities aroma of dryer exhaust air, I decided against this as well.

Third incarnation, I thought about sourcing a surplus old iron radiator (Smallish State is littered with such), putting it in the kitchen, running the dryer house in one end of it, another hose out the other, and thence to the outdoors. Thus some of the heat would get transferred from the dryer air to the radiator, warming the kitchen, but the moisture would still get blown outside (some water might condense inside the radiator, but that's okay.) However, I still pictured half or more of the heat escaping outdoors, which bothered me. And the problem of cold-air-suck remains, because you're blowing the exhaust outside.

So, for Theoretical Version 4.0, I mentally added a condensing coil of copper tubing to the hose after it leaves the house. Then, another hose at the bottom of the coil returns back inside, downhill all the way, before turning up at the end. A small hole at the low point of the "U" is made, with a bucket below. Water in the humid air leaving the house condenses running through the cold coil, runs down the exit hose, falls into the bucket. The air, now cooler and drier (but still warmer than ambient outside temperature) is returned to the cellar. Voila! Maybe. Suggestions?