Fail

Safety fail:

I took this picture at the hotel we were staying at across the street from Disneyland. It reminded me of a picture I took at the Pima Air and Space Museum back in November.

Botany fail:

The Evolution of Crazy -or- How I Got a Bento Box

There's something strange about waking up one day to realize that I am now one of those people I used to think was crazy. For one thing, I don't feel all that crazy. I mean, no more than usual, anyway. Secondly, if I'm crazy, what are all those sane people thinking?

I didn't become a nutcase overnight; it was a gradual process. It all began when my wife started reading things. It was mostly about keeping the kids healthy at first.

wife: "Do you know about all the hormones and antibiotics and crap they give dairy cows?"
me: "I think I read about it somewhere."
wife: "I want to start getting organic milk for the kids."
me: "Um, ok."

I figure, hey, if my wife wants to be one of those weirdos that buys that organic stuff, that's fine. It's all for the kids, anyway, and who doesn't want healthy kids?

Then she reads Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Pollan convinced her to eat whole foods, which is essentially a doctrine that teaches you to use basic ingredients in your food like flour, butter, cream, onions, salt, and garlic instead of a can of cream-of-something soup. That, at least, was a concept I could get behind. That has long been my own philosophy of cooking and had nothing to do with healthy and everything to do with tasty. Kingsolver taught my wife that there are benefits to getting your food locally: fresher products, more intimate knowledge of what you're eating and who's raising it, and an understanding of the seasons of things (I call this the, "no, strawberries don't actually grow in December in this hemisphere" principle) so you know when foods are at their tastiest and most nutritious. I was sort of ok with this one too, as long as it didn't hit my pocketbook too hard.

Around this time, our regular purchases of organic foods were starting to extend past milk for the kids and we started regularly buying labels of local brands and looking at the produce tags to see where the food was grown. We also started planning to plant fruit trees in our backyard. I just about drew the line when my wife said she wanted to get all of our trees from some organic nursery. I can deal with a lot, but in my mind, fruit trees are expensive and I had no intention of paying ten times more for my trees just because some hippies started a nursery and started labeling their stuff 'organic.' My wife was pretty set on it, though, so we visited the nursery and actually got a really good deal on our trees. This was the first step down the slippery slope towards the organification of my backyard.

By this point, even I at times would purchase organic products from the grocery store. I would also check food labels for red flags like high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oils. I started forwarding my wife articles I would come across, like The Top Ten Foods to Buy Organic. Then my wife tells me that she wants to go to an essential oils class. I didn't have a clue what an essential oil was and I wasn't sure I was ready for any more insanity in our family. However, you don't get through 6 years of marriage without learning how to hold your tongue. Enter essential oils into my life, which I am sad to report, actually work.

What's next, you ask? Plastic. You are most likely aware that somewhere on each plastic product is a little triangle with a number in it. That number tells you what kind of plastic the product is made of. You may also have heard of the recent reports about BPA, an ingredient in polycarbonate and it's links to health issues. It turns out that polycarbonate (which is lumped into the mixed bag number 7 category) isn't the only plastic that leaches chemicals out into the food it contains. While some plastics are safer than others (number 2, HDPE, is what milk cartons are made of and is fairly safe) the only way to protect yourself completely is to use other materials to store food. That is why our cupboards are filling up with glass storing dishes and stainless steel mixing bowls. That is also why I now have two wooden bento boxes, straight from Japan, to take my lunch in instead of Tupperware.

So that's it. I don't know where the next bit of insanity is coming from but I'm sure I will come to embrace it in turn. For now I am an essential oil using, bento box carrying, organic whole food eater and grower. But don't even look at me like you want a hug, tree, because I will freaking chop you down. I still have some principles, at least until my wife changes them again.

Signs *Would* Be Nice

200,000 miles

198,436 miles
Holy cow! Can you believe the car has almost 200,000 miles on it!? I mean, who actually gets 200,000 miles on their car!? That'll be pretty cool, hitting 200k, kinda like joining an elite club.

198,849 miles
Hmm, 200,000 miles is a pretty big deal. I should probably get the oil changed or something; it's been a while since I did that. Was that a whole year and a half ago? Wow, I should really get that done.

199,281 miles
Good call on opting for the fuel injection system cleaning with the oil change. The old girl's got a bit more spring in her step. Almost 200,000 miles and still going strong at 34mpg.

199,772 miles
I should totally write a blog post about my car hitting the 200,000 mile mark! That's super nerdy! I'll have to remember to bring the camera so I can get a pitcure of the rollover. Ooh, maybe I'll take a video... nah, that's lame.

199,915 miles
It's getting so close! Don't forget the camera, don't forget the camera, don't forget the camera!

199,991 miles
Aw crap, I forgot the camera! Maybe I can make it home before it hits 200,000.

199,997 miles
Dangit, I don't think I'm going to make it. 200,000 miles, though! How cool is that!?

199,999 miles
Woah! The last mile before the big one! Man, I love the way that looks on the odometer. Wait for it... wait for it... here it comes...!

200,000 miles
Holy crap! Did you see the way all the numbers rolled up at the same time? That was awesome! I mean, that only happens every 100,000 miles! I feel like I should do something special, like get the car a present or something. I'm all awash with the awe of this incredible milestone!

200,001 miles
Huh... that number doesn't look quite as cool. I mean it's big and all, but it just doesn't carry the same excitement.

200,004 miles
Wow, that was actually not nearly as cool as it seemed like it should have been. I'm feeling a little let down. For heaven's sake, isn't something exciting supposed to happen when your car turns 200,000?

200,056 miles
You know, this car has a lot of miles on it. Makes you feel a little insecure doesn't it? Maybe we should look at buying a new one.

Non-Routine Maintenance

On Friday, I got the car titled and registered. I'd peeked at the air filter during previous trips under the hood and knew that it was disgusting, so we picked up a new one. There are seed shells and poo nuggets all over the engine compartment, so I knew that at some point a mouse had been living in there. It wasn't until I lifted up the old filter and saw the filter box looking back at me, though, that I realized the mouse had never moved out. Luckily, I know what to do with unwelcome tenants.

Barbequed Dinner

As you might imagine, given my claims to nerdhood, I don't always excel at things generally described as manly. I am pretty good at Halo, I do have a fantasy baseball team, and I have recently completed car repairs using JB Weld and duct tape. However, I like Jane Austen, I'm not very good at most sports (I think the fact that I do have some natural talent for gymnastics works against me here), I have picked matching fabric combinations for my wife's sewing projects, and I know the proper use of a semi-colon. Suffice it to say that when I do something particularly manly, like dirt biking or paintball, I like to make a big deal out of it to reassure any onlookers that my Y chromosome is not only alive and kicking but hairy and sweaty too.

A few weeks ago, barbecued chicken sounded really good for dinner. Since I was going to be out over the grill anyway, I figured I might as well cook the whole dinner there. I decided to boost the testosterone level of garlic bread by toasting the bread over the coals. I made up for the olive oil and rosemary (what a pansy sounding spice) on the vegetables by wrapping them in foil and throwing them over the fire too.

Surprisingly, I didn't burn anything, although it probably would have been more manly if I had. Everything tasted really good so, unfortunately, nobody got any extra hair on his chest.

I was particularly proud of my bread. It got a nice smoked flavor from the mesquite branches I put on the fire. So so good.

So, in summary: +15 Chuck Norris points for making my whole meal over the fire. -3 points for using rosemary.

Better'n Baling Wire!

I have a new car! It's a '92 Nissan NX-1600. It's got 182,000 miles on it. Until last week it didn't run and until yesterday, it had a constant 5 Amp parasitic load on the battery. But it's a sexy red color and has a stick shift. Sure, 5th gear doesn't work and it's possible that there's a mouse living in the air filter box. But it's mine...and did I mention the stick shift?

Turns out it was remarkably easy to fix. There is a super powered stereo amplifier in the trunk that appeared to be taxing the battery. Once I disconnected that and replaced the battery, the car started just fine. The parasitic current load was a little harder. I wondered if the amp had damaged the alternator as well so my friend Nick came over yesterday to help me take that out. After a run to Checkers to have it tested (it worked fine) we put it back in. In the process, we were admiring the wear on the power line from the alternator to the battery. Nick wondered aloud if that might be the source of the drain. I wrapped the wire up with electrical tape, re-attached it and voila, the drain was gone.

The previous weekend, after I'd gotten the new battery and started the car up the first time, I noticed that the idle speed was so low that the car would stall if I didn't keep revving it. I also noticed a black plastic reservoir with a charred hole in it coming off the air filter box. (This is probably a good point to mention during the tenure of the car's previous owner, there had been a fire in the engine compartment. It had something to do with forgetting to put the oil cap back on) Since I had no idea what the purpose of the black reservoir was, I didn't know if I should be concerned or not. Nick was fortunately experienced enough to know that the reservoir was important for air flow in the engine and that a big hole would cause a.) dirty air to enter the engine and b.) reduced air flow into the engine causing idling problems.

In true McGyver fashion, we fixed the hole with a combination of JB Weld, an old Tupperware container, and duct tape. Since the hole was on the corner of the reservoir, we cut out a matching piece from the Tupperware and glued it with the JB Weld. The duct tape was because we were too impatient to wait for the JB Weld to cure. Here is the finished product in all her jury rigged glory:
And now? Yep, the car runs fine. The battery charges with the engine running. The AC works better than on our Saturn. We took it for a test drive and nothing broke. I checked the battery voltage this morning and it's still ok. Now I just have to get the thing licensed and insured and we will officially be a two car family. I feel so American!