adamyntium

Category: happy body

  • I couldn’t do one pull-up. My dad’s hack fixed that brilliantly.

    I couldn’t do one pull-up. My dad’s hack fixed that brilliantly.

    One of my friends was lamenting that he can’t do one pull-up. Another friend playfully retorted:

    But I bet if you reeeeeeally wanted to you would. 🙂

    She’s right… sort of. But she didn’t say how.

    Back in the day, though, my dad knew how.

    In the 7th grade — when I was humiliated that I couldn’t do even one pull-up in gym class — my (very strong!) dad was low on sympathy but ready with a solution.

    Days later, he installed a pull-up bar on my bedroom door. And then the conversation went like this:

    Me: But I told you, I can’t do even one pull-up!!!

    Dad: I know. Just do as much of one pull-up as you can, every single time you enter or exit your room.

    Me: 🙁

    Dad: 💪

    In less than a week I could do a pull-up.

    And by the time the next pull-up test came ’round at school, I was able to do FOURTEEN (14) pull-ups (!), more than almost everyone else in class, including the bullies, the jocks, bullying jocks, and the jockeying bullies! (you can clearly tell how much fun in my early years as a young nerd)

    So what did I learn from this?
    What can you, humble reader, learn from this?

    Persistence pays off, sure, yeah, blah blah blah.
    But chopping something into smaller, easier, slower, lighter, less-scary blocks AND THEN DOING IT REPEATEDLY ON AN UNAVOIDABLE CUE… that is the useful answer!

    Or, more specifically…

    • It should be something you really want to do or achieve, not something your spouse tells you you ought to do :D.
    • It can be reasonably broken down into slower / simpler / easier / less-scary chunks.
    • You can tackle it multiple times a day.
    • And, ideally, the trigger is clear and — even better — physically associated with the task.

    In this case, a pull-up bar above my door fit all of the above! I wanted to show up my mocking classmates, it’s possible to do a quarter or half a pull-up, with the bar being above my bedroom door the practicing was accessible, the trigger was clear/unambiguous (anytime I entered or exited my bedroom), and the pull-up bar was staring me in the face!

    Have you tackled a challenge in a similar way? What did you achieve, and how did you achieve it?

    P.S. — Here’s one that’s similar to the one I have on my study door currently 🙂

  • Fitness wearables: Enough raw numbers; give us smart advice!

    I’ve been following fitness trackers and wearables with keen interest for years.  So far, I’ve tried out several different devices from Fitbit, the Withings Pulse, and the Basis B1 watch.  They’ve all been intriguing… but so very, very disappointing.

    From my experience, all the current fitness wearables fail to help us identify correlations that could efficiently and dramatically improve our lives.

    Sure, a bit of quantification plus fun gamification encourages many to walk more steps or perhaps get more sleep.  But wouldn’t it be helpful to know how doing action [x] strongly correlates with improvements in [y]?  

    For instance, current wearables can measure things like temperature, heart rate, and sleep quality.  That means that they should be able to measure correlations between exercise, sleep, and stress levels, for starters.  And from these correlations, they could provide useful and actionable advice such as “You tend to sleep much more soundly when your room temperature is between 69 and 72 degrees.  Your room temperature, however, averages 75 degrees; lowering it may result in better sleep.“

    Particularly after providing us with more actionable advice like this, consumers would probably be willing to help wearables collect additional useful data.  Imagine if we could say “Okay Watch:  I just drank a small coffee” or push a button or two to indicate that we just ate finished eating a heavy dinner.  From this, our wearable could add caffeine or food consumption to the data corpus, enabling it to offer personalized recommendations like, “We notice that you experience an average of 27% more sleep interruptions on days when you consume caffeine after 1pm.  Quit doing that! 🙂“

    For instance, on the Withings dashboard, I can see a jumbled plotting of heart rate measurements… taken at different times and in different circumstances.  Thus meaning, well, pretty much nothing.  But my wearables do know when I’ve finished exercising and so could offer me encouraging info like: “Since you began actively exercising again about 7 weeks ago, your heart rate recovery has improved dramatically… from 130 minutes to resting rate down to 78 minutes.  Recovery rate is a strong indicator of heart health [learn more], so keep up the intense aerobic exercising!“

    Additionally, based on aggregate user data, wearables could provide useful encouragement based on others’ experiences.

    For instance, “Other [wearable] users who added two additional intense 30-minute aerobic sessions per week saw an average of 27% sounder sleep within 3 months.” Of course, the userbase would have to be sufficiently large, and obviously privacy would have to be baked into the core of such a program.

    Fitbit One

    Wearables need to evolve from mindless and repetitive cheerleaders and observers to smart coaches.

    Because right now, alas, undoubtedly too many of us are suffering from “move it!” and “congratulations…” fatigue.  For instance, I’m interrupted by the same Basis ‘achievements’ notices on my phone day after day.  I’m sure I could take a few minutes to alter the notifications, rejigger the “challenges,” and so on, but why should I have to?  If I’ve achieved the “Wear it” goal every day for the last 42 days, why on earth would I want to see this alert for a 43rd time?  Okay, Pulse, so I hit 10,000 steps today?  I know that.  I was walking on a treadmill for a couple hours!  Tell me something I don’t know, please! 🙂

    Heck, if you’re going to send alerts to my phone, why not prompt me for useful info?  For instance, obviously with opt-in, “Hi Adam, how do you feel?  [Energetic] [Slightly fatigued] [Dog tired]” and then, after a month, note something like “On those days you took a 15 minute nap around 2pm, you were 70% less likely to report fatigue later on those days.”  Or help me determine what my optimal sleep amount is (“Looks like 7 hours of sleep a night is your ‘sweet spot.’  Your reported fatigue increases steeply when you sleep less than that, but remains pretty unchanged when you sleep *more* than 7 hours.“)

    Sure, I could keep a ‘personal log’ spreadsheet (and — I’m such a geek — I actually do!), but computers are much better at finding correlations than we humans are, especially when they have scientists adding in sanity checks to possible ‘correlations’ :).

    So in summary, our wearables should…

    • surface useful correlations
    • provide actionable advice,
    • highlight encouraging trends
    • all while leveraging the experience of crowds and the wisdom of scientists.

    With the amazing improvements in what we can measure in a compact device and the outstanding increases in phone processing power and user interfaces, I’m confident all of this is absolutely achievable.

  • Adam’s septoplasty / turbinate reduction surgery diary. Infotainment the doctor ordered!

    Three out of four leading doctors told me that I have a really messed up nose (my septum is shaped like a hockey stick rather than the more conveniently functional lower case ‘l’ style)… and if I ever want to breathe decently, I simply must get a septoplasty + turbinate reduction surgery.

    The fourth (admittedly imaginary)  doctor actually insisted the same thing, but also urged me to detail my experience in a blog post.  This is my story.

    Monday — night before:

    11:50pm:  I greedily cram in the last bits to eat and drink, ’cause I’m not allowed to swallow anything past midnight.  Rather a stupidly written rule, actually.  Despite the fact that I wasn’t notified of my surgery time (1:30pm) until the day before, I was given oral and written instructions well in advance with the clearly arbitrary, or at least very conservative no-eating/drinking-after-midnight rule.  I mean, I could have been assigned a 7:30am or 3:30pm surgery time.  Why not just say “no eating or drinking within 8 hours of your scheduled surgery”?

    The kind side of me presumes this is to account for a possible last-minute change in surgery times (“Mr. Lasnik?  We’re just calling to let you know we had a cancellation. Would you like to get this crap over with a few hours earlier?”)  The cynic in me figures the lawyers & doctors believe we’re too stupid to understand “8 hours prior.”

    2:30am:  No sense going to bed too early, right?  If I go to bed early and get up early, I’ll just have more time to be hungry and thirsty.  So a 2:30 bedtime sounds about right…

    Tuesday — day of:

    8:20am:  Lovely.  The groundskeepers are turning it all up full blast.  Trimming, mowing, huffing, puffing, the works.  So much for sleeping in.

    9:30am:  Against my better judgment I check my work e-mail and get sucked in.

    11:45am:  My AdamTaxi’ing friend comes and rescues me, drops me off at the hospital and bids me a warm goodbye and good luck wishes :).

    12:15pm:  I walk into the first building I find and announce with genuine enthusiastic anticipation that I’m there to be cut up. Receptionist exudes an almost comical level of both alarm and confusion.  Oops.  This isn’t the Surgecenter.

    12:20pm:  I find my way to the rather non-descript Palo Alto Surgecenter around the corner.  Receptionist checks ID, doesn’t ask for co-pay, does ask me to sign my life and finances away.  I shudder to think what the final bills (yes, all separate bills — anesthesiologist, surgeon, etc.) will amount to, even though I believe my insurance will cover most of this.  Pretty sick (no pun intended) that it’s primarily us folks in one of the world’s richest countries that have to worry about such basic life stuff… being potentially bankrupted by one hospital visit.  I’m resisting the temptation to turn this into a rant about how ridiculous it is that so many Americans have no problem with Medicare and such, but are freaked out about sensible ideas like Single Payer / Universal Health Care. Grrr.

    12:30pm:  Now I’m called into that special room, er, what do you call this?  With several other patients, each placed on a gurney behind a totally non-sound-proofed curtain.  I overhear talk of cancer and remission rates, making my nose-fixing seem oh so insignificant.

    12:35pm:  Wait a minute!  I ordered the typical sweet, reassuring filipina nurse named Jenny, not a somewhat-imposing big-tattooed nurse named Earl!  Oh well.  He takes my pulse, blood pressure, and measures my weight with reasonable unscariness, and quizzes me on the type of my surgery and name of my doctor (to see if I’m alert, I presume).  Also he goes over a form with a list of drugs they want to doubleheck that I am or am not taking (“Substance D?  No and no.”)  I’m told that the anesthesiologist and surgeon will stop by shortly.  Maybe their idea of “shortly” is the time equivalent of Yao Ming, but I’m getting ahead of ourselves here.

    12:40pm:  Okay, time to get into my gown, or at least try to.  I presume someone will eventually create a user-friendly hospital gown, and perhaps even get rich from this invention.  Heck, if a hospital can bill $42 for a small bandaid…

    Per instructions, I keep my socks and underwear on, then accessorize with the oh-so-stylish paper booties and hat.  I wonder if I get to keep these for mementos?

    [FYI:  further times listed below are estimates; I didn’t have a watch on, and had already shoved my phone and clothes into a bag under my gurney]

    1:00pm:  Grr.  This really does feel like a long wait.  Not sure exactly how long, but I have nothing to read, and yet it’s probably not worth grabbing my phone from the bag below, because I’m sure I’ll be attended to Any Minute Now.  One of the nurses suggests I make myself comfortable and strongly urges me to actually lay down on the gurney instead of continuing to sit on the edge and impatiently swinging my feet (clearly attempting to magically summon the parties responsible for my surgery via footular momentum and run-on sentences).  She returns with a warm blanket, and I figure resistance is futile and dumb.

    1:10pm:  A different helpful and perceptive nurse on duty notices my impatience and offers to check on my surgery time status.  Upon request, she calls my friend who is slated to meet me at the hospital to fill him in on parking & surgery timing details.  She also thoughtfully gets me a (current!) newsweekly (“Newsweek — Now mixed with / affiliated with / swallowed by the “Daily Beast”?  Oh “journalism,” what hast thou become?!)

    1:30pm:  I’m slightly uncomfortable, increasingly hungry and thirsty, and not particularly enjoying the magazine as much as I hoped I would.

    1:40pm:  My smiling doctor comes in, discusses the surgery details very briefly, checks to see if I have many questions.  I don’t.  Just eager to get on with this.

    1:50pm:  More waiting.

    2:00pm:  Anesthesiologist comes in.  Soft-spoken fella named, apparently, “Dr. Meow.”  I wisely abandon all thoughts of making a catatonic (or cat-and-tonic) pun.  He asks me to open my mouth wide, very briefly peers inside, and seems satisfied.  Always knew I had a nice mouth.  He also inquires whether I have any serious health issues, like heart or lung disorders, etc. Dude, you’re asking me this life and death stuff just 15 minutes before I get cut open? Anyway, I silently determine that heartbreak wouldn’t be a particularly relevant discussion topic at the moment.

    He advises me that they’re going to put a tube down my throat to help me breathe, but that I won’t notice this while the tube is actually stuck down there.  I’ll just likely notice the ghost of it later.  Delayed sorification, I suppose.

    2:15pm:  Finally the surgical nurse comes in.  Again asks my name, what surgery I’m in for, etc.  Glad they’re being very careful about this.  Would hate to be sleepily subjected to something like a breast augmentation.  I was getting good-naturedly teased enough by my friends and colleagues about having a “nose job” so to speak, so I can only imagine what hilarity would ensue if I reintroduced myself to society with distressingly larger mammary glands.  Or worse yet, a singularly enlarged one.

    2:17pm:  Okay, I’m in the surgery room now.  I’m introduced to some guy who apparently is assisting the doctor with somethingorother.  I’ve not yet had even a drop of relaxation juice, but I’m already starting to feel a bit woozy and un-sharp, sort of like how I felt during my procrastinatorial evening textbook readathons in law school.

    2:18pm:  Baby it’s cold inside.  Not horribly so, but definitely chilly.  Doesn’t smell like an operating room, or much of anything really.  I suppose that’s okay because, well, wouldn’t it be a shame to have one of my “last” smells for a while be an tingly antiseptic hospitally one?

    2:19pm:  They have me slide into another gurney, and put something (a pillow?) under my shins.  Something else under each foot.  Gently bind my ankles down with… something?  They place my left arm out onto the side of my gurney, and place a small contour pillow under my head.  I feel a minorly constrained, but relatively comfortable now.  At least the waiting is over.  Well, this part of the waiting at least.

    2:20pm:  The anesthesiologist says he’s going to inject me with somethingsomething, which will feel like a bee sting and which will then facilitate somethingelse.  It is, to my pleasant surprise, a very weak bee.  And a fast one.  He (the anesthesiologist, not the bee) doesn’t ask me to count backwards or recite the digits of pi (oh, wait, that was yesterday), and before I know it…

    3:40pm:  I’m in a recovery room of sorts.  Seems pretty open spacewise, but I don’t notice anyone else other than the presence of my friend, a nurse, and behind her, a small bustling group of nurses.  I’m offered, and then happily drink apple juice from one of those rectangular boxes that make you think back to school and environmental waste and dang this isn’t big enough for American appetites!

    4:10pm:  I don’t even remember much in the way of walking, much less getting into my friend’s car.  I do recall being reasonably awake on the way home, and — for a rather unpleasant spell for the last 5 minutes home — pretty nauseous.  Laying down with the car seat back for a few minutes thankfully helps.  In between the leaving and the successful hurling-avoidance, my friend picks up my prescriptions from Safeway.  The nice drug dealer there provides a bottle of codeine+acetaminophen, complete with instructions for guzzling it 15mls at a time, but doesn’t quite get around to including one of those handy plastic mini-cups that lists the oh-so-communist metric-system measurements on it.  I guess that costs extra, but ah, what the heck, a couple of big swigs is probably fine.  Oh, wait, I have one of those mmcups from my mouthwash?  Handy!

    4:45pm:  Checking e-mail, of course!  I love Google Voice and Gmail!  I have nice text messages, e-mails, and heck, I’m happy to even receive a bunch of kind messages in that infernal Facebook message format in my gbox.

    5:05pm:  My friend changes gender.  Oh, wait, no, it’s AdamSitting shift-changing time, and another bloody wonderful friend has arrived to make sure I don’t do anything bad, presumably like watching Ricki Lake reruns, painting my toenails, or engaging in stuffy dialing.

    5:15pm:  Finally getting around to watching that DVD I got from Netflix, “Princess Mononoke.”  Oh wow.  The opening minutes are filled with… spurting, gooey blood and sticky worms.  How charming and apropos!  Oh, and I guess I hadn’t mentioned this:  I can’t breathe at all from my nose.  It’s completely and quite uncomfortably stuffed with, yes, gooey thick blood (though not certain about the worms part).  It’s created such an unpleasant sense of pressure that often when I swallow, I feel like I’m going to burst my nose, my ears, or both.  Gah.  And despite the thickness, the blood is still somehow runny enough to keep saturating the gauze pad under my nose.  This leads to a few too many movie intermissions for pad-changings.  Who was he fighting?  Who is good, who is evil?  Oh wait, this is one of those complex Miyazaki films — it’s not supposed to be cut-and-dry or even make complete sense.  Whew!

    6:00pm:  Speaking of intermissions, it’s time for another pee break.  I mention this not out of any sophomoric interests in providing immature infotainment (I’ve likely done enough of that!), but rather to highlight something fascinating.

    You see, I learned in Portal that “speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.”  Okay, so that invigorating bit of elementary physics my dear is not exactly germane to this current issue, but hear me out!  I’ve put only a minimal amount of fluids into me recently, yet I keep peeing a ton.  Either something strange is going on, or I’ve unwittingly made some sort of captivating scientific discovery.  If my pee were energy, I’d be sought after by the world’s leading scientists.  Oh, and all the baddies, too.  Darn.

    6:30pm:  My surgeon thoughtfully calls, asks how I’m doing.  Er, understandably crappy but not in pain, I tell him.  He verbally nods.  Reminds me of my appointment tomorrow at 8:30am to get the nose-splints out.  Hallelujah!  Oh wait, will I actually be able to breathe through my nose after that?  I forgot to ask that part.  Oops.

    7:00pm:  Roomie is home!  Other friend not-so-regrettably leaves before the end of the movie.  She likes me, but “Princess Mononoke”?  Seemingly not too much.

    7:30pm:  I’m minorly hungry, and know I should be eating and drinking stuff if I want to grow big and strong, er, heal up.  But eating at the moment is no fun.  When mouth is closed, no can breathe, and that’s truly a bummer.  Oh wait!  Now I have an excuse to chew with my mouth open!  Sorry, roomie.  Peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time!

    8:00pm:  About The Movie DVD featurette!  More e-mail!  Web surfing!  Hmm… maybe I should blog about my septoplastic experience?  Nah, too self-indulgent and kinda gross.

    9:00pm:  Oh, lookie this!  My nose is becoming multitalented; it’s dripping blood out of one nostril and some as-of-yet-unidentified clear liquidy stuff out of the other nostril.  Bravo, bravo!  But no encore tomorrow, please.

    11:53pm:  Debating whether to try out that codeine+tylenol stuff.  I’m in significant discomfort, but not really in pain, and that stuff ain’t gonna help me breathe any better.  But maybe it’ll help knock me out.  ’cause once today just wasn’t enough… 🙂

    1:12am:  I’m still editing/writing this silly thing?  Really?!

    To be (possibly) continued tomorrow.  Pictures not included.  Hyperlinks included telepathically; you know what to Google!



    *  *  *



    Wednesday — day after:


    Oh!  Now it’s tomorrow.  Well, sort of.

    Didn’t sleep much last night at all.  Was afraid sleeping on my side would harm my NewImproved nose, and also figured of bloodying my pillows.  Laying on back wasn’t very comfortable, particularly with the not-being-able-to-breathe-at-all-through-my-nose thing.  The seemingly 42 pounds of pressure in my nose plus my increasingly sore throat also contributed to the unfun.

    But getting the splints taken out this morning by my doctor has made a world of difference!

    • I’m bleeding much less than yesterday.
    • I can actually breathe through both nostrils!  Granted, I’m still pretty stuffed up and am not allowed to blow my nose for the next week (ouch), but… no more awful pressure in my nose and ears!  And I got my appetite back :-).
    I have a followup appointment with my doctor next Thursday.  He’ll be checking to make sure everything’s healing up okay, will do another vacuum job, and soon after that hopefully I’ll have full breathability in my nose.

    Evening Update, featuring Adam’s Stubborn Nose:

    Ah, hopeful optimism, how shortly lived were thee!  My nose-blood has reconfigured itself, clearly with hardened resolve.  It is now reminding me of its presence with not only little random friendly droplets, but also extensive clotting, nearly perfectly blocking my breathing.

    Hmm, maybe this saline mist thingamabob from my doctor will help things.

    sprrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaayeritzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

    Oh.  Hello light-colored bathroom carpet, meet angrily displaced and splattering blood!  (as I once again wonder what that moron interior designer or former house occupant was thinking)

    I think I’ll just go to bed.

    *  *  *

    Thursday — day after yesterday:

    Clearly my brain has been adversely affected, because I quite stupidly set my alarm for 7am in an attempt to be awake for my 8am meeting.  Heck, I have a hard enough time making such meetings without being recently surgeried; what was I thinking?

    I re-woke up around 11:35, with my formerly-gauze-holding-nose patch having unpleasantly transmogrified into an eye patch and my spidey sense suggesting something unfortunate.

    Ah, yes, I missed a 11:30am meeting.  Hmm… groggily reading e-mail on phone… colleague is traveling across campus to meet me…

    I should have heeded my boss’ advice and just canceled all meetings this week.  Stubborn stubborn stubborn!

    *  *  *
    This blog post dedicated to my awesome AdamTaxis & AdamSitters, and all my friends and family who checked to make sure I still had a nose and all that 🙂

  • Knott’s Berry Farm — For shame!

    Okay, this is not a rant on junk food.  I think when people eat Cheez-wiz, they aren’t misguided enough to assume they’re eating healthful real cheese.  When people eat a double fudge brownie, I doubt they’re confusing this with an apple.  And when people eat Cap’n Crunch cereal, there’s no way they’d assume they’re consuming real fruit.  Oh, um, wait a minute, someone did?  Er, well, anyway, you get my point 😀

    But seriously… sometimes there’s an absolute nasty & unhealthy food paired with such obnoxiously, blatantly misleading marketing that I can’t help calling a spade a hyrogenated [sic] artificially flavored spade.

    First, the marketing that, by all means, should condemn some marketer to eternal dietary hell:

    “In 1920, Walter and Cordelia Knott began selling fresh produce, berries, and preserves from a roadside berry stand in Buena Park, California.  Their family business earned a place in history in 1932 when Walter Knott cultivated a lucious new fruit, the boysenberry.  The farm that started it all has also become a family amusement park that delights millions. 

    The Knott family is pleased to extend their tradition of quality to include premium shortbread cookies.  Richly flavorful, these classic favorites are prepared using popular Knott’s Berry farm fruit fillings.”

    Let’s dissect this, shall we?

    > In 1920, Walter and Cordelia Knott began selling fresh produce, berries, and preserves from a roadside berry stand in Buena Park, California.
    …and boy, would they be horrified to see how their heirs have sold them out!

    > …when Walter Knott cultivated a lucious new fruit, the boysenberry.
    …which you’ll find all of likely one-tenth of a gram of in this plasticfood monstrosity.

    > … premium shortbread cookies
    … where “premium” means “premium profits for us, utter crap for you.”

    > … Richly flavorful
    … from lots of high fructose corn syrup

    > … these classic favorites
    … if you call a frankenstein concoction of chemicals “classic.”  Maybe a classic case of deceit.

    > … using popular Knott’s Berry farm fruit fillings.
    … oh, wait, we meant popular dental fillings!

    *  *  *

    But enough pre-commentary.  Without further ado, let’s take a look at these charming ingredients, shall we? (and out of kindness, I’ll substitute normal text for the ALL CAPS printed)

    Enriched wheat flour [artificial vitamin enrichment crap omitted], margarine (liquid soybean oil, partially hyrogenated [sic] soybean oil, water, salt, whey, lecithin, mono and di-glycerides, sodium benzoate a preservative, artificial butter flavor, beta carotene and vitamin A palmitate), raspberry topping (high fructose corn syrup, red raspberries, apple powder, fruit pectin, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, calcium chloride, FD&C red #40 and blue #1), sugar, eggs, baking soda, natural and artificial flavor, baking ammonium, and salt.

    Mmmm… delicious, no?  Just like Grandma would have made it… if she had access to a chemistry lab *and* passionately hated your guts.

    Oh, and lookie here, (unsurprisingly) almost no redeeming nutritive qualities at all… little fiber or protein, and a charming 3 grams of trans-fat (I didn’t even know there were many packaged goods that still had this stuff in ‘em nowadays!)

    For comparison, let’s take a look at a typical recipe for berry shortbread cookies:

    1 cup butter, softened
    2/3 cup sugar
    1/2 teaspoon almond extract
    2 cups all-purpose flour
    1/3 cup seedless raspberry jam
    GLAZE:
    1 cup confectioners’ sugar
    2 teaspoons water
    1/2 teaspoon almond extract

    (from AllRecipes.com)

    Notice a difference?  Yes!  You recognize and can likely pronounce the ingredients, and there are fewer than a dozen of them.

    *  *  *

    Look, as I said, I don’t have a problem with companies making utter junkfood.  I do, however, have a problem about them so blatantly misrepresenting their product.  Even an intelligent acquaintance of mine said (without any prompting from me) that she used to eat these cookies every day for lunch, figuring that they were relatively harmless.  Oops!

    P.S.—Might think twice before buying any of Knott’s Berry Farm jams or other products, eh?

  • [Humor] 100 yards Longs brand Waxed Mint Dental Tape, almost new

    Today we have a guest post!  Hopefully a nice respite from all the political tensions.

    The note below was written by Mark Pilloff for distribution on our company’s “for sale” (classifieds) list.  I’ve reproduced it below in its entirety with, of course, Mark’s permission.  Enjoy! 😀

    *  *  *

    Free: 100 yards Longs brand Waxed Mint Dental Tape, almost new

    Recently my dentist suggested to me that dental tape, thanks to its larger cleaning area, was more effective than ordinary dental floss.  So a few weeks ago, when my previous container of floss ran out, I went to Longs to bring my routine of dental hygiene out of the stone age and incorporate the modern marvel of dental tape.  (Mike Nichols said in a recent interview that if he were making “The Graduate” today, he would update the iconic line to, “I just want to say two words to you.  Just two words.  Dental tape.”  True story.)

    Have you bought dental floss / tape lately?  So many choices!  Dozens and dozens of them.  That’s what’s so great about this offer: besides being absolutely free, you have just one choice.  One terrible (but free!) choice.  The same terrible choice that I already made when I stared at the shelves at Longs, thought to myself, “What difference does it make?”, and reached for the most cost effective dental tape option available: 100 yards of Longs brand Waxed Mint Dental Tape.

    What I am offering to all of you, absolutely free and with no strings attached, is one almost new container of unquestionably the worst dental floss/tape I’ve ever used.  This dental tape is thick like packing twine, the sort you’d use to bundle up a bale of old newspapers before dropping them off on the curb to be recycled.  To get it to slip between your teeth you’ll have to wiggle it back and forth ten times or more and pull hard enough to cut off the circulation in your fingers.  Each time it finally grinds its way into the slot between your teeth, dropping into place with a stinging snap, you’ll yell to anyone around, or maybe just to your reflection in the mirror, “I hate this @#$% floss.  This is the worst floss ever.  I never should have bought it.”  (Actually, since you’ll be getting this floss complete free of charge, you’ll merely yell, “I hate this @#$% floss.  This is the worst floss ever.”)

    Did I mention the coarseness and sharp edge on the tape?  The last time I tried using it, I got a paper cut behind my molar!  And then I yelled at my reflection in the mirror and vowed never to use this dental tape again.

    But maybe after reading this you’re just a little bit curious to feel the worst flossing experience on Earth?  Or maybe you have widely spaced teeth which could benfit from dental floss thick enough to tie up a rib roast?  Or maybe you simply can’t resist the word “free”?  Personally I just hate to see anything go to waste, so whatever your motivation, I will gladly give you the remaining 98 yards of my dental tape without expecting anything in return.  (Although if you want to drop me a line and tell me how much you hated it, I’d be happy to hear from you.)

    To add further insult to considerable injury, I’m way out in 1950 [Ed. note: this is a building on the outer edge of our campus].  Top floor!  No elevator!  (Okay, the elevator works, but you should punish yourself on the stairs anyway—think of it as a masochistic prelude.)

  • I’m Yoga’ing and I feel a bit like Homer Simpson

    Today I completed my third yoga session.  The class is taught by an apparently-quite-skilled (and patient and helpful!) instructor here at the main Google gym, and she’s noted that it’s essentially “Iyengar-flow” style.

    I, however, have decided to nickname it D’oh-whoa style.  D’oh: not in a painful sense, but in a OH HAI I HAZ HIDDN MUSSELS kinda way.  And whoa: just absolute wow in watching my classmates.

    Let me clarify.  This class—though filled with more intermediate/advanced folks than beginners—features people of many ages and all body types.  I’m staring at shapes and movements… people doing handstands and headstands and balancing with grace… and I’m admiring deceptively simple and stunning lines.

    Maybe it’s my background as a dancer that has me being so observant, so in awe, and also so embarrassed that my body is not moving like that, probably will never move like that.  And yet, despite my dancing experiences and mindset, I’m also feeling a bit shy and embarrassed about staring.  Perhaps being a guy (but, interestingly, far from the only guy in this class) is partly to blame for my self-consciousness… not primarily about my own un-performance, but about my watching of others, learning, trying to do what they’re doing, feeling what they’re feeling.

    *  *  *

    The instructor kindly noted that—while most can achieve great improvement and wonderful results from yoga—some are innately, genetically predisposed to being able to do certain things.  I, seemingly, do not have such genes.

    But I’ve already felt good things from this class.  I’ve enjoyed the feeling of stretchiness and the body awareness afterward (with surprisingly and happily not too much soreness).  And after each class, I seem to be in a better mood than before I hit the mat.

    So I’ll likely continue this, along with my (typically) once-weekly weight lifting and about once-weekly swing dancing and/or waltzing.  You may note that all of these activities have two things in common:  they’re improving my body, but they’re also at least slightly social.  Sure, there’s very minimal talking in yoga, but there’s a pleasure in the familiarity; I’ve already seen several folks I know from around the ‘plex, and this is both motivating and comforting.

    *  *  *

    Have any of you tried yoga?  If so, what kinds, and do you have any words of wisdom or encouragement for me? 😀

  • Natural energy boosters guaranteed to kick your ass (in a good way)

    I guarantee* that the following all-natural AdamSpecial (“CafeKeek” in honor of my now-undoubtedly-horrified French friends) will put a pep in your step, will put the mmmmm in mooove, will take the ache out of awake…

    Required…
    1) Coffee beans + grinder (ideal) OR not-terribly-fine-ground coffee (okay) OR instant coffee (will do in a pinch; can ignore French press/strainer instructions)
    2) Milk (ideally non-fat, optionally low-fat) OR milk substitute that can be heated/drunk hot or warm
    3) French press OR extra container + a strainer
    4) Teaspoon
    5) and – unless you don’t like sweet stuff—one of the following Adam-named add-ins
    – “Plain Sweetie”:  Sugar—one to two teaspoons per cup of milk.
    – “Chocolate Jesus”:  Pure unsweetened cocoa powder and sugar (one teaspoon each per cup of milk) OR pre-sweetened chocolate syrup / cocoa powder (Nestle Quik does not count!)
    – “Cuckoo du mint”:  The Jesus ingredients above + three drops pure mint extract per cup of milk OR Trader Joe’s mint cocoa powder

    Instructions for making CafeKeek…
    1) Boil milk OR heat milk in microwave (ideally use a microwavable measuring cup or similar item for easy pouring)
    2a) Got a French press?  Put in the ground coffee but not other ingredients.
    2b) Using a strainer?  Add ground coffee to intermediate container (that you can easily pour from into your drinking cup)
    3) Pour hot milk into either French press or intermediate container.  Wait 5 minutes.
    4) Pour coffee-soaked hot milk into drinking container (using strainer if you didn’t use a French press)
    5) Add optional other ingredients and stir with teaspoon.
    6) Enjoy, then come back here and write a comment about how much you loved it and how you’re eternally grateful to me and so on.
    7) Repeat, but probably not on the same day.

    Strongly recommended in conjuction with CafeKeek…
    – Protein—either a handful of nuts or some peanut butter on a cracker, etc.
    – Potassium—a banana works great (half of one is fine)
    – Exercise—no time for a real workout?  Prefix the incomparable CafeKeek with 18 jumping jacks or 18 seconds of jump-roping or anything else to quickly get your heart pumping.  I’m serious about this… it really helps!

    *  *  *

    Okay, now it’s your turn.  What natural foods / practices do you use to help wake you up? (so, yeah, those energy drinks with unpronounceable ingredients don’t qualify here)

    *Guaranteed satisfaction, or your pro-rated BLADAM subscription fees reimbursed!

  • Self improvement — how do you measure your progress?

    A few years back, I had some free sessions with a personal trainer at my gym, and one of the most useful takeaways was this:

    Unless you write stuff down, it’s too easy to “fudge the facts” in your mind.  How much pushups are you doing with good form?  What are you eating each day?  We tend to maximize the former, minimize the latter, and that’s not good.

    For starters, he made me write down each day *everything* I ate and drank, along with estimated calories associated with each thing I put in my mouth.  Boy, that was a depressing but enlightening shocker!

    Well, I decided to go one better and start my own personal health chart (in Excel), daily noting my progress on several fronts (weight, body fat percentage, pushups, etc.).  Alas, after a few months, that kinda fell by the wayside, so I picked it up again a year later.  And, once again, that only lasted a few months. 

    I’m trying yet again, and—now that I have the regular routine of a full-time job—I’m hoping it’ll somehow be easier to keep up the list.  For the very curious, I’ve included below exactly what I’m measuring:

    – E-mails still in my inbox
    – Body weight
    – Body fat percentage
    – Pushups (#)
    – Various medicines (e.g., remembering to use Nasalcrom, an allergy medicine)
    – Meditation (in minutes)
    – Stretching (yes/no)
    – Aerobic exercise (minutes)
    – Strength training (minutes)
    – Mood (1-10, 1 being suicidal, 10 being euphoric)
    – Mood jot (my mood in a few words… e.g. “Overwhelmed and frustrated” or “Optimistic and excited”)
    – Sleep (time I went to bed, time I got up, total hours of estimated actual sleep)
    – Notes (what I accomplished that day, major challenges facing me, etc.)

    *  *  *

    In looking over my previous efforts, I’ve noticed the following:
    – My weight seems to increase the day or two after working out.
    – Eating massive huge fatty meals seems to reduce my weight in the short term (!?)
    – I tend to be overwhelmed/stressed more than I thought I was.
    – My sleep patterns are more erratic and less healthy than I assumed.
    – Surprisingly, there doesn’t seem to be a strong correlation between getting lots of sleep and feeling less tired the next day. 
    – After gaining nearly 10 pounds at Google and then losing those same 10 pounds, I’m now about where I was weightwise a year or two ago (still about 15 pounds to go!)

    *  *  *

    Have you kept your own “metrics journal”?  What are some of the things you have measured?  Observations?  And did such a journal help you reach goals?

  • A comparison of dark chocolates from Trader Joe’s

    Methodology
    I took a bite of the famed whole-wheat Ak-Mak cracker and sips of orange juice in between chocolate nibbles.

    Goal
    Vital learning in the name of science, with an aim to provide thoughtful, unbiased info to my fellow dark chocolate lovers.

    Grand summary
    – Villars – Swiss chocolate:  Sharpest (along with Trader Joes)
    – Valrhona – French chocolate:  creamest, sweetest, with a noticeable but mild afterbite, fruity
    – Guaranda – Equadorian chocolate (strangely labeled “European chocolate”):  smokey
    – Trader Joe’s Pound Plus (“TJ”) – Belgian chocolate:  thickest of all, tied for sharpest with Villars, faintly fruity, hardest, least creamy initially

    Relevant notes

    • All the chocolate bars boasted a chocolate percentage ranging from 70-72%, and contained the following ingredients:  Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, and soy lecithin (as an emulsifier).  Additionally, the Villars contained “flavours” and the Valrhona was “flavored with natural vanilla.”
    • I conducted three ‘rounds’ of testing.  In one of the rounds, I simply ate a small piece of chocolate from each bar one after another.  In the other two rounds (with differing sampling orders), I ate a piece of Ak-Mak wheat cracker and sipped some orange juice in between chocolate pieces to cleanse my palate.

    My observations

    • Since the TJ was at least twice as thick as the others, it was hard to compare the mouth-feel.  Since, for instance, thinner chocolate will naturally melt more quickly in the mouth, this significantly alters the perception of creaminess.
    • Sampling 12 small pieces of chocolate wasn’t as enjoyable as I imagined.  I felt somewhat unpleasantly full, even after eating less than one bar total.  Note that the testing was done after a sizeable lunch, however.
    • The Villars and TJ tied for sharpest / most-bitter… but not unpleasantly bitter.  All the chocolates, at least by my tastes, were amply sweet.
    • The Valrhona was the creamiest and sweetest, perhaps due to the added vanilla.
    • The Valrhona and, to a slightly lesser extent, the TJ had a mildly fruity aftertaste.  Though Scharffenberger chocolate was not included in this test round, I distinctly remember that particular brand having a comparatively much more powerful—almost overpowering—fruitiness to it.
    • The Guaranda had the most unique flavor, both initially and lingering.  The wrapper describes it as “…exotic wood nuances”… but, before reading this, the first word that came to my mind was “smokey.”  Not in a bad way, and it was very subtle, but still noticeable.  This wasn’t surprising to me, since I had eaten roasted (unsweetened) cacao beans… and they do taste woodsy/smokey to me.

    *  *  *

    The bottom line

    All of these chocolates are delicious, and—sans the “Pound Plus” TJ wrapper—I’d be proud to serve any of them to guests.  I do wish the TJ was less thick (sliced horizontally down the middle in the pack would be perfect!), but overall, it’s an extremely good buy given the price! (around $4.50 as of August, 2006).  In particular, I’ve found that combining a handful of mixed nuts with a single thick piece of the TJ chocolate makes for a wonderfully delicious snack… and—given the mix of fats, proteins and antioxidants—a rather filling and healthy one, too, in moderation.

    For pure sampling / eating right out of the wrapper, I’d probably go with one of the non-TJ chocolates, but couldn’t state a preference amongst them at present.

    *  *  *

    Hope this has been helpful, or at least blissfully insightful.  Any other chocolate lovers out there?  😀

  • Food labels: When does "All" or 100% not mean ALL?

    I suppose, by this point, I should have learned to be totally cynical and untrusting, even when it comes to my favorite grocery store, Trader Joe’s. But every day, I learn new and disappointing things by reading labels a bit more carefully.

    For instance, how about “100% Juice”? You’d guess that it’s made up of juice, juice, and juice, right? Nope. How about water, reconstituted juices, and “natural flavorings”? What, exactly, are the natural flavorings? Who knows, ’cause this label sure isn’t telling.

    And while we’re talking about juices, when you see a label that trumpets in large type “Blueberry Juice”… does it seem very honest to you that blueberry juice is the third most prominent ingredient, after apple and grape? Truth in labeling would dictate: “Apple ‘n’ Grape juice, with a splash of blueberry,” but, yeah, truth in labeling? Ha!

    Or how about “All Butter” shortbread cookies? Sure, butter is indeed one of the ingredients, but — what’s this? — “partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil”? That’s like saying, “A RUSTY knife thrust into your chest” and, while butter ain’t exactly saintly healthwise itself, there are few food ingredients less healthy in the world than partially hydrogenated oils, and particularly palm or coconut oils. Might as well say “cement for hardening your arteries.” And this isn’t even taking into account the fact that a small helping of four of these tiny cookies = 260 calories, with about 50% of calories from fat (and more than half of THAT is saturated). Ugh! While “All-butter” conjures up visions of Grandma making not-necessarily-healthful but at least decadently delicious and honest desserts, this package should instead picture a cardiac arrest unit on the front.