The Online Photographer

Open Mike: Official Check

["Open Mike," the Editorial page of TOP, usually appears on Wednesdays, but I had to drive to Thompson Hospital in Canandaigua yesterday to get my first vaccine shot, and that, plus lunch while I was there, took up most of my afternoon.]

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We've had an unusually mild late March, especially since the "official" first day of Spring, with several deliciously warm and windy days. But this morning I raised the shade to find that a layer of sticky snow about the thickness of cake frosting had been artfully applied by the wind in the night. The sun came peeking above the ridge in back in about the same spot where the full moon rose a few nights ago. Its light glittered on the new-fallen snow. Beautiful.

Wasn't Spring just here? Fooled again.

The old iMac
Not long ago, I got my old computer back from servicing and put it on Craigslist. Immediately I got a message from a nice woman who said she had researched computers and mine was just what she was looking for. One small problem—she lives in the area, she said, but she's on vacation, and could I please accept a cashier's check, deposit it, and then hold the computer for her movers, who would pick it up for her?

She offered $500, and I accepted. I had paid $177 to the Macintosh specialist to check its functions, physically clean it, wipe the hard drive, and install a fresh operating system. So I won't be getting much in the balance. But then, it's old.

At least it sold quickly. Isn't that nice?

And she followed through! That was a pleasant surprise.

When the check arrived, however, I was surprised to find it was not for $500 as we had agreed upon. She had sent me $1,950.

No problem, though—she had simply included the payment for her movers; her idea was that when the movers picked up the computer, I would pay them, on her behalf, in cash. It won't be a problem, because I will already have successfully deposited the check.

So I'll deposit the check in my bank account, and then some stranger will show up at my door and I'll let that person walk away my computer and $1,450 in cash. That was the plan at that point.

Sound smart to you?

Sure.

Just a few wee "flaws in the ointment," as my brother used to say when he was a kid (the expression is flies, of course. But I like "flaws"). The first doubt I had, believe it or not, was that a supposedly local buyer who talked me down from $550 to $500 would then pay someone $1,450 to pick the computer up for her. That did not compute. Wouldn't she just have a friend drive over and pick it up, for nothing?

Turned out I had quite a few additional questions. Like, how she managed to purchase the cashier's check from a small bank that only has branches in Central Pennsylvania, and then mail it to me from St. Louis, Missouri. Where was she vacationing, anyway, the little-known state of Pennsylvania-Missouri? Also, why the return address in St. Louis doesn't exist. Why there is no name in public records associated with the telephone number she was using. Why the bank branch named on the check didn't match any of the branch locations on the bank's website. And so on. Little things like that.

At least I knew the check was official, because at the top it is emblazoned with a badge that says "OFFICIAL CHECK."

This type of Craigslist scam is made possible by the fact that banks will accept fake cashier's checks at first, lulling you into thinking the money is safe in your account. The bank's assumption is that you've only accepted checks from people you trust. Your assumption is that the bank will only accept for deposit checks that they trust. The space in between those assumptions is where the scammers weasel in and find room to operate.

Some time later, your bank will contact you to tell you the check wasn't good after all and that it will be deducting the money from your account again. To add insult to injury, it's even possible that you could suffer legal consequences for having submitted a fake check to them!

These little irregularities meant the buyer and I had, ah, a little more to discuss. After several more exchanges, here's the last text I wrote to her/him:

Finally, I would like you—the real you—to take a little time and reflect that you are wasting your life. Doing evil and victimizing others might seem convenient to you now, but you only have one life to live on earth, and your time and your actions cannot help but be visited upon you. You will be deprived of the joy of spiritual fitness and you will never know the clarity and freedom of righteousness and decency, of holding your head up and meeting others with forthrightness and sincerity. You're probably young--one day you will need to make amends for your own sins. They will weigh on your shoulders increasingly as you go through your life. Back up, be willing to change, and decide who you really want to be.

I'm quite serious. Think about this. The way you are following is not the way. Ultimately the real victim will be you.

My would-be scammer thinks he is safe (probably it's a he) because he is covering his tracks and no one can figure out his location or identity. He's hidden. But there is one person from whom he can hide nothing. One person who will always know that he has been a shifty little rat in a hole who preyed on his fellow human beings. One person who knows every detail of what he did. One person from whom he cannot hide and from whose judgement he will never be safe.

That person is himself.

Good in the world
Will my little attempt to reach through do any good? Probably not. If the scammer is a sociopath, then certainly not.

But I try anyway, sometimes. Most people have both good and bad in them; few people are all one and none of the other. Self-awareness is an attribute of increasing maturity, and can change over time. And many people who have fallen into bad habits of outlook are susceptible, at some level, to the tug of conscience. In my recovery program, where we share our stories with each other, I have heard many times of people who were awakened by a seemingly small encounter, event, or realization, or a few choice words. So it can happen. I myself was started on my long journey to sobriety—at age 25—when the phone rang and the caller, who first asked for me by name, said, brusquely, without preamble—"When are you going to go get help?" It turned out to be my parents' marriage counselor, whose name I have long since forgotten. Our entire conversation lasted maybe two minutes.

"Who is this?" was my actual answer at the time. But the real answer to her question turned out to be, in about three weeks. By calling one of the numbers she made me write down. I never spoke to her again. My journey to sobriety would take eight more years, but she gave me the shove I needed to get going toward change.

Thanks, by the way. Whoever you are. Or were.

I can actually feel grateful that the Universe threw that Craigslist scammer into my path. Why—? Because writing that little perhaps overly optimistic note gave me an opportunity to reaffirm to myself the values I aspire to, and to remind myself of the lessons I had to learn. Maybe my suggestion doesn't do him or her a lick of good, but the attempt to reach another human does me some good.

So every now and then, when I have an insight, I'll just toss it out there. It can only hit home if the words are what the hearer needs to hear. But you never know when, or where, or how something you say might do someone, somewhere, some good.

Mike

Book o' this Week:
Sugar is the silent nutritional crisis that is hiding in plain sight. The best book about it might be the prescient 1972 classic Pure, White and Deadly by the British scientist John Yudkin. Recommended. <—This is a portal to Amazon; also available at the Book Depository for global delivery with free shipping.

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

c.d.embrey: "During the 1970s there was a head-shop across the street from Pasadena City College. They sold art-prints as well as smoking accessories. I bought as couple of Dali prints from them. They had a sign on the wall that read 'Shoplifting F*cks Up Your Karma.' Every time I hear as story like yours, I think of that sign."

Lee Rust: "Quite a story. We definitely have to be on guard these days. But yes, every little bit helps...you hardly ever know exactly how much, but the bits do add up."

Thomas Mc Cann: "About 35 years ago weighing over 20 stone [280 lbs. —Ed.] I decided on a diet and realised as long as I still took a drink I was never going to lose weight as the alcohol would lower my inhibitions. That was about November, so I elected to stay dry for six months. Coming up to the Christmas break I proudly announced in the office I had been dry for two months. An employee, who I barely knew, sneered at me and said, 'You think you've got it beat.' It annoyed me intensely. What did this guy know about me and what problem did he assume I thought I had beaten? I had been thinking about a wee drink at Christmas but his comment tightened my resolve. I didn't take that drink. Two months later I realised I was a better person for being dry and I haven't touched a drop since. I am eternally grateful for that man's few words."

Mike replies: Great example. Over the years I've come to believe that's how insight works. It requires the incisive outside perspective (whether deliberate or by happenstance), but it needs a recipient who's willing and open to hearing it. Sometimes the latter might be even more important than the former. I've found I have to be willing to let an attempted insight fall on deaf ears. Not only because I'm sometimes wrong, which happens, but simply because sometimes they just don't "land." The person it's meant for isn't ready to hear it. If you tell someone something that's true but they're not ready to hear it, however, they'll just forget about it. What this means is that there's no real risk in trying. You haven't done any harm. To them it just becomes more noise in the air that sifts out of memory and consciousness in no time at all. I've also had to learn that it's not necessarily my place to share an insight just because I have one. I try to consider whether it might be none of my business. In the example I related in this post I didn't have that problem—the scammer made it my business, by attempting to rob me!

Tom Burke: "Good to hear about the vaccination, Mike—I'm sure that's the way back to something like how we used to live. And we are having very variable weather here in northern England—sunny enough to sit out until sunset last week, freezing nights over the coming weekend. My daughter reports much the same from her home in Mississippi.

"Honesty—the cultural norm that 'you don't steal'—seems to be fraying, sadly. And a planned theft (actually, I suppose, fraud) seems especially shocking because of the knowingness of it all, the intent—that wasn't an opportunity that just presented itself; they prepared for it. I don't think my response would have been as measured or as thoughtful as yours! I've never been the victim of an online fraud—my experiences with the great auction site in the sky have all been good, in fact very good—but over the years we have suffered two actual burglaries of our home and they were deeply upsetting."

Keith: "Scammers get by with this stuff because there are hardly any consequences. It would seem to me that there would be a branch in law enforcement that investigates some of these type of crimes. Maybe they could be at your house when the 'movers' arrive to pick up their check. At least maybe they could get the identity of some of the individuals involved and question them a bit. Oh wait, we de-funded law enforcement...darn it.

Mike replies: Except I'm pretty sure there would never have been any "movers." What probably would have happened next was that the scammer would have waited till I thought the money was safely in my account, then "she" would tell me that the movers had wanted payment up front and "she" had to pay them, so would I mind please reimbursing "her" by returning the excess money...probably via a cashier's check sent by mail, same way I was supposed to believe I had been paid.

Or something like that, something that kept their exposure to zero.

Note that they didn't actually want my computer—what they were after was that wad of cash, the supposed "moving fee."

JOHN B GILLOOLY: "Funny you should mention that scam. I had a similar scam attempted on me in the photography space so maybe of value to folks on TOP.

"Sometimes my LinkedIn page pops up with job opportunities and one looked good a couple months back—especially in the bleak year of COVID. It involved a fashion shoot in Boston for Esquire magazine of two models and had details and pay presented and organized. The contact was one Avidan Grossman from Esquire. The job, while paying what I would typically charge, just seemed to be too easy. I've been doing this a long time and jobs don't typically just fall out of thin air—at the rate and terms you are comfortable with. It involved a strange arrangement like your Mac. They are going to send me $6,000 immediately. Of that, $2,000 is my deposit and $4,000 will go to the talent agency. Once I complete the job I will get my remaining $2,000. So a total of $8,000—$4,000 to me and $4,000 to the talent agency. After I sign a 'contract' a check arrives from 'Esquire Magazine' and I deposit the check and it appears to clear for a day or two. Of course I was never going to actually make arrangements and pay the talent agency until I knew I was using their money. After two days, the check bounced and I incurred a fee.

"Avidan Grossman is a real person at Esquire and his name appears on many articles. But he seems to have little to no social media presence, so maybe that's why this scammer latched on to his name? I actually left a message at Esquire saying that the name of one of their employees is being used to scam, but never heard back.

"People are sick!"

Open Mike II: Radical (OT)

Man, I'm a radical. I remapped my keyboard!

Look at the "heatmap" for the Dvorak keyboard layout:

Source: keybr

Note that my keyboard is "ortholinear," meaning the keys are vertically aligned instead of staggered.

The one thing I found awkward and painful was hitting the "L" with my right pinkie, which seems to be the finger that hurts the most for me. But hitting the "V" with my right ring finger is very comfortable.

So I switched L and V (the keyboard is programmable). Much better. I adapted to it surprisingly quickly.

So now I'm learning a modified Dvorak layout. As if my windmill could get any more windmilly. (Don Quixote reference.)

...Although right after I made the switch, I had to type the following sentence: "I have tried on several different days but have never received an email." Five V's and only two L's...you know what they say: oh well!

Mike

Product o' the Week:

A fantastically comfortable ergonomic mouse for PC users. Should be considered incompatible with Mac unless you want to use only default settings. Available in regular and small sizes, right and left hand, and wired and wireless. WARNING to Mac users: Do NOT download USBOverdrive! It broke my computer. But really, for you PC users, you won't believe how easy on your hand this mouse is.

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

And here is a portal to...

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Sunday Support Group: Yflcbi! (OT)

I'm typing this on my new keyboard in Dvorak (I love typing the word "keyboard" in Dvorak), so this is probably going to be short. Only touch-typing could make a MOFW* out of me!

On Tuesday it will be one month, and I have to admit it's not going well. Despite a lot of practice, I'm only typing at about 20 WPM with 95% accuracy when I'm copying and about half that speed, with more errors, when I'm composing, probably because I don't practice the latter as much. Continually switching keyboards and layouts ("Yflcbi" is "Typing" when typed in Dvorak on a U.S. keyboard, by the way) is probably not helping.

I've converted the keycaps of my Kinesis to Dvorak
layout markings. This is the left-hand keywell.

But I made a commitment, so I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet.

I truly feel that most of my difficulty is really "just me" as they say. I'm uncoördinated both mentally and in terms of manual dexterity. In short I suspect I have an unusually low aptitude for this. Not debilitatingly low, but below the average or normal range.

However, I believe that typing, like reading, falls into the class of skills that "most anyone can master" if they work at it hard enough and long enough. Some people just have to work harder and longer is all. And might never reach an exceptional level. I'll doubtless never be a speed demon or a champion typist. But competence doesn't require talent in this case, is my guess...just work, and perseverance.

By the way, if anyone out there is contemplating learning Dvorak (now there's a small subset of TOP readers!), I recommend starting with learn.dvorak.nl and not typingclub.com. I believe the latter created some problems for me. I would explain, but it would take too long to type!

I'll report on this experiment again at the two-month mark. For now, I'm not giving up. As Tom Duffy said, "Much of success in life comes from endurance and not much more. As important as thinking is, I'd make the case that after defining a goal, it's often more productive to simply endure." Maybe I'll go type that ten times!

Anyway, I've modified my ambitions: rather than give this experiment two months, I'm going to give it three. At this point my guess is that it might take all of that.

Mike

P.S. This is interesting...key frequency heatmaps for the most common keyboard layouts. The biggest mistake in Dvorak is the "L" position if you ask me.

*All right, all right, I'll type it out: man of few words.

Book o' the Week:

ArtCurious: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History by Jennifer Dasal (Penguin, 2020. Adapted from the popular podcast.)

The link above is a portal to Amazon, through which most anything you purchase will be credited to TOP. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Michael J. Perini: "I would think that switching between the two types of keyboards has got to add a considerable degree of difficulty—but whatever happens the process is probably building a few brain cells and that has to be good."

Joseph Reid: "If this is something you really want to learn, maybe give it more than three months. I took two semesters of typing in high school, and it was the single most useful course I took in those four years. But think of that—an hour a day, September through December and January through May. It takes some real time, not a few weeks."

JimH: "Personally, I think you are making a mistake, Mike. Trying to do the same thing two very different ways is only going to confuse the connections you already have in your brain. After you started this thread, I decided to try an ergonomic keyboard. It took only a few minutes trying to use it to see how it confused me—slowed me down—and less than 30 minutes to see my typing was getting worse. Back in the box and off to return to you-know-who.

"My philosophy is don't waste time trying to do something you are not good at. I never could throw or catch a football, dribble or hit a basket, so I didn't. But I could heel-and-toe and drift a car intuitively, and I did a nice snap-roll in airplanes. And, as I demonstrate right now, I type fast enough to put thoughts down as I compose, so I'm not wasting time trying to do it differently. To add a camera analogy, after years of using Oly Micro 4/3 cameras up to the Pen F, which I found so trying to use I didn't use it much at all, I bought an old OM-D EM-10 and found it and my brain clicked. Wish I had done that years ago...."

Moose: "'I am feeling a bit like Don Quixote.' —Mike Johnston, Tuesday, 24 September 2013. 'But I made a commitment, so I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet.'

"I can imagine various less-than-ideal outcomes from this experiment. Assuming the goal is to become more productive in creating content, not becoming proficient at two different typing systems as a goal in itself, I can't imagine an outcome that is superior to simply learning to touch-type on QWERTY. I also find it difficult to understand how reassessment of commitment to a course of action that has no impact on anyone else, in light of what is learned along the way, is somehow bad. In fact, it strikes me as rather sensible."

Mike replies: Dvorak was a solution, not a complication. My sense after some experimentation was that on QWERTY, my old and new ways of typing would become hopelessly confused and I'd get mired in the confusion. But that's just me; others would doubtless have a very different experience.

By the way, I slowly but successfully moderated all these comments and put up the Edwin Land post using the new keyboard!

Kye Wood: "If you make your living typing code (as an example) or as a writer (I'm looking at you Mike)—then the extra productivity that you eventually get from Dvorak makes it one of the best investments you can make in yourself. To quote my daughter when she was 16, 'suck it up, princess.' Aren't teenagers a joy?

"For me (former code monkey), I couldn't go Dvorak—because Thinkpads keys were uniquely shaped, so you couldn't rearrange them. Dang and dang again. Cursed be my Thinkpad propensities says I."

Susan Eilenberg: "The Kinesis Advantage keyboard has been my steady love since some time in the 1990s. I've been using the Dvorak layout on it for nearly as long. I had no particular need to learn Dvorak—the fabulous Kinesis had already eliminated all my wrist pain—but I imagined one idle summer day that the layout would be fun to learn and a defensible way to put off beginning an essay that had me intimidated; and I believed I would be back to my old typing speeds within a month of beginning to learn it. That did not happen. I was slow and clumsy for nearly a year, and frantic, too, because learning Dvorak pushed QWERTY out of my memory. I don't now regret knowing it, but that year was painful."

Mike replies: I'm glad to read your thoughts about it. I feel very strangely about the whole enterprise—I'm nowhere near mastery but somehow I think I know just how it's going to be once I get there. My slow progress has not dimmed my desire to reach the goal.

Dave: "Mike, Something to look at during your 'off-time'—whenever that may be. Basic Typing Lessons from 1944—Part 1 (4:45 to the end.) (Typewriter pr0n from 3:40 to 4:30.) This old typing training film from WWII is still applicable to today's typing. Good posture in a good chair, hitting the keys correctly (not the very tips of the fingers), etc. Notice how she pushes the keys down, rather than hitting them from above. Less wasted effort and you keep your fingers on 'home row.' Notice also the L.C. Smith typewriter, before it became Smith-Corona. If she can type that fast without jamming the keys, you can get up to your old 'hunt and peck' speed on an electronic keyboard.

"Good luck. We're all counting on you.  :>)  (I don't know how you can keep Dvorak and standard keyboard layouts separate in your mind.)"

Mike replies: Thanks, that was actually very helpful. Especially her recommendation to hit every key like you will when you are trained but to take a pause between keystrokes, then increase speed by shortening the pauses. That instantly changed the way I practice, and it actually increased my speed right away, too! Our Navy was all business in 1944.

Open Mike: Addictive Foods? (OT)

[Ed. note: The following might be a little too testy for some people. I'm putting it behind a page break so you can skip it if you want to. Feel free to. I can't determine if the testiness I detect is in the piece or merely in me—I've been locked in a titanic battle with touch-typing and it's a toss-up which will win, the whale or the giant squid. I haven't done anything so hard since I stopped smoking.

"Open Mike" is the anything-goes, often off-topic Editorial page of TOP, wherein Yr. Hmbl. Ed. gets to rant 'n' rave about topics he can't quite quit.]

Sunday Support Group: Six Weeks (OT)

This might be a little hard to see.

To order a new belt yesterday, I had to measure the old one. And when I laid it out on the kitchen counter I noticed that the buckle-marks on the belt chronicled my recent weight loss—I lost ~55 pounds in the first half of 2020, and have maintained it since then. You can see how that last mark, just to the right of the last hole, is rather faint. I had to have this belt cut down last Summer, and three new holes (the ones on the right) punched.

Simple?
How I did it seems rather simple now. I tried to get 80% of my calories from whole plant foods and time-restrict my eating. Nothing to it.

How I eat now is that I basically follow Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen—here's the introductory video, and the free Android/Apple app is called "Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen." (Note the spelling of "Greger.") Here's a page with a longer list of videos.

I've written about all this before, but I'm trying to encourage you.  :-)

Easy weight loss
The magic trick is to time-restrict your eating. At least that was the key for me. This is what makes healthy eating and jettisoning the blubber easy and effortless. Simply pick a rigid window of time in which you'll do all your eating every day. Outside of that window, eat nothing. Ingest nothing but plain cold water, and be strict about it. Inside of that window, eat all the good food you want. Actually, as long as you're eating good food, you should eat as much as you can. I was so used to the idea of "calorie restriction" or "portion control" as an integral part of weight-loss dieting that it took me time and effort to overcome that mindset. But if there's one truth to weight-loss dieting, it's this: calorie restriction diets never work. Eat too little and you risk being hungry, and that's bad. So load 'er on in. Eat up.

What I found is that you can "train" your body to only expect food at certain times, and at other times you simply won't be uncomfortable because your body isn't expecting to be fed. My "window" is the seven hours from nine to four every day, although the actual span from my first bite to the last is often shorter than that. You can use an eight- or nine- or ten- or even a twelve-hour window if you want—just end your eating at least two hours before bedtime (three is better). I'd recommend ten or less.

Those of us with dogs know how it is. If you feed your animals on a regular schedule, they will know when it's dinner time. And they'll let you know in no uncertain terms if you forget! It's because they get hungry when their bodies anticipate food. Well, we humans are the same way. Train yourself, and you'll get hungry when it's time to eat, and you won't be hungry during the other parts of the day.

Be strict about this, or it won't work. Easy to say.

The DD
If you've got all sorts of encrusted beliefs about plant-eaters, what I'd say is...don't worry about it. Just do it. Just do it while you're losing the weight if you want to. Personally, I think that anyone who can follow the Daily Dozen with 100% compliance for six weeks will be hooked, because of how much better you will feel all the time. I found it absolutely astonishing. But suit yourself. If you want to, do it for six weeks and then go back to steaks and cupcakes. Food isn't ideology.

And if you think it's too hard to switch over, I get that too.

Unfortunately, when people say "try WFPB for six weeks," it's not quite that easy. You might not be able to just snap your fingers and switch over completely. First of all, it's tough to work out what you'll actually eat and how to fix it; and secondly, your gut needs time to adjust. The #1 nutritional deficiency in the developed Western world is fiber, a nutrient critical to the maintenance of adequate gut flora, and there are a thousand different kinds. If you don't eat fiber-rich foods, your gut might not be able to handle a sudden glut of fiber-rich foods. If you have trouble with beans, for example, start slow and eat some every day. Eat a salad every day, and put three beans on the first one, four on the second, until you work up to a spoonful or two every day at the same time. Your body will adapt. You're not that different.

S+S+S+Sv
Here's how to switch over to a WFPB or Daily-Dozen-type diet: start with breakfast. Once you've worked out what to eat for breakfast that's in tune with the DD, eat that way for a few weeks and then start working on lunch. After you've got that worked out, start on supper or dinner or whatever you want to call your last meal. Only then can you really clean everything up into 100% compliance and start your six-week experiment. It might just take a while, is all. If it does, can't be helped.

Personally, what's been crucial for me has been to have a "go-to" that's easy and convenient. What saved me are the "Four S's": smoothies, salads, soups, and steamed vegetables. Each of these sound like they're the same thing, but of course each of them is infinitely variable, so I don't get sick of them.

I've only recently developed  a robust dinner meal. It's super easy and convenient. What I do is start with the healthiest canned supermarket soup I can find (the thing to watch most closely is the sodium—canned soups are mostly loaded with it. Here's one that isn't, and there are more). I keep a container of cooked brown rice in the fridge, and I always have a can of pre-cooked beans and a can of organic petite diced tomatoes going in the fridge as well. Starting with the can of soup as flavoring—which can be one of any of a number of kinds—I add a ladle or two of brown rice and a couple of spoonfuls of beans, microwave it until it's hot, then add a finely diced clove of garlic and a couple of spoonfuls of diced tomatoes. This takes only a few minutes to fix, it's different every day, and it requires very little work. And it's as tasty as the soup it starts out as.

Of course I don't eat this every day—some days I'm feeling more adventurous, or have the energy to cook something more involved, or I've made homemade soup for the week—but you need a fallback for when you have nothing and don't feel like cooking.

Because my window for eating is only seven hours, I'm usually not hungry for the last meal anyway. I eat all I can, but often I don't want all that much.

What if you can't?
Probably the biggest impediments for most people in settling on a window of time for time-restricted eating are social customs and work schedules. I get that. I'm single and my own boss, so if I want to wrap up my last meal at 3 p.m. it's not a big deal. And I don't have to cook for picky kids or a meat-eating mate. Do the best you can.

Just remember that eating is a challenge for your system, and your body needs time to process the food you've eaten—so give it as long a continuous rest every day as you can. It needs it. It will repay you with better health, more energy, fewer aches and pains, better sleep, and a greater sense of well-being. It's been more than worth it for me. And it's not even hard!

I really do urge you to watch that short video. A good first step. Another excellent introduction is the movie Forks Over Knives.

The bottom line is: whatever else you eat, your body needs plants. Plants are the only source of fiber, the original source of protein (what, do you think cows eat meat?), and the ammunition for autophagy. There are thousands of phytochemicals in plants that your body simply needs in order to keep you healthy and humming along, in myriad ways. Food is medicine. Give your body what it really needs, and you'll feel it—you won't need me or anybody else to convince you of anything.

Go for it!

Mike

Book o' This Week:

Pulitzer-prizewinner Isabel Wilkerson's greatly lauded book Caste: The origins of our discontents, a rare non-photography-related recommendation, might be the book of the historical moment in the United States. The above link takes you from TOP to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Rodger Kingston: "Great post! I've been doing something similar for four and a half years, since a stroke in July 2016, and so far I've lost (and kept off) about the same 55 pounds as you.

"My belt photo, similar to yours, measures 10 inches between the longest and shortest holes. I've looked at the video and other materials you suggest, and it may well be a better way to go. Thanks!"

James Kelley:

Mike says: The following might be the longest comment I've ever "featured," but all the people who are bored by this subject have long since stopped reading anyway, so for those of us who are left, here goes...

adamct: I know there are people who dislike these posts, but I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your posts played a significant role in convincing me to adopt a WFPB diet, and the results have absolutely shocked me. I went from being over 250 lbs. to around 175–180 lbs. But it's more than just weight loss. I have a family history of heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's, and a WFPB diet significantly reduces my risks of developing those as well.

"There are a few points I want to add to what you said:

"1. Dieting doesn't work. I'm fully convinced of that. The only thing that works is a long-term lifestyle change. I knew that headed into this, and it is what I wanted. A diet focused on counting calories or restricting portions of whatever is doomed to fail because it is inherently short-term, too complicated, and based on depriving yourself. I eat as much as I want, whenever I want. It's just that I make sure that I am eating healthful food. I don't pay any attention to calories or portion size whatsoever. That is sustainable.

"2. I've been amazed at how easy the switch was. The hardest part about making the switch to a WFPB diet is making the decision to do it. Once you do, you will wonder why you didn't do it earlier. There is a lot of angst and pop culture telling you that the switch is hard—it isn't. Along those lines, I would caution that not everyone will find adjusting to a high-fiber diet hard. I don't mean to imply that nobody will, but don't let yourself be put off my Mike's comments about the adjustment. I make a pretty radical switch and didn't have any digestion issues at all.

"3. You don't need to time-restrict your meal times. If that helps you, go for it. But studies seem to show that the primary benefit of time-restricted feeding is just that people eat less, not that there is any real magic to time-restricted feeding per se. Eating 2,000 calories within eight hours isn't any different from eating 2,000 calories within 16 hours. But eating 2,000 calories in eight hours is very different from eating 3,000 calories in 16 hours.

"4. When I eat, I eat enormous amounts. I make salads that would normally feed a family of six. [Me too —Mike the Ed.] But...it's all salad. The total calories just can't be that high and I never think about them. Instead, I think about all the nutrients I'm getting and how good my food tastes. But when I'm not eating...I'm not hungry. In fact, I am rarely hungry these days, whereas when I was eating the Standard American Diet (SAD), I was hungry all the time. It is amazing that you can eat this way, lose all this weight, improve your health, and not be hungry.

"5. I would encourage you to avoid all meat, dairy and eggs, other than trace amounts that are in pre-made, primarily plant-based foods or that are 'hidden' in vegetarian or vegan meals eaten in restaurants. I could go on at length as to why, but I'll just say two things here: 1.) the science shows that even small amounts of animal protein significantly increase your risk of various diseases, and 2.) it is easier to avoid all meat, dairy and eggs, than it is to limit yourself to 'some' meat, dairy or eggs. Part of what is hard about dieting is forcing yourself to make decisions: is it OK if I eat a cookie, if I only eat half, or limit myself to one? Is it OK if I have a ham sandwich, if I omit the mayo and have it on whole wheat bread? Is it OK to have an egg with my oatmeal? Part of the benefit of adopting a strict WFPB diet is that it is so much easier from a psychological perspective to not have to make those decisions. You are establishing bright lines that relieve you of having to make constant decisions, testing your willpower, and deprive yourself of what you 'want.' Going all-in may seem harder, but it is actually easier.

"6. The 'whole foods' part is really, really important. You could subsist on potato chips, french fries, donuts, white bread, etc. and be a vegetarian, even vegan. But it wouldn't be healthy. Consuming whole foods is what makes this approach to diet work. For this reason, I don't eat any of the vegan 'substitutes' out there. [Me neither —Mike the Ed. again.] I don't eat meat-substitutes, vegan cheese, vegan sausages, etc. All of those products are highly, highly processed. Why trade one set of highly processed foods for another set of highly processed foods?

"7. I went pseudo-vegan a while ago and lost some weight, but it wasn't dramatic. When I cut out bread, pasta, potatoes and rice, I dropped weight so quickly it shocked me. I encourage you to do the same. I'm not anti-carb (I'm decidedly pro-carb!), but I make sure that I'm eating complex carbs from whole-food sources. I'll eat beans, lentils, nuts, whole grains, you name it and I'll load up on it. But avoid the bread, pasta, potatoes and rice, even though they are vegetarian/vegan.

"8. Calories are not calories. You can eat 2,000 calories on the SAD diet and 2,000 calories on a WFPB diet and still wind up losing weight on the WFPB diet. In fact, you can eat more than 2,000 calories on a WFPB diet and still lose weight! Why? Lots of reasons, but here are a few:

—Your body absorbs more of the calories in a SAD diet than a WFPB diet. You literally excrete more calories, undigested, on a WFPB diet. Just because you eat foods that theoretically have more calories, doesn't mean your body actually absorbs them and processes them.

—It takes energy to access energy / store energy. Your body can absorb and store the calories from a SAD meal pretty efficiently. It takes a lot more energy to break down, access and story the calories in a WFPB diet. So even if you consume the same amount of calories, the net amount of calories stored by your body on a WFPB diet will be lower.

—Adopting a WFPB diet is associated with a faster metabolism and higher body temperature, meaning you burn more calories just by, you know, existing.

"I could go on, but I know this can get tedious. Anyway, thanks for getting the word out and helping me, Mike, I am in your debt.

"P.S. Oh, and one more tip: be careful about buying new clothes as you lose weight. I started as a size XL (sometimes XXL). When I became a size L, I had to toss my entire wardrobe and bought a new wardrobe in size L...

"...But I kept losing weight. I blew past size L and am now generally a size M (sometimes even a size S) and had to replace my entire wardrobe yet again within a few months. If I had waited a few more months, I could have saved a fair amount of money.

"On the other hand, buying a new wardrobe as you lose weight is incredibly rewarding and satisfying!"

John Camp: "In addition to Caste, I would suggest White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, by Nancy Isenberg. (Also available on Amazon—the books are actually paired there.) I think White Trash is the better book (I've read them both). Caste was an interesting book but seemed to me to be almost a semantic argument. Wilkerson insists on the importance of caste, but in practical terms, she seems almost to use it as a synonym for race. I think her book would have been more pointed if it had just been Race: The Origins of Our Discontents and didn't have this artificial construct imposed on it. I think the distinction lies in the fact that Isenberg is a professional historian and Wilkerson is a professional journalist, which affects their approaches to the subject matter, Isenberg being more rigorous, Wilkerson a better writer and more emotionally effective. Both books are well worth reading."

Barry Reid: "I'd like to concur with adamct. I appreciate the diet/liefestyle posts and they have provided encouragement as I have lost 44 lbs. over the last two years."

Mike replies: That is excellent. Strong work! And another way to think of that weight loss: that's two years you weren't gaining weight. Strange to say, but most overweight and obese people are not just overweight and obese—they're also actively gaining weight. That's one thing that finally got my attention—I tipped the scale at 273 and thought, "where does this stop?" I clearly saw myself reaching 300 lbs., then 315, then 325, and so on. Right now I haven't lost any weight for seven months, but I haven't gained any, either.

David Maxwell: "Well, here is another 'thanks for these posts' comment. I know you catch a lot of flack for not 'staying in your lane' (interesting, given that this is your blog), but for me they are the most valuable posts that you make. I have read a number of WFPB books that you have recommended and am fully convinced. I have been meat free for over two years, but struggle with the rest of it. Dairy is a major weakness. But I have recommitted myself and am now three weeks into a true WFPB diet. I enjoy it! Most of my meals are prepared on the slow cooker as that fits my lifestyle the best. I am fortunate to have a very supportive wife who eats what I prepare and also works to accommodate me when she cooks.

"Unfortunately my activity level is not what I would like it to be given that I am not currently working and watch my nearly three-year-old son full time. I bought an exercise bike a few weeks ago but haven't developed a habit yet.

"I have been weighing myself daily and it isn't always encouraging. I am slowly trending down, but there is a lot of variation on a day to day basis. Like weighing two pounds more this morning than yesterday despite eating a normal amount with no junk. Is this normal? I am very consistent—weigh in the same clothes and before going to the bathroom first thing every morning.

"I am optimistic that this type of lifestyle will be the solution to my weight and energy struggles. Thanks again Mike!"

adamct replies to David: "David—YES. That is completely and utterly normal. I have no idea how it's possible, either. I'm sure it has something to do with water retention and bowl movements and the timing of your last meal and black magic, but whatever it is, it is totally normal. And annoying as €£¥%. Stick to it. Weigh yourself daily but compare where you are after a month to where you were when you started. Hang in there, man. It's worth it."

Mike replies to David: I agree it can be frustrating. I stop losing weight—they call it "plateau-ing"—for weeks or even months at a time. That's what the record shows.

Are you eating any sugar? Overt or covert? Any alcohol? Be aware that many supermarket foods have added sugar these days (it's the perfect industrial additive, except for the wee detail that it's disastrous for public health). The body is a scavenger, and will use the easiest source for energy and pack away the rest as fat. I weigh myself morning and night and it becomes obvious which foods are conducive to weight loss and which aren't. For instance, nuts, which are loaded with fat, barely move the needle. But white bread, which is vegan and traditional and seems harmless, will make my weight shoot up very noticeably and stay up for days. It's very interesting that eating the same amount of white bread and real whole-wheat bread (both from the same Mennonite bakery) have very different results on the scale for me. White rice vs. brown rice, ditto. Even small amounts of candy set me back after a couple of days.

Oil is the other thing to watch out for. Many WFPB doctors recommend no oil at all. Chinese takeout—very bad. It's totally vegan, but it's loaded with oil. It's easy to sauté without oil at home, but there's a trick to it and it has to be learned.

Keep in mind the ideal rate of weight loss is a pound a week or less. That's barely detectable beneath the everyday fluctuations. But it's 52 pounds in a year! So don't be discouraged.

The way I think of the scale is, it's just data. I don't look to it for encouragement. I just gather the data. It's very tempting to skip the weigh-in when you know you've pigged out on something unhealthy and you suspect the number on the scale is going to punish you. But that's how people give up and start to regain. So just gather the data and don't worry about the day-to-day. If you have a bad day food-wise, have a better day the following day.

And don't forget, unlike many bad-for-you weight-loss diets, this way of eating is great for your body and your health. It will pay dividends over the long run in better blood work numbers, lower blood pressure, lower disease risk, better overall health, and a feeling of well-being, whether you lose weight or not.

Open Mike: Can You Give Me a Jump? (OT)

So here's one weird thing that happens when I play pool. (This post is not about pool!) I often lean over, and up against, the edge of the table. Since I have my car's key fob in my pocket, occasionally I inadvertently press one of the buttons on the key fob by accident. I know this because sometimes I set off the "panic" alarm!

For the past two days we've had the most beautiful weather. The clouds moved in dramatically just a few minutes ago (a vast dark cloud bank you could see coming), but for a day and half now it's been warm (up to 40°F) and brilliantly sunny, with a thick blanket of newly fallen snow. But for four days prior to that, it snowed...and snowed, and snowed. The whole Northeast was under a sprawling snowstorm. It didn't seem to want to stop. We were only on the fringes of it—we got about ten inches here. The car was snowed in for two and half or three days. Yesterday morning my friend Eric came and plowed me out.

But evidently at some point, probably while making a sensational shot no one got to see (more's the pity), I, um, inadvertently opened the car's trunk. So when I finally got in the car to go to town...nuthin'. Flashing, blinking lights and pathetic little growls from the engine compartment. A neighbor, Jim, was plowing out the church parking area (I think it would have to be paved to be called a "parking lot"), and he came over to give me a jump, but I don't have any jumper cables, and the cheap little freebie jumper cables he had melted before we could get my car started. Seriously! Nice of him to try, though.

The last time this happened, I swore I'd buy jumper cables before the next time. Oops.

Anyway, $62.64 later, a local auto service center sent down a guy, also named Mike, with a jump starter, and I was back in business. (Mike was a dog lover too, so we talked about our pooches.)

Of course it occurred to me that this is about the fifth time I've been caught with a dead battery in my own garage, for one reason or another, and each time it costs me a nice dinner in a restaurant to get the car started. So how much does the lithium-battery jump starter Mike used cost? It was a Clore Jump-N-Carry 660. I saw prices online everywhere from $115 to $233, average about $150 or so. I've already paid out more than that for jump-starts over the past five years. I figured maybe I should just get my own jump-starter and cut my losses.

But when I looked into it, I found...

...This. It's an Autowit Supercap 2 batteryless jump-starter.

Batteryless!?

This is the kind of thing that's going to seem like old hat if you already know about it, yet might be hard to wrap your head around at first if you don't. Because it doesn't have a battery in it. You don't have to keep it charged. You just attach it to your weak battery, wait five or eight minutes or whatever it takes, press one button, and jump in your car and Bob's yer uncle.

It's a capacitor bank. When your car battery won't start the car, it's not out of juice altogether...it just doesn't have the oomph necessary to turn the engine over. So what the Autowit does is "gather" enough power from the depleted battery over a few minutes of time, until there's enough built up to start the car. Then it dumps it all at once (well, for ten seconds) to get the car started. Once the car is running, of course, its alternator recharges the battery.

Neat, huh?

It's (relatively) small and light, It'll work anywhere from Hudson Bay to Death Valley, you don't have to remember to keep it charged (this is a key point for absentminded me), and it's safe both to use and to store in the car. There's a "Lite" version for gasoline engines up to 5 liters and diesel engines up to 3.5 liters that comes with no case, which costs less than twice what I paid the man from the service center yesterday. The regular version is good for gas engines to 7 liters and diesel engines to 4 liters, comes with a case, and costs only $30 more. It will start anything but the largest pickup trucks.

There are a couple of caveats—if your battery is really drained, you might have to charge up the Autowit on something else, and if your battery is absolutely stone dead the unit might not recognize that it's connected to a battery, which is, in effect, its "on" switch. But those situations are unusual. In normal situations, by all reports, they work fine.

The Lite version is plenty for my 2.4-liter 4-cylinder car, so I just have to decide whether I want to pay $30 for a case—or whether I want to have the bigger one just so I can help other people out. I think the latter rationale will push me into buying the regular version. In olden times, I had to ask other people for jumps from time to time. It would be nice to be able to say "yes" the next time someone asks me.

Mike

I'm not even going to mention that "Open Mike" is supposed to appear on Wednesdays.

Book o' This Week:

André Kertész, On Reading, the lovingly crafted reprint of the lyrical 1971 classic by an early master of the small camera. (Would make an excellent Valentine, for a person who reads.) The above link takes you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Small Update (OT)

If you've been following along...

...I love the new-old pool table and the pool shed. The whole project worked out much better than I expected. The space is very comfortable, peaceful and quiet, and fully large enough for the nine-foot table. The table is better than I expected, too—it still has its original Monarch cushions from the mid-'60s (they made them right back then), the slates are superb, and it's eminently playable. The best table I've ever played on, actually. (I had never played on a Gold Crown before I tried this one out at the seller's house. I like it even better than the Diamond I had.) There are no problems anywhere on the table, no spots where it rolls off or dead places on the rails or anything like that.

I've played way too much these past ten days, but we've gotten into a great rhythm—as I shoot, Butters trots around keeping his ball from me, putting it down and then snatching it up if I go for it. Every now and then he'll present it to me, and I put the cue down and fling the ball out the door. He gives urgent chase and comes trotting happily back inside, and we start the whole process over again. He loves it. Inside the house, he's always sitting there looking at me expectantly, wanting to go out.

I'm slowly getting back into stroke. I do drills in the morning and just shoot balls in the afternoon and evening. Usually I'll stay out ten to twenty minutes every couple of hours, then come back inside to work. In the evening I'll spend an hour or two out there. The table is demanding but I like that, because it's a challenge and it gives me a better opportunity to work. Eventually I'll post a video. Can't wait till COVID's over and I can have friends over to play.

It's still pretty lonely. But that's these times. We all just have to get through it. And I have nothing to complain about.

But all is well. It took a lot of work but the result was worth it. I'm glad I did it. Everything worked out great.

Now then, that's enough of that.

Mike

Book o' This Week:

Peter Lindbergh On Fashion Photography, with text in English, French, and German. Original coffee table version or small 40th Anniversary version, take your pick. Both are hardcovers. The links above will whisk you away to Amazon.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Featured Comments from:

Peter: "I’m delighted for you Mike. Made my day to read this. I can imagine the joy it will bring when you can entertain. Soon."

Alan: "Have you played darts? I think a dart board might go very well with that pool table. Love the whole setup. I wish I had one just like it."

Mike replies: I did play darts for a spell in college. I lived on the top floor of an old dorm. Across the hall from me was one of the largest dorm rooms on campus, with a large living room and a bunk room for four guys. (401 Middle Fayerweather if there are any Dartmouth alums hanging about.) We had a dartboard in the living room there. But it's never been my thing, really, and I'm inclined to keep the pool shed single-purpose as far as activities are concerned. I've scrapped my plan to keep my books there, as I now realize bookcases would crowd the table. I'm still planning photos for the walls, but that's a project that will begin in Summer at the earliest.

Nikhil Ramkarran: "I’m so happy you’ve finally got your game on. Been reading your (OT) pool posts for so many years. Enjoy, Mike." 

Bandbox: "Pool tables, politics, and inequality. Not my cup of tea, I'm afraid, and that's probably why I don't read TOP as often as I used to. But the drone piece was good, so I keep coming back from time to time."

Michael Ryan: "I have zero interest in pool and less interest in building cabins. But for some reason have been eagerly following every update on this wonderful addition you have added to your life. Very much looking forward to your video. Have you thought about doing a Zoom call live pool game with some of your followers? It might also help with the loneliness."

Five in the Side (Was: Today's the Day) (OT)

The pool table installers come this morning! The culmination of maybe seven months of work and, um, worry. A long-awaited day. They're due within the hour. I'm excited.

Updates and a picture later.

Mike

UPDATE 5:00 p.m.:

After more than five months, many tradesmen, and a medium-sized bucket of money, the first ball down was a five in the side. We are cookin' with gas!

Ed and Spencer Watlack of Watlack's Billiard Service in Rochester New York, second- and third-generation pool table mechanics respectively, arrived at about 10:15 this morning. It took them about two and a half hours to get me up and running.

The most expensive thing I ever bought in my life was my son's college education. That was well worth it. My son graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh in four years with an excellent GPA and $0.00 in student loans, and I'm very proud of that.

But even though it's not the most expensive thing, what you're looking at in this picture is the greatest extravagance of my life. Wholly, completely unnecessary! And I'm pleased as punch. Now I can get to grips with learning the game.

The table is a Brunswick Gold Crown I. It's nearly as old as I am. It was built in Chicago (I believe), probably in the mid- to late 1960s. At some point in the past, the legs and skirts were stripped of their original paint and stained, and the sub-skirts were removed.

Did you spot the Attention Hound in the upper photo?

—Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Book of interest this week:

Picture This: How Pictures Work, By Molly Bang
(clicking on the link above takes you to Amazon from TOP)

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Featured Comments from:

Robert: "Congratulations, enjoy! I played with the idea couple of years ago, but there is no room big enough in my house and I cannot buy additional real estate—everything is already occupated. Even if it was free to have, over here you pay nearly USD 2,000 per square meter...my Hassy will have to do as a sin which makes one happy."

Mike replies: I understand. I considered every possibility in my existing house and barn, and there was simply not enough room anywhere, no matter what I repurposed. But I do have lots of free land, and I even had the leveled gravel pad next to the garage—the previous owner had used it as a parking space for his utility tractor. I had considered building a stick-built freestanding building on a concrete slab, but the cost was too high. It wasn't until I visited my friend Mike's pool-table-in-a-shed, and at the same time my financial advisor told me that I needed to borrow some money to improve my credit rating (I've had no debt other than my mortgage for a number of years) that the idea gelled.

But if you don't have room, you just don't have room.

Pool Table for Sale (OT)

Ohio USA: I have a pool table for sale in Ohio. It's a Golden West "Vintage" model in 8 foot pro size, in very clean condition. The distinctive feature of the table is its stunning woodwork, in oak with medium stain.

This model, the Vintage, is currently available new from Golden West for $6,250. I'm asking $1,925, which is less than I have into it. (This is just the TOP price. I will put it on eBay and Facebook Marketplace tomorrow for more. Figured I'd offer it here first, just on the off chance someone here might want it. These are gorgeous.)

Golden West is the most resolutely American of the made-in-America manufacturers, not accepting any components or materials from outside the U.S. (They feel it would be a slippery slope.)

I'm forced to turn around and re-sell this because I can't figure out a way to get it here from Ohio in the time of COVID! The arrangements I made fell through. I've thought of all kinds of schemes but nothing is affordable. Meanwhile, I found another table (completely different kind) only 2 1/2 miles down the road from me. That one will be easier to fetch!

This one will be easy for its purchaser, too. It's currently in temperature-controlled storage with a professional pool table mechanic in Columbus. All you would have to do is arrange with him to deliver and set up the table for you at your convenience. His territory is all of Ohio but he can deliver it anywhere. He can also give you detailed information about condition, because he took it apart.

These are the PREVIOUS SELLER's pictures, not mine! But they are of the actual pool table for sale.

I believe the rails are hickory, because hickory is harder than oak, which is a beautiful touch. This model was popular in the '80s with Lakers basketball stars and film people in L.A.

If you are interested, please contact me at mcjohnston.com for information. If you think you know someone else in Ohio who might be interested, please pass the news along! Thanks.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

BOOK of the WEEK
as discussed in this post from last week:

How Not to Diet by Michael Greger
(Links go to Amazon)

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Featured Comments from:

Malcolm Leader: "A friend of mine has that table. It is awesome and at that price plus ~$1,000 delivery is a steal. You can set up yourself—it is not hard. Many videos. I use (thin) cardboard for the foot shim material. Borrow a machinist level but frankly, a cheap hardware-store level (get 4') is more than adequate. You'll fine tune by bouncing balls down table and observing the straightness of their path. Time consuming, maybe. Worth it? Yes!"

Eating for Health: 1-Year Progress Report

[Bloviation alert: This is a long one; 4,000 words and then some. You have been advised. —Mike the Author/Ed.]

-

'Kay, today's the day. It's been exactly one year since I began my diet experiment, so here's yer helpful friendly one-year progress report. I'm not a doctor or a nutritionist; this is just an account of my own experience, my own journey.

To briefly review, last December 19th, one year ago today, I started time-restricted eating (TRE) and a whole-food plant-based (WFPB) diet. TRE means you only eat during a defined "window" of time every day. WFPB means you aim to get at least 80% of your calories from unprocessed or minimally processed plants. Actually I slowly transitioned to a Dr. Greger / nutritionfacts.org diet, which might more accurately be called a "FAM" diet, meaning "food as medicine."

How to Buy a Pool Table: A Beginner's Guide (OT)

For those of you who are interested, here's my guide to how to go about buying a pool table. As ever, I'm mainly a reporter here: I listen to and read experts but I'm not an expert myself. Note that this Guide is for the U.S. If you live outside the U.S. I can't be of much help.

Sunday Support Group: TOP Stew For You

For the singletons amongst ye, the bachelors and bachelorettes, herewith a morselette for your delectation I will but seldom assay...a recipe, fer cripe's sake, that even non-cooks can cook. Generally I am aware that I should be giving no one cooking advice. This exception proves the rule as the saying has it.

After six months or so of scrupulous veganism, I started eating a little meat again in about mid-May; at first, about once a month. By late September or so I ramped that up to one serving a week.

That's plenty. Meat is not good for you. Well, it can be, but only if you're critically short of stored fat and/or starved for protein...which probably describes 99% of the individuals in the hunter-gatherer prehistory of humanity but might not describe as many as 1% of us modern-day Amurricuns.

Get back to the off-topic topic, Mike—step down from that soapbox before the mob drags you away and beats you to death with keto-friendly Slim-Jim Giant Smoked Meat Sticks™.

Here's what to do for TOP Stew: take half a red, orange, or yellow bell pepper and half a purple onion and chop them coarsely. Slice five or six white mushrooms. Then cut a four- or five-ounce tenderloin filet into stew-sized chunks. Throw it all in hot non-stick frying pan over medium-high or high heat with no oil and stir-fry for seven minutes. Season with plain old salt and pepper to taste, and Bob's yer uncle.

It will cook neatly in the moisture from the veggies and 'shrooms—you don't need to add oil or anything else. In fact, when the pan starts getting dry, that's when you know it's done.

If you like your meat a little less well done, wait till minute six or five on the countdown timer to throw it in.

This is about the simplest thing I've ever cooked—so simple, in fact, that I can do it. Fast and easy. I have it about once every two weeks. And it's delicious. (That's one thing meat is good for—yes it's bad for health, but it's savory.)

Even cleanup is simple. 

A once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence
I think this might literally be only the second recipe I've ever published on TOP*. The other one, for a 15-bean soup, was posted more than a decade ago!

So this might have to hold you till sometime after 2030. I do hope you have other sources for recipes.  :-)

À votre santé!

Mike

*UPDATE the next day: Not quite. There have been a few others. Suffice to say this channel is not the Galloping Gourmet!  :-)

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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Featured Comments from:

Luke: "Oh, whew. I was getting pretty tired of bean soup."

Moose: "Try this: 1 Tbsp cornstarch; 2 Tbsp Soy sauce (well, really, wheat-free Tamari); 1 Tbsp Asian fish sauce (Red Boat is great!); 1/2 Tsp Sriracha or so, or anything you like to add just a little flavor. It's not about hot. A little Worcester sauce doesn't hurt, either. 1/3 cup water. Mix into a slurry. When the food is almost done, pour into the pan and toss. The heat will thicken the cornstarch, making a wonderful sauce coating the other ingredients. (Eschew white 'shrooms. Go Crimini!) Consider making a double-size batch. After at least a night in the fridge, it will taste even better reheated."

Open Mike: Look What Happened to Them!

["Open Mike" is the anything-goes, often off-topic Editorial page of TOP. It comes around on Wednesdays except on selected occasions.]

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It's Friday the 13th, traditionally an unlucky day. Rational, logical people celebrate this occasion by ignoring it and going about their business—particularly because we know that irrationality, belief in superstitions, enthusiasm for conspiracy theories, fascination with the supernatural, fear of ghosts goblins witches and monsters under the bed, and a whole raft of related primitive ideas all tend to arise together in human thinking—that is, the more a person gives in to one primitive quasi-magical phantasmagorical belief, the more likely he or she is to believe in all the others. It does the enlightened mind no good to overindulge savage instincts.

I'm particularly contemptuous of conspiracy theories, which are typically just a means of making weak-minded people fear things for which there is no evidence. It's just not the way the world works—evil happens out in the open, if you know what to look for and how to recognize it when you see it. Just because a lot of the way the world works is hidden from some peoples' perceptions doesn't mean it's actually hiding. Intellectually, the conspiracy theory is about on the level of the idea that "celebrities" are one's friend-group. What's much more normal is that when conspirators try hard to keep cabals and collusions secret, they can't, because people can't get along. The bigger the supposed conspiracy, the more unlikely it is. Some canary or another will sing; count on it.

The trick is to know which song is the canary's.

The origin of the Friday the 13th superstition is believed to be related to the fact that Jesus was crucified on a Friday—although that Friday's called Good—and there were 13 people at the Last Supper, namely Jesus and his twelve disciples...ignoring the fact that there would logically have been 13 people at every other meeting of Christ and the disciples too.

It could also relate to a "day after" phenomenon. Pool players know that "the shot after" is statistically more likely to be missed—after you attempt and make a particularly difficult shot, you're more likely to let up on the next one and miss it. You're simultaneously relieved and proud, and yet under an odd sort of pressure because after having made a hero shot it would then be all the more embarrassing to miss an easier one. The number 12 is considered fortunate in many cultures for many reasons—twelve months, twelve signs of the Zodiac, twelve Greek gods, etc. In numerology, twelve is the number of balance and harmony. In Chinese superstition it's associated with yin-yang duality, on account of it contains one and two. And of course those twelve disciples again—maybe the consideration is that the 13th was Judas, the betrayer. So, is unlucky 13 the "one after" lucky 12, or a lucky twelve with an evil ringer thrown in...?

People can point to many unlucky things that have happened on Friday the 13ths. Of course, if you search hard enough, you can find unlucky things that have happened on any combination of day and date. For instance, Adolf Hitler got appointed Chancellor of Germany on a "Monday the 30th." That seems pretty unlucky.

Thirteen friends
But then there's this. According to History.com, four U.S. presidents—Teddy Roosevelt, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, and Benjamin Harrison—all at one time or another belonged to an organization called The Thirteen Club. Organized by Civil War veteran Capt. William Fowler, the owner of a popular gathering spot for political and social groups called Knickerbocker Cottage, the club consisted of thirteen prominent friends who would meet on the 13th of every month in Room 13 of the Knickerbocker Cottage. "Before sitting down for a 13-course dinner," History tells us, "members would pass beneath a ladder and a banner reading 'Morituri te Salutamus,' Latin for 'Those of us who are about to die salute you.'" This merry little group's purpose was to pooh-pooh the notion that the number 13 possessed any sinister sort of agency.

But just look at what happened to all the members of those variously constituted Thirteen Clubs! Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you the shocking fact (cue spooky music): they're all dead!

To a man. As Tweety Bird (and isn't he a canary?) would say, it's twue, it's twue. Gives you the goosebumps, don't it.

So beware black cats today, friend. I don't mean to frighten you, but if you don't you could wind up dead, a hundred years from now.

Mike

P.S. The writer, editor and chief bottle-washer of TOP takes Saturdays off these days, on account of his age and lack of zing. Check the past week for anything you might have missed, then come back on a Sunday the 15th, when he shall think up something else entertaining.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

If you like TOP, please consider becoming a patron!

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robert e: "Very amusing, Mike! And typically illuminating. I, for one, had to be led by the nose to see the obvious—-that conspiracy theories are superstitions, or at least fill the same needs and thrive in similar soil. Amusing, enlightening, and scarily apropos of the ongoing crisis in more than one democracy. Yet oddly calming, too, thanks I'm sure to the perspective of a dedicated humanist. Thank you for this. And have yourself a relaxing day off!"

Albert Smith (partial comment): "To quote Michael Scott from 'The Office,' 'I'm not superstitious, but I'm a little stitious.'"

Al DaValle: "I couldn't agree more Mike. The more ominous the conspiracy and the wider the suspected network of conspirators, the more certain is its falsehood."

Ramon Acosta: "The subject of superstitions is one I find interesting. I am living in my third country. I could barely manage the superstitions of two, but I absolutely can’t manage a third country. I currently live in Russia, and when I bring up this subject most russians are genuinely surprised. 'Vat zeperztitonz?' they say. Then I remind them of the few that I have had to learn because people get upset when you don’t. Superstitions are so entwined in their life, that they forget about them, they become rules, until someone breaks them. Then they remember. You should not greet someone at the door frame, in or out, preferably in of course. Don’t take out the trash at night. Don’t carry empty bags or containers. And some older people don’t like to receive money directly on their hands. When I first got here I thought it was so the security cameras could see the money in the supermarket. Like in the casinos. I learned the truth later."

Mike replies: I had a strange thing happen with my own mind. I read a book about Feng Shui, which is an ancient Chinese folk tradition of managing "chi," the life-force, in living spaces—I was interested in the ways some of the recommendations might be practical. And some of them are. For example, if you're single, get a double bed and put a night table on the far side—makes sense, because you're creating a space in your life for another person. Or, bedroom doors should not open in such a way that it allows the person entering to see the bed right away—again, sensible, because it increases privacy, potentially giving the people inside a short warning that someone is entering. But many of the recommendations are either inscrutable, or nonsense—mere superstitions like "don't carry empty bags or containers." But one of the recommendations is to never live in a house where the stairway points directly at the front door, because all your money will flow down the stairs out the front door and you'll become poor. Now, I can't say why, but for some unknown reason that one lodged in my brain and got stuck there. To this day—and I probably read that little book 30 years ago—I can't look at a houseplan (I like looking at houseplans) and see a staircase that begins directly opposite the front door without thinking "bad feng shui." It's almost as if my brain picked out a superstition to believe in all on its own.

(As an aside, a great book about arrangements of living spaces is A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et al, a perennial best-seller.)

Alexander Thorp: "I agree with you in your despisal of conspiracy theories, but I think that superstitions are maybe a little more interesting than that. I have heard the following theory: being good at pattern-matching probably conferred an evolutionary advantage (e.g. at this time of year this species of duck usually flies up the river at dawn), and it might be that being a little too good at pattern matching was in fact better than being not quite good enough, even if that also brings spurious results such as 'If I wear my lucky hat, then I get off a better shot.'"

Mike adds: There's a scene in the John Wayne / Jimmy Stewart movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (very nice B&W, by the way) in which one of the rooming-house guests, Mr. Peabody, is trying to show the serving girl how the silverware should be placed. "Hallie, Hallie, please—the proprieties concerning the cutlery. Now how many times have I told you, the fork goes to the left of the plate, and the knife goes..." 

"What's the matter with you," she interrupts, "You superstitious or something?"

He has no answer, just stares at her dumbfounded.

Joakim Ahnfelt: "There is another theory, one which I personally find a bit more plausible. But your mileage may vary.

"Friday the 13th, October 1307. Philip IV of France strikes against the Templars, and in a well-planned attack arrests about 15,000 knights, priests, servants etc. all over France in one day. Probably in an attempt to seize their fabled treasures as well as getting rid of a potential enemy.

"Close but no cigar, as Hollywood likes to remind us from time to time: the treasure was never found."

Open Mike: Readings, Movies, and Music

[My apologies! I finished this this morning and thought I published it around 11:00 a.m. But apparently I just forgot to click the "Publish Now" button. That's only happened rarely in years of blogging. Anyway..."Open Mike" is the off-again on-again Editorial Page of TOP. Today's is a grab-bag. When Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is caught up with himself, it appears on Wednesdays. Even if only barely.]

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Strange & curious: Been feeling like a hermit lately? You've got nothing on Christopher Knight:

For decades, the residents of Maine’s Kennebec Valley believed that the North Pond hermit was a myth. According to local lore, a hermit had been living undetected in the woods since the 1980s; every so often, he would break into seasonal cabins to steal food and other resources. But no one could prove the hermit’s existence—if he was out there, he had taken great pains to guarantee his isolation.

Then, in April 2013, a man was arrested in the deep woods of Maine. His name was Christopher Thomas Knight. According to societal records, he didn’t exist. For 27 years, he had camped out in the forest, surviving on meager supplies that he’d burglarized from houses in the area. He endured winter temperatures of 20 degrees below zero. Every morning, he watched the sun rise over the foggy valley that he called home. He hadn’t had a single conversation with another person for nearly three decades.

His greatest challenge was surviving the Winters. He would deliberately fatten himself up at the end of the Summer and into the Fall. A night camping in the throes of a Maine Winter is not for the faint of heart; a week of it qualifies an outdoorsman as a tough guy. In twenty-seven years at his encampment in the woods, Knight never slept in anything but a tent. The cold was so intense it drove him close to suicide. He would wake himself at 2:30 in the morning in the dead of Winter because he knew he stood a better chance if he faced the worst of the cold awake. "It's dangerous to sleep too long in Winter," he told the reporter who visited him in jail.

But apart from finding an intellectual who loved to read (and loved Lynyrd Skynyrd!), who knew who the Kardashians were, and was so averse to human connection that he seldom made eye contact, the reporter could get little out of him about the central mystery, "why":

Anyone who reveals what he’s learned, Chris told me, is not by his definition a true hermit. Chris had come around on the idea of himself as a hermit, and eventually embraced it. When I mentioned Thoreau, who spent two years at Walden, Chris dismissed him with a single word: "dilettante."

The first quote is by Emily Buder. The second is from a long article in GQ from 2014 by Michael Finkel called "The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit." Fascinating article; recommended if you think you're "isolating"!

Snob about fiber-base: When I was young I was a snob about fiber-base black-and-white papers. They were the traditional material, made the old way. RC paper was "plastic," and was tainted by its early reputation for self-destructing. Good for intermediate prints and prints for repro only. Don't extrapolate this any further than it goes, but I will say this: I have plenty of workprints made on Ilford RC papers from thirty and thirty-five years ago, and they look  as fresh and clean as the day I made them. I can't say if they'll last 70 years, or 200. But I like their chances.

Opinions about Bogart: I'm mildly a fan of movies made before I was born, especially the genre called "Noir," and if you like Noir you'll have opinions about Bogart. In his top three for me (the other two are The Caine Mutiny and of course Casablanca) is a little-remembered suspense thriller about a writer. To enjoy In a Lonely Place you can't focus on the murder mystery, which is nothing but a sub-plot—you have to get into its psychological portrayal of the doomed love affair. Movies that take this tack have to resonate with you in some way or they might not appeal much. But they can be deep and meaningful if they do touch you.

In a Lonely Place was directed by Nicholas Ray, who directed Rebel Without a Cause and influenced Godard and the French New Wave. It co-stars his now little-known wife, Gloria Grahame. Their marriage broke up during the filming but the two kept the breakup secret so as not to jeopardize the project. The script departed greatly from the book, and the director and actors departed greatly from the script—Ray cleared the set and crafted a new, more subtle ending with the two leads when the planned finale, which had already been shot, rang false. The movie creates characters who might now be understood as having what's called an avoidant/dismissive adult attachment style, but with sympathy for the tragedy inherent in being trapped in such a state. Glenn Erickson of DVD Savant put it beautifully:

Relationships are delicate animals—they can be killed by the wrong words, the wrong actions. Dix and Laurel are madly in love with one another, but that trust is destroyed when her terror and his rage go over the edge. It doesn't matter that he's innocent, or that they are both in intense remorse over what happened. It can't be taken back, and the romance is finished. Both will have to go back to their personal 'lonely places.'

Brilliant lines of criticism—so very much on the mark.

Of course another reason I love old Noir films is for the black-and-white. In a Lonely Place was shot by the cinematographer Burnett Guffey, who also did Bonnie and Clyde, a movie whose cinematography is naturalistic and plainspoken. Cinematographers have trouble being artists because they seldom get to pick their projects; the best they can hope for is to become the go-to of a great director. Guffey was a get-it-done pro whose life's list of accomplishments is a motley of good and bad, television and film, the trivial and the profound. But In a Lonely Place is as outstanding in 1950 B&W as Bonnie and Clyde is in 1967 color. A treat. I'd like to see more of his work.

Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place

Carrie Rickey of The Moviegoer considers the performances the best of of both Grahame's and Bogart's careers. The most disturbing thing I've read about the film? Louise "Brooksie" Brooks said that of all his roles, the role of Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place came closest to the real-life Humphrey Bogart she knew.

As with all old Noirs there are numerous versions floating about. The print on Amazon Prime Video is great, and it's available on DVD and Blu-Ray from the Criterion Collection.  

Young Girl Blues: Like guitar? My good old friend Kim's latest is a lilting and wistful mix of guitars across genres—indie, Brit-folk, blues, alt, folk-rock. It's been raining here for a week, and it's a great hour's listen on a rainy day. I loved the Band of Horses song, which I had never heard before. And yes, the "cover" art of Young Girl Blues is in beautiful black-and-white.

Something I happened to hear on XM Radio in the car: it's a version of Led Zeppelin's "Going to California" with the vocals removed. It's one of those songs I've always loved and never tire of, but I found it fascinating how much the vocal serves as another instrument and another line, and how different the music sounds as an acoustic instrumental. Just a curiosity. Lend an ear if you're so inclined.

Aromatically yours: One final reading. Another of my old friends you've met in these pages before, Jim Schley, just published a review of a new book of poetry, Elizabeth A.I. Powell's Atomizer (Amazon).

Vermont poet Elizabeth A.I. Powell's way with words is daring, sardonic and ingenious. She enjoys mixing registers and realms—pop and literary culture, consumerism and religion, self-help and sacrament.

That just makes it sound like something I would enjoy.

The structure (or "scent and architecture," as Powell puts it) of Atomizer is fascinating. Along with its zany variety of forms, the book has a powerful through line, investigating the ancient, arcane and insidious role of perfume, tangled in seduction and deceit. The three sections of the book are named for terms used to categorize layered qualities in synthesized scents. "Top Notes" are "that which evaporates most quickly"; "Heart Notes" are "the distinctive aspects, most...charming, most intelligent"; and "Base Notes," the poet avers, "stay the longest...heavy and deep."

I liked the little tastes and teasers so much I had to order the book. Jim's reviews do that to me every so often. Here's Jim Schley's review of Atomizer, at Seven Days.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Thanks to all our Patreon contributors!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

HR: "With regards to your comment about RC papers I am reminded of this.  :-)  'We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.' —Mark Twain"

Mike replies: Thanks! Yes, that. In this case I can only personally recommend Ilford RC papers. I used several others too, decades ago, but they're gone now.

David Evans: "I'm really loving Young Girl blues. I'm not familiar with Mixcloud—is it possible to see individual track information?"

Mike replies: Only if you sign up for a Premium account, which is $8 a month. But there's another way for most cuts. Download the Shazam app from the App Store. It allows your phone to listen to music, compare it to a database, and identify it. Kim will fool it sometimes because his mixes sometimes include extremely esoteric and rare music, but most of the cuts it will identify. I'll ask Kim if he can provide a set list for Young Girl Blues.

Kim was a legendary disk jockey at WHFS in Washington DC back in the station's heyday.

Bob Curtis: "Michael Finkel expanded the article into a book, The Stranger in the Woods [Amazon]."

scott kirkpatrick: "My favorite Bogart has always been Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which captures the bottled anger in 'Nobody puts one over on Fred C. Dobbs!' But I wasn't aware of In a Lonely Place, which leaves out the humorous touches and the sentimental ending, and thus is truly terrifying."

David Comdico: "In a Lonely Place is my favorite Bogart film. It peels beneath the surface of the Bogart character. On the other hand, Johnny Guitar [Amazon Prime Video] is my favorite film by Nicholas Ray. He was a real American original."

Keith B.: "Burnett Guffey's outstanding lighting in Bonnie and Clyde may feel naturalistic, but is actually fairly romantic in style. Naturalistic cinematography (no theatrical lighting, existing light taken as found) was then, and is still, considered too ugly to be employed for commercial narrative motion picture storytelling. There are exceptions, but not many."

Andrew Bearman: "Thank you for turning me on to Mixcloud and to your friend Kim's sets. I am now willingly lost in the woods of great music! And that Bogey still captures a look that only an experienced, weary cat like he could give. A look not too far from how many of us have felt at least a few times during this pandemic. Off to watch In a Lonely Place."

johnbabineau: "Hunch re KK’s Mixcloud: Handstanding athlete on diving board is the actress Doris Day. KK’s comedic gifts endure...."

Animesh Ray: "Your post made me remember a funny experience. I used to do extensive black-and-white printing for work when I was a grad student in the late 1970s–early 1980s. This was related mostly to printing of black-and-white photomicrographs and autoradiograms, for which we were supposed to print on multigrade silver gelatin papers. After that period I did not do any darkroom work, because most of those tasks was taken over by Polaroid for B&W or Kodachrome slides for color.

"Some 30 years later, in 2003, I wanted to do B&W printing as a hobby, so I went to the local city recreations department, which had a darkroom for the photo enthusiasts. The deal was that the use of the darkroom was free if you passed a test; otherwise you would need need to take a two-week course on printing. So I thought I would take that test. As it so happened, I had never heard of RC papers until that time, as I had only used fiber papers in the past—in fact we never called it that! We just called it a printing paper of a certain grade. All the test questions had to do with how to print and process RC papers, so to my utter disbelief I ended up failing the test. In science, we often feel like hermits stuck in lonely towers."

Heat? (OT)

It's been quite a day and a half! No sooner had I written about Lulu's health than she had an apparent crisis—she was staggering and falling and seemed unable to control her body. She could hardly locate her food to eat. And although she's normally a tough old broad who brushes off life's vagaries, she was looking at me with imploring eyes as if she didn't know what was happening to her and needed reassurance. I thought she had suffered a stroke or a seizure, and of course due of her age I was immediately concerned that her death might be rushing up to greet her. I've never been through end-of-life with a dog before, as primary owner and decision-maker. I've been trying to prepare (not least by trying to forgive myself in advance for making an imperfect decision, which I probably will do. I can do no better than the best I can).

It turns out not to have been so dire. It was something called "canine idiopathic vestibular syndrome," a transitory episode that often passes and often doesn't return. She "healed herself" overnight and after some time (and the usual wad of cash) at the vet's today she is back to her normal, aged, crotchety, slow-moving self, but a bit more attached than usual—she's resting at my feet under my desk right now (note her paw resting on my shoe).

Heat
I had to smack my forehead when I saw I got several informed comments about my plan to heat my pool shed, from people far more knowledgeable than I am. How could it not occur to me to ask TOP readers for advice about something I know so little about? The brain trust (TOP's audience) is collectively savvy about anything.

So, heating a one-room shack: If anyone has any more thoughts about the most efficient, effective, and elegant way to heat and cool an approximately 3,000 cubic feet (86 cubic meter), 320 square feet (30 square meter) insulated shed building, I'd love to hear. I did get some good suggestions already.

Start with a strong foundation
As far as the foundation goes, here's the story: as I understand it, the base of the shed is five 4x6-inch "skids," or girders, made of larch, which resists rotting. Notches are cut into the top of this and 2x6s are laid in perpendicularly as floor joists. Plywood is nailed on top of the joists and Bob's your uncle. People sometimes use such sheds as garages, so they handle the weight of cars.

The joists are usually 16 inches on center, but I'm having them laid 12" on center in the middle eight feet of the floor to better support the pool table. Plus, I'm having top quality 3/4ths-inch plywood substituted for the rougher sort of 5/8ths-inch the builder usually uses.

If you have expertise or knowledge to lend about the heating problem I'm all ears, and thanks.

Mike
(Thanks to Steve Rosenblum)

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

You can help via Patreon

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Chip McDaniel: "You will know when it is time for Lulu. She will tell you with her eyes. Your vet will confirm. Don't hang on too tight and make her linger past when it's time. It's the heartbreaking downside of pets, but they give us so much during their lives that we owe it to them to do right by them at the end."

Joe Holmes: "All I can tell you is that investing a considerable sum in a split ductless system was the best money we've spent on our house in years. Almost silent, almost maintenance free (clean the filters every few weeks). We've used it almost exclusively for cooling in the summer, but I wish we'd had it a couple years earlier when our heating system died on Christmas night."

Brian Small: "If you want a ultra-reliable, self contained, heating system then direct-vent kerosene units work very well."

Open Mike: 'Detour,' the Quintessential B-Movie Film Noir

This essay contains spoilers. I'll be assuming you know the noir classic B-movie Detour already—after all, you've had since 1945 to watch it. If you'd rather not know the plot, don't click through.

Green Beans and Griffin's Falls (Life in the Finger Lakes)(OT)

Yesterday was what Mother used to call a red-letter day. This Summer has been an old-fashioned Summer, with many cool days, and dry air, and towering bright piles of clouds in blue skies. Before I go on, I should tell you that green beans are one of my favorite foods. Which would be a minority choice, but I love 'em. And the waterfall in the gully in my backyard got christened yesterday, which seems like a special occasion.

I went up the hill at about 8:30 in the morning to see if the Sauders had any green beans. At the little farmstand by the road across from their all-but-falling-down barn where they keep their buggy, there were none set out, but Lydia, the matriarch of the family, went around the far corner of the house to look for Naomi, her daughter, who she thought might be out in the field even as we spoke. She came back with a smile and said, "She's heading in with the beans right now." A moment later, Naomi, wearing a black bonnet (showing she is unmarried) and a brick-red apron over her ankle-length dress, came around the corner of the farmhouse. It was a beautiful morning—as it has been all Summer, the air was very clear and carried a lovely fresh scent, and it was not yet hot, and the morning sun still seemed to tinge everything with a touch of gold. Naomi carried a wooden basket full of freshly-picked beans and I paid her three dollars for a quart container. Plus a dollar for a ripe peach, for dessert.

I decided to have them for breakfast. I usually fix half one day and half the next, but I was hungry so I cut all the beans I bought. I indulged myself—I'm not supposed to eat butter, but I love my green beans with butter so I break the rules a little. I still have more than a stick to go on my first pound of butter for this calendar year, so I don't eat much. I steamed the beans and ate them with the butter and not quite enough salt to taste. They were lovely, soft, and with a delicate flavor I just never taste in week-old green beans from the supermarket. It's possible I've eaten beans as good in years long gone now, but I am also willing to believe there is no such thing as beans that could ever taste better. A treat of the season.

Naming rights
Later, throwing the ball for Mr. Handsome—he must be the only dog who will sometimes walk out to get the ball when I throw it and then walk back—I heard some children shouting in the gully, which is dark and shrouded with leafy trees in the Summertime, so I walked over to see what was up. There were four little kids climbing around in the creekbed, two girls and two boys, none older than about ten, all cute as could be (I'm sorry I don't have a picture, but I wouldn't put up a picture without their parents' permission anyway). They were discussing frogs in bright voices. I hailed them from the bank, which took them by surprise—people of any age almost never look up on their own—and said hello. They said they couldn't believe that there was so little water this Summer, because sometimes there's more, and I told them that sometimes, in the early Spring, there's so much water that you can't see any of the rocks—the rocks that surrounded them, that they were standing on and walking over. They were politely amazed by this. Soon the older girl asked me, "Did you know it has a name? This waterfall?" I said I didn't, and she said, "It's Griffin's waterfall! That's what we call it!" I asked her how it had gotten that name, and she indicated the sturdy, shirtless, smiling boy in red shorts standing next to her. "This is my friend Griffin," she said, "and they came to visit." Griffin looked to be eight or nine. "It's Griffin's waterfall because he found it!"

Well, I thought on it some, and this seems perfectly reasonable to me. Discoverers get naming rights; if he found it, then Griffin's Falls it is. At least if I have anything to say about it.

Or in case anyone ever asks.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Thor D.: "Thank you for sharing this little slice. This was the most pleasant thing I have read in a while."

Rich Szmyd: "You made me really hungry for green beans! I'll have to look at the farmer's market this weekend to see if they have any that are as fresh as yours. Yum."

Dillan K: "I am bombarded by a steady stream of partisan politics, anger, fear and misery. I think it's terribly important for all of us to remember the really important things in life: the innocence of childhood, the taste of fresh green beans, playing ball with the dog, and the shy beauty of an Amish farmer's daughter. There is good in this world. Thank you for the reminder."

Open Mike: Two Heads (OT)

"And you know two heads are better than one."

—Annie Ross, "Twisted," 1952

I raised my son alone. The short (short-short) version of the story is that his mother was a girlfriend who got pregnant by accident and opted not to have an abortion. Unfortunately, she also decided not to tell me. She broke up with me out of the blue, successfully kept her pregnancy secret up to the last minute, and put her baby—which turned out to be my baby—up for adoption. By a far-fetched chain of frankly unlikely circumstances, I got wind of all this right before my son was born. First I had to figure out whether I had anything to do with it, then I had to decide what to do, then I had to do it—and then I had to bring a newborn home, to a brown paper sack of hastily-bought diapers and formula and other baby supplies sitting on the living room floor. All this across the span of just a few days. In the end, plans hurriedly put into place fell apart anyway, and the motley cast of characters—me, her, her mother, the adoptive couple, everyone's lawyers, everyone's friends, a judge at a dinner party, and a newborn baby boy—barreled headlong into full-fledged crisis mode culminating in a dramatic denouement worthy of a movie. Most people have nine months (more or less) to prepare for the arrival of a new baby. I had nine hours.

I mean, I never see things coming anyway. But that was ridiculous.

In those chaotic early days as "the Dad without a clue"—the neonate daycare provider's nickname for me—one of my standard jokes was, "There's a reason God gave parents two heads and four hands. It's because that's how many you need." Believe me when I tell you, my brother, my sister, because I know: one head and two hands often falls short of the minimum required.

I'm feeling that way again lately. I have difficulty making decisions. I'm comfortable keeping decisions open until the last second, and I dislike closure. When people ask me if I might be free at such-and-such a time at some date months into the future, I realize my brain works differently than theirs. I can hardly plan for next week, much less November. People able to plan years ahead sometimes seem like Martians to me.

I'm also an "idealist type," able, with breathless ease, to envision the way things "should be." The downside of this visionary ability is that I'm impractical. I walk around with ideas in my head that really should be "brought into relationship" by being shared with others, so those others can but a brake on the thought patterns that are far-out and essentially fantastic. Bringing others into the loop helps me sort plausible ideas from implausible ones.

Lately I'm having a tough time planning. I've made a series of steps to shed some of those illusions I was just talking about and to view my situation with cold-hearted realism. Trying hard to see things as they really are. 

But you know what the biggest problem is for me, really? Too few heads!

I know that a lot of you out there are married. And a lot of my friends who are "old marrieds" sometimes talk about their spouses with a casualness that seems, to me, to almost border on contempt sometimes. It startles me when I hear it, if "shocks" is too strong a word. I know being married can be routine, sometimes boring, that sometimes it's easy to take the other person for granted, all that.

But from where I sit, y'all ought to be grateful every day! At the very least, every thought in your head stays "in relationship," because you can put it out there to your spouse and he or she can weigh in. It's one thing we humans need—another perspective. It's a steadying hand on the tiller.

And it's just a heck of a lot easier to make decisions with two people than it is with one. I've worked and worked, but I can't figure out logically what I ought to do to further prepare for the years I still hope are waiting in my future. Stay where I am? A local move? An interstate move? Retrain for a new job? (I've been looking at the Nutrition Certification program at Cornell. Should I do that? Danged if I know.) Refinance?—this bugs me, but I cannot even figure out if I should refinance my mortgage. I cannot for the life of me sort out all the numbers. There are too many aspects to all these decisions vectoring in from every which way—including intangibles like sentimentality (I love my house), proximity to loved ones (I'm far away from my son), the possibility of future disabilities (and who ever knows about that?)—on and on goeth the list. Everything interlaces and interferes with everything else. I can't sort everything out.

Well, haven't yet, anyway. It's been distracting me. "Driving me crazy," as the expression goes.

If you have two heads to help guide you on the voyage through life, wake up every morning grateful, is all I can say. Never take that gift for granted. Singletons like me get storm-tossed.

The great husband-and-wife Broadway thespians Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, who always worked as a team and wouldn't take parts solo, used to work out their performances by sitting on the floor facing each other. They'd lock legs and read through a new script until they both understood their own and each other's part, and until they both agreed how every line, every movement, and every scene between them was going to go. Some things you just can't do alone.

It's not like being single is the worst thing in the world, and I'm not complaining. I was talking about it with a same-age friend a few weeks back. He's been through long stretches alone and long stretches married, and he thought for a few moments and said, each one has advantages and disadvantages. That's probably right. But if you happen to be partnered, count your blessings, that's all. From this side of the fence, your grass looks greener than it is over here.

I'll get over this confusion. And, yeah, I'll probably [heaves sigh] make another bad decision. As I say, I have trouble with decisions. I do wish someone else was in it with me.

When I heard the original version of that song, Annie Ross's, on XM Radio the other day in the car—the song was later made famous for my generation, of course, by Joni Mitchell—that line at the end suddenly had a whole new meaning!

Mike

"Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes Editorial Page of TOP. When everything is going according to the prearranged plan, it appears on Wednesdays.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Geoff Wittig: "Familiarity can of course lead to taking people for granted, but that is certainly not the case for me. My wife and I met in college and this will be our 40th year of marriage come December. We have never been apart for longer than a week...until this year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been in South Carolina since early May watching our two little grandchildren while my daughter and her husband work full time. Initially day care and schools closed due to the virus. They are now reopening, but the pandemic is still burning out of control through most of the South, so I have advised my daughter not to send her kids into harm's way, but to keep them safe at home. I visited South Carolina the first week in June; since then my wife and I have been physically apart for two months while I work as a family physician not too far from TOP World Headquarters. We talk every night on the phone or via face time, but the separation has been utterly traumatic. I feel like I'm missing half of my person."

Steven ralser: "We can relate to your nine hours. both our children are adopted. With our oldest we got a phone call at 9 a.m., and the adoption agency said they had a three-day-old boy available for adoption. They also said if you all get along (us and the baby's mother) the baby can go home with you that day. We were an hour and half from the hospital. Before we left we got another call asking if we had a name picked out. So there we were driving north thinking about names.

"Everything worked out and we left the hospital with our son. As we said we would adopt a child up to five years old, we had nothing prepared. Some people knew we were adopting, so first stop was some friends in Albuquerque who had been saving baby clothes for us. We made a call to a friend in Socorro (where we lived at the time)—he had an old crib for us; and we went shopping for baby supplies in the local supermarket (on the sly because no one else knew what we had planned, and in a small town everyone knows everyone). So there we were, new parents with less than nine hours notice."

Peter Wright: "It had not occurred to me before I read this, but I am essentially at the other extreme. I make my decisions, including the important ones like which country to live in, where to buy a house, who to marry, which job to take, etc. very fast; usually only a few days. Luckily, I have never regretted any of these decisions. (Looking back, when I have made mistakes it was because I was just drifting and not realizing that a decision actually needed to be made, and I was too dumb to know.)

"I remember some years back being astonished at a colleague who could not decide whether to take a position in the company we worked for that would involve moving to another country. He thought about it seemingly endlessly. 'Don't you just know?' I kept saying to him in exasperation—it didn't seem to help."

"Minor (very minor) case in point. Did you get your audio streaming sorted out? I was expecting to see a post on it by now. When you posted on this about four weeks back, I thought it seemed a good idea, but digging into it I discovered I didn't know a toslink from Twonky, or a dBPowerAmplifier from a Raspberry Pi with a hat. But...I have now had my system up and running for about two weeks and I'm giving Tidal a good workout. Very much enjoying it all! So thanks!"

Mike replies: Yes, people have expressed the same sort of exasperation with me sometimes. Even when the decision is simple I sometimes can't help second-guessing myself. I wonder if children can be helped to learn how to be decisive?

The Cambridge CXN v.2 from B&H is still sitting right here in a box in my office, unopened. I can't decide whether to open it or return it. So, good case in point!

UPDATE Friday: I sent the Cambridge CXN v.2 streamer back to B&H. Not only that, but I made a resolution to never spend another dime on stereo equipment in my life. I listen to music sitting at my computer; my computer system is already extremely good and wonderfully enjoyable; I really just don't need to dabble with anything else. Simplifying involves being happy with what you have—when you can! I am very happy I learned about Roon and Quobuz (similar to your Tidal), though. Both those usefully kicked my enjoyment up another notch.

Terry Burnes: "Well over half of us are going to be alone at the end. Singles certainly but also half of married people. You might be better prepared for that than most of us, especially than a married man who has come to rely heavily on a spouse no longer around. And while you might wish for a partner to help you though the future, the simple truth is that you could end up being the partner who has the burden of helping his spouse through a long difficult demise. Talk about challenging and unpleasant decisions. I try to spend more time appreciating what I have than wishing or scheming for something better."

John Camp: "One of the unusual things about being a novelist is the decision-making process. A reader usually reads a novel straight through and the book looks like one piece. But it's not. You maybe write a thousand words or even a few thousand, representing dozens of decisions about plot, character, tone, balance between dialogue and narrative, and so on. Then you revise, throwing out old decisions, making new ones. Then you write forward again, and revise again, often going back to the first chapters and reworking to account for decisions you made about plot turns and characters later in the novel. I've rewritten the first few paragraphs of a couple of novels as the last thing I did before submitting the manuscript to the publisher. That's after months of work and revisions. I don't consider that an inability to be decisive, I think of it as 'mulling it over.' And I think that applies to life as well as novels—you're sort of groping your way forward, because you really don't know what's coming down the road at you.

"I worked for almost 20 years for a very large newspaper corporation. A huge premium is placed on an editorial manager's ability to make good accurate decisions on an hourly and daily basis, and then doing it again the next day. That carried upward into the top levels of management. To get ahead, you had to be quick and decisive even if you were wrong—in that kind of atmosphere, nobody much remembered the mistakes made a few weeks earlier. Nobody was mulling things over, looking for complicated changes in culture. There just wasn't time...the managers believed. You gotta be tough and decisive, you gotta get on with it. The company never saw the Internet coming. Never saw the cultural changes going on around it. The company no longer exists."

Your Shot of the Day: Drag Shot (OT)

This is actually a miss, which is unusual for Your Shot of the Day, but it's an excellent visual tutorial on what a drag shot is. First, you'll watch Han Yu of China, who is comfortably leading Shane Van Boening of the USA at Gibraltar, miss a safety shot. But then watch the slow-mo replay very closely. You'll clearly see the cue (white) ball spinning backwards, then skidding, then picking up forward roll before striking the yellow 1-ball.

China's Han Yu

That's a drag shot, which is used for covering distance with the cue ball while at the same time striking the object ball at a low, slow speed. It's among my favorite pool shots.

To watch pool you generally need to know what the response of the cue ball is telling you about how it was struck. Precise striking of the cue ball is where an important part of the physical skill of cue sports resides, but it's mostly difficult to impossible to see with the naked eye where the cue tip hits the cue ball. So we look at setup and at results to see how the player put spin on the cue ball. After contact, the white ball usually tells the tale.

The game is not so much about sinking object balls—most players can do that most of the time. It's more about "moving the white ball around the table." If you ever see a pro miss a ball that you would have thought should be easy, it's not because they can't pocket the object ball. Ninety-eight percent of the time it's because they're trying to do too much with the cue ball.

Get in position
A bonus: you can also use this same match to see a nice demonstration of position play. Start at the 18 minute minute mark, as Shane tries to notch his first rack. It takes less than three minutes. Pay close attention to where the cue ball comes to rest after he pockets each ball.

If you'll look at the bottom of the video frame you'll see a graphic showing the balls left on the table in the order in which they need to be potted (actually any ball can be potted; but the lowest-numbered ball on the table always needs to be struck first). Pro players have the entire runout mapped out in their heads as they play. They might need to revise that plan if something goes awry, but if a nine-ball player thinks she can run out and is shooting at the 3-ball, for instance, she already knows where she needs the cue ball to be four shots later to sink the 7-ball.

And note that a "perfect" shot on the next ball, i.e. dead straight on, is not what a player wants from position play...on each shot, Shane needs to land on the next shot to give himself an angle to get to the shot after that. You always need the angle in order to move the cue ball. So planning position on any shot actually needs to account for the proper angle for two shots into the future. The only ball you might want to be straight on is the last shot of the rack—and note where Shane ends up on that ball here.

On to the action. Shane starts out with a difficult shot on the red 3-ball—a rail shot is tough because you can only strike the cue ball on its crown, which makes the shot more difficult and also takes away a lot of cue-ball control. The pink 4-ball to the orange 5-ball is a particularly impressive positional shot. From the 3 to the 4 to the 5 here is masterful position play.

Despite Han Yu's success, she takes a long time in this match to get used to the speed of the table—a beautiful, very high-end Chinese Rasson—which is playing slow. Dozens of her shots in the first third of the match are underhit and come up short of position. Pros are better at adjusting to fast tables than they are to slow ones. It's the opposite for amateurs.

She's also overcoming a shorter shot clock. She has 30 seconds for each shot, and she's accustomed to being a deliberate, methodical player within the limits of the 45-second clock the women use. You'd never know it by her languid, laid-back manner, but she's being rushed throughout the match. But good shotmaking, smart planning, and her steady, even temperament, along with some outstanding safety* play (she wins at least two of her racks with wickedly good safeties), plus the addition of a little good luck here and there and a few misses from Shane, carry her to an impressive showing. The match goes hill-hill, meaning the winner will be decided by the last rack.

Mike

*A safety is when you put your opponent in a bad position instead of putting yourself in a good one. It's the mark of a rank amateur when someone thinks a safety shot is "cheating"!

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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tom: "Did you post this to the wrong blog?"

Jeff1000: "I learned more about pool in that short essay than a lifetime playing eight-ball. Outstanding!"

The Virus Is a Hawk

[You can share this essay with friends by mailing or texting them this link: https://tinyurl.com/y228evwn ]

Guest essay written by Ctein

Outside of our bedroom window, at the edge of the cliff that overlooks the ocean, is a very large fir tree* that is home to an unkindness** of ravens. Some years ago it hosted two ravens, then three, as ravens are inclined to make more ravens. Now there appear to be eight or nine; I've lost count. Come trash-collection day they wander up and down the street, methodically checking out trash bins for ones that are overflowing. Ravens are extremely opportunistic omnivores.

They are also carnivores and predators. As such they compete for the same eco-niche as the local red-tailed hawks, and there is little love lost between them. (It's also possible that the hawks attempt to prey on the ravens' chicks, so even less reason for endearment.)

Periodically they also compete for airspace, because the hawks' favorite updraft from the sea is not all that far away from the ravens' tree. For birds, it is not good fences but great distances that make good neighbors. This distance is not great enough.

The hawks and ravens are similar in size (red-tailed hawks are among the largest hawks) but there is no question that ravens are stronger, smarter, and more aerobatically adept. They've also got considerably more attitude. They initiate the aerial conflicts.

Two or three of the ravens will soar above the hawk and swoop down on it, sweeping to one side of the very last moment. Neither species wants actual physical contact, which could prove fatal. It's all about intimidation.***

Sometimes the ravens whirl and loop. There is considerable vocalization. In action and words they say to the hawk, "Look, we are superior in every respect, physically and mentally. You are overshadowed. Take a hike."

The hawk's sole response is to slide to one side in the updraft, issuing an irritated "keeee." The ravens regroup, soar up, and swoop down on the hawk again. They repeatedly demonstrate—in terms that even a groundhugging human could understand—that the hawk is outclassed and should relinquish its airspace. Repeatedly the hawk slip-slides to one side or the other, issuing annoyed cries, and continuing to focus its limited attention and prodigious eyesight on the ground. It is looking for prey, and nothing else is on its tiny mind.

This can go on for as long as 20 minutes. By raven—and human—sensibilities, it shouldn't be any contest. The ravens win on style and points. They are clearly the superior predator, and deserve the win. The problem—for the ravens—is that while the ravens are challenging the hawk to a duel and demonstrating unquestionably superior prowess, the hawk is only thinking, "food, hunting for food, quit bugging me, hunting food."

Finally, the ravens give up—they get frustrated and, worse, bored. They go off to find some more entertaining mischief, and the hawk continues doing what it's been doing all along.

The hawk wins every time because it isn't even playing the game!

I feel like the ravens do. I am tired and I'm bored and I'm frustrated and depressed and, most of all, exhausted by four months of navigating through this Brave New World, of living in Plague Times. God knows I've done my part, more than my part. I need a break.

Unfortunately, the virus is a hawk. It doesn't care that our only ways of suppressing it are socio-political, it doesn't care that some people are wrapping themselves in the flags of politics around this. It doesn't care that we, individually and collectively, are frustrated and bored and figuratively sick of it all, and really badly in need of a f*ckin' break.

COVID-19 is not a raven. Our only tools may be sociopolitical, but it's not a political opponent. Just because we're tired doesn't mean it's tired, or that we've worn it down one bit. It's the same hawk it always was, doing the same hawkish things.

If we go back to "old normal" because, well, we've put in a Really Good Fight, it will reassert itself just as vigorously as it did in March. Incidence doubling times of 4.5 to 5 days. Compound interest being what it is, that becomes a ten-fold increase in two weeks, a hundred-fold in a month. The consequences of that, in humanitarian and economic (both!) terms are so catastrophic that they make the last four months look like a cakewalk.

Well, we're not being quite that stupid; we're not going back to the old normal. We're going to a "new normal." It makes a big difference; these days we're looking at doubling times of 3–4 weeks. That's a whole lot better, except—compound interest! Caseloads don't increase by tenfold in two weeks, but they do in three months. By year's end we're back to catastrophe: humanitarian, economic.

Exponential growth is a bitch. Mongo no like exponent > 1.

We don't have the luxury of letting down our guards and relaxing our extraordinarily inconvenient and uncomfortable protections because we are exhausted (and, make no mistake, we are exhausted). The hawk just hovers in the updraft, thinking its minimal, hawkish thoughts and waiting for hawkish opportunity.

Topic Two! How to tell good science from bad, revisited

I wrote a couple of columns some years back about things that laypeople could do to figure out if the information they were being fed was good science or not, even if they lacked expertise in the area. I offered textual, contextual, and meta- tools that would help sort the wheat from the chaff. Here are links to those two columns:

Bad Science vs. Good Science: A Guide for the Layperson (Part 1)

Bad Science vs. Good Science: A Guide for the Layperson (Part 2)

I'm going to add an additional tip that wasn't in those columns: good scientists will not intentionally lie to you.

Yes, scientists will get things wrong. Science is only an approximation of our universe and one way to think of it is as an ongoing process of error correction, where every step of the way we try to reduce our misunderstandings and ignorance. But it's not like we've found the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything (actually, I live at that address****), so sometimes they will tell you things that turn out to be incorrect.

But, they will never outright lie to you. If you catch someone lying to you, really lying to you, they are not doing good science. Doesn't matter what degrees they hold, who they are affiliated with, what reputation they have. They are not Good Scientists, they are Bad.

There are people out there telling you that you should not wear masks to reduce the spread of COVID-19. That wearing a mask is, at the least, ineffectual and at the worst, dangerous.

They are liars. This is not a matter of opinion; it is not a matter for debate. There are not "good people on both sides" of this question. Saying masks aren't effective is like saying the earth is flat or that HIV doesn't cause AIDS or that vaccines cause autism. It is a blatant lie, contradicted by real medical knowledge.

Some people are saying this out of woeful, misinformed ignorance. Others are saying it with conscious, malign intent. Irrelevant. Either way, what they are doing is lying to you. If they are lying about something this obvious, there is a good chance they are lying about other things that will not be so obvious. They are untrustworthy and you should not be relying on them for information.

Cut them out of your life. Close the browser tab, delete the bookmark, don't read them ever again. Any information they present that's correct you'll be able to find in a dozen other places. You won't lose a single thing of value and you will reduce your risk of being lied to further.

In the meantime, wear the %^$#@! mask when you go out. Yes it's annoying, and mildly uncomfortable, and a nuisance, and a constant, extremely unpleasant reminder that we are living in Plague Times, like a little finger incessantly poking you in the face repeating, "Don't forget, don't forget, don't forget, don't forget." I hate that!

Well, I don't know anybody who likes it. But, y'know, on the scale of inconveniences and annoyances that this pandemic has subjected us to, it's way down on the list.

This hawk is very single-mindedly focussed on being a hawk, but a mask makes its life considerably more difficult.

That is your Public Service Announcement for this time. In next month's newsletter I will return to less fraught and contemporary matters.

Probably.

pax / Ctein

[Ed. note: Originally published in "Ctein's (New and Improved) Occasional Newsletter," July 9, 2020.Seems Ctein noticed a rush of signups for his newsletter on Wednesday, suspected TOP, came here, and found my mention of his essay. Last night he kindly offered to allow me to republish the essay here. Thanks to Ctein, and I hope you enjoyed this. You can sign up for his future newsletters at ctein.com.]

[ADDENDUM Sunday morning: If this article didn't go into enough specifics about masks for you, see Ctein's reply to Gerard in the Comments section. Both together are a bit long to be Featured Comments but there is useful detail there.]

*Paula says it is a Monterey Cypress. I say if it's got little pointy leaf things and cones, it's a fir tree. OK, not a botanist.

**Yes, that is the collective noun for ravens, in contrast to a "murder" of crows. I'm not sure why; perhaps someone considered ravens—unsupported by observation—to be more genteel.

***I did consider describing it as a game of aerial chicken, but that seemed too groan-worthy. So I didn't, he said contradictorily.

****Ed. note: Ctein's address is 42 Skyline Drive. He is, among many other talents, a writer, lecturer, and fan of science fiction a.k.a. speculative fiction, and the number 42 has implications amongst fans of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Ctein. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Thanks to everyone who supports TOP through Patreon!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Andy Holman: "A great piece on COVID and corvids!"

Aashish Sharma: "This article made my day! Reading something new from Ctein usually does, and this one was no exception. Love the clear and direct writing with a hint of humor. I only want to say thanks for the advice on masks, and that I'm delighted to know you are a Douglas Adams fan like me.  :-)  I will eagerly wait for the next one."

Scott: "Living in an area where I watch 'our' crows do this all the time, I was rapt (sorry, had to say it) by your article and then loved the pivot to talking about the virus. A superbly written article in my opinion and also the truth. The virus is truly the hawk. I know this from my pertinent scientific background and also deep study of medical history. Bravo."