So my new home on the web is here, I’ll cross post for a bit and I’ll be reposting some choice stuff from here over there so it’ll be saved for all to see (of both of you to see anyway)…and so far I’ve been pretty good about posting at least once a week and keeping the posts relevant, on topic, and to ~600ish words max (that was my self-imposed limit to try to check my inherited propensity to ramble).

Join me for just one more move and I promise to keep entertaining…thanks

So, I spent last week in DC (Alexandria, Va actually) visiting my little sister. I would love to regail you with stories of all the cool sites I saw using the amazing DC Bikeshare system…however I sorta melt in humidity and DC in June is a great place to be to experience that. I did end up taking several self guided walking tours to various coffee shops, hit a couple of museums, and spent a fair bit of time standing in front of her A/C vents drying myself off…but the one thing I did not do was spend a lot of time online.

I was on vacation and knew that I’d be spending an inordinate amount of time there upon my return seeing as how one of my classes this summer is online only.

So there you have that, now on to todays post:

While I was away, I thought a lot about how I’m structuring my life here in Seattle. Meaning that as a 30-something returning to school, how was I going to make the most of my time, get the most out of life, and how on earth was I going to pay for school?!?! More on that last one as soon as I figure something out. I did come to a couple of important realizations, the first of which being that since I don’t own a car and really really don’t like the Metro system here, I’d be riding my bike ALOT.

Now, I don’t have a fancy bike – sidenote, I dream of building up a one-quiver style Surly or some-such one day, but until then – I ride a $100 Craigslist special. I lucked into finding this little gem:

That’s a Kona Dew from a couple of years ago…with an astounding amout of dings and scratches…hence the great price. Now, why would I buy such a steed? Simple, I’m locking it up in a not-so-hot neighborhood everyday while I’m in class and it’s never a good idea to be the shiniest bike on the rack.

I’ve added a couple of things – come to think of it, I’ve put more than double the price into it – new tires, ergon grips, rack, some beefy platform pedals, a bottle cage that fits my Kleen Kanteen…and I invested in a set of Ortlieb panniers (will review them after I log more miles). I want to focus on just one of this upgrades for today, the tires.

As anyone who racks up miles in an urban setting will tell you, tires can make or break your commute. The Dew has 700c wheels and an aluminum frame, leading to a ride that can lean toward the harsh. I went looking for a reasonably economical (remember my distinct lack of a job) tire that wouldn’t bow to the pressure of repeated thrashings going up and down Capital Hill every day. What I found is the Michelin Pilot City, in a 32cm width that fits perfectly inside the permanently installed Planet Bike fenders (this is Seattle after all, and this is intended to be a year-round commuter).

This tire is proving itself quite nicely, mind you I’ve only put ~50 miles on them so far, but the results so far are encouraging. They’ve got what Michelin calls ProTek, which basically means they’re beefed up, with extra material where it counts for flat protection. What I also like is the tread:

That’s my thumb on the right reflecting the flash, sorry, still working on using the iPhone camera effectively. If you can see around the glare, the tread consists of angled grooves intended to siphon water off to the sides. They also mean that when I encounter road construction (in Seattle?!?! Never…) or a gravel stretch I don’t have to worry, they don’t get squirrely.

I’ll post an updated review when I have some more miles on them, which shouldn’t take too long as I’m determined to not borrow the car whenever possible, meaning at least my daily 5 mile commute, + weekly trips to the farmers market and grocery store meaning a weekly total of somewhere in the 30-40 mile range before any recreational riding.

I’m also planning on this “things that matter to me” becoming a regular thing, I may even add a third category to make them easier to find. Considering myself a minimalist, but not wanting to use that label (see this previous post for details), the few things I do have tend to matter more. That’s the whole idea of purging your life of extraneous STUFF, right? To keep only what matters, only what’s important to YOU. There’s my little moral for today, I’m going to go get ready for class…if I could only figure out a way to not sweat riding up the hill before class, I’d be golden.

I am honestly trying to keep up a regular posting schedule, and keep the topics timely and hopefully interesting. The best compliment I ever received here was someone telling me that my posts make them think. I can ask for nothing more…

Here’s the deal, my life is sorta hectic right now and I want to fill y’all in as completely as I can so you understand where I’m coming from and why I tend to miss posts and stuff. I’m 34 and after nearly a decade of IT work (and a nearly 2 year adventure involving moving abroad and back again, more on that eventually…I hope) I have decided to return to school and change my life’s trajectory.

Starting at the end of June I’ll be attending Seattle Central Community College to take care of some prerequisite science classes (what, my BA is Anthropology, no hard sciences required!), then in Fall of 2012 I’ll be transferring to Bastyr University to pursue a BS in Exercise Physiology and Nutrition. I know, about as far from IT as they come, and that’s sorta the idea. My path here actually makes some sense if you know me. I tend to want as much information as I can gather on new topics, and I like using myself as a guinea pig when possible. So over the last 3 years or so I’ve been researching dietstyles, lifestyles, exercise-styles, and living styles (different from lifestyles, you’ll just have to take my word for now). What I’ve discovered has quite literally changed my life, no cliche. I already posted about the changes I’ve made to my eating patterns and some of the reasons…I have also ditched the orthotics and other shoe inserts that I’ve depended on since high school in favor of being as close to barefoot as possible as much of the time as possible.

I didn’t go into this blind, as is my way I read and read and read, then experimented on myself (not as creepy as it sounds) in very small increments. I started by going barefoot around the house in the evenings. Then I took my inserts out of one pair of shoes and wore them that way for an hour at a time, putting the orthotics back in for the rest of the day. Then I gradually increased the time they were out until I could go all day with just the support of the shoes, boots, or Chaco sandals. Then I slowly started working my way out of them totally, and into something less supportive like Sanuk Sidewalk Surfers. After nearly a full year of transition, I now wear no shoes whenever possible (including on long walks), and use some homemade sandals when necessary, or Vibram Fivefingers (the foot gloves).

Bottom line, these changes work for me and I want to know why and how to help others implement similar changes (what works for them) to better their lives.

All of that was to say this: between the returning to school thing, the trying to find funding for this little endeavor thing, and the trying to find a solid part-time job thing, I’m a bit distracted right now. I hope you understand, and I do apologize for being scattered and occasionally absent. Oh, and I live in a basement with no windows (hey, it’s free while I’m in school…family’s a great thing to have on your side!), that I share with my 65 lb dog Shira and whoever needs to do laundry.

So now you know that I’m the primal eating, barefoot, 30-something going into early onset mid-life crisis mode. So when you see me on campus you’ll understand a bit about where I’m coming from. Oh, and hopefully you’ll understand why I miss posts when I said I’d get them up, and occasionally go off on totally unrelated tangents, only to return to the topic at hand eventually. I’ll return to posting something interesting early next week (I swear, I have nothing coming up until later in the week, so I’ll get something banged out) and in the meantime, wish me luck with my math class this summer!

So, for an on-again-off-again span of nearly 2 years now I’ve been following a dietstyle that defies the Conventional Wisdom (heretofore referred to simply as CW) of eating healthy from a western standpoint. I eat no cereal grains (wheat, rye, barley, etc), I eat lots of healthy fats (eggs, coconut oil, olive oil), lots and lots of veggies, and basically nothing that comes in a package or has an ingredient list. That is to say, I eat real, whole food. This dietstyle is called different things depending on which website you’re reading. I started out at Mark’s Daily Apple and have expanded from there. Mark refers to it is Primal, based on the assumption that this is how our hunter/gatherer ancestors ate for thousands of years before the invention of agriculture. Others use Paleo, referring to either the Paleolithic era, or to the words actual root meaning of ‘old.’

For a variety of reasons, I’m not fond of any of these naming schemes. I eat this way because it makes me feel great, gives me more energy than I’ve ever had, is helping me lose weight (finally!), and is more in line with how our digestive tracts and endocrine systems evolved. that last one’s important, non-technically speaking, our systems use and need fat. Our brains are protected by layers of it, our livers thrive on it, and our muscles burn it for energy. On the other hand, cereal grains and simple carbohydrates like sugar are essentially toxic to these same systems. Over years of overeating these substances, we can develop a tolerance to them and even start burning them in place of fats, but our bodies can’t do this for long before the liver starts converting the excess into fat deposits and we become resistant to the effects of insulin. I won’t even go into the blood sugar issues, mainly because I’m still trying to wrap my own head around the facts and fictions.

Here’s the bottom line – I feel lied to.

I feel that the “expert” food scientists have been lying to us for 50+ years, basing their “facts” on sketchy science and ignoring other facts when they were inconvenient to the story they were trying to tell. I feel that the advertising world lies to us each and every day when they push food products on us, calling them healthy because they’re fortified with nutrients that were first removed from the actual food. I feel that the advertisers have also been lying every time they push some new consumer gadget as the next must-have. Chances are if you wait a week you’ll see that what you already have is working just fine for the same purpose and that new one would just go into the waste stream.

Back to the naming problem, if I’m not comfortable using Primal/paleo/caveman, etc…what should I say when people ask why I don’t get the toast with my omelet? Or when I bring my own lunch every day, and it’s a huge salad with steak? I’ve been toying with just saying I eat an evolutionary diet. That has its own issues. I’ve tried just saying that I eat a specific blood sugar regulating diet, which just rolls off the tongue doesn’t it? For now I just stick with what I don’t eat, grains. Then if the person wants more info, I go into more details…and if they don’t, neither do I. What I don’t want to do is shove this down anyone’s throat. I would love to see more people make the leap past CW into better health, but feel that if I get pushy they’ll just tune out (I know I would). This is also why I’m going back to school for a degree in Nutrition and Exercise Physiology. It’s easier to change the system from the inside.

Sorry for the rant. Some times it’s cathartic to just let it out…and being lied to is a particular pet peeve of mine. If you want more information about either of these topics, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments and I’ll throw some links up for you, there’s plenty out there if you know where to look. Oh, and I’ll revisit the comparison of these two communities, minus the rant, as soon as I calm down.

He mentions the US’s history as a Protestant nation (argue if you will, but as a religious minority I can assure you, this is a Protestant nation albeit with the freedom granted to practice more or less as you choose). One of the foundations of Protestantism is an inherent focus on Me. From the personal relationship with Jesus, to the famous Protestant Work Ethic that encourages adherents to just work harder and you’ll make something of yourself. Then you can move into that big house and buy that flatscreen and know that it’s all because God is rewarding you for your hard work. And now I think you see where I’m taking this…straight to the American obsession with the very same Me and the “I deserve it” attitude it’s fostered.

Unfortunately, with the rise of Me comes the commensurate decline of We…as in community. Out west where I live, we’re surrounded by the be all and end all example of the decline of We in the form of greenfield developments (think 4,000 sq ft houses on 1/2 acre lots). Where nobody knows their closest neighbor, mainly because it would take 10 minutes to walk to their house to ask for a cup of sugar, and nobody wants to. The epitome of this lifestyle is exemplified by the nuclear family, sitting at home one evening, dad watching the game on the 56″ flatscreen in the “family room,” while mom watches her nightly chat show in the kitchen, and the kids are in their respective wings of the house online with god-knows-who talking about god-only-knows-what.

Go ahead, ask me how I really feel about the suburban dream…I dare you.

:::deep breath:::1:::2:::3:::Ok, I’m good.

So when someone asks me why I only have a couple pairs of work pants, or why I don’t own a car (aside from the obvious right now…no job), I’ve tempered my answer by running it through a simple filter: what does this person want to know? Are they looking for info on how to live a simpler life? Or are they looking at me as though I’m in an enclosure as an example of an extinct breed of homo sapien – call it Homo Communitas. Then I can answer with appropriate information without causing their eyes to glaze over, and hopefully make them interested enough to go home and clean out a closet.

Hey, it’s a start.

You’ve seen them – or at least heard them – in just about any public space. There’s the change jingler, the knuckle cracker, the gum chomper, and the Incessant Clicker. This one was loudly declaring her intentions to go out that evening into her earpiece while non-stop click-clicking her pen. I understand nervous habits. I even understand that when you quit smoking you have to find something to occupy your hands so you don’t fall off the wagon. What I don’t understand is not fathoming the idea of public/personal space. Would you walk into a public square and start shouting at the top of your lungs about your plans for the weekend? Or wander unannounced into someones backyard during a picnic and start snapping your gum and chatting on your phone?

When you’re in a group setting, whether it’s an intentional group (backyard picnic) or an unintentional one (hotel lobby) there are boundaries between the public and private that are generally understood. Don’t yell into your cell phone, take it outside where you’re alone and not disturbing anyone and they’re not eavesdropping on you. What I’m seeing increasing evidence of is an erosion of these lines, or rather of the understanding of them. They’re still there, they’re just getting harder and harder for people to see. The irritating part of this, I have no idea what to call the cause of this erosion. I’m tempted to just lump it all under Media overload. The generation under me is so used to being connected first to their CD players, then their iPods, and now their mobile internet devices that they never really learned how to behave in public. Or I could say it’s the parents, who allow their kids to drift off under the influence of their media and don’t require them to be present.

For now I’ll just settle for this being the state of things, and see what we can do to slow the descent if not actively reverse it.

I just realized the part of this that truly bothers me…I sound like my grandpa…

I have a lot to say. I’ve always had a lot to say, just never had the audience. Well, that’s not technically true, I’d hold court just about anywhere with just about anyone…problem is they didn’t always have a say in that. Once I got going, I tended to have a hard time wrapping it up. The initial topic would get lost in tangent after sidetrack after random thought…all the while the voice in my head is screaming at me to just STFU, unfortunately the mouth motor has selective hearing.

In order to scale back on the auditory assaults on random strangers at the bus stop, I came to the realization that I should be getting these rants down in writing. Then…if only there was a good way for any Joe Jabber to post his thoughts in a way that the very same random strangers could read them and decide for themselves when to continue listening/reading or when to just click/walk away…oh wait.

So there you have the birth of Barefoot Rambling. It is the outgrowth of my need to pontificate, along with being a continuation of the blogs I started and killed off while living abroad last year. As I’ve reached a starting over point in my actual life, I decided to call a do over of my virtual life as well. You try contemplating returning to school in your mid-30′s and see how verbose you become.

I know I already covered some of this back in the first couple of posts, but I wanted to restate a few things, mostly for myself as I try to figure the direction I want BR to take, and I wanted to let anyone actually reading this know that I’m still here and still working on that whole regular post schedule I keep insisting is coming. I’ve got several drafts in the works based loosely on some of the topics I used to find myself most often going on about, I’m just working on the tone. Trying to ensure I don’t sound like the homeless guy haranguing people as they pass his corner, insisting he’s Joan of Ark or Buddha.

Enough for today, once again this sounds a little rambling to me as I reread it, but then I did call this Barefoot Rambling for a reason. Thanks for sticking with me…it’ll be worth it, I hope promise.

So what can you do to break this cycle of addiction?

Join the growing ranks of Non-consumers. You see, I’m convinced that a lot (not nearly all, mind you) of the problems associated with todays consumer culture began when that word – Consumer – started being used to identify us, rather than citizen, person, or some other non-marketing term. If you can start to think of yourself as an individual, a citizen of planet Earth, and not as a consumer…then pretty soon all of the marketing hype that is directed at what the marketing directors call consumers will just wash right over you.

And that’s the first step to becoming a successful Non-consumer. It’s that simple, return your Consumer title, and reclaim your Human one. It’s waiting for you at checkout…

I have some other ideas that may strike you as more concrete steps that a person can take, I’ll be sharing these over the coming weeks, but for now just focus on thinking of yourself as a person and see how quickly the consumer hype starts to fade into the background.

A lot of people get antsy when they hear the word “downsizing.” They have this image in their heads of a dump truck pulling up out front and hauling all of their belongings to the transfer station. The thought of all of their possessions, all of the trinkets that define who they are, that contain all of their memories and hopes – being unceremoniously tossed is enough to trigger anxiety attacks.

So i don’t use that word anymore. I’ve settled on “rightsizing.” It indicates that something is going to be changing, that the collection of STUFF is going to modified in some way, but that it’s OK. What we’re aiming to achieve is the right amount of STUFF, not no STUFF. In some cases, the right amount might include 10 linear feet of cookbooks. Or it might include grandma’s China. Or it might be just what fits in 2 duffel bags and a backpack. Everyone’s situation is unique and requires being looked at individually in order to come up with the solution.

I read somewhere about Merlin Mann’s term “just-rightism” and love it. The goal is what works for YOU. Not what works for your neighbor, or that blogger you read (or used to read until he became so extreme you got sick of it, wait, am I projecting?) When you feel that you’ve uncluttered to the point where there’s nothing left to take away without negatively affecting your quality of life, that’s when to stop. 6 months down the road, who knows, maybe you’ll be ready to clean out those cookbooks (you can always find great recipes online, or ask a friend). Or maybe not.