Bananas, Organic and Locally Grown

I needed some sweet potatoes. I needed them to serve with a steak dinner, and I needed them in order to add sweet potatoes to my vegetable garden. The sweet potatoes had to be organic if I was to use them in the garden, so I had to venture into the local organic grocer ecosystem. We have a small organic grocery store nearby, but this is not your typical Whole Foods. This store leans to the radical edge of organic food grocers.

As with many businesses that promote saving the planet, the organic grocery store is staffed by folks who are true believers. In anticipation of my adventure into this strange world, I had to blend in so as not to arouse suspicion. In order to maintain calm among the natives I wore my Vibram Five Finger shoes, some sweats and I hadn't brushed my teeth or shaved or put on deodorant.  I had to go in with confidence. So I walked in with a distant, spaced-out look on my face. I leisurely ambled over to the produce section. I carefully selected four sweet potatoes. Three to eat, one to use for the garden.

My ruse worked!

I walked up to the only checkout aisle that was open, and I was second in line. A young woman was in front of me with a banana and four dates. She was dressed rather conservatively, in a simple red dress. She had no obvious tattoos, but when I saw her pull out her employee discount card, I understood that she was trying to go out into the world and blend in much as I was trying to do in the organic grocery store. I suspect she entered her native environment for a moment of respite and that the bananas and dates were to be lunch. I did not get too close because I was concerned that I would be found out as an interloper, and out of respect to the conversation she was having with the young man operating the cash register.

The young man behind the cash register had a scraggly beard, long hair pulled up into a type of bun. He was wearing clothing that could have easily been purchased at Whole Earth Provision or Urban Outfitters, and despite only checking out a banana and four dates, the process was a bit of a challenge.

Despite the privacy I tried to give these two in their conversation, I could not help but overhear part of their conversation. I am functional in their native tongue, but not fluent enough to follow the entire conversation, but I did make out one part of the exchange between the two.

Young woman: "Yeah. I like that it's all organic and all, but I wish they could get locally grown bananas."
Young man: "Yeah."

My effort to hide my reaction, which under normal circumstances would have included raucous and nearly hysterical laughter, must have worked. They still did not recognize me as a stranger in their habitat.

Digging Rocks

About 2 months ago, we bought a new home. It is the biggest home Sue and I have ever lived in as a married couple, and it sits on just short of an acre of land. The previous owners had essentially stopped taking care of the grounds about a year ago, so now we have to catch up. Some of our tasks are mundane, some require thought and planning, and some are just plain back breaking. Today's main task was in the back breaking category.

Our back yard has several pathways that are filled with small river stone. One of those pathways leads from the pool to the section of the yard where the pool equipment is hidden behind a fence. We decided that that particular path was in such bad shape; full of weeds, stones spilling into the grass, edging material wandering out of place, that the whole pathway needed to be moved. The other pathways were salvageable and could be refreshed and made to look good. Sue started the project last week. Here is where she left off:

So with a hoe, a wire screen to filter out the dirt, and a flat shovel, I dug into the project. Scoop after scoop of rock and dirt and weeds, till I filled the wagon...twice. I used the load of rocks from the first load to refresh one of the other pathways, but I ran out of time and energy to redistribute the second wagon load. As I finished filling the second wagon full of stone and dirt and weeds, I questioned the point of this exercise. 

But here is the result of scooping rocks: a nice clean path ready for sod and stepping stones instead of the unruly river stone.

Drat! 50 years too late

In the category of there is nothing new under the sun...

When my boys were wee little lads, we had a fascinating discussion about personal weapons of all kinds. Being small boys, they were playing a little game of would you rather... with me. Asking, "Would you rather have an airsoft gun or a paintball gun?" and,"Would you rather have a pistol or a shotgun?" and other similar types of questions.

I was getting tired of the game, so on one of the Would you rather questions, I answered with something completely different. I described to them the perfect defensive weapon. A weapon that could destroy the molecular integrity of any gun or knife or even the projectile that the weapon fired. A weapon of directed sound waves, but a silent weapon that emitted a sound that could not be heard by humans.

I told them how this weapon had not yet been invented, but that if we could invent it, we would be wealthy beyond our wildest dreams.

Well, I was wrong. This weapon had been invented.



Dr. Vladimir Gavreau, a Russian born scientist working in France to develop mechanical drones for the military accidentally discovered just how such a weapon could work.

In the late 50’s and early 60’s Vladimir Gavreau, a robot scientist of Russian birth, and his assistant found that without warning they would become nauseous and have unbearable headaches when working in their lab. As soon as they left the lab the symptoms disappeared immediately.

They knew something in the lab was causing their sickness but had no idea what it was. Eventually, they noticed that a cup of coffee on the bench had strange ripples on it, at the same time as the ripples started they began to feel ill. When the ripples stopped they were fine again.

They found that the illness, and the coffee cup ripples stopped when certain windows were covered over. Extensive inquiries and dozens of tests lead to the discovery that a faulty motor driven ventilator had been installed in the building.

It’s movement had caused an infrasonic resonance, that when coupled with the concrete in the building, formed a huge infrasonic amplifier at a resonance impossible for humans to hear but able to make them ill.

SOURCE

 

Time for a little competition

I have a friendly competition with my financial adviser. In the last two quarters of last year, my portfolio beat his by a substantial amount, until December, when his made a comeback, and I cheated. Normally our competitions are limited to mutual funds, but I cheated and bought a stock. I beat him by a landslide, but the competition was unfair.



So it is time for a new competition. But this time the competition is between the portfolio he is managing for me and a small amount of money I manage for myself. Specifically, I let him buy a specific fund on my behalf, and I bought one with my mad money that I thought would do better. We are both using a fundamentals approach to our picks. Purchases were made a few days apart, so here are the starting prices:

My pick: $12.535 per share

Financial Adviser pick: $2.340 per share*

At the end of business, Friday

Me: up 1.16%

FA: down 0.85%

This contest will last til the end of March, so stay tuned to see who wins.

*I picked a fund that does not generate income, my financial adviser picked an income generating fund. The increases/decreases in value will reflect any income generated by that fund.

What if bacon is actually good for us?

My nephew had been under the weather for about two weeks. His aunt and grandmother, with all their medical expertise as a current and former bedside nurse, prescribed him a regimen of over the counter medications. One to reduce the fever, one to reduce his mucous, one to alleviate his stuffy nose, and one for the body aches. For a week he lived life under the fog of medications and at the end of the week he still felt like crap.
Then he asked me what he should do. I have no medical training, and, in fact, I had to drop my college Microbiology class because I was failing. That failure prompted me to switch my major from the hard sciences to the social sciences.

My response, of course, "Eat more bacon!" I also told him to keep the bacon fat and use it in his preparation of other food. More bacon means better health.

[amazon_image id="B000SSV8AA" link="true" target="_blank" size="medium" ]BACON shaped themed Adhesive Bandages[/amazon_image]

He came by a week later to announce that he took my advice and he felt much better now.

Go Bacon!

Oh! Did I mention that bacon is also a "wearable" food?

Stories from the Real World

As told to me by a personal acquaintance who works in a hospital:

An elderly woman arrives in the ER with some minor injuries from a motor vehicle accident. As she is being tended to, she tells the nurse, the paramedic and the police officer in the exam room, what happened.

After getting in an accident with a younger man, she gets out of her car to inspect the damage and exchange information for insurance purposes. The younger man was acting "all crazy," harassing and berating her.

She delves into some details, which I won't go into here, but at the conclusion of her story she comments:

"After this, I am changing my stance on gun control. I think people should have guns. If I had a gun, I would have shot his ass!"

The cop snickers and replies, "Ma'am, thank you, but I can't really comment on that."

The nurse snorts and says, "Well I can. That's funny, and I think you're right!"

I'm always amazed at how real life can so easily sway a person's convictions.

A Bitter Substitution

Just before Christmas, the unthinkable happened. I made a pot of coffee that tasted like crap. It tasted weak, and it did not provide the normal morning satisfaction Sue and I have come to expect from this arousing elixir, this gift of God.

So the next morning, I tried again. I purposefully added more coffee grounds into the coffee maker, hoping that perhaps I had just lost count the morning before. It was stronger..., but not any better. Our coffee tasted less bold, or rather lacked taste altogether.

I tried again a third morning. Same result.

This was unacceptable, and my good name and my manhood were being questioned with these repeated "wimpy" coffee brews.

This was a problem.

A major problem.

A problem that required science.

So, one groggy morning (I think it was the weekend before Christmas, but I can't really remember because I've not been fully awake since the coffee issue emerged), I created an experiment to help identify the problem. My goal was to isolate the source of the problem, so I standardized coffee production.

Same filter, same coffee maker, same amount of water, same water source, same brand of coffee grounds, same time of day, and even the same coffee cups washed the night before with the same soap in the same manner. All these factors are essentially the same ones used prior to this coffee affliction entered our home.  Since I drink my coffee black, I did not have to be concerned with potential adulterating factors like creamer or sugar.

After going through these machinations since Christmas Day, I can now positively assert that the issue is not my coffee making abilities, it is the coffee.

Not only did my experimentation convince me it was the coffee, but I now have corroborating evidence that the coffee is the thing that changed.

Reuters is reporting that many of America's major brands have been quietly tweaking their coffee blends. While most coffee companies consider their blends trade secrets, and are loath to disclose exactly what goes into them, both circumstantial and direct evidence suggests they're now substituting lower-grade Robusta beans for some of their pricier Arabica, and degrading the quality of our coffee. - Yahoo! Daily Finance

In economics lingo, this is known as "substitution." Substitution is where one thing can be substituted for another and the relationship between price and demand does not. In other words, the coffee companies thought they could substitute Robusta beans for Arabica beans to reduce their costs all while maintaining their price point.

First the Feds want to trick us into believing that inflation is not so bad, now coffee companies are trying to pull the same crap.

I'll be the first to acknowledge that it is possible I am off my rocker, but Community Coffee, and Matt Saurage, if I find out you have altered a "Louisiana Tradition"... THIS IS NOT COOL, man!