Animals

I want to set the record straight about animals. Animals are not as smart
as people, that much is not a revelation. But here's the deal about how
they feel. All animals have feelings. All animals have a sense of pain.
They know when they are getting hurt, and I would venture that that being
eaten, for example, is fully as horrible for them as it would be for us to
be eaten. Most animals also have fear and curiosity. Fear tells them they
are about to be harmed, and I venture that they also feel just as
uncomfortable when they are scared as we do. Curiosity helps them look for
food, water and the other things they rely upon.

We should be mindful of these things when we deal with them.

Quitting

I stopped smoking five weeks ago, fell off but did manage to get back on. You see, at the end of my detox week, what do I go and do but go stright out, partying with friends, and get drunk and start smoking again. So I quit during the following week, but the weekend comes along at the end of the second week, and I have a few beers, a couple of smokes, a couple more, and a few more after that.

So I quit beer as well. It seems like a huge trigger to smoke, and in itself is not helping me that much anyway. I should be feeling fantastic, but a couple of weeks ago, whilst I was in California on business, I went down with the worlds most horrible cold. I'm just starting to get over it now, which is how come you get a post. On the positive side, this has totally prevented me from wanting either a beer or a smoke, and I dropped six pounds (down to 237), so who knows, maybe it was just what was needed.

My journey to better health continues.

Detox

Last week my lovely wife and I decided to do a detox, from Monday morning to 6pm Friday. We decided to cut out: beer, wine and other alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, meat, eggs, cheese and dairy. We decided to eat healthy and exercise every day.

So far we are doing most of this. Lovely wife just needed a cigarette, so she caved in on that. I caved in, oddly enough, on a couple of cups of tea each morning, breaking both dairy and caffeine. I also didn't cycle today or yesterday, despite going out on Sunday and Monday.

So not a complete success, but not exactly a failure either. For me going without a cigarette for now three full days is quite outstanding. I won't say it is a record, even for me (I think I struggled through about six miserable days one time), but what I will say is that I am quite confident in getting to the end of the week. The cravings have not been that strong, and I am certainly not struggling to stick to it. Every now and again a trigger goes off, and I have to remind myself not to light a smoke, but when I have reassured myself that I am fine without, and that it is certainly for the greater good (or at least my greater good, if that makes any sense), then I can continue on without, and it doesn't seem to bother me.

You know, I am even starting to think beyond Friday. Just how would that be? Would it bother me not to smoke? Would my lovely wife smoking bother me? Or other people? Or would it eventually tempt me, causing me to start again. What happens when I have had a beer? Does that make me want to smoke? It's certainly one of my triggers. Can I resist? What about two beers? Or ten?

Debbie and Ned said about when they gave up, that they had to think carefully about how to get through a night of drinking without smoking, and that was the hardest part. I think I will have to hold off drinking until I have worked some of this out, or at least hold off of drinking to excess. Maybe one or two beers tops on Friday, and try to stick to it, even if it means missing out on some nice beer from the Kegerator.

I actually bought a book many years ago, called Alan Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking. I read the first half of it, but (and you can laugh, but it's true), I had to give it up in order that I could keep on smoking. In fact some of the things in his book have kept popping into my head this week, even though I haven't so much as touched the book since I put it down in my twenties. I am even wondering if some of his advice is having some latent benefit.

So I haven't formally committed to trying to stop permanently, but if I can come out of a couple of beers on Friday 100% unscathed, I think I might be pretty close. (My estimation of where I need to be to beat this is that a single drag of one cigarette is a complete and abysmal disaster).

Kegerator

Maybe I just felt inspired, but despite promising myself that I wouldn't write more than one entry per day, I changed my mind and decided to scrap the rule.

For my birthday in February, my lovely wife, and how understanding must she be, bought me a kegerator. A kegerator is a fridge for a beer keg, derived from the words keg and refrigerator, and this one holds a fifteen and a half (US) gallon keg, often referred to as a half-barrel keg, the regular size used in bars and restaurants everywhere, a carbon dioxide tank to power it all and runs nice and quietly, despite being outside on our warm Austin balcony.

The first keg I got was Ziegen Bock (mmmm!) And the second is Live Oak Pale Ale (also mmmm!) I am expecting the kegs to last about four or five weeks, depending on how much business travel I do.

My lovely wife isn't as keen on the pale ale as on the ziggies, so when we were at Central Market today, she got a pack of Buffalo Bills Orange Blossom Cream Ale. Whilst the purist in me says that this is a girls beer, she is a girl, so I suppose that she should be allowed to get away with it. The bottle says that it is "ale brewed with honey, orange peel, with natural flavor, with orange flower extract added". I find the beer crisp and clean, with a very light body, and very sweet, with an overwhelming orange flavor, and no real hop bitterness or nose, and with above average
carbonation out of the bottle. I can understand why she likes it.

My pale ale is by comparison slightly less crisp, with more body, medium to strong bitterness tyical of the style and lots and lots of hop aroma, slightly under-carbonated due to my setup, and still slightly sweet. It presumably uses an American hop, like cascade, which differs in character
from the European hop varieties, like East Kent.

Real beer.

Family news

My sister Eithne called me on April 3 when I was traveling on business to tell me she is having her third baby. You would have thought that she would have realized by now how that stuff happens and what not to do to avoid it.

My mum is going to France. I don't think these two incidents are related, but you never know.

Anyway I am happy for both of them. I even get the chance to go back to England in the middle of June to see how they are all getting along, to buy some more marmite and to go and see some work people there and attend a conference that my company is putting on (which means they will pay for my flight -- lucky me).

I look forwards to having proper bacon with my eggs. None of the half-assed American bacon (which the brits call streaky), and which is not nearly as good as English back bacon (which is approximately but not exactly equivalent to 'canadian cut' on th US market), which, oddly enough, is mostly produced in Denmark and imported to England. Go figure. It's better
though, much better.

Real bacon. Mmmm!

Alan Greenspan in an Age of Turbulence

I started to read an autobiography by ex-chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan. It starts of historic, but has all types of gems about the economy, US and world economics in general. Very interesting!

Barton Springs remodeling

The Barton Springs recreation area is set to undergo a remodeling and makeover, according to an Austin Statesman article. We look forward to the new springs!

For real.

Laptop Security

I was reading a couple of disturbing posts (here, here and here) about how the US Department of Homeland Security can confiscate laptops, phones and PDAs at US borders without reason (or even more disturbingly like if you even look like or have the same name as a terrorist, you could end up in Guantanamo with no human rights or legal recourse). Or there's the more likely scenario of just losing an electronic item on public transport, in a bar, or even just some creep taking it whilst I'm not looking, so I decided to encrypt my laptop.

Windows Vista (Ultimate Edition only, I think) has a full disk encryption method called BitLocker which does the job. I only use XP on my system, largely because I think it has less extraneous crap on it (which isn't actually saying much) but mostly because XP does perfectly well.

So I had a look around and found the free and open-source Truecrypt had released version 5.1a in the past couple of weeks. Version 5 comes with its own system-disk and -partition encryption which can be used to protect a lost, stolen or confiscated (i.e. also stolen) laptop drive from prying eyes. It uses strong encryption, such as 256-bit Serpent, Twofish or AES. You will need a strong password, meaning 20 characters or longer (the longer the better, max 64 characters), and a mixture of upper-case, lower-case, numerals and symbols, avoiding dictionary words being embedded anywhere in the password, or the use of personal data, like your pets name, birthdate, city of birth etc.

For real security.

Marmite

Most Brits will know what Marmite is; most Americans won't, and they are missing out. Marmite is a smooth dark-brown paste, whose main ingredient is brewers yeast, which has been broken down [autolysed] with salt and heat, and the solids are removed to leave yeast extract. Yummy!

Marmite is endowed with a quite strong, and absolutely unique flavor. It can be used in many ways but is traditionally spread on buttered toast (very sparingly). Because of its strong and unique flavor, people either love it or hate it. Either way the opinion is extreme; there is no middle ground. So much so that Unilever (the company that now makes Marmite) has used it as an advertising ploy, and that the word has fallen into common usage to describe such things as can only be loved or hated. E.g. "Gran Turismo is the Marmite of driving games", being that it is addictively good fun, or hatefully difficult to stay on the track.

So what do you do if you are here in the US (either a native or, like me, a Brit in self-enforced exile) and you want to get your hands on some? If you live in a city, it can often be found in supermarkets with a decent international foods section. If that fails, then Amazon will sell you some.

Lets put Marmite to work:

Marmite Cheese Savory
You can turn this delicious, intensely flavored sandwich out in about a minute. Grater coursely 100g or 4 ounces or one cup of cheddar cheese. I like mature (sharp) cheese but if it's cheddar it works. Add 25-50g or 1-2 ounces or 1/4 to 1/2 cup of finely diced onion. Spanish onion (large sweet onion) or green onion or spring onion (scallions) are the best, the small yellow cooking onion is a bit strong for most but I like it and just use a bit less. Add about 50g or 2 ounces or a tablespoon of Mayonnaise (or as needed until the mixture binds). Hellmans ("Real Mayonnaise" as it is branded in the US) is the best but whatever you have to hand will do. Finally, add 5g or 1/5 ounce or a teaspoon of Marmite. Taste it and add a bit more if desired. If it's too strong, add more Mayonnaise and/or cheese to dilute :) Spread the mixture onto toasted bread, bagel, English muffin or other bread type device. Stuff it in your gob for a taste explosion. A sprinkle of salt or pepper to taste if you like, but it should be quite intense enough without.

For real.

Rinse Aid

You know, I am often asked why beer, despite being poured properly, doesn't maintain its head in the glass after pouring. Actually, I'm never asked that, but it's such a good question that I will answer it anyway. Rinse aid. The stuff that you put in the dishwasher that helps give a good finish on the dishes, glasses etc. What it does is it leaves a (harmless) film on the glass that serves to reduce the surface tension in any liquid placed inside. Unfortunately, the head on a beer relies on this surface tension to stop the bubbles collapsing. If you are not using rinse aid then maybe you are not cleaning all the detergent off the glass. Either way, rise the glass with clean water before using. Homebrewers may have this problem from their beer production process.

For real.

My first Blackberry post

The wonders of modern technology! Now I can blog from anywhere. The library, railway station, even from the john. I can't help thinking that Blackberry posts are going to be a bit shorter than those made at my computer, probably contain more typographical errors, abbreviation, alliteration, confusion, maybe even unruliness. Guess where I am blackberrying from? No, I am not sitting on the john, I am in fact sitting at my desk in front of the computer.

For real.

Blog

The idea of having a little spot where I can brain dump, say stupid stuff and bang on about anything I want, for all to see has always appealed. But for a couple of reasons I never created a blog. Firstly, I know that I might not keep up with it. A million sad, lonely blogs go unloved and uncared for every day. Secondly, that people may not care, and may not read it. I have decided that I might read it and my mum might read it. I have decided that even that is enough. If anybody else wants to stick their face in for a look, then whatever. Feel free. Hopefully my train of thought will contain little gems or items of amusement. But the real reason I have now got myself a blog is that when I am out and about, sometimes I have a moment free, spare and unused. Since I got one of those Blackberry things, I thought I would try and use those moments by wasting them on a stupid blog that I probably won't make four posts to, and nobody will read anyway.

For real.