Pain, Pain, Go Away!

I just spent five hours playing video games, by myself, and I don't regret it. I don't want my five hours back to sit on a bar stool, talk about Breaking Bad, watch whatever game is on with other fans, or do something, anything, else with another person. Constant company for a good life is one more piece of conventional wisdom I've scuttled. I like going home and bolting the door. I like to read, think, watch Netflix, play with my dog, and putter around the yard. None of this requires another person. I don't keep up with the Joneses and nobody gives me a hard time about much of anything. I've read that being alone is as bad for you as smoking, but as we like to say, correlation isn't causation. Even if it is in this case, I'll take my own company and take my chances. If you're lonely, I empathize. I've been there. But not all of us loners want company. If togetherness is so good, why have houses gotten so much bigger and households so much small...

Why didn't I think of this before? Yesterday, while munching on a carrot, some of the carrot got stuck in my throat. Realizing that this never happens when I eat vegetables with butter, mayonnaise or salad dressing, I had the bright idea to put a pat of butter in my mouth and let nature take its course. It greased my throat and the carrot went down. As a preventive measure, I find taking a magnesium supplement helps. (I take 200 mg of magnesium glycinate daily.) Magnesium is needed for proper involuntary muscle function: it's a standard cure for constipation, and doctors give it to patients having a heart attack.

Why didn't I think of this before? The structural strength of an object is affected by its shape. Think of an I-beam or a piece of paper folded accordion style. This could be held in place with metal stakes and reinforced with triangular wood braces to keep my dog out. The perimeter has concrete and flagstones around it. This will be far cheaper and easier than portable fencing. (I haven't gotten any further than the one panel I built.)

Are people panicking on stationary bikes? You'd think so from the signs in window of a local gym: "Keep Calm and Cycle On." Is the human equivalent of an exercise wheel so stimulating that people need a reminder to keep their wits about them? Maybe it's reverse psychology: up until now, it's been all about pumping us up with motivation a la Richard Simmons to keep up a routine that's as exciting as proofreading retirement plan financial statements. What some people really need is encouragement to continue avoiding carbs in the face of low-fat fuddy-duddies or the Atkins flu. I'm not a fan of motivational fluff, but someone in delicate health could really be frightened by low-carb scare studies and misguided advice to avoid fat. A pithy phrase might help more than a lecture on glycation, endocrinology or lipoproteins. Suggestions: Keep calm and keto on Keep calm and Kerrygold on Keep calm and tallow on Keep calm and Grok on

Some scenes from the Denver Chicken Coop Tour: The owner built top nesting boxes because the chickens couldn't find the lower ones. A simple run from scrap material. A run for a manicured yard. The Chicken Plaza. The view from my house isn't as nice as the view from this chicken house. I'm still working on my own chicken jungle. It's not a unique concept--one place on the tour provided so much cover for the chickens in the form of lamb's quarters (a weed) and a tree that the chickens could free range. After the heavy rains last week, the ground was soft enough to dig trenches around the chicken area so that I could put wire fencing below the ground to keep predators (such as my dog) from tunneling their way to a chicken dinner. While I was at it, I collected the earth worms and started a worm bin to compost kitchen scraps and junk mail and have some protein for the chickens. But as the worms go for $20 a pound, I may sell them instead--as s...

It may not be fashionable in the low-carb world, but I like to snack. I feel better when I snack. I don't feel good when I eat big meals and don't know how people put away three-egg bacon-cheese omelets with a bullet-proof coffee. The good thing about low-carb snacking is that by definition, you avoid eating junk like potato chips and fruit pies. The bad news is that low-carb snacks from the convenience store are expensive. Time was when the only two kinds of coffee I drank were free and home-brewed. When I realized cream gave me problems, I started taking it black and then realized that the office coffee was terrible. But the little shop on the first floor made a wonderful cup for $2.11. An equally wonderful home-brewed cup is about 12 cents. Sleeping in an extra ten minutes, the time it takes to brew a 12-cent cup of coffee, is costing me almost $500 a year. I've set my alarm earlier. The convenience store sells Kind bars for around $2.50 and large diet Dr. Pepper fo...

Readers may be familiar with the Tao Te Ching , a classical Chinese text of philosophy. It has some common themes with stoicism--to live in harmony with nature, to not be concerned with things outside your control. It reminds me of Bible verses about a soft answer turning away wrath and the meek inheriting the earth; of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's work on flow . Maybe that's as dull as watching the grass grow, but I'd rather do that than bang my head on my desk. From Verse 38. The Master does nothing yet he leaves nothing undone. The ordinary man is always doing things yet many more are left to be done. Or as we say here and now, the faster I go, the behinder I get. My own experience is that once I started low-carb, I spent a lot less time exercising and cooking and got better results--twenty pounds of fat and a bunch of health problems, gone. From Verse 58. Try to make people happy, and you lay the groundwork for misery. Try to make people moral, and you la...