Horror Show

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I have the privilege of ordering and stocking the Kerrygold at our store.  Imagine my horror when I came across this case today which someone had clearly dropped, inflicting damage on two golden bars of goodness.  Who could've done such a heinous thing?

I finished my stocking with a heavy heart this afternoon.  Clearly, the world is not right today.  Maybe tomorrow will bring back some sense of normal.


PS  This is humor.  It's called hyperbole. 

Hi 5

Whew, it's been barking cold here lately.  The temps are finally starting to rise a bit today, but for the past several days I don't think we broke 5.  As in FIVE degrees Fahrenheit.  And that's the high kids, the low has been minus 20ish.  When the paper has the article  Sure it's cold - but cold enough to kill pine beetles?, you know its been chilly (it hasn't been cold enough by the way, those beetles basically hibernate inside the trees).  Most people I know are dealing with some sort of pipe freezing scenario while shleps like me are wearing four shirts at work.  Great fun.

Just couldn't close it

When things get this cold I think of how the Ute Indians who lived here some time ago would've dealt with it.  I can only imagine that those tepees were quite cozy.  And that nine months later there were lots of newborn babies.

-In true, crazy Aspen spirit, I still rode my bike to work everyday.  As I've mentioned before, it's my small contribution to mankind.  You're welcome.  As you can see in the pic though, I wasn't able to get my lock all the way closed at work because I couldn't stretch the thing out far enough.  I'm a fairly strong guy, but I just couldn't move it that little bit farther due to the temperature.  Honestly, I'm not even sure why I lock it up in the winter in the first place.  Also, I only have one gear to use at these temps ... the cables on the bike won't stretch enough to let me get into smaller gears.  Not the hugest deal, but annoying nonetheless as the roads here aren't exactly flat.

Who stole dat cream?

-Here's a pic of what can happen to some cream top yogurts after they pass their expiry date and before they hit the rubbish bin at my workplace.  Who could've done such a thing?  I sure hope that person washed all that arterycloggingsaturatedfat down with some broccoli juice or something!  (just in case my biting sense of humor is lost on some poor soul, it's my belly that was the beneficiary of the cream tops ... yum, yum)

-In mildly interesting other news, I've stopped eating veggies for the past few months and haven't keeled over dead or anything.  I had lots of them over the summer as I would grab all different kinds at the Farmers Market each Saturday, but since then, my laziness combined with my increasingly doubtful view that they actually provide some nutritional benefit, have made them sparse in my current diet.  I'm not hating on veggies here, I think they can provide great texture and taste to meals, and in moderation are probably fine, but a golden child they are not (IMO).  I recently put up a new link on my Blogroll to Dr. Georgia Edes blog where she dives quite deeply into the pros and cons of veggies in general, and certain 'families' of them in particular.  She's also not hating on veggies, just putting together some great information for us nutrition geeks to make informed decisions with.  A big shout out to her and her work, you should definitely check her stuff out.  Oh, she has articles there about all kinds of stuff, not just about veggies.

-As you've probably heard, we here in Colorado voted to make marijuana legal at the state level.  Your personal thoughts on it notwithstanding, you have to admit to having some sort of visual image of a giant pot cloud hanging over Buttermilk next week when the X games arrive.  In an attempt to try to curb such shenanigans, a headline in the paper last week read: 'Superpipe ... Yes, Marijuana pipe ... No'  Yeah, good luck with that one.

-I'm headed out to Miami for a Disney cruise in 2 weeks.  A cruise wouldn't exactly be my first choice for a vacation, or in my top 10 for that matter, but the whole fam damily is going and it'll be fun to see my niece and nephew have a great time.  Me?  I'm just hoping to get a massage by Ariel or some other Disney princess.  Before that, we're suppose to hit the mid thirties here the next few days so I think I'll go outside with shorts and a tank top on to work on my tan

Pump it out

Holy moly, I have no words for this.  I'm just speechless. 

Someone in the article summed it up by calling it an 'automatic Bulimia machine'

from aspirebariatrics.com

Here is the article for the brave:

http://theweek.com/article/index/238649/the-disgusting-weight-loss-tool-that-pumps-food-from-your-stomach

Dr. Influence part deux

Someone asked if we had Red Palm Oil today.  'I think so' I replied.  As I was walking her to where it ought to be I was explaining that I know I've ordered it in the past but have had it go out of date due to nobody buying it, so I wasn't sure if we currently had any.  On the way there she told me that it was on Dr. Oz today and that it's the next best thing since sliced bread ... lowers your cholesterol, blah, blah, blah.

We still had a couple, but as I feared, their expiration date had passed.  Normally, I wouldn't have planned on ordering any more at this point, BUT since the good Doctor himself has endorsed it, I have to bring in some more.  And as if you couldn't guess, we had a couple more people also looking for Red Palm Oil today as well.  What a coincidence.

I don't watch this guy's show, but it seems like he's pretty much casting a bunch of nets into the nutritional world and seeing what comes in with the tide.  Sure, I think Red Palm Oil is pretty good stuff (as proof, the pic over there is the one I personally have at my place), but even a broken clock is right twice a day. 

12 / 12 / 12

It's somebody's birthday today.  Normally I wouldn't bother saying as much, but Mama Aspen Paleo surprised me with a shirt idea that I made mention to before.

 
Hey, the truth is the truth.  You rock Mom ... thanks

Purple Rice

Part of the rearrangement of my eating and workout schedule sees me eating some simple carbs and protein right after a workout in the evening.  Most Meat-heads recommend a shake for this, but I'm into whole foods.  Check out my coolio solution:

Rice and Eggs

Here's how this train wreck happened.  A couple of days ago I got some Okinawan yams from our store, which, as you might guess, have a meaty purple flesh.  Since they tend to turn out very dry when baked, I instead peeled and diced them, and then boiled em up in a pot.  When finished,  I didn't want to waste the water which undoubtedly had inherited some nutrients from the cooking process - so I saved it for later use.  That use turned out to be the water for cooking my white rice in the evening.  Genius!  It imparts a nice flavor to the rice if I do say so myself.  

There, my very own little contribution to the the culinary world.  You're welcome.

December ?

It's December here in Aspen (and probably somewhere else too) so what is one to do?  Why go golfing of course:

Yep, the flags and holes are still out for people to play.  And play they did ... plenty of people were out there today.  It's free to play by the way.  Has been for a couple of months now since it officially closed.  After the season, the golf pro shop turns into a nordic shop where they sell and tune cross country skis and the like.  Those ski guys are showing up to work every day, but I'm not sure what exactly they're doing in there.

I know today practically the whole country is having higher than normal temperatures, but as you can tell from the pic, we truly haven't even started winter here yet.  In fact, I even rode my bike up to Maroon Bells today.  My road bike.  On the 1st of DECEMBER!  That's just nuts kids.

Yesterday I rode my bike up to Aschcroft and on the way down I saw something I'd never seen before - an albino squirrel.  At first I thought it was a piece of paper blowing into the road, but then it stopped, saw me coming, turned tail and bolted back into the trees.  I was rapidly getting closer to it as I was going pretty fast, and no doubt about it, that there was an albino squirrel.  Got me to thinking about it too.  That poor squirrel is probably like the rest of the skiers in this town dying for some white stuff to fly from the sky.  Except in his case he wants it for camouflage.  I'll bet he's one tough cookie to spot in the winter all right.  And then I naturally thought about how he sticks out like a sore thumb right now and how that's got to be a big survival disadvantage.  But then it struck me ... if I thought he was a piece of paper, other critters probably mistake him for random stuff all of the time too.  Heck, let's say a falcon easily spotted him and started to swoop down for some eats, couldn't you just see the thought running through the back of the falcon's mind 'what the eff is that thing?  Maybe its got some disease or something.  I'm not that hungry man, I'm outta here.'  Or not.  Who knows.

Anyway, I'm still around, doing fine and reading lots as usual.  I would've thought by now that I might be getting tired of reading about nutrition and exercise, but I still dig it.  Just the other day I listened to Robb Wolf's podcast with guest John (DH) Kiefer.  I found it fascinating.  After digging around his site a bit and learning about what he calls Carb Backloading, I've decided to change the timing of my exercise (time of day) and when I eat certain nutrients.  My diet and exercise are pretty much going to remain the same, I'm just going to tinker with the timing.  And it's just to tinker really.  I've got no goals here other than to see if it affects how I look, feel and perform.  Maybe I'll expound on it in another post and report how it's going. 


PS  I just found this link to the Albino Squirrel Preservation Society .  Tell me right now you can't find everything on the internet.  Internet, I want to marry you.