posted by Russ | July 28, 2010 | Add a Comment
Last weekend I caught a segment on NPR about the controversy over raw milk and dairy products, and then yesterday my friend sent me an article from the Los Angeles Times with similar content. In short, due to the possibility for E coli or salmonella contamination, the FDA has banned raw milk and dairy products in many states, stating that consuming them poses a health risk.
First of all, I will not say that I don’t believe there is a risk in consuming raw products, but for the FDA to ban them is outright crazy. The FDA is after all, the same organization that regularly approves drugs, both over the counter and dcotor prescribed, that can and do kill people all time. According to the first article, “raw milk can contain deadly bacteria like E. coli and salmonella and has sickened more than a thousand people since 1998″, and recently was [...]
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Tags: fda, raw milk
Posted in: health & diet
posted by Russ | July 1, 2010 | 1 Comment
I was out running the other morning, and it just happened to be garbage day. I couldn’t help but notice that close to half of the houses sadly had an overflowing garbage can, or even two, out at the street. This is absolutely amazing to me. How can one household generate that much waste in 2 weeks?
When I lived alone several years back, I wouldn’t even generate one plastic bag’s worth of waste. And I don’t mean a garbage size bag — I always used leftover plastic bags that found their way into my apartment, typically your average plastic bag that you would get from a grocery store.
Now that I live in a house with my girlfriend, we barely generate more waste than that. And now since we use reusable bags for shopping, we’ve turned to using other plastic that comes into the house for garbage bags. An empty bread [...]
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Tags: trash
Posted in: sustainability
posted by Russ | June 29, 2010 | Add a Comment
My life has changed quite a bit recently, but I’m really loving it. Don’t worry, nothing wrong with my personal life, however there’s been a big change in my working life. The end result is that I am still employed with the same company, but now get to work from home full time.
The company I work for has had quite a turbulent history. I was one of the first employees to come on board, and we grew quickly, too quickly. First We moved offices and had a nice office downtown with a great view. But within a year, it was decided that we outgrew our our lovely office, and so we moved again. This time to another downtown office with another great view, but now we had the entire floor. Problem is, around the same time, we stopped growing. Oh yea, and the economy took a crap. So over [...]
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Tags: 9to5, work
Posted in: lifestyle design
posted by Russ | June 18, 2010 | Add a Comment
Riding along the US / Mexico border
Day 1 – San Diego to Alpine We left at about 9:30am from Crystal Pier in Pacific Beach after a few goodbyes, and were riding a high heading out of the city. We made some good progress, stopped for a pizza lunch, then hit the road again. Our last 20 miles were a serious uphill battle, and around the time our weary and not yet road accustomed legs nearly gave out, we had completed 50 miles and reached the Ma Tar Awa RV Park just east of the Viejas Casino. We were too late to check in, as the office had already closed, but we saw someone cleaning who let us slip in on the agreement that we would pay our dues in the morning. It wasn’t quite dark yet, [...]
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Tags: adventure, bicycling, green travel, travel
Posted in: travel, united states
posted by Russ | June 1, 2010 | 2 Comments
5/26 – Online flight check in. Arrive airport 12 noon. Washington DC 9PM. Hartford’s Bradley International Airport at 11:30PM. Hertz rental car at midnight. 90 degrees outside. Heavy winds. Get car and head to mom’s house. Heavy rains, crazy thunderstorm. Temperature now 65. Power out at mom’s. Sleep @ 1:30AM.
5/27 – Wake up, breakfast, visit with mom. 2:30PM hit the road, head to Boston. Arrive Boston @ 4. Check into Copley Square Hotel. Relax {briefly}. 5PM Complimentary wine in lobby. Walk down Boylston to Boston Common. Follow Freedom Trail to Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. Bowl of clam chowder and our first quahog. Hop on the T, head to Newbury and the Back Bay for dinner at The Other Side Cafe. Down the street to The Pour House. 11:30 PM to bed.
5/28 – 11AM Farmer’s Market Copley Square. Hop the T again, lunch at America’s Oldest Restaurant, Union Oyster [...]
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Tags: time off, travel, vacation
Posted in: travel
posted by Russ | May 18, 2010 | 2 Comments
With this big oil mess in the Gulf, I’ve been debating, should I be boycotting British Petroleum? I typically buy my gas at AM/PM-Arco stations, since they are cash only and are cheaper than most other stations. But now I’m wondering if I should switch.
In the past I have always stayed away from Exxon Mobil, I don’t think I need to explain why no one should like them. (Except their shareholders … remember their billion dollar profits while people couldn’t afford to buy gas??) Even though it’s been a silent protest of mine for years now, I’ve always thought that it was sort of silly. I mean, sure, you can single out an oil company for having a bad track record, but really, aren’t they all bad? Is there a such thing as a “good” oil company?
Exxon Mobil was responsible for one of the worst environmental disasters in history, [...]
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Tags: british petroleum, disaster, exxon, morals/ethics, oil
Posted in: environment
posted by Russ | May 4, 2010 | Add a Comment
Health and diet has been something I’ve been reading a lot about lately. I don’t mean diet as it pertains to losing weight, I am talking about diet as it pertains to lifestyle and being healthy. Until recently I have for the most part always eaten the Standard American Diet (SAD). While I knew there wasn’t something quite right about it, I never really sorted it out until now. (Though I’m sure it will be an evolving process, and my feelings are open to change.)
As I’ve written recently, I’ve been eating mostly vegan, and have even experimented with a raw diet in the past. But I have not sworn off of meat completely, since I do believe that we have evolved to truly be omnivores. That said, I do believe in veganism and what it stands for, and I do firmly believe factory farming is wrong (on many levels). [...]
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Tags: factory farms, health & diet, lifestyle, raw diet, vegan
Posted in: health & diet
