Tainted blood

I had an appointment to give blood today. I hate giving blood, as I am afraid of needles. But I understand the importance of it, and used to do it fairly regularly. However, it's been about 3 years since my last donation.

Unfortunately, when I went in today, I was turned around because I had been in Costa Rica within the last year. The funny thing is that the state/province/area in Costa Rica marked as dangerous is where we stayed in the Four Seasons, which was probably as sanitary and clean as Costa Rica gets. The area where we stayed literally in the rain forest was not on their list of dangerous places.

But they invited me back in September, when my year is up.

There's a north bay too?

Despite the fact that I grew up in the bay area, I know next to nothing about the north bay at all. So yesterday was quite the adventure when one of our friends took us around where they live.

For example, when he took us to Tiburon, including the famous Sam's Cafe, I was surprised to learn that there was a tourist destination across the bay. I had no idea that scores of tourists got on the ferry from the city, headed north to Tiburon, and would ride bikes or walk around during the day.

We also checked out Larkspur and Mill Valley. The north bay definitely feels different from most of the bay area I've been to. It seems less populated, surrounded by more nature, and less diverse (I get the feeling that the average income is higher in the north bay than elsewhere, though I can't be sure). There are towns elsewhere in the bay area that are similar (Los Gatos, Los Altos, Saratoga, and Woodside all come to mind), but still, the north bay just feels like an entirely different place.

It also seems like there are a ton of restaurants to try out over there. We stopped in at a few different places, and had a gazpacho shooter at Picco's and dinner at Bungalow 44, but our friend told us about many of the other restaurants which all sounded very good.

I guess I should play "tourist" more often and check out what's outside my backdoor...

The art of happy hour

I have come to the realization that happy hour in San Francisco is not just an event, it's an art. Sure, there are many "happy hours" around, but you have to be on the top of your game to know which are the happiest of the happy.

Downtown it's hard to find a good happy hour. Most of them end before you can get out of work, or if they are happy hours, they are $1 off of their $13 cocktails. But recently we've disovered a gem at One Market. True, it's an upscale restaurant and you can't get too rowdy in the bar, but the $2.50 pints of Stella until 7PM can't be topped anywhere else. They also have specials on cocktails, food, and even wine.

Of course the true holy grail of happy hour is when the food is free. And not just pretzels or nuts. The Last Supper Club in the Mission has bruschetta, pasta salad, and sausage available at their happy hour, along with $3 cocktails. Furthermore, every thursday they have a wine tasting with their extremely friendly and knowledgable wine manager. I've only been once, but it's on my "to return" list. In general, the Mission district happy hours seem quite generous, including great deals on sangria at Cha Cha Cha, cheap beer at Toad's, and my wife is quite curious to try the free oysters at El Rio. It's harder to get to the Mission in time for happy hour if you're working downtown, but seems like it might be worth it.

But the bestest ever happy hour has to be the one at my grandparent's house. It's tough to obtain an elite invite to their exclusive friday night martini hours, but if you should be so lucky, you'll be greeted by a wonderful martini, and even better company.

The joy of bad service

Over the past few days, we (my wife and I) have benefitted from bad service at restaurants/bars.

Wednesday night we got a free cheese plate because the "kitchen forgot the order" (or maybe it was the waitress?).

Tonight we ended up with a free dessert, a free espresso martini, and 2 free glasses of dessert wine because the bar was slow delivering the drinks to our waitress.

And we didn't ask for any special treatment, it was just given to us.

Obviously if you're in a hurry then slow service can be a hassle and annoying. But if you've got time to kill, it can actually be to your benefit...

Confessions of an EHM

I just finished reading Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins.

It's hard to comment on a "conspiracy theory" book. If I dismiss it, then the author can say that I'm just falling victim to the conspiracy. If I accept it, then those that don't believe it wil tell me I'm just believing some crazy nut job. Regardless, here are my thoughts.

The basic premise of the book is that Perkins, along with other economic hit men (EHM's), would go into third world countries and convince them to take loans of large sums of money in order to develop their economy. However, the true goal of the EHM was to force these countries into debt, so that they would be able to be held as a political prisoner any time the lendors needed to call in a favor (i.e. for oil, for military base stations, for land use, for business use, etc.). Despite the fact that these loans were made by the World Bank, Perkins claims the money went straight back to the United States, in the form of contracts with companies like Halliburton or Bechtel. The end result, according to Perkins, is that the rich got richer, the poor people in these third world countries stayed poor, and in some cases, become more and more angered with society, sometimes leading them to form militant groups (i.e. terrorist oragnizations). Perkins even goes as far as to make the comparison of the British Empire during the American Revolutionary War to the global economic empire that many militant groups are fighting against today.

There is a lot of criticism about this book, which can be found easily by a web search (or start here).

The first thing I'd mention about this book is that while I do believe much of what Perkins is describing, I don't completely believe Perkins' actual stories. This book was obviously written to sell books (which it has done quite well at), and some of the message gets lost behind that.

With that said, the themes he presents are pretty common themes in a lot of writing lately. There are constant protests against things like globalization and the G8. I find it hard to believe that it's just coincidence that so many people are worrying about a global empire taking over.

At the very least, the book made me think about what it must be like to be in a third world country and to be heavily persuaded by a richer country to do certain things. And while the book might not be the best source of information, it's certainly valuable for kicking off a good discussion.

SF muni characters

I'm extremely glad I live in an area where I can take public transportation. My transportation costs are probably a quarter of what they would be if I had to drive. And while I may not live in a city forever, it has definitely made me want to stay in pedestrian-friendly towns with good transportation.

With that said, it's pretty easy to get frustrated by the SF Muni experience. I realize it's cliche to complain about it, but here it goes.

The people on SF Muni that make the experience oh-so-wonderful:

• The door blocker. When catching the muni underground, there are 5, sometimes 6, trains that stop there. They announce them over the loud speaker ("J in 3 minutes. N-N in 7 minutes"). Yet there is always the one person who feels they must stand right at the edge of the track where the train stops, even when their particular train is not arriving for 10 minutes. The result is that people have to practically shove them out of the way to get on their earlier-arriving train. And of course, the person blocking the door always gives the people who need to get on the train a dirty look.
  
• Kids that don't share seats. When you are lucky enough to catch the "school bus" tram (one that is loaded with junior high and high school kids on the way to school in the morning), chances are that each kid is taking up 2 seats each. Granted, they always move when someone asks to sit down next to them, but not without obvious annoyance.
  
• The impatient driver. I try not to rip on the muni drivers. They have a very stressful job and deal with complete jerk riders on a daily basis. And a lot of them are surprisingly cheerful and funny despite that. But there is one behavior that really irks me. This is when the driver tries to close the doors when there's still 10 people trying to get on or off the train. When the people pull the doors back open, the driver closes them again. And so it repeats. I understand the drivers need to stick to a schedule, but when there's a line 10 people deep trying to get off the train, it's not like the riders are lollygagging around.
  
• The impatient rider. This might be a result of the impatient driver. This is the person who tries to get to the exit door 2 minutes before the train actually stops, presumably because they are afraid they won't be able to get off the train in time. This isn't so bad, except that when the train is completely packed, this means trying to shove their way through a large crowd, half of which are probably going to get off at the same stop anyway. The result is just a lot of unnecessary pushing and shoving.
  

World Cup finals

I watched the World Cup finals today. France seemed to deserve the win, they were dominating the game in the end. But Italy came up the victor after the game was tied and went to penalty kicks. That's fine with me, because that means I win the bet I had with my wife.

A lot of people think penalty kicks is a horrible way to decide the World Cup. I agree, but am not sure what the alternatives are. Lengthening the game might raise the chance of injury happening as the players become more tired and play sloppier. Some people sugget removing players from the field until someone scores. That might be the way to go. But it seems that no matter what the rules are after 120 minutes of play, there's really no great way to decide the winner, but no one would really be happy calling it a draw either.

Zidane's headbutt was definitely disappointing. The situation reminded me of something our high school soccer coach taught us. One day he pulled us all aside and said, "Ok, today I'm going to teach you how to fight in soccer. When you feel like you want to get in a fight, just get in the guy's face and say the meanest, dirtiest things you can to him. Keep at it until he throws the first punch. Once that happens, he'll get the card because that's all the ref will see." Something similar must have been happening with Zidane, though it doesn't excuse the penalty at all. It will be interesting to see if we get any explanation of what happened over the next couple of days.

I guess this means we go back to not hearing about soccer in the news for 4 more years... a few years back I actually followed the European Champions League - they had a nice show on one of the sports networks that would compress the games into 10 minutes of highlights and made it easy to follow along. But more likely than not, I won't be watching much soccer until 2010.

Friday fat day

It's Friday! And with Friday, come the Friday rituals!

At one of my previous jobs, Friday mornings included a free bagel/pastry/fruit spread. Then for lunch, a bunch of us would partake in what became to be known as Friday Fat Day. Basically, we would find a restaraunt that had a buffet, go stuff ourselves, and then come back to the office and complain about how full we were. We tried several buffets, but the old fall back was Mountain Mike's.

Now, Friday mornings I usually start with a workout of some sort. The workout helps (incorrectly) justify the fact that I buy a small breakfast somewhere downtown. I spent the first several months downtown going to a different place each Friday, to find the best breakfast. For awhile, I settled on a chocolate croissant and decaf soy mocha at a nearby Tully's. But lately, the breakfast of choice has been a soy hot chocolate and a veggie bagel sandwhich at Cafe Venue. I'm not sure how long I've been going there, but it's gotten to the point where they know what I always order.

I haven't had the Friday buffet lunch in awhile though...

An interesting note - the Bill Phillips Body For Life program actually allows you to have one day where you eat "anything you want" and still have a perfectly healthy and fit body. I don't really agree with this. I know that if I were to control my friday Fat Day cravings a bit I'd be that much healthier for it. Part of the philosophy of this "anything goes day" is that by allowing yourself one "bad" day, it helps cure the cravings you have throughout the rest of the week... again, not sure if I really believe it.

Anyway, it's Friday!

Half marathon training

I was so excited about the 4th of July that I woke up at 5 AM. Actually, it's because I'm jet lagged. I went to bed at 6PM the night before... fun.

But since I was up, I figured what better time than to kick off my official training for the half marathon I'm doing on October 8.

I've trained for marathons twice before, and both times I had to stop due to injury. This time I'm training for a half marathon, and my muscles are stronger than they were during my last attempt, so I'm have high hopes that I can complete the program.

I've been running off and on for awhile now, so I kicked off the training with a 4 mile run. Not bad. I have 13 weeks to get up to running 13.1 miles. Definitely do-able!

The long emergency

I recently read The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. The basic premise of the book is that Kunstler believes that "peak oil" - meaning the time when we have removed half of the available oil from the Earth - has already happened or is due to happen in the next few years, and the result is that we will no longer be able to continue our current lifestyle.

Kunstler is pretty dramatic in his descriptions, so much so that a lot of people would probably dismiss him as another y2k doomsday preacher. When he leaves the discussion of oil and starts talking about things like bird flu or global warming, it only furthers the impression that he is intent on the idea that we are all doomed.

However, contained in this book are some very interesting and important points. While the book as a whole may not be the best reading, I think that the ideas in this book are important enough that everyone should be made aware of them.

In particular, the following ideas really stood out to me:

• In the past 150 years, our world has changed so fast. People are able to fly across the world whereas 150 years ago they had to ride a horse to get anywhere far. But people have grown to believe that this sort of technology will always exist, that we will never have to go back to the way things were.
  
• Alternative energy sources such as solar power are effective in limited amounts. However, their main draw back is that they require significant energy to make energy. Kunstler does not consider hydrogen-fuel cells a valid alternative energy source because hydrogen molecules do not exist on their own on Earth - instead a different energy source must be used to seperate the hydrogen. For wind turbines or solar panels, energy must be used to create these structures and maintain these structures. For things like bio-diesel, currently much of our nation's fertilizer is created by oil-based procedures.
  
• America is heavily invested in the ideal of suburbia. Unfortunately, suburbia requires large amounts of energy to operate. Without constant energy sources, suburbia cannot exist.
  
• Along with suburbia, America is heavily invested in the ideal of WalMart-like stores. These stores can only exist when there are large amounts of cheap-energy available such that they can transport their goods around. Without cheap-energy, these stores collapse, but unfortunately, as these stores take over America, they are also putting out of business many of the small businesses that could help our country get through an energy crisis.
  
• It is possible that we will figure out a way to power our world post-oil, but there still might be an awkward low-energy transition period while we figure out how to do this.
  
• As a result of oil being so valuable, America and other nations did many questionable things in areas of high oil reserves. These actions continue to have side effects to this day, and as "peak oil" occurs, the political relationships between nations will be stressed.
  

For me, I tend to fall under the group of people that hold on to the hope that technology will find a solution to our energy crisis - a group that Kunstler seriously despises. However, the book is opening my eyes to the idea that at some day in the future I may have to live much closer to the way people lived 100 years ago until we enter a new technological era.

There's so much more to discuss in this book, such as the history of oil and war, or how the climate changing may effect our energy sources, or how different areas of our country will survive an energy crisis. The book itself may not be a masterpiece, by the ideas presented in this book are important enough to think about, discuss, and act on.

Going to sauna

Part of the Finnish experience is when you "go to sauna". A lot of houses have their own saunas, and even some apartments will have an individual private sauna in your apartment. Those that don't have them might have one in a vacation cottage, or else might have a neighborhood sauna where they can reserve time.

The saunas are not like the ones I have seen in America (usually at gyms). Unlike most saunas here, which are "wet" (or what Finnish people call "Russian" saunas), the way a "dry" sauna works is that you poor water over heated rocks to let hot steam fill up the sauna. Modern saunas have a heater in the room which heats the rocks which rest on top of it, and you poor spoonfuls of water on top of it whenever you want more heat.

The sauna experience begins by rinsing off, then entering the sauna (naked). You sit at the top of the sauna (because heat rises), and poor water to release more and more steam, until you are good and sweaty. You might also have a beer with you inside the sauna. You also hit your body with a bouquet of freshly cut wild birch branches, which is supposed to stimulate your blood flow (and also smells kind of nice).

Once you are done with that portion, it is common to go from the extreme heat of the sauna into something very cold to shock your body. If you are a by a lake, it is common to go jump into the lake. If it's winter time, you can go roll around in the snow. If you are at home, you can rinse off in a cold shower, or just cool off outside (and maybe drink another beer). From there, you go back in the sauna, and repeat the process. You do this as many times as you want.

When you are done, you take a shower and wash off. It is common to wash other people's backs during this shower... which was quite a shock to me when I did "boy's sauna" with my uncle-in-law (luckily I was warned ahead of time that this was traditional).

After the sauna is done, it feels great to drink a beer, and I've heard that salty sausages taste great afterwords too.

I'm not sure how often people use the sauana, but I've read that during the summer, people might have sauna days (like on saturday) once a week during their vacations. During the winter, people might go every other day, because the sauna feels great in the cold weather. In the week I was there, I went 3 times.