Is Henry Waxman crazy or is it just his moustache?

So I've been trying to keep up with some of the disturbing information coming out of the Mitchell report. What can I say, am I really surprised that Clemens' was the big name that appeared? Not really. Now he's sort of crazy and very intense and I can understand how be snubbed by the Red Sox in 1997 might have put a big ol' Texas chip on his shoulder, but given his inability to pull himself away from baseball these last few years I just have to reconsider the evaluation that he was performing poorly for the Sox because he had lost the drive and fire. Doper or not, Clemens has always been a tremendous competitor who gives everything he has to offer. Make no mistakes, I'm not really a fan of his and haven't been for a long time but prior to yesterday I respected him. And now it comes out that oh his first two post-Red Sox Cy Young's just happened to coincide right when he started shooting roids in his butt. Hmmm...well maybe Dan Duquette wasn't an idiot after all.

The other thing that has surprised me in following the report and the various responses has been the amount of interest from Congress. Of course, Mitchell's report was for Congress, but I've been trying to decide how I feel about our Congress spending precious time debating America's pasttime when we've got a farm bill to pass (one which they are royally trashing btw) and a war still brewing. What gives Congress? Well here is why I think it is sort of justified for our government to be involved. While baseball may be just entertainment the amount of public dollars that have flowed into public sport facilities over the last few decades is remarkable and disgusting. Instead of building new schools and bridges Mayors all across America are held hostage by baseball owners (Mr. Selig et al.) and forced to invest in new stadiums, roads, etc. Now you don't see the WWF (or WWE) going out there and getting tax breaks to build new steel cages yet if baseball is as bad as this report makes it seem I think that congress has a vested interest in at least ensuring that American sports are as drug free as they can be. Now what I would really like to see is Clemens and Mo Vaughn and all the other implicated players to be sued and to be forced to repay their contracts, but not to the owners. No that contract money should flow straight to the cities whose fans were robbed of the opportunity to watch legitimately clean sports being played. Let those funds be used to pay down stadium related debts or even better use it to rebuild inner city sports facilities so all the little fat kids who are forced to give up gym to study for the latest and greatest ridiculous standardized test at least have a place to play so that they don't get run over by Buffy while she drinks her pumpkin latte, applies lip gloss and tries to adjust Tinkernuts latest pearl doggie collar all while driving her new Denali the wrong way down the street.

Hey welcome back to me! Coming next, some thoughts on tasty new food, my first semester of phd study and a really ridiculous little child whose learning how to sit up and is making really funny coughing-type sounds as he gets those vocal cords up to speed.

Blogs and Pigs

So I'm finally getting around to using Google Reader to stay current with the various blogs that I like to check in on. Partially this decision is driven by the fact that there is massive amounts of information out there related to food and agriculture and I'm feeling like I need to do a better job of keeping current with what is going on. If my academic research is going to be focusing on the social movements that address food and agriculture then I really out to be thinking about the fact that the Internet is a huge tool in the creation of these networks...

In the process of jumping around to the various blogs I stumbled upon something that I've been looking for since it happened...back in May Michael Pollan moderated a panel discussion at Berkeley on the food bill, uh I mean the Farm Bill. Well thanks to this new fangled inter-net thing, the entire discussion is online here. How awesome? This makes me wonder what other nuggets like this are out there. I haven't watched it but hopefully I'll take a look by this weekend.

Last night Stef and I watched the first disc of the PBS American Experience special Chicago: City of the Century. Pretty fantastic so far. There was a lot of material that seemed to be straight out of William Cronin's fabulous book Nature's Metropolis and in fact Cronin was one of the talking heads that kept popping up. Some of the bits that I hadn't heard and that I found facinating was the story about George Pullman (of the train car and union busting fame) coming out to Chicago to jack up buildings as part of the new sewer system design. Raising building! Good grief that's just nuts, but they did it. The segment on the stockyards and in particular the Hereford Wheel was pretty sobering. They had some actual footage of pigs being slaughtered and it was really disturbing. A few years back, when I was in Spain and stricken with el gripe, I was watching Spanish TV when I stumbled upon some sort of animal rights activism show. The segment I watched was of a pig killing floor. It looked like hidden camera footage and it was a bit grainy, but unfortunately all too clear about what was going on. Pigs would be dumbed down a chute on to the floor, which was obviously covered in blood and god knows what else. A man was down there to catch them and he would slit their throats and then wait as they stumbled around bleeding and dying. It was just so sad and disgusting. Pigs are a lot smarter than dogs and we would never to that to Lassie, but yet we don't think twice about ordering up a couple of brats at a baseball game or having bacon with our eggs. I don't exactly know how the local bacon that I get from Moore Family Farm is process (read killed), but I'd like to think that it's much more humane. I do know that when I was up in Iowa in the Spring of '06 visiting the farm collective there was a big discussion about the pork processing facility that they used. The farmers were obviously very concerned about minimizing stress to the animals. While this might be somewhat self-interested, given that stressed out animals don't taste as good due to all the adrenaline they release into their muscles, I also like to think that there was a genuine concern about how these animals that they had raised since birth were going to die. Ugh...I really ought to be a vegetarian. I'm so disgusted by both the idea of how pigs, cows, and chickens are raised and killed and how the people who are involved are treated...yet I love the taste of meat. I wish that I had the income to afford to buy all organic, all local, all pasture raised meat. Perhaps the solution is only to eat meat when I can afford the good stuff.

sad days in the 'paign

So tomorrow Dfinn and AmyW leave Champaign for their new jobs and new home in NYC...very sad. They've been very good to me during my time here these last 2+ years. In fact they were among the first people that I met when I came to town. When I visited UIUC in the Spring of 05 I was invited to check out the Monster Lotteria film tour at OpenSource where I met Teazer, DFinn and many other folks. They sort of adopted me that weekend and invited me to a BBQ where I met many of the other folks that have become my close friends here. When I came to town that following fall, missing Boston terribly, they once again took me in and kept me sane until I got myself back on my feet. They helped throw a birthday party for me at Esquire (where I declared that there was no way in hell that I would be celebrating my 30th birthday in Champaign - so much for that brilliant prediction) and generally made my life here those first few months bearable. Now, almost two years later, we've swapped ice cream recipes, tackled the garden plot, cooked burgers, drank beer, and shared many good times. Dfinn has introduced me to the world of power tools and Amy has piqued my interest in the new and exciting ways to experience popcorn. I'm very sad to see them go, but also very excited that they are going back to NYC. For two young academics to both get jobs in the city where they wanted to return is just amazing. Plus it will be fantastic to have more people on the east coast to visit...it is where my heart really is and while traveling with a baby is never easy, it will be worth it to visit all my fantastic friends out there.

On a more upbeat note, this weekend was a project weekend. Two composters were set up, a rain barrel was set in place, a desk was sanded and re-sealed, a small shelf was added on to said desk, an office was reorganized, and finally a trip to Jo-Ann got us on our way to recovered the cushions on our new-to-us dining room chair. As the photo shows, the existing covers were a gross pukey green/brown with all sorts of stains, etc. With $4.50 worth of fabric we were able to bring them back to life. Very exciting...we also now have a staple gun, which is always a good thing to have i the house.

welcome to the circus

I wish that I could figure out how to get some clown music playing along with this entry...our life has entered full on circus mode with the arrival of our new friend...a lost, small, brown, deaf, mostly blind, and very social poodle / spaniel mix...We're calling her Taza / Estel depending on the mood and hopefully tomorrow we'll get some posters made up and distributed around the neighborhood.

Since she is so blind and otherwise innocuous, Annabelle seems to have adjusted fairly quickly. She's not doing her usual hiding in the basement paint closet not has she taken to gouging our eyes out while we sleep, both big positives in our book. Mostly she just sits, stares and probable wonders what this dog-like creature that isn't interested in her is. Taza like long walks, drives to the recycling center, and following you wherever you want to go in the house...hopefully we can find her owners in the next few days or this place is just going to get crazy!

I went on my first post-Oliver ride out at Kickapoo this afternoon...glorious! After all the rain I was expecting some nasty trails but instead they we're perfect. Hard and fast, just the way I like them. I'm still a ways away from really getting my leg strength back, but I felt pretty smooth today and it was nice to just be on the bike in the woods. The weather has been drop dead gorgeous and spending it on a bike is just magic...well spending it on a bike riding through Chicago and holding hands with Stef would be magic, but riding the gulches in Kickapoo is also satisfactory.

cargo cross bike???

God bless Stef. Well, that is if I had any right to refer to god in my own life. Still, it seems that with her help and encouragement there might actually be able to continue including bicycles in my life, post-birth-of-Oliver. Life with baby is amazing and yet it is quite an exercise in paring down the essentials of each day. There is a whole lot less time to do what you want to do, never mind, time to waste! When I sold my cross bikes a few months back I did so partially to get some cash, but mostly because it seemed insane to dream of having enough time to actually ride enough to feel like I could legitimately race and have fun doing it. I'm sort of competitive and sucking at cyclocross wouldn't really be any fun for me. So what's the plan?

Simple - it involves this:
A trike-cargo / family bike produced in the Netherlands (of course) by Nihola. For those that don't know I spent last summer learning how to make bike frames. So in theory I have the skills to make my own for 1/8th the cost and 85x the time and labor. Still I want to do it. With Oliver in daycare it would be truly amazing to be able to load him up and ride him to wherever he has to be. Pedaling a cargo, no matter how light is quite an endeavor and it should produce some reasonable fitness. Throw in a few short, hard cross rides, an occasional ride to Indianapolis on my touring frame and perhaps a few trips to kickapoo and I should be good to go. I do love the idea of Ollie bundled up in a teddy bear outfit cheering me on some cool October morning. Time will tell, but the pieces are slowly falling into place.

pilsen, compost and the gimp

So this weekend the little man (Oliver, of course) has his first trip to Chicago...or at least his first on the outside world. What a beautiful weekend it was. Ostensibly the trip was about picking up a few composters at the Chicago Green Building Technology Center but really it was just a good excuse to get out of Champaign and enjoy some beautiful weather in the city - mid 80s and breezy! Good grief.

Well we based ourselves out of Zach's beautiful Pilsen apartment. Oh man, what a building. The courtyard alone is worth a few hundred dollars in rent.

Saturday morning we met up with Val, Andy and two crazy dogs and picked up two composters and a rain barrel (surprise!) for a total of $100! Quite a deal I think. The tech center is located near to the Garfield Park Conservatory which is a neighborhood rarely visited by young white folks like us. I have to say that it was a bit bizarre to pull in to the parking lot and see all sorts of young, hip, eco-conscious folk buying their composters and rain barrels, dreaming of the lush black gold that they can spread on their heirloom green zebra tomatoes. Not that there is anything wrong with wanting to reduce waste and stormwater runoff, but clearly nobody from the neighborhood was investing in such technology. This is a real problem for me. Poverty and race are clearly huge obstacles in expanding any environmental movement. Chicago advertises itself as a pro-green city, striving to be a world leader in green policy and green building, but just driving around the surrounding neighborhoods it is pretty obvious that the city is focusing on providing green resources for a very narrow range of city residents. With all the empty and overgrown lots there is clearly quite a large opportunity to provide community garden space or perhaps expand the city farm programs. The streets would be cleaner, residents would have access to consumables other than cheap malt liquor, and some folks might actually have a chance to learn some valuable skills. But hey, it's better to have a Green Building Tech Center than not to and gardens / green space are only one of many things that neighborhoods like Garfield Park need.

Anyway, after loading up we headed over to Flying Saucer in Humboldt Park where we had some fabulous Lavender Lemonade, Metropolis Coffee, and tasty eggs. The service was good, decor intriguing and coffee strong. The crowd was very hip but not unbearably so. I'd certainly visit it again.

After wandering around the city for a few hours and hitting the lake we met up with my old friend from Boston, Mully, picked up some food for dinner and headed back to Pilsen. Mully was in a pretty nasty accident a few months back and I was a bit nervous that he was going to be a gimp, but I was amazed at how good he looked. He's had surgery on both arms and he's still in a back brace, but he was pretty mobile and his plans to hit a punk show afterward let me know that he was back to his old self. He's got a ways to go before he can ride again, but word is that he's placed an order for a Major Taylor which is very exciting. He's going to be a riding billboard for the Velorution!

We cooked up a very tasty dinner of salmon, roasted potatoes and spinach salad. For the salmon I sauteed up a few shallots in 1 Tb butter and 2 Tb olive oil. Tossed the steaks in the pan and added enough white wine to cover. A healthy dose of salt and pepper was added and I let it simmer away for a 8 minutes or so. After pulling the salmon I dropped in a few gobs of dijon mustard and a health amount of creme fraiche and voila, a lovely cream sauce. I must say that it was damn good. We drank a tasty and cheap bottle of Lambrusco and had a merry time! Ah I love being in the city with friends, wine, and good food.

flat lids redux

If you look closely you will see that this coffee cup lid has one of the most ingenious features to be seen in the land of lid design...one can close the sip hole with a flick of the finger! I first encountered these lids back in my days of biking in Boston while working at Zipcar. I would swing by 1369 Coffehouse on my morning ride to the office / afternoon ride away from the office / any of the other times during the day when I needed more coffee and pick up a small dark roast. These lids allowed me to easily drink and ride without spilling. Of course, some may say that disposable coffee cups are sinful and while I agree, it is one of my few vices. I just don't think coffee tastes quite as well out of plastic travel mugs. Furthermore riding with a paper cup is a hedge against the inevitable pot hole you will hit or the car that will force you to swerve and drop your coffee. Now if I can just get the local coffeehouses to use these lids...