“Oklahoma” or how I narrowly avoided being arrested for being a total idiot.

Another story told as a series of texts…

This is just backstory, not part of the story.  In Oklahoma, where I grew up, when you buy a car from an individual, you have 30 days to swap your registration for the plates after you sign the title transfer.  There’s a 30 day grace period for everything, including insurance etc…  There’s a small fee if you miss the deadline, but it’s not bad.

Boston, as a big city should have been a wonderful place to be a college kid.  For me it was a prison.  You couldn’t get OUT of Boston easily, and the only ways to get out were trains that mostly went to other towns.  How could I go trail running, climbing, hiking, well away from all these people I didn’t want to hang out with?  I needed a car.  I needed my own car, because I couldn’t continue to rely on the kindness of friends and strangers.

After a year in Boston, I get an internship and finally save up enough money to shop for a car.  That’s where this story is contextually located.

Nearly seventeen years later, I’ve met this nice man who is really super interested in me.  I’m interested back.  We are texting one night, and he asks me for a story.

10:02 PM Matt: Do you ever get flustered?  If so what are some things that get to you?

10:03 PM Amanda: Hmm yes I do.  Misunderstandings that I can’t get out of are usually the worst.

10:04 PM Matt: Yes, well put! 😊

10:04 PM Amanda: Like a deadpan sarcastic line intended to be a joke that gets taken seriously.

10:05 PM Amanda: I’m particularly upset when I didn’t understand a situation and made someone feel bad but didn’t mean to. Like that makes me blubber lines like a 4 year old.

10:06 PM Matt: Well, it sounds you’re well meaning then.  Sounds like you don’t want to make people feel bad.  I’d say that’s a good trait.

10:07 PM Amanda: One time I was working the night shift at a grocery store, I was 16, and EFT cards had just come out.  I thought EFT was like another brand of VISA or MasterCard or something.  I was being chatty, it was a quarter to midnight, and I asked about it.  Basically, “I hadn’t heard of the EFT until I started working here.  Is it like a VISA?  How do you get one?” She was not chatting back so I just kept rambling.

10:10 PM Matt: Did she seem irritated, or was she just ignoring you?

10:10 PM Amanda: Three days later she shows up with a friend and I have a super full line and I’m the only cashier and the friend starts going off on me about how disrespectful I had been, and who did I think I was, privileged (bad words) blah blah blah and I’m apologizing profusely and trying to explain that I was naïve and an idiot and I had NO idea EFT was food stamps and oh my gosh now that I know I see I was so insensitive…. 

10:12 PM Amanda: They went to speak to a manager and he knew me, and was like, “Oh, honey, I am so sorry that happened to you.”  But I have remembered that to this day why when I don’t know about something I shouldn’t assume and if it’s possible that it’s a sensitive topic I should ask someone else rather than the person themselves.

10:12 PM Matt: Oh God, that sucks that you were the object of that tirade.
10:14 PM Matt: Well, it sounds like that bad situation at least gave you a new perspective that’s served you well.  Sounds like that lady nearly put you in tears.

10:14 PM Amanda:  Oh no, it happens to all of us.  I’m not sorry about the tirade.  I deserved it.  But that’s probably what gets me most flustered.  When I’m in the wrong by total accident and get called out.  Like, oh my gosh officer I had no idea that I didn’t bring my ID, or a better story is from buying my first car in Boston, hahahaha

10:14 PM Amanda: Hahahahaha

10:15 PM Amanda:  I’m willing to type it out because I think it’s hilarious…. I can also save it for later.

10:15 PM Matt:  You’ve got me hooked.  Type away!

10:16 PM Amanda: Hahahaha okay so a little context…

10:17 PM Amanda: This is the backstory not part of the story.  In Oklahoma when you buy a car from an individual, you have 30 days to swap your registration for the plates after you sign the title transfer.  There’s a small fee if you miss the deadline.

10:22 PM Matt: I see.

10:23 PM Amanda: So I go check out this car, a purple Chevy Lumina out in the mythical city of Medford (we come back to why it’s mythical later), and it’s perfect.  They only want $2000 for it and I had just got my first paycheck from my summer internship.  I had $2100 in my bank account.  My friend Kat and I (she looks just like a sister to me, long curly hair, similar facial structure, and at the time I still had my Oklahoma drawl and she had her Louisiana one and to native Bostonians all they heard was “hick”), we took a cab out to Medford to pick up the car.  We sign the title and the prior owner gets a screwdriver and takes the plates off.  I’m confused.  You transfer plates, right?  The owner says, “No, you send them back.”  Okay, weird.  He gives us the keys and he gives us the weirdest look.  “You girls gonna just drive it off?”  “Yeah, I own it now.  Gotta take it home.”  “You don’t have plates, registration, or insurance.” “Oh, that’s okay, we’ve got 30 days to figure that out.”  He looks skeptical but oddly happy that we are taking the car.  Should’ve been a warning.

10:26 PM Amanda: So we start trying to get home.  This was before Google Maps and GPS but after you could print MapQuest directions.  I’m not sure there is a direct path between Medford and Boston that doesn’t include passing through a 5th dimension even in the modern era of GPS.  Like you could drive up a hill and see Boston from Medford but no matter what you did, how well you sketched maps with a pencil on the margin of the map to figure it out from your vantage point, you couldn’t get there.

10:30 PM Amanda:  Eventually, miraculously, we find the wormhole but now we are lost somewhere near Harvard in Cambridge.  I see a familiar intersection and beeline for it.  Kat’s like, “You’re going to turn left, aren’t you?  “Yes….”  “It’s a no-left-turn intersection.”  “We’ve been lost for four hours.  I can get us home if I break the law this once.”  “You’re right.”

10:31 PM Amanda: We go for it.  There’s a motorcycle cop just past where we could see him, and he pulls us over.  Please try to remember all of this happening in Oklahoman, Louisianan and Bostonian.

10:34 PM Matt:  LOL.  This is great.  Hehe.

10:35 PM Amanda: Kat starts sniffling a little – she went to an all-girls Catholic high school and we were roommates in the all-girls dorm.  We were both raised to be “good girls” and this is the first time either of us had been in any real trouble.  I’m like, “Kat, stop it!  You’ll be fine.  I’m the one in trouble.”

10:36 PM Amanda: Officer walks up and asks if we know why we were pulled over.  I say, “Yes, sir.” Kat starts bawling, “I told her it was a no-left-turn! We’re so sorry!!!!!”

10:38 PM Amanda: He asks for license and registration.  I give him my license and the new title signed today.  He asks for my registration.  I say, “I only just bought the car.  It hasn’t been registered yet. Check the date on the title.”  He walks off.

10:38 PM Amanda: Another cop pulls up.  Now Kat is losing her s$!& 100%.  She’s telling me we’re gonna be arrested. For making a left turn at a no-left-turn intersection.

10:40 PM Amanda: He comes back and asks if I have proof of insurance.  “No, officer, I’m telling you, we only just bought the car.  I haven’t had time to get all those things. We’re just trying to get it home.”  Kat pulls it together a little, “We’ve been lost for four hours and we’re just trying to get home!!!”  “Where did you but the car?”  “Medford.”  “*snort* Figures. Can’t hardly get here from there.”

10:41 PM Amanda: He walks off.  Another cop pulls up.  We can see them all talking behind us and Kat has gone from bawling to still as a corpse and white as a ghost.  I’m pretty sure I wasn’t doing any better.

10:42 PM Amanda: An officer we hadn’t met yet walks up, slowly, and we’re sure we’re about to get arrested and have our entire careers and our lives ruined…

10:42 PM Matt: So now we’re up to 3 cops.

10:44 PM Amanda: He leans down, both elbows on the window.  He says, “Look, you’re driving without plates.  You’re driving without insurance.  You’re driving without registration.  You’re driving with an Oklahoma license in Massachusetts in a car you own, that’s not a rental or registered in another state.  You took an illegal left turn.  Do you know how many laws you have just broken?”

10:46 PM Amanda: We both break into tears and Kat wails, “YEEEESSSSSSS” in the WORST Louisana drawl and I say, “I only knew about the plates.  Officer, in Oklahoma you get 30 days to get all those other things.”

10:47 PM Amanda: He asks, “Where do you live?”  I point and through tears, “Just past 77 Mass Ave.”  I’ve got my Brass Rat on and his face changes a little.  “You girls go to MIT?” (In unison and sobbing) “Yes…”

10:49 PM Matt: You two were sweating bullets here.

10:50 PM Amanda: He says, “Okay, you write this down.  You park this thing IMMEDIATELY.  You do not move it again until you complete these steps.  You get insurance on this thing.  You get it registered.  You apply for plates.  You put them on the car.  After all that you can move it again.  Until then, YOU LEAVE IT PARKED, DO YOU HEAR ME?” “Yes, officer.”  “Okay, we’ll follow you home.”

10:51 PM Amanda: As he walked away we heard him say to one of the other officers, “Too damn much paperwork on this one anyway.”

10:52 PM Matt: Oh my God, I’m rolling.

10:52 PM Amanda: It’s a good story.

10:52 PM Amanda: The campus police intercepted our little motorcade parking outside the dorm.

10:52 PM Matt: It’s an AWESOME story.

10:52 PM Amanda: And that’s the first story of how I got all the campus police and firemen calling me “Oklahoma.”

10:53 PM Matt: Oh no, more cops!
10:53 PM Matt: And the name stuck?
10:55 PM Matt: And you were 18 at this point?

10:55 PM Amanda: Yeah.  I set off all the fire alarms in the dorms three times that summer trying to cook eggplant.  I have a memorable look and used to have a memorable drawl. So I got a little notoriety for being a bit of a naïve idiot that required police and fire intervention.  Summer of 2002.  Have to write a song about it someday.

10:55 PM Amanda: I was 19 going on 20.

10:57 PM Amanda: For the next two years I couldn’t go anywhere with a male without a campus policeman calling out, “Hey, Oklahoma, you okay tonight?  You like that dude?  Call us if you need anything!”

10:57 PM Matt: Stop.  I need a minute to stop laughing.  Somehow the eggplant makes it funnier.  (Note: At this point in time the “eggplant emoji” was used to represent large male genitalia.)

10:57 PM Amanda: That’s another story.  For another time, perhaps.

10:58 PM Matt: Well, I think you’re memorable in a good way. 😀

At this point, it was Saturday, August 31.  Matt and I had met once (when we swapped phone numbers a full week ago) and second when we went climbing the morning of this conversation and spent until 4PM together.  We had plans to meet up the next day, which is definitely another story for another time.  However, the little tingle that we might be onto something was falling into place, as we had spent most of the day together and still couldn’t stop texting each other stories at 11 o’clock at night.

What if relationship proposals were like scientific proposals?

This blog is life and science.  Surprisingly enough, we use "proposals" in both life and in science, but they take very different formats with remarkably different outcomes.  I've summarized this in a table below.

As you can see, there's a bit of a disconnect between how we use the word proposal between science and life.  I would therefore recommend that we add a bit more science to our life proposals.

I'm so going to go through one of my past proposals and update it to be a life proposal.  It's not going to be as funny as I think it is, but believe me, I WILL THINK IT'S HILARIOUS!!!

You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit...

Those were the words of a little nursery school rhyme my sister learned at her preschool.  She's now old enough to barely remember those days, but that little line stuck with me.

It's a good life lesson, most of the time.

Here are some cases where it's a good life lesson, in my opinion, but willing to hear arguments.

The Teaching Evaluation

Teachers are graded by their students once per semester.  The evaluations range from "worst professor ever" to "best professor ever," with both comments coming from students in the same class.  At the end of the semester, it's too late to go back and change your teaching style to meet more students where they are, and you have to look at the evaluation as, "This is what I get, I won't get pissed off, I'll close this document for now and come back to it with a glass of champagne to celebrate the kind comments and a box of tissue and a pint of icecream for the unkind ones."  Really.  It's hard to see those, "Worst professor ever" comments, even if they are buried in a bunch of, "This prof is the reason I chose to go into this field," kind of comments.  You get what you get...

The Proposal

Your proposal is rejected.  I don't mean a marriage proposal, unless it was to Sheldon Cooper and he made you write up a 15 page document explaining why the union is required (honestly, that's not a bad idea to impose that on future suitors of mine).  I mean a scientific proposal.  You either spent 6 months of blood sweat and tears crafting the perfect document, or you tossed it together in the last week before it was due.  Or the last 72 hours, you do you, I won't judge.  No matter how much time you spent on it, it's a BIG part of yourself that you poured into that document, and getting it rejected feels like a personal blow, even if the comments are, "The proposal did not [do the thing the funding agency asked it to do]."  You probably knew that going in, so it's a good time to get what you get, and not throw a fit, but instead pay attention to the criticisms and rewrite for next time.  You get what you get....

The Paper

For those of you not in science, let me tell you how science works.  You spend a lot of time (usually over a year), usually with a team of people, crafting the most beautiful science possible, then spend the next 6 months turning it into the most beautiful report possible.  You submit to a journal, and it gets returned without review.  You are Noah, on your ark, and you just let your little birdie out into the world and it returns immediately, letting you know the flood is not over yet.  You rewrite, submit to a more specialized journal, and it returns with a rejection after review.  The bird comes back, but not immediately.  You rewrite, submit again, and it returns with a decision of "major revision required."  The bird comes back, this time with an olive branch in its beak.  You rewrite, and this time it is accepted with minor revisions.  The flood is over, the bird has found a place to nest.  You get what you get...

It's a really bad life lesson some of the time.

Sometimes, life doesn't hand you lemons, it hands you a challenge that is a call to fight for yourself and your people.  Let's be clear here.

The Proposal

The proposal [did do a good job of doing the things the funding agency asked it to do], and spelled out how, but was reviewed as not doing so anyway.  For heaven's sake, if it's a truly unfair review, do not accept it at face value, but ask the program officer to go through it with you.  If your proposal was given an unfair review, try to figure out why and how, and work with the program officer to remedy the situation.  You might not get it funded anyway (unfairly reviewed proposals are often not-selectable for other reasons), but you should at least figure out the bias that was applied to yours and work to ensure it is not an issue for you in further proposals nor for further proposers by bringing it to the attention of the program officers.  ...Throw a fit

The Paper

The little birdie came back too soon given what you expected.  WTF, it's a great paper and was submitted to the appropriate journal.  Check yourself before you throw a fit - did your letter do a good job of explaining why it belonged in the journal?  Was your abstract impactful and relevant to the current climate in your field?  Do you honestly think it belongs in that journal rather than a lower-impact one?  If the answers are all consistent, then you might be the subject of a bias.  It's worth it to ask for a phone chat with the editor at this point.  Go in prepared to discuss why it's the best paper for that journal, and why that journal doesn't want to see you publish it elsewhere, I mean, you as Science would HATE to see Nature get this because it's going to be incredibly highly sited.  Back up your arguments where you can with statistics and hard data.  Hand wavy stuff is easy to dismiss, but statistics like, "Papers involving this type of methodology had a 80% increase in submissions and a 300% increase in citations over the past 5 years, indicating a high interest field with little to few researchers actually doing it compared to the need." ...Throw a fit

The Interview

This one hit a little too close to home for me today.  Here's why: female professors are consistently reviewed with lower stats than their male professors.  A study found that even when professors are teaching the same content for the same class, students will rank the female as a worse professor than the male.  Another several found that having a female name over a male name as the first / individual name (as opposed to family name) would result in the resume being evaluated more poorly than the EXACT SAME resume with a classically male name (there are so many of these studies that it's hard to cite just one, I suggest looking into Freakonomics' citation list).  Similarly for having a name traditionally associated with an ethnic minority over a "white caucasian" name, e.g. "Shanique" or "Makayla" over "Isabella" or "Charlotte."  

The thing that got me going today was a story of an interviewer interrupting, talking over, and basically "mansplaining" to the interviewee the interviewee's area of work.  At this point, I have to admit that I hate that it's called "mansplaining."  It's "rudesplaining," and there's nothing manly about it.  I've been "rudesplained" to by women and by men (mostly men), and here's how it goes: "Oh, you said something I know a little bit about, let me express my authority by interrupting you, cutting you off, and making you listen to me tell you how I already know everything about your field."  The best is when you get interrupted in the middle of a 10 minute talk to hear someone drone on for 5 minutes about their pet theory that has largely been discredited in the field (in which you are an expert and they are not), just to have them say, "Don't interrupt me," when you try to cut them off and get back to your presentation a couple times.  That's the ultimate heights of rudesplaining.

If you're in an interview and you get rudesplained to, there are a couple ways to handle it.  If you are one-on-one, you can try asking for the other party to allow you to complete your sentences and actually make the statements you are trying to make (shouldn't have to ask for this).  If it's a one-on-many, ask that the rudesplainer please cease and desist so you can actually discuss your own work rather than their pet theory, and hope the group will back you up.  I do not recommend sharply pointing out, "You invited me for the interview, so do you want to see what I can offer your department or do you just want to tell me things I already know because I am actually an expert in this field and you are not?"  It's quite gratifying to do so, but it's seen as hostile whether you are male or female, even if its a totally legitimate thing to say.  It's much better to let the rudesplainer make an ass of themselves in public and then bring it up with the chair later.  If you get the sense that rudesplaining is just par for the course in the new job, don't take it.  ....Throw a fit, actually don't.  Walk away from that toxic work place faster than an olympic speed walker, and don't ever look back. Dodged a bullet with that one.

Wood crafting!

Thank you so much to Stephanie and Jeremy for hosting my trip to Baltimore, Maryland this last week!  We had so much fun with a number of inside jokes ("don't lick that!")...

One of the most fun things we did was stumble upon "Reclaimed by You," where we had the opportunity to make our own high-quality woodcrafts.  I selected some beautiful old poplar from an old Maryland barn that had to be demolished after a flood.  I did not do a good job of documenting the full process, but before I go through the process, let me show you the finished results!

The Process

Select Design, Wood, and Project

Of course your stencil design will depend on the wood and project, and the wood will depend on your stencil design and project!  It's a personal decision, of course.  I wanted something small enough to fit in a grocery bag so I could carry it home on the plane easily enough, and had a small set of designs to select from.  Some of my favorites featured on the site include customization of magnetic and chalk boards, tables, even doors, wall hangings, and this cute wall-mount bottle opener that has a magnetic bottle-cap catcher!

Stain the Wood

As much as I LOVE the look of green poplar, and even skipped the stain on the bed I built last weekend made of it, I decided for this project to give the wood a red tint to match the red in my entry-way to make this the perfect entryway hanging.

Cut the Masking Tape Design

This requires a precision, computer-controlled cutter, or a really good freehand cut with an exacto knife.  We were at a workshop party, so we used pre-cut designs in a masking tape.  On our side, all we had to do was pick out the part of the design we wanted painted.  In this photo you see my stained wood on my right, my design in front of me, and my friend with her project masked by all my activity to my left.

Transfer the Patterned Masking Tape to the Wood

This requires a little bit of skill and some magic tricks...  It's not that hard, actually, there's a decent transfer tape you can buy to lay down over your entire tape pattern, and then roll it all down onto your wood with careful alignment.  It's not that different from using the same technique for making microfluidics, actually, just at a larger scale!

Paint the Un-Masked Regions

This is as easy as loading up a brush and swiping it over the areas you want to paint, and the tape-based stencil does all the hard work of making sure your paint goes only where you want it to go!  You can let it air-dry (the paints available at the workshop dried in about 5 minutes without help, and in about 60 seconds with blow-drying).  I don't have any photos from this step as I was so excited to see my design come together....

Pull up the Tape Mask

This is as easy as it sounds, also, just pull up the tape and watch your design come together!  SO FUN!!

Seal and Varnish

At the workshop, they had a super fast-drying wax-based sealant they used that you could wipe over the entire design and would dry within about 10 minutes under ambient or about 90 seconds with a blow drier.  Again no photos, because I was too absorbed in my work....  but at the end, we got these wonderful products:

Prior to sealant curing, hence the slight blue tint in regions.

My friend's art after completion - she wants to mount hooks in the top and right so that it will be a place for keys and voila wall art + no more lost keys!

My finished project required a couple more steps due to the two-color nature, but it wasn't challenging even for a novice of the technique.  It did require a little more consumption of chocolates, but it came together nicely.

Enjoy the Finished Products!

Here my friend and I are standing in a little photo booth made entirely of reclaimed products, proudly showing off our finished crafts after stumbling into the shop only two hours prior.

Georgia Bill HB 481

This is a guest post from Samuel Holtzen, who earned his bachelors degree from GIT in 2018, has worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and will shortly be starting a PhD Program at UC Boulder.  Future-Dr. Holtzen, in addition to his scientific pursuits, is a musical theatre performer and an advocate for all that is just in the world.

Georgia legislature has passed HB 481, colloquially referred to as "The Heartbeat Act," effectively outlawing abortions after 6 weeks (the typical time to detect a fetal heartbeat). It will go into effect January 1, 2020.

h-hm...

I have a few thoughts.

(As a preface: Contraception is cheap, readily available, and now with medical advances, easy to use. I am of the opinion that contraception should be made available without a prescription upon medical examination, as it is slowly becoming clear that this country cares more about fetuses than actual children (see: the foster care system, universal healthcare, school lunches, child immigrants, Flint’s water crisis, lack of education reform, etc))

The typical time after conception before a pregnancy can be detected in most accessible pregnancy tests is 4 weeks. Most are not detected until well after this. This (ideally) gives the person 2 weeks to make a life-altering decision, assuming they have perfect timing and regular periods.

Once a person, having luckily determined that they are 4 weeks pregnant, decides to seek an abortion, there’s the task of finding places to do it. Privileged individuals with access to healthcare would go to their doctor. Most low-income or uninsurable people do not have this option, in which case they turn to Planned Parenthood. Well, at least they would, but the current administration is pushing to defund Planned Parenthood (HR 369) by 2019. 2020 rolls around, and people suddenly have much fewer options for safe and reliable abortions without doctors. (Anyway, I stand with Planned Parenthood, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Abortions will not stop happening, even if you ban them. Say it with me.

Abortions will not stop happening, even if you ban them. They just become dangerous, poorly executed, and even fatal to the mother. Part of Planned Parenthood existence is to make abortions safe, available, and as smooth as possible for women whose lives have been turned upside down.

“Sam,” you may ask, “why don’t pregnant women just take a little road trip to another state and get an abortion?”

My answer is twofold.

1. This assumes the means of the pregnant person. To those with privilege, this may be as simple as jumping in a car and driving somewhere else. If you don’t have a car, rely on public transit, work two jobs seven days a week, or are otherwise tethered to Georgia, you’re shit outta luck.

2. In the previous versions, there’s this fun little provision, at the end, real sneaky-like, where the legislators added that the abortion of the fetus, outside of any exceptions —medical or otherwise— would be akin to homicide and carry the weight of second degree murder (equivalent to 10-20 years in prison). This is no longer in the final version of the bill, but the fact that it was in there at all is frankly terrifying.

You made it this far, so I’m issuing a call to action:

Write your senators. Listen to your candidate’s platform. Don’t look at party, look at ethics and track record. Vote. And for God sakes, be kind to each other.

Information Literacy: Evaluate your sources and ID fake news Part 1

This series of posts comes out of a class I learned to teach while working with my good friend and colleague Dr. Vera Theil at Tokyo Metropolitan University.  It turns out the class was good for me, and perhaps my lecture was not as needed by our students as by those in my generation and older.  It seems modern college students, who grew up with the internet, are really good at evaluating false stories and fake news, but are a little weak against confirmation bias in identifying, using, and understanding information.  I thought it handy to break this down, so if you are interested in validating your own news sources, scroll down!

First: What is "Information Literacy?"

Literacy (from Webster): competence or knowledge in a specified area

Information literacy comes down to these five core competencies:

• identify needed information
• access information effectively & efficiently
• evaluate information
• use information appropriately
• understand information related issues

In this first post, I want to focus on the "evaluate" line.  I hope to convert all five of these points into short blogs over the next month or two, but if we start here hopefully it will be useful to a couple people!

Why can't I just Google and trust what I find?

Image credit: Link

This should seem laughably obvious to most, but we fall victim to this time and time again. Here are a couple vignettes for why you can't just automatically trust the top hits returned to you by Google....

Wikipedia is Created by Real Humans

For this one, see this post

Google (And Any Other Search Server) Saves Your Search Data

This is a particularly insidious issue.  Let me expound.  I was attempting to find a legitimate source against supporting man-made climate change.  All my searches returned stuff like this:

Yeah, pick on my search terms, I just wanted a quick example to show you.  At the time, I tried really hard for about 2 hours with all possible search terms.

In order to find the article needed, I had to download a new internet browser.  I have, in other words, trained Google and other search servers that I only respond positively to content that reinforces my "bias" that climate change not only exists but is man-made.
Digression: link to come

This means that everyone, everywhere, has trained their own internet experience to provide content that reinforces their bias, making it, eventually, exceptionally challenging to access content that challenges those biases.  Few, if any of us, realize that it is happening to us, because as we do more internet searches and respond to more content, we continue to train the system and continue to interact with content that "makes sense" to us.  We don't see a problem with our own world, but we do observe a problem with other people.  "They have access to the same information as I do, how could they possibly come to a polar opposite conclusion?" we ask.  It turns out we aren't getting the same information, and they, via a number of decisions in browsing history, have trained their information gathering systems to give them results that are probably telling them the opposite of what yours tell you.

Why Should I Care About Evaluating my Sources?

Not Every Retweet / Shared Post that Seems Informative is Legitimate for Its Purpose

Here's a poignant example.  This is a tweet obviously showing horrible things being done to a number of cats (and I love cats now, probably been infected, as my cat-loving started only after caring for a couple of them):

How horrible is that?  So many poor cats laid out on operating tables, tied down, having their life, liberty, and happiness ripped from them.  If you don't retweet this, you are a horrible example of humanity and everything we've worked against as a society.

Well, here's a link to the true story.  Those cats were taken in from a hoarding situation, and are being tested for rabies, etc... being spayed / neutered, and being treated for diseases coming from their horrible living conditions, all to enhance their adoption potential.  There were 697 cats living on the premises, which was described as the largest cat-hoarding case in the nation.  A little less than 10% (about 60) had to be euthanized due to the extent of their illnesses, with many more needing treatment for ringworm, mouth infections, etc...  In other words, your knee-jerk reaction to share / retweet that post would've been misled and misleading, because the photo is NOT from animal testing but instead an image of people trying desperately to rehome a very large number of cats all at once, many who were quite ill.

Not Every Anecdotal Experience Is Representative

People are people wherever you go, and we're really bad as a species separating "this one thing happened to my aunt's husband's friend's sister" from "this will happen to me."  Here's why this works:
My aunt's husband's friend's sister ate the berries of something that looked like that plant, and she died.
The woman in question in this example sampled nightshade, which is related to tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant, which we can all verify are quite tasty members of the non-toxic vegetable arena.  However, when moving into new regions and determining edibility vs toxicity of new flora and fauna, our ancestors HAD to rely on this kind of anecdotal evidence.  Are you going to believe Grunt when he said his aunt's husband's friend's sister died from eating it, or do you want to test it on a member of your own family?  Yeah, you're going to go with Grunt's anecdotal evidence, because why risk it?

Black Nightshade.  Image credit: Link

However, if we as a species went only with anecdotal evidence, we wouldn't have tomatoes, peppers, or eggplant.

Image credit: Link

Obviously we must be capable of rising above this bias!  It's made more challenging in the modern era because we have instant access to whatever happened to Grunt's aunt's husband's friend's sister via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc....  Also, we may or may not know it, but Grunt's aunt's husband's friend is a pathological liar and doesn't even have a sister.  How do we parse that possibility while accepting her knowledge for the good of our community?

More to come:

Given that we have at our fingertips access to endless knowledge, but also infinite random musings of individual humans who we may or may not trust (turns out that Grunt's aunt's husband's friend is a real piece of work and you can't trust a thing he says), it turns out to still be somewhat easy to figure out what you can base decisions on, and what you can't.  This series of blog posts attempts to take you through it in a short piece-by-piece manner, so you easily tell the difference between Grunt's aunt's husband's friend and someone with true, honest information.

Someone on the internet is WRONG!!

Image courtesy of https://xkcd.com/386/

We've all been there.  Someone on the internet is WRONG and we just need to correct them, or perhaps we just found some new "fact" on the internet and all our friends are WRONG.

Here are a couple short vignettes from my own experience how someone was WRONG on the internet....

Vignette #1: Wikipedia can be edited by anyone

Because Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, at any time, major falsehoods have a relatively short lifetime on the site, but relatively minor errors can persist for a very long time.

Story #1: A Major, but Hilarious, Wikipedia Error

For one example of a major falsehood, I am reminded of a time I looked up "grapes" on Wikipedia - I was looking for various varietals and hoping one would be excellent for my California container garden.  Apparently the perfect container garden grape varietal does not exist (have confirmed via direct experimentation), but the Wikipedia article that day had this brilliant and whimsical story about the Grape Battles of Sicily (~4000 BC).  In the story, on Wikipedia in 2008, the grape people had tired of having the flesh of their people eaten by the Sicilians, and organized a massive revolt.  They pulled in the grape peoples from surrounding areas, including a large swath of Europe, and mounted  an attack.  After a long and gruesome war, lasting 12 years, the Sicilians fought back the grape peoples.  To commemorate their victory, Sicilians began a horrific annual tradition of rounding up grapes, stomping on their corpses, collecting the blood and drinking it.  The tradition quickly spread across Europe and into Asia where the blood of rice was substituted for grapes as they had their own Rice Wars to contend with.  Few know the tragic history of the Grape Battles of Sicily, and continue to consume the blood of the grapes (wine) and the rice (sake) without understanding the violence they are supporting in doing so.  #FreeTheGrapes #FreeTheRice

I later tried to capture that perfect moment of Wikipedia gone wild, but only an hour later when I realized the brilliance I had witnessed, it was too late.  Someone had already edited the page, and I was too naive to know to check the edit history at that point in order to capture it.  Please understand - it was such a smooth transition from "real fact" to "whimsical" that no one could identify the exact moment when it ran off the rails.  It was glorious and I am so sorry you cannot witness the art of that writer.

Story #2: A Minor, but Problematic Wikipedia Error

Around the same time as I learned of the great Grape Wars of 4000 BC, I was working on the analysis of aldehydes and ketones, and an easy substrate we had in the lab was fermented beverages.  These weren't for the drinking - a prior grad student and postdoc had done an analysis of these for neurotoxic amines.  The overall study showed that there were relatively high levels of acetoin and diacetyl in the big, bold, buttery California chardonnays, high levels of histamine in fermented rice wine beverages, elevated levels of tyramine in red wines that had undergone malolactic fermentation, and high levels of acetaldehyde in sherries and ports. 

Digression: What does all that mean for a non chemist?  Well, acetoin and diacetyl are responsible for the buttery aroma and flavor you may associate with a good California chardonnay, and are also occasionally used by certain venues to entice you to visit their pretzel stands in shopping malls or the popcorn booth at movie theaters.  As natural byproducts of fermentation, they stand as major off flavors in beer production.  Histamine is a neurotoxic amine implicated in the natural immune response, hence anti-histamine drugs have a high capital in the combat against allergic response.  Tyramine is also a neurotoxic amine, responsible for a hypertensive response in sensitized individuals, leading to headache, heart palpitations, etc.. with potential side effects including stroke and heart attack, even after only one glass of wine, with a majority of problematic symptoms arising approximately 6 hours after consumption.  Acetaldehyde is the primary initial by-product of mammalian metabolism of ethanol, and is frequently blamed for all the deleterious symptoms of the "hangover."

Another compound we found in ALL fermented beverages was formaldehyde.  At the time, Wikipedia had a line item that said that formaldehyde was banned for sale in the EU under REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and restriction of Chemical substances).  This wasn't actually true, and looking into the sources cited revealed that the initial citation was a blog post by an embalmer incited against the idea that they would either have to continue working with formaldehyde or give up its use (there were so many posts in this ring of blog posts that I can't remember any longer who was the first).  A co-author on my study was certain that there was a ban against ANY formaldehyde in the EU, and demanded that we discuss it in the write-up of our results.  This would be particularly relevant for one of the sherries analyzed, which had its origin in Spain.  However, the claim that there was a blanket ban on sale or transport of formaldehyde in the EU was simply false.  I downloaded the legalese and highlighted relevant sections.  I got confirmation via e-mail to EU officials that there was no ban.  I was told that I was just being lazy and not looking hard enough....  I finally edited the Wikipedia page myself to update it with my research.  I used my real name when I did so, and an e-mail associated with the university I worked with at the time.  However, the problem suddenly dissipated and we finally submitted for publication. 

YOU, my friend, have the capability to check Wikipedia's sources, and correct them if they are wrong.  You can also edit it to include the Great Grape Wars of Sicily.  If you do, please drop me an e-mail because that was really a highlight of my life on the internet.

Please realize that the levels of formaldehyde measured were exceptionally low!  Prior to attaining a level of formaldehyde exposure advised against by the World Health Organization you would have to consume enough sherry to be 3.5x the LD50 (lethal dose for 50 percent of the population) of WATER.  If you intend to drink that much sherry, you have much larger problems than formaldehyde.
 

How to be a Cat 101, in 10 easy steps:

(1) Whatever your human expects you to do, do the complete opposite. 
(2) If your human needs to use the toilet, stand guard. Bonus points if you can get into the restroom before they close the door, extra bonus points if you can fall asleep on their trousers while they are down and act like it's a super-huge inconvenience being awoken from the position after about 15 seconds.
(3) Ensure that your human does not sleep more than 4 consecutive hours. If they go to bed early, stay up yowling and chasing non-existent squirrels through the windows. Make sure to curl up right on top of their bladder at about 12-3 AM, depending on when your human first fell asleep. Depending on when they fell back asleep after your initial torment, curl up on their face and cut off their breathing at about 4-6 AM, the earliest possible that doesn't literally kill them from sleep deprivation. If they go back to sleep, start kneading them with claws unsheathed no later than 9 AM.
(4) Knock over the water bowl as soon as it's filled, especially if it's put down on carpet.
(5) For just about no reason at all, be sure to kick your fresh turds out of the litter box. No one wants a turd-laden litter box.
(6) If you feel queasy, go hide in the most inconvenient place for your human to clean it up in order to throw up. Bonus points if they have to move an entire bed or couch to clean it up.
(7) If your human is cooking, choose that time to demonstrate how high you can jump. Extra bonus points for jumping onto the table with the cutting board and sharp knife or onto the stove that is turned to high.
(8) Everyone loves to walk into a room and see a kitty curled up in a sink. Do this somewhat regularly, but immediately evacuate if you see a camera come out. THERE CAN BE NO EVIDENCE!
(9) Mew loudly at the door to be let out, then disappear for hours. Act pissed off at your human when they aren't there to let you in the second you want to go back inside.
(10) Collect and fight any and all socks or hosiery belonging to the owner. Make sure that socks and hose are now disposable things, intended only as cat toys. While she's sleeping, arrange these destroyed artifacts artistically around her head. Mew loudly at 4 AM to let her know it's time to wake up and view your masterpiece. If she ignores you, swat her in the face a few times with your claws sheathed. If she doesn't wake up, do full-claws-out kneading on her neck. Look upset and hurt when she wakes up angry that you woke her up rather than appreciative of your artwork. Grab a sock and offer it to her, and then paw at the others to let her know that you did this for her. If she tries to go back to sleep after seeing your masterpiece, curl up on her bladder again, and this time make sure you move around a lot.

Food Stamps Challenge Day 3

Well, as much of a day as I could call it, totally outside of this challenge for the most part. I forgot I had to bring in bagels for my team ($11 total) for breakfast, so my breakfast plans were shot and my budget if I were supposed to do this on food stamps only.  Also, lunch was taken care of for me.  I did eat dinner: leftover curry and rice.  I still have a quart of leftover curry to get through.

Someone wise once said, "plans are useless, but planning is critical."  I think this is 100% true.  You can have a perfect plan based on an ideal situation, but of course it will fall apart the second real life intervenes.  However, if you had not planned, you would not be prepared, and then be stuck quite hungry and eating out of a jar of peanut butter stashed in the trunk of your car.  You would also have no context for how the shifts in plans impact your life.

So far my cheese and charcuterie snack is still waiting for me in the office fridge, along with a pint of strawberries.  I did eat an apple, because it was quick to grab and eat between meetings.  I should perhaps incorporate more of these flexible snack / breakfasts into future plans.

Lesson learned: Plan.  Don't worry if your plans don't work out perfectly.  Learn from where it broke down, and make a plan closer to reality next time.  For me, it looks like a single "large recipe" on the weekend can tide over my lunches and dinners at least through Tuesday if not further. 

Food Stamps Challenge Day 3 Update!

Today went about as planned, except for the following:

• Breakfast was leftover rice pudding and tea (I had a jar of strawberries ready but no time to eat them)
• Lunch was as planned
• Dinner was leftover veggie korma (man I love that stuff)
• The Snack wasn't eaten

Tomorrow there will be a couple changes - I will have the yogurt and granola, and lunch will be covered via an event I am attending.  Dinner will probably be Sichuan boiled fish.  The snack of cheese and charcuterie leftover from last week will go on the menu for tomorrow's snack.

In other news, I managed to finish out the day with only 1 un-checked item on my to-do list.  That's down from 3 yesterday, and 5 the day before.  I'm making some real progress on multiple fronts!

Obviously, I have no good context for how much just one person eats, especially when that person is me!  Ha ha, let's see how tomorrow goes!

Food Stamps Challenge: Day 2 Update!

Yesterday, I started the Food Stamps Challenge #2: Georgia!

Recap

I planned the week, went shopping, and came in a bit over due to an impulse purchase of a really stinky fermented vegetable that no one should eat one handed while driving home, unless they enjoy spilling stinky fermented vegetable in their car.  I really should treat my sweet baby Green Bean (it's an "alien green" Kia Soul) kinder.

Summary of This Post

I'll basically walk you through what I did with my Saturday evening and Sunday to prepare the goods procured prior to last post for the week.  There will be a few recipe updates, and some general food prep updates.  I'll follow-up with some commentary on what is and is-not possible for someone actually living in poverty.  A lot of this is more for a "poor person with really good infrastructure," e.g. farming in a rural area or suddenly unemployed after a good run.

First: Dinner Last Night!

I made Sichuan Boiled Fish.  I had most of the ingredients on-hand, only had to purchase the fish.  I also added some cabbage in for good measure.  The "vegetables" used were 1 carrot and a little shredded cabbage:

These were just poached in a little boiling water until tender, then dropped in the bottom of the serving bowl.
Next steps were to prepare the remaining ingredients (read the full recipe here):

I had to clean and filet the fish; remember I got a discount for doing this myself.  Here are the remains:

As always, we use every part of the buffalo (or fish) in this household, so those scraps were buried in the garden, which will use that nitrogen to make more food later this year.  You'll notice all "clean bones" parts were removed and added to the dish.  I don't care for picking out scales, so I rarely use the skin, fins, head, etc... in an actual dish unless I can be sure to strain out the scales afterwards, or be 100% confident that no scales are going into the dish.  If you don't like picking out bones, either, well, just put that in your garden as well!
Here is the final dish!

I may have made it a tad too spicy.  Look at all that red oil at the surface!  OOOOH SO WONDERFUL!  The fish is tender but holds together, the veggies are infused with flavor, and I will have enough leftovers to feed me again at least twice.

Second: Breakfast This Morning!

On the schedule was rice pudding with coconut milk from my pantry and leftover rice from my fridge.  Turns out I was fresh out of coconut milk.  It's okay, there are two basic ways to make rice pudding: add a milk / dairy product and heat until the rice goes soft and creamy, or boil the rice in water until it goes soft and creamy and add an egg and dairy product and make a custard.  Since I had yogurt and eggs, I did the custard route.

The Recipe:

1 c pre-cooked rice
0.5 c yogurt (usually you would want cream or milk, but any dairy thing will do, including non-dairy milk substitutes; even sour cream works in a pinch, just up the sugar if you have to go this route)
1 egg
0.5 to 1 c trail mix
Vanilla, honey, salt, and other seasonings
Water

Add enough water to rice in a small saucepan to cover the rice, bring to a boil.  Continue to simmer and add water until the rice goes actually soft.  While this is going on, separate the dried fruit from the nuts in your trail mix.  Add the dried fruit to the boiling rice mix.  Roughly chop the nuts and toast them if yours is a "raw" trail mix.  Combine the yogurt and egg in a bowl, mix VERY well.  Add honey, vanilla, salt, and other seasonings to taste.  For me, about 1/4 tsp salt, 0.5 tsp vanilla, and 1 Tbsp honey was about right - but if you like it sweet or feel like you're not hitting every part of your tongue, add more salt.  For vanilla etc.., most people do this with like cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg, the general pumpkin pie spice mix.  I'm 100% not a fan of cinnamon in sweet things, so I stick to vanilla and honey.  Add enough water to thin it into something pourable but not fully liquid (should fully coat everything you mix it with, but should still pour).  Boil down the rice mix until it's mostly rice and fruit, very little water.  Add some ice cubes to cool it down so you don't scramble the egg when you add it.  Pour in the egg-yogurt mix, and reheat on medium, stirring constantly, until thickened, but don't boil because the egg will scramble out.  About 170 F is where you're looking to get.

Here are some photos:

First, I can't get away with this except for the fact that I have an over-abundance of dry goods procured on wicked sale.  This trail mix was gotten from Sprouts on a blow-out sale at something like $0.59/lb:

 Up close, you can see it is a mix of purple and golden raisins, cashews, almonds, and pistachios.

 Separating the mix shows it's about 50/50 nuts and fruit by volume.  Perfect!

 Rough chop the nuts:

 Boil down the fruit with the rice:

 Mix together the egg, yogurt, honey, and vanilla:

 While we're at it, since yogurt is on the menu for breakfast later this week, might as well prepare a sweetened yogurt for later!  This is in a 1-c canning jar with a wide mouth.  I try not to use plastic anymore if I can help it, for a whole host of reasons, and these jars have SO MANY USES!

 Okay, the rice and fruit mix is softened and mostly dry:

 Here's the thinned-down egg and yogurt mix.  I didn't mean to spill it, I'm just clumsy, but the photo nicely shows about what texture you want to get to.  Pourable and liquid, but thick enough to not really run all over the place.

 Nuts are toasted!

 After adding the custard to the rice and fruit, and cooking.  I ran the spoon through the mix to show how thick it is, but it didn't come out well in the photo.  There's a rice pudding Grand Canyon in the shadow.

 Now topped with nuts (I am going to stir these in for the most part):

 And that, right there, is a perfect breakfast!

Breakfast Recap:

I don't really love rice pudding in all honesty.  Same goes for French Toast, waffles, pancakes, and other sweet breakfasts.  They're good, sure.  Totally edible.  Preferable to other things, like natto, for sure, but some people LOVE rice pudding.  Given that I don't love it, I have no context for the upper end of the scale, and therefore I can merely rate this on at the top of the edible scale for sweet breakfasts.  It's not a donut (which I usually HATE), but it's also not fried rice (which I really like).  Yes, I will eat it again, but that's because I ALWAYS have leftover rice and I can't throw away good food anymore.  It's also basically a different preparation of "leftover rice with egg" of which I am sure we will have many examples of from multiple different cultures as we move through this experiment.  Perhaps it should be unsurprising that from Chinese congee to Korean bipimbap to Japanese rice porridge to British rice pudding that many cultures have found a way to combine yesterday's rice with this morning's fresh egg and call it breakfast!  (French Toast is just a way to combine stale bread from yesterday with this morning's fresh egg, so it fits the trend.  In fact, the custard mix we made for this recipe is the exact same one I would use for a French Toast if I had stale bread!  I'm sure there are countless other examples as well.)

Third: Dinner Tonight!

For dinner, we were planning to use up some of those carrots in a vegetable korma, courtesy of India.  We're really jetting around the globe with this post - first Sichuan province of China, then a very British rice pudding, and now to India, perhaps equal with Sichuan province in how to make otherwise not-very-enticing ingredients taste like pure heaven.  For this, I'm using as a base this recipe.  I didn't want to buy peppers, as they were expensive, and I found out all my potatoes were ready to plant in my garden rather than ready to eat.  As a compromise, I dug into my freezer and found some kabocha squash (hokkaido melon) and some zuchinni.  I also disagreed with the way the recipe online used spices - in an authentic preparation spices would have a very special treatment including specialized toasting and timing of addition.  As a compromise I found from my stocks 2 tsp curry powder, 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp garam masala (that I made, every house has it's own blend in India), 0.5 tsp ground coriander, 0.25 tsp cinnamon, 0.5 tsp ground cumin, 0.25 tsp ground cardamom.  These I added with the garlic/ginger mix because I wanted them to toast a little.  It's not perfect nor authentic, but it's a decent compromise.  Also, I found that I needed to add water with the tomato sauce to achieve a good enough consistency to actually allow the veggies to cook without the tomato sauce burning.

The Recipe:

• Korma: I followed this one with the caveats mentioned above.
• Rice
• 1 c basmati rice, dry
• 1 c water
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 star anise
• 6-10 allspice berries
• 1 small pinch safflower (not saffron, that is expensive)

Here's how it went!  First, the korma.  Sauteed the chopped onion in a little bit of ghee (clarified butter, where you basically pull all milk proteins away from the fat so the butter won't burn at a higher temperature).

Got them nice and brown:

 Then added spices, including garlic and ginger:

 These really should smell amazing before moving on.  I also added the jalapeno at this stage.

 Then I added the carrots and winter squash (kabocha), tomato sauce and water.

 "Well if you liked it then you should have put a lid on it," - otherwise it will burn.  Lids can be useful for things like kabocha that need a long time to cook.

 After adding the ground up cashews, the sauce thickened nicely, and I also unceremoniously dumped a pile of frozen zucchini on top.  This stuff cooks in 2 seconds, especially from frozen, which is why I didn't add it earlier.

Now it's ready for cream!

 And that is the final dish!  Isn't it glorious?!!

Now for the rice.  I have a rice cooker, so I just washed the rice about 3x in a lot of water, then added the cooking water and spices:

When it was done:

Tossed with a fork and ready to serve!

The Commentary

That was actually a really easy dish.  A tad prep-intense for a weeknight, but wonderful for a lazy Sunday when I could watch the Food Network while chopping onions and peeling carrots, etc..  It does taste like comfort food heaven.  This is how cinnamon was intended to be used, my friends.  My only fault with this recipe is now I have about a gallon of korma.  I hadn't intended to eat korma, and only korma, all week, and didn't plan my purchasing accordingly.  I also still have Sichuan boiled fish leftovers from last night.  I think we're looking at an unfortunate major re-plan of the week's meals to accommodate these oversights.  Ramen may not be happening to us this week, and breakfasts may be korma.

Food Prep!

In any case, I will not make it through the week without some general prep for those work nights when I come home late and have limited time to cook.  In retrospect, my focus on preparing for cooking future meal (shredding carrots, marinating ramen eggs, etc...) may have been misguided.  Also, I picked up 3 pounds of strawberries for $3.00, and those go bad as soon as you look at them.  

Strawberries

First, I cleaned and froze the strawberries.  I use these in smoothies, and have learned from experience that if you freeze things in a bag or box, you get a block of frozen thing, not something easy to pull out just what you need, so I laid these out on a sheet tray before freezing:

These strawberries aren't that awesome for eating fresh, but I did clean some for breakfast tomorrow and a snack today.  They have a sub-par texture and not much sweetness.

Ranch Dressing

I mostly run off a recipe from the Pioneer Woman for my ranch dressing since the horrific incident of 2012 (see prior post for details).  Basically, it's a large bit of mayonnaise, a smaller but still large bit of sour cream, mixed together with spices added.  Ree uses fresh garlic in hers, but I find it makes the dressing a bit too hot for my tastes, so I use only dried or roasted garlic in mine.  For this version of what is actually a glorified aioli, I used a tsp of Worcestershire, a tsp of dried powdered garlic, a pinch of dried dill, a tsp of hot sauce, a minced green onion, and a handful of fresh herbs from my garden including sage, thyme, and oregano.  These I mixed all together, and then added salt and white vinegar until it tasted right on a cucumber.  A dressing has to be a little powerful to taste right on its intended target, so I find it best to always do taste tests with something you would use the dressing on.  It turned out heavenly.

I've already eaten this down a bit.  I only made a pint or so.

General Food Prep

Well, I shredded carrots and cabbage in prep for salads and noodles.  Same for soft boiled eggs for ramen (currently marinating in soy sauce and mirin), and hard boiled eggs for a salad later in the week.  I prepped lunch for tomorrow, which is a greek salad with the leftover chicken thighs that I sliced thin and canned, a bit of hummus, some of the ranch dressing (come on, it's really an herbed sour cream mayonnaise sauce), and a wedge of lemon.

I kept the toppings separate from the main salad (just lettuce, jalapeno, green onion, cucumber, and tomato) because lettuce starts to fail miserably the second you load it up with oils and vinegars.  It's more tiny jars to wash, but I have a dishwasher, so YAY!!

I also want to reiterate a couple things.  First, I couldn't do this without a well-stocked (if disorganized) pantry.

I also can't do this without some thoughts to making sure every part of everything finds a use in my kitchen and not in a landfill.  The best way to cut costs, after all, is to actually use every bit of everything you buy.  Food waste goes into the garden - you already saw my fishy get buried, here are the kitchen scraps for the compost:

I even started saving freezer bags.  These things are SO EXPENSIVE if you look at them on a per-item basis, they add $0.10 to $0.15 to food products when I use them, and if you saw my budget on the last post, that's anywhere from 10% to 100% of the cost of a single food item.  They're also bad for the environment (microplastics are everywhere).  OKAY it's a little crazy to reuse a disposable, but it's allergy season and I'm using a million tissues and I hate taking out the trash.

Really, all my eco-hippy ways of "reduce, reuse, recycle" come down to one fundamental principle: I REALLY HATE TAKING OUT THE TRASH.  I would rather go bury a fish skeleton in my back yard than take out the trash.  I have a problem.  Fortunately, it's an easily-justifiable problem if I look outside the neurosis itself to higher matters.

Final Synopsis

It was a good day.  I'm going to wind up with a lot more meals off my $34 dollars than originally planned or anticipated.  Things are looking up for this project.

Leftover Roundup

• Leftovers used up
• 1 c rice
• 1 c hot and sour soup
• Lots of carrots (these aren't leftovers, just so much a surplus they belong in this category)
• Leftovers created
• 4 c Sichuan boiled fish (dinner yesterday)
• 1 c rice pudding (breakfast today)
• 2 qts vegetable korma (dinner today)

Leftovers are net moving correctly, old things are being turned into other things, but overall a net positive in leftover accumulation.  We'll have to work on this in the coming days.