Mostly a personal blog, with some content regarding Lotus Domino http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/ en-us Mon, 7 Dec 2009 10:03:22 -0400 Mon, 7 Dec 2009 10:03:22 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/the-future-of-the-email-market-for-lotus.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/the-future-of-the-email-market-for-lotus.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/the-future-of-the-email-market-for-lotus.htm
1. 70% of the email market in the corporate world (i actually don't know what market segment they were talking about) has gone to exchange.

2. many customers who have been with Notes for a long time, let's say really any release before 8, but mostly like 4, 5 or 6, have switched or are switching to exchange for email.

3. Lotus is winning many new customers (customers who never saw the pre-8 clients).

so the result is, Lotus is winning new business, while the old business where impressions of the clunky client, the "two lane highway" / workplace years, and the years of non existent marketing (thank god that is behind us) have stuck, like flies in poisoned molasses.

i get this picture in my head of two rivers side by side, running in opposite directions, and masses of salmon swimming like hell in each respective direction.

so my question is, does this bear out to what other people are seeing in the marketplace?

and yeah, this hits home for me for reasons i'm not going to talk about outside of what i just did, because i don't usually blog about work, and this is as close as i ever want to get. mainly i'm just trying to gage what is going on out there.

also up for discussion:

i've also seen: independent developers who have had a lot of trouble finding work, and business partners who do things other than development like making products, who are doing very well with Notes.]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/the-future-of-the-email-market-for-lotus.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/the-future-of-the-email-market-for-lotus.htm?opendocument&comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:41:01 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-tale-of-two-macs.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-tale-of-two-macs.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-tale-of-two-macs.htm
the fellow who called did so from the center of Happy Apple Nirvana. i could feel him smiling from deep within the center of Brahman's navel (or is that Atman, i can never keep them straight) as he told me with complete and joyous calm that the computer was ready to be picked up.

i went into the store to pick it up and while i was there i grabbed a fire wire cord and a game for my daughter. everyone i spoke to was sooo happy and listened so well and was genuinely interested in everything i had to say. all my questions were answered quickly and efficiently and with great energy and near manic attention to detail. i'd stepped back into Happy Apple Land, after my sojourn in the bowels of, oh, i don't know, Apple Purgatory?

i remember going to see my sister when she was in college. she was majoring in theatre in a small college near (or in?) st. augustine. st. augustine is a touristy place. there is an old spanish fort there, and lots of historic places to see. if you are into the hyperreal, ripley's has a museum there. there are horse drawn carriages that trot down cobbled streets. there are great beaches, and an old cathedral, and so on. we went there a lot when i was a kid. we always had a blast there.

the st. augustine i knew from childhood is the one i have just described. but my sister lived in an apartment that was just behind that st augustine. it was a poor neighborhood. there were gangs there. the place where she and three other students and various others lived was pretty much a hell hole. the kitchen was unusable. literally. i had one of two lifetime run-ins with the paranormal on the metal fire escape stairs that led up to her front door. little claws running along my back. spooky as hell. the week after i visited, the whole neighborhood was effectively shut down due to a gang war, and armed gang members had to escort my sister and her friends from block to block whenever they wanted to walk anywhere. like say to the store or whatever.

so there is st. augustine. and then there is the st. augustine behind st. augustine.

now i've learned, there is Happy Apple Land, where everyone is a "genius" and they wear cool blue and orange t shirts, and they are all very happy to answer all of your questions, as long as everyone is staying inside the preconfigured Apple Swim Lanes.

but. go outside the swim lanes and suddenly you are being escorted through dangerous territory by rival gang members. this metaphor is actually quite a bit more apt than you might think.

this is a tale of two macs. or, two macbooks, to be a little more precise.

first off, for those interested, when i got my machine back, i had to move the data over from my old machine. except i couldn't do it the cool way. cuz i had vilefault enabled on the old machine. and i couldn't turn it off as there was not enough room on the hard drive for a complete copy of the Home folder. so it goes.

i didn't want to repeat the merry go round from before. so i just went with a brand new account and transferred the data over, directory by directory, file by file, the old fashioned way. and that was fine cuz it forced me to actually look at the data and think about what was there. i trimmed some of the fat. no biggie. and the firewire cable worked great.

i bought a macbook last january for my wife who was starting a master's program in humanities. her program is online and she needed a reliable machine. she needed a new machine, anyway, actually, as her old macbook just doesn't work anymore. at all. we can't even turn it on. it was the last of the motorolla macbooks and it's toast. so as it was in its final throes we went down and got her a new machine, an aluminum model, which apparently they don't make at the moment, in the macbook line.

so. around the time my machine came back, her machine started throwing kernel panics. oh and the iSight camera had stopped working a while back. but the kernel panics, well, when that happens the machine freezes, and whatever she was working on just goes away. poof.

so she put her data on a thumb drive. transferred it to my machine. and i took hers in for service.

so i walk into the Apple Store and say, hey, i need to drop this machine off for service. i know what's wrong with it, basically, and can someone take a look. and the person i am talking to starts telling me i need to make a genius appointment. i say, no look i just want to drop the machine off. and he gets offended, cuz i cut him off mid sentence.

he doesn't know about my very recent history with his store. he doesn't know that for me, just walking in there is now stressful. especially if there's a repair involved. all he knows is some asshole who needs to grow up and learn how to be polite just cut him off mid sentence and now his day has become stressful.

see at some point there is this big feedback loop that keeps getting worse. but i realize, right there, he didn't deserve that. so i try to smile and be a sane human being for the rest of the conversation. and i do that. so i pull out my Pro Care card. and he makes an appointment. and says that you know, someone will get back to me in a week or so. and then i say, well is that true? i mean, i'm a member of Pro Care (which always sounds like a dental plan to me), thought you guys were supposed to do this a little quicker in that case (or something along those lines). and now he has to remake the appointment. and he gets snarky with me several times. in fact at one point he stops himself and says, was that snarky? i'm sorry.

we were both kinda riding the edge, trying to be basically human to each other. but i did maintain my cool through the rest of the conversation. but see, what happened was, i walked into the store without an appointment. and this effectively puts me outside the swim lanes. and so, apparently, this causes dissonance in the mind of any Apple Store employee i talk to. they just can't handle it.

oh and btw what i learned was that, when doing a "quick drop", tell them you are a procare member, NOT a guest. cuz that way they will click the Member button on the web application screen instead of the Guest button. and then things will, theoretically, go faster.

so after putting in my data multiple times (like, i don't know, four or five times including associating my apple id with my procare id, which somehow was never done before) we finally get the order put into the system, and away goes my wife's macbook into the bowels of the store.

it has been, i think, eighteen days from that day. and to my knowledge nothing meaninful has happened yet.

which is why i have not written anything about this from before, because i figured it would save me some time to just write it all up at once.

but i've apparently gone inside the badlands. i'm in the Apple Store behind the Apple store. i'm at the part where various Apple employees try to walk me from street corner to street corner. but no one is really handing off anything. nothing is really happening. like i'm unstuck in time, or, i dont' know. pick your own vonnegut/kafka metaphor.

of course this is all ridiculous. it's not like anyone is losing any limbs, or anyone is dying. it's not like my parents innocently named me Harry Potter. the Apple Store didn't give me cancer. i must say though i'm glad my cholesterol is coming down because they might have given me a mild infarction or two somewhere along the way.

so the long boring stupid story is that, some days later they call and say that the machine needs hardware replacement parts. (see i totally knew that. i'd done my homework.) and they would have to ship it off somewhere, send it to a "depot" of some kind, as they didn't have the parts in stock. and did they want me to make a back up of the data?

so i go by the store, since this is all on my voice mail, and also whenever i call them back the phone rings and rings and no one picks it up. and i tell them, no, i don't need a backup. just please send it off so i can get it back and return it to my wife and get my macbook back from her and then i can install Notes 8.5 and i can go on with my life, get back to work on my novel, and basically return to normal. or what passes for normal for me, anyway.

ok so i didn't really tell them all of that. but that's what i'm thinking.

so they are all like, ok cool, we'll do that then.

and then a week later someone leaves me another voice mail. with the same message. they are going to ship it off, but, do i want them to back up the data first? just in case something goes wrong or they have to replace the hard drive.

i thought it was the same voice mail from before. i seriously didn't think it was a new one. and btw the last conversation we had with them, which was last night, they admitted it was the logic board. which has nothing to do with the hard drive. but let's forget about that for now. and get back to the 99 dollars they apparently really, really, reeeeally want to charge me to back up the data that they know i do not need backed up.

so i go by the store. in person. i talk to a guy in a cool orange t-shirt. i get his card. and i say, you know, it's funny. i had the same exact conversation with a guy, right here in this spot, a week ago. the same one! we are talking about exactly the same thing. we are talking about the fact that i don't want my data backed up. i just want you to send the machine off for repairs. that's all. no data backup needed, just send the machine off. now. thanks.

i was very nice. very polite. i smiled as often as i could. i just want to point that out. because after a while i get to thinking, this is just bad karma. i've done something wrong and i deserve what i'm getting. i was mean to an Apple employee who wasn't listening to me and wanted to unjustly charge me money for something that was not my fault. who just wanted me to line up and get into the Apple Certified Swim Lanes, where as much as possible Apple gets to push the hard work of fixing their broken shite onto their customers, and where possible, they get to charge us for things we don't need and should not have to pay for.

but i digress.

so this time i get a business card. the card is somewhere else and i don't remember his name and that is probably good because otherwise i'd likely blog it right now. but i have a business card and until last night it was squirreled away in my wallet.

so then today or yesterday or maybe wednesday (today at the very latest) i should, from the time of my last redundant conversation, be picking up the machine, with its new logic board. except i'm not.

do you know why not?

because yesterday morning, i got a voice mail asking if they wanted me to have them back up the data. because they needed to ship the computer off to a depot, where they can replace the hardware that needs replaced, because they are not able to fix the problem themselves. and this time he kindly leaves the price tag for me on the voice mail, in a cheerful, blustery voice. the cost is 99 dollars, and can i get back to them and let them know.

see how they did that?

lol!!

i mean that is just awesome. its like they've been up night after night reading Kafka, and figuring out how they can make the Apple Store more Kafkaesque. i mean it's only an Apple Store. how much harm can they really do to the world? they could get as Kafkaesque as they want and really, probably, no one would be harmed, per se. they aren't going to give me H1N1 just because they ship my laptop off to, er, Antarctica? by mistake or something. it's all ok cuz they all wear these really great t-shirts and stuff.

ok. so. this is the part where i make a declaration!

i'm never buying anything from Apple ever again. the Apple stock price can climb all the way to the moon, large swaths of which Apple will undoubtedly one day own, but i don't care. i might just give up computers altogether. eventually. at some point in the distant future. or, whatever.

i'm likely not going to blog about this again. so this is the end. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/a-tale-of-two-macs.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-tale-of-two-macs.htm?opendocument&comments Fri, 2 Oct 2009 09:23:53 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/good-news-bad-news.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/good-news-bad-news.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/good-news-bad-news.htm
it turns out the bad news is that what he was calling to tell me was that i forgot to initial a checkbox allowing them to charge me one hundred dollars for diagnosing whatever was wrong with my machine.

omfg...

they are trying, really hard, to lose a customer.

let me put this another way.

they called me. during dinner time. to scold me. as though i were an idiot child.

i had to tell the poor guy who i unloaded on not to take it personally. cuz as i told him, "you are the fourth or fifth person i've spoken to about this issue and i'm really pissed off". just so he would understand that the undercurrent of anger on my side of the equation wasn't anything against him in particular. and then i directed him to the place on the form in question where a manager had initialed saying there would be no charge.

hello? anyone? fucking? in there?

his response? he said he was directed by a manager to call me up and inform me that unless i came in and initialed that check box, that they would not be working on my machine.

this is the part where i get surly.

un. fucking. believable. the sheer arrogance is completely astounding.

dear apple store managers, everywhere in the world, and especially in Tampa, Florida.

you do not get to call me up and harass me. ever. you don't get to have your "administrators" (or whatever you call them - geniuses? hahahahaha) call me up and tell me that from now on i will be required to initial that check box. let me fill you in, all you Apple store managers who are undoubtedly completely and blissfully unaware of this blog entry, that relationships with customers are just like all relationships. there is give and take. it is ALWAYS A NEGOTIATION. you don't get to set arbitrary rules, no matter how great your hardware is.

have you got that part? get smarter already. christ on fucking crackers.

i'm pretty sure that by the end of the conversation he'd said he was going to work on the machine. although i'm not 100% certain. i suppose i'll find out eventually.

how much worse can this get? i've been patronized by the good people at the Apple store for the last time. i can tell you that for sure. i'm really not sure at this moment what i'm going to do when i walk into their store to pick up the machine. i may walk out with my money back instead. not sure how i can even use the machine with any semblance of joy after this.

maybe i'm getting old. but it seems as though we keep lowering the bar, and lowering it further and further, and when we've got it lowered that far, we lower it some more. i want to teach people how to start thinking. i want to show them there is a better way to live. maybe that's arrogance on my part? i don't know. but i don't think it is.

last night my daughter read me "a couple of stories". she's doing so great with that. i am continually astounded at how many words she knows, and even words she isn't sure of, she often figures out very quickly. she is truly mastering reading. i'm incredibly proud. can you tell? so in between stories i said to her, hey if you get to read me stories, i get to read you a poem. so i did, and wouldn't you know it, i turned to a Rilke poem that kind of put things in perspective. here is an excerpt from The Man Watching:

What we choose to fight with is so tiny!
What fights with us is so great!

... When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.

my "triumph" over the situation with the computer definitely makes me small. i'm not sure there is even a triumph there. it's such a stupid thing. i ought to be out wrestling with angels instead:

If we would only let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

...whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

anyway. maybe that's the universe or god or whatever you want to call it (myself? or just plain old Rilke) telling me, i've got better things to worry about than this. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/good-news-bad-news.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/good-news-bad-news.htm?opendocument&comments Thu, 1 Oct 2009 17:38:32 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/macbook.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/macbook.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/macbook.htm
really nice machine. i was sooooo excited when i saw the keyboard back lighting. omg i love that sh1t. it's the little things. i love the aluminum body, just everything. it's wonderful and i can't wait to try Notes 8.5.1 on it.

got it home, ported my data from my old macbook over. on my old macbook (which still works as long as it is plugged in - needs a new battery i guess - for the second time) the data is encrypted with FileVault.

all the data got ported over. i didn't have a fire wire cable around so i used the network cable and it worked fine. or so i thought.

once the data was on the new machine, i tried logging into my account. of course this would be the same account i had on the old machine. i've typed the password about a zillion times, no way i've forgotten it.

so i type it in and it comes back with an error. something about FileVault (don't remember now the wording).

so i google the error and after searching some i finally find what looks like the right set of instructions.

the first thing i have to do is figure out how to enable root level access on the machine. then there were five or six more tasks after that, all looking at least that herculean.

ack.

so, hey i just bought the machine two days ago right? i also bought AppleCare to go with it (don't leave the store without it man, trust me on that one), and i am a ProCare member (don't get me started on ProCare - those f$kers won't even look at your machine without paying for it - a hundred bucks a year!!), and i've bought, let's see now, including this new machine, four Apple laptops, one iMac, and two iPods over the years.

they ought to roll out the red carpet for a customer like me, right?

not so much.

first off, the first tech who looks at the machine says, oh, we'll just change your password and you'll be all set. he wasn't looking at the error. he wasn't actually reading it.

see how i did that? cuz ya know, when there are errors on the screen, i like to, you know, actually read them. i'm curious like that.

then i explain to the tech guy (i'm using the term lightly at this point) how i already looked up the error and told him how the first instruction was to enable root level access on the machine. he looks at me with slight terror, his eyes getting sort of big and wide, pupils dilating (no i'm not making this up or embellishing) and says, ooohhh, it's a File Vault error. we'll have to check it in and have them look at it.

so we do that. and he says someone will call me.

now having tried to call the Apple store one time and having been completely befuddled and denied by their automated telephone system, i realized that this was a "don't call us we'll call you" kind of scenario. but i'm a patient guy. even when it comes to the long awaited MacBook Pro (insert gilded choirs of angels singing hallelujah here - i've really wanted one of these machines for a LONG time), i can be patient with them while someone monkeys around with the significant task of getting FileVault to give up its encrypted ghost. i mean, i figure that is going to take someone with both brains and time some significant effort to come to grips with. right?

so it's been two days and i haven't heard anything. no calls from either confident or frantic tech people. nothing. i'm starting to get nervous. so i go into the store on my lunch break and give them the repair number and they disappear. for a while. i start to realize right then - ah, no one has even looked at it yet.

another tech fellow comes out. he is introduced to me as their "administrator". um, yeah, not sure what that means in the context of an Apple store. but i'm not impressed. by the title anyway. i'm more than willing to be impressed by his technical skills. but he simply says, we are going to have to wipe the drive and charge you 85 dollars.

now wiping the drive doesn't bother me. i can just disable FileVault on the old machine and push the data back over again. no biggie, right? but the 85 dollar charge? THAT i have a problem with.

it isn't MY fault that "Snow Leopard" can't handle the encrypted data. it isn't my fault that their software can't, in this instance, talk to their own software. but the fellow is insistent.

so i start to get surly. he brings out another geek. oh my she looks very smart and very geeky. just the sort of person who can listen to the problem's description and make an intelligent assessment of the situation. right? right?

not so much. she listens to me talk to the fellow. i explain again what happened. by now it is painfully clear than no one on their "technical staff" has even thought to GOOGLE the error message that they clearly do not understand. they don't get it. talking to them is like, well, talking to a deer that has it's eyes caught in the headlights. no one is home. all the fellow can do is to repeat his assertion that because it is a "software problem" (apparently these are magical words that mean "we automatically get to charge money") and they are going to levy their 85 dollar fine. no. matter. what. cuz ya know, i'm so stupid, pushing their bright shiny buttons on their perfect, beautiful screens, and so this means i obviously deserve to pay them for the privilege when the machine locks up tighter than a.. well something that is locked up really tight. uh, davie jones locker? or something?

anyhoo.

now. now............ he's got me steaming mad. this is the kind of mad i just don't really GET any more. i've grown up a lot. honest. but i'm losing it at this point. i say to him, WE ARE DONE HERE. YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE THIS COMPUTER BACK AND YOU ARE GOING TO GIVE ME A FULL REFUND.

and i put the computer down on one of the many large wooden desks that now populate the new fangled store. and we stand there and he and the geeky girl who is supposed to be All That sort of stare at the computer, and stare at me, and finally he picks it up and says, "OK" with a hint of triumph in his voice, as though he's won some sort of argument he was really hoping he WOULD in fact win. or... something. by this time i'm not at all convinced i can accurately predict what he might be thinking, since i'm not entirely sure he IS thinking. i mean i thought i could at least assume if not predict rational customer service. am i crazy?

and so he goes over to the register where they are now going to give me my money back. theoretically.

now at this point i am ready to disavow All Things Apple. For Fucking Forever. all over an 85 dollar charge. but the charge is so unwarranted and unbelievably stupid, and the service has been so painfully slow and so painfully unintelligent. and i expect more from Apple. i'm sorry, shame on me apparently, but i just do expect more from them. because their machines rock. and because they look so nice. and because they cost a lot of money. (that last one is kinda important methinks.)

now i know better.

so i suppose in order to do a refund, he's got to go and get the manager. and she comes out. and she's very nice and she wants very much to help me and figure out my problem. so NOW after all of THAT, i finally have someone who, holy crap, is actually listening to me. i guess threatening to return the merchandise will do that?

she doesn't understand the problem i don't think, she even looks at me with some suspicion, and says that they haven't seen that problem before, and that they have transferred data from some machines that had FileVault installed, but... well, i guess she decides to take my word for it. maybe it's my earnest insistence that i've been wronged. maybe it's that, over and over again, i am able to explain the problem logically. maybe it's that i'm pissed off. really bad, by now. maybe it's that i suggest to her that she can GOOGLE THE ERROR AND SEE THE RESOLUTION ON THEIR OWN F@#$@#$@ING WEB SITE???

who knows what part of my tale (the one i've burned up my entire lunch hour telling to various suspicious, uncaring, and unthinking people, people who think that whenever they smile at me, i'm supposed to just jangle up 85 bucks out of my pocket like a broken one armed bandit), finally gets through to her.

her solution? they'll wipe the data for me without charge. i tell her i've got a ProCare card. cuz i know this is the part where no one looks at my new MBP for days or weeks. she says, oh that's good it would have been 3 to 5 business days before they could have turned it around without ProCare. but since i do in fact have it, they can get it done in 1 to 2 business days instead.

i think to myself, yeah, it's been sitting in the back room without anyone even looking at it for two days. already. right? right? but i'm emotionally spent, i've already totally lost it once, let it go, let it go.

i told this story to a friend of mine at work. he said, thanks for telling me that. i'm never buying Apple.

i love Apple computers. i've watched my daughter do amazing things with her iMac that i know she would not have been able to do with a PC. but god almighty frankenchrist people. Apple really needs to train their people on THINKING PROACTIVELY and on giving good customer service and on LISTENING CAREFULLY and on RESEARCHING THINGS THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

the manager, who was a sweet girl in her way, expected me to thank her. she gave me this look, saying something along the lines of how she had helped me, and it was obvious, albeit unspoken, that she expected me to thank her. i was so worn out at that moment that i did just that. i said "thank you" and walked out.

but what she didn't realize is that she did the absolute MINIMUM to keep me coming back. and i do mean the minimum. she basically came out and did some triage, mostly treating me with respect but here and there lapsing into suspicion or some kind of wariness. and then had the, god what do you call it, temerity? to expect to be thanked for what she did. as though LISTENING INTELLIGENTLY is a SERVICE that goes beyond the call of duty.

but that isn't enough. not by a long shot, when you have already been treated the way i was, after spending close to 1,600 dollars on the machine in question.

i'm disappointed and a bit shocked.

and i'm waiting, i guess for two days, to hear back from them. i fully expect to have to go visit them before they call me, but maybe they'll surprise me. we'll see. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/macbook.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/macbook.htm?opendocument&comments Thu, 3 Sep 2009 10:25:20 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/todays-breakfast.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/todays-breakfast.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/todays-breakfast.htm
here is the recipe for the smoothie:

one cup strawberries
half cup blueberries
two bananas
seven leaves of romaine lettuce.
1 cup of water.

blend...

and that's it! simple to make, tastes great, and very cleansing. i added the blueberries for the antioxidant boost, you can also make it without them and it tastes great that way too. romaine lettuce has a high chlorophyll content which is very cleansing/detoxifying.

i'm sort of slowly heading toward going "raw" as a vegan. this is the next step on the journey for me - one i've known i was going to take but haven't had the time yet or the inclination to follow. but i'm getting there, it feels like it is time to start moving that direction. so i started reading this book:

12 Steps to Raw Foods: How to End Your Dependency on Cooked Food

i don't know why but i had a good feeling about this book. it hasn't disappointed. i love the way it is written, and i love the stories mrs. boutenko tells about her own family's history. basically the short story is, they all had really awful health problems. they did the raw vegan thing and everyone started feeling better, rather dramatically. she had a diabetic son for instance who was cured, her asthmatic daughter? also cured. she and her husband had all sorts of problems - all cured by eating raw, vegan foods.

but then they ran into problems after being raw vegans for nine years. it seemed their diet wasn't quite cutting it. so they added in greens, lots of greens, and things got better again.

so i'm experimenting with the green smoothies. i figure its a great way to start inching my way toward going raw. moving away from cooked foods is i think a bigger deal than i imagined it would be. it turns out there are opiates created by cooking food. grilled meat for instance has highly addictive toxic substances that are also found in cigarettes. 100 grams worth of grilled meat equals 800 cigarettes worth of these toxic addictive chemicals.

but this addictive property of cooked food isn't just limited to meat. it doesn't matter what kind of food it is, when you cook it, addictive chemicals that often have opiate effects, are created. here are a few other things i've learned about cooking food:

- many fats cooked at temperatures over 300 degrees turn into trans fats. different fats have different temperatures at which they go toxic.

- vegetables and fruits naturally contain enzymes that help digestion. at temperatures over 118 degrees, the enzymes disappear. (there is a restaurant in orlando called Cafe 118 for this very reason). when the enzymes disappear, the body has to make up for it by manufacturing enzymes to digest the food. this is hard on the pancreas and is stressful. i read recently that the enzymes created by the pancreas go around killing cancer cells. by diverting them to digestive activities, our ability to fight cancer is limited.

- many other vitamins and nutrients disappear in even light cooking. for instance falcarinol, a cancer fighting nutrient found in carrots, is halved when carrots are blanched.

- the pH of foods changes when foods are cooked. they become more acidic. the more acidic a food is, the harder it is on the body. one way the body adjusts by pulling calcium out of the bones to change the pH back to where it needs to be. ever notice Tums and Rolaids are made mostly of calcium? there's a good reason for that. raw foods are much more alkaline. the blood stream has a certain pH it has to maintain - it's basic survival. so the body will do everything it can to adjust to whatever dietary choices we make.

so... for all of these reasons - the pH of foods, toxic chemicals created by cooking, nutrient density, and the resulting health and wellness of eating raw - i want to move in this direction.

honestly it feels like moving toward a completely raw diet is going to be harder than going vegan was. but i am already experiencing benefits from eating the green smoothies. so... i'm going to continue experimenting in that direction.

if you want to read more, some of it is in the book i linked to above, and some of it is in the Thrive book i blogged about before. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/todays-breakfast.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/todays-breakfast.htm?opendocument&comments Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:53:43 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-note-on-praise.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-note-on-praise.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-note-on-praise.htm "confused a lot of people in the community".

it's interesting to me that praise confuses people. just read that post again at face value, without any knowledge of anything else, and you will see what i meant.

in fact, for the rest of this post, just assume i don't know whatever it is you are thinking about, because it is highly certain that i do not in fact know what is in your mind. it turns out, lucky me, i am neither psychic nor omniscient. in particular, i don't know the gossip. i just don't care about it. at all. it's just sort of congenitally outside my radar, like a lot of other things. let my complete ignorance of basically almost everything be your guide, from here to the end of this post, should you make it that far.

what i wrote the other day was simply in praise of a friend, as a means of encouragement during some turbulent times. that's all. yeah there is a lot of controversy going around lately. but none of that stuff adds up to anything. it's weightless, from where i am standing. this is thankfully easy for me to say since i'm not in the middle of it!

my unasked-for advice to the innocent bystanders is, don't invest any energy in those barbs as they go sailing over your head. otherwise they may sink down into your unsuspecting heart. for those of you in the middle of it, apply what i said to nate to you. just pretend i said it about you, because on some level i really did. i have a great deal of respect for everyone in this community. it is often that those who work the hardest and give the most, get the most flak for their trouble. i've seen it up close, i know what i'm talking about.

when it comes to things that are made, like software or gadgets or cars, it's necessary to be analytical, it's important to be critical, and it is important to be vocal about it. critical thinking keeps us honest and healthy. the big corporate machine gets in the way of good sense. a lot of things go wrong all the time. and look, everyone gets into arguments. it's called being a human being. if there isn't any friction at all ever, then something is wrong. either everyone is lying, or nothing is going on at all, and the whole thing is lying dead on the floor. or maybe too many are towing the same line, like good, respectable, non-thinking bigots, or beaten down indentured servants. we've all got at least a bit of all of that in every one of us.

when it comes to our friends, though, it shouldn't come as any surprise when we offer praise, should it?

lately i like to thumb through Robert Bly's The Winged Energy of Delight in between programming tasks, or before i go out, or when i come back in, to keep my mind fresh and my soul feeling alive. i can fly and get grounded at the same time, reading this book. i become present to myself. it's a book of translations, done over a period of fifty years. this is a book full of the best kind of magic.

today i found myself in Sonnets to Orpheus, VII, by Rilke. i love this poem. i feel both more human and more divine after i read it. i hope no one will mind if i post it here. it is offered only as one possible window into joy.

To praise is the whole thing! A man who can praise
comes toward us like ore out of the silences
of rock. His heart, that dies, presses out
for others a wine that is fresh forever.

When the god's energy takes hold of him,
his voice never collapses in the dust.
Everything turns to vineyards, everything turns to grapes,
made ready for harvest by his powerful south.

The mold in the catacomb of the king
does not suggest that his praising is lies, nor
the fact that the gods cast shadows.

He is one of the servants who does not go away,
who still holds through the doors
of the tomb trays of shining fruit.]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/a-note-on-praise.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-note-on-praise.htm?opendocument&comments Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:31:42 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/dear-nathan-t-freeman.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/dear-nathan-t-freeman.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/dear-nathan-t-freeman.htm nathan t freeman,

thank you for all you do for the community. i'm frankly astounded at your participation, energy, commitment, intelligence, and good will.

i could of course write this about many, many people. but today i wanted to tell nathan that i appreciate his efforts on behalf of the community. read: his efforts on MY behalf. i'm not writing this because he's on the verge of quitting anything, or doing anything dramatic, but because i owe it to him. plain and simple.]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/dear-nathan-t-freeman.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/dear-nathan-t-freeman.htm?opendocument&comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:17:49 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vitamin-supplementation-for-vegans.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vitamin-supplementation-for-vegans.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vitamin-supplementation-for-vegans.htm
if you get plenty of sun then you don't need vitamin D. in fact you can get too much D from too much sun! your skin makes it like crazy when you are in the sun. i live in florida and this summer i've gotten quite a bit of sun so i'm not even thinking about it at the moment.

B12 however is another story. i eat a lot of B12 fortified nutritional yeast, and a few other things like brown rice miso which i think has B12 in it. but i still take a supplement several times a week.

want to learn more about B12? check out these articles.

basically the gist of the issue is that we need B12 for a healthy nervous system. modern farming practices have destroyed the organisms in the soil that create B12. and also in modern society our food is very clean, so the B12 from the soil is often washed off. there just isn't any way around it, we have to supplement with B12. also as people age it may become harder to absorb B12, leading to shrinking brains!

once you decide you need to take B12, you have to decide what kind to take. i am taking Methyl B12 based on articles like this one:

Clinical Use of Methyl-B12 in Autism

the relevant part for me was:

Experimenting with different members of the cobalamin family, Dr. Neubrander was able to ascertain that the benefits of methylcobalamin far surpassed the cyanocobalamin and hydroxycobalmin forms primarily used for autism prior to 2002. Since every cell in the body expresses the folate/methionine cycle, defects in transmethylation can affect vital biochemical reactions at many places in intermediary metabolism.

basically what i get out of this is that the methyl form is the most effective - you get the most bang for the buck. another explanation is (quite readable) available here. i tried the cyanocobalamin form and it kept giving me a sore throat! it is actually grown or synthesized using cyanide and is not recommended for smokers! so yeah, the methyl b12 form is the one for me. i feel much better taking the methyl form (i didn't try the hydroxycobalmin form). also i had to take quite a bit more of the cyanocobalamin form to get the same result - there was a definite difference in the way i felt between the two forms.

B12 is water soluble, so there isn't any danger of taking too much, you'll just pee it right out.

i'm a layman so if you have any concerns talk to a doctor - but if you are going vegan, you will definitely want to at least get educated about this issue.]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/vitamin-supplementation-for-vegans.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vitamin-supplementation-for-vegans.htm?opendocument&comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:01:47 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vegan-lunchbox.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vegan-lunchbox.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vegan-lunchbox.htm
anyway it is called Vegan Lunchbox. the recipes for lentil rice balls (sorta like meat balls) and momma's sneaky tomato sauce (or is it spaghetti sauce, can't remember) are in heavy rotation at my house.

Jennifer McCann is the author and she has a really cool blog also called Vegan Lunchbox! she focuses a lot on how to make meals that kids will like (especially lunch) but the cookbook is very well rounded, lots of recipes of various kinds.

i get the feeling reading her cookbook that she has enough know-how to be one of the hosts on the food channel - if only there was enough interest in veganism! all that to say, i'm seriously impressed with her work. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/vegan-lunchbox.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vegan-lunchbox.htm?opendocument&comments Thu, 28 May 2009 12:43:57 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vegan-cookbooks.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vegan-cookbooks.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vegan-cookbooks.htm
here is what i wrote back:

this is probably the best book out there in terms of explaining nutritional basics (very cutting edge stuff actually) and has a lot of interesting recipes:

Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life

it's a lot to get your head around. start slow. what i did was start by getting rid of starches and substituting fruit and greens. if you go totally cold turkey all at once you will be hurting!

this woman, dreena burton, is obviously into the same information stream as brazier:

Vive le Vegan!: Simple, Delectable Recipes for the Everyday Vegan Family

...because the recipes look a lot like "Thrive" recipes, but are more focused on stuff that tastes good. she obviously knows what she is doing.

if you get these two books you will be leaping ahead of the curve. a lot of vegans start out trying to emulate their old diets, buying soy this and soy that to sub for butter and cream cheese and so on. this kind of eating is referred to by many now as the "junk food vegan" diet, where you have gone from processed foods to more processed foods. the mantra in The China Study is "plant based whole foods". that is what you are after. Thrive will give you the information you need to meet your protein requirements and sooo much more. it's also about stress management. you'll see. so fascinating...

dreena burton's book will give you recipes that taste good. brazier gives you good recipes too, but you can kinda tell he is after the nutrition more than he is the taste. but brazier gives you the theory, and that is vital to understanding how to do it right. and i make his recipes all the time, moreso that burton's actually. he is easy to understand and the material is fascinating. i still go back and read his book, again and again, trying to get all the principles down solid. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/vegan-cookbooks.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/vegan-cookbooks.htm?opendocument&comments Tue, 26 May 2009 14:36:17 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/understanding-cholesterol.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/understanding-cholesterol.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/understanding-cholesterol.htm
only animals make cholesterol. therefore, if you do not eat animals, you are not consuming cholesterol in your diet.

humans are animals too. we make our own cholesterol. the cholesterol our bodies make is good for us. cholesterol made by other animals is not good for us.

it's just that simple. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/understanding-cholesterol.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/understanding-cholesterol.htm?opendocument&comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:43:16 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/the-fisheye-lens.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/the-fisheye-lens.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/the-fisheye-lens.htm
*backs up slightly*

see, today i was at lunch and i was thinking, why do i care so much about things all the fucking time? i mean, there is a lot of stuff i don't care about. in fact i keep discovering that i care less and less about a lot of stuff. and when that happens it is really wonderful.

but the more that happens, the more i can see that there are other things i care about in a different way. in a truly passionate way.

*backs back up to tha place he just backed up to*

see... today i was at a restaurant. i'd been sitting working on the novel (yes a few ppl have seen fragments of it, yes it really does exist, yes i am making progress, no there are no parts of it yet available for general consumption), and i'd put the macbook away and was waiting for the credit card to come back and it hit me.

the way i see the world, well, it's like i'm looking through a fish eye lens. all the time.

the stuff that seems important to me seems, well IMPORTANT.

see what i mean? i just did it. right there. that's the fish eye lens. in the moment i'm looking at whatever it is, it LOOKS BIGGER than it does when i'm not looking at it. i mean if it looked that big to everyone then there wouldn't be any reason to write about the fish eye lens, because everyone would be looking through the same one. this would also mean that the entire world would be a lot more hysterical. so it's really a blessing that only certain people are afflicted with the fish eye lens way of seeing.

at first i thought, oh, it's the artistically minded people who see with the fish eye lens. maybe i am still thinking like that. i'm not totally sure i've convinced myself. maybe it's creative people. or people who think in creative ways.

these people spend all their time at the borders, LOOKING out for what is coming next. or maybe they are in a laboratory of sorts, PEERING into a microscope in the process of discovery.

when you see something in the fish eye lens, sometimes what happens next is you tell someone about it. it might be the sort of thing where you are accosting random passers by. you become the guy with the sandwich board on, warning everyone about armageddon or imminent alien invasion or... whatever. or, it could be the kind of thing where you go and talk to people you think could actually do something about what you just discovered. people with money or power or influence in one way or another. you might get a little hysterical along the way.

hysterical is the wrong word, actually. but i imagine that is what it looks like to anyone who has never SEEN through the fish eye lens.

this lens. it is a gift that a person is afflicted with. that is the way of gifts. it's always a blessing and a curse at the same time.

what do you do when you've been given a gift like that? why, you juggle flaming bowling pins in public, of course. or toss molatov cocktails at your friends. or call it the way you see it. it's all good.

the other thing you might do when you are in a moment in which you SEE, is you might buckle down and work, quietly, or not so quietly as the case may be, on an idea. like for instance you might spend five years working on a novel, and have, oh, four and a half chapters to show for it.

(hey, its better than no chapters.)

you might write a bunch of blog posts on going vegan. (idiot! idiot! *smacks forehead with palm repeatedly*) you might even try and interrupt the happy arc of the yellow bubble with your shining wit, insight and passion.

a lot of stuff can happen. and it's all of it a pain in the ass.

we are pretty much in the grip of a cosmic joke. better to just laugh about it. go home, eat some good food. have some fun. do something naughty. or nice. or whatever works for you. cuz let's face it. the fish eye lens will be back tomorrow. it never gets tired. it never gives up. and we'd die without it. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/the-fisheye-lens.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/the-fisheye-lens.htm?opendocument&comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:04:51 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-simple-breakfast-idea.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-simple-breakfast-idea.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-simple-breakfast-idea.htm
in the U.S. our food system and our restaurants and even the nutritional education at the grade school level is organized around meat and dairy marketing and consumption. when the entire culture is organized that way, and you've been eating that way your whole life, and someone says to you, no, see we did all this really great science that proves a plant based diet is waaaay healthier for you... well what are you supposed to DO about it? it can be overwhelming.

so here is one thing i do almost every morning that is easy and fast. i make some Oatmeal ("porridge" to the Irish among us ;)

we use Bob's Red Mill Organic Steel Cut Oats, takes about ten minutes.

i toss a bunch of stuff into the bowl before adding the oatmeal, like blueberries or whatever fruit is around (grapes or strawberries etc), and almonds, cashews, salba (aka white chia) seeds, and pumpkin seeds. you get the idea - whatever you like in there. honestly i can't eat oatmeal without some fruit in it. adding the nuts makes it really yummy and adds protein and plant based fat too. and because this is a vegan meal there is zero cholesterol.

i ladle a layer of oats over the fruit and nuts. then i put down a layer of nutritional yeast (1 to 2 tablespoons). then i add another layer of oats, and mix it up. sometimes i dump it into a thermos cup and take it to work or if i have time i eat it right there in the kitchen.

why the nutritional yeast? well it boils down to vitamin b12. this vitamin is manufactured by small organisms in the soil. our soil has been decimated by years of pesticides and fertilizers, so many of the organisms are no longer present. also, we clean our veggies and fruits very well, and the dirt is pretty much gone by the time it makes it to our plates. so, ironically, the b12 isn't there. for vegans it's imporant to add nutritional yeast (fortified with b12) or some kind of b12 supplement. besides its really good for you. it's high in protein and i like the flavor. i put it on my spagetti sauce last night and it was awesome.

it's a great way to start the day. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/a-simple-breakfast-idea.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/a-simple-breakfast-idea.htm?opendocument&comments Mon, 9 Mar 2009 12:57:48 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/beginnings-and-ends.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/beginnings-and-ends.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/beginnings-and-ends.htm
there are beginnings, joyfully received.

and there are ends which are, let's face it, despised, but nevertheless embraced.

if you aren't in a good place to have a good cry, don't click the second link. but do go back when you can, it's a lovely piece of writing. really damned lovely. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/beginnings-and-ends.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/beginnings-and-ends.htm?opendocument&comments Wed, 4 Mar 2009 13:04:26 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/containers.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/containers.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/containers.htm
the idea is, raw ideas need a form in which to operate in the real world. this form or "container" provides a structure for those ideas or energies or practices to operate within safely.

for instance i have a friend who went to a conference a long time ago, back in the 1970's. they were talking about archetypes. it was held at an ivy league school, don't remember which one now, and robert bly was there, and i think maybe some jungian scholars or mythologists or... anyway, some people like that.

my friend lived a few hours away, but it took him four days to get home. he had a breakdown. the discussion of those archetypes just blew his mind apart.

he was susceptible to this because, one, he is incredibly sensitive and a gifted mystic. and two, there was no container.

what looked like a mental breakdown to the health professionals he worked with was likely something very different. but what could they do but give him some drugs to calm him down? there aren't many john wier perry's in the world - practitioners who see a larger picture than say, the one pharmaceutical companies are interested in.

my friend made a comment about his breakdown. he said that for a long time he was angry that they didn't have a proper container for the material they were discussing at the conference. i didn't ask him what that container should have been. i think this is one of the jobs that stories do in human cultures all across the planet. they contain symbols. those guys were discussing the raw data, as though they'd pulled uranium out of a nuclear furnace and were passing it around for inspection. my friend was sensitive to those energies, moreso than anyone else in the building.

there are a lot of examples of containers, or forms. everywhere we look there are containers. a temple or a church is a container. and it is also metaphorical of a different kind of container - the container of the human body - that holds sacred energies inside it.

a poem is another container. i had a dream a few years ago and recently i decided to turn it into a poem. when i did that, i created a container around it. suddenly this dream had the ability to radiate power to those who beheld it. before that, it was "just another crazy dream" story. the whole thing changed when i put it in the proper container for the energies it held within it.

i don't want to get too far afield here. believe it or not what i really want to talk about is this debate i keep hearing snippets and soundbites about regarding the implosion of wall street.

i think what we had from the Great Depression onward were containers that held the financial institutions inside certain boundaries for their own good. for instance banks were not allowed to make insurance policies, and insurance companies were not allowed to act like banks.

then we had a lot of talk about how the government should get out of the way of business. we had a lot of deregulation. the bill that was signed by clinton dissolving the line between insurance companies and banks brought down an important wall in the temple of finance. the guys on wall street, the super genius math wizards, so sensitive to the energies that were being unleashed, went crazy. all kinds of dangerous financial packages were created and traded among the banks. there are billions of dollars worth of assets that remain clouded behind mysterious facades, and it may be impossible to suss them all out. are they worth anything? the big banks/insurance companies such as the remains of citigroup are trying to figure it out.

this is, i am sure, just one example of where the debate on deregulation went astray. conservatives should be about the business of constructing proper containers, and then maintaining those boundaries, across time, across generations. i hope this is where things are going. i'm not sure enough people get it yet.

conservatives, or conservative minded people, should not be saying, like a dull mantra, over and over again, that regulation and big government is bad bad bad. i hope the debate will move to higher ground. i hope we can start looking at what is proper to do in business and what is not. the bread and butter local community banks are not suffering like those on wall street are. we ought to be looking to them for leadership. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/containers.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/containers.htm?opendocument&comments Tue, 3 Mar 2009 10:56:00 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/hooked-on-matcha.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/hooked-on-matcha.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/hooked-on-matcha.htm
it's a little pricey, at least the version i found, an organic version. it was ten dollars for a box at the health food store. there is this plastic zip lock kind of bag inside it. it is full of green powder.

what you do is take the powder and mix it with hot water. it's ground up green tea leaves! it has more antioxidants than blueberries! that's what the box says, so it must be true right?

i drink this stuff and eat some fruit, like a banana or an orange, and maybe eat a few nuts. ok peanuts, i admit it, i'm addicted to those too. i have to have something in my stomach along with it or it is too intense. it might make me a little nauseous, to have all that fiber, or raw tea leaves, going into me like that. but if i eat a little something with it, then it's fine.

but dude. i feel freaking high after drinking this stuff. it's a smooth high. it has a caffeine molecule in it, but it is different from the one in coffee. i'm not jumpy, and i don't go way up and then crash. it lasts all day long. once in a while it stops me from sleeping, so i have to be careful. overall it just gives me more energy. this morning i got up early. i knew it was the matcha i'd had the day before. i just had some right now and i feel aaaawwwesome. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/hooked-on-matcha.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/hooked-on-matcha.htm?opendocument&comments Mon, 2 Mar 2009 17:35:09 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/turning-off-cancer.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/turning-off-cancer.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/turning-off-cancer.htm
here is the super short version:

Campbell was studying malnutrition in the Philipines. families had been told to grow peanuts. the idea was, get the kids to eat protein rich foods, and get them out of a malnourished state. peanuts grew well in the philipines - it seemed an obvious solution.

the problem was, some of the kids were getting liver cancer.

when they studied the problem it turned out that kids from wealthier households were getting cancer, and kids from poor households were not. the carcinogen was aflatoxin - it grows on peanuts and corn.

so why were the poor kids safe?

one thing that stood out: the wealthier families were able to eat animal protein. meat, or milk.

then Campbell saw a study that took place in India. there were two groups of rats. they fed the "group 1" rats a diet consisting of 20% protein (the American diet is 16-18% typically) as a percentage of total calories. the "group 2" rats were fed 5% protein. the protein they were fed was casein - milk protein. they also fed them aflatoxin.

the group 1 rats ALL got liver cancer. NONE of the group 2 rats got sick.

that's 100% percent to zero.

so they got funding, and eventually were able to replicate the India study. they got the same results. Campbell said that the rats in group 2 were energetic, lived out full lives, ran on their wheels, had healthy coats, etc. group 1 were lethargic, their coats were unhealthy, and of course, they all got lesions on their livers, and then died early from cancer.

Dr Campbell then goes on to explain how they played with the percentages, how they were able to turn off cancer that had already begun growing by ramping down the amount of protein. they turned the questions around in various ways - i won't go into all that here. it's fascinating reading!

other kinds of cancer were studied, by other groups of scientists. pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, and others. they all got the same results. they proved that diets high in animal protein led to cancer in rats and mice who were exposed to specific carcinogens.

so here's the thing - when they studied these same things with proteins derived from plants, there was NO cancer. it didn't matter if it was 20% or lower, there wasn't any cancer growth.

it is sobering to think that animal protein, the cornerstone of the western diet, is killing us, painfully and before our time, by the thousands? millions? ...by giving cancerous cells fuel to grow.

Dr Campbell describes cancer as a three stage process. the first stage is where the carcinogen damages a cell. nothing good nutrition can do about that. it happens.

the second stage is where the cancer starts growing. if there is an abundance of animal protein around, it is like (my layman's terms) a petri dish full of "growth fuel". cancerous cells start to grow. at or below the 5% threshold, things are OK. the cancer doesn't grow. but the higher the percentage of animal protein is to overall calories, the more danger that cells affected by carcinogens will grow into cancer that will cause a problem down the road.

(Campbell gives a high level but still fairly technical explanation of how an enzymatic "factory" in the cells comes into play with the growth of cancer and the presence of animal protein. i'm not going to attempt to reproduce that discussion here. but it is there in the book.)

what Campbell and his associates were able to do was show that as the amount of dietary animal-based protein decreased, this second stage of cancer ramped down. they could even reverse cancerous growth by playing with the percentages.

one of the things i took away from this is: animal bodies know how to take plants and convert them into proteins. an animal body is only going to create just the protein it needs, and no more, from plants. however when you flood the body with protein from another animal, the proteins are already assembled. too much of it, and it is harmful.

later on i'll blog about how animal proteins are often attacked by the immune system, leading to type one diabetes, or rheumatoid arthritis, and other auto immune diseases. this happens because a lot of our cells look like the animal proteins (the ones we ate!) that are floating around in us. our immune systems attack the animal proteins, seeing them as invaders, and then they later attack the cells that look like those proteins. we end up attacking ourselves!

the takeaway here is: animal protein, in amounts larger than 5% of total calories, simply does not belong in our bodies.

you may be thinking, well they did these studies on rats and mice. how about humans? the study the book is named for, the "China study", covers that. the evidence is, for me, overwhelming. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/turning-off-cancer.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/turning-off-cancer.htm?opendocument&comments Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:46:09 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/going-vegan.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/going-vegan.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/going-vegan.htm
why, oh why would i do something so... odd?

let me tell you, i have felt sorry for vegetarians, and especially vegans, for as long as i can remember. vegans in particular seem, well, not exactly mentally healthy, and sometimes not very physically healthy either. obsessed, crybaby hippie freaks, is what vegans seemed like to me. i have a very different view now.

so why would i choose to eat this way?

the reason is simple, as it turns out. i read a book called The China Study. this is not a book about only one study. but the study they did in China was very amazing - the largest epidemiological study of its kind ever done before or since - very dramatic! and so the publisher suggested the title. but there are many studies covered in the book besides the big one the book is titled for.

what i found in that book was nothing short of astounding.

what if i told you that U.S. taxpayers have paid a lot of good money for world class nutritional research that turned up, over and over again, results that scares the dairy industry and the meat industry sh1tless. and further, that they've done as much as they possibly can to cover up the truth, and even gone so far as to advertise and make many false statements, knowing full well what the hard core science already says? i'm talking about science done at the highest levels in the country. National Academy of Science kinda stuff. seriously.

interested at all?

after i read The China Study, i read a book by John Robbins called The Food Revolution. in this book he talks briefly, in the beginning, about the same things that T Colin Campbell talks about in The China Study - the implications of a plant based diet for human health. he goes on to talk about a lot of the things that motivate many vegans - animal cruelty, factory farming, genetically modified foods and other things. the ecological effects of moving toward a plant based diet for the planet look pretty amazing. i simply didn't know any of this information, and i've really had my eyes opened reading this stuff.

then i attended a lecture given by Brendon Brazier at a health food store in Tampa. Brendon is a triathlete, he competes in the iron man in Hawaii, and he is a vegan. i was interested to know how he competes at that level, while only eating plants. i've now read big chunks of his book - The Thrive Diet - and made many of his recipes, and continue to learn the principles.

the cool thing about this information is that it is all backed up by a LOT of nutritional science. all of these books have many, many studies referenced in the bibliographies. The China Study is chock full of references.

there are a number of other books that i will undoubtedly read and blog about. but the basic message is this:

we can get all the nutrients we need from 100% plant based sources.
want to beat or avoid heart disease? cancer? diabetes? osteoporosis? macular degeneration? eat plants!

the idea is to eat whole foods, not processed foods. not processed soy everything, for instance. but to eat plants in as close to their natural state as possible. to this end i am investigating eating and preparing "raw" vegan meals. but... i'm going definitely to always eat beans and rice and cooked things too.

the osteoporosis thing was interesting. i'll write more about it later, but here is a teaser: what would you think the result would be, if they did a study of older women who were at risk of osteoporosis, and one group drank milk every day, and one group did not drink any milk, and ate a lot of greens? you'd think, after being baptized in hundreds of Got Milk commercials, that the milk drinkers would be the ones doing better right? wrong. it was the opposite. why? the reason is, animal protein leeches calcium from the bones. the reason they fortify milk with calcium is to try to protect people from the harmful effects of drinking milk! i know this goes against everything we've been taught. but milk is not meant for human consumption. it is to grow calves into cows. i mean, duh. more about that later.

the biggest problem vegans face nutritionally is vitamin B12 deficiency. protein isn't nearly the problem you might think it is. for B12, you can eat Nutritional Yeast (i put it on my oatmeal every morning and make sauces with it for other things) and you can also get it from brown rice miso paste. which of course is yummy in miso soup.

i'd gotten down to around 203 pounds with steady workouts and substituting fruits and vegetables for starches. ya know, no more bread and french fries and potato chips and white pasta. but the workouts fell off a bit (i'm still going but not as much) and i crept back up to 209.

well, since going vegan i've worked out even less, but am losing weight steadily. any time i go into the gym i drop pounds. one week when i worked out three times, i lost six pounds. they didn't come back! i am now down to 196 pounds. this is the lightest i have been since, well, since i don't know when! maybe  9 or 10 years? it is the lightest i have been since i was doing kung fu at night, riding my bike to work, and starving myself silly on the Zone diet. i don't know what i weighed back then. but i can tell you that now, all my pants, even recent acquistions, are falling off of me. if i wasn't wearing a belt today i'd be in trouble.

anyway. i'm going to write more about this. there is a lot to learn, a lot to know. going vegan is not a cure all for everything. vegans still die of cancer, and a very small portion of them are obese. but, this lifestyle greatly increases your odds for a longer healthier life, while simultaneously being very good for the planet. besides the weight loss, my body is less stressed out, more at peace, and my overall energy level is incredible. i have greater mental clarity. i get more done. i still get sick like anyone else, but i think my immune system is getting stronger. there have been a few bumps in the road as i am learning. i'll blog about some of that too. ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/going-vegan.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/going-vegan.htm?opendocument&comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:21:50 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/what-is-your-favorite-book.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/what-is-your-favorite-book.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/what-is-your-favorite-book.htm
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World  by Haruki Murakami. covered this already, here.

Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller - this book blew me wide open. i am pretty sure this was the moment i finally started to think. everything changed after i read this one.

A Nation Gone Blind (ANGB) by Eric Larsen - again with the thinking. this one is a treasure, one everyone should read. and i think, not enough people know about. i have pulled ANGB out again and it is on my night stand. this time i'm going to take notes, and then after that i will be able to review it properly. i tried to before, both for the blog and for Amazon, but there was so much in my mind. picture having seen the statue of liberty for the first time in person, never having seen a picture of it before. now, turn around and draw it. you'd get some of the details right. giant lady, big spiky hat. what was that thing she was holding? hmmm. it's the kind of thing that is very big, but readable. i mean to say that the ideas are big. you shouldn't be intimidated by this book. but you should take it seriously. bring both your heart and your mind.

ANGB develops an argument that is subtle and takes the entire book to really flesh out, even though you can glean lots from every section (there are three, if i remember right). Eric is a man with the heart and soul of a poet. he knows, man, he knows. he opened windows to certain worlds of thought i didn't even know existed. you should also be warned that if you are a feminist, or into political correctness, or a member of an English department, this book might offend you. he finds ways to offend lots of people. thank the gods. he is on the trail of truth. no doubt at all about that. and he's written some novels too, and i plan to read them!

The Winged Energy of Delight by Robert Bly this one is an anthology of poems Bly translated over a period of fifty years. it is outstanding, a work of heart-felt, long wrought genius. this book is the fruit of a life long labor of love, the labor of a man who has spent his entire life in the service of poetry and truth. Bly is still among us, in his eighties now. when he disappears it will be for me like losing the Dalai Lama. there is something very special about him. i can pick up this book and open to any page and find wonder. seriously, it's that good.

well ok, there are a few. i'll post some more sometime. what about you? what book changed your life? what book opened your eyes? which one made you, in some perhaps inestimable way, a better person? a happier person? even if only for a few hours or days? ]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/what-is-your-favorite-book.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/what-is-your-favorite-book.htm?opendocument&comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:16:26 -0400 http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/congratulations-brother.htm jonvon http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/congratulations-brother.htm?opendocument&comments http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/congratulations-brother.htm
for those of you who know tom, you might know he hasn't been doing Lotus stuff for a while now, so we never see him in January anymore. which is a bummer cuz man tom is a lot of fun. he's been through a lot the last few years. but things are looking up.



i got an email from him the other day. he was hanging out with his new wife sandra and her family in bogota, columbia!

i don't think i've seen him looking happier.

congratulations tom and sandra! best wishes in your new life together.]]> http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dxcomments/congratulations-brother.htm http://jonvon.net/jonvon/blog/blog.nsf/dx/congratulations-brother.htm?opendocument&comments