08:04 – I spent most of yesterday shooting images for the vertebrate survey lab, and I’ll do the same today.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
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08:04 – I spent most of yesterday shooting images for the vertebrate survey lab, and I’ll do the same today.
Comments are closed.
A couple of vertebrates needed surveying out in Iowa yesterday as they were voting for rumpswab creeps like Mittens and Santorum. Ron shoulda stayed in the state, I guess, and done the handshake routines instead of politely leaving them to their holidays.
Mittens has a big lead already in NH, but I would pick Santorum for SC. Gonna be interesting. Meanwhile Nutty Newt is stirring up shit all over the place.
Minus 6 here today but nice and sunny. Mrs. OFD and Princess off to SF, Kalifornia on Friday, and then Mrs. off to Florida with MIL for a week, leaving OFD all alone back here at the old farmhouse. I will see if Robert can send up some of those wild southern women…
Nah, he sent them all to Australia, trying to wear me out…
Nowadays, wild women scare me.
I don’t mind wild women so much. It’s the feral women you have to watch for.
Here’s how I read this the first time: spent most of yesterday shooting vertebrates in the lab, and I’ll do the same today.
Hey Chad, he COULDA been shooting vertebrates. Probably executing the last of Santa’s elves he was holding as POWs. Cold bastard. But not as cold as OFD this AM starting up the Saab. Had to put on a t-shirt.
Yeah, just move down here for a while and see what happens.
I remember back in about 1979 being out in January playing in the yard with the kids of a couple friends of mine. I was out there for half an hour or so, wearing a t-shirt. When I came back in, their mom expressed surprise that I hadn’t frozen solid. It was -23 Fahrenheit. Nowadays, I feel colder when it’s 40 F out.
There’s actually a scientific basis for that. People who are used to cold climates actually develop a kind of natural “anti-freeze”. When they relocate to warm climates, that disappears over a period of years.
In 1971 I was relocated to central Maine in the dead of winter. Chill factor, with wind blowing inland off the northern Atlantic: 50-60 below zero. Bunny boots, long underwear, utility fatigues, insulated flight pants and flight jacket, snorkel parka, Eskimo mittens, etc. and I still got permanent frostbite in my fingertips and tops of my ears. Protecting a nuke warhead storage area from VC coming through the wire, a chain-link fence topped by razor wire, after which they would have had to negotiate past me to the underground bunkers sealed in concrete and alarmed. From there I was relocated to RVN, with temps 115 and up in the shade. Then back to Kalifornia, nice and balmy and temperate. Then back to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Finally relocated back to Maffachufetts in April where I froze my ass off and it was snowing to beat the band.
I’ve been up here now for fifteen years and can basically walk around naked in the snow, but would scare the shit out of the moose and black bears and the remaining Santa’s elves fleeing north from Carolina….
Don’t try to rob this west-side Indy Kroger store. You will regret it, if the particular manager noted is on duty.
http://www.indystar.com/article/20120104/NEWS02/201040358/1001/NEWS
I have been doing my 3 x weekly exercise walks barefoot for 7 — no, make that 8 years — now, summer and winter, and can attest that I need nothing more than a lightweight jacket any time I am outside, until temps get below -10°C/14°F. I don’t do it barefoot if temps are below freezing and the sidewalks are not dry, however — although I know people who do go down to about -15°C/5°F. My limit is about -5°C.
Yikes. I was on Amazon yesterday ordering a couple things. One was a package of some watercolor markers that are no longer available at office supply stores (I manage to get permanent markers on my clothes, so I quit using them for everything but labeling CD’s and DVD’s), and the other was a bread machine, so I can start making my own bread again, after enduring a couple years of the positively gawd-awful rubber-based stuff that they call ‘bread’ in this epicurean-challenged country.
During the order, my daughter called, and we talked for a good hour. When I went back to place my order, the price of BOTH ITEMS had climbed by over 6%. I checked prices on a few other things I had been looking at, and it appeared to me that Amazon has increased prices across the board on everything.
I even got a message when I started my shopping, that a book in my deferred purchase list, that I swore never to buy at a price over $9.99, had fallen from $11.99 to 11.49, but had climbed to over $12 by the time I got around to placing the order. Talk about inflation!
When I went back to place my order, the price of BOTH ITEMS had climbed by over 6%. I checked prices on a few other things I had been looking at, and it appeared to me that Amazon has increased prices across the board on everything.
Try deleting any Amazon cookies and rechecking the prices and see if they’ve gone back down.
Nope. No price change. Deleted all Amazon cookies, although it still recognized me when I visited the site. How do they do that?
Many sites now use Flash cookies. If you use Firefox, get the Better Privacy add-on. I don’t know what equivalents exist for other browsers. Though, even if you use another browser by choice, firing up FF and going in to the Better Privacy window from time to time will plonk the Flash cookies.
Chuck wrote:
“I have been doing my 3 x weekly exercise walks barefoot for 7 — no, make that 8 years — now, summer and winter…”
Barefoot? Why?
German doctor daughter in-law’s recommendation. I was having real lower back and hip pain. Could only walk for about 8 to 10 minutes without having to sit down and rest for a couple minutes to stop the pain. She said it is well known and accepted in Germany that shoes cause disorientation of joints (ankle, knee, and hip), and also result in about 8 to 15 times the impact pressure on the skeletal structure than going barefoot. Surgery was being suggested to ‘fix’ my problem, but daughter in-law said back surgery ought to be avoided if at all possible, and said to try barefoot. Bottom line was that after 6 weeks of going practically everywhere barefoot (except in the building at work), the pain was reduced, and after 6 months it disappeared altogether and has never returned.
In places like Germany, Thailand, Fiji, New Zealand, and your own Australia, nobody cares if you are barefoot. But people here in the US literally go bonkers (somehow it’s about the same as exposing your genitals), and doctors here will tell you it is bad for you — the exact opposite of what the German medical field says (even my German GP agreed with my doctor daughter in-law and took note of my results). However, more and more US runners are turning to barefoot running because of pain and injuries, and various slow motion and x-ray-like studies (most done right here in the US) are showing pretty unequivocally, that the Germans are right: it is actually far healthier than shoes. And the main thing is that any covering of the sole with anything, negates the benefit, because it is actually the muscles in the foot reacting to the ground and strengthening, that cushions the shock. Anything that keeps the sole from touching the ground, prevents that muscle development and causes them to atrophy. So sandals are not the same as barefoot at all. I definitely agree with that, because most of my life I wore flip-flops everywhere outside work, prior to going barefoot. That was no help — not until my soles actually touched the ground with each step.
Anyway, the US is problematic, but I am barefoot absolutely as much as is possible here, without risking getting thrown into jail. That is pretty much always when I am outdoors anywhere.
And to the question of injuries — I have only ever injured myself in the house at home; never outdoors anywhere.
I’d be petrified of getting a piece of glass or nail in my foot, plus I’d have to keep washing my feet.
I’d never really thought about it but I have the habit of taking my shoes off when possible. For example, I remember times in the winter when I came in from the outside and took my shoes off before I removed my heavy coat. I haven’t gone for an exercise walk barefoot, but I have gone to the mailbox barefoot in the mild weather we were having late last year.
Kodak may file for bankruptcy soon:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-05/kodak-to-file-for-bankruptcy-report/3759196
Apparently some Olympic class runners compete barefoot. Their soles must be pretty tough to stand up to that in all temperatures and surface conditions. Just like some woman run without a bra because it’s more comfortable, and some woman run wearing a bra because it’s more comfortable…
Chuck wrote:
“German doctor daughter in-law’s recommendation.”
Next time I see my own GP I’ll have to ask him about the idea. Having walked outside only very occasionally barefoot I don’t think it’s comfortable. Inside the house or on the beach is completely different.
When we walk barefoot we naturally come down on the front half of our foot, which absorbs the impact. When wearing shoes we come down on the heal – THUD!
I read somewhere that another factor in screwing up our backs is that everything we walk on is so flat. If we spent our time on uneven ground our entire support structure would get flexed and exercised in a variety of ways that our smooth-and-flat world does not encourage.
For those who worry about things like broken glass there are “barefoot shoes”, little more than a flexible but protective glove for the foot.
Me, I like my Clarks Wallabees.
Don’t bother asking the doctors. Australia has a large indigenous population that seems to go barefoot most of the time, at least on TV and the movies. You can ask them. Likely Aboriginals dress in hip-hop fashion and wear Air Jordans now, but I’m sticking with the Crocodile Dundee view of Oz, until proven wrong.
I don’t like wearing shoes, and prefer to go barefoot, at least most of the time. Social conventions force me to wear “proper” footwear in public, and my feet are weeny enough to dislike walking on gravel without benefit of soles.
Oh, and Greg, you should wash your feet, regardless of wearing shoes or not!
I wash my feet once a month whether they need it or not.
I really ought to seek royalties from the LotR books and films. Hobbit feet were obviously modelled on mine… 🙂
I’d be interested to see more research about barefoot vs shoes. The best thing I’ve found so far was this review, which doesn’t have any real studies of it — just anecdotes and studies of gait differences.
I thought I posted it this morning, but it never appeared, so here I go again.
When we walk barefoot we naturally come down on the front half of our foot, which absorbs the impact. When wearing shoes we come down on the heal – THUD!
I read somewhere that another factor in screwing up our backs is that everything we walk on is so flat. If we spent our time on uneven ground our entire support structure would get flexed and exercised in a variety of ways that our smooth-and-flat world does not encourage.
For those who worry about things like broken glass there are “barefoot shoes”, little more than a flexible but protective glove for the foot.
Me, I like my Clarks Wallabees.
You really have to dig some, but it is out there–much of it obscured in university and hospital medical studies, which requires some degree of medical knowledge to find and decipher. Over the years, I have seen a lot of literature; however, I never save or collect it, because I really have not cared to convince anyone but myself, and my own experience does most of the convincing for me.
IIRC, it is University of Delaware that has done the most biomotion studies (including gait), and their work has now been confirmed by many others. I consider it incontrovertible that those motion and impact studies show clearly that the skeletal and joint impact from walking or running in shoes, is many, many times over what the body sustains when barefoot. Over the years, I have run into a number of others, whose personal experience parallels mine: pain totally eradicated by seldom–if ever–wearing shoes. I am sure that is due to the significantly lessened impact on my joints and lower-back vertebra. Some runners, who could no longer run without severe pain, have found complete relief in running barefoot. In fact, running barefoot is the only way they can participate in the sport. There IS bonafide recent research out there, so it is not necessary to rely on anecdotal evidence, but it is not easy to find.
Nowhere in the US, will you find general acceptance of either barefoot running, or being always barefoot from the medical faculty–or from so-called ‘experts’ from shoe companies, who are very vocal on the issue in the US. I have been told by others more knowledgeable than I, that among doctors, this is because they are educated by their medical school studies to contemporary knowledge on various subjects, and they pretty much continue with that specific medical school learning for the rest of their lives, with so-called ‘continuing education’ having very little real impact on their practice, unless they, themselves engage in research. As new studies are taught to new doctors, the field eventually changes its mind to match the new reality, but that is a very slow process. Barefoot running has been taking hold and growing rapidly, but only during the last several years, so it is going to be a while before the current studies make their way into medical schools and impact the rising generation of doctors’ decisions. Hardly any US doctors, except those who have benefited themselves from barefoot running, advocate going barefoot. That means you have to convince yourself that most doctors in the US are wrong on the subject–which I have done and do believe. German doctors hold the exact opposite views–to the point of strongly recommending that babies and young kids should always be barefoot for proper foot development,–so there you go.
Just like Arnie Schwarzenegger did not build his body overnight, it takes several years of being continuously barefoot, for the seriously atrophied muscles in the sole to develop. My experience confirms that. And it is the zillions of tiny muscles in the sole–not the skin, as most people believe–that toughens and allows you to eventually walk on almost any surface.
So, I cannot point to any studies, because I just did not save them. That is pretty much how I operate in life: once I am convinced, there is no more reason for me to retain persuasive material–and I don’t. I do not belong to any formal group on the subject, although I tried one, which turned out to be a group with severe in-fighting taking place over control of the group, thus I dropped out.
As far as risks–unless you live in the jungle using latrines, there are none, IMO (even outhouses are safe from things like hookworm–and hookworm is not actually damaging to most people; disappears on its own after a 6-month life cycle; and actually creates helpful antibodies for people suffering from asthma). Only bees hidden in grass are a danger, IMO, and not everyone has serious adverse reactions to bee stings–I hardly feel them. I might mention that one of the first things barefooters learn is that urine is sterile, except for the very tiny amount of urea it contains, and synthesized urea is even used in skin creams, so it is of zero danger. All the hubbub about recent pictures of Britney Spears going into a restroom barefoot, and somehow thus subjecting herself to incredible medical risk, is pure bunk.
I always ask people who are afraid of glass to show me the glass they are talking about. I never see glass on the ground in the US. NEVER. It was rare in Germany–except after Herrentag. Even then, on the day after Herrentag, I used to walk through glass shards on the way to work, and only once in 6 years got an irritating glass splinter, which was easily removed with tweezers when I got home. I am FAR more sure-footed in bare feet than with shoes on. I have never fallen when in bare feet, but have done so–even recently–with shoes on. Plus, along with many others, I have experienced far fewer colds than when I wore shoes. I used to get sick about once every 3 months; now there is about a 3 year interval between colds.
The other item I deem as incontrovertible fact, is that feet encased in shoes, have the most bacteria growing in and around them of anyplace on the body–a cesspool of activity which, among other things, causes feet to stink. Those who do not wear shoes, have been found to have more bacteria on their hands than on their feet, and thus those feet never stink.
A fellow I am well-acquainted with, who lives in the adjacent state, does collect lots of medical literature on the subject. He has a daily blog, which occasionally cites research.
http://ahcuah.wordpress.com/author/ahcuah/
There is also a relatively new Facebook group called “PrimalFoot”, which seems more useful than the other group I tried, but it does not have a daily list-serve of member comments–just occasional blurbs on Facebook.
As far as anecdotal goes, the people of Fiji do not wear shoes (only the tourists). There are no podiatrists on Fiji.
Chuck the Hobbit wrote:
“I might mention that one of the first things barefooters learn is that urine is sterile, except for the very tiny amount of urea it contains, and synthesized urea is even used in skin creams, so it is of zero danger.”
The urine of *healthy* people is sterile, after you get past the first second or two. If you have several kinds of health issues I wouldn’t recommend drinking the stuff, as the late Indian PM Morarji Desai did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morarji_Desai#Advocate_of_Urine_Therapy
“I always ask people who are afraid of glass to show me the glass they are talking about. I never see glass on the ground in the US. NEVER. It was rare in Germany–except after Herrentag. Even then, on the day after Herrentag, I used to walk through glass shards on the way to work, and only once in 6 years got an irritating glass splinter, which was easily removed with tweezers when I got home. ”
Well, Australia must be on a different planet because I see broken glass and other undesirable stuff on the ground quite a lot. When visiting a particular set of friends I quite frequently noticed and picked up pins off the floor. The lady of the house just giggled, but as they had two young children at the time I thought she wouldn’t laugh if they got one in their feet. I even find pins and small shards of broken glass on the floor at home, but I do usually go barefoot inside the house.
Glass on the ground may be rare now, but it wasn’t rare when I was a kid. I have a 2″ scar on my left heel from a broken Pepsi bottle bottom that some moron decided to smash on rocks near a creek where people swan.
I’d be surprised to see broken glass in the subdivision where I live. However I wouldn’t have been surprised to see it in the apartment complex where I used to live. So I’m sure it varies by where you are at.
I’ll second the Hobbit’s barefoot recommendation, and can’t quote a damn thing other than experience. But I know my body likes being barefoot, or in sandals (el-cheapo Birkies or zorris).
I’d even trade the occasional injury — remember sodacans before pop-tops? — for ease of use.
Odd bit of etiquette rarely mentioned in the books: In India touching someone with your foot is Very Bad Manners, and deserves an apology, or at least an ‘scuse me.
I’d be shocked today, but back in the days before plastic bottles there was glass everywhere. Every kid riding a bike has dropped at least one bottle of pop. I once dropped a whole six-pack! It was pretty common. It didn’t take very long to get rounded over, and eventually crushed back into sand, but it was ever present.
I must say, jumping on a broken bottle and getting a bunch of stitches convinced me never, ever to throw out my garbage where it can affect other people.
In the 1980s, when I was a kid, soda use to come in 16oz glass bottles instead of 20oz plastic bottles. That alone greatly contributed to the amount of broken glass everywhere. We use to enjoy finding unbroken ones and then finding new and interesting places to smash them. I have a few scars to show for it.
The discussion about glass reminds me of the school shows from when my kids were in primary school. You could never get away with this in the USA, unless you wanted to pay for roof repairs in the school from all the parents skyrocketing out of their seats.
One class every year carried out a huge bag of shattered glass (just normal window glass that they had taken a hammer to), spread it out in a path on the ground, and all the kids walked barefoot across the glass. At the end of the path, they each took a moment to brush any glass splinters off the bottoms of their feet. No one ever got hurt. I think the only “trick” is that the glass was pretty finely shattered, and there were no “caltrops” like you might get from a bottle other non-flat object.
Certainly, on the sidewalks, I neversee anything that would be dangerous. One of our kids has a talent for finding bees to step on (we have a lot of clover in our lawn), which means he never goes barefoot outside the house. The other one goes barefoot a lot, even for walks into town, and has never had any sort of problem.
We did that walking on glass trick in school back in the 70s! It’s pretty finely smashed glass, and there aren’t any shards large enough to damage anyone. The bottle I stepped on made a wicked caltrop.
I have one kid that would get stung at least twice per year. He must have taken after me, who at age six sat on a wooden step in a ghost town, and fell through into the HORNET NEST under it. I must have ran like the wind itself, for I only received 22 stings (and some in places that were decidedly uncomfortable), but that was enough to have me almost in a coma by the time they got to a hospital. Ghost towns are never centrally located to such amenities. The doctors at the time figured I had taken in enough toxins to render me either immune, or deadly allergic. Turns out I’m immune, and a wasp or bee sting doesn’t affect me anymore than a mosquito bite does. Hurts like hell still, but no histamine “bump” or any other reaction.
It sounds like your childhood exposure gave you superpowers, BGrigg.
The Wikiepedia article on going barefooted is nicely done, and also references this interesting article detailing one guys experience.
LOL! Being impervious to bee stings is a kind of super power that Jerry Seinfeld would have. I would have preferred X-ray vision, or the power to read minds, no scratch that, the power to influence minds! Muhahahahah!
Bill wrote:
“I would have preferred X-ray vision…”
I don’t think there’s a guy alive who didn’t wish to have x-ray vision, even I have wanted it – for bona fide medical reasons, of course.
When I was in Grade 6 there was a persistent rumour that one of the boys had x-ray glasses. The girls often got all modest when he was around… 🙂
Shortly after we arrived in Berlin, Germany instituted a terrific increase in deposits for glass containers; I cannot recall how much, but I’m sure I reported it here at the time–it was many times the deposit already in place. The result, predictably, was that it killed dead the two glass works in Berlin. Everything there is now in plastic. Here in the US, I still get many items at the grocery in glass, including jellies (called Marmalade in Germany), but in Germany, I don’t recall one blooming thing on the shelf that still came in glass when I left.
That leaves only beer bottles (alcohol does not come in cans in Germany) as the last remaining glass stronghold. Oddly,–and I do not understand this–Europeans WANT to smash an empty beer bottle on the ground. If you are within a block or so of a Kneipe (tavern), there will be broken glass on the ground. Unlike in America, that broken glass will not be there for long, because Germans are an insanely clean people, and most likely, that glass will be swept up within a day of it having been broken, but the day after, someone will have smashed another bottle to replace it. Herrentag (same as Ascension Day holiday, which is 9 May this year) is by far the worst, as the whole city of Berlin is covered with broken glass,–but it is completely swept up within a day or two.
I really do not understand this mental aberration over breaking beer bottles; it seems akin to the same mental degeneracy that insists on cutting female genitalia. But it definitely exists; broken glass is no accident. Stand outside a Kneipe some evening, and you will hear bottles smashing every 20 minutes or so. Pretty ugly custom.
Wow, I didn’t realize Germany had a Kristallnacht annually. I’d imagine they don’t call it that.
Actually, I left out Silvester, which is New Year’s Eve. That actually is Kristallnacht., and there is just as much broken glass then as on Herrentag. Of course, it would never be called Kristallnacht, because that has associations with the Nazi era. But the deal on New Year’s Eve, is that it is good luck to drink champagne, or something similar, from a champagne glass, then smash it on the ground. People buy champagne glasses by the bulk in a box from places like IKEA, haul the whole box with them; somebody else usually carries the alcohol, then they give a glass to all their friends once they get downtown, drink, then throw the glass to the ground! All through Silvesterabend, you hear glasses breaking everywhere–almost constantly. What a mess!
I think the comparison of busting beer bottles to mutilating female genitalia is a bit of a stretch…
…the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Norse, etc., have always been kind of brutish, thuggish mofos, and I can say that because I am one. That’s all it is.
Well, so am I one of them, but I don’t go around smashing beer bottles into tiny pieces.
Neither do I, nor did I most of my life. Because you and I, Chuck, are highly educated and literate brutish thugs who know better, and also know that doing suchlike here is considered Disturbing the Peace and would likely generate a negative reaction from local law enforcement authorities.
Ain’t it great being a literate Anglo-Saxon barbarian?
The trick is to smash them into BIG pieces, so your enemy cuts their heel on one…
Us Anglo-Saxon barbarians have no enemies. Used to have the Norse as such, but our boy Al sent them packing.