Popular Mechanics has a list of the 100 skills every man should know. There are also videos and a quiz. I assume they mean the gender neutral “man” as in mankind.

The List

So when I graduated from high school (1999) I weighed 175lbs. By the start of my second year of college I was up to 205lbs. The combination of college inactivity, high speed internet, and all you can eat dorm food was not good for me. I eventually got up to 210-215lbs.

In 2005 I dipped below the 200lbs mark, so Bridgit broke from being a vegetarian and had a BLT. For a long time I wavered in the 200-205 range. The other day we got a scale and to my surprise I was at 189lbs (fully loaded with phone, wallet, knife, multi-tool, keys, etc). Last night I got on the scale without all that stuff and I was right at 185lbs.

To get down to 200 I used the “say no to thirds” diet, and was able to loose 10 lbs fairly quickly. I have been eating that way since (most of the time) and it seems to be working.

Woot!

Well, last night we used the drier for the second time this summer. Heading back to school means that we have to have full days worth of diapers to send to daycare. That means that often we don't have the flexibility of waiting for diapers to dry on the line. Clothes can still spend time on the line.

Also I filled up the Vibe today and after doing the math the tank did a hair over 35mpg. About 100 of the ~380 miles on the tank was with a canoe on the car.

Is it just me or is it hard to find one candidate who best represents all of my values. The thing that I can never really get is single issue voters. If something is so important to be the sole reason for voting (or not voting) for someone it had better be pretty damn big.

The main single issue block I have issues with is “pro-life” who for the most part really mean “anti-abortion.” I was taught that to be pro-life means just that. Sure abortion is included in there; but so is death penalty, IVF, stem cells, conception, caring for those in need (ie elderly, poor, rich), and some even try to throw same sex marriage in there (apparently gay people loving each other kills people. Kinda like when you masturbate a puppy dies.) I am not going to vote for the anti-abortion candidate who also really likes to kill those already born and make the world a worse place just because they aren't pro-abort.

Nobody likes abortions. People don't get pregnant so that they can have an abortion. Abortions are just indicative of other problems. I feel that the most import way is to prevent the need for abortions. Prevention is much more difficult though.

My personal beliefs vary in there as much as the part lines that support oppose them. I feel that it is my duty to balance all the issues and select the best candidate. Who is a pro-gun, anti-death penalty, pro-gay marriage, anti-abortion, pro-stem cell, pro-socialized medicine, anti-poverty, pro-civil rights, anti-affirmative action, anti-iraq war, pro-education, wanting to stop global warming, pro-family (of all forms), small government loving, fiscal conservative, mostly social liberal, thinks social security needs to be fixed kinda guy supposed to vote for?

Mon, Aug 4, 2008 (Reuters) — Kid's meals at popular fast-food restaurants deliver more than a quick lunch or dinner — 90 percent of them have far more than a meal's worth of calories and many are loaded with fat and salt too, according to a report released on Monday.
“People may not get a heart attack until their 50s or 60s, but arteries begin to clog in childhood,” said CSPI nutrition policy director Margo Wootan. “Most of these kids' meals appear to be designed to put America's children on the fast track to obesity, disability, heart attack, or diabetes.”

Oh wait. Not so shocking.

People keep asking how Eli is doing with “Meee-a” (that's what Elijah calls Amelia: he rarely says the 1st syllable of a 3 syllable word and he can't say l's yet, so she is “Mia” to him). Mostly he thinks she is the “bees knees.” So much so that he wants carry her places (yipes!) and give her lots of smushing hugs and kisses. Gentle is not a term most 2 year olds can carry out: they try but with little success.
Amelia is doing well. eating lots and sleeping well.
Here's a picture of Eli covering a sleeping Amelia. Later he decided he wanted to take a nap with her, so the blanket was spread with a “sleeping” child at each end. Sooooo cute.
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Also, Elijah is a construction master. We asked him to put away the cooking stuff he had gotten out. We walked into the kitchen and found this. Maybe he'll work for Ikea.
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Since McCain used Paris Hilton in his anti-Obama ad she has come back with her own.

So yesterday Eli and I made a composter! The materials cost about $30 and took less then a half hour to design and build.
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Ingredients:
1 trash can (~$12)
2 8' pressure treated 2×4 (~$4 each)
1 2' section of 1.5″ PVC pipe (~$2-4
2 bungee cords (4 for ~$6)
some exterior grade screws

Mix it all together and you get a composter. I was really shocked at Home Depot when a 2' piece of PVC was $2 and a 10' piece was less then $4. I bought the 10' and have some left over. Instructables has some good how-to's on building composters of varying styles.

I reckon thirty bones isn't too bad considering something like this sells for about $200. Maybe I should start selling them to hippies at the Farmers' Market.

[Ed. Note] Bridgit and I had a discussion about the punctuation in Farmers' Market. According to the dictionary it is Farmers' Market though I wonder if it actually possessive.

So recently we went into paperless paystubs at work. That got me accelerating my hopes for a paperless life.

I hate keeping a file cabinet full of crap I will never use again

I have been slowly selecting paperless for most of our bills and stuff. The problem is keeping track and catching up with it all. Almost everything has the option to download PDF's which is perfect.

I have used Yep for a long time to keep track of PDF's but mainly things like manuals. I have been using the last free version, but if I am going to go into this full tilt I reckon I can spend the $34 to get the newer version(s).

I hooked up the scanner to start tackling the older stuff, now I just need to find a way to keep it out of sight.

So the plan will be to import pdf's right into Yep, and use the scanner to scan any paper stuff and then run it through Adobe Acrobat for OCR before adding it to Yep.

I think we are going to start opening mail once a week, and then once a month scanning.

A while ago I heard about a method for brewing coffee where you cold brew a pound at a time and make a concentrate that can be kept for a couple weeks. After researching it and trying it out a couple times here is what I have figured out.

1. Take 1lb of coffee and put it in a big jug or jar with 9 cups of water and give it a shake.
   
2. Let it sit for 10-12 hours on the counter.
   
3. filter it into a jar(s). It will keep for 2 weeks.

To drink I like a 2:1 ratio (2 parts water to 1 part java juice) for hot coffee use boiling water, or cold for iced coffee. It's that simple. The above recipe will almost fill two 1 quart jars.

Tips

• Use glass or metal containers so they don't smell like coffee forever.
  
• Grind the coffee at the store. Grinding a pound in a home grinder takes a bunch of loads and sucks.
  
• The coffee concentrate works great for cooking coffee flavored things.
  
• Cold brew has less caffeine and acidity.
  
• Because there is no heat there is no bitterness.