InnerTeub

I only went to the gym today because it would force me to shower.

We’ve been under snow lock down since last Saturday, and while I have been mostly enjoying this — I mean, let’s be real: I can do a lot of my job from home, so it’s not like getting behind on client work, the dog is LOVING the snow so I’ve been getting a fair amount of outside time, and I can walk to almost everything I need and everyone I want to see — but there really has been NO need to shower. And frankly, I don’t think that is a habit we need let go for too long, right?

Anyway, thank God the gym has remained open throughout the entire snowpocolypse. I’m quite impressed with them, really: they’re the first to have their sidewalks shoveled, they’re open their regular hours, and it’s not like they needed to be — they’re not losing money by closing, right? Anyway, having a first class gym a 2 minute walk away is nice under any circumstances, but particularly this week.

The Boss, Running The Half Block to the Gym

I’m getting tired of people telling me Twitter is a waste of time. This past week has demonstrated that Twitter is so much more than random social networking/procrastination. Allow me to share:

Last week I ordered a $25 padded insert to turn a regular bag into a camera bag. I didn’t know the vendor, but I had seen them referenced online, their site was good, and they had what I needed. I ordered, paid, and sat back and waited for delivery.

The next day I received an email from the vendor that was two lines:

The status of your order has changed.

The new order status is: Backordered

Huh. That is..hugely uninformative. I wrote back asking if they could give me more details, even just let me know how long it was backordered, and sat back and waited for reply.

I didn’t get one.

Now I was about 99% sure that this was a legitimate business and that I’d receive my item at some point. But there was 1% of me that felt like, well, I just gave my credit card info to someone, and then they told me my items would come eventually, and I have no idea when that eventually is actually going to be, so… I think maybe I just got screwed.

A quick search on Twitter showed this merchant has a Twitter account. I quickly (and not very thoughtfully, mind you), twittered the following statement:

Within a few hours they had responded with someone’s direct email address and offer to check on my status. I was offline and didn’t get their reply immediately; a few hours later they then emailed me directly (I have to assume they noted my last name from my Twitter account and looked up my email address and order info) indicating that they had located my item and would send it out that day. And 48 hours I had my item.

(I still hadn’t/haven’t received an email back from my initial inquiry.)

What does this tell me?

1. Tenba Bags is a legit company who cares about customer service, but has a really bad automated email process… and who luckily has at least one employee that understands how to use Twitter
2. Without Twitter, I’d still be waiting for a response from a customer service representative.
3. Customer Service is more pressing to companies when they can personally account to their customers, and when their customers can reach out in a very transparent way

It means a lot to me that they worked quickly to resolve my issue and make it right, and because of this interaction (via Twitter,) I have turned from a disgruntled patron of a company to someone who will now go out of her way to purchase from them and recommend them to others. So, sure, Twitter is a nice little procrastination tool, but in this case, it’s also a powerful marketing and customer service agent.

(Next up: How Twitter made the Snowpocolypse in DC more fun than not)

I grew up in Minnesota, which means I am totally that person that rolls their eyes every time it snows in D.C. and mumbles “How cute” in that self-righteous, condescending way that only 15+ years of midwest winter can cultivate.

So, of course, when we starting getting reports of the latest storm to hit D.C., I tsk’ed and clucked my teeth at everyone rushing to the grocery store to stock up on paper towels and eggs and whatever else is needed to get through 24 hours of no road access. And, to be fair, it was a little ridiculous: The Boss called me from Ft. Meyer Thursday night – a full 24 hours before we were even expecting to see a single flake – to tell me that there was Military Police running crowd control at the commissary. Can you imagine the chaos had to have been occurring for the MPs to be called in?

D.C has always been snow-shy, to the point where a prediction of snow is enough for everyone to leave work early (if they come in at all.) I’m fine with this, because while I can drive perfectly fine in snow, I don’t trust my southern brethren even a little. But for all my “snowier than thou” attitude, I have to tell you: this storm is fricken ridiculous. We’ve got two and half feet in about 18 hours. It’s unreal. I don’t think I have ever seen anything like it. And while I know everyone in DC is all “OMG, we’re going to die, this city doesn’t DO snow!”, part of me feels like Capitol Hill is the best type of place to live to weather a storm like this. All day I’ve been getting twitter updates of local businesses that are open; businesses I can walk to and meet all my weekend needs: Corner Store for groceries, 8th Street for restaurants (and dry cleaning!), gym half a block away for exercise. Kids are sledding down Capitol Hill. Dogs are playing the parks. The streets aren’t passable for cars, but we’re getting by just fine using our legs.

Living Large in Capitol Hill

Sledding down Capitol Hill

Romping in Marion Park

…and other things I learn from my friend Kim

In case you don’t know many triathletes, let me introduce to a fun little character trait: We’re all bat shit crazy.

Don’t misunderstand me: we’re high functioning crazy, but crazy none the less. Look no further than 5am mornings in the summer, when a bunch of spandex clad middle aged people mill about in the cold before submerging themselves in freezing water. Or last fall, when I did a training ride that consisted of a 112 mile bike ride and a 6 mile mile run. This took well over 7 hours to do, and I was traveling over the weekend, I took a day off work — unpaid –  for the pleasure. Crazy.

One thing that I think adds heavily to the crazy is what I like to call our “interesting relationship with food.” Triathletes don’t diet; they (we) have a “nutrition plan.” It is crafted after reading books and articles and my god there is planning and timing and counting and of course there isn’t a right way but there are many, many wrong ways to eat and by God you average triathlete is going know and tell you. Paelo. Primal. All carb. No Carb. Eating every two hours no wait three no wait protein directly after workout or um, was it bread but only if you can get it within 15 minutes of finishing wait cavemen didn’t eat bread so it must have been protein but are shakes ok wait no–

I’ll stop there, but trust me on this: we’re crazy, and we really, really care about what we eat.

Now, some of this makes sense. Any athletic lifestyle is going to concern food, as that is directly related to energy stores, and, let’s be real, doing races in spandex only adds to the emphasis. But it can get a little over the top, and frankly, it’s really, really time consuming. Because of my recent impatience with this, I’ve watched the growing emphasis on “organic” and “clean eating” and other trends that are becoming more mainstream (thanks to things like Food, Inc and SuperSize Me) with a sense of weariness, because, frankly, I’m ready for eating to be easy again.

However, as this HAS become more mainstream, I’m starting to wonder this hyper sensitivity to clean meat and veggies isn’t just a byproduct of triathlete neurosis, but is instead, in fact, actually a legitimate thing.

To this end, I went to my go-to meat eatin’ knowledge source: My Friend Kim

Kim lives in Montana, and is one of the few people I know who said “I want to remove myself from the grocery store economy” and then actually, like, did it. Not completely, of course, but she is quite literally putting her money where her mouth is: for the most part, she and her husband only eat meat that they themselves have hunted and cured (or purchased from ranchers they know), they saved up for and recently bought a home that has enough land for a 1500 sq ft garden (which, by the way, is bigger than most apartments I’ve lived in), and is really, really knowledgeable about the food we eat and where it comes from. I emailed her asking for some advice on what I need to think about when shopping for meat, and what I should really pay attention to in order to ensure I’m only purchasing and consuming “good for me” foods, and she sent me back a nice little primer, which I like call “Clean Eating for Yuppies.” Enjoy!

1. Buying “Grass Fed” Meat from your grocer is likely OK

If it’s beef, eat grass-fed and you can be relatively confident you’re eating “good” meat.

There are certifications from USDA, American Grassfed Assoc and others, and while I’m really not sure how widespread these are or what they really mean, it doesn’t really seem like it would be very cost-effective to mistreat grassfed cattle. It’s cheaper to just leave them on the pasture rather than stick them in a feedlot and give them hay that you had to harvest. In winter, it’s still easier to just leave them on the pasture and drop off some hay.

2. Nothing will be better than finding farmers

One thing to look into is a meat CSA. I know they’re becoming more common in big metropolitan areas. Check http://www.localharvest.com and http://www.eatwellguide.

Questions to ask:

· How are the animals raised? Is it his farm? Does he sell for others? They may not have the same practices.

· You want to know how much time the animals spend on pasture (not just access to, but how much time they actually spend there)

· What his stance is on hormones and antibiotics? If it’s beef, you want grass fed and grass finished. Both pigs and chickens eat lots of different things, so you just want to know that they access pasture.

Once you start asking those questions, you’ll know. The farmers/ranchers I’ve talked to are either damned excited to spill all the details or rather defensive. I know who I want to buy from! There’s a guy who sells lamb at our farmer’s market. Someone asked him how his lamb tasted/if it was mutton-y and he said, “No, my lambs are perfect. That’s what I tell them every morning. I go out and pet them on their noses and tell them ‘you’re just perfect.'” You could totally tell that even if the guy wasn’t being literal, that was how he felt and treated his animals. That’s who you want to buy from and just a quick chit-chat can more often than not get you there.

3. Buy a Freezer

A chest freezer cuts 90% of the pain-in-the-ass out of finding good meat. You find your rancher, buy your quarter and don’t sweat it for another 6 months to a year.

4. Chickens Are Stupid

When buying chickens, whole chickens are where it’s at (3 meals for 2 adults + broth from the carcass.)

“Free-range” chicken just means that they have access to the outside. Usually it’s a little door to a small outdoor run but chickens are so stupid that since they were born indoors and everybody else is indoors, they never even use it.

In any case, ‘natural’ doesn’t mean shit and ‘free-range’ and ‘cage-free’ are marginally better than the regular stuff. You want ‘pastured’ poultry, but good luck finding it.

For what it’s worth, chicken farming is one of the nastiest, most polluting agricultural endeavors around. Plus, all the processing that’s done to chickens afterward is done by immigrant workers who do so many repetitive movements they end up with debilitating injuries, but then can’t complain because they’re illegals and ugh, it’s all a mess.

Summary:

I wish it was easier to source healthy and ethical meat and I wish it was cheaper. But it never will be unless people start going through the effort to get it and in so doing, create a major market for it. Of course, it’ll never be a decent price until all the stupid regs are removed that give Big Ag a foothold over the little guy. But if we don’t do it, then the vegetarians are right. And dammit, I hate it when vegetarians are right! Which brings me to my last option: take up hunting.

Wise Beyond His Ears

Quick Moose update:

Wait, actually, quick Moose backstory: We made the decision a while back to send Moose for some intensive training, and evaluation for working dog skills. Moose is a great dog: he doesn’t chew, destroy or otherwise defile our house, he walks easily on a leash, loves to go for run,  but he’s over 100 pounds, and very opinionated, with one hell of a territorial instinct. And while I love the fact that he is fiercely protective of our home, I’d like it if we could invite people back over for dinner.

Living in the city as we do, we realized pretty quickly that the smart thing to do would be to work with professional dog trainers to make sure our very very VERY strong dog was also a very controlled, trained dog.

So! Yesterday Moose came home after being at doggie boot camp for four weeks. Which brings me back to our Moose Update:

Assessment of his working dog potential from the trainer:

“Most ‘normal’ German Shepherds you want to see about a 50/50 split between their prey drive and their defensive drive. This is a good ratio for competition dogs, where they show both qualities. Dogs that are used for specific police (or whatever) working functions tend to trend more in one direction; Search and Rescue dogs, for example, will exhibit a much stronger prey drive than defensive, which is what makes them good at hunting and finding.

What we’re saying is, Moose could have been a $35,000 personal protection dog.”

Yeah. Apparently, Moose is closer to 80/20 when it comes to defense/prey. Which, to be fair: we totally knew that, but we were kind of hoping it wasn’t that extreme. But, he took very well to training, and the Boss and I are similarly being trained on how to control him, and I’m very pleased with how well he responded – and, frankly, seems to enjoy – the training he got. Yes, I feel like a bad dog owner (and obnoxious yuppy) for having to send my dog away for training, but I’m glad that we were able to admit that we just didn’t have the skills necessary to deal with this level of instinctive dog nature.

Basically, this whole thing reminds me of my elementary school assessment: “Lots of potential, but needs more structure.” I’m glad we were able to get Moose (and us!) the structure needed to have a happy, liability free life. And we’re looking forward to having you back over for dinner.

My work is somewhat related to Cyber Security in the DoD space (which is about as vague as I can make it beyond “I consult,”) and as such I spend a lot of time reading articles relating to the various ins and outs of network security, be it related to cloud computing, enterprise systems, Gov 2.0, or whatever. I also spend a lot of time arguing with myself (and my colleagues) about how much EASIER (and cheaper!) it would be if the government would get it together and just use one system already, God, vs. the fact that it is so, so much safer that they don’t.

So imagine my delight when I came across this article by Anil Dash, which discusses last week’s Twitter 90 minute outage, and why we should all NOT FREAK OUT about it; after all, isn’t the web suppose to decentralize communications to our benefit?

I mention this article because it is highly relevant to my job, however this entire post is motivated by the following quote:

The Internet was designed to have no central point of failure, allowing anyone to run his or her own communications channel. This was a system that could withstand a nuclear attack.

Am I the only one who reads this quote and thinks “Suck it, Cylons, we’re not falling for THAT again!” ?

…Hello?

Anyway, this brings me to my point: Battlestar Gallactica should clearly be required viewing for the new Cyber Security Czar.

I went for a truly terrible run this morning; I wasn’t feeling it before I left, however I am annoyingly optimistic about running’s ability to be enjoyable in it’s own right, regardless of how I feel at the outset. I was wrong: it never got better, and while I suppose I’m glad I went, I think I would have rather just ummm…not gone at all. (Sigh. That’s not true. It’s always better to go than not to go. BUT I MEAN, STILL. UGH.)

I am sure lack of sleep and poor nutrition are the culprits here, and while most people would take this as hint to mend their ways, I’m instead contemplating just giving up running (kidding) (mostly).

Luckily, however, DC is a really great city to run in, regardless of how crappy the run might be. At least I had some good sights to see while torturing myself. I think I will have a very hard time enjoying running through suburban landscape if and when we ever move out that way.

Starting Out Before the Sun...

Halfway Done - Finally Light Out!

I think I’ve lost the upper hand in my book club.

Yes, ok, so: I have a book club. And I suppose that is a massively clichéd thing for me to have, except it’s so awesome and amazing I don’t care.

About two years ago Book Club started meeting once a month on a Sunday evening to drink wine and talk about a book. Sometimes we do a really good job being a functional book club, with the seven of us discussing a book at length and other times it’s more of a “I didn’t have time to read it but let me tell you what my husband/boyfriend/mother did that totally pissed me off and can I pour you some more wine” kind of group. We met through the DC Triathlon club, though over the years our individual interest in the actual doing of triathlon varies greatly and I’d say at this point our designation of  us being “a group of triathletes” is more of a  “Hey, remember when?” kind of thing. Since our inception four of us have gotten married, two have had children (with two more on the way), and we now meet at 6pm instead of 7 because, I mean, let’s face it: we just can’t stay up that late on a school night anymore.

Anyway, there’s a been a lot of history and laughter and there’s a strong connection between us best described between The Boss and I last night:

Me: “We’re crazy to think of moving away from our extended family”

Him: “Who’s that now?”

Me: “Book club, duh”

At the end of every meeting we suggest the next month’s book along with picking a date for the next meeting. Selection of book is highly informal; usually it’s someone going “I read this review of such and such book, might be worthwhile,” etc. So at one point last year, I suggested we read a book that my stepdaughter gave me, a book that she and her friends really liked, and I thought that we, as a group of women that are all either directly or indirectly involved in the raising of teenage girls, might be interested in talking about. This was an objective suggestion based our duty to understand the world these girls are living and how we can relate and participate in that world. Are you getting this? IT WAS FOR THE CHILDREN.

Also, it was about teenage vampire with totally awesome abs.

Y’all, ever since suggesting my book club read Twilight, I have officially not been allowed to suggest books for book club. Before a suggestion can even cross my lips I’m reminded quickly about “the vampire book,” usually with a slight eye roll and “Ahem” implied. It will likely be like this for the next two years, minimum, at which point I assume they might consider another one of my suggestions, but only after reminding me about the “Twilight Debacle of 2009.”

That’s fine. I can wait. It’s not like the Sookie Stackhouse books are going anywhere, right?