39 Essays

Feminism vis a vis daughters

2012-05-10T00:00:00-04:00

In case it’s not obvious from the headshot at the bottom of the page, I am a straight, white, college-educated, middle-class, American, Christian guy in my late thirties.

Given that, what in the world am I least qualified to write about?

Feminism!

I’m pretty sure that the privileged-white-male view of the patriarchy is the last [goshdarn] thing any one wants to read. Who is this [fellow]? [Bless his heart].

True. I can’t really argue with that.

But I actually have a stake in this now. My daughters are four and six, and the world we’re building now is the world they’ll have to live in. I want to make sure it’s a good one.

Like President Obama’s views on same-sex marriage, my views on feminism have evolved over the past twenty years. Here’s where I’ve been, where I am and how that affects the advice I’ll give my girls.

Disclaimer: Politically, I’m an independent, what used to be called a “Yankee Republican.” Of course, in the current environment, the sensibilities of a Yankee Republican are seen as being to the left of Kennedy and Roosevelt.

Additional Disclaimer: I’m a knucklehead. Don’t take advice from random people on the Internet.

What did I used to think about feminism?

To be fair, not all that much.

I’ve never had a problem with the concept of feminism, because I don’t generally see equality as a bad thing. If a woman wants to be a doctor and she’s willing to put in the work, then good for her.

Of course, life is not that simple. What if, for example, the powers that be define “willing to put in the work” as never getting pregnant or having kids, because those choices prevent you from doing all things that person without kids could do.

When I was at Amazon in 1999, I did a dozen or so 100-hour weeks in a row leading up to our July launch. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do that now. But, if that’s the definition for success in a given industry (as it was in Seattle in 1999), then I’d be out of luck.

A startup CEO might need to be able to sacrifice all time and attention. This is not inherently gendered. A firefighter needs to be able to carry a 200lb victim 100 feet in a fireman’s carry. This is (somewhat) inherently gendered, in that there are very few women (and not many more men) who can physically do this.

This is where feminism in the workplace gets more complex. And outside the workplace?

I became an adult in the early nineties, when sexual harassment fever was sky-high, when colleges were putting in programs like Antioch’s ”Can I open the door for you now” policy.

But, here’s the deal. Up until BostonWorks, I had extracurricular relationships with coworkers at every job I ever had. Fun and fraught share a cubicle (or a walk-in freezer) sometimes.

What is different seeing the world through their eyes?

Ok, so now I’m married and have two daughters. How have things evolved?

As far as I can tell, the girls haven’t had any issues. Yet. But, I’m focused on these issues, because I need to be able to give them advice to help them navigate the ideal world, and the real one.

The two biggest changes I’ve seen in myself since I’ve started paying more attention are a greater awareness of my size and bearing, and a greater observation of power dynamics in the office.

Apparently, I’m intimidating

I see myself as about as unthreatening as a tall and broad male could be, but I’m sure that woman I hung out with saw me as a threat. From their perspective, you never know when I might flip out on you.

I’m almost never in a position where I have a continuous, rational undercurrent of fear. Many woman feel that every day. I need to be more aware of and sympathetic to that.

Dragon ladies and harpies unite!

I’ve also seen the power dynamics in the workplace.

An assertive man is seen as assertive. An assertive woman is seen as a bitch.

A man yells. A woman shrieks.

A man is pissed off. A woman is hysterical.

Recognizing this common dynamic allows me to adjust for it. I think this is changing a bit, but I’m not sure it’s ever going to totally go away. A lot of people have mommy issues.

Everyone’s a little bit sexist.

Just like everyone’s a little bit racist.

A teacher will not call on you. A waiter will not be prompt. The car salesman will talk to your husband instead of to you.

(Seriously. When my wife bought her car last summer, I tagged along. Although it was clear that she was the buyer, the primary driver and the ultimate decision maker, the sales guy talked solely to me when we were negotiating.)

If you get offended every time this happens, well, you’ll waste a whole lot of time being offended.

To quote the hoodie, “it is what it is.”

And, in the true spirit of the ironic segue fairy, here is some totally sexist advice to help the girls navigate the world as an equal.

Boys live in a state of benign duh

Boys are dumb. But, it’s worth getting good at detecting the difference between “benign duh” and “malevolent prick.”

Corollary: Boys are really far more insecure than you think they are. Hell, most people are. That’s another good reason to now compare your inside with other people’s outsides.

When I look back on my teens and twenties through the lens of someone who has a bit more of an idea of what’s going on, I’m appalled by some of the things I did – not done out of malice, but rather out of cluelessness.

A couple of times I’ve talked to a woman a decade or two later and found out that she had imagined me with this whole rich inner life with shades of nuance and deep meaning behind each word and gesture. I felt bad that my rich inner life was more often “I like beer” and “Wow, Paula Abdul is hot.”

Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by “boys are dumb”.

That said, I’m really not looking forward to the days when they start dating. I have a feeling it’s not going to be like I imagined.

When we first got married, our plan was to have four boys and then a sweet little girl. That way, when a potential suitor comes around, he’d need to get through a thousand pounds of Butler male.

Then we had our first child. We quickly realized that this “five” plan ain’t happening.

Then we had another girl. We quickly realized that this “boy” plan ain’t happening.

So, I decided once my wife’s cats died, I’d get a really big dog. That way, if potential suitors misbehaved, I could threaten to feed them to the dog. Then, my sister got a couple of dogs and I saw that a puppy is almost as much work as another kid. We quickly realized that the “dog” plan ain’t happening.

So, all I have is words.

If you’re going to date that boy:

a. Do what works for you. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do. Don’t feel compelled to tell me all the details.

b. That said, opening some doors may have consequences you don’t want to face right now. It’s ok to wait.

c. You can always go farther with him tomorrow, if you’re that much in love. Trust me, he’ll still be there (or, if he’s not, then you just dodged a major bullet.)

d. And, finally, don’t get knocked up unintentionally. Listen to The River if you don’t believe me.

Body image issues are annoyingly real

I’m 6’2”, ~200lbs. I’m not a waif. I’ve a barrel chest, long arms and a certain rugged handsomeness. My genetics theory is a little rusty, but I’m guessing the children may end up with similar body types.

They will likely not be waifs.

Things worked out for me. Some women like a man they can’t break.

I worry that it will be harder for them. I like some of the emerging trends in the fashion world, but I’m terrified they’ll run into things like thinspiration.

So, here’s what I have:

Strive for healthy. I’ve known women who were 115 pounds but would be out of breath after climbing the stairs. That’s not what you’re looking for.

Plus, starving yourself isn’t fun. It tends to make one cranky. When I lived in China, I got so sick that I ended up effectively starving myself for a few weeks. I made it through and functioned, but it wasn’t fun for me, and I’m guessing it wasn’t fun for the other teachers and students.

The other systemic thing I’m worried about is the pornification of the world.

I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a teenage boy growing up now. When I was their age, I had Friday-night Cinemax and any Hustlers I could steal from my brother’s stash. Now, it’s always on, 32 flavors and then some.

I don’t know what the implications of this will be for teenage boys and girls, but I can only how it’s going to get better.

At least I have a few years to figure that one out.

Sports are fun

Both the girls are doing sports now, and I think that Title IX has been a good thing in general.

Be athletic. Have fun. Try to avoid concussions.

If nothing else, I should be able to give them a good head start on how to talk sports. The girls have grown up watching the Patriots and Red Sox. They know the “Patriots Rules”. They know what a full count is. They know how to run routes. They know how to Gronk.

They know what happens when Daddy throws the penalty flag.

Build a base of options

This is (I think) the heart of feminism (and most other equality-based initiatives). We should all have equal protection under the law, and we should all have any options open that we’re willing to work for.

So, how do you build that base of options?

Math is good to learn, even if Barbie doesn’t agree.

Science is useful, as is poetry.

Ah, screw it, learn what you want. It will be what it will be.

That said, it’s always useful to be able to support yourself financially. I’m pretty sure my writing royalties ain’t gonna pay your rent.

Finally, use your powers for good

It doesn’t hurt to smile.

Try not to be manipulative. At some point, you’ll likely be able to get boys to do your bidding by batting your eyes. Don’t let the power go to your head.

Feminism doesn’t imply “mean.” Equality don’t give license for pre-emptive strikes.

You’re just as capable; you’re just as culpable.

Please think through the lessons from Don’t resent the current moment and Don’t betray yourself.

And, seriously, try to avoid getting knocked up unintentionally. Kids are expensive.

Don't Resent the Current Moment

2012-03-23T00:00:00-04:00

Early 2008. Sadie was a toddler. Lucy was a month away from entering the world. My employer was cratering and my wife was planning her father’s funeral. I was getting on a plane headed to Tampa to be best man in my brother’s wedding. My head was in a weird place.

As I was getting out of my car at Logan, I turned on an audio book to keep me company through the trip. That book was The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. And, over the course of that very strange weekend, that book changed my life. Here’s what I’ve learned, and what I’ve tried to live by ever since.

Turn off your mind

Tolle tell us “you are not your mind.” (Relatedly, Tyler tells us “you are not your [goshdarn] khakis,” but that’s another essay.)

I am. Or at least, I though I was.

I’m lucky; I’m fairly smart. Good thing, because I’m not handy. I’m not pretty (though we’ll go with solidly handsome). I’m neither a saint nor a rogue. I’m not the life of the party, a chef extraordinaire or the guy who knows a guy.

But, I’m pretty smart and generally not evil. That’s what I build on, and that doesn’t strike me as all that bad.

But Tolle leads with “Turn off your mind.” Why? (All the quoted material following is from the book.)

“To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation. This creates an endless preoccupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be. The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.”

Ahh. This is a little clearer. Identifying with your mind is not the same as being unable to turn it off. It’s great to have a clear separation, but it’s distressing to know I’m now failing at two distinct things.

I’ve always defined myself through my mind. This orientation has helped in many ways (I’m always learning, and I’ve rigorously avoided drugs, so as to not screw up the best thing I got.)

But when you’ve spent all your life identifying with your mind, it’s hard to reconcile with this concept of the “mind is not me.”

“Once you have dis-identified from your mind, whether you are right or wrong makes no difference to your sense of self at all, so the forcefully compulsive and deeply unconscious need to be right, which is a form of violence, will no longer be there. You can state clearly and firmly how you feel or what you think, but there will be no aggressiveness or defensiveness about it.”

Ok, I’ll admit it. I (for one) prefer to be right. Sometimes that’s not helpful, especially when your self-image depends upon you usually being right. I have a feeling that more than a few conflicts in my life have come from the need to be right, or – more generally – to be seen as one of the smarter folks in the room.

But, what about turning it off? What’s the point of that?

“Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don’t realize this because almost everybody is suffering from it, so it’s considered normal.

Or, as Crash Davis would say, “don’t think; it can only hurt the ball club.”

I’ve been trying for years to get rid of the incessant mental noise. I think I’ve made some good progress on this, when I actively think to myself that “The mind is a tool, not an end in and of itself. Treat it that way.”

But even when I can work to turn off my mind, my situation does not always improve. The problem is that the general unease manifests itself in my emotions. (“General unease manifests itself in my emotions” being fancy talk for “I get all pissed off.”) Observing your emotions is as important as observing your thoughts. Generally, if my emotions and my thoughts don’t agree, I should trust the emotions to be a more accurate reflection of what’s inside.

Anytime I’m feeling uneasy, I need to ask myself if there is any concrete and true immediate danger. Sometimes there is: the three-year-old is running towards the oven or the server is down with traffic pouring in. That’s pretty rare, though. Most of the time, whatever is happening right now is not the end of the world.

“The psychological condition of fear is divorced from any concrete and true immediate danger. It comes in many forms: unease, worry, anxiety, nervousness, tension, dread, phobia, and so on.”

I try to prevent my mind from spinning tales of brilliant or horrible futures. I also try to not dwell on mistakes from the past. (I’m far better at the latter – I’m not nearly deep enough to be a tortured soul).

It’s easy for me to say this, because my life is extraordinarily good and easy. I’ll guesstimate that 99% of all the people who’ve ever lived would be happy to trade life situations with me. None of my family has cancer or heart disease or maggots in uncomfortable places. Our house is not infested with wasps. I no longer have a skunk living in my garage. Etc. #firstworldproblems.

That said, pain still hurts, so I might as well design an algorithm to minimize that pain.

Let’s start with this:

Don’t resent the current moment

All you have is right now. Try to be “present” in the current moment instead of visiting the past or the future. Your “life situation” (what troubles you have right now) is not your “life”. This has taken me a while to figure out.

I should probably also complain a little less.

“To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself into a victim.”

Ok, got it. Complaining seldom helps things, and it’s always a good indicator that I’m not fully present.

But, I really need to watch for repetitive thoughts, my imagination’s greatest hits of bad things that are going to happen.

Some of these hits are general, though I tend to handle those ones pretty well. Nooses don’t just happen, and I’m pretty sure that if the Yellowstone Supervolcano blows, I’m not going to care much after a few hours.

But most hits have specific triggers. Like a child’s whine. (To completely pick something totally at random that is in no way something I deal with every single goddam day. Totally random example.) The child’s whine sets me off, causing me to slide down the slope to what it will be like 15 minutes from now when it’s only gotten worse.

I need to short-circuit that slide.

I should be dealing with the present fuss, but my body has decided to jump directly to the ending of the worst-case scenario. I need to stop and see what’s happening right now, and only interact with what’s happening right now.

Don’t “worry” about what might happen. If you need to prepare for it, then consciously say that I’m going to solve this problem, then accept what you’ve done and move on with your life.

“Either stop doing what you are doing, speak to the person concerned and express fully what you feel, or drop the negativity that your mind has created around the situation and that serves no purpose whatsoever except to strengthen a false sense of self. Recognizing its futility is important. Negativity is never the optimum way of dealing with any situation. In fact, in most cases it keeps you stuck in it, blocking real change.”

I’m far too prone to irritation and impatience. It’s usually not helpful. The ladies at daycare know me for my incessant “Let’s Go. Let’s Go. Let’s Go.” refrain. Every. Single. Night.

Tolle talks about how the energy you resonate comes back to you. I think that’s true, and the children can undoubtedly sense my irritation (at least at some level). I also touched on this concept in my Don’t Betray Yourself essay. People can always tell when they’re being handled, mollified, disrespected or shunted off. The girls can always tell how I’m really feeling.

At least I can use that to my advantage when they’re hurt and I’m fixing them up. I can tell them “look at Daddy. Do I look upset? No? Then you don’t need to be upset. It will all be ok.” I have the advantage of being all dead inside, with it’s sidecar power of being able to entirely disengage emotions and just act when necessary, like when the older one has a hotdog stuck in her throat. (This skill also comes in handy when the brakes on your little sports car decide to give out on 128.)

“In your everyday life, you can practice [presence] by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention, so that it becomes an end in itself.”

This is some basic Buddhism that I’ve been trying to live by for a while. I’m not super-successful at it, but I do keep trying. This dovetails well with the focus principles around getting things done. Do one thing at a time, and give it your full attention.

Give more attention to the doing than to the results. This will make it so that you are working within the current moment, enjoying and experiencing each piece for what it is. The results will be what they will be, but life is always better if you are harvesting the inherent the outfit worn by the actress on the screen. Hear the breath of your wife in the chair next to you. Feel the warmth of your home. Appreciate the wittiness of the physics humor on The Big Bang Theory.

“Maybe you are being taken advantage of, maybe the activity you are engaged in is tedious, maybe someone close to you is dishonest, irritating, or unconscious, but all this is irrelevant. Whether your thoughts and emotions about this situation are justified or not makes no difference. The fact is that you are resisting what is. You are making the present moment into an enemy. You are creating unhappiness, conflict between the inner and the outer. Your unhappiness is polluting not only your own inner being and those around you but also the collective human psyche of which you are an inseparable part. The pollution of the planet is only an outward reflection of an inner psychic pollution: millions of unconscious individuals not taking responsibility for their inner space.”

“Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.”

“If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences. No excuses. No negativity. No psychic pollution.”

I think this is the most important piece of the whole book. It boils down to this: Change the moment, leave it, or accept it entirely.

Take control of yourself. Either do something about it or accept it. Don’t just whine and bitch; it’s not going to change the situation, and it makes everyone else around you a bit more negative.

Now that I’m older, I have a better idea of what I can safely not give a flying [goshdarn] about. It’s liberating. If I’m not going to actively take action to change something right now, then I’m not going to worry it. If I have to deal with it in the future, I’ll make a note in my org-mode file to ensure it’ll come up when it is time to do something about it.

“Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.”

This is an awesome quote, and it accurately hits a distinction I’ve never really thought about. If your current happiness is being derived from outside you, then forces outside you can take it away. No one can take away joy.

You can always deal with the present moment, but you can never deal with a projection of a possible future or a remembrance of the past. Thanks for spending a couple of those moments reading this. I really appreciate it.

Now, it’s your turn. How do you keep from going insane through the day? How do you find sustained awesomeness? What tricks do you use to focus? Please leave me a comment with your ideas!

P.S. This really works best as an audio book. Tolle’s voice is hypnotic and it really gets you into the right frame of mind for absorbing the material. If you can swing it, listen to the book when you’re working in the garden or taking a trip, when you can basically shut off everything else and let yourself slip into the world he’s building.

I’m not sure how, but I’ve found that listening to the book gives you a glow as you’re walking around during the day. To the point that we talk about “I need some book” when we’re having a tough time of it.

The only bad things is that we need to coordinate book time so that we don’t clobber each other’s “left off” point in iTunes.

The whiskey flows like the crystal streams they say flow in heaven

2012-03-02T00:00:00-05:00

Woke up this morning and got myself a shovel. Shoveled the driveway so we could get to work. Got the three-year-old up. Prepared some organic coffee and poured it into my reusable container.

I’m not sure, but I may be a little beyond my badassery prime.

Some records fit your time and place. Twister Sister and I both wanted to rock when I was 12. (As Wikipedia’s Twisted Sister page says: “Many of the band’s songs explore themes of parent vs. child conflicts and criticisms of the educational system.”). Def Leppard shared a fondness for sugar when I was 15. Syracuse was down with JPB. JoCo expresses the ennui of my currently-chosen career.

But, some records are timeless. The Smiths are evocative regardless of decade. Uncle Tupelo always delivers. John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman always put me in a good mood.

Fifteen or so years ago, I picked up one of the most affecting records I’ve ever heard, and it’s been in heavy rotation ever since. Here’s how I describe it:

What would happen if you combined the Paul’s Boutique era Beastie Boys with the London Calling era Clash?

You get Exile on Coldharbour Lane, by Alabama 3. (Alabama 3 is known as A3 in the United States, due to some crankiness on the part of the Love in the First Degree folks.)

This record soundtracked several weird years in my life, roughly from when I moved from Natick Center to Central Square in 1998 to when I met my future wife in 2003, a time when I used to go to clubs, spending a lot of time at T.T. the Bear’s, the Middle East and Cantab trying to find inspiration in drinks, dartboards, women and song. Back when 9PM would see me going out, not going to bed.

This record saw me through affairs of the heart, both licit and ill, wandering through an epicenter of the dotcom gold rush and watching its implosion.

It was the little devil on my shoulder.

Spin out another tale of sweet testimony

I love music, but I’m completely tone-deaf – couldn’t carry a tune if it had handles on it, etc. Miss DeFazio told me in middle-school that I should perhaps sing a little more softly in chorus. (To be fair, she did give me prime non-singing roles in the annual musicals – most famously (for some value of famous), as the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz.)

I’ve probably owned north of 2,000 records over the course of my life. And, being a hyper-analytical INTJ, I’ve built a pretty good mental universe of all the different types of music and where all the individual artists and albums fit in. (To the point of exasperating all the females in my home with discourses on the through-line from outlaw country to Kid Rock.) Exile is almost impossible to fit into the standard matrices. Which makes it fascinating.

Sweet Pretty Country Acid House Music

But, what does it sound like?

Alabama 3 describes its sound as “sweet pretty country acid house music.”

To me, it sounds like Mississippi, or at least the Mississippi I imagine from my home in pastoral Massachusetts. Maybe more like Mississippi invaded by Manray. It sounds like the complete particle inversion of Viva La Vida.

It’s swampy, with one of the best harmonica players I’ve ever heard driving through it. It vibrated my little sports car as I drove down the Pike. (It’s not quite the same now. My Avalon’s bass is chipmunkian.)

It’s a hot mess, a perfect stew. It’s all groove. They curse a lot, and sample the Reverend Jim Jones.

Larry Love’s baritone rumbles through the record like a haptic controller strangling you. D. Wayne Love is the Flavor Flav of this group, half Greek Chorus, half Jimmy Swaggert’s slippery slope.

You can have your Metallicas, your Lynyrd Skynyrds, your Elvis. These are the guys I want to hang out with.

Getting Disequilibriated.

This is one of those albums that you can imagine as a play or a novel, without descending into Yes-ian pretensions. The characters float in and out, finding salvation and braving its opposite, all the while making you hit up Urban Dictionary to brush up on your drug slang.

The guys take the material and their characters seriously, though. They deal with poseurs and religion and drugs. (And socialism, straight in the mainline.) Plus, anyone who covers John Prine is ok in my book. (More on John Prine later this year.).

Here’s a taste:

Woke Up This Morning

This is probably their most famous song, because it ended up serving as the opening theme song for The Sopranos. This is the album mix, though, far superior.

Ain’t Goin’ to Goa

I’ve been one of these. Though, I can honestly say that my barrel chest precludes being called eurotrash; I’m not nearly emaciated enough.

Mao Tse Tung Said

This actually got me in trouble when I was teaching in Yantai. I let one of our 18-year-old translators listen to it. She did not get it at all. (Later that summer, I transcribed Eminem’s Stan for her. I’m not sure she got all of that, either.)

This is a live version from a few years ago. The album version is tighter, but this has a ragged charm.

The Night We Nearly Got Busted

I love the wordplay and the theater of the mind in this song.

This is a live version from a couple of years ago, which inexplicably channels Smoke on the Water and has an uncredited cameo from Severus Snape.

It’s a great album. I hope you like it.

P.S. The other two famous “Exile” records, by Liz Phair and The Rolling Stones, are pretty good, too.

The Joy of an Induction Stove

2012-02-03T00:00:00-05:00

I’m always looking to optimize. It’s probably an innate feature of being a bit of a geek.

I had a sign in my old office that read “Automate anything you do more than twice.” My home life corollary is that if I have to do something everyday, I should get awesomier at it.

We cook 2-3 meals a day at home. When we had to move a couple of years ago, I researched cooking equipment, and found an induction stove. I’m very happy I did.

What is induction cooking?

Instead of applying heat directly, like a gas burner’s open flame or an electric burner’s metal coil, induction stoves work by creating a magnetic field. The magnetic field causes the pan touching the surface to get hot.

Here’s a video from HGTV explaining how it works:

Why is induction cooking better?

It does its job really well

My induction stove is like one of the Patriots. It does its job – quickly, quietly, cleanly and efficiently. It hits its marks and improves my cooking. And, I totally Gronk the potholder when I’ve finished cooking a good meal.

It’s incredibly fast. It boils water in less than half the time of our old electric stove, and faster than our gas one. You grow to love this.

More important, you can instantly change the amount of heat you’re putting on the pot by changing the setting. In this way, it’s like a gas burner, in how it enables instant adjustments. I used to hate the electric burners which would take a while to heat up, and then a while to change temperatures. For any sort of meal where you’re changing temperatures quickly, the standard electric stoves are pretty useless.

For us, the induction stove also gets the pan a lot hotter then the electric stove or standard gas one. For us, level 10 is really hot. We sear meat quickly and beautifully.

It’s incredibly easy to clean up

Our cooktop is a smooth surface that wipes clean easily. I used to have chase crumbs and spills down the burners, and scrape the grates and the electric coils. This stovetop is so much easier.

It’s safe.

The rest of the stovetop doesn’t get hot when things are cooking, and the stove itself cools down very quickly. (It still stays warm for a couple of minutes after you take the pot off, so you still have a pay a little attention.)

There’s also no open flame, which prevents me from reprising the Unfortunate Bruins Sweatshirt Incident of Aught Three.

Is induction cooking greener than gas or electric?

I wasn’t expecting it, but the induction cooking section of my going green essay drew the most questions.

“Is it more green” is an almost impossible question to answer. Like many things in the sustainability world (and, alas, the real world), the answer is “it depends.” The induction stove is powered by electricity, so its global footprint is a function of how green your power is. (Of course, you can always green your power as well.)

We do know that it transfers energy very efficiently, though (to the extent that anything sourced from a Wikipedia article can be truly known.)

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the efficiency of energy transfer for an induction hob is 84%, versus 74% for a smooth-top non-induction electrical unit, for an approximate 12% saving in energy for the same amount of heat transfer.

Energy efficiency is the ratio between energy delivered to the food and that consumed by the cooker, considered from the “customer side” of the energy meter. Cooking with gas has an energy efficiency of about 40% at the customer’s meter (energy purchased vs. energy deposited into the food).

It’s anecdotal, but I think that the lack of an open flame has greatly improved the air quality of the kitchen – in fact, of the whole first floor.

Do I need special pans for using an induction stove?

Yes. In order to use an induction cooktop, you need pots and pans that are magnetic. In general, this means that you should stick with stainless steel and cast iron cookery. Aluminum, copper and glass pots won’t work.

When you’re out looking for the pots, carry a refrigerator magnet along with you. If it sticks to the pan, then you’re good to go.

Over the years, we’ve accumulated a set of stainless-steel pots and pans from All-Clad, a couple of Lodge cast iron pans and a few Le Creuset enameled cast iron pans. These are expensive (and heavy!), but they last forever. If you get a chance, cruise the garage sales looking for these – sometimes you’ll get lucky.

One last thing, if you have a change your pots anyway, please consider avoiding non-stick pans. They’re really not very good for you.

Portable burners

We liked our stove so much that we got a portable burner. This is just a single burner than you can plug into the wall. I often use this to boil the water for the steamed vegetables. Getting this off the stove clears a lot of space for the main dish.

It’s also a great hot plate, without any of the fire risks of the traditional hot plates. When we’re planning this summer’s vacation, we might see if we can bring it along so that we can cook in our room and avoid eating out for every meal.

Is it more expensive?

From two minutes of dedicated poking around at Sears, it looks like regular electric stoves are around $500, while induction stoves are a grand or two more. So, it’s a non-trivial difference.

We were selling our house in the midst of the worst housing recession of my lifetime – investing in a better stove was rounding error in that transaction’s red ink. Since we’re planning on staying here for the next 40 years, I’m pretty sure we’ll amortize the marginal cost.

So, what’s next?

Now that we’re settled in this house and the children aren’t babies anymore, I’m able to spend more of my time bringing the awesome to things I have to do anyway.

This spring? Rain Barrels. I think we can prevent our basement from flooding and use the rain water for the gardens.

What other tools should I investigate? Please leave a comment with ideas or drop me a line.

(And yes, I own the awesomier.com domain. I just need to figure out something (wait for it……….) awesome to do with it.)

p.s., I think I’m going to give myself a “hell yeah” for nesting parenthetical asides. Then, maybe I’ll go learn Lisp.

Don't Betray Yourself

2012-01-27T00:00:00-05:00

Full justification

“Just” is my least favorite word in the English language.

I “just” want five minutes to myself. I “just” want to make it from Alewife to Park Street without delays. I “just” want a hamburger cooked correctly, not burnt to a crisp.

Anytime I find myself saying “I just want” or “I only want”, my klaxons should start screaming. Because, when I don’t get what I “just” want, I implode or explode or unload on some schmuck.

And, you know what? I’m too old for that. I need to get control and see clearly.

I need to stop betraying myself.

Betraying yourself sounds kinda harsh

I know what I should do most of the time. Not in the “will choice A or choice B maximize profits,” or “what is 6^4” sort of way, but in the “I should let this guy in before me at the grocery store–he only has two things, and I have my full weekly grocery cart” sort of way.

But I didn’t let him in. I pretended I didn’t see him. I made a show of how efficiently I put the clementines on the belt. I glanced at my phone and sighed at the screen. I was obviously far too busy to let anyone else get in front of me. I was totally justified; I just want to get through the line as quickly as possible and get back to writing this masterpiece.

I do a lot of stupid stuff. Worse, at 39, I have reasonable self-awareness about it. Do I need to run the water while shaving? Must I reach for the sixth beer in that six-pack? Buffy fanfic…really?

I know I shouldn’t. But, I know that I can justify it to myself. I work hard. I’m good to the kids and their mother. What’s the harm of a few foibles?

Leadership and Self-Deception

The best book I’ve ever read on this topic is Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Group. It’s a short book, and I highly recommend you read it.

It’s written in story form, similarly to Eliyahu Goldratt’s novels on the Theory of Constraints. This isn’t for everyone, but I really enjoy these types of books – they’re a nice break from the standard way of getting this information.

(Disclaimers: This is published by a consulting company to generate leads; it doesn’t have Tolstoy-level character development; and it ends pretty abruptly. That said, take your wisdom where you can find it. I found it incredibly useful. Your mileage may vary.)

Here are the main points of the text:

When I commit an act contrary to what I feel I should do, it’s called “self-betrayal.”

When I betray myself, I begin to see the world in a way that justifies my self-betrayal.

When I do this, my view of reality is distorted. I’ll overstate my own virtues and everyone else’s faults.

I’ve done all these things over the course of my life. Hell, I’ve done all these things while writing this section.

For example, five minutes ago (about 3:15 on 1/26/2012), the goddam cat just barfed on the carpet outside my office. Again. The hallway is dark. I could ignore it and then “discover” it tonight when everyone’s home. Then, my darling wife (whose cat it is) would quickly clean it up. But, I know that I should clean it up. I know that it’s there, and there’s no way to unknow that fact, or unfeel that urge.

In the book’s terms, I can clean it up (“honor the feeling”) or ignore it (“betray myself”). If I choose to betray myself (which I did), I’ll start seeing the world through a lens that justifies that decision.

A lens like this:

It’s not my cat. I’m allergic to the damn thing, and I’ve been a very good sport living with it for the past eight years.
We’re tearing up these rugs at some point soon anyway, so it doesn’t really matter if the stain sets a little bit.
I’m on deadline, for Pete’s sake. I need to finish this piece by tomorrow morning.

Because of my decision, my entire worldview is focused on making me feel justified for doing what I want to do instead of doing what I know I should. I’m not seeing clearly.

I hate not seeing clearly.

I cleaned up the mess.

If you need me, I’ll be downstairs, with the Shop Vac.

That one was pretty easy, though. Other situations are hard.

If you need me, I’ll be downstairs, with the Shop Vac. You can call but I probably won’t hear you because it’s loud with the Shop Vac on.

I love my children, but sometimes I just want them to leave me alone. I know that in five years, I’ll miss the times when they always wanted to be around me. But sometimes.

I don’t know how much of what “I should really feel” is innate, versus something that’s been brainwashed into us over the past couple of decades. If I’m an sensitive-new-age-dad, then I’m supposed to spend every moment catering to the children’s every whim. Or not. Beats the hell out of the me.

At least this one I can justify by telling myself (and even believing it, somewhat) that they need to learn to entertain themselves, and that I need to be able to help them learn that.

We’ll see how that plays out in the long run.

That long-running hit

A worse effect from “betraying” yourself, is that you often start to see other people as objects, not as people.

I can’t prove it, but you’re probably real. You’re not an object instantiated when I enter the room and then marked and swept when I leave.

You’re not a walk-on bit player in that long-running hit, The Jason P. Butler Show.

You’re not an obstacle to be evaded, a strawman to be hated, or a bear to be baited for my amusement.

You have your own stuff going on. You probably didn’t get up this morning hoping to be belittled.

You aren’t going out of your way to be put in your place.

And this is one of the hardest things to keep in mind, and one of the challenges for every day: See every person you interact with as a person, as unique as you, with the same fundamental needs and wants.

Flipping the bozo bit

If you find yourself feeling justified in a situation often enough, it becomes part of you. I’ve seen this a hundred times or more in my professional adventures.

In the technology world, I’ve heard this referred to as “flipping the bozo bit.” Think of it like a permanent light switch. It starts off at “Not Bozo” for everyone. After a while dealing with someone, you might flip the switch to “Bozo.” It’s really hard to flip that back in your head. And, from that point on, you’re never able to see that person clearly.

Engineering thinks marketing is clueless. The newsroom resents the technology team. The subsidiary thinks the mothership is filled with evil overlords. (Did I say overlords? I meant protectors).

And the business suffers. It’s impossible to be focused on results when you’re focused on resentments.

I’m trying really hard to get better at this. I will always identify with my tribe. I just need to make sure I’m identifying with the right tribe. There will always be enemies. I need to pick the right enemies, and remember that they probably did not get up this morning hoping to be horribilized.

The book tries to envision a business world without this type of self-deception. I’m not sure that world is possible.

Maybe you can screen for this tendency in interviews, though. I’ll need to think about ways to profile for this type of thinking. Any suggestions?

Homework for you:

Try to see every person that you meet in the next hour as an individual, not as an object.
Try to catch when you “betray” yourself. Listen for an instant “I should do this” feeling that you then decide (for whatever reason) to ignore or defy. Don’t worry about dealing with it now, but try to get a feel for when it happens and why you go the other way.
Let me know what happens! Leave me a comment or send me an email. I’m trying to figure this all out, and I’d love to get your perspective on it.

Have fun!

p.s., Here is a TED talk by one of the leaders of the Arbinger Institute, who wrote the book. It’s worth 20 minutes when you have the time to sit through it.

Going Green is Not That Frickin' Hard

2012-01-13T00:00:00-05:00

Saving the world doesn’t get me out of bed in the morning.

Don’t get me wrong, I want the world to be a better place. But, in my day-to-day life, I seldom make a decision based on its impact on the universe. I think I’m a reasonably good person, but I care far more about my world than the world. I don’t think I’m alone.

I’ve pondered going green before, albeit in the same way I’ve “pondered” running the Boston Marathon. I’ve tried, though. Towards the end of my time in China, I prayed for a genie with a giant bottle of 409 and a green scrubbie to appear over Yantai. When I needed a four-wheel drive, I bought a sedan with reasonable mileage instead of an SUV. I returned my Diet Pepsi bottles to the store for 5 cents apiece.

But still, I couldn’t come to grips with being one of those green people – an earthy-crunchy hippie, a Prius driver, a person who only orders pizzas topped with spinach and feta. That level of green seemed not only unattainable, but undesirable (I’m not going to tie myself to a whaling boat, and my family appreciates that I shower each day). Do I have to trade in my Dunkin’ Donuts for organic tree bark and make sure the cows I eat were snuggled and patted on the head each day?

Plus, I’m pretty sure that the burning gasoline is contributing to climate change, but I still have to get to work, and I can’t afford to just buy a new car.

So, when caught in this inner conflict: “Save the world vs. Live normally”, I bravely turtled. For years and years.

Then, I heard about BPA. Lucy had just been born, and we were using the same bottles we’d used for Sadie. The normal bottles. Bottles that millions of parents used. Perfectly fine.

Until they weren’t. They had BPA. BPA is capital-B Bad. Crap.

Ten minutes and $50 later (hooray for All-American price gouging), I had a set of Dr. Brown’s bottles, and the children seem to have turned out ok.

More importantly, I had my first trigger. Turns out, I will get out of bed to avoid poisoning my children.

Fast-forward a year or so, and I’m starting as technical co-founder at Practically Green, a site dedicated to helping folks get a little bit greener.

And, wow, am I surrounded by some of the greenest people I’ve ever met. And I’m reading suggestions from our customers with really smart ideas. (And a couple of really disgusting ones. Not all family moments need to be shared in the interest of saving a little bit of paper.)

In building the site, I ended up reading all the information we’d gathered. It turns out the word I was looking for around BPA was “toxins.” And man, I had more toxins in my house and in my food than I thought.

So, we started doing more to eliminate those toxins. It wasn’t that hard. The organic milk was right next to the regular. Seriously, like 18 inches to the left.

I started looking at “green” as a continuum as opposed to a destination. That made all the difference. You don’t have get all the way to perfect (level 10 in the PG parlance) to be better than you are now. I started as a level 4, and now I’m a level 9 – wicked green.

Here’s where I ended up: by making some behavior changes and some shopping choices, I can save some money and stop poisoning my children. And, as a happy consequence, I might even help save the world a little. Good enough to start.

Though I’m never going to be the greenest person on the block, it’s easy to get a little bit greener. Even for a lazy bum like me, going green is not that frickin’ hard. Here’s how I’m doing it.

Get ‘er done.

Ok, you’re in. Let’s go. You can get started in five minutes without hurting your lifestyle, wallet or pride.

Here’s my data. This is is a graph of my scores on Practically Green over the past eighteen months or so.

Starting at zero, I took the quiz so that I could get credit for stuff that I’m already doing. Turns out I wasn’t really doing a lot. I got credit for buying an old house, making sure there’s no lead or radon, and recycling my cans and bottles.

The next step was to gather some quick wins. These were easy behavior changes and some small purchasing decision changes – switching from regular milk to organic, buying CFL/LED lightbulbs instead of incandescent, taking off shoes at the door, that sort of thing.

Finally, I had the long climb of thoughtful and considered changes. These are the bigger ones, like insulating the attic and upgrading the washing machine. I was lucky (actually unlucky, considering the housing market in 2010) that I moved in the middle of the process, so I had to buy new appliances anyway.

So, here’s the lightly-annotated graph. I’ll guess your trajectory will mirror mine.

Ok, so you know what to expect. Where can you get started? Here’s what I did…

Behavior Changes

First step: Stop doing stupid stuff.

Reduce obvious toxins and poisons

Here’s the first thing you can absolutely do today: Take off your shoes at the door! Seriously, this is as simple as washing your hands. When I was a kid, we walked around the house in our shoes all the time. No one asked you to take off your shoes when you came in–that was something you’d only see in stories set in Japanese houses. Very exotic.

The logistics are pretty straightforward, if your family uses one main entrance. I have a Waterhog Door Mat to hold my slippers in place when I’m out and about. When we get home at night, the girls and I stop in the breezeway to take off our coats and our shoes and put on our slippers.

There are smaller ones, but we love this one, because it’s big enough to hold all the various shoes, sneakers, sandals and boots we all require to get through the day.

Next braindead step in reducing toxins: Don’t put plastic in the microwave. Quoting Practically Green:

When you heat plastic in a microwave, it releases its chemical components into your food. Depending on what kind of plastic it is, this could mean the hormone disrupting chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), or the nefarious chemicals that make thin PVC (vinyl) film flexible.

This was one of the very first things I did! With two children under three, I didn’t like the sound of “hormone disrupting.” I picked up a set of Pyrex containers, and I haven’t microwaved plastic ever since.

Now that we’ve taken five minutes to lower the level of toxins in our house, let’s see if we can send a little less money to the electric and the oil companies.

Stop wasting heat and electricity

Step one: Turn the thermostat down. Here in Concord, MA, it gets pretty cold in the winter, but that doesn’t mean that you need to heat the house up to 72 degrees – the standard when I was growing up. We keep it at 64 degrees and wear our Patriots sweatshirts and sweatpants (or our fuzzy pajamas) around the house. This saves a ton of energy over the course of a New England winter.

At some point, I’m planning on getting a smart thermostat (I really really want one of the Nest thermostats), but I haven’t pulled the trigger on that yet.

Next step: Turn off the lights when you leave a room. Really. It’s not that hard. Turn off the damn lights when you leave the room. (If I were really good, I’d turn off all the damn computers as well, but I’m not there yet. Cron jobs run poorly when the machine is powered off.)

Composting

I had never composted anything before 2010, but now we compost everything.

In the kitchen we have a stainless-steel countertop compost keeper that we use to stash the stuff during the day. I typically empty it every night, dropping out the coffee grounds, apple cores, eggshells and such.

What to do with the garbage when it left the kitchen was a harder problem, though.

I had horrible luck with outside composters. I tried the Envirocycle circular one, but I didn’t end up with garden gold, I ended up with dirty garbage. Worse, because it hadn’t decomposed, I had to go in with the shovel and muck out the stables. It made me feel all Herculean, but it was pretty gross. Then, I tried one of the wire compost keepers that you stake into the ground. That lasted a day or two before the curious animals beat it into submission.

So, I ended up going the old-fashioned route. I created a horseshoe-shaped pathway in my woods, covered it with leaves and grass clippings, and christened it “Compost Alley.” Now, I just take the kitchen and lawn waste out there, spread it around, and we’re all done. The girls love it. The rabbits and foxes love it, too. It’s the circle of life, and it works surprisingly well.

Last year, when we had all the snow, we had to put the kitchen scraps into the regular trash, and I was shocked when the amount of trash I had to bring to the curb each week more than doubled. Egads. Compost Alley is far better, and now I have the boots set up so that I can use it even in the dead of winter.

Stop wasting water and energy

Nature is not just for decomposition. Relying on nature can save water, too. We don’t use sprinklers or hoses to water the lawn and the bushes. We’re lucky that we live in New England, so we tend to get enough water that our plants thrive without supplementing. We’ve also let a couple of the more exotic plants die, replacing them with ones that will grow naturally around these parts.

Some of the other water- and energy-saving behaviors are a little trickier to start, but are easy once you’ve made them into habits. Turn off the faucets when shaving and brushing your teeth. Wash laundry in cold water. Wash only full loads of laundry. Run the dishwasher only when it’s full.

Turning off heat dry on the dishwasher is an easy change, and saves a good amount of energy. The only downside to this is that I often have to towel dry the dishes after they’ve been washed. Not the end of the world, but (to my mind) kinda defeats the purpose of the labor-saving device. Alas. It still get the dishes cleaner and uses less water than washing the dishes by hand.

Line dry your laundry. This one is really easy for me, because my wife does the family’s laundry. But speaking for her, it’s surprisingly easy. We have a couple of drying racks in the basement, and most of the clothes go from the washing machine to the drying racks. A few hours later, they’re ready to fold and put away.

Beyond energy and water, reducing the amount of stuff that you’re dealing with is pretty easy, too.

Get rid of your excess stuff

The first thing you should do is watch The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard (embedded below). It’s about a 20-minute video, well worth your time.

Recycling is widespread enough that there are few reasons not to, though here in Concord we have to split up the different types of recycling. Holliston used single-stream recycling, which is far easier for most homeowners to get on board with.

One of our biggest “stuff” wins came when we replaced all our paper towels with reusable towels and dishcloths. We still have paper towels hanging in the kitchen, but we seldom use them. We have about sixteen kitchen towels in various states of use and readiness today. We supplement those with Skoy Cloths, which we use to clean up the messes around the kitchen, replacing the sponges that get so nasty around the sink.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve managed to donate and otherwise get rid of a good amount of our stuff. Some of this was prompted by a short-notice sale of our house. More was prompted by an burning desire to get all the baby crap out of my sight.

We had good luck with Freecycle, which we used to get rid of our nice crib. Freecycle is a local email list where people post items they want to give away and other folks claim them. I took a couple of pictures of the crib, sent out the email; in a couple of hours, I had a appointment for pickup. I felt good knowing that we helped some other Holliston family out, saving them a couple hundred bucks.

Since we got up here, we’ve donated a ton of books to the Concord Public Library. At last count I believe I got rid of about 43 boxes of books. Thank you, Kindle.

Clothes are pretty easy to donate, too. All around Holliston and Concord are Planet Aid boxes where you can just bag up the clothes and donate them directly. (If you’re looking for some more good news, you can see where your Planet Aid donations end up). We’ve also had clothes drives at the kids’ daycares, where we’ve been able to give outgrown clothes to younger schoolmates.

Baby stuff was easier to get rid of than we thought. We gave away the stroller to an excited Mom-to-be. We gave away the bouncy seat. We gave away the boppy. We even gave away the bumbo. We miss the bumbo; Sadie enjoyed it when I would sing “Baby in a bumbo. I know, I know, it’s serious.”

Regular Buying Choices

The next step in going green is really just making smarter buying choices when you’re in the supermarket.

For us, unfortunately, that also meant changing supermarkets. When we moved from Holliston to Concord, I also end up switching from shopping at Shaws to shopping at Whole Foods.

The good news is, if you shop at a store that doesn’t carry crap, it’s a lot easier to buy the good stuff. You have to watch out, though, because not everything Whole Foods carries is actually good for you. You still have to check the labels. I really wish they would just carry the good stuff so that I could get rid of the cognitive overhead of having to think about everything if I’m shopping. Maybe someday.

Smarter Supermarket Choices

The first stop is the meat department. Meat is an ugly business, and I try not to think too much about where it comes from, but some things make a difference. I tend not to get too hung up on the free range versus non-free-range, but I really like the ability to choose meat that is not infested with hormones. I usually end up buying directly from the butcher counter.

For the packaged meat, we usually go with the Applegate Farms ham and turkey for our sandwiches. They also make really good bacon, which I enjoy. You have to be careful with the prepared meats: because they’re not infested with the typical preservatives, they don’t last as long you think in the refrigerator. Plan accordingly, and check your dates carefully.

For fruits and vegetables, you really need to pay attention to what they call the dirty dozen. The dirty dozen are all foods where there’s really no way to get the pesticides out. Always buy organic for these: apples, celery, strawberries, peaches, spinach, nectarines, grapes, bell peppers, potatoes, blueberries, lettuce, and kale/collard greens.

If there’s only one thing you get out of this essay, make sure it’s that you always buy organic for the dirty dozen.

The good thing is that organic matters far less for some other fruits and vegetables, known as the clean 15: onions, sweet corn, pineapples, avocado, asparagus, sweet peas, mangoes, eggplant, cantaloupe, kiwi, cabbage, watermelon, sweet potatoes, grapefruit, mushrooms. These are all foods you peel before eating, so they are less susceptible to trouble with the poisons.

If you drink milk, it’s important to buy organic if you can. Our house goes through four gallons of milk a week, so this is a big one for us.

Just as a function of shopping at Whole Foods, we end up buying a lot of other stuff that’s organic: yogurt, macaroni and cheese, potato chips. Some of these are important (yogurt), and some of them are just me kidding myself (I’m pretty sure that a big bag of the Kettle Chips isn’t actually good for me, just because they’re organic.)

Local Produce and CSAs

Beyond the supermarket, it’s good to try to eat more local produce. When we moved to Concord, I signed up for the CSA at Kenney Farm. We give them some money in January and we get a crate of freshly-picked produce every week throughout the summer. In the fall we get a pumpkin and a whole mess of potatoes. I really enjoy getting the crate, a Friday treat that helps me feel at least somewhat connected to the local community.

The food from the CSA is (as you’d imagine for food that goes from ground to table in 24 hours) incredibly fresh. We especially noticed it with the onions. We had to figure out how to cook some of the more exotic plants, like kale or kohlrabi, but we knew how to make the most of the fresh onions, the fresh potatoes and the fresh peppers. The CSA made our summer table much more colorful and a bit more festive.

You can use Local Harvest to find a CSA in your area.

Replace bottled water and soda

We’ve also entirely replaced bottled water with filtered water. We keep this Brita water pitcher in the refrigerator at all times. Every time we pour any water out – to fill the water bottles or to make coffee – we just put it under the tap for a few seconds to refill it. This is much more efficient than buying bottles and bottles and bottles of water and then having to get rid of or recycle all those bottles. It’s also a lot easier on the back when carrying in the groceries.

For seltzer water and soda, we’ve had really good luck with our fun and geeky SodaStream. The SodaStream uses a carbonation engine to turn regular water into seltzer. You can then add in syrup to make it into flavored soda if you like. We’ve replaced all of our plain seltzer drinking, and I go through phases where I replace some of the Fresca or Diet Pepsi with the SodaStream syrups. The soda variations aren’t as good as the real stuff, but they’re a lot cheaper and you know that they’re somewhat better for the environment. I go back and forth depending on how much I want to keep tasting the real stuff.

Small-Ticket Purchases

So, those are the regular purchasing decisions. Beyond that, I ended up making a lot of one-time purchases to upgrade items that I will use everyday.

Small purchases with big effects

The list could be endless, but start with the simple ones: buy LEDs or CFL’s for your lightbulbs. They are ridiculously more efficient. Make sure that you dispose of them properly, though. If they burn out or break, you can’t just throw them in the trash.

You can save a good amount of money in the bathrooms, too, by fixing leaky faucets and upgrading older faucets and shower heads to low-flow. These installations are simple enough that even a non-plumber like me was able to handle putting on a new shower head.

We ended up making a lot of changes in the kitchen, swapping out single-use bags and bottles for reusable coffee mugs, water bottles, and lunch boxes. I carry my Klean Kanteen water bottle with me everywhere. I have a Contigo coffee thermos which holds two cups coffee and keeps it warm for a couple of hours. The children got reusable lunch boxes, Laptop Lunches, and I have my Tiffin. It takes a tough man to carry a tiny Tiffin, I’ll tell you.

Also in the kitchen, it’s a really good idea to avoid nonstick cookware. This was news to me when I heard about it, and was one of the first things we ended up doing. We ended up switching over to all stainless steel pots and pans. They’re pretty expensive, so we only got a couple of pans, but we tried to make them good ones that will last forever.

Detergents are easy. Go through whatever you have, and then switch over to ones that are more natural. We switched over our dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent and general-purpose cleaner to Seventh Generation. You get used to the lack of chemicals pretty quick. Now, if I walk in somewhere where they’ve been using harsh cleaning chemicals, I notice immediately.

For shopping, reusable shopping bags are pretty easy, once you get in the habit. I have five bags that I bring into Whole Foods each week for the shopping trip. It’s not that hard, and it saves me accumulating a ton of the the plastic or paper grocery bags.

In the bathroom, you can use recycled toilet paper (it’s not that bad!). We also use all-natural toothpaste (from Tom’s of Maine) and all natural soap. The girls use California Baby shampoo and conditioner. (I’ll stick with my Pert Plus, despite the wails of despair coming from Dogpatch Labs). We’ve even switched to recycled toothbrushes from Preserve, a company down the road here in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Preserve also makes the cutting board we switched to. We still use our wooden one, but the recycled plastic one comes in handy for keeping the meats separated from the vegetables and everything else.

Cloth Napkins are another easy choice. Throw them in with the wash every week and you’re good to go.

It was more expensive than I’d like, but we switched to a HEPA-filtered vacuum. HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filters are built to remove >99% of the dust and other allergens, and products can’t be labeled HEPA unless they do. I can’t recommend the Dyson vacuum highly enough (especially if, like me, you’re allergic to the cats that live in your house).

For the kids (and probably for me too, I suppose, but I don’t get out much), it’s important to use all-natural sunscreen and DEET-free bug spray, for the simple reason that applying fewer poisons to their skin is probably in your kids’ best interests. We use the Repel Lemon Eucalyptus spray for the bugs and California Baby Sunblock for the sun.

And, in the “try not to spend money at all” category: one of the things we’ve been trying to do over the past couple of years with our holiday gifts is to give fewer physical gifts and more “experiential” ones. Instead of giving something that takes up space, maybe I give my wife a weekend skiing. That’s the general idea. The children have mentioned that they are not quite on board with this line of gifting.

Big-Ticket Purchases.

Alas, some of these changes take more money up front. The good thing is that most of them have been paying for themselves in energy savings over a couple of years.

We ended up doing a lot of these when we moved, and we’re trying to save up money to do a little bit more each year.

Kitchen Investments

We upgraded our refrigerator to a high-efficiency model and unplugged our second refrigerator in the basement.

We upgraded our dishwasher to a high-efficiency model and turn the heat off when we’re using it. In addition to using less energy and less water, our dishwasher is practically silent, a huge quality-of-life benefit.

We replaced our stove with a high-efficiency induction stove. I love induction heating. Seriously, if you can swing it, it’s a huge upgrade over electric or gas. It heats via a magnetic field instead of heat transfer. It kicks all sorts of bleep, keeping the stovetop cool, providing instant-on and instant-off heat, boiling water far faster than gas or electric, etc. Downside: you can only use pots that are magnetic, so our old aluminum ones didn’t work. At least we got some benefit out of upgrading to stainless-steel pots and pans.

Bathroom investments

One thing we haven’t done yet, but are planning to do is to upgrade to dual-flush toilets. These use a lot less water than the standard toilets, but work just as well. I’ve seen these in a couple of homes, and we’ll likely swap out our toilets in the next year or two.

Insulation investments

The biggest changes we made in the first year of owning our house were around keeping heat in. We found out in our first winter how leaky this house is. So, we got to work in the spring with a bunch of insulation projects.

Step One: Insulated curtains. This is actually really simple; we installed insulated curtains on all the windows in the house. The thickness of the drapes prevents the heat from going through the window, keeping the rooms cool in the summer and warm in the winter. In the winter, we’ve been opening them up, following the sun, trying to capture a little of the solar heat and preventing us from going stir-crazy through the long New England winter.

The next step was to insulate the hot water heater. This was far less hassle than we thought it was going to be. The insulation jacket was only about $40, and it didn’t take too long to cut it roughly to size and wrap the tank. This is one of those projects that’s far easier than you think it’s going to be.

While we’re in the basement, if you can afford it, upgrading your washer and dryer to modern energy-efficient models will pay for itself quickly (especially if you have children who go through a lot of clothes!). We’re really happy with our Kenmore versions, but I don’t think you can go wrong with any of the modern appliances.

Earlier this year, our garage doors broke, so we had to fix them. I did some research and we ended up getting insulated garage doors. We have a room above the garage, and having these doors insulated is making a big difference this winter in what it costs to heat that room.

Next was the big area, the attic. This, I had to have professionally done. If you have a climb-up attic, make sure you get the attic cover as well; it makes a big difference. Last winter, our entire roof was a giant ice dam, so I’m hoping that having the attic properly insulated will prevent all that damage from happening again.

The good news is that there are a ton of tax and rebate incentives for insulating your house. You should check out the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency to see what’s available in your area.

Outside investments

Next year: Rain Barrels. Our basement floods, and it’s a disaster every time. Our neighbor across the street installed rain barrels a couple of years ago, and hasn’t had any flooding ever since. I’m looking forward to getting this project done, and I might even treat myself to watering the garden with the rain water during the summer.

Lastly, I switched to electric outdoor tools. I use an electric lawnmower and an electric leaf blower. I hated working with gas-powered tools, and the electric ones work surprisingly well, even with a good-sized yard like I have.

Companies doing interesting things

As I’ve been making these green changes, I’ve come across a bunch of companies who are doing interesting things. Here are a few that you should check out:

Preserve is a local Massachusetts company that’s doing incredible work with recycled plastic. We use their toothbrushes, cutting boards and plates.

Seventh Generation makes toxin-free detergents and paper products. We use their dish soap, laundry detergent, all-purpose cleaner, paper towels and toilet paper.

Applegate Farms makes good meat. I buy their ham, turkey and bacon all the time.

Weleda makes fancy lotions. I don’t use them myself, but they are big hits with the female members of my family.

California Baby makes the shampoo and conditioner we use for the children. We’ve had nothing but good experiences with their products.

Reading Lists and sites to follow

Books

If you’re thinking about going green, here are some good places to start:

The Conscious Kitchen is a great collection of advice about all the decisions you need to make as you’re choosing, preparing and eating food. I think this applies to all of us! (If you really really really love meat, you should check out The Butcher’s Guide to Well-Raised Meat, as well).

Planet Home is a great book that takes you room by room through your house and helps you think through the decisions you’re making. Highly recommended!

Green, Greener, Greenest gives tips for handling everyday situations.

Green from the Ground Up focused on the home-construction side instead of the lifestyle side. It’s a good reference for green, sustainable and energy-efficient home construction. It’ll help you out when you’re talking to your contractor, that’s for sure.

What books am I missing? Let me know in the comments or @jpbutler on Twitter and I’ll add them to the list!

Sites

Practically Green is your roadmap for a healthy green life. Take the quiz to see where you are now, and get a personalized list of suggestions for what to do next.

Serendeputy: Green Living. Serendeputy is the personal news engine I wrote, and the green-living section keeps me up with what’s going on around this particular world.

Healthy Child Healthy World is an amazing organization that’s focused on empowering parents to protect children from harmful chemicals.

The Good Guide has comprehensive analyses of all the ingredients in common household products. Compare Pert Plus to Weleda’s Shampoo.

Urban Sherp is your daily guide to the eco-modern lifestyle.

Treehugger is the best-known blog covering green living.

Danny Seo gives useful tips for eco-friendly everyday living.

Re-Nest gives design tips for green homes.

Inhabitat also focuses on the future of design for smarter and more sustainable homes.

EcoFabulous focuses on “stylish, sustainable living.”

Inhabitots focuses on modern green design for kids and babies.

Kiwi Magazine focuses on growing families the natural and organic way.

What sites am I missing? Let me know in the comments or @jpbutler on Twitter, and I’ll add them to the list!

Conclusions

That’s where I am. I’m not perfect, but I’m trying to do better. It’s actually not that frickin’ hard.

P.S., Random bonus data point: No one in my family has been sick in the past eighteen months, despite two children in full-time daycare/school. Correlation != causation, but this is a huge change from our lives before, when it seemed like someone was always sick. Removing toxins from your life is a good thing…

Introduction and Throat Clearing

2012-01-06T00:00:00-05:00

I will write 39 essays in 2012, exploring my worldview, sharing my wisdom and trying to figure out the universe. I want to understand the world a little better, and I hope that publishing serious, thoughtful and worthwhile pieces to document my thinking can only improve that understanding.

I have no idea what to expect from this little adventure. It may be a rousing success. It may be an utter flop: I worry a lot that the pieces will suck, that my taste is better than my talent. I suppose I can’t control the outcome though; all I can do is maintain the discipline to see it through and the self-respect to avoid totally mailing it in.

39 sounds like a lot. But, hey, this introduction counts! One down. 38 to go.

Who am I?

I’m Jason Butler. I’m a pretty good product guy, a mediocre Rails programmer and a writer of indeterminate prowess.

I’m an ordinary, average white American male, meaning, of course, that I’ve had every possible advantage in life save being born to billionaires.

I’m a father, a husband, a stalwart, an awkward and squirming jungle gym to my increasingly large and bony children.

I’m a Masshole. I like Quarter Pounders with Cheese, even if that type of cheese isn’t allowed in my house any more. I like Denis Leary, George Carlin and Louis CK. I probably curse more than I should.

I drove a ‘72 Nova in high school. Then an ‘86 El Camino, blue. Eventually a little Audi I drove at 110 across Montana while Seattle was burning. Now, a family truckster: Toyota Avalon. I enjoy the heated seats.

I get along well with “groovy, alternative chicks.” I’m not sure that counts as a defining characteristic, but it made my 20s all sorts of interesting. I married a very sweet yet mildly uptight lawyer, making my 30s all sorts of awesome.

I’ve eaten some lunches at the cool kids’ table. More not.

Why Now?

Seems as good a time as any.

I’m 39 years old, turning 40 in a few months. At this point, I’m undeniably middle-aged. I might as well try to figure it all out now so that I can do better in the second half of life.

I have a good set of tools in place to make the actual writing and production of this project as easy as possible.

I have no excuses.

What am I going to write about?

I have a few ideas for this, mostly converging on two main genres: a) figuring out the meaning of life and how to be a better person, and b) sharing the wisdom I’ve managed to accumulate so far.

Figuring out the meaning of life might be a little ambitious.

Maybe I’m thinking more along the lines of “what are the best ways I’ve found to live my life so that I don’t go insane?” These pieces will focus on states of mind, patterns of thinking, religion and spirituality, habits, and general rules of the road. These will be a bit more introspective than I normally allow myself to be in public. That’s scary.

Sharing wisdom is more fun, and less scary. Here’s where I’ll be able to write pretty long pieces about topics that obsess me in one form or another, across technology, music, film and culture. These will be all over the map, but I hope that even if you’re not directly interested in a specific topic, you’ll be intrigued enough by my passion to spare a few minutes of your attention. I hope that I can earn that.

How am I going to do it?

One bite at a time. 39 essays over a year works out to three or four a month–roughly one a week, with a little bit of a buffer for busy workweeks or more-ambitious topics.

I’m fascinated by how news, information and wisdom travels around the world. I hope to usefully integrate some of the newer techniques and technologies, and explore the new possibilities. I may play with hypertext. I may include video and screencasts. I may translate 2,000 words into a three-minute interpretive dance. I may ask you to follow me on Twitter.

I really really really want to improve my writing, so I’m going to treat this as dedicated and purposeful practice. I’m going to make sure I devote enough time to be able to do it well, and keep the discipline to always edit what I’m writing–to publish the third draft, not the first. You’ll like that, because I subscribe to Stephen King’s motto of ”second draft equals first draft minus 10%.”

If you’re interested in following along, please subscribe to the RSS Feed or subscribe to receive emails when I publish new essays. Failing that, you can always just follow me (@jpbutler) on Twitter, where I’ll make sure to post the new links as I publish them.

I look forward to the journey. Please let me know what you think by leaving comments below or by dropping me a line (jason at this domain).