Habits

On delivering food to a soup kitchen on Christmas
Habits

On delivering food to a soup kitchen on Christmas

When I deliver food to hungry people, people say I'm nice. When I avoid polluting, they call me extreme. Yet both actions come from the same place in my heart and mind, which I can best characterize with the phrase "love your neighbor as yourself." Whether you're Christian or not, that advice has stood the test of time for a reason. Acts of love for neighbors are rewarding. I just got back from delivering a big load of food that would have been thrown away to the Bowery Mission---a soup kitchen on the lower east side that feeds the hungry. People call me lucky that I have time to volunteer, often disparagingly or condescendingly implying I'm privileged---note: not privileged relative to the people I'm serving…

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December 25, 2024
Year 14!, day 1, daily burpees
A recent morning burpee
Fitness / Freedom / Habits / SIDCHAs

Year 14!, day 1, daily burpees

I started doing burpees on this day in 2011. I haven't missed a day since. I've done them daily over 22 percent of my life. By my spreadsheet, I've done just over 241,000 so should reach a quarter million in 2025. The point isn't the numbers, though, nor the fitness, though I like my pulse being nearly off the charts low for men my age. The simplest way to put it is quoting Jocko Willink: Discipline equals freedom. Most Americans seem to see fitness and diet as horror shows. They're out of shape, don't know why, don't know what to do about it, and do things like pay trainers not because the trainers provide a service but because paying people motivates them to act. People…

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December 22, 2024
Ten days before Christmas people are already throwing away their Christmas pagan trees.
Habits / Nature / Tips

Ten days before Christmas people are already throwing away their Christmas pagan trees.

Ten days before Christmas people are already throwing away their Christmas pagan trees. Regular readers know I post pictures of how much people throw away trees they paid for being cut down. They're following a pagan tradition grafted onto one branch of Christianity. They probably try to believe some self-serving lies that the trees are grown or harvested sustainably, but we know they know. This year I told myself I would post fewer posts of the pictures, but then Sunday I saw the first tree of the season in a garbage can! How could I not comment and post on the depravity of this tradition? We created the tradition. We can change it to something more sustainable, or sustainable at all. If you haven't bought…

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December 17, 2024
Want quality? Start with the corners nobody notices.
Habits / SIDCHAs / Tips

Want quality? Start with the corners nobody notices.

When I mopped, I used to think I should start with the middle of the floor. That's where I spend the most time and the saw the most. I've included mopping in My sidchas, standard operating procedures, and preferences on one day of my six-day exercise cycle, meaning I haven't skipped or missed mopping every sixth day for years. Performing a task with a measure of quality teaches a lot internally and externally. I've learned to start with the corners and out-of-the-way or not-visible areas. Then the middle takes care of itself. If I start with the middle, the corners accumulate dirt. I'm not just talking about mopping floors. I'm talking about any performance-based field. Actually, any art. An artist who cares and who has…

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October 31, 2024
Two updates to my sidchas and standard operation procedures
Awareness / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

Two updates to my sidchas and standard operation procedures

I'm updating My sidchas, standard operating procedures, and preferences in two ways. Cardio days First, in my 6-Day Exercise/Mindfulness Cycle, I'm changing day 6, which was "Cardio, at least 300 calories rowing or meaningful effort plogging, biking, walking, or climbing stairs." I did cardiovascular exercises for two reasons: To improve my heart and lung health and capacity To burn more calories Since around May, I've been experimenting fasting on day 6. That is, instead of burning more calories, taking in fewer. Doing cardio almost inevitably led to me eating more on those days, so exercising more wasn't in practice leading to getting rid of fat I didn't want. In practice, fasting is resulting in getting rid of more fat I don't want. As for heart…

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October 16, 2024
“You take care of things you found in the trash more than others take care of things they bought.”
Habits / Nature / Stories

“You take care of things you found in the trash more than others take care of things they bought.”

A friend who visited broke a couple things of mine. They were fixable, but when he damaged one things by treating it cavalierly I said, "treat everything like it's valuable." He was taken aback since I had told him I had found this thing---a laundry drying rack. Some neighbor was throwing it out. It worked so I kept and used it. On last Fridays of the month, if I walk around the neighborhood, I can find tons of perfectly good things people throw out when they move. When traveling, I've seen the pattern in many neighborhoods, rich and poor. The weekly disposal of perfectly good things pales in comparison to NYU dorms at the end of a semester, so presumably many universities, but that's another…

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August 21, 2024
On considering when to decrease my daily exercises started over a decade ago, now in my 50s
Choosing/Decision-Making / Exercises / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

On considering when to decrease my daily exercises started over a decade ago, now in my 50s

I've meant to write this post for years. It may be the longest past due. Why? Because it relates to many parts of my life and involves decisions that will affect me the rest of my life. I'll stick with the basics to put the main thoughts on paper, so to speak. When I started doing burpees daily, it was ten a day for thirty days with a friend in 2011. I didn't expect to continue them daily for an indefinite period. Within those thirty days, the value of an exercise needing no equipment, spotter, etc that exercised much of my body became clear. I knew two conflicting things: practice would enable me to increase but aging would lead me to decrease. In the years…

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August 3, 2024
Michael Lombardi on Bill Walsh on Tom Peters on living In Search of Excellence; on mastery and freedom
Habits / Leadership / Stories

Michael Lombardi on Bill Walsh on Tom Peters on living In Search of Excellence; on mastery and freedom

A vignette from Michael Lombardi, podcast guest and football great General Manager about his mentor Bill Walsh, appears in his book Gridiron Genius, sticks with me. In particular, the part at the end of this passage about the picture frame. To me, one way mastery differs from just doing enough is that when we master an art or craft, we love the details. Before mastery, they may seem drudge work. A novice painter may not focus on each stroke of the brush. A master sees that the art is in those details. Here's the passage in Lombardi's book: In short, Walsh took over a team with no high draft picks, no quarterback, and no hope. Three years later, that team won the Super Bowl. It…

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July 31, 2024
Volunteering: I just helped deliver a mammoth summer load of vegetables to the community fridge
Habits / Stories

Volunteering: I just helped deliver a mammoth summer load of vegetables to the community fridge

The community fridge where I volunteer by bringing food (and doof, sadly) stores would otherwise through away for anyone to take recently coordinated a deal with the Union Square farmers market to pick up what vendors don't sell. Half a dozen of us picked up and delivered our first load. Several of us made two trips. It was the most volume and I'd say highest quality of any load I helped deliver. These pictures don't show how much and how glorious the produce was, all local. Redistributing food so it doesn't go to waste solves an immediate problem. I still can't see how to solve the systemic problem of overproducing. In the meantime, at least people got to eat this food instead of it being…

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July 2, 2024
Research that avocado seeds are healthy
Fitness / Habits / Nature / Tips

Research that avocado seeds are healthy

Americans waste about 40 percent of our food. I've written how I eat healthy parts of plants like citrus peels, mango peel, and banana peel. When I tell people I do, the same people who decry food waste ask why I eat them. They're healthy food! The challenge is to combine them to taste good, or to acquire the taste. I recommend eating all the edible, healthy parts of a plant. People all around the world do. I eat avocado pits too. I recently found research that shows their healthiness. I'll cite the sources and quote their conclusions, albeit full of jargon. That's academic writing for you. From Avocado seed discoveries: Chemical composition, biological properties, and industrial food applications: Avocado is widely grown and consumed…

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March 12, 2024
I’ve learned to enjoy just thinking
Greenwich Village Sun
Awareness / Habits / Nonjudgment

I’ve learned to enjoy just thinking

I've held back on posting this discovery since I think people might confuse it with boredom or having nothing better to do and I didn't want to be judged, but as I've cut out more media, I've found it enjoyable, relaxing, and rewarding just to think . . . to ponder, consider, reflect, introspect, daydream, and such. I mean something different than meditating. I meditate too, as one of my sidchas, but meditation is about consciousness, awareness, patience, and such. This activity is more like solving problems that take some thought to disentangle. Figuring things out. Some of my best writing comes from it. I don't schedule it, but I don't shy away from it. I'd been doing it for a while, but I think…

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March 1, 2024
Just finished a 4-plus days water only fast
Awareness / Fitness / Freedom / Habits / Tips

Just finished a 4-plus days water only fast

Today about 1:30pm I ate my first food since Saturday noon: a bit over four days or 97.5 hours. Years ago I would have thought it impossible, but I've done a couple three-day fasts and a few two-day fasts, now several one-day fasts. With my six-day exercise cycle that I start on the first day of each month, for months with a number of days not divisible by six, I've had to figure out what to do. I'd been experimenting with fasting. Hunger comes and goes, though there are also feelings like wanting or expecting to eat that aren't hunger. One of the things I value most about fasting is the self-awareness it brings. Also learning about being human. Also resilience and independence. I recommend…

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February 28, 2024
Awareness / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

Why I stretch

I stretch every day after I meditate in the morning (neck and shoulders) and in my morning and evening calisthenics (quads, Achilles, hamstring, etc). At times I work other stretches in. Why do I stretch? The research I know says it doesn't reduce injury, make me stronger, or enable me to do things otherwise. Yet I find value. It looks like I'm pulling on muscles, tendons, ligaments, or whatever gets stretched. I don't stretch to lengthen the muscle or ligament from pulling on it. While pulling on it creates tension, I don't stretch to create tension. I pull on it to find where I'm tensing it without realizing, so I can relax. Step one is to pull to find where I'm tensing. That step creates…

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February 27, 2024
My latest life-changing rule for visiting web sites
Addiction / Choosing/Decision-Making / Freedom / Habits / Tips

My latest life-changing rule for visiting web sites

I used to waste three or four hours a day browsing social media sites, generally Reddit at the time, but others too, in particular after telling myself not to spend that much time on sites. I found some useful guidelines to reduce wasting time on screens. Not all time on screens is wasted, so I wanted to reduce wasted time but maintain productive time. Existing rules that have served me well Effective guidelines and guardrails I've used for a while: No internet use for the first hour of waking up Use site blockers to limit daily access to some sites. Use site blockers to limit access to any sites for thirty-minute working blocks. Make my laptop being disconnected from the internet the default so I…

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February 26, 2024
My Cell Phone Battery and Time Use
Habits / Visualization

My Cell Phone Battery and Time Use

I joke that my favorite phone app is airplane mode, but I like it. Still, my phone's hot spot is my only internet connection at home, so I'm using it now, but I'll put it on airplane mode after posting. I looked up how to take a screen shot and took shots of my battery and time use for the past ten days. I think they were usual days so probably represent regular usage. By battery use Here's the the breakdown of battery use by app (taken while in airplane mode, I notice). "Libby" is the library's app, through which I listen to audio books. Since I turn off screens while eating, listening to books works for me. So does books being free from the…

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February 19, 2024
Volunteering recognition from 1993
Education / Habits / Stories

Volunteering recognition from 1993

I've been writing about volunteering. Then last month I found this certificate for distinguished service in college in 1993 cleaning out my father's basement and had to share the story behind it. A church near Columbia on 114th Street and Broadway served a soup kitchen. I volunteered there every Friday. I just went on my own. Partly I consider activities like it as civic duty. Also I find it rewarding. I meet people in my community. Independently, Columbia had a program called Community Impact that motivated students to volunteer and participate in the community. So other students often volunteered. None of the students who volunteered through Community Impact attended as regularly as I did, so Community Impact invited me to join their strategy and planning…

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February 16, 2024
*Sigh* More Christmas Pagan Trees being thrown away. Wasn’t a month of trashing them enough?
Habits / Nature

*Sigh* More Christmas Pagan Trees being thrown away. Wasn’t a month of trashing them enough?

How's this Christmas Pagan Tree next to a portable toilet? What better way to show you love your messiah and savior than putting the remembrance of his birth by a box of shit? . . . or we could leave the trees in the ground and celebrate with life instead of death. More than a month since Christmas isn't enough time for all the trees to be trashed, there are so many. I thought yesterday's post would have covered them all, but after posting, I went out and saw more. I'm not looking for them, nor taking more time than a second or two to take a picture. Here are more:

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January 26, 2024
Year 14, day 2 posting here daily
Habits / SIDCHAs

Year 14, day 2 posting here daily

Since my friend's fateful words when he set up my blog here when I asked, how often do you post and he said: Every day. If you miss one day you can miss two. If you miss two it's all over. I've posted every day since January 22, 2011. It became my first sidcha and helped me establish the concept. It's easier to write every day than to worry about trying to restart after stopping. Here's the list of all my posts if you're new and want to start. Here are some of my favorites. It's led to two published books: Leadership Step by Step and Initiative, which get great reviews and are used by universities across the country (also two self-published books). More importantly…

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January 24, 2024
More shameful-looking trashed Christmas pagan trees. It’s only January 10, so likely more to come.
Habits / Nature / Visualization

More shameful-looking trashed Christmas pagan trees. It’s only January 10, so likely more to come.

Why do people pay to chop down so many trees for pagan-based rituals? I mean, I know the answer is tradition, even if the tradition is opposite to what they purport to believe, but when will their consciences kick in, or their intelligence or compassion? I have nothing against any of the religions involved, Christianity, paganism, capitalism, patriotism, etc, but I have a lot for sustaining an environment that can sustain us. Things that worked with a population of one billion people don't always work with a population over eight billion and 95--98 percent of old-growth forests gone. Don't these things look pathetic, surrounded by garbage? What does this image say about Christmas and Christianity? Do you see the buried tree in this picture? Again,…

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January 10, 2024
See videos of my low-waste cooking workshop at Drew Gardens
Habits

See videos of my low-waste cooking workshop at Drew Gardens

I've shared about my annual cooking workshops in Drew Gardens. Last time people recorded videos. Recording was impromptu, so I didn't bring a good microphone, so sorry the sound isn't great, but you can see something of the experience. https://youtu.be/X2lmbTrc7tk https://youtu.be/OVOJ8Fj8Kpg https://youtube.com/shorts/4qYbEfH0-og Some students from Fordham University were making documentaries of Drew Gardens as a class project and I ended up in them: https://youtu.be/qip5I8h9e0c https://youtu.be/FO74Mp7Wrfw EDIT: Here's a news clip of Drew Gardens reopening to the public in July 2025:

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January 4, 2024
Christmas trees being thrown away after a few days’ use, part 1. Lovely pagan tradition, people.
Habits / Nature / Tips

Christmas trees being thrown away after a few days’ use, part 1. Lovely pagan tradition, people.

What would Jesus do? Would he kill trees in a Pagan tradition for a few days and then put them in the garbage, like this? It's January 2 and my neighborhood is swimming in dead trees people used for a couple weeks. I know people are just starting to throw away their Christmas Pagan trees, so I'll post these few now and update with more. Why? So you can remember next winter not to buy a Christmas Pagan tree! Let the trees live. Show your faith and love without a Pagan tradition of killing healthy trees that could help make a healthy environment. Here are more. I recommend looking at them in detail. Each tells a story. No story seems particularly what Jesus would do,…

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January 2, 2024
Why my evening calisthenics were harder than usual today: an extra 36 flights of stairs
Fitness / Habits

Why my evening calisthenics were harder than usual today: an extra 36 flights of stairs

No big deal, but my evening calisthenics felt harder than usual today. Today was our first sunny day in a while, so I could finally do my laundry. Since I air-dry, not use the dryer, I avoid doing laundry on rainy days when it won't dry. So this morning I walked down to the basement and back up five flights. Sun also means I could charge on the roof. All the batteries on my phone, computer, and portable power stations were near zero. So I climbed eleven flights to the roof with the big battery, big solar panels, computer, and phone to place the panels, start charging, and take a call while up there. On the way down, I went down to the basement and…

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December 29, 2023
Short post to save energy
Habits

Short post to save energy

Yesterday, the forecast said today would be partly cloudy and Wednesday would be sunny. Today (Tuesday) instead was mostly cloudy and the forecast for tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday was rain. Based on yesterday's forecast, I cooked a load of famous no-packaging vegan solar-powered stew, draining a lot of the battery, even with the ways I've developed to save energy with the pressure cooker. The big challenge: I have two podcast episodes scheduled for Thursday! I don't want to run out of energy for them. Solution: I switched from a lot of computer work today to catching up on reading and writing by hand (in particular, sketching the new online course I'm creating). I also noticed a break in the clouds this afternoon, normally giving too…

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December 26, 2023
Addiction / Freedom / Habits

Year 5, day 1 on one load of trash

This post is about freedom. Several milestones this week following Year 13, day 1 of daily burpees and My Second Winter Solstice: Over 1.5 Years Unplugged From the Electric Grid (and counting). More freedom than ever. I once filled about a load of trash every week. I ordered takeout and bought lots of packaged food. I bought things online. I didn't realize how much it cost me in money and emotional torment, since part of me knew I was hurting people (and wildlife), which conflicted with my values of not hurting people, especially for my comfort, convenience, ignorance, and (there's no other word for my relationship with doof) addiction. On Christmas day 2019, I walked down the hall with a full load of trash and…

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December 25, 2023

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