November 8, 2011

Interstate Move on $693.79

Posted by Nathen under budgeting, Caswell State Recreation Area, gas mileage, motels, moving, Reanna, U-Haul
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Reanna and I just moved from Eugene, OR, to Joshua Tree, CA for $693.79. Our boxes were free, mostly from the Oakway Nike outlet dumpster. Our labor was free, mostly our own, plus a couple friends at key moments. We paid $218 for our 5×8 U-Haul trailer ($170 for seven days, plus $48 for trailer-plus-$5k insurance). Our U-Haul guy threw in an extra day (which we used) and a bag of packing blankets (which we used a few of).

We paid $70.71 for food. We ate at Casa Ramos in Corning for $22.76 and bought a date milkshake for $4.95 at Charlie Brown Farms in Littlerock, CA. The rest was for groceries.

We paid $126.99 for lodging. We stayed for free with my cousins Tom & Megan in Ashland the first night. We planned to stay at campgrounds the other three nights but that didn’t work out very well. We could’t find the first one before it got dark, so we stayed at the Economy Inn in Corning for $44. (We liked that room. Reanna liked the cinderblock construction and bathroom layout enough to take photos. The advertised pool, however, had clearly been out of commission for a long time.) We did camp on the third night, at Caswell State Recreation Area, for $30. It was very pretty there. A tiny remnant of central CA old growth forest. If you go, spend some time choosing your campsite. Some are adequate and some are really nice, right on the river.) Our fourth night of camping was undone by a blowout on our trailer. We spent three hours huddled in the dust between the I-5 and an almond orchard just south of Coalinga, while U-Haul and Billingsley tires figured out where we were, that the rim was cracked, and just what size of wheel we needed. We sprung for a motel that night, as we were pretty sure some of that dust was pesticide. We’d seen a crop duster flying over the almond orchards a few minutes north. It was worth the $52.99 just for the shower at the Econo Lodge Inn in Buttonwillow. (Though the wifi was terrible and the advertised pool was covered in some kind of scum.)

The biggest expense was gasoline: $278.09 for 72 gallons for the 1,112 mile trip. That’s only 15.44 miles per gallon, but not bad to move that much weight–6,900 pounds, including me and Reanna.

I also bought new tires before the trip ($310 on sale at Wal-Mart) but I am not counting that as a moving expense since I needed them anyway–my old tires were in OK shape for occasional town driving but ten years old with well over 100,000 miles on them.

So our total was $693.79, which is my most expensive move by far, but pretty good, I guess, for moving 40 years worth of possessions over a thousand miles.

 

October 31, 2011

How Deep is Your Ecology?

Posted by Nathen under Alder Fuller, deep ecology, ecology, Google Ngram Viewer, lists, Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
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I first saw a version of this chart on the fridge door of my complexity theory teacher, Alder Fuller, about eight years ago. I have only been able to find this version, which is associated with the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (“May we live long and die out”). Maybe the meme made its rounds and died out or maybe it never caught on. I found it thought provoking: And I don’t know how much these Google ngrams can really tell you about the coming and going of memes, but here are a couple:

Use of "ecology" and "deep ecology" in English print since 1880

Deep ecology, anthropocentrism, ecofeminism, environmental ethics, 1980-2008

 

October 28, 2011

Experiential Lunch

Posted by Nathen under Couples and Family Therapy, Debra Seido Martin, Eugene, experiential family therapy, friends, graduate school, photography, Ryan Smith, support groups, therapy, therapy models
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I am moving away from Eugene after more than ten years, and that means saying a lot of goodbyes to close friends and family. Last night I had dinner with my experiential support group from my couples & family therapy grad school cohort, Ryan and Debra. In family therapy, “experiential” means very generally that you take a humanistic stance in your therapy and believe that emotions are as important as behavior and thinking. (I wrote a piece on it here if you want more details.) We called ourselves “Experiential Lunch” because we met every week for lunch for a year and a half, to discuss how our understanding and application of family theory was evolving throughout the program. It was super helpful and we came to feel quite close and supported each other through some difficult times. I am going to miss them.

Nathen, Ryan, Debra: Experiential Lunch, 10/27/2011

Debra is a Zen meditation teacher and a farmer as well as now a therapist in private practice, and I can highly recommend her in all capacities. If you need a therapist for individual, couple, or family work, you can reach her at (541) 844-4917.

Ryan is working with at-risk children and families at the Oregon Social Learning Center. When he starts a private practice, I will recommend him to you as well.

 

October 22, 2011

NBTSC Staff Tetherball

Posted by Nathen under Not Back to School Camp, photography, tetherball
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The NBTSC staff knows how to have fun, and finally here is photographic proof: a no-hands tetherball tournament, just before NH sessions this year.

And Spectators

 

October 20, 2011

On Changing My Posture, Part 2: New Instructions For Walking

Posted by Nathen under advice, gait analysis, posture, walking
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One thing my massage therapist (Joe Wattles, Eugene, OR) does is gait analysis. This summer, he put me on a treadmill and watched my walk. He said that the way I was walking was probably undoing a lot of the work we’d been doing with massage and exercises. I had suspected as much.

Here are the instructions he gave me for walking. Keep in mind that these instructions correct my walk, not necessarily yours:

1) I need to bend forward at the hips more. My butt needs to be back far enough that I can see my feet from the ankles forward, when standing and looking down.

2) I need to land with less weight on my heels, transferring my weight very quickly to my whole foot.

3) My knees need to bend considerably more with each footfall, absorbing the shock of impact. This, along with #2, means that my stride needs to be shorter.

4) While my belly button stays facing forward, my ribcage needs to twist more, so that my sternum points from 10 to 2 o’clock with each stride.

5) My arms need to swing less, and my shoulders (which I am holding a bit up and back from their habitual position, as assigned by my PT and described here) more. My ribcage/shoulder motion should be what is swinging my arms, while in my normal walk my arm swing is doing all of the counterbalancing of my stride.

6) My head needs to pull back so that my ears are above my shoulder joints.

This all felt pretty weird for a couple weeks. It felt like I was sticking my butt out, sneaking, bouncing up and down, and walking with a flamboyant twist. It still feels a little funny after a couple months, in that I only do it when I remember to do it consciously, but it feels much less awkward. In fact, it feels more confident and energetic than my old walk–more like prowling. My old walk feels stiff and jolting. I imagine that my new walk is more like I walked as a kid, before I stopped wanting to draw attention to myself.

 

October 18, 2011

No Longer in School!

Posted by Nathen under academic degrees, Couples and Family Therapy, learning, relaxation, school
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I biked around the University of Oregon campus yesterday for the first time in months, getting some stuff done in preparation for my upcoming move to Joshua Tree. I was thinking about how familiar the ride was, how many hundreds of times I had done it in the last several years. I know each building, each stop sign, each crack in the pavement on my commute.

Suddenly it hit me: I am not biking to class! All the signs pointed to school. The leaves are turning, the college kids are out in force, there is no parking within a half mile of campus, but I am done with all that.

I loved school. I loved the two years finishing my Bachelor’s degree in psychology, I loved my couples and family therapy Master’s program, I loved my classes and most of my professors, I loved the community of learners, I loved all the reading and writing, I loved the density and the pace of the learning. There is just no chance that I would have learned all that I did in the last four years without all the school, deadlines, tests, and papers.

My academically-minded friends all say that I have to do a Ph.D, that I should do a Ph.D, that I would love to do a Ph.D. And maybe they are right–I probably would love to do a Ph.D. But right now, I am glad to be done. I am excited about having a more relaxed lifestyle, moving to my small town, spending time with my family, starting my own family, starting my own practice, writing some books, writing some music. That sounds great.

 

October 16, 2011

Sumi Ink Club at NBTSC

Posted by Nathen under art, Christina, collaboration, Ely Lester, NBTSC advisee groups, Not Back to School Camp, Reanna, Sumi Ink Club
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I first saw Sumi Ink Club art at my brother Ely and Christina’s wedding reception. The party was on the roof of the Pasadena Museum of California Art, and there was a whole room of Sumi Ink Club downstairs. It was striking–densely packed, collaborative, black drawings covering white walls from floor to ceiling. I have to admit I was primarily overwhelmed by it, and that it was Reanna who stayed interested, setting up a Sumi Ink Club party for an issue of her magazine. That’s how I had the idea to do Sumi Ink Club during my advisee group at the first New Hampshire session of Not Back to School Camp.

We started with two picnic tables of almost blank white paper and 14 sharpies. (Sumi Ink Club uses sumi ink and brushes, of course, but sharpies work. I’ll paste in the official rules at the bottom of this post.) We just started drawing and rotated to a new spot every couple of minutes. It was really fun and we were excited about the final product, which we figured took about 26 person-hours to complete:

Full Composition, 5×8′, Paper & Sharpie (Occasional Crayon, Marker & Paint by Anonymous Artists)

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Section 4

Section 5

Section 6

Sharpie Artists, in Front of Our Meeting Place, the Charles H. Watts Craft House, Camp Huckins, NH, September 2011: McKinley Corbley, Liam Woodworth-Cook, Signe Constable, Justus Joy, Joel Malkoff, Maddie Pryor, Jacob Adams, Rio Nelson, Eve Blane, Hannah Conrad-Reingold, Kiera McNicholas, Nathen Lester, Sophia Kramer, and LarkinHeintzmann in front.

Here are the guidelines for doing Sumi Ink Club, from the website sumiinkclub.com:

sumi ink club rules*:

– anyone can join in (all ages, all humans, all styles)

– everyone adds to the same drawing

– keep moving around, don’t spend too long in one area

– add to what other people have started

– keep the ink pure, don’t dilute with water

– no words allowed, but things that look like words are ok!

* you can experiment with making your own rules and using new materials, of course you can!

 

September 29, 2011

On Changing My Posture and Being the Most Compliant Patient

Posted by Nathen under advice, age, bodies, chiropractic, compliance, healing, healthcare, help seeking, injuries, massage, pain, physiotherapy, posture
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I’ve been working seriously on changing my posture for the last six months. I’ve been seeing a chiropractor, a massage therapist, and a physical therapist. On normal days I do about two hours of stretching and strengthening exercises–postural reprogramming stuff that they have assigned. On super busy days I do about an hour’s worth.

I’m strengthening the muscles that hold my shoulders and head back and up. I’m lengthening the muscles that pull them down and forward. I’m decreasing the exaggerated curvature in my thoracic spine (called kyphosis), especially focusing on the top few thoracic vertebrae. I’m increasing the twisting range of motion in my thoracic spine and ribs. I’m learning to relax muscles in my legs and butt, back and shoulder blades. I’m learning how to sit differently, stand differently, sleep differently, and especially walk differently. I have an alarm set to remind me about posture every 20 minutes that I’m awake.

The thing is, I’m almost 40 and I don’t have kids yet. I need my body to stay fit for at least another 20 years, and preferably more like 50 more. But nearly three years ago I started having some serious pain in my body–after 37 years of being as athletic as I pleased, I was suddenly limited in how much I could run, lift, swim, and sometimes even walk. One year I could go to a Lindy Hop event and dance all day and all night, and the next I had maybe two hours, maybe 15 minutes in me. Unacceptable.

And it turns out it’s because of my posture. Joints, muscles, and their connections do not work properly if not in the optimal relative position to each other. The habitual position of my joints had put enough strain on my body that I started having intense pain.

My chiropractor once told me, “You are the most compliant patient I’ve ever had.” My PT and massage therapist have said similar things. That is exactly what I’m aiming at–the most compliant patient. I do not just show up. I do not intend to waste my money or my life getting care and then not following through with the recommendations of my providers. If you tell me not to ride my bike for 3 months, I start walking or taking the bus. If you show me how to walk differently, I will walk differently. If you tell me to do 45 reps of some new, super-awkward exercise every day for the foreseeable future, I will do it. I am your perfect patient. I do it because I’m hoping you know what will help. I want to make you look brilliant. And I do it because if, after a couple of months, what you do and have me do has not helped noticeably, I will find someone else to work with, because I have tried you and your ideas out to the letter.

 

September 25, 2011

Advice About Ears For Those Who Value Hearing

Posted by Nathen under advice, Hearing, John Hecht
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I had my hearing tested at a NAMM show a few years ago and the technician said they’d never seen a drummer with such good hearing. I believe this is because I’ve followed the advice given my 12 years ago by Josh Hecht, the man who taught me sound engineering and record production. Here is a paraphrase of it:

Your current ability to hear is a precious resource, especially if you intend to make your living using your ears, but even if you don’t.

The damage done to your ears by very loud or loud and sustained sounds, essentially a matting of the hairlike receptors in your inner ear, is cumulative and irreversible. The technology to make up for hearing loss is not adequate for someone who really values high quality hearing, and that is very likely to remain the case until after you are dead.

Therefore, it is in your best interest to protect your ears.

Are you embarrassed to plug your ears when an ambulance goes by or when your jet lands? Get over it. Your ears are way more important than your appearing tough or cool. If those sounds do not seem that loud to you, you probably already have some hearing loss. A tolerance for loud sounds is like a tolerance for alcohol–not a good sign. For some reason we think it’s cool when we’re young, but neither deafness or alcoholism are cool in the slightest.

If you need or want to be in places with loud sounds, wear earplugs. Carry them with you on your keychain. If your situation is very loud or very extended, try 30 dB logger’s earmuffs over 30 dB foam earplugs–both quite cheap and the combination is quite effective. If you want to listen to music in a loud place like a flight, try in-ear headphones* with logger earmuffs on top.

If you want or need to be in places with loud sounds like concerts or band practice, where hearing those sounds accurately is important, invest in some high quality earplugs. A couple of hundred dollars is nothing for a lifetime of good hearing.

*Be very careful with headphones. Loud sounds less than an inch from your eardrums are very dangerous. If you are in charge of your or someone else’s headphone volume, turn the volume all the way down, then put the phones on, then turn up, slowly, until they are loud enough. Never pull a plug on phones that are on ears. If you wear headphones a lot, try your normal volume (carefully!) on a young person with undamaged ears. If they say it is too loud, you probably have hearing loss.

 

September 25, 2011

Strange Blog Spam

Posted by Nathen under blogging, spam
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On my stats page I get a list of “referrers”–websites that have supposedly sent someone to NME with a link. Off an on I get waves of what appears to be a strange kind of spam–websites show up that are clearly not linked or affiliated with me in any way. It’s slightly annoying but more perplexing. I am the only audience here, not my readers, because this stuff is only accessible to me. Does someone actually think that I am going to go buy their stuff because they sent a robot to make it look like a person came to my site from theirs? I guess it’s like email-spam, and they are relying on spamming huge numbers of people to get a few suckers, but is it really worth it to write these spam programs for a few suckers?

"Referrers" to NME from a bad day last fall

 

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