Thoughts of the day

Dan Hanegby died suddenly in a freak accident. He had an enviable life - beautiful successful wife, 2 young children, Brooklyn Heights home, affluent job - that was cut short randomly in its prime. Although an experienced bicyclist, he somehow was struck by a passing charter bus. Hanegby fell under the bus's rear wheels and was run over.

The butterfly effect lends to activist theory.

President George W. Bush gave a speech in NYC about the "Spirit of Liberty: At Home, In the World" with a "call to action [that] seeks to affirm our values of freedom, to fortify the institutions that secure these values at home, and to help catalyze a 21st century consensus that it is in America’s interest to lead in their strengthening worldwide". Transcript. Working paper.

Dean Awn has stepped down.

Ohm Youngmisuk ESPN article, quoting from Randy Foye's podcast with Jeremy Lin, about the racism that Lin experienced as a Harvard basketball player. It makes me ashamed for not being stronger for my interpersonal competitive challenges. Learn, evolve, and be better. Mastery learning orientation.

Jeremy Lin's hurt again. This time he tore his right patellar tendon, which connects the kneecap to the tibia. I imagine much of his thoughts from this update last season about his recurring left hamstring injury apply again. Joining the Nets last year for his age-28 season was supposed to be Lin's time to shine, in his prime, ready to lead his new team as its starting PG. The situation was tailor-made. Instead, he played in only 36 games in his 1st season as a Net due to the recurring hamstring injury. His 2nd season is over in game 1. With D'Angelo Russell on the team, it appears unlikely Lin will regain his starting PG role next season, even assuming he fully recovers from an injury other pro athletes were not able to fully recover from.

This mini-course interested me in John Stuart Mill's On Liberty.

I don't drink Gatorade, but the message of this commercial is correct: The "secret to victory" is failure, or more precisely, investing failure constructively to inform and fuel the mastery learning process by which victory is an effect.

Collin and Ashley Buzzy McHugh look like they have a romantically ideal dyadic relationship. They met as high school seniors, started dating a year and a half later in a long-distance relationship, then married at age 22 when she was a recent college graduate and he was early in his minor-league baseball career. They recently celebrated their 8-year anniversary and they have a nearly 2-year-old son. Apparently, however, she suffers from depression (her "hole") that miscolors their relationship:

I meet a good man who wants to fill my hole more sincerely than anyone I've ever met, and I marry him. He is incredibly strong and truly dedicated - he carries many buckets of cement to the hole and I see the sweat dripping from his brow. But no, the hole is still much too deep for this to be working. Now, because he's dedicated so much time to this pursuit, when I see another strong-looking man approaching I have to send him away. What a shame. He may have had a giant truck, but I guess I'm not allowed to ask.

That's a threatening statement, but from the outside, one can't know a dyad's depth of resilience. From all apparent indicators, he loves his wife. I imagine he understands that depression is a miasma that alters personality and perspective. Even when her view is miscolored, she expresses a high opinion of her husband, including that he's "strong", which is essential for women. She's seeing a counselor. I've conceived an elemental benefit of a dyadic relationship to be a man or woman's partner being strong for them when he or she is weak or troubled, and in turn, that man or woman being strong for their partner when there's need. I hope they have that kind of relationship. Right now, she needs her husband to be strong for her and their marriage.

Add simple machines to the list of basic man knowledge. It's important to understand the physical math of mechanical advantage as well as the theory.

Sal Licata and Pete McCarthy on the Sports Zone at WOR 710 AM are good on their own and good together as co-hosts. I was unhappy when the Mets left WFAN, but the dedicated Mets pre- and post-games at WOR are a better listen on WOR with McCarthy and sometimes Licata than their predecessor on WFAN.

Wow. WFAN morning show host Craig Carton was arrested this morning by the FBI on wire and securities fraud and related conspiracy charges for a fake concert-ticket resale Ponzi scheme, allegedly to pay off Carton's gambling debts. The SEC has filed parallel civil charges (copy, copy) against Carton and a partner. In a pitiful pretense, Carton texted his morning-show teammates last night and this morning that he was "under the weather" (Esiason), indicating he knew last night he was being arrested and may have arranged to be arrested at home rather than at work.

I'm a Mets fan, but I would rather have been a baseball New York Giants fan for their rich New York baseball roots and uniform design and colors.

Thorough ESPN article on the NBA's G (for Gatorade, formerly D for Developmental) League.

The Sandman: Overture, a prequel to the series, is fine work by Neil Gaiman and his teammates.

La La Land (2016); Night of the Comet (1984); Collateral Beauty (2016); Passengers (2016); Batman: Gotham Knight (2008); Operation Chromite (2016); The Hateful Eight (2015); Flight 7500 (2016); Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016); Weiner (2016); The Lego Batman Movie (2017); Kubo and the Two Strings (2016); Kong: Skull Island (2017); Gattaca (1997); back 2/3 of Sing (2016); Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016); back 3/4 of xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017); back 6/7 of Logan (2017); Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016); Shattered Glass (2003); The Lost City of Z (2016); The Lost Village (2017); Life (2017); Don't Breathe (2016); 47 Meters Down (2017); After Porn Ends (2012); front 1/3 of After Porn Ends 2 (2017).

I felt bad for Huma Abedin in Weiner. She comes across as a normal wife who sincerely wanted to encourage, support, and stand by her husband. Anthony Weiner was glib, selfish, and self-centered in the movie, but that may be normal for a political candidate of his then-stature. There is a hint from Weiner in the movie in the Rodney Dangerfield joking scene with Barbara Morgan in the cab that his wife was frigid, his friend-partner more than a lover. Weiner has a petty shameful habit, sexting, that he denies yet barely covers up ("Carlos Danger"), which has multiply blown up in public and been seized upon by the tabloid press due to his high-profile political life. It's unclear why Sydney Leathers chose to blow his cover and embrace the sordidness of it all. His wife and professional teammates trusted him, and his stigmatization tainted their efforts. The lowbrow scandal trapped his politically important, image-conscious wife in a squalid public indignity. As of May 2017, Weiner's petty shameful habit has made him a felon. There isn't an obvious indication in the movie Weiner would have been a bad mayor. Nor was he a bad Congressman. With his personal idiosyncrasies, he seemed like a typical politician who glad-hands and gaslights, but over-all, approached his official duties seriously. I don't believe he was ever accused of official misconduct as a Congressman. I can empathize with an otherwise talented man whose talents propel him onto professional, social stages where he's painfully felled by an enduring personal flaw. The movie also showed there's a blurry distinction and perhaps overlap between constructive intuition and instinct, and self-destructive impulsiveness. Campaign staffer Jessica Provenz fills some gaps in the movie narrative.

A political takeaway from Weiner is the overwhelming tide of a narrow-minded narrative judgement of a media gang-up. The movie shows seasoned politicians and their media handlers anxious, fearful, and defensive with the press, and continually warping their own plans and actions in reaction to the press. All considerations factor the press narrative, which takes precedent over integrity, fairness, actual truth, and what's ethically and morally right. The movie offers insight on elite political workings since Weiner's camp, including his wife, was drawn from top-line Democratic operatives from the Clinton faction.

I enjoyed Kong: Skull Island. It's not thoughtful fare, except I object to its anti-military ethos. Otherwise, the movie was tightly made and reined in a cohesive plot. Its grasp doesn't exceed its reach. A little scene at the end of the credits implies there'll be a sequel, which I hope to see. I was surprised to find out it's in the same series and universe as the worse, loosely made 2014 Godzilla.

Logan is moving. It's human. It speaks on the thin ephemeral line, inevitably crossed with temporal degradation, between life and death, health and decay, comfort and poverty. Once again, a story returns to the bottom line of familial love and the fleeting illusion of everything else, including higher social purpose. 47 Meters Down is barely a B-level movie, more like a scifi channel-level movie, but it's baited well: recognizable name actors and a new twist in a mostly reliable genre.

I watched the animated Batman The Dark Knight Returns, part 2 (2013) and didn't remember I already watched it in 2014 with part 1 until I was reminded by my comments.

This year's Hudson Riverflicks, Big Hit Wednesdays (7/5-8/16) line-up is Moonlight, Keanu, Arrival, Lego Batman, Hidden Figures, La La Land, and Logan. The Hudson Riverflicks, Family Fridays (7/7-8/18) line-up is The Secret Life of Pets, Trolls, Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory, Kubo and the Two Strings, Sing, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and The Karate Kid (1984).

Uncle Vanya's story of bitter disillusionment and economic reality over a hopeless aging speaks to me as red-pill personal and social truth, but it's diagnostic with no prescriptive cure for me. Its prescription as such is a beautiful and/or gentle wife, children, and family. Romantically idealized work (farm labor, teaching and helping the poor, medicine, reforestation, political activism, art criticism, academic scholarship, music) is shown to be a sop that's actually bereft of depth and personal fulfillment. Everyone except the doctor depends on Sonia and Uncle Vanya's economic toil yet they're desperately unhappy and the least appreciated and rewarded. It's revealed by Vanya that Sonia owns the farm when her father presumes to sell the property to serve his own comfort. In the play's commentary on the professor, Yelena, and Vanya's mother on one hand, and Waffles on the other hand, the political values of the play presage Communism.

3-day GI cycle - May24AM-27AM-30AM-Jun2AM-5AM-9AM-13AM-16PM-17PM(D)-21AM-24PM-27PM-29PM-Jul3AM(D)-6PM-7AM(D)-10?AM(D)-12?PM-13PM-16AM-19AM-20AM(D?)-25AM-29AM-Aug2AM-5AM-5PM(D)-8AM-11PM-13AM-18AM-19AM(D?)-22AM-26AM-28AM(D)-31AM-Sep4PM-7AM-9PM-13PM-15PM-17AM-19AM-22PM-?-28AM-Oct2AM-5PM-6PM(D)-10PM-14PM-18PM-23AM-26PM-31AM-Nov2AM-6AM-11PM-12AM(D)-17AM-19AM-23PM-27AM-Dec1AM-5AM-6PM-8AM-11AM-16AM-20AM-23AM-27AM-29PM-Jan2PM.

My stomach has hurt for a week, and it seems to be better now, but not completely. There's still some pulsing and welling of dull pain. Baking soda and water has helped at least as a temporary pain reliever. Drinking water and eating has provided shorter-lived relief. The prime suspect is a few spoons worth of uncooked brownie batter I impulsively ate ranger pudding-style, which I've suffered for doing before, because the eggs I used for the batter were older, thick, and cloudy. A 2nd suspect is some 3+ years old Premio hot sausage I took out of my freezer that taste off. Update: I don't believe it's the sausage. I've finished off the 6 pack of sausage, but while the flavor is still off and my stomach still isn't all right yet, my stomach has been gradually improving. I think the cause was diseased brownie batter.

Eat mostly brownies and bannock for dense, hard, cement-like stool. Eat a bunch of yam, and it's softer.

This bug in Google Chrome browser version 61.0.3163.100 hurt the OIF FAQ and related posts because they rely heavily on # anchors using the "hr id" format. If I understand the thread correctly, the "hr id" bug will be fixed in the version 63 update. Chrome updated from version 61 to 62 today.

My Toastmaster burner now heats up when it's plugged in and the switch is set at off or 0 degrees. I wonder whether the other temperature settings are off kilter, too. 21 0000 JUN17 RIP: The Toastmaster 6420 burner just died. It emitted loud clicks, then puffs of white acrid coppery-smelling (toxic?) smoke, then no more heat. For a while, the burner had stayed warm in the off position, but otherwise worked normally. I guess it was a sign that some part of the heating element, likely insulation, was breaking down. The Toastmaster was the workhorse in my kitchen for 3+ years. My general cooking devices are now down to my 2nd Salton rice cooker, bottom burner only Proctor-Silex toaster oven, George Foreman grill, and Sharp Carousel microwave.

Based on this review, I bought a Continental CE23309 single-burner hot plate for $9.99, $10.88 including tax. I'm not certain yet it heats up below the MED setting, but it's worked MED and up. The Mirro fits better on the Continental than the Toastmaster because the Continental's heating element is smaller diameter. The review didn't say anything about durability. It's relatively cheap, but it's new, so I hope the burner lasts. Update: 12JUL17-04NOV17. I was making rice, which usually takes about 30-35 minutes, mixed with pinto beans, which usually take about 40 minutes or plus-5 to 10 minutes to soften enough (which is why beans don't cook well in the rice cooker). I set the timer for 40 minutes. When it sounded, the rice was done but the beans were still on the hard side, which tells me the burner stopped working about 30 minutes into the cook time. The burner coil heats up and turns off with a red light, then cycles on and off according to, I assume, an internal thermometer. The red light was on and stayed on, but the burner coil was not heating up, which tells me that sometime during the rice cook at about the 30 minute mark, the burner broke mid-cycle. Since then, joggling the burner coil, which can be lifted in order to clean the metal plate underneath it, has sometimes enabled the burner coil to heat up on the 1st cycle, but after it turns off, it won't heat up again for the 2nd cycle. The last time I tried joggling the burner coil, though, it did heat up on subsequent cycles for 15 minutes before I switched off the burner. The burner has a 1-year manufacturer's warranty, but I have to pay for shipping to and from their factory. If the burner I have now can't be saved, I'll call their hotline and decide whether it's worth using the warranty. If not, I'll bite the bullet on buying a more expensive and hopefully long-lasting burner.

Chicken liver, usually $1.99 per pound, is flavorful, filling, and versatile to cook. I bought about 4.5 lbs on sale for $1.28/lb and I wish I bought more. It doesn't make tasty jus for canned pink salmon, though.

Chicken gizzards need to be boiled over an hour to be passably tender, otherwise eating it is like biting into chunks of hard rubber. They're not filling and don't taste like much, either.

Canned pink salmon, marinated in a tasty pork shoulder jus, spread with sour cream on bannock is tasty. The same salmon's flavor is lost when spread on bannock with mayonnaise. In contrast, cheaper mackerel retains its flavor when spread on bannock with mayonnaise. Indeed, mackerel can be canned with tomato sauce, whereas tomato sauce overwhelms canned salmon flavor.

One area store sells chicken liver for $1.79 per pound as the regular price, and I caved in and bought a $2.12 pack. Price per pound is the standard way to count cost, and that's how I've made purchasing decisions. Another, more suitable way to count cost is price per meal which is usually the same as price per day. (I usually eat 1 big meal a day and otherwise impulsively snack 1-3 times in a day with the snacks sometimes bordering on meal size.) For example, a usual sale price for chicken thigh is .99/lb, but I usually eat 2 chicken thighs for a meal, which together usually account for roughly a pound or 99 cents. Whereas $1.99/lb italian sausages and $1.79/lb chicken livers will work out to about 70 cents worth of amount (eg, 2 sausage links) consumed in a meal despite the higher dollar cost per pound. A $1.99 can of 14.75 oz pink salmon will usually be consumed over 1 proper meal and then 2-3 snacks over the next 2-3 days, usually half or more of the can consumed at the 1st sitting with rice, then the rest of the can more frugally portioned as a spread on bannock with sour cream or as an extra flavor besides another meat. A $1.25-1.50 can of mackerel will be consumed over 1 meal, maybe 2 meals. Of course, variety matters, so sticking to the most cost-efficient-per-meal meat is not a pleasant way to live.

Chicken breast, at $1.79-1.99 a pound on sale is one of the best-tasting meats I eat, but also the most expensive per meal, since it's not filling, so I'll eat a ~1-pound breast for 1 meal, maybe 1 meal + 1 snack.

Rich eating is canned salmon ($1.50), sweet sausage ($3.60), and chicken breast ($7.30) over 30Aug-05Sep.

A good deal is Sugardale Prestige shank-portion hickory-smoked ham for .99/lb. It normally costs $3.49/lb. Pros are the sale cost, the ham is fully cooked and ready to eat, thick smoke flavor, it tastes good with mayonnaise like regular ham, and it doesn't need to be frozen to prevent spoilage. I've kept the ham in the refrigerator for over a month, though the smell does turn some after a few weeks. Cons are its thick smoke flavor is artificial and leaves some icky after-feeling like processed food, it has a lot of fat, and heating reduces its flavor. In contrast, Cook's brand shank-portion hickory-smoked ham, with the same sale and regular price, is exceptionally flavorless, and remains flavorless whatever flavoring I add to it, but doesn't leave the same icky after-feeling. The Sugardale ham didn't leak any fluid while the Cook's ham leaked a good deal of fluid.

I brought a 10-pack of chicken legs on sale for .69/lb. I cooked 3 on my George Foreman grill, microwaved 2, baked 2 in my bottom burner-only toaster oven, and boiled 3 while making rice. The worst outcome was the George Foreman grill, where the meat was either overcooked dry or undercooked, plus hard to scrape off burned-on bits stuck to the cooking surface. Baking was okay; the meat was tender and the skin crisped but took too long to cook - over an hour. Microwaving and boiling with rice worked about the same - tender meat, no crispy skin.

I microwaved a 4.01 lb Springer whole chicken for about 40 minutes (or 10 minutes per pound) starting with 70% power, following these directions. When I checked the chicken at about 20 minutes, parts of the chicken still felt cool to the touch, which may be partly due to the chicken wasn't completely defrosted, so I raised the power to 80%. It worked. The meat was moist. I ate the chicken over 5 days. The downside of microwaving the chicken is I couldn't add ingredients for a chicken stew, like I can when I boil a chicken using the 3-quart mixing bowl or the Mirro deep pan.

Chicken breast is best microwaved on high for about 7 minutes per pound. Then allow it to cool so the meat fibers contract, which enables thinner cut slices. That way, you get the same chicken breast flavor and texture per mouthful, but the chicken breast lasts longer since you eat less meat and more rice or bannock per mouthful.

Tasty sweet sausage: Cooked by boiling with rice, then browned in the bottom-only toaster oven at 400 degrees in the 1-quart mixing bowl for about 15 minutes. Better tasting: Boiled with rice, then browned by pan-frying in hot corn oil.

I've had three packs of different kinds of 4?-year-old Premio sausage in my freezer for which I paid 99 cents each. In addition, I had a pack I paid $1.99 that's maybe 3 years old. I was loath to eat the Premio sausage because I bought them on such a good deal. I've occasionally used slices mixed in scrambled eggs or on bannock pizza. I recently decided to cook whole sausages from the packs. The whole sausages tasted off. Some of it tasted gross, a mix of leached Styrofoam flavor, curdled spices, and stale meat, which possibly made my stomach sick (though I believe the culprit was more likely uncooked brownie batter with old clotted eggs). I finished off the $1.99 pack and one of the 99-cent packs, and half the 99-cent pack that's been open for slices. My discovery is that the old sausage tastes okay as slices mixed in scrambled eggs or on bannock pizza, but does not taste good eaten whole.

Short of funds and hungry for meat, I bought a 12-oz 8-pack of turkey hot dogs for 99 cents. Which doesn't pass the price per weight test, but does pass the price per use test. If each use is pegged as a typical day's worth of eating with 1 main meal and 1-2 snacks included, then the 8-pack comprises 3 uses, maybe 4 uses at a stretch. They taste okay, but they leave an artificial off after-feeling and a possible upset stomach. So while the price is right, it's an if-needed resort, not a regular option. Best cooking method is baking it along with bannock which crisps the skin, though it seems to shrink the meat. Boiling it is okay, too.

Green cabbage, which I've bought on sale for 49 to 59 cents per pound, is tasty and can be stored unrefrigerated for quite a long time, although it does eventually grow mold on cut portions.

The George Foreman grill bakes a decent bannock pizza when the front legs are propped up to un-tilt the grill and the lid is propped up so its held up off the bannock pizza.

I scavenged a box with a 3-ounce tin of Crown Prince naturally smoked oysters. I don't know what "naturally smoked" means, but the smoked flavor of the oysters is thick. The olive oil is also flavorful. The oyster texture is mealy, somewhat like canned salmon. The oysters are best eaten by breaking off bits and spread thin on bannock.

I scavenged a bag of Beigel brand individually plastic-wrapped whole wheat bread and white bread slices. There were no artificial ingredients in the ingredient list printed on the whole wheat bread wrapping. The white bread slices didn't have ingredients and nutrition info printed on their wrapping. One whole wheat slice had a mold patch inside the sealed bag so I scarfed down all the wrapped slices over 4 days. Every application with the whole wheat and white bread slices was worse eating than bannock except the white bread worked better for a peanut butter and grape jam snack.

Duncan Hines milk chocolate brownie tastes like a cheap hot chocolate or an artificial flavored creamer for coffee. Baking with strawberry and sour cream is tasty. It works a la mode with Avenue A rum raisin-flavored and coconut-flavored ice cream, which I bought on sale for $2 per 48-oz box. I previously bought a box of Avenue A cookies-and-cream-flavored ice cream on sale for $2.50, which tasted right but shouldn't be combined with brownie since the oreo cookie flavor is somewhat neutralized by the brownie flavor. The rum raisin and coconut flavors provide a good contrast with brownie.

Pillsbury chocolate fudge tastes more like a proper brownie. Interestingly, its listed ingredients are the same as Pillsbury dark chocolate (chocolate fudge has more sugar: 18g vs 17g per serving), yet they don't taste the same. I prefer the chocolate fudge flavor. The tag price on the box is 90 cents cheaper than Duncan Hines milk chocolate brownie mix, but I prefer the more proper brownie-tasting Pillsbury chocolate fudge. Pillsbury milk chocolate brownie tastes proper, too.

At the same 300 degrees in the bottom-burner-only toaster oven, the Pillsbury chocolate fudge brownie batter was still mostly sludgy liquid after 10 minutes baked using the stainless steel 1-quart mixing bowl yet burnt at the bottom after 7 minutes baked on the aluminum tray. The best baking method is 5 minutes in the George Foreman grill.

Aunt Jemima artificial maple syrup drizzled onto Pillsbury chocolate fudge brownie after baking tastes good. I haven't experimented with mixing the syrup into the batter before baking.

Bannock dough can be boiled as dumplings. But brownie batter breaks down into barely tasted foam when dropped into boiling water.

The foil cover of a 6 oz mango 1% milkfat La Yogurt opened in the bag on my way home (I hope it opened in the bag and wasn't opened and poisoned before purchase), so I decided not to eat it from the container. Instead, I mixed about 2/3 into bannock dough with baking soda and some corn oil in the 1-qt mixing bowl. I added 3 or 4 sliced fresh strawberries with the remaining yogurt as filling in the pocket in the middle and baked it at about 370 degrees in the bottom-burner only toaster oven for 45 minutes. It baked acceptably. The bottom was burnt, but the sides and top were baked through and light brown. The strawberry-and-yogurt filling was nearly tasteless, so I added sour cream and Aunt Jemima pancake syrup for flavor. The yogurt-added bannock's texture was more interesting - soft like cornbread and a bit creamy - in contrast to the more biscuit-like crumbly and oily texture of mayonnaise or corn oil-added bannock and the more French bread-like drier water-only bannock.

A decadent dessert is milk chocolate brownie (with ginger chips and extra flour) + chunky peanut butter + grape jam + sour cream + coconut-flavored ice cream. Interestingly, the real dairy flavor of the real dairy sour cream helped offset the artificial taste of the much artificial ice cream. Omitted ingredients were ripe banana and Dole frozen sliced strawberry in sugar. Add: I added strawberries and banana. It was good, still decadent, but the strong tartness of the strawberry dominated more than worked with the other flavors.

Dole frozen sliced strawberries in sugar works well as a lone topping on a brownie because its tartness dominates rather than complements other flavors. The Dole frozen strawberries are significantly more tart than fresh strawberries.

Frozen whole-milk coconut La Yogurt is not an a-la-mode substitute for ice cream with brownie. It's different. It adds a mild yogurt flavor. Aunt Jemima artificial maple syrup adds an interesting flavor to brownie, but the syrup comes with an uncomfortable after-feeling.

Pillsbury chocolate fudge brownie with La Yogurt guava yogurt is interesting, tasty.

Pillsbury milk chocolate with ginger flakes in the batter, baked in the George Foreman grill for 5 minutes, topped with Stone Ridge Creamery Real Ice Cream Cinnamon Cookie Swirl, ripe banana, Dole sliced strawberries in sugar, and Everyday Essentials extra crunchy peanut butter. Icy cold whole milk. Yum.

Junk food, either sweet (eg, chocolate candy cookies) or salty (eg, Doritos), is not a meal replacement. I can, and usually do eat an excess, but then I feel compelled to eat a real meal to make up for the queasy after feeling as the heavy sugar, salts, oils, chemicals, and other unhealthy ingredients are processed by my digestive system.

Nature's Garden (Cibo Vita) pitted dates are a tasty sweet natural snack. The older one gets, the more one gravitates to natural foods because the older body responds worse to junk food while natural foods process more comfortably.

I scavenged a large bag with boxes of gluten-free pasta, made from corn and rice flour instead of wheat flour, and granola-type snack bars. Eating the gluten-free pasta with pasta sauce (standard Ol' Joe Marina sauce) makes my stomach hurt. The pasta looks like Chinese noodles in its texture and semi-translucence, but Chinese noodles don't make my stomach hurt. The snack bars seem to feel okay, though they're not filling. Mixing the pasta into white rice or bachelor stew seems to feel better, if not wholly okay, though I'll experiment with those uses again and note my body's reaction. I guess that's why someone ditched a big bag of what otherwise looks like unopened boxes of edible dry food. If I verify the gluten-free pasta hurts my stomach with other uses, I'm ditching them, too.

I scavenged a Chef's Choice 460 kitchen knife sharpener. PDF instructions. Video instructions with the similar Chef's Choice 450. It worked to sharpen a Farberware 5-inch utility knife that I also scavenged. According to bushcraft knife videos, normal kitchen knives are made from soft steel, in contrast to the hard steel used to make knives designed for fieldwork. The trade-off is kitchen knives lose their edge quickly but they also can be sharpened quickly and easily.

Eric