[photo by twothirstycats (Flickr, Creative Commons)]

But at the same time I’ve been chucking beer kegs, I’ve been developing a nagging set of doubts about Crossfit, and thinking back wistfully on last year’s fitness quest (running 500 miles and 9 trail races barefoot), the way one might pine after a long-gone girlfriend.   I miss that time alone on the trails, sometimes literally in the dark, feeling my way through the trees.

(Special note: when I say barefoot running, I mean actual barefoot running.  Running in minimal shoes may be a fine thing, but it is not the same.  Just take off your minimal shoes and you’ll see. ;)  )

Crossfit criticisms and apologetics

Stay with that beer keg because it will reappear  later.  But for now know that my mixed feelings didn’t fit neatly into the most common critiques of Crossfit.  Those critiques, from within the fitness world (check out this lucid and intelligent post by Steve Maxwell) often boil down to these points: a) The high speed and intensity of Crossfit encourages sloppy moves and therefore, it would seem likely, injuries; b) The random nature of the workouts means that Crossfit doesn’t train you for any sport in particular; c) The culture is annoying and/or cultish.

The injury question is easiest to deal with: there is simply no evidence, for good or for bad. Last week I did a search of the academic literature for Crossfit-related injury rates and there is nothing out there.  While there are certainly a lot of anecdotes, anecdotes are not good evidence because they provide no rates for comparison.  Every activity has some injury rate — the question is how do rates compare?

The discussion of Crossfit injury rates reminds me of the discussion a few years ago over (true) barefoot running, when competitive runners and podiatrists claimed it would cause all sorts of injuries.  From the outside it looked that way, especially to people who had no experience with the practice.  Advocates for the practice disagreed, and pointed to first principles.  But objectively there was absolutely no evidence of any difference in injury rates between runners who wore shoes and those who didn’t.  So: the jury is out for now.

The critique about the random nature of Crossfit workouts is also easy to deal with: it’s completely valid, and yet for most Crossfit clients, irrelevant.  Crossfit is by design a general training program; the idea that it would optimize someone to be a top competitor in a specific sport is absurd.  Cross-training can probably help you build a foundation for competition, but if you want to be a top competitor at a sport, you’re going to have to train that sport.   If the Crossfit gods have made statements to the contrary they are getting silly.

But — here is the key thing most critiques miss — most Crossfit clients do not want to be top competitors.  Most of them just want to lose weight, look good, have a hard workout, etc.  And as far as I can tell (again, no objective evidence on this), Crossfit is extremely good for people with this in mind.

The cultishness factor is a bit more complex.  It has positive effects.  When I talked to author TJ Murphy, he made the case that the social qualities of Crossfit were an important reason for its success, especially with the average client seeking general fitness, weight loss, etc.  Anything that gets a generally immobile public moving and exercising is probably a good thing.

But cultishness has negative impacts too. There is a certain absurdity to Crossfit above the plebian level.  It’s excellent — a triumph, really — for a sessile person to train hard enough to do their first pullup, or first ten, or their first handstand pushup.  But what does it mean to do fifty or a hundred of those things?  It seems to be fetish as well as fitness.  At the upper levels Crossfit stops being a program for functional, general fitness (the way it was advertised in this foundational document) and just starts being an end in itself.  That is the problem with cultishness — you lose perspective.

A lack of sensitity

To me the most intriguing flaw in Crossfit comes straight out of one of the most admirable things about it: its attempt to clearly define fitness.

In “What is Fitness?” and two videos, Crossfit founder Greg Glassman offers evolving definitions of fitness based first on a list of basic physical skills…

Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance – The ability of body systems to gather, process, and deliver oxygen.
Stamina – The ability of body systems to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy.
Strength – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply force.
Flexibility – the ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint.
Power – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.
Speed – The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement.
Coordination – The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement.
Agility – The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another.
Balance – The ability to control the placement of the bodies center of gravity in relation to its support base.
Accuracy – The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity.

…and then the physics 101 concept of work (as in Force x Distance) over time.

You’ve just got to applaud this, because it’s so clear and measurable.  And you see a lot of this playing out in the famous “Nasty Girls” video.

The amount of work (in physics terms) they do here is impressive.  They clearly have mastered a number of items on that list of ten skills — especially power, speed, and endurance of a certain kind.  Not to mention teeth-gritting determination.  Crossfit values pushing yourself hard.  Any suffering you experience along the way is regarded as a good thing — it means you’re making an effort.  The lesson Crossfit teaches is that your body is so much more capable of work than you think it is.

When I look at the Nasty Girls video, though, I’m not so sure the video shows that these athletes have mastered other parts of that list — say, agility and accuracy. To me, those words imply a kind of intelligent use of the body — an ability to do things with the least amount of effort, rather than the most.  You can’t spend your entire life overwhelming obstacles the way you might grit your way through muscle-ups.  Sometimes you’ve got to slide by obstacles instead. This is something a healthy person does, even if it doesn’t demonstrate “fitness.”

Check out the way this barefoot runner deals with this rocky trail:

Notice how the runner in the video speeds up on the sandy parts and slows down to pick his way through the rocky bits?  It’s about perceiving circumstances and adapting to them.  Barefoot trail runners hate suffering.  Despite the “tough” image of the activity, it’s actually the apex of wimpiness.  If you’re suffering when you’re running on a trail barefoot, you’re doing it wrong.  It’s all about the experience of running, being quiet instead of grunting, learning how to treat your body gently and listen to everything it is telling you.  (In fact one common anecdote barefoot runners like to share is the way they came upon a deer, or a grouse, or an owl, or something else a shoe-wearer would never see because they make so much damn noise.)

The lesson barefoot running teaches is that your body is so much more skillful than you give it credit for.  It can do amazing things if you listen to what its telling you rather than overruling it.

Can opposites attract?

Here is what Crossfit is missing in my opinion — the goal of listening to the body, rather than telling it what to do.

Practically any physical art or sport (jiu jitsu, sword fighting, ballroom dancing, yoga, to name a few) is going to teach you more of that perceptive skill than Crossfit.  No need to get into barefoot running if you don’t feel like it, though it might be the ne plus ultra of activities that show you how to do less work, not more.

Still, few of those activities would give you the great fitness foundation that Crossfit can.

So I think a great plan would be to mix those activities with Crossfit — and to do so even if that means it will hurt your performance at something like Nasty Girls.

The next time I confront a nearly full beer keg that needs to be moved, I hope I remember the barefoot runner way of doing it — 1) don’t pick it up, dude, roll it! 2) tap the sucker; 3) enjoy.

I haven’t been doing much running lately, because in January I joined a gym.  I thought I’d focus on Jiu-Jitsu, but I’ve ended up going mostly to Crossfit classes.

It’s a big change because Crossfit is so goal-oriented.  Little could be less goal-oriented than the  barefoot trail running I did last year.  While yes, I did have goals for mileage and races completed, performance in minutes/mile was not really part of it.  Barefoot running isn’t about acing races, it’s about the experience of  running — feeling every grain of earth, hearing every bird, letting your body adapt itself to the environment.

This video captures the spirit of it. (And just in case you were wondering, it’s exactly what I would look like if I lost a few pounds, gained a few inches height, and went in for a full-body waxing. :) )

Meanwhile Crossfit is all about overwhelming numerical barriers.  These girls are racing each other to finish this killer workout (check in on the struggles at about 7 minutes in):

There’s no question that the high-intensity workouts in Crossfit have been doing something for me — my pants are looser for sure.

It’s also one of the biggest trends in fitness.  It’s gone from a few gyms a decade ago to about 4000 now, according to TJ Murphy, author of Inside the Box, a new book about the phenomenon, and a former editor of Competitor magazine.

But, at the same time, there’s definitely a fair amount of disparagement of Crossfit.  Even among those that agree with its workout regimen (or lack thereof) there’s an annoyance at the addictive, cultish nature of the activity.  Once people get into Crossfit, they start talking a new language.  Met-cons, WODs, Paleo.   Women start wearing socks which detract significantly from their newly developed hotness.  (“Crossfit makes men small, and women hot” is the cliche, and it’s got some truth.)

Among those who look at it seriously, especially weightlifters, there’s a concern that chucking around heavy weights for big numbers of reps (as Crossfitters are sometimes directed to do)  is anything from pointless to sloppy to downright stupid. That’s just one of the significant critiques of Crossfit out there, from a more “professional” “athletic” point of view.  However, for today I’m going to skip the white paper analysis and concentrate on what a regular user or gym member would care about.

I asked author TJ Murphy for an interview to get a broader view of Crossfit than I had experienced in my own gym. His book, Inside the Box, struck me as a fine read and an accurate picture of Crossfit from the avid participants’ point of view.

Using TJ’s own story, it shows why Crossfit appeals to so many people at various levels of fitness.  Like a lot of competitive runners (not talking about barefoot runners now), TJ was hobbled by years of hard use of his body.  He needed to repair himself, and Crossfit worked for him, giving him kinds of physical capability he hadn’t had even as a triathlon competitor.  Along the way he discovered a pretty interesting gym culture — no mirrors, clients with a wide range of fitness, and supportive small-group dynamic mixing camaraderie and competition.

But, I kept wondering — Crossfit is by definition a high-intensity activity.  To be a healthy activity, and not just a fitness activity, Crossfit  needs to be applicable long-term.  Is such high intensity really sustainable?   Will people be doing this for years on end?  Does Crossfit need a soft side — a barefoot run as it were?

The interview is about 38 minutes.  Click below to start listening, and an audio player will expand.

tj-murphy-interview-mp3

Here are the topics and some convenient time marks.

• 0:00 What is Crossfit? What are the distinctive things about it?
• 3:23 The problematic notion of functional fitness
• 6:46 Why has Crossfit gotten so popular?
• 8:46 A key to health: positive reinforcement experiences
• 11:16 Crossfit and injuries — do they go together?
• 18:06 Irrational attachments to fitness methods
• 18:30 TJ’s personal story — a broken athlete mended
• 22:34 Competition and camaraderie
• 26:14 On returning to running
• 28:47 Crossfit lacking as endurance training?
• 30:53 Is there a soft side to Crossfit? (Here we discuss the videos embedded above.)

After the interview I kept thinking about that last question — is there, or should there be, a soft side to Crossfit (and no, I didn’t exactly mean this)?  I’ll take that up in my next post.

In 2011 that goal was running 500 trail miles barefoot (note this means actually barefoot, not with minimal shoes, which aren’t the same for me), and doing every race in the X-Dog trail series barefoot.  At 510 miles and 9 out of 12 races completed, I’m declaring victory.

[photos by Thaddeus Duhme]

To tell you the truth, I wasn’t concerned at all about the 500 miles part.  That’s only about 10 miles a week, and for me at least, barefoot running is easier on my body and more fun.  It was the surfaces and terrain of the X-Dog trail races, for instance this one on Mt. Hood that had me concerned.  Going through all that mud and rocks and snow wasn’t going to be a quick dash across the golf course.

The X-Dog running season started on a pretty easy note, with a muddy run around Hagg Lake.  But the second event, the Havoc at the Hideout [where I was joined by some other, better :) barefoot runners], was punishing.  Miles of hilly dirt road turned into incredibly deep sucking mud, with buried (and therefore invisible) pieces of sharp gravel. When I got to the end I was sure my feet would be mincemeat…

…But I think I had just one small cut, on the top of my foot not the bottom… and I actually felt really good otherwise.  No limping around or sore muscles like other people have.  I was totally comfortable in the beer line.  This is the great benefit of barefoot running for me: though there is a bit of discomfort as you get used to the sensations, you learn how to treat your body better.

After the Havoc I was on my guard, and always carried an emergency set of minimal shoes in my pockets–but I found I never wanted to use them.  It turns out you can run barefoot down a boulder-strewn mountainside, and it’s totally fun.  But you can’t crash your way down it, like you might if you had shoes and the focus was on winning.  And the bigger lesson is that your body can do so much more than you think it can, if you just give it a chance.  Other than two or three cuts on the top of the foot from not picking my feet up enough on surfaces like this…

[photo by paraganek]

I had absolutely no running injuries this year.  Well, I did tweak my calf muscle in December, running on smooth pavement, which I guess was just too consistent a surface for my trail-running brain to adjust to, but I was back running like normal a few days later.  “No lost training days”– pretty good for a whole year of running.

Now I need a new goal for 2012.  Suggestions?  It doesn’t need to be running related.

That place (just a wee bit bigger than the one in the picture above) has three main virtues:

1. it’s smallness makes it very green, given that size is the primary determinant of a dwelling’s environmental footprint;
2. it’s nice, making it possible to live small without feeling like you are living in poverty; and
3. it’s very close to, but still quite separate from, the main house, meaning I can live a few feet from my mother-in-law and still think it’s a good thing. :)

In short, those are the virtues of the modern accessory dwelling unit, also known as a granny flat, backyard cottage, ADU, etc. Given that the nation will need to build millions of dwellings for aging 1- and 2-person households over the next 30 years, I think they are a really interesting option both socially and environmentally.

Now I’m one of the editors of a new site that’s all about accessory dwelling units — what they look like, how to build them, what regulations are, etc. It’s called AccessoryDwellings.org.

Please come check it and consider becoming a contributor. Thanks!!

For me there is a certain quiet pleasure in having well-made things in my everyday life.  You know, things that work well for their purpose, feel right in my hands, and are worthy and capable of being repaired, rather than just cast into the landfill.  And so when I encounter things that don’t have those qualities–are badly made, badly designed for their purpose, and incapable of being repaired, I start to sputter with anger.  Is it right that I feel personally insulted by poorly done products?

Probably not; my condition probably has a code in the DSM V.  In any case it flared up this year when confronted with the subject of lunchboxes.  Before my kid went to school I had no idea how revolting lunchboxes could be.  I had visions of him traipsing along with one of those classy stackable things like in Eat Drink Man Woman (go to 1:55 in the video below).

Of course that wasn’t going to happen.  Little kids want pictures, colors, logos, characters.   So last year (kindergarten) we tried two kinds of lunch boxes that ended up raising my hackles.

First, one of those sewn nylon and vinyl lunch bags (perhaps $10 at the grocery store).  We put the kid’s sandwich in a wax paper baggie in the bottom, and the added some fruit and yogurt and stuff in little plastic cups with screw lids.  The yogurt was important to him; he eats a lot of it.

The result, by the time he came home, was a yogurt crime scene.  The inside of the bag was splattered with the remnants of his yogurt, mixed into a kind of stinky stew with fragments of sandwich, apple, wax paper shards, etc.   All that leftover food needed to be thrown away.  And though in concept the bag could be washed out, it was a deeply unpleasant process, because the yogurt smell never quite went away.

Which led me to ask: what kind of kids do the people who design those lunchbags have?  Maybe they are genetically engineered to be… superclean? and quiet to boot?  with a taste for Merchant Ivory films instead of cartoons?

We soon switched to a conventional metal lunchbox (about $20 postpaid) which had the same problem of providing the perfect milieu for a mess, but was easier to clean.  It lasted until the end of the school year, but just barely.  There were rust spots on the unpainted inside.  The rivets that held the sides to the back were failing, and one hinge of the plastic handle was hanging loose.

Now in concept this lunchbox was fixable.  I could have used tiny machine screws to replace the rivets, and perhaps epoxy glue to re-attach the hinge.   Those are the kind of things that plastic consumer products are usually too frail to stand, but even the cheapest metal usually has some repair route.

Still, I couldn’t see anyone wanting to eat a meal out of a frankensteined lunchbox.  So my spouse went hunting on the Internet for something better, found it, and after spending a while disoriented by the price ($70 for the package described here, postpaid), ordered one.  Several months later, I’m glad she did.

The Planetbox is a sturdy stainless steel clamshell, with compartments sized for sandwiches and other typical lunch items.  It closes fairly neatly, and as a consequence most nonliquid foods will stay within their designated region without any need for wax paper, saran wrap, etc.  For liquid foods (yogurt, applesauce, etc) the kit includes two “Dippers,” which are gasketed stainless steel tubs which fit into the compartments, and can seal when the clamshell is closed.  (The picture above shows only the smaller Dipper.)

For decoration there are assorted magnets to apply to the outside, and for insulation and protection the whole thing gets placed in a soft laptop-like case, with pockets suited to a few additional items and a small thermos.

All in all I’d say it works well.   Though I am skeptical of the environmental value of small lifestyle decisions like choice of lunchbox (housing, transportation, political, and utility choices are far more effective ways to reduce your environmental footprint), as a product and a design this is a good thing.  The compartments provide an intuitive suggestion that lunch should include a variety of foods, and everything looks pretty good against the stainless steel material.  There’s no need to keep waxed paper or other wrapping materials like that around.  And cleaning is easy, as expected.

The most unexpected benefit has been wasting less food.  The uneaten stuff arrives home neat and clean enough to use for snacks later on, and the spare yogurt is neatly contained in the Little Dipper.  I would say the thing will pay for itself within a few more months, on that basis–but the kid just lost the Big Dipper, so if we replace it, the amortization period will have to be extended.

Anyway, the PlanetBox is a fairly satisfying product that has clearly been designed to last.   Now I can spend my curmudgeonly energy on some other crime at the corner of Commerce and Design, and believe me, there are a lot of them. :)

There haven’t been many good sources I can refer to, and though I try to be friendly I haven’t been that encouraging. Developing that cottage was actually quite a struggle, even in the supposed progressive city of Portland.  When you create a second dwelling in or around your house, like this one photographed by radworld…

… you are essentially becoming a mini real estate developer, where you take on a lot of risks and responsibilities before you get—you hope—to the rewards.

A solid one-stop source of good information was sorely needed about how to develop a second dwelling on your property, whether you call it an in-law unit, a basement apartment, a backyard cottage, a garden suite, a secondary unit, or (to use the term favored by planners) an “accessory dwelling unit” or ADU.

Of course architects and contractors will offer to walk you through an orientation, but at the very beginning of the project I feel this has risks.  Not all architects and contractors will really understand what you are asking for.  I remember vividly the contractor who simply could not comprehend that I did not want to enlarge my primary house and connect it to the new unit.  It wouldn’t change the budget much… Wasn’t bigger better?

Another possibility is trolling the blogs of adventurous homeowners and mini-developers like myself or Kol, who will take you through their process in a lot of detail, for free.  I particularly recommend Kol’s blog for its thoroughness.  But you might need to read a lot of those blogs to find an example that really suits your situation.

It’s helpful for the greenhorn mini-developer (that would be you) to begin talks with those professionals with some idea of the general set of possibilities, and some inspiring examples to help define the goals.

Enter the first book about ADUs: In-laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats: your guide to turning one house into two homes by Michael Litchfield.  It’s a volume that was sorely needed, and indeed it’s a truly excellent resource in many ways… almost too good in some ways, as I will explain.   I’d say it is required reading for anybody thinking about creating a second unit, and a great thing to read before talking with professionals.  At the same time, this book will not tell you anything about costs, which is a major omission.

Litchfield starts with a nice introduction to the rationale for creating an ADU—it is a flexible, independent additional space that can be used for family, friends, or rental income as the homeowner’s situation demands.   I particularly like the author’s emphasis on making human relationships—instead of aesthetics, environmental footprint, or any other goal—central to project planning and design.  He also gets it right, IMHO, when he encourages would-be ADU developers to get permits and work with a professional on the design.  Unless you know a lot (and probably don’t need Litchfield’s book) this kind of project involves just too much risk to finances and lifestyle to go it on your own.

His explication of the basic forms of ADUs (cottages, basement conversions, attic conversions, additions, etc) and their various pros and cons is clear, and gives structure to the rest of the book, where he follows up with several dozen case studies representing all those different forms.  Each of the case studies is well illustrated with floor plans and photographs.  The personal stories of the owner-developers describe the context for the projects, and then Litchfield gets to expound on how those goals are expressed with design and construction details.

And that’s where the book really excels. Litchfield connects design goals to tips and tricks of thoughtful construction, so much that I think architects and contractors need to read this book as much as dreaming homeowners.  He’s an advocate of “wet” bathrooms, a classy way of making small bathrooms luxurious, which have mostly been ignored by  developers of ADUs; he also gives good tips for the all-important art of soundproofing.  Nothing ruins one’s sense of privacy and independence more than hearing someone flush the toilet on the other side of the wall.

In short, the book emphasizes that ADUs can and should be high-quality dwellings, despite—or perhaps because of—their diminutive size.  And I say Amen!

The book’s abundant and fetching photos reinforce this point forcefully.  In fact they are so fetching, so artfully lit, shot, and cropped that they make some rather small spaces feel gigantic.  Of course the architectural designs are meant to do this; the photographer has taken advantage of good design.  But when I compare the floor plans to the photographs, it’s clear that in a lot of cases the camera has been posted in an extreme corner of the room, or some other place where no set of human eyes will ever be.  (Unless they’re crawling up to open some high corner cabinet.  Which is not impossible if there are cookies.)  So there is a bit of deception going on in the photos.

I suppose it would be undignified and cheap of me to complain about the second kind of white lie contained in the photographs, because it’s something that is in practically every design book and magazine.   It’s not the author’s fault.

But what the heck! This is a blog!

In short, the photos are gorgeous, but show no sign of life.   The spaces are vacant, without a spot of dust, a dropped sweater, a coffee cup, or any evidence that anyone is living there.  While it’s part of the “design” genre, that style is particularly wrong for a book about small dwellings, because as anyone who has actually lived in one knows, they get messy quickly.  (They also clean up quickly.)

For an antidote to this kind of picture, see Little House On A Small Planet by Shay Salomon, photos by Nigel Valdez.  I reviewed the first edition and I trust the current one isn’t too different.  Valdez, who can take pictures as pretty as anybody’s, also allows us to see the gritty, undesigned aspects of living in these dwellings, even including the sense of crowding one may occasionally experience if there are too many people there.

Little House On A Small Planet is an interesting contrast for another reason as well.  Author Salomon includes expenses for most of the projects.  Meanwhile In-laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats studiously and systematically avoids the subject of money.  No budgets are given for any of the projects, as far as I can tell, and many of them look quite pricey, given the degree of craft and some unusual systems.

Now as an editor I understand the argument against including budgets.  Costs date the book.  They change from time to time and place to place, and besides, every reader’s own project will be unique.

But that decision makes the book less useful to readers.  As the author so correctly notes near the beginning of the book, the opportunity for income from rent is one of the main reasons to develop an ADU.  Anyone who cares about making a little extra money from rent is going to care about how much the project costs.  Running down the budgets for, say, half a dozen projects, would have done a fair amount to give readers a sense of where the expenses come from.

Despite all these complaints, In-Laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats is quite a valuable orientation and “wish book”.  Buy this and Little House On A Small Planet together, and you’ll have a really rich set of examples to draw from.

My own alternating tread device, like most I see around on the internet, was custom made out of wood by a carpenter, and is straight.  However the Arke kit uses a modular metal unit as its spine, giving it a lighter appearance, and giving it the ability to curve.  The Arke kit isn’t cheap ($1600 minimum, plus >$200 extra if you want a second handrail), though custom carpentry isn’t either.   Neither a custom made wood alternating tread stair, nor the Arke kit, meets most residential codes in the US so it’s a wash in that respect.  What’s the better choice for someone building or modding a small house?

I finally got a chance to see an Arke Karina kit in action, when I helped a friend of mine install one in a narrow closetlike space in his farmhouse in the country.

Installation was not the short and simple process that Arke’s videos would like you to believe.  It took a minimum of 3 days to do a curved setup with two handrails.  The difficulties came partly from the poorly translated manual, and partly from the heavy steel components.   Once the spine is assembled, you really need two people to guide it into place and bolt it in; the total product weight is listed as 257 pounds, which includes the treads.  At that weight, we felt we needed to make sure the upper and lower ends of the spine were solidly connected to structural parts of the farmhouse, which added more labor.   Perfecting the curve, rise, and level required some strength, as heavy elements had to be held in position while bolts were turned.

After that, the modular handrail turned out to require literally hundreds of small machine screws, washers, and other parts.  Now that the stair is done, my friend is going back and applying (removable) threadlocker to all those connections, as protection against vibration, adding a fourth day of work.  Another frustration: the instructions suggested drilling the holes in the treads for the balusters before attaching the treads to the stairs — but that only works if you are using a straight layout.  If not, drill the holes later, when you figure out where the balusters really need to go. Otherwise the treads will be swiss cheese.

But, having said all that:  the results were worth the trouble.  The stair looks sharp and feels sturdy, and the numerous metal parts seem heavy enough to last a long time (with the possible exception of those tiny screws in the handrail, which I would recommend inspecting periodically).   The alternating tread action is better than some other custom alternating tread stairs I’ve tried, and with two handrails you can go down facing forward with a definite feeling of security.

The most fantastic feature of the kit, though, is its flexible ability to curve.  Arke’s manual gives four suggested layouts, but you are not limited to them.   Curved layouts can help direct the eye, and foot traffic, giving the space a better sense of flow.  And curves may be the only way to deal with certain problematic spaces.

Despite the difficulties in permitting them, these kits are so useful I expect to see more of them around.

It’s not an easy task.  People are deeply, instinctively attracted to theories and legends and plans.  They want to be part of a story that makes their existence meaningful. And no matter how deep or shallow that identity is–from being part of a 5000-year old religion to following the latest, greatest version of the grapefruit diet– the ideology tends to occlude as much as it explains.  It makes us ignore the experience of our senses.  And occasionally it makes us insufferable new converts, robotically parroting the party line, immune to any new input, whether we’re born again Christians or diehard Apple or Linux users.  (Is anyone a diehard Microsoft user?)

That’s why I was so pleased with a new book about the hot-button topic of the day: barefoot running.   Barefoot running has been lighting up flame wars on fitness blogs and the Runner’s World forums for the last year (where I admit I’ve been spending way too much time).   The main topic of contention is ostensibly which form of running (barefoot or “shod”) is more natural or suited to our existence today, and less likely to cause injury.  However, my gut feeling is that the likeliness of injury is individualistic–and the passion in this argument is not so much about medicine but instead about a clash of personality types.

My own individual experience comes down very much on the barefoot side.  When I started running, in thick motion control shoes, I was trying to lose weight, and running was painful and miserable. I was injuring myself and going to physical therapy.  I tried to blast through the discomfort by cranking up my mp3 player.  I didn’t lose any weight on that plan.  Then I learned an “alternative” running form called chiRunning, but used thinner shoes. I didn’t lose any weight this way, either but at least I stopped hurting myself.  Then  I dedicated myself to running barefoot, and actually started enjoying running.  I found the mp3 player was a distraction; it was more fun to listen to my feet and the birds.  And I stopped trying so hard to lose weight.

Here was the turning point.  I had a weekend to myself, and I found myself saying, “Oh boy, a whole weekend with no responsibilities! I’m going to treat myself to 6 miles in the mud and a beer afterwards!”  I looked forward to figuring out a path through the rocks; I looked forward to the feeling of mud between my toes; I looked forward to adapting and flowing by whatever obstacles were out there on the trail.

When that train of thought crossed my mind I knew I had become a different person.  Running had stopped being a “workout” and started being a way I learned to appreciate my own body and notice the world around me.  I don’t seem to be the only one feeling this way.

Jason Robillard’s The Barefoot Running Book is a guide to discovering that kind of running. It’s a simple how-to guide to adapting your body and mind to run barefoot. I don’t disagree with a single sentence of his advice, so I won’t repeat it here, but I think this book is especially relevant to anyone who is an experienced runner and wants to switch to barefoot or minimal shoes.  My gut feeling is that the transition will be harder for those runners, because they’ve spent years doing it a different way.

What’s remarkable about the book is what it doesn’t talk about.  It’s an embodiment of the real idea of barefoot running, which to me isn’t about shoes (or lack thereof) but making running a discovery rather than a trial.   Robillard doesn’t claim to be a champion runner or a martial arts master, or curiously, even claim to be very good at anything.  There are no diagrams of the perfect form.  There is no talk of winning.  Only in the last chapter is there anything resembling a standard running training plan with mileage counts and so on.  Instead there are short paragraphs about key concepts, such as running lightly and using a higher cadence.  The prose is mostly plain and artless, but it is 100% clear and (this is the great thing about his style) functions as a perfect setup for an occasional jokey aside.  When running like a ninja, he advises, “it is not advisable to actually dress like a ninja.”  The author does not take himself too seriously, which shows that he just might be the perfect teacher.

In a world where everyone is so much holier-than-thou, telling you what’s wrong with your body and how badly you’re taking care of it, this book gives you a little glimpse of what it’s like to be free of all that.   That matters a lot more than exactly what you’re wearing on your feet.

Fireweed (native), penstemon (native), and day lilies (not) under an Oregon white oak.

Black locust “Frisia” (“naturalized” in Oregon but not native)

Clockwise from bottom left: cultured variety of ninebark (a native), strawberry bush (similar to madrone, a native), hops on gate arbor, day lilies and Oregon white oak (native), low tech “rain garden” (read: glorified bucket surrounded by rocks and native rushes) and streamside lupin (native)

The sign

This sign was the answer to a bourgeois little quandary I’ve had: how to explain to the neighbors what I am doing (or not doing) with our “garden”?  Without lecturing anyone, that is.  Sometimes our yard is gorgeous, sometimes it’s messy, but at neither extreme does it look like a standard urban yard, even in liberal Portland where perfect manicured lawns are not expected. And I’m tired of the looks we get from passers by… sometimes jealous, sometimes confused.  It’s easier to have a sign than to say I’m trying to create a low-maintenance, year-round outdoor room that brings the entertainment and solace of wildlife to me, without constant watering or pesticides, you #@#$#?* ! (Also, I am lazy, so pruning and weeding are going to come in occasional angry spasms if at all.)

There are several certification programs out there.  The National Wildlife Federation’s certification program comes up first on a google search, but after starting an application I felt it was too easy.  It was basically just a questionnaire, with lots of good ideas on it that definitely seem to be inspiring people around the country.  But there is no confirmation visit to verify you actually did or understood the things that might increase your yard’s value as habitat.  And there was little emphasis on using native plants as the basis for supporting an ecological web.  The Audobon/Three Rivers program actually involved a site visit, and their criteria were fairly substantial.

Actually, I just missed Platinum level by, like, one, eensy, teensy, little percent.  I needed a very large native tree to get to Platinum (I do have small, medium, and large).  But there’d be no room, unless I take out my treasured black locust, and they’d have to pry that from my cold dead paws.  :)

It was finally time to realize a scheme I’d been mulling for a while: making a tiny little home theater PC (HTPC) that would allow my household to go diskless.  Here’s how I did it and how it’s working — which is great, even if some providers of content and software seem determined to keep users stuck in the past.

I got a little Acer Aspire Revo R1600 computer.  It is really small, about the size of a book, and even with some accessories could hide behind the couch invisible.  It uses a tiny amount of power — probably about 10% of the old desktop I was able to recycle. While the processor doesn’t look impressive, it’s aided by an Nvidia Ion video card and an HDMI port.

I hooked the PC up to my LCD TV, and promptly repartitioned the hard drive so that I could install Kubuntu alongside the Windows XP that came with the device. After getting the Nvidia drivers working, I installed Boxee — a sweet piece of software that integrates all your local and online video watching activities, sucking in whatever you want from Hulu, Youtube, Vimeo, Pandora radio, etc., not to mention your local drives. Its big, friendly full screen interface helps you forget about the OS, so you feel like you’re using an entertainment center, as opposed to a work device that can show movies.

Kubuntu 64 bit and Boxee worked beautifully together for many sources, playing local files brilliantly and many online sources, including PBS, very nicely in full screen.  I stored my local movie files on a shared partition that could be accessed from any machine in my SOHO network.  This inexpensive setup was certainly not acting like a cheap computer, even with only 1GB of memory.  In terms of performance and security, Linux 64 had clearly left Windows in the dust.

I set up a user account explicitly designed to be safe and kid proof, and the fam took to it avidly, using it every day.  Besides helping us veg out to shows like Fringe, the setup was actually a pretty good educational tool.  Say the kid wanted to learn about Ferris wheels — we’d look some up on Youtube, then turn the thing off and start building a little one of our own.

But then we discovered that using a sweet cutting edge system brought unexpected problems, not from the machine’s technical capabilities, which were more than sufficient, but from lack of Linux support from unimaginative corporations. Hulu playback was very choppy, because Hulu wants Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1, and that is only available for Linux 32 bit.   And worst of all Netflix streaming would not play on Linux, Boxee or no Boxee, because Microsoft has not allowed its DRM (which is used by Netflix) to be used for that purpose.

I agonized about what to do.  I’m computer-literate enough I don’t really need Netflix that much; if I wanted, I could download pretty much anything I want from BitTorrent.  But I don’t want to be that kind of person; I want to give artists access to some revenue stream.  So I don’t mind ads on Hulu, and I want to subscribe to a service like Netflix.

On the other hand, Netflix’s obstinancy in not supporting Linux desktops — and indeed, forcing me to boot up into Windows XP, an operating system that is a decade old and really vulnerable — is just silly.  It’s not a technical impossibility, since there are Linux devices that stream Netflix, like the Roku box.  And there must be a lot of Linux netbook users out there who are shut out, despite some valiant attempts at workarounds.

I grudgingly started booting up into XP, with Boxee, partly because my family wanted Netflix to work painlessly.  But the performance stank; I had to add 2GB of RAM to make it acceptable.  I did two things in protest: I switched to a less costly Netflix account, and I called customer service there and asked them to support Linux.  There is also an online petition, but my guess is that direct requests from actual customers will have more effect.  Won’t you join me in bugging them?

I embarked on my own amateur analysis of kitchen flow and modded my kitchen to match.  My work began with this kitchen work flow diagram:

I’m not much of a graphic artist, but it succinctly shows why it can be so hard to do work efficiently in the kitchen: so many things need to be connected.

The two basic things you need to do in a kitchen (what you want to do there is a different story) are prepare food and clean dishes, and those activities both require you and your workspace have access to at least 7 different resources. They are: cooking devices like the stove or coffeemaker, food in cabinets, food in the fridge, frequent use items such as salt, dishes and utensils, the sink, and the trash/recycling.

Note this diagram immediately suggests several things.  There are so many resources you want to be adjacent that it’s definitely going to be a challenge to arrange them. Just arranging the sink, stove, and fridge into a “kitchen triangle,” as promoted by many vendors, is too simplistic, because it ignores items like the trash which are in frequent use.  But to the extent these things can be arranged nearby one another, and a usable workspace maintained, tighter arrangements should be better, because less motion will be required.  I’ve heard many good cooks say they don’t mind or even prefer small kitchens.

IDENTIFYING PROBLEM AREAS

The diagram also suggests a way to quantify kitchen labor: the total number of motions required to reach all 7 resources.  If everything is perfectly connected, and I access all 7 resources once, it will total 7 motions.  A “motion” here basically means a step with the foot, a grab with the hand, or both.

Before my modification, my kitchen was a poor performer, coming in at about 15 motions required to reach all the different resources.  The serious trouble spots came from:

- the location of the refrigerator, which was far away and whose door oriented the wrong way (2-3 motions per access)

- the placement of the trash/recycling under the sink and behind cabinet doors, which required a complex dance of 4-5 motions per access (step back, swing open door, deposit item in bin, close door, step forward) to recycle one item.

- the location of the dishes and pans in 2-3 different places: a hand-wash dish rack on the counter with the most frequently used plates, cups, etc; a cabinet somewhere else for dishes that would not fit in that rack but we still needed often, and a rack above the range for pots and pans.

THE SOLUTIONS

The modded kitchen doesn’t look too special, but it’s considerably more efficient.  I’ve gotten the work metric down from 15 to about 8.5 motions, without any architectural changes.  That is, I’ve nearly halved the work of cooking or cleaning.  Here’s an annotated view:

After moving the fridge to just off the left side of the picture, I had a traditional kitchen triangle with the sink in the middle and a workspace on either side of the sink: the right-hand one toward the range, and left-hand one toward the fridge.  The right-hand workspace is smaller, but I got a cutting board that fits exactly on the sink and expands it nicely.  The left-hand one has the coffee-making supplies and can be used for anything that doesn’t require the range.

After creating the triangle, I addressed the major kitchen chore: dishwashing. A full-size dishwashing machine is efficient in terms of energy and water, but will not fit in my kitchen without a major renovation.  Also, dishwashing in a machine can represent a lot of wasted motion because dishes have to go from the sink to the dishwasher and then from the dishwasher to the storage cabinet.

In terms of labor it should make more sense to simply store the dishes where they air dry, in a hand dish rack.  It’s the way my grandma did it, on one of those huge old farmhouse drainboard sinks, and she knew something about working in the kitchen.

I followed that example, and replaced my drop-in sink with a new “Boholmen” sink from Ikea ($99 because it was in the dented area) that has 2 basins and a large drainboard.  I put a drying rack on the drainboard, and directly above the drainboard mounted a porous shelf ($15, Ikea).  Now I have a usable set of dishes and pots and pans all in one place, all above a drainboard.  They will be stored where they air dry.

The aesthetic problem with this no-cabinet drying-and-storing strategy is that it can look messy. I addressed that by getting all the materials in stainless steel, not plastic.  I also restricted the number of dishes and pans we have around for daily use to roughly the quantity that will fit on the racks. There are 3 people in our house, so we don’t need 20 mugs or 10 plates to pile up unwashed. (Guest dishes are ready in a special box just in case a collection of dwarves shows up.)

Finally I addressed that problematic trash.  I had a cabinet opening near the sink, and near both workspaces, that had no door.  So inside it I mounted a pull-out shelf unit with two cans ($33 total, Ikea), one for garbage and the other recycling.  When I’m cooking or cleaning I just pull it out with my toe and leave it there.  I can toss things in with only a single motion.  I can’t tell you how much easier this is already.

Yes, the trash is visible through the cabinet opening, but this isn’t a kitchen that is made to show off or to socialize in.  It wouldn’t be pretty even if it was covered in gold leaf.  I’ll settle for some pretty good functionality.

Photo by egazelle of a volunteer at the recent Hood To Coast event.  You’ve got a lot that’s good about Oregon in this picture: someone who is not being paid, and yet is completely at ease standing in a burned over clearcut, in the mist, by a cone, with a backpack and a bullhorn — which they are not afraid to use.  :)

The Goat Justice League advocates and educates on behalf of urban goats, who can be pets and milk producers (or wanderers).  In contrast, the goat above was actually more of a professional, part of a weeding crew cleaning out a construction site in Seattle, according to the photog.  Thanks Courtney!

We don’t need a private car anymore (we still use carsharing a few days a month to go out of town and on special errands), so we don’t have the impulse to do stupid life-sucking errands like you do when you own a car (my personal weaknesses:  going to the hardware store to buy 1 bolt, or to Burgerville for a monster snack). It’s so much more relaxing when you don’t do that stuff.

But still, we need to carry stuff, right? Here are a few things we’ve carried:

• an army’s worth of groceries
• a frat party’s worth of beer
• a case of wine from TJ’s
• a kid and his TWO bikes, while talking easily the whole way
• adults as passengers — this is surprisingly romantic and hilarious
• two 60-pound bags of concrete
• and oodles more, as other riders can tell you.

Some days we’re competing for the bike; we almost need two.  This bike has actually made our life better.  Wow!