Ego's Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
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Ego
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Re: Ego's Journal

Post by Ego »

@mooretrees, I believe it is working. In years past we had far less rain so I assume that means less grasses and less allergens. I could be wrong about that. Anyhow, last year I had to take sinus medication several nights in a row in order to sleep. This year I took it the first night after running in the park. I still have a runny nose but I can breathe at night without medication and have been doing other things like swimming and running without any problems. Next year I will try bee pollen in April. Have you tried it from your stash?

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C40
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Re: Ego's Journal

Post by C40 »

I've found eating local, unpasteurized honey to work wonders for me. It's a method of exposure therapy which can be done throughout the year, so that when the allergens come they have reduced or zero effect

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Ego
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Re: Ego's Journal

Post by Ego »

C40, good to know. I will give it a try.

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Ego
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Post by Ego »

Ego wrote:
Fri Sep 30, 2022 4:59 pm
A few weeks ago a woman showed up at the swap meet with a box full of 2lb bags of Circle K whole bean coffee for $1 a bag. They had just expired but were really good coffee. Today she returned and I bought six more. 50 cents a pound for great coffee. Can't complain.

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I just finished one of these and looked at the expiration date. Turns out the second batch was a bit older than the first. It seems coffee expatriation dates are meaningless for those of us with flexible palates.

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Ego
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Post by Ego »

Last year I found an old zeroller at the swap meet for $25 and decided I liked it better than the 1950/60s Zero Halliburton suitcase I converted to a four wheel rolling case a while ago. I listed the old converted case on craigslist and just sold it to a guy for $190. He told me he was flying first-class and needed a case that was first-class quality. Ahem.

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Seppia
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Re: Ego's Journal

Post by Seppia »

Happy the expired coffee works for you but from an organoleptic point of view the thing is dead.
It has lost all of its most volatile flavors and the oils have gone rancid.
Like a 5yo olive oil, it’s not going to make you feel sick, but it will taste terrible compared with what it’s supposed to be.

Drinking coffee with sugar and/or milk greatly reduces the perception of terribleness

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Sclass
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Post by Sclass »

I notice the vacuum packed beans seem to hold their flavor well. I used to be very picky about buying fresh roasted beans from Peet’s or roasting my own weekly. You can really smell the loss or aromatics as the week goes on.

However after surviving the pandemic on Peet’s beans from Walmart I’ve noticed the new vacuum packed Mylar bags do a really good job keeping in that fresh roasted flavor that I’d get at the Peet’s place. The Mylar does a great job over the old paper bags. It’s really bad for the environment though.

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Ego
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Post by Ego »

Interesting! I have to admit that my ability to detect terribleness has probably been degraded by my exposure to terribleness. But I thought this coffee was particularly good. Not the extremely expired bag. That was just okay. But the same Circle K beans that were barely expired made coffee that was much more enjoyable than anything at Starbucks. I make it in a French press. Maybe that makes a difference? I don't use sugar. Just a bit of soy milk.

@Sclass, it didn't occur to me at the time but the only time I threw out a bag of expired coffee, the retail packaging was a paper bag.

take2
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Re: Ego's Journal

Post by take2 »

Ego wrote:
Tue Jun 06, 2023 8:25 am
I make it in a French press. Maybe that makes a difference?
If it’s so expired such that the oils have actually gone rancid then I think a French press would probably heighten any terrible flavor. There’s no paper filter with that method so all those oils go into the coffee.

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Ego
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take2 wrote:
Tue Jun 06, 2023 5:02 pm
...would probably heighten any terrible flavor.
Hah! I guess I am not particularly mindful when I consume food or beverages. Today I actually thought about it as I drank my coffee. It was not exceptional but not really all that bad either. It reminded me of the canned Maxwell House my parents used to drink. Bad coffee nostalgia.

take2
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Re: Ego's Journal

Post by take2 »

It also may just not actually have gone rancid. A “use by” date may be more akin to a “best by” as opposed to “expiry”?

However, you indeed may just care less about the taste. When I was 19 I had a summer internship that involved doing a plethora of menial tasks, one of which include making a pot of coffee in the morning. Most days it was just me and my boss and I would have a second (or third depending on how the night before had gone!) cup much later in the day, maybe 6-7 hours after the coffee had been made.

My boss use to think I was crazy as he said the coffee was stale and (usually) somewhat burned (I didn’t always turn off the burner). I honestly didn’t know what he was talking about as it tasted fine to me.

About 12 years later I started a new job in banking in London, where I still work now. There is a free coffee machine, a (subsidised) coffee bar upstairs, and a multitude of coffee shops within a 2-3 minute walk. When I started I used to exclusively drink from the free coffee machine. Many of my colleagues derided the “horrible” coffee, preferring instead to go upstairs or outside for coffee. I thought they were all crazy and couldn’t imagine paying for coffee every day when it was otherwise free.

Fast forward 5 years later and I now can’t stand the taste of that coffee machine (and I long ago lost the desire to drink 7 hour old burned coffee). I typically drink high quality coffee at home and purchase the subsidised ones 1-2x a week.

Whether that’s a cautionary tale of lifestyle inflation, or the joys of appreciating a more refined palate depends on the readers perspective.

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Ego
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A tenant left a bike locked with a U-lock on the bike rack in the back of the property when she moved out. I cut the lock with my angle grinder, lubricated the chain, and pumped the tires. Mrs. Ego listed it on OfferUp and sold it on Friday for $100.

A few weeks ago, I bought a painting for $1 from a couple of trash pickers who I had never seen before. Normally, I research artists before buying art. In this case, I did not bother after they told me the price. The frame was worth $1. When I got it home, I did a little research and found it to be by a famous artist, someone my art-seller friends all knew. The week before last, I sold it. The sale covered the cost of our monthlong VW campervan rental in Europe, with a little left over for gas money.

A second painting (paid $15) sold last week. The sale will cover the remainder of the trip, including lodging, food, and airfare.

Yesterday, I went back to the vendor of the second painting and gave him more money. I explained that I had not realized its value when I purchased it. He regularly gets very good art, but has no interest in it and just wants to move it quickly. Usually the other art buyers get to him first as they pay the $20 early-bird entry fee. They normally try to negotiate down whatever price he offers. He was so surprised by my gesture that he offered to set aside all future art for me as long as I promised to pay him a fair price for the pieces I buy and give him advice on those I do not. Deal!

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Ego
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Post by Ego »

Over the winter I had gradually increased my coffee consumption to unhealthy levels. Three or four cups a day. Far too much. The week before last I decided to stop cold turkey. Headaches and nausea ensued. I continued to drink green tea but it didn't dent the discomfort. I am now coffee free.
Last edited by Ego on Tue Aug 01, 2023 4:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

guitarplayer
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Post by guitarplayer »

Well done, you will enjoy your cup of coffee once you have one again!

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Ego
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@guitarplayer, thanks! For now, my plan is to drink coffee in the same way I drink alcohol. Maybe a few times a year on special occasions.

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Re: Ego's Journal

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Ego wrote:
Sun Jul 02, 2023 2:09 pm
Yesterday, I went back to the vendor of the second painting and gave him more money. I explained that I had not realized its value when I purchased it. He regularly gets very good art, but has no interest in it and just wants to move it quickly. Usually the other art buyers get to him first as they pay the $20 early-bird entry fee. They normally try to negotiate down whatever price he offers. He was so surprised by my gesture that he offered to set aside all future art for me as long as I promised to pay him a fair price for the pieces I buy and give him advice on those I do not. Deal!
This reminded me of something the author James Rebanks (of "The Shepherd's Life") said on Econtalk when talking about his grandfather's way of doing business in a small community. When you have to live by not only the people you are doing business with, but also eventually their kids and then their grandkids, it doesn't do you any favors to screw anyone over. Cool to see you doing the same thing!

From the episode:
So, a lot of modern business, as you say, is anonymous with somebody else. You get the best price, you get out of there, you're never going to bump into them at the cricket club or whatever, the golf club. But, I was brought up with a very strong ethics of how you do business. And, I write in the book about my grandfather going to do business with another sheep farmer. And, my grandfather worked out a way of making money. And, it was that the news about sheep prices got to the mountain valleys slowly, and he worked out that he had a motorcar and he could get into those valleys faster than the news, and he could buy sheep with market information a little bit better than other people. And, he could bring those lambs, walk those lambs out with his men, make a good price at the market. Now he sounds like a modern businessman there. He's sort of cheating by using insider information. But, there were rules to this. You weren't supposed to screw these people because you couldn't go back next year. You don't want to be thought of as a crook

So, one year he bought some sheep way too cheap. And he got back--got home from this journey--and the price had gone up even further. And, he knew it looked bad. He bought these sheep way too cheap. So, he drives all the way back to this remote valley to see the farmer with some money and says, 'Look, I pushed you too hard on this deal. I need to give you some money back.' But, there's another counter set of ethics, which is once you shake on a deal, it's done. So, the other farmer says, 'I appreciate you coming, but I shook on the deal. That's my problem.' So, my grandfather has to work out how to get out of this moral hole he's in where he's screwed the guy and the guy won't have the money back. And, the only way you can come up with is the following year he deliberately goes and pays more than he should for the sheep to make up the difference.

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Ego
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@theanimal, Great story.

I have become really good friends with that guy who sold me the painting. He sells at the Wednesday swap meet as well as the weekend swap meets. I learned that for the Wednesday swap at the border he get in line at about 10pm Tuesday night and sleeps in his van to ensure he gets a spot. He sells a lot of clothing and spends all day Monday and Tuesday at laundromats washing the clothes. He drives to LA on Thursday to buy his load and then sells on Friday, Saturday & Sunday. He has an incredibly hard life and yet he is always cheerful.

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Ego
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Post by Ego »

Running on the beach on the base this morning we found this purple iphone at the surf line in a few inches of water. The area is restricted so it had to have been dropped from a boat pretty far out to sea. When I arrived home I placed it on the windowsill in the sun. Just now I tried to fire it up. Amazingly it works. The battery is dead but the recharge symbol appears. I don't own a lightning cable so I will have to borrow one to give it a charge and figure out who owns it. Will they ever be surprised.

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fiby41
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Post by fiby41 »

Great find Ego! Wonder which iPhone it is? I've got my hands on an iPhone 5 but it is locked to the owner. The owner does not remember the password, the SIM card number that doubles as the Apple ID is registered in his wife's name, the SIM card has expired so there is no way to receive the OTP to verify ownership. We'll have to jailbreak it to make it usable again.

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Ego
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Post by Ego »

@fiby41, I haven't figured out which model it is as I have not yet charged it. My goal is to get it back to the owner. Maybe they have siri enabled and I can ask it to call Mom?

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