Day 4, Aug 13 (Monday)

Day 4, Aug 13 (Monday)

Shopping for rain gear.  Went to Tiso Outdoors, which is a lot like an REI, just not as big.  Bought Diane a new jacket and some waterproofing for mine (which worked really well).  Later had coffee and honey cocoa cake at Clock’s in Leith.  Diane found a nice place to hide a letterbox in the Leith Links, a local park across the street from our hotel.

Took a bus to Gilermton Cove, an underground attraction in a south Edinburgh suburb.  Bus service in Edinburgh is amazingly good.  There are tons of options and they go everywhere with high frequency pretty much all day and night. 

the unassuming front.

the dorky hats were required

punch bowl and kitty pic

Gilmerton Cove is a local mystery.  It’s an underground tunnel and chamber system that isn’t very large (although some is obstructed and filled in due to Drum St above it, and nobody knows how far that goes).  Nobody knows where it really came from; it was walled up sometime before the 1700’s, and then again after the 1800’s and then reopened by some local guy in the 20^th century.  There is no record of origin for it, and some of the shafts to the surface are at very true to east/west locations.  There are a couple of chambers with “tables” and a “bed” or “altar” that seem to have been used for rituals of some kind.  Local conjecture is anything from the religious war eras of the 1500’s-1700’s to all the way back to the druids.  This one gave us the creeps in a few places.  We were with a woman and her 3 very well behaved children on the tour.  It was nice to be with others that are passionate about history like us.

Walked over to the Abbey Lodge nearby for lunch.  Fun local place, not a tourist area at all.  Chatted up some locals that were doing some day drinking because they are retired.  The game shows were funny and a little odd.  They old men were clearly staring in rapture at them.

A nice shot of the cove.  The tool marks were on the walls from who knows when.  It was carved with great attention to detail and well finished.

This is some moss growing in the tunnel.  There is no sunlight down there.

Day 3, Aug 12 (Sunday)

Breakfast was good. Walked in the rain to Old Town. We looked for the letterbox on Calton Hill, but no joy there. It was gone. It rained a lot with a pretty strong wind. This day we learned that our rain gear is not working. Decided to find an outdoors store to replace it. We made to Mary King’s Close for our tour.

Ranger Bob, show us the path!

Calton Hill is covered with monuments

The tour was great; definitely recommended for anyone planning to spend any time in Edinburgh’s Old Town area as it explains the history, and more importantly, why the city is the way it is. This included what a “close” is, why they are the way they are, how the vaults and bridges came to be, and why the city is laid out the way it is (Flodden wall, for defensive purposes). They also did a good job of explaining a non-sensationalized version of the Burke and Hare story. MKC is much more of a factual and historical attraction – they went to great lengths to dispel common misconceptions about life in the Old Town from 1600-150 or so, including how and why people lived the way they did. We bought the book. 

Did lunch at The Guilford, a local free house. Steak and ale pie, and haggis. Very yummy!

it's not stopping raining, what do you think of that?

this speaks for itself

Took in another show – a stand up at by a young woman. “Lightbulbs in Daylight” was her bitter and

awkward and depressing take on the misery of modern work and dating by a young woman living in the UK. It was terrible. This was more of what we would call “Cringe Fest” in she was just bad. There were a couple of funny lines and it was sad to see her fail like that. Especially after she made jokes like “I’m not stable enough to use alcohol or drugs to cope” which was funny, but all sad. Her best joke was about her ex-boyfriend and his line “show me the dick”. She was also working the streets pretty hard to drum up an audience. There were about 15-20 people in attendance. We ending up giving her a fiver when she passed the hat, mostly out of pity.

The very sketchy hallway leading to the black box theater for Lightbulbs in Daylight.  At this point I was wondering if we walked into a drug house.

The very, very low budget venue.  We had some feelings this would suck once we got here but decided to stay.  I read on the internet that we should see one terrible show.

We finished the day with City of the Dead’s Double Dead Tour. This was awesome! It was about 100

minutes long and included vaults underground, Greyfriar’s Kirkyard/Cemetery, and the McKenzie crypt and ghost tour. The tour guide, Ian, played sort of a crazy punk kind of guy. He did a great job with his own spin on sensationalizing the poor, depraved, and brutal nature of Edinburgh in the 1600’s, with some Burke and Hare in there for extra fun (including grave robbing, other resurrection men, etc.). Got some great pictures from this one.

Our guide, Ian.  He did a slightly crazy punk act.  We enjoyed his presentations.

Here are some shots from the vaults portion of the tour.  No idea on how old these things are, but I'm going with "very" in at least a few cases.

The tour started in vaults, and then led to Greyfriar's Kirkyard.  We ended up in the McKenzie crypt which was neat.

If this looks slightly familiar, it's because this is the building used in Harry Pothead as Hogwarts.

The infamous McKenzie crypt.

Little things like this are all over the graveyards in Scotland.

Day 2, Aug 11 (Saturday)

Slept off some jet lag. I Love that Scottish breakfast! 1st class train ride from Central Station in Glasgow to Waverly Station in Edinburgh. We had a lovely conversation with a mother and her teen daughter on the train. We walked from Waverly Station to MacKenzie Guest House. It was nice, and when we checked in, Danny, the owner seemed very nice, too.

Waverly Station.  They know the art of moving people!

boo is pretty good at looking really confused,
 but I had to step in, as the master of dumb, and get someone to help us out.

waiting to find out that the pay toilets are at Waverly.
We learned where the free toilets were after a very short time.

When navigating Edinburgh on foot, one needs to think a little differently than in the US.  That sign, "Gayfield Place Lane" indicates this is a "lane" connected streets.

This was close to a daily sight for us.  It's "Assembly" which is one of the larger venues.  The grass really is that green.

Another shot of a close.  It's hard to read, but there is a sign right above the "tunnel" at the top of the stairs.  That's the street sign.  You need to think in 3 dimensions to efficiently navigate Old Town in this city.

We saw these love birds at the top of the stairs shown in the picture above.

 We walked the Royal Mile, got absolutely INUNDATED with flyers! The crowds are a bit much for us, though. Stopped for dinner at The Richmond Café, which was a strong mediocre. Washed hands, the suds came out gray! Eeew! (the ladies next to us did NOT wash their hands… )

Tried Magners cider, not bad, but much like the food, it’s a bit flavorless. This was made up for by the place not being super crowded. We bought tickets for Mary King’s Close for tomorrow.

I love that Barry Loves Everyone.

A break in the crowd!

This is "Hard Trick" a busker from New York.  We called him that because every time before he would do a trick with his acrylic ball he would say, "hard trick hard trick" to impress the audience.  Some of them were hard tricks.

He saw me taking pictures so I told him I would give him a pound (GBP) if he posed.

Went back The Mile and saw two shows.

“The C Bomb” – a show about a young sexually liberated woman that is told she had Chlamydia was fun. She decides to throw a party (the day after her 21st birthday party) where she invites all her partners from the past 2 weeks (about a half dozen) plus her roommate. There was a lot of silly inappropriate humor, so of course we enjoyed it. The producer and cast were pitching their show pretty hard; they hand out flyers and try to talk to basically anybody that will listen on the street to get an audience. This one was big – the show was sold out at about 50-70 people in a small black box theater. Since we paid to be there (as opposed to “free” shows) we didn’t tip much when they passed the hat.

Support services were not available.
 These  kids had to come up with their own set.

The second show was “Modern Horror Stories” which was a series of skits that told some kind of horrific story that always involved someone dying, usually horribly. Like “The C Bomb” this one was a cast of 6-8 young people, mostly in their 20’s to early 30’s. It was also good for some good laughs, and we particularly enjoyed the fortune teller section where a tarot card reader gives a guy what is basically the worst possible fortune that leads to his death. The “spirit” was very funny as he gave the teller the vision and described how screwed the poor victim was. We will likely build on this idea for the medicine show.

Barry Loves Me.

Spent the rest of the time walking around fringe and Old town. It was very interesting; lots and lots of

great people watching. The whole place is crowded like the Minnesota State Fair. Finally got back to the MacKenzie Guest House at 11:20 PM. 24,000 plus steps today





Some more from the streets of Edinburgh.

This is a statue for Greyfriar's Bobby, the cute little dog.  Rubbing the statue nose started only a few years ago because a tour told people it was for luck.  Apparently the nose has been replaced at least once already.

Harry Potter themed places and stuff is everywhere.  This guy, walking and staring at his phone, was also a portent of a common theme to come.  More on that later.

Use of pylons (cones) on monuments is a bit of a local thing.

Day 1 into 2

We’ve been on a flying metal tube for longer than I care to be. You know it's a bad sign when you arrive at an airport and you see a lot of people sleeping on the bare floor and on the benches.  They arrive the nigh before and for whatever reason, there was no way from them to continue. 

The airport at Keflavik was gross, someone took a shit all over the front of one of the toilets, and it was all over the floor. Eeeeewwwww!!!

Icelandair planes suck the worst of long haul, and are Spirit Style narrow, hard seating with no leg

room. KEF airport, or at least Icelandair didn’t know how to board planes; it was a total cattle call. All rows at a time. It took forever! MSP is far more organized  To add to the joy, they were 3 hours late.  Icelanders still have no idea on how to do customer service or people moving.

We made it to Glasgow. Holy Moly! Restaurants are pricey in the city center! We went walking after

check in, and found a local pub: Lord Nelson’s. I got to have my first Strongbow Dark Fruit. Total

yummo. One of the locals bought us a haggis from the fish and chip shop across the street, just to be a

nice guy. Boo loves haggis.

Hey! giant butt plugs!

We’re totally zotzed, had little to no sleep.

Diane took all the pictures this day.

Met the nice man who bought us a haggis.

Obesagenic environments

One of the things that has popped up in the media lately is the concept of the obesagenic environments  (OE) that, obviously, make and keep many of us obese.  Some folk I have spoken with have decided that OE are simply an excuse for overweight and bad behavior, some feel it is the cast in stone truth, and that overweight is out of our control, and the individual is not responsible for their weight status.

I stand directly between the two.  While I feel very strongly that we are responsible for our own health and well-being, I also feel that our environments play an incredible role in how we deal with our health status.  Fighting the OE is going strongly against the current of our society, pressure from peers, influences of the GOONS, and the natural tendency to become zombies.  However, I feel it can be done, and has been done by people who have successfully become and stayed healthy and at a healthy body composition.

Lets take the OE apart for a bit, so you can form your own opinion on what it is, and how it might effect you.  The components involve:

-easy access to heavily processed foods

-overabundance of drug therapies for inflammation-based health issues

-overabundance of ‘screen time’ in youths and adults

-lack of education about proper nutrition and eating

-conditioning of the taste buds to heavily processed foods early on in childhood

-peer pressure amongst youth to dislike fruits and vegetables

-light pollution at night

-reduction of sleeping and rest time

-reduction in stress management techniques and outlets

-de-emphasis on physical activity

-reliance on BigAg and BigPharma for health status

-reduction in recess and physical education in schools

 

Overall, OE is the invisible cage of obesity and poor health that is prevalent in our society.  Breaking free of the OE takes strength of character, perseverance, desire, and an ability to SEE the cage our modern society has built so enthusiastically and silently around us.  We have truly become complacent to a system that is making us dependent on it, making us it’s slaves, and it is quietly killing us.  Escaping OE is like staging a jail break, and is often just as complex and painful a process, but the self-awareness is quite rewarding.

Should you wish to break free from the OE, expect that you may see some substantial changes in your life, from initial feelings of exhaustion, to a bit of media isolation, to a changeover in many of your friends (fat friends like to have fat friends around, and if you change your habits and stop being a fat friend, there will very likely be push back), a change in interests and activities.  Overall, life is going to suck, change and get better again, but will be different forever after.

The first step in breaking free is getting a notebook, and start to write down what you are willing to change, give up, or exchange for your OE.  And make a list of what you wish to gain from making this change and staging your prison break.

Your second step is to look at the list above, you may be able to add to it, as we all have different lives, and start a schedule of small changes to make each week: small goals to overcome, small changes to make, that will be the steps to get to your ultimate goal.  Journal your journey, from data you create for yourself to feelings of what you are going through as you move through your journey.

The third, truly, is to follow your goals, praise yourself for your accomplishments, reward yourself with non-food rewards.  Be able to look back with pride, and use that as a base to move forward with your future.  Know that you can alter and change your obesigenic environment, and once you do, you can change yourself for the better.

No One is Getting Too Old for This

(warning, possible rant ahead)
I guess the next "big thing" for fitness is body weight training.  yee haa.  whatev.  I read comments on articles about fitness, and how "us older people can't do these things" or how "Senior Stretch" is the perfect class for them.

I'm going to tell you something kind of harsh, kids: it ain't the years, it's the lack of miles!!!  As soon as you tell yourself you can't do something, guess what? you won't be able to do it!  Many seniors (and normal middle aged folk, too for that matter!) tell themselves they can't lift heavy things, that they can't so a squat, that they can't function on a healthier level.

Bullshit.

Don't take it all at once, start small, but push yourself at regular intervals!  Make yourself grow, or you won't grow.  The opposite of growth is stagnation, and stagnation leads to failure and failing health.  What did you do today? did you challenge yourself?  or did you simply get by?  Are you letting life walk on you, or are you walking with life, and guiding it?

When I work with people, I need to be gentler with my seniors on these subjects, as they are a different generation, but that's only an excuse for a very small slice of our population pie chart. 

Everyone else?  Are you going to let the GOONS tell you how to live? Are you going to sit back and let life happen to you?  Do something, even if today it is very little, tomorrow can be more, and likely will be.  It's the difference between surviving and living.  An incredibly wise man I know once said, do something, even if it may be the wrong thing, because it's better than doing nothing.  If you're doing it wrong, get help, ask questions, learn how to get it right.

I'm probably one of the most broken trainers on the face of the planet, and I get told that maybe I'm too old for some of this stuff.  I know what happens when people stop.  I've seen it.  So I'll take my rickety knees and hips, rotten feet and shoulders like glass and take them to go move.  Maybe I'll do some body weight training, it's part of my routine already, there's a challenge today, and I think I'm up for it.

Corned Beef in Winter Cold

It seemed a quite natural thing to utilize the recent cold snap to make a huge fridge, so we could make a big batch of corned beef without killing our pathetic secondary (beverage) fridge.  The last time we made corned beef, the weight of the meat and the brine almost crushed the shelves, so another solution had to be found, and this seemed too good to pass up.

So, here's the plan for corned beef, as we make it here:

First, get yourself about #12 of lean beef, not ground.  We buy a beef knuckle from the local Asian food store for a little less than $3.00/#.  The first time we did this, we bought a beef brisket, and paid quite a bit more for it, and weren't any happier with the results with that than we were with the beef knuckle.  I am thinking about using "beef muscle meat" next time, as the price is comparable, and it's much leaner.

Once you have your beef, trim all the visible fat off, and remove what you can of connective tissue.  Prick all over with a knife or meat fork.  Set this aside, or, if you're working with a partner (S.D.), your partner can do one job while you do another.

In a large stock pot, heat up:
2 quarts water
2c non-iodized salt
2 heads garlic (crushed, if you can)
1 bottle hard cider or beer
1.5c brown sugar

in a saute pan, roast up:
12 bay leaves
3 somewhat crushed cinnamon sticks
6TBS coriander seed, crushed
3TBS peppercorns, cracked
18 juniper berries, cracked
18 cloves
1.5 TBS mustard seed, cracked

roast until fragrant, and the round spices are just starting to pop.  Add to stock pot and bring to boil.  Boil gently until all salt and sugar is dissolved.  Remove from heat and cool.  To help with cooling, add 1 quart cool water.

Submerge beef in cooled brine, cover and refrigerate for 7-14 days at temps below 40 and above freezing (we put it on a bench in the coldest part of our cellar), turning and manipulating the beef daily to make sure there are no air pockets, and that all the beef is swimming nicely in the brine.

Drain, discard brine and rinse.  Cut into jar sized pieces, you can add hot water, or you can just let the meat make it's own juice.  Process #10 for 75 minutes for pints.

Instead of using a bin or dish to put the beef in this time, we put it equally into heavy weight freezer bags, and that worked like a charm!  We'll be doing that again!  The corned beef will not have the texture of what you might get in the deli, it will have more of a consistency of a beef roast, but we haven't found that to be a problem or an issue at all.

If we get another cold spell, we'll be doubling down for the year on this yummy treat!