Lets talk about being “vegan” for a minute.

Posted on February 26, 2012 by BenjaminKelley

As many of you know I’m doing this Try Something New for 30 Days thing.
March, will be veganism month.  The problem is most people I know don’t understand what veganism entails, so we are going to clear that up right here.

Currently I am a vegetarian, an ovo-lacto-vegetarian. This means I eat eggs, dairy, and vegetables. Vegetarianism has different variations, from no animal products consumed at one end of the spectrum, to consuming fish/seafood on the other end of the spectrum, this is technically called Pescetarianism, but in practicality, a lot of people consider it also being vegetarian, we aren’t going into that now tho, its not what we are talking about.

Vegan is sort of a word degraded in meaning in common language, it has a very specific meaning, but somewhere along the way, it sort of got interpreted by the mainstream as only a subset of what it really means. Most Americans, will probably call food devoid of animal products entirely, as vegan, because that is how they are labeled, it is for the most part true, however veganism is larger than that.

In 1944, Briton, Donald Watson coined the term, to mean a diet of not eating meat, dairy, or eggs, just 6 years later tho, the Vegan Society classified veganism as “the doctrine that man should live without exploiting animals,” putting it more inline with the Jain concept of Ahimsa.  This includes not just the abstaining of eating animal products, but also not using them in daily life. Yep, no leather, no down, no wool, no bees wax.

So next month, March 2012, I will live as a vegan.  I will eat no animal products I am currently eating which includes dairy, eggs, honey, and of course meat which I do not already eat. I will also not be wearing my OR down sweater if it is cold outside. I will not wear leather boots or shoes. I will not wear any of my wonderful IceBreaker wool socks. None of the soaps or hygiene products I use contain any animal products, and none of them were tested on animals, so there will be no change there.

 

 

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The Theological Logistics of Praying For Your Team To Win.

Posted on January 8, 2012 by BenjaminKelley

A Foreword: This blogpost is neither anti, nor pro religion. It’s really just stating the obvious about the effects of prayer to cause the outcome of a sporting event to sway in your favor.

Man has been looking up at the stars before a battle asking someone to help him for upwards of 50,000 years in some form or another, wether it be the evangelical god of George W. Bush, the vengeful harp loving god of David, the many gods of Alexander the Great.
Constantine I had a divine vision of a cross in the sky heralded by message ”by this, win!” before the battle of Milvian Bridge, needless to say he slaughtered Maxentius, and to show his respect for this scrubby little god that signaled his victory, he converted to Christianity, and shortly after we have a significant turn towards Christianity in the Roman Empire, after he made it legal first of course…

Sport as we all know is a recreational version of battle, no matter how prancy and frilly their jerseys and blinged out sneakers, everything we consider a sport has either hard evidence of hunting or military activity, skill, or training for such. A short but diverse list.

  • Wrestling this one is obvious, its a form of actual fighting.
  • Equestrianism , the art of riding horses, dates back to the showmanship of Calvary, going back thousands of years.
  • Common sports, soccer, basketball, football, a deal with the guarding of territory and penetrating the enemy side to earn points.
  • Track & Field, all most all evens have direct ties to military events.
  • The marathon, every year millions of people run one, because Pheidippides ran the first to warn of a battle.

Theres honestly a certain amount of logic to asking your god(s) for help in a military situation, where most likely you are on one side or another from a person who probably believes in a different god, or at the very least has a different beliefe system, or as often in modern cases, believe that the opposing side has done something you find morally objectionable.

This is how sport actually differs, and my argument begins. Sport separates itself from actual battle, in that it is done for leisure, and in most cases, with your comrades. Even when we talk about international sport, and the Olympics, athletes are the same comrades, in very few instances will we find that they actually hate each other. Before I go further on this, lets localize this, American football. Most players are Americans, theres more than a few christians on each team, and I’m willing to bet even the same sect of christianity, theres going to be a few muslims, and a few non-believers too.

So how does one individual praying for a victory, against someone who he has no moral argument against, who’s team likely contains people from the same town, or the same religion, or in some cases, even family members.  How does this work, why would a deity even intervene in this situation. Surely its not because you have a gold chain with a cross and I don’t, surely its not because you are a different race than I, its not because I murdered your family, or invaded your home. You are playing for leisure, or in the case of professional ports, money and entertainment of the masses. How does a god pick a side? In the next section we are going to assume a Christian form of god.

Does he use a BCS style system? Does he rank you based on your faith, and those of your team mates, against the other team? Does he take a polling of the angels? Is there a computer algorithm for how many times every player in the system went to church, or how much money you gave to charity? Do you think that he listens to you, and not the guy on the other side of the field who is also praying, or the fans in the stands that are praying for you to win over the other team?

If you are a religious person, your deity probably figures into you life in a great many ways, guiding you from temptations, making the crops grow, allowing you to comfort others in times of duress and honestly if I ever face a murderous man who is attempting to kill me, I’ll probably ask someone for help, I bet we all would, but what makes you every think hes going to help your team win above the other one in a leisure activity.

It’s sort of an insult to the power of your god to ask for intervention in something so trivial, where nobody is going to die, nobody is going to starve, nobody is going to prosper more, and nobody is going to stray in their faith. You are doing this for fun, or the fun of others, why would a god choose, when nothing is at stake?

–ben

 

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2011, I did not eat meat in you, and…

Posted on December 31, 2011 by BenjaminKelley

So most of my friends, family, coworkers, twitter followers, and blog readers know by now that I try to give up or do something each year for the calendar year.
2011 was becoming a ovo-lacto-vegetarian, and in the next few weeks I will post a recap of the highs and lows of this adventure.

I had said in the beginning that at the end of the year I would make a decision to keep doing this or to go back to being an unrepentant carnivore. At the time of writing this I’m just 12 hours shy of the end of the year. I plan to reveal my decision, shortly after midnight, in the new year.

I will do this by posting a picture of myself either holding a “greasy nasty delicious cheeseburger” or a “not so greasy nasty delicious vegetable”.  I will post it on twitter, facebook, G+, and also attach it to this post, so be sure to check back in the morning.

 

–ben

p.s. hny everyone

 

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2012 “Slow” Food Ben

Posted on December 31, 2011 by BenjaminKelley

As many of you know I give up at least one thing each year.  2011 it was meat.  2010 it was Dr. Pepper.

2012:  I’m going to give up several things surrounding a theme. Food the way it use to be.
I’m giving up foodstuffs from metal cans, plastic bottles, and I’m giving up microwaves.
Kind of my spin on the whole slow food movement.

  • No food from metal cans, I will buy food in jars where needed, and I will jar my own food.
  • No beverages from metal cans, I’ll drink soda from fountain or from glass bottles, same for beer.
  • No beverages from plastic bottles, this includes soda, water, beer, juice, and condiments. Where the heck am I going to find Sambal Oelek in a glass jar?
  • No frozen dinners in plastic trays, instead I will eat ones in responsible paper or cardboard trays, if at all.
  • No food in retort plastic containers or bags. This means doing away with my preferred method for eating while hiking, “freezer bag cooking” I will still eat dehydrated and freeze dried meals, I will just have to find other means to rehydrate them, such as insulating a metal pot or cup etc… Also no eating MRE’s unless under the conditions specified in the exceptions below.
  • No store bought bags of frozen vegetables, I see these as an easy out for avoiding cans so I will not be using them. Home frozen veggies are more than acceptable.
  • No using a microwave.  At home this is easy, I haven’t used it in months. Not using the one at work is going to be hard. How do I get a hot meal at work? Thermos?

Now this list comes with some caveats:
Unlike meat I cannot have control of how restaurants prepare or store food. So I will not worry about these with the obvious exceptions of places that show visible use of the microwave(Don Chilitos) or canned goods.

Being a guest in someone’s home, I will not turndown or nitpick on food offered to me, but I do hope that my friends that read this embrace my choice and avoid these things, infact I offer my help and advice cooking sans microwave or can-free.

I will not be doing away with my Brita Ultramax unless someone can come up with a very good alternative, or fact based compelling arguments that KC’s water supply is not laden with 200 year lead pipes.

Lastly, I may need to make exceptions for military simulations and reenactments. Where possible I will try to not make an exception for this, but for certain period correct impressions, I will have to eat T-Rats, HDR’s MRE’s and likely served canned goods from a field kitchen.

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Try Something New for 30 Days

Posted on December 21, 2011 by BenjaminKelley

Last week I saw a retweet from my friend, Finnish Hiker Hendrik Morkel originally by someone I don’t know.  The text read “Short & inspiring TED talk: Try something new for 30 days” and contained a link to a short Ted talk by Matt Cutts from Google.  Please stop reading here and watch the linked video.

I’m inspired by this, I want to do this every month for the year 2012. This is ontop of any other new years resolution.
I do need your help, in many ways.
First of all, be supportive of me doing this. Second, help me decide what to try, I will solicite ideas each month, maybe even a poll.  Third, I’d like other people to do this with me.  In the case that someone does this with me, we will collaborate on what and how to do it. You also don’t have to commit to the whole year. Just pick a month, help decide on the thing, and we will do it together. For more trivial things, we might do several new things for 30 days.  Example learning a new word a day takes like 5 seconds, combine it with something else.

 

So, who’s with me?

 

–ben

 

 

 

 

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BFS: Pancho’s Mexican Food

Posted on December 14, 2011 by BenjaminKelley

My favorite mexican food place in Kansas City, Pancho’s Mexican Food. It is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in various shitty buildings around town. Not to be confused with the mediocre chain called Pancho’s Mexican Buffet, this Pancho’s has the goods; Real mexican fast food, cheap, and much like walmart the cashier doesn’t speak a lick of english.  Don’t be put off by the old Hardee’s building that looks like it was abandoned for 20 years, I guarantee it looks much nicer than it did 10 years ago. Also, I’m told they recently fixed the bullet hole in the door at the one on Main.

There are now 4 of these bad boys; The original in KCMO at 3540 Main Street, In Blue Springs at 802 SW Us Highway 40, and in Lenexa at 8695 Bluejacket St, and a more recently opened one in Olathe at 1808 East Santa Fe.

At Pancho’s you will not find 50cent tacos by the dozen individually wrapped in a sack. You will not find fake meat burrito supreme, or a taco salad in a puffy shell made in a factory in Tuledo 3 months ago. You will not find pimply faced white kids serving you manufactured beans in a sterile setting. You will not find bland shitty texmex food made popular by chains or what many americans refer to as ‘mexican food’.
At Pancho’s you WILL find, authentic mexican food, especially from the more northern part of mexico and the Baja region. You will find variety meats. You will find menudo on the weekends.  You will find a vat of picked carrots on the counter. You will find most of the soda in the machine is flat, and the ice machine is always broken, this is how they drink it in mexico, deal with it. You will find the guy who put shingles on your roof last summer, waiting in line in front of you. You will find grey dog food looking beans, they are good, trust me.  You will find that real tacos are made in a tortilla, stuffed with shredded beef, and dunked in a fryer to make them crispy and delicious.  You will learn that you may not order a california burrito without potatoes, this invalidates its californianess. You will learn the printed warnings about the ranchero burrito are true. You will find Torta’s de Jamón. You will see license plates from Mexico on cars in the parking lot, as well as at least 3 trucks from lawn care companies, and often lowriders, actually I guarantee you, no matter how shitty your car is, you will feel at home parking here.

Lastly, my recommendations on what to order, it doesn’t matter, its all good, find something you normally like and see how it stacks up, or be adventurous and eat a scrambled brain & egg burrito, whatever floats your boat. I’m pretty sure they don’t have any vegetarian food tho, so sadly its been over a year since I’ve been there, but I will always recommend it to anyone who wants a tasty taco.

 

–Ben

 

For more information see the following links for reviews and details.

Pancho’s on Yelp  Pancho’s on Urbanspoon

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BFS: Jeff Simmermon

Posted on December 8, 2011 by BenjaminKelley

This is the first post of new theme on my blog called “Ben’s Favorite Shit”.  These are going to be people, places, and things that I really like, but for whatever reason just clicking ‘Like” or “+1″ or Retweet just doesn’t do them justice. I’ll tell you what they are, why I like them, and point you in the direction to explore and form your own opinion about them. Cheers!

Jeff Simmermon is a real person, he’s not some underachieving, unemployed ‘full time blogger’ that shoehorns himself into angst just to write about it. He’s a story teller, who happens to have a real job, and a real life.  This is what makes his stuff so great.  It’s all based in reality. Much of it larger than life, but very real interactions. He’s sort of the New York version of my ex-coworker Aaron, only has an angrier side at times.

The thing that really turned me on to his work was on an episode of The Moth Podcast with a story titled “A Giant Lizard Ate My Pants”

Jeff’s work has been featured on This American Life, and frequently at The Moth. You can also find him on the blog And I Am Not Lying along with many other great story tellers.

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Oh Canada: Part 7

Posted on November 21, 2011 by BenjaminKelley

Wednesday night Michelle wanted to see a band called Delhi2Dublin at the Historic Red Dog Tavern in Peterborough. They are an IndioCeltic fusion band. Michelle and her husband Mike I went to see them, while Alison insisted on staying behind to watch her little cousins and chill.

The opening band was a great local celtic band, that often plays at the Peterborough farmers market.  Delhi2Dublin was awesome.  Everyone danced punjabi style. It was great. They had a DJ, singer, drummer, all south Asian, a Korean sitar player, and a very pale Irish looking chick playing fiddle.  I took 2 videos during the concert of them, which I’ll post on youtube when I get back home.

Thursday I went off to see the Peterborough Museum, and do some other sightseeing and shopping. I walked through Millennium Park and drove to the zoo, very similar to the zoo in Independence I grew up with, only nicer.

Later that evening we went for sushi with Michelle’s family at Matsu in Peterborough.

We spent the rest of the evening packing up boxes of Alison’s mothers stuff we are bringing back.  It snowed nicely. Several centimeters worth. A nice fluffy blanketing for the morning.

 

Friday morning we leave Peterborough to go get Alison’s passport in Toronto, grabbed a veggie deluxe poutine (herb cheese gravy, sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, green peppers, and tomatoes) at the Whistle Stop on the way, I was going to let Alison drive while I enjoyed my breakfast, but the tightness of the brakes on the Tundra were a bit too responsive for her – Or for me trying to eat in the passenger side, so I ate while I drove. Our first stop, in Omemee to pick up our fourth traveler. In the truck at this point, it is Alison, her mothers ashes, and I. [My coworkers will note that contrary to what I originally thought, yes we are bringing back the deceased]. The fourth traveler is Sylvester III, Alison’s mothers cat that died more than a year go, and been stuffed. “Sleeping pose, curled up, no eyes, no teeth, paid in full” the work order read. We had not found the cat going through her effects in either her apartment or her rental storage locker. So we called the Taxidermist/Policeman, who said the cat was not so good looking, but it was finished to the best of his ability. This is an understatement. We picked up the cat and Alison started laughing hysterically at the sight of it. I think Alison is going to wrap it up for Christmas, as a “present” from her mother for the rest of her family and pets.

First we met Stephanie, one of Alison’s old bosses who is a chef, for lunch. We had sushi at a very trendy part of Toronto called Yorktown. Stephanie was very nice, and talked about working as a food stylist on a movie recently. Apparently everyone in Toronto is involved in the TV and film industry in some way. A quick stop at the passport office to get Alison’s shiny new passport then Alison met with one of her and Steven’s design friends at a Starbucks on King and Victoria street. I left them to chat and traveled down King Street to go to MEC.  Afterwards we drove to Melyssa’s apartment to drop off new-in-box-bedbug-free-cot and chair that we found with Alison’s mothers things.

Mostly crazy person crap (these are Alison's words)

 

Melyssa recently moved and is lacking some furnishings at the moment.  We had to get back on the road tho so it was a quick stop then off to London.

Upon arriving in London, first stop was at Smoke’s House of Poutine, This time I had the Veggie Deluxe(Vegetarian Gravy, with sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, and peas) This may have been my favorite poutine of all.

The next morning, we head towards Sarnia for the border crossing.

19 November 2011, Crossing from Sarnia to Michigan

99% of the vehicles queued up for the several hour wait at the border were from Ontario, apparently going to “The States” is a popular weekend activity.  After paying our $3.25 (yes it went up in both currencies) we sat on the bridge for a while, I asked if Alison’s mother had ever been to the US, and with an answer of “no” I told her we need to do what I do every time I visit a

The Late Catherine Roger's crossing the bridge into the USA

new state and take a picture with the sign, so on the bridge I held up the box of remains, and took a picture with the “Welcome to the USA” sign, and tweeted it with the caption “Catherine’s first visit to ‘The States’”. Finally arriving on the Michigan side to the US Customs booths, we were asked for our nationalities, reason for travel, ownership of the vehicle, and our passports. The agent began to ask more questions, most notably, the relationship between Alison and I, Alison spoke up and said “He is a friend of my husbands”, after a split second of processing, the agent began to laugh at the fact that a married woman was traveling internationally with one of her husbands male friends. Then Alison explained the situation, and that she is a foster parent and that she just can’t leave her kids with anyone, so Steven stayed home for that while I accompanied her to take care of her mothers estate.  After showing the agent the box of Alison’s mothers remains, and a quick peek under the tarp to make sure we were legit, she released us into Michigan, home of Kidrock, and many dead deer on the highway.

I made my stop at Tim Hortons and had a cruller and a coffee, then on the way home. Which was mostly uneventful because, its America and boring.

We arrived home Sunday afternoon, unloaded most things at the Hoober’s house, then I completed the journey home. Final numbers: 2791.2 miles, twelve days, 500ml of Ontario Whiskey, 16 cans of ontario beer, 15 2 Liter bottles of Faygo from Michigan, two living people, one person’s remains, and one stuffed cat, several new friends, and a lot of fun.

–ben

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Oh Canada: Part 6

Posted on November 16, 2011 by BenjaminKelley

Tuesday we headed back to Toronto, we needed to visit the passport office on Victoria Street to get Alison’s expedited passport processed.

 

We got into Toronto, after much traffic.  There IS lots of traffic!!!  I splendored at the CN tower from the highway. Alison took a photo for me.

Driving on Don Valley Parkway, Toronto Ontario

We then ducked into a parking garage in the Financial Services Building. Talk about a short, tight garage, nowhere as bad as the Eaton Center, but certainly not built with the Toyota Tundra in mind.  We walked out to street level, and had to find a coffee shop for a pit stop.  I was noticing that there was an abnormal amount of police around.  Standing in the Starbucks, I heard that the “Occupy Toronto” movement had been evicted from St. Johns park that morning, thus the increased police presence.

At Starbucks, I saw the most beautiful woman in Canada, this place is full of hot women, not just attractive, hot. To quote myself to Alison days earlier, “Every woman in Canada seems to be hot”.  I could go on for a paragraph about this woman, but I digress.  Also at the Starbucks, a crazy old woman with a bunch of baggage, talking on a prepaid phone very loudly. She was weaving in and out of gaelic and english, and was very upset about her being able to convince the person on the remote end to come get her bags. I finally put two and two together and figured out she had been staying in the Occupy Toronto camp.  I could have sat there all day and looked at the Canadian beauty, and the crazy old bag, but we had to find the passport office.

Turns out I inadvertently parked half a block away from the thing.  We checked in and queued up. We then sat down and began the wait, while Alison filled out the remainder of her paperwork, and I sorted all her required items. About 30-45 minutes later, Alison’s ticket got called. She was hoping for one of the desks with a young gentlemen, she got a younger than middle aged Native American woman, a turn of her head showed she had short hair in the back, with teal blue dye in it. She was very friendly. I think we got a much more sympathetic person, no crying required. Her and I even talked about camping in winter. After some scanning and signing, Alison got her receipt, and a pick up time of this Thursday, we bid the passport office farewell till then.

We left and walked down King street towards Spadina (which is apparently Chinatown here) and we did some window shopping.  Then we went to meet Melyssa at her favorite sushi restaurant Sushi Xtra at the corner of Queen and Spadina. Alison and I ducked into H&M to look for a jacket for me. Melyssa showed up while I was trying things on, but we didn’t really find anything good for me, one jacket, but Melyssa found it to be a bit short. We then went to the sushi restaurant which was just a few doors down.  Now again, Canada is very accommodating to everyone, EVERY sushi restaurant has numerous vegetarian options.  We had tempura vegetables as an appetizer. I had a Vegetarian Maki Combo, a Salad which I shared with the others, Miso Soup, and 3 maki rolls cucumber, avocado, and a sort of marinated carrot. Alison had some sort of spicy tuna roll, and Melyssa had a roll, which I don’t recall, and a fried salmon pizza – Which was a rice cake, fried, with raw salmon on top.

After dinner, Melyssa headed off and Alison and I hopped on the tram back towards downtown, where we walked around and did a bit more window shopping.

We got swamped by a large crowd of displaced Occupy’ers, who were walking the streets expressing their views on being deported from the park. I didn’t take a picture of them, but there was a videographer with them and I wouldn’t be surprised if we show up in a documentary at some point. Then we went back to the Financial Services Building, to retrieve the Tundra (which still does not have a name) then begrudgingly drove with rush hour traffic leaving Toronto.  Got a few more good views of the CN tower light up at night.

This morning I read on cbc.ca that the remaining Occupy’ers in Toronto got a reprieve from being forcibly removed from St. John’s park.

Today we need to sort some things with Alison’s mom’s left overs. We need to deal with her storage unit, and do some banking.

This posting is so wordy because I’m sitting at the hospital waiting room while Alison visits her grandmother.

–ben

 

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Oh Canada: Part 5

Posted on November 15, 2011 by BenjaminKelley

This post is entirely about the Canadian Canoe Museum

This place is very cool. It spans the entire Canadian history of canoes.
From ancient whaling dugouts to molded kevlar racing kayaks.

The museum is here as opposed to anywhere else in Canada, being that this place is the center of industrialized canoe manufacturing starting in the late 1800′s up to the late 1900′s.  This place has everything, including a complete history of Canada and The Hudson Bay Company (HBC) told through the inland river craft of the Native Americans of the area – Including canoes made as gifts to royal couples of Great Britain. The museum acquires and restores original canoes and commissions reproductions of old style birch bark canoes, dugout canoes, board canoes, and native kayaks.

I saw a freight style canoe of the type used by HBC to carry freight and cargo reproduced by master canoe builder César Newashish. I also got to see some personal effects of former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, including the buckskin jacket made for him.

This place is really worth the visit if you make it to this area. I learned quite a bit about Canada’s history and the significance of canoes and the trade relations Canada had with the aboriginals.

–ben

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