Inspired by Tynan, I've started shaving with a Safety Razor instead of the usual multi-bladed system razors. I've been using the Wilkinson Quattro and the Gillette Mach 3 & Fusion before, of which I've liked the Mach 3 the best.

Now I'm using a Merkur razor:

It cost about 30€ from Amazon. The handle screws off and lets you insert the razor blades. Safety blades are very cheap. You get a pack of 10 for 2€ in every supermarket. Those are crap though. I use Red Personna blades. They're very sharp and don't irritate the skin. You get a pack of 100 from US eBay for about 10€. Still super cheap, as a pack of 5 Gillette or Wilkinson blades costs 10€-15€ easily.

You'll need a shaving brush and shaving soap or cream. I tried shaving cream from the supermarket and again it sucked (I used Nivea cream). Then I ordered Proraso Eucalyptus shaving soap for a few Euros off Amazon. Not more expensive than regular shaving cream.

After about one week of getting used to it and learning the "skill of shaving" a bit, the shave was already a lot better than I'd ever gotten with a system razor. It is a skill, though. You can't just scrape around your face like with the system razors. You need a system. There's some great videos on YouTube, just look for "how to shave". You basically divide your face into several planes that you shave in one go. For example the left cheek, the right cheek, lower neck, upper neck. Try to lock your wrist while on one plane to avoid cutting yourself. I haven't cut myself yet, though. It's really not dangerous.

You should try it. It's by far cheaper and you get a far better shave than with a multi-bladed system razor. Play around a bit and try different blades and soaps or creams. You'll find the ones you like.

It's mostly non-existant. There's no email address, no support form, only a paid phone number. In Germany, there isn't even more than 1 Apple Store to take it to, and all the licensed retailers in my area are incompetent. But you can't tell them or complain, because there's no email.

A Review of Life Nomadic

or: A Review of Tynans Book about What Tynan Does

First let me say that I'm a fan of Tynan. He does what he wants, tries new things and isn't afraid of any challenges. I respect and envy that. He writes about it and tries to help/convince other people to do the same. And here is my main concern with Tynan and the book, Life Nomadic. It's just a collection of "What Tynan Did" and "Why You Should Be More Like Tynan". He's not literally saying that everyone should be like him, but everything's about what he does. There are few alternatives to what Tynan did and how he did it. The whole book feels very railroaded, a railroad on how to be like Tynan. A little diversity would've been nice. Then again, people reading Tynans blog are probably interested in Tynan.

The Format

I don't like the format very much. The title page is very flashy and stylish, but the entire rest of the book isn't. This seems like a contrast, because a little flashiness would've fitted with the theme of Life Nomadic. The text design looks very regular, like a standard LaTeX setting maybe. Not that that's bad, but it looks more like a Bachelor's Thesis than a book on world travel. There isn't a table of contents, which I found annoying. I like scanning the ToC to see if a book's worth reading, or to quickly remember what it was all about.

One thing I really liked is the notice on "piracy" in the beginning. Tynan basically says: "If you bought this, great. If not, consider doing so! In the mean time, spread this book." That could be a great marketing strategy for word of mouth. I certainly forwarded the book to many friends.

Something that I don't know whether to put under format or content: every chapter is prefaced with loads of stupid quotes by random people. I don't like quotes unless they're absolutely good and relevant to the content. Most of these aren't. It's annoying. Also, every chapter is started with one of many very weird cold-openings, like "I was there. It rained. How did I get here?" (not actually that one, but similar). This technique may be fun once in a while, but it's just boring after a few times, especially when the scene hasn't anything to do with the actual chapter.

The Content

The book is divided into three parts, each of which I'll discuss seperately. All in all most is covered. Some topics are only discussed shallow in the book, others heavily. This is just Tynans preference, I guess. His expertise is buying stuff, not Business Administration.

A New Perspective

First part, in which Tynan defines what a Modern Nomad is and how it's now being a tourist. This may be eye opening for anyone who hasn't heard of such Nomads before. The main difference is that a Nomad is not "On Vacation", escaping a horrible reality of 9-5 for a few weeks of binge drinking. A Nomad lives where he wants to live, stays for at least a few weeks up to a few months (possibly more) and works during theses stays. Since he spends more time in each place, he also gets to know the culture better, learns the language to a certain degree and doesn't spend much on travel costs per month. This combines the advantages of having a home, working and modern internet culture with the freedom of location, change of scenery and staying in great places of travel. I feel very much attracted to such a life, mostly because of Tynan and Tim Ferriss.

The chapter also details Tynans Philosophy, which might be described best by "Yes Man". He reflects on some of the strange paradoxes of modern regular life, such as working all the time but never having enough money, having everything but wanting more, etc. Tynans solution to these problems is minimalism. I have to say it's a pretty good solution, as I have adopted it myself. I've gotten rid of most of my belongings, especially the unnecessary gadgets and immovables. And Tynan is indeed right: it feels great to not be held down by things you feel attached to.

Preparing to Go

Second part, in which Tynan explains two travel strategies, how to get rid of everything you own (tm), and what to take with you on your trips.

The two basic strategies that are outlayed in this chapter are long-term-planning and short-term-planning. In the beginning, as an inexperienced traveller, one might plan for up to a year, designate places he wants to visit and when, and plan a route accordingly. How to do this is described thorougly. A veteran traveller might want to be more spontaneous, acting more on whims and not binding himself to hard flight deadlines. There is a little on this topic, but I suspect Tynan is just entering this phase. There will probably be more tips on this when he gets more experience. Also, veteran travellers might not need much advice on this.

The part on how to get rid of everything (tm) is pretty good. Someone not used to Tynans minimalism and extreme lifestyle might actually be shocked. I think it's great advice and in this culture of living from hand (job) to mouth and credit, relying on less and being more flexible is always the right thing. I could move to another country with only a backpack and wouldn't leave more than 1000€ of stuff behind. Give me a month and I could sell the last of my stationary belongings, which I rarerly use anyway. They include: desk, two chairs, cupboard, matress, HD video projector, PlayStation 2. Now that I listed it, it's probably more like 500€. And the projector is only half mine.

Buying Gear is obviously one of Tynans favourite parts. At one point he had a website about buying stuff, so it's not a surprise. And while many of the things he tells you to buy are great, some are just mediocre or things he likes, not objectively the best or even necessary. I've become wary of Tynans gear recommendations over the years, since many of them were dissappointing.

For example, the chocolate described on his website as the best in the world is only "pretty good" when compared to many high quality chocolates in regular super markets here in Germany (don't know if other countries have as rich a selection of high quality chocolate). The backpack he loves, the Deuter Futura 28, is very good. But I wouldn't describe it as perfect or even useful for everyone. It has some disadvantages too obvious to neglect. For one, you can't put anything in it that will crumble, like books or paper. Through the curve of the back side, everything that can cruble and bend, will. Also it won't stand up because it's so round. You have to put it down on the front or back, which is annoying and uses more space. Yes, it's still a great backpack. Just be wary that not everything Tynan loves is actually as good as he says. That said, on to the actual gear.

Tynan takes almost nothing. The advantages are obvious. What you don't take can't slow you down, get lost or stolen, or restrict you in any other way. All the things he takes fit in the 28l back pack I talked about earlier, the Deuter Futura 28.

For clothing, Tynan goes very minimalistic. Two shirts, two underpants, one pair of pants, two pairs of socks, one pair of shoes. Having tried this, though not as a Nomad but as a regular student, it's no problem at all. Having less clothes actually makes everything much easier. You don't have to worry what to wear, when to wash it, how to wash it or how to dry it. I can only recommend everyone try living with two shirts, two underpants, two pairs of socks and one pair of shoes and pants for a month or two. It's so much easier!

That said, you'll probably go with very high quality stuff for the few clothes you actually take. You only have two shirts, might as well take good ones, right? Tynan goes with Icebreaker merino wool in almost every category, and I can't blame him. The material is amazing. Keeps you cool in summer, warms you in winter, doesn't stink AT ALL (as in doesn't stink after 1,5h of kickboxing at 230lbs bodyweight). According to Tynan they also last forever, but I don't know. I've only had my Icebreaker shirt for 1.5 years. On shoes, Tynan takes the very weird Five Finger shoes. I think they look amazingly stupid, and they're also heavier than my FeelMax Niesas. Especially the sole is much thicker and harder. Since they're also not water proof, I'd probably not go with Tynans Five Finger/Waterproof Overshoes combo, but just take a regular, water proof pair of shoes or boots with me, depending where I went. If you really need snow boots for sub zero Canadian winters, you can probably buy them there.

On the technology side, I disagree with almost everything Tynan says. That is because I'm an Apple fanboy. I'd just take my MacBook Air and iPhone, that's it. External hard drive for local backups, alright. But I wouldn't take a separate video camera, DSLR photo camera, phone and mp3 player. What is this, the 90s? The iPhone does all that. On the other hand I really dislike photos. I remember a two week trip to Norway with a friend, where he took at least 10,000 photos, which took him hours everyday. It was annoying as hell. I'd rather look at stuff and remember it afterwards. If you're a real photo freak, bringing a DSLR might be alright.

At the end, Tynan gives some great advice on packing. Even though the Deuter Futura 28 is more roomy than it looks, most clothes can be compressed significantly. Tynan uses aLOKSAK plastic bags for this. I don't have them, but compressing clothes to save space seems like a no brainer. When I use my Deuter to go on vacations, I take almost as much stuff as Tynan takes to live in the world, and it fits pretty easily, even though I don't compress or strategize at all. I just throw the stuff in there. Then again, I don't take 5 different electronic gadgets plus their chargers. I've always got the MacBook Air in the camel pocket of the Deuter, iPod in the pocket of my jacket/pants, two or three shirts and socks, two underpants, done. Any backpack could handle that.

What makes compressing the clothes necessary is that Tynan brings outdoor clothing. I probably wouldn't, I'd try to buy that on location. Taking a fleece, overboots, rainjacket, rainpants just in case it's going to rain? I don't think so. I'm much too lazy. The Deuter Futura has a waterproof overcoat, and I'm pretty waterproof myself. If I know I'm in a dangerously rainy/cold place, I'll prepare separately.

There is an extra chapter in which Tynan outlays the services he uses to make his Nomad existence as comfy as any. This is mostly communications stuff. Free banking, sending and receiving postal mail over the internet (wish we had that in Germany!), cheap phone and long distance service, insurance (though Tynan doesn't have any). I really liked this chapter, because all those services are really useful even if you're not a Nomad yet. They also prove you don't lose anything when you're a Nomad, not even stupid and slow snail mail.

Living Nomadically

Third and final part, in which Tynan gives advice on what to actually do when you're finally a Nomad. I think this part is pretty one-sided. Tynan lists what he did and a few ideas on what else to do. Most of the advice seems to apply to Japan. That's a pity. Japan might be awesome, but I'd like a little more diversity. Most of the things could probably be done everywhere, but it still feels very Japan-heavy.

What to do is basically three things: learn the language, visit great locations (not necessarily the touristy places) and hang out with locals.

Then there's a few tips on travelling, but it's very specific except for how to get cheap plane tickets. Take the japanese night train. Take the ferry from England to Dublin.

I really like the section "Roof over your head". Tynan stays in hostels/hotels for the first night or two in a new place. While he's there, he searches for an apartment to rent for a month or two. Staying in apartments is cheaper than hotels or even hostels when you stay longer than one or two weeks. It also gives you a place to make your home. Get one in a great spot. You'll pay a little more, but safe on bus or taxi fares. It's also more convenient to get to know the city. Get an apartment that's clean and comfortable, you'll be staying there for a while. Fancy designer lofts are not necessary to most people and seldom improve the actual value of the apartment to you. Save the money to see more of the country.

Last but not least, Tynan tries to give some advice on how to make money while being a Nomad. He's right in saying that it's probably not that much different from making money while NOT being a Nomad! If you're a knowledge worker, location is not important. If you're a mechanic, well, get a new job. I'd love to see a lot more on entrepreneurship in a separate book, since I'm very interested in the topic.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, I knew most of the stuff already. But then I've read Tynans blog for years. Someone who's new to travel, minimalism and Tynan might be in for a culture shock. The whole book is definitely very inspiring, though mostly because of Tynans enthusiastic writing. There isn't much of conventional travel book content, the type that makes you want to visit the place itself.

As a contrast I think of people like Markus from Brauner Benz. He drove his Mercedes first to scandinavia, then spain, then syria (cheap diesel), then africa, then south america, then alaska, then L.A. His writing makes you want to visit each of these places as he's driving through. There aren't any tips on how to do that, though.

I like both kinds of books.

Tim Ferriss, author of "The 4-Hour Workweek" and one of my idols, just posted pictures of foods he eats on his cheat day. You can take a look here http://su.pr/4qZ836. I think it's a joke. No wonder his diet works for him and not for me, his cheat days are healthier than my regular days were! (The last sentence may be exaggerated).
 
Here is the last cheat day I had, which was during my 30-day-trial as a fruitarian.
 
Ok, I admit I also ate one serving of vegetables. But healthy stuff is the main food of Mr. Ferriss on his cheat day! Almost every container says "Organic". The only unhealthy (and thus real cheat) foods he has consumed are:
 
- 1 pizza
- 1 candy bar
- 2 pieces of pastry
- some coffee
- noodles
- fruit juice could be considered unhealthy, they do have lots of carbohydrates
- some cookies
- one teeny, tiny, little serving of ice cream
 
Now I'm not saying that what he does is a bad thing. Why cheat with bad, unhealthy foods, when you like healthy choices? The thing that bugs me is that he claimed in the post concerning his Slow-Carb-Diet that he ate candy to make himself sick. I quote:

Rule #4: Take one day off per week

 I recommend Saturdays as your “Dieters Gone Wild” day. I am allowed to eat whatever I want on Saturdays, and I go out of my way to eat ice cream, Snickers, Take 5, and all of my other vices in excess. I make myself a little sick and don’t want to look at any of it for the rest of the week."

 
Guess I took him for his word there. When "going out of ones way" and "making myself a little sick" means eating 1 candy bar, 1 pizza, drinking some coffee and juice and having a tiny portion of ice cream, I did it all wrong.
 
Maybe he should explain that on his diet, cheating is really not much cheating but moderation. For the record: I gained about 5kg on the Slow-Carb-Diet while feeling horrible all the time and having huge cravings. He's close, though. What's missing is EAT A LOT OF FAT! Tim Ferriss' Slow-Carb-Diet is really a Low-Carb-Low-Fat-Diet. And eating only protein is boring and just doesn't work for me in the long term (>1 week).

 

That was easy. Too easy?
 
First of all, it's a shame I have to reinstall Mac OS X. But it got slow. And I hate it when my OS is cluttered and gets slow. I reinstalled Windows XP every month back in the days. Leopard only lasting about one year is pretty lame. Bad Steve!
 
The installation itself was trivial. Put install DVD in iMac, open Disk Utility, plug in USB drive. Use "restore" function to restore the DVD to a partition on the USB drive. Wait 20 minutes, finished. It then took me hours to back my stuff up and another 35 minutes to install Leopard on the MacBook Air (counting from reboot to ready desktop).
 
All in all it's pretty easy to reinstall, and I already have all my apps registered and documents in place. It's a shame you have to reinstall, though. I liked that about Mac, that I didn't have to do that. Now I do.
 
Good part: not having a optical drive is even less of a problem than I thought. Now I always have my install DVD with me. Could even put it on a thumb drive (needs 8gb) and put it in the wallet or something.

Well, not me, my webserver has been hacked. Yes, the one you're reading the blog on right now.
 
I'm not sure how they got in, but they're in. I have at least one rootkit installed and there is a casino link in the blogroll which I can't remove. This link leads me to the conclusion that the goal of the hack is to give someone link juice for SEO purposes. That's what I call black hat SEO!
 
First the website didn't respond. This had happened before, because port 80 was blocked and apache needed that. Last time I just used netstat to find the blocking app, killed it and restarted apache. This time, netstat threw a segmentation fault. Now standard linux tools NEVER throw segmentation faults. Upon googling I found this meant the possibility of having a rootkit installed. A rootkit is a collection of software that makes breaking into a system easier ONCE YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN IN. Meaning I was already hacked. The first time the site was down I had probably been hacked already.
 
This sucks. I could reformat the server and do all the security updates and never give out my password. But that's lame. I realized I don't want to be a server admin. The reason why I got an expensive webserver instead of a blog or a normal hosting account was that I was impressed by Tynan getting one, and wanting to be cool like him. I've since realized that a)Tynan has seen cooler days and b)managing your own webserver, while having it's benefits, is like the fucking plague. Even after setting up all the different configuration files on linux, getting apache to reroute to the correct virtual domains and shoving wordpress on there (easy part, I admit) I was paying 3x I would for a hosting account. And I don't even have a particularly good-looking blog. Or post that much. Or have any readers.
 
I'm thus quitting my contract with OLM.net. I don't need a webserver. The 'cloud' has advantages. You don't have to manage all that sysadmin stuff. They put on the security patches. They make sure your server isn't down. They split the costs among thousands. Yes, when the cloud (or your part of the cloud) goes down, you can't do anything about it. But I'm thinking that's a lot more unlikely than me being hacked (likelihood of 1). Also they will probably handle the whole affair more professionally than I ever could and would.
 
I just don't care enough for my own webserver to continue managing and paying for it. There was one instance where having my own webserver saved me a few hours, and I felt pretty 1337 ssh-ing into the server, but there is really no real use going on.
 
The blog is already imported on posterous, which is a great service. Posterous is a lot more practical than wordpress. It's free. It's better looking than my template. It's faster. People are working on it for me to make it even better. The development team is awesome: I've sent them several mails already and they're very helpful and responsive.
 
Having your own webserver is so 1.0! I just realized something about 2.0 I'd never thought about. You have backups everywhere. It's like a decentralized filesystem. If one part (computer, server, hard drive) goes down, it doesn't matter. You store your stuff all over the internet, have a few local backups with TimeMachine, half of your data is in some social networking or online content software anyway. If that's going down, the whole net is going down. And when the net is down, your data isn't going to help you anyway.
 
I recently was without my MacBook for about two weeks, and I didn't really miss it. Yes, it's a great machine and helps me do a lot. But was there anything essential I couldn't do? No. Mail is online. IM is online (meebo). All the resources I use are online anyway, I just had to download them to any computer I was using at the time. It may not have been a very productive phase, but it wasn't too bad either. I was quite productive in university, where they have lab computers.
 
Would I want to live without the Mac? No. It's beautiful, it's an entertaining center, it lets me do the two things I'm best at (writing and coding). I could technically write by hand, but I suck at that. So while being completely independent of a computer is nice, it's not for me yet. Maybe if all computers were as nice as Macs.
 
Bye, webserver.
 
@Hacker: you win. I hope you're happy about the link juice you got.

So I've been walking barefoot for a little over two months now. I'm not exactly sure when I started, but I found an entry from May 5th describing it as "getting easier".
 
Why walk barefoot?
 
First of all I didn't have any good shoes, and no money to buy some. My old training shoes were approaching their 5th year, and they were really worn down to the point of danger. I'd actually sprained my ankle using them almost a year ago! When I wear shoes, they get worn down on the outsides first and then tend to roll over that edge. That was how I sprained my ankle. I used to regularly roll over that edge and almost twist my ankle. Daily. So I threw them away.
 
Most shoes don't fit me. I have short, broad feet. Almost all shoes are a torture to wear. I had heard about the Vibram Five Finger shoes, but they look really stupid and are pretty expensive in Germany (>100€). Reports also said you couldn't wear them for longer than four hours.
 
I then thought: why would I pay 100€ to walk barefoot? I already have feet. So I just started walking with no shoes (and no socks). Everywhere. The first time it rained I put some old shoes on, but quickly discovered that shoes are stupid in rain. Shoes get wet and soggy, feet don't. Walking in the rain is a lot of fun. So I continued wearing them in the rain.
 
There are also some health reasons. When you walk in shoes with a big heel, you strike the heel first. This creates a shockwave of pressure, ruining your knees and hips. I experienced this once after jogging for 5km in my old training shoes. I couldn't walk for a day without pain in my knees.
 
When you walk barefoot, you automatically strike the ball of your foot first, almost simultaneously with your heel. The faster you go, the less you use the heel.
 
I realized than running is really just falling forward, caught by your legs all the time.
 
None of that throw your heels out the farthest bullshit. That actually slows you down, stopping your kinetic energy.
 
When you walk barefoot, striking the heel hurts like hell. Which is why you don't do it.
 
How does walking barefoot feel?
 
Great. The first thing I realized: I was never a very good shoe-walker. There is a scene in a horrible movie where Dustin Hoffman says "I'm an avid shoe-wearer." I thought that was a good sounding line, but realized I was not. I've always hated shoes. They feel clumsy, make your feet stink, cost lots of money, make you fall down when not paying attention, etc.
 
Walking barefoot feels awesome. You just walk! It's really easy. At first I was worried and looked down constantly, but that changed quickly. Within a few days I could look straight ahead and not bump into anything. It's like driving a car. You just KNOW if a car is behind you. Subconsciously.
 
In the beginning, it hurt a little. Yes, walking on rough asphalt for the first time ever for a long time did hurt. I also got blister on the first day, but that may have been caused by the sprinting.
 
The sprinting. Wow! I've never felt so light footed before. There is just nothing on your feet, holding you down! It felt entirely different than sprinting in shoes. In shoes, it was always about how fast I could throw my feet forward. Barefoot it is about how far forward can you lean without falling to the ground?
 
Bare feet also have a lot better grip on everything than shoes do, with the possible exception of muddy gras (which I haven't tested). Even in the rain, you've got traction like hell. Full run in the rain, no problem slipping.
 
Is it for everything?
 
No. At least not for me. Some people claim they run marathons barefoot. I have to say there are limits. I couldn't sprint for long. Even now, 2.5 months after walking barefoot EVERYWHERE, the balls of my feet start to hurt after a few strides of sprinting. Yes you can will through it, but why would you? You'll get blisters and it will burn like fuck for days. So I didn't sprint a lot. It felt awesome though, so that was sad. I would really love to sprint barefoot all the time, but it just hurt too much.
 
I also couldn't walk for more than one hour before it started to get warm and eventually hurt.
 
These points may be overcome with extra training, but I didn't want to spend time adapting myself that I was doing all day long. Consider my weight though. I weigh over 110kg, which is a lot of weight to propel and stop. If you're a lightweight, maybe it works perfectly for you.
 
One thing I absolutely couldn't to was skid to a stop. I do this all the time when running in shoes and braking. I would just stop the running motion and the shoes would skid over the asphalt, making me stop. I didn't dare to do this barefoot. It would probably rip your soles right off. Just couldn't.
 
Another problem is heat. Germany is not a hot country, but after a full morning of summer sun, dark asphalt is too hot to walk on. I got slight burns from trying it anyway, even just for a few hundred meters. I don't want to think about HOT countries like Australia, Africa or something like that. It will probably burn your feet in seconds. I walked around the dark parts of asphalt as well as I could. Fortunately for me, we had little sun this summer (only a few full days of sun this far). When the sun came out in the afternoon, it wasn't a problem.
 
Isn't it dangerous?
 
No. At least not in my town (population 80,000). There are NO poisonous animals in Germany, and I guess the streets are fairly clean. I actually stepped into a freshly broken glass bottle on the second day of my trial. I remember feeling a crunch and thinking I had stepped on a cookie. I then looked down to find it was actually a full glass bottle in shards. I just scrubbed the shards off on the stairs and went on. I've since stepped into glass a few times, but it never hurt. It just stings a little until you scrub it off. I also stepped on a bee. No it didn't hurt. Yes it hurt the bee, but a shoe also hurts the bee! Also, no one ever stepped onto my feet, even when I went on a local festival and walked through the masses of people. But maybe that's just my thug physique (broad) making people avoid me ;-)
 
My feet got dirty from time to time, but you can easily scrub that off in the shower. You don't have to put them in the washing machine.
 
Why are you writing in past tense?
 
I just received my FeelMax Niesa shoes, which I will continue wearing to break them in. You can go to their website, but in short they're "barefoot shoes". They have a 1mm teflon sole through wich you feel EVERYTHING. But they protect your foot. I even feel the texture of the asphalt, or single ridges in stones. I will see if they're usable for everyday use.
 
So how do I get started walking barefoot?
 
It's pretty easy.
 
1.Get out of your shoes and socks
2.Start walking
 
You'll feel how you should walk. Striking the heel hurts, so you'll immediately turn to touching down the ball first. It feels a little awkward if you haven't done it before, but most people have walked barefoot as children for some time.
 
Don't overdo it on the first day. If your feet start to get warm on certain contact points (where friction is highest, for me ball and one toe), you'll get blisters soon. Just stop. I found it wasn't worth the delay of blisters. After about three days my first blisters had healed, and from then on I didn't feel much of a difference on asphalt any more. It didn't really hurt until I sprinted or had walked for more than an hour.
 
Walking on sharp stones can be tricky. It's not really about getting thick calluses. You don't get thick calluses. You're walking on them ALL DAY, so they get automatically filed off by the ground! Pretty clever, hu? I didn't come up with it. I got some "stabilizing" calluses on the edge of my foot, and below the toes (making them a little more square at the bottom). Your soles do get harder though, but I think that's just the muscle developing under the skin. There are lots of muscles in the foot, most of which are underdeveloped when you walk in shoes too much.
 
The trick about walking on sharp stones is relaxing. If there is a sharp stone under one part of your foot, you relax that part and put the weight on another part. Yes, that actually works pretty well and is easier than it sounds. It's mostly subconscious anyway. I walk over the same sharp stoned area in my university every day, and one time I realized it had stopped peeking me. The muscles automatically adjust the pressure and avoid the sharp stone. Pretty impressive. If the sharp stones hurt, just try to relax your foot. It almost feels like the stones are flowing.
 
So if you're in an area with no poisonous animals, not skin burning hot asphalt and you just feel like it, give it a try.
 
People will stare though. Everyone. Every single person stared at my feet. And every single person asked at least once why I wasn't wearing shoes. Some more than once. One person even offered to give me his old shoes, which I found touching.
 
I have the FeelMax for two days now, and I immediately noticed people weren't looking at my feet any more. Kind of funny.

In a vain attempt to be more like the Recon Marines in "Generation Kill" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0995832/), we bought a package of 12 MREs (Meals, Ready to Eat) off eBay for 73€ incl. shipping (6€ per MRE). These are the supply ratios of the US Military, prominently featured, mocked and debated in Generation Kill.
 
Recently I watched some guy at thedailywtf.com (http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Souvenir-Potpourri-Meal-Ready-to-Eat.aspx) eating a MRE someone sent him. He didn't like it. But then I don't like his site, so who cares? Point being, my expectations were pretty low.
 
But behold! The MREs I've eaten until now tasted pretty good. Yea, it's not 5-star-cuisine, but it's better than many things I've cooked. Menus I had so far were Pork Rib, Beef and Gravy and Meat Balls.
 
In case you've never eaten a MRE yourself, let me break down what each package contains. The stated goal of the MRE is printed on the meal packaging. It is to ensure the proper nutrition and energy level of a soldier in training or combat. In these very demanding situations, the carton states, a male soldier needs between 2800 and 3600 calories per day (2000 - 2800 for women). Each MRE contains between 1200 and 1300 calories. The soldier is advised that he needs three full meals a day! Three MREs would contain between 3600 and 3900 calories, too much, but this isn't much of a problem, as you'll see shortly.
 
There are also some tips on how to eat if you don't have much time. Eat some of each component to ensure variety of nutrients, eat calorie dense carbohydrate components first (crackers, bread-type-things, sweets, drinking powder). Yes, they actually tell you to eat drinking powder. People seem to do this, as it is shown in Generation Kill. I guess it's more convenient than fixing yourself a glass of water and stirring the powder in while you're being shot at or driving around in your humvee.
 
The MRE consists of the following components:
 
- Main course (1 or 2 bags, e.g. pork rib in one bag and clam chowder in one bag, or beef in one and mashed potatoes in the other)
 
These are usually based around some kind of meat. There are also three vegetarian MREs in our carton, featuring cheese omelet, bean stew and the like. The meal is marinated with sauce in the bag. The ones I had were quite good. Maybe a little low on flavour, but there's extra salt and spice in each bag (see below). There is also a little bag with extra sauce, like barbeque sauce for the pork rib.
 
- Cooking bag with chemical heater
 
You place the main course (and/or coffee drinking bag, see below) into this. Then pour a little water in. The chemical heater triggers, you place everything into a carton and it cooks. Takes about 10 to 15 minutes. To avoid uneven heating, you can knead the meal during or after cooking. Cooking this way is extremely fun and takes no equipment.
 
- Drinking powder, to be stirred in water (or eaten from bag if you like)
 
These are very sugary. I stirred mine in a half-liter glass of water, and there was still a 1cm sugar crust at the bottom. The ones we had so fare were cocoa (very good), punch (so so), lemonade (good) and iced tea (good). The packaging of my punch states it contains soy. They probably fortified this to make it more of a protein shake. Most of the foods are heavily fortified with vitamins or other nutrients.
 
- Bread/Tortilla/Crackers with spread
 
As an entry dish while your main course is cooking. These are pretty good. The bread tastes a little boring, but hey, it will last for two years. Of course it's not as fresh as real bread. One thing that amazed me was the fat content of these breads. I don't know of any other kind of bread that gets 50% of its calories from fat! This is actually pretty clever to prevent insulin spiking and ensure long term fullness.
 
I had tortillas with jalapeno cheese spread, crackers with cheese spread, bread with cheese spread and crackers with peanut butter and jelly. The "normal" cheese spread doesn't have much taste, it's almost disgusting. But the jalapeno cheese and the peanut butter and jelly were very good. I'm not sure if the mix of the bread/spread is random. In Generation Kill, Colbert complains of a stupid combination of bread and spread. Something like jelly on a tortilla. Maybe I was just lucky until now?
 
The bread and spread contain enormous amounts of fat. I think this is important. I was worried about all the carbohydrates in the MREs (and there are lots), but they made sure to also include protein and fat. I'm guessing you wouldn't need all the fancy meal technology to just carry around dried bread and crackers.
 
- Two snacks
 
These are interesting, mainly because I don't know many of them. Americans seem to eat different snacks than germans. For example I'd never eaten M&Ms with peanut butter before. Also "the cookie" seems to be popular in the MREs. I mean one large cookie. We also had coffee beans covered in chocolate, a "pop tart" (some kind of cake), a fig bar, beef jerky, cheesy chips and others.
 
On the packaging, the soldier is advised to safe snacks if there is no time to eat. He can then eat the snacks on the go when hungry. Since the snacks are all high-calorie, this allows for moderation of the caloric intake. A very hungry soldier can eat all the snacks and some he saved earlier, a not-so-hungry soldier just saves for later. In Generation Kill the soldiers save their snacks in a huge carton in their humvee to eat while driving.
 
- Utility bag
 
These always contain matches, a moist towel and a dry towel. Also coffee or iced tea, salt or spices, sometimes "butter buds" (no idea what that is, presumably some kind of butter-powder) or cream powder for the coffee. I tried one of the coffees and it was pretty good. Then again I hate coffee. If I liked it, that may be a sign of its non-coffeeness. Also: there are always two cinnamon chewing gums. My roommate hates those, but I like them. You can't chew them very long though. I guess they're just to help with dental hygiene or something.
 
- The spoon
 
Of course. You need something to eat from the bags. The spoon is pretty bad for something like pork rib, which I ate from the bag like a candy bar.
 
 
Ingredients
 
This is pretty amazing. I've never seen so many ingredients in food. One carton had 21 lines of ingredients printed on it! Among them things I've never heard of (FD&C in different colors). The famous high fructose corn sirup is omnipresent. I'm not sure we have this in germany, it might just have another name. Also lots of "regular" sugar, dextrose, fructose, glucose and so on. There's lots of wheat and soy, sometimes milk. If you've got allergies, you're fucked.
 
Considering this has to last for years in arctic and hot climate, survive drops from planes, be ready in 10 minutes to eat on the run, provide ALL the necessary nutrients for the soldiers (no eating apples in foreign desert countries), give comfort in firefights and be cheap, it's no wonder that it's more chemical than food. It's the most high-tech food I've ever eaten. Maybe NASA has more technology in their food.
 
Still I think they did a great job. Most of the meals taste pretty good, though some could use more seasoning. I have to tinker with the spice/sauce packages a little. The snacks are interesting and tasty. Not very healthy though, I guess.
 
Overall I'm not sure how healthy the MRE as a whole is. They're based on the RDA. I don't know how good these are. Nutrition isn't a real science yet, more like witchcraft and make-belief. But they wouldn't hurt their own troops, right?
 
The thing that amazes me most about the MREs is the way they fill you up. Unlike typical meals that would contain the same 1200-1300 calories, they don't stuff you up to the point of puking. Instead you get quite full, and stay full, for a very long time. Somehow the food seems to stay in you a lot longer than normal food. It also keeps me very awake and makes me feel warm.
 
To show you what I'm talking about (and to try out OmniGraphSketcher, which is cool but which I seem to have no use for - until now!), I've made a picture:

Overall I like the MREs. They're very fun to eat and you don't have to clean up. Just throw everything in the trash. I wouldn't want to eat them every day for a long time, but they're not too bad. Definitely a fun experience. Much tastier than I anticipated. Also, 6€ per meal is not much considering all the snacks and included beverage powders.

 

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So we've eaten only MREs for about 2 days (6 packages each). And yes, they do funny things to your digestion. I don't know if this is what they're supposed to do or side effects of the chemicals in them, but you only have to go once a day. But then you really have to go. My roommate puked one night. I didn't, but then again I've only puked twice in the last 5 years I think. I had to fart a lot. My theory is now that the warm und unrestful feeling is a kind of sugar rush I've never felt before. I got it again from drinking Vanilla Cappuccino with non-dairy (=sugar) creamer and extra sugar. Or it could be I'm not used to the caffeine. Ts, drugs.

I'm really disappointed in Apple. Maybe I'm just spoiled, having used Razer Mice since before optical mice were invented. But the Wireless Mighty Mouse just sucks. I can get over the non-functioning right mouse button (there isn't one, but it's supposed to know when you meant to press it - which it doesn't). But having a mouse responding more slowly and less accurately than the touchpad of the computer makes the mouse pointless. I fumbled trying to close windows or hitting the right line in text documents. When you start using a lot more hotkeys than with your touchpad, you know your mouse isn't doing what it should be doing.
 
I have an idea about an app that could help solve this. Not fix the mouse - but making more of the typical mouse-commands usable by keyboard. Have to think about this. Kind of like Quicksilver, only good. A little like Enso on the PC and maybe beyond that.