About CSA

Let me start with a platitude.

You are what you eat.

Alright. Now that I got that out of my system, let me talk about what I eat.

I love to eat good food. The real deal, not out of a package. Over the years I have developed into something of a foodie, even. Not really a snob, but I know my endives from escargot.

More recently, I have developed into a decent cook, and being part of a CSA has been an important driving force in that growth.

Local veggies are yummy

See, CSA stands for "community-supported agriculture" which in turn stands for people living in a certain area (community) buying a share of a local farm's crops and thusly supporting the farm. Fruit and vegetables from the farm are normally delivered to a volunteer's house in boxes, and you go and pick up your share every week.

There are many benefits to that model. Most important to me is that the produce is normally picked on the same day or the day before, arriving on my table fresh, and flavourful, and also quite ripe. Much riper than you can get at a supermarket, no matter how expensive and "organic" it is. I also like to imagine that growing produce during its particular season allows it to be more nutritious as opposed to stuff grown in hothouses and with hydroponics year round.

There is also something I don't really consider a benefit to myself, but it certainly doesn't harm to support small local businesses. Often CSA farms are on the small side and practice more sustainable agriculture, rotating crops, and growing a multitude of them over the year instead of focusing on mass-producing one or two.

I personally don't care much about "organic" produce, since the way the certification system is implemented only means that farmers are limited to using some chemicals and not others, instead of the bucolic back-to-nature nonsense that urban hippies like to believe. Don't be too quick to put me in the "pave the whale" camp though just because I don't buy my lentils in bulk. I believe that eating local produce results in lower emissions than moving, storing, and selling the crops grown on industrial scale. That can't be bad.

So I have signed us up for the Live Earth Farm CSA about six months ago, and it's really been great. I rarely go to the supermarket anymore, as the share we get usually lasts us until the next delivery. Every week, there is a different assortment of fruit and veggies in the box, presenting me with a challenge to learn how to cook things I never worked with before. An interesting side effect has been that both J and I have discovered new yummy foods we either never ate or never liked before. Like kale.

And chard.

I mean, seriously. Chard.

Local animals are also yummy

Our success with the produce CSA has been quite impressive, and so when I read that cattle farmers feed their cows candy I was mentally ready for the next step: signing up for a meat CSA.

As a dedicated carnivore, and a follower of a primal diet, I consider meat the most important part of every meal.

If it's not meat, it's not a meal.
--Gnolls.org

As stated right at the start of this post, I also believe that you are what you eat, and that if candy and starch make humans diabetic, they can't be terribly good for the cows. Research confirms that grass-fed pastured animals' meat features a healthier balance of fatty acids for humans to base their nutrition on. And so, once a month, we now get a box (or two, or three) of happy meat and poultry from Marin Sun Farms.

I honestly did not expect to taste the difference. Sure, the meat would be "better" for me, but it would probably taste the same, or be dryer and tougher. Right?

Wrong.

The meat has blown me away. Even J who usually prefers leaner cuts, has discovered that he does not mind the occasional strip of fat on his steak as he used to.

Also, I get access to a more diverse selection of cuts of meat as well as different species. Oxtail, or organ meat, or goat. Even simple lamb is hard to get at a regular supermarket.

Show me the money!

Money-wise, I think our CSA spend is a wash with the supermarket food.

The produce CSA is slightly cheaper than regular produce, averaging $23 for a box that lasts us seven days' worth of meals. It is dramatically cheaper than what Whole Foods would want you to pay, while it's actually local and tastes better.

Eggs are a killer at six bucks a dozen, but we don't eat many, so that's not a big deal. We only get them every other week.

Meat is definitely more expensive than your regular supermarket fare. It is probably cheaper than grassfed meat at a supermarket, and definitely fresher, both due to the distribution model.

I think if you don't eat a whole lot of meat, or just want to dip your toes into the whole CSA business, try a produce CSA first. It definitely saves shopping time and money, since all you have to do is grab a box full of goodness on the way home.

Are you already a member of a CSA? Share your thoughts in comments.

Now I can network anything!

This weekend, I repaired a network outlet. Three, to be precise.

During the remodel, the contractors have severed three network cables by mistake, and the loose ends were knotted up and stuck out of a hole in the wall.

Considering this was my first time getting all physical with networking, it did not go too bad at all.

Before starting on the project, I got some kit on Amazon.

This little set costs under 20 dollars, and contains a network cable stripping tool, a plug crimper, and a network socket punchdown tool. There was even a baggie with some RJ45 plugs in there, too.

Since all I had coming out of the wall were six ends of the cut cables, I randomly picked an end coming from the left to find out whether it was the live side. Because I was going to sacrifice at least one, and possibly two, and also I had a surplus of RJ45 plugs, I crimped one on there instead of the keystone socket, and stuck it into the network tester.

This little network tester was all of five bucks and saved me a lot of trouble. I had one part of it connected upstairs where I was performing the repair, and plugged the other one into one port on the downstairs switch after another, trying to see if this end of the cable was even live.

Luckily, I hit the jackpot on the first try: The wire I picked went to the switch. However, I made the mistake and wired the plug according to the wrong RJ45 standard. They have A and B and I picked B because that's what one of the cables I had lying around had.

It was pretty easy to figure out, because the tester sends the signal to each of the eight wires in order (1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8) and it comes out scrambled on on the other end.

Once that was resolved, the rest was easy. I used the punchdown tool to wire the three sockets, which had each terminal color-coded for both standards. Again, fairly obvious.

I bought the more expensive "keystone" type sockets and wall plates, because they seemed like they would be easiest to work with. The sockets in this case click into the wall plate, and can be easily removed and replaced.

Wiring the sockets individually, as opposed to dealing with short cables sticking out of the wall while trying to wire them to a plate, was definitely a more convenient option.

Since we were already dealing with cut cables, I had asked the contractor to put a hole on the other side of the wall, in my office/library, which used to be a formal dining room and did not have any network.

Now that I had sockets wired to each of the cable ends, I stuck two through the hole into the office and routed one into the living room.

Voila!

I hit 1000 followers on G+

The 1000th follower does not win anything. And neither do I.

EOM, really.

Unpacking (and re-packing) my Nexus 4

My Nexus 4 phone has arrived.

It did not take long at all to get here, despite the chronic shortages. If it had taken much longer, I would be risking serious new gear anxiety attacks. But it's all good now.

Behold: the new phone.

I have spent most of last night and some of this morning getting the UI and preferences sorted, but so far it has been a very smooth experience.

The phone restored all the apps currently installed on my Nexus S, and all I had to do was put the shortcuts and the widgets where they belong.

Selecting a phone cover was a little bit of a process.

I actually do not like phone covers, screen protectors, and their ilk. Hundreds of hours spent by designers to make the device sit just right in your hand, the rounded corners, and the buttons -- all of this is completely wasted once you put a cover on your phone. Where it diminishes the looks, it adds weight and bulk. Really not my thing.

However, my phones live a life of adventure, going with me everywhere from race tracks, to restaurants, to museums, and to work. They have been known to sometimes be clumsy and fall out of my pockets at the most inopportune times, hitting concrete floors, rocks, or tarmac. Neither of these things are good for the phones, and so I have been choosing the lesser of the two evils: I have been buying covers for my phones.

This time I think, I may have finally hit the jackpot. A classy-looking slim leather case that has room for a few credit cards, and does not obscure the contours of the phone too much when open.

Since I haven't yet put a new SIM card into the phone, I haven't used it all that much yet, and the jury is still out on the cover. I hope it works out for me.

Excited about Google Glass

Last June, I managed to snag a ticket to Google I|O by waking up super-early and refreshing the perpetually timed-out order form in six or so tabs at once until my order finally went through. The event sold out in the first 20 minutes, mere ten minutes after I secured my spot.

The event experience was mostly standing in lines for everything from the registration, over general sessions, to spartan lunches. I also stood in line to register for an opportunity to purchase a prototype of Google Glass.

It seems like the wait for the chance to shell out $1500 for a snazzy pair of glasses is nearing its end. I received an email saying that all of us who registered at the I|O will be first in line to receive our gear, while the company will also select up to 8000 people through the "If I had Glass" contest. Judging by the contest's Terms, those folks will be able to buy their Glasses in mid- to late March, meaning that us I|O goers also should be getting ours at about the same time.

This leaves me about a month to obsess over the decision whether Google Glass prototype is worth the money to me.

On one hand, the ability to have the next-generation heads-up display for my navigation is quite appealing. Same goes for the voice control and neat hands-free operation.

On the other hand, it's $1500.

For that kind of cash, I can have some awesome improvements done to the Mountain Lair. Tree trimming, grass mowing, gutter repair, that sort of thing.

But back on the first hand, DAYM, that's a neat piece of kit, and I think I would really get a kick out of owning it.

Are any of you, O my gentle readers, in the same position?

Even if you aren't--what do you think would you do if you were?

Back in the saddle

While my carpal tunnel syndrome pain has subsided, I am tentatively typing more again. However I am also trying to use more voice entry, such as in writing this article.

This is not my first run in with this particular ailment, and it probably won't be my last. I know it is caused by typing a lot, and unless I learn a completely new trade, there is little chance that I will stop using computers as much as I do today.

For those of you interested how I treat my tendonitis and carpal tunnel pain, I wish to share my treatment strategies.

1. First, rest, rest, rest. 
2. Second, reduce typing to a minimum, or completely eliminate it, at least for a week. My Android devices have been very helpful in allowing me to stay up to date on my email, by dictating my responses. There are probably other voice entry solutions on the market, but considering that I carry my phone everywhere, this seems like the most effective option, since it would always be at my fingertips (pun intended). 
3. Third, ice. Lots of ice. Every night, for three weeks, I would empty the ice bucket from my refrigerator's ice maker into a large kitchen pail, and fill it with cold water, enough to submerge my forearms all the way to my elbows. I would then dunk my forearms into the ice water for as long as I can stand stand, repeatedly. I can usually keep them in cold water for about 30 seconds, before it gets too intense. Your mileage may vary, just pay attention to not get frostbite. I usually would alternate my 30 seconds of icing with about 5 minutes of light massage, all the while watching some TV series or a movie to keep me entertained and distracted. 
4. Finally, massage. It is very effective to have a professional massage your forearms to help relieve chronic tension, and restore healing blood flow.

This is pretty much it. While I am quite determined not to have another episode for a while, I really am glad that I have found ways to control the pain and restore my hand and arm function relatively quickly, when push comes to shove.

I hope you find this post helpful. What other methods do you use? Have I missed anything? Share it in the comments!

AFK with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

I have been staying away from keyboard because I have hurt my wrists typing too much lying down, with my laptop on my belly. Silly me.

So in the meantime, I have been using voice entry a lot (Android rocks at that!) and icing my arms as much as I can stand.

If you are worried, don't be--it's already getting better. I've had this once before, from the same stupid behaviour, and healed myseld in a couple of weeks. Back then, I thought I had learned my lesson, but apparently I needed a reminder.

Anyways. What this means for now, is fewer posts from me while I heal. I'll be back before you know it.

2014 Corvette is still ugly

Seeing how my old post about the 2014 Corvette being ugly is bubbling up in the traffic stats, I thought I should revisit the topic and reiterate that yes, indeed, I still believe that the newly-released C7 is unsightly.

Don't believe me? Have a look:

This is not a body of a car worthy of the name Stingray. This is just another middle-aged wannabe sportster. Like a retired bodybuilder, it's got muscle, but the sex appeal is gone.

I have allowed my hope to see a sleek futuristic take on the classic to rear its pretty little head, but lo! My hope was dashed as I feared it would be.

Don't believe me? Have a look at this:

This is the concept car that made its debut in the Transformers movie, and inspired me and thousands of others, giving us hope that we may have a new car to admire and lust after. What a difference to the tame diluted mishmash of a car that was unveiled this week!

While we all know that dashing concept cars rarely make it to production unchanged, I have to always wonder--why not? Why try to appeal to the lowest common denominator? Why not make a bold statement? Why so afraid?

If Chevrolet is afraid that its market of balding midlife-crazed men would reject a car that oozes style, power, and self-confidence, then it betrays that it thinks poorly of its customers. Further, it will not gain any new ones, failing to inspire and capture the aspirations of young kids like the wide-eyed kids that are still alive inside the middle-aged men, who want to own the car of their childhood dreams.

It certainly does nothing to ignite my passion, and I really wanted to fall in love with the C7.

Silly me.

About recruiter spam

Alex	1:34 PM
to Sam

Dear Sam C,

I would like to thank you for taking the time to contact me, but the thing is, you did not take the time, so the thanks are sadly not in order.

I will however take the time to personally respond to you, because I hope to make it one of those "teachable moments."

My current role is Community Director at Nebula. My previous role was called "Community Manager" at VMware. I have not held a contracting position in my entire career, and have not really had anything to do with business analysis or operations.

Wherever you found my resume, it is clear to me you have just run a search for "Eloqua" or some such, and blasted an email to every single person the search returned without spending as little as 30 seconds to make sure the position you advertise would be even remotely suitable.

30 seconds is a generous time allowance to determine how a senior marketing professional with 15+ years of experience would react to a pitch of a 8-month entry-level contract requiring relocation, but you obviously seem to be lacking in the reading comprehension department, so I am not going to be too strict.

You've got the "swift" part of Intelliswift covered, but not the "intelligence." If you want to ever reach out to me in the future, feel free to do so, once you learn to represent both components of your company's promise.

Most respectfully yours,

Alex Maier

On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Sam C <sam@intelliswift.com> wrote:

>

>

> Hi,

>

> My name is Sam  and I'm a recruiter at Intelliswift, a global staffing and

> IT consulting company. We are constantly on the lookout for professionals to

> fulfill the staffing needs of our clients and we currently have a job

> opening that may interest you. Below is a summary of the position.

>

> Job # : 2199802

> Job Title : Business Analyst

> Job Location : , Plano, TX

> Duration : 8 Month

>

> Job Description :

>

> This position resides within the Enterprise Operations department  and is

> responsible for the Eloqua marketing automation system. This position will

> be responsible for creating and maintaining documentation of all standards

> and processes used within the Eloqua system and its integration points

> Responsibilities:

> •Will be required to document the “as-is” processes in Eloqua

> •Document field level rules and validations within Eloqua

> •Create and maintain a ‘data definitions dictionary’ for critical fields and

> attributes within Eloqua

> •Maintain documentation of Eloqua data flow processes; user documentation;

> and training materials

> •Implement standardization of usage and data entry

> •Optimize data hygiene through proactive monitoring of automated programs

> and system usage

> •Perform admin tasks; adding/deleting/changing fields; editing Programs;

> adding/deleting users; etc.

> •Will be required to work with Eloqua admins to perform root cause analysis

> •Work with business users and 3rd party Eloqua agencies to understand the

> business application of Eloqua

> •Ability to translate high-level business and user requirements and

> functional requirements

> •Write UAT test cases and perform UAT

> •Work with Eloqua admin team to understand roadmap, enhancements, updates

>

>

> If you believe you're qualified for this position and are currently in the

> job market or interested in making a change, please give me a call as soon

> as possible at 510-870-3518.

>

> Note: Please allow me to reiterate that I chose to contact you either

> because your resume had been posted to one of the internet job sites to

> which we subscribe, or you had previously submitted your resume to an

> opening with Intelliswift’s client. I assumed that you are either looking

> for a new employment opportunity, or you are interested in investigating the

> current job market.

> If you are not currently seeking employment, or if you would prefer I

> contact you at some later date, please indicate your date of availability so

> that I may honor your request. In any event, I respectfully recommend you

> continue to avail yourself to the employment options and job market

> information we provide with our e-mail notices.

>

> Thanks,

> Sam

>

> IntelliSwift Software Inc.

> 2201 Walnut Ave. #180, Fremont, CA 94538

> Tel:    (510)-870-3518

> Email:   sam@intelliswift.com

> Intelliswift is ISO 9001 - TL 9000 certified company.

> Intelliswift wins award for the 4th fastest growing company in East Bay

> Intelliswift among the top 10 fastest growing companies in Bay Area

> Intelliswift Ranked No.2 by the Indus Business Journal

> Learn more @ http://www.intelliswift.com

>

>

> California  | New Jersey | India

Of mice and rats

Mountain Lair is as far from civilization as CA-17 will allow, and I am glad we don't have to live completely off the grid. Electricity is good, as is water and the holy Internet. Everything else, we have to either truck in, such as we do with propane, or do on-site, such as waste water treatment (A.K.A. septic tank), back-up power generator (still on the list to buy).

It's really not bad, just gets expensive at times. But it's quite civilized, and we even have proper garbage pick-up, with recycling and yard waste bins, like you'd have in a city!

It being mostly wilderness though, you could have guessed that humans are outnumbered by other mammals ten- if not hundredfold. Coyotes, deer, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, mountain lions. And rodents. Nature is constantly trying to take over and re-appropriate what humans cleared for themselves, and mice and rats are the vanguard of the constant siege.

Us being us of course, we deploy electronic surveillance and state-of-the-art traps baited with bacon and peanut butter. Bacon for the rats, PB for the mice. Okay, maybe the mousetraps have not really evolved that much in the past hundred years, but they are still the state of the mouse trapping art.

It all started with noises in the attic. Some large animal kept waking me up at around 1am with its heavy footfalls. We weren't sure whether that was a rat or maybe an opossum. The websites about rats in the attic all said that the rats would be "scurrying" -- and "scurrying" this was not. These were deliberate, slow, and not too-cautious footsteps.

We both have a soft spot for marsupials, so wanted to find out what that animal was before trying to deal with it. We would hate to kill an opossum. Opossums are neat. We'd probably want to prevent it from climbing in by closing the openings it uses, or have a professional catch and remove them. But killing? No!

So to be sure what it is we've got in the attic, we put up a little surveillance camera in there first. It works with ambient light and infrared, and then you can watch what it sees on a little embedded-linux box it came with. Neatness.

It did not take long until we have identified the perp. It was a giant rat. And by giant I mean about three quarters of a foot long, before the tail even starts. No wonder it was not scurrying. With heft like this, scurrying would be completely impractical and undignified. It's like imagining Bruce Willis pattering along. That's just wrong.

So J went to Home Depot and got a rat trap, baited it with bacon, and set it up in the attic. Every once in a while, we'd check the attic-cam to see if the trap was still there. It remained untouched for a couple nights, despite the rat's continued return visits. Finally it decided that the trap was safe enough, or maybe it was overcome with the aroma of bacon. Either way, it bit.

If someone tells you that the traps kill the rat in an instant, don't believe it. The rat thrashed about for maybe 30 seconds, woke both of us up, but finally everything was quiet. We weren't even sure it was dead or maybe managed to free itself, because in its final throes it moved off-camera. The next morning we confirmed the kill.

I am not big on killing animals, so this was pretty sad. On the other hand, can't have rats in the house. Sigh.

Then last night I realized that some fruit on a shelf in the kitchen was nibbled on. On closer look, there were also mouse droppings in the fruit bowl! Yuck!

All the fruit went in the trash, and four mousetraps were set, baited with peanut butter.

Guess what? The very same night, two of the traps had mice in them.

So we are preparing for the siege and buying an extra large box of mousetraps.

Athletic asphyxiation

I went to buy some new exercise clothes last night. Tomorrow, I will be returning five out of the eight items I bought. Four of these items are sports tank tops, and they will be going back because I can't breathe in them.

Over the years I have begrudgingly complied with the sexualization of female bodies, which means that somehow the hint of my nipples showing through fabric is offensive, while a man's nipples are not. I've never worn a bra, and therefore the societal requirement to hide my anatomy results in having to wear layers even in summer, and most annoying of all, to exercise.

Enter sports tops.

They usually have some sort of a double fabric or padding cups in the front, and for women better endowed than myself, some sort of an integrated bra. While I don't need the support, I wear the padded tops for "modesty."

The only difficulty with them is that someone in the industry decided that a sports bra has to be constructed of high-tensile-strength elastic material that will compress my chest to the point of suffocation. Last night I was in a hurry and also it was cold, so I was wearing a coat and a jacket, and other warm things, and did not want to unpack in the store just to try on some tops. So I grabbed two of each kind and went home. When I tried them on this morning, I had problems getting into one, and out of other, which proved to be worse.

Now the thing with the integrated bra is that it is shorter than the tank top and often only attaches to the top at the straps, closing with an extra-strong elastic band at the bottom. Once I had the top on and realized that I was having difficulty breathing in it, I tried to take it off. The longer part came off fine until the point where it attached to the elastic undercarriage, which was still gripping me around the ribcage. My arms were trapped in the top, held over my head, and no way to reach the little elastic contraption to pull it off my body.

Close to panic, I briefly considered waking up J to ask him to cut me free of the evil garment, then continued the struggle. Instead of stumbling around blindfolded by the top over my head, I knelt on the floor and redoubled my efforts to wriggle my way out of the predicament. After a few panting fits and starts, I managed to escape the ties of the sports top, and sat on the floor trying to catch my breath.

Once my pulse was back to normal, I neatly folded the armored tops and put them in a bag with their receipt to take back to the store tomorrow.

Yay victory.

---

Photo credit: dagophir.com

About paperwork

I haven't written much about my immigration status, because frankly, there hasn't been much change over the years. The process moves at a glacial pace, and two or three biometrics^[1] appointments aside, I am still where I was in 2007.

While you wait for your case to be processed, there's mostly nothing to do but to wait and freak out, because the authority does not provide any real answers if you asked them about the status. Here is an example of a written response I received when I asked about the status of my application:

The status of this service request is:
A visa number is not available at this time.
XM0265

Make of it what you want. Apparently it means that maybe my case has already been adjudicated (i.e. decided) and I am now only waiting for the visa quota to become available. Maybe. I could not get further than that with the "customer service"^[2] rep on the phone.

Each year, a certain number of immigrant visas (a.k.a. Green Cards) is made available for the immigration authority to hand to people like me. There are rules governing how many visas each of the many immigration categories will get. I won't bore you with the different categories and what they all mean, suffice it to say, that they hand out visas on the first come, first served basis. Your place in line is determined by the date on which you first initiated the process, which is called the priority date. Once a month, the immigration folks publish a Visa Bulletin where they list the status of each category, so you can see how much longer you have to wait.

This month, my priority date has become current, which means that maybe my case will be taken off the shelf and reviewed by someone. Or not. Apparently there are no guarantees of that happening just because your priority date is up.

From here, I may get an appointment with the friendly authority, where they will interview me to help them decide whether to let me stay. Legend has it that sometimes you just get your green card in the mail. That would be nice.

As luck would have it, my German passport is going to expire in November this year. So I figured, let's get a leg up on that and start the process of getting a new one. The Consulate is right here in San Francisco, and appointments are readily available. They also have a checklist of all the things I will need to get this started. A photo is one of them, sounds easy enough, even though they say that they have to return 90 percent of all applications because the photos aren't good enough. Being German, they provided a multi-page booklet with all the requirements and good and bad examples. Armed with it, I think I should be able to get the photo right.

Now the next requirement is not for the faint of heart. Turns out that if your passport lists a German residence address (as mine does), in order to have a consulate process my application I need a paper from the Berlin authorities saying I don't live there anymore. Which I think I got at some point. Or not. It was almost seven years ago, and I don't remember. Thankfully, the City of Berlin has a very comprehensive web presence, and I was able to download and print the un-registration application, fill it in, and physically mail it to the friendly Bürgeramt Steglitz in Berlin. Hopefully they will promptly stamp it and send it back, so I can get my new passport.

In the meantime, I am going to keep my appointment at the consulate to make sure that I am not missing anything else, because it would suck if the US Gummint came to me to stamp that long-awaited visa in my passport, and my passport was expired!

---

[1] "Biometrics" is a fancy name for having your fingerprints and your mugshot taken annually. What drastic changes in my hands and face they expect to catch, I don't know. Once taken, both pieces of data are swallowed by the authority never to be seen again, judging by the fact that I always have to provide new mugshot pictures to renew my Employment Authorization document (EAD). When the newest one arrived, it had "Not available" written in the field where my thumb print would go.

[2] I like the doublespeak of calling me a customer, when I have to use their "services" and follow their procedure under the risk of deportation. While I understand that I am here by choice, and immigration is a privilege, not a right and blah-di-blah, it's much easier to say this from the comfort of your country of citizenship. When you've lived in a foreign country for six years like I have, paid the taxes, and built a life here with real human connections, a home, and a career, you get tired of the constant vague threat of losing all of this because some bureaucrat misplaced your paperwork or decided to deny your petition.

Furniture shopping for my office

I will have a dedicated office in the Mountain Lair, which I am also designating to serve as our library. Over the years, I have collected a number of books, most of them still in Berlin, and now I finally will have a place to bring them all together.

It being a library and also having soaring 15-foot ceiling, I embarked on a search of tall bookshelves that would befit such a room, and not be dwarfed by it. Ideally the shelves would be stained espresso brown and made of solid wood or bamboo, and may have metal pieces. I would tolerate plywood parts, but no MDF or particleboard. Here is an illustration for what I thought would be a good kind of shelf for the library.

As I was soon to find out, solid wood furniture is now only available from super-expensive places such as designer or antique stores. Or if you have it custom-built.

The picture above is from the World Market catalog for a shelf that costs nearly $700. That's not cheap if you ask me, so I assumed it would be true when their website said the shelf was made of solid wood. I bought it, and two very energetic ladies helped me load it into the van with great effort. It was flat-packed in two boxes, and each box weighed 100+ pounds.

When we got home, J and I unloaded the shelf piece by piece, opening the box inside the van, and carrying the parts upstairs in manageable increments. When the shelf was three quarters of the way assembled, I realized with that sinking feeling of doom that the main vertical supports of the shelf were indeed thick MDF.

So the next day, I disassembled the shelf, and we loaded it back into the van in reverse order, putting it inside the original boxes as good we could (which was better than we expected). I drove it to the store, where nobody showed themselves concerned with the reason for the return, and even when I told them, no written note was taken as far as I can tell.

I have crawled hundreds of products in online and physical stores, but it appears that any shelf that's not costing multiple thousands of dollars will be made of engineered wood.

What really puzzles me at this moment is where all the real wood is going? MDF is made of wood that's left over after the good stuff is cut. If the rich folk comprise one percent of the population, they can't be needing that much solid wood furniture, as to make it so outlandishly expensive.

I am not skilled in woodwork, and don't really have the patience or desire to learn. I just want to buy something that won't poison me with formaldehyde and also something that is environmentally sustainable. Like bamboo. For now, the search is coming up empty, but I have a few other angles if that fails. One, I may find a local craftsperson who can build me custom shelving out of inexpensive local wood or bamboo plywood, which I know a source for. Two, I may buy a bunch of used wine crates, stain them, and arrange them as a shelf along the wall. There are tons of pictures online, here's a random one to give you an idea what I am talking about.

With the right stain and some brass brackets and accents to make it look more intentional than just a pile of old crates, I think it may have a chance of achieving the right effect. Not sure though. I have not yet worked with anything as big, and built no furniture, so I hope I won't have to do it.

For the desk, there's actually been a good development. I want a standing workstation, and have been shopping all over the place for one. The thing is, they are just coming into fashion, so the choices are limited, and most are expensive. Again, you'd think a piece of wood on legs should not cost the world, yet $1000 seemed to be about average as standing workstations go. After I gave up on the idea of buying a ready-made one, I decided to buy a tabletop and legs separately, and put it together myself.

An evening of search has yielded a 6-foot long work surface made of thick bamboo at Craftsman, and next day, I bought some 40" table C-legs for it. It's not going to be adjustable, but barring me growing taller 40" is the exact height I need.

All the parts should be arriving in about two weeks, at which point I can start setting up my office for real, instead of just using it to park all the unopened boxes from the move.