A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. The book is about food production and agriculture in the US. It is also about man’s relation to food and to the culture of eating. This is not a review of the book, but rather a summary of my thoughts on this subject as it relates to my personal health and habits.

Many years ago I saw Super Size Me. Following that I stopped eating at McDonald’s and reduced my consumption of fast food in general. It wasn’t until I saw King Corn and The Future of Food that the reality of industrial agriculture began to sink in. I was increasingly disgusted by what I was eating.

I’ve been altering my food habits towards ones that I believe will support the goal of a healthier life. Habits, that were encouraged by my parents while I was growing up, but those that I easily ignored in my adult independence. My mom taught me that just about anything is good in moderation but nothing is good in excess. Pollan’s observations on food show just how much excess is involved in industrial food. Observations of my own diet revealed that I was having too much meat and processed food and not enough vegetables, whole grains and fruits. I also found a large amount of HFCS in my diet, mostly from soda, but also, and this was a surprise to me, from ketchup and other products.

Throughout my twenties, I didn’t think twice about what I was eating as long as it tasted good, and often, fast and convenient. My younger body could take that abuse without much consequence. My older body won’t tolerate abuse as it gets confused and transformed by the bad food I eat. It is imperative that I live a healthy life and for that it is necessary that I eat healthy food. Enough is enough.

Having moved to the US from India, I’ve always admired the nutrition label on foods sold here. What I had often ignored was the list of ingredients. Now, more than ever, I find that information very valuable when eating or buying food. Labeling is important and I would like to see it become even more descriptive to capture the source of ingredients and to their status as GMOs. I’m grateful to those that research information about food and agriculture and seek to have it readily accessible.

Over the last few months I’ve been eating much less meat. I have eliminated HFCS from my diet. I have greatly reduced the consumption of processed food and increased the consumption of whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables. I acknowledge that as I seek to minimize my consumption of unhealthy food I may occasionally give in to the desires of speed, convenience or taste. Having Liz in my life has significantly helped to reintroduce and encourage healthier eating habits. Her food ethic is much stronger than mine and she is acutely conscious of what she consumes.

As an omnivore I can eat many things, but I won’t just eat any thing.

I’ve just released Avatari version 0.2.2. This is a minor release. It preserves avatar file type when uploading to a service. It also improves and simplifies the user interface design when adding a new account. Many thanks to my friend @ubercolin for his suggestions regarding these improvements. For a complete list of changes, please see the Release Notes. You can get the latest version at the link below, or just select “Check for Updates…” in the menu from within Avatari.

Download Avatari

Mike Johnston, over at T.O.P, writes interesting posts quite often. He has recently written a couple of them that hit close to home. They are The Leica as Teacher and Why It Has To Be a Leica. Mike suggests a training program using the Leica for a year to shoot B&W film extensively and to edit and critique oneself on the photos taken. I’ve tried to do exactly that over the last two years.

There are some differences, of course. My camera has been a Bessa R2A. I’ve been using only that camera with a 50mm prime lens since January 2007. The Bessa is like a cheaper version of a Leica. Most of the points that Mike mentions in the second post apply to the Bessa too.

Certainly, I haven’t been as prolific as Mike suggests. Much has happened in my life since then and other interests have sometimes taken priority in spare time. As of today I have 362 photos on Flickr taken with this camera and lens pair. That’s an average of about three selected photos per week, although in reality there were bursts of activity when I was on vacation. About half of those photos are B&W. I typically haven’t thought in terms of color unless it felt quite essential, and have preferred B&W film for the most part.

The gist of the matter is that this is a really good exercise. In the end, like Mike says,

Because make no mistake, photographing the way I suggested in the previous post is the photographic equivalent of being a top athlete: it takes dedication and coordination and talent and time and sacrifice and lots of training.

This gels with what Malcolm Gladwell has written in Outliers and with my own experience. What matters most is that you put a lot of time and effort into it. The constraints Mike suggests help to make the exercise even more focused, pun unintended. It’s definitely not the only exercise out there but I sincerely believe that if you were to do this, it would greatly benefit your photographic eye. I can surely feel it and perhaps my photography shows it.

When I started using my Bessa, I dumped my DSLR and haven’t missed it since. Having said that, I think I’m getting weary of having a film based workflow as my primary one. I’m still hoping that a nice digital rangefinder will come along or that I will find it reasonable to invest in a Leica M8. Until then I may try the new Sigma DP2. It looks quite promising. I’ll keep an eye out for the news and reviews and look at photos from it for a couple of months before deciding.

Yea, the last few posts on this blog have all been about Avatari. Life, as usual, is way more varied. Here’s a recap of some travels and photos from the last few months.

Late last year, Liz and I traveled to Asia. We visited her Nepalese home near Kathmandu, had our second wedding of the year in New Delhi and then went to Bali for our honeymoon. That’s a whole ’nother blog post that one of us will eventually write on our blog. Oh, but the pictures are ready to go in my Asia 2008 collection on Flickr.

Our first trip this year was during the last week of April. Liz and I went on a road trip in the Colorado plateau area. We flew in to Las Vegas and drove to Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park. It was an amazing set of places to see with wondrous natural landscapes; the product of water, stone and time. We spent four nights camping and three in hotels. An exploration of that trip will also be in our blog soon, I promise! Once again, the photos are ready :-)

These two trips have been my primary outlet in taking photos over the past several months. I’m quite happy with the resulting pictures. I am, however, starting to feel tired of using film and the related workflow and cost. I hope I can make the transition to a decent digital rangefinder sometime over the next year or so although I will have to save up for one of those!

Tomorrow Liz and I will be going to Bend in central Oregon for this Memorial Day weekend and I’m hoping to explore new places and take a bunch of more photos. So, stay tuned for those!

I have a couple more ideas for blog posts so hopefully the next one will be sooner rather than later. In the meanwhile, feel free to follow along at @samgrover where I can be found posting much more frequently.

You wanted AddressBook and iChat support. It is here!

I wanted more web services to adopt an API for uploading avatars. Shizzow responded with enthusiasm. That support is here too!

By enabling AddressBook and/or iChat support, entries appear in the account list for each of those. When you are ready to update your avatar, just select them if you want to update those too.

If you use iChat for Google Talk, then setting your avatar in iChat will update your avatar on Google’s servers the next time you connect or immediately if you are already connected. Google then updates your avatar across all their services including Gmail, Google Profile, etc.

I’ve just updated Avatari to the latest version using the newly added auto-update feature. This has been made super simple through the Sparkle framework for Cocoa. After you download this version, the application should auto-update with each new release. There is also a “Check for updates…” feature in the application menu for manual checks.

Special thanks to @bsneed for the idea to support AddressBook and iChat and to @ryansnyder at @shizzow for responding to my call for an API within a matter of days!

Heartfelt thanks to all of you for the enthusiastic response to my first Cocoa application! I hope you like this release and continue to provide me with your feedback on my Gmail address, samgrover. I will do my best to deliver.

Download Avatari

Requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Runs on Intel and PowerPC based Mac computers. Supports multiple accounts on Twitter, FriendFeed, Shizzow and your Mac’s AddressBook, iChat.

I keep my avatar the same most of the time but every now and then I would replace it for a short period to represent a holiday or a cause or some event. When I would do that it would annoy me that I had to go to each individual location where I had uploaded my avatar for a brief replacement.

Not anymore.

I made Avatari to solve this problem. It currently supports multiple accounts on Twitter and FriendFeed. When I came up with this idea, I found that Twitter already had an API for uploading an avatar but FriendFeed didn’t. I requested the folks at FriendFeed to create an API for me, and to my pleasant surprise, they had one ready in twenty days. Thanks guys! I hope to add more services in the future.

My other motivation for making Avatari is to teach myself Cocoa programming. I had hoped to make something useful while familiarizing myself with Cocoa. It’s working great and I’m hoping to advance my knowledge of Cocoa software development with continued effort.

Last week I presented Avatari to the folks at Portland CocoaHeads and tonight I presented it at Demolicious. I’d like to thank all the folks at either event for their feedback, ideas and encouragement regarding this project.

Special thanks to Giglielmo for sharing the photo used in the logo under the Attribution-Share Alike license and to my wife, Liz for transforming it into the application logo.

I hope you like using Avatari. Let me know what I can do to make it better. You can reach me at my Gmail address, samgrover or via @samgrover. You can download Avatari from the software section on my website or by clicking the link below.

Download Avatari

Requires Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.

I earned my first paycheck in 1998 by creating a website for my uncle's business. The amount was Rs. 5000, which is about $100 at today's exchange rate.

Update (01/30/2009): I made this post when trying out Plinky. Probably won't be using the service anymore.

I started with the wonderful Super Mario Galaxy and it was the only Wii game I played until a couple of months ago. Then, for five days each, I rented Transformers, Super Smash Brothers Brawl, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, one after another. And although I didn’t really get in to Brawl, I thoroughly enjoyed the other two.

Then came October, and my awesome mother-in-law completely surprised me with two Wii games for my birthday. Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Both are based on movies that I haven’t seen. I’ve enjoyed The Mummy more than Pirates.

Then came November, and keeping in mind that Liz and I will be off to Asia during Christmas, my mom-in-law sent our presents early. Guess what I got, among other things? Yea, that’s right, two more Wii games! Iron Man and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Each based on a movie that I have seen multiple times. Awesome! I haven’t played Fantastic Four yet, but Iron Man has been fun so far.

Next week Liz and I leave for a vacation to Asia, but when I’m back in January, I’ll sure have a bunch of Wii games to play :)

I sent the following out to my friends and family in the US and abroad, then decided to share it here too.

Dear friends,

Congratulations!

Hope you are well. What an awesome night. Liz and I are elated and the mood in Portland is ecstatic, as it is in several parts of the US and the globe. Everyone I know is happy. With the state of things, there are probably tough times ahead but this makes it so much better. In whatever way you may have contributed to this day, I thank you.

Cheers!

Sam