I wonder, I really wonder - why we haven’t rose up as a people and just shot some of these ass holes that are in congress and in BP who are allowing our coastal waters to get destroyed. The congressman who APOLOGIZED to BP for the escrow funds they had to provide. I’m sorry, but that’s treason you need to be shot. Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh. I don’t like it when people start talking about shooting liberals and looking at me with that LOOK. But crap. I mean, how could anyone be that brain dead?

Once upon a time we used to be the most CAN-DO nation on the planet. Resourceful. Sure of ourselves — now all we can do is pray that God intervenes? We have NASA! We have JPL and MIT — A NAVY. I know it’s a mile down but we have a camera there…

DO SOMETHING.

There is a new movie out called Gas Land (I think) about how they’re using a fracturing process to extract natural gas - as a result poisoning entire water sheds - like for the city of New York. As if water sheds need more stress. And it the truth hit me.

We used to treat 3rd world countries like this - dump all the toxic waste in the Amazon - no problem. Now we’re getting treated the same way, by the same companies, doing the same things.
The corporations run the United States - and they need dismantled. The whole civilization structure where everything is dependent on money has to go. GREED as what builds the world? Really - is that the best we can come up with as a species?

Okay - just had to get that out. I’ll write something funny or light hearted next. Peace.

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In the future rich people will be those who can afford to eat in a way that will keep themselves healthy, reproductive and safeguard their children. The new Audi or Land Rover — i.e. luxury items will be passe. No more will the accumulation of ’stuff’ mean as much as how healthy you and your offspring are. The material world will give way to survival.

In the future rich people will be those who can afford to eat in a way that will keep themselves healthy, reproductive and safeguard their children.

They say anyway that sperm count in males across the world are down 50% - not to mention rampant female hormonal issues …. but my past thing is, I had my kids “early” when I was young - I had endometriosis and a lot of health issues and figured it was a ‘now or never’ deal. But I figured that my friends would follow suite, that people I knew would start having babies. It didn’t happen. Here I am 35… still waiting. Hardly anyone I knew growing up - about 50 or so people have had children. I know more parents of autistic children then “normal” children.

Well, over population has to end somewhere.

What I fell into was the Fringe trap. You get sick start watching every bit of food, every vitamin and thinking … if I just try this diet from this person over here…. maybe….maybe I’ll get well. And if your symptoms ease up for a few days on some kind of bizarre diet - the plavlov effect kicks in and suddenly it impresses upon you that the diet is working! You redouble efforts. Then if you get sick again - it’s all your fault. Too many carrots. You slipped up and had 12oz. of Coke. I guess it would be the same no matter what you’re trying to recover from including obesity, stress, illness etc. (Maybe it’s all the same…) It’s a revolving door of never getting well - except on the covers of magazines - vegies cure cancer patient.

Can you imagine having cancer and having people tell you daily that if you eat xyz that you’ll get better? If it were that easy would anyone but the dumbest ever die from cancer? But I guess we all hope though, you know, if WE get cancer that we can eat beets everyday and get better. That for us - we won’t suffer. People won’t look at us and think, wow how stupid, why didn’t that person eat more chicken livers?!

There are so many fringe diets. Some of them are down right scary. It started years ago of course but with so many people fat and sick they’ve taken off like rockets. Right now the fad is liver and fresh organ meat - remember when the fad was NO organ meat under any circumstances? It’s RAW milk that is unpasteurized and Kombucha. Fads. I used to be told how bad yeast was in bread because people didn’t know the difference between bread yeast and candida.

I feel pretty scared trusting my health to anything fad like in the least. But in the past I’ve fallen into those traps. I feel stupid.

When my Mom in the 1980’s took up Astrology then later Jehova’s Witnesses I thought - how could anyone be that darn silly? A cult is a cult - neither of those things make any damn sense. JW’s had us cutting out all sorts of things. I remember when Mom had to smash my beloved Brahms and Mozart records because according to the Witnesses many composers wrote their music while on drugs and it just was best not to take any chances. The narrowed down our world, our world was a diet where we had to go without - without music (besides approved), without cursing, without Christmas or holidays, without “worldly” friends, and all because when the END OF TIMES arrived we wanted to be the last ones standing. I once had a panic attack listening to how the dead would litter the streets and the animals would feast upon the corpses of the … people who didn’t make the cut because they were not JW’s.

I would love to read a good psych article about what enforced self discipline of a group means to people — everyone falls for this shit.

For me, suffering with health problems - I had all kinds of stuff cut from my diet at one point or another. Anything you can think of. It didn’t make me well.

In the 1980’s we thought everything - EVERYTHING was stress related. Stress was everywhere causing people to get sick.

In 2000 we KNOW everything is diet. EVERYTHING is about what you eat.

So now I know people who can’t work a day job because they have to mill their own flour (not kidding) and some won’t eat cooked food or whole food and others are juicers or paleo - but its all in all a bunch of cults — and maybe that’s a good thing, maybe one of the cults has the right idea and thus will survive the bitter destruction coming upon us fast as human kind.

Don’t believe me? How many people do you know with Austism, Aspergers, Lupus or MS? Neurological illnesses are rampant. How about fat people (metabolism/hormone mulfunction) or how about infertile? Maybe we’re kept alive longer as Sean Croxton says - but are we living longer? Enjoying life more?

People are blaming diet for all the modern world woes right now ignoring in part the total saturation of chemicals we live in. The sad truth just might be what I strongly suspect, there is no hiding from this beast.

We are all poisoned.

There are really scary things in our environment that we don’t understand. Including natural hazards.

Ever do the food coloring experiment with a white carnation? What happens when the flower drinks the blue water? Turns blue right? Plants drink up the food coloring and school kids can visibly see the result. I used to feed my roses Melathione to keep the afids off. It occurred to me that if I could make my roses so toxic bugs wouldn’t eat them that something similar could happen to fruits and vegies as a marginal after effect of being sprayed. Rain washes off the poison, slurp, plants drink poison, hydro pressure moves poison into fruit. Maybe not - but you know, wish people were thinking about these things I guess.

Anyway - I keep hearing, “nothing will effect me! Maybe YOU, maybe YOUR stupid family and friends but NOT me. I follow ‘Insert fringe diet here’ and will be healthy indefinitely!!”

I guess - good luck - to everyone, everywhere. We need it. I spent $60 on produce Sunday because in the world of the sick it’s all about what you can afford to eat (or afford to avoid) sadly.

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Loads of people go swimming everywhere, every year and get bitten unknowingly by BULLSHARKS. THEY ARE HERE people.

I mean it - there are bullsharks in most rivers, seas, streams, fresh water springs, caves and municiple sewer systems and allegedly even community swimming pools.

Do you have the symptoms?

-An unexplained cut or abrasion after a swim
-headache
-muscle aches
-insomnia
-odd food cravings
-low or high blood sugar (which may go undetected)
-tremors
-bladder weakness
-frizzy hair
-missing one or more limbs

If you have any of these symptoms - you may have been bitten by a bull shark.

What you can do to protect your family!

1. Stay away from sources of recreation water, particularly if they’re playing 70’s music nearby (which, as everyone knows, enrages sharks.)

2. Do no tie raw meat to your body - even if your not planning to swim!

3. Do not wade in water over 1″ deep. Ever. Anywhere.

4. If you do find yourself in deeper water, stay calm and scream like crazy for help.

5. Purchase our special shark monitoring software for your PC which will alert you to sharks nearby with special dousing technology. ($99.00)

6. If you must go swimming tape fish hooks all over your body - that way if a shark tries to eat you - you’ll get him, not him get you!

7. Go swimming in the gulf of Mexico.

8. Upon waking meditate deeply, imagine yourself having a slimy slug like coating. Imagine nothing being able to stand biting you. After years of practice masters actually develop a subcutaneous ability to ooze slime. Although you might not be able to master it to this level - this may save your life!

9. Grow hair all over your body becoming seal or otter like. Okay this probably isn’t a great idea.

10. Learn to speak shark, sharks respond to electrical impulses and high pitch noises (I think) so by learning to communicate with a shark, you may possibly be able to reason with it.

None of these things are likely to make any difference, so be sure to make funeral arrangements if you are traveling anywhere NEAR to a coast line or heaven forbid - a beach.

LOL - okay so my kids came up with the concept of being shark bit and not really knowing it after a girl was cut swimming in the river out back. They theorized her injury (about a 1.5″ cut) came from a shark.

Because our river is a mile from the mouth of the Pacific the kids have been theorizing about various sharks that may be living in it, despite the fact it’s almost dry at low tide. Who knows though - I bet we get a shark now and again. We have Osprey and sea lions after all.

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The path I run should read, “most likely to get raped and murdered on.”

I run a lovely waterside ocean path that goes through the forest and is haunted by old depressed sailors who are drunk, vacant looking crazies, homeless people sleeping and occasionally someone riding a bike. The most notable features besides the bald eagles, magnificent views and Osprey are the tall beer cans everyone seems to carry around here - scattered alongside the path. (Which vanish again since there is a .5 return policy…)

I run past a bar, but that’s not where the worst congregate.

I wonder if there is a genetic predisposition where if you sail you just going to get depressed and then turn to alcohol.

Thus far I haven’t been hassled too badly, but the guy who had crawled up over my head on the bridge yesterday frankly freaked me out - I didn’t see him and ran under where he was at the first time. He was drunk.

Oh’ Board of Tourism - here are some ideas for you…

1. Put a 12 step program painted onto the paved path - that way as they stumble along toward the benches they can feel better.

2. Instead of having benches with, “in memory of …. who died too damn soon” how about - “It’s not worth drinking about, or at least not worth drinking about here. GO HOME.”

3. Under the bridge where the most depressed really tend to like to hide out — install either skylights from the street above or sun lamps. I wouldn’t mind - I would get a tan as I ran past and maybe the light would work its magic.

4. Rig the benches where if someone sits on one longer than 10 minutes it starts playing, “don’t worry be happy.”

5. Put signs promising free beer on down the trail - way on down the trail - lead them out of town. Push them off on Seaside or Astoria.

The drunks out number people with binoculars 3:1 sometimes. Often times. *sigh. I wish people would come and want to look at the Osprey - one of the babies if fledging - I got to see it fly today which was massively awesome.

I put in 4 miles on the trail today per usual but I’m considering moving. I love the trail and the nature but feel uneasy about this place.

I’ve been running now for three years and really haven’t made any progress in regards to distance or speed. My muscles - still pull them and I all around suck. It’s curious to me that some people can maintain their fitness level with little or no gym effort, while others can spend years engaged in getting into shape never to achieve it. It’s rather like bariatric surgery, only 5% reach a normal body weight despite the surgical intervention, low calorie intake and exercise. I could study such things all day everyday, which is good because I haven’t had any new design gigs lately unless one counts making flag icons. I am really wondering if I’m not washed up when it comes to graphic and web design - maybe it’s time to do something entirely new.

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Heya again - so I know I haven’t posted too many graphics of late so here are a few I did today I wanted to share with ya’. The first one is my boy at the zoo for his 10th b’day. This was shot with a nice Sigma Macro lens and then edited with Nik Silver software (which is unbeatable for black and white images.)

Here he is with a friendly bear poster - he’s a little theatrical like me.

And finally a pic of the foxglove growing in the backyard.

I’m fortunate that I have a wild life park out in the backyard. I live in a little efficient apartment for the moment since we just finished moving and a natural park and hiking path is directly outdoors.

I’m not so fortunate about my neighbors *sigh* - but that’s a post for another time. Enjoy the pics.

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The three things you can’t bring up with your friends, politics, religion and NUTRITION!

Right, it’s hard to bring up because people have such extreme beliefs based around what they eat. A lot of my friends are into RAW, Vegetarian, Vegan, Juicers, Fruitarians, Anorexic … so it’s hard to just talk to them about FOOD - real regular, lets not get crazy about this sort of thing, food.

For whatever reason when it comes to nutrition we in the “civilized” world are running around like bio-engineered chickens with our heads cut off and things keep getting worse. We don’t know what is good for us - most of the so called studies were funded entirely by companies with a stake in the outcome, studies often are created to push an agenda, and there that niggling epidemic of obesity that is unexplained. Most of us, including myself until recently, don’t really understand GMO’s (genetically modified organisms).

“Fat people eat too much.” Wrong.

I guarantee you that you know someone who eats correctly, counts every calorie, has exercised themselves into the ground but kept weight on. You also probably know the person who can eat anything and not gain any weight at all. If you don’t know either of these people — MAKE FRIENDS. I can’t help but wonder over and over - WHY. And when I get curious… I get obsessed with researching topics.

So for awhile I belonged to a great site called http://www.sparkpeople.com where members encourage and support each other in weight loss and fitness goals. Sounds benign, and it works well for thousands of people, but I took issue with it when I kept reading members posting in they were giving up such foods as:
Walnuts, Baby Carrots, Avacados — etc. and obsessively counting calories. The more extreme path they took the higher the level of self-righteousness and praise received. “Yippy! You’re starving yourself!!” Sparkpeople.com itself has built in safe guards like, “you ate way under your calorie allotment today…” But food obsession by counting every calorie and the inability to ever quite get it right seemed to be a big part of Sparkpeople.

My question was — We ate like kings in the 1980’s and no one was fat. Why?

I grew up on a farm (I’m digressing again, I hate it when I do that) and we had a LOT of good food all the time. On Sunday Grandma made a HUGE spread complete with several pies and home made bread - WHITE BREAD — yeah that’s right GLUTEN people, gluten. We had bacon and we had chicken and for my lovely vegetarian friends, yup we knew where our meat came from. Our meat usually had names like “Bill the Rooster.” (Who I infamously knocked unconscious once.)

I’m not buying the whole crap about, “people got more exercise back then.” BS. I work out and exercise more then my Mom would have ever thought possible - at least for most of my friends including the “fluffier” ones - we all get plenty of exercise.

Stress. Well yeah, the modern world is a stress filled environment to be sure - but back in the day they had plenty of stress too.

Something is making people fat - I kinda wonder what and why. A person’s body will work to keep a certain healthy weight - fat is typically a sign of being unhealthy or losing that equilibrium.

What I’ve Learned

Okay let me get away from all my thinking too much about something and tell you what I’ve learned. I’m sure this won’t be my last post on nutrition since I’m kinda obsessed about the whole thing.

Counting calories doesn’t work. Sure if you starve yourself you lose weight - simple - but it screws up your entire metabolism so badly it almost ensures weight gain later on and a loss of the internal balance. Also the way the body metabolizes say High Fructose Corn Syrup is not the way it processes ye’ old dextrose and because of that difference in chemical processing a calorie in, a calorie out theory doesn’t hold water. (See Berkely Vid, Sugar The Bitter Truth Found this again on Undergroundwellness.com - which you should check out!) Also it takes the body a lot more energy to break down some foods - it uses more calories to break down some vegies then the vegies contain.

Artificial sugars are evil btw and can make a person very sick, but that’s another post entirely.

When I got into good shape I stopped eating all fat and not too much protein besides peanut butter. I learned an important lesson: I need FAT and protein. After years of living without fat and protein its been hard to reprogram my brain but here is what I eat… (no fat and protein = muscle pain, fatigue, hair loss, on and on and on…)

I eat real organic farm eggs - yolk and all. Usually daily.

Despite being lactose intolerant I eat yogurt every day.

I eat BACON. Yes, you heard right Bacon.

I have cold pressed olive oil in a lot of foods.

I fry things occasionally now.

I love walnuts, almonds and pecans.

I try to get organic Dairy and Eggs at least - sometimes fruit when I can and definitely try to get as close to organic meat as I can afford.

Food I no longer touch with a 10 ft. pole —
ANYTHING with MSG in it including hydrolyzed yeast protein. (Yeast in general will make animals eat more and stimulate the appetite, although in its raw form its not so bad since it contains Niacin). There are about ten different names for MSG so make it a point to memorize them and stay away from them. A guy from the Philippines told me they used MSG wrapped up in a ball of bread or something to kill dogs (then eat the dogs…you know everyone has to eat). MSG kills brain cells and causes neurological damage. It’s a poison and shouldn’t be in food - period. Some foods add two even three kinds of MSG to their products.

I limit High Fructose Corn Syrup as much as humanly possible. A Coke or a soda pop is a treat or a desert - NOT a hydration method.

I limit caffeine - I have heart issues and it doesn’t play nice with me.

I don’t buy 100 calorie packs OR ANY DIET FOOD OF ANY KIND anymore, but I used to and I suffered for it dearly. If you eat real food you don’t need diet food which has had stuff removed like nutrients. Foods like popcorn and rice cakes spike insulin levels which indeed - make people fat. i.e. eating a 100 calorie pack of cookies can make you gain more weight then eating 500 calories of bacon and eggs.

I limit fruit - after my digestive issues I can no longer eat it and not get sick.

A few tools

I started getting educated and finding out about nutrition and buying lots and lots of vegetable produce and challenging myself to find ways to use it all up. Over half of my fridge is chocked full of vegies.

I started tracking what I ate by percentages during the day which is a lot more useful then counting calories. Here is an example of what to track and how…

Tracks, Junk, Fat, Vegies, Grains, and Protein

I also wanted to track my energy levels through the day. Using this method I discovered I can’t eat beef. Or maybe they put something very funky in beef that makes me sick. I found out that after eating just one meal of beef tips I could be exhausted and feeling weak and ill for up to three days.

A lot of beef in the United States goes to slaughter SICK. Sean over at Underground Wellness says, “you can’t get health from a sick animal” — so maybe that’s why.

The Circadian chart tracks your day in a circular format so you can kinda gauge (in a non-religious commitment way) how you feel. (Source: I think this came from Martha Beck’s book “The Four Day Win” A great diet book.) Also keep track of your SLEEP!! Sleep is super important and odds are if you feel terrible - you’re not sleeping good.

So anyway — this is my post on Nutrition and I’ve been going on way too long… I’ll leave you with a cool video that Sean Croxton over at UndergroundWellness.com created…

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Alright All - I’m BACK.

Okay, so let me break it down. 7Hunters.net took off and I had so much attention it freaked me out. I took down most of my old posts, my photos of myself (mostly) and I took a very mundane day job. I sold out. Or hid. Or something you know… I had always wanted that dream job, office, position of AUTHORITAY, but inside Missouri just about killed my inner child.

SW Missouri it’s not okay to express yourself. If there is a hell for creative people, it’s SW Missouri.

“So Seven - Why don’t you just move if you hate it so bad?”

I DID!!

Okay, so you all know I’m crazy — I moved 2000 miles away to the Oregon Coast where I get to enjoy the ocean in the summer time (while wearing a windbreaker and stocking cap ;-P ) The people here (mostly) are very cool and I dig them. The nature, frickin’ incredible. We have Osprey in the backyard, weird deer that I don’t know what are (maybe they’re elk - I have no clue, we didn’t have ‘em in the south). I’m big time into nature and this place is absolutely perfect for me.

Downside.

I’ve been sick for two years. Once I started that new job and my soul got sucked into hell — it was the beginning of the sickest time of my life. Missouri doctors gave me lines like, “The body is really complicated.” Yeah… well let me tell you, not having my friends around me to cheer me up and keep me smiling was the worst thing I could have done to my health. I was around the worst attitudes I’ve ever encountered in an atmosphere of threats and constant fear, no one to talk to except for Highlander (and him and I just about got divorced so I wasn’t talking to him half the time), and I was working out constantly — so the cortisol and stress kicked my thyroids butt, messed my hormones all up and I started having just bizarre scary symptoms all the time. Memory loss, seizures, constant fatigue, body pain all over, inability to digest almost all food, infections, migraines, depression, hair loss, melasma, ‘fuzziness’ and irritability. I was one unhappy artist.

Up here in Oregon it has taken me a couple of months to GET — to really empty out all that negativity from Missouri — and GET Oregon and the spirit of the wild here. Freedom, sweet freedom. F-U-Missouri. May I never go back there again.

I have a great doctor up here and my thryoid and hormones are starting to get back on track.

I have done a lot of research on nutrition, read a ton of books and the best link I can give you all is to:

http://www.undergroundwellness.com

Listen to Sean - he’s the real deal. Be SURE to check out his health channel on:
http://www.youtube.com/user/UndergroundWellness#p/u/61/YVQH1PSNwfI

My food soap box is this — if you don’t see results and FEEL a lot healthier - stop doing it. Make sure whatever it is you believe in, makes sense 4 you. Diet and exercise isn’t a one size fits all undertaking to be sure. If someone is telling you “just give it one more month” - yikes you know - if it’s not working, it’s not working.

Okay — I’m just on a rant now. So let me tell you what I have going on…

I am starting my own graphic design business. At first I thought about what kind of designs sell, maybe some pretty sea-scapes, maybe some illustrations for books that don’t have any - I wanted to do some nature themed sort of work….but I couldn’t get started. It was boring. Everyone does the sea right? Right. I was walking with my kids discussing typography and it hit me, I needed to be irreverent ME. So instead of “please conserve wildlife” — I needed a sign that says, “stop killing shit.” - I don’t need more cardboard, I need this TREE.

Coming from the oober conservative to the point of being anal retentive background that I do (THE south in the US aka the Bible Belt)… being honestly expressive hasn’t ever really been an option for me. What would people think? What would my job say? What if my kids saw my work? What if everyone on Facebook unfriended me (they’re mostly very conservative Christians…)

Well screw it.

I’m going to do my thing and I feel freer and happier then I have since that whole miserable Missouri experience.

I have four new web sites I’ll be building to host various graphics and a lot of projects lined up. A few will be money makers, many I just want to do, just for the hell of it.

So yep’ I’m BACK. Look for a lot of updates to this site soon and new tutorials coming your way.

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