A note from your uncle in Seattle

Dear Melody River Guerieri,

I know that it will be a year or so before I meet you and there is a solid chance that you'll never read this.  I want you to know that you are entering the world in one of the most amazing times ever.  Not because of the president or the state of the economy or the brand new Kroger in Hernando, MS (although I heard that its pretty sweet).

You have been born into a family that I have had the honor of seeing grow and flourish.  You have a mom who has been by your dad's side through some really crazy times.

Your dad is so dedicated to taking care of your family that he would do whatever it takes to provide for you and your sisters' health, wellfair and safety.  Your mom and dad have loved each other for a long time.  The home you are going to grow up in will allow you to become whoever it is you want to be.  You might not know this but your mom and dad are very talented artists.  Both of them are incredibly strong and intelligent.  They aren't perfect.  They are going to mess up.  Probably a lot, but through all of it, I know that they love you, and they are trying to do their best to not totally screw you up.

I think most importantly, and what I am the most excited about, is all of the fun you are going to have.  I know you just met them, but let me tell you... your sisters are hilarious.

 Lilly Grace is as sassy as your mom and Harper is as goofy as your dad.  I cannot wait to hear about all of the shenanigans that you 3 will be getting into.  There is a piece of me that feels sorry for your mom and dad because I know there is going to be broken bones, hurt feelings, unexpected haircuts, crayons on walls, and all other manner of childhood tomfoolery.

 I think about the squad of teens that are going to be running around north MS in 13 years and I cant help but picture me and your dad when we snuck out of our houses to skateboard around our neighborhood.  I think about the countless number of shows that we went to in what is now your dad's print shop.

Melody, I cant imagine the technology that will be invented in your lifetime.  I mean if you had told me 15 years ago that I could text a pizza emoji to Domino's and have a pizza delivered to my house I would have never believed you.  You were born on International Women's Day.  You are here on earth and in America during a time where the rights of women, immigrants, and minorities are at the forefront of every other news story.  Those rights are in danger, and hopefully the champions for these people groups will stay passionate and stay loud.  Society is moving forward no matter how hard those who oppose want to pull it back.  You have a better chance of getting equal pay, equal opportunity.  You are the coolest thing that happened today.  I am on the other side of the country on a  cold dreary Seattle day and yet I am so warm and happy today because you were born.  I'm not the only one.  Your parents have a crew of friends that are all kinds of awesome.  We are all happy that you are joining this family, and can't wait to see you grow.

I cannot wait to meet you.  Happy Birthday.

That one time I got fired

I was walking around downtown Seattle last week on the way back to my car from the dentist.  I walked past the only business I've ever been fired from, and accross the street from that business was a pretty freshly demolished building, and the parking lot had already been ripped up.  Knowing Seattle, it will probably be another condo building by the time this actually posts.  So I thought that it might be fun to tell the story of getting fired.

When I first moved to Seattle I had very few spots to go hang out at, Lighthouse coffee was one of them, and I was there a lot.  They were opening up a second location in downtown Seattle called Wheelhouse Coffee.  When Wheelhouse opened up that was my new second home since my internship at the time was downtown, and Jon Mansen worked there so I would stay there for his entire shift goofing around and getting work done.  Wheelhouse put in beer taps and was going to start serving beer.  They had a "grand opening" event and they needed a bartender (someone who had a permit to serve alcohol) so I told them I'd do it for free beer and some tips.  It was a super fun event, Jon and I just served up coffee and beer all night.  I apparently did well enough that the owner, Ed, asked me if I was interested in working there.  I was part time at Tutta Bella, so I had the time to pick up some early morning hours at Wheelhouse.  This was so exciting for me because at the time I wasn't super happy at Tutta Bella, we had gone through another set of managers and I had lost my bartendering shifts.  I thought I could stick around at wheelhouse long enough to graduate to Lighthouse, which would have been perfect because at the time Dana and I lived down the street from Lighthouse in Fremont.  I was also friends with the crew at lighthouse.  Things were really looking up.

Fast Forward and I work 2-3 mornings at Wheelhouse and one of them was a open-close shift on Saturdays mornings.  Saturday mornings at Wheelhouse were not the most exciting shifts.  I would bring my computer and do some writing, send emails,  or watch netflix because I would normally have about 10 people come in all day.  We were so slow at that point that as a joke we had made a twitter account for Wheelhouse and would tweet dumb stuff, innocent stuff, but dumb none the less.

At this point, you're probably thinking, "Man Sam sounds like a pretty terrible employee!"  Well the truth is that I was.  Even my unhappiness at Tutta Bella could be tracked back to the fact that I just didn't care, and it showed in my work.  I loved connecting with people, it was just all the other things about working that I didn't really care enough about to work hard.  I was a punk ass plain and simple.

Back to Wheelhouse,  One day in particular I decided that as a joke I would "live-tweet" my shift.  THis is a dumb joke because basically nothing would happen.

The first customers of the day were almost always without fail Toyota car salesman.  They worked at the dealership accross the street and they were my least favorite customers.  They always pulled on the locked door 20 minutes before I opened up at the butt crack of dawn, Knock until I walked over an unlocked the door, order 4-5 drinks, 4-5 pastries and tip me at the most $1.  The other times they'd come in would be in the middle of a rare rush, and while there were little kids in line they would really loudly swear and cuss and "talk shop" and they'd try to give me "the nod" which works if you're not a douche (basically the nod communicates to the barista, "hey I'm just getting the usual, if you want to start it now, to save us both some time).

So As I was live-tweeting my shift, I was tweeting things like "still no one here". "I promise i showered today, come hang out with me at Wheelhouse!"  And then a crew of really rude Toyota folk came in and I just started to see red.  After they left, I started tweeting about them.  It was mostly just rants, and then as the day went on, I started to tweet at them.  I would say "hey at Toyota of seattle, why do your employees come in and cuss and swear in front of kids?"  And "hey at Toyota of Seattle We open at 6 on saturdays not 5:30, please let your staff know".   I didn't think twice when I was just complaining on twitter about them, however when I started to actually tweet at them I did have a moment of pause.  I thought to myself, "Sam you could get in trouble for this..." and I decided at that point that I didn't care about the extra $60 a week I got from working at Wheelhouse and hit send on those tweets.

Fast forward to the next week.  I am at Tutta Bella in between shifts and I get a call from Ed the owner of Wheelhosue and Lighthouse.   This was years ago, so I'll give you a paraphrase of the conversation we had,
Ed:  Hey Sam, what up with this Twitter account?  I didn't even know there was one.
Sam:  Oh yeah, I started it as a joke, just messing around we only have about 8 followers.
Ed:  Well if its not a big deal why did I get a call from Toyota today?  What the hell were you thinking on Saturday?
Sam:  Not gonna lie Ed, I had a bad day on Saturday and those guys just got really under my skin.  I was out of line, I'm sorry
Ed: Well I can understand that,  but running your mouth like that isn't good for business.... You know I have to fire you right?
Sam:  Oh damn, yeah i understand.  I'll post an apology to Toyota and delete the account tonight.
Ed:  I didn't want to do this Sam, but you kind of forced my hand here.  I need you to get that apology up now and delete the account right now.  You can't mess around with social media like that...
Sam:  Yeah I figured, I'm sorry Ed.  I'll get it done as soon as we get off the phone.
Ed:  please do.  Bye

One thing you should know an out Ed, is that he is a pretty chill old dude who has been roasting coffee for decades.  Word on the street is that he basically taught the guy who started stumptown how to roast coffee.  The 1st stumptown in Portland looks eerily like Lighthouse coffee.  Ed didn't care about social media at that point at all.  I don't even think he has a Facebook account.

So even though I knew what was coming, the feeling of getting fired was really weird.  I felt unwanted, not good enough, angry, sad, and relieved.  It was just this nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Even though I was literally at my other job, and starting to like Tutta Bella more and more, I still couldn't shake that feeling for a while.  I don't think I'll ever forget it.

 Firing people is one of my least favorite things of my current job.  I had to do it last week, and even  though everyone involved agreed it was for the best for all parties, it still sucked.  I failed that person, whether it was in training, being clear in feedback, having unreal expectations or maybe I failed them by hiring them.  Firing someone means admitting that failure.  It doesn't feel much better on the other side of the table either.

I'm glad to see that Wheelhouse is still there and much busier than they were in the beginning.  I am also  confident that anyone I've fired has another job now, and I hope they are happy and successful there.

Not going to lie though, I was really happy to see that the Toyota dealership closed and got demolitoned.  It was like sweet vindication when I saw that.  I smiled a big goofy smile so that my freshly clean teeth showed all the way to my car.

Have you ever been fired? Have you ever fired someone?  Let me hear about it.  Hope all is well with you and yours.  I'm starting to make a series of videos where Garry Potter learns to do things.  I post them on all my social media accounts and YouTube channel. Here's a link to my YouTube channel.  Check them out, Let me know what you'd like to see Garry learn.

Allen Greenburg, Albus Dumbledore, and other nerd ramblings

I've been mighty quiet on the blog front as of late because I haven't made time to sort out all of the things that are happening.  There's been so much emotions, thoughts, and feelings, that I just have been feeling somewhat numb.  One thing that I have been doing is listening to the Harry Potter books on my way to and from work.  I had only read 2 of the books prior, so it was really fun to revisit the whole series and to hear all the parts and characters that the movies left out ( seriously, why didn't they include Peeves in the movies?!?).  I just finished the last one a few days ago.  There were a few times when listening through these books lines up eerily with my life and that's what I want to talk about today.

I guess I should say spoiler alerts, but seriously, if you haven't read the books or seen the movies by now, what's your deal?  

OK so first of all, I would like to warn any of you who may be listening through the books or planning on doing so to make sure that you are NOT on your way to do anything important by the time you get to the end of Goblet of Fire.  Not to say that there aren't emotional moment up until that point, but WOW.  I finished Goblet of Fire as I was pulling up to work and just sat there.  Cedric- gone Voldemort- back Harry-almost gets murdered by someone who he had grown close to all year at school.  Dumbledore- radiates with power (the first time really seeing him in this way) I think Goblet of Fire has the most intense ending of any of the books.  All of the emotions.  I just sat in my car and thought to myself...  I was emotionally tired and overwhelmed from listening to the end of a kids book.  It was a relatively calm shift at work which was nice, but word to the wise.  Find a nice safe place before you finish that one.   

The first time the books lined up with my life was when I wa finishing listening to Half-Blood Prince.  I remember working at camp when this book came out and everyone who was feverishly reading this on the weekend in between camps was devastated by the end of it.  Albus Dumbledore dies.  I found myself in my car, quietly weeping.  Yes I was sad that the character had died, but what led me to tears is that my dear friend Allen Greenburg had passed away just days prior.  I got to thinking about how Allen and Albus would have been friends.  My friend Allen was a fierce friend, loved the unlovable, was amazingly gifted when it came to caring for children, told some of the best stories, and was quite esoteric.

 He was in his 70's and as you can see the physical resemblance to Dumbledore goes without saying.  I don't know if Albus ever had dreadlocks, but in a beard off I think it'd be a tie.  They both had the whimsical looks of mischief on their faces.  They were both borderline irreverent and very genuine.  Allen had many different jobs over the course of his life, and I think the last one was his favorite.  He was a professional playground monitor.  He'd give out bouncy balls to the kids (even if he wasn't supposed to) and make sure that the children had a safe and fun environment to play.   Allen lived in the Artist Reformation house with Dana and I along with 4 other 20 somethings and developed a really close friendship with my friend Brendan (or Brandon as Allen would call him). They'd share stories, go to rummage sales, and they just connected in a real way.  They'd sit at coffee shops and talk about God while smoking cigarettes and meeting whoever would stop by long enough to talk.  I can just picture Allen standing up in front of a whole school and saying, "Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you.". And then sitting down with a giant grin on his face.  Allen Greenburg was the closet thing to a real life Dumbledore that I'll ever know.  The world is a little colder without Allen.  So experiencing Dumbeldore's death in the book was just another wave of grief that engulfed me.  Not knowing how to feel or what to do afterwards, I was blessed enough to have friends come into town that knew him and did my utmost to be as present with them as possible, knowing that we were all hurting and dealing with our loss in different ways.  It was awesome and it sucked all at the same time.  

The next time the books lined up with the real world is when I was beginning The Deathly Hallows.  This one was less profound (for me) as the loss of Allen/Dumbledore, but it still struck me.  The day that Trump signed and announced Executive Order  that bans people from certain countries from entering the US, I was listening to the part where they are referencing how Voldemort has control of the ministry and they were starting a muggle registration and putting people of muggle heritage on trial.  Seeing the marches, protests, and general dissent of this executive order, reminded me of these kids standing up to injustice (Ron offers to testify that Hermione is a distant cousin of the Weasley's which would put her "blood-status" as a witch and not a muggle-born) doing whatever they would think to do and at the end of the day it boiled down to sticking together, standing up for each other, and treating everyone with respect (house elves, goblins, giants, etc) while the ruling powers try to legislate and institutionalize racism (purebloods first) and pushing out everyone who didn't fit that mold, ignoring truth and justice.  If only we had an elderwand to help defeat Trump.

If anyone in this world has horcruxes its Donald Trump.  So if any of you are sitting on the sword of Griffindor, some Basalisk fangs, cursed fire, or any other goblin made goods...

All that being said, my message to all of you is the same as before.  Love each other.  Get out into your communities, meet people that are different than you. Fight injustice with love and grace.  Find a way to love those whom you don't understand.  That's what Allen did, and As I mourn my friend, as I am bothered by what is going on in politics, I am reminded that the only way to get through this grief, this loss, this turmoil is together. I still believe that God is sovereign and am genuinely curious and yearning to see where he's going to show himself in these situations because I am confident that there won't be a human solution to this problem.   It's bigger than one president, one political party, or  on election cycle.  It's a broken world that needs God's love to permeate this torn society and culture of vitriol and hate.   

Still working on a few more posts, however as life goes and friends die,  I get pretty distracted from this therapeutic creative endeavor. I hope you are all well and safe.  

  

Update!

Thanksgiving was Dana and my 4 year anniversary.  We got married the saturday after thanksgiving, so we knew that eventually it would fall on thanksgiving and this was the first time it did!  We went down to Rockaway Beach to hang out with Troy, Allyson, and Christy Jo (who I haven't seen in FOREVER!). Camp Magruder was pretty quiet, and it was really nice to see Troy seem a bit more relaxed and Allison a bit more "at home" than our last visit this past summer.  It is such a blessing to have them so close (5 hour drive), and I plan on visiting them more often.  I deaned a junior high camp at Magruder this past summer and cant wait to do it again next summer.  Dana hadn't seen me in "camp mode" and she got a good dose of that and a vacation out of it!

Thanksgiving was amazingly delicious, Allyson cooked up a storm.  Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce... She's such a bad ass.  I made Pumpkin pie and Apple pie.  I did mini gluten free pies as well.  Not a fan of gluten free baking.  You can ask Dana Jill, even with regular pie dough, when it comes time to roll it out and put it in the pie dish I start losing my mind.  The dough never quite does what I want it to and no dough is more stubborn than gluten free pie dough.  Anyway, they turned out alright, the apples macerated a little to long so they were a bit mushy.  The pumpkin pie was the best I've ever made (eclipsing the previous title holder last year's pumpkin pie from Christmas).  We also made a gluten free skillet cornbread that was good (not as good as the glutinous one but still delicious) and we all shared a really yummy Cab Franc from 2012 that I brought in honor of our anniversary (we got married in 2012)

Digby was looking at me 1 second before I took this picture... 

We brought Garry along with us, and he spent a good amount of time in the car.  We bought him a huge bone, and gave him that in the car while we ate thanksgiving.  Troy and Ally have a super cute scruffy dog named Digby, and Digby isn't a fan of other dogs.  We brought Garry inside and they were cordial at first, and then Garry just would not stop wining and wanting to wrestle with Digby and Digby wasn't having it so back to the car went Garry.  At the end of the night we took both dogs out to a wide open area and through tennis balls for them to chase to get some energy out.  It was fairly rainy so we were left with 2 soaking wet happy and tired out pups.

I'm also getting settled back into Tutta Bella.  They needed someone to take over their new food truck, 'D'Asporto' and I've always dreamed of having my own food truck so it was really exciting when the director of operations reached out to me as a possible candidate for the position.  It's been really amazing to see how the company has grown since I left.  In my re-training I was assigned to read some training material that I had written years ago, which was a really cool experience and a good reminder that I need to be more patient when it comes to changing systems and structures, and that my opinion and my voice is valued.

 Dana has been very sweet and patient with me as of late.  With any job transition comes a new collection of stressors, and when I'm not diligently processing what's going on, I tend to be a real genuine douche bag to her.  I'm also pretty good at apologizing and Dana is very forgiving, so it all works out in the end.  She just made a giant batch of Mo-Mo's Mini's (delicious and delightful little Christmas cookies) that I've been trying to avoid eating all of them so that we can actually give them as gifts.

Don't know if I gave everyone an update on our Ketogenic experiment.  I got down to 207 which was a loss of 22 pounds in 30 days.  Dana saw some benefits in energy levels and clear thinking.  She felt sick almost the whole time though.  I am more than likely going to give it another go at some point next year for a couple months.  I have gained 10 pounds back, and I'm thankful that we were able to go through something like this together.  Didn't end up doing crossfit since it's ridiculously expensive.

That's all I have for you today; I know it's been a while since I've posted, and my excuse is that it's been a very busy season.  A few posts I'm working on right now are the idea of being a stranger (partly inspired by one of my new favorite podcasts "Harry Potter and the Sacred Text" That my friend Hope introduced me to.  If you even remotely enjoy Harry Potter I highly recommend it)And one that revisits the idea that life happens around food. I'm also working on a few more posts all at the same time so that I can get back to posting on a regular basis.  As always comment or whatever with suggestions or questions.  Love you all, Miss you. Thanks for reading.

What to do now....

I had an entire post written about what happened on tuesday and I deleted it.  It was my take on what we should do now in light of who we will have in the whitehouse as of January 20th.  I deleted it because I have nothing to say about any of it anymore.  I'm at a loss for words for a different reason today.

I lost a friend earlier this week.  I found out about it today.  I'm not going to share her name out of respect to her family because it's not really public knowledge yet. I haven't seen my friend in years.  I haven't even spoken to her in quite some time.  When I first heard that she passed I was sad.  Then I started to think.  This person brought so much joy into the world.  People feel differently about themselves, better, more hopeful, unique, special, and cool because they spent time around her.

3rd grade was the first year of school that sucked for me.  I got fat, there was another Sam in my class so I had to go by Samuel for half the year, my teacher was mean.... So by the time summer between 3rd and 4th ended I wasn't super excited to go back to school.  She was one of the first people who was nice to me in 4th grade.  I have little to no memories from 4th grade other than my teacher was cool and that my friend that passed away was nice to me.  She was one of the first people who was nice to me at a time where I started to develop a negative self imagine it was people like her who made me laugh, made me smile, and made me feel like not such a fat loser.

When I found out this morning, I was bummed out.  I needed to get my mind off of the sadness, so before work I noticed that Heavyweights is on Netflix and I haven't seen that movie in a long time.  It's a lighthearted comedy about a fat camp.  There's a scene where the camp has a dance and true to reality the girls are on one side, and the fat dudes of Camp Hope are on the other.  Neither are interacting or dancing.  Also much like reality the counselors are the ones who jump in the middle of an empty dance floor and dance and make a fool of themselves and then all the kids realize that it's ok to have fun.  This scene is hilarious, especially if you have ever been to a junior high camp before.  I paused the movie and realize that I was weeping.  She was the type of person that would and could make a fool of herself so that other people would realize that it's ok to be silly.

She was hurting.  She was struggling with something and must have felt isolated and alone.  I can't even imagine the hurt she was wrestling with but my heart is absolutely shattered to know that someone who had such a profound effect on my life and many others, who was such a bright light, was hurting so deeply.

In the Northwest, there are very few people that I have known since before I moved out here.  I can count them on one hand.  She was one of them.  She was on my list of "I should connect with her because even though I'm sure she has her own community of friends; it's always nice to see an old familiar face and to catch up". Well now she's gone, and I wont get a chance to grab a coffee and catch up.  I wont get a chance to hear about all the wonderful things that she's been a part of.  I won't ever get to tell her how much her kindness meant to me and that sucks.

I'm writing this as part of my grieving process but also, for those who are reading it hear this:

There is so much darkness and hate in this world. It is SOO easy to isolate ourselves especially today.  You can still feel "connected" to people who you genuinely care deeply about through facebook or IG or whatever social media outlet you choose to follow their lives on.  What I am begging each and every one of you to do is to reach out.  Call someone.  Catch up with old friends.  Take the trips to see the people you haven't seen in a while.  Spend the time connecting to each other.  Share your light, your joy, and your hope with others.  You don't know what people are going through, and if no one asks, then its easy to believe that no one cares.  Please let someone you care about know how you feel, let them know how they make you feel.  Be real, be honest, and be vulnerable.  If you are hurting, reach out.  I don't know what else to say....

Where is Hillman City?

I'm sitting here in a somewhat random part of Seattle that could be considered "dangerous" by some. I would be willing to agree with them, however I look at the danger of Hillman City in a different way.

I know a couple of dangerous people in Hillman City and I will do my best to introduce you to them.

Ben Hunter is a dangerous guy.  He along with a whole community of fantastic volunteers, artists, creatives, and other non-profiteers had the audacity of dreaming.  They had a vision of a community filled with immense diversity to have a space to gather together to discuss, create, love, play, cook, and grow.  Ben lead the charge behind the Hillman City Collaboratory.  This is a co-working space at the corner of Rainier Ave. S and Orcas.  It's not just any plain old co-working space.  The Collaboratory from day 1 has been and continues to be an "incubator for social change".  There is a community pea patch, amazing outdoor event space, giant meeting room, a full kitchen, and a handful of private meeting rooms.  The Collaboratory is dangerous to anyone who doesn't want to challenge the status quo of how multi-cultural communities, in an underserved area of a major metropolitan area,  do life.  It challenges the idea that we should all just stay in our lanes and mind our own business.  It is a breeding ground for breaking down racial divides and doing work that matters in regards to bringing people together.

Ben is in a band with his buddy Joe, and they also go to school and host workshops to teach and explore bluegrass storytelling, music, and musicians.  Even my hometown recognizes Ben's brilliance. They won 1st place in the International Blues festival hosted in Memphis, TN.

Ben is also leading the charge to have Hillman City and Columbia City to be officially recognized as  Arts & Culture districts with the City of Seattle.  He and some friends took over and are renovating an older building across the street from the Collaboratory and rebranding it the Black and Tan Hall.  His non-profit, Community Arts Create, hosts free music classes for middle school and high school kids every Wednesday through December from 4-6.

He has so much going on all the time. He has a healthy tour schedule and is seemingly always on the go.  I don't get to see Ben that often anymore, but I see the effects of his hard work all over this part of town. Ben is the type of person that lights up a room and whenever you get a chance to talk to him about any sort of creative endeavor (your own or his) it's really hard not to get excited. Ben is an instigator in the best of ways. Also, I beat him at Settlers of Catan once.











The next dangerous person I would like you all to meet is Joya Iverson.  You CANNOT stop
Joya.Literally.  She has been hit by 2 different cars.  She overcame major head trauma and after she could get out of bed, walk, and function in her daily life she got straight to work tenaciously pursuing her dream.

What was that dream? Well she's lived in Hillman City for a long time and she wanted to do something for her own community.  She also spent sometime abroad, and fell in love with all things coffee. So she set out to open a coffee shop for Hillman City, since the closest one was actually a pizzeria (Where I worked and met Joya- in between car accidents) 7-10 blocks away.  She opened up down a block and across the street from the Collobabratory.

Dana and I had the honor of stepping in and helping out in the early stages of Tin Umbrella's kickstarter and Go Fund Me campaigns.  I love coming here because as I sit outside at the Hillman City Parklet right outside the shop that wasn't here 3 years ago, I think of how far Tin Umbrella has come since day 1.   It just makes me smile knowing how veraciously Joya loves her community and works every day to better it, one cup of in-house roasted coffee at a time.

She didn't just open up a coffee shop.  She has developed relationships with other local business owners to help everyone really engage and thrive within the Hillman City community.  She has a desire to help others sort out what helps a small business thrive (beyond 7 day work weeks, heart-work, and an incredible amount of strength and resolve that comes with the herculean struggle that comes with forging a new way of interacting with the community.) so that she and her friends can help continue this amazing growth.

Despite how well her business or health are doing (as of writing, both are doing very well!) Joya is a constant source of grace and joy (pun only slightly intended).  Seeing how much she's grown and all of the exciting things that she has done with the shop and the community is incredibly inspiring to me.  Joya is a true delight and every time I get to see her I am encouraged and excited for both her and what the future has in store for Hillman City

So there is something brewing in Hillman City (pun intended). Some would say it's gentrification seeping southward.  (There is a pet grocery store closer than a human grocery store) and I wouldn't argue that, however I do know that every time I am in Hillman City I feel this unique energy.  I wrote a chapter or 2 of my book at Tin Umbrella.  I occasionally peruse for rental listings down here because i would love to live down here.  So, do I lock my doors and worry about getting robbed in this "dangerous" part of town?  Eh, not really.  I actually do more creative work and think outside of the box, when it comes to my writing and the direction I'm going in my life, when I sit down and enjoy my favorite little corner of Seattle.

So if anyone reading this is in Seattle, go to Hillman, check out what's going on, because there is much more than just these 2 things.  There is more than I can write on in one blog post.  Hillman City, feels like a place where anyone from anywhere could be welcomed and feel a part of the community - if they got out and engaged with it.  Just watch out for those movers and shakers, like Ben and Joya, they might just get you excited enough to pursue something that you are passionate about or get you to help them help others.

I am eating fat to help me not be fat.

I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but I wanted to dedicate a whole post to the crazy diet that Dana and I will be on for (at least) the next 30 days.

We are trying the Ketogenic Diet. This means that we will be eating a lot of (smart) fats, moderate protein, and very little carbs (the carbs that come from leafy green vegetables).  Some people say the Keto diet is like a paleo diet on a diet.  Another fair comparison is the Atkins diet.  So let's see... What are we eating you may ask?  here's just a few things

• Grass-fed Butter 
• Coconut Oil
• Avocado Oil
• Olive Oil
• Pork Belly
• Prosciutto
• Creme Fraiche (Dana refers to Creme Fraiche as "food of the gods" it's SOOOO delicious)
• Mayonnaise (yes I have gotten over my hatred for Mayo for the sake of my own health)
• Cottage cheese
• Cheese & eggs
• Pork (yay bacon!), chicken, beef (grass fed & organic when possible)
• Broccoli, Cauliflower Zucchini, steamed mixed greens
• Salmon salmon salmon (Wild caught & organic)

That's most of it so fair.  We need to go to the grocery store and get some almond flour since that is ok on the Keto diet.   So what aren't we eating?

• Bread
• Rice
• Pasta
• Sugar (or it's cousins Maple Syrup, Agave Syrup, and Honey)
• Potatoes
• Most fruits (strawberries and blueberries are ok since they have a very low sugar content and are fairly nutrient dense.)

That's basically it.  It's been a week  and a half so far and I've lost ~10 lbs, however I'm not really scale watching. Let me try to explain what this diet does, and then I'll get into why we chose it.

So what does this diet do? Well the Ketogenic diet basically trains your body to burn ketones (which are made from your fat stores) for it's energy.  By depriving the body of glucose, your body looks for it's secondary energy source which is fats.  The reason our body stores fat is for when we can't find food, we can still live long enough to find food by burning the excess energy our body can produce by burning it's fat stores.  Our fat storage is like a extra gas can in the back of the truck, if that gas can somehow magically make your car run on diesel and overall be more efficient.  Some of the benefits of keto are that your brain runs more efficiently on ketones than on glucose so alot of people report on feeling more clear minded and sharp and its been known to be a great help for those suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia.  By moderating proteins and not taking in any glucose, you do alot to help your body become less insulin resistant so it can help reverse type II diabetes (although ketoacidosis is a very really danger for those with type II diabetes and a ketogenic diet should only be attempted under close watch from a medical professional).  It removes most inflammatory foods out of your diet so it's known to help with arthritis or tendinitis.  It's been known to treat, and in some cases cure, childhood epilepsy because of it's positive affect on the brain.

Some of you might be saying, Sam, you don't have childhood epilepsy, Alzheimer's, type II diabetes or arthritis.  Why would do such a crazy restrictive diet?  Well I'd be willing to bet that I am pre-diabetic (I haven't been checked or it)  The more and more I read about this diet the less reasons I had to not do it.  Dana was on board pretty quickly, but I wanted to do more research so I bought a book, read countless blogs, listening to podcasts, and perused the Keto reddit thread.  I was convinced.  Honestly, it only feels "restrictive" right now because of having to track our macros.  We try to hit a 80% fats 15% protein and 5% carbs (from leafy greens) ratio.  So far it's been hard for me to get my protein intake under 15, but I'm getting better at it day by day. 

I've decided on tracking my progress in the following way:  Pants.

I have 4 categories of pants right now.  As I progress in weight loss and waist inches loss I will move along into different categories of pants. 

Category 1:  current pants-  These are pants I wear now that are either a little big or fit just right on me.  work khakis, 2 pairs of jeans, work grey pants

Category 2:  Almost pants-  These are pants that I could wear to work in a pinch, but are a bit to tight for my liking.  another pair of khakis and a pair of blue slacks I bought 2-3 months ago that I even got hemmed to fit my hobbit legs, but are just too tight in the waste to be comfortable

Category 3:  2010 pants:  I would say the most in shape I've been in my life was 2010.  I was dating a woman who runs long distances, and when we broke up I started to work out for like 3 months.   I still have 2 pairs of pants from then.  1 pair of jeans, and 1 pair of brown plaid pants

Category 4:  Juice fast pants-  I lost so much weight on the juice fast that almost all of my pants I had looked ridiculous so I had to buy a few new pairs.  1 pair of mustard yellow pants 1 pair of dark grey work pants, and 1 light blue capris (we went to Europe; don't judge me).

This was me right after my juice fast.  The most svelt I've been in my life. 

I think I'll be fully into category 2 by next week.   I'll keep you updated on my current pants situation. I can't wait to be able to button those ridiculous yellow pants again.   Wish Dana and I luck, and please let me know if you have any tips or questions in regards to the Keto diet.  The more I talk about it and research it the better I can understand it's affect on my body.

Stay tuned, I'm really excited for next week's post:  Where is Hillman City?