Returning to Thailand

Next week I leave for my third trip to Thailand. I will be there for three weeks and hope to get in a bunch of training even though it's not that long of a trip. It's hard to believe it has been almost 3 years since I was last there. I know my technique has improved a lot since that time, and it will be great to further refine it with some quality training in the land of Muay Thai.

Now, I had every intention of returning to Sitmonchai and spending my three weeks there. However, this was sort of a last minute trip decision, and the gym is currently overbooked. I'm glad they are doing so well and that they limit the amount of foreigners at the gym which ensures quality training for everyone. It's just a bummer that I won't get to be there. But there are a million gyms in Thailand and I'll find some other great places to train. I do have a very loose plan, but I am going to treat this trip as more of an adventure and exploring some new gyms and areas. So stayed tuned for stories of street meat, slums, beaches, soi dogs, sexpats, and of course Muay Thai.*

*This is all contingent on my laptop not frying its motherboard 4 days into my trip like it did last time. Same laptop, new motherboard.

Saigon!

This post is not about the city of Saigon, which doesn't really even exist anymore, at least not in name. Actually neither does the Saigon Supermarket I'm about to write about. It's now called Total Oriental Foods, but I always refer to it as Saigon much the same way people eschew Ho Chi Minh City.  Total Oriental Foods (TOF) is one of the undiscovered gems of Raleigh. Unlike the other Asian markets in the area, it is Thai owned and has a large concentration of Thai goods with a touch of stuff from other Asian countries thrown in. It is also much smaller than the other Asian markets in town, but is packed floor to ceiling. I like going and just exploring every aisle and usually end up discovering something new each time.

The reason I love TOF is that I can find a lot of Thai items here that I can't anywhere else, including the other Asian markets in Raleigh. Some of the things I regularly buy include sticky rice (of course), holy basil, yard long beans, fish balls, fish sauce, Shark brand sriracha sauce, pad thai sauce, rice noodles, guava, solar dried finger bananas, thai sweet & spicy sauce, coconut milk, preserved radishes, green papayas, and coconut water. They even have some hard to find kitchen accessories like sticky rice baskets & steamers, julienne peelers good for making som tum, and ceramic/wood mortar and pestles.

TOF is located right near the Wal-mart on Falls of the Neuse and New Hope Church Rd. The address is 1629 Ronald Dr. Raleigh 27609. Check it our if you are in Raleigh!

View from the parking lot. Look for the Saigon sign!

Plenty of instant noodles to choose from.

Sauces!

Shrimp Snacks if that's your thing.

  More picture on their own blog page: http://totaloriental.blogspot.com/

Painting an old House

When we set out to paint our 77 year old house last year, we figured we'd probably finish over the memorial day weekend. Here we are over a year later and still at it. Our original intent was to just slap up a new coat of paint over the old. As soon as we started, we weren't really happy with how it looked, but we kept on until we had finished the back and east side. The problem was that there was at least 4 previous coats of paint, and likely even more than that. The oldest layers had the alligator skin look to them and it gave the house an ugly texture. Below you can see the original yellow and what our new blue looked like after a fresh topcoat.

Old Alligator skin Paint.

New blue painted over the old layers.

As you see, that looks like crap. When we started the west side of the house we decided to do things right and remove the previous layers of paint. Certainly not a task for the faint of heart. We began with the steel scrapers that we had been using to remove loose paint. These things are useless, and I recommend you avoid them for serious paint removal. You'll spend more time sharpening the blades then you will removing paint. We switched to carbide bladed scrapers which were much better at holding an edge and removing paint. It was still extremely slow going and it would have taken years to finish at this rate. We did some reading online debated between an infrared paint remover, chemical strippers, and the Paint Shaver Pro. It was probably my affinity for power tools which led us to choose the Paint Shaver. It also seemed to be sort of a wonder tool for flat wood siding, which is what we were dealing with. It is basically an angle grinder modified into a hand planer that also shaves the underside of a siding board. The tool hooks up to a shop-vac to suck up all the paint shavings. I also ran it through an Oneida Dust Deputy to keep the shop-vac filter from clogging. You can see a picture of the setup below.

Paint Shaving setup.

The Paint Shaver isn't cheap (around $600 and hard to find used) but it is worth every penny. Here's what it can do to multiple layers of paint:

 

It will leave behind a little bit paint and will leave some circular cut marks in the wood depending on the cutting depth (which can be adjusted) and how thick the paint is in a given area. The shaver has a couple other drawbacks as well. First it may not remove everything on boards that are cupped or not flat; this is not a huge problem though. The other is that you will still have a lot of cutting-in to do with your hand scraper. Due to the design of the tool, you can not get tight into the corners or around windows. The pictures below show the side and the front of the house shaved, but not scraped or sanded; you can see the areas that still need to be cut in.

We found that using a heat gun useful for getting the ends of the boards and around widows and doors. All that being said though, removing the bulk of the old paint is quick work with the shaver. The front of the house probably only took me 4-5 hours to shave including having to move a ladder. Shaving and scraping was followed by sanding. All boards were sanded with an orbital sander & 40 grit sandpaper to remove any leftover paint, remove the circular cut marks seen above, and to prep the wood for primer. Here is the front ready for primer:

Primer is followed by caulking. Then we would apply two coats of paint on the trim and finish off with the main color. Everything is painted by hand, and the main color is cut into the trim. Here is a picture of the final painted wood. Notice that unlike the picture above that didn't get scraped, it actually looks like wood under the paint and you can even see the grain.

The front of the house is still only primed, so I have no final picture yet, sorry. Here's a final one showing the finished west side and the partially shaved front.

Been a while!

In fact it has almost been a year since the last post. I guess the muay thai focus of this blog sort of kept me from posting any updates. That's not to say I haven't been training, just that's its not as interesting as doing it in Thailand. When I returned from Thailand, I started training at a gym that I really loved. August of last year it closed and I've since been training at another gym closer to home, but that I don't enjoy as much. It's resulted in me going from training 3-4 times a week to about 1-2. Regardless, I think I might start putting up some posts on other topics and maybe try to diversify this place a little.

I think the next post will be about painting the exterior of our house. Boring, I know, but I feel that we have learned a lot of valuable information and lessons along the way that would have been helpful had we known going in. So maybe it will be useful information for someone in the internet somewhere maybe looking for tips or ideas going into a similar project. 

Eating Is a Pain in the Ass

Title says it all really, but let me expand a little. Cooking sucks and takes too much time, grocery shopping is a chore, trying to eat healthy is tiresome and boring, eating out is expensive,  etc. etc. If I had the option, I would take a pill everyday that satisfies my hunger and meets all my nutritional needs.  Having to eat is a real drag.

So what has led me to this rant? A little over a month ago I was thinking about my diet and how about 80-90% of my daily caloric intake comes from grains, legumes and sugars. Pretty much a lot of carbs. This was due in large part to the fact that I had been vegan/vegetarian for around 12 years, and I had become accustomed to eating a lot of grains and soy based veggie products. So I decided to basically do a 180 with my diet. I decided to go on the Paleo diet for 5 weeks. For those unfamiliar, Paleo diet is a diet loosely based on what our Paleolithic ancestors ate. Pretty much a lot of vegetables, fruits, eggs, nuts, seeds, and meat. No dairy, grains, legumes, sugars, or highly processed foods.
I wasn't really trying to lose weight with this diet, even though a lot of people do, but I wanted to see how my body would respond to a much lower carb intake (coming mostly from fuits & veggies) and also improve my daily incorporation of vegetables into every meal. This diet would also require meat consumption levels that I probably hadn't seen since I became a vegan/straightedge/hardcore warrior at age 16. Before going to Thailand last year, I had begun to eat some meat again, but not a lot.  Basically just re-testing the waters to see what I had been missing out on, if anything. While in Thailand, I pretty much ate everything, because most vegetarian food there is pretty insipid and they also use fish sauce in everything (it's their salt). I was, therefore, fairly prepared for 5 weeks of pretty heavy meat eating.

I'm now down to my last few days of my 5 week Paleo challenge and here's what I found:

• I ended up losing a whopping 0.6 pounds, which is fine as I wasn't hoping to lose weight as I'm 5'10" and around 150. I did, however, lose about 1.5-2% body fat, so I leaned up a little. (Disclaimer: my scale could be full of shit on that, but I've been using it for 3 years and try to make sure I take measurements consistently in terms of time, hydration, etc.)
• Eating Paleo is really expensive! This is especially true if you are trying to eat grass-fed & free range meat like a lot of Paleo advocates advocate. You also end up cooking with lots of coconut and almond products (oils, butters, flours, etc.) which aren't cheap like their grain/legume counterparts.
• My energy levels seemed fine even though I'm assuming I was taking in a lot less carbs. I could get through my 2 mile run followed by a 1-1.5 hour Muay Thai session just fine. Where I did notice a difference was in my Sunday long runs (6-8 miles). I can normally do these runs in the 7-7:30 minute/mile pace. While on paleo diet, these runs were a lot harder, and i was generally in the 7:40-8:00 range.
• Incorporating vegetables into breakfast is a real challenge. I mean, who the hell wants to eat spinach at 7:30 in the morning? I crave sweets badly in the morning. Sausage & kale scramble is really good though. Hat tip to Chow Bella.
• Making your own condiments is super easy and they are better for you. See links below pictures for the recipes I used.
• Eating out on the paleo diet is WAY harder than it is as a vegetarian or even vegan.
• Being off of refined sugars for 5 weeks did not do much to curb my sweet tooth. I was born to eat sugar and will crave it no matter what. ugh.
• This diet has forced me to think a lot about how much vegetable matter I consume and ways to incorporate vegetables into every meal. That is a good thing. I've also learned a lot about nutrition and food politics.

So am I going to continue eating Paleo? Probably not. I do agree with a lot of the tenets of the paleo diet. There is no doubt that eating a diet heavy in vegetables,eggs, lean meats, nuts, and seeds is a healthy choice.  I want to cut back on the amount of grains, sugars and legumes I eat as well. I seriously believe the reason we as Americans are so fat is the abundance of these foods (carbs) in our diet.

I'm still trying to figure out how to take the paleo diet and incorporate it into a more vegetarian-ish diet. I have serious reservations about eating factory farmed meat; not only is it terrible for the animals, but also the environment. However, it is probably more environmentally (and economically) responsible for me to buy grass fed meat from the local farmers market than it is to buy some shitty soy-based Morningstar Farms veggie burgers made by the Kellogg corporation. There's plenty of science to support the deleterious effect our massive soy production is having on the Earth's Nitrogen cycle (a lot of which is probably fed to factory farmed animals, another reason not to eat them). Of course the real problem behind all this is the Earth's immense human population. The need to feed so many people is what is ultimately killing our planet. STOP breeding people! Seriously.

I'm ranting again. Sorry. My plan from here is to set a weekly budget (I can't be spending over $400 dollars a month on food like i did this past one!) and use it to load up on fruits and veggies at the farmers market. Anything left over I will use to buy grass-fed meat. This will ensure that most of my food is responsibly and locally raised and grown. I will obviously have to supplement with some store bought things like oils, nuts and seeds. And cheat meals every once in a while of course.

I'll end this tome with some pics of some things I made while eating paleo for those who don't like to read.

Pork loins with sauted cabbage.

What I would often eat for lunch.

I ate this as an egg alternative breakfast. From Everyday Paleo.

Pork Basil Burgers & homemade garlic basil mayo with  sweet potato fries & homemade ketchup.

Double Chocolate Banana Nut Brownie Muffins

Burger on a Paleo Bun with a pile of steamed broccoli and green beans.

Also, I don't have a picture, but these were the best paleo pancakes I tried. Full fat coconut milk is a great idea not only in pancakes, but it is super delicious on top of them!

Pornsaneh and Yodkhoopon Sitmonchai Documentary

Posting to this blog probably won't help get the word out to more than two people, but what the hell. Here's the bit from my facebook page:

If anyone can spare a few dollars, please consider supporting this. While in Thailand, I stayed at Sitmonchai and was welcomed with open arms. They treated me like family, and I am forever indebted to them. Pornsaneh's generosity and friendliness was inspiring; he would take time out of his own fight training to work with anyone, no matter their skill level. The majority of thai boxers come from little or nothing, and will never have the opportunity to have their story told. Porsaneh and Yodkhoopon are more than deserving of the opportunity. If you can help, they and I would be grateful.

Please lend a few dollars if you can. This has been making the rounds on the Muay Thai blogosphere, and it's a bit disappointing at how little support its getting. Everyone is paying lip service, but no one is actually stepping up.  Michael Galvin who is trying to create this documentary makes fantastic videos, and what he can produce with the proper funding will be nothing short of amazing.  I must have watched the highlight below about 100 times before going to Thailand the first time.  It's pretty inspiring.

Click below to check out all the info on the documentary and help out if you can!
http://www.indiegogo.com/Pornsaneh-and-Yodkhoopon-Sitmonchai-Documentary 

Thank You! 

p.s. I should update this blog more often, but I'm in grad school, working part time and trying to get to the gym 3-4 days a week.  If I'm at home in front of a computer I'm usually doing school work.  Hopefully I can put up a post soon about the gym I'm training at here in Raleigh.  We'll see...   

Three Weeks At Sitmonchai Gym

So I've been back from Thailand for about a month now, and I haven't written a thing about my 3 weeks at Sitmonchai.  It's not that I didn't enjoy my time at Sitmonchai, in was in fact an amazing time filled with great people, food and training.  I think part of me was pissed that my laptop broke the day before I got to Sitmonchai and I couldn't blog about my experiences real time.  Then I got home and was too lazy to write about everything.  But I'll just blame it on the fact that I've spend the last month working on the sweet video below, ha.  So instead of retelling all the stories from my 3 weeks at Sitmonchai, you can just watch said professional video to catch all the highlights.  I wish I had taken more video and photos, but oh well.  If you've got some free time and are interested, Jake and Brendan who were at Sitmonchai the whole time i was, wrote a great account here.  The subtitle to their blog sums up Sitmonchai perfectly: "In the town of Thamaka, located in the Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand - there is a family built on dance moves, great cooking and savage leg kicks."

I miss everyone at Sitmonchai a lot, and wish they weren't on the other side of the world so that visiting more frequently was easier.  I didn't get to say a proper goodbye and thank you to everyone, as I left mid-day Monday when everyone was out or asleep.  I had been battling a flu/cold the last week, and I felt myself starting to get feverish, so I wanted to get into Bangkok where I'd be staying 3 nights at a hotel before leaving Thailand.  By the time I got to Bangkok I was bedridden with a fever for 2 days, and the hot shower felt so good on my aching chilled body.  Anyway, I can't thank everyone at Sitmonchai enough for being such great hosts and treating me like part of the family for 3 weeks.  I can't wait to get back...