Month: May 2016

Is San Francisco Catching Up?

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Is San Francisco Catching Up?

Anyone who has travelled to countries in Europe such as Germany, Belgium or the Netherlands, may have noticed the proliferation of bike riders in the city streets.  We saw bicycles everywhere.  I was amazed by the size of the bicycle parking lot we saw in Amsterdam, where we visited in 2010.  It was multi-leveled, and I had to wonder how the owners could find their bikes.  One of the problems of living in small city dwellings is where to store your valuable means of transportation.  Some bicycles are very expensive.  On Google I found that among “The world’s most expensive bikes” the least expensive was priced at $34,425.00, and the most expensive one called “The Butterfly Madonna” can be purchased for just $500,000.00.  If this is not in your budget, you might consider Bike Sharing.

I recently visited 24th Street in San Francisco, and I picked up the local newspaper, “The Noe Valley Voice”. Inside was an article, “Bike Share Coming to Noe Valley”, which prompted me to write this story.  And then the following day, I read an article in the “San Francisco Chronicle” titled, “Bike Share Set to Wheel into Bay Station”.

Cycling in San Francisco has grown in popularity in recent years, aided by improving the cycling infrastructure.  At the end of 2013, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) attempted to count how many bikes there are on the streets, which amounted to 23,225 bikes, about a 96% increase since 2005.  As more young people move to San Francisco, the number of bikes seems to grow.  But this also creates a challenge. One bike is stolen in our city every three hours, and most of them are never recovered because they’re quickly disassembled in chop shops. When my daughter Tamar lived in Manhattan, her vintage 3 speed bicycles that she used to ride around downtown NYC, were snitched a number of times, only to be replaced with another old one, just to continue the recycling process.  Regardless whether you cycle to work or just for pleasure, protect yourself.  Enjoy and Share.

P.S. It is always fun to photograph bicycles.  I encounter them everywhere.  Perhaps one day their images will get into my next books.

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Cheers,

Manny<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> Signature

How To Survive On Three Juices A Day For Seven Days

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Three Juices A Day For Seven Days

Long ago, I realized our children are our teachers.  Of course we teach them at the beginning of their lives; trying to guide their early education, helping them find an occupation, which would sustain their lives, and then they leave home.  Years later, after having their life experiences and being on their own, they return to our lives to help us see a new world through their eyes.

I’ve learned a lot from our two daughters, including how to be patient, tolerant and loving.

In recent years, both of our daughters have been teaching us how to become healthier. We have been learning how to control our cravings for less than healthy foods.  Our younger Tamar, who has been a vegetarian since birth, started a small business some years ago, helping people embrace food and to eat more healthfully.  She learned a lot about nutrition and developed delicious recipes, which she has shared with her mom, and I am lucky direct beneficiary of my wife’s culinary skills.  Our oldest daughter, Alona, was the “rebel” in our family.   When we became vegetarians over forty years ago, she continued to eat meat.  But as the years advanced, she became more conscious about what goes into her body and started to learn how to maintain her health and weight.  I have been trim most of my life, but lately my stomach started to stick out.  I wanted to get rid of that extra five pounds.  In my view, dieting for the sake of losing weight does not always work.  What I needed was to change my lifestyle, the intake of food and to exercise regularly.  Elfa suggested walking, daily.  To that, I added regular workouts.

Meanwhile Alona influenced the change in our eating habits.  Learning about her eating experiences, I decided to go on cleanse, by only eating apples for three days, which I wrote about it in September 2015.  I felt great and I lost some weight.  Then she suggested that we change what we consume in our daily meals.  During one of her recent visits from Paris, she showed Elfa how to eliminate sugar and carbs from our diet (which I wrote about last week).  We started eating lighter, eliminated bread and desserts and “miraculously” I shed nineteen pounds.  Following that, I decided to clean the inside of our body.  Alona convinced us to undertake a week-long juice fast, where we consumed juices three times a day, and also went on long walks (Consult with your doctor if you want to do that).  The idea coincided with an invitation I got to teach two seminars in Monterey.  We rented a house in Pebble Beach, and during the next week we just consumed delicious juices prepared from different varieties of vegetables and fruits.  Elfa bought a book “The Juice Cleanse: The Seven Day Juice Diet”, which offered many recipes.  During those days I kept working, teaching my seminars, meeting with new people, talking to my ongoing clients and my office.  I also walked for three hours every day.  I did not feel tired or hungry, or a need to take a nap.  By the end, I had a lot of energy, and a cleaner and trimmer body.  Upon our return, we gradually started to consume solid foods, but kept small portions with the intention to repeat this experience every other month, but for only three days at a time.  My goal is to live a healthful and productive long life.  Stick around to see how I am doing.

Enjoy and share.

P.S. During my walks I encountered a lot of blooming flowers and insects, who manage to sustain themselves on pollen.

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Manny<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> Signature

How To Live Healthfully

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How To Live Healthfully

A married couple lived happily together for many years, until one day they got into a car accident, and died immediately.  When they arrived in heaven, the wife turned to her husband with joy in her voice and exclaimed, “Look, how beautiful and peaceful it is here, honey!  The blooming flowers, butterflies, and trees!”  “Well,” the husband responded, “If not for your vegetarian diet, we could have been here a long time ago”.

On January 13th I reached the remarkable age of 69.  It will take another twenty seven years for those two numbers to repeat themselves again at age 96.  Oh well, I have no choice but to wait.  As one progresses in life, time feels like it runs faster.  The famous saying, “So little time, and so much to do” is attributed to Winston Churchill, but in different variations many famous people have been known to express this sentiment.  Last year my wife Elfa suggested, “Why don’t you semi-retire?”  I agreed with her suggestion (after over forty-eight years of marriage, a man knows that he has to always agree with his wife).  I cut my daily working hours from ten to eight, and now I have more time to work on my photography and writing, which resulted in my photography book series, “42 Encounters”.  I have just finished working on my first book “42 Encounters in San Francisco”.

People ask me how I can do so much.  Where do I have energy and ability to function non-stop for long hours every day?  My answer is “a good diet”.  Any high performing vehicle needs the best fuel to function at its best.  With my wife’s influence, we decided to stop eating meat over forty years ago.  Shortly after coming to the United States in 1980, per the advice of a nutritionist we met with, we added fish to our diet.  Then, about ten years ago, influenced by another teacher, I stopped drinking any alcohol.  Gradually, I weeded out coffee, as well.  Instead, I developed an affinity for drinking good hot chocolate.  This did not last for too long.  Recently, after making the decision to eliminate excess carbs and sugar from my diet, and to cut down on bread and desserts, hot chocolate was also cut off.  Reading this, you may wonder, “Why deprive oneself from food and drink that so many people find enjoyable?”  And the second question you might ask is, “What do I eat and is it enough?”  The human body has its own intelligence.  Some studies suggest that many modern foods are difficult for the body to process, and might be a contributor to the growing number of obesity and ailments in today’s western society.  Many people stop smoking, drinking alcohol and set up other restrictions, only after doctors tell them to do so.  In our case, our daughter Alona helped me to move to the next level.  When we became vegetarians, she and my mother-in-law, who lived with us, chose to continue to eat meat.  While she still does, she has become conscious about her diet in general.  After experiencing and improving her own well being, she suggested that Elfa and I do the same.  On her recent visit to San Francisco (she currently resides in Paris), we decided to follow her advice and went through a seven days cleansing process.  Luckily, Elfa is a very good cook and knowledgeable about food preparation.  We had tasty smoothies for breakfast, creative salads and delicious soups for dinner.  In between, I snacked on apples, or a handful of nuts and dates for dessert.  I feel great, my weight went down and energy went up.  But there was a cost, of course – I had to buy new pants and take a few old ones to the tailor.  Oh well.

Enjoy and share.

P.S. I considered sending you the image of my slim torso, but decided that young people I met on the beach in Playa del Carmen, Mexico looked more attractive.

Do Not Keep Me As A Secret!
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Cheers,

Manny<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> Signature

Paris On My Mind

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Paris On My Mind

It took us about an hour from Knokke, Belgium where we vacationed for about a week (I wrote about this experience last week) to drive to Antwerp.  From there, we took a train and two hours later arrived in Paris.  It seems that you can cross Europe in about two hours in any direction.  Stepping out of the train into the busy Parisian street, was like entering into a different world.  In Belgium, the weather was cold.  Paris greeted us with the warmth of the setting sun.  Though we’ve been to Paris many times, every experience is new.  The environment looks familiar, but each time, we need to get reacquainted.

There is a story told about a man who kept saying that he “wants to go to Paris again”.  A friend asked him when last time he had been there.  “Never”, the man answered, “but I’ve wanted to go there many times.”  Our daughter Alona has lived there for 10 years.  She has a beautiful apartment in the center of Paris.  She travels the world for her art advisory business, but recently she decided she wants to come back to the Bay Area, where she grew up.

Whenever we travel, I continue my daily routine; an hour walk in the morning.  One day at 7.30am, I stepped out for my walk.  The tourists were still in bed.  The air was cold, about 40°F, but I walked briskly, encountering only those Parisians, who were rushing to work.  I knew the direction well, and in about half an hour I was in front of the famous Parisian landmark – the Eifel Tower.  It is named after Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.  It served as the entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair.  The tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the most visited paid monument in the World.  There are other known symbols in Paris, like the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Elysees, the Louvre museum, the Notre Dame de Paris.  But aside from these famous monuments, what makes Paris really unique is its outdoor Cafés which all serve their famous baguette.  They are copied all over the world, but nothing comes close to the original, since it is a part of the Parisian lifestyle.  Some years ago, I had my first photo exhibit called “French Baguette” with images of people with baguettes.  I am planning to publish “42 Encounters in Paris with Couples” in a few years.  Meanwhile, soon you will be able to enjoy “42 Encounters in San Francisco”.

P.S. French Cafés are not only places to have a drink or a meal, or meet a friend.  They are also an excellent place to photograph people.

Enjoy and Share.

Do Not Keep Me As A Secret!
Smile And Please SHARE It With A Friend!

Cheers,

Manny<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> Signature