Tomorrow morning I’m going to start releasing some of my available books from bookcrossing unless someone wants them. Have a look and if there’s anything you’d like I can send it on. I’ll probably bring a few with me tomorrow morning to leave on transit so if anything looks good let me know now.
Archive for February, 2007
25
Feb
07
Books – Get them while you can!
24
Feb
07
links for 2007-02-25
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After you finish watching 1984, if you’re still looking for dystopian film, start here.
20
Feb
07
links for 2007-02-21
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It’s about time – this change is a no-brainer. That said, we still have yet to convert our household. I’m thinking that perhaps the time has come.
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I tried this last night and not only was it quick and easy, the results were perfect.
18
Feb
07
This looks awfully familiar
Is it the news, or is it classic fiction brought to the movie screen?
18
Feb
07
Private: Weekend Update
Thanks to a client that has a statutory holiday on Monday, I’m actually midway through a three day weekend. Good thing, too, since while it is a little busy now it is going to get absolutely crazy-busy in about a month and there will be times I’ll be lucky to get weekends off at all let alone a three day weekend. Call it saving up on leisure. I expect it will be as effective as “catching up on sleep”.
Thursday night was a late night for me. I spent it putting the finishing touches on Sage’s new present. She’d been wanting a laptop to take out in the world with her on weekends to do writing in cafes and libraries as well as at home and a well-timed bonus from my company made it a possibility. I spent a while in Future Shop going from cheap laptop to cheap laptop looking up reviews on the laptops I was on to see which one had the best reviews and which was most suited for my plans for the next evening. When I got home from work I quickly made up the restore disks and as soon as that was done, tossed a linux CD in and wiped the hard drive clean. After about an hour I had Ubuntu 6.10 running happily and another hour later I had it working the way I wanted it. After a little tinkering, though, I decided that Kubuntu might be better and planned on installing that on Friday.
Friday night was even later than Thursday. The linux install went quickly but then I wanted to play a while with the computer and ended up staying up until about 1:00AM. At about 5:30 Saturday morning, Sage woke up and asked me what her password was. Instead of telling to hold off and that I had a few things to do, I woke up and showed her what I’d done and finished my work. Once I was awake for a little while I was unable to get back to sleep and decided to stay up. I think that may have been a mistake. All day I felt completely unmotivated and somewhat zombified. By the end of the day, though, I’d had enough coffee to think about making dinner and started lentils for cabbage dal. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I was at the crucial prep moment that I noticed that we were completely out of garlic. As I was tired and grumpy that turned out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back and I headed out to pick up takeout and resolved to get groceries the next day.
Sunday came around and I was much more rested after sleeping in until well past seven (and going to bed before 10:00 PM!). After my morning coffee, I worked my way over to the couch and surrounded myself with cookbooks. Within about 15 minutes I had a decent mealplan and the beginnings of a shopping list. Within a half an hour I had a list, had convinced Sage to join me. We picked up a zipcar for a few hours and headed out. All told we went to four different groceries (regular, Asian, health food store, and Indian. We also picked up coffee and lunch as well.
While we had a great time, we were both glad to give the car back (despite our new-found love for cars with heated seats). We both found it stressful to be on the road and maybe it was just that it was Sunday afternoon but it seems to me that all we did was look for parking spaces. Our first stop, to get vegetarian dim sum at a place near Pacific Mall had to be aborted because due to the Lunar New Year, the place was totally packed. Even in malls at the height of the holiday shopping season in New Jersey, I didn’t see such bad parking. The only way people would get a space was through stalking people leaving the mall. We eventually gave up on that prospect and found an entirely different restaurant to go to. Other parking lots were nearly as packed. If the grocery stores weren’t all so far apart, it would have made far more sense just to take transit.
When we got home, I took some advice I got in the comment discussion for one of Josh Woodward’s entries and tried roasting coffee with a popcorn popper. The results were very good and the cost was extremely reasonable. I think we spent maybe $2 on this popper at the thrift store (compare to the $179 at the store where I bought the green beans), and it makes a really nice roast in a matter of minutes. It truly is one of those few things that are actually easier to do than it sounds.
Tomorrow I’m off to do a few more errands. I’m long overdue for a haircut and the salt and slush have ruined one too many pairs of khakis so I need to check goodwill for a few more pairs of pants.
Okay, I am not really a self-promoter. Yes, back when I updated this daily I loved to see links but was never one to ask for a link just because it just isn’t the way I am. Today, though, for perhaps the first time in my memory I’m asking for a link. Not a link to me per se but to Sage. Last Friday Sage did an interview on her podcast with a 10 year old girl, Ema, who attends the Springfield Sudbury School. This school, one of several Sudbury Schools around the world allows kids to create their own curricula and do not segregate kids by age addressing two major issues I have with compulsory schooling. Ema is trying very hard to raise the $30,000 needed to keep her school from closing on February 28th. To do this she has been fundraising for some time now including a program called 600 for 50, trying to get 600 people to donate the relatively manageable sum (when compared to $30,000) of $50 each. At this point in time they have 22 of the 600 people they are looking for and only a little over 2 weeks to raise the rest. Please consider linking to either the blog entry, “600 for 50″ Campaign to Save The School, to Sage’s interview with Ema, or both.
Thanks. The text of the 600 for 50 entry appears below in full for your information:
Help save a 10-year-old girl’s dream
The goal: 600 people who will donate $50 each.
The following story about an inspired 10-year-old from Springfield, Missouri was posted on a family blog on January 11 by her mother, Tiffany Frey. Please take a moment to read it, and then help spread the word in any way you can* about our EMERGENCY FUND DRIVE for the Springfield Sudbury School, whose tireless fundraising efforts for launching the school have been totally derailed by the Federal-Emergency-level ice storms in Missouri the past two weeks. The school’s doors will be closed by February 28 if immediate funding doesn’t materialize. Our goal is to find 600 people willing to donate $50 each, raising $30,000 that will allow the children to finish out the year and firmly establish the school, which has come this far on more than 90% volunteer effort.
I would like to share our Sudbury School story with those who are interested. We have been “open” now since September however, it took until the end of December for the city to finally grant us our occupancy permit. So now, we are officially open.It has been fun watching [10-yr.-old daughter] Ema embrace the Sudbury philosophy and thrive in ways that are so unique to her. However, as many of you may know, we were not able to open the school with as many kids as we needed and so we have tried to do a considerable amount of fundraising. One evening I told Ema that as much as we were trying, we were just not bringing in enough money for the school to operate. When she realized that the school was in danger of closing she, in true Sudbury fashion, felt her own desire to keep the school alive and jumped into action.
She decided then and there to hold a Jumprope-a-thon and began calling local businesses, family, and friends and asking for pledges. I have never seen her with such a deep level of internal motivation and passion. In fact there are many people that go through their whole life and never feel the depth of passion she was feeling. She spent about 5 heavily focused days making these phone calls (right in the middle of the Christmas rush, I might add). The calls began first thing in the morning, continued all day at school and started again immediately when she got home from school. The focus was amazing.
She also had to work through her own fears. For instance, she wanted to call a large local business (it was the first business she called) but she was scared. She cried, out of fear and out of pure frustration at her fear. I of course reminded her that she certainly didn’t have to call them. But she reiterated that she wanted to. After she dried her tears and got a hug, she dialed the phone and stepped outside.
Well, they said no along with many many dozens of other businesses. But she kept on trucking and did get some yeses. Her efforts inspired another student to join her in having a Jump-a-thon. On jump day, much to everyone (including Ema’s) surprise she jumped 3,025 times in an hour and a half (she had trouble walking the next day!) The 2 girls combined effort, to date, has yielded $1,330.60.
I have been so deeply moved and humbled by watching all this unfold. Unfortunately, despite this valiant effort, it looks like our doors will most likely be closing. When I asked her what she has gotten out of being at Sudbury the last 3 ½ months, (I have to ask since it can’t be judged with tests or grades) her answer was “I got courage, self
-confidence, and happiness” Once again, I was blown away. If those aren’t useful skills to be taken into adulthood, I don’t know what are! My heart is breaking, watching her heart break, as we face the reality that the numbers just don’t match up. Nevertheless, I will never regret the time she has spent there or the years I spent trying to build the school.- Tiff
Tiffany, Chris, and Ema got national news coverage (including a spot on the Paul Harvey radio show) when they made a cross-country trip in THE FANTASTIC VEGGIE BUS, their alternative-fuel bus-turned-mobile home, in 2004. Educating the curious along the way about their alternative to fossil-fuel consumption, they traveled 4,641 miles on approximately 500 gallons of grease gathered from restaurants along the way and cleaned in a filtering compartment built into the back of the bus. They used diesel only for starting the bus, and returned home after three months with 1/4 of a tank of their original tank of diesel left!! The whole story is on their blog, http://fantasticveggiebus.blogspot.com, along with pictures of the three of them and their dog, Jerry.Tiffany has been working for years to help build and open a Sudbury School in Springfield, Missouri. Sudbury schools offer an alternative approach to education based on a model of democratic process and an uncommon regard for the autonomy and innate wisdom of children. There are approximately 40 schools around the world that follow the the Sudbury model of democratic education.
Please take a chance with your $50, if only to reinforce the power of children to take action and get results. Donation checks may be sent to Springfield Sudbury School,
306 E Commercial Springfield, MO, 65803-2942. Please write “600 for 50” on the notes line of your check. Fundraising progress will be tracked on our Web site at http://springfieldsudburyschool.org. Thank you!*Help prevent spam: please spread the word responsibly to friends, individuals, and organizations who will appreciate the story. No chain letters, please; they’re illegal.
08
Feb
07
links for 2007-02-09
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Lots of fantastic Toronto-Related applications of the google maps API. I’m still most fond of the TTC map .
What’s so phenomenal about fear?
When I travel to work I often pick up one of the free daily newspapers offered at the subway station. They’re not usually great for in depth analysis but for a quick overview of what’s happening they’re not too bad. On Thursday I picked one up and was a little surprised at the front page article, Fear Phenomenon. I may be reading in a bit but the author really seemed to be a bit surprised that people are having anxiety about the possibility of climate change. In fact, maybe it is simply the fact that it is being reported on at all that implies that it is unexpected.
It seemed extremely odd to me that this was news – that this is something that would not be a normal side effect of reading, and hell – experiencing climate change on a daily basis. After all, were we to read a story one day about people being on an accelerating freight train headed for a brick wall whose engineer refused to listen to the passengers warning of the upcoming crash and fearing that even if we did apply the brakes, it would be too late, there would not be a separate story whose point was “Passengers on ‘Death Train’ are feeling anxious and powerless to stop the impending doom”. Folks – this is not front page news.