One of the biggest hills to climb for any human being is actually noticing what is happening around you.
It’s not an easy task. People are deeply, instinctively attracted to theories and legends and plans. They want to be part of a story that makes their existence meaningful. And no matter how deep or shallow that identity is–from being part of a 5000-year old religion to following the latest, greatest version of the grapefruit diet– the ideology tends to occlude as much as it explains. It makes us ignore the experience of our senses. And occasionally it makes us insufferable new converts, robotically parroting the party line, immune to any new input, whether we’re born again Christians or diehard Apple or Linux users. (Is anyone a diehard Microsoft user?)
That’s why I was so pleased with a new book about the hot-button topic of the day: barefoot running. Barefoot running has been lighting up flame wars on fitness blogs and the Runner’s World forums for the last year (where I admit I’ve been spending way too much time). The main topic of contention is ostensibly which form of running (barefoot or “shod”) is more natural or suited to our existence today, and less likely …more
I got my yard inspected as backyard habitat as part of a program run by the Portland Audobon Society and Three Rivers Land Conservancy. I already knew it was working because in recent years we’ve been visited by a whole cocktail party of birds, insects (including dragonflies) and the occasional bat. But it was nice to receive the “Gold” certification anyway, because I got an all-important SIGN to put on my fence.
Fireweed (native), penstemon (native), and day lilies (not) under an Oregon white oak.
Black locust “Frisia” (“naturalized” in Oregon but not native)
Clockwise from bottom left: cultured variety of ninebark (a native), strawberry bush (similar to madrone, a native), hops on gate arbor, day lilies and Oregon white oak (native), low tech “rain garden” (read: glorified bucket surrounded by rocks and native rushes) and streamside lupin (native)
The sign
This sign was the answer to a bourgeois little quandary I’ve had: how to explain to the neighbors what I am doing (or not doing) with our “garden”? Without lecturing anyone, that is. …more
Last month I finally got sick of cleaning peanut butter off DVD’s. Between me and the 4.5 year old, there probably was a whole jar of the stuff inside the dvd player, and a corresponding amount of skipping. We’d turned to online streaming services like Hulu, which sat on remote servers and were invulnerable to the mess, but they tied up my laptop every time the kid wanted to watch Finding Nemo, or Super Structures. Also, I didn’t enjoy the vibe that was building up, where there was no separation between the machine I use for work and the one I use for vegging out.
It was finally time to realize a scheme I’d been mulling for a while: making a tiny little home theater PC (HTPC) that would allow my household to go diskless. Here’s how I did it and how it’s working — which is great, even if some providers of content and software seem determined to keep users stuck in the past.
Lately I’ve been obsessed with kitchen efficiency. Not green efficiency, but efficiency in terms of work. I would prefer to spend my time enjoying food, not preparing it or cleaning up. Why does my mother-in-law’s kitchen seem like such a breeze to work in while my own kitchen felt so awkward? And how can I save work without spending $20K-$100K on a major renovation?
I embarked on my own amateur analysis of kitchen flow and modded my kitchen to match. My work began with this kitchen work flow diagram:
I’m not much of a graphic artist, but it succinctly shows why it can be so hard to do work efficiently in the kitchen: …more
Photo by egazelle of a volunteer at the recent Hood ToCoast event. You’ve got a lot that’s good about Oregon in this picture: someone who is not being paid, and yet is completely at ease standing in a burned over clearcut, in the mist, by a cone, with a backpack and a bullhorn — which they are not afraid to use. :)
The Goat Justice League advocates and educates on behalf of urban goats, who can be pets and milk producers (or wanderers). In contrast, the goat above was actually more of a professional, part of a weeding crew cleaning out a construction site in Seattle, according to the photog. Thanks Courtney!
My family got its Xtracycle about a year ago, and I figure we’ve gone at least a thousand miles on it by now (the bike computer fritzed around mile 500, in December). Everything I wrote about it in my review last year seems more true than ever: the cargo bike is simply the most meaningful single piece of “green” technology I’ve used.
We don’t need a private car anymore (we still use carsharing a few days a month to go out of town and on special errands), so we don’t have the impulse to do stupid life-sucking errands like you do when you own a car (my personal weaknesses: going to the hardware store to buy 1 bolt, or to Burgerville for a monster snack). It’s so much more relaxing when you don’t do that stuff.
But still, we need to carry stuff, right? Here are a few things we’ve carried:
an army’s worth of groceries
a frat party’s worth of beer
a case of wine from TJ’s
a kid and his TWO bikes, while talking easily the whole way
adults as passengers — this is surprisingly romantic and hilarious
You rarely see top-bottom split screens used in movies, but this scene makes me wonder why not. Bela Legosi lords over a stock shot of city streets, in the classic transvestite liberationfilm, Glen or Glenda. The world-weariness could apply to Solomon himself — if he had a morphine problem, anyway.
It’s funny how you can get used to the most extraordinary things, taking the amazing for granted until someone threatens to take them away.
Twenty-ton airplanes fly, and we don’t blink an eye. Lettuce seeds buried in the ground, angled every which way, somehow, amazingly, detect gravity to send their shoots straight up to the sky every time, and then we complain they’re not big enough to eat yet. Mothers love us no matter what, and you know how we treat them.
And then there’s Cubespace.
Cubespace is a shared workspace so perfectly functional and Portlandesque I’ve rarely thought about how extraordinary it is. The idea is “coworking“: an efficient yet social workspace arrangement for serious freelancers, a step up from working at the cafe.
I suppose someone could set up a collection of desks and phones and printers anywhere and call it coworking, but Cubespace’s proprietors Eva and David have truly generated a positive and comfortable atmosphere. They know what a freelancer needs: reasonably priced office space, a tireless, fully automatic espresso machine (complimentary for paying customers), a quiet room for when you need to focus, and, for when you need a sugar rush, free Capn Crunch. No wonder I feel at home there.
Now Cubespace is threatened with eviction. I won’t bang the drum too loudly here, because David and Eva are negotiating with their landlord currently, and David has summarized the plot succintly here. But I am encouraged that the news led to a flash flood of direct support, including a fundraising site that’s collected about $5000 in just a few days. I won’t take Cubespace for granted any longer — nor the twenty-ton airplanes, nor the gravity-detecting lettuce shoots, nor the long-suffering moms. Well, maybe just one mom…
Update: June 2009. Cubespace is closing, but it’s hard to say that it failed. Have a good summer, guys.
. The world-weariness could apply to Solomon himself — if he had a morphine problem, anyway.