Sell your Television.

Put down the cellphone and talk.
Get out of your car and walk.
Run from the market and farm.
Don’t shop, build & make.
Talk to your children & thier teachers.
Recycle your waste. Don’t waste what you cant.
Consider your impact.
Consider your perspective.
Consider the unorthodox.
Be prepared.
Be sustainable.
Be educated.

Just don’t be an idiot.

Well, this may have been a little hipocritical of me. I just bought a used TV, so now I have 3
It’s a 1986 Mitsubishi 40″ projection TV, for $40 its a riot.
200 watts, as it has a large speaker cabinate. I can power it with solar no problems including a diddy 20 watt DVD player
Just ripe for Netflix nights.
Speaking of solar. I have a quote to aim for. $8 a watt for a tile roof mounted system, 1200 watts to qualify for our local utility company’s grid tie requirements. $9600+tax Whoo.
Save the pennies.

Cordless phone saves trouble.

A couple of days ago a guy came into my place of work and asked to use the phone. He said he had been rudely treated at a store down the street; asked to get his nigger ass out. Well, ok we’re not going to ask why that happend, sure you can use our phone. We gave him our cordless phone and he sat at the counter and made two calls and left. Not before asking if we knew what time the other store down the stree closed up, I said I don’t know, about 5-5:30. Whatever.

Well, a few minutes go by and the store owner from down the street came in and started asking if we’d seen a rude black man. We said we had, but he wasn’t exactly rude to us. We heard her story about how they let him use thier office phone, and he sat there for 45 minutes making calls, interrupted a sale of thiers apparently, and when asked to leave he got very abusive. It probably got a lot worse from there.

Anyway, it suddenly hit me a while ago that we had a much better experience with the guy for 2 reasons. We didn’t LET him take advantage of our kindness, and the soul reason; you can stay behind that counter and use our cordless phone from in the back.
We didn’t invite him to use a phone behind the counter and potentially interrupt the running of our business.

Now, would the situation have been different if he came into our store first ? yeah, it probably would. He would have sat at our counter with a cordless phone making calls for 45 minutes, probably pretty annoying, but it wouldn’t have impacted our buisiness much. He was pretty quiet for the 2 calls he made from our phone.

Technology. It saves a lot of f*cking hassle. Love it.

Crazy birds.

So, for my birthday a bunch of us went to Rooster Cogburns Ostrich Ranch. It was a great laugh and I recommend that eveybody go, oh, and definately take the monster truck tour of thier ranch grounds; WELL worth it, especially for the Ostrich Fishin’!

Feeding Frenzy!

I recommend feeding the Rainbow Lorikeets also. But beware, they will land on your head, and help themselves to the little tubs of nectar you can buy; they have become incredibly adept at opening the things themselves.

Bathtime.

If you can't get the cap off the nectar you're in trouble!

Operation Northwoods

Google it. Read the history. Be afraid, be pretty damn afraid of all governments.

Goodbye girl.

Brook, as Megan affectionately named her, was with us from May 15th to May 31st. Today we made the tough decision to let her pass on. (or as we tearfully refer to it: Set her free)

This little dog with a big heart didn’t have a chance. My theory is that she was bred for breeding, cute as a puppy, used as a momma dog and then kicked to the kurb to turn up unwashed, uncollared and unloved at animal control. Where she most likely contracted the distemper that almost 95% of cases, are fatal.

Docile, and enjoying a good petting

When the end came, she couldn’t stand and when she did manage, she fell and had uncontrollable tremours. What hurt the most though is that she was fully concious, she knew we where there, her tail would wag and she would look directly at us. Thats why we prefer to refer to euthenasia as setting a dog free. Thier mind knows thier body has almost all but given up.

Thats the tough part, how do you know when ? when is the right time ? In cases of distemper, as I am now painfully aware, pretty much any time is the right time.
As soon as the syringe was empty, her little body finally stopped convulsing; we knew she was finally at peace.

I look at my other dogs and feel such luck and thanks and only wish that Brook could have joined us all and shared in our love.
I feel such sorrow; I actually apologised to her; let down by almost everybody she came into contact with. Even I feel personally responsible; she came to our house and we tried to help, did we do all the right things ? when she refused food, should we have just tried harder ? It tears you up inside.
Goodbye Brook, I am so sorry you had to leave us this way.

Oh Sh*t

A couple of weeks ago, me and Megan brought another dog into our lives. We saved her from being put to sleep at Pima County Animal Control Center. She had a cold, we nursed her, gained her confidence and got her to walk confidently and go to the bathroom.

In the last couple of days she grew weak and stopped eating, got wobbly on her legs and as the latest vet visit confirmed, she lost 5lbs We’re pretty sure its distemper, and there is a high probablility she won’t make it.
I hate to think that we saved this animal from one cruel fate, only for her to suffer another.

I think we took a great risk, not only to our own animals, who have been pretty good about it. But also risk to our emotional state, for the dog, but also our emotional feelings towards the world. If you get entangled in the cruel realities of the world and all of its nasty, horrific, seemingly unsolvable problems you end up hating that world with hellatious vigor.

And we do, we HATE the world for what it has done to this animal and countless other thousands, we HATE the world for its indifference to suffering, waste, pollution and at times we HATE ourselves for being complicit in its machinations.

The world is upside down.

Listen to this marines’ account of fighting our war. Support our troops, it doesn’t mean you have to agree with why they are there (I don’t)

and ….
How is it cheaper to print and ship 8×10 photographs from China than it is for me to order them from wal-mart, kodak-gallery, shutterfly, snapfish or even walgreens ?! all of which want $2.87-$3.99 Even when I’m ordering 25 !
As much as I hate ordering from China (ArtsCow.com), you can’t argue with $0.49 for an 8×10. Shipped, my order of 25 photos was $24.60.
From wal-mart, with me picking them up! (in 1-2 days) it would have been $60+ !!

Have we become so stupid that we don’t realise what is going on ?! how have our business overheads ballooned so much that there is a $2.38 difference in printing a piece of paper ?

What doesnt make sense to me at all is that a 4×6 is 9 cents, almost everywhere, surely then an 8×10 would be about 40 cents ? right ? (its roughly 4 times the paper and ink) I would even be happy paying about $1.30-$1.50 if it was printed in the US.

I’d be really interested to see the numbers on this, is the chinese guy pressing the print button actually getting paid less than the american guy ? or is wal-mart just netting more profit ?
I agree we need to keep jobs and money in this country, but every guy has a number, and mine was reached when it came to getting these prints.

Happy Birthday me. I’m 26. What did I do ? I went Ostrich Fishin’ … Yeah Photos soon.

Trackmania is fun.

Simple fun.

Racing is fun. Making and testing tracks is fun. And all this in the free version of the game.

Moving in, sorting out.

Listening to: The Allman Brothers, Blue Sky.

35.9 mpg. I think. I wasn’t sure, it only took about 10 gallons (roughly 380 miles) and I tried to top the tank off and it wouldn’t let me, so I guess its accurate. Who knows (its probably closer to 31mpg, the current tank seems to be dissapearing alot quicker, so I don’t think it let me put enough gas back in).
But now because at least half my commute is on the freeway (hardly ever above 70mph), it helps alot I still do most of my coasting in town, there aren’t alot of opportunities to coast on the freeway; I loose speed too quickly. I do try and coast down ALL hills though.

Still haven’t unpacked a lot of stuff after the move, I’m going to take one of these upcoming weekends and blitz.
I have a lot of crap Especially in my garage. Maybe I’ll take a weekend to arrange some storage.

Future project: I’m going to be experimenting with an old AC motor (not the best, but it was free!) from an electric hospital bed and hooking it up to a bicycle drivetrain, not on a bike to begin with, I want to see if I can get it to work on a test rig. That involves benches. Hrm. At the very least a table.

do not want :(

Alright Pakistan, you’ve given them an inch, how long do we think before they’ll take the mile ?