This is one of those ideas that makes you wonder “what took so long to think of it!”.
Brilliant. Seriously brilliant. A great and super cheap solution to homes that are dark during the day for those (primarily, anyway) in third world countries.
http://www.wimp.com/lightenup/
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Do you ever get lost in the links on the interwebs? I do. I woke up much too early this morning and in the process of trying to activate my Google AdSense account (I need someone’s help on doing that, it’s like a different world in there), I ended up at an article on Examimer.com.
The headline reads: “‘Strong possibility’ tornado deadly fungus, secret morgues links to Gulf Plague”.
Read the whole article HERE, but in a nutshell, Deborah Dupre (“Human Rights Examiner”) reports on the fungus which has killed a number of Joplin residents post tornado. IF we are to BELIEVE Ms. Dupre and her primary source, Ian Crane, (UKexoilmanwhistleblower), the fungus CAUSING the deaths was “evaporated” from the Gulf of Mexico and ended up being spread about in the tornadic winds of Joplin, MO. The fungus eVAPorated from the Gulf after it was PLACED there by BP (British Petroleum) to break down the oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill there last year…the spill having NOT been an ACCIDENT at all, BUT a PURPOSEFUL “depopulation event” created in an evil plot by BP (and apparently a large host of other co-conspirators) specifically in order to plant GM (genetically modified) organisms IN the water with the ULTIMATE and SPECIFIC intent of killing hundreds of thousands of people with those very same organisms!!!
Really??? I mean, come on. Forgive my incredulousness. This is certainly a terribly ineffective and incredibly expensive way to go about creating a depopulation event if that’s what the goal was. Additionally, it is not a method that can be at all controlled nor is there any reasonable way to predict an outcome. I’m as big a conspiracy theorist as the next person, but this is a stretch. It just doesn’t make any sort of logical sense.
And it must be pointed out that there are simply some basic problems with the premise of evaporation as a microbiologic dispersing agent. First of all….this fungus (zygomycosis) is a terrestrial dweller. And secondly, I’m pretty sure that evaporation happens at the molecular level and doesn’t support the lifting of heavy cellular organism up into the wind. I could be wrong.
Lastly, it should be noted that infections from zygomycosis are common after natural disasters where dirt and decaying vegetative matter contaminate open wounds, especially after earthquakes and tornadoes.
I’m going to go out on a limb with this one and call it a CONSPIRACY FAIL.
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My recent adventure to West Africa started in Senegal. From Senegal we traveled to Mali and then on to Burkina Faso. These three countries are French speaking and largely Muslim. The final country on our itinerary was Ghana. English speaking and largely Christian. I’m skipping to the end to do a little bit of an easy chuckler post. :-)
The minute we crossed over the border from Burkina into Ghana I started chuckling! And the chuckles continued throughout our time there.
Why?
Well, the names of the businesses which lined the road pretty much cracked me up! Most of the time you really didn’t know what the place sold by the name. Sometimes you’d get a hint in the name. Sometimes you could tell from the sampling of wares you could see…from caskets to tires to bread…
Here is a few of the names that were on my side of the road as we drove by:
And my favorites…
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Every time I drive past this restaurant in my neighborhood, I chuckle to myself.
Do you think they knew what this looked like from the outside when they planned it???
Hahahahahahahaha!!!
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Some think that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “I’ll be back” line is the best movie line ever. Others perhaps think Rhett Butler’s “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” takes that honor. Me? I am thinking I’m partial to this one:
My dad will like this for sure, so I think it’s fitting to put this clip here as a Happy Fathers’ Day shout out to my pop!
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I feel old when I walk down the stairs and I can HEAR my left knee cap grinding. (And that’s my GOOD knee!)
I feel old when I realize that I have been a nurse for TWENTY YEARS.
I feel old knowing that my 30th high school reunion is in only four years…if we have one, that is.
I feel old when clerks at stores and waitresses and such call me m’am, and they’ve never been in the military.
But the thing that is making me feel old (but very excited and proud!) today, is that my oldest nephew will be going off to college in August. I just heard that he got into Hillsdale College in Michigan. Way to go Richie!!!! Well done.
Yeah, I’ll be up to see you, you know it! 
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I have loads of negatives and slides that have been lying fallow in boxes. Many of the prints for the negatives are long gone – given away. Some are in this or that scrap book. The prints don’t scan well, at least not with my scanner, which I thought was pretty good, but not so much for photos. My slides are fewer, but the majority of them are from the summer I spent with Teen Missions in the Philippines. The summer I met my best friend Connie. They are pictures and slides that I wish I had access to. Pictures I’d like to share with family and friends…
And now I can.
Many years ago I looked into buying a system which would transfer these negatives and slides to a digital format. At the time, the technology was uber expensive and I shelved the idea. On a plane a few years or so ago in the “Sky Mall” magazine, I saw a device that was much more compact and much less expensive, but still a bit spendy.
On “Cyber Monday” I found a 5 megapixel number for $79 bucks that had excellent reviews and was even smaller than the ones I had looked at before. I typed, clicked, and bought. And yesterday, it arrived. So cool. Pop the negatives or slides into special trays, run them into the machine, and presto, JPGs!!!!
It’s called the Ion Slides 2 PC. It’s so easy to use it’s almost a crime. The quality of the end result isn’t spectacular, but I’m thrilled with it, nonetheless. My slides are grubby and have particles adhered to them. I need to look into how to safely clean them. This is one of the scanned negatives:
This is my nephew, Mitchell, when he was just learning to walk, wearing a pair of Filas I bought for him when he was still a wee baby. Watching him walking in these (I believe this might be the first time he was in shoes at all) was soooo funny!
And this is one of the scanned slides, complete with specks of dust or whatever:
This one is of Connie. We were on a bus somewhere in China, and she fell asleep with this panda on her lap. I love this picture. I’m excited to have it not in a box somewhere.
Because of the cheap price, ease of use, and pretty darn good JPGs it creates from old negatives and slides, the Ion Slides 2 PC gets “Unpaid Product Endorsement” status.
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I’d like to welcome you to my home! This was it this past summer in Malawi. Some nights I almost couldn’t wait to crawl inside it and curl up on my air mattress and soak in the night sounds. In Zambia two years it ago, it was soooo cold at night that I dreaded “lights out”. This year, despite being the neighbor to the east of Zambia, the Malawi nights were relatively warm. Perhaps this was due to the proximity to Lake Malawi?
Despite its relatively small size, I was still able to often lose fairly important articles inside of it. I lost my toothbrush once for almost a week. You can’t just run down to the store to buy a new one, ya know? I finally had the time to tear everything apart and find it, but by then the brush and interior of the case had mildewed. Pretty gross. So, what do you do? You pop it into a pot of boiling hot water! Good as new…almost. (ew)
Even though I was very comfortable at night I often did not sleep much. If I got five hours of sleep I felt pretty lucky (this from a 9 or 10 hour a night sleeper). Since I didn’t have much time to myself during the days, I decided to embrace my sleeplessness and enjoy the nighttime “solitude” in my little home. I would spend the hours thinking, remembering, planning, and praying. It’s funny where one’s brain goes when one is lying awake on top of an air mattress and sleeping bag listening to the distant waves of a lake on the shore with the bright African moon illumunating brightly when one is in the uttermost part of the earth…I’d get flight of ideas and wonder…
…how well would I be sleeping if my cat was here with me…(and then I’d miss her)…
…will anyone puke tonight?…(and I’d pray not)…
…are the dogs in my “kitchen” again?…(and if they are, did I prepare well enough so they couldn’t rob me?)…
…are those REALLY waves I’m hearing?…
…if he has Aspberger’s…(or what?)…
…when the propane tank is going to run out, again…
…why the dusk malaria mosquitos are so small and the dawn dengue mosquitos SO HUGE…
…how much more food can I buy with the money I have left “in the food account”… and will there be anything more than sugar, tomatos, yams, oil, and eggs to be bought next time?…
…how it is possible that it’s going to be three years already since Connie died…(and then I’d miss her, too)
I would pray for whatever and whoever showed up in my mind and eventually I would drift off to sleep. Occasionally I would dream. But every morning, when I unzipped my tent and crawled out, I was met with the most brilliant skies reflecting off the lake and I’d forget how tired I was and I’d wrap myself in the beauty and wildness of it all. And I’d wonder what I ever did to deserve this amazing life God had given to me…
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Here is the second installment from my 16 year old nephew Richard’s ’Essays on the benefits and Wonders of what Society Deems as “Negative Traits”‘. (Click HERE to read the first). Enjoy!
Part 1: The Joy of Pessimism
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist
with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
US author & satirist (1842 – 1914)
The average member of a society, when hearing the word “Pessimism”, conjures up images of sour-faced, ill tempered individuals who darken those around them with their morose countenance. This is but an atypical example.
True Pessimists, myself included, have simply experienced enough of life’s trials and difficulties to conclude that things rarely, if ever, go as planned, and, more often than not, drown in the slough of inadequacy and disappointment. A true pessimist realizes that any hope in the things of this world will eventual succumb, suffocated by the festering miasma of time, dissatisfaction, and extraneous, albeit not unpredicted, circumstances.
There is a certain joy, however, reserved only for we true pessimists. Our mindset tends for us to set low expectations of life around us. The truth of the matter is, however, that in our civilized life, with our inexhaustible supply of resources, pursuits, and possibilities, things never fall too far into disarray. We pessimists, by keeping our expectations low, often see them fulfilled, despite the fact that all does not go to plan. Moreover, should everything go as planned, our expectations are fulfilled above and beyond what we had hoped for. This constant fulfilling, as a result, makes us happier individuals, for our lives progress far better than we expect. In this, optimism seems to the observing pessimist not only absurd, but oxymoronic. An optimist always has high expectations and hopes, which are rarely if ever fulfilled, yet they remain happy. A Calvin and Hobbes comic strip emphasizes the credo of we true pessimists best:
Calvin and Hobbes are walking in the woods. Calvin turns to Hobbes and asks, “If you could have one wish, what would it be?” Hobbes ponders this for while and replies, “A sandwich”. Calvin proceeds to condemn Hobbes as a fool for using his wish as such, listing all the things he could have wished for. At the end of their walk, Hobbes goes to the kitchen, makes himself a sandwich, and says, “I got my wish”.
In the end, true pessimists see their low expectations fulfilled all the time, and we are happier as a result, whereas optimists rarely see their high expectations fulfilled, but are still happy because they are optimists, always looking forward to the future.
If “40 is the new 30″, and “pink is the new black”, then it appears that “pessimism is the new optimism”!
What do you suppose his NEXT essay will be about???
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My dad forwarded this to me. It’s an a cappella group out of Indiana University with a very unique take on some of your Christmas favorites!
You might also want to take this opportunity to listen to go back to this post and take a listen!
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I made an unexpected trip to So Cal this past week as I wanted to attend the funeral of a friend. It was a sad reason for a visit. But the service was a lovely tribute to a wonderful man. Lots of tears. Lots of laughter. I’m so glad I was able to be there.
As usual, I stayed at my big brother’s house. We did some fun things while I was there. One of those things was this!
Phil, his kids and I, went on a hike. We went to the Santa Paula Creek area of Ojai in search of a waterfall. My brother has this book of California waterfalls. It’s most cool. It lists the waterfalls and gives directions on how to get to them. This was one his family had not yet gone to. The book promised a 3 miles in/3 miles out hike with the holy grail being a series of “punch bowl” pools connected by small waterfalls leading to a 30 foot waterfall at the end. The hiking instructions would have lead us to a campsite overlooking the pool which fed the larger cataract.
Somewhere along the way we got off the trail and ended up hiking the river’s path. I came across this lovely little creature in a dry part of the river bed. It measured about a half an inch across!
While this diversion provided what promised to be a “direct hit” on our target, it also entailed multiple rock crossings of the river, some ankle twistings and one occasion where we had to work our way along a rock wall using toe and foot holds which nearly had me at my tolerance for the heights and falling “thing” I have! But with the patient help of my brother, and the occasional hand holding by my nephew, Richard, I persevered.
I like this picture soooo much. I call it “Album Cover – No Band”.
We hiked and hiked and hiked. It was getting late. We found what we believed to be the punch bowls, but no big fall. We thought we’d probably passed it when we ended up off the trail. We took a moment to rest and drink water before starting back out of the canyon. But Richard (who LOVES to rock climb) ventured farther up and in and came back with the news that he’d found the fall. “Is it too scary, or can Aunt Lou make it?” The answer was “Yes, she can.”. So, me included, we decided to continue to climb our way in. Very worth it! The directions would have had us over looking the fall, but since we came up by way of the river, we were instead at the bottom where it filled a large deep pool. We were so glad that we’d ended up off the path. The algae on the rocks at the bottom of this crystal clear twenty foot deep pool lent the most gorgeous emerald color to the water.
The pool was surrounded by rock walls and a small rocky “beach”. Evidence abounded that many had gone before us. There was the sad bit of trash, a towel that looked like it hadn’t been there long, a few charcoally spots where fires had been built, and of course, graffiti. And you know what? I wasn’t much bothered by the graffiti.
Today’s graffiti are tomorrow’s “prehistoric” cave drawings…
A good time and place for one of my “foot pictures”!
It took us about a third of the time to hike back out. Why is that? Just wondering.
All in all, a wonderful smallish adventure. We were all tired and sore at the end (and for the whole next day!). Especially Avie. We’d barely started the hike and she was complaining that “it’s a terrible time to be a kid”. She’s growing, and her legs are sore. But she stuck it out. Barely. Had that hike been a tenth of a mile longer, one of us would have been carrying her!
Two days later we got to see Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh. But that’s another post!
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Paul Potts, unassuming cell phone salesman in the UK goes on one of those American Idol type TV talent shows, “Britain’s Got Talent”. It even has Simon Cowell on it.
Paul says he’s there to sing opera. In that Simon is a part of this show, I’m sort of expecting a blood bath. All the judges sort of have this look on their faces like they’re struggling to not roll their eyes and/or giggle amongst themselves.
“Confidence has always been sort of like a difficult thing for me.”
Did you see Simon go a little slack-jawed?
“All my life I’ve felt insignificant.”
Paul goes on to win the competition. (Click HERE to see his website.) Simon Cowell signed him. His album “One Chance” has sold a million copies. He credits his wife for getting him out there and for helping him get enough confidence to actually apply.
As the world says good-bye to a schoolteacher who couldn’t suppress his love of music, it says hello to a mobile phone salesman who somehow dug up the confidence to pursue HIS dream of opera. I think Pavarotti would have loved the story of Paul Potts.
One last thing…Paul did not quit his day job. He still sells mobile phones.
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I met this totally amazing woman this past summer. She was the head leader of the Teen Missions’ Trinidad team. Her name is Elissa. I liked her right away because she was always laughing about something. We were instant friends.
(This is me and Elissa five minutes after we met…)
Then, when I discovered that we shared a fanaticism, I knew we were friends for life. That fanaticism? The TV show “Arrested Development“. (BTW, my brother Phil ALSO shares this fanaticism). So, when Elissa told me about Disney’s “High School Musical“, I figured I should rent it. Netflix delivered it to my mailbox yesterday. I watched it at 2:00 this morning.
Five stars! What a great production! Kitschy? Indeed. Cheesy? Most assuredly. And 100% worthy of being added to your personal DVD library. This movie is fun to listen to, fun to look at, and squeaky clean in a way I’ve not seen in a long time. The main character, Troy, is absolutely precious. I’m truly not sure how many young actors could have pulled this off without seeming, well, geeky and miscast!
This movie is not only fun, it actually has some really good messages that come across in a way that is actually effective. So many times movies or T.V. shows that try to get a message through make me groan with their awkwardness. Not this movie! It’s allllllll good.
So go rent (or buy) it! I give HSM my highest rating of No Blahs! Thanks Elissa!!!!
Off to find HSM II!
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But I’ll get to that in a minute. I got my scanner working again today. My scannner has a ghost in the machine. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Seems like it decides when it’s going to cooperate, or not. I wanted to scan some tax documents in, so I gave it a try today, to see if it would work. And it did! So I’ve been spending much of my day scanning “stuff” into my computer. I even scanned an entire scrapbook in. The story on that? Well, 26 years ago when I first when on Teen Missions to Haiti, there was a girl on my team from Mechanicsburg, PA named Rhonda. This past May when I got the list of the names of the kids that would be on my team there was a girl named Ciara with the same last name as Rhonda, from a town pretty close to Mechanicsburg. I wondered if they were in some way related. AND THEY WERE! Seems that Rhonda and Ciara are aunt and niece. I decided to scan in some pictures from Rhonda’s and my summer together to send to Ciara. But then I decided to just scan the whole scrapbook.
For the amusement of those who have only known me as an adult, especially for the amusement of the kids from my teams both last summer and this, here is a picture of me from that summer. I was 16. This was taken the day we mixed concrete and poured the floor to this house for 12 hours straight…
This one was taken the day we went to a chicken hatchery to pick up some chicks for our missionary. I thought I was fat when these pictures were taken! Crazy.
I think maybe some day I’ll do some posts on Haiti, my experiences there, and the way my life was fundamentally changed by spending a summer there. Especially now that I have some visual aids at my disposal!
So what does this have to do with my brother? Well, as I am naming and saving a bunch of credit card statements to my hard drive after scanning them, my cell phone rings, and it’s my big brother, Phil. He called to tell me that he had prepared a comment to my “Cool Hand Luke” posting, and was sending it right then, and he wanted me to read it! So, he hits submit and two seconds later I am reading it back to him over the phone. And it’s AWESOME. (I know, God is awesome, maybe this is just super fantastic). Here is what Phil had to say:
the whole christ thing in this movie has always bothered me. you sit there watching this really great movie and suddenly it warps into this christ thing at the end of the movie. it almost ruins the movie. in fact it does ruin the movie. the whole movie except for the last half hour or so of that christ thing is about luke’s way of confronting life. if i remember correctly, it opens with him cutting off the meters from parking meter poles while in a drunken stupor. his only way of “raging against the machine” is to preform this act of futility. he is immediately on the outs with the prison “tough guy” when he gets to prison which precipitates the fight scene in which he wins the fight by getting the s–t kicked out of him over and over and over because he refuses to stop the futile act of continually getting up. in the poker scene he wins the big pot with no cards in his hand by the futile act of continually “kicking a buck”. luke throughout the movie never gives up while committing his acts of futility. the futile act of paving the road at a breakneck pace(they’d just be out there again the next day paving away so why the rush) leads to a half of a day of doing nothing but relaxing. so what do we learn from luke in this movie until the christ thing muddies the clarity of this movie. the lesson of this movie is luke’s approach to his futile life. “rage against the machine”, never ever give up. and when you’re beaten down, with no hope, and there is no escaping your certain and inevitable demise, when you are spent and all that is left to you is nothing, you throw that at the world too!!! after all “sometimes nothing can be a pretty cool hand”. cool hand luke is one of my all time favorite movies-i don’t even watch that last half hour christ thing anymore.
And now, after reading Phil’s comment and discussing the movie with him, I now have a good understanding of what the movie is about, until it gets muddled by what my brother calls “the Christ thing”. It’s about futility. As Luke himself says “sometimes nothing can be a pretty cool hand.” And THAT, ladies and gentleman, is what the movie is all about! My brother is brilliant!!
And THAT is one reason why I love my brother so much!
(We had a good laugh, too. My brother is a very funny guy, but that would be two reasons why I love my brother so much, now wouldn’t it?!)
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