Airing Out Some Found Links

 Photo by bearbooandyumyum

Have you ever noticed the link-saving phenomenon? I don't know what else to call it - Bookmark and Forget, perhaps. Maybe I'm the only one who does this, but if I see something particularly interesting online, I bookmark it...and then never look at it again. Sometimes I bookmark things that seem interesting, or that someone told me that they find interesting, so I have things saved that I've never even looked at once. This leads to me to wonder, months later, exactly WHY I saved something that is just a thinly veiled advertisement for a lame wonder-gadget or how a link to a page entirely in Russian ended up on my list.

Computers are so convenient, aren't they? Almost too convenient, in that they enable even the neatest among us to become crazy hoarders. Not physical stuff, not 'my house is too messy to walk through, please call for help' hoarders, but information hoarders. Why not? If I have access to cool, unusual, and interesting information, why shouldn't I save a link to it for future use? Well, of course you should, just don't end up like me with hundreds of unsorted, unlabeled links-to-awesome that you don't look at again until the link has expired and you've lost the information forever. Also, if you are filing everything away in an online lockbox instead of sharing that information - well, clearly, you're kind of missing the whole point of the Internet.

So here are a few totally random (and awesome) links I've already shared in one way or another and have recently rediscovered on my computer. And yes, one of them is completely in Russian, but it's very entertaining to try to piece the story together!

Sloth Orhpanage 

Video of baby sloths. Enough said. 

Sand Mandala 

Buddhist monks expend an enormous amount of time creating sand  mandalas (sacred circles of art with intricate meanings) and then just blow them away into the ether.

Bee Wallpaper

Nature is gorgeous and fascinating. 

BP Reacts to a Coffee Spill

Finding some humor in tragedy.

Shit My Kids Ruined

Some of my friends recently started having children. I recently started sending them this link. ;)

Readers by Author

I don't kow if I agree with all of these assessments, but I do know they're funny. What do you think?

Jersey Shore: A Contextual Analysis

The evolution of stereotypes, and what happens when people own (and give in to, and exaggerate) stereotypes instead of avoiding them.

Red Pandas: Ancient and Adorable

If I could have one of these as a pet, my life would be complete.

Metro Dogs
These dogs live in the Russian subway. And accept donations. 

Newsies + Lady Gaga

There is an entire generation of women who will never love any movie more than Newsies, ever. And almost no one else has ever seen the film.

Super Mario's Perspective

There is another subset of the population who remember original Nintendo and the few, mindblowing-at-the-time games that it brought into our lives.

BP - Creating an Entirely New Environmental Disaster No One Is Paying Attention To...Yet

View of the oil spill from space on May 24, 2010

NASA file photo

Yesterday, after an unimaginable three-month period, the gushing ecological disaster known as the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, or more commonly as the British Petroleum Oil Spill, was finally capped successfully. My fingers are crossed that this containment cap will hold, and the focus can shift from emergency measures to a sustained recovery.

I hate to be a Debbie Downer about the capping of the well - it's FANTASTIC that it has stopped gushing, but this is only the beginning of a more focused effort to actually effect a real, comprehensive clean-up instead of the current method of placing a band-aid over a bullet wound. This is a world event that will have far-reaching impacts on the environment, wildlife, the seafood industry, tourism, health care and the economy for years to come.

 I really feel as if the media has fallen down on the job for much of this event. Every major media outlet is focusing on this tragedy now, but details were few and far between at the start and many reporters failed to dig deeper into what was really going on at first. A LARGE part of that can be attributed to the inappropriate control BP had over the area in the beginning and their direct use of the Coast Guard to restrict and deny access to the worst areas. Another problem, of course, was the fact that BP repeatedly lied - or 'misinterpreted' - the amount of oil that was actually gushing from the well, which caused people to unintentionally downplay the reality of the disaster. Of course, that convenient misinterpretation also slowed the response effort. When I saw twenty people in bio-hazard suits wander sluggishly down miles of beach on the news, I realized that the clean-up effort started as more of a farce than a true emergency response. Yes, there are miles of  shoreline to tend to, but perhaps some of the millions BP is funneling into marketing and ad campaigns could better serve as additional funds for the EMERGENCY it is directly responsible for.

Okay, I am ranting and I haven't even gotten close to my point! It is hard not to get upset about this, but I'll try to move along...

I read in the newspaper last weekend that all the oil they're cleaning up from the beaches in bio-hazard suits has NOT been classified as a bio-hazard in terms of disposal. Say WHAT?! Yeah, that doesn't even come close to making sense to me, either. But apparently, the Department of Environmental Quality recently ran toxicity tests on the collected oil and declared it non-hazardous. Since then, Waste Management has been dumping the oil and all of the associated oil-coated trash into places like this small Mississippi landfill!

Apparently unsafe dumping has been an ongoing problem. It has even further-reaching consequences than simply being about irresponsible disposal and is contaminating areas all over Mississippi, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana. There have been reports of  leaking trucks trailing oily streams behind them daily, providing ample opportunity for ground contamination and potentially causing problems for inland water supplies. This is a really good article detailing the problems of safely hauling away and disposing of the 4000 tons of solid waste (and the seemingly non-existent oversight of the workers and companies involved).

If this asphalt-like poisonous goo is allowed to be thrown away like nothing more dangerous than household trash, it will certainly leach into water tables, poison non-aquatic wildlife, impact the surrounding flora, and compound this disaster in many horrible and as-yet-unknowable ways. Why isn't this waste being sealed properly? Why isn't this issue being focused on by the mainstream media? 

I had to rephrase my Google search three times to get information on where the collected oil is actually going. That is ridiculous - Google is usually a magical genie that knows what I'm looking for before I even finish typing the words. Why is information on where the oil is being sent after is it 'cleaned up' so difficult to come by? Shouldn't people be wondering where the clumpy chunks of oily sand that are being trucked away will end up? Shouldn't the government realize that allowing Waste Management, a supposedly 'green' company, to dump this stuff into landfills is a BAD, IRRESPONSIBLE  IDEA? Anyone who can grasp the concept of landfills (which includes all of the thinking world except for the brains at BP and WM) should realize that they are not impenetrable lock boxes that can magically store away the evils of the world forever.

There have been almost 150 reported cases of oil-exposure related illness reported so far, with symptoms including dizziness, nausea, chest pain, headaches and vomiting, and that is simply from exposure to the oil on the beaches. What will happen when this thick crude ends up in the water, the food, and the bodies of the local people?







Don't even get me started on the rumors that they are actually dumping sand on top of the oil to hide it instead of cleaning it up - BP has proven to be so morally bankrupt that I believed that rumor immediately. Sure, the layers shown in this video could have occurred naturally, and there is no real proof that it didn't - except for the past actions of British Petroleum, a company that wants its collective lives back so badly that it doesn't really care if other people's lives are ruined in the process.

Two Variations on the Same Dip

Dips can be the perfect snack for vegetarians or the health conscious, especially in the summertime. Admittedly, the two recipes below use a base of cream cheese so they are not actually the healthiest options, but they're still made with veggies and can be eaten on veggies!

I went to a party last weekend and fell in love with a dip that my friend made. This is her recipe:

Brighid's Cool Cucumber Dip
One package cream cheese, either the kind in the tub or softened in the microwave for 20 seconds
One cucumber, peeled and finely chopped
Garlic salt to taste

All you have to do is mix and serve - can't get much easier than that! I loved this dip because it was so lightweight and cooling on a hot night. The cucumbers gave it a nice crunch and the hint of garlic kept things interesting. Yum!


When I looked in my fridge to make Brighid's dip at home, I didn't have any cucumbers so I improvised wildly and came up with a totally new concoction:

Creamy, Crunchy Pepper Dip
One package cream cheese, either the kind in the tub or softened in the microwave for 20 seconds
Either: One medium sized green pepper (capsicum), uncooked
OR:   1/3 medium green pepper
          1/3 medium red pepper
          1/3 medium yellow pepper
Small amount of onion (less than peppers)
1/4 can black beans, drained
Garlic salt to taste

Chop the peppers and onion into small pieces. Go light on the onions or that flavor will overpower the rest of the dip. (I used three different kinds of peppers because I had them on hand, but it isn't really necessary unless you want it to be really colorful.) Add in the black beans and garlic salt and stir thoroughly. If the cream cheese is a little thick, add some of the water from the can of beans to thin it out and stir it again to make it more creamy.
I only invented this last night, so I'm thinking of trying it with a hummus base to make it more healthy and up the protein factor. I'll let you know how that turns out!

A Renewed Quest for Personal Energy

I am always tired, and it's not fun. My lethargy has caused me to reject social invitations, ignore important obligations, and curse my alarm clock daily with more vigor than would be accepted in polite company. I long ago realized that much of this extreme sleepiness is connected to some health problems. At this point in my life, I've learned to ignore the people who call me lazy and accept the fact that as long as I am on certain medications, I will sometimes have the initiative of a baby sloth no matter what I do. The good news is that I have been feeling better lately, and I'm learning to control and compensate for my need for sleep.

One of the best ways I've found to feel more energetic is to control my diet. Garbage in, garbage out doesn't just apply to computers, folks! For no clearly defined reason, I got in in my head to embrace the Raw Food Diet two years ago. I was feeling especially sluggish and looking for new ways to dominate my natural inclination to hibernate. I can't say I was up at dawn whistling with the birds, but I did notice a marked increase in energy after a few weeks with pretty easy dietary changes on my part. That said, I already eat a pretty healthy diet, so making the switch wasn't as big of a stretch for me as it might be for some people.

I'm not interested in that lifestyle for weight-loss reasons, and I won't speak to that issue at all. But for the four months that I stuck to it pretty closely, I felt much better than I have in years. No preservatives, no trans fat, very little meat (okay, sometimes I cheated. I love bacon.) = a healthier, happier me. My hair was shinier, my skin was clear, and my napping habits decreased by half.

I'm sure I'll write more about this topic in the future, but I'm mentioning it now because my local Farmer's Market just opened and I'm going to make an effort to return to vegetarianism in the hope of regaining some of that all-natural energy boost. For now, I don't think I'll go all-out raw again, but I may transition into that some time in the future. The main reason that I'm not going straight back into raw is because I find it difficult to live with an avowed meat-eater and restrict myself so much. I can certainly resist a burger or a piece of chicken, but when I am doing so it is harder to deny myself feta in my salad or a homemade veggie omelet. Like I said, I'm not doing this diet for ethical or weight loss reasons, and I believe that everyone should feel free to set their own boundaries instead of having to stick to a strictly imposed outside rules. So if I do get a hankering for bacon...well, I'm not going to beat myself up over it!

So, I am going to start adding some simple and healthy recipes to this site. I don't know if anyone would be interested and I'm certainly not a master chef, but I think everyone looks forward to trying something new in the summer when they see the fruits and veggies piling up in their gardens or local stores. I know a lot of EASY recipes that are very tasty and I'll be posting them here intermittently for your gustatory pleasure!

The Gidget of Heart Surgery

Oh, Barbara Walters. You make it look so easy, vanishing into the magical closet of television for your open heart surgery and returning triumphantly via Skype (Seriously, Barbara? You couldn't get a film crew out to your apartment to clearly capture the sheen of exertion on your upper lip and the slight wrinkle of secret agony upon your brow? I am on to you and your intentional Internet-based obfuscation.). You're an 80 year old fighter, Barbara, we all know that, but please don't glamour America into thinking that heart surgery is no big deal and you're better than new. You can't push off the downsides as 'myths' and expect people to believe that your TEN DAY hospital stay was all sunshine and buttered muffins.

When you raised your arm in triumph over this pesky inconvenience, I felt the pull of your internal stitches despite your apparent ease of motion. I heard that tiny, impossible grating sound as the gritty edges of your sliced sternum ground against each other in an infinitesimal internal earthquake of your own making. Thankfully, you didn't try to show up with a pullover sweater, or I might never have been able to forgive you that deceit. It's true that everyone heals at their own pace, but this 'total miracle cure' stuff that you're shoveling just doesn't ring true for me.Saying that you're 'a little sore' but that you don't remember the first few days after surgery (or your blood transfusion!) is misleading and downplays reality in a big way.

It's barely been two short months, Ms. Walters. Here's what I know you're really feeling - fragile, shaky, and weak. Your sternum was hacked open with a chainsaw, my friend, and that is no small event for anyone, let alone an 80 year old. They hooked you up to a contraption which drained all of the blood from your body and kept your lungs working for you, and some surgeon stuck his plastic-wrapped fingers into your most sacred orifice - your chest cavity. It might not seem like such an amazing feat to you because all the while you slumbered in a drug induced haze, probably even then dreaming of your triumphant return to the small screen.

But, Barbara, do not diminish the accomplishments of your doctors and your own body with your eagerness  to show your superhuman face to the loyal viewers. They took the motor of your body, tinkered with it in impossible ways, and restored your ability to live! Please, take a quiet moment to lie on your bed peacefully, staring at the ceiling, and appreciate the fact that you are recovering from a major life event.

No one will judge you harshly if you admit how tough it has been. In fact, people will probably appreciate you more if you describe some of the gory details and the problems you endured. (You know well how voyeuristic our culture has become!) The drainage tubes are surely a graphic and poignant illustration of how your body reacted to this surgical invasion. The brief and demoralizing inability to get into the shower, the difficulty of washing your hair, the pain of even raising your arms a few inches at first. The sneezing - oh God, the horror of the sneezing! Surely people will want to know how the brunt force of every evil sneeze slammed through your body like a sledgehammer, pulling internal stitches and causing bruised and stretched muscles to contract in agony. You'll never look at a sneeze the same way again, will you Barbara? With a little bit of your journalistic skill, neither will anyone else in America that owns a television.

Let me tell you this, rapt audience of The View, frankly and without exaggeration: open-heart surgery is a big deal. In fact, it is a big fucking deal, and there are no softer words to describe it. It is a procedure that, despite many miraculous medical breakthroughs over the years, still brings you very close to death before (hopefully) bringing you back to a better quality of life. I can only hope that this fact will be explored in detail when Ms. Walters returns to her show in September. It's all well and good to put a brave face on a horrible experience, but eventually, the painful human side of this life event should really be explored in depth so that it doesn't continue to come across as no worse than a hangnail or stubbed toe.

I would like to commend her for the brief medical descriptions of the surgery and her encouragement to women to get regular echo cardiograms with their yearly physical. That's exactly the kind of reminder that women need to take care of themselves, so that more of them will actually make it to eighty!




Here are a few links in case you're interested in learning more about this subject:

 Definition and variations of 'open heart surgery'

What Barbara Walters Had Done Specifically

American Heart Association

AHA Heart Healthy Recipes

The Dream Life of the Office People

           "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined."


-Henry David Thoreau
Ah, to follow your dream. What a wonderful and commendable process. But what if you don't have a very specific dream, a concrete hope to pin your someday upon? What if your dreams are broad, no more tangible than to get out of where you are right now, or even that elusive, straw-grasping common goal of being 'successful'? What if your dreams crave some sort of success that is based more on luck magically combining with hard work and talent?

"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want." -Ben Stein

How, oh how do you actually decide something as crazy as 'what you want'? Specifically, and with a defined plan for success? It's all well and good for the people who decided in third grade that they wanted to be teachers or lawyers, and then actually ended up being teachers or lawyers, but what about those of us with more adaptable (some might say vague) goals? I can't tell you how to define your own bliss, but I can try to help you steer yourself in that general direction.

 

First of all, the most important thing is to be open to embracing change. Sitting home alone is not going to get you anywhere, especially if you're looking for your one in a million chance at something. Move out of your hometown, write a fan letter to your idol, call that boy you've had a crush on for two years!

You never, ever know when being open to something, no matter how small, will affect your entire life. I think this is especially important for things that make you slightly uncomfortable or nervous. That's when the opportunity for change is the most abundant! Here is a good example: Six months ago, I agreed to do a photo shoot for a cause I believe in, even though I absolutely HATE having my picture taken. I threw myself into the idea, thought about the good that my contribution could do, and ignored the scared voice in the back of my head telling me that I wasn't up to such a nerve wracking experience. A few weeks later, I got a lot of positive feedback about it from friends and family, and was also recommended for the job I have now by the photographer! If I hadn't embraced that change in attitude, he never would have spent time with me and realized that I would be a good fit for the position. So, go on, embrace this poem and forge ahead!

Secondly, you absolutely must work as hard as you can, for as long as it takes. This is especially true if you are unsure or uncertain about your ultimate goals. You must force yourself to focus, minutely, on your talents and desires, and find your own perfect formula to meld the two. For some reason (probably because of the rare, highly publicized cases of singers being discovered on YouTube or something), people think that they DESERVE a lucky break in their areas of interest. They think that if they are good at something, people will see that and chase after them with buckets of cash. NOT TRUE! Sometimes, you have to give your dream everything you've got, and then give even more. You've got to sound out the corners of your desires and be really certain of yourself before anyone else will follow suit. This is not what people want to hear, though, let alone what they actually want to do. But do you think that J. K. Rowling was sitting in a mansion, eating chocolate and dreaming up the adventures of Harry and Co? Nope, she was huddled in a coffee shop writing on scraps of paper and living on welfare before she hit it rich.

Now that I think about it, this example leads to another form of modern disillusionment, the rags-to-riches dream. If you work your ass off until you achieve mild success, and then just sit back and expect your fortunes to multiply on their own, you are going to lose everything you've already worked towards. That is the secret to the as long as it takes portion of success - usually, it takes forever. Even after you achieve your goals, you'll develop new ones and build on the old ones. Don't plan on getting lazy, or you're planning to straight out fail.

Another good way to sort out your real goals from your idle fantasies is to talk to people who do what you think you want to do. They can share the details of what it is like to actually be in the trenches of your aspirations and help guide you in the right direction if you don't know how to start. Not only can you figure out if your aspirations are really a good fit for you (because nothing is worse or more frightening than searching your soul, deciding on a goal, and hating the results once you go all in), but you can also make contacts in your chosen industry that could be useful later on in your career. This can be a two-way street; if you are smart and motivated, they will remember you in the future as well. If you're worried about calling someone out of the blue, then email or friend them on LinkedIn first. Trust me, no one will ever refuse if you offer to treat them to a meal and sit there listening attentively to their stories!

No matter what, try to maintain realistic expectations. No, writing one short story is not going to make your fortune. Stitching together one dress and selling it to your friend will not allow you to quit your day job. Finally deciding that your ultimate goal is to be an opera singer, not a hip-hop artist, is not enough to land you on a stage wearing a horned helmet and braids.If your dreams take time to develop, you have to be patient and realize they will also take time to achieve.

Finally, you have to realize that close can be good enough.This is another thing that nobody wants to hear - after all of that hard work specifically defining your goals and dreams, how could I tell you to give up before you have your fingers on the brass ring? Well, it's all about maximizing your real happiness versus your projected happiness. If you've decided that your ultimate goal is to be the CEO of the company that you already work for, and you've put in the long hours and hard work to make it to CFO, perhaps you shouldn't give yourself an ulcer focusing on that last step up. Some goals are not possible, as hard as that is to accept. If the CEO started the company and his son is interested in the job, there is just no way that you'll ever edge him out. Enjoy your actual achievements instead of bemoaning any imagined loss. After all, at this point, you've already decided what you want and had the strength to go after it. That is an accomplishment in and of itself! Celebrate by letting go and living well!

"Cherish your visions and you dreams, as they are the children of your soul; the blueprints of your ultimate achievements." -Napoleon Hill

Quality Life Lessons from the Internet

I just read a really entertaining article entitled "The Ten Most Important Things They Didn't Teach You In School".  Highlights include:

Practical Self-Defense

Some of you guys who grew up on The Matrix still fantasize about beating the shit out of a street full of thugs in a fight that looks like a choreographed dance. This class will not teach you how to do that. No class will teach you how to do that.

Emergency Repairs

Chapters Include:

I. How to Patch and Paint a Wall So You Can Get Your Deposit Back From Your Landlord;
II. Identifying Which Wires in Your House Will Kill You if You Touch Them;
III. What to do When You Wake Up to Find Your Toilet/Refrigerator/Hot Water Heater/Air Conditioner/Sink is Puking Water Onto Your Floor;
IV. When to Call the Repair Guy;
V. How to Figure Out if the Repair Guy is Screwing You;
VI. Foreign Objects You're Going to Try to Put in the Microwave at Some Point so Let's Just Get it Out of Your System Now.

Success = Meeting the Right People

 

All of those successful people you see around town, with their convertibles and huge televisions? Approximately 100 percent of them got where they are because they had three things. All three are absolutely essential, but one of them is almost never mentioned. They are:

* Talent
* Hard Work
* Randomly Meeting the Right People and Not Pissing Them Off

-link via Gala Darling

The "Crossbody" Bag - new to me!

You know how sometimes you'll hear a new word or idea, and then out of nowhere it'll suddenly be everywhere? That happened to me this week with the notion of "crossbody" purses. As far as I can tell, this is just a new word for an old idea - a messenger bag - that has gotten a fashion face-lift into the next big thing. Yes, I know, messenger bags are old skool, but the twist here is that crossbody bags can be more than just a utilitarian canvas Salvation Army find. Apparently, this new configuration takes function AND fashion into account, providing long straps for such diverse purse styles as the hobo, the satchel, and even small totes. No longer are girls who want to be hands-free expected to conform to the large, rectangular standard!

This trend is interesting to me because I have an incredibly hard time finding a useful, lightweight purse that works for me when I am traveling. I'm not overly obsessed with fashion, but that doesn't mean I want to lug around an awkward book bag or ruin an outfit with an out-sized, boy-style messenger. I have two messenger bags, both of which I roundly rejected last time I needed a purse for a weekend away. One is black on the outside and orange on the inside (why?), and it is very sporty looking. I sat it on the bed next to the clothes I would be wearing and realized that they were all lightweight, simple and slightly feminine. The black bag looked like a towering raven perched next to a sparrow, and I realized that it would overshadow every outfit if I chose to use it. My other option was a big green army-imitation deal, and it was actually bigger than the backpack I would be using as luggage. Not cool!

Just in case you're dying of curiosity, I went with a small, black crocheted bag that is the only other purse I own with that newly coveted crossbody strap. It worked out fine, but it is much smaller than my regular bags and although I appreciated the lightweight feel, I was constantly rooting around in its tiny, jam packed darkness trying to access the things I needed. Also, it is old and starting to fray, so I definitely need to find a replacement asap!

Here are some options I'm considering based on practicality, style and price (of course!) for my next travel adventure:

Forget safety. Live where you fear to live.

There are many guises for intelligence.
One part of you is gliding in a high windstream,
while your more ordinary notions
take little steps and peck at the ground….

…We must become ignorant of what we have been taught
and be instead bewildered.

Run from what is profitable and comfortable.
Distrust anyone who praises you.
give your investment money, and the interest
on the capital, to those who are actually destitute.

Forget safety. Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.
I have tried prudent planning long enough.
From now on, I’ll be mad.

 -Rumi

Sarah Wilson brought this gem to my attention today, and I don't have much to add other than the fact that I would like to embrace this wholeheartedly in the near, near future. I think my entire life needs a thorough, shocking shakeup, and when it happens, I'll be sure to document it here...fingers crossed, people. Life is out there waiting for me!