Oh, that pesky sun...

“From an Antarctic research base to the Great Pyramids of Egypt and beyond, the world switched off the lights on Saturday for the second Earth Hour, dimming skyscrapers, city streets and some of the world's most recognizable monuments for 60 minutes to highlight the threat of climate change.”

Thus begins a Yahoo news story on “Earth Hour” – an hour of time (specifically, 8:30 to 9:30 tonight) when everyone dims their lights in an effort to save the planet.

Sigh.

Look, I don’t hate the planet. I don’t hate the environment. I don’t like seeing clouds of smog hanging over cities or cars burning oil and spewing black smoke. I love recycling. I love the IDEA of finding cleaner sources of fuel (whether or not it’s feasible is another story). I love organic foods and organic clothing and organic cosmetics. I HATE seeing someone throw trash or cigarette butts from a moving car. I love clean water and clean air and animals and national parks.

But here’s the deal – the climate is going to change. The climate IS going to change. We KNOW the climate on this planet changes, because it already HAS many times before. And long before human beings swooped in with their fossil fuels and chlorofluorocarbons. In fact, science has shown us that the planet tends to warm during periods of increased solar activity and it cools during periods of lesser solar activity. This last year or so we’ve been in one of those “lesser solar activity” periods, and as a result, we’ve had one of the COLDEST years on record. The evidence, again and again, seems to point to the SUN as the main culprit in our global warming/cooling cycles, and yet we’re constantly fed this alarmist propaganda about how the ice caps are melting and the sea is rising and the polar bears are dying and New York City is practically underwater and the only way we can stop it is by caving in to the demands of extreme environmentalists. And apparently, by turning off our lights for an hour tonight.

The ironic thing is that this global COOLING that we’re experiencing now is WORSE than global warming. This is what Daily Tech has to say about the recent lack of solar activity:

“Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.”

So global warming has been good for our planet, whereas global cooling has been bad. And I always wonder, as I read and listen to the grim warnings about “climate change,” what makes anyone so certain that THIS climate we have now is the ONLY climate we should ever have? Who’s to say a climate change would ultimately be a BAD thing? The human race adapts and survives – life goes on. Perhaps even a BETTER life. The earth has been around for a long time – it has cycled through warm and cold many, many times, and it WILL in the future. Whether we try to stop it or not.

And to that end, I refuse to be a follower and jump on the bandwagon for “Earth Hour” tonight. I won’t be turning off any lights. In fact, I think I just might turn them ALL on…

The wisdom of coffee...

I’m drinking a cappuccino from Starbucks, and once again my coffee cup is trying to teach me a life lesson. Today it says, “people need to see that, far from being an obstacle, the world’s diversity of languages, religions and traditions is a great treasure, affording us precious opportunities to recognize ourselves in others.” That’s a quote from someone named Youssou N’Dour (someone I’ve never heard of – but a quick Google search reveals that he is, according to some, “the most famous African musician in the world.” Apparently I don’t know much about African musicians… :)).

It’s funny when your Starbucks cup makes you think – usually it’s nothing more than a cardboard receptacle to hold the necessity of daily coffee. But today I’ve been thinking about the quote my cup relayed to me, and I have to say I quite definitely agree with it. Sometimes I DISagree with my Starbucks cup (which, to be honest, is a rather strange reaction to have to a cup) – although so far, not so vehemently that I am forced to fling my offensive cup across the room and waste the delicious caffeine-laden nectar within. I should hope that my cup never becomes so controversial…

But like I said, I agree with today’s quote (lucky for my cup…). I DO believe the differences in the world are a “great treasure” to its inhabitants, but too often seen as reason for ridicule or misunderstanding or hatred. Traveling has been such a source of happiness in my life – and even more than that, it’s been an education. I thrive off the differences in the many corners of the world – the myriad languages, the colorful foods, the revered traditions, the unusual architecture, the natural and man-made wonders – it’s all part of a giant, intricate tapestry. You know those big pictures that are actually made up of scores of smaller pictures? That’s what the world is like – it’s just one planet from afar, but when you get closer to it and start to explore, you discover all the little parts that make up the whole. And if you lose one of those little pictures, or change it in some way, then the BIG picture no longer makes as much sense…

But the second part of the quote is what was really making me think today – if there are so many differences in the world, how do they “afford us precious opportunities to recognize ourselves in others”? It made me think of one of the cruises we went on in the Baltic Sea, when we stopped in Gdansk, Poland. I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but just in case someone hasn’t heard it yet, I’ll tell it again. :) We decided to grab a taxi out on the dock to take us into town so we could explore a little bit. But once we were in the taxi, we realized our driver spoke no English. And none of us spoke any Polish. The driver did, however, speak German, which happened to be my best subject in high school. (Of course, high school German and “real world” German are two different things…) So between me and my dad (who knows a bit of German because my grandmother used to speak it), we were not only able to get a ride into town, but we were also able to have entire (albeit stilted) conversations with our driver.

And the thing that really struck me after we returned to our cruise ship later that day was just HOW MUCH we were able to understand each other. Even when neither my dad nor I could figure out the German words for a certain question, or when the driver had no English words for an answer – we somehow managed to UNDERSTAND each other. And even when we got stuck with our communication, we were all able to laugh about it. So really, even though we were from totally different parts of the world, weren’t we all pretty much the same?

Of course, I find it a little funny that this quote was on a Starbucks cup – Starbucks, a bastion of consistency and sameness and mass production, using a quote about diversity and differences. One quick perusal of the Starbucks website and you can find dozens of stores in Paris – the French Paris, not Paris, Texas (which, interestingly, has ZERO Starbucks). Some of the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life was in Paris – local, Parisian-made coffee… and yet Starbucks has opened stores to serve “Starbucks” coffee, which is the same as all the other “Starbucks” coffee out there. What happened to diversity? If I’m ever in Paris again, you’d better believe I’ll be out looking for coffee – but at some random café somewhere… NOT Starbucks.

But Paris, Texas – now THEY could use a Starbucks…

Hey, I was trying to embrace the Dutch culture, okay?

Random stuff...

Another fantasy baseball draft completed! I’m actually rather happy with my team this year – at least happier than I was with my team last year after the draft. I of course did not end up with Sabathia (our friend Nick picked him up), but I got a couple good pitchers with Webb and Lackey. I also took Joba Chamberlain, who COULD have a really good year – if he stays healthy and isn’t thrown in jail for driving drunk. Here’s hoping. My one other Yankee is Arod – he had hip surgery a few weeks ago, so he’ll be out at the beginning of the season. But I figured it would be worth it to pick him up and use a mediocre third baseman in his absence, because HOPEFULLY when he’s back, he’ll make up the difference. Anyway, I’m SO looking forward to baseball season and can’t wait for opening day!

Our friends Jen and Jason and their kids are here visiting from Chicago. And Eric flew down for a few days, too. So mom, as per the rules of the “When Eric Comes to Visit” handbook, baked a couple pies. This has been a point of contention between Rick and my mom for years, as it seems she only bakes her yummy, perfect pies when Eric comes to visit. The few times she’s attempted to bake pies “for Rick,” Eric has just happened to be in town also. She even once tried to bake an apple pie with an “R” for “Rick” carved into the crust, but since Eric was here too, I think everyone assumed that the “E,” “I” and “C” were implied. Ah well, when you have pies as good as the ones mom bakes, who cares if they’re for Eric?? :)

So who watched Obama’s little address last night? We’ve figured out that there’s pretty much a pattern to everything he says. It’s something like, "blah blah blah unfair, blah blah blah bad selfish rich people, blah blah blah share the wealth, blah blah blah me myself and I, blah blah blah I will be the solution for all of mankind’s evils." The emphasis being placed on the “unfairness” of how some people earn more money than others is seriously disturbing to me. It reminds me of something I read the other day, about a crazy woman who was divorcing her multi-millionaire husband because he could only afford to give her 52K a week and that wasn’t “enough” for her. (She spent over four thousand dollars a WEEK just on clothing… what the heck??) Now, in this case, I believe the judge should award this woman NOTHING and tell her to go out and get a job and figure out how to pay for her OWN life. No one is under any obligation to give this woman four thousand dollars a week to waste on clothing. However, if it was the other way around, and SHE was the multi-millionaire, then that money would be HERS to spend as she saw fit. If she wanted to be stupid and wasteful and spend her money on frivolous things, that would be HER decision. As wasteful as it might be, NO ONE has the right to swoop in and say, “I’m sorry, we don’t like the way you’re spending your money – you’re being selfish, so we’re going to take most of it and give it to these people who are sitting around doing nothing.” The HOPE is that someone with that much money would, in fact, be generous and GIVE some of it away. (This is what CHARITIES are for…) Ugh… if I get started on this, it’ll take over my entire blog post… :)

Oh, it looks like Echo is doing MUCH better now! We were worried because she’d been eating again, and then she once again lost her appetite – it seemed for a while like it would come and go, and we weren’t sure she would ever feel better. But the second loss of appetite coincided with the beginning of a new antibiotic we were giving her – so we think it may have been a side effect of medication. But after a few days she was back to eating again, and once the antibiotic was finished, we took her back to the vet for a follow up – and all of her elevated enzymes were nearly back to normal, which was great news. Since she’s doing so well now, we’ve started giving her shots of something called Adequan – it’s a medication that’s supposed to help rebuild joint cartilage and has been shown to really help dogs with arthritis. And it could just be my imagination, but it seems like she’s already a bit more active than she was before (the vet said it would take about a month to tell if it was really having an effect). Now we’re just trying to fatten her up, because she lost quite a bit of weight when she wasn’t feeling well. I’m feeding everything she wants right now – pizza crusts, chicken, steak, extra dog treats, extra canned food for breakfast. She is getting seriously spoiled right now!

Okay, I believe it may be time for an impromptu cappuccino run, so I’m off to partake of a lovely caffeinated beverage…

Argh!! Draft day!!

Today is fantasy baseball draft day!! I have no idea who my first pick will be, and I’m a little upset that I don’t get to choose until eight other people have picked – because that guarantees that my favorite fantasy baseball pitcher, C.C. Sabathia (who also happens to be a Yankee this year!) will be long gone by the time I get to pick. But even if Sabathia isn’t on my fantasy team, I’m quite excited about Yankee baseball this year – we added Sabathia and Burnett, and if Wang and Joba can stay healthy, I think that’ll give us the best pitching we’ve had in a long time. This could be a really great year to be in the new stadium…

But right now, I'm trying to figure out who I should choose first. Do I want a pitcher? A great shortstop? A good second baseman (since there aren't too many out there and if I don't get one in the first or second round, I'll end up with a mediocre second baseman)?? Who should I pick? Who? WHO????

I guess I should remember that my best year in fantasy baseball so far has been my FIRST year -- the year that I really had no idea what I was doing. So perhaps I'll go with an "I have no idea what I'm doing" strategy. Seemed to work the first time...

So for now, I should go prepare for the draft, which starts in a couple hours (and by "prepare" I mean "move my computer from the couch over to the kitchen counter"). Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

A few pics...

Finally, some pictures of my new red wall:

The wall behind the eating area -- which took so much longer than such a small space should've taken. Mostly because I've had other things to do the last couple weeks -- but also because it took FOREVER to tape all the trim and the windows and the ceiling, and then it ended up needing three coats of paint. But I'm really happy with the outcome...



Accent wall above the cupboards -- the red kinda matches those red dish towels, which I've had since we moved in, and I always thought they looked great with the dark wood and counters. Now I'm just trying to decide if I want to attempt to paint the wall above those cabinets over the ovens -- actually, Rick would probably have to do it. I was barely tall enough to reach the other wall when I was standing on the counter -- and there's only a small counter on the opposite side. There's no way I could reach that wall over the ovens without a really tall ladder...


I just love my light fixture over the kitchen table... :)


Bonus picture! Echo being all cute and hiding behind Rick's legs... She seems to be doing better now -- she's eating regularly again, although she's being a bit more picky than she used to be. I have to mix her usual dry food with a little bit of canned food before she'll really start eating it. And she no longer likes the crunchy treats she used to eat -- but she loves the new soft treats we just bought her at Petsmart. And she's gotten WAY too clever at discovering pills hidden in various foods. I've pretty much given up trying to sneak her pills into any sort of food, because she's suspicious of EVERYTHING now. So I have to just throw them in her mouth and hold it closed until she swallows (or PRETENDS to swallow, which is often the case... and then she shakes her head until the pills fall on the floor, and I have to wipe them off and toss them in her mouth again. Poor puppy... :))


Bonus picture #2! (Piva wouldn't leave me alone when I was taking the pictures of the new paint, so I finally just took a picture of her... :))

Reporting for duty...

I’ve been wanting to post some pictures of my new kitchen color, but it’s been rather slow going this week. Just as I’d finally purchased all my paint, brushes, tape and protective plastic tarps, I got a call from my proofreading liaison at the bank where I used to work – time for annual report proofreading! Yippee! That was actually meant to be a sarcastic “yippee,” as I find proofreading 40-plus page annual reports rather boring. However, it IS extra money, and we can certainly use a little extra money right now…

For some reason, these annual reports get longer and longer every year. Perhaps because all the branch associations keep merging together – they’re creating larger and larger branches with more to report. Back when I worked at the bank, there were about 40 separate branch banks, which meant 40 separate reports. They were about 30 pages each, but they all had the same basic “template” – so I only had to proofread all 30 pages ONCE, and then as each annual report crossed my desk, I would proofread the “unique” parts of each one, and make sure the correct numbers had been plugged into the correct places. So I handled all 40 reports by myself – although sometimes I would take a few home with me and add a few extra hours to my timesheet for that week.

Now, though, even with half as many reports to proof, the current proofreader at the bank acquires outside help to finish all the reports. This is mainly because the powers that be (whoever they are) have decided that EVERY page of EVERY report needs to be proofed. And with all these mergers, those pages keep multiplying. After I left the bank, they started creeping up into the 38-, 39-page range… and then they reached 40 pages… the last few years they’ve mostly been between 40 and 45 pages… and then when I got my first report this year, I was rather startled to see that it was a full 55 pages. I figure eventually ALL the associations will merge into one giant bank, and when that happens, I’ll be looking at a 300-page annual report… it’ll be the annual report book…

What I find amusing is how many “financial” people think they know grammar and punctuation and style and sentence structure better than those of us who’ve actually been PAID for our knowledge of such things. It seems like every year there’s a CFO who doesn’t agree with some of the changes I’ve made on his or her report, and therefore decides it “should” stay as is. I remember one time when I noticed “affect” or “effect” (I can’t remember which one) switched for the other word – and granted, the affect/effect choice is a tricky one, and often sends me to the dictionary just to make SURE I’ve used the correct one. So I can definitely understand the confusion. But after I corrected the document to the proper word, the CFO called to say he was pretty sure he had it right the first time (he didn’t) and decided it should stay the way it was (which was the WRONG way). It’s rather aggravating when someone refuses to trust your decisions, especially when you know more about the subject than they do. I mean, I would never attempt to rework your financial statements – how about you quit trying to be an editor?? But hey, it’s not MY annual report… if you want to showcase your errors, that’s fine with me… :)

Anyway, it looks like the annual reports are over for another year, so I was able to start painting the kitchen the other day. Actually, I’m only doing the strip of bare wall over the cabinets in the kitchen, and then I’m painting one wall in the eating area – I picked out a pretty bright red color, so I don’t want it to be overwhelming. Too much of it might look a little crazy. But I think just a few accents will look awesome – it adds a little bit of character. Hopefully it’ll all be finished by tomorrow, so I’ll get some pictures up soon.

And speaking of the painting, I want to get one more coat on above the cabinets, so I’m off to paint… hope everyone has a good weekend!

Maybe I'll add some polkadots...

So I’m listening to someone drilling holes into my house… or at least that’s what it sounds like. Our house is now officially one year old, which means we had a warranty walk-through a couple weeks ago to find all the little problems in the house that are covered under the warranty. For the last two days, we’ve had painters, electricians, plumbers, and maybe a couple random guys off the street (I haven’t been able to keep track of everyone) working all over the house to touch-up paint, caulk cracks, add insulation, fix leaky faucets, and generally make the house a slightly better place to live. Which brings me to the drilling outside – what IS that guy doing, exactly? I think it has something to do with the weep holes in the brick, but honestly, he COULD just be drilling things for the fun of it…

And with the one-year anniversary of our move into this house (coupled with the fact that it’s no longer for sale and we’ll be STAYING here for a while now) I’ve started thinking about some decorating projects I might try to tackle. I haven’t done much with the house so far, mostly because we didn’t think we’d be here for very long. And there seem to be two schools of thought when it comes to selling a house – some people believe the more sparse and plain the house looks, the better. That way prospective buyers see an “empty canvas” and can imagine all of their OWN belongings in the house, and can think about what sort of decorating style they might bring to the house. But other people believe a house should be fully furnished, decorated, painted, etc., because it helps buyers form an “emotional connection” to the house.

Now, I happen to agree more with the “empty canvas” idea. But apparently there are quite a few people who go for the “emotional connection” idea, because an entire industry has been built around “staging” houses. People will actually come into your house and tell you what furniture you should keep out and what you should hide, what you should keep on the counter and what you should put away, how you should organize your closets… and then, for an extra fee, they will decorate your house in an (I suppose) “emotionally connective” style, with artwork and fancy vases and artificial flowers and tapestries and candles – all of which is supposed to invoke some sort of primal “must… have… house” response in the people who view it.

But I don’t really buy all that (thank goodness – because those house stagers are expensive…). I think someone who walks into a totally empty house and can’t picture where they might arrange their OWN furniture and their OWN artwork and their OWN small appliances in the kitchen is just sorely lacking in any imagination or creativity. So when we realized that we might be moving to Chicago, I decided to just leave the house as is – no painting, very few pictures on the walls (not as many nail holes that way – just nice, new, pristine walls for the next occupant), and generally not much clutter or color anywhere. An empty canvas…

But now that we’re staying here in Austin, I’m realizing that my nice “empty canvas” is quite lacking in personality. So I guess it’s about time to personalize it. I’m thinking of starting with a bit of paint in the kitchen… probably red, since I already have some red accents (a few dishtowels, a rug, an oven mitt) and red looks really good with the dark cabinets and countertops we have. Then once that’s done, we’ll have to tackle the media room – I am anticipating much purple (although I haven’t settled on a color yet, so I may go with something else…). Hopefully all of this will help me settle into this house – a house I don’t feel I’ve ever really settled into.

But it has been a whole year, so I guess it’s about time… :)