Nudge

Simply put nudge means to push against gently, especially in order to gain attention or give a signal. I see it on my kindle as a choice in the game Words with friends and sometimes I push it and send a nudge on its way. I am not sure how that nudge looks on the other end though. These days we are always being nudged, just not in obvious ways, because there is a science to nudging. Nudging works because we are predictable and it’s practiced in lots of places with the intent to sway our decision making. This is one of the reasons I hate to go into WalMart, I always come out with things I didn’t intend to purchase, even when I go in with a list. An example of another nudge that works is one used in Chicago on Lake Shore Drive. In order to reduce the number of accidents, the city painted white stripes on the approaches to the sharp turns getting progressively closer together to give the illusion that you are speeding up, thus nudging you to slow down. Then there’s the political nudge, the phone calls on the eve of the election and the mailing campaigns, all with the intent to nudge. I blogged last year about the default option for organ donations, in some European countries citizens are automatically registered unless they opt out. This default option is a type of nudge and of course citizens are nudged not to opt out even though it’s an easy process. I am for the nudge that helps get more organ donors. But here is where I think I don’t trust all these nudges, I think about food labeled as healthy or  low fat in order to get me to eat more of it and now I’m bombarded with how this is a mistake. My scale isn’t lying! Basically we are being nudged all the time whether we are aware of it or not, the real dilemma lies in whether or not we should trust the nudgers.

Naked Mole Rats

Something about very cold no snow, snow days in the south made me think about the info I read up on a while back regarding naked mole rats. These would be very chilly days for them indeed and just looking at their nearly hairless images makes me want to turn my crocheted coffee cup cozies into little naked mole rat sweaters. Naked mole rats are African underground mammals with 30+ year life spans. Although they are mammals, like ants or bees, they live in colonies where there is a queen and a few fertile males and the rest of the naked worker mole rats are sterile. The smaller ones are tasked with gathering food and maintaining the nest, while larger ones are more reactive in case of attack. Of particular interest to researchers is that naked mole rats are resistant to cancer. This is because of an extracellular matrix in them, the gloop that’s a support for their tissues (like the fat below my skin) is filled with a substance, high molecular mass hyaluronan (HMM-HA), is cancer resistant. This hyaluronan acts as a lubricant and helps the naked mole rat squeeze through tunnels. The rats are so well adapted to living in tight places that they can almost turn a somersault in their own skin. It is not known if HMM-HA would lend its cancer protection to humans if human cells were able to produce it but it may have uses for patients with arthritis some day through cellular engineering.

Over the Counter Medicines Help Spread the Flu?

There was a study done on this and they found that OTC drugs, like Tylenol, Motrin, or aspirin, etc. were in this way helping spread the flu. Once a person with the flu took an OTC fever, aches, and pain reducer they would toddle off to work no longer feeling the negative symptoms, yet unknowingly still contagious. If you have fever (even the kind reduced by OTC drugs) you need to stay away from the work place until the fever is gone for 24 hours without said OTC drugs. This is pretty much the same rule you would use for school children, a rule I heard from many a school nurse. You may think your boss won’t like you missing work but he may rethink that if suddenly everyone else at work (including the boss) comes down with the same virus. If you had to go I suppose you could wear a paper mask over your mouth and nose like I see the people in Japan sporting in many photos. I am not sure how much good it would do your coworkers but I think it would do wonders for your personal space.

Connecting Your Pet to the Web

After checking out the eight ways to do this, and it’s the World Wide Web not a spider web which would be too nontechnical to connect by just taking your pup for an off road walk, doggy LoJack looks to be the most practical. It would save me time tacking up all those lost dog posters and worry over whether or not my pooch is roadkill waiting to be discovered by the kids on the school bus. Yep there’s an app for finding your dog when he goes on a walk about, and there’s a game kids play on long bus trips after they get tired of the ABC game and it involves counting roadkill. Webcams were also mentioned in this article but I figure your pet would rather see you in person, I know mine prefers that. I also saw a remote controlled food dispenser. I wonder when someone will figure out how to pick up after the food has been dispensed at the other end via the web. The last I’ll mention here is the cube, not a video game cube, but a device that lets you point a laser light around for your dog or cat to try to catch and you can watch them and provide verbal encouragement too via the web, probably while you are away for the day at work. Why not? Sounds like more fun than checking Face Book at work.

Another Reason for Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys

Yep, I watched Willie Nelson perform this song with Blake Shelton, Kris Kristofferson, and Merle Haggard, last night on the Grammies. Then this morning I read that the Marlboro Man has passed away from lung related illness (COPD), you fill in the blank, smoking. Eric Lawson, was 72. He started smoking at the age of 14 and is survived by a wife and 6 children. From age 14 to 72 is 58 years of lung punishment if he smoked all those years and that is a lot. The article didn’t mention whether or not any of his surviving family are suffering from the ill effects of second hand smoke or are following in their father’s footsteps. I made a mistake by looking at the comments after the article and I saw quite a few from both the pro smoking camp and the anti-smoking camp. The funniest pair was (I paraphrase here) about how you have as much of a chance of dying from smoking as you would being hit by a bus, the reply made mention that if you didn’t smoke you might have had the ability to move fast enough to get out of the way of the bus. Losing several family members to smoking related illnesses I’d have to agree with that. Having first-hand knowledge of the negative effects of smoking obviously isn't enough to overcome the addicting aspects of nicotine for many smokers, and sadly enough for the surviving family members, despite their brave pro smoking rants, in the end the smokers don’t often go quietly into the night.

My Cure for Blogger’s Block

Today it seemed I was having a bit of blogger’s block with my oatmeal. This could have been a result of the break in the cold weather we've been feeling in Southeast GA. Maybe it’s because the polar plunger is predicted to return on Tuesday and suck the spring like weather we are having today down the proverbial drain, I don’t know. I just knew when I saw the fog outside this morning at chicken feeding time and found that their water wasn't frozen solid, that I wouldn't want to be spending a lot of time sitting in front of this computer attired in my mismatched fuzzy socks and slippers. And then when I tried to open a link to an article about, A new study finds that exercise among older adults helps ward off depression, dementia and other health... yada yada, that my husband sent as a possible blog topic and it wouldn't open, I figured that was a sign too, since I am an older adult. This was the first sign pointing me out the door to get moving and enjoy the day, and the next was an article I saw on 7 ways to get out of a rut (which included one of my favorites: Count your blessings-for me often best done outdoors).Now you know the reasons this blog post is so short. Yep, I’m heading out and hoping you can find time to enjoy the day today too. 

Please Pass the Honey, Honey

Not sugar or high fructose corn syrup, because those two are at war over whether or not they are processed. It all boils down (literally) to corn syrup wanting to change its label to corn sugar and sugar objects. Mix this up with the fact that I have been looking at getting more ‘clean’ foods into my diet, therein lies the first problem for me. When looking at ingredients less is more according to the clean food devotees, especially to be avoided are foods with unpronounceable ingredients because these additives and preservatives signal a high degree of ‘processing’. I get that. So I did a little research on the processing of sugar and high fructose corn syrup and even though there is only one ingredient listed on the sugar bag, duh sugar and three, corn syrup, salt, and vanilla, on the corn syrup bottle, both items are highly processed. Most corn other products (there are a lot of them) are also and sugar in the raw isn't processed much less than any other sugar. Chemicals are involved in processing both. So the clean food devotees do mention eating food less processed, and more organic, and staying away from sugar and white flour items versus whole grain, and maybe this is what they mean. Eating healthy is becoming more and more complicated. That’s why I think I am going to stick with honey (especially on my less processed steel cut oats-oatmeal) since honey is locally and naturally processed by the bees in my neighborhood. 

Snow Rainbows

There is some controversy over whether or not the snow rainbow weather phenomenon even exists. I saw this photo posted on FB by my nephew’s wife, and even though the colors aren't clear they are there, hence it looked like a rainbow to her and I concur. So I dove into the snow rainbow discussion, without so much as a pair of cross country skis, and there are a couple of things that drift to mind, snow what I mean? Many weather people mention that in order for light to be refracted into the color spectrum and form a rainbow it must pass through a rounded raindrop. Snowflakes do not have the necessary curves, but then neither do the prisms I used when I taught elementary school science. Because snowflakes have so many surfaces the color refraction doesn't show, the light is purportedly too scrambled, but there is a thing called a parahelia that is similar to a rainbow when sunlight is refracted through snow or ice crystals in cirrus clouds. The word parahelia showing up red wiggly, underlined by the spell check that is part of my computer’s software programming makes me wonder about parahelia’s validity as a word. There’s no such underline under snow rainbow so why not just call it what it is? Even in South GA you can’t miss the fact that there has been a lot of snow in the US lately so if I were you, living in the snowy climes, I’d be on the lookout for a snow rainbow!

An Arrogant Putin’s Public Homophobia

When Putin made the comment that gays that come to Socchi for the Winter Olympics as fans or participants should leave the children alone, I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Putin’s small mind was definitely showing since his comment and Russia’s anti-gay law essentially equate homosexuality with pedophilia and I say shame on him. The law there has contributed to growing animosity toward gays in Russian society, with rights activists reporting a rise in harassment and abuse. Putin just refuses to answer questions about this put to him by the international community. He has also criticized the US because in some states there are still laws in the books that consider gay sex a crime. I wonder why if in Russia homosexuality was decriminalized in 1993 they still have anti-gay laws there? At least in the US the state laws Putin referred to regarding gay sex are considered unconstitutional. Seems like a very arrogant Putin wants to stir the pot or call the kettle black. Conventional wisdom might instead agree with me and think his kettle and his heart might be even blacker. 

Confession on 2013’s Random Acts of Kindness

This is my update on my 2013 random acts of kindness pledge. I fell short of the plan I had to complete 2 acts a week. Instead I managed a measly 37, which averages to 3 per month. I kept track in a spiral notebook and I have now turned the page on 2013 (no excuses) and am working toward improving on last year’s commitment for 2014. One good thing that came about from keeping the notebook was that I also jotted down when I was the recipient of random acts of kindness. Reading over the notes I took on this has made me smile. After rereading my notes to self I am not discounting my efforts in 2013, but I am more determined than ever to be more aware of opportunities to do random acts of kindness for others, especially because I now have a better understanding of how they can make a person feel from both sides of the coin. I don’t think any of my previous random acts were life changing or particularly newsworthy but that doesn't make them any less important to me as a giver or to the person that received. I think making a conscientious effort to be kinder has made me a better person and I hope I’m making small, yet positive, ripples in what seems to be often a negative world be doing simple acts of kindness.

Here is one from my notebook that has carried over from 2013 to 2014: On May 19, 2013 we were staying at the LaQuinta on 34^th Street in St. Pete and while the grand boys were playing in the hotel pool we saw a boy who didn’t speak when the boys tried to get him to play with them. He was very interested in lizards and squirrels around the pool area and eventually took a water squirter offered by Jonas, who had tried talking to him in Spanish (which for him consists mostly of counting and what he’s learned from Taco Bell commercials) and from the puzzled looks it was obvious that that didn’t work. In the beginning we thought the boy was at the pool with no adult but eventually we figured out that he was there with his father, who told us Dale (named after Dale Earnhardt by his NASCAR fan Dad) didn’t speak English, and was vacationing in St. Pete from Germany. Dad spoke passable English and became one of my Face Book friends. Our act of kindness was to leave the pool toys for Dale and he seemed to especially like the squirter. The toys were given to us by a couple of folks we met at a pool in Cocoa Beach earlier that spring since they were going on a cruise from there and couldn't take them with. It was nice to pass a kindness on. Other than some random posts in my news feed I hadn't heard much of anything from Dale’s father, my FB friend until New Year’s Day when I got a message wishing our family a Happy New Year. We chatted a little and I was reminded how much Dale liked animals so I procured a snail mail address and sent him an owl hat that I crocheted. It wasn't an APO address so I hope it gets to him before the cold weather is over. Sending the hat may have been more of an impulsive act of kindness than random because Dale isn't a stranger exactly since our random play date in St. Pete but I look forward to hearing when he receives it in the mail sometime this year, 2014. My proof that a simple random act of kindness can reach across an ocean, never underestimate how far one of yours can go. 

Japanese Dolphin Hunters

Caroline Kennedy is concerned about the inhumaneness of the annual dolphin roundup and slaughter that takes place in the waters off Japan. There are 250 bottlenose dolphins, yes Flippers, corralled in a cove there now. Some will be sold to Marineland type venues, some slaughtered for food, and some supposedly released. Who eats dolphin of the mammal variety anyway? I am surprised there isn’t more protest about this annual event, like the History Channel’s Whale Wars, or something like that. I don’t tweet but here is the tweet Kennedy sent out: Deeply concerned by inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing. USG opposes drive hunt fisheries. The USG being the United States government, and with Kennedy being fairly newly sent to Japan as a US Ambassador, I am proud of her for bringing her concern to the forefront via social media. Of course Japan has resisted efforts by conservation groups to film the slaughter since an Oscar-winning documentary that was directed by former National Geographic photographer Louis Psihoyos came out in 2009, called The Cove. The Japanese defend the practice, and local officials claim that they are conducting a legal and traditional fishing practice while at the same time adhering to the regulations and the quotas established by the Japanese government. The documentary regarding this practice, rounding up and inhumanly slaughtering dolphins, was considered an affront to traditional Japanese culture and generally anti-Japanese. Leaves me to wonder what the Japanese are thinking about the newest ambassador’s tweet.

Somali Pirates

I admit that I am behind in my movie viewing, and by this I mean I don’t get out to the movies that often, so it was nice to see that one of the movies playing in the Bahamas (they are also behind the local timeline on this) was Tom Hanks’ film, Captain Phillips, based on the true story of an act of piracy on the high seas. It was a good movie though the suspense was a little overdrawn out near the end in the lifeboat segments, just my opinion. Then I saw that one of the Somali born actors, (more recently from Minnesota) was up for a Golden Globe and I thought that was pretty cool. Even though he didn’t win, he was worthy.

Now I read in the news that the Somali gangs are at it again and not just in the movies. Pirates have seized first ship in Somali area once again, the first since 2012. In 2011 there were 176 confirmed piracy attacks in the region and in 2012 there were 36. In 2013 and no ships were successfully seized but the threat of pirates still remained. In this most recent attack the vessel under siege is being crewed by Indians, Egyptians and Syrians and was boarded by a gang of eight or nine pirates. Perhaps five gunmen are still on board. The ship was also one that had been attacked in 2011, but they escaped that time. The vessel has been identified as the MV Marzooqah, and Andrew Mwangura, secretary general of the Seafarers Union of Kenya, says they are now trying to follow this ship to try to find out which pirate group is holding them and what they are demanding.

Despite the higher insurance rates and more international naval vigilance shipping in this part of the world is risky business. In the movie there was a good ending for Captain Phillips and a bad ending for the pirates, I can’t help but wonder what the ending in this most recent situation will be.

Wonderful Wonderbag Update

Before

After

So my Wonderbag came via UPS this weekend and I couldn't wait to try it out despite my grandsons’ skepticism. They didn’t think the bag would keep the food hot without an electric power source but it did. I made my usual veggie and lentil soup recipe and put it in the bag pot and all at 10:30 am and by 6 pm we could wait no longer to see how the soup would come out. My sister had stopped by earlier and remarked that something smelled good, but I figured that was traces breakfast still in the air. But back to the Wonderbag, as I undid the drawstring and took off the top and let the sides down we all took a turn touching the sides of the soup pot and it was still too hot to just pick up! That seemed amazing to my incredulous crew but what was really amazing was how delicious the soup was. Over hot bowls of soup with toasted crusty bread for dipping we talked about how the Wonderbag that was donated to a family in Africa when we purchased ours would help people that didn’t have a reliable energy source since all that was needed was to boil the contents of your pot for 5 minutes and that could happen over a campfire or on a propane burner like the one we used for our low country boil. The Wonderbag is big enough to hold my spaghetti pot easily, though I used a slightly smaller stock pot for the soup, and keeps the food cooking and the flavors melding for up to 12 hours.

Our weekend began with the boys making French bread pizzas (for themselves-in the oven, not in the Wonderbag) and taking one to an elderly home bound neighbor. It was an abbreviated make your own pizza night since we didn’t make our own dough but after dropping off the meal (with a side of applesauce) my 13 year old grandson and I had a fist bump over his reflection that it felt pretty good to help someone out that we didn’t really know. I’m glad I had a part in that (driving the getaway car) and smiled to myself knowing that I just had a glimpse of the caring young man he will be someday. Sharing a meal, helping a family in a faraway country, helping my grands learn the intrinsic rewards of service to others, wonderful.

Writer Goes Missing

In the news there has been a report of a journalist who went missing a while back. He is a reporter and his family said he just went for a walk and never returned. His family lives in a snowy place but one of his credit cards surfaced in Mexico.

As I write this, I can’t believe how many times I have had to push the back space button to change this to present tense. Perhaps it’s a reflection on how much I hope they find him alive, not killed for some story he was about to break or for his credit cards.

His story (I've been following it) is finally out of the news feed but without a positive resolution. They haven’t found him dead, alive, or anywhere in between (like Mexico). The sad thing I am considering is just how many people go missing every day and how many missing persons’ cases remain unresolved for years. I hope the writer is found and safely returned to his family.

And on another note, if you should read in the news about a writer/hat crochet-er that suddenly goes missing…well, I hope I am found safe and happy on an adventure in a warmer place with lots of new friends (wearing funny hats) and new things to write about.

No Shots Fired Day

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s commitment to nonviolence there is a No Shots Fired Day campaign going on. I didn’t realize that Monday was the holiday (I am so lost since I have no school calendar to live by these days) until I read on Face Book how kids were excited and happy for the long weekend ahead. Then I saw an article about the No Shots Fired campaign going on in the Atlanta, GA area and I put it all together. If you change your profile photo to the No Shots Fired logo you can win tickets to a game in Atlanta too. That is a nice incentive and a good way to get people interested in MLKJr.’s story. A lot of senseless shots have been and continue to be fired these days, like at the movies in Florida over someone using a cell phone during the movie, or the middle school kid who brought a shotgun and 3 shells to school. Now two other children are hurt and the whole community along with them. And I tire of the Stand Your Ground arguments and all the reasons people need to stand their ground in the first place. It’s time for a No Shots Fired Day. I hope it catches on. I support it.

Microglia

Getting ready to pack for my return trip stateside can get a little hectic. Ok, once again I have misplaced my…cell phone, car keys, whatever, just the things I need, along with my passport, before getting on the road. I wonder if this means my microglia have gone into overdrive. Microglia are the brain’s synaptic pruners, that work to refine neural circuits to make them more efficient at processing information, or in my case, less efficient if they over pruning. They are the less well known and more mysterious spidery cells of the brain when compared to neurons and astrocytes. They travel through the brain, riding in on blood vessels and nerve fibers, colonizing in every part. They also may play an important role in helping us adapt to new situations. Scientists first became aware of microglia in the 1840s but much more is known about them and the work they do in the brain now. Some neuroscientists are now wondering what microglia’s influence might be in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or autism. Some studies suggest microglia are more active in people with depression too. One thing brain researchers seem to agree on is that there needs to be more study to determine what other mysteries microglia may be harboring. In the meantime, I was looking for something…What was it I was looking for?

Flu and Obesity Linked

Here is another reason to try harder to keep your New Year’s resolution if you are a fatty like me and your resolution includes fitness or the reduction of fat like so many resolutions do. Overall, this year's flu strain seems to be hitting younger people, pregnant women, people with chronic disease, and the obese hardest. That’s my category and one reason for this is that both obesity and pregnancy are known to alter the immune response. With the flu, both groups tend to end up with respiratory restrictions, the most common complication sending people with the flu to the hospital being pneumonia. Some patients eventually find themselves in intensive care on a ventilator. The most commonly reported underlying medical conditions among adults hospitalized with the flu were obesity, metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease and asthma, according to CDC.

One member of our family has already survived the H1N1 strain that is working its way around this season and fortunately I got a pass, and by that I mean despite coming in contact with a family member diagnosed with it, the swine flu passed me by. Maybe the flu shot I got when my mother was still alive protected me. I just remember that the only way she was going to get one was if I got one too. Maybe I should add a New Year’s resolution to stop making excuses for avoiding a flu shot in 2014.

Great Whites, Sharks that is!

There are plenty of fish in the sea and some of them just happen to be great white sharks. The sea I am referring to here is the Atlantic and the sharks I am referring to frequent the waters right off Jacksonville and closer to home, Fernandina Beach. Now there is a plan to drop sensors into the Atlantic Ocean off northeast Florida to help researchers continue to track great white sharks. Once these sensors are in place and activated shark experts at the University of North Florida will be alerted whenever a great white shark that's been tagged with a tracking device swims within a few hundred yards of one of the sensors, which will be placed on buoys within a mile from shore.

Last year, scientists tracked a couple of great whites near shore off Jacksonville Beach. A 16 ½-foot and a 14-foot great white were caught and tagged within sight of an Atlantic Beach park. There was a website that let you follow these tagged and named great whites on their journeys up and down the Atlantic seaboard. Researchers say data from the tracking devices show that some great white sharks spend more time close to shore than they previously believed.

Even though the sharks are spending more time closer to the shore I figure there is still plenty of room for me in the sea and lots of other kinds of sharks and fish too. 

Drones Help Conservationists

Here is a new use for drone technology- drones can be used to track threatened animals that have been fitted with GPS tags. And the tags can be networked to provide data on a whole pack of animals. The venture is called Technology for Nature and is the combined efforts of a Microsoft team, University College London, and the Zoological Society of London. The drones find the tagged animal, fly to it, and turn on their cameras to give researchers a view of what is going on. In the Republic of Congo, the Wildlife Conservation Society is preparing to use the drones to monitor the migration of hammerhead fruit bats, suspected carriers of the Ebola virus. In other parks in Africa the drone system will be used to study the effects of poaching and snaring on populations of Africa’s wild dogs and cheetahs which are hunted for their meat. Sensors also measure temperature, humidity, and elevation and can help researchers collect data over time that might indicate climate change and its altering effect on an animal’s range.

It seems to me that drones of one sort or another have been around for quite a while and are becoming even more sophisticated. Drones are here to stay and the drones helping conservationists track endangered or threatened species are making a positive impact.

Geoengineering

Planned geoengineering, an industry of the future, holds hope for help in the battle against dangerous climate change. Partly this is because geoengineering has finally achieved a level of respectability that might allow us to transform the earth to capture and contain carbon. I have mentioned some geoengineering methods in past blogs like Drawn by the Tides, about how soot from oil burning ships dump lots of soluble iron back and forth across 3 million miles of ocean and this iron has a way of sucking the carbon dioxide from the air into the ocean and another about how NASCAR is planting trees, because trees are a carbon sink as long as they are growing. Other strategies needed include technologies like Direct Air Capture containers with a chemical sponge that would suck the CO2 out of the air as it passes through, and along with trees planting biofuel crops like sugar cane. These technologies and other strategies (including ditching the use of fossil fuels) will cost trillions per year and require intergovernmental cooperation but still make good economic sense if we want to head off the global disaster of climate change. Global warming doesn't have to signal the end of the world as we know it.

Three Deaths, One by Extreme Wedgie, One Inhumane Killing of Pigs, and One of my Appetite for Chicken

Bear with me on this subject of three deaths recently noted in the news.

This first one I so wish was a joke but it wasn't because a man was suffocated by his own underwear during an altercation with his stepson in Oklahoma. The man’s underwear was yanked up the stepfather's back and over his head so that the waistband was around his neck, authorities said. This happened at the end of a fight over the holidays and the state's medical examiner said Wednesday that St. Clair's cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head or asphyxia.

The second one is about Tyson Food’s reaction to the expose that NBC did with hidden cameras of the inhumane killing of pigs. The video was horrible enough to put me off bacon and this right after I discovered how much I love Bacon Catalina salad dressing. The time honored, considered humane method of killing piglets is to slam their heads onto the concrete floor because their skulls are not yet hardened. In the video some of the piglets did not die instantaneously but rather wallowed in puddles of blood for up to thirty minutes. Now Tyson Foods is reviewing this slaughter method and has decided that they will have stricter regulations on the continued slamming of piglets onto the concrete to ensure they don’t take so long to die.

The last one that’s impact is enough to put me off chicken too is the story about the cockroach infested chicken processing plant and all the cases of salmonella related to Foster Foods chicken products. I have chickens of my own and haven’t been able to even think about watching the chicken slaughter exposes, especially after the pig video. Apparently the Foster Foods Chicken plant will reopen after sanitizing, or death to millions of cockroaches. 

Now Big Power Companies Want a Piece of the Sun

It appears to me that now energy utilities want a piece of the sun. Shouldn't the sun (the moon and stars) be out of their reach? I kept my old solar charged cell phone almost forever (it was ancient according to the sales people at the cell phone place) but I loved that I was able to keep it charged for free. It is true that I finally caved and now have the latest cell phone technology and I now view my old solar phone like a bad relationship that I’ll never go back to, but I am still a big proponent of solar energy. That hasn't changed for me and money is still at the heart of solar energy growth. And even Wall Street continues to like solar. If you are using solar energy you still pay the power company to use their grid, even if they buy back your excess power. You also have to pay for your panels, their installation, and maintenance. The price of this is going down but still remains a hefty investment. If the power companies have their way and increase what solar users pay it will take longer for your investment in solar to see fruition.

"The success of solar power is forcing utilities to rethink their business model and push for the changes," said Franc Del Fosse, an energy industry lawyer and partner at Snell & Wilmer. "If you have individuals putting solar panels on the roof, it's easy to suggest that a utility is making less money."

The utilities companies’ efforts to garner higher fees on solar panel users could backfire because when the fees become too high more companies and individuals will go to the independent energy producers. Maybe it is too late for the big utility companies to restructure their business models. 

Potcaking in the Bahamas

So having escaped the chill in the states, I am spending my first full day this year in the Bahamas and I am taking up a new (to me) fitness sport that I am calling Potcaking. I know cakes and pots generally bring to mind the opposite side of exercise, the calories in side but Potcaking definitely made me work up a sweat on the calorie burn side. The potcake involved is my husband’s and her name is Sailor. I was told she is as good as gold by our neighbor here, when she is worn out so therein was my goal for today. Of course I hadn't considered that she would hog the recliner after walking the beaches, pine barrens, and returning back to the A/C, and the fact that I am now worn out too!

Over the past 2 years I urged my husband to keep an open mind about finding and adopting a potcake, the feral dogs of the Bahamas because 20 years ago when he lived here he had a pup named Bug who went on to become his favorite child. My husband really has an affinity for animals of all sorts but I had hoped an older potcake that needed a home would someday turn up on his doorstep, but that was not to be. Instead a potcake pup named Sailor was found under a trailer nearby and put on the local website as looking for a home. She has one now and she is a force to be reckoned with. My husband calls her a goof and she lived up to her nickname tripping over her own feet and getting a nose full of sand at the beach today. I also had to make her drop an urchin and a banana peel she was intent on eating.

Maybe it was something about her feet that my husband found so appealing, Bug had slew feet and a little skip in her walk. Sailor has 2 extra toes on her back feet, complete with toenails. This seems to be a characteristic of potcakes and inbreeding but our neighbor says she probably ate her twin. I wouldn't doubt it because right now she is probably dreaming of eating my flip flops and she can keep on dreaming because that ain't

 happening!

Brains for Sale

I actually thought I was finished writing about zombies and the zombie apocalypse but every time I think I've exhausted a subject it pops back up. In this case I figure what zombie in his right mind could resist. Apparently a bandit stole a bunch of brains and was planning to sell them, to some hungry brain eating zombies, I figure. Of course those plans have been foiled, sorry zombies. David Charles, the 21 year old suspect, allegedly stole more than 60 jars of brain and other human tissues in October from a warehouse space at the Indiana Medical History Museum. He is accused of breaking into the museum and taking jars of brains and tissue from autopsies performed on patients in the 1890s and he sold some on EBay to someone in California who notified the executive director of the museum. From that tip an investigation began and the plan was foiled.

From body parts we don’t need to brains for sale, yep there’s a market for that, I hope this could be my last words on these subjects at least till Halloween, zombies included.

Body Parts You Don’t Need

I watched a video of 10 parts we don’t need on MSN. It’s interesting that we have so many body parts becoming obsolete. Wisdom teeth I read are useless since human jawbones have evolved to be smaller and nowadays some people don’t even develop them. I wish that was the case for me as I clearly recall a Navy dentist who called himself Wild Bill wrangling a couple of mine out when we first moved to Kings Bay and active duty military dependents got dental work done in the base dental clinic. Two other unneeded parts that gave me pause were body hair (except for eyebrows which keep sweat out of the eyes) and nipples on males. Apparently nipples form before gender is determined in utero and that is why we all have them. The rare male lactation was mentioned but I am not sure I really want a mental image of that so let’s consider body hair. There would be quite a bit of economic impact felt if we suddenly all went hairless. I’m thinking of all those laser hair removal franchises, waxing places, salons, barber shops, and spas, and the plethora of shaving necessities that take up entire aisles in various stores. And what would we do without the hair on top of our heads? Would people with blond eyebrows have more fun? I guess I really need to think the hairless thing through (think hairless cats and Chihuahuas, not that cute if you ask me). They did feature a still shot of a man with a very hairy back in the video. I could have gone without seeing that and nose hairs (those sometimes protruding nasty booger catchers) were not mentioned either.

The Wonderbag

If this was about me it would be the Wonder(old)bag, but it isn't, instead I’m writing about a very interesting power saving Wonderbag for cooking that I am going to have to have. My entire family and most of my friends know I am an energy miser (I brag about my ridiculously low electric bill at least once a month when the bill comes in) and this Wonderbag is just what I need to keep the energy usage even lower. It works like a slow cooker (crockpot) but you don’t plug it in. The Wonderbag was originally invented by founder Sarah Collins in South Africa with the intention of conserving cooking energy in developing nations. After checking out the reviews and a video on this cordless, power-free, gas-free slow cooker I think it may just change the way I slow-cook forever. Basically the Wonderbag is just that, a wonder bag that’s an insulated bag with an insulated lid that you put the food you bring to a boil for 5 minutes per your conventional method into, pot and all. It then works like your plug in crockpot to slow cook but the best part is that you don’t plug it in. When you order one for $50 on Amazon another goes for free to a family in a developing country. I am including a link to the video and info here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/02/wonderbag-slow-cook-video_n_4532485.html

I’ll be blogging about how this works in my own kitchen in the near future.

For My Teacher Friends…

Once again I was reading, as I love to do, and I found this, from Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Novel, that made me think of all my friends who teach and who have taught. Especially since school will soon be starting back after the long Christmas break. Mma Ramotswe, the main character and detective is at a parent conference with the teachers of her foster children. Here is the part, Mma’s reflection on a moment that stopped me, “The teacher fiddled with a piece of paper. Looking after thirty children meant that you gave thirty hostages to fortune. A parent’s heart may be broken once, maybe twice or thrice: as a teacher your heart could be broken thirty times.” And further on Mma Ramotswe considers all the hardships and disappointments life can deal out and how we cannot protect children in the future. “All we could do was to give them that one thing that they could use to protect themselves from all that. At least we could do that. That thing was love, of course.”

Teachers, parents, and all who play a part in the lives of children, I salute you and thank you too. 

FL Stands Ready to Overtake NY as Number 3

This is not a sports update. Florida stands ready to overtake New York as number 3 in population, that is, behind number 1, California and number 2, Texas. As Florida’s population continues to grow and New York’s declines, Florida is in line to soon become number 3 in the population game and this may mean some changes in the political lines as they can soon be drawn in the Florida sand. Right now both New York and Florida have 27 seats each in the House of Representatives but that could change. Demographers have seen this change coming for quite some time, so it doesn't come as a big surprise to them. Having resided in the north and now the south it doesn't surprise me either because the weather alone is reason enough for one whose blood has become thin, as they say down here, to seek out the sunshine state’s wonderful warmth (I smile to myself as I type this blog in my flannel jammies and fuzzy socks). Get ready Florida because your secret is out!

The Ability to Fall Asleep Anywhere

So Mike Ditka fell asleep on live TV, lucky guy I think and not so unheard of at the age of 74. Here is where I wonder when Mike Ditka got so old…and then I wonder when I got so old too and why I don’t have the ability to fall asleep anywhere. Regardless, I can relate some stories about the ability to fall asleep anywhere.

Once I heard strange noises coming from my kitchen. When I went to investigate sure enough, I found my husband barking like a dog on the phone. Even for him this was strange behavior and here is how it relates to the ability to fall asleep anywhere, his Dad had fallen asleep while talking (listening more likely) on the phone with my husband who thought if he barked loud and long enough he could get Poppa’s dog, Low Down, to bark and that would wake his Dad so he could at least hang up the phone.

Another example of the ability to fall asleep anywhere happened when I was teaching kindergarten years ago. It was circle time on the first day of school and I was singing the days of the week when one little guy just fell out fast asleep right there on the rug in the front of my classroom. The Principal was making the rounds and saw it too. Later he called me into his office and lots of things were going through my mind, including the fact that I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but all he mentioned was that my singing little people to sleep might have been a useful skill in another kindergarten classroom that had a couple of criers.

So as for Mike Ditka, besides the fact that he will never have to suffer through my rendition of the days of the week, can just hold his head up (or not if he chooses to snooze) because I envy his ability to fall asleep anywhere!

Paying It Forward at Starbucks and Beyond

In Connecticut, Starbucks customers were on their third day of a record-breaking pay-it-forward spree yesterday as more than 1,000 of them have cheerfully agreed to pay for the customers behind them. The pay it forward chain (or backwards since in essence the participants are buying for the people in the car behind them) began at 8 AM on Christmas Eve and when there were lulls in the action (no one behind you in the drive thru) the customers were given the option of buying a gift card to be used for the next customer yet to arrive. One person paid for a $100 gift card for just that purpose. No telling how long the streak of random kindness will continue but the employee who put a photo of the tally marks counting this streak on instagram hopes that it will inspire others to do random acts of kindness in other places in their communities too.

In 2013 I planned to take action and commit lots of random acts of kindness, myself and even though I fell short of my goal I gained a lot of satisfaction from ones I did. It was enough to give me the impetus to resolve to commit more again for 2014.

Wish Upon a Sea Star for the New Year

Wishing on a sea star is a good place to start the New Year for me. For one thing, I don’t have to stay up till midnight to do it or hope for a cloudless night sky. Sea stars are the invertebrates we like to call star fish even though they really aren't fish at all. Though sea stars are harmless to humans in the oceans they rank among the top predators eating mussels, barnacles, and sea snails and preyed upon themselves by very few. Starfish may seem fairly unimportant, but they're actually a keystone species in many marine environments. Most live near the shore where I like to spend my time looking for them among the tide pools around Marine Beach, but some inhabit the bottom of deep seas. Within their own ecological communities these predators fill a vital niche and if the sea stars die off the food chains and webs that they are a part of may face disastrous changes, fundamental changes, for sure. The problem is the sea stars are dying off in some areas of the Pacific Ocean and what is killing them is highly lethal to them, causing some local populations to go extinct literally overnight. As yet the cause of the sea star kills is unknown but possibly bacterial and the death they face is death by dissolving. Since sea stars don't feel pain, death by dissolving doesn't hurt them. There is that, still I hope to be able to wish upon a sea star for many New Years in the future.