Repotting the Coffee!

The term "Repurposing" is a fancy way to say, "Don't throw stuff out if you can find another good use for it." You can do it to be frugal, do it to be smart, do it to help save our beautiful planet, or do it for fun ... but just do it!

My favorite repurposing is a cool old coffeemaker, the kind that looks like it came from a 1950s-era Rocket to Mars, that was going to be thrown out because it has no lid nor cord. I volunteered to give it a home and the result is in the photo to the right.

I left in the coffee basket & supporting central tube, partly because I needed only a little soil to grouw some nice bushy tomatoes, and partly in case someday I wanted to de-repurpose it back into a coffeemaker.

One especially delightful feature is that when we have heavy rain, the soil gets soggy but no problem! Just open the tap at the bottom and the excess water drains out!

This coffeemaker planter seems to work best with relatively low and bushy plants; shown is last year's small volunteer tomato. This year, I tried growing a small sunflower in it but

• The sunflower needed a stick for support since it was alone, and
• The wind caught the sunflower and blew everything over!

If you look around, you can probably find a lot of stuff you can repurpose, and save a lot on shopping & throwing away. Give it a try! And thanks to my blogbuddy at Reduce Footprints for suggesting the topic of Repurposeful Crafting; her Wednesday challenge is fun!

I have often repotted plants but this is one of the rare times that I replanted a pot!

Will War Ever End?: A Soldier's Vision of Peace for the 21st Century

What does an active duty soldier have to say about war?

Quite a lot, actually. In an era where the greatest fans of war are those who dodged it whenever possible, this book is a quick and necessary read.

About the book itself, let me simply quote from the publisher; I'll then add my own remarks.

"Once in a great while, a book is written that substantially changes the way people think about a particular subject. Will War Ever End? is such a book. Written as a "manifesto for waging peace" by an active duty captain in the U.S. Army, Will War Ever End? challenges readers to think about peace, war and violence in radically new ways.

"Are human beings naturally violent?"

"What is hatred?"

"How can love overcome the power of hatred?"

"How does nonviolence overcome the power of violence?"

"How can we prove that unconditional love makes us psychologically healthy and that hatred, just like an illness, occurs when something has gone wrong?"

"How does violence against the natural world relate to violence between human beings?"

These are all questions that Captain Paul K. Chappell leads us to consider in a strikingly new way. In Will War Ever End?, Chappell demonstrates that human beings are naturally peaceful and that world peace can become more than a cliché. He lays out a practical framework for transforming the way we think about war and violence, enabling us to begin the real work we must do in order to achieve true peace for mankind.

Will War Ever End? is a deeply personal story of a soldier's search for human understanding that will lead to universal transformation. Its message is one of hope, offering practical solutions to help us build a better world.

We can all make change.

Now is the time to begin."

I read this book after hearing the Captain on the radio. He seemed to make a lot of sense, and to have the chops to back up his claim.

Many people dispair of an end to war. This dispair is cripples our ability to think rationally on the subject. Perhaps we can overcome this dispair by comparing war to a similar phenomenon that Chappell points to in his book: slavery.

For most of human history, slavery was considered normal and even beneficial to all involved. However, withint a relatively short span of time (one or two centuries) slavery was relegated to the criminal margins. It is far from completely eradicated but we have universal conscensus that it is wrong and no civilized nation allows it.

Likewise, war. Throughout much of my culture's history is has been simply part of the background, and widely praised for bringing out virtue, or some darn thing. We are rapidly coming to the conclusion that this is an error.

The problem remains that we want instant success. When we don't get it, we are tempted to give up. Those persons still sickened by the mind virus of warmongering mock those who think the sickness can be cured.

That's o.k. Nothing good comes easy. If ending war was easy, it'd be done already.

For some of us, that is all the more reason to take on the challenge!

Read the book. Then join the community. You'll like it!

Beer Diplomacy: Why Not?

Yeah, I know.

The Gates arrest was wrong. Up until the moment that the cop cuffed him, he was just doing his job, responding to a call and making sure the guy who had been reported as having broken into the house was actually guy who lived there.

But when the cop asked the civilian to step out on the porch so he could cuff him, he stepped over the line.

But sometimes you should not fight things out in court.

Just have a beer and talk it over then walk away.

Wouldn't it be a better world if we dealt with more problems that way?

UPDATE:
Wait a minute! Obama had a Bud Light!

This changes everything. Budweiser is an o.k. drink, a little hoppy and a little watery, but a good utility beer.

But light? Bud Light? A Light Beer?

Mr. President - with great respect:

If you want to drink water with your beer, go ahead and have a glass of water. Then have your beer.

But, for the sake of all that is holy, man, don't pour the two together and call it a "Light Beer!"

Grilling a Pizza

If you've never grilled a pizza, you're in for a treat!

Grocery-shopping yesterday at Costco, I picked up a 3-pack of thin-crust pizzas. It's our favorite prepared food; if we're too beat to cook from scratch, and all out of leftovers, we tart up one of those bad boys with extra cheese, garlic and whatever we find in the fridge, and 14.5 minutes later are on the road to satiety!

We always get thin-crust pizza; the puffy-dough is just a waste of time and carbos.

To might surprise, delight and doubtfulness, the pizza at Costco now had grilling directions on the back. We absolute HAD to try it ... not only because of the inherent outrageousness of the concept, but also because our Seattle area's having a heat wave and we don't want to fire up the oven.

So up to the roof we went, and got the grill cranked up to a crazy hot temp. On went the pizza; in a few minutes we turned it, and soon it was done to a crispy tasty goodness!

We enjoyed this newfound delight with our friend Gail Gorud, who had stopped by to talk about some interesting "Reddy Kilowatt" printers' blocks she has. We were able to tap her knowledge of housing and gardening to further our quests on those matters as well. She, too, had never heard of grilling a pizza but joined in the general verdict: Tasty!

If you were looking for a life lesson or a deeper bit of wisdom, I'm afraid I have nothing today. Please check back later! sometimes, you just have to sit back and enjoy the 'za!

Give Yourself The Gift of Space

Everything takes up space. I am told that Wolfgang Pauli explained why this is but I don't understand the explanation; still, it's a basic fact that has consequences.

If you rent, you pay rent on that space. If you own your house, you still pay your mortgage or maintenance costs on the space.

When you give away stuff, there's an empty space left where the stuff used to be. Think of it as a gift to yourself!

Many people urge us to give stuff away:

• My blogbuddy at Reduce Footprints makes the case for giving away stuff from an environmental standpoint,
• My friends at the Mercer Island Thrift Store urge you to do it to help the needy
• Jesus Himself recommends it as a way to perfection.

I suggest: do it for yourself! Give yourself the gift of space!

I looked around my place, and tried to think of about everything there in terms of the rent I paid to keep it. Figuring I pay $1 a month for each square foot, a couple of bar chairs I never sat on, that occupied a 2 foot by 3 foot space (about 6 square feet), cost me $72 a year just to keep and never use!

There was no way that those chairs worth paying $72 a year! Knowing that, it was much easier to give them away to a thrift store.

Dare you try looking around and giving yourself The Gift Of Space?

Watering the Rooftop Garden Mediation

Weekend morning waterings of our rooftop gardens are restful.

The green tomatoes are covered in a golden fuzz. Perhaps it's a simple defense against insects (it must be a field of aweful spikes to them!) but at our scale, it catches the sunlight in a very pretty way.

Our most ambitious cucumber seems to have taken an abrupt reversal of course. It shouldn't affect its eatability, but it sure is funny-looking! (see photo)

We water, and wait. The formerly blank walls are now green leaves up to eye level. Food is coming, but beauty is here!

Pit Pot and Corn Cob Disassembly

Extracting further value from the delicious foods of summer and all year round is a simple matter of applying a little thought to what we toss.

The Pit Pot

Some items of kitchen waste are easily repurposed into gravel for your container garden. All you have to do is maintain a Pit Pot, or small container under your sink, into which to toss anything that is lumpy, solid and stolid enough to take up space below the dirt. For example:

• Pits: Apricots, olives, peaches, and so on. If they eventually sprout, there is no harm done
• Shells: Nut shells and egg shells should be o.k.; crab shells stink too much and artillery shells are too hazardous
• Corks: Either natural or plastic wine corks should be fine, since they're food-grade
  
• Crockery (broken): Broken clay pots are a traditional source of container gardening gravel, so you can mitigate the distress of breaking a plate by putting the pieces in your pit pot. However, don't even think of doing this for glass, unless the hands you use to garden with are immune to getting sliced open.

Things to avoid

• Anything that stinks or explodes (see "Shells", above)
• Anything sharp. Your hands will be working the soil, and you need to keep your blood inside the original container!
• Anything that is not food-grade. For example, packing peanuts may not be a good idea if what-ever they are made of may leach into your food.

Corn Cob Disassembly

Let's take the concept of extracting further value to the next step by looking at the summer favorite: corn on the cob!

What is tastier than roast corn? It's one of the few foods that are even better than I remember as a child. The only drawback is that most of the ear is waste but we can easily disassemble it as follows

• The cob can be broken up and tossed into the Pit Pot, above. While it will eventually biodegrade, it should function as gravel for a season and its byproducts should be relatively harmless
• The leaves can be chopped into mulch. I use kitchen shears to swifly reduce the ears to bite-sized pieces that seem to work well, but I speculate that whole leave may not be too bad as is
• The tassel makes a nice scrubbie. If you bunch the fibers together, you can scrub out a pot with them; they are pretty durable and like to stick together. When they wear out or get too skanky, just add them to the mulch!

Repurposing kitchen waste is not merely a small way to save money and improve our environment; it is a puzzle, it is fun, it is a mental challenge. Take the challenge!

We can never really throw anything away; we can only put it someplace else.

--- First Law of Thermodynamics

Not As Bad A Day As For Some

A fatal crash on I-90, not involving me, puts things in perspective.

Today I'd had a pretty decent day but, as usual, felt a little frustrated at not getting done everything I wanted to do. We had a lot of books to shelve at MITS, which is always satisfying but takes time; then I almost succeeded in avoiding the monthly volunteer meeting but, since my birthday is this month, I had to be there as they cut the cake (or I'd be a party pooper. I hate being a party pooper!) The meeting wasn't bad, as we learned some interesting things about the VOICE program which is one program our efforts support (hey, it turns out by shelving books I'm helping kids. Sweet!)

When they presented me with my Special Birthday Cupcake (shown in the photo, with my friend Head Book Lady Charlotte), Don announced I was turning 34, and I allowed as how there was a "4" in my age anyway (later I'd tell Sommer and the other students that I was 34, but in Martian years). I admired the cupcake but stowed it to share with Kris at home.

Unfortuately, this meeting delayed me so I didn't get to the library until late, where I printed off the minimum necessary, and then the internet access went down. The very nice library staff where hugely apologetic but what could be done? I was done for the day on Mercer Island.

I don't like add to the I-90 rush hour but at least, I told myself, the construction was over so I-90 should zoom!

Wrong!

Too late I saw traffic was backed up to the Island Crest Way entrance where I got on. The overhead sign (not visible from the entrance) read "Fatal Accident Midspan. Left 2 lanes closed."

This was distressing; I felt the obligatory regret for the deceased but, to be honest, I thought more about an hourlong trip home. Tere was nothing to do but listen to the radio and chill. I was pleasantly surprised to see how calm and polite everyone was; as you can imagine, there was a lot of merging and shifting to be done, and everyone was waving someone else in ahead of them. This couldn't help but make it all bearable.

When I got up to the bottleneck (all lanes closed except the shoulder) I tried not to gawk, but saw one car pretty badly rear-ended and spattered with what looked like beige paint. A little further on a car was being towed backwards, with no obvious damage. Past the bottleneck, traffic opened up very well but most of us stayed in the far left lane. I was closing in on an odd-looking vehicle in the middle lane; it was some sort of truck with flashing lights, that just didn't look right. It wasn't going very fast, but I didn't feel like I wanted to pass it on the right, or be near it at all. Suddenly, the image resolved into sense: a truck was hauling the remains of a smaller truck, probably a pickup full of odd bits, including a large metal box canted at an angle and spattered with beige. The whole thing was signalling to get into the right lane.

I slowed even more and got into the middle lane; the truck gratefully slid into the right lane and waved as I went by. Like I said, everyone was being cooperative.

Further on, a Very Large Towtruck had some sort of tractor-trailer rig, spattered with beige.

I don't know what it was all about, but it sure made my troubles seem petty. My day was much better than some's. The sun was out and I'm going home to my wife with a cupcake!

That's all. No lesson. Go home!

You Really Think They Will Re-Hire You?

Charmingly naive blogs about dealing with unemployment after a layoff, such as the delightful "Lords and Ladies of Leisure", often express then hopelessly positive attitude so well documented in Barabar Ehrenriech's "Bait and Switch" ... that there's another job coming, if you just put in your time looking for it.

Too often they think maybe the same company will hire them back.

Well, it could happen. After all, you were laid off because there was a shortage of work at your company and you haven't been hired elsewhere because there's a shortage of work in the entire industry. You reason that surely when the economy picks up, your company will need someone like you again, and who better than the proven succes: you!

Or perhaps you're thinking that they made a mistake when they let you go; soon they will recongize that mistake and bring you back!

Forget it. Buy a lottery ticket instead. I'm not saying people never rehire the ones they laid off, but it's damn rare.

I've seen both sides of the fence. When I was with Coleco, we went through an extended cycle of hiring, laying off, and then discoveing that management had screwed up and we needed more help. There were times when I was consulted as to rehiring staff that had been laid off; coupling that to my more recent experience with being laid off leads to a few thoughts you may apply to your own situation:

• You were laid off because you were less valuable to the company than every other person that they kept.
• If company politics had anything to do with your layoff ... you lost. Or your boss lost, and throwing you overboard was distasteful but necessary. Do you think your boss wants you back as a reminder?
• You know something in your gut that every person still working there does not know: those bastards will let you go when they screw up. Do you really think they want your former co-workers to learn that?
• Survivor's guilt is real. Your application for your old job, or anything in your old position, is full of negative emotion for the HR department.
• They had to make a case to let you go, and it's now in your HR file If a new HR person looks at your file, they'll see a long list of reasons why they're better off without you. Why would they take the chance?
• There is a natural suspicion among HR types that if you want to go back to a company that laid you off, you haven't succeeded in finding something elsewhere and that, therefore, they don't want you either.
• There are some companies that have a cycle of boom-and-bust, hiring and firing and re-hiring (....remember Boeing?) If that's the business you're in, perhaps none of the above will apply to you, but you need to consider whether this cycle is good for you.
• Business managers are not built to recognize their mistakes. Why should they, if they can cover them up by blaming someone else? They may well have figured out that letting you go was an error, but admitting it endangers their own career. It's much safer to insist that their decision was the correct one, and to hire someone else.
• Never make the mistake of thinking that management's priority is the health of their company or organization. You were not laid off to save the company; you were laid off to save your manager, plus whoever higher up in your manager's chain of command made the screw-up that lead your company to needing layoffs. Never expect them to admit this, since it would be cutting their own throats.
• The architects of America's greatest strategic blunder, the Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld invasion of Iraq, retired wealthy and secure by means of simply denying they ever made a mistake. How can you hope to compete with a management model like that?