Tales of Seven

GreenDimes - A Little Less Junk?

The person who lived here before me was  either a marketer or shopping fiend. At least I think so from the 4 catalogs and reams of junk mail I get every day. Each time I walk away from my mailbox with the next armload of junk mail (that all goes directly in the recycle bin), I feel a bit of guilt for all the trees that meet their end for things I never open. And calling every catalog and mortgage company to unsubscribe is quite a task.

I just today found an organization that claims it can help. GreenDimes works to systematically remove names from mailing lists and provides some helpful facts on how to beat back the junk. I've just subscribed and look forward to seeing how well it works.

A couple factoids of note....

• 100 million trees are cut down each year to create the approximately 4.5 million tons of junk mail in the United States
• 28 billion gallons of water go into the production of American junk mail annually

Baghdad Burning: An Amazing Blog

We often hear news of Iraq from the White House, the New York Times and CNN. But those reports are so heavily politicized and sanitized that they do nothing to shed light on what life has become, on the ground, for the people trying to live in Iraq.

Baghdad Burning is an amazing blog that was started in August of 2003 and captures the changes and challenges one woman and her family experienced over the past 4 years. It provides an amazing, valuable, and personal perspective on life in a war zone.

This map also provides some insight to help bring things 'home'.

(Source, Democraticunderground.com)

 

Shoot!

Yesterday I had the opportunity to try out pistol shooting at a shooting range up in Marin. It turned out to be quite a bit easier and more fun than I expected. The way it works is that you (1) first sign your life away in a waiver (2) select a pistol you want to rent (we used .22s) (3) buy targets and  bullets (4) get a brief tutorial on how to load/hold the pistol and (5) put on ear and eye protection and (6) get started. It's a good challenge to try to improve targeting with each shot.

(improvement!  first rounds, last rounds)

Burning Man 2007 Photo Album

My first day at Burning Man actually started at night.... a night filled with shows-of-light, amazing light creatures, bicycles adorned in glow sticks, and blazes of fire. It was a mind-blowing world of Circ du Soleil-meets-Mad-Max. While I posted a handful of pictures already, I've now uploaded an album if you'd like to see more of this surreal world.

In the Category of Unbearably Cute....

Would you like that with mild, medium or spicy salsa?

Sourced from CatsPlaza

Winter Morning

It's 6:30am

There's beyond-just-a-chill in the air.

Snow is piled against our windows. I can see my breath in the air and regretfully crawl out of bed, feet hitting an icy cold floor... instant numbness.  I throw snow boots, mittens and a jacket on over PJs and open the outside door to a cold that takes the breath away. Time to get wood.

I tilt the wheelbarrow down and start up a narrow, shoveled path to the barn... snow brushing up against the sides of the barrow, then falling in the top of my boots ... icy wetness. Crunch, crunch, crunching of snow beneath my boots in otherwise-total-silence.

A load of wood, then the return. Icy cold hands carry wood inside.

Open the woodstove door to an exhale of ashy cold air. Numb fingers coax a little flame out of papers and kindling, then add logs. Then comes the slow-growing heat that immediately precedes the getting-ready-for-school, and blueberry pancakes.

Hard earned warmth creates a special appreciation...

- Winter Morning

The Whimsical: Burning Man Part IV

A handful of the whimsical creations we found while biking across the desert at Burning Man....

• Polar bear ponders pedestrian penguins
• Awesome ant attracts attention
• Thunderdome tells tales of the terrible
• Fun phone finds a friend

Burning Man: A Storm of Dust

The Black Rock dust storms lend a certain surreal feeling to Burning Man. They may come as tall, opaque tornados that swirl in, swallow up people, then pass quickly by, as wide walls that wash through like a wave, or as persistent and unrelenting storms.

On my second day I was caught far out of range of the campsites in a storm that lasted over an hour. With less than 20 feet of visibility, navigating back wasn't possible. Lesson learned: carry a mask, goggles, and extra water at all times!

(In order: Approaching dust storm, Dust storm arrived!, a dust tornado as seen from afar)

   

The Immense Structures: Burning Man Part III

Some of the amazing structures to be found across the desert in Burning Man

Timothy Burton-style tree house. A dust storm brings a taste of the surreal.

Tree of Bones - moves slowly around the city on wheels. This shot has Burning Man in the background. 

Big rig doing a back bend. Touch it. Climb in it. DJs would gather around this at nighttime, spinning dark club music to an audience of dancers.

The ping pong structure. People openly 'ahh'ed' when the lights flash on at night.

Take a bike and ride in the Black Rock desert. These are just a few things you'd find.  

What is It? - Burning Man Part II

Burning Man is an annual gathering of over 40,000 people out on a dusty Nevada desert floor as...

"an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance."

In my four days there, I would describe it as Dr. Seuss meets ** Mad Max meets ** Timothy Burton creation meets **Circ du Soleil'.

It's a place where incredible artists come together to create art we can....

...see

....touch

..... interact with, climb on, climb through... experience........

The art is given dimension by DJs who amplify the art with a driving sound that stretches from one edge of the city to the other.

The art comes in the form of immense and serious structures to light whimsical pieces we nearly trip upon in our wanderings, to the participants themselves in their glowing costumes, and colors of neon orange, green, blue, red, and flashing yellows.

In the next few posts, I'll share a handful of pictures that show some of those great elements of Burning Man.