The Straw Bale House

Yes, you did read the title correctly, there is such a thing as a straw bale house and I have decided to build such a house in Vermont on my property when finances allow.  Obviously, I won't be building the house up there anytime soon, but I found it to be a fascinating idea is low impact to the environment and relatively easy to build.  How is such a house even feasible and durable?  Well, to answer the second part of the question first, there are straw bale houses built over two hundred years ago that are still standing.  I don't necessarily know if anyone is still living in them, but they have them both in Europe and the United States.  What originally turned me on to the idea was a blog series that was posted on the NY Times online about green building and the story of a group who embarked on building a straw bale house.  I read through the article and was quite surprised at the beautiful outcome that can be achieved when built properly.  The straw bale house is not just meant for small dwellings, but can also be used in conjunction with post and beam construction for larger dwellings as well, I think the largest picture of which I saw was about 5200 sq. ft.  For smaller structures, the straw bales are the primary support in the walls being capable of carrying the roof load.  Perhaps the most attractive part about the building process is that you can get the straw bales anywhere that farming occurs.  A big draw for the straw bale house these days is that it actually helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions by keeping the waste hay and straw from being burned by farmers as it normally is.  By baling it and using it as a building product instead, the carbon dioxide is kept neutral and not pumped into the atmosphere.   But that is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to benefits to be had from building with straw bales.  Perhaps the next best part is that they can be used in any climate, although depending on where you live will dictate the type of finished surface you will have to use on the exterior.  Normally, it would be a earthen stucco on the exterior, but in moist climates I believe that lime is used as well to decrease the chance of water invading the bales. 

Still not sold on the idea?  Well, good, because I am not trying to sell anything here, just passing along info.  In any case, perhaps the greatest draw for me is that a house built with straw bales is 75% more energy efficient than a house built using standard methods.  With the tight binding of the bales and the increased thickness compared to standard walls, there is little or not air movement within the bales and as such they can do a much better job of keeping a house either warm or cold.  The tightness of the bales also helps to reduce the possibility of rodents or insects getting in, although that obviously also depends on a tight seal on interior and exterior walls.  Want even more benefits?  In wind tests, straw bales houses have been shown to exhibit no movement in winds up to 75 m.p.h. and in winds over 100 m.p.h. there is movement of only about a 1/16th of an inch.  I would say that is pretty sturdy.  They are even approved for construction in California as they are capable of shifting in an earthquake without falling down.  So what is the use of all this information?  I find it fascinating personally, especially since I have never heard of a straw bale house before about a week ago.  The fact that it is 75% more energy efficient than a standard house is the biggest draw for me as I would want to utilize this technique in Vermont where winters can get very cold.  This winter, as I have randomly checked the weather, temperatures have often times been in the single digits and teens with wind chills far below that.  An energy efficient house means that I would have to spend less on heating and cooling than I would have to otherwise, an enormous draw due to the set back nature of my property as it is.  I also am quite fond of the idea of using locally sourced products for the building.  Technically, I have enough trees on my property up there to build myself quite a large house, but frankly, I like the trees and would much rather leave as many of them as possible and only cut down what I need to in order to build the house itself.  I would cut down some extra trees for part of the structure, but the more I can leave standing, the better.

Despite the fact that I will have an energy efficient house up there once I am done with a forest full of trees around me, that still leaves me with a few issues that would need resolving.  The first would be electricity.  I have a small stream running through the property that runs fairly continuously throughout the year, albeit a lot lower during late summer/early fall, and I have toyed with the idea of coming up with a small hydroelectric system to create a least a small amount of electricity.  That combined with an enormous bank of batteries would be a start, but I would need a lot more in order to sustain a house.  As part of my property is on top of a hill, I could always utilize part of the higher portions for solar power, clearing out an area that could be used as a solar panel field.  The last possibility before paying a utility company to run lines a quarter mile up a trail would be wind power.  However the last possibility is the least likely to take hold as Vermont is very fickle about anything that interrupts the view of foliage and could potentially take away from their tourism dollars.  I would like to be able to survive "off the grid", it will just take some ingenuity, time, and obviously money to get there.  I can make it happen though, I hope.  I am not worried about water as there is a natural spring on part of my property that I can utilize along with a filtration system.  That would leave waste to be taken care of.  From what I know about the property, there used to be a septic system in my clearing that I have, however, I don't know how long ago that was or if it is even viable still.  That will take some money to figure out, money that I don't have right now.  So for now, I will plan away, dream of my straw bale house, and one day look towards retirement in the woods of Vermont, which with global warming should achieve the climate of Connecticut by the time I move up there.  In any case, if your still skeptical about what a straw bale house looks like or what it could look like, google images of straw bale houses and I think you will be amazed as I was. 

Cutting the Wrong Things

Our federal government has a problem; they are infatuated with themselves and feel they can't do any wrong.  Worse, they feel entitled.  We are know only a few days away from more spending cuts taking effect in our federal government, supposedly across the board, yet I don't hear of any politicians taking cuts to their pay or their benefits.  They are cutting everything else; the military (which should be), and all other government jobs except where it concerns themselves.  Yet despite these cuts, government spending is still on the increase, which in my mind, does not make any sense.   Despite the fact that politicians aren't cutting anything in regards to themselves, they are also not making cuts to the big three vacuums of government money; Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  There has been partisan bickering over what to cut, decisions to be made that haven't, and the people of the United States are left to deal with the repercussions, all while the politicians in Washington keep on living the same, getting their pay, their lifetime pension after serving only one term, and their health care benefits.  Where does this leave the rest of us?  I'm sure for a lot of us, it leaves us wondering if our politicians are actually in touch with reality and willing to take steps to make changes that are unpopular, even if for the better in the long run.  So how can we fix this problem?  There are numerous ways, but one of the first ones is to look at the jobs that the politicians hold in Washington.  An elected official is supposed to be a public servant, one who takes the job for the good of his fellow citizens because he/she knows that they can make a difference and actually wants to, not a highly paid worker who vies for the job because of the pension and benefits associated with it.  Perhaps we should start the cuts where they need to be started, with the pay and benefits of those in office.  They should show us that they are actually willing to make a sacrifice and not just tell the rest of us that we need to make a sacrifice when they can keep on living the good life.  A politician was never meant to be a life long position held, but rather a temporary one after which they went back to work in the private sector.  So much for the ideals of our founding fathers. 

Lets move on though, because I have thoughts and they need to be let out.  I have talked about this before and lo and behold, I will bring them up again despite the fact that some of my friends would completely disagree with me.  We need to make cuts, or at least immense modifications to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  They consume more and more money every year with no benefit to our economy and decreasing benefit to its recipients.  In fact, spending on those areas is due to increase with Obamacare taking full effect next year.  Those three programs, as they are currently structured, are not sustainable and if not taken care of within the near future, will eventually lead to our economic demise.  With people living longer, collecting Social Security for longer, and relying on Medicare for longer, it is no surprise that it will bankrupt our society if we keep on funding it the way it is currently structured.  Yet no one wants to tackle these issues in a meaningful manner or even admit to the fact that they are broken systems that will eventually be the root of our demise.  So much for forward thinking.   There comes a point in a politicians life when they must weigh the needs and desires of their constituents with the needs of the country as a whole and if the needs of a country as a whole trump those of the constituents, then they need to be able to make the tough decision and look to the future instead of focusing on getting re-elected.  Yet none of them do that.  Their whole concern is with getting re-elected and pleasing their constituents even if it means bankrupting the country down the road.  Yet even more can be done to cut spending that we are not addressing.  This comes with the military.  While military spending is already being cut, we need to make bigger cuts in that area as they are perhaps the next largest recipient of funds from our federal budget after the big three.  There is no need for the size military that we have and we need to make large moves to reduce its size.  There are no world wars going on, there are no direct threats of invasion from other countries, there are no world issues that "need" our attention.  For all our promotion of democracy throughout the world, other countries have to desire democracy in order for it to work, it can't be forced on a people.  All foreign aid should be greatly reduced and that money put towards improving the livelihood of those within our own country.  While poverty and starvation are definitely worse in other areas around the world, we have our own issues that we can't resolve in terms of poverty and starvation and we are not doing enough to help those in need within our own borders.  Its time to focus inwards instead of outwards.

Lets look at this one more way.  Government is run by special interests.  While there are cuts being made, larger cuts are being made to programs that have large special interest groups lobbying against them.  Is it fair?  Absolutely not.  But unless we change the culture in Washington, then nothing will change.  Large corporations and industries with billions of extra dollars to spend will have their areas supported while others flounder.  There are no areas of government that can't be bought out for the right sum of money.  As sad as that is, it is true. While it is a good thing that the government is shrinking in size due to the cuts being made, the fact that spending is still increasing is troubling.  Cuts are being made in every arena; local, state, and federal.  Yet with cutting going on and spending increasing, there is no other way to fund programs than to increase taxes or fees.  They can call it what they want, but we can all be sure of paying higher taxes and larger fees to fund the inevitable programs that will be our detriment.  I for one would gladly forgo receiving Social Security if it meant that our economy wouldn't be bankrupt in 30 years.  Would I be singing a different tune if I needed those services?  Probably, but perhaps that is where they programs need to be directed towards, those that actually need it versus those that both want and need it.  While the percentage of people who have valid retirement plans that can fund their health insurance and life through retirement is much smaller than those that don't have one, perhaps those people should be not be eligible to receive Social Security and other benefits.  That would save a lot of money right there.  All these ideas mean nothing unless action is taken towards changing them.  Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.  Instead, we the people of the United States will get led along like sheep to the slaughter all the while being told we are going to a better place.  Yeah right!  OK, I'm done ranting, any thoughts on the matter out there?

A Very Long Weekend

My weekend didn't officially end till yesterday, and the only reason I say that is because I was unable to work.  But lets start with Friday, shall we; one of the longest days I have had in a while on very little sleep.  So last week my wife and son were in Florida and I stayed home to work on our stairwell/hallway.  I had grand plans of getting it all done and painted plus a lot of other work done around the house that I can't really do with a 16.5 month old son around.  After starting the week off ripping down the ceiling in the stairwell, I realized that my original plans would have to be scaled back tremendously in order for me to actually get my house back to livable conditions.  So I focused on getting the stairwell/hallway ceiling raised 8 inches, re-studded, re-sheetrocked, taped, plus all the walls skim coated, new electrical run, insulation put in, and of course, sanded and primed.  Well Friday was my 11th hour, the whole day actually.  After my dart match on Thursday night which I didn't get home from until about 12:45 in the morning, I woke up at 4:00 to get to my Friday morning meeting.  So I started Friday with a little over 3 hours of sleep.  I got home from me meeting at around 9 A.M. and got right to work.  I still had to skim coat a few walls one more time which took me up until lunch, after which I began the dreaded task of sanding.  Starting at around 1, it took me 5 hours to sand all the walls that I had skim coated.  With that done, I realized I had forgotten a rolling sleeve to prime the walls with, so I had to run to the trusty Home Depot down the road to grab one.  On my drive, I realized that getting the new trim up would be impossible, so I focused instead on cleaning and priming.  Before priming, I had to clean up from the mess I had made sanding.  That took an hour or so after which I primed, finishing at 11 P.M.  I wasn't done, though, as I still needed to clean one more time to ensure that all the dust I had created over the whole week was contained and not allowed to spread to the rest of the house.  I wiped down plastic, I mopped floors, I vacuumed intensely, and finally finished at 1 A.M. Saturday morning...at which point I ate dinner and got to bed by 1:30.  While my work area was cleaned up, I still wanted to clean up the rest of the house a little more, so I set my alarm for 3:30, 2 hours after I went to bed, and started vacuuming the rest of the house before I had to leave by 6:30 to pick up my wife and son at the Newark Airport, 1.5 hours away.  And that was just the start of the weekend. 

I picked up my wife and son from the airport, my wife exhausted from very little sleep the night before and my son doing quite well.  After all was said and done including making a few stops on the way home, we arrived home around lunch time.  Despite unpacking and attempting to return our lives back to normal, I really don't remember what happened during the early afternoon hours on Saturday.  I do remember that my parents brought some dinner over for us around 4:30 so that they could see their grandson and of course my wife and I.  Right around the time that my parents were on their way over, my wife started to really not feel well and it wasn't until my parents actually arrived that she had to run to the bathroom and empty the contents of her stomach due to a stomach bug of some sort.  Well, that did her in for the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday.  Saturday night was uneventful, despite my wife being laid up with the stomach bug, and I passed out early due to my 5 hours of sleep over the previous two nights.  Sunday morning came and my wife wasn't moving from the couch that she slept on.  While the stomach bug worked through her quickly, it left her weak and unable to do much of anything on Sunday.  So I got to take care of our son and everything else around the house, which I had no problem doing because I actually got a good night's sleep.  In order to let my wife get some rest, I took my son out in the afternoon to go visit his great grandparents.  All told, we were out of the house for about 3 hours.  The last hour involving me driving around while he slept.  I actually enjoyed it because I got to meander through various back roads on my way home.  We got home, I played with our son in his room for a little bit, had some chili with him for dinner, and my wife was able to feed him and get him to bed.  Once he was in bed, I made soup for the week, did some dishes, and proceeded to collapse on the couch, drained not from lack of sleep, but from a day packed full of taking care of my wife, son, and house. 

Around 1:30 in the morning, Monday morning, the stomach bug got me.  To keep it so that everyone reading this doesn't get sick, let me just sum it up by saying it was coming out both ends, top and bottom with me.  It started with the bottom and I had hopes that it would end with that.  A few hours later, it started out the top and even after the first one, I thought I would make it through OK.  However, by number four with nothing coming up, I knew I was down for the count yesterday.  Luckily after number four, it stopped.  I waited a few hours before starting to consume liquids, which I knew I sorely needed, and luckily they stayed down.  I improved quite rapidly throughout the day to where I could eat solid foods 12 hours after the whole ordeal began.  I then started chugging liquids because my lower back had started to hurt from dehydration.  That, perhaps, is the worst part of getting the stomach bug for me is the dehydration and the lower back pain.  It keeps me from sleeping, keeps me from staying comfortable, and to put it simply, it annoys the hell out of me.  Even this morning, after downing tons of Gatorade and pedialyte, my lower back still hurts some, not nearly as bad as yesterday, but it is still aching.  Such is life, I feel a hundred times better than yesterday morning and as such I will be going to work today.  At this point I seriously hope that we are done with all sicknesses in our family for the rest of the year.  Especially the stomach bug.  I forgot how much I hate getting the stomach bug as I don't think I have had one in over 15 years.  But, I have a young un in the house and I am bound to catch almost anything that he gets, just luckily not as bad.  With my wife and son, they were both laid up for two days with the stomach bug, the first involving the vomiting, the second involving a fever.  I never got the fever luckily.  For now, I am done writing about my long weekend and need to get my son out of bed and my morning started.  How about you?  Have you ever had a weekend like the one I described?

Hard Stuff Past

Well, its the start of day 4 in the home project called "           ".  Yeah, there is no name for the project, I was just hoping I came up with one by the time I finished the last sentence, which obviously didn't happen.  Yesterday was a productive day and it saw the last of the hard, time consuming work being done.  First thing yesterday morning, I finished sheetrocking the ceiling and extra wall that I added near the top.  I then got to finishing the skim coat on the walls and taped all the joints of the sheetrock.  With all that done, the floor was my next major issue that needed to be dealt with.  The floor that ran through two out of three rooms upstairs is probably close to a hundred years old.  Normally, you would find a sub floor beneath whatever type of flooring you have down.  Well, in our house, the floor is the sub floor, no two layers like you see these days.  On top of that, what might have been a nice floor maybe 80 years ago, was deteriorated and covered with a super thin, brown, poo looking carpet.  Pulling up the carpet actually results in pulling up parts of the floor that it is glued to.  What I am trying to get at here is that it is one nasty ordeal to get it up and then get the floor up.  I originally figured when I started pulling the floor up that it would take me a couple of hours to get the floor up, reinforce anything that needed reinforcing, and put down the new sub floor to prepare for the bamboo floor that I want to continue from my son's room.  I think you know where I am going with this.  It took my much longer than a couple of hours to get it all done.  In my house, there is no such thing as just cutting away and hoping for the best.  You never can quite tell where floor joists are running and there are still sections of my house that have knob and tube wiring.  Any hasty movements could cause major issues.  So I took my time pulling up the floor to find a disaster.  I wouldn't even know where to begin describing what I found.  What it all boils down to is that it needed reinforcing.  There were parts of the floor joists that looked as if they were barely nailed together and some that actually moved when I went to see if they were loose.  On top of reinforcing what was already there, I needed to shim the entire floor in order to bring it up to the level of the finished floor in my son's room.  That way, when I continue the floor into the hallway, there won't be any major sags or dips or bumps.  At least that's my hope. 

I got everything reinforced, shimmed, and the new sub floor cut just before I headed out to dinner at my parents house.  I was going to try putting the sub floor down before dinner, but when I brought the plywood up the stairs, I noticed that I forgot to notch out one section that it would fit nice and snugly.  So I left it at the top of the stairs and figured I would do it after dinner.  When I got home, I decided I needed a little reprieve from all the work and started a fire in our pit in the backyard.  A friend came over for about an hour, and then I decided to get back to work.  What time was it at that point?  10:00.  So at that time, with my friend gone and a few beers down, I figured it would be the perfect time to try and fit the sub floor down.  Much to my surprise, it only took about an hour and a half between all the trimming and what not to get it just right.  I know it seems like a long time, but when you are working by yourself in an already cramped hallway with a big piece of plywood, everything takes time.  So that was my last task last night and as soon as I finish writing this, I will be doing a little clean up in the hallway/stairwell before skim coating.  Things are moving along.  Now its time to get cranking.  At least with skim coating I know I can fly through and still make it look good in the end.  Here is to another long day followed by a dart match tonight at 8.  Super tired, but that's why coffee was invented, right?

Inching Forward

So yesterday was a productive day at my house.  Not long after finishing my blog post yesterday morning, I was back at work on my hallway/stairwell.  I think I clocked in at roughly 5:50 in the morning.  The first task I got to was shoving loose insulation down a section of ceiling that was good enough that it didn't need to be ripped down.  I could have rented the machine meant to blow in the insulation, but with only about a 20 sq. ft. area to do, I figured it would be largely a waste of money and would tackle it by hand.  Well, it took me a little while to shove the loose insulation down and pack it in.  I got more than a few cuts and scrapes from the nails sticking down from the roof, but nothing major, so I moved on.  (I know, I should have worn gloves, but I would much rather be able to feel what I am doing without the interference of the glove).  Once that was all set and it was late enough in the morning where I could start making noise cutting wood, I got to finishing the framing of the ceiling.  With a fresh morning brain uninhibited by a long day of work, the framing went much more quickly.  Finally got the tricky angled part done and I was ready to put in the new lights and re-do a little bit of the electrical.  The light we had in the hallway previously was a single bulb in an old, dirty light fixture attached to the ceiling.  The new lighting that I put in yesterday consisted of two recessed lights and the box for a track light which I will install when all is said and done.  Lights up, I was ready to insulate the rest of the ceiling.  In case you were wondering, their form of insulation back in the 1940's and 50's was taking old cardboard boxes and shoving them in between the roof joists.  Didn't really keep the heat in.  So with new insulation up, and already making a difference in the hallway as I began to sweat, it was time to take on the sheetrock.  (I did have lunch somewhere in the middle of all I described, it was quick, but I did actually eat). 

The sheetrocking wasn't too much of a pain in the rear end.  It was a little tricky because despite my best efforts, I couldn't get everything square and level in the hallway because of its age.  But it was damn close.  I got most of the sheetrock up, even on the tricky angled section, and then my friend came over to help me hang sheets of mesh on the walls so I could skim coat them.  For those of you that don't know what I am talking about here, think of the mesh tape you use on joints in sheetrock or to repair cracks in walls, then take that and make it a roll that is 3 feet wide and 75 feet long.  You hang it on the wall like wallpaper and skim coat over it, essentially providing a crack proof surface.  Or at least mostly crack proof.  Hanging the mesh sheets took about an hour and when we were done, which was around 630 in the evening, I was starving and in need of dinner.  I talked to my wife for a bit and then went in to cook the easiest thing I could, tortellini.  Shoved that down and planned my next move which was difficult as I had already been working for about 12 hours.  To finish sheetrocking or to start skim coating.  I chose to skim coat for a while.   I didn't get a full first coat on all the walls, but I got about half way before my body gave up and said, enough dude, time to rest.  That was at about 9:15.  I took a much needed shower, ate a little more food, and passed out on the couch.  Well, here I am again, about to finish up writing and then get going on work again.  Today I will finish the little bit of sheetrocking left first thing this morning, then finish a first skim coat on the rest of the walls, and then decide what my next move will be.  For now, I can't think that far in advance and will just focus on the what I know needs to get done right away.  I do want to get a second coat of compound on all the walls this afternoon, and I will get it done somehow, I just haven't figured that out yet.  Good luck to me today as my body hurts and doesn't even want to walk up a ladder or stairs. 

Never As Planned

No matter what type of project I am doing at my house, I always expect things to go a lot quicker than they do and to be able to get a lot more done within a time frame than I actually can.  As I mentioned yesterday, I am working on the stairwell/hallway in my house.  It is a small area, the stairs taking up most of it and a landing at the top that I like to call a hallway.  I guess what I should really do is just call it a stairwell.  In any case, the large amount of work that I wanted to get done yesterday didn't exactly go as planned.  If you recall, I wanted to get to sheetrocking and skim coating by last night.  That didn't happen.  I forgot to calculate into my grand plan that I am dealing with a really old house that is not level anywhere and has weird corners and angles everywhere.  So yesterday was spent mostly figuring out how to re-frame the ceiling while still supporting the roof above.  The trickiest part, and the part that took my the longest to work through, is the portion of the ceiling where a roof valley runs through the ceiling.  Here is why it does that.  The second floor of my house, as I mentioned yesterday, has shorter ceilings than a normal house, in fact, they consider it a half floor instead of a full second floor.  As such, the ceilings in all the rooms are flat only in the middle for about 7 feet before sloping down on the sides towards short walls that are about 4 feet tall.  Well, the slope of the ceiling is what is delaying my framing in the hallway.  In the majority of the area that I am working on, the ceiling as flat.  However, there is one corner where, as I mentioned, a roof valley runs through, creating two different slopes in one corner of my stairwell/hallway.  This is the area where they added on to the house at some point years ago.  Despite the frustrating angles I have to deal with and the weird framing that is going into the ceiling, I am slowly getting through it and working on making it look as perfect as possible, which is definitely not easy. 

One part that always amazes me is some of the lumber they used when constructing the original part of the house.  The ceiling joists are 4x4 beams, solid as a rock and almost impossible to drive a nail through.  I just wish they did a better job with plastering the house as I wouldn't have as much work to do when ripping down ceilings and walls and such.  I am just glad that I decided not to rip down the walls and just fix them instead.  In any case, today's goal is to finish the last little bit of framing, insulate, sheetrock, and skim coat.  That is all I want to get done and I think that today I finally have a reasonable goal for myself.  I guess we shall have to wait and see how it all pans out.  Yesterday wasn't a full day unfortunately as I had a couple errands to run, one being a visit to the vet with one of my dogs.  For all those out there who have dogs or cats, NEVER visit the vet on President's Day, NEVER.  It was absolutely chaotic in there and took me a lot longer than I intended.  Such is life.  I worked till about 930 last night when my body said stop.  Up at four and ready to go, as soon as I am done here, I will be getting to work.  For now, that's all I got.  Have a great day everyone. 

A Week Alone

Its been a long time since I have been alone for more than a few days at a time.  I think it has been at least 4-5 years since I have spent an extended period of time alone, and yet, here I am spending a week alone at home.  Before anyone gets any crazy ideas, this was a planned event, my wife and son going to Florida to visit my wife's mother with me staying behind to work on our house and get projects done that could not otherwise be done with my wife and son in the house.  Most importantly, its my son we are concerned about as we live in an old house that most certainly has lead paint on any surface that has not been refinished.  So this week I am spending alone in Connecticut working on our house.  It all started yesterday with a trip down to Newark, NJ to drop my wife and son off at the airport.  We were actually a little concerned that they might not be able to go due to our son getting a stomach bug on Friday and spending all day Saturday pretty much sleeping with a low grade fever.  Sunday morning though he was essentially back to normal and we decided that it would be OK for them to make the trip.  All in all, our son did amazingly well on the plane despite the fact that he is only 16 months old.  From what I heard, he got a little cranky at the start of the flight but soon fell asleep and didn't wake up till they were starting the descent into Florida.  As for the rest of my day yesterday, I got home relatively quickly from NJ and began work on our house. 

We were originally planning on re-doing our guestroom, gutting it complete down to studs and floor joists, and then putting it all back together absent the lead saturated plaster and creaky floor.  But the project was a little more expensive than we anticipated and decided instead to work on some other smaller projects.  Well, the smaller project we decided to work on was redoing our hallway/stairwell which was also in dire need of some TLC.  The ceiling was short, about a half inch above my head on the top landing, and the walls essentially looked like crap.  So yesterday I sealed off the stairwell/hallway with plastic and ripped the ceiling down.  I didn't go crazy and attempt the walls because that would not have been a project that I could have completed by the end of the week.  So I will raise the ceiling about 6 inches, insulate the ceiling which it previously wasn't, and re-do some electrical work.  There are a slew of other smaller projects that I will be attempting to get done, but for now, I will be dealing with putting our stairwell back together.  That is today's project at least, re-frame the upper part of the walls and ceiling, put in new lights, re-route the heating duct, sheetrock, skim coat walls and tape ceiling.  You get the picture, I have a lot of work in store for me today.  I was planning on working half days during the middle of the week, but after yesterday, I think I might have to take most of the week off just to make sure I have our house back to normal by next Saturday when my wife and son return.  So, that being said, my blog posts will be shorter this week as I attempt to crank out a lot of work.  Yesterday I finished working at about 10 P.M. and now I am ready to go again.  Keep checking in though for updates on what I have gotten done as that is the brunt of what I will be writing about this week.  Till tomorrow, enjoy the day and lets hope I get these projects done. 

V-Day, A Hallmark Tradition

So let me be perhaps one of the few men who will say this on Valentine's Day; I did not get my wife anything.  That's correct, there are no typo's or incorrect statements there, and I know some may consider it a travesty, but I did not buy my wife anything for Valentine's Day.  There, I said it again.  I am not trying to sound insensitive, boorish, crass, or anything else that might be attributed to my statement, but I don't believe in buying into the notion that we must pour extreme amounts of money on lavish gifts for our significant others.  To be honest, I have never been big on Valentine's Day gifts.  There might have been a few times over the entire course of my life that I bought something small for someone, but those were in the days where I actually thought that Valentine's Day meant something other than a reason to spend money.  Valentine's Day is nothing more than a Hallmark Tradition, especially in its modern sense.  Just think about all the commercials you hear leading up to this day about flowers, chocolates, teddy bears, lingerie, and anything else that can be made pink or red, have a bow placed on it, and have it called a Valentine's Day gift.  A good number of commercials are created in such a way that men should feel guilty after listening to them, that is, unless they have already bought something for their significant other.  Valentine's Day has turned more into a marketing extravaganza than a holiday where two people are supposed to show their love for one another.  Its a means for companies to get a boost for their business in the lull that is February.  Its that "in between" holiday, halfway between Christmas/New Years and Easter.  Many people, especially Americans, have bought completely into this notion that if we don't buy something for our significant other on Valentine's Day, then we are lacking in some sense, we are not truly invested in our relationship, or perhaps we just don't care about the other person.  How much farther from the truth could this actually be?  Yet for some, it is reality, and a weak reality at best. 

Shouldn't love be shown in more tangible ways than flowers and chocolates?  Lets think about it, if love is akin to roses, then in a month love should dwindle and die between two people, just like roses do.  Chocolate is even better, we present it to another in hopes of conveying our love for them, yet the result of giving chocolate is that it gets eaten and crapped out, not exactly the best image of love that I can think of.  So why do we place such enormous emphasis on these two objects as quintessential signs of Valentine's Day and a true display of our love for someone else?  Its all a hoax to get money out of our pockets.  OK, so maybe not a complete hoax, but it is close.  So why am I on this tirade of anti-Valentine's Day sentiment?  To paint a very clear picture, I believe that love should be shown throughout the year and not just on one day.  I feel that it means more to buy a woman flowers randomly than on a specific day when she is most likely expecting them.  Money has been a little tight lately, but I normally buy my wife flowers every month and have done so since we got married almost 4 years ago now.  I never buy her chocolates because she is not a big fan.  That is how I show my wife that I love her.  I don't focus on one day a year and make it the culminating event to show my love, rather, I try and show her a little every day.  I think it means more to do those little things around the house that she wouldn't expect me to do than to spend money on items that won't last.  Even the flowers I buy her are not bouquets but rather flowers that can be planted in our yard or kept in our house permanently so that they are a constant reminder of my love for her.  Some may say that I have fallen short in my responsibilities by eschewing Valentine's Day and its looming presence in the mind's of all.  Ask my wife, she is on board with me and my feelings.  If she weren't, I probably wouldn't be married to her as I never bought her anything for Valentine's Day even when we were dating. 

To me, Valentine's Day is more a symbol of how love has gone down the tubes in our country than an actual holiday to promote our love.  We are taught from an early age in grade school that we should give other's candy and cards on Valentine's Day.  Even our son who is in daycare will be doing some sort of art project or similar activity related to Valentine's Day.  From before the age of two, our son will have this image of Valentine's Day as a holiday of love stamped into his brain.  I will be the first, when he understands more about the world around him, to start undoing that stamp, start scrubbing it out of his brain, and instill in him what love truly is, an emotion that should be displayed every day, regardless of the day.  If you are truly in love with someone, or care about them, don't wait till Valentine's Day to show it.  Make it a part of you every day life, something that you commit to doing on a daily basis.  There are those out there that will always buy into the notion of Valentine's Day and put all their emphasis and money on that day.  However, I will not be one of those, my wife will not be one of those, and I sure hope our son will not be one of those.  If he does turn out to love Valentine's Day and all its marketing grandeur, then so be it, I just hope that he can see through the facade of marketing and the Hallmark Tradition to the hoax that Valentine's Day really is.  Now that I have made my feelings known about Valentine's Day, what are your feelings on it?  Did you go out and buy flowers and chocolates for your significant other?  Or do you instead choose to show your love every day to that person?

The Good Side of Snow

Despite the plethora of complaints that people have been making about how long it is taking for them to get plowed out after this past weekend's storm, there is a positive side that I have been hearing.  For every person out there who hates to shovel, complains that they are stuck with their family, complains about anything they can in relation to the storm, there are people who are flipping it around and looking at the bright side.  I personally don't understand how people can complain so much about insignificant events.  After all, as I have also heard many people say about those that are complaining, we live in New England and if you don't like it, move to Florida where you won't have to deal with these situations.  Alas, I digress.  I am not spending my whole blog post this morning talking about the complainers, but rather about those that have found the positive in the wake of this storm.  I had written a while back about how we seem to have progressively turned more and more inwards; away from community and into our little insular lives we live.  The community that we used to have, and can still be found to an extent in any large city, has disappeared as we have moved into the suburbs.  Even the community feeling we used to get when people first started populating the suburbs has largely disappeared.  Sure, you will find pockets of tight knit communities among neighborhoods, but they are dwindling in number every year.  Chalk it up to whatever you want, its happening.  Yet, with 3 feet of snow, unplowed streets, and a shared burden by all neighbors (namely shoveling) its seems there has been a brief revival of the community spirit.  Neighbors were talking to neighbors again, neighbors were helping neighbors shovel, checking on elderly, actually talking!  Its amazing what can happen when people must share in the same hardships at the same time.  I'm sure there was some complaining between neighbors about municipalities failed efforts to get streets plowed in a timely manner and the sheer immensity of the blizzard.  Yet in the end, it was one event that managed to drag people out of their houses, to interact with each other, and perhaps bring back a little sense of community to areas where it had all but disappeared. 

I have heard multiple accounts of neighbors banding together with their snow blowers, sometimes 5 or 6 wide, to carve paths down the center of streets to create access to houses.  At times this has been a necessity for elderly living on streets that are impassable.  Heaven forbid that an ambulance needed to get down a street that was unplowed, there would be no way for it to make it.  There are hundreds of instances where neighbors have helped neighbors shovel out their neighbor's sidewalks and driveways, and then walked down the street and helped other neighbors do the same.  People have banded together to take care of a mutual problem and all in all, from the accounts I have heard, people have been getting along in the process.  Even better than that, people who have previously never met before have finally met, all over a blizzard that as trapped them on their street and brought them together to of all things, move snow.  And then we break it down even farther than that till we get to the family unit.  While there are some families out there that couldn't stand being trapped together, I have heard numerous accounts of families who have actually enjoyed the time trapped inside their houses with no where to go.  It is amazing to see how many people have turned this potential negative event into a positive one.  I myself teamed up with my neighbor to shovel snow and in the midst of it all, got to talking to my neighbor across the street.  The only interaction we usually have is a wave of the hand and a smile, rarely words exchanged, yet this snow storm got us into a conversation that lasted for about 15 minutes.  It is amazing how people can be brought together. 

Then there are the stories that came out of events that happened during the height of the storm.  One man's story in particular has stuck with me, a man in a pay loader, trying to keep up with the snow.  As he was plowing, he came across an ambulance that was stuck with a patient, trying to get to the hospital.  Knowing that the person's life in the ambulance was more important than plowing streets, he hooked up a chain to the ambulance and proceeded to tow it to the hospital.  It took him a while trying to navigate streets blocked by abandoned cars, but he got the ambulance there and headed back out.  No sooner did he get back to work than a man came running up to him begging for help.  This man's father had suffered a heart attack and had no way of getting to the hospital.  The man in the pay loader, without a second thought, told him to load up his father in the one man cabin with him and he would get him to the hospital.  It took him about 45 minutes, but he got the man there.  We don't know the outcome of the last story, but there are numerous stories such as this that have come out after the storm.  Even a good friend of mine spent most of the blizzard, out on the road, helping people.  All he had was his Jeep Wrangler (same year as mine), and he drove a dozen people home who had gotten their cars stuck, pulled free at least 4 cars that were stuck, escorted an ambulance and a few other things.  In times of crisis, even though it was only snow, the best is brought out in a lot of people.  There are also some more depressing stories that have come out, but I won't even touch on those as they don't deserve my attention.  As much as I don't want to have a "crisis" to bring family, friends, and communities together, if that's what it takes, then maybe we should have more storms like this.  Have you ever been in a situation that has brought your community together?  What is your community like?

Understanding More

An interesting thing happened yesterday in regards to our son.  To sum it up before I even begin, it seems that he understands more of what we say than he lets on.  Let me explain.  Yesterday I came home early due to roads resembling a third world country, cold rain ponding everywhere, and a general dismal feeling that the day brought with it.  As I was home early, I got to spend a little more time with my son in the afternoon than I normally do.  There was one point where he started throwing stepping on some books, throwing them, and in general treating them like toys.  Not wanting to let this kind of activity continue, I took the two books that he was playing with and placed them on an end table in our living room.  He immediately went over, took one book and threw it on the ground and then tried to grab the other one.  Before he could get the other book, I picked up the one he dropped and put it back on the table telling him that we only read one book at a time.  Well, he tried throwing the other book on the ground so he could grab the first one.  I repeated my actions and statement of how we only need one book at a time to read, also telling him that books are not toys and that we don't throw them around.  We went back and forth a number of times until one point when he reached for the first book he threw and I said again, "We only take one book at a time to read and we don't throw them on the floor, please don't throw that one on the floor."  Either my repeated actions sunk in or he finally understood what I was saying, took his hand off the first book (I think that he finally figured out that I knew he was going to throw it) and grabbed the second book, carried it over to me, plopped himself down in my lap, and opened the book.  I then commenced reading the book to him for longer than he has ever sat to have a book read to him.  Most times when he grabs a book and sits down to have either my wife or I read it to him, we make it through a page or two before he closes the book, gets up, and goes to something else.  I was quite amazed both at the amount of time he sat to have the book read to him and the fact that it seemed like he understood what I was saying.  It is tough to tell what he understands at this point because he hasn't started talking yet.  However, he stares intently at us when we are talking to him and I believe that he understands a lot of what we tell him.  At his age, which is 16 months, he has a mind of his own and rarely listens to what we tell him. 

From what I have read so far about toddlers, 18 months is the time of terror, the time where if they don't get what they want, they flip out, freak out, and throw temper tantrums.  Luckily for us, our son has not been that bad so far.  He definitely has a mind of his own and definitely exhibits his desire to do what he wants, when he wants.  That being said, it has not been to overly hard thus far keeping him from doing certain things.  He does freak out a little, cry and partially scream, however if we distract him and bring him to a different part of the house, he does a little better and calms down more quickly than if we kept him in the same place and persistently told him no, no, no, no, no.  What we also found helps a lot is if we explain why he shouldn't do something.  The longer the explanation, the more likely he will stop what he is doing.  I have a theory that after enough explanation, he gets tired of hearing it, decides it is not worth his effort and moves on.  Either that or he actually understands everything we are saying and decides that it would be best to listen to his parents.  (Ha, the latter is highly unlikely, I know).  Perhaps the most difficult area to get him to move away from is his incessant desire to be held if we are standing.  It has gotten a lot better, but there are certain times when all he wants to do is be held, despite the fact that we might be in the middle of doing something else.  Don't get me wrong, its not that we don't like holding him, he is just getting heavy and holding him for long periods of time can get tiring.  The best option when he is one of those moods is to simply sit on the floor.  As soon as we do that, he usually moves on to something else to entertain him.  All in all, he is getting more self reliant in terms of entertaining himself and it is an amazing thing to watch.  His latest little tendency is to carry a container of some sorts, bag, bowl, box; and collect different toys to put in whatever he is carrying.  He carries these objects to another part of the house, takes them out, arranges them, and depending on his mood, either packs them away again or moves on to something else.  It is the cutest thing to watch.  That is not all that he has taken a liking to of late. 

The other two big things that he likes to do now is color, or at least play with crayons and paper (the actual coloring is mostly just slamming the crayons on the paper and making little marks).  Yet even in daycare, he loves any art project that they do, which happens to be one every day.  Regardless of what it is, he throws himself into it with complete abandon.  We kind of figured he would love art as my wife is a ceramicist and I myself love photography, writing, and anything involving working with my hands.  It is just cool to see that love manifest itself within him.  The other thing he loves to do now is to try and climb everything.  From couches to the speakers of our entertainment center, to chairs, to his train toy chest, its all about climbing right now.  I love the fact that he climbs all over his train toy chest as it used to be mine and I used to do the same exact thing.  The train toy chest is really cool, it is about three and a half feet tall and is a locomotive.  Where the engine would be on a normal train is where the actual toy chest is, opened on the side.  It actually has a fake smoke stack, steam release valve, and bell that actually works.  The area for the driver of the train has a little seat inside of it that opens to hold more toys.  He loves to open up the side of the toy chest and climb completely inside.  If he doesn't go inside, he climbs up on top where the smoke stack is and stands up there.  In addition to climbing up the side, he has also climbed through the window of the engineer's compartment to get to the smokestack (which is hollow and can hold a small amount of objects).  He is amazingly fun right now, frustrating in his desire to not listen at times, but still an really fun.  He is overly active, running everywhere, curious about everything, and I can't wait to see what he gets into next.  OK, so I can wait because I am enjoying every minute of what he does, I guess I just wonder what will come next.  I guess I will just have to wait and see what he does next.  Should be fun regardless of what it is. 

The Blizzard Aftermath

Here in Connecticut, we are used to the occasional blizzard dumping maybe 1-2' of snow, but even that is a rarity.  The last time that I can remember ever getting that amount of snow at one time was back in 1991 or 92, and even that didn't compare with what we got from Friday into Saturday night.  Even the blizzard of 1978, the benchmark that was being used to gauge this storm, was shot down in comparison to this past weekend.  All told, Connecticut was the hardest hit of the New England states with Hamden taking the prize with 40" of snow, all in one night.  Third on the list was Oxford, our neighboring town, with 36.2" (For those of you who don't think that 36" is a lot, get a measuring tape and hold it up to your leg).  I personally have never seen anything like it.  Sure, the winter two years ago dumped more over the course of the whole winter, but to get this much in one night is insane.  I shoveled twice on Friday afternoon/night, hoping to get a head start on the plethora of snow we were promised, but when I woke up Saturday morning and looked out the window, it was like I hadn't even shoveled at all.  In fact the first words out of my mouth when I looked out the window were "Holy S#@$", and I kept on repeating that at every window of my house that I looked out of.  To be honest, I was pretty lucky in terms of shoveling as I don't live that far from the street and most of my driveway is taken up by cars.  Even more lucky was that my road was one of the few main roads in town that they managed to keep somewhat clear.  Granted, what was a two lane road on any other day had become a one lane road.  At about 10 A.M. Saturday morning they managed to widen it to almost a 1.5 lane road, but it still was far from normal and still has yet to regain its full capacity.  However, as I said, I was lucky.  There were, and still are, many side roads that haven't even been touched yet despite the non-stop efforts of plow trucks and payloaders to clear all the roads.  The biggest problem that towns and municipalities are running into is that if a road wasn't plowed at all, there is no truck with a plow attached that could get through the amount of snow that is packed down.  That is where the payloaders come in, scooping and dumping, over and over and over again until they reach the end of the street. 

In all honesty, I am a true New Englander at heart and thought this was an amazingly wonderful storm, both in its beauty and in the amount of snow we got.  There was a travel ban on all roadways (which a good number of people didn't heed) till about 4 P.M. Saturday afternoon.  Regardless of that ban, I headed out just before the ban was lifted to get down to my parents house and help them shovel out their sidewalk.  The only reason I actually headed out was because I have a 4 wheel drive Jeep Wrangler with manual transmission.  The whole trip down I didn't slide once or even come close to getting stuck.  The most amazing part to me in my travels on Saturday afternoon was how much the highways looked like Armageddon had come and gone.  Normally 4 lane highways (two lanes in either direction) were reduced to one lane either way.  To compound the matter, there were a good number of cars abandoned on the road, some off in a ditch, some in the middle of the road that the plows had gone around.  Even the major thoroughfare in our area, I-95 (the highway that goes the whole length of the eastern seaboard of the U.S.) was reduced to one lane at times with snow piled in the other lanes.  By the time I left my parents, which is a different store altogether, they had managed to get two out of three lanes open, yet the lanes were on the left and right with the center lane being a pile of snow about 6 feet tall.  Incredible.  My parents street, a side street, was not plowed at all on Saturday and as of yesterday was still not plowed.  When I got there, I had to carve myself a little spot at the end of the street for my Jeep in order to walk up to help them out.  It was an experience I will never forget.  It took me 15 minutes just to clear a spot the size of my Jeep at the end of their road as I had to dig through packed snow from the plows about 5 feet tall.  I managed to get their sidewalk done and consequently drove home, mostly exhausted from the day's labor.  All told on Saturday, I helped my neighbor shovel his driveway, about 100' long, and my driveway, and my parents sidewalk.  My neighbor and I approximately figured out how much snow we moved using the following calculations.  We erred on the side of caution and figured each shovel of snow we threw weighed about 10 pounds.  At the rate we were moving, we figured we were throwing about 30 shovel fulls of snow on average per minute (sometimes less, sometimes more).  It took us about 1 hours to do his driveway so we figured shoveling 300 pounds of snow a minute times 60 minutes, we each shoveled about 18,000 pounds of snow or about 9 tons each.  I know, seems to be exaggerated, and it probably is less, but my whole point is that we shoveled an enormous amount of snow. 

My only worry now, and I think it is a very valid concern, is about the rain we will be getting today.  Its supposed to start off as a sleet/freezing rain mix this morning which should turn to all rain by late morning/early afternoon.  My concern isn't about the snow on the ground, but about the snow that has piled up on the all the roofs across the region.  There have already been a number of roof's that have collapsed just from the snow that fell from Friday into Saturday.  Now you factor in the rain that will fully saturate the snow and probably close to triple the weight and we are looking at perhaps more collapsed roofs.  At my own house, I managed to clear off my garage roof which is shakily supported by 2x4's and had about 5 feet of drifted snow on top of it.  I knew that if I didn't, I was probably asking for a disaster.  Then, yesterday evening, I was out on my own roof, clearing more drifted snow.  I got as much as I could off the whole roof  before my muscles started yelling at me, telling me to get down off the roof, take a shower, and get to bed.  I listened to my muscles.  At that point I could barely lift the snow shovel with my muscles aching.  I am grateful that I am a contractor and keep my muscles in fairly good shape through the work I do otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get as much done as I did.  I am also grateful that I know enough now to use my legs instead of my back and the only thing that is actually sore this morning are my muscles.  My back is fine.  My only hope now is that we don't get another snow storm for at least a few weeks so that this current snow pack we have has a chance to melt some.  If we do, I don't have anywhere to put the new snow.  Unfortunately as it looks right now, we might get some more snow next weekend.  But that is a week away and we all know how good meteorologists are at predicted the weather...not that good.  There predictions for this past blizzard was maybe 2' of snow where we are, not the 3' we got.  Oh well, its beautiful out there, despite being a tad bit treacherous, and I still love the snow.  A New Englander at heart I am and I have the feeling I will always be a New Englander no matter what happens.  I guess only time will tell on that front.  My only request is that the local people in Connecticut stop complaining about not being able to drive anywhere.  If you saw what it was like out there and the amount of businesses that are closed, you wouldn't want to go out anyway.  That said, I am off to get ready for work.  Till tomorrow, be well, stay safe, and enjoy the snow if you have it!

Impending Blizzard

Simply speaking for myself, its been too long without an actual blizzard.  I am a big fan of snow in any amount from a dusting to the mega amounts we had two years ago where snow was piled 9' tall along the sides of my driveway and in my back yard.  Not only could I sit for hours in front of a window watching it snow, if possible I love going driving in it.  Obviously when it comes to driving I play it as safe as possible, but there is nothing like getting in my 4 wheel drive Jeep Wrangler and heading out into the deep white abyss.  I love it.  What I don't get is the trend we are seeing in the media where every storm must be named.  The approaching mess, actual two storms, fittingly has two names as I've seen it, Nemo and Charlotte (I think).  Why is it that everything these days needs a label or a name.  Why can't we just call it a "blizzard" or a "heavy duty snow event"?  The most likely reason that I can think of is that if this storm ends up wreaking a lot of havoc, we will need someone to blame and it might as well be a storm called Nemo.  I can see the headlines already, "Damn you Nemo!"  "Nemo Dumped its Load!".  OK, so maybe those won't be the headlines, but there sure will be some good ones regardless of what happens.  But back to the snow.  This past week we have seen a lot of light snow, flurries that sporadically pop up throughout the day, dusting the ground lightly, and making you feel like its actually winter.  Some people probably complained that it was a very cloudy week, depressing, cold, snowy...  I couldn't be happier.  After all, it is supposed to snow in the winter, right?  And if you live in New England, you better be ready for snow and lots of it; that is, depending on the year.  The last couple of winters have been complete anomalies.  Two winters ago we had perhaps the most snow over the season in a very long time with almost every weekend packing a new snow storm.  Last year was the complete opposite with temperatures regularly in the 40's and 50's making it one of the mildest winter's ever.  This year has been more the average with no enormous snow storms (before today's) and temperatures nice and low where they should be. 

Whatever the case may be, I am looking forward to this blizzard.  You can pretty much compare me to any guy advertising a ski resort, happy when the snow starts falling, giddy when the snow shovel comes out, and sad when its time to go back inside.  That about sums up my feelings about snow.  Ever since I was little I used to love going out and playing in the snow, sledding down my parents front hill, and building forts out of the massive snow piles the plows left behind.  Yet that was when we actually got a lot of snow during the winter.  Despite the winter 2 years ago now where the snow pack even in Connecticut was immense, the snow has been lacking of late.  I attribute it to global warming, but the reason's vary depending on who you talk to.  I personally can't wait to go shovel.  I know, its odd that I am looking forward to partaking in physical activity to move snow, but that's me.  And before I leave off for today and venture out to get some work done before Nemo comes knocking, let me just share what I have done to prepare for the storm.  (Don't worry, it won't take too long).  I moved my snow shovel and broom into my mudroom, I secured any loose items in the yard, and I filled up my Jeep with gas.  Yup, that's it.  We have enough food and water and if we should lose power, we will figure something out.  In a nutshell, I am New Englander who thinks all this hyped up media coverage about "Crazy Nemo" is a little overboard.  Its a blizzard people, a one day event, hunker down, get some blankets, and watch the snow fall outside.  Have fun out there and be safe. 

Foreign Farmland

Its been a while since I've commented on worldwide events, ones that we are mostly oblivious to.  One of the reasons I stopped commenting regularly on them is that for the most part, they can be summed up in a few sentences.  There is rampant corruption world wide.  There are still dictators who like to rule with an iron fist.  There are still wars being waged over the most idiotic of reasons.  There, I think that does it.  Oh, before I forget, there are still millions of people being oppressed by both foreign and national powers.  It is this last point that I will speak to today as I read an interesting op-ed piece in the NY Times this morning.  If you haven't heard of this yet, there are countries buying up enormous tracts of farmland in foreign countries, countries that are often corrupt, looking for extra money, and could care less about their own citizens.  A good portion of this farmland being sold is in Africa, with other areas selling farmland on a lesser scale.  All told, last year saw land equal to eight times the size of Great Britain sold for agriculture with billions of dollars being invested in it.  These tracts of land, some equal to the size of Pennsylvania and New Jersey combined, are often times sold with the inhabitants being made aware, or if they are, there is no concern shown for their needs.  In essence, land is being stolen from native inhabitants and sold to foreign investors who often times export everything that is grown there.  This is becoming a major problem as the areas where the land is being sold have populations that are struggling to get by as it is.  Yet this is of no concern to the foreign investors and it seems of even less concern to the countries who are selling the land from right under the rightful owners and inhabitants.  Sometimes, the land is not even being used to grow food meant for human consumption, rather, it is used to grow food meant to feed animals.  While I understand why countries are doing this, I surely don't agree with it and think that in the long run it will lead to more conflicts and international struggles. 

With the world population growing at what seems to be an exponential rate, we are running into the issue of having less and less arable land on which to grow food to sustain the population.  As it is, there are a plethora of people who go hungry every day and are living on the verge of starvation.  Yet, if you live in a third world country and your land is being stripped away from you by foreign investors and your own government, what can you do besides fight to get it back?  There seems to be very little concern both amongst foreign investors and the governments selling the land as to how it is affecting the native populations.  This land, which for some has been used for hundreds of years by native populations to eek out a living, barely sustaining their own families, is now being taken away to provide food for people who probably already have enough.  In some cases, the land that is being bought is just being sat on till a time when it is absolutely necessary to use it.  To me its a slap in the face to the inhabitants who now have to see this land, sometimes go unused, and provide nothing for them.  While I understand the need for countries to consider the welfare of their own inhabitants, it does not mean that they can forgo the welfare of others.  With all our technological advancements over the past century, you would think that we would have figured out by now how to use land to its maximum, using new hardier crops, allowing for enough food to be grown to sustain a given population.  Yet we in developed countries have taken to eating more than we need to, throwing out more than we should, and all in all being wasteful of what we have.  As a result we (not necessarily the U.S.), have turned to third world countries to provide the extra food we need.  Its an abomination in my mind, but yet, what am I to do about it besides voice my opinion and hope it does something. 

 The problem is, as with most larger issues, is that the politics of it are governed by money.  The person with the most money to invest can essentially do what they want.  If an investor offers a few million dollars to buy or lease land in a country that is hard pressed for money, I guarantee that the country will very willingly sell their land.  No matter how much we speak out sometimes, money trumps logic, due diligence, fairness, etc.  Just look at our country and the power of lobbyists to push agendas through our own government, regardless of the impacts it may have on the larger population.  It is absurd that people with large amounts of money can do what they want, yet that is the system we have created and to take it down would be tantamount to reducing Mount Everest to gravel with a little rock hammer.  Its just not going to happen and if it does, it will take the concerted effort of hundreds of thousands of people to do so.  What we should be doing is looking at our current use of land and look for ways to improve it.  Unless we start making a conscious effort to do this, we will very soon run into bigger issues over land, wars being waged, people being displaced, and more and more people going hungry.  Its a volatile world we live in these days and unless we start acting responsibly, we are going to do nothing but increase the volatility and create a world in which you are either poor or wealthy, there will be nothing in between.  So, on this depressing note, I think it is time for me to end my blog today.  There is a reason that I don't comment to often on current events any more that are happening world wide; they are to depressing to write about and no matter what I say or do, things will keep on going.  What I can do is improve my own life, be cautious about my own use of food and wasting as little as possible, and do everything in my power to by food grown within our own country.  If we stop buying foreign grown food, at least we can make a dent in this issue, perhaps not a big one, but at least a dent.  How else can we change the system when the system is designed to run without changing?

Olfactory Power

I know, slightly odd title for a blog post, but it will make more sense by the end I hope.  For whatever reason, I always get drawn back to the overarching power of our olfactory sense, our ability to detect different scents in the world around us, catalog them, and dredge them up later.  I find that my olfactory sense has a greater ability to awaken certain memories than any other sense I have.  While my eyesight is almost perfect, and there are many times when I get a slight sense of deja vu through what I see, it doesn't bring back a flood of mental images and feelings.  My hearing, while good, does not offer the same sort of stimulus to my memory that my olfactory sense does.  I recognize voices, certain sounds may bring a slight arousal of past memories, but they all pale in comparison to the flood that I receive when a certain smell invades my nostrils.  The olfactory sense fascinates me in how it functions, how certain smells affect us differently, and what each person's olfactory sense means to them.  If I can't figure out the world around me through any other means, I smell it.  It may sound insanely weird to most people, but even if I am walking in the woods and I catch a faint aroma wafting through the air that reminds me of something, I stop, close my eyes, and inhale deeper.  Most times when I am in the woods hiking, the smells that affect me are those of decomposing leaves, fresh pine, and stagnant water.  While these may not seem like pleasurable smells to most people, they awaken in me a deep longing to remain in the woods.  It goes deeper than that though, it has the ability to transport me back to my youth and my countless days spent in the woods, around fresh pine and decomposing leaves, and of course, the stagnant water.  I can close my eyes and drift back to almost any time I have spent in the woods, whether it was in the backyard of my parents house or in the woods in California.  Sometimes the memories blend together, but no matter how they refresh themselves, they are vivid and permanent.  Its not just the smell of the woods that appeals to me and brings back memories of days past.  There is so much more that affects me in the olfactory sort of way.

Perhaps one of the most vivid images and memories that comes flooding back to me is of Spain and my trip there in high school.  This may be an odd association, but back then I used to love Abercrombie and Fitch cologne, the original, and used to carry it with me almost every where I went.  Well, I had it on my trip to Spain and every time I catch a whiff of that scent, the memories are sometimes overwhelming.  I can remember certain streets that I walked down, not the names or anything, just images that come coursing through.  I remember Madrid, and the museums, I remember Seville and the Jewish quarter that seemed so romantic, I remember Barcelona and its unique architecture.  There is so much that gets dredged up just from a one week trip because of the smell of A&F cologne.  It amazes me sometimes how much power certain smells have in re-vitalizing memories.  Sometimes it is not necessarily specific memories that get brought up for me, but rather notions of places I have been, a feeling of being somewhere even though I am not, a transportation if you will that takes place briefly in my mind.  One of the smells most capable of doing this to me is the sweet smell of diesel fumes.  I know, how in the world can such a noxious smell have the ability to bring back pleasurable feelings and transport me briefly, even if only in my mind, to another place?  I don't know, but there has always been something unique about the smell of diesel fumes affects me deeply.  It is probably due to a good amount of time spent down in New York City.  I have been heading down there either with my parents and family or with friends ever since I was little.  Anyone who has been down to the city will probably tell you that it is hard to walk a block without catching a whiff of diesel fumes.  Even if I am driving down the road in Connecticut, far from the hustle and bustle of the city and I smell diesel fumes, I immediately think of New York City.  Or at least some city.  My mind usually goes to New York because that is the city I have spent the most time in compared to any other large metropolis.  I enjoy those little glimpses of the city that rush through my mind, and to a certain extent, I briefly enjoy catching the scent of diesel fumes.  Weird, I know, but each of us has different smells that affect us in different ways. 

I could go on and on about the different smells that are dear to my heart and the images that come flooding back whenever I smell them, but I won't.  A few should suffice to drive my point across about the power of the olfactory sense and how it affects me.  To be honest, I don't know what I would do without my sense of smell.  Obviously it is there for a reason, both to alert us to danger and to alert us and attract us to objects that smell good.  Since we are on the topic of smell, I have to throw one more thing out there that on the flip side of the olfactory sense, annoys me.  As I have a fairly sensitive nose, not overly discerning in what I can detect, but merely sensitive in the fact that I can smell a lot and from a great distance, I absolutely despise when people are in close proximity to me, talking to me, and their breath smells.  There are times when I catch a horrible whiff of their previous meal or some noxious drink they had and get totally turned off.  Many times I try and position myself so that as they are talking they are not talking directly to my face and blasting my nose with all their vile breath.  OK, got that off my chest.  Its just annoying sometimes, yet it is a good thing in the sense that it always makes me aware of my breath, how it smells, and how it could affect others.  However smell affects me, for good or for bad, it is my most powerful sense and I could not live without it.  What about you?  Do you find your olfactory sense to be the most powerful or is there another one that trumps it?  If your olfactory sense is your most powerful, what does it mean to you?  How does it affect you?  Just curious. 

Growing By Leaps and Bounds

It seems that almost every week now, our son displays or learns something new that amazes me.  Not only is he getting taller, about 32" at almost 16 months old, but he is also learning more and more about the world around him every day.  Despite my previous reservations about daycare, my opinion has come around and changed for the positive.  I attribute part of his increased perceptions of the world around him and his ability to interact with it more meaningfully to daycare and their activities.  Perhaps the most important part of daycare that he would otherwise be lacking in is the socialization aspect.  Even if my wife or I could watch him every day, or his grandmother, he would not receive the amount of interact with kids his age that he does in daycare.  Perhaps above all else, the socialization aspect is the most important.  Not that we thought he would have a problem getting right into the mix with the other kids in the classroom, but to have the interaction on a daily basis is important.  While he has always been a little social butterfly, he has now become fully immersed in his little group of toddlers.  One day a few weeks ago, it almost looked like he had a girlfriend.  My wife and I were told that for most of one day, he kept on going up to one of the girls in his room, grabbing her hand, and trying to lead her around.  It had to have been the cutest thing to witness.  I don't know if it happened again or if it was just a one time deal, but to have him try to involve someone his age in his little world is pretty cool.  We don't think much about it as adults, but for a child who under the age of 2 to go beyond his own needs and seek to engage another child seems pretty amazing.  Perhaps it occurs all the time amongst kids that age and I am just a naive father who thinks his son is doing really well, but it seems as if it is a little bit of an anomaly.  I don't know.  I do know that as he is in a room with mostly girls, it makes for some interesting scenarios sometimes.  Around the time that he picked out his girlfriend for the day, there was a time when my wife went to pick him up and arrived just as he was finishing his afternoon snack.  There was a girl on either side in a high chair eating a snack as well as two girls just standing by his high chair watching him eat.  It had to have been the cutest sight to see this little boy surrounded by girls.  Nothing special there, just a cute sight to be seen. 

Perhaps the latest great achievement, or at least advancement in our son, is his ability to notify us when he has done his duty in his diaper.  This past weekend he really kicked it into high gear.  Every time he urinated in his diaper, he would go right over to his changing table, grab a hold of it and look for either my wife or I.  Upon asking if he needed his diaper changed, a huge smile would break out on his face and he would utter a little laugh.  Sure enough, he was correct.  The times he notified us, he had just taken care of business and while it wasn't necessarily a lot of pee, it was fresh and we took it as a great first step towards potty training.  Now we just have to figure out that part.  I don't think either my wife or I were expecting him to figure it out this early and while potty training won't happen over night, we are hoping that he will be pretty much all set by the end of summer.  We attribute most of this new advance to his cloth diapers which, unlike the disposable kind, don't whisk away the moisture from the skin which allows him to feel the wetness.  Its interesting how quickly little kids learn provided they are given the opportunity to do so.  While not necessarily an enormous advancement, he has now gotten to the point where we don't need to carry him everywhere.  He actually enjoys walking now, not all the time, but a majority of it.  Taking him to the car now consists mostly of just holding his hand and walking at his pace.  That perhaps is the biggest obstacle, especially for someone with long legs like myself.  I am used to taking long strides and getting places quickly, however, when walking with a toddler whose legs are a quarter of the size yours are, everything takes longer.  Yet, there is a part of me that enjoys walking slower, especially with our son.  Instead of rushing by everything, even in our own driveway, I am forced to take my time, observe more of what is going on around me as a little hand grips my finger.  Its a nice change of pace, literally and figuratively, to walk slower.  All this means that we get a little break from carrying him everywhere.  There are still plenty of times when he would rather be carried, or after walking halfway towards a destination, he will turn, extend both arms and wait till one of us picks him up.  I still don't mind carrying him, he is just getting heavier and holding him for extended periods of time is draining. 

In addition to all that I mentioned above, I am consistently amazed by his manual dexterity, his ability to control his fingers in a calculated manner to achieve a certain objective.  I know, sounds all scientific and what not, but to watch him is akin to watching a little scientist at work.  When he approaches something that necessitates calculated movements, such as pulling apart a folded napkin, a tissue, paper, or wipe, everything about him slows down as he focuses on the object in his hands and he moves his fingers precisely to where they need to be in order to pull apart a given object.  Its amazing to watch his focus on given objects, still not very long lasting as he is just a toddler, but he has moments where he will focus on things for a few minutes as he plays with them, explores their possibilities, and then moves on to something else.  All this talk of calculated movements somehow reminded me of another activity he loves to do, that is run across our couches.  In our living room, we have two couches that are perpendicular to each other and which can be temporarily connected by pushing our ottoman on wheels into the corner they create.  Well, our son loves to go from one end of one couch, down its length, across the ottoman, and across the other couch to its end.  Once he gets there, he turns around and goes back.  He repeats this over and over again until something else catches his attention.  Its amazing to watch him figure out his balance, attempt to run across the couches without falling, one of his little hands always extended and at the ready to catch himself should he start to fall. The look on his face is also priceless; mouth wide open, a half smile curling up the corners of his mouth, and eyes intent on making it to the other side without falling.  I must say, his balance is getting really good with all this couch running.  Even better is that the surface texture and give changes from the couch to the ottoman and then back to the couch again forcing him to account for the different surface he is running on.  He still falls on occasion, but he is getting more and more comfortable with his balance.  I could keep on going about our son, but for now, I will leave it at that.  He never ceases to amaze me with what he is learning and how he is advancing.  I think he is also following in my footsteps in terms of speaking as well given that I didn't really start talking till about the age of 2.   

The Memory of Nations

"A tombstone is memory made concrete.  Human memory is the ladder on which a country and a people advance.  We must remember not only the good things, but also the bad; the bright spots, but also the darkness."  -Yang Jisheng

I came upon this quote at the beginning of a book I am currently in the process of reading called, aptly, "Tombstone".  While I could have gone on quoting just from the second chapter of this book, this small segment struck me as not only as universal in its scope, but also very relevant in this day and age when memory seems to be short lived.  Whether its a collective effort to forget certain events due to their horrific nature or whether its selective amnesia in which we slowly forget that which we lived through or that which occurred in our past, it seems that almost every nation struggles with this idea of memory.  Some, to be honest, intentionally scrub memory from the annals of history, attempting to create an idealistic society in which everything has and always will be glamorous.  These societies are the totalitarian ones, such as China at the outset of its Communist experiment and to a certain extent presently, yet no matter which society you live in, there will be parts of history that are glossed over, not given the attention they deserve, and relegated to the dark recesses of history that are rarely explored.  Even the United States has those instances in history that we would, I assume, be very willing to forget due to their nature and their ability to cast a shadow on our history in general.  How much time do we spend studying the internment camps that we set up for the Chinese and Japanese during WWII?  How often do we go back and study the Trail of Tears during which thousands upon thousands of Native Americans were forcibly marched across our country in a relocation effort so that the "white" people could have take their land?  How often do we actually revisit the role or racism in our country and its protracted relevance in today's time?   And to take it a step further, where are the "tombstones" to help us remember? 

We have moved forward in very meaningful ways from these incidents that I have mentioned.  We have not had internment camps since WWII and we have moved light years away from the entrenched racism that used to engulf a large portion of the population.  Are there still so-called "racists" in our country?  Absolutely, and I don't know if we will ever be able to fully rid ourselves of racism, not just towards African Americans, but towards any minority.  There will always be those people who judge others before truly knowing them based on skin color or religious preference.  I was going to say that we have not forced the relocation of large groups of people since the Trail of Tears, and in part I feel I would be correct, yet here there is a sticking point for me.  As I was about to write that, my thoughts moved to the present and what we now call eminent domain.  While not even close in scope or in means and methods utilized, eminent domain is still an issue that affects people.  It happened with the building of the Interstate Highway system and its happening today with the building of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada to Texas.  Regardless, if we don't remember our past or it is slowly pulled away from us, how can we meaningfully move forward and progress as a society?  For the most part, I feel we have progressed as a society and a nation, yet there is always more we can do.  One important thing we can do is focus on every aspect of our history in the classroom.  There shouldn't be one aspect that is glossed over in an effort to focus on something more jubilant and "happy".  There should be equal time spent on our nation's mistakes as well as our accomplishments, yet I feel that history is trending towards more focus on accomplishments than not.  If we are collectively made to forget certain aspects of our history either through "glossing" over them or not giving them enough attention, then at some point we could make the same mistakes and sink backwards instead of steadily progressing forwards. 

In today's society where everything is available to us instantaneously, one would think that it is harder to forget, yet I would beg to differ.  With the steady stream of information, we are inundated to an extent never before witnessed, and with the overwhelming flow of information, we can't necessary absorb everything while also remembering our past.  Its not always easy to look back on the mistakes that we as individuals or as a larger segment, we as a nation made.  The mistakes, errors in judgement, or the travesties are dark spots that many would like to scrub away rather than memorialize them.  We must go further than memory though.  If we remember, than we can move forward, but I would posit that we can only move forward if we seek to understand why and how we made the mistakes in the past.  If we can come to an understanding of "why" something happened, then we can truly avoid making those same mistakes in the future.  We can not remember as a nation unless we start at an individual level.  We must all as individuals seek to understand the past while at the same time not letting it dictate how we move forward.  Sure, easy to say, yet much harder to do.  I myself don't always find it easy in my own life to correct mistakes and move forward without making new ones.  We will all make mistakes as individuals and as nations, yet unless we can admit to the mistake, not blot it out, and then move forward, we will end up stagnating.  Convoluted, confusing, yes, but important in my mind, especially in this day and age when it seems we feel we can create our own history or alter our past history to our needs of the present.   Regardless of where you live, do feel that your country has a coherent memory of the past in all its gloom and glory?  Or does your country suffer from amnesia and is likely apt to repeat mistakes?