New pictures of supposedly uncontacted Amazon tribe...

Isn't this crazy? This picture depicts members of a supposedly uncontacted Amazonian tribe shooting arrows at the helicopter.

me has wafer plz?

Another Luna Moth!

Our house, being on the edge of the forest, attracks numerous bugs to the lights at night. The other night we heard a violent tapping on the window and outside was a crazed luna moth trying to break in. He managed not to commit suicide on our window and was calmly folded up over our door in the morning. Yay luna moths!

Memorial Day Weekend.

Had a blast this past weekend.
Friday we became more depressed than before when looking at new hot tubs. The minimum price we saw? 4500.00. To which I reply, HA! I can't guarantee we'll have our house long enough to justify an extremely expensive hot tub, much less the stupidity of paying that much. So I think we are going to try and get a new spa pack, which runs about 800. A hell of a lot more than what we paid for the hot tub, but everything else works, and this will guarantee a nice hot tub for many years.
My grandpa and my step-grandma came and visited my mum in Garnett, an hours drive to the south from our house. We spent Saturday visiting and sitting on their huge porch. We've not seen my grandpa in several years, they were too sick to make it to our wedding.... so it was fun that they appear in decent enough shape to visit.
On Sunday we went to a BBQ at our friends house. Everyone brought food, and the hours I spent shucking corn and preparing it to grill (it grills in it's leaves but you have to remove the strings) was well rewarded as everyone seemed to enjoy the delicious grilled corn. Later they broke out their slip-and-slide, which I did only a couple of times, but which managed to make me SO sore yesterday and today. I feel like I got socked in the stomach and am bruised up and down my legs.

Gas price take down. In figures.

So, as mentioned before, I'm wondering how soon my commute and gas prices will make working so far away no longer viable. (I drive approx 365 miles in a week, a mile costs $.18 currently). Granted, I'm holding on to the love of my life (my gorgeous blue Toyota Tacoma) who eats gas like it's going out of style (it is!) even as it gets more and more stupid. Stupid reason #1? I own land. Land owners need trucks to haul things. #2 Burning Man. #3 I love being up high and able to drive over anything. Our driveway consists of a bit of gravel covering an always changing array of muddy pot holes. In the winter time, I'm guaranteed not ever to be stuck.

However the negatives may soon outweigh the positives. It costs $66 to fill up (this past week) a tank of gas in my truck. Thats $264 a month to drive to and from work. Because my significant portion of my income income is based on commission I'm going to math out the effects of the gas price hike based on our base salary first. Believe me, with the oncoming gas crisis the olds aren't going to be buying as many expensive hearing aids. The olds seem to be a good barometer of the state of things. Incredibly frugal, they flail and hide at the slightest difficulty, a list which includes extreme weather, (ahem, rain) the housing crisis, and the price of eggs.

Anyhoo, Bobby's commute is shorter and his car eats less gas. However he uses 12 gallons of gas a week which costs about $44 (again THIS week). So our total monthly gas bill is currently $440. Our monthly salary total, after taxes, (not counting commission) is about $3200. Which means our percent of income going into gas this month is approx 14%

So at what point does my long commute and my beautiful truck actually force me into poverty?
Assuming that with the gas hike other things will become more expensive too (food, electricity, NOT my mortgage thankfully).
Based on our base salary our mortgage takes up 40% of our income. My truck payment takes up another 19%. Food on average costs about $500 a month making it 16% of our income. That's 75% total so far, not counting the gas costs. Our bills run about 14% of our income. That leaves a measly -3% for niceties and extras. Thankfully occasionally I do get commission which pulls us into the green.

Obviously we are getting darned near the tipping point all ready. I guess in order to do this correctly I have to guess at an average commission rate. This scares me a bit because last time I did that I guessed based on my experiences of the first three months at my job, which turned out to be much higher than the rest of the years sales. That's when we bought the truck. oops! Conservatively I'm going to guess I get an extra $1500 a month commission.

This means gas costs us about 9% of our actual, commission included, income. (I don't trust it for a minute though, tricksy olds!)
With the new figures, including commission:
Home 25%
Food 13% at a predicted gas induced inflation resulting in an extra $100 a month
Truck 13%
Other 10%
Current Gas 9%
That leaves a glorious 30% for other expenses.

So lets project future gas prices:
@$4 per gallon= 10%
@$5 per gallon= 13%
@$6 per gallon= 15%
@$7 per gallon= 18%

Still with me? Me neither. But in the future we'll all look back and laugh when gas was a mere $7 a gallon.

So in conclusion... as long as I make a decent commission and don't add anything to our debt (please don't die bobbys car!) we can endure the $7 a gallon gas hike without losing our home (which is the only constant and decreasing number anyway) or my wonderful job. But it will be tight and very unpleasant. But if the olds act as they normally do, (ie never leave their lairs during a crisis) we... are... screwed!!!

Feel free to correct my maths. My maths have forever been abysmal. I must note, I love the British "Maths" as opposed to "math". It implies a variety, which seems less oppressive.

Ellen's getting married!!

I adore Ellen and DVR her show every day. I always watch her and Martha after work to wind down from my day. She seems like a genuinely awesome person, always trying to help people in need, and it always makes me happy. Some of the parts of her show can be a bit annoying (games and copious dancing... but I have fast forward on my DVR!) but I still love her. When I watch Portia and Ellen together their dynamic reminds me unequivocally of my relationship with Bob.

I'm a supporter of gay marriage and (as a married person) feel that it strengthens the value of marriage rather than taking anything away. This week California's Supreme Court declared that banning gay marriage is unconstitutional, equivalent to racial and sexual discrimination. Hopefully other states will soon follow suit.

Yay and Congratulations to Ellen!

I participated in one of those phone surveys yesterday about my voting habits. It was really interesting. It was obviously skewed towards Nancy Boyda the democrat running for something or another in Kansas. There were alot of general questions like "How do you feel about President Bush" and many statements like "Does so and so's platform on economic reform make you more or less likely to vote for them". I'm voting democrat straight across the board because it's obvious that a congress that is weighted against the President is much less likely to get anything done.
When they were reading the questions for Nancy Boyda they gave the statement and then said does this making you more likely, somewhat likely or not make any difference in your vote. For the other candidate, Lynn Jenkins (I think) they read the statement and said does this make you MUCH LESS likely, Less likely or ambivalent in your vote. In essence, even if I agreed with some of her positions I couldn't say I found it favorable on the questionarre. Likewise I disagreed whole heartedly with one statement by Nancy Boyda (on illegal immigration) and there was no way to say that this influenced my vote negatively. So they are working with skewed numbers. I am not sure how the survey helps them then.

On illegal immigration: Am I very radical in the belief that people in poverty have the right to make a better life for themselves? I listened to an episode of "This American Life" yesterday which highlighted the story of a girl who came to the US with her mom as a baby but is an unregistered illegal. She made it into a major university and wants to be a doctor. Her grades are impeccable and she is an asset to society. Still, with her degree she can't go on an practice anywhere because she will be deported, so now she is waitressing and getting paid under the table. This is ridiculous.
Also Bob's exchange student from Peru, who has a masters in business, came back to the US and spent the year last year (and thousands of dollars) trying to get a green card. She also would be an asset to the US but was turned away and had to go back to Peru. Most immigrants do not have the thousands of dollars to waste on lawyers and whatnot. Not to mention that it flat didn't work.

And what about taxes? Illegals don't pay them, but our tax dollars go into their doctor bills and other things. Why can't we make it easier for them to get into the system? We are a country of immigrants... let them come! I (not being a politician) have no idea as to how to make this better for everyone. But I think "cracking down on illegal immigration" is a REAL negative. Also, building that wall? As Colbert said the other day, then why don't we ask the Chinese how that worked out?

Also interesting in the questionarre they asked what were the two biggest issues affecting my voting opinion. My number 1 is Gas prices/Viable Renewable Energy. This is a big one for me right now. It may get to the point in the next year or so where my cost of gas is more than my income. In other words, unless my boss addresses the inflation with a pay boost, I will no longer be rationally able to work here. It's very unlikely I will find another great job like the one I have. With the housing crisis I cannot sell my house. (That was my number 2 issue) So if this continues either I continue working here, and lose my house and probably NOT BE ABLE TO EVEN RENT because of the hit on our credit, or I quit when the gas prices reach 6.00 or so and find a job that won't pay for my monthly mortgage. Buying a new car is not an option for us, as we are stretched too thin at this point.

Interestingly, the housing crisis was not an option on the list of voting influences, apparently I am one of the only people who feel this strongly.

Really cool video art project

Wow, there is not much I can say that will describe this correctly, so go forth and watch!


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Can you imagine how much time that took? I wonder if it was chalk or paint.

New deck part 1

Our hot tub project is coming along nicely, Bob and Mark have finished the first part, the base of the hot tub. Here is a before shot...Below is a pic of the concrete posts. Digging the base of these things was a real pain, as our house is basically built on a giant rock pile. Every few inches we encountered a big horrible rock which was only removed after hours of pounding and careful digging. For the secondary deck, which will line up about a foot below the top of the hot tub, we've got to dig at least 7 more post holes. We are not looking forward to this.

Below Mark, John and Bob measure and level the beams.

Here they are putting on the top 2 by 4s. Because this deck is going to be mostly covered by another deck we did not use finishing deck boards. Those apparently cost 14.00 a piece. Thanks GW.
Still I think the 2X4s look nice.
Here Bob and Mark celebrate the success of their first construction project.

Here we've finished the deck and several of our friends came over to move the hot tub (a terrible task!) onto the deck. Thankfully we did not drop it and squish anyone, as was a real possibility. Not everybody who came out and helped us is pictured in this picture. Pictured is Mark, Der, Bob and John with a corner of Jimmy in the far right hand. My brother Michael and Drew came over as well, but escaped the frame.
The next phase of the project entails building the secondary deck which will but up against around a foot under the top of the hot tub and have a stair connecting it to the house deck and two others, one to the basement and one out to the backyard. We will also continue the deck to the left of our house so we don't have a giant precarious step between the concrete patio and the back deck. This will improve things greatly.

Meta post: do gooder

A couple of months ago the secretary in one of our offices and I were chatting about giving back. She said she was having a rough month financially until she donated some money, and then got a surprise check in the mail. She views it as sort of a karmic pay-it-forward/ do good and good will come back to you. I decided to try donating once a month to some sort of charity that caught my interest for the sake of uh, putting good out into the world.

I don't know if it's helped me karmically (I'm not one for mysticism, really) but it is a nice feeling to give. My choice of charity this month is disaster relief in Myanmar via the Foundation for the People of Burma. The last two months I've donated to "Make it Right" the charity Brad Pitt is fronting for hurricane Katrina relief. It only just occurred to me that I should probably look into the more local disasters, such as the Greensburg Kansas tornado disaster, especially since they are doing such neat things with rebuilding their town entirely green.

One must note that after I started donating I got a pretty cool opportunity to run two offices at my work, rather than just one. Whether this is the result of long term subtle campaigning, looking morose or my donating to the ether we shall never know. But, hey, try it and see!

On another note, apparently last evening Bobby killed a luna moth on our door. He knows I love butterflies (and luna months are supposed to bring good luck, I heard long ago in my youth) but he was still miffed when I was cross with him for killing it. At the very least he should have caught it in a box and I'd have stuck it in the freezer so I could mount it, not bashed it against the wall. This is one instance where I am a wee bit on the mystical far left. If a tornado comes and takes our new hottub deck for Bob's evil ways, I would not be surprised at all.

The beginning of May...

I just finished watching Isabella Rossellini's bizarre series of shorts called "Green Porno" which features her dressed up as a variety of bugs and portraying their mating rituals. After reading about it several times, I thought I'd give it a go. It reminds me of Bjorks partner Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle in it's oddity, but it is funny, artistic and informative. I've no idea what inspired/possessed Isabella to write/produce/direct and star in Green Porno but definitely give it a go.

I've been intending on posting some photos of our hot tub deck in progress, but it is coming along. We are enjoying a bring and sunny day today, and Bobby got off work early so has ample time to build it, with the help of Mark and Johnnie. Someday soon, hot tub glory!

We went to our local jr. Burning Man event (called Interfuse) this past weekend and had an absolute blast. I was skeptical, as how could you replicate burning man anywhere but on the playa? However, it turned out that the trip was a lovely camping trip (very few bugs too!) with very friendly neighbors. At around 2 hours away and $25, we couldn't have asked for more. We will definitely be attending in the future. One thing that was amusing is when we broke out one of our domes, a VERY normal site at BM as everyone brings at least one, lots of people seemed to have never seen one before and took pictures. Next year we will bring both of our domes and achieve massive points.

My seedlings are coming along, and I plan to move my tomato plants from their safe well lit home in the basement to the outdoors later this evening. My hot peppers are the only seedlings that seem reticent to peak their heads out of the soil, but I do have one or two little sprouts so am hopeful.