Category Archives: Technology

At Last!

We joyfully announce the birth of our daughter!

Bean Harper
Date: September 8, 2007
Time: 12:49 a.m. PDT
Weight: 7 lb, 1 oz.
Length: 20 in

At this time I don’t intend to publish photos of my child on the blog for the whole world. However, I will upload photos to my Flickr account, which is http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindfulone/. (It may take a day or two to get them uploaded.) Photos of my babe will be given a designation so that only friends and family can see them. This means you need to:

create a free account on Flickr if you haven’t already;
designate me as a contact by going to my profile and in the upper right corner, clicking “add Mindful One as a contact”;
which triggers an email notifying me, and then I’ll make you a contact with the correct status. It might take me a couple days to get to the email, so please be patient.

This most amazing event transcends words…

(note: This is being published by her friend Mark. Just wanted to note that Baby, Mother and Father are tired, but healthy and headed to sleep after a long day. We wish them a quick recovery and sweet dreams!)

A Daunting Problem

No wonder we’re importing dangerous and potentially lethal products from China. Consider how Chinese citizens live.

Environmental woes that might be considered catastrophic in some countries can seem commonplace in China: industrial cities where people rarely see the sun; children killed or sickened by lead poisoning or other types of local pollution; a coastline so swamped by algal red tides that large sections of the ocean no longer sustain marine life.

–Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley, New York Times

The article mentions that the leading cause of death in China is cancer from pollution, and that almost half a billion people have no safe drinking water. Only 1 percent of the 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe.

The article explores the juggernaut of China’s economic progress and the massive use of polluting natural resources (such as coal) that drives it, and how the Communist government is vulnerable to social backlash because people are suffering horribly. The article provides some interesting if grim statistics about the impact of environmental degradation on human life and on the stability of China’s government and economy. In a country so populous, it seems that all forms of life are considered expendable.

Here’s the entire article: As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes, by Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley

We are all inextricably linked to this and directly contribute to the problem, because we purchase items produced in China. Yet it seems impossible to avoid Chinese-made goods. I look on packaging to see where an item is made and usually only see that it’s “distributed by” an American company. What can we do to protect ourselves? What will we do? And can that have any impact whatsoever on the quality of life in China?

Obligatory Cute Lolcat Post

Random Bits

Some things I’ve noticed:

Riding a stationary bike gives me round ligament pain and stimulates Braxton-Hicks contractions.
Sleep is becoming elusive again.
I crave vegetables.
People really do become more solicitous towards obviously pregnant women in grocery stores, etc.

Some things I’ve done:

Had friends over for dinner on Saturday. (Every weekend this month we’re hosting dinner with friends. We call them “Last Chance to See” dinners.)
Devoured Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Become as inert as a potted plant.
Lost the desire to do much, which includes writing posts for this blog.

Stay cool, people. And if you need a laugh or some light refreshment, give a visit to the following:

I Can Has Cheezburger? (See this Time article for background on the phenomenon. If you really want to learn about the origin of this trend, you can read A Special In-Depth Analysis by David McRaney – L337 Katz0rz. And yes, my geek husband says I’m late to the party; it’s new to me but has been around for quite some time.)
Cute Overload: no explanation needed!

An Attempted State of Mind

“Placid” / 7 x 10″ sketch paper with colored pencil

I had no idea what I was going to make when I started. It seems now that it was an attempt at self-soothing or balance. I drew this while watching Eugene Jarecki’s movie, Why We Fight — a provocative, disturbing, multifaceted analysis of the U.S. military-industrial complex. There’s an interview with Jarecki via the link that will summarize the documentary better than I can. I learned that the term “military-industrial complex” was coined by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address to Americans. His warning, it seems, went unheeded.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

–Dwight Eisenhower

You can read the entire speech here.

Reasons to Stay Home

I hate air travel since 9/11. I’ve been pulled over for extra inspection almost every time I’ve tried to board an airplane. On top of that, changes in airline business practices make flying odious. I never wrote about our Christmas trip, but leaving San Jose was nearly impossible due to massive airline screw-ups and delays (due to a recent merger of one airline with another). We arrived two hours early to the airport; we stood in line for two hours just to check our bags and get boarding passes. We barely made the plane, but then it sat for another 45 minutes. This late start on the first leg of our flight made us miss our Las Vegas connection, which caused us to have to re-book our second connection through Pittsburgh while our luggage went to the original connection point of Atlanta. We did arrive in Syracuse, finally, but it took our luggage another day. Due to the time-zone shift, flying east is hard on the body. So it was, in all, an unpleasant flight experience. At least the trip home was smooth.

So in addition to the fact that air travel is expensive and our budget is tight right now, there are more reasons to stay on the ground. Here’s a sampling. Those of you who have the patience and fortitude to fly, more power to ya.

Over all, this could be a dreadful summer to fly. In the first five months of 2007, more than a quarter of all flights within the United States arrived at least 15 minutes late. And more of those flights were delayed for long stretches, an average of 39 percent longer than a year earlier. … If a flight taxies out, sits for hours, and then taxies back in and is canceled, the delay is not recorded. Likewise, flights diverted to cities other than their destination are not figured into delay statistics.

—Ugly Airline Math: Planes Late, Fliers Even Later

Right now, it’s far cheaper for airlines to screw over their passengers and say “Sorry, your flight is canceled, please come back tomorrow” than it is to maintain enough staff and equipment to run their operations. After years of cost-cutting, they are running so close to the bone that they can’t deal with problems when they occur.

If airline executives want to run lean, that’s their business decision, but passengers should be adequately compensated when that system fails. This is something that simply switching carriers won’t fix — the problem pervades the entire industry, and in many cities, one or two carriers control most of the flights anyway.

If you cancel your reservation or don’t show up for a flight, the airline charges you a penalty all the way to the full price of your ticket. It’s only fair that when the airline fails to deliver on its side of the bargain, it should pay you.

—As summer air travel horror begins, Congress should give passengers more rights

Debbie Chaklos of the South Side booked a four-day Father’s Day trip to Paris with her father and 17-year-old brother for June 13. Due to bad weather elsewhere, they were still on the tarmac in Pittsburgh when their flight from Philadelphia to Paris took off. No other flights were leaving that night. After failing to get their bags back, Ms. Chaklos said, she called some 25 Philadelphia-area hotels before finding a vacancy.

A US Airways attendant re-booked them on an Air France flight the next day, but, on getting to Paris, they found their three bags were missing. They spent days haggling on the phone with Air France and washing their clothes in the sink before two of the bags finally arrived — 10 hours before the trio was set to fly back to the States. Once back, they realized the bags were lost again.

—It’s Summertime, and the Flying’s Anything But Easy

After three hours of sitting on a runway at LaGuardia International Airport the night of June 19, and the single glass of water and the mini granola bar issued to her long gone, Alice Norris got off her US Airways flight to look for another plane back to Pittsburgh. None was available. She returned to her seat and sat for another two hours before the pilots announced the federal limit on their flight time had run out and the flight had been canceled.

It was now around midnight. The Butler County woman waited through the crowded customer service line, saying she was an inexperienced flier and didn’t know what to do. The customer representative shrugged.

“I’m tired,” Mrs. Norris said.

“I am too,” the rep replied.

“I’m 70,” Mrs. Norris said.

Such experiences are becoming more and more common this summer, with passengers facing mounting cancellations, delays, lost bags, ruined vacations and emotional scenes at the ticket counter. A product of dangerous summer weather and systemic industry problems, the situation is poised to get even worse as the traveling season gets into full swing this week.

Passengers are finding the trade-offs offered for canceled flights — such as hotel rooms — are not as readily offered anymore, and when they are, rooms are sold out. Free ticket offers aren’t as desirable either — why come back to the airport and face a delayed flight again?

That night, while walking around the darkened terminal, Mrs. Norris joined another increasingly common sight at American airports: a group of strangers huddled together for the night. Finding she couldn’t sleep, she returned to another crowded ticket line after 5 a.m., was erased from a 9 a.m. flight before finally finding another close to 11 a.m., all the while thinking of her treatment.

—It’s Summertime, and the Flying’s Anything But Easy

And now, for your viewing pleasure (?) (If the embedded video doesn’t work, click here):Thanks to Jen for pointing out the video.

If You Want Explosions

When we lived in Austin, we were outside the city limits, so every July 4 we didn’t have to go anywhere to see fireworks. Our neighbors on either side, along with dozens of others in the subdivision, put on quite a show. They used serious fireworks. The first year it upset us; we worried about our house burning down. We couldn’t fight it though, so we relaxed and enjoyed it. Boys (even man-boys) like the drama of pyrotechnics, so in our last year we actually purchased a few and set them off ourselves. I was very tense about this, and we were very cautious. That was the only time we ever played with fire, so to speak.

With July 4th, there will be a lot of celebrating. If you plan to set off fireworks, I encourage you to explore Bruce’s Bombs, Explosives, and Ordnance Pages. He explains the risks of playing with explosives, especially homemade M-80s and cherry bombs. He provides federal and California legal information which explains how one can go to prison for playing with explosives. If you need visual evidence to convince you, he also provides links to gory photos of victims of explosions (especially hand injuries). (Don’t worry if you click the link, because you won’t immediately see the photos. You can choose to view the ones you think you can tolerate.) I did view them all, and they provide great incentive to be cautious. Bruce’s website is offered as a public service to educate people, especially children, about the risks. He writes:

Most of the people who are injured by explosives are injured because of what they do not know, not by what they do know. Simple fireworks injure more people than high explosives. Each year, more than 10,000 injuries are caused by the use of fireworks in the United States. Seventy percent of those injuries are in children and young adults between the ages of 5 and 24 years. Half of all injuries are incurred in the week of the Fourth of July.

If you want to play with explosions, there are actually summer camps that you can attend where experts guide you. From the New York Times:

A group of high school students stood at the edge of a limestone quarry last month as three air horn blasts warned that something big was about to go boom. Across the quarry, with a roar and a cloud of dust and smoke, a 50-foot-high wall of rock sloughed away with a shudder and a long crashing fall, and 20,000 tons of rock was suddenly on the ground.

—A Summer Camp Where Fireworks Are the Point

The upshot: if you value your health and life, leave the fireworks to experts.

The Produce Basket of the U.S.

I was talking with my sister yesterday about the climate here, and the fact it does not rain (at all) from about April through September/October here. It is bone dry. She mused that there must not be much agriculture grown in the summer, but I assured her otherwise. I got curious about how much produce California supplies to the U.S. and spent a couple hours surfing for information. Below is a smidgen of what I found.

California grows more than 90 percent of tomatoes used in tomato-based products in the United States and nearly half the tomatoes processed worldwide.
California grows about 60% of the nation’s Bartletts (pears).
Over 99% of the olives grown in the United States are grown in California.
California grows 90 percent of all the broccoli in the United States.
California grows about 80% of the U.S. supply of garlic.
California grows more than two-thirds of the U.S. medium grain [rice] crop.
California grows all of the nation’s commercial pistachios on 60,000 acres.
California grows nearly eighty-three percent of the strawberries for the marketplace in the United States.
The state is the largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the country, accounting for 49 percent of the total U.S. value. Tree and vine fruit production in California is 58 percent of the U.S. value, and vegetable and melon production is 39 percent of the U.S. value. California accounts for more than 99 percent of national production of artichokes, Brussels sprouts, dates, figs, kiwifruit, cling peaches, persimmons, prunes and raisins. It accounts for at least 50 percent of U.S. production of table grapes, wine grapes, lettuce, strawberries, broccoli, plums, celery, carrots, avocados, fresh-market oranges, cauliflower, honeydew, cantaloupes and processing tomatoes. While it produces less than 40 percent of total U.S. production of spinach and asparagus, California grows more of these commodities than any other single state.

As a result, agriculture accounts for 83 percent of all water used in California.

Peek Inside

I had about 10 seconds to snap just one shot, because the lighthouse was jammed with tourists.

It is the inside of a working third-order Fresnel lens at Yaquina Head Lighthouse in Oregon. (More information on the science of the lens can be found at How Stuff Works.)

inside the fresnel lens, yaquina head lighthouse, or

One Good Egg

Many of you have probably deduced from my vague mentions about health that something is up with me, and it is: I’m pregnant!

The test for which I was not-so-patiently awaiting results was the amniocentesis. At my age there is a 1:23 chance of a chromosomal abnormality that can cause serious birth defects, and even death. Being pregnant hasn’t been the absolute radiantly happy time I wanted. Until now. They called this morning to tell me the tests results are normal, and that my baby is a girl. She’s due to arrive August 27. On Easter Day I’ll be 20 weeks pregnant — halfway through.

Here’s the back story. In mid-November we saw the fertility specialist to discuss our options. Because of my age he strongly encouraged us to consider oocyte donation (getting an egg from a much younger woman), because the chances of my producing enough viable eggs and conceiving in a given month via in vitro were about 10 percent. On our own, the chances of conceiving in a given month were about 2 or 3 percent.

We went home and talked. I made my peace with the idea, because I really want a child, and I really wanted to carry a pregnancy to term. My uber-stressful job was over, so I relaxed and got to working out. (I even lost 12 pounds by mid-December!)

On December 13 (one month after visiting the doc) I noticed I felt puffy, tired, and had an increased need to use the bathroom. The next day I decided to use my one home pregnancy test left over, assuming it would be a waste, but what the heck. Imagine my fragile amazement when the test showed a slightly anemic but positive result. I told Husband and we agreed we shouldn’t tell, that we should just play it down, since I’d never made it past 8 weeks before. (Of course I took another home test, and the results were even stronger the next time. We joked that the fertility specialist must be really good at what he does; all we needed was to talk with him.)

On December 14 we got the news that our landlords were giving the house to their son and were requested to move by mid-February. On December 19 we went to Syracuse for the holidays. We didn’t officially mention it, but you know families; they have radar. They knew something was up, and they inferred what. Mostly I was exhausted, but I had insomnia at my parents’.

On December 29 we returned home, and on the 30th, on schedule, the morning sickness began. Except that mine lasted all day for six weeks. I didn’t vomit often, but I often wished I would; I feel better after. And you might think that feeling nauseous would be a good weight-loss method, that no food would appeal, that you wouldn’t even want to think about food. Not me. In my experience, hunger made the nausea worse, and yet so many odors (including food) also made me feel worse. So for six weeks I thought about food more than ever as I tried to find something I could stand to eat that would nourish my body. Add to that the fact that I slept 12 hours a day, and I was pretty much useless.

Except that’s when we had to find a place to live and pack our home. So we’d go out, me with my ginger beer and Saltines, drive by properties and go in some. I’d go home and collapse into bed. Once we found a rental, the packing began. I could only manage a box or two a day. If our friends M & K had not come three weekends in a row to help, we’d have been in big trouble. All through this time I tried to take it easy on my body and not to stress mentally about the move. I was successful at that, too.

By mid-February that misery abated and I felt like a new woman. We saw the doctor February 1 and had the first ultrasound. There was a heart, beating strongly. We called the baby Little One. Little One was very wiggly. A good sign. At the March visit we heard the heartbeat by Doppler technology. Then came the amnio, which they cannot do until four months into the pregnancy. By four months, I was deeply invested emotionally and physically in this child. It’s a long time to wait for such information. (A different test could be done at 12 weeks but had a higher risk of miscarriage, which we didn’t want to take.)

While I realize there is no absolute certainty or safety, I feel confident enough to share this news with the world. Actually, pregnancy is just the beginning of realizing how vulnerable one is to the world. The gestation and birth might be fine, but there’s a big world of risk out there, and anything can happen to one’s child. As I once heard, “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

Yet I couldn’t be more pleased.

[cross-posted at Knit Together]

For the Sake of Authenticity

Just in case I seem only an “inspiring” person who has most of her life together…

I have a specific person in mind as I write this post. Laurel, my dear, I write this to you (though all commenters are welcome).

It’s been one year since I started playing with poetry again. One year since I approached writing poems with wonder, with confidence in my right to try and to have fun. It’s been almost one year since I immersed myself in the toxicity of that poetry forum (which shall remain unlinked here).

Now, maybe I’m not writing as avidly as I did that first month because I’ve been busy. (Then again, I had plenty of energy when I began writing despite working a zillion hours a week. And I’ve not been busy since October when my job ended, but the pen seems dry.) Maybe I’m not writing because, as is my fashion, I often begin endeavors with bright enthusiasm, then fade over time.

There’s some truth in this, but there’s more. I’m lying to myself to deny it. The atmosphere of the forum: the snootiness, the stringent standards, the high academia, the ruthlessness of the moderators, and that encounter with the asshole wannabe guru — this silenced me. When I write a poem now, I choke. I hear the critic before I even capture an image and taste the words. I can’t hear the music in them now. Inspiration fled.

No matter how much I try to comfort myself with Ted Kooserâ€™s encouragement, I remain bound.

Today, at the ocean, I managed to free myself a little. Perhaps it was the 25 mph wind. I wish I could return to the poem writer I was before encountering the forum. It’s a kind of innocence lost. And by venturing into the forum, I did it to myself.

Even in middle age, I am still affected by others’ judgment of me. Not as much as when I was younger, certainly. There are some people whose judgment or opinion matters more and to whom I respond: Husband, family, close friends. But why, oh why, do the opinions of strangers, especially disembodied ones on the Internet, have any impact? Why the hell do I give them this power? The forum stressed that the criticism should not be taken personally, that it was critique of the work. I understood this; I don’t feel I took it personally. But I did feel daunted by the focus on technicality. What keeps me from writing poetry is the desire to do it “right,” like a “serious” poet, but I get bogged down by the high standards of technique. Where’s the fun?

More importantly, how will I get it back?

More On Religious Literacy

In keeping with the spirit of my recent post on religious literacy, I would like to share another resource. It’s a forum for discussing world religions. Launched in March 2004, this forum offers conversations on world religions, comparative religion, god debates, and education. The site defines religion as “any specific system of belief and/or/without worship, often involving a code of ethics and a philosophy.” They state that religious education is their motto. I’ve not yet joined, but I anticipate it will be a lively place! You can learn more by visiting their site: World Religions Forum. I’ve also linked it on my Discover page.

The Latest in Kitty Television

Sophie and Stella watch the litterbox as it performs its cleaning function.

Husband has taken over catbox duties, which he loathes. We were using non-scoopable litter and he hating changing it as frequently as needed; we decided it wasn’t sanitary enough, but he also didn’t want to do daily scooping. So we splurged and bought a Littermaid, although we weren’t sure if they would be afraid of it, since it moves and makes noise. When they hear it working (it scoops 10 minutes after last use and periodically other times) they will run from wherever they are in the house to watch. Apparently curiosity rules!

Blogging By Mail

Yesterday Christmas Part 2 arrived. (See this post for Part One if you missed it.) My Blogging By Mail package came! Gili sent me a passel of goodies for my sweet tooth, with some New York City coffee to complement them. I look foward to savoring the Chocobillys chocolate chunk cookies with a strong cup of Mud (the Hippie Blend, natch). I’ll nibble the Art Bar and Endangered Species chocolate while wearing my wild pink eyelash yarn boa. And then I’ll eat the dried fruit to expiate my sins. 😉

Thank you so much, Gili! May your holidays be full of joy.

Technology, Bah!

Weird. My site was inaccessible for a few hours this morning. Then post I wrote yesterday disappeared. As did my bookmarks, again, when I opened my browser. Is the universe telling me I should perhaps hang out somewhere else for awhile?

In any case, I do think it’s worth re-posting the link about the heartening customer service experience I recently had.

Now it’s off to errands: groceries, etc. Friends are coming for dinner tonight and I’m not inspired yet about a menu.

A Mindful Life / Kathryn Harper

express : discover : renew : create