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Tiny houses
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Feb 20, 2007
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This New York Times article is about tiny houses, which are defined as dwellings that are less than 750 square feet. The general idea is that more and more people are buying these almost miniature pre-made houses and setting them up on huge tracts of land. The purpose is twofold: To take the focus of the dwelling off the actual brick and mortar and put it on the land itself, and to whittle daily life down to a few very basic needs and desires. Some tiny houses are essentially designer-made, with Ikea furniture, laminate flooring, and recessed lighting. So the "nice things in life", like heat and a comfortable bed, can still be experienced. This whole idea fits in quite nicely with my desire to own land. #lifestyle
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Favorite color
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Feb 18, 2007
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Everyone has a favorite color. Mine is blue. Sort of. I like blue, but sometimes it doesn't make much sense to wear blue underwear and blue socks. It's more like I would rather have a shirt with some blue in it than one with some green in it.
But in practice, I don't only get things that are blue. I've gone through several phases throughout my life, the first one I remember being around 7th grade. I was into black, so I got black shoes and a black backpack. Things like that. Then all of a sudden, I decided black wasn't my color anymore, so I got into navy blue. This lasted for most of high school. Navy blue warmup pants. Navy blue soccer bag. Navy blue shorts. Everything was navy blue.
The older I get, the more significant I let my color choices be. Sometime in college, I was into red/maroon. I got a maroon notebook and a maroon hooded sweatshirt. I even died my hair red. Not red like RED, but more like a red tint. I look back on pictures of that and try to convince myself it's manly to have reddish hair.
My new favorite color is dark gray. I have lots of gray shirts. I just bought a gray notebook. One of the biggest purchases of my life, my car, is charcoal gray. My cat Nemo is dark gray. The color of a cat's fur is pretty permanent. I hope my interest in gray sticks around for a while. #lifestyle
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Athletic progression (1)
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Feb 18, 2007
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I used to be really athletic. And I used to be good at sports. Oh how my life has gone downhill. I can pinpoint the precise moment when I reached my prime in several different sports. With baseball, I was on a plateau from 4th grade through 6th grade. I was a pitcher, and I was apparently pretty good. I remember getting the game ball several times, and I pitched a zero- or one-hitter on more than one occasion. After 6th grade, my skill level actually decreased. With basketball, I'd have to say I reached my prime in around 6th grade, since this was before anyone took things seriously. After that, everyone got good, but I stayed at the same skill level. With soccer, I peaked in 9th and 10th grade. That was when my natural athletic ability provided exactly enough skill to make it look like I was good. After that, everyone started going to summer soccer camp and getting better, while my skills diminished.
It's actually kind of interesting how my athletic ability decreased whenever everyone else's increased. It's purely psychological. Whenever I saw everyone getting better, I would get more nervous and reserved. Any good athlete knows it's all about calmness and composure under pressure. That's exactly where I went wrong.
I also find it interesting that I was born with some natural athletic ability. I don't say this to brag; it's sort of a fact. I was always pretty good at sports, but I was never a major standout. I was good at jumping into a sport and quickly doing pretty well. But when it came right down to it, I wasn't all that good, so I would crack under pressure and fail to improve my skills over time. #sports
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Minced words
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Feb 16, 2007
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The state of Washington is charging a guy back-taxes and interest because he bought cigarettes online and didn't pay any tax on them (via Obscure Store). There's a cute little statement in the article that's casually passed off as fact: "Contraband cigarettes cost the state an estimated $200 million a year in lost revenue." Ooh, wow, that's a lot of money. It's a terrible shame the state is losing money, and especially because of those wretched smokers.
But if you stop and think about it for a second, that statement is total BS. Buying cigarettes online isn't "costing" the state any money at all. They're not "losing revenue". They're simply not getting what they think they deserve. The big bad government thinks they're owed money when citizens exchange money for goods. It's not like they're losing money every time a purchase is made. That's ridiculous logic, and it really gets me mad. It gets me one step closer to becoming a libertarian. And one step closer to moving to my own island. #psychology
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Horrible headline
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Feb 16, 2007
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This is the most depressing headline I've ever heard: "Lesson in life and death: pupils build dying teacher's coffin". A class of Dutch primary school children are building a coffin for their teacher who was diagnosed with cancer and has a short time left to live. "Hey Hans, wanna play on the swings at recess?" I can't. I have to finish cutting some wood for Mrs. Biggelaar's coffin. "Oh ... ok ... *awkward* ..."
(via Neatorama) #entertainment
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Chocolate after
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Feb 15, 2007
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I've been noticing that my body regularly craves chocolate after meals. Not just sugar or candy, but specifically chocolate. I'm not sure if this is a habit I somewhat willfully developed, or if there's an actual biological reason for it. I like to think that my body craves things for a reason, so I try to obey its desires. I don't know if there's any truth to that, but it can't be too wrong (that's a funny idea) because my body doesn't only crave chocolate. Sometimes it craves fruit, vegetables, or meat. This could all be in my head, but it's what I choose to sort of believe. I'm not sure if this chocolate craving has anything to do with my wife's connection to a major candy maker, but I'm hoping the two things are unrelated. God I love Twix. #food
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Kids and cell phones
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Feb 15, 2007
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All the kids these days have cell phones. Not even 10 years ago, cell phones were pretty uncommon. I guess when I was in high school, the cool things everybody had/wanted were (a) a car, (b) a beeper, or (c) an STD (kidding). I wonder what kids will be dying to have in 20 years from now, when my potential offspring will potentially be in high school (potentially). #technology
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Cat poop
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Feb 14, 2007
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With a title like "Cat poop", things can only go downhill from here.
My cat Dilbert was born with some sort of problem that makes him poop uncontrollably all over our house. It's probably something like irritable bowel syndrome or ulcerative colitis, and it basically gives him constant diarrhea, which he promptly spreads all over our house because he can't possibly get himself clean. It's good that we have hard wood floors, but it's not good that we have cloth couches and beds. We took him to the vet several times and gave him different types of medicine that's meant to get rid of worms. I even had to bring a fecal sample to the vet for testing. That was probably the pinnacle of my adult life: Scooping runny poop out of the litter box right after Dilbert went, and storing it in a little plastic container. Ah, how far I've made it in life. Unfortunately, none of the medicine worked, mainly because he doesn't have worms. I found a few similar stories online, but the problem was always fixed by some sort of medicine or change in food. We tried several different brands and types of food, but nothing really changed.
So to all those internet travelers out there who search for things like "runny cat poop", "liquid kitty feces", and "feline diarrhea", here's your answer: - Pray. I don't know if God cares about feline digestive systems or newly washed bedspreads, but I can't recommend a solution without mentioning that Dilbert's problems were solved after we prayed about it.
- Make your own food. There's probably a good reason why traditional cat food causes stomach problems, and it's likely something along the lines of it being over processed. So the solution is to make your own cat food. Using a crock pot, cook a concoction of water, ground turkey/chicken, brown rice, green beans, peas, and carrots, and stir it all into a big, ugly stew. After a few hours, the water boils off, and you're left with a pretty simple blend of normal cat food ingredients. The turkey or chicken meat make it low-fat, the rice provides fiber, and the vegetables provide some vitamins. I never knew cats liked vegetables, but not only do they love them, they like them even more when they're soaked in meat juice.
- Optionally buy Spot's Stew. Available at places like the Vitamin Shoppe, Spot's Stew is an all-natural cat food that basically contains all the ingredients in the make-it-yourself brew. This food is pretty expensive, so it's usually not financially feasible to feed this to your cats all the time. But for whatever reason, our cats would be more than willing to kill for it, so we mix some in with their homemade food on occasion.
If the exact ingredients in the homemade brew don't agree with your cat (or your cat doesn't agree with them), try something similar. Some cats have a pretty complex pallet. Corn didn't seem to go well in our case, and V8 (for the extra vitamins) worked for a little while but caused vomiting after a few weeks. Cats have very sensitive digestive systems, so small changes can have major results. #nature
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Main road
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Feb 14, 2007
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For the first 18 or so years of my life, I lived on a main road. It's probably not a main road in the eyes of city folk, but it's pretty heavily trafficked for that area. It connects two state roads, so it's basically a thru-street. I currently live on a non-main road. There are actually quite a few more houses and tons more people, but my road isn't on the way to anything, so there's really no reason anyone would go down it (better yet, up it) unless they lived on it. And this has taught me how awesome it is to live on a non-main road. My goal for the future is to own a house on an even less busy road, perhaps at the end of a culs-de-sac. Now that's what I'm talking about. #psychology
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