This is Old-Tjikko. Its 9000 years old. The oldest tree in the world. Its in Sweden.

I heard about this story about 1000 olive trees being destroyed in Hebron this week. http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=588500 Since I don’t understand what the heck is going on overthere I don’t have a political view or religious view about it. Its just wrong. I just found out that olive trees can live 2000 years, long beyond the matters of the people around them. So why?

I was watching a program earlier in the week about the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001 by the Taliban in Afghanistan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan The whole program was about how defacing of symbols is used as a weapon. Someone referred to it like this, “you can destroy art, but the image if the idea in the mind of the viewer is permanent”. http://www.betnahrain.org/glossary/art/assyrian_art_and_artist.htm

The defacing of sacred spaces goes on and on. Even if the space is a private sacred space, when its changed it makes us feel a loss of power. A teacher told me about a program in their school where the “Kupuna” or elders were telling the kids about the places in Hawaii that they considered important to their childhoods. Most of the places were gone, so what used to be a beach was now a parking lot with a strip mall. Maybe they left the trees standing when they bulldozed and maybe thats why they should. Found this link to a film about La’ie and this little video show how those small stories and little small places matter. kupunainteractive.com

We should be more thoughtful of trees. 1 month ago

Found this wonderful post about a flashmob that played “Here Comes the Sun” in an unemployment office in Spain. So simple yet just that moment of hope will always be in my heart. http://www.onbeing.org/blog/spanish-flash-mob-performs-here-comes-sun-unemployment-office-video/4992 4 months ago

Holy Crap is that place unreal. I hadn’t been there since the early 1980’s. There is just so much wrong that you can’t even list it all. Went for my nephews wedding and was really happy to meet up with relatives. The weirdest part for me was the feeling that all of the buildings were made of papermache. I was pretty overwhelmed by the water waste. Seems like they have drained all the ranch water from the Eastern part of the state and now are eyeing draining the Ruby Mountains. jerks. 8 months ago

I unfriended someone on FB today because I just got sick of their political and spiritual views.

This was a gargantuan action for me because I’ve prided myself on fooling the FB algorhythms by actually being friends with the most diverse group of people I could imagine. I actually really do like massively diverse opinions so I’m not a total smuck.

But, the straw that broke the camels back was a stupid Obama Solyndra meme. I just couldn’t take the hate anymore. I grew up in the same church and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t all about hate and judgement nonstop every day.

Sorry. I gotta have more love in my life. 9 months ago

I went over to FB this evening and discovered that I had accidentally connected it to 43things and my posts were getting added to my page. Disconnected everything and deleted everything I could find. darn it. 10 months ago

I just watched this video over and over. What the heck were they doing?

http://gizmodo.com/5933843/you-wont-believe-what-this-gopro-camera-captured-underwater?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow 10 months ago

There was a Disability Awareness/Pride parade last weekend in our little downtown. People in wheelchairs everywhere and a long line of Handivans in the parking lot to transport the participants.

Needed to make a deposit so I ran over to the bank. I used to work in a technology access program in an office that shares the bank building 20 years ago. As I ran to make a deposit I noticed a woman in a wheelchair making a deposit. A memory flashed of a woman that came to visit me in that office 20 years ago with plans for accessible ATM’s.

In that moment I thought, “Isn’t it great that there is an accessible ATM here. That ADA really worked. That womans vision came true”. Then I looked at the wall and realized that all the ATM’s were accessible! Mentioned it to the teller and he pointed out that they even have accessible teller desks now.

I was feeling pretty good about the whole ADA thing then this story about people with disabilities sueing Walmart to get accessible point of sale machines was in the paper. More work to do.
http://walmart.corpfreespeech.com/wal-mart-sued-over-atm-access-for-disabled 10 months ago

The closing segment of tonights NBC nightly news by Brian Williams had a very funny piece about the changes in laws in NYC about super zized drinks, transfats, and pot. It was something about being able to get stoned, eat a dozen doughnuts, but get possibly violate the law by trying to “wash it down with a super size mountain dew”. nice… 12 months ago

Many nights before I go to bed I say, “please show me the answer in a dream”. I think those answers are often there but then as I awake they disappear. I try to hold the images for long enough to write them in my journal.

Sometimes the dreams are mixed with unresolved pain or memories that morph into what I’d prefer the memory to be. There like being transported into the future that is what you wish the past to be. Its better than reimagining the past. Its a dream thing that I can’t yet describe.

My dream last night was that in desperation, the director of the childrens museum that I used to work at asked us all to design exhibits for the children. The designs would be used to upgrade the exhibits and keep the place alive and interesting. This was an ongoing hope that I had when I worked there but it wasn’t the way it worked. Thats the mix of healing and revision that dreams offer.

But when I woke up I managed to capture some of the ideas. Its probably from all the pinterest kids stuff I’ve been collecting but it was fun anyway.

So what I dreamed about was an early learning word family rhyming room. It was sort of like a carnival but each of the booths was integrated with whatever the root….ack, ain, ake, ale, all, ame, an, ank, ap, ash, at, ate, aw ay, eat, ell, est, ice, ick, ide, ight, ill, in, ine, ing, ink, ip, it, ock, oke, op, ore, ot, uck ,ug, ump, unk ( found this at http://www.enchantedlearning.com/rhymes/wordfamilies/ )

So it went like this in my dream…
-air….. hair, how a bout something that blows their hair. It should have a farriswheel….
-all…. ball pit, no ball wall, no ball wall and fall… a ball pit with a wall that you can put the balls and and then make them fall
-at cat bat, no you can’t do that its mean to cats, bats are scary…

then I woke up… but it wouldn’t stop… so now I’m going to put it on my blog.. The images are in my head but I did manage to sketch some quickly. Need to learn to watercolor paint the dream ones…

my brain… 15 months ago

Sometimes I like to think I can laugh at why things happen because they are sort of ironic. So here is the story.

On Friday night my SO and his brother got into a huge philosophical “discussion” about whether the amazing complexity of the universe could possibly be designed that way. It wasn’t actually a anti-evolution intelligent design vs darwinistic everything is a matter of natural selection argument but it sort of was. Anyway the feathers were flying and the absolutism of one of the parties just was a direct challenge to the universe to create a bit of comedy for me.

I don’t claim to know the truth. I don’t disbelieve anything and I respect that some people don’t believe there is anything beyond the current life. Some do. I don’t know, can’t know, wouldn’t argue my point but I’m always willing to listen to whatever anyone believes and sort of wonder why they believe that so much. I really like to hear from people who have had those near death experiences.

So a couple of hours after all of that, my SO’s tummy started hurting. Got worse until Sunday they had to take out his appendix. Now I kinda like to imagine that these things have some secret message. Like maybe, “life is short so figure this out”.

I like to think of it as a sort of a push in the pool by the universe to a human. “Oh, so you don’t believe in God? Well lets see what a little brush with death does for you then…” and then splash.

Of course, this is all in my imagination. But it makes me happy to think things happen for a reason. Its a lot easier than relying on “we don’t know why the appendix actually exists and sometimes things just go wrong with it” or as Louise Hay would say its caused by “Fear. fear of life and blocking the good”.

Some things make you go hmmmm 16 months ago

This really funny video was posted online by a couple of guys in a boat off the west side of Oahu this week. http://youtu.be/okUstGOVF5Y Its really funny pidgen talk. I love the very way they are reacting to that situation. I mean, what would you say if this big shark was trying to get your 300lb marlin and bite your boat?

So funny. 17 months ago

Found this amazing photographer named Chris Jordon that makes photos of things in quantities that represent something. I love this one. http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn/#barbie-dolls

_Barbie Dolls, 2008 60×80”
Depicts 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006._

As you zoom in on the photo you can see the little pinwheels of barbies, floating like syncronized swimmers in “Neptunes Daughter”. Esther williams herself could go swimming through the mess along the surgical lines and it would all be so appropriate.

The appropriation of Barbies in this piece is amazing. It allows you to really see the connection between the body form, the skin color, the texture or the barbie and what it represents. Awesome art. 17 months ago

Funny photo entry from a blog entitled “This Is What Happens When Barbie Dolls Turn Into Meth Heads” about photographer Carrie Becker installation “Barbie Trashes Her Dreamhouse”
http://gizmodo.com/5872389/this-is-what-happens-when-barbie-dolls-turn-into-meth-heads

I came home after a “restful” vacation after finishing a semester of traveling and my desk looks like these photos. I thought, “I’m not a hoarder”. Especially since I had spent time at my daughters house watching a bunch of episodes of the show and tsk, tsking . But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

So despite my goal of starting the year off on a good foot, I can’t because I have to kick my way across the floor through boxes and bags. The healthy tasks of the new year are not yet to start. It’s the story of my life. Can’t get ahead of the bills, need to clean before I organize, can’t even go for a walk with the boyfriend because I have to sit here and write this before I forget.

So I think that next year I’m going to make a better plan. I’m going to get ready for all my new goals before I start them. I’ll get the workout clothes, clean the house, stock the pantry.

This is just not inspiring where I am right now. 17 months ago

There was a huge fire in Reno yesterday. We have relatives that lived in the neighborhood that was on fire. It was suppose to snow but the storm was delayed and preceeded by a hefty Nevada style wind. The flames were unstoppable and 21 houses were destroyed and 10,000 evacuated in 12 hours.

The neighborhood was old Reno. Homes of the sucessful from years gone by. So many widows, just left with the house of memories. Then in a few hours even that had changed. Another death, another loss and just as traumatic probably as the loss of a spouse.

Of those we knew, one lost her home, one barely escaped and one waited inside, unable to leave the items that had been collected in her lifetime.

We worried about her all day. I thought about her things. I judged. I thought about their value. Which would she save. She is an artist and a collector. Some things were masterpieces and some so deeply meaningful to her that she couldn’t have left them. The flames were literally at her doorstep.

I’d imagined some frantic attempt by her able bodied sons and grandkids to rescue the items that meant so much to her. Maybe trucks and even a moving van being packed up. The realization of what was of value to their family history and the sudden awareness of what its loss might mean would be a call to action. Instead, she sat with a friend and waited, pretty much abandoned except for one good grandson and the frantic long distance phone calls of the reasonable granddaughter imploring her to save her lungs.

Was it a pact with those objects, those memories that kept her there? A room of paint brushes, a half completed canvas in the corner, and the inspirational photos from her travels were in a smoke filled studio were her companions now. She’d raised the children, been the dutiful wife, patiently waited for her painters life. Maybe there’s something I don’t understand yet that comes with age and loyalty.

The fire is out today. There is aftermath. The story I have in my head of what really happened, what could have happened is in my broken heart. 19 months ago

I’m tracking all the wonderful stories of how the deadlines for the end of the world are being missed. There are a bunch of predictions for this week. Its just glorious.

First of all Nov. 5 was suppose to be an end, especially for banks. All that move your account stuff was suppose to bring down the financial system. I’m glad its having an effect but as my daughter points out, those credit unions aren’t FDIC insured and our memories of the Savings and Loan crisis are short. There were two huge earthquake predictions; Stuart Wilde predicted a massive quake in San Francisco http://www.stuartwilde.com/ but in his defense, it might be on Nov. 8 Of course there were quakes in Oklahoma but those are due to fracking.

Nov. 9, Richard Hoagland is predicting that YU55 will hit the moon. http://theintelhub.com/2011/11/01/richard-hoagland-yu55-will-likely-hit-the-moon-on-november-9th/ This is a really special prediction. He implies that its not a natural asteroid but something else. Its suppose to pass by Nov. 8 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45064085/?ocid=ansmsnbc11 The best conspiracy has a bit of scientific theory woven in. Yes, there will be a giant asteroid passing near earth.

Of course if you look further onto the RH site, you’ll see that Glen Beck supposedly gave a coded message on this program that the world is going to be taken over by the New World Order in the next 15 days. Looked for the headlines on the GB site and didn’t see it. Of course it is coded in there somewhere. Had to leave the site, eyes were burning.

All this brouhaha is being stirred up by the planned FEMA and PACWAVE11 tsunami drill and takeovers on Nov.9 or whenever. http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1308/973/Massive_Tsunami_Drill_Coincides_With_Continent_Killer_Asteroids_Close_Pass_Nov._9.html Just so you know, there is a planned long test of the emergency broadcast system on Nov. 9 at 2pmEST http://www.fema.gov/eastest/. Now, its all over the conspiracy blogs so you just have to know its a total 3 minute, ummm, three minutes. But its sorta funny that they had a statewide earthquake drill in California on Oct. 20 and then there was a 4.2 quake in Berkley four hours later.

So the sun decided to participate and shot out a massive flare on Nov. 3. http://www.space.com/13513-scary-sunspot-massive-fireworks-rock-sun.html. It takes a couple of days to the get hit by the energy. Could knock out the grid but probably won’t. Maybe just Facebook.

And if we live past all of that, then there is 11-11-2011. There are tons of great ideas about that. Just look on youtube. Too many to even list. Hopefully the idea that the new age and a new divine age of enlightenment will happen is correct. Positive evolution is good. Just think positive at 11:11 whatever time zone you are in.

Just updating my massive following to the upcoming changes this week. 19 months ago

I just had an interesting thought concerning all those novel writers who “participate in nanowrimo 2011” or any year. All the characters are really the lost souls of Halloween, left wandering after the holidays, pagan and christian that open the door for them.

There is a reason this happens in November, this “nanowrimo”.

The writer is a puppet. Characters are souls left to wander until some unknowing writer points a pen in their direction. They get sucked through the top and flow through as ink or maybe they materialize as pixelated light on a computer screen. They are reborn. They tell their story again, work out their unfinished business.

I feel so connected to an alternate reality now. 19 months ago

Watching Pixar shorts and got a kick out the story “Geri’s Game”. Its about an elderly man playing a chess game against himself. Its such an interesting idea. Keeping ones mind sharp but does he know? 19 months ago

Just checked and there was a 7.6mag quake in the Kermadic Island just now. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usb0006b6p.php

Well. 20 months ago

I woke this morning to really painful hips. It was light outside so I knew that the showers of fire had probably not hit yet. No glow of red in the sky.

My boyfriend hooked me with his arm as I attempted to leave the bed. He always does this. Usually I lie in bed for a while while realizing that a desperate need to pee. The urge to “go” overcomes my need to stay warm and comfortable. Finally, I make a move at the last possible moment to avoid peeing in the bed and every time, he hooks me with his arm. As he snuggles close I say, “I have to pee” in desperation. I don’t know why I do this every day but thats the way it is.

So He and I had not been raptured. This was totally expected.

Next, I checked for other people. Well, after peeing of course. It was an ominously overcast morning. I looked through the front window and NOTHING, no dog walkers, no coffee drinking phone talkers, nobody. It was sorta spooky. I watched for what was becoming an uncomfortably long time. Was it possible that we were the last humans left? Could it be that most of those neighbors were really much more pious that I suspected and now the statistics had proven themselves. He and I were some of the few non-believers that were left. The grey sky and sidewalk were just a precursor to some terrible grey future where all things were grey like in “The Road”.

Finally, a blue truck drove by. I looked really hard at the driver to make sure he didn’t look like someone evil, like a character from “Mad Max”. He wasn’t wearing a viking horned helmet. Suddenly a toyota sped by in the other direction. A middle aged asian lady was driving while talking on her phone. Evil yes, but probably wouldn’t cause one to suffer eternal damnation.

I felt a bit of relief. At least we weren’t alone.

I made coffee. Water came from the faucet so the pumps were still working, and there was electricity so the Mr. Coffee was still working. In the next few moment I convinced myself that A. The proported 9/21 apocolypse has not yet occured because the deadline was prior to dawn. B. The two earthquakes yesterday had not been precursors to the “big one” that we slept through. C. The non-occurance of the “big one” prior to dawn made it not part of the end times series of events.

I still hadn’t checked the world quake list! Ran to my computer. Clicked on the icon for IE(yes, I’m that much of a jerk – using IE instead of Firefox ). Typed in latest and my world map appeared. Great, no Massive red or blue boxes. No quakes of major consequence.

So I decided that maybe I should celebrate yet another day. Came to 43 things and there were 21 cheers in my box. I was graced with ample time and reason to start my day being good to others.

Blessed be. 20 months ago

Have been following end of world predictions for years. Tomorrow is one of the days! According to my calculations there may be about 10 hours left. Watched the funny video by those Taiwanese guys that animate news stories and gee I hope fire doesn’t rain down on us, especially me because I’m mocking someones religious belief. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/19/harold-camping-reschedules-end-of-world_n_1020077.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009

Several end of world dates are on the calendar in the next couple of months; Tomorrow (Oct. 21 (Harold Camping), Oct. 28(the real Mayan end of Calendar), Nov. 11(magical date), Nov. 22( another 3 days of darkness since the one on Sept. 28 didn’t happen), then some calm until the biggie, Dec. 21, 2012.

I have some stuff to get done this evening. I will try to enjoy the remaining time. Should do my math homework. I might light a candle and meditate just in case. i might go through my “alphabet of photos” collection and see if there is a hidden message. Thought it would be nice to post a cheerful photo here.

Not planning to go hog wild and excessive though. It would be nice to have a warm c.chip cookie and some milk before bed in case you know, we don’t wake up tomorrow. Might take warm nice shower just in case there is some reason we don’t get any more, like civilization collapses. 20 months ago

http://www.fastcompany.com/1788302/ken-dumps-barbie-leading-mattel-to-rethink-its-rainforest-rkelationship 20 months ago

I was in a math class yesterday when my daughter texted me that Steve Jobs had passed away. The news in Silicon Valley has been playing lots of tributes to him. I decided to drive over to the Cupertino Campus and take a photo of the memorial. There were many people standing quietly, taking pictures of the flags at half mast with their iPhones, collecting video with their iPads, and reflecting.

I was listening to his talk at the Stanford commencement as I was driving over and learned why he dropped out of college and how it changed him. He said “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” He said lots of very powerful things in that speech. Its worth listening to and thinking about. He will be missed. 20 months ago

We had a baby shower for my youngest daughter in Reno on Sunday. I invited other family members to “attend” online by Skyping in. One of my daughters in Hawaii sent me this link today to a neat Ted talk about virtual shared experience. I thought all you music and tech lovers out there would enjoy it. http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_whitacre_a_virtual_choir_2_000_voices_strong.html You may have already seen it but here it is again.

I found it really significant that the composer grew up in rural Nevada. Being geographically isolated as a kid certainly effects your outlook and creativity. Technology enables community.

The other thing that I think we all realize, is that virtual community is real. How many times over the years has someone inferred that because since we haven’t physically met other list members in person that we aren’t “real friends”. This music reminds me that its about our souls coming together. Its why I have a virtual farm on farmville. Not to make pictures but to help each of my farmville friends with their crops.

Art will evolve our thinking about virtual community. 21 months ago

A 24hour online event started about an hour ago to help people understand climate change. People from all around the globe are talking about the local effects. http://www.takepart.com/article/2011/09/14/fight-climate-change-fiction-settled-science-watch-al-gores-24-hours-reality-now

Just letting folks know. 21 months ago

Aboriginal StarSeeds http://binged.it/n3wLPF . I need to read much more about the Aboriginal belief systems. Never have studied them and now seems like the time I’m suppose to.

Went to a political play in the park the other night put on by the San Francisco Mime Troupe entitled “2012 The Musical”. It was this wonderful comedy musical about a small theater group trying to survive without taking corporate donations. The audience were all liberal Palo Alto people much older than me and in a higher social class which made it wonderfully surreal. It was about how illusions are created and used for political and finacial gain. The whole 2012 armegeddon was sort of identified as a fear inducing distraction to keep people from believing that they should do something about climate change. One of the dance numbers was Jesus, Nostradamus, and a Mayan priest doing the Armeggedon boggie. http://youtu.be/Hm4-pWTpqZQ

Sometimes I get lazy about learning about other world views. 21 months ago

Really nice video of calming chants, poetry and images. http://vimeo.com/6518109 22 months ago

The FB stroll down memory lane regained strength for several hours and then was stalled again by an emerging flame war about whether or not someone had the right to retell a terrible incident with names and the word rape included.

I still don’t know the right thing to say. I gave my “don’t talk stink” lecture. One or two people seem to think its OK to talk about certain characters, not realizing that those people have families. Its a matter of being compassionate and polite. If you aren’t in a forum for nasty rumor mongering, if you’re writing about good memories and lots of people show up and want to do the same, then the classy, dare I say, thing to do is shut up. OK, I’m venting.

Anyway, it is much easier to talk freely among perfect strangers on 43things than people you barely knew in a small town you haven’t lived in for 35 years. 22 months ago

I grew up in a very strange small town. For the last few days there has been a weird facebook thread of people posting memories of what it means to be from that town. I’m doing a full on download of memories. I’ll never be able to come up with a good internet security answer after this but I don’t care. Its so fun to release all these memories and have others reflect back even more. i should go to a class reunion or something but never can.

It makes me laugh. Others laugh with me. Its a good thing. 22 months ago

Found at the local coffee shop. It seemed like a great 43things inside joke. I can’t remember if I posted it already or not. 22 months ago