Lost Camera-Land

I ran across this article on CNN.com this morning and thought in case you missed it, it deserves the widest dissemination possible. If you’ve ever lost a camera you know the heartbreak, and if you’ve ever found one, you know the mystery that stops you from just tossing it and forgetting about it. My friend Judy took a holiday in England this past April, and sadly left her camera behind in a taxi, and never found it before returning to the States. Maybe someone will eventually find this site and at least return the SD card. Cameras can be replaced, the photos are another matter. Come to think of it, I think I have an old camera that my boys brought home from a Boy Scout trip, and we never did find out who it belonged to. It’s an old instamatic, and I think still has a roll of film in it. I’ll guess I’ll get it developed and send in a couple shots and see what happens.

If the link on CNN goes away, the blog is at I Found Your Camera . Take a look through and see if you recognize anyone. One of the posters to the blog commented that they were now going to start putting little stickers on their SD memory cards with “ifoundyourcamera.com” on them. Not a bad idea.

Comfort Words

Maya Angelou said, “Some critics will write: ‘Maya Angelou is a natural writer’ – which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.”

I find this incredibly encouraging. Writing is hard work. At least good writing is. It looks effortless, which I suppose is why there are so many people trying to get published. Some of my favorite writing advice has been “Plant butt in chair.” I gotta say, I love that feeling when I get rolling on something, and I hit the “zone” where the words and ideas come almost faster than I can get them down. I suppose I’d have more experiences like this if I was able to follow the PBiC rule more often.

What other good writing advice is there? Heinlein’s Rules for Writing, which he freely gave out, went thusly:

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

Robert J. Sawyer, the Canadian science fiction author, has a great take on these on his page , plus adding a sixth rule of his own. Rule #2 is often the most daunting. It’s easier to get something started than to keep it rolling. If I could get past that I might get a chance to try following the rest of the rules.

I struggle most with finding inspiration. I know, I know, I can’t wait for the muse to arrive, I have to Plant Butt in Chair and just write. One of the things that gets me going is reading, especially good writing. I’m still in a Jane Austen haze. Actually, reading good writing can backfire sometimes. If it’s that good, I feel a bit discouraged and think “why should I bother when I know I’ll never write that well?” I guess I bother because I can’t not.

Portland Pride

My obsession (I have been officially labeled “obsessed”) with biking continues. I prefer to think of it as passionate. I’ve started bringing in toiletries and leaving them at work in preparation for beginning my bike commute. I’ve commandeered a locker in one of the bathrooms at work with showers (we have 3 locations that I know of with showers, although the nicest shower facilities are in a different building than the one I work in). The lockers are technically for day use only, but until someone screams I plan to keep my stuff there. Most of them never get used so I don’t think it will be an issue any time soon.

I still haven’t worked out where to drop the car for the day, but I haven’t given up. I’ll figure something out, although it may turn out to be a longer ride than I was hoping for. Initially I thought I’d only be biking about 10 miles each way, but now, after mapping out a possible alternate drop location and route it’s looking like it will be closer to just over 12 miles each way. Wow, just think of all the calories I’ll burn!  Not to mention the gas I’ll save.

One of my new favorite Web sites is Commute by Bike. It’s a gold-mine of information on commuting and riding in general. If you’re interested in starting to commute by bike, be sure to check out their Commuting 101 section. There are articles and discussions, even helpful videos. Today I ran across this bike-friendly cities on their site and was very proud to see Portland at the top of the list (as I suspected they would be) for North America. Ok, I don’t technically live in Portland, I’m in a suburb roughly sixteen miles west of it. There are of course nay-sayers here, people who feel the cyclists have “ruined” the city (as one commenter said on another web site) but for the most part I think Portlanders accept the bikes. I’ve only been honked at twice, flipped off once by people I can only describe as the Clampetts, although I’m sure some of the cars that have passed me would have liked to say or do something. Of course, these incidents were while I was out on recreational/training rides, not during rush hour in town. We’ll see how that goes. Every single day I see more and more bicyclists, and as I sit in my car, stalled in traffic, getting passed by someone on a bike my resolve to bike commute grows. I need more clothes to ride in, and decide how I want to carry my office clothes, and other things I’ll need (lunch, etc.). Panniers, or back pack? I may try the backpack for now, still need to get a rack for the car to carry the bike to the drop point. I plan to get the car rack this weekend, so that’ll be one thing down.

16 Tons

Some days it is so hard to sit at my desk at work, and just force myself to stay here. I want to get up and run away, run outside, go do something that feels useful, creative. I have projects at home I’d like to work on, others I’d like to start, and there’s just not enough time. I don’t feel useful here. I’m like a babysitter, or den mother. I do all the little crappy things that no one else will do (arrange catering, shipping, order supplies). We have people leaving, so I’m picking up tasks that I don’t want, spreadsheets and charts and Access database stuff that I’m not really qualified to do. I just keep wondering if it’s time to move on. I know no job is perfect, and this is better than the last place, much much better. My boss is great, if it wasn’t for him I think I would have bailed by now. But now with all the new duties I’m taking on, my chain of command is becoming a little muddled. The woman I’m taking stuff over from worked for other people, and now I think those guys will assume I work for them. Maybe if this was a high-level “career” kind of position it might be worth fighting over. But at this level I’m mostly disposable, if I grumble about stuff or try to affect things, they will most likely just replace me.

I just wonder how many people are truly happy in their jobs? Another woman who works here is looking, actively, for another job. She’s fed up with her boss and the way she’s treated. Is it too much to expect to want to be treated with some respect?

Organic Reaction

So the other day, my dear friend MJ put up a post on her blog about natural, homemade cleaning products, as a response to the pseudo “environmentally friendly” products on the market, which really aren’t. This is something that has been on my mind a great deal, as it probably has for many people. I am tired of wearing one of the white masks over my nose and mouth to spray on the shower ‘n tub cleaner, first making sure that all windows and doors in the house are open to provide adequate ventilation, only to run out of the bathroom coughing anyway from the fumes. MJ’s recipe for an all-purpose, non-toxic cleaner (1/2 borax, ½ baking soda, mixed with a natural soap like Murphy’s Oil Soap, or other castile soap-based liquids until it’s the consistency of frosting) worked like a charm, taking off the soap scum and water spots even from the glass shower doors. Now I’m mixing up white vinegar and water to clean the kitchen, and adding a smidge of dish soap for an effective veggie cleaner.

But my biggest concern for some time now has been bath products, and shampoos. The commercially available chemical-laden shampoos should come with a skull and crossbones on the label. We dump an amazing amount of dangerous, carcinogenic chemicals over our heads every day in the shower. Here’s a disturbing article from a few years back in the New York Times, republished on the Organic Consumer Association’s Web site. Things that claim to be “organic” and “natural” are not, and no one oversees or regulates the use of those terms. Here’s a short excerpt of the article:

“Most people don’t monitor their hair products as vigorously as they do their pasta sauce, of course, for the obvious reason that they don’t eat their
styling gel. But the skin, scalp and hair are remarkably efficient at
absorbing toxins and carcinogens. A group of researchers at Stanford
University in 1999 found they could deliver a DNA vaccine to laboratory mice
as effectively by rubbing it on their skin as injecting it into muscle.
In fact, some toxins can do more harm absorbed through the skin than through
the digestive system because they lodge directly in fat cells, bypassing the
liver, said Dr. Rangan”

I read on another site a long time ago (and have no idea now what the site was) that if you wouldn’t eat the product, you shouldn’t be using it on your body. We all know that if we get certain chemicals on our skin, such as many herbicides and lawn care products, we need to wash it off immediately as it can be absorbed into the body. Why then do we blithely pour things like cocamide DEA (a hormone-disrupting, potential carcinogen according to Green Living Now) over our heads? Bleah. Time to make my own shampoo. I found this recipe on PioneerThinking.com, and it sounds wonderful but I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. There’s also an herb known as soap wort that can be used in place of the castile soap to get the sudsing action.

So, I think it’s time to try something a little easier on my head. Sorry for all the links, but I like to give credit where it’s due and don’t want anyone to think the information contained in the articles is my own research or recipes.