Here’s a nice little tidbit for all you Clutter Bugs out there who are feeling overwhelmed with all the piles of stuff everywhere. I’m going to keep it short and simple as pac-rats tend to be anything but.
Help! I’m buried under a plethora of paper!
The concept of Decluttering is based on the theory that clutter drains both physical and mental energy.
Decluttering involves two components:
This can be accomplished by one, being present in the now and not daydreaming while surmising your environment, and two, by enlisting the help of a friend or family member in cleaning out.
For serious cases, there are even professionals who you can hire to get your space cleared out. Your sanity will thank you and your productivity and creativity will expand.
This is a good illustration of one reason why health insurance is so screwed up.
Ok, I don’t need a string of comments telling me the obvious, WHAT IF? CATASTROPHE Stuck and I had some serious medical bills.
But this goes along with one reason why I went for some 15+ years without paying for health insurance. Youth and health on my side coupled with healthy lifestyle choices kept me out of the doctors offices and hospitals for all those years.
Like I pointed out in a previous post, it should be called Disease Management and Potential Catastophe Insurance and not Health Insurance. The lifestyle choices I make are more aptly named insurance than any silly policy I can pay for.
Now here’s my rant.
I received my year in review report from blue cross today and i had a total of $1700 in bills for health care for 2009
BCBS only paid $500 and I had to pay $250 out of pocket. This doesn’t include the $2600 I paid in premiums.
So, if I could convince the labs and doctors to let me pay the same negotiated amounts that they get if it went thru insurance then I would have only been out $750 dollars last year.
And even if I had to pay the full amount, I would’ve paid $1700
Instead, because I have health insurance, I had to pay out of pocket, $2850. . .
or about $1150 more than if I had none even possibly $2100 in savings if I could pay only what they get from insurance/co-pay.
Tell me again WHY I have health insurance????
I am going to look into catastrophic health insurance as an alternative and switch to that if it is cost effective.
Vertical Farming, or more definitive, Vertical Hydroponic Organic Urban Farming is coming to a town near you. Or it should be, in my opinion. Yes, I know I’ve been on a farming bender lately with my blog, but hey, after air and water, food is pretty important to staying alive.
Even though I currently reside in a condo and don’t currently fancy myself possessing a green thumb unless it’s from paint, thanks to my mother and grandfather et al, I’ve got farmer’s blood in me. And it is true that I’ve always been into quality food, health and nutrition.
Before I get into the cool pics and advantages of Vertical Farming, I need to bring up something else about our relationship with . . .
Now of course, this ties in directly to the elephant in the room many people try to avoid confronting. And that is the horrendously unhealthy typical American diet and its catastrophic effect on the out-of-control health care in this country. Wait, we’re still calling this Health Care? More like Disease Management.
It’s the quality of food we eat – mostly processed and devoid of enzymes and basic nutrients in adequate levels. It’s the quantity too – most of us eat way too much food, much of it garbage.
It’s also when we eat. Too many people skip breakfast or think a cup of joe is a sufficient breakfast. This is followed by eating the biggest meal of the day at dinnertime – often much too late in the evening.
Finally, lack of quality fresh food, effective, bio-available nutritional supplements, and eating while under time stress and other stresses creates the inability to absorb and digest what we DO end up shoving in our mouths.
There are a myriad of ‘pie in the sky’ artist conceptions and designs.
Perhaps a smaller model would be more easily created in a shorter amount of time.
Here’s a few interesting ideas:
As the world’s population has already surpassed 6 billion and billions more on the way, before we know it the traditional soil-based farming model developed over the last 12,000 years will no longer be a sustainable option.
Irrigation of crops uses 70 percent of the fresh water that we use. The excess agricultural runoff, contaminated with silt, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, is unfit for reuse.
VF food production will take advantage of hydroponic and aeroponic technologies. Both methods are soil-free. Hydroponics allows us to grow plants in a water-and-nutrient solution, while aeroponics grows them in a nutrient-laden mist. These methods use far less water than conventional cultivation techniques, in some cases as much as 90 percent less.
For every indoor acre farmed, some 10 to 20 outdoor acres of farmland can return to their original ecological state (mostly hardwood forest).
A vertical farm will behave like a functional ecosystem, in which waste is recycled and the water used in hydroponics and aeroponics is recaptured by dehumidification and used over and over again. The technologies needed to create a vertical farm are currently being used in controlled-environment agriculture facilities but have not been integrated into a seamless source of food production in urban high-rise buildings.
High rises aren’t the only structures that could house vertical farms. Farms of various sizes and crop yields could be built into a variety of urban settings — from schools, restaurants and hospitals to the upper floors of apartment complexes. By supplying a continuous quantity of fresh vegetables and fruits to city dwellers, these farms will help combat health problems, like Type II diabetes and obesity.
Vertical farming can finally put an end to agricultural runoff, a major source of water pollution.
City dwellers will also be able to breathe easier – literally. Vertical farms will bring a great concentration of plants into cities. These plants will absorb carbon dioxide produced by automobile emissions and give off oxygen in return
One estimate for proof of concept: constructing a five-story farm, taking up one-eighth of a square city block, will cost $20 million to $30 million.
An actual indoor farm developed at Cornell University growing hydroponic lettuce was able to produce as many as 68 heads per square foot per year. At a retail price in New York of up to $2.50 a head for hydroponic lettuce, you can see how profitable this and other similar crops can be.
Learn more about Vertical Farming @ http://www.verticalfarm.com/
my friend’s mama always said, and I paraphrase,
Soap is cheap. No excuse for not being clean
But most soaps and traditional shampoos are actually quite harsh for the skin and hair.
That’s why I love to use Wen hair conditioner products. They are amazing.
A former girlfriend of mine introduced me to this fantastic product.
Wen Fig 32oz
There are several types – not to be used based on your nose’s preference but rather the type of hair you have.
For fine and medium hair the proper choices are Lavender, Cucumber Aloe, or Sweet Almond Mint.
If you have medium coarse or ethnic hair then Fig, Lavender or Tea Tree are your best bets.
She gave me the Fig conditioner to try and I have to say, I didn’t think I’d like the scent, but after using it I find I do. Plus it feels great working it into your scalp. That’s the key to using hair products I found out. To get rid of dirt and balance the scalp’s oils, you need to work your fingers down in there. And when it comes to conditioning the hair, the ends need it the most.
I really like that Wen is a very natural product that has no sodium laurel sulfate which is pretty much in most all shampoos and body soaps on the market today. Sure, they get you clean but they are WAY to harsh on the skin and hair.
What the company says:
WEN is designed to eliminate shampoo and its harsh and damaging effects, without sacrificing the integrity and beauty of your hair. WEN is the only cleanser/conditioner you will need to use in your daily routine, and can be used as often as necessary.
Fig Cleansing Conditioner is a universal cleanser which, due to its rich, dense consistency, works exceptionally well to moisturize, hydrate and replenish dry, heat-damaged, color-treated, or dehydrated hair. This cleansing conditioner is free of sodium laurel sulfates and detergents, and cleanses without lathering or stripping the scalp or hair of natural moisture.
Due to the harsh detergents and sodium laurel/laureth sulfates found in most all shampoos, they would experience color fading/stripping, dull, lifeless, frizzy, dry hair, dry scalps, oily scalps, scalp disorders, hair loss, etc., damaging their scalp, hair, health and environment. That was when I started to implement my new concept in cleansing, eliminating the detergents and harsh chemicals that lather and strip your scalp and hair, and introduced the WEN product line to the world.
Learn more about the specifics
http://www.chazdean.com/t-aboutwen.aspx
Back in August of 2009 I was visiting Santa Fe, New Mexico with a friend and we stopped by the new Farmer’s Market at the old Railyard. They have a special train that comes up from Albequerque every Saturday.
The Santa Fe farmer’s market is one of the top 10 farmer’s markets in the US. It was quite impressive to visit. Plenty of variety of foods, fruits, veggies, herbs, crafts, bakery goods.
There’s also an adjoining Artist’s Market next to the park – hey, this is Santa Fe – home of more artists per capita than any place I’ve been – and I should add, not just run of the mill art or south western art but stuff that comes from California to New York, Europe, Asia and beyond.
Inside one of the buildings I noticed these posters on the wall talking about this Slow Money concept. You can click on the gallery pictures to read the gist of it. I also wrote out the main parts below.
Santa Fe Farmers Market in the Railyard – sept 9-11, 2009
Since late 2008, thousands of Americans in dozens of cities and towns have participated in the launch of the slow money movement. Is it the beginning of the nurture capital industry? A new vision of seed capital?
Join thought leaders, entrepreneurs, investors,donors, farmers and activists for Slow Money’s inaugural national gathering, bringing together people from across the country, and also featuring a focus on New Mexico’s regional food system.
Let’s fix America’s economy ‘from the ground up’ . . . starting with local food.
LEARN MORE @ http://www.SlowMoneyAlliance.org
This is possibly not as crazy as it sounds. Granted, the notion of devoting valuable city land to agriculture would be unfathomable in New York, London, or Tokyo. But Detroit is a special case. The city that was once the fourth largest in the country and served as a symbol of America’s industrial might has lately assumed a new role: North American poster child for the global phenomenon of shrinking postindustrial cities.
Nearly 2 million people used to live in Detroit. Fewer than 900,000 remain. Even if, unlikely as it seems, the auto industry were to rebound dramatically and the U.S. economy were to come roaring back tomorrow, no one — not even the proudest civic boosters — imagines that the worst is over. “Detroit will probably be a city of 700,000 people when it’s all said and done,” says Doug Rothwell, CEO of Business Leaders for Michigan. “The big challenge is, What do you do with a population of 700,000 in a geography that can accommodate three times that much?”
Whatever the answer is, whenever it comes, it won’t be predicated on a return to past glory. “We have to be realistic,” says George Jackson, CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. (DEGC). “This is not about trying to re-create something. We’re not a world-class city.”
If not world class, then what? A regional financial center? That’s already Chicago, and to a lesser extent Minneapolis. A biotech hub? Boston and San Diego are way out in front. Some think Detroit has a future in TV and movies, but Hollywood is skeptical. (”Best incentives in the country,” one producer says. “Worst crew.”) How about high tech and green manufacturing? Possibly, given the engineering and manufacturing talent that remains.
But still there’s the problem of what to do with the city’s enormous amount of abandoned land, conservatively estimated at 40 square miles in a sprawling metropolis whose 139-square-mile footprint is easily bigger than San Francisco, Boston, and Manhattan combined. If you let it revert to nature, you abandon all hope of productive use. If you turn it over to parks and recreation, you add costs to an overburdened city government that can’t afford to teach its children, police its streets, or maintain the infrastructure it already has.
Faced with those facts, a growing number of policymakers and urban planners have begun to endorse farming as a solution. Former HUD secretary Henry Cisneros, now chairman of CityView, a private equity firm that invests in urban development, is familiar with Detroit’s land problem. He says he’s in favor of “other uses that engage human beings in their maintenance, such as urban agriculture.” After studying the city’s options at the request of civic leaders, the American Institute of Architects came to this conclusion in a recent report: “Detroit is particularly well suited to become a pioneer in urban agriculture at a commercial scale.”
And I would add, this is a great opportunity to explore the potential of vertical hydroponic farming models – even though they point out that there is plenty of land – horizontally speaking. But that shouldn’t be a reason to ignore future tech.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE
I love gum. Or I used to. Back before they ruined them all. Or so I thought they did.
Except for those 25 cent gum balls that you can find in the malls and shops – you know, the ones that loose their flavor in under 60 seconds or second rate Double Bubble that is popular around Halloween, or bubble gums with unpalatable and bizarre new flavors, I’m left with nothing to chew that won’t poison my body and rot my brain.
Yes, I read labels dammit. And one by one, all the major gums have switched to the DARK SIDE and put that fucking nutra sweet aspartame shit into their bits of inedible chewing wax.
As a kid I remember looking forward to getting a piece of Bazooka bubble gum when my dad would take us kids for a haircut at the local barbershop. Sure, that Bazooka gum was hard as rocks and the cartoon on the wrappers was lame, but nevertheless, we looked forward to our reward for a job well done – that being managing to sit still while getting our hair chopped.
Then there was the time when I was visiting my grandparents on Long Island as a kid where there was still an old Woolworth’s five and dime that was within walking distance from their house. I remember buying this bubble gum that was like a foot long for just a quarter. I imagined I was going to get into the Guiness Book Of World Records for World’s biggest bubble blown and this gum was going to be my vehicle to success.
Oh sure, Hubba Bubba, Bubblicious and Bubble Yum were fun to chew back in the days when I didn’t have to shave and the taste buds in the back of my mouth [inside the cheeks] hadn’t worn away yet, but now it seems like they are my only option today if I want to chew some gum without getting sick. But the urge to blow a bubble is too great and I don’t want to deal with the issues of getting it off my face.
In high school I moved onto more mature chewing pleasure in the form of chain chewing Dentyne cinnamon flavored gum. I preferred it over Wrigley’s Big Red as tasting more natural, also I thought it kept my breath fresh. Plus the rush of the cinnamon burn was an unrealized precursor to my love affair with hot sauces and wasabi.
Later I would move to Wrigley’s gums [minus Big Red] until one day I noticed they had made the switch to the Dark Side as well.
WTF? Can’t ONE company keep making it the old, simple way with just sugar? I figured it was either an aspartame infiltration conspiracy or maybe it was just plain cheaper than using sugar.
Just like the majority of major chocolate makers are using more and more crap in their ingredients. At least with chocolate, there’s plenty of available natural and organic options. And boy do they taste great! But I digress…
fresh-en up bubble gum
One gum that I hadn’t seen in years and figured it was a casualty of the gum wars, was a gum called Fresh-en Up gum. Fresh-en Up came in a square pack of 6 or 7 pieces in a variety of flavors like bubble gum, spearmint, cinnamon and peppermint. But what made this gum really fun was it’s liquid center ‘bursting with flavor’ goo. Chew time wasn’t the best, but it was a softer chew than most and it was different – it had style for a gum and gave you a broader experience … like Pop Rocks do for candy.
Chicklets was another fun sounding gum. Though even as a kid, I never really cared for the microscopic pieces in those little bags. A better gum in my opinion was Beechies. Beechies came in spearmint and peppermint gum that came 2 pieces to a box.
Beechies Gum 2lb Bag
Well, after a quick search on Google, I come to find out that both Beechies and Fresh-en Up live on to this day and can be had for a reasonable price… so long as you are willing to buy in bulk. Hey, no problem. Gum keeps for a really LONG time. Most important, they still make their gums with the ingredients they always have. NO artificial sweeteners to melt my brain.
You can buy Beechies Gum here.
And Fresh-en Up Gum here.
Based on some of these predictions, I think a few of these future jobs are ready to go right now. . . like virtual clutter organizer and personal brander – heck, who couldn’t use that service now?
And in my optimistic opinion, I think with the fast rate of advancement with various technologies today, many of these predictions may come true much sooner, like say, 2020.
*****
Not so long ago ambitious youngsters dreamed of becoming doctors, teachers and lawyers. But it seems the toddlers of today will be clamouring for a job in altogether more unusual fields.
Among the most popular professions in 2030 will be body-part maker, according to Government-commissioned research.
The role will use advances in stem cell technology and prosthetics to create replacements for damaged, diseased and worn-out body parts.
Other occupations of 2030 include memory augmentation surgeons, who will boost the brain’s storage capacity, and space architects, who will design accommodation on the Moon and even further afield.
Advances in science and technology mean they are all likely to be part of everyday life within two decades, according to trend analysts from the Fast Future consultancy.
Other future professions include personal branders, who help others look more interesting when using social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and Twitter.
If it all goes wrong, there will be social ‘networking’ workers – social workers trained to help those traumatised or marginalised by their computer addiction.
Virtual clutter organisers, meanwhile, will help us organise our electronic lives.
With Virgin Galactic and other companies pioneering space tourism, space pilots, tour guides and architects are predicted to be in high demand, as are those working on underwater and flying cars.
Jobs as climate change reversal specialists – engineers and scientists who try to reduce or reverse the effects of global warning – are also expected to get a flood of applications, the researchers said.
Weather modification police – who control advances in science that allow us to trigger rainfall – and ‘new science’ ethicists will help keep the scientific advances in check.
The big bucks, however, will come from memory augmentation surgery, virtual law and nano-medicine – the use of tiny particles in drugs and medical devices.
Other growth areas include vertical farming, in which lack of space means crops are cultivated in urban high-rises or ‘farm-scrapers’.
Another popular role will be that of narrow-caster, who tailors the TV footage streamed into your home from hundreds of available channels.
But, just like today, the work of the future will not be all fun.
The least exciting jobs include quarantine enforcers, who will prevent the spread of disease, and waste data handlers who will stop us from being tracked by cyber-criminals.
Today’s Pick: Shaklee’s Performance Sports Drink
My Favorite - The Big Can - 70+ servings
When it comes to staying hydrated and rehydrating, nothing else comes close. As a personal observation, an added benefit seems to be quick available energy that keeps you going long after you think you’d be spent.*
I like to buy it in the Performance Team Pack size to save a few bucks, plus it lasts for quite a while. Lately I’ve been sticking with the Lemon-Lime flavor, but I like to mix it up and switch to the Orange now and then. I tried mixing the two together half and half but found it didn’t really taste as good as each on their own.
A few years ago, I just bought a Trikke 8 and finally figured out how to make it go. So being the over achiever I am, I decided I would conquer the entire Pinellas Trail - 34+ miles from end to end running the length of Pinellas County with the addition of a few extensions which of course I had to do. [Note to self: share embarrassing story of Trikke 8 experiences]
I mixed up a double dose in a 20 oz water bottle, grabbed a few granola bars and set out on the Pinellas Trail for the first leg of what would be several different sessions to finish it.
Mind you, I had not been doing much cardio at all prior to taking this on. Sipping on the Performance, I managed to go almost 5 hours and wasn’t even tired or sore. Not even the next day. I couldn’t believe I went that long and far without paying for it later.
I really like the fact that Shaklee doesn’t put crap [chemicals, artificial colors/sweeteners/additives] in any of their products, so you know you are getting the best there is. Chalk up another glowing testimonial to the power of Shaklee, lol! I tell you, this stuff works!
The smaller can of Performance makes 19 servings @ 100 calories per.
*Independent peer reviewed and accepted published research has proves this to be true.
I’m a fan of Jack Canfield. His books like [Success Principles] may seem a bit fluffy to some, but there’s a wealth of wisdom to be discovered.
On a recent call with Alex Mandossian hosting (as usual), Jack went over some good topics to start the new year off right.
Seems lately that I’ve been hearing the phrase, LIFE IS SHORT, quite a bit. We’ve all been saying it feels like time is speeding up each year – which may very well be the case if you believe the frequency of the earth has been increasing from 7.8Hz to 13Hz by 2012.
Nevertheless, Jack posed the question, How Do You Want To Be Remembered? What legacy do you wish to leave for future generations?
Do you want to change and enrich people’s lives? Do you want to know that because what you did, you enriched another’s life?
Food for thought. As my subtitle of my blog states, design your life. Think of how many free days you are going to have instead of how many hours a week or day you plan on working. Self employed entrepreneurs know what I mean. We don’t have a set schedule like you do in a job.
Yes, I know, thinking of how much time you AREN’T going to work may sound counterproductive and lazy, but really, it’s working smart.
In order to create more free days, you need to avoid burn out while increasing productivity. Here’s a few ideas that will help:
Meet others outside your field – people can give you new insights, ways of thinking and you’ll be exposed to new opportunities.
Set your goals in an environment away from your home. Why? Because we tend to be habituated in our way of thinking when we are in our usual environment.
We are less likely to think outside the cube. Did someone say vacation? Seriously, think about how many times you’ve been on a vacation and came back with a whole new perspective on things? I bet it’s happened more than once or twice.
