Community Service Jobs	Thursday, June 21, 2007 10:37:40 AM
Recent college graduates, including tens of thousands graduating this spring, are seeking community service jobs, where they can learn marketable skills while doing work they find meaningful. For many, it offers a chance to test out a career before settling into one. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20070613/college_transition.art.htm I wish I had done something like that when I graduated. Too bad I couldn't figure how to do it and stay afloat financially.
Tea	Wednesday, June 20, 2007 8:08:52 AM
I love tea. Mike always makes me a cup of tea in a travel mug on work days - just one of the millions of reasons why he is the best husband ever. And now that I have restocked up on my fave teas at work, life is good again. I tried buying oolang tea again on my latest tea run. I just don't like Chinese teas. Why do I keep trying them? True story - a couple of Thanksgivings ago, Mike and I were in the process of eating lots of leftovers. I made my first cup of lapsang souchong tea while Mike was making a ham sandwich with the leftover ham. ME: "Honey, please don't eat that. It is clearly gone bad. I can smell it in the living room." MIKE: "It isn't the ham. That smells fine." ME: "I really can smell something." MIKE: "Yeah. That is your tea." hahaha It seems like the Chinese teas are quite often fermented or smoked or things like that and I can't come to enjoy the taste of it. My favorite teas are from India and Sri Lanka (Ceylon). So, when I looked at the box of oolong tea and, besides being hella fun to say, they likened it to Dargeeling. I love Darjeeling tea, so I bought it, tried it, and didn't love it. Mike's world view is to find something you like and then never stray from it, so he can't understand this wasteful behaviour on my part. But, I might find the perfect tea that for some reason I've never tried before. So the quest continues every once in a while. I don't like the Grey teas very much (Earl or Lady) because they have citrus in them so you can't happily put in milk and what is the point of that? But, I do think that they taste very good and I use them for changes of pace. Ditto for most herbal teas. They are especially good when I don't feel well. So, my favorites (to keep bathering on) are English Breakfast, Darjeeling, Irish Breakfast, Assam, English Afternoon, plain old Lipton Orange Pekoe tea. The reason that I love English and Irish Breakfast teas so much is that Assam is probably my favorite tea, but it lacks some of the flavor elements that adding some of the Kenyan, Ceylon and Keemum teas does for the blends. Even though the English breakfast tastes a little smoother than the Irish breakfast blend, I like a kick with the Irish teas sometimes instead. OK, back to drinking my favorite teas and programming. :D
The Great Firewall	Wednesday, June 20, 2007 7:04:21 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/06/19/china.great.firewall.reut/index.html The Internet does make people wonder why they can't get to information. But, I believe that instead of pulling another Tiananmen Square, these people would just spend all of their time hacking around it. "Yeah, I just built a satellite in the basement. Hooking up to the 'real' internet now..."
The cost of hunger	Tuesday, June 19, 2007 11:28:33 AM
I had an interesting debate with my mom about the cost of having a death penalty instead of life imprisonment and how taking that off the table would save big bucks. (Interested in learning more? http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=108) This Washington Times article highlights another crazy stat with regard to hunger: Hunger in America leads to $90 billion a year in societal costs, such as mental-health problems that may arise when people miss too many meals, a study says. "We realize that there are some 35 million people in our country that are at risk of hunger or going hungry every day," said Stephen J. Brady, president of Sodexho Foundation, which commissioned the report, "The Economic Cost of Domestic Hunger." "It's important to inform the public debate and help the public understand that fact and put it into terms that are meaningful," he said. The report estimates that the nation spends $14.5 billion a year on charitable anti-hunger efforts, such as food banks, local feeding programs and volunteer expenses. It also calculates that $66.8 billion is spent each year fighting depression, anxiety and other aspects of poor health that can accompany food insecurity, as well as $9.2 billion caused by hunger-related school dropouts and absenteeism at work. The report concludes that boosting anti-hunger spending by an additional $10 billion to $12 billion a year is cost-effective and could even "virtually end hunger" in America. "We ought to debate this," said J. Larry Brown, founding director of the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University and lead author of the report, "because if we're right, we're spending far more by letting hunger exist than it would cost to end it."
Neat story	Tuesday, June 19, 2007 11:10:07 AM
Indian slum girl 'makes good' Most of the high-paying jobs in India's $50bn information technology industry go to India's privileged elite. But, with the help of her husband, one woman has managed to earn her university degree as well as a job at one of India's top IT companies. ....... Her husband is illiterate, earning his money as a street food hawker. He makes about two dollars a day. Six years ago, when Fatima was only 15, her parents took her out of school and arranged her marriage, a story common to many other young girls in her neighbourhood. Fatima had been a brilliant student and she thought her marriage to Shaikh Salary, her husband, would mean an end to her dreams of becoming an engineer. "When I said I wanted to be an engineer, my parents and others just dismissed my dreams," Fatima told Al Jazeera. "They said a girl from the slums could never get become an engineer or work for the big technology companies." But, she says, Salary was different. Fatima said: "When I told him about my dreams, he was very encouraging. He saved money from his meagre earnings to help me go to school and then to engineering college." Neat-o. One of the girls that Mike and I support is named Fatima. Hopefully, our Fatima will be able to go through school without anyone pressuring her to drop out.
h-mart	Wednesday, June 13, 2007 8:31:02 AM
I was chatting with my friend Josh today about food (like we do) and I was telling him how I really wanted to start cooking Thai and Indian food. I had been talking to my mom last week about how the people of my familial background in England are all now cooking Indian food since it is so popular there. Probably much like we cook Italian food in the US without thinking twice about it. But, since I didn't grow up cooking Asian foods, I have no idea which spices to use and how to buy them. I've taken an Indian cooking class to get over this spice issue, but it is a little intimidating to go to an Asian grocery store where nothing is in English and you have a limited idea of what you are looking for if it were in English. Michelle is a goddess in Asian grocery stores in NYC's Chinatown, but she also has lived in Thailand and worked in NYC's Chinatown, so I would give her a bit of experience with what to look for. Plus, in the stores in NYC, people practically knock you down and trample over you if you pause to look at something, so she has this great elbowing back move that keeps us safe. Josh offered to let me tag along with him and Soo the next time they went to the Korean grocery store in their area. I considered it very briefly since it would be fun to hang out with them on line for 40 minutes waiting to checkout. But, I think that I am going to take myself off to the H-Mart that is in the next town and get over myself. Maybe even this weekend. And then I will cook myself up a big pot of Thai green curry chicken and celebrate. :)
this make so much more sense	Tuesday, June 12, 2007 7:05:46 AM
This morning, I am listening to Rachael Yamagata on my iPod. "Worn Me Down" came on for the second time and I just realized that I have been singing "worn me down like a rose" instead of the actual "worn me down like a road". What a dork. That makes so much more sense. :)
this old house (or cherry juice is my new advil)	Monday, June 11, 2007 9:22:46 AM
This weekend, Mike and I weren't able to work on the house on Saturday since Mike fixed Alex's computer for him and we brought it back to NJ for him and had dinner with Becky, Lia and Brandon. I saw Lia and Brandon in March, but Mike hadn't seen them since Christmas and was astounded at how much they had grown. So, Sunday I was going to scrape and paint the whole bathroom, but forgot that I really like to tape up the paint chips and such so didn't have a color choice by Sunday. Plus, the more I looked at the bathroom, the more I realized that this room will not be an easy chore to scrape down since we might have more wood paneling on one wall. Damn the 60's or whenever wood paneling was in vogue. So, I turned my attention to the mold on the siding and our overfilling gutters. I love our pine tree, but seriously! This is the second time we've cleaned them in about 4 months. Poor Mike was roped into the quest and, as a couple, we ended the half day of work (since we had church until around 1pm) with a mown lawn, clean gutters, raked lawn (since our trees are shedding again), sparkling siding, and then clean concrete in various areas. (Once I built the power washer, I was having too much fun and needed to clean some steps.) And, we only made one trip to Lowes and one trip to Home Depot to get everything done. :) So, that much manual labor in that much time kind of stressed my back a little bit. I'm looking forward to Thursday when I had a 90 minute massage scheduled. Ordinarily, I would be taking tons of Advil for this back pain, but since I'm on prescription stuff that scares me with its warnings, I can't take anything. About 2-3 weeks ago, my boss was telling me all about organic tart cherry juice and how it helps her tendinitis and bursitis and she brought in a bottle of it for me to try. I've been drinking it in the mornings (far away from the nighttime prescription stuff) and it does seem to make a difference, although that might be the placebo effect. So, today, I brought in a water bottle full of cherry juice and am hoping that it does the trick. *fingers crossed* Here's some info about tart/sour cherry juice if you are interested. I thought it was something that people made up, but it seems to be a thing. http://www.allaboutarthritis.com/ http://www.sciencenews.org/ http://ezinearticles.com/
history	Monday, June 11, 2007 9:05:31 AM
I don't care if this is true or not, but it completely cracked me up. http://a1.vox.com/6a00d4142880b93c7f00d414258429685e-pi I'm sure that young Peter claimed that this was "his story" and he is sticking to it. :)
Think before you eat	Thursday, June 07, 2007 7:35:51 PM
This evening after work, Mike and I arrived home and I noticed some wild strawberries in our front yard. I was super excited because we had wild strawberries in one of our houses while I was growing up and they were the most wonderful berries that I've ever eaten. Mike was planning on cutting the lawn, so I started gathering up all of the strawberries that I could find before they became compost. After I had more than one hand full and asked Mike for a container, he decided to wait until Saturday to cut the grass so the berries could ripen a bit more. I went to the kitchen and washed off my handful of berries. I offered one to Mike and then popped one into my mouth. hmmm. That didn't taste right. I ate another. That also didn't taste right. These were bland and basically didn't taste like anything. At the same time, Mike commented on how the berries had a different texture than regular strawberries. Wait. Are these wild strawberries? Before you eat one, let's figure out if I need to go to the hospital to get my stomach pumped. Luckily, Mike's search found that I actually ate a couple of mock strawberries which are not poisonous (although noxious weeds gave me a bit of a scare in the article). So, Mike ate one too to try them out. I'll let you know if we survive tomorrow. :) Later on, we decided to combine exercise with food and briskly walked the 1.5 miles to our favorite Thai restaurant and then the 1.5 miles home again. Summer has arrived. Besides the fake strawberries, we saw our first lightning bugs and bats of the season. Love it.
Maternity benefits part 2	Thursday, June 07, 2007 6:56:06 AM
Here is a really great article about the dilemma from US News and World Report. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-07-26-maternity-leave_x.htm Across the border in Vancouver, Canada, Suzanne Dobson is back at work after 14 months of paid maternity leave. "It was great," she says. "I was still making pretty good money for being at home." Across the ocean, in Sweden, Magnus Larsson is looking forward to splitting 16 months of parental leave at 80% pay with his girlfriend. They are expecting their first baby in a week. With little public debate, the United States has chosen a radically different approach to maternity leave than the rest of the developed world. The United States and Australia are the only industrialized countries that don't provide paid leave for new mothers nationally, though there are exceptions in some U.S. states. Australian mothers have it better, however, with one year of job-protected leave. The U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act provides for 12 weeks of job-protected leave, but it only covers those who work for larger companies. To put it another way, out of 168 nations in a Harvard University study last year, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave, leaving the United States in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland. Geez.
Maternity benefits	Thursday, June 07, 2007 6:42:51 AM
First off, I am not pregnant and Mike and I haven't started planning for a family as yet. However, I have been thinking a lot about maternity benefits and the lack thereof lately. My company offers absolutely no maternity benefits. So, thanks to the federal government's FMLA, I can take 12 weeks of unpaid leave and keep my job, but that is all of the "benefit" that I have. My company also doesn't offer short term disability (aka pseudo-maternity benefits), but they give you a company that has not signed up with them in any way to apply for short term disability and I thought I would try it out this year, just in case. (12 weeks without pay is doable, but a little scary at the same time since you still have to pay for medical benefits and such and would have a negative pay during that time.) I was sadly turned down because I visit a chiropractor every other week. WTF??? TISNF. So, I think about Europe and Canada and how they have great maternity leave benefits. I think about my friends who have full time jobs and kids in daycare and how all of the amazingly sparse 2 weeks of vacation that our company gives us goes to staying with the kids when they get sent home sick from daycare. I usually have GMA on in the mornings as a "Crap! I'm late again!" sort of reminder. (If Sam Champion does the weather twice, I'm going to be late.) Today, they had this story on about corporate benefits in Japan. The baby bonus is policy at Softbank, which bills itself as Japan's most family-friendly company. At the company, employees are encouraged to take more time off to be with their children and work at home when they need to. And then there are the baby bonuses, which range from $400 for a first child to up to $40,000 for a fifth child. Wow. I wonder when our "family-values" culture in the US will start to figure out that "employees [should be] encouraged to take more time off to be with their children and work at home when they need to" (solve those pesky daycare dilemmas and let people actually take a vacation) and let women decide to have a family without heading back to work right after they deliver the baby so they can make rent. Mike and I are lucky, but I imagine that most people aren't able to take 12 weeks of unpaid leave off.
Trinity-like	Monday, June 04, 2007 5:34:12 AM
When we moved into our house, Mike listed a preference for having blinds instead of long curtains since most of our windows have a radiator underneath them. I wanted them to be pretty, so we compromised on Savannah Roman shades from JC Penny's. This was perfect for the vast majority of our windows, but not for the bay window in our dining room. That window is made up of a normal-sized window in the center and then two 19" wide windows on either side of the center window. The smallest width Roman shade that they made was 23". They had an option of having a custom-made window shade, but they only offered that in really bland colors that Mike and I decided against. We could get them tailored, but that would have been pretty expensive. So, my plan was as follows: (1) Buy the 23" shades (2) Buy a sewing machine (3) Learn to sew (4) Cut down the curtains by 4" and sew (5) Enjoy! Mike was a little wary of this plan, but he went along with it. This weekend we had planned on doing nothing but vege about the place after our very successful Memorial Day party. (hmm. Forgot to blog about that one. In case I continue to forget, it was very cool.) Mike ended up having to work all weekend, so I decided that I would pull out the sewing machine and curtains that we bought and then figure out how to sew. A couple of hours later, I was sewing away on the test fabric that I had bought and trying out most of the 60 stitches that the sewing machine came out with. Mike said I reminded him of Trinity from the Matrix and somehow had downloaded a sewing program. I told him it was like a power tool. Just had to read the directions and practice a bit. He didn't seem to believe me, but it is true. By Sunday night, I had successfully cut the curtains down and had lovely 19" Roman shades to let Mike hang up. They actually work and everything. It is very cool. And, this Sunday was Trinity Sunday at church, so that gave me a laugh at church. Now that I have a sewing machine and all of these skills, I have to figure out how to use them for good. We'll see. :D
Sudan Strikes Back	Friday, June 01, 2007 12:48:14 PM
I just had to sign in and share this with the three people who read my blog. Denying Genocide in Darfur -- and Americans Their Coca-Cola Excerpt - please note that "Khartoum Karl" is a nickname given by the writer to John Ukec Lueth Ukec, the Sudanese ambassador to Washington What's more, the good and peaceful leaders of Sudan were prepared to retaliate massively: They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola. "I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola. A reporter asked if Sudan was threatening to "stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world." "I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this," Khartoum Karl warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. "But I don't want to go that way." As diplomatic threats go, that one gets high points for creativity: Try to stop the killings in Darfur, and we'll take away your Coca-Cola. Sadly, I wonder if that would cause so much outrage that we'd invade. Americans probably drink as much cola as they use gasoline.
Dr Rubenstein	Thursday, May 24, 2007 7:37:42 AM
As many of you know, I've had back issues for at least 8 years. Usually it is down to a dull roar, but every once in a while, I'll badly tweak it and then will be out of work and not a happy camper for a really long time. Technically, I'm still pretty happy-go-lucky and hide it well from the average person. But, my hubby is well above average and always seems to know. :) I've tried massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, Chinese medicine, physical therapy, yoga, Pilates, ballet, and visited an orthopedic surgeon 8 years ago. Everything helps a little bit, but it never got completely better. So, my friend Jeff had shoulder surgery a couple of years ago by Dr Rubenstein of Lankenau hospital. He is one of the top doctors in the area for shoulders, so Mike has been encouraging me for at least two years now to go to him and see what he could do. After one of the worst back tweaks about two months ago that hasn't gotten any better, I finally broke down and decided to see him. I couldn't raise my right arm or turn my head since the muscles there were so knotted. Since that is never the worst spot, I was worried that I hurt something in yoga. I promised Mike I would call on April 30th, figuring that they wouldn't have an appointment for a month or so. The very nice lady on the phone said "You know what? We just had a cancellation. Can you come in tomorrow at 8am?" hahaha So, after meeting with all of the very gracious and friendly staff in his office, I met Dr Rubenstein. He looks like he could fit in very well with the cast of Grey's Anatomy (seriously - here is one of the PR pictures for his office: http://www.mainlinehealth.org/wwl/pdfs/masterful.pdf) and was also very gracious and friendly. He said that this was one of the most common back injuries that they see in young women 14-40 (yay! I'm still young), but that it is never seen in women 50-80, so he wouldn't recommend surgery. *whew* I wasn't a fan of that option. He sent me off to get an MRI just to make sure and gave me a cortisone injection. He also gave me some tips for my massage therapist to try out as a possibility to help me out. I had my MRI and went to see my massage therapist Tara. I told her what he had suggested - to massage my back while I'm lying on my side. (Dr Rubenstein said that when people lay on their stomachs, the back muscles get flat and hard and it is difficult to get at the muscles that are hurting for this particular injury.) She tried it out and seriously it was a completely awesome moment for both of us. It hurt, but was a good sore afterward on the correct muscles. That alone was a terrific result. I went back for the results of the MRI and will not need surgery. I have tendinitis and bursitis in my right arm and shoulder respectively and I didn't fully catch the proper name of what is going on with my back. I just have to take Mobic (an NAID) for a month and see what happens. I can keep exercising and working on the house and all of the other active things that I do and just rest and ice it if I tweak something. And, if in two months, things aren't better, then I'll get another injection. I like having a plan and knowing that I was doing all of the right things before I had seen him. It makes me feel a lot better. :) PS - Apparently my eyes will have perfect vision when I'm 50 and my back will be 100% better when I'm 50. It is nice to have something to look forward to. ;)