The C(ol)a(u)s(u)al Fans

Mike and Zuzka found themselves in New Orleans last night, as part of their cross-country trip, and dove right into the party.  Thanks for the photos and videos Z (including this one).

It’s not an igloo, okay

What is this abominable snowball?   It’s a quinzhee, or a snow shelter made by hollowing out piled snow.  Yesterday we made an 6′ x 6′ (height/rad.) pile of snow in our back yard, and over the night the snow hardened.  This morning we collected sticks and broke them into 14” sections and inserted them randomly all over the quinzhee.  Then the fun part, we borrowed a camp shovel from a friend and started hollowing out the quinzhee, careful to stop when we hit the tip of the sticks poking into the pile.  Using this approach guaranteed that the wall would be ~14” thick.  We made 3 air vents, and a bench the rings the inside.  The whole excavation process took about 2 hrs. Viola.  We are going to have a quinzhee party to celebrate, so come by some night soon before it melts.

SUPERBOWL XVIIDXS: My HYPE is better

Image by DawnVGilmorePhotography via Flickr

This is it.  The day we’ve all been waiting for– when non-sports media outlets shamelessly use the Superbowl to attract attention to their products.

I’m using my Superbowl blog headlines to raise awareness for a prescription-strength, over the counter blood pressured medicine (Thrombomax)  you should ask your doctor about.  I get $1 every click on this link, and 50% of each dollar goes to your local charity. (Think about which charity you would like me to donate to, and report back during the half-time web survey challenge.   Also, take a moment to review the drug indications and make sure you buy at least 5 bottles at once, because the FDA is planning to take Thrombomax off the market soon!  Hurry while supplies last.

Seriously, lets not forget that today is all about the game. Get your Sony TV fired up, turn on the Webber  grill, buy some pizza from Dominos, take 8 Thromobomax and have a good time.  Wahoo, go Saints!

carrot juice

Here is a homemade hangover remedy that really helped with my ‘dark-and-stormy’ night of rum drinking.  Anybody have other remedies for hangovers?

• grate 2 carrots
• grate 1 apple
• grate 2 tsp ginger
• add 1 c water
• add 1 Tbsp agave nectar
• blend in blender, then strain through cheese cloth
• chase with 2 ibuprofen

What’s the magic in Dr. Bronner’s soap?

“We are ALL-ONE or NONE!  ALL-ONE!  ALL-ONE!” chants Dr. Bronner into a cassette recorder, over-top of a Strauss waltz, pounding his palm on a wooden desk to the syncopated beat of his saying… “ALL-ONE, ALL-ONE, ALL-ONE.”

Slightly crazy, blind and charismatic, Dr. Bronner, a 7-th generation soap-maker and German Jewish immigrant produced one amazing product and used that product to advertise his moral imperative to millions of people.  If you’ve every used Dr. Bronner’s soap, you’d recognize the overzealous 8-font type that lines each bottle.   His main slogan, “All-One,” is borrowed from the Shema Yisrael, a Torah passage that reads, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”   My interpretation is that we all live in the world together, and have the opportunity to love and respect all people and animals and microbes!

Tonight we watched a documentary film about his life, his soap, and his family, which is a complete whirl-wind adventure into the mind of an outsider artist in the highest degree.   A very entertaining film that will probably keep us buying this soap for years to come.  They have a 5:1 salary cap for all vested employees, donate 75% of net, post-production revenue to charities, and are  probably the first  company to produce 100% organic, fair-trade cosmetics.  I found it impressive that they buy fair-trade olive oil from  Palestinians, Jewish Israelis, and Christian Israelis all living in a 10 mi radius of each other– as an example of the commonality and aspirations all people share.

Sometimes the idea of corporate responsibility scares me, because it implies that if not said explicitly that corporations are free to act irresponsibly.  In Dr. Bronner’s case, his life-work and the common thread of their company is living responsibly with the world, which a worthy cause to support.