"I’m moved" – both physically and mentally. With the generous [paid] help of three college kids, everything from the rental is  now at the farmhouse. I have done two loads of laundry and enjoyed a rain shower in the wetroom and now I am looking out over an acre of weeds and scrub brush. Funny how completely mundane tasks can be momentarily seen as rewards.

I’m sure it will wear off soon <grin>

I may have a lot going on but I still find excitement and awe in some of the most simple things like a thunderstorm, the sound of bees, wheat fields, or a hawk soaring on a thermal.

I enjoy watching my morning espresso nearly as much as drinking it (although watching it does not help me wake up any faster).

music courtesy Vielfaure at audiomicro.com.

Hey again. This started as a letter to a friend of mine who will be headed this way in a few weeks …

I was about to call it a night and a mash of things took place. I was brushing my teeth and thinking; “when he arrives, should I tell him that the evening news is downloaded and watched at 9:30pm, the living room lights go off at 9:45pm, video streaming and computers start to shut off at 10pm, the hallway lights comes at 9:55pm and off by 10:15pm and then things start up automatically again in the morning with the computers waking up at 6am, the lights in the bedroom by 6:20 and in the office at 6:45am so on”. Then there is the fact that the drafty old farmhouse thermostat is set at 62 because much more is like watching money fly out the windows.

In the midst of all of this, something else hit me, a Beatles tune. I couldn’t even figure out which one. So I scrolled through the few Beatles songs on the iPod …because it’s obviously after 10pm and the majority of computer systems have already shut down. I didn’t find the one that I was thinking of but I hit “Dear Prudence” followed by “Eleanor Rigby”, “I am the Walrus”, and so on. It was cool.

Are we getting old ?

My routine is more routine and yet I don’t really mind it. My taste in music may be all over the map and yet I have discovered that the music of the 60’s was actually pretty good and there are even a bunch of stuff from the 70’s to discover. (I am still sane enough to not talk about the 80’s). Freddy Mercury was talented. Early Stones had less wrinkles. Frank actually could sing before he got the aura of a high class mob king pin.

Houses were stamped from cookies cutters. Fences where white. and streets were safe for playing stick ball and riding bikes. The president got in trouble. NASA went up in flames. Peace was in jeopardy. Politics became a chess (or pawn) game. Gas prices went through the roof. The war was unpopular. Japanese cars were king. The divide grew between the haves and the have nots. New drugs were highly desirable and the makers were criminal. TV was flexing its control over the ever more malliable consumer. There was talk of [the] U2 . The power of equality was spoken of in small towns across America.

They say everything that is old is new again. Are we getting old ? You tell me. I’m having a senior moment and don’t really care.

It seems only fitting to pay respect to the art and artistry over at RTTC and the Rosarium for not only showing some very beautiful pieces of art, but also sharing the knowledge on how they are created.

I took it upon myself to attempt to understand how the Mala is made the best way to understand a thing is to undertake that thing. Thus, I am ready to present my attempt at making a few Malas.

The Mal in the upper left corner is 12mm Old Palmwood. I made this for someone with larger hands or less dexterity. The others are (clockwise) Nangka, tiger ebony, black ebony, rosewood, and another Nangka wood.

A few of these have carved beads for the Guru bead. The tassels are all made using pearl cotton.

I have enlisted “family” to make Mala bags. The black ebony Mala has already been paired with its bag and whisked off to a new home. They others will venture out into the world soon <sigh>.

I came across an interesting article about an alarm clock …

About 3 months ago I bought a new clock radio. Last night, I found that I needed to use the alarm for the first time. So I looked at all the buttons, took a wild guess as to how to set the alarm, and managed to change the correct time to the wrong time. But failed to set the alarm.

So I searched the web and found a copy of the user manual. After following the instructions, I successfully set the alarm so that it would ring at 5:30am on every weekend morning for the rest of my life. But I still couldn?t set the alarm to ring the next day.

The solution? I went to a 24 hour pharmacy, bought an alarm clock for $5.99, plugged it in, and pushed the button labeled “set alarm.”

Source: What An Alarm Clock Can Teach Us About Online Collaboration

The article goes on to compare the lessons of the alarm clock to collaboration tools. I would say it applies to just about everything. I too have a radio with an alarm feature. I’ve never used the alarm feature although I did try once.

The alarm clock example fits a lot of things in our daily lives – cars, cell phones, iPods, software, digital cameras, kitchen appliances, lawn equipment …. the list is endless given a consumerist society. It’s not going to change. Manufacturers will compete on features, not ease of use. Buyers will buy “this one” over “that one” because it has one more option. And given the uneducated option, people always want “more” not “less”.

I as guilty as the next person. I’ll need to work on that … just as soon as I figure out how to shut the alarm clock off on my iPod !