Another Concert Night

Debbie and I went to a concert at a local church last night to listen to this guy. It was fun, although I must be getting too old because the music was too loud.

The interesting part is that he is currently biking across the United States from Los Angeles to Boston to raise money for The James Fund. So you have someone who, I think it is safe to say, isn't exactly a household name on the Contemporary Christian Music scene, yet is donating 100% of tickets sales from his concerts, merchandise sales, and web site sales to The James Fund, plus takes up a free-will offering at every event that also 100% goes to The James Fund. This all started on May 7th and not counting whatever came in last night, he has already raised over $39,000. One week. One guy. He plans to do this for approximately three months.

Thought experiment: what if every person in the United States that claims to be a follower of Jesus devoted 1/4 of their income for one year to helping widows and orphans? Not just sending few bucks for new shoes or some old clothes from the back of your closet, but sending serious cash that can change a life.

Homework for our Christian readers:

1. List all the excuses why doing this is impossible for you, even as someone who most likely lives on even less than you do is doing it.

2. Reconcile the above list with the teachings of Jesus in the gospels.

More Inconvenient Truths for Al Gore

This site is written by another dissenter in the IPCC ranks. Another ignored dissenter, of course. "All credible scientists agree" is only true if you define "credible" as "agrees with me."

It's very simple: we don't need more global bureaucratic shin-digs. We need data. We need models that can "predict" today's climate based on the climate 100 years ago. We can have that for less money than we pour into the sands of Iraq in a month.

Of course, even if Uncle Al is right, what then? And don't tell me to go buy a Prius, which has lower fuel economy combined with less passenger and cargo space than a 1970 VW diesel Rabbit. Not to mention a much larger total ecological footprint from manufacture through disposal (engine and motor, not just an engine; giant NiMH battery, etc.). And don't talk to me about Kyoto, which is nothing but a prescription for the destruction of every Western economy, while exempting places like China, with one-quarter of the world's population. If sacrifice is necessary, I'm not against doing my part, but don't ask me to destroy the economy of the US while giving a pass to a country with an order of magnitude greater population. That is ten kinds of stupid.

Dry, Dry, and DRY!

Well, they were right about one thing: it's a dry heat. It beats Michigan's humidity, but I still wouldn't call it pleasant. Today, the humidity in the ceramics area (they have to track the humidity because it affects the manufacturing process) was 7%. You don't sweat; instead, you can actually feel the moisture being sucked out of your skin. I'm putting down nearly 2 gallons of water a day and still couldn't spit, even if someone offered me $100.

Hot, Hot, and HOT!

This week has been unusually hot for this time of year in this area. When we came back from Michigan it got up to 85 that Tuesday and then it steadily got hotter. So far the high for the week here was 94.5. We hear from the locals that it doesn't usually get this hot until June.

Happy Mothers Day to all the Moms out there. (Especially to my Mom!)

Brains? What Brains?

Fred is once again making waves by stating the painfully obvious.

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

Going, Going, GONE!!!

We have officially survived our first (and hopefully last) real estate auction. We were hoping for 300K, but we didn't quite make it. But we got enough to pay off everyone (including ourselves) and still have a nice little cushion sitting nice and safe in a money market account somewhere.

Three months of preparation, and it was all over in 15 minutes. Well, actually, the first ten minutes was the auctioneer going over how the auction was going to work, what was being auctioned, etc. The actual auction took five minutes.

I just wish we had thought of this before we bothered with a conventional real estate broker. We could have had this all taken care of before we left Michigan.

But better late than never.

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

We have some moron lawyer from downstate trying to screw up our auction which hasn't even happened yet. He has been harassing us, and is now harassing our auctioneer. I almost hope he shows up to the auction. I would love to show him what a swamp is good for. I have a feeling that if he were to mysteriously disappear, there would be precious few who would care enough to even bother looking for him. My only regret is that I sold all my guns before we left Michigan; knives are so messy and greatly increase the likelihood that I'll get icky lawyer blood on me.

[Aside: Most people know that this line came from Shakespeare's Henry VI spoken by a charming fellow named Dick The Butcher. According to this article, several law firms are now claiming that this is somehow a complement to lawyers. Only an over-educated retard could come up with something so stupid.]

Update: Then we have this: a $65 million lawsuit against a family-owned dry cleaners for a lost pair of pants. Is there anyone surprised that the plaintiff is a lawyer? Is it mandatory to get a frontal lobotomy to get into law school? Just how stupid can a human being be and still remember to breathe?

Ending School Violence

How? By reinstating corporal punishment? Permanent expulsions? Arming teachers? Start actually teaching something? Good heavens, no!

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

(And just who is this dork? Oh yea. Filmmaker. Just who we need to tell us all how to raise our kids.)

Weather, Work and Whatever

The weather is warming up again -- Monday's high was 69.8 here and Saturday's was 90.5. Thursday I was down in Phoenix for my last CLIA training class for my ACC (Accredited Cruise Counselor) and it was 94 that day down there. It is still cooling off at night -- great for us -- we open up the windows and door and get our room cooled back down.

Work is going well. The move to the new office got put off once again -- now they are predicting the first week of June. At least this time, the contractors have actually started doing some work in the new building. Still not really busy -- have those sporadic days, but nothing like "busy season" back in Michigan yet.

Saturday, May 5th is the BIG DAY! Our house/land auction in Michigan. Our auctioneer called last week to ask for some copies of something and mentioned one or two serious contenders have already talked to their banks about financing. Woo Hoo! One of the people wants to sweeten his offer to have us give up what mineral rights we do own on the property. Once we sat down and figured what we get per year -- that is a lot to lose over our lifetime. I don't think this guy can sweeten the pot that much! We are just going to be happy to get the mortgage paid off, the money paid and due to the auctioneer, and all the other things involved in selling land. If we make some money after that ... great, but if not, still ... great. That is the biggest cloud still hanging over us.

We will be flying in late Thursday night and spend most (if not all) of Friday cleaning up the house and surrounding area. When we peeked in last time we were in town, the dead ladybugs were outnumbering the dust bunnies! We have to run the generator and get a good charge on that and then start with the vacuuming and other cleaning touch ups. Hopefully we have some time to work outside and kinda spruce up the areas around the garage, the house and the power shed. (All are welcome to come help!)

Supidity on Stilts

As a nation, we have gone mad. We deserve the coming collapse.

(sigh)

EEEEEEEEK!!

I can now add "rattlesnake" to the growing list of dangerous critters I've encountered here in Arizona. I passed it on my bike riding up the mesa from camp yesterday. I was looking down just trying to keep moving up a steep section of road, and there he was. I didn't have a lot of choice where to go with a cliff on one side and a sheer rock wall on the other, so I just edged over as far as I could and kept going. He seemed more interested in soaking up some rays than a large, hairy, sweaty, blob on a bike; he didn't even rattle as I went by.

The tally so far: one brown recluse spider, four black widow spiders, three scorpions, one tarantula, and now a rattlesnake. Ain't Arizona wonderful?!?!?!?

Domination and Submission

I remember years ago having a conversation on the web about the then-new phenomenon of white males being constantly bashed by blacks and women for stating what is obvious to everyone (e.g. women are physically weaker than men; blacks, as a group, score lower on all standardized tests), or, more commonly, for no reason other than that we are white and male. Blacks could scream nastiness at whites and not only not suffer any sanction, but actually be rewarded for it. Women could be depicted in movies kicking every man in sight square in the balls for any reason or no reason whatsoever, again without consequence, but a man raising his voice at a female coworker was grounds for immediate termination. We agreed then that this would be allowed to continue as long as it was viewed as largely harmless. When it progressed to the point that that was no longer so, women would be shown the truth of the "weaker sex" label, and blacks would be taught what "minority" really implies (namely, that you are vastly out-numbered). I guess we didn't count on the truth of the first-seven-years doctrine.

(shrug)

It seems pretty clear that western civilization is played out. I intend to emulate Jonah: find a nice shady spot and watch the fireworks.

(And yes, I realize Jonah is largely seen as a villain by church folk.)

Thoughts on Serial Killers...

...from a retired cop.

Don't have much to add other than a reminder to the earth-is-going-to-hell-which-proves-the-Second-Coming-is-just-around-the-corner crowd that the earth has been going to hell for a long, long time. Like since there has been Homo wandering around on it.

That said, I still think we are replaying the history of every previous civilization.

Old vs. Young

I had two large tour groups yesterday and today. Yesterday's group was 40+ seniors that were split between myself and another tour guide; today's group was 20+ high school students. Now we all "know" what high school kids are like: rude, noisy, insolent, disrespectful, inconsiderate, blah, blah, blah. Anyone care to take a wild guess at which group caused the most problems? I'll give you a hint: it wasn't the rude, noisy, insolent, disrespectful, inconsiderate high school students who in the 3+ hours I was with them managed to be none of those things. When it was time for them to pile back onto their buses, every last one thanked me for the tour.

Now the old people on the other hand were, with rare exceptions, a total pain in the butt. I don't think I ever finished a sentence in the entire hour-and-a-half without being interrupted by someone else asking their question, which in most cases was the exact same question I was already trying to answer. Whining, griping, complaining about everything from the wind to the fact that they actually had to walk the tour, was the order of the day. At the end, I had exactly six people that thanked me for the tour. The only consolation was that those half-dozen seemed genuinely embarrassed by the behavior of the rest of the group.

The next time I hear some old fart complaining about "kids these days" it will be hard to not shoot back a "back at ya, gramps." Of course we all know that would just make me another one of those rude, disrespectful, inconsiderate kids.

Don't put things off

My Mom called my late last night after she got a call from a high school acquaintance of mine. A close high school friend (Irene) was taken home from the hospital with hospice. I had gotten an email from Irene's husband earlier in the week that she took a turn for the worse and was in the hospital. Cindy told my Mom that Irene (or the family) wanted to make sure I knew what was happening. I got Irene's home phone number. I knew she probably wouldn't be in any condition to talk to me, but I wanted to call so her husband or Mom could tell her (when she was coherent) that I called and was thinking of her. I didn't call that night since it was after 9pm (or so) Michigan time. I figured I would have time today to do it. Irene died this morning. I know she is now in heaven and isn't feeling bad at all. Her husband, kids and the rest of her family are in my thoughts and prayers. I wish I could be there to give some hugs (especially to Mom Vitany and Mary), but unfortunately that isn't possible.

Virginia Tech

I haven't said anything about the VT shootings mainly because of the traveling last weekend, catching up here after being away, and the fact that I just don't follow the news much. But mostly, I haven't bothered to say anything because this sort of thing is beginning to follow a predictable and rather disturbing formula:

1. Someone, somewhere commits some horrifying crime against a group of people.
2. Everyone starts a witch-hunt for someone to blame. The perp is invariably dead, and it isn't nearly as much fun to blame dead people as it is to publicly beat up on people that are most likely doing an excellent job of it themselves. Is there a sentient being with an IQ over 50 that doesn't understand that every survivor, every family member, every faculty member at VT hasn't already asked themselves a million times what they could have done differently? Is it really necessary for some hack politician, who has never had to negotiate any situation more dangerous than a big-city crosswalk, to start pontificating about what ought to have been done?
3. Congress gets involved, meaning we all suffer more erosion of our constitutional rights while simultaneously doing nothing to prevent the same horrifying incident from happening again (and in most cases, making it more likely by pissing off hundreds, or even thousands, of borderline psychotics by pushing them into a corner).

I was talking to a gentleman on one of my tours earlier this week about how we seem to be accelerating towards some sort of breaking point as a society. Expect to see more of this.

Par-Tay!!

DSC03426
Originally uploaded by rdfrost.

I must have been at a wedding, 'cause I be doin' the Alligator!

The rest of the pictures are here.

Congratulations Michael and Melissa!!

3 and 1/2 weeks to go

Our auctioneer is still getting calls from the ads on his website and now the ad in the April issue of Woods-n-Water (pg 124). We were able to get out this weekend to check out our property and take care of a couple things. The snow was melting fast on Sunday with the sun out. We wondered about the tire tracks and footprints and found out from Todd last night that somebody was out and wandered around looking at things. Another interested party! The other ads will be in major newspapers on Sunday, April 29th -- the last Sunday before the auction.

We've been telling people we will be having a party that night (auction day 5/5) --- we will either be crying or smiling -- but we will have a party either way. Keep us in your prayers -- that the auction turns out well. I'm not nervous (yet!) -- I know we have somebody "up there" looking after things for us and an awesome auctioneer.

Busy, Busy, Busy...

I haven't posted in a while, but I have a reason. Or at least an excuse. A long time ago, I mentioned that our current room has a funky, triangular window that is essentially impossible to cover with any conventional window covering. Well, we tried something artsy.



I've also been working on another small project that I just finished up today. It may not look like much, but it took me almost as much time to get it done as building the desk.



I've also been doing some volunteer work down in agriculture after my regular shift digging around rediscovering where all the utilities are buried. That's actually a secondary task; I'm trying to fix the septic system so sewage doesn't back up out a clean-out right next to the door into the shower room (this was considered a vast improvement to the sewage backing up into the showers...). But I decided there needed to be some documentation of the other utilities after I smacked the propane line good and hard with a shovel. Of course, according to what "everyone knows," that line isn't there. Yet there it was, right under my shovel. At that point, I switched to a hand trowel and proceeded to find two water lines and two electrical lines, none of which is supposed to be there, either. I also picked up a new nick-name in all this: The Archaeologist.

And of course, there have been other diversions that could only happen at Arcosanti, like the Second Annual Peep Eating Contest. This is the winner after eating nearly 70 peeps in a half hour, and about 10 seconds before he hurled:



There is some very disgusting stuff hanging off the front of the mesa; when visitors ask, we tell them it's from migrating birds....

Not topless yet!

I know I wasn't the only one to laugh about Ric's post "Wavin' in the Wind", though I got a bigger laugh from the comment left from Tom. I haven't seen any lady going topless here, but I have seen the armpit hair on some of the foreign visitors. I have to admit, it can be a long time between shaves for me, but I would never go out in a tank top while in that state.

Work is going well still. The move to the new office is still going slow -- now they are saying Mayish! I really am looking forward to the new office -- MY OWN DESK -- and full time.

Ric and I are trying to lose weight and get into better shape. We had a goal to be down to for the wedding, but I don't think we will both make it. This week I decided to get off my butt and start biking. I've been good -- only took one day off so far this week. The shortest ride is 2 miles. The longest I did so far is 3 miles. Right now I am using the main road in/out of Arcosanti. I've clocked the mileage at different points so I know how far I have to ride to get in my miles. It is pretty flat, so it makes it easy for me to get used to riding alot and building up my endurance. I figure once I can make it all the way to the Junction (about 2.5 miles one way), I will celebrate by going into McDonalds for a parfait!

Next weekend we are flying back to Michigan for a nephew's wedding. Yesterday I talked to Courtney and found out they were getting snow and had a "winter storm advisory" out! Of course, they know the snow birds are heading back. Don and Shirley are heading home from Florida and Teri and Gary are heading to Michigan from Alabama. They should all be in Michigan by this weekend. We have to get out to our place and mark off around the cabin where we want to keep part of our property. Hopefully it isn't too snowy or we will have to borrow somebody's four wheel drive to get back there!

Auction is coming up on Saturday, May 5th! We are selling the house/garage/ and 100 acres. If anyone is interested -- check out our auctioneer's website: http://www.respeckiauctions.com/ and come out to bid on the place. If you don't want the whole 100 acres, I"m sure something could be arranged for less land.

Too True to Be Funny

The biggest reason I was more than happy to lower my income by around 80% just to get out of that stupid gray box and away from Pointy-Haired Boss.

If At First You Don't Succeed...

...keep guessing. It's not like US news media will hold you accountable when you predict certain disaster and nothing happens. As usual, the last two paragraphs contain the key data:

Last year saw nine storms form five of them hurricanes which did relatively litle damage after a disastrous 2005 season.

It was a record-breaking season with 28 storms forming, 15 of them hurricanes, including Stan which killed some 2,000 people in Guatemala and Katrina which hit the US Gulf coast flooding most of New Orleans and killing about 1,500 people.

You remember last hurricane season, right? The one that was supposed to destroy civilization? Relatively "litle" damage indeed; most didn't even make landfall (And for the sake of the English language, learn how to spell check and punctuate a sentence!). But never let facts stand in the way of making splashy headlines.

In related news, global warming hits Mars. Hey Al! Tell us how it's all because the evil corporations keep building "monster" SUV's (snicker, giggle). While you're at it, can you explain how this albedo thing works? Specifically why none of your precious climate models (which given conditions from 100 years ago cannot "predict", within an order of magnitude, current climate conditions) take water vapor into account? It seems kind of important. And complicated. Warmer weather would seem to create more water vapor. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas (which, according to our Supreme Court can be regulated; expect the EPA to enact regulations any day now telling the oceans to stop all that evaporating) that also, in the form of clouds, increases earth's albedo. Little ol' stoopid me would think that all this actin' and interactin' stuff might be what is throwing one or two monkey wrenches into your models. Maybe you and your Really Smart Friends need to think a bit more about what you include and exclude from your models before you start using their predictions as an excuse to destroy Western Civilization.

Remember folks; send your kids to college so they can grow up big and strong and smart like Uncle Al and his Really Smart Friends. Pffft.

Wavin' in the Wind

It tends to get breezy here in the afternoon (in the same way that the ocean tends to be slightly moist). It had finally warmed up enough today that I could take my shirt off for my thirty minutes of sun this afternoon. While I was working, I happened to look down and notice that my armpit hair is now long enough to blow in the wind.

Huh.

Just thought I would share.

Pimpin' Paolo

I do tours here at Arcosanti in addition to working in the maintenance department (and volunteering in agriculture, and the occasional shift in the cafe helping to make dinner for 50 people, and, and, and...). Normally, I do a couple during the week, then two on Saturday and Sunday. I just added up my tours for the last pay period ending on Sunday: I did 17 tours in two weeks. That's a lot of directions to the public restrooms....

On a Lighter Note

Hillbilly Overalls:



I'm speechless.

Charge Them With What?

Acting out what they have been taught in "health" class? If you want to watch a liberal twist themselves into a logical pretzel, ask them why students are being expelled, sent to alternative schools and being given detention for exercising their right to self-expression via consensual sexual acts.

Liberalism is a consolation prize for the West as it slowly commits suicide.

More Photos Again

I just tossed up another 60 or so photos onto our Flickr account. We seem to take a lot of sunset and sunrise pictures. It's probably due to the current timing of those events; I walk to my job around sunrise and we watch the sunset during dinner. For the last 20 years, I've always been either in a vehicle driving to or from work, or at work buried in a cube farm and unaware of the existence of the sun.

In any case, enjoy!!

Blogging

I didn't even realize than the anniversary date for this blog came and went. I started using Blogger on March 3, 2004; over three years ago. The only reason I noticed my "blog-versary" was because I was cleaning out some stuff and found all the posts from my old daynotes page I had for many years before giving in to the ease of using Blogger rather than hand-coding HTML in Notepad. Now those were the days.... uphill... both ways... barefoot... in the snow... with barb wire wrapped around our feet for traction...

Sorry. For a second there, I believe I was channeling my grandfather.

Cheap, Clean Electricity

“The money we’re talking about is spent in an hour or two in Iraq.”

Electric generators that do not produce CO2 or radiation. All for some fraction of one percent of what we are pouring into the sands of Iraq every year. Will we do it? I think anyone that has been reading this blog knows my answer. Will the Japanese and/or the Chinese jump all over this? I don't know for sure, but I'd be willing to bet a couple paychecks the Japanese already are and the Chinese aren't too far behind. Meanwhile, Europe voluntarily Islamifies itself (and we all know what technological marvals pour forth from Islamic countries), while we impose ruinous taxes our most productive citizens to send our young men and women to their deaths.

We hear that there are tumults and riots in Rome, and that voices are raised concerning the army and the quality of our soldiers. Make haste to reassure us that you love and support us as we love and support you, for if we find that we have left our bones to bleach in these sands in vain, then beware the fury of the legions.

Two thousand years and the politicians haven't learned a damn thing.

Proof of Global Warming

Hmmm. I guess global warming is real....

Satellite View of Arcosanti

Matt sent this to us yesterday. Pretty good picture of the place. Recent as well. We live in the back part of the crescent-shaped structure on the right (east) side of the site, just to the right of the gap.

Here is an inaccurate as well as crappy photo of our house that will be auctioned off on May 5th. I guess there really isn't a demand for high-resolution photos of Custer Township. Of course, I wouldn't have believed that anyone would want hi-res photos of Arcosanti either, but what do I know?

Heh.

No comment.

World War One Passes from Living Memory

The last WWI combat veteran is laid to rest.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work -

I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

--Carl Sandburg

The Great Global Warming Swindle

The BBC gives a few facts that Al Gore seems to have missed.

Sorry, Al. It looks like the truth is more inconvenient for you than for me.

[Update: It was British Channel 4, not the BBC.]

Great Weather

These past couple weeks have been great for us Michiganders here in Arizona. Highs in the 70's and tomorrow and this weekend in the 80's. Ric already has a good start on his "farmer's tan" -- he is slowly working on the rest of his body. (No -- not ALL of it!) I've been working full time hours for the past four days and haven't had the chance to really be outside. Hopefully this weekend! Now that the nicer weather is here, we may plan on taking in some siteseeing on the weekends. Right now, since Ric is scheduled to do tours til 2p (or so), it will be ones that are close. Then he can start requesting either Sat or Sun off and we can take the day and go do the tourist thing further away.

My work is going good. We are still not in our new office location -- it has been put on until May. I won't be able to move up to full time until we get into the new office. Right now I share a desk with somebody that nevers seems to be able to leave/clock out on time. It gets kinda frustrating. (Plus she is a pack rat and messy -- I don't have much room to work) I will LOVE it when we get into the new office and I can finally get organized the way I WANT! Clients here are different than in Kalkaska -- biggest difference is the money being spent. I've never done soo many "big ticket vacations" before. It is awesome -- I get so excited to do a Tahiti land only honeymoon package for $6300+ -- but it is everyday stuff to my manager. I may get used to it, but right now I still call Ric and say WOO HOO! when I close a big sale.

For those of you that are still interested -- we are planning on doing a family/friends cruise again. Our destination this time is Alaska -- most likely July of 2008 -- doing a northbound cruise -- so everybody can chose to add pre nites in Vancouver and post nights in Anchorage or do a land tour and go see Denali National Park. If you are slightly interested, let me know, so I can get your name on my contact list.

Yep

"Let's face it. We're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."

Seagate CEO Bill Watkins

[If you are not in the IT industry, Seagate makes computer hard drives and other hardware.]

Fred. Again.

Thoughts on a couple articles from Fred Reed's site:

I used to care about stock markets. Then I noticed something about the nightly "analysis" from places like NPR: the exact same event could move the stock market up, down, or sideways. For example, rumors of war would "scare" the stock market one day and cause it to drop, cause "uncertainty" the next moving the market sideways, then "strengthen" it the following day when the bombs start dropping due to the end of uncertainty and the prospect of increased government orders for military hardware. In other words, stock markets are random with only slightly better odds than a government-run lottery and about the same odds as blackjack. In fact, I've made a better return on my "investments" at the Vegas MGM blackjack tables than I ever have in the stock market.

Then I started looking carefully at other "indicators" such as GDP and economic growth. I realized that the tsunami in Indonesia was good, hurricanes wiping out entire sections of the US coastline and leaving a major population center under water was fantastic. My parents being satisfied with living in the same house for forty years was bad, treasonous even. How dare they not "trade up" every three-to-five years as they should. Every day it makes less and less sense to me, so I decided that I'm not going to play anymore. When I was growing up, all the cool people walked around spouting variations of "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" My 21st century version is "What if they handed me and economic treadmill and I refused to get on?"

Anyway, enough of my rambling. Go read Fred.

Fred also reflects on our national myth vs. our national reality: the rugged, individualistic, risk-taking lovers of freedom we think we are vs. the sissyfied, herd-following, seatbelted/airbaged/crash-helmeted lovers of safety-above-all-else we have become.

Fanatics "R" Us

Tom runs into a typical fanatic simply by mentioning that he didn't think much of the movie Ishtar. From it's entry in IMDb, it doesn't look like he was alone. In fact, I think it's safe to say that people stayed away in droves given a $55 million-dollar film that only pulled $12.7 million at the box office. Before this, I had never heard of it (we went to see Beverly Hills Cop II). You can thank Google Alerts for this sort of thing. Now anyone in the world can log onto Google, enter any words or phrases (like Ishtar, Ishtar, Ishtar Ishtar...) that they want Google to watch for, and be instantly alerted via e-mail that someone, somewhere has mentioned a topic near and dear to their heart so they can swoop in and deface some poor soul's family blog.

Don't get me wrong; Google Alerts is a great thing, and if I were head of the PR division of an organization, I would have alerts on any and every word that was even tangently related to my business as well as the names of the company, its products, the CEO, CFO, CIO, trustees, directors, president, etc. Here at Arcosanti, our PR guy has alerts for "Arcosanti", "Paolo", "Soleri", "arcology", and numerous others (hey Stefan!). But setting an alert for a twenty-year-old box office turkey so you can run all over the internet hammering on anyone that isn't as much in love with it as you are? Get a life.

This is a Test

Watch how this story unfolds over the next six months or so. The outcome will determine whether we stay at least a nominal republic, or we continue to follow the example set by every republic in history.

"A republic, Ma'am, if you can keep it."

I'm not optimistic we can.

Surprise Visitor

[Update: please see comments for a response from Mr. Roth and a bit of an apology from me.]

I received a note in our mailbox from the lady that runs Arcosanti's guest services (in English, she's my boss when I give tours). Seems a "journalist" (to be fair, this was her term; the writer as far as can tell makes no such claim) came visiting last week and got a few wrong impressions of us. As you might expect, I have a few thoughts on the matter:

First of all, Mr. Roth was given some bad, or at least misleading information on his tour. There have been several new tour guides (including yours truly) and the training is somewhat lacking. Mostly you follow around a few tours and read some printed material, then someone is supposed to follow you around to make sure you don't give out bad or misleading information. In my case, I was doing tours before I followed any because the person I was going to follow couldn't do the tour at the last minute, and I have yet to have anyone follow me. What can I say other than "We're working on it."

Mr. Roth's first two sentences about Arcosanti are: "For Arcosantians, Paolo Soleri is the sun. As if to prove it, our guide pronounced his Christian name much like Apollo." Uh, that might be because that's how his name is pronounced. Talk about reading way too much into nothing.

Anyone who calls Paolo's home luxurious has obviously never been to Cosanti. Paolo lives in a small ranch house that was on the property when it was purchased in the 1950's. Emphasis on the "small".

Most residents don't even bother to attend School of Thought, not alone "flock to hear him [Paolo]." And the ones that do attend are far from slack-jawed worshippers at the feet of the Master. Paolo is frequently challenged, argued with, shouted down, and even booed on occasion. There may be uncritical worshippers of Paolo somewhere, but you won't find them here.

Mr. Roth says, "The name [Arcosanti] is said to mean 'against material things' -anti-cosi - thought quite obviously it was meant to suggest a sacred ark as well." It was meant to suggest no such thing. First, Cosanti is a word Paolo made up by combining anti (Latin for "against") and cosa (Italian for "things") and is meant to convey the idea of 'against material things'. Arcology is a work Paolo made up by combining "architecture" and "ecology" and is stands for a style of architecture that is designed to fit into the local ecology instead of in opposition to it. Arcosanti is the combination of "arcology" and "cosanti". Mr. Roth links to the Wikipedia entry on Consanti which clearly explains all this. No suggestion of a "sacred ark" other than in the author's own imagination.

No one pays Paolo to have him sketch them in the nude. If Mrs. Roth could have checked her "horror" long enough to read the leaflets that were sitting directly in front of her while she was leafing through the portfolio, she would have known that.

I could go on and on (no, we don't all huddle around a ringing phone breathlessly hoping it's Paolo; no, our TV wasn't stolen; yes, the five school-age kids here ride a bus seven whole miles to school just like millions of other kids) but that probably amounts to beating a dead horse.

The Decline of Western Civilization

From Rome to Pennsylvania to South Carolina.

Liberals say the problem with our public schools is that we don't spend enough money on them.

I say liberals suffer from blunt force trauma to the head.

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

Bob Seger II

Well, Debbie beat me to the punch on the Seger thing, but I would just like to second her opinion of the show. It was fantastic!! It's obvious when someone is doing what they love to do. Just a few random thoughts about the night:

Listen, honey; the halter top may have made you look hot the last time Seger was in town twelve years ago, but I suggest that you buy a concert t-shirt and change into it. Quick. Please. For the sake of all humanity.

Who let in all the old people? Most of the people there looked like they were at least forty. Oh, wait.....

Thanks, Bob, for lowering all your songs about six half-steps. I'm sure it makes things easier on you, and those of us singing along in the audience really appreciate it as well. Er, I mean all those old people really appreciate it.

Whoever designed the US Airways Center should get some sort of medal. I have never seen a performance space empty so quickly and smoothly in twenty-plus years of attending concerts. The people literally drained out of the building and into the parking areas in a matter of minutes.

Whoever designed the traffic patterns in Phoenix should be violated then shot.

Whoever designed the stupid traffic circles on the Happy Valley Road exit should be forced to drive back and forth through them for all eternity. The seventh circle of Dante's Hell has nothing on them. (Note for our northern Michigan readers: the powers-that-be in Traverse City want to inflict these stupid and completely unnecessary hazards to life and limb on you. Whatever it takes, do not let them get away with it.)

Anyway, my lunch hour is almost over, so I'll just wrap this up by saying that we had a great time and it was worth every penny and every hassle (even Madam Sags-A-Lot and her infinitely stretchy halter top).

Keep rockin', Bob!!

Time off

Tuesday, Ric and I both worked just the morning shift and took the rest of the day off. We headed down to Phoenix for the rest of the day. First we stopped at TGI Fridays to finally use my gift certificate from about 1999. I"m glad Ric drove here -- it had TWO ROUNDABOUTS! I probably would have never figured out how to get to where I wanted to go. Leaving Fridays we had to go out of our way to finally get going in the correct direction, but finally made it to the roundabouts and made it back to the expressway again.

Then south on I-17 towards the US Airways Center to see BOB SEGER! We got there early, so we got into a decent parking ramp right across from the center (only cost $8). We had to wander around for awhile since they weren't letting people in yet (and of course, the bathrooms were on the inside and not accessible).

Finally got in and went to find our seats. Section 104, row 24, seats 8 and 9 -- off center of the stage. Not too bad. We found out there was an opening act --- Steve Azar. He was on for about 40 minutes. Then after the stage rearrange -- the main course was ready to come out. Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band came on stage to a screaming crowd. It was great. He sang old songs mixed in with stuff from his new CD. The majority of the crowd sang right along with him (on the old songs, of course!) Bob was wearing a black t shirt and black jeans. He is still looking good (for his age) , hair is graying and his beard has gray in it -- but he can still belt out the songs! They played for about 1hr, then took about a 10 min intermission and came back out to play again. It was one of the longest concerts I've seen of his. He still has three members of the Silver Bullet Band with him ... the keyboard player, one guitar player and Alto Reed the sax player. Alto still has the moves and can make the sax just sing out! It was awesome to watch him.

Bob finished the regular sets with Katmandu. They came back for two encores. The first one he came out with Night Moves and Hollywood Nights. The second one was Against the Wind and Rock and Roll Never Forgets. I'm glad we splurged and bought the tickets.
We will NEVER forget BOB SEGER!!!!!

Universal Truth

I've learned since being here that this sort of thing doesn't just happen in a cubicle farm:

New Photos on Flickr

We have photos up of our new room, and a recent sunset picture as well.

Enjoy!

Cough, Cough, Hack (snert)

I ran out of one of my asthma meds a couple weeks ago. I've been doing ok without it until Monday. It rained all day, and it has been cold and damp ever since. That triggered something that keeps me coughing continuously and sucking on Albuterol like it was water. I called my old doctor in Michigan to see if I could beg a phone-in here in Arizona. They never called back, so I'm not sure if that is good news or bad. I guess I'll find out later this morning when the pharmacy opens.

In any case, a little light reading from Fred Reed I stumbled across at 1am between coughing fits. We recently flew back to Michigan to take care of some paperwork. I can tell you first hand that the constant nattering not to leave your luggage unattended, not to leave your car unattended, to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior, that the president has elevated the threat level to mauve, is enough to make me want to blow up every airport in the country just to shut up the stupid announcer guy. And, as Fred and Jerry Pournelle both point out, none of it does anything to make air transport safer.

But it does make a lot of low IQ people feel powerful and important. I guess there is always that.

Ordnung!

Cameron Curtis Hurd

Some brighter news from Michigan. I received the following e-mail and pictures from my nephew yesterday:

I'm sure you've already heard, but Cameron Curtis Hurd was born on Sunday Feb 11 at 11:09AM (9 minutes after I pulled up to the door at the hospital) He weighed 8 lbs and was 21 inches long. I've attached a few pictures. Enjoy!

Bad Day

Right this minute, I could easily pack our crap into the Durango, drive off, and die happy having never seen Arcosanti again. The fun started last night when Debbie checked the schedule for working the cafe register and found her name crossed off the shifts she signed up for. Today I was stopped by the manager in charge and told that Debbie was basically fired from working the register. Debbie can only work Saturday lunch or dinner, or Sunday lunch. (We reserve Sunday afternoon for us; I figure working six and a half days a week for Arcosanti is more than adequate.) Someone else that has been here longer wants those same shifts. So far, no big deal. But here is the twist: Debbie is trying to get in her required volunteer time, and the other person is paid. There are other shifts during the week that the other person could easily work. So basically, a volunteer was fired to make room for someone getting paid. This from an organization that complains about how much it costs the foundation for the residents keeping their rooms above 50 degrees.

The next surprise was when I went down to check on the pool and found the bottom covered with rocks. This is the third time someone has thrown rocks into the pool. The other two times, it wasn't a big deal; just a couple rocks that I was able to dig out with the skimmer. This time, it was dozens of rocks along with handfuls of gravel. The only way to clean it out is to actually get into the pool, which I have no intention of doing (the water was 45 degrees this morning). I'm assuming it was one or more of the minor residents who had the day off school yesterday and spent the day running around unsupervised. In the real world, when kids have a day off school, the parents have to either stay home themselves, or arrange for someone else to care for them. At Arcosanti, they just run loose interfering with people trying to work and being destructive.

My third happy event was an almost-shocking experience. I had been doing some electrical work in the bakery, then was dragged off on other projects for the last three or four weeks. Today, I was finally able to get back to it. Luckily for me, I'm paranoid and never touch anything until I've confirmed the lines are dead. Some Arco retard had turned the breaker back on. There is absolutely no reason for it to be on. Anything running off that circuit has been plugged into other places because we knew from the beginning that the renovation was going to take some time. So either someone knows that I'm working on that line and turned the breaker on anyway, or someone that doesn't know a damn thing is messing around in random breaker boxes.

What a great place.

Backups

Now I'm going to bore everyone to death by talking about backing up your data on your PC's hard drive. Almost no one does it for the simple reason that the amount of information you can store on a typical hard drive is many times the capacity of any standard media installed on a typical PC. For example, I have about 30 GB of data between photos, MP3's, and other random data files. That translates to a half dozen DVD's. Worse, without spending significant cash, the process of splitting up the files and tracking what is on what DVD and when it was last backed up is a manual process. I use the internet for some backup by, for example, storing a copy of all my digital photos on Flickr, but there really isn't a way to have a consistent, up-to-date backup in one place.

I've heard rumors of companies that sold space on their servers for you to back up local files to over the internet. But it wasn't cheap or easy. This appears to be both. The cost is less that what you would pay for media to back up to DVD's once a week (bare minimum), and the software is fully automated. I'll be digging into this a little more over the next few weeks.

But right now, I have to get to bed.

Learning from Founders

Arcosanti management needs to read this. Maybe I'll get a dozen copies of Founders at Work and leave them at strategic locations around the site. I've spent the last two days on a job I could have done by myself, even taking my time, on a Saturday afternoon. And it still isn't done.

At least I'm paid by the hour.

Well, It Finally Happened

Blogger has been nagging me for months to upgrade to the new version. Today, they made it mandatory. If you want to post or leave comments under your blogger ID, you must update your Blogger ID to a Google ID (this does not have anything to do with reading the blog). I expected this would happen sooner or later, but I figured I would have some warning. Sorry if this causes anyone a bunch of hassle.

Brrrrrrrrr!

We made a fast dash back to Michigan to rid ourselves of the last of our assets that we left there. We couldn't have picked a better week, at least if the goal was to remind ourselves, in as forceful a way as possible, why we left. The high temperatures were in the single digits with blizzard conditions the entire time we were there. It was -7 when we flew out of Saginaw on Sunday morning, and -13 in Minneapolis when we arrived for our connecting flight. We are now back in Arizona, loving our sun, the 60-degree temperatures, and having feeling in our feet.

Debbie is in Phoenix this week, so we won't be doing much in the way of decorating our new space. We do have a window that is a bit of a problem. It gives people out on the deck an unobstructed view of my white, hairy butt every morning when I get dressed. A typical curtain isn't an option as the window is triangular (yes, as I've mentioned before, living in a building designed by a bunch of artsy types is a real hoot...). I'm seriously considering getting some small jars of paint in the same colors as the silt-casting on our ceiling and giving it a faux stain glass treatment. Cheap, easy, and if anyone doesn't like it, five minutes with a razor blade makes it go away. We also have a round window that is about twelve feet off the floor that may get a similar treatment. Not that anyone can really see into it, but if the other window works out, I may just do it for effect. I think the artsy thing may be rubbing off on me.

Well, I have to check e-mail, then get my sorry (white, hairy) butt into bed.

Watch and Weep

Hundreds of billions for "education," and all we get is this.

(sigh)

I just finished reading John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up, so my faith in Western Civilization has been dealt a pretty serious blow. This ain't helping.

Mammals survived the calamity that wiped out the dinosaurs by being fast, small, and adaptable. You may want to think about which of those you should be emulating.

Who's got snow?

Not us! But parts of Michigan look like it is getting snow each day for the 10day forecast. I guess you can blame Ric and I. Because, of course, we are flying home for a real quick weekend to take care of a few things. I'm thinking our snow boots are packed up at Mom's house.

Things are going well with the new job. I'm still in training -- one more week (next week) and a day and I'm done with their official new agent training. I have a client coming in tomorrow afternoon to book a Mexican Riviera cruise. Yeah! I did an air/car/hotel reservation on Monday and some car reservations in Hawaii for somebody today. Other than that, I haven't been able to take any calls or walk ins before this. It is nice to finally start working again. The training is nice. I'm picking up a lot of new things that I never learned while at North Village Travel. AAA really knows how to train. I give them an A in the travel agent training department.

Remember I can book your trip -- even with me here in Arizona -- and you there in Michigan or Massachusetts or where ever you are! AAA does charge a service fee for airline tickets -- non members $50!, but members only pay $20. They do NOT charge a service fee for tours/cruises unless extensive research is needed. That is nice.

We are slowly getting things ready to move to our new housing before we fly to Michigan this weekend. Ric is working on painting a bedbox/shelving unit he made from scratch. (Great idea and design .. I"m sure we will have pictures of it next month) Most of the things are packed and moved over or waiting til the last minute to go over. Next month we plan on hitting a big thrift store in Prescott Valley and a few other places looking for some decent (and cheap) furniture. We really need a new mattress. The air mattress we are using gets too many holes in it. This last one I can't find yet. It is really frustrating to wake up after a couple hours and be on an almost flat air mattress!

When Sharing Isn't Nice

We share a lot of things here at Arcosanti: books, videos, a pool table, and so on. We also seem to enjoy sharing our diseases. Some form of flu has been circulating around for the last week or so. Today was my turn. Last night, after (a shared) dinner in the cafe, I started feeling light-headed. Within a couple of hours, I was in full-blown flu mode with fever, chills, nausea, muscle aches, headache, the whole enchilada. I haven't left my room all day, and tomorrow isn't looking too good at this point. We'll see how it goes in the morning.

Otherwise, not much going on. We are in a holding pattern of sorts until our new place is available Friday morning.

Still Cold

We are still living with below-average temperatures, and woke up to snow this morning. It melted by lunch, but it is still a long way from warm. All or part of the day has been cloudy most of the week, which really sucks when the only heat you have is the sun. I've spent the last week fixing leaky pipes, leaky toilets, and leaky sewer lines. Some of the problems are in areas still under construction. Some problems are with "temporary" lines (like most non-profits, "temporary" at Arcosanti can cover decades) that will be improved during future construction. Some were just poorly thought out right from the start. But it's job security. At the current rate that we are crossing things off vs. the rate things are being added on, we will have to expand the Lab Building just to have a place to store the maintenance department's to-do list.

Well, we have to run down to camp and get our stuff out of the cube we were going to be moving into before we got our cool new super-scoop apartment. We can't really take any pictures until the current resident leaves for Brazil on January 26th, so be sure to check back next weekend.

Anarcho-Tyranny Rules in Michigan

One reason we selected Arizona is that the state government and courts tend to be slightly more libertarian than the rest of the country. Not perfect, by any means, and they seem to be learning some bad habits from places like California. I expect that Arizona is just "behind" the rest of the nation and will eventually catch up. And yes, despair is still a sin. In any case, two news items indicate that we made the right choice:

Michigan's Court of Appeals finds that adultery is criminal sexual conduct, even if both partners are consenting.

Michigan's Court of Appeals finds that a teacher found innocent on child porn charges must still be listed in the public sex offender registry.

Huh. Good luck with that, Michigan. You get more like California every day. The Land of Fruits and Nuts Part II. Lucky for us, the world is a big place.

Good News

Two pieces of good news this week.

First, we FINALLY got word about permanent housing here at Arcosanti. Next weekend we will be moving one door over into the new (but, still unfinished) super lightscoop. Watch the blog for mention of more pics on Flickr after we move in. The disappointing news to go along with this was they told us finally after we had spent about $150 in things to make the cube inhabitable for us. (No, nothing we can take back. Shelves and clothing rods already cut and put up and wood cut up for a "bed box")

Second, BOB SEGER is coming to Arizona in February. A radio station here was giving away tickets before they went on sale. I was SO CLOSE one night on the way home. I was caller six----the winner was caller seven. So I had to get online this morning when tickets finally went on sale to try to get two seats. I didn't do too bad, just off center section first level. It will be great to see him in concert again.

Cold and Colder

We've had a couple cold and dreary days here at Arcosanti. It has driven something home that I've always realized, but has obviously escaped the designers of this place. Passive solar is a wonderful thing, but you need some backup. Understand that most of the resident spaces do have some form of backup heat. The older spaces have wood stoves, the newer completed spaces have either propane wall furnaces or in-floor hot water heat. The dorm spaces and incomplete residences must rely on small, inefficient, and not too effective portable electric heaters. But many of the public spaces have no backup heat source whatsoever. Today as we sat in the cafe eating lunch while seeing our own breath, we all decided that this was an oversight bordering on gross stupidity. Even Arizona can have a couple cloudy days in a row.




The clouds started to blow out late in the day, so it looks like we will get some relief tomorrow, but it came to late to save us tonight. We are all burrowed in like rock squirrels for a long, cold night. I can't help but question the wisdom of this. Many of the long-time residents scoff at the newbies with comments like "At least when you're cold, you know you are alive." However, my personal comfort isn't the only consideration. First, what impression does coming to visit the "City of the Future" only to find yourself bundled up in hat, coat, and mittens trying to eat your lunch while indoors, give to those visiting Arcosanti? Second, as a member of the maintenance crew, I can tell you that the cost to the Cosanti Foundation of one burst water line is much greater than the cost of providing adequate backup heating.

But that's just me being logical surrounded by a bunch of right-brain touchy-feeling artist types.




At least the presence of some clouds gave us a good sunset. Debbie happened to be looking out the window and noticed the color in the sky and ran outside with the camera. The full set is on Flickr.

Mom Boris Update

Well, she did/may have/didn't have a stroke/seizure/blood clot/sprained ankle. She can/maybe/can't have a heart cath/stent/EEG/3D heart imaging/ace bandage. And she can/can't drive for the next six months.

There. Now you know exactly what I know.

Oh yea. She's home. That I'm almost certain of.

Ain't modern medicine grand? Almost make you nostalgic for a diagnosis of "the vapors" and a few leaches.

Lots of Beach-Front Property for Sale

It's a bit of a commute, but the price is definitely right. Titan has lakes. Lots of them. Woo hoo!! Go Cassini!!

Lotsa Photos

Blogging has been sporadic mainly because I've been kicking out photos into our Flickr account. We now have over 3,500 pictures uploaded from the very latest of our adventures at Arcosanti to the first digital pictures we took back in January of 2003.

Enjoy!

Outlaw High Heels!

I got this from a rather strange book that Debbie was reading by Tamar Myers titled Grape Expectations:

Sexy shoes, indeed. Don't even get me started - oops, too late. Take high heels, for instance. The make your feet hurt, so you take them off, and then, since you're already half-undressed, you take everything off, and that leads to the horizontal hootchy-kootchy, which leads to unmarried mothers, which leads to undisciplined children, which leads to crime. If you boil all that down you're left with the simple equation: high heels lead to murder. If you ask me, any shoe with a heel higher than an inch should be outlawed. Now where was I?

As I said, strange book.

Starting the New Year Right?

Twelve and a half hours into the new year, we get a phone call that Debbie's mom had been taken to the hospital with a possible stroke. We still don't know much other that if it was indeed a stroke, it was a very mild one and she seems to have spontaneously recovered from the effects already today. She is still in the hospital for now enduring the usual battery of testing combined with a complete lack of test results. We should know something by tomorrow, so we will keep you updated.

Family Resemblance

p1010496
Originally uploaded by rdfrost.

p1010490
Originally uploaded by rdfrost.

Both of these photos were taken on July 5, 2003. Can't tell we're related or anything...

Creationism vs. Science at the Grand Canyon

This is disgusting:

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is 'no comment.'"

Anyone is free to believe whatever they want, but using the federal government to publish and sell provable lies, as well as muzzle federal employees charged with educating the public is nothing short of utterly despicable.

Bush is on track to make himself the worst president in American history. His actions are almost enough to convince me to vote for Hillary.

Three Years Later and Still Going Strong

The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity are still rolling around on the surface after nearly three years and a combined driving distance of nearly 10.5 miles. The original mission was for 90 martian days.

No one is a bigger critic of NASA than I am, especially the space station and shuttle divisions. (An example of the pointless being enabled by the absurd if there ever was.) But there are still smart people being properly managed and accomplishing incredible things buried in the NASA bureaucracy.

Happenings and such

Hi Cyberworld --- we've missed you. Our server was completely dead since last Friday. It made my life kinda interesting for this week since I"m still working for my Michigan travel agency. I couldn't find a working WIFI anyplace to be able to connect remotely to the Michigan server. So, my Mom took pity on me and checked my emails for me on her computer. Plus, once a day I drove into Mayer to the public library to check things for my one hour time limit. Luckily I didn't have anything too important to do at work. I had one final called in this morning that I had to ask my inside gal to take care of the invoice for me since I couldn't sign on yet. Then after my cafe register duty for lunch, I came back to check things before heading to town again. It is finally working!!!! YEAH!!!!

Other happenings: Christmas time
We weren't able to make it home for Christmas this year. :-( I really missed the family time. Our big time out for Christmas Eve was going to dinner at a nice steak place and going to the theatre to see Happy Feet and Santa Claus 3. We had time to kill between the movies and walked around the complex some. We did finally find a REAL grocery store, it is called Fry's. Arcosanti was closed down from 1pm Christmas Eve until December 26th. This means nothing open to buy food (ie the cafe or bakery). We were able to take advantage of a couple things that happen here. First, Ron (landscaping manager) made breakfast in the cafe Christmas morning. Made to order -- omelets or burritos, french toast and bacon. It was a nice change to cereal, poptarts or bagels. Then Gin (bakery manager) had a potluck Christmas dinner at her place around 5pm. She likes turkey, so that was our main course. I really missed having ham and polish sausage!

I've been pulling more shifts in the cafe running the register since most of the help is gone. Nice pocket money. Ric is having a time in the maintenance department. The ?fun? they had yesterday was trying to unplug some toilets! One of the public men's toilet had a cell phone flushed down it!!! Ha! He still has his pool duties, even though him and another person are trying to talk the manager into draining it for awhile. (who wants to swim in 40-50 degree weather? the polar bear club is gone!)

The other big news I have is: I got a new job!!!! Beginning in January I will be working for AAA Arizona as a travel agent. I have 3 weeks of training (some in Phoenix) then go to part time until April. In April, I hope to be offered a full time position. It was interesting how this job came about. Ric and I were getting car insurance quotes one day and stopped into their office. As we were walking out, I asked the receptionist is they were hiring for travel agents. She said, they just hired somebody that was starting the next week. We walked out and I said "damn, my timing" I had picked up an application and the manager's name/number. I left her a message the next week -- about just moving in the area and my experience. I said I would drop off my resume later unless she wanted it right away. I then got a call two days after our workshop was done. She just had a part time person quit on Friday and wanted me to come in for an interview right away! WOW! I went in for the interview on a Friday and the job was offered to me on Tuesday. (pending my drug screening, reference check and criminal background check!) I was officially okayed this week --- everything checked out okay. God's timing is perfect. (Now, if I would trust Him to get the house sold.....)

You Suck!

DSC03007
Originally uploaded by rdfrost.

There is nothing quite so affirming as being told you suck in four languages. Written on toilet paper no less. Needles to say, my teemmate and I formed a very firm foundation for today's ping pong tournament. At least I assume that is what everyone meant when they kept telling us we were the basement.

Or was that "in the basement?"

The Religion of Peace. Again.

Would someone please explain to me why I should have any respect for these "people"? Furthermore, can anyone explain why we let these animals into our country? Eating a pork chop should be mandatory for entering the U.S.

Some Free Time At Last

We are finally coming up for air, but only because we got out of making dinner tonight. We probably won't be working in the cafe anymore because Debbie has started working the register and I will start doing tours next week. The pay is a lot better and it is something I enjoy doing. It's sort of like teaching a class, which I love doing and really miss since losing my teaching job at the church.

We are done with our workshops. I am now a paid Arcosanti employee working 40 hours a week in maintenance. It's pretty brainless work, but that's what I really want at this point. There are several other jobs open that are a closer match to what I used to do, but I'm just not interested in sitting at a desk. At least not yet. I'm sure that at some point, assuming we stick around much past our one-year commitment, that I won't be able to crawl around under buildings and climb up and down ladders, but I'm no where near that point yet. Debbie is now working full-time as an outside travel agent for North Village Travel, plus working the odd shift cooking with me or running the cash register in the cafe. We have moved to our third temporary residence since being here. This one will be available until the next workshop comes in the first of February. It's not a bad place, but there is no heat as this part of the building is not finished. We didn't have heat in our last room either, but the difference there was that we got a lot of sun every day to heat up all the concrete. This room gets exactly no direct sunlight this time of year. Worse, because we are on the second story, the concrete floor is over a storage area that is unheated and not really all that wind-proof. That means that no matter what the temperature of the air in our room is, we are standing on a 40-degree concrete slab. We've got a couple small area rugs, which help a little, but not if you are in one place for any length of time. The worse place is the shower; bare feet in direct contact with wet, ice cold tile. Brrrrr.

It could be worse, of course. We could be stuck in Michigan plowing snow.

One side benefit of being on my feet all day is that I'm actually losing weight. I'm down to 233 pounds; lower than I've been in a decade. For the first time in a long, long time, the idea of being south of 200 seems realistic. I've been able to back off on my insulin a touch, but I haven't managed to get rid of any of my meds completely. That may not be possible even if I do get back down to 185 pounds, but I can certainly reduce what I'm taking. That will certainly help us out financially now that we have no health insurance. As things currently stand, every dime I make will go straight to Walgreen pharmacy.

On a completely different subject, I've sorted and cleaned up all our photos from 2005 and will start dumping them onto our Flickr account sometime soon. It may be as soon as tonight, if nothing else is going on. I don't think there is anything that we need to leave the room for other than dinner, so it's looking good that I can get several hundred photos on-line. One nice thing about our new room is that we have hard-wired network connections instead of wireless, meaning that our connections are more reliable, and that I can have both laptops connected to the internet at the same time. That way, one machine can just be dumping photos onto the internet, and the other one can be used for other stuff (like blogging). I was never able to get that working in our last room because of issues with my laptop, the shaky wireless connection, and the limited number of "slots" being shared by everyone else in the guest house.

Our Christmas cards and letters are out, so everyone should start getting those in the next couple days. They have our address here at Arcosanti, so everyone can send us lots of loot in the mail. Just joking; our space is so limited that anything we are sent would have to be stored in the back of the Durango anyway. But we have a nice, wide windowsill to set Christmas cards on, so please put us on your list. It's really the only Christmas we are having this year as we won't be able to get back to Michigan. This will be the first Christmas for both of us that we won't be with family. It's going to be a little strange. It is already strange as this place starts emptying out knowing that we will be one of the dozen or so people "stuck" here for Christmas day. One of the ladies here has everyone over for Christmas dinner, so we won't just be sitting in our room by ourselves, but it is going to be a very different Christmas for us.

Anyway, I need to try to get caught up with all the stuff I normally read on the internet. I haven't had much time to read blogs, news, or even Dilbert comics. More later if I find anything blog-able.

And Even More Photos

More when it isn't 2am, but there are Grand Canyon photos and some pics from our workshop so far on Flickr.

More Photos

Been busy cleaning up all the digital photos that have accumulated in the last few years. I have all of 2006 on Flickr except our photos of Arcosanti and our trip to the Grand Canyon last week for my birthday. I'll get those sorted out and uploaded tomorrow. There is only around 400 images to sift through, so it should be no problem to get them squared away.

Still busy down here in America's Southwest. Thanksgiving was an all-day thing starting with food at 2:30pm and ending with soccer under the vaults around midnight. Yesterday, we spent most of the day after Thanksgiving doing administrivia. We stopped at the Mayer post office to mail off a couple things, got an oil change and an Arizona license plate for the Durango, Arizona driver's licenses for both of us, car insurance quotes, and opened a bank account. That pretty much ate up the entire day.

Other than that, we've both been working hard here at Arcosanti, both at our regular workshop jobs and some other odd jobs which we don't get paid for, and doing shifts in the cafe, which we do get paid for. I could start making pretty decent money if I would get off my lazy butt and read through the tour guide information and started giving tours, but I can't seem to get motivated to do it. I'll probably push on it next week and get that in place.

We've also been looking into housing options at Arcosanti, and I'll probably get more serious about that tomorrow. At this point, we have yet to get a straight answer as to just where we will be staying, so I'm going to set up a contingency plan down in the area called The Camp. Its a little run-down, so there will be work that I'll need to do before the end of our five-week workshop on December 8th.

That's pretty much all I have for now.

Photos At Last!!

It took several months, but I finally got some new photos on our Flickr account. Just click on Flickr in the Quick Links section over on the right side of this page to see our stuff. The new photos are in the groups "Disney World 2006", "Carnival Elation Cruise 2006", and "USS Alabama". In addition, I finally got more pictures into the "Wiklanksi Reunion 2006" group (thanks Aunt Mary!!).

Anyway, it's past my bedtime, but I just wanted to leave a quick note that I'm starting to make some progress. Or maybe not. We spent Saturday at the Grand Canyon, so now I have another 300 or so pictures on the digital cameras to sort through....

I got to play with cement today!

Today the landscaping department (all 3 of us!) got to help the construction crew do a cement pour today of two wall forms. I was down on the bottom (where the form is) and got to help get the cement into all the little places in the forms. Had one plastic glove to work with -- stick my hand in the cement to push down and around the rebar and wall plates and into the corners. Once when the guys were shoveling the cement in -- they got a little too enthusiastic about throwing it and covered my ungloved hand/arm with cement. Hmmmm....trying to make me part of the new Arcosanti visitor wall?! Learned today that vinegar water is helpful to get cement off you. After helping with both sections of the wall this morning -- I had cement spatters up/down my arms and on my face. I think I got most of it off me. My hands/nails are a disaster now. Mega lotion time.

Today the high is suppose to be 74 and tomorrow 78! Still cool in the mornings when we start work. They moved most departments starting time from 7a to 730a this week. Makes most sense in landscaping because the first thing the manager does is begin watering everything.

Tomorrow we are taking a short road trip -- maybe to the Grand Canyon -- for Ric's birthday. Sounds like it will be a great day to be outside.

Oh, my achey back and feet

I know it has been awhile since either of us has posted. Will kept you all up later, this will be a quick post.

Monday we started our new "workshop jobs" here at Arcosanti. Ric is in maintanence and got to start with painting the gallery. I got into landscaping. (Not my choice, I told coordinator to put me where they needed me, I didn't care) Monday, got to sweep/pick up leaves and dig rocks/stones/gravel/dirt to sift. First sore back and feet. Today got to rake/sweep/bag leaves and walk to compost bins, dig up mint and transplant and then start to clean out/organize landscaping shed. What a mess! And another sore back and feet. I lost track of counting the stairs I had to do while dealing with the mint transplanting. Hopefully all this manual labor helps to take off the weight. I have to watch how much I eat here -- buffet style for all meals -- easy to overeat.

Check out Arcosanti's website and look at Friday, Nov 10th for our group's mug shot.

Packing Again

We will be moving into our "permanent" room this afternoon, so we are packing up everything and loading it into the car. The guest rooms are only a hundred feet away from the room we are staying in, but it's also about 70 feet of vertical cliff. The only way to get our stuff down there is to carry it armload at a time down a switch-back goat path that goes down the face of the cliff, or to load it into the car and work our way down the service road. Being fat, lazy, and not a goat, I chose the second option.

We wandered into town yesterday. Mayer ain't much and most of the other towns along 69 are even less. But we knew we would be OK when we got to Prescott Valley and Prescott: Walmart Superstore, Olive Garden, Chilies, Taco Bell, Burger King, and last but certainly not least, Dairy Queen. We're saved!!!! There isn't an Applebees or a Ruby Tuesday's, so we may not be completely out of the woods yet.

We've spent the last couple days mostly eating, sleeping, and wandering around the grounds. The place is a real maze and we are still trying to figure out how to get to a couple places. By building up the face of the cliff and continuing on up vertically from there, they have managed to cram a lot of usable square footage into a very small space. The disadvantage is that there isn't always a clear path from one place to another. The ongoing construction makes it worse by blocking the obvious path, forcing you to detour around through the complex.

We continue to be surprised by some of the general clutter and carelessness of at least some of the residents. Some of it is because everything is in temporary space and constantly being shuffled around. For example, the library is mostly a pile of cement dust-covered books because it just got kicked out of its previous temporary home into a new temporary home. But some of it there is just no excuse. Litter is hardly as bad as a normal city, but there is still enough of it around to be annoying to anal retentives. It wouldn't be quite so annoying except all the lecturing in printed materials about respecting the environment, then we have to drive through a literal junk yard of abandoned vehicles and equipment to get to our room. Whatever. I have a feeling we will be ruffling some feathers during Seminar Week. That seems to be my job in life.

Anyway, today we will kick off the actual work shop, so we'll probably have more interesting things to blog about soon. And pictures. I swear I'm working on it. Honest.

We're Here! We're Here! We're Here!

(I just hope no one is trying to boil our dust speck.)

Anyway, we are at Arcosanti. They stuck us in a spare room until our regular room is ready sometime Sunday. We really pushed the driving the last couple days so we could just get out of the car for at least a day or two. At some point, we will have to drive into town to buy some stuff to have in our room for the workshop, but it isn't anything urgent.

First impressions of Arcosanti:

It's a lot smaller place than it looks on the website. When we drove up, we both had the same thought: where is the rest of it?

Don't bother coming here if you have a problem with stairs. Everything is up or down a set of stairs. Having everything on different levels is how they cram so much stuff in so small of a space, but wheelchair-friendly it ain't.

A lot of clutter. Some of that is because it is a construction site. A lot of it is just people not paying attention to where they drop and/or throw things. It seems odd that a group of people that are so environmentally conscious think nothing of leaving stuff where ever it happens to drop.

Very quiet. All the construction at this point is focused on finishing the interior of the East crescent apartments, so during the day, the place looks like it is uninhabited.

The climate here allows Arco to "get away" with things that would never fly in Michigan. For example, the windows are single pane. Other areas just open out to the outside with no discernible way to close it off. Very disconcerting to someone that lives in a climate that tries to kill you for nine months out of the year.

The desert is just how I remember it. I love it out here.

We are taking lots of pictures that I will put up on Flickr at some point. We have taken almost 3 gig of pictures and videos since we left Michigan, so it will take me some time to sort through all of them.

More later.

Getting Close

We made it as far as Flagstaff, Arizona today. Obviously, that means we survived four days at Mickey's house and our cruise. We were roasted at Disney. Orlando set two temperature records while we were there. We were both exhausted from all the walking in the heat and humidity for four days straight. But that just made it easier to stick to our plan for the cruise: sit in the sun, read books, and eat. It was glorious. We even managed to get a little tan and only a few pink spots.

We expect to be at Arcosanti tomorrow morning or early afternoon. Once we are there and get settled in, expect normal blogging to resume. I will also start working on the 3 gigs of pictures we've taken over the last couple weeks and getting them up on Flickr.

Well, it's late and I need to sleep.

On the Road

We are sitting in a Super 8 in Perry, Georgia and enjoying seats that don't move and high-speed internet access. I have, for the first time, managed to get a connection running with my D-Link wireless router. I've had nothing but endless frustration until tonight. I plugged it in and it just worked. Heck if I know what I was doing wrong before or what I did right this time, but I ain't arguing. Anyway, just to catch everyone up with all the fun we've been having so far:

Thursday we tried to do some packing, but we had to knock off early for dinner at Pastor and Kim's. We were there late, which was fun, but not good because...

Friday, we were up at 5:30am to go get a 24-foot moving van, using it to move heavy stuff from the house to the cabin (and it was heavy; thanks Dad and Richard), then loading it up, driving it to Birch Run, and unloading it (thanks Dave, Jerrica, Tevra, Timothy, and Mom). We were going to drive back, but it was 11pm and we just couldn't do it.

Saturday, we finally rolled out of the sack around 7am, and headed back north. By the time we dropped off the truck, grabbed something to eat, and got home, it was already noon. We worked for a while, then cleaned up and headed over to my parents for dinner.

Sunday, we were supposed to be in Birch Run by noon, but we still had all our packing and the entire house to clean. Obviously, we were late. We finally got everything crammed into both vehicles and headed for Birch Run singing the theme song from The Beverly Hillbillies. We spent some time with Debbie's family and just bummed around the rest of the day.

Monday was D Day. I had hopped to eat my last meal in Michigan around 8am, but we had to fit two vehicles worth of crap into one. We chucked a lot of stuff and by filling every single crevice in the Durango, we got the rest ready to go. We started south at 4pm and almost got to Lexington, Kentucky.

Tuesday, we were on the road by 11am. We didn't make very good time; we came to a complete stop several times, and once we sat completely stationary for 20 minutes. We also had a hard time staying on the road. We were stopping every hundred miles or so for some reason. We finally stopped in Perry, Georgia, just south of Macon. We should be at Mickey's House tomorrow.

When the county name our road Swamp Road, there was some residence who wanted to petition for a name change because they felt that their property would be devalued by that name. Well, I wonder what they would have thought of the name we ran across today: Stinking Creek Road. Only in Kentucky.

Anyway, time for bed. We've got a lot more driving so I should hit the sack.

Short news

Hey All! Well, our newest addition to the family seems to be fitting in so far. The whole family is sitting at HOrizon Book Store in TC checking that everything works okay. The newest addition is what I'm on and works fine ... found the wireless network and surfing the web just fine. Ric old lap top and new D-Link doesn't seem to like each other. We will have to see if it can be fixed or if we will be using only mine until he gets a new laptop or figures out how to make his old laptop like the D-Link.

We are almost all packed up. Get the moving truck Friday to take a huge load to my Mom's. Then we will be heading out of Michigan on MOnday morning.

More later...........