penn

Another bari uke video

Still practicing! Two new songs today. Suffice to say that I've blown the three songs goal (#101) completely out of the water. But I'll keep filming and sharing anyway. FYI: this is a loooong video. It's approximately 7 minutes! Anyway, these are two oldies songs for my dad: Earth Angel and Last Kiss. Conveniently, they use the same chords. I'm still practicing D in there (I bet you can tell which one it is). It is currently one of my two most difficult chords, and I need to lick it so that I can move on to more challenging stuff.

Enjoy!

Coffee

Those who know me well may also know that I do not drink coffee. I don't eat coffee stuff, I don't drink mixed coffee drinks, and I definitely work to avoid coffee. My only positive coffee drinking experiences stem from the summer I spent volunteering in rural Honduras when I was 16; they made me "kid coffee," which means you brew the coffee with sugar water. Yes, that is sugar added before the coffee is even brewed. I sometimes also drank weak lattes there. The coffee there was fabulous and nothing like the coffee we get in the United States; that said, I still only drank coffee perhaps 5-7 times while there.

I'm not sure what it is about coffee. I bet I could get used to it over time, but I see no need to even try. Why hook myself on something that I will then need to drink every morning? My morning routine is not dependent on anything (except breakfast, I suppose), and I never have problems waking up in a variety of situations even if there are no liquid pick-me-ups.

For a non-coffee drinker, I still have some strongly held opinions on coffee. Foremost of this opinions is the need for shade-grown coffee. That's how all the coffee I drank in Honduras was grown -- not just shade-grown, actually, but grown as little coffee plants amongst the mangoes, oranges, and various tropical trees. It's all organic, it is grown by the people who live there, and it produces some excellent coffee. Somehow, I've always taken this as fact, since that was my experience with coffee. As a side note, did you know that it can take three years or more to grow coffee from plant to a mature bean? That's a lot of time for your coffee bean to have an influence on its surroundings.

In graduate school, I had the great fortune to meet a lovely researcher who became a friend. And her research revolves around the importance of shade grown coffee. As summarized by Treehugger (an environmental news site), shade-grown coffee protects biodiversity of trees. This is back up by several studies by my friend Shalene.

Further, shade-grown coffee isn't just good for the trees. It's also good for the animals that live in the systems.

If you're looking for shade-grown coffee, a good place to start is looking for coffee certified by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center's coffee page, as their criteria has been shown to be effective in identifying shade-grown coffee growers that actually nurture diversity in flora and fauna. There's also more great information on Charity Navigator, including links to the Audubon Society's efforts to promote shade-grown coffee.

The research I've cited above was done in Latin America. Interestingly, I just found a link to a study in Ethiopia that showed the opposite: shade grown coffee contributed to a loss of bird biodiversity, while cultivating coffee on already degraded farmland could increase bird diversity. I can't read the whole study, so I don't know the details. I suspect that this might indicate the need for more forested land in general in Ethiopia. It will be interesting to watch further research in this area. In the meantime, I would definitely continue to look for shade-grown coffee from Latin America, where studies have shown a link between growing coffee under a rainforest canopy and the maintenance of biodiversity versus coffee grown in the sun on plantations.

I might not drink coffee, but my boyfriend does. We've switched to organic, shade-grown coffee (fair trade when we can get all three) at home, and the next step is switching over his co-workers. For those that love coffee and want to make sure their habit doesn't contribute to deforestation and unfriendly environmental practices, looking for the shade-grown label is the way to go. And for the green thumb, you can always start growing your coffee at home.

Your something beautiful for today

6:59 am
by Shane L. Koyczan


I've been told
that people in the army
do more by 7:00 am
than I do
in an entire day

but if I wake
at 6:59 am
and turn to you
to trace the outline of your lips
with mine
I will have done enough
and killed no one
in the process.

Humane Society

Last Sunday, after the Vikings' excellent win (go Favre!), Matt and I headed out to the Humane Society with one of his friends. We went to one up in the cities. His two friends are humane society nuts; they got their dog at the humane society, and they look forward to adopting more pets when they have something bigger than their one bedroom apartment. We tagged along because we've been thinking about getting a cat (one of my 101 things!) and are taking baby steps.

The cats were fine. I didn't fall in love with any of them, but there were definitely some cuddly creatures. Mostly, I felt bad. A lot of cats were in smallish cages without much room to roam. On the plus side, the humane society did have these awesome "visiting rooms" where a few cats at a time could hang out. The rooms had perches, climbing posts, and scratching pads for giving the cats a workout.

Who I did fall in love with was an awesome dog. He's all black and a collie mix. I pet him through his cage, and then he brought me his ball and we played a very small game of catch.

I wish I could tell you that he is my new puppy, but it's not meant to be. We just don't have the space for such an active job, and I don't think it would be fair to adopt a dog and not give it the treatment it deserves. I'm sure he's already been picked up by an awesome family, as he was so friendly and sweet.

In the future, I'm really looking forward to having a family, a dog, and all that good stuff. After growing up with pets, I really miss having an animal companion.

Edited to add: When I do get a pet, this list of eco-friendly pet tips will definitely come in handy. My vet friend frequently backs up the food recommendation; better pet food will cost you more in food, but it will probably also cost you much less in vet bills. I love that "get your pet from a shelter" is their first tip.

Fingerprinted

Today, I went to my local law-enforcement establishment to get fingerprints. The state of Minnesota is very particular about who substitute teaches in their classrooms, so I'm in the process of getting a substitute teaching license. Fingerprints are just one part of that process.

Going in, I was worried about having inky fingers for the rest of the day. Turns out that ink is no longer part of the process! Instead, I spent about 10 minutes rolling my fingers around on special optical scanners. First, they did a whole-hand print of each of my hands. I got some water sprayed on my palms (being damp helps), spread it around, then rolled my hands across a clear acrylic tube with scanning stuff inside. Then, each finger was moistened with a damp paper towel, and I rolled the fingers across a flat scanning pad.

The process was actually quite interesting. In my case, I had to roll each finger three times across the pad. The machine then calculated how well my fingers scanned and accepted the best scan for each one. The speed, wetness of my finger, and amount of pressure applied all influenced how well I scanned. I was worried about being difficult (ideally, you'd only need one scan of each finger), but the lady doing the prints assured me it was fine. Her least favorite? Manual workers, like road crew or construction workers, because their fingers are often worn down or marred from the heavy work.

Now, just in case anything ever happens to me, there is a record of my fingerprints. Just one more step to being a cog in the machine, I suppose, but I don't feel too threatened by this recording of my individuality. Yes, it's now harder for me to disappear should I ever chose to. Somehow, though, I don't think this will be a problem.

Clementine

Already rolling with my new baritone ukulele! Ukulele isn't exactly guitar, but it's close enough, so I think this counts as one of my three songs I need to learn (goal 101).

Please enjoy my first attempt, and I will post better efforts as I continue to learn.

Christmas, again!

Two new arrivals plus a long to-do list have me wondering just what I'll actually get done today. I feel like a kid in a candy store!

In the UPS delivery, I got two awesome arrivals:

Okay, maybe that's not enough for most of my blog audience. I got a new hard drive for my computer -- mine is on the fritz, and this one is so much larger -- and a baritone ukulele. The uke is a present from my awesome big brother, and he bought me one that has the same fingerings as a guitar so I can learn from guitar friends and switch if needed. My goal is to be a decently capable song leader, and this will certainly help.

I'm not even sure where to start. Tune the uke? Put in the new HD and get that process going? Hit the post office to pick up my other package? (Planet Earth and an art & exploration book). So many choices!

Something I would pay for

I've got a PO Box here at the local post office. Right now, it's the easiest and most dependable way to get mail. Plus, there's something fun about having a key to a little box that holds stuff for you.

The big downside to the PO Box is having to visit the office to check your mail. I'm a single gal, and I just don't get much mail. A few bills and the occasional letter or postcard from a friend are my main box occupants. A few years ago, the post office happened to be located right next to where I worked, so it was no problem to check my mail at the end of each workday. In my current town, I usually have to make a special effort to get my mail.

I'm waiting for a package from Amazon: a late Christmas present of Planet Earth for Matt and me to share. I've been watching the tracking on that package, and it was finally delivered today. It's really exciting to know that I will actually have something when I go to the post office. That also got me thinking: what if the post office had an online system where you could check to see if you have mail? Of course, it would be super complicated to tell you exactly what you have, but it would be nice to know that you have something. There could be a barcode on the inside of your PO Box, and the post office could scan it when they place mail inside. Then, I could log into a website or get an email alert that I have mail waiting for me (and, to be nice, hopefully the postal workers would only scan for actual mail and not for the ad inserts that they frequently place in my box).

Obviously, the system would cost a little more. But think of the utility! I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who would pay for such an exciting feature.