Eight Random Things

Eight random things about me, as requested by dguzman:

1. My lovely wife took both of our kids out for about 2 1/2 hours today. Free time like this is a luxury at our house. So what did I do with my precious solitude? ... I weeded the garden. Yes, by choice. Yes, there's something wrong with me. (I did a couple other things too, but that was most of it...)

2. I should by all accounts like science fiction and fantasy novels. But I usually don't. Over the course of my life, I've liked only about a tenth of sci-fi/fantasy books I've read (or attempted to read). I can't say why. A couple authors I did like were Ursula LeGuin and Neal Stephenson.

3. For somebody who's interested in sustainability and afraid of peak oil, I eat waaaaaaaay too much fast food. There, I said it. I've eliminated all but a few restaurants, but I just can't shake the habit entirely. I am ashamed.

4. I'm trying a very small scale, unscientific, and primitive terra preta experiment in my garden. I've got two sections of swiss chard planted - one with some Royal Oak natural charcoal worked into the soil, and one without.

5. I have freakish toes. You know how some people have a second toe that's longer than their big toe? My third toe is also than my big toe. You're going to have nightmares about that tonight...

6. Some of our best friends in the world (who we haven't seen in years) stayed with us a couple nights this week. Lori taught Morgan to knit, Liam fixed and/or tweaked a variety of problems with my tractor, Rose and e5 were inseparable the entire time, and tiny baby Anwyn just sat around looking cute, occasionally flailing, and cooing to the ceiling fan. While we were sitting around BS-ing, we discovered something funny about an electronic toy we have. One of the things it does is encourage kids to spell three-letter words. If you press C-A-T, it says "cat". But it's teenager-proof - If you type in A it says "A". If you then press S, it says "S". And if you press S again, it says, "Good job!" and then deftly changes the subject.

7. My first and middle names have been passed down five generations now, and could easily pass for Portuguese. But nobody in my family knows why.

8. I am fascinated by the Riot for Austerity. Participants are trying to spend one year reducing their overall resource usage, with the goal of getting down to 90% below the US average. Click this link for the nitty gritty details, or the link above for the reasons behind it. So what does that 90% reduction amount to? Check this out and compare to your own bills...

Gasoline: 50 gallons of gasoline per person, per year.
Electricity: 1100 kWh per household, per year.
Heating & cooking: 1000 therms of natural gas, or 750 gallons of heating oil per household, per year.
Trash: 0.45 lbs, per person, per day.
Water: 10 gallons of water, per person, per day.
Consumer goods: $1000 worth of household goods, per person, per year.
Food: 70% locally produced, 25% bulk dry goods, and 5% wet goods.

Now there is a challenge for you. How low can you go?