Second Life

Build a Better Mouse Trap and the World Beats a Path to Your Door

I've got a dirty passion: Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel. It's a fascinating show that explores little known dirty jobs. The criteria for selection: the dirtier the better. This show works because the host, Mike Rowe, is perfect. He shows interest, respect, and humor for the people he meets and the jobs he gets into, and he's cute! OK, OK maybe I have a little crush on the guy. You watch the show and see if you can resist him. He has a knack for asking the questions that pop into my mind. I also appreciate the fact that he seems genuinely interested and respectful of the people that he interviews. This is probably because the show relies on their viewers to send in suggestions. I know several people that watch it with their children so that their children learn more about the people and jobs that "make civilized life possible for the rest of us." That's from the shows opener.   It's amazing some of the jobs out there and I was pleased to see the show getting more press this year.

Last week was one of my favorite episode because I simply LOVE people who love what they do, figure out how to do it differently from anybody else, and kinda make the world a better place for everybody. Such is the case with the episode about Poo Pot Making. This episode is about the Freund's dairy farm in Connecticut. They are second generation dairy farmers. The picture is of Eugene (father), and brothers Matt and Ben. Matt and Ben have figured out how to use all the parts of cow poo. They make a product called Cow Pots that I love. It's a planter pot that you plant in the ground with the plant. It will feed the plant as it dissolves. This is a great use of cow manure.Why is that a big deal? Well, I'll tell you. Cows excrete a lot of poo. If you're not using it; you're trying to figure out how to get handle it in an environmentally friendly way.  Matt and Ben figured out how to separate the solids from the liquid in the poo (OK, I just love typing that word, and I like the spelling poo better than pooh. For real fun, look the word up at dictionary.com. OK, I'm juvenile, so?), they make the pots from the solids (which do NOT smell). When Matt was trying to figure out how to make the manure solids glue together, he started with Elmer's glue and put them in his wife's toaster oven. AND HE'S STILL ALIVE?

By the way, they heat their farm house and all barns from the methane gas from the manure. The liquid ends up as fertilizer back on the plants grown to feed the cows. When Mike (from Dirty Jobs) called Matt a genius, Matt shyly said he didn't think he was a genius because a genius would not stand ankle-deep in poo all day. Mike said, then you're a visionary and Matt seemed to like that. Matt was deeply concerned that his cows get their due. He said, "The cows give us everything we use." Mike said, "You love you're cows, don't you?" Matt answered shyly, "I love my cows." Well Matt, I love your passion for what you do and your visionary ability to take a problem and make it an asset. On the show they said that each cow produces 150 lbs. of poo a day!!! There are an estimated 14 million cows in America. Imagine harnessing that methane energy!  Please go to the Cow Pots web-site and buy their pots. The show is going to re-air on the Discovery Channel on Monday, January 22 at 8:00 p.m. It's the second segment so check it out. Hey I wonder if I can get methane gas from the cat poo my three little darlings leave me everyday? By next year, they may just be heating the house.

Jann

To Do and Not To Do

I have two semi-related thoughts for this Tuesday--one on Doing and one on Not Doing. First, the "Not Doing" . . .

Every other weekend, I have some uninterrupted time to myself while Darvin goes to Pittsburgh and Ali is hanging out with her friends. I always swear that I will use this time to paint or collage or write a poem or write an essay or do a podcast. Yet on Sunday night, when my husband gets back into town, none of these things has happened. Instead, I've run errands, napped, watched reruns of Project Runway, frittered away hours surfing the Internet, checked my e-mail obsessively, and then napped some more--anything BUT work on one of the many creative projects I've started.

The next time this happens, however, I believe I've discovered the antidote, thanks to Jeffrey at 52 Projects. His "Not to Do" list will now hang proudly over my desk as a reminder to step away from the laptop the next time I want to check e-mail rather than paint. I'm also digging his entire site, where I can see what other project types are up to, particularly his sick-day planner for 2006, although it's late in the year for the full benefit.  I think I'm going to have to order his book. . .

As for the "Doing" part of this post. . . I  have determined that I will join the NaBloPoMo movement (National Blog Posting Month) by posting blog entries every day in November. (I don't have the stamina for National Novel Writing Month, although if you do, please let me know. I'll be very impressed.)

This committment to writing every day may mean that you'll get my Thanksgiving grocery list on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and the train schedule for Jess's return from New York on that Wednesday. But there WILL be posts and I'm told that everything counts.

You can participate, too, even if you don't have a blog. Because your mission in November will be to de-lurk. Post a comment. Tell us what you're thinking. Say SOMETHING. You'll have the whole month to do it. Jann and I promise to listen.

Michele

Learning to Love You More

Here's an absolutely fabulous site guaranteed to help you learn more about yourself and anyone else who is willing to play along.

Learning to Love You More has been developed by a group of artistis who put "assignments" on their website. If you're interested, then you can accept the assignment and then send the artists a "report"--a collage, a video, an audio recording, etc--it depends on the assignment. Some of my favorites include:

  Start a Lecture Series.

Recreate an Object From Someone's Past

Make a Flier of Your Day

Write Your Life Story in Less Than a Day

Record Your Own Guided Meditation

Recreate a Poster You Had as a Teenager

Spend Time with a Dying Person

Make a Protest Sign and Protest

. . . Wait, I have to stop. . . I'm only halfway through the list.

When you visit the site, be sure to check out what other people (and they aren't all artists) have done with the assignments.  Some amazing work. And the artists are coming out with a book in 2007 to share what participants have turned in.

What I love is the potential of these things. I could see picking one of the topics and working on it with a group of friends to see the different ways that we covered the same topic. Or putting a few of your favorites on slips of paper and then letting each person select one to produce and share. What a cool activity for a family reunion or a getaway with family or friends. Something to do on a rainy afternoon with bored children or grandchildren, or goals to set for yourself to accomplish over a period of time as you explore yourself in Second Life. 

I have to admit that I'm not too fond of the layout of the site, but the ideas are incredible. . .

Michele

Photo above is for assignment # 30, Take a Picture of Strangers Holding Hands, done by Keiko Yamamoto

Flickr Mini-cards

I was visting Mighty Goods (Maggie does the shopping so I don't have to) and found these. For $20, you can create a box of 100 minicards using your Flickr photos. What a great gift idea or way to share your art! And it looks like the process couldn't be any easier. The only hard part is picking out the photos you want to use.

Michele

For the Artist In You

To satisfy my Second Life artistic yearnings, I've joined a number of on-line art groups and I'm always keeping my eye out for good workshops and retreats. Two that have consistently received rave reviews (although I haven't yet been fortunate enough to attend either one) are Artfest and Art & Soul.

Artfest is run by Teesha Moore and her husband at Fort Worden in Washington State. The 3-day retreat features workshops by some great (mostly female) artists and lots of time with other creative people (again, mostly women). And while the lodgings are apparently somewhat primitive, they can't be too bad because with the event several months away, the only place you can get a room is offsite!  Prices are reasonable at $480 if you stay in town, which includes all of your workshop fees and some "goodies."

Art & Soul is a paper, fiber, beading and fabric arts festival also taught by talented and well-known artists, including Claudine Hellmuth who is the goddess of collage. At least within a certain segment of society. In 2007, there will be three retreats--one in Hampton, VA, one in Portland, OR and one in Pienza Italy. Prices for the Oregon and VA retreats aren't available yet, but the Italy retreat will be about $2500, excluding airfare, and registration is now open.

So if you're feeling creative. . .

Michele

Journaling in Second Life

When I was 14, it was called a diary. Now that I'm 43, it's a journal. There were a lot of years in between when I didn't have the time, energy, self-absorption or privacy to sit with a pen and a blank piece of paper. I'm kind of sorry about that. I think it could have helped me get through some of the harder parts of parenting, partnering and work, but that's water under the bridge. In Second Life, journaling is a pleasure I've come to really enjoy.

For me, it happens two ways. I have my writing journal in which I pour out my mostly mundane thoughts. Right now I'm working with a red journal that contains handmade paper, using my Uniball micropoint. I find that both the paper and the type of pen I use are important. I also need blank pages--no lines to hold me in.

I've tried Julia Cameron's Artist's Way suggestion to do Morning Pages, where you write for at least 3 pages no matter what, even if you're just writing "I have nothing to say" over and over again. But I find that I still lack the discipline to keep up with them. My computer calls to me and my pile of work and if I don't have some thing to wrestle with on paper, then the siren song of "get something done today" will often win out over the journal and cup of coffee ritual that is probably better for me.

My other journal is my art journal. With pen, pastel, paint, collage, chalk, etc. I record my world in more visual terms, which has been an interesting route into my soul and into greater understanding of myself. I use all different size and types of journals, mostly filled with watercolor or sketchpad versions. I confess to a brief fling with Moleskines, although I also admit to feeling a tad pretentious when using them and so my love affair is on again/off again, depending on the phases of the moon or some other mysterious force, apparently.  Right now I find myself lusting after these Fabriano Art Journals. 

My 18-year old college freshman daughter has inherited my love of journaling. We still have the video of her beaming 7-year old face as she tore through the birthday wrapping to reveal her first diary. "It has a lock and everything!" It's been her constant companion and certainly has preserved her sanity (by her own admission) during the worst of her teenage angst. I'm glad that she's found something this helpful this early in her life. But then again, she wants to be a writer so I'm not surprised that she's taken to it so thoroughly.

I think that Second Life is a good time to acquire--or re-acquire--the journaling habit. I encourage you to explore different journal varieties, different pens, different formats. Find what you enjoy, what feels good in your hand and to your heart. And then try making it a part of your daily routine. Come on, if you do it, I will too.

Here's some inspiration to get you moving:

• Teesha Moore keeps the most fabulous and beautiful pages. She does the art in her studio and then takes the pages with her to a favorite coffee shop to write. This is how she creates them.

• Keri keeps different kinds of journals--some are collage, some not. All capture her essence.

• While not a Second Lifer, Sabrina has made a name for herself through Spilling Open and subsequent books.

• If you love Moleskines or want to see how others use them, you may want to check out Moleskinerie where the most rabid fans explore their love of the journal in all it's forms.

• I also love Drawing from Life: The Journal as Art, which explores the various ways in which women and men of all ages have chronicled their lives.

• If you REALLY want to dig deeply into the journaling habit you can explore Ira Progoff's Intensive Journaling method, an approach that builds in part on the idea of writing in community. The Program is offered at locations throughout the world and is what hard-core journaling is all about. I have Progoff's At a Journal Workshop but have not been able to devote the time that I need to get it started. It definitely seems to require the kick in the butt of going to a workshop.

These are a few of my resources. Post a comment and let me know a few of yours and how you use journaling to explore your Second Life.

Michele

For the Writer in You

Writers.com offers an interesting list of on-line writer's workshops that last from 8 weeks (for $220) to 10 weeks ($270). Some of the classes include:

Women's Spiritual Writing Through the Ages,  a 10 week course that

"traces the legacy of spiritual writing from a feminine perspective, this class will facilitate group interaction around a variety of religious and spiritual traditions. Showcasing history, culture, and devotional style, we'll explore how faith is expressed powerfully by women kneading their stories into bread to heal the world. We'll survey spiritual disciplines and the sacred questions that are at the center of a spirit-led life."

Then there's Eldercool: Writing to Re-vision Attitudes on Aging in which you'll read works by writers over 50 (that's "elderly"?!) and then explore memoir writing, writing to facilitate healing, documentary writing, etc.

Future classes will teach you how to write personal essays, create stories for children, write poetry or preserve your travel adventures for posterity. You can also get one-on-one tutoring and feedback. So for a few hundred dollars and a few weeks of your time, it might be worth exploring your inner author. You can enroll here.

Michele