I’ve been eying a pair of wing chairs on Craigslist for a few days now and we finally went to check them out tonight. I really like wing chairs. And the pair we saw tonight was irresistible. We brought both of them home with us for the ridiculous price of twenty bucks each. The picture above is of one of the chairs now sitting in our living room.

It’s such a great feeling to find a good steal of a deal on Craigslist.

But really, the fun part was meeting the seller. The husband said he sounded like a dud over the phone and was unenthusiastic so I didn’t know what to expect. It’s always a bit of a rush to meet your Craigslist seller. There’s always an element of danger as you pull up to their house and find out if the seller is a chainsaw murderer or a hippie artist.

Thankfully, we got the latter tonight.

He had long stringy brown hair and a matching goatee. He wore a loose fitting button up shirt with only a few buttons in use and a green and white ceramic medallion on a black leather necklace. He opened his garage and showed us his laptop on which he said he liked watching in lieu of watching TV. I noticed the inside of his garage had a life-size tree painted in one of the corners.

He talked a lot about how much he liked the wing chairs and that he’s painted them 4 or 5 times depending on the color of the room he had them in. He talked about how Craigslist has really helped him sell quite a bit of his furniture and how he’s moving to Florida to be with his aging mom. He also talked about how he likes to watch home improvement shows and gets a lot of his decorating ideas from them. He mentioned that he painted these wing chairs white because he has a room that he painted dark blue and every other bit of furniture in the room was white — including the bed, the linens and the tables and chairs. I wish he would have invited us to see the inside of his house.

Then he started talking about how he really wants to live green and it’s hard to do that in Houston. We were in Mission Bend. Yeah. I’m not sure how he ended up in suburbia.

After we paid for the chairs (which is awkward because with Craigslist you approach the whole thing like you’re pals and then you pull out the cash) he helped us move the chairs which barely fit in the back of the 4runner. That’s when we started discussing future plans and he said he’s always dreamed of building his own house. A hay bale house, to be specific.

A what?

Hay bale house. You know, hay bales? The ones that you use to feed horses? You take a bunch of them and use them like building blocks to put your house together. Then you use rebar to anchor them together. Then you get this plaster that seals the house and there you go. Energy efficient and eco-friendly!

We wrapped things up and headed out with our precious white cargo in the back. What a fun night.

And yeah, I came home and looked up the hay bale house. It’s actually the real deal. Check it out on wikipedia!

We also visited two newborn babies tonight! So cute! I absolutely loved holding them. Can’t wait to have our own.

I found out about Symbaloo from Ronky on Flickr when he posted this picture.

It’s uses the concept of multiple desktops that you will be able to access from any computer when you create an account. It’s not really a new idea. Google and Yahoo both have fairly decent personalized homepages that you can set up and access from anywhere. What I like about Symbaloo is that it’s visually pleasing and I really like the fact that there’s the middle box that displays a search box for all the different websites so you can skip a website load and search for what you want immediately.

Each box is customizable and you can move around the different blocks to wherever you’d like. I also like that it’s simple enough for all the icons/boxes to fit on one page without scrolling. While it doesn’t have the news feeds and functionality of the widgets that Google and Yahoo provide, I never really use a homepage to read up on things I’m interested in. Symbaloo is purely a launchpad and I think that’s what a homepage is most useful for.

They claim on their website that Symbaloo will stay ad-banner free. How are they going to make money?

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Halloween is a funny occasion. I think it’s the worst for people who don’t have any fashion sense. I saw a person dressed up in a costume yesterday and didn’t realize it was a costume until 30 minutes into the conversation. That’s pretty bad.

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We went to Jenni’s Noodle House on Shepherd and it was surprisingly good. Featuring fresh ingredients, cute menu names, and authentic flavors, the husband and I were both pretty pleased. I had the Ginger Ramen and the husband had the Chili-Oil Beef Ramen. The location is really convenient for us but I don’t know if it’s worth the heftier price tag. We’re used to paying 4-5 dollars for a bowl of noodle soup. It’s a a bit unsettling to fork over 7-9 dollars for a bowl at Jenni’s. It’s in a better neighborhood than the Pho place we like in Midtown so we understand that they have to hike the prices. When I was eating I kept thinking about how easy it would have been to make it in my own kitchen but it was nice to not have to and to still feel that the ingredients were fresh and healthy.

I’m pretty sure we’ll be back.

In anticipation of the upcoming NBA season, we’ve finally got cable TV. Well, we’ve actually always had it, but we are now officially paying for it so that we can watch with integrity. We got this great deal for $29 bucks extra each month for the next twelve months or something like that, which is less than we would spend on beers and bar food if we watched all the NBA games at local sports bars.

ANYWAY. We have naturally been watching more TV. There is definitely a good variety that we enjoy. We watch American Gladiators reruns on ESPN Classic (did you know NBC is bringing the show back?), a lot of fighting (UFC/IFL/Boxing), Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals, Travel, HGTV, and PBS.

The other night, we were watching PBS and they have this segment called Independent Lens which their website describes as “an independent Film Festival in your living room.”

We caught the second half of the documentary, Please Vote For Me, the story of a third-grade class in Wuhan, China that is holding a democratic election for the class monitor.

“To prove their worthiness, the candidates must perform in three events. First is a talent show, where each candidate plays an instrument or sings a song. Second is a debate, in which the candidates bring up the shortcomings of their opponents as well as their own personal qualifications. And finally, each candidate must deliver a speech, an opportunity to appeal directly to classmates and ask for their votes.”

The irony of this mini-election is not lost on us. The implications of a democracy experiment in communist China is fascinating on so many levels. As I’m cheering on the kids, the husband is remarking at the way the quasi experiment in a third-grade classroom can be extrapolated to the adult politics in China.

I’m especially interested at the fanatical parental involvement with the preparation of the speeches. Several of the parents write the speeches and coach the kids on speech content, posture, dramatic pauses, confidence, and even the tempo of their speech. You can almost see the weight of the burden that’s placed on the kids. Even though the children are only eight years old, their facial expressions carry a uncomfortable depth that kind of breaks your heart.

I really liked the way this documentary was filmed. The filmmakers were silent and the editing was pretty subtle. There are so many documentaries where the will of the filmmaker dominates every scene and every cut but in this movie you forget for a moment that there’s a giant film crew in the small living room as one of the kids practices his campaign speech in his underwear. You feel as though you really are an invisible observer in the classroom. This is helped tremendously by the fact that the kids are candid on the film and seem to interact with no regard for the camera.

Class monitors are usually appointed. To hold an election is bold, almost a bit daring. But the results are depressingly the same as before the election.

There are three candidates running for the position of class monitor. The first candidate is a girl named Xu Xiaofei who is attacked for her gossiping and her tendency to cry in tough situations. She has a dedicated following of her girlfriends but is not much of a contender. The second candidate is named Luo Lei and is the incumbent class monitor. He is strict, believes in physical punishment, and despite his small size, speaks with the authority of true politician. The third candidate is a chubby, lovable boy named Cheng Cheng who promotes democratic processes and promises to invite class input on how everything should be run. At one point he asks the class to raise their hands if they’ve been beaten up by the Luo Lei, the incumbent class monitor. A large number of hands shoot up in the air. He tells them that it doesn’t have to be this way. He encourages them to think about how it would be if they didn’t have to live in fear of being hit by Luo Lei. He gives a great final campaign speech. It’s not hard to guess who’s my favorite.

Luo Lei also gives a pretty good final speech but the real kicker is that his dad has bought a stack of greeting cards for him to hand out after his speech as mid-autumn festival gifts. This infuriates me. It’s a dirty underhanded trick. And it really just kills me. Because I know it’s going to work.

And it does.

In fact, they vote for the Luo Lei in a landslide. With their pretty gifts in their hands, they so quickly forget about the idea of a democratic classroom. They vote for something that’s familiar. Luo Lei can’t be that bad. After all, he’s given them gifts!

Isn’t that the whole problem with democracy? Don’t get me wrong, I still think democracy is the best form of government. But just because a country has a democratic process, it doesn’t mean the country is saved from corruption and poor leadership. More times than not, the wrong people are elected into power by the uninformed popular vote that doesn’t know what’s good for them.

Weijun Chen, the filmmaker, has the same sentiments. He is quoted on the website saying:

“A consummate democratic system does not necessarily create a perfect democratic society. Why? This is where the “human factor” plays a big role. Ultimately, a democratic system must depend on the people within the system for implementation and compliance. If the people are not equipped with the necessary democratic culture or if there is a conflict with their inherent cultural beliefs, then the democratic system will only be reduced to a stiff and rigid legal provision. It would then be difficult to create a true democratic society.”

Cheng Cheng cries his eyes out when he finds out the results of the election. I want to cry with him.

Here’s the trailer:

No, I’m not kidding. Let me give you the backstory.

The husband and I are planning to go to Guadalupe Mountains National Park in November and we started planning a few months back.  We went to our local Whole Earth Provision Co. to check out the camping gear and we were really shocked at how expensive everything was.   Isn’t camping supposed to be a relatively inexpensive activity?  Going back to nature didn’t seem as natural as we thought it would be.  At least not in the way that Whole Earth was suggesting.

I went home and started looking around for tents online.  Campmor was recommended to me as a good resource for camping gear so I surfed through their pages.  I also surfed through some camping forums.  Most campers recommended 2-person tents that were well over $300.  And it wasn’t just the tent.  There were the sleeping bags that were $200 a pop.  Then there were the Therm-a-rest sleeping pads that everyone said was a must-buy, which ranged from $75 to $150 at the REI store.

Needless to say, we put off the camping idea for awhile.

Until the husband started coming across several websites and forum posts about 4-runner owners that sleep in the back.  The nice thing about 4 runners is that the back row of seats fold down completely (and easily) flat so that you have a six-foot (maybe a bit longer) flatbed in the back that’s about as wide as a full-size mattress.

Camping suddenly became affordable again.

We knew the cold front was coming in on Friday night so we decided to try out the set up.

An important part of the setup was buying AirShades:

They are basically model specific screens that fit over your car doors so that the breeze can blow through and ventilate the car but don’t let the bugs in.  I don’t think mosquitoes will be a problem since the temperature in that part of the country averages around 40 degrees at night in November.  But it’s nice to have.

You can see how the back row of seats fold up nicely.

Here’s the tent fan we bought that will also help ventilate the truck.  It was so nice and breezy Friday night that we didn’t need it in our trial run.

As you can see, the husband’s 5′10″ frame fits easily when stretched out.

This picture shows how roomy it is!  As an added plus, since we don’t have to worry about a damp ground, we can just bring our down comforter instead of buying fancy sleeping bags.  We might still invest in some sort of mattress pad but we probably won’t shell out the extra money for the Therm-a-rest sleeping pads.  I know I can get cheap mattress padding at Wal-Mart for twenty bucks or so.

You may say that this isn’t real camping– but honestly, sleeping in a tent isn’t all that appealing to me.  I’m excited about the trip because of the hikes we’ll get to do and the hopefully red maple trees.  I’m a city girl at heart.

And hey, if I can save several hundred dollars, why not?!

I’m not a Michael Moore fan.

I find him mostly obnoxious with a few good arguments. I think that his abrasive personality overshadows his intentions and distracts from his purpose. However, I’ll admit, I’m intrigued by his most recent movie, Sicko. It’s definitely on my to-watch list. Having lived in the United States my whole life, I know no other health care system than the one we currently use. As long as I’ve understood health insurance, I’ve known about in-network providers and out-of-network providers. When I got my first job, I chose the health insurance plan with the highest deductible ($5,000) so that I would have the lowest monthly premium. It is beyond my comprehension that there are some countries in which you can walk into any hospital and receive treatment.

Take Canada for example. Here’s a description from a Canadian Health Care website:

“Canada’s health care system is a group of socialized health insurance plans that provides coverage to all Canadian citizens. It is publicly funded and administered on a provincial or territorial basis, within guidelines set by the federal government.

Under the health care system, individual citizens are provided preventative care and medical treatments from primary care physicians as well as access to hospitals, dental surgery and additional medical services. With a few exceptions, all citizens qualify for health coverage regardless of medical history, personal income, or standard of living.”

The most amazing part of the husband’s recent ACL and meniscus reconstruction surgery was that we didn’t have to pay a dime. His company’s health insurance plan is absolutely incredible. When we first got married and I switched over to his plan, I didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t pay a monthly premium. When he showed me his paystub, I then quickly assumed that his coverage must be lousy. As it turned out, it was actually a lot better than mine. At the time, this was most evident in prescription medicine. On my health insurance plan, I was paying $30 per pack of birth control pills. On his health insurance plan, I now pay $40 for 3 packs of birth control pills. And they conveniently mail it to my door through Express Scripts.

I don’t think we fully grasped how good the insurance coverage was until we decided to get the ACL and meniscus surgery and started looking at prices.

eMedicine.com says, “The average cost for surgical repair of an ACL tear is approximately $11,500.”

I’ve Googled and looked everywhere for different price quotes and it varies pretty widely because I don’t think there are price controls on ACL surgeries but the quote above is about the median if not a little lower that what I’ve found.

Ever since the night of the surgery, the medical supply companies keep calling to drop off a continuous passive motion (CPM) machine (pictured above). It basically helps keep your knee in motion by bending and unbending your knee continuously. It’s also covered by our insurance plan and it retails as several thousand dollars.

We didn’t even pay a co-pay for the doctor office visits or the hinged knee brace which is also another few hundred dollars or so.

I don’t know what we would do if we didn’t have health insurance. I can’t imagine living in the United States without health insurance. It would be a complete nightmare– which I think is what Michael Moore’s movie is trying to demonstrate.

I know I’ve already posted about prefab homes, but I just can’t resist posting about this company, LivingHomes.

At first when you open up their website, it looks like the picture of the home is dark and underexposed. But after a few seconds, you see the sunlight start to pour in and you realize that it’s sort of like a time-lapse of the way light shines through the house during a 24 hour period.

It’s a beautiful house. But that’s not the special part.

Click on Tour to see all the different rooms in the house. In each room, you can hover over the green and white squared-circles to see all the features. Not only is the house modern, it’s environmentally friendly! Each home even shows their LEED certification ranking.

“Our first home was designed by Ray Kappe, FAIA, and was installed in eight hours on April 13. It was recently certified LEED® Platinum by the United States Green Building Council, the first home in the nation to achieve this distinction.”

– Steve Glenn, Founder and CEO of LivingHomes

I don’t have the money to do this, but if someone does, please do it and tell me how it goes! And invite me to your house!

Kiva is an amazing website that I came across in a home + design magazine. The idea is that you can give loans (as small as $25) to small businesses in the developing world.Here’s a good example of someone who is looking for a loan:

Location: Vaigaga , Samoa

Activity: Ice Cream

Loan Amount: $850.00

Loan Use: Purchase of refrigerator

Repayment Term: 16 - 16 months

Status: Raising Funds

Partner Rep: Junior Augustine Iose

Partner: South Pacific Business Development

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I think this kind of website is good for those who feel uneasy about donating to large “commercialized-feeling” non-profit organizations because they are worried that their donation will fund the design of a fund-raising poster instead of actually helping an individual.  I think the donation to fund the design of a fund-raising poster is just as worthwhile but everyone has their own views.

Anyway, check out the website and see if anything piques your interest.  You could help someone build a sustaining business that could feed them for their rest of their life.  I’m tempted to recite the, “Give a man a fish–” quote here but for your sake I’ll refrain from doing so.

It’s an architectural firm named after a bicycle. Not a ten-speed, just a single-speed. I like it.

SINGLE speed DESIGN.

They were featured in the New Yorker as “Salvage Artists” for one of their recent achievements– a house made of salvaged steel and concrete left over from a road construction project in Boston. The house is known as the Big Dig House.

Here’s a picture of the completed house:

Another one of my favorite projects they talked about in the New Yorker article is a loft they designed for a family. They used translucent glass that slid across the living space and allowed for instant customization of the loft. I think about the abundance of high-rise condominiums in Houston and wonder if anyone would ever try to create a complex that had sliding walls in every condo so that each tenant could choose their own layout.

Single Speed Design is Korean husband-and-wife team which I think is pretty great. I would love to open up a business with the husband one day and work side-by-side on something we both believe in.

One day.

Traveling just makes me want to travel more.

I want my own Veldt (a la Ray Bradbury).

I currently want to summon a white-sand, crystal blue ocean with a sun so warm and bright that I can finally stop looking so office-cubicle-pale.

People criticize America for its consumerism and its laziness. While both are valid criticisms, I do think that we have a strong Do-It-Yourself (DIY) community here in the US of A. I’ve always admired people who are handy.

Ever since we bought a 4-Runner, we periodically peruse this 4-Runner forum to read about potential issues and also to read about all the DIY mods that people have undertaken. The results are impressive. There are the usual mods such as the changing of headlights and the ever so popular mod of exhaust pipes. Some have gone as far as to install their own in-dash GPS systems.

I recently stumbled across a slew of IKEA furniture mod pages. It’s great to see how creative people can get with such simplistic pieces of furniture. One blogger calls his page “ikea hacker” and is a good example of what I’m talking about.

But all of that pales in comparison to what I saw in Domino Magazine a few weeks ago. It was an article about how a girl and her friend built a small house in a week with a DIY kit from Shelter-Kit, Inc. All the pieces are precut and shipped by the company to the location you specify and the best part is that the company claims that you don’t need any house-building experience to put their houses together.

Me, being the skeptic, immediately frowned at this idea. I imagined a slight breeze blowing the house into smithereens. But then I turned the idea over in my head a bit longer and caught myself revelling in the idea of building a house with my own hands. What a great accomplishment that would be. To lean against a wall that you erected. To open a door you hung.

So I started researching about these house kits and it’s actually kind of a booming trend. The trend takes various forms of course, and is available at varying points of the building spectrum– meaning you can buy the blueprints for cheap all the way to getting pieces of your house pre-made and shipped to your location. I remember reading in Dwell a few months ago about how a lot of architects were selling generic floor-plans and blueprints for modern styled homes for cheap.  People with the time and energy could purchase these blueprints and hire the contractors to build the house themselves.

The slang for the premade homes is “prefab homes”, which is short for prefabricated homes. You can read wikipedia’s take on prefab homes here. And here is another prefab resource to learn more about it. Apparently part of the reason why this trend started is because more and more people are starting to prefer modern-style homes to traditional-style homes. Modern homes aren’t readily available through mainstream builders in most cities so independent architects, contractors and builders realized that there was money to be made in this niche market.

The best part is that modern floorplans are especially suitable for making prefabricated pieces of the home.   So it all makes sense.

Now, where can I find me some land?

I was at Walgreen’s last night at 10:30pm picking out a Valentine’s card with all of the other deadbeat boyfriends and husbands. It was fun.

Happy Valentine’s Day. You won’t get a bitter post from me about how Valentine’s is just a way for card companies and florists to make more money than they already do. I think we all need reminders to give our loved ones some extra TLC. I’m all for it.

My brother-in-law’s wedding was this past weekend. We volunteered to print out some guestbook cards for them so that’s what we were doing Saturday morning at the local Kinko’s.

Kinko’s is an interesting place. It’s a really unique mix of people from all walks of life. The usual types include:

. High School/College Students
. Artists
. Business Professionals
. Entrepreneurs
. Writers
. Elderly
. Computer Illiterate

In the same small building, you have those who live and die by computers and electronics and you also have those who have never owned a computer. I love seeing an impatient businessman wait in line behind an elderly couple asking about options to enlarge wallet size pictures of their grandbabies. It’s great.

We were halfway through cutting all the card-stock and I noticed this middle-aged woman hovering around our table. She made small talk and gushed that what we were doing was “cute” and continued to watch us. I thought she might be waiting to use the paper cutter but there was another one on the table next to us that wasn’t being used. Finally, after a few more minutes of watching, she thrust a black and white flyer (which she had just finished making) at me and said, “Well, maybe you guys would like to go to this concert.”

It was as awkward as it sounds.

The flyer was a for a Jim Brickman concert. (You might know Jim from the Martina McBride song “Valentine”.) There was a huge picture of Jim that took up 80 percent of the page and beneath the picture was the concert details. Jones Hall, if I remember correctly.

Not really knowing what to say, I asked her if she was involved with organizing the concert.

She looked embarrassed at this point and said, “Oh no, no I’m not. <pause> I’m just part of the fan club.”

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I thought fan clubs were for teenyboppers?

I have recently adopted a new shopping philosophy. I will purchase clothing when they are on sale instead of when they are in season or when there is a big event in my life. I exercised this philosophy by buying a dress for $30 at the j.crew year-end sale a few weeks ago.

Between now and March, all ski apparel is on sale. I know the biggest markdowns will be later in March, but I’m concerned that by the time March rolls around, everything in my size will be gone. Therefore, I have begun to purchase ski apparel for a non-existent ski trip that I will eventually take next winter.

Good deals I’ve taken advantage of:

Spyder Women’s Recluse Systems Jacket — Pearl

Retail Price: $230
PURCHASE PRICE: $139.97

Spyder Women’s Pike’s Peak Soft Shell Pant — Pearl
(the color in the picture is off, it’s the same color as the jacket)

Retail Price: $225
PURCHASE PRICE: $159.99

I finally got my wedding picture proofs. To their credit, they had the month of December off (that’s the only vacation time they have year-round) and the photos look great. Except that I didn’t realize how pudgy I was getting around wedding time.

So anyway that means I can finally send out my thank-you notes.

Wedding pictures are kind of intense. They’re once in a lifetime and they’re something you’ll always look back on even when you’re old. They are almost as scary as your Driver’s License photos. Speaking of which, my new license should be coming in the mail any day now. Wish me luck.

Next post: My entertaining day at the Social Security Administration Office and the DPS (or DMV) Office. Yes, it took a whole day.

Judy gave me a desk calendar from The New Yorker which I adore. I start each weekday morning with it. Yesterday’s cartoon pictured a group of kids with party hats on sitting around a table with a birthday cake. The caption said, “The apple bob was tricky– I like the way you handled yourself.”

Haha. Greatness.

But it got me to thinking about bobbing for apples. As you may know, I am disgusted by spit. Even my own. And that’s all bobbing for apples becomes. It’s a bunch of soggy apples floating around in backwash. That’s disgusting. Even if you’re the first kid.

As you know, I just finished Life After God by Douglas Coupland two weeks ago and this weekend I finished An Underachiever’s Diary by Benjamin Anastas. I picked up the latter in a completely random manner while browsing through the musty shelves of our local Half Price Books. Both made references to Patty Hearst. What are the chances.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m too young or because I’m just not very well versed in American history, but I had absolutely no idea who Patty Hearst was.

So I did what any good life student would do. I looked her up.

And boy was I fascinated. The short version of the story is that she was a newspaper heiress who was kidnapped on February 4, 1974 by an urban guerilla group (read about urban guerrilla warfare) known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). The SLA is a whole other fascination to me in and of itself but let’s not get off topic. The kidnappers originally demanded the release of imprisoned SLA members but were unsuccessful. They then demanded that the Hearst family donate six million dollars worth of food to the poor people in the San Francisco Bay Area. The food was distributed but Patty wasn’t released. They were obviously dealing with Robin Hood kidnappers without integrity.

Two and a half months later, Patty was photographed wielding an assault rifle while robbing the Sunset District branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco.

The rest of the story is kind of unclear. Her defense for her actions was that she was brainwashed and physically and sexually abused by members of the SLA. She claims that she was coerced to participate in the bank robbery. Some say her defense attorney was lousy and possibly intoxicated while making his closing arguments. Whatever the case, Hearst was convicted of bank robbery. Her sentence was reduced by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. President Bill Clinton granted her a full pardon on January 20, 2001, the last day of his presidency.

This post as well as relevant links will be added to my thinktank page which I’ve been secretly working on. That’s where I’ll put links to all the things I think are cool and are worth learning and thinking about.

I was half awake this morning on the drive to work and I could have sworn that I heard a snippet of the news on NPR about people in Canada (or someplace like Canada) who want to impose a ban on overweight men walking around with their shirts off.

Which reminded me of the age old question of why men can go topless and why women can’t. (Well yes, technically they can, but doing so usually elicits all sorts of (c)rude comments and stares.)

If women thought men’s nipples were sexy, would a man mowing his lawn without a shirt on be considered inappropriate/indecent exposure?