blogiversary giveway!

don't know if i should have celebrated my 100th post but i didn't. so, i'm celebrating my one-year blogiversary. and because you are all so sweet to me with your comments, i'm going to be sweet to you with a giveaway. i have found i really love blogging, even if it is just random things that are of no interest to anyone but myself. even if i have a "loyal" following of about three people. i really appreciate that you are reading this and the comments i get are very encouraging to me. not just encouraging like hey, your sewing is nice or have a great day, but also encouraging to know that occasionally, there are other people in the world who notice my blog and take the time to let me know that something i wrote interested them in some small way. so, thank you.

a little background: i try to be a socially and environmentally responsible as i can be, but let's face it, i'm probably just like a billion other people out there. i'm not changing my life or turning my world upside-down to do so. i admire people who do because i just don't have that kind of energy or passion for that cause. i don't have the money to be able to consistently make socially responsible choices, which means even though i detest wal-mart with a passion because of their business practices and the way they treat their employees, i occasionally buy a cd there. (don't get me wrong - i don't make a habit of shopping there. our wal-mart is pretty grungy, for starters.) i recycle all our cans and bottles and newspapers and tin foil and yogurt containers, pretty much anything that has a recycle sign on it, but i'm not great at re-using. we are slowly switching to cfls. i bring my own bags to the grocery store. i try to line-dry as much as possible to save energy but brian complains bitterly about "crinkly" shirts so i certainly don't line-dry as much as i could or should. i like supporting the little guy but i'm not going to drive 8-10 miles to the other side of town to go to the independent coffee shop when there is a starbucks less than a mile from my house.

so when we went in to said starbucks two weeks ago for an afternoon treat, i discovered that they were no longer just giving away those cardboard mug warmer thingies with your coffee. you have to ask for them. they're still free - you just have to ask. the barista told me it was because they were trying to do their part to save the environment by not just handing out that much paper with every drink if not everyone desperately needed one. i don't know if that is just that one shop or the company as a whole, but i appreciated it. it's a tiny little thing, but it's tiny little things that can add up to a big thing. and on a completely capitalist note, if it helps keep their costs down then maybe they won't raise the price of my latte by a nickel if the price of their stock goes down.

for a big company that puts a lot of little companies out of business, i kind of like starbucks. they pay their employees well and have a good corporate culture. they always seem to be up there on the forbes list of the best companies to work for. and they're kind of like mcdonald's in their ubiquitous-ness - when you order a big mac, you always know what you're going to get. same at starbucks. which brings me to my giveaway: i went home and thought, that is GREAT about not giving out mug warmers. i've been meaning to make myself one anyways for a while, so this gave me the push i needed to do it:


(yes, that is a coffee roaster and yes i roast my own coffee and yes i'm kind of strange like that. but if you've been reading for any length of time you know that i do a lot of random things.) i can keep it in my car or my handbag and never have to get a cardboard warmie thing again. and i want you to do your own little tiny part too, so i'm giving you two, one for you and one for your sweetie or your best friend or your kid or just to keep around for when you treat someone to a coffee. i'm also including a $5 gift card so you can go try out your warmie thing.

so leave me a comment if you would like to be entered and let me know one small, simple way you are trying to change the world around you. please also leave me your email address (feel free to munge it) so i can get in touch with you about sending you your prize. you have until 8pm pdt on friday, march 13, 2009. i'll plug the results into random.org and post the winner along with a picture of the actual prize (i haven't made the prize ones yet, the yellow daisy is MINE you can't have it) on blogiversary day, march 15. i'll mail it anywhere in the good ole us of a so if you're out of the country, i'm sorry, but you can still have the satisfaction of having won and i'll choose another winner.

and yes, i know how long and verbose this is, but if you've read any of my blog posts at all you know that's just part of my charm, that i take forever to say things. have fun with this and thanks for reading!

update: i have been informed that they are not in fact called coffee warmie thingies. they are either coffee cozies or reuseable coffee sleeves. am i the only person in the world who didn't know this?

the morning after

i think there is a law somewhere that says you have to post about the election if you are a blogger and it was as big of a deal in your country as this one was.

personally i don't know what to think. i think i would have been disappointed either way, unless some dark horse somehow pulled off a steal. that didn't happen. instead we're stuck with a tall, skinny, slippery guy from illinois who has a total of four years of national political experience, almost half of which (20 months) have been spent on the campaign trail for this election.

otherwise we'd have been stuck with a older, balding, wolf-in-sheep's-clothing from arizona. maybe it's a coyote, not a wolf. i don't know yet if i'm disappointed or what.

i'm willing to give obama a chance, at least. he has some interesting, unconventional ideas. i worry almost more about the fact that he has a congress who will largely be yes-men for him. it would be nice if congress could swing back to the republicans, just to temper obama.

i don't mean for this to be very political in nature. i don't want this blog to become a forum for political discussion. there's enough of those out there. i want this to be about my life and the interesting (to me, at least) things that are going on in it and in my head and heart. at the moment, however, this is what is going on in my life and head and heart.

pleading for your vote

five days left! if you're like me, you're oh so tired of hearing about the presidential election and candidates. election season in general really wears on me, but this year in particular because it's gone on for so long. i cannot wait for wednesday. do you realize it's been 20 months since barack obama announced his candidacy?

as exhausted of the election as you probably are, i have to beg you one thing: please go vote, if you haven't already. in california, tomorrow is the deadline for mailing in your absentee ballot if you want to be sure it gets to the registrar's office in time to be counted. otherwise you can drop it off at any polling place.

i feel very passionately about voting. i don't care who you vote for as long as you vote. okay, that's not quite true: i do care, especially if you're not voting for my guy or my proposition, but i also feel that political choice is a very personal decision, like religion, and it's not specifically my place to convince you that you're wrong. maybe i'm wrong, who knows. my political beliefs are shaped by my values and my life experiences, which are totally different from your life experiences, because you're not me and i'm not you.

by not voting you forfeit the right to complain or even be the slightest bit aggravated by anything that happens politically. even if you feel your vote doesn't count. someone told me a couple years ago that he didn't vote in the last presidential election as a protest, because he didn't want to vote for george bush and he didn't want to vote for john kerry. (i didn't either, and i don't want to vote for either obama or mccain, but i'm not about to throw my vote - my voice - away.) fine, but then what right do you have to complain about president bush? he said, "well, i didn't vote bush into office so it's not my fault that he screwed up!" technically that's correct, i guess, but he also didn't vote for anyone else against him. by not voting you're removing yourself from the decision-making process and allowing others to make the decision for you. if you consciously allow others to make decisions for you, then you have no right to complain about the decisions they make.

i've heard people say that it doesn't matter if they vote because their one vote doesn't matter. every vote matters! look at the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. regardless of whether or not you think the outcomes of those elections were correct or not, they were both exceedingly close elections. especially in 2000, every single vote mattered in florida. here in california, we're an exceedingly blue state, which is often very frustrating for a conservative like myself (though i tend to be relatively moderate rather than staunchly conservative). republican candidates don't even campaign in california because it's such a given that the democrat will carry the state. so if i vote republican, my vote basically "doesn't count" - it's overruled by all those other democratic votes - but i still vote, because that's my voice and my way of being a part of the political process. and hey, who knows, maybe one day we'll vote red. it happened to reagan in 1984, it could happen again.

so please go vote. because today i am thankful - and you ought to be too:

1. that we live in a country where we have a voice in the political process and can vote our conscience. we have secret ballots and don't have to be afraid of retaliation against ourselves or our loved ones if we vote for an unpopular candidate.

2. that we live in a country that recognizes the rights of the individual. voting is not mandatory. sometimes i think it ought to be, but i think forcing people to be part of the political process is wrong. if you choose not to be, that's your perogative. we don't require you to be any particular religion either. you can be whatever religion you want, or none at all. vote if you want to - if it's important to you - or don't. (but i still think you ought to!)

3. that we live in such an amazing republic that functions so well. (many people think our form of government is a true democracy, but it actually isn't.) lots of people say our government is broken and doesn't function, and that may be true to some extent, but we don't abuse our citizens for speaking out against the government or build palaces of gold while inflation runs rampant and people die of starvation in the streets. yes, i'm sure you could cite many specific examples where i'm wrong, but as a general rule, america is a pretty damn good country. i'm also not trying to start a political debate here, so please don't get all over me for what i just said.

i love that america is the only country in the world founded on an idea - not an ethnicity or a religion or anything else. the idea was freedom and equality, and that idea has succeeded for the past 232 years. even more, if you count back to the original settlement on roanoke in 1607. so please love your country as much as i do and participate on tuesday.

pzev update (or, vindication)

a while ago i ranted about subaru's partial-zero emissions vehicle as a marketing ploy, because anyone who has gone through high school math and still has half a brain should remember that there is no such thing as partial zero. i wrote it off as a marketing ploy. apparently, it's not really: it's more a shameful cowing to pressure from detroit by the state of california, according to click and clack's column in the "drive" section of today's sacramento bee. i couldn't find a link online for the sac bee, but since it's a syndicated column, here is a link to the washington post reprint of the article. they even note that there is nothing like partial zero, so i know i'm not crazy. (anal retentive and something of a stickler fr details; wrong, no.) they also note that our lovely state of california wanted to be so much better than the epa standards, so they mandated so many zero emissions vehicles by such-and-such a date. carmakers whined and howled and apparently california slunk away with its tail between its legs and meekly allowed fewer zero-emissions vehicles - and called them partial-zero emissions vehicles to save face.

when i wrote that post, i kind of thought in the back of my mind that i was a little nutty. now i don't feel so nutty. man, i love being right.

the keepers of our culture

the fort worth and las vegas school districts have started recruiting campaigns in california, aimed at luring away teachers - and our lovely state superintendent of schools jack o'connell just whines about it. he complained that it basically isn't fair for them to come in and pick off our teachers, because they make it sound like education isn't a priority in california.

hello?

am i the only one who thinks that he is out of touch with reality? i mean, when has education actually been a priority in california? it's not like the state schools (sfsu in particular) make it easy to get credentialed - it's a year and a half of full time grad school classes, and then a year of student teaching - unpaid, of course. if you're a normal (read: not independently wealthy) person, it's pretty difficult to live on that. after that, you get a job that pays a pittance of a salary, so you'd better have a spouse making some good money if you want to be able to pay your bills, because it's not like it's cheap to live in california.

oh, and then you have to deal with all the political crap (because, you know, education really ought to be a political subject). in the meantime, you also have to buy books and supplies for your students and classroom, because california schools are so chronically underfunded that they often cannot provide these things themselves. not to mention dealing with parents who just don't care.

no, we've certainly made education a priority. definitely.

* i admire anyone who has a passion and a desire to teach in this kind of environment, because you really have to have a calling to do it. i think teachers should be revered not only because they are the keepers of our culture and pass it on from one generation to the next, but because they do it in an environment that is so hostile to their profession.

diving by zero will make the universe implode, everyone knows that.

i heard a sponsor blurb on npr the other day for subaru’s new partial-zero emissions vehicles. this intrigued me. partial-zero? how is this possible? i have been racking my brain and have yet to figure it out. the way i see it, a car is either emitting exhaust or it is not. how are you emitting exhaust but kinda sorta not really emitting exhaust? you either are or you aren’t.

the name is intriguing also: partial-zero. how do have part of zero? what part? a quarter? a half? an eighth? one one-hundredth? how would you figure that? here is the equation:

¼ x 0 = ?

now, i am not a math whiz, but i distinctly recall that anything multiplied by zero (“of”) equals zero. so one-quarter of zero is zero. so according to the math, “partial-zero” does not exist. partial-zero is zero. so why would you advertise partial-zero emissions, if partial-zero equals zero? wouldn’t you just advertise zero emissions? after all, it’s so very pc to be green, and zero emissions is more green than some emissions (no matter how small).

* according to subaru’s website, the “[partial-zero emissions vehicle] pzev has 90% cleaner emissions than the average new vehicle” and meets california’s tough super-ultra-low-emission exhaust vehicle standard. don’t get me wrong, i understand perfectly the advertising concept behind the “partial-zero” emissions tag. i’ve just been intrigued by the tag. my main problem behind it is that (to me) it assumes a level of stupidity on the part of the consumer, and i hate being condescended to.

calexico schools

here is a link to a story i heard on the radio this morning (lovely leftist npr) about the efforts of the calexico school district to crack down on overcrowding by weeding out those who do not actually live in the district. for those who don’t know, calexico is a city in imperial county (east of san diego) right on the us-mexican border. it’s directly across the border from mexicali – the equivalent of el paso, texas, and ciudad juarez.

what exactly the problem is here i am not quite sure and the story did not make it abundantly clear either. (i was actually rather surprised by the story, as it seemed to be rather pro-american – a stance npr does not usually take, in my opinion.) it seems that a few years ago school enrollment in calexico exploded, and officials wondered why – and discovered that many of the students attending school in calexico actually lived in mexico and were crossing the border every morning to go to school. we’re not talking college students (theoretically independent adults, not necessarily subject to the dictates of their parents) here – we’re talking minors, high school students on down to kindergarteners. apparently every morning they get up, get ready for school, and stroll across the border with their notebooks and backpacks – and every afternoon they leave school and stroll back across the border to their homes in mexicali.

i was blown away but not surprised that this is happening. i mean, i know my tax dollars are paying to educate illegal children. what struck me was the openness of the immigrants who are cheating the system. i was also quite heartened by the school officials’ response: they now require parents to prove residency at least twice a year and randomly check up on addresses three to four times a year (like actually going to the provided address to make sure the student lives there). now they even have – get this – a guy (or maybe quite a few of them) who sits at the border every morning and takes pictures of the kids crossing into the us to go to school, and then they use that information as further proof to bar the children from american schools in calexico.

the immigrants’ response apparently is that they should be allowed to go to school in the us, because the schools in mexico are bad. their schools do not have nice desks, or books, or paper, or computers, or good fields for sports, and good teachers. maybe i am missing something here, but why is this my problem? and as a resident of california, why should my tax dollars go to educate these children whose parents cannot even bother to set up legal residency here and work and pay taxes just like me? don’t get me wrong, i have nothing against educating children, and i have nothing against people taking advantage of services they are legally entitled to. i was educated in the public school system in california (supported by my parents’ tax dollars) and i generally expect to educate my children there as well (but no guarantees). however, i do not see why my tax dollars need to subsidize the education of those who have no intention of living in and contributing to the us.

i think my favorite part of this is that the school district is being proactive about this problem, instead of just taking the extra federal money. schools get federal money based on enrollment numbers – that’s it. numbers go up, federal monies go up. numbers go down, federal monies go down. and yet the calexico school district is doing the proper thing.