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“[Cloth] or Plastic”

Monday 11 June 2007

Cloth DiapersWhen we first had L, we did what we thought was the environmental thing: we used cloth diapers. Today’s cloth diapers are not what they were thirty or so years ago. Now there’s liners of all sorts, including silk and impregnated wool liners that supposedly keep baby dry longer. “All night!” the makers boast, but at thirteen to eighteen bucks a piece, you’d think they’d just about have to change themselves to be worth it.

And then a little common sense. Though we were not filling the landfill with our daughter’s nasty diapers, we were using a heck of a lot more energy with all the extra washing. Our power bill more than doubled when we had L and were using cloth diapers. Of course, it was late December and we were keeping the apartment a lot warmer than we had been in the past. Still, a lot of that jaw-dropping electricity bill was due to the extra washing.

So, environmentally, it’s the cliche “six of one, half a dozen of the other.” Fiscally, disposable wins by a slight margin.

Bluff Mountain Festival

Sunday 10 June 2007

I grew up in an area where bluegrass was not exactly ubiquitous, but at the same time, easily found. My friend’s grandparents were very much into bluegrass and I used to sit in while they were picking. It was a good way to learn basic guitar — there aren’t many chords, and the changes are predictable. Still, bluegrass as music was not something I really appreciated.

Twenty years later, I do. Enough to have a few bluegrass CDs in my collection and to drive festivals and such, anyway.

This weekend: the Bluff Mountain Festival, a fundraising festival for the Madison County Arts Comission.

After the festival, we drove to nearby Max Patch — a grassy mountain with views all around. (It’s also on the Appalachian Trail.)

More images at Flickr.

Bush in that Country East of Germany

Saturday 9 June 2007

Bush went to visit Poland during the G8 summit. Yesterday in the car, I heard two different NPR news briefs about it — not whole reports, but simply a mention in the headlines.

Neither time did the reporter refer to the Polish president by name.

The first time was something about Bush going to Poland to visit “that country’s president.”

The second time, it was a mention of Bush meeting his “Polish counterpart.”

I’ve wondered why they didn’t use the Polish president’s name. Is the Bush’s Polish counterpart’s name so difficult to pronounce? Did the reporter not know the name of the president of Poland?

For the uninformed, it’s Lech Kaczenski. (That “n” should have an accent on it.) That would be pronounced “Ka-chenee-ski.”

Can they not pronounce it? Can they not remember it? At least they didn’t have to say “president of Poland” in Polish — that is a mouthful: “Prezydent Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej”

Who Killed Sasha?

Friday 8 June 2007

Slate has a detailed examination of the Litvinenko murder, and the nature of polonium, the ultimate smoking gun.

Fairly damning evidence against Andrei Lugovoy:

What can be said at this point is that Lugovoy was shedding radioactivity before Sasha was exposed on November 1. For example, Lugovoy contaminated the leather sofa in Boris’s study when he visited him on October 31.

Lugovoy might not have put the polonium in the teapot himself, but he did carry it around.

It’s well worth a read.

Sitting

Friday 8 June 2007

Sitting requires a lot of development, balance and strength chief among them. While L has, for some time, been sitting with supports, she’s recently begun sitting (and falling) all by herself.

Sitting brings a whole new set of possibilities. The ability to entertain herself by picking up things she sees around her is a big plus when everyone’s busy. The promise of crawling emerges when L leans forward and puts a fair amount of weight on her still-weak arms. Sitting is the first step toward mobility, for it means a much-expanded horizon for the Girl — much to see, much to tempt…

iParty

Thursday 7 June 2007

The internet has produced a lot of oddities, as well as its fair share of stupidity. When everyone thinks they’re being anonymous, they feel they have license to say and do whatever.

On the other hand, the opposite is possible (not to mention more popular): using the internet to make a name for oneself.

Occasionally, we find cases of the latter that should have been cases of the former. At least once, it’s cost someone quite a bit.

One such instance was a bust here in Asheville over the weekend.

A party invitation posted on MySpace.com that advertised all you could drink for $5 has led to charges against the hosts of aiding underage drinking and selling alcohol without a permit.

Agents who raided the weekend gathering at an Asheville apartment complex also discovered a pinata filled with condoms and sex toys, underscoring the danger of young people attending parties put on by strangers, said Allen Page, assistant district supervisor for N.C. Alcohol Law Enforcement. […]

The agency was alerted to the party through an anonymous fax showing a printout of a MySpace page, he said.

The posting said the party would start at 11 p.m. Saturday at 161 Edgewood Road, Apartment 2. It said patrons could get all they wanted to drink for $5 and that a pinata would be broken during the gathering.

Two undercover officers paid the admission charge and went inside, where they found a keg of beer in the bathtub, he said. State agents and Asheville police officers made arrests early Sunday after getting a search warrant.

It’s no longer unusual for ALE agents to learn about illegal house parties though Internet postings on Web sites such as MySpace, the popular social networking site, Page said. (Asheville Citizen-Times)

A 21st-century bust aided by 20th-century technology, abetted by a fair amount of stupidity from the perpetrators…

Real Real Estate Agents

Wednesday 6 June 2007

I’ve been thinking about what the ultimate real estate agent might look like — what might (Picking a gender and going with it) she do, especially for out-of-town buyers?

One of the most helpful things would be to have an agent who also knows the ins and outs of inspections. She would go to the homes you’ve expressed interest in (from clicking through hundreds of online listings) and check a few things.

  • foundation (Any cracks or other indications of problems, potential or actual?)
  • windows (Are they double-pane?)
  • door frames (Are they level and straight? Can you close all the doors with ease?)
  • roof (Can it last a few years without significant work?)
  • individual requirements (For us, that would be distance to neighbors, significant distance from major thoroughfares, not a corner lot, etc.)

Bear in mind that I’m not complaining about our agent. She’s fine, and works very hard for us. So far we’ve had no issues — hopefully that will remain the case.

This dream agent would look at these homes beforehand and note any potential issues, then get back to you: “Cross this one off your list because it has basement issues. And that one has issues with xyz.”

This will never happen, though. Agents make money only if a house sales. While many might genuinely want buyers to be happy, they don’t make money making buyers happy — they make money turning potential buyers into actual buyers.

Dill

Tuesday 5 June 2007

DillDill is summer in Poland. Fresh, young potatoes topped with dill make me think of all the Polish summers I experienced, but in particular, the first one, which was well underway eleven years ago today. It seemed during that first summer in Radom, during pre-service training, we had potatoes with dill every single day. And so the scent instantly brings back to mind the large, Stalinist Polish cafeteria where we ate.

Maybe that first summer was simply dill overload, because no matter how many pleasant memories I associate with the odor, I honestly don’t really like dill. It has such a fresh scent, and yet it so easily overpowers. Summer potatoes with dill taste, to me, almost exclusively of dill, no matter how sparingly it’s applied.

House Hunt: Reflections

Monday 4 June 2007

Dated bathrooms, horrid floor coverings, awful countertops — these issues are non-issues. You can easily and relatively inexpensively change them.

You cannot change:

  • Distance to neighbors;
  • Foundations that clearly will be causing major problems within five years;
  • Flood plain status;
  • Distance from busy streets;
  • Airport holding patterns;
  • Neighbors’ constantly barking dogs; or
  • Exteriors covered with siding, which provide no structural reinforcement whatsoever.

These are the things you look at in a house.

Who cares what’s on the floors? Carpet can be changed to hardwood. Who cares what the bathrooms look like? Tiles from the 70’s can be replaced. Who cares whether the kitchen counter top looks more like a shower wall than a food preparation surface? It can be renovated.

We’ve come to realize — and thankfully, rather quickly — that we need to look first for problems, primarily with the basement and with privacy. It doesn’t even make any sense to go through a house if there are signs that the foundation is weak or if the neighbors are too close.

It’s better to take a pessimistic view of houses, because the pessimism will undoubtedly be tempered by the general optimism of looking for a house, and you’ll end up with realistic expectations.

Doing so would have immediately knocked our “prime candidate” out of contention, and left our second brick preference out of any further consideration.

House Hunt 2

Sunday 3 June 2007

House Twelve--Welcome PartyAfter seeing another batch of houses, we now can tell within about 90 seconds whether or not we’re interested in a house.

One sure sign that it’s not a house we want: a recently-deceased welcoming committee on the kitchen floor.

Another sign: cobwebs on the front door knob. If someone else doesn’t want to see it, we probably don’t want to see it either.

Still, Friday afternoon/evening we added two more to our “let’s think about it” list.

Candidate One

A brick ranch (we seem to hit those almost exclusively), the first home we really liked had a few advantages:

  1. Nice kitchen (though pictures don’t do it justice)
  2. Big dining room
  3. Screened porch connected to an open deck
  4. Fairly decent lot
House Ten IHouse Ten II

Candidate Two

The big problem with candidate two: siding. We want brick. The more we think about it, the higher it moves on our criteria list.

House Eleven IHouse Eleven II
House Eleven III

Top left: Good parking

Top right: Skylight, openness, arch

Left: Spacious kitchen

Candidate Two also had a wonderful little nook that could serve as a computer area, and it had a spacious, semi-wooded backyard with a lot of potential.

But siding…

Prime Candidate

The prime candidate is still the one with a wonderful backyard and a full basement. Indeed, it’s the lack of basement in the above two houses that really make them less than perfect candidates. A basement means one thing: storage. An unfinished (or partially unfinished) basement also provides the opportunity for weekend projects that will, if properly done, increase the overall value of the home.

Today, we’re going back to all three, though, to make some sense of them — which could be a euphemism for making an offer…