Damn ice dams

Minnesnowta has an epidemic of ice dams. Ice dams form on the roof of a building as the snow melts and then runs down to a colder overhang. The ice builds up in the gutters and then as the melt flows to the dam, it pools and freezes behind, and so on and so on. My dams are about a foot high in places, and there are icicles that could pierce your chest.

Principle among causes are a poorly insulated attic. My house is a common "story and a half" that doesn't have much insulation at all. I postponed replacing insulation because I thought it might take a while to recoup my expenses in energy bills. Now I realize that it must be done to save the roof and the interior walls. I had water dripping in behind a front window.

So, damn ice dams...

What: dam of ice along the edge of roof, usually beginning in a gutter

Remedy:
- You can have them steamed off for about $300-800.

- Many people this year are trying out "salt bombs" - eco-friendly (non-corrosive) salt melt in nylon stockings laid over the dam to melt a channel for future run off.

- Remove loose snow.

Prevention:
- Properly insulate the attic and allow ample air flow.

- Rake the snow from the roof after a snowfall.

- Install heat coils along roof edge.

- Live in a warm climate.

Resources:
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/umnext/news/2010/12/snow-ice-cause-concerns-about-farm-buildings.php

http://www.ehow.com/how_4914834_fix-roof-ice-dam.html

There is no shortage of crooks

Basically I believe that the world is full of good people, and that we good people (if I may be so bold as to include myself in the category) far outnumber the bad people. However, just like a little arsenic goes a long way, bad people have a way of dominating a person's history and time.

I work with very generous people -- benefactors to the institution where I work. People who have no responsibility to donate a thing, but who often donate everything they own to a worthy cause. I was speaking to one such person today, we'll call her Olive, and she has had a run of crooks. It's like they line up at her door. I worry about Olive - she is 80 years old and lives alone. She has had large sums of money funneled away from her from irresponsible sales people representing various mutual funds or other investment opportunities. She even had an actual sociopath in her life.

I diagnosed the sociopath myself. You see, I am now an expert after having read The Sociopath Next Door earlier this year. Seriously, it's not paranoia to say that they are friggin everywhere. The author, Martha Stout, believes that 4% of our population is a sociopath -- I think the number is growing (but we'll talk about that later). Anyway, luckily Olive had a young attorney who smelled a rat and suggested a pre-nup for her and Rat Man, and Rat Man refused to sign it. The attorney also created a trust to protect Olive's assets so that no one else could steal from her. I am happy to report that they did not marry and Rat Man eventually moved on to another victim, God bless her.

And Olive is no dummy. It's just that she has so few people in her life to run things by. You see, there are lots of older folks in our society who have NO ONE. I have had more than a few say to me, "You get to a point in your life where you've outlived everyone else." A project of mine for 2011 is to help Olive find a good attorney and accountant in her community whom she can trust. There are too many complex decisions to be made without solid advice. And although the good people outnumber the bad -- it only takes one to steal everything she has.

Aha moment of the day: Olive said to me, "Never trust anybody." I struggle with trust, but life is a whole lot happier when we have close loved ones. How about instead of Olive's maxim we adopt, Understand that people will disappoint us, but only give decent people the opportunity.

Thumbs

I heard on the radio today that a person can now purchase gloves that are texting-friendly! I think it's always interesting when we reach that tipping point (thank you Malcolm Gladwell!) where something becomes mainstream. See for yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d.html?a=B0031AVBNG

Old Friends and Glitter

So, this morning I asked my cousin what her kids would like for Christmas. Turns out they love ... books! How great is that? And moreover, they enjoy re-reading books! I cannot remember the last book that I read twice. My brother will. An old friend of mine did -- she compared it to walking the same trail more than once and asked, Don't you enjoy it just as much or MORE?

I listen to CDs more than once.
I revisit restaurants.
I've seen every episode of Seinfeld a dozen times.
...I only read books once

So, even though there are so many books left to read, I will select a previously read volume for my next book. I will let you know how it goes.


And, BTW, we are having the sort of snow today where it just looks like diamond dust in the air. It's sort of non-directional and totally sparkly. Just billions of flashes of silver under a bright sky. I love it!

Meditation in the World of iTunes

I've mentioned my Attention and Interpretation Therapy course before. I am working on bringing the concepts deeper into my daily life. Today my focus was on meditation.

I have known in some recess of my mind that iTunes is a treasure trove of resources and information, and today it exceeded my expectations again. There are many free podcasts of excellent quality on ANY topic. Some of the most notable names in education in Western society have channels there -- Oxford, Harvard, or Stanford ring any bells?? -- and also many lesser known scholars and teachers with important knowledge to share.

Today I found my way to two resources I will be accessing for a while. There were several examples, but I settled on a series called "Learn to Meditate" from the Meditation Society of Australia. There are currently 43 classes of varying lengths available for free. In the first class I learned some practical tips for approaching daily meditation, and also a useful candle meditation. The class was 18 minutes long, and during the candle meditation - which promises to open the doors of heaven to a degree that matches your level of intensity on the candle flame - I actually felt the presence of my spiritual guides, including my grandparents Melva and Eddie Parks. I think Sue Daniels was there, too. I felt a slight dark presence, also, but had a strong barrier by the light guides. In watching the candle, we breathe in peace and love, and exhale their opposites. The dark presence I felt was likely those shadow qualities that we all struggle with. I am working overtime to purge them from my heart and mind that I might live my right life.

After that meditation I continued to look at a few other resources and stumbled about a set of music mixes designed for running. They are courtesy of http://www.fitmusic.com/ and are 20-60 minutes long each. You can download the mixes for free and play them as podcasts right from the iPod. Amazing.

We are living at an amazing time overall in human history. With all of the change and opportunity I hope that we can collectively tap into the beneficial potential. How can we not perceive the end of all suffering within our grasp with the power of the technology available to average people? Even if all of us with abundance only gave 1-2% of our time, intellect, and resources to others, we would change the world. Join me in stamping out unnecessary pain, anger, hunger, poverty, doubt, fear, war -- if only by curing the demons within ourselves.

Twelve Days of Minnesota Christmas

12 snow plows plowing
11 geese a fleeing
10(,000) lakes a freezing
9 flights delaying
8 spots of frost bite
7 scarves a missing
6 pair of mittens
5 feet of snow!
4 Tom and Jerry's
3 extra hours of nighttime
2 frozen dogs
And 1 really effin long winter

Why school buses are yellow

The professor of my current graduate course in Attention and Interpretation Therapies shared that instead of sitting behind a school bus cursing that it is holding up your morning commute, you could choose instead to bless the little children getting on the bus or wonder about why buses are yellow. Turns out, buses are yellow because yellow is the easiest color to see in low-light conditions. Moreover, the particular yellow-orange of school buses provides that best view of black lettering in low light conditions.

The color was chosen in 1939 as a standard during a conference on school bus standards. The color is now a federal law.


References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bus_yellow
http://www.colormatters.com/kids/yellow.html

Child prostitution

Yesterday there was much ado on the news about a book for pedophiles being sold on Amazon to give advice about nurturing the adult-child "love" relationship. It created quite a negative reaction and today they took it down.

Today I learned that in Atlanta, Georgia, there are 500 children involved in child prostitution EVERY DAY. There are 12,400 men in Atlanta purchase sex with female children EVERY MONTH.

These numbers are staggering - and it's just one city in America. As our politicians debate tax cuts and spending and what's important in this country, I hope they will remember these children and the desperation and need to save their spirits and their very lives.

A study looking at this in Atlanta is available here http://afnap.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/The-Schapiro-Group-Georgia-Demand-Study.pdf.

Insurance companies have insurance companies

I sat next to someone today who sells "reinsurance." You and I, the average person, buy insurance. But sometimes our insurance companies have claims that exceed what they are able or set up to pay out. Enter reinsurance. The insurance companies have insurance policies that cover them in the event of a catastrophe - or "Cat Coverage" for short. If a catastrophe outpaces even the cat coverage, there is a pool of money that all insurance companies in a state pay into and it can be tapped. In New Orleans, however, the insurance companies, reinsurance companies, and the guarantee fund were all maxed out, and not all claims were covered, or covered to the full extent of the losses.

The world of finance gets more and more complicated. Because behind the insurance companies are tons of experts - medical, economic, law, and more - and the investments that are made to help insurance companies grow their asset base to keep up with claims are sometimes in high-risk investments. Exhibit A - AIG. AIG had the highest possible rating for an insurance company, but investments in British financial products went sour and BOOM goes the American economy.

Things are never as simple as they appear.

Mumzy's the word

Had a drink with a woman on Friday and learned that her grandchildren call her "Mumzy." According to her, it is a common nickname in England for a grandmother.

I did a Google search and found a boy rapper in England named Mumzy - a boy. On http://www.newparentsguide.com/ it was not listed at all. (Although it did list "Lola" as a grandmother nickname from the Phillipines, which I love!!)

Digging a little deeper, it turns out that there are lots of Mumzy's out there. Some in UK, some in India, some right here in USA. I doubted it a little as an "English" thing because I called my grandmother "Grandmom," which I understood to be an English tradition. She felt she was too young to be a "Granny." I didn't understand that when I was four, but now that I am two years away from how old she was when I was born - 42 - I totally get it. I'm surprised she didn't have me call her by her first name, Melva.

Austerity vs. Abundance?

This Sunday I gave a little talk at church about yoga as a spiritual practice. One of the values of the yoga system is called tapas - which is a Sanskrit word that can be massaged to be translated as "austerity" in English. After church, a restauranteur friend of mine said that she felt a little embarassed because just two nights before we had a seven course meal at her restaurant. She said, "I like the idea of a feast!" And I agreed.

I think that austerity has merits - we should be good stewards of our natural resources, for instance, and not take more than we give. AND we should feel gratitude for our abundance. Abundance is also good. And gratitude is the most powerful value of all, I feel. It is not listed as one of the niyamas in yoga - the second limb that teaches us values to cultivate in ourselves. The nearest is santosa, or contentment.

I believe that we live in an abundant universe and that gratitude is the key to enjoying it. By feeling content and grateful for what we have, the universe will provide more. There are many flavors and textures and colors and beautiful sights, smells, and sounds to behold in this world. What a shame it would be to cut ourselves off from beauty. I would rather feel grateful for it - and feast!

AIT

I am enrolled in a course called Attention and Integrative Therapies. One feature is that each day of the week represents a value to be practiced all day. Today is Friday and the theme is Forgiveness.

A trick with forgiveness is being able to separate the feelings of hurt from the idea that you accept what happened. To heal the hurt, we must forgive. But forgiveness does not mean that we condone hurtful behavior. I struggle with this and am looking forward to a weekly exercise at understanding through the next six months.

Affirmation for today: I am trying my best to forgive (others and myself).

How are you doing on forgiveness?