Los Angeles: Swag Town USA

...beat on the bottom of the UFO. Even then, the doves left slowly, one at a time, for what seemed like a half hour while all the cynical types in attendance stood around trying not to laugh. Similarly today’s Bike Town USA event ended not with a bang but with a whimper – the thirty or so contest winners who bothered to attend shuffled off to load their bikes into their SUVs and drove home where, we suspect, many of the bikes will just sit in the ga...

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Book Review: My Side of the Mountain

...times we can figure things out by ourselves, if we persevere, but that sometimes we need good books, and sometimes we need good people to help us and show us the way. Erik and I speak of this often, in our books, on this blog and in our talks. Only now am I realizing that who planted the seed of this philosophy in my young mind. Jean Craigshead George died this spring at the age of 92. I wish I’d re-read this book a little sooner, so I could have...

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Book Review: The Machine Stops by E.M. Forester

...perhaps, to the discomfort I suspect many people were experiencing at that time, as the world rushed into modernity. We don’t hear much about that discomfort, because Progress is our modern religion, and those who once held out some concerns about its cost don’t tend to get much stage time in our cultural narratives. This little story is like finding a message of dissent in a dusty old bottle. Now, to be sure, the dystopic themes he’s working on i...

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Worm Composting

...ust also sift and separate the worm casings from the worms themselves from time to time. One advantage to worm composting is that you can theoretically locate the worms under your sink, providing a close destination for disposing of your kitchen scraps. However, you can find yourself with unpleasant smells and fruit flies if you add too many scraps for the little buggers to digest. We had problems maintaining the correct moisture level in the bin...

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What Preparedness Lessons Did You Learn From Hurricane Sandy?

...his I learned a few more things: 1) don’t assume power will be restored anytime soon. I should have bought an emergency radio/flashlight with a hand crank generator that a phone can be plugged in to. Until I find that deli, I was concerned I would lose touch with my mother and a few close friends (I know no one on this island and very few in NYC). 2) Make note of places that have outlets. Since I was able to get on Facebook, I was able to see what...

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