Monday, September 26, 2011

The most wonderful breakfast

I have a cold. This morning, my mom recognized that I wasn't feeling ambitious enough to make breakfast, so she made me the most wonderful breakfast.


It consisted of:

chopped oranges with lettuce
grapes
chopped red pepper
raw cinnamon applesauce with almonds, lettuce, red pepper, and oats with honey
water with lemon, lime, orange, and honey


I am inspired to mix fruits with vegetables more freely.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Humane bug catcher

As someone who is very afraid of bugs (though I'm working to change that) and very uncomfortable with killing things, a problem arises every time I find a bug in my house. I've recently been trapping them under cups for my dad or Nate to bring them outside, but I don't like walking around with bug/cup sets all over my floor and counters (there can be a lot of bugs in my house) and I feel like I'm kind of torturing the bugs.

Solution: For a while I've been envisioning a fly swatter that captures flies, and all kinds of bugs, instead of squashing them. Today I finally googled it--and it exists! PETA has them for $12.



Also, apparently President Obama killed a fly during an interview a couple of years ago and PETA sent him one of these.

Critic 'jimspar' says, "if you love bugs so much why don't you marry them." Hmm.

On the other hand, Stephen Colbert and friend contend that "There can never be enough apologies."




More humane animal control products: DIY humane fruit fly trap, frog saver lily pad for pools, humane mousetrap, and animal rescue car kit



My next invention idea: Filters that go inside your nostrils to protect you from secondhand smoke.

Luckily, BSU became a smoke-free campus this year, so I am less worried about my exposure to smoke than I was last year.


*Update: Nose filters (aka nasal filters) exist!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

One of Einstein's non-scientific contributions

My friend Christine recently blogged about this quote by Einstein that I like so much I decided to post it here too.

(Background is Australian Aboriginal art, font is Parker's Hand, one of my recent free Photoshop downloads)


"Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid." -Einstein

This reminds me that I never finished reading A Briefer History of Time last year! I got to page 30 and kept reading it and rereading it, but couldn't get it. This time I'll try to read Prisons of Light - Black Holes since it is said to be easy to understand.

Black holes, I want to understand you!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Me gloating about the adventure I am about to embark on

Nate and I are going on our first ever road trip together! (It's his first ever road trip, and my first ever road-trip-with-Nate.) The last and only other road trip I went on was with my dear old friend Katie McGuire and it was an absolute all around good time. There were kittens, puppies, Amish people, historic monuments (especially that extremely famous one I always mix up with the Eiffel Tower--any guesses?), magical glass trees, scary motels, yard sales, peace-inducing open fields, a direct correlation between gas prices and our location on the east coast, and a general feeling of freedom.

Here are some relics from that beautiful week of my life:

This trip was a big part of the reason that Pennsylvania is my favorite state (as pictured)

The magical glass tree outside an art museum in Baltimore

We stayed in a bed and breakfast owned by Mennonites, who let us hang out with their kitten
So overall the road trip of 2008 was probably the most enjoyable experience of my life so far.

This time around, we are going to take a slightly different approach to travel because I found out about this thing called CouchSurfing!


This means that we don't have to stay in a motel ever again! We will now be staying with Christina in the Bronx for two nights and Adam in Connecticut for one night. Thanks to CouchSurfing, even though Nate and I don't know Christina and Adam at all, they are letting us live in their apartments for free. And we will probably hang out with them as if they are our friends. I love this!

There is some recent controversy about CouchSurfing changing from a nonprofit to a B Corporation.


B Corporations, or Benefit Corporations, "must by law create a material positive impact on society; consider how decisions affect employees, community and the environment; and publicly report their social and environmental performance using established third-party standards."

"I emailed [CouchSurfing] to request a refund of my donation. I suggest you do the same if you use this website." -my friend Dylan, via Facebook

As of right now, I don't care very much about the change because CouchSurfing is such an awesome resource for me.