Hi There:
Please click this link first. I’ll wait.
Welcome back. I thought maybe it was time I shared some of the things I’ve been writing about recently rather than only my writings from the past, so here goes…
Month: December 2009
Marcia’s Meanderings
Happy Monday!
In fact, it’s the last Monday before Christmas. Are you ready yet? If not, then I wish you playful power shopping that will energize you as you find the absolutely perfect last minute items at the greatest of prices and in the least amount of time!
My mind certainly has been meandering today – wandering here and there  – and not settling many places for long. Realizing that my level of inspiration was teetering on the brim of several different containers of thought – all varying shapes, sizes and colours – I chose one of the most colourful of them all.
There’s been a story that I’ve had hiding in my personal ‘Marcia’s Writings’ folder on my computer’s Desktop. This story has been sitting there since my daughter-in-law was still carrying our first grandchild – our beautiful, happy and precious Hayden who is now 20 months old.
The story of Grandma’s Gift came to me in a flash one rainy afternoon and wouldn’t let me rest till I had written the last sentence. It was a pleasure to write – fun and freeing and fabulous!
Before submitting it here, I had thought to change the name of the little boy in the story to be that of our grandson. However, this is the story of a different Grandma and a different child…
It’s time to reveal this story out to others. I’m sensing it needs to be told. It may be just the story for you. It may be that I need to do this for me. Either way, I’ve placed it under Marcia’s Stories within Our Stories … but you can just click Grandma’s Gift to read it now if you have the time ….
In Light & Laughter,
Marcia
He Says, She Says…
Hi Folks:
Andy Williams wrote:
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling
And everyone telling you “Be of good cheer”
It’s the most wonderful time of the year
It’s the hap-happiest season of all
With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings
When friends come to call
It’s the hap- happiest season of all…”
This time of year is a special one for many people. It can also be a time of sadness and challenges.
Keeping that in mind, we thought we’d share our thoughts on ‘Christmas…’
Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View
Telling Tales
Hi Folks:
I haven’t told any stories on this blog for a while, and if I let them build up too long, well, it might not be pretty. Actually, that reminds me of a technician I had working for me once. Great technician, but every once in a while she’d just burst out giggling. I asked her about it and she replied, “I don’t know.. they just build up!” I’m the same way, except instead of giggling I start babbling. Like now for instance.
Okay, on with show. I’ve had the privilege of working over more than half of Canada (so far), and I’ve been involved with some really interesting projects and some wonderful people. Sometime late in the last millenium I had two separate opportunities to work with black bears. I’ve accumulated a number of bear stories that I carry around with me, and I thought I’d take a moment or two to share one of them. In the first bear project on which I worked there were three main aspects to the work. One aspect was to create a map of the habitat of the area, and another was to create a map of bear movements by using radio collars on certain bears. In this way we could overlay the bears’ movements onto the map that we’d created so that we could try to interpret where the bears were going at different times of the year, and possibly why. The third aspect of the work was the most ‘adventurous’, and that was dealing with the bears themselves. In a nutshell we set out traps for the bears, and when a bear stepped into our trap s/he was anaesthetized, weighed, measured, and samples were taken to determine both the age and the health of the animal. Yes this was potentially dangerous work, especially on occasions when we had a cub in the trap and his or her mother was less that 10 or 12 yards away and watching intently. I must say up front that every precaution was taken to respect the health and integrity of both the bears and the staff, and every step was taken to minimize the stress caused by our interactions. We did have some bears that seemed to find their way into our traps regularly, and there was some suspicion that maybe they liked the drugs… Yes, that’s a joke, and no, the anaesthetics are neither narcotic nor addictive (just in case that one swept past you).
Being Green… Update
Hi Folks! Friday has come around once again., so that makes it ‘Green Day’ here on our blog. I took in two webinars this week, both kindly provided by the Building Technologies Program at the US Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy division.
The first was the second part of a series on the ongoing efforts in Greensburg, KS. In the spring of 2007 the town of Greensburg was nearly obliterated by a class 5 tornado, and when they decided to rebuild the town, the decision was made to rebuild it as a model of green building and green technologies. Many different people, departments, governments and private industries have been and continue to be involved in this process. I think it’s inspirational, and a good model to use for future rebuilding efforts when and if they should arrive. The presentation slides from the second webinar as well as the slides from the first in the series and a video recording of the first presentation are available at the DOE, EERE website. The next webinar in this series is expected in January, but I don’t have a firm date for that yet.
The second webinar I had a chance to see was titled ‘Activities and Programs Relating to Energy Efficiency Retrofits in Residential Buildings’. While it may be true that the average homeowner is more aware of ‘green’ products today (i.e. solar panels, solar hot water, wind turbines, ground source heat pumps, etc.) it has been said over and over again that for most buildings in existence today the first steps should be to make those buildings more efficient. This can be achieved in many ways – better windows, increased insulation, better weathersealing, etc. This webinar addressed these issues and also the challenges faced by homeowners who have expressed an interest in pursuing these options, in three areas. From the slides of this presentation:
- Access to Information: Consumers do not have access to straightforward and reliable information.
- Access to Financing: Homeowners face high upfront costs and are often unable to recoup the value of their investment.
- Access to Skilled Workforce: There is an insufficient amount of skilled workers to expand energy retrofit programs on a national level.
The slides from this webinar are also available at the EERE website; more information will be provided when it is available.
From the e-mails I received this week:
- The December 2009Â issue of Environmental Building News is available here.
- The folks at ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers) have made available a series of six ‘Advanced Energy Design Guides’. There’s one for Small Healthcare Facilities, one for Highway Lodging, one for Small Warehouses and Self-Storage Buildings, one for Small Office Buildings, one for Small Retail Buildings and one for K-12 School Buildings. The guides are in .pdf format and can be downloaded for free, but registration is required. The guides can be found here.
- The latest e-newsletter from Green Building Advisor is available here.
- The latest Targeted e-News from Environmental Design + Construction (re: Energy Star) is available here.
- And finally (for now), the latest Eco-mmunity Greenzine bulletin from Sundance Channel is available here.
- The latest Healthy Building Network News is available here.
That’s about it for now, but before I sign out I want to add one more link to promote some folks I know at the Okanagan Science and Technology Council (OSTEC), specifically the ‘Clean Tech‘ group.
Have a great week, and if you have any links to share, leave a comment here!
Mike.
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Michael Moschen: Juggling Rhythm and Motion
Hi Folks: I’ve been a fan of Michael Moschen for a long time, and it’s definitely not just because we share the same first name. There’s a common misconception that the words ‘kung fu’ relate specifically to the martial arts; actually, ‘fung fu’ is a term relating to anyone who has taken what they do and elevated it to an art form, achieving a mastery of their craft. With that definition, Michael Moschen is definitely a kung fu master when it comes to juggling. When you listen to him speak of his art, he goes far beyond the basic dynamics of moving the balls around and he speaks of positive and negative space, of movement, of rhythm, of balance…
Michael’s website has some information about Michael and his work. There are also images and some videos of Michael under the ‘Press’ section. Here’s an image I ‘borrowed’ from his site:
Michael Moschen in action
There’s a longer video (37 minutes) of Michael doing some demonstrations and explaining a little about his work during the 2002 TED Conference. It’s well worth seeing.
And Michael, my hat’s off to you!
Your fan,
Mike.
Poetry Corner
This past May I had the honour and privilege of attending a personal week of retreat at Queenswood here in Victoria, BC, Canada. What an amazing opportunity and experience! In the quiet and beauty of this secluded area, I spent the majority of time in meditation – walking, reading, writing – listening and feeling. Even meals were a time of silence if I chose the earliest sitting.
I found myself drawn to the library (open 24 hours) late one evening and discovered a new author, Wendy Morton. She is a local woman, from Sooke, BC here on Vancouver Island. Her book “Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast†practically fell into my hands from an upper shelf display as I walked by. Through this book and her shared story and writings, Wendy has inspired me to perform spontaneous, playful ‘Random Acts of Poetry’.
In Wendy’s book (definitely a worth read!!!!!), she describes a style of poetry I’d never heard of before – Pantoum. It is a French form of poetry with ‘an intricate pattern of line repetition’.
Since that day, I’ve found myself using the Pantoum style any time I want to delve deeper into a concept. I’ve used it to expand ideas, to open myself up when blocked about something, to more fully explore a fabulous emotional response to a person or situation. Basically, when I want to understand my own self better, I take a thought or idea and ‘pantoum’ it!
Continue Reading →
Mike’s Writings III
Hi There:
Please click this link first. I’ll wait.
Welcome back. As with my last writings post, I’m going to dip into my ‘Future Me‘ archives. The following contains an excerpt from a book by Melody Lawson, and an interview between Chris Atwood and Shore Slocum. It also contains more of my random mental wanderings. It’s funny, but since Marcia and I started this blog, I haven’t had much time to do any ‘writing’ of my own! 😉
Love,
Mike.
P.S. I wrote before about how I came to share my writings with the world at large. I was reminded the other day about this quote from ‘The Gospel of Thomas’:
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
End? Who was I kidding?
What are meanderings except aimless wanderings of body or thought? Today we’ll meander through a few of the thoughts surfacing in various forms in this brain and life experience that is me. Let’s see where it takes us, shall we?
In addition to the joy of starting my day with this delightful man, my husband Mike – the other half of M&M’s Musings – I also woke up to a lovely message from Abraham:
You are all perfect and expanding; you are all adored and worthy; you are all here having your exposure to experiences and doing the best that you can from where you are. You have not been sent here in a test or trial; you’re here as creators as part of an expanding Universe.
Excerpted from the workshop in Fort Collins, CO on Saturday, June 19th, 2004 #288
Don’t you love it when you awake with positive thoughts running through your head and heart and starting your day off on a natural high? I certainly do!
Remember my post called Journey’s End? (If you’ve not read it yet, check it out here.) I spoke about the completion of my Nanowrimo experience. End? Who was I kidding? The intense and focused attention to writing that consumed me during the month of November has shifted to the even more intense editing and rewriting. What began as the first 3 tentative chapters of a novel have been replaced by a Prologue and 4 chapters of sound text. Am I pleased? Yes! Are these chapters complete? Not at all!
What I’m working on now is considered the second draft – the original writings being the first. I’ve been advised there may be a 3rd, 4th, 5th +++ drafts. Yet the excitement continues for me as this 2nd draft is adding meat to what was a thin skeleton of ideas and storyline that I jotted down in a hurry to fill up the required 50,000 words of some form.
Now, having met that initial goal, I find myself truly look forward to spending quality time with my characters. They’re telling me more about their pasts. They’re sharing the personal development that has brought them to where they find themselves in the context of the story we’ve chosen for them. There is a richness here I had never expected. And when I think I’ve been enriched beyond measure, well, they up the ante and there is more and more to be found – new surprises each and every day that I commit to sitting at my computer, challenging my brain, my fingers and my imagination to reveal the best of what we – these characters and I – can all pull together.
My life is full. It is rich. I am loved and I have the blessing of being able to give love in return.
In Light & Laughter & Love,
Marcia
He Says, She Says…
Hi Folks:
This week’s ‘He Says, She Says’ was inspired by the following quote from Abraham.
“Just let go of the incessant description of where you are, and start telling the story differently. Start telling a story that feels more downstream to you. And how do you know what’s downstream and what’s upstream? You can tell by the pressure against you.†… Abraham-Hicks
Keeping that in mind, we thought we’d share our thoughts on ‘The Stories I Tell Myself…’
Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View