A good samaritan.

In the blog the other day we mentioned our car breaking down, and how a good Samaritan helped us out by going out of his way to drive the family home. In an E-mail from our friend Brushy Clump, he mentioned researching good Samaritans, and although we already knew of the reference in the bible (In which Christ tells the parable of the good Samaritan.) we did not know that Samaritans were a religious sect that coexisted with the early Jewish religion, and that they were reviled by the Jews (and early Christians as well.) It seems when Christ mentioned the Samaritan in the parable he way implying that even a hated Samaritan can get to heaven if they follow the tenets that he was teaching. The meaning of the parable, either that people other than Jewish people can commit good deeds, or that anyone can get into heaven. That being said, we could like to again thank our good Samaritan, who told us his name was Dick, he lived in Marquette and was on his way home, but he drove 14 miles out of his way to insure we got home. A very bright spot in an otherwise horrible evening. Ciao for now.

We would rather be bored.

In yesterdays blog entry we pointed out that boredom (due to anhedonia no doubt) was a becoming a problem, not an insurmountable problem, but a problem just the same. Since yesterday boredom has become the least of our worries. At 6:20 pm last night as we were in Marquette for meetings etc, our car died. (Transmission seized.) Connal and me walked down to the gas station (about 4 blocks) after checking the fluid levels, the transmission fluid looked low so we added a quart, but to no avail. A very kind gentlemen named Dick offered us a ride home as we waited for Lisa at the church. So at least we are home. But all in all when it comes to boredom or bad luck, we'll take the boredom thank you. Ciao for now

Some mornings there's not enough coffee in the world.

Why is it that you can do pretty much the same thing for two days in a row, get up at the same time, do chores and get outside for some excersize, go to bed at the same time. And yet, one morning you wake up feeling refreshed and ready to change the world, and the next day you are walking around with your eyes half closed, bumping into the furniture. It's as if your head is filled with cotton balls and your eyes are raisins with glue in the cracks. (The preceding was written about 7:20 AM, now however it is after noon.) Eventually the gluey eyeballs pass, the cotton balls are replaced with synaptic egg noodles (which are much better for thinking with than cotton balls) and the day is filled with gottadoo which is not some strange form of animal feces but the list of things you gotta do, before your day is done. So in a few brief minutes we shall be heading out the door to our next task/appointment/thingamabob and this moment of introspection will be gone forever.
Except of course for reading later on if we so desire. Gotta go, ciao for now.

Strangeness abounds, or at least dances.

We at the crazy enjoy mysteries, especially mysteries of a strange nature. For example we have all heard of one dance craze or another (The Macarena, the twist, the alligator, the displaced hip, Ok we made that last one up.) But in Strasbourg France, in July of 1518 a different sort of dance craze broke out. A woman named Frau Troffea stepped outside of her home and began to dance in the streets. She continued dancing for the rest of the day until she collapsed in exhaustion. When she awakened she stood and began dancing again. She simply could not stop. By the end of August over 400 people were caught up in the dance, most expressing fear and horror when it struck them. How many people died due to exhaustion is unknown. The dancer would dance for a period of four days for up to a week and them simply stop. City officials unsure of what to do to help the afflicted came up with the wonderful idea of opening two guildhalls and a grain market, and setting up musicians to accompany the dancers (which goes to show you that a politician is a politician even in 14th century Europe.) The dance "craze" sprang up seven more times in the villages surrounding Strasbourg over the next hundred years or so. And a major outbreak occurred in Madagascar in the 1840's. At that time medical reports described, "people dancing wildly, in a state of trance, convinced they were possessed by spirits." So what caused the people of Strasbourg and then Madagascar to dance uncontrollably until they dropped, the only explanation that seems to fit is "Mass psychogenic illness," which psychologists believe were a result of pressure due to social or cultural upheavals of the time. This is also the label they put on the 1962 laughter epidemic in Tanganyika which started as a joke told at a boarding school, which resulted in the school being closed down as the laughter spread to the surrounding village. The epidemic lasted for months but eventually died out. That's about all for now, pardon us as we have a strong desire to boogaloo.
Ciao for now.
Must have been one heck of a joke.

Awake at 5:00 AM with dandelions on the brain.

We are fast approaching the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice when the sun shines least on our hemisphere. So we at the Crazy thought it might be a good time to remind you of the dandelion, that nemesis of meticulous lawn lovers everywhere. They sneak onto even the best manicured lawns. Every golf course has at least a few. They grow between the cracks of the sidewalk (we once viewed one on the roof of a house, growing in a corner where rain and time had built a small mud spot for it to take root.) Dandelions are not native to North America, they were brought on the Mayflower in 1620 as a medicinal root, by 1671 Native Americans were making coffee out of the roots on the great plains. The greens of a dandelion have vitamins A, B Complex, C and D, as well as the minerals Iron, Potassium and Zinc. They have in recent studies been shown to help improve liver function and be useful as a diuretic with the added benefit that they have potassium which most diuretics leach out of our systems. They have been around at least 250 million years. (Probably longer, but the earliest fossils found so far are from that era.) Who as a child (or a childlike adult) has not taken the seed stalk and puffed on it to watch the seeds float away in the wind. (Ahh yes, we remember as a child, quietly blowing dandelion seeds across the plains as dinosaurs thundered by.) But still, there are a few things you might not know about the Dandelion (unless of course you have botanist leanings or know any closet botanists.) Every part of the dandelion is edible and useful, some cultures made a brown dye from it's roots. The Chinese people have been using it to treat breast cancer for almost a thousand years. Dandelions are high in antioxidants.
Tasty in salads, (if picked while the leaves are still young.) Good for the liver. And can brighten up an otherwise barren place in a yard where nothing else will grow. (Like our lawn.) So come spring we know we will be happy to see the cheerful dandelion. As will our iguana Saura (She loves the flowers too.) But we think the most interesting thing about the dandelion is what it does for the bees, and why. The dandelion is asexual, it requires no honeybees to pollinate it. It has been a self pollinating plant for millions of years, nature could have easily dispensed with the bright flower head by now. (It reflects yellow light which is a spectrum bees find irresistible.) So why does the dandelion grow a bright yellow head and plenty of nectar. For the bees of course. The Noble Dandelion.

You are not forgotten.

The family is whole again, (those of you in the know will understand.) And we have been extremely busy keeping our days full and our nights restful. We at the crazy will soon be updating the blog again, we have a few ideas for future rants. But at least for a short while family comes first so bear with us as we reboot and settle in to what is becoming an energetic and fulfilling lifestyle.

Soon to be seen in more than 3 homes.

Just a quick note to point out that up till now our crazy rantings have only been viewed by a select (and supremely intelligent) few. (A little ego stroking there.)
However our blog will be seen by a wider audience soon as Google has agreed to place it in some of it's search paradigms. We don't know what effect it will have, perhaps 5 people will see the blog now. We can only hope. Can't wait to get that first hate mail.
See you soon. Ciao for now.

Another one of THOSE nights.

While sleeping peacefully through our first winter storm at about 4:30 this morning we were visited by the bladder fairy. (You know the one, he flies from house to house like a fat drunken bumble bee and fills peoples bladders.) Unfortunately the Sandman and the Bladder fairy are at war which not only can make a heck of a mess but also makes for somewhat early wakefulness. So in a vain attempt to find sleep inducing reading materiel an internet search resulted. And somehow, (and we really don't know how.) We stumbled across the Scary Santa recording. This recording was made by Thomas Edison to cheer up the kiddies for Christmas, We think it would have the opposite effect, children would be fleeing the house in fear of Santa. Check it out at the address here some of the other recordings here are eerie too but we think Evil Santa takes the cake.
On another note we recently came across two separate news stories that were a bit odd. It seems a calf was born with a cross on it's forehead, and an egg was lain with a cross on it, all in the same week, what does it mean, Steak and eggs of course. By the way the Psychological phenomena in which people see shapes and hear sounds which they think are significant but are not is called pareidolia, and when you put different sized objects in a bowl and shake it, the larger ones stay on top the smaller ones go to the bottom, the scientific name for this is the brazil nut effect. Pareidolia and the Brazil nut effect are not related but we feel they somehow should be. Ciao for now.

A few things you might not know about solar panels.

Brushy Clump Large Weasel had emailed us about recent events with the recent global warming email fiasco (which I won't get into right now.). But it got us thinking about some things we learned recently involving solar energy. Firstly that only about 1% of our national electric usage is currently (that was not a pun) being made by solar panels. Here are some things about solar energy you may not know. Firstly that the solar panels in use on our very successful mars probes Spirit and Opportunity are not the typical type you see on rooftops all over the country (you see many more in Germany but we'll get to that later.). The solar panels on the Mars probes actually are much more efficient, they catch more than the current solar panels in use on earth.
Current solar panels here use only a limited part of the solar spectrum to create electricity. The mars probes are designed to catch a wider range of the spectrum and are much more efficient (also much more expensive, about a million dollars a square foot.) But recent discoveries in the field are yielding promising results. For example there is actually a solar panel that can be painted on (although it is capable of using only about 10% of the solar energy available.) Remember that every square foot of sunshine contains in it about 1000 watts of power (enough to power your tv, computer, house lights, and step dad's experimental dog polisher.) We mentioned Germany. That government recently put a freeze on electric costs for the next 20 years, they also are paying people to build and use solar panels. One pig farmer cleared a few acres of field and got a loan for 5 million dollars to build a solar field which provides power to about 1500 homes. He makes 600 thousand American dollars a year of which he says about 60 thousand is profit. The idea is not perfect but by the time the 20 year freeze is lifted he will have paid off his loan and be producing free energy for himself and be able to charge his neighbors a much lower rate than current electric charges. A win win in my book. Germany currently produces about 20 percent of it's power through solar energy. As of this writing the United States has no plan or policy to do anything similar. Although about 150,000 people are currently employed in the solar energy field in America. There are many other examples of solar energy use being a profit making venture, which in this country is the way to make something take off and run. As you can see, at the crazy we are solar extremists, but unfortunately poor solar extremists. Acquiring the materials for solar energy is currently costly, but soon we may be able to use solar energy by simply painting our rooftop or house itself at a fraction of the cost of current solar panels. Are you a gloomy gus? Do you think that cloudy days are a death knell for solar power, nope, even on cloudy days there is a lot of wattage falling on us.
Clouds block out only visible light, most of the ultraviolet light still comes through. So what needs to be done to make solar energy viable for every American? We need to improve storage techniques (the EverReady bunny really doesn't keep going).
We also need to improve the efficiency of solar panels (recent tests have produced materials that convert about 30% of sunlight falling into energy. When we can convert about 50%, then Solar energy will be competitive to current gas and coal powered electricity. So cheer up, if someday we run out of fossil fuels (which we will) Solar energy is one of the possible replacements waiting in the wings. And we won't even mention recent experiments with algae.

Reflections on a quiet morning.

Climbing from our bed this morning and doing the things that the body requires each day.(And as we get older sometimes in the middle of the night.) Stumbling around in a not fully awake haze of dream memory, and coffee craving zombie like numbness. And suddenly seeing through the kitchen window the first shaft of sunlight creeping through the trees on the hill behind the house. It's cold outside with a dusting of snow on the ground, (which is not normal as usually the snow is knee deep by now.)
Closer to us is an apple tree which is stripped of leaves and just past that our summer garden, now a white space with a few stubs of corn stalk poking up from the frozen ground. Higher on the hill, tall pines block most of the sunshine. And the sun will not break over the top of the trees till almost noon. But to the right of the apple tree about halfway into the yard a bright slot of sunshine on the ground. Marking the day like an ancient calendar. Struck by the simple beauty of the bright yellow sun on a stark white dusting of snow a good day now begins.

Merry Hodgepodge and a happy new year!

We love Christmas here at the crazy, everything from the good will of men to the smell of pine in the house. The good food, family and friends. Giving gifts (when we can afford it.) Watching A Christmas Carol. (Some of us here try to watch it every year.)
In the last few years we have been surprised by a lot of noise from the right that Christmas is under attack. And we suppose there is some truth to that statement, some people believe that America is a secular nation and when we have a national holiday to celebrate a Christian celebration it violates our constitution. So being thinking individuals some of us agree that this may hold some truth to it, but, and this is a big but. (almost put two t's in the last but, which would have been true also but not relevant to the conversation.) Christmas is actually a hodgepodge of at least 4 different celebrations. The Roman celebration of Saturnalia, which was celebrated from the 17th through the 23rd of December, in the 4th century in an attempt to get more pagans to turn Christian, religious leaders promised the pagans they could continue to celebrate Saturnalia if they converted as December 25th was decreed to be the day Christ was born. It also closely coincides with the Winter Solstice which was celebrated by Druids for many centuries before that time, Celebrated by worshipping trees in the forest or bringing them into thier homes to decorate. As for Saint Nicholas who was a senior bishop at the council of Nicea in CE 325. (Which by the way decided that Jews were "the children of the devil.")
He was actually brought into the Christmas HodgePodge by Turkish sailors who brought his bones to Italy in 1087 there he replaced a female boon giving deity called The Grandmother who would fill childrens stocking with gifts. So what do we have for Christmas Celebration 1. Saturnalia. 2. Solstice. 3.Nicholas 4. The Grandmother. 5.Jesus Christ. All in all quite a happy little family, so next time someone wishes you a Merry Christmas, if you are Christian, wish them a Merry Christmas back. If you aren't Christian smile and say Happy HodgePodge to you. But we think the number one rule, quit being offended by other peoples belief systems. They do you no harm by wishing you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hannuka, Happy Kwanza, or Merry Solstice.
They are spreading good will, and there certainly is nothing wrong with that.

A six degrees of seperation sort of thing.

While drinking our morning cup of decaf coffee, (seems kind of pointless doesn't it.)
we stumbled upon a little piece of music trivia that raised our eyebrows in a Spock like fashion. It seems that one of the worlds most famous mass murderers had a song on the music charts. The title of the song was "Cease to Exist." but was actually recorded under the title "Never learn not to love." It reached number 37 on the billboard album charts in 1973. Some of the lyrics were changed also as the line "cease to exist" was changed to "cease to resist." The band who released the music was The Beach boys on their album 20/20. The writing credit is listed as Dennis Wilson, he later admitted it is a song written by none other than Charles Manson. Making him the one and only mass murderer to have a song on the billboard charts. The song can be found on youtube but we recommend you pass, as our son would say every time we try to sing in this house, "Stop, my ears are bleeding." Ciao for now.

Would that it were that easy.

Did you know that in some areas of the world it is illegal to die. This is true, Originally it was illegal to die for religious reasons. In the 5th century B.C. on the Greek island of Delos it was forbidden for anyone to be born, or to die. Which we have to assume resulted in a lot of sick people and pregnant women being shuttled off the island in a hurried attempt to avoid punishment. (If you died on the island the punishment must have been severe.) But ancient Greece is not the only time and place that dying was forbidden. In the Spanish village of Lanjoran the Mayor has passed a law to forbid dying until land is bought for a larger cemetery. A sensible response to politicians who told him he is not working fast enough on buying more land for cemetery use. Why don't they simply cremate the remains to save space, religious reasons of course. In the Brazilian town of Biritiba-Mirim the mayor has forbidden the populace to die or their relatives will face serious fines or possibly jail. That'll teach those selfish people not to die on his watch. (The fines would of course be used to buy a larger cemetery plot. Although it will be difficult to find land that is viable as the area has many underground rivers.) There are 19 other towns in Brazil that have forbidden dying, also places in France. These are just another example of how INSANE politics can be. Ciao for now.