Mysterious Need to "Move Forward"

I can't exactly explain it without using a mixture of english words:

It is a feeling that my feet and my mind can take me where I need to go. Not only take me there but take care of me. I don't know if this is just me, or if this is what every human being feels inside. Almost like how the birds know they will eventually fly and the beavers know they will eventually build a dam. I know that I will move forward, with my hands and my head and my feet, moving forward through the days towards what I find needs to be explored in order to understand more about the world I live in.

Its usually obscure beautiful images of nature that cause me to feel this. Waking up on the couch and staring through the skylight and seeing the pine tree limbs that hang above my house and just endlessly sway in the wind.

Keep in mind the words of George Mallory, known for attempting the first ascent of Everest;

What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for.”

http://artofmanliness.com/2008/12/11/every-man-needs-adventure/

Forgiving? What is that? This isn't Kindergarten.

Vanessa is trying to sell her car. This is part of our new spend, use, waste less new way of life. Recently she had gotten pulled over and written a ticket for having an expired tag. In order to renew her tags we needed to go to the Clerk of Court. I hate going to government entities or lowel level corporate places because the people that work there, 85% of the time are really afraid, incompetent, shallow, and unhelpful game-players.

That's mean, how can I label all those people like that. That sounds crude but what I'm talking about is the sort of people who don't want to work at their job, don't really want to help you find the answer to your question, and would rather find a road block so you could give up and leave them alone.

Well anyways, one of these people told us that we could not renew the registration which we had come there to pay. Becuase apparently there are 2 toll violations on her vehicle totalling $350. And in order to sell the car it needs to have a updated registration, ,and in order to renew the registration we needed to pay $350 for toll violations we never received because they were mailed to her grandmother's house, where her grandmother probably discarded the citations thinking it was a mistake, because...she doesn't even drive. no car. no license. no drive.

I want to be able to call the Clerk of Court up and say that previous paragraph and have them say...I'm sorry, sometimes with computer systems things can get screwed. here. The citation would have been $25 each if you had received like you were supposed to so you owe $50 does that sound better?

That way they're still doing their jobs, I'm not out a crucial living-wage amount of money and the government gets their allowance. But thats not what is going to happen...

Because she doesn't know any better this woman is going to say "I'm sorry." and then I'll say "Well this sucks," this person will probably reach into the back of their head and pull some saying their parents have been telling them for such a long time: "well life sucks."

I will sigh at humanity. Then give in, because I have to and pay $350 of my hard earned money that I without being self-employed would set me back and cause me to possibly use next month's wages to go to Amscot and get the money to pay it off which will set me back next month, which will cause me to work extra hours, which will cause me to be cautious, which will cause me to speed to work in order to be there on time so I don't get fired...which causes me to get a speeding ticket that does it again.

I think forgiveness is important. And I forgive the person at the counter because if they knew what was really going on they would be more helpful and that's ok, its not their fault.

Seeing further into the Blog-o-sphere

Today I realized that in order to fulfill my goals of writing in my blog everyday I would have to expand the subject matter to not just "alternative living," because well I think about and spend time researching many ideas and it would be a shame not to use that same time to write in the blog and add to the blog-o-sphere which is a new word I've found. its perfect. I think i've said blog-o-sphere before but in other words.

So from now on Derek, write on, research on, include everything, just keep moving forward.

Earth 4 Energy: Missing Crucial Pieces of Information

At first glance this Earth 4 Energy membership is pretty cool, $50 and you get an e-book, online videos and access to other "green" resources.

Firs thing I did, since I'm a video person, was watch the videos. First of all there are only 2 videos. $50 for 2 videos. Doesn't seem like a good deal, but I'll watch them see how helpful they are. The videos are 2 parts of 1 video. "Joining Solar Cells." In this video they show you how to link individual solar cells together, it is pretty childishly simple...but how can that be a bad thing. So I move on.
So I start reading the e-book, the first chapter had 4 spelling errors in it, which sort of turned me off but I pushed on. I then read about how you can use the information in the book to make a "Solar-Powered Generator," which is basically like a portable generator powered by the sun. Pretty awesome if you ask me.

The first half of the e-book shows diagrams and describes how you can get cheap solar panels, sometimes free if they are broken. Broken? No problem the book will tell me how to fix them. So I skim on towards the end and find out that the rest of the book tells you how to make the same thing but using wind power.

Sweet. I scroll back to the beginning and see how I can get my Solar-powered project started. Allright so step 1, I got to ebay and look for broken solar cells, pretty simple, searching for "broken solar cells," ooooh a auction of 50 for $25 thats an amazing deal, but they are broken...oh yeah let me see how the book says to fix them...scrolling.....scrolling....scrolling...uhhhhh....where is that part at?

There is no section of the book to show you how to fix the broken solar cells. At the end of the solar cell chapter they tell you in their examples they are going to use unbroken solar cells to demonstrate. Thats wonderful, so much for the entire previous chapters which say to get broken solar cells.

So all in all, I'm pretty disappointed, I mean there is a lot of information in here, but its nothing I haven't found already such browsing the net for other solar projects.

In the end, I actually might get some use out of it, its not totally a rip off, I found an auction on ebay for 50 unbroken solar panels for $120 that sounds pretty good. I'll bid on them.

Hopefully the next time I post I'll have some solar cells to play with.

Going Off the Grid: Part #1:

Our energy bill each month for a 3 bedroom house with minimal power usage is $350-400 a month. We try to save by leaving lights off and usually just make due with the natural fill from the sky lights. Our biggest power-suckers are our Stove (which is range), our Dryer, our Water Heater and our Air Conditioner. In the cooler months, our air is turned on maybe one day out of the month and it reduces our power bill probably by half.


I currently just purchased a Earth 4 Energy Membership which gives me access to Solar-Powering tips and techniques to get your home off the grid. Unfortunately we're renting this house, I mean I prefer it because-well when things break I don't have to have the money to fix them. No money is one of the big reasons I am trying to cut down on these energy costs in the first place...along with the whole pollution-end-of-the-world-normal-evilness thing.

I will be writing about this project as I move along. Covering what works and what doesn't work. So far the membership costs $50 and says you can reduce your power bill by 90% for $200.

I am optimistic.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions for tips for me. Thank you.

Almost 2 years later, but now I'm ready

I made my first semi-professional, opinion blog on this blogger account around 2 years ago. Amazingly enough I still haven't made the time or the plunge. I've finally realized its what I need and will do.

I was talking with a few friends the other night and I was sort of looking inside myself and sharing it and I feel like I'm always trying to convert people to my way of thinking. However, while I thought that I railroaded the idea because I don't want people to think like me, I feel like I am trying to get them to articulate their way of thinking so that if it does make more sense then the way I think, then I will probably cross over or adopt that into my way of thinking.

So all in all, I just decided that this is what I like to do all the time. Talk with people and then discuss it with someone else, read about a story and then tell someone else about it. Not only that but I love to write.

For christmas my girlfriend and I bought books for all of our roommates. We want them to write too. I think things can come out in writing that would never make it to the mouth. Me on the other hand, its sort of the same. Pretty much stream-of-consciousness here.

Lastly, I decided that I need more dedication or routine....no scratch that, I need the self-discipline in order to dedicate and fulfill a necessary routine.

So in conclusion, I am now a blogger. And on a daily basis I am going to choose a topic, research it and express it in my own way on this blog.

What I Blog, Not What I Say: The new honest population and my new blogging experience

Over the past few years, with the rise of Blogs, MySpace, Facebook(surprisingly enough) and any other Wabba, Gongo, and other not-quite-acronym, not-quite-in-the-dictionary coined web trends; the split between what people say and what people blog has become so large that they can say the most honest and tactless things about someone and have a truly friendly conversation with them afterwards. I'm not really sure what caused it, or exactly what it means.

I could take a stab:

Is it possible people have gotten to the point where they are so truly open with themselves and other people that they take in these honest moments as true oppurtunities to change and smoothly work things out? Well, I just left a class where a student told the professor, I was offended by the homework assignment so I chose not to do it. So obviously, people aren't able to say they "just weren't able to get to their homework," so why would they be able to come to terms with true harsh critcisms.

Is it possible that people have come to the point where they can honestly say: "we're going to agree to disagree here," that can't be true because outside of the Student Union I witnessed around 50 people openly shouting, arguing and discussing Women's right to have abortions.

While doing research about how other people felt about this I found that some people are warning new bloggers of the eternalness of the blog, and according to John M. Grohol, Psy.D. of PsychCentral.com, "writers need to understand the consequences of such writing up front, and edit as they go (or go back later to edit accordingly)." My first response would be to say that John obviously doesn't write in a blog, or read them often, however PsychCentral is all in all a scientific blog, so thats out the window, it must be the new internet age, molding these middle school, high school, and college student age bloggers into true "say-what-you-think," so write-what-you-think kind of mentalities. (an age that John obviously doesn't understand.) They don't care what they say, who reads it and how long it stays there. "That's me so deal with it."

Now, I'm trying to sound ahead of the times, but i've had a blog since January 2000, my first blog was registered with MyDearDiary.com, how very effeminate of me. I had that for about 2 years, even the title hints as to the traditional sense of a "diary" and how its "dear" or private to you. However this was not true, I would write poetry, post song lyrics, write indirect feelings about people then send them the link knowing they'll read it and prevent me from having to tell them how I really felt. It was amazing. Everyone started doing it.

Then once the blog developers realized what was going on, they started creating customizable layouts which led to livejournal, deadjournal, and then eventually to the killer of the blog, MySpace. All of which are leading to an eventual completely honest, opinion-based community sharing their feelings, thoughts and views a a group. Even to the point where private, vague, and anonymous postings are shunned upon and disregarded because people want to know who is sleeping with who, who likes them, who doesn't like them and who told them.

I however, have reached the point, (unfortunately a little later than some) where I'm creating a new type of blog, an almost professional blog where I can formally present my ideas, thoughts, and feelings in a formal, non-cathartic way that could even be regarded as news to some.

To whomever is reading this, could what you think be news? Yes. The majority of our country right now is affected by too many people that know too little about what is going on. So that inner voice that tells you, well someone else already thought of that, its probably not right. Put it out there. For example, just the other night on CNN I heard them holding a discussion about "Applebee's America: How Successful Political, Business, and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American Community ," a new book about how the internet is bringing people together, and how the political figures in the country, and they stated this on the show are now realizing that:

Believe it or not, the majority of people in America don't vote or feel connected to a party, they have some democratic views and some republican view and they want something new.

Well, I don't know about you but thats pretty much every single person in the country. Its called being a human being.

And the true honesty that we're seeing bleeding through the pages, and hyperlinks on these blogs are proof of it.

Can it be, or is it just me?