My brother, makaer, recently pointed me to kiva.org, a site that is doing some interesting stuff with microfinancing. I've been reading about how much microloans are helping communities in developing countries, and Kiva has come up with, what I think, is a compelling way of helping people get involved.

From their site:

"Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help the world's working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you've sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back."

So tonight I did my first donation of two people/businesses.

Kiva also has a great gift option on their site. You can give someone a gift certificate for Kiva and after they loan the money out and get repaid, the recipient can actually take it out and spend it themselves. However, the trick is that it's likely to be so rewarding and fun, they will just loan it out again. I'm thinking of giving these out for the holidays.

I made it home in good time and with a reasonably good set of flights.

Thanks to everyone who posted in my post of earlier this week. I appreciate the kind words.

Sam quote of the day, "No Octopus, please" (said very nicely and pretty much out of the blue).

Hey Seattle folks!

I'm going to have a Garage Sale later this summer (date to be decided still) to get rid of as much of my stuff as possible. One of the things about a garage sale, however, is that the more stuff you have, the more people will actually stop at your garage sale. Sort of a critical mass of junk.

This is your official notice that if you have a few things that you want to get rid of, I would be happy to include them in my sale. If you have a LOT of stuff to get rid of and don't mind carting it over here, I would love to have some more company.

So start a box of stuff to get rid of and post a comment if you think you might be interested (or call or email) and I'll post more when I get an exact date.

Having a blast with a bunch of folks here (especially with the usual crazy wedding and travel stress out of the way now). Overall it has been amazing and I'll have to post more later when I get in. However, I suspect that it will take a while to recover. So it may be a while.

I have a feeling that Sam is going to be rather upset by the henna on my hands. (it's fading, but not that much.)

I'll post pictures or at least point you to them sooner or later.

Leaving tomorrow...already planning on sushi.

Hey folks,

I'm going to India in 7 days and I want to bring some small gifts with me for Rachana's grandmother. I've come up with some Marionberry jam and perhaps some local honey but I wanted to see if anyone had any other thoughts for things to bring.

(My parents are brining some maple candy and such from the NE)

I wish it were farmers market season!

Gacked from jillbertini

"From time to time, we offer free paid time extensions to paid users who were affected by site outages. If you had a paid account on 2006-11-04, you are eligible to have an extra week of paid time added to your account."

http://www.livejournal.com/pay/claim.bml

Hooray for free Livejournal!

So today I have gotten over my little rant about the robocalling and am excited because in about 30 minutes I get to go vote.

Short of "un-registering"[1] to vote and shutting off my landline completely, does anyone have any suggestions for how to stop getting political phone calls?

I have been called, twice, every day reminding me to vote and I get over a dozen candidate or quasi-candidate[2] phone calls each day.

I think the final straw may have been today when the calls woke my daughter up her almost asleep state for BOTH naps. My daughter does not go down to sleep well. I was not happy.

We've considered just leaving a message on the answering machine next election saying that we are no longer answering our phone during elections and to call on our other lines. Except I never keep my cell phone in the house and Erik doesn't get reception here, so we probably can't do that. But man, it's driving me nuts. I can't wait for Tuesday. And I think in the meantime I'm going to tell everyone who calls me that due to their phone call I'm either A. not voting, or B. voting for the other candidate. Just because I'm ornery.

Edit: Note that I am not actually going to say that to the actual people who call. I know that they are working very hard to remind people to vote and it's great that they are being so diligent. I'm just blowing off some steam here.

Edit #2: The majority of the "candidate calls" I mentioned earlier are robocalls. Hell, some of them might actually be robo calls about the other ballot items. I don't know because I have completely stopped listening to them. Live people don't bother me nearly as much as these guys. I have just started answering my phone with, "I've voted, have you?" and that cuts down on the chatter.


[1] Is it even possible to un-register yourself?
[2] Quasi candidate calls are those "surveys" that are really candidate calls. "If you knew that so and so did X, would you still vote for her?" That sort of thing.

Happy Birthday to my own little alien.

Do any of my friends in the greater Seattle area have an electric tea kettle[1] I can borrow next weekend (not the one in a few days, the one after that)? I promise to take very good care of it.

[1] Nothing fancy needed, just something you can plug in to boil water.

Is anyone out there going to the Simon's Rock reunion this year? My own family reunion is that weekend so I won't be attending the whole thing, but since I'll be in Mass it might provide an opportunity to meet up. I might even be up for going to the Sunday brunch if there are folks around.

Entertaining Chevy Tahoe ad

(gacked from sabinablue)

I'm having a hard time believing that I don't live within 50 miles of a Dunkin' Donuts. How is this possible?

The amazing kathrynt did what I had only vaguely started to think of doing to get the details to support Ms. Fire Thunder and the Oglala Sioux Planned Parenthood after reading about her plan to establish a full service Planned Parenthood in South Dakota. The original article can be seen here: http://www.indianz.com/News/2006/013061.asp

I'm sure that they are going to come under attack by anti abortion folks, so I'm going to make sure they know they have my support.

Edit: Because it seems to have come up a lot, I will be sending my money to Planned Parenthood directly, while my written "way to go" support will go directly to Ms. Fire Thunder.

netmouse pointed out this very sad news. I regret that I never took the opportunity to go see her speak at some of her local book readings.

An obit from the Seattle PI - http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/260959_butlerobit26ww.html

Date:	2006-01-27 10:25
Subject:	for jillbertini
Security:	Public

http://www.youtube.com/w/Hooked-on-a-feeling?v=Gi2CfuqcUGE&eurl

Warning: music video. Work safe.

Hey, how did I get a paid account? And really, how did I get a paid account without knowing it??

Someone fess up!

hmmm, I now must work on icons, huh?

Woohoo! I finally figured out that a cookie was to blame for me seeing the new style livejournal settings. I thought they had just removed the old style entirely, but I have it back now.

anyhow, mostly I was going to post that I think I drink tea just so I can eat honey. not so interesting, just thought I would mention it. So what kind of honey is your favorite? Lots of different kinds, and I think I need to explore.

(I'm rediscovering tea now that I'm back at work....)

Does anyone have recommendations for online photo printing? I'm looking at snapfish at the moment for making my holiday cards, but wondered how good they are.

Also, if you would like a holiday card from us, please email me your address. You can send it to me at my regular address or at spareoom.org. (use my lj name for the user).