Kubonismo©

Whoever reads this (Madam/Sir),

I have ordered an item from your website: toysrus.com on the 8th (here in South Korea, I am a servicemen deployed in SK), meaning i have ordered the gift on the 7th of November 2007, I get notification now that my item is finally being shipped today the 15th of November 2007.

I have ordered toys before from your site while deployed in  more exciting locations and have been satisfied in the past. Seriously there’s really only two websites that i order from most often (due to my predicament) www.toysrus.com and the other being 1800flowers.com. (I was hoping to include victoriasecret.com but due to out internet blocks would not even attempt to, besides it’s a bad idea to be giving lingerie to my spouse while i’m away)

While i do understand that shipping items, due to the length of travel from your exotically located toys r’ us stores/warehouses take a certain amount of time, I do not comprehend why someone would disappoint my daughter on her birthday by letting my order hibernate for more than a week. I would really appreciate if the item i order next time would be ready for shipping within the day i order it.

I do enjoy the service that your website has provided me and my family until now. Maybe your personnel are really just swamped, i understand how this things happens these days.

or maybe it might not be your website’s fault at all, since this time the only deviation i have committed was completing my order using google’s checkout item thingy.

Oh well, Thank you for your time in reading this (yes, i expect someone will eventually read this)
And have a great busy swamped holiday season ahead.

Hopefully Cazzandra receives her "Jade Bratz" and appreciates all the good work that Toys R’ Us & Co. is doing, eventually. (there was no option to send it as a gift, so my daughter is expecting a doll with my name on the box) Hahaha!

Yours in Service,
C M,
Dad - Stationed in US-Army Garrison
Uijeongbu, South Korea
(847)XXX-XXXX (VOIP is saving me money, and my lovely wife appreciates me not spending all my paycheck in international long distance charges)

(Well that is the whole intended mail i wanted to send but dues to me not reading ahead about the form’s limit, i was unfortunately forced to concatenate the whole thing to the following blurb.)

Whoever reads this (Madam/Sir),

I have ordered an item from your website: toysrus.com on the 8th (here in South Korea, I am a servicemen deployed in SK), meaning i have ordered the gift on the 7th of November 2007, I get notification now that my item is finally being shipped today the 15th of November 2007.

(edited…. to conform to your form’s 2000 letter limit)
(the rest is being posted in… http://kubonismo.blogs.friendster.com/kubonismo/) Don’t worry nobody reads my blogs but myself.

Yours in Service,
C M,
Dad - Stationed in US-Army Garrison
Uijeongbu, South Korea
(847)XXX-XXXX (VOIP is saving me money, and my lovely wife appreciates me not spending all my paycheck in international long distance charges)

Thanks! Toys R Us rocks, except this one instance…

Duke Orsino* once said "Some men are born to greatness, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them".  (*A duke from one of Bill Shakespeare’s plays ‘The Twelfth Night’)

Quite true really, Some people are born into rich or poor families, some have enriched and raised themselves from poverty, others squandered the family fortunes. It all depends on the individual and his* outlook in life. This is all brought about by your karma from previous incarnations. (*throughout the rest of my story i will not be gender specific, i say ‘his’ but really i mean ‘his/her’ and ’she/he’)

I have lived a very interesting life experience, and throughout its entirety, i have learned a lot about myself, i am still learning a great deal more. At one point, i believed that I had a purpose in life… One thing that I am good at than anybody else in this world, the one thing that i must do to fulfill my destiny… That when i meet my creator and i look up at the book, it would say my name and next to it my purpose in life… (i.e,  Alex - Interplanetary Police)
       I would rack my brains out trying to figure out what i was supposed to do, i felt that i should be doing something important and that i am not doing it… being unable to figure it out was making me unhappy. (at one point in my life i felt that i should be in the desert somewhere preaching to hundreds.. that in my service i was lucky enough to be able to do albeit in a different kind of way) That i should be changing the world somehow. But in a constantly changing universe, and living inside a constantly transforming body, and having ever changing karmic dispositions i finally and slowly realize that this is not the way for me… Instead of carrying out my dharma in the best and the easiest way i can, my dharma has become a burden to me and life has become hell on earth.
"You are not a god…" for some reason this phrase keeps popping up in my mind ever since I was a little kid and now i understand what it is telling me… It is not my job to drastically change the universe, it is not my career to go against the flow of time, there is suffering all around me (caused by wars, hunger and poverty) and even though it sucks and it hurts, everything is perfect. Yes, you heard me… everything in the world is perfect as it is.

My job is to live a happy life and to be a vessel of love and acceptance for those around me, my main purpose in this life is be content and have a quiet and peaceful mind despite the suffering in the universe. It is a beginning.  From a solid a foundation of peacefulness of heart and strong will then we can start to change the realities around us. We cannot heal the sickness in this world if we do not have the strength and are not healthy ourselves.

So you think and feel that you are weak and poor? Well, you have to start somewhere.

Helping others even though you do not have the means can make you stronger. A life of service enriches us. Greediness and thinking evil thoughts destroys our bodies.

Every little change that we do can make a big difference in this life and the lives of those around us, but the most important thing is ‘Love". When you truly love someone, the feelings of jealousy and hate disappears. Love must be practiced at all times, not just to people that are close to us or family. We must truly love our enemies. (sounds familiar?)

Baba Ram Dass has a good technique of practicing "Loving Meditation" or some would call "Bhakti Yoga" (well, devotional meditation is more complex and more involved than this, but i show this example because it is very practical exercise):
- Before you sleep for the day, think about all the people that you’ve met along the way, from the moment you have awaken.
- starting with the first face that you see (it doesn’t matter if you know the person of not)
- close your eyes and visualize their face and personality, and slowly say "i love you"
- chant this and keep repeating until, you believe that you truly love the person (I’m not talking about romantic love here, I’m talking about caring for the person, being truly and honestly concerned for their well being)
- when you truly believe and feel that you do, then move to the next being
- the time that you spent on each individual will be based on whether you already care for that person or not. It takes me more time to get through people that annoy me
- do this until you have gone through everyone that you have come across that day.

If you do this, you will notice that your heart will be lighter and you will feel better, you will have less enemies and will be more concerned about each individual’s well being. What your feelings that you send out to the outside will be reflected back unto you. You truly "reap what you sow". One master once said that we should "Love our neighbors as we love ourselves". To be able to do this we must really forgive ourselves, respect our body, and still our minds. We must inventory our life and be thankful for what we receive and have received, show gratitude and love one another honestly. Namaste…

*Baba Ram Dass’ photo borrowed without permission from http://www.altmanphoto.com/Baba.Ram.Das.html

It has been exactly four months and three
days, since I’ve ceased consuming Mammals, Why? Just because… And if you want
to know more just follow the link http://kubonismo.blogs.friendster.com/kubonismo/2007/01/lessons_learned_1.html

 Pros of not eating mammals…

Health Pros:

1. You don’t have to guess what kind of meat you are eating, whether if its cat or dog or some mystery meat for dinner.
2. Lower risk of cancer
3. Lower risk of heart disease
4. Lower risk of osteoporosis - too much protein causes loss of bone calcium
5. Lower risk of kidney and gallstones- calcium leached from the bones by the body’s efforts to neutralize the acids produce by too much protein intake form kidney and gall stones
6. Reduced risk from diseases carried by Factory farmed animals
7. Reduced intake of toxic chemicals from Factory-farmed animals
8. Reduced risk of developing painful gout

  Karmic Pros:
    9. Animals on factory farms are over-crowded.
  10. Animals on factory farms are tortured.
  11. Animals on factory farms are treated like machines - they are pumped up w/ drugs, fed their own waste & forced to grow or produce as fast as possible, subjected to 24-hour artificial lighting while being crammed into tiny cages one on top of the other to make it easier to harvest.

 Environmental Pros:

12. Inefficient use of agriculture. - The grains and soybeans fed to animals to produce the amount of meat consumed by the average human in one year could feed seven people for the same period.
13. Inefficient use of water.
14. Inefficient use of energy.
15. Environmental Pollution. Raising animals for food is the biggest polluter of our water and topsoil. Factory farm animal waste pollutes the ground and groundwater horribly.
16. Destruction of natural habitat. It takes more land to raise animals for food than it does to produce the equivalent nutritional value by raising edible plants. Rain forests are being destroyed to make room for huge cattle ranches. Coyotes and other animals are poisoned and shot by western cattle ranchers who consider federal land to be their land for grazing.

Other things to consider…

Over consumption of protein can be hazardous to your health:

- When you eat too much protein, a byproduct of
protein metabolism called urea (blood urea nitrogen or BUN) is formed in your
liver and excreted via kidneys.

- The kidneys have to work overtime to eliminate
the excess urea w/c has accumulated in your blood, which can lead to kidney
damage especially in older people and/or people with pre-existing kidney
damage.

- If you take in more protein than needed (because
protein is not stored) it is excreted through the body through the liver. The
liver changes protein into BUN and filters it, the kidneys at the same time
filters out unprocessed protein. The increase workload on the kidney enlarges
it; the excess protein causes pressure to accumulate inside the kidneys causing
damage to the tubercles (filtering apparatus in the kidneys)

- Ridding the blood stream of this excess urea
causes the kidneys to excrete large amounts of minerals, the most important of
which is calcium. The high concentration of calcium mixed with uric acid in the
kidneys form kidney stones.

- Lack of calcium in the body can lead to
osteoporosis. We have to drink plenty of water in order for the kidneys to
filter out the urea in the blood stream or else suffer possible dehydration.

- A high animal protein diet can lead to coronary
heart disease, colon and prostatic cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, gout ”The
Disease of Kings", kidney and liver damage.

As for Cons of not eating Mammals, why not help me out and
add it to the comments, maybe you reading this can convince me that what I’m
doing is futile and should be abandoned, for now all I could think of that
could be a negative aspect of this diet is that I could not eat at fast burger joints and no more steak for me,(bye bye outback steak house) well
last week I’ve had a tofu/fish burger, and its atually pretty good, plus I could always
barbecue chicken or some other non-mammal meat, add to that vegetables and
fruits. Oh well, I feel great for now, who knows what will happen in ten
years, my creatine level had dropped but I supplement it by eating sushi at least once a week and I take creatine supplements when I work out.

I’m still reading : Taking a while (thick book)

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu 

The current roster of transportation modes in the Philippines

1. Kalesas: The perfect way of getting around the old city
of
Manila, quiet,
romantic, breezy and elevated two-passenger horse driven carriage, takes you
back to the 1800s.

.

2. Jeepneys: An evolved form of the WWII US Army willies,
the symbol of Philippine culture, ingenuity and resourcefulness. It seats ten
to 14 passengers.

.

3. Tricycles are very colorful motorcycles with sidecars
attached, for the adventurous. It seats two to four passengers.

.
4. Both air-conditioned and open window buses, will take you
anywhere.

5. Pedicabs are smaller pedal-powered Tricycles, quiet and
relaxing. Seats two.

.

6. Bankas are pumpboats native to the Philippines;
they take you from one beach to another. Smaller bancas are paddle powered or
sailboats. Five to 20 passengers.

.

7. Taxis, just like any other taxi in the world.

8. Light Rail Transit/Metro Rail Transit, probably the most
convenient and busiest mode of getting around the metro area, unfortunately
there are only two lines that exist as of this time.

9. FXs: Recent additions to the transportation problem/solution;
SUV looking owner type vehicles that generally seat 7 people, air-conditioned
and are not quite colorful like the jeepneys.

.

                    My recommendations/commandments

1. Place jeepney/bus stops every 2 miles, with stop signs clearly indicating what your location is and what the previous and next locations was/will be. Jeepneys and buses cannot stop anywhere to drop-off/pick-up passengers unless they are at a PUJ/PUB stop(public utility jeepney/bus) Anyone else that want to be picked up/dropped off from/to anywhere else can take the taxi. This means setting up fixed routes with set times and schedules.

2. Buses must not run the same routes as jeepneys. They are designed for longer routes. There will not be any long distance jeepney routes. The jeepneys and buses can interconnect but must not run the same route.

3. Taxis will be hailed by hand signal or preferably cellular phone text messages
     and will have meters and set fares.

4. Tricycles will be banned from the Philippines until the time that a quiet and non-polluting engine is made available to replace the current inefficient motor.

5. Pedicabs will run like taxis but will be restricted to their specific barrios. Each
     one will be registered and the drivers will have ID’s on them at all times.

6. Motor powered bancas will be banned with the same restrictions much like the
     tricycle, sailboats and paddle powered bancas are not restricted but will be registered and sailors/operators will have IDs available at all times. Each banca will have a wireless transmitter/receiver for communications (cellphones with text message capability is acceptable) There will be fixed routes for each banca and each boat will have an emergency action plan (with detailed alternate embarkation points listed) located in each vehicle

7. The LRTs/MRTs will be expanded from the biggest cities way up north Luzon to the little provinces as far south as land exists. The same will be constructed in the big islands of Visayas and Mindanao, ultimately the 3 main regions will be connected by a series of LRT/MRT, a MagLev (magnetically levitated) train will run from Babuyan Island to Sultan Kudarat.

1. There will be a unified pass system instead of separate cards for travelers.
2. The downward escalators will be removed. Elevators will be provided for the elderly and handicapped.
3. Stairs will be made wider (four abreast)
4. All escalators will only be going up, and placed side by side with stairs. The stairs will be color coded, green for going up and red for going down. There will not be any red escalator.
5. There will be diagrams posted above each door showing routes and the next station will be announced 20 seconds before the train comes to a stop.
6. Two rows of seats per car will be provided to the elderly and handicapped and anyone can occupy the seats until it is needed by the elederly or handicapped.

8. The FXs will either be running like taxis or jeepneys but will have a specific
     route either way, personally I don’t see a reason to have these things around unless a national auto manufacturing company is established. FX’s will be restricted to Philippine designed/made vehicles with Philippine designed/built engines.

9. All routes will be marked and known, each route will be assigned a number
     starting from within the metro Manila area with single digits, spreading to the provinces for dual digits and farther out with 3 digit assignments. (i.e., 1-9 for Metro Area, 10-20 for provinces, and 100-500 for outlying regions) A website will be created that uses the latest web based technologies to show routes and estimate
     travel times for passenger.

10. All vehicles (official, public and private vehicles, running on land, sea, air and space) running in all forms of petroleum fuel will be smog checked and must pass a pollution inspection. Smog violators will pay a fine and must initiate repairs, submit to and pass a smog check. If the vehicle cannot pass after all proper repairs have been made then the vehicle will be banned from using public roads. Law enforcement officers will issue tickets that will be paid at a centralized department of motor vehicles. A toll free hotline will be available to report smoking, leaking vehicles
     and smog violators. A reward system will be in place.

11. The department of science and technology with the help of the department of
     motor vehicles will hold annually a jeepney standardization/modernization contest. There will be a big push to convert all existing jeepneys to electric.

      Anyway these are improvements I would like to see now, I
believe it would save the Philippines from pollution and traffic congestion and greatly enhance the beauty and health
of the Philippines and its citizens. Just a dream for now, maybe next time you visit the Islands you will see these improvements.

I’m still reading :
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu 

I hear the sound of taps in the background… Its quiet… time to turn over it’s 11 pm in an army camp in South Korea.
Tomorrow is the big day to see if I’ve learned anything about fitness since Ive arrived here in the peninsula, Its just seems unfair that I’ll have to do it knowing I’ve injured my knees Wednesday. I got back from my 15-day vacation to the Philippines last week and I’ve been training heavily since Fri knowing that I’m competing tomorrow, the only problem is heavy training brings injuries and I’ve popped my knees, sprained my ankles and my hurt my ribs and my forearms… shouldn’t have been training too hard. On the positive side Ive had 2 days of very light workout and the rest should make me at least healed enough for Saturday noon’s fight.

I am probably in my best shape right now since I’ve injured my back while I was still stationed at DM, after that injury I’ve shot from 135 pounds to 175 lbs (my heaviest) while i was in Iraq (stress haven’t helped) now I’m back to 145 and  hopefully by mid next month be at 140. When that happens then I’ll start training to add muscle mass and reach my goal of carrying twice my weight.

Since November I’ve been core training and increased my flexibility.. I’ve cut down on animal fat considerably (with the help of my no-mammal meat diet) have completely gone smoke free and cut down on my alcohol consumption.. Since arriving here Ive ended my polyphasic sleep test and have gone to a normal 6 hour a night rest (also became a day worker)… This whole lifestyle change will either kill me or make me stronger.

Having a well rounded life is what the air force aims for its airmen, not because of better performance reports scores, it is a life changer, it enhances your life experiences.. The lord has given us talent investment, what we do with that investment is up to us, we can either dig a hole and keep it there or use the money and create wealth. Each one of us has the same potential for greatness, for enlightenment, for happiness. Our bodies are god’s temple, we must keep it holy and sound, you can be all spiritual all you want, be all knowing, and amass all the riches in the world, but without god’s home, it is all for nothing. The soul doesn’t need a body to exist, but it does need one to make a change in the world. Our bodies are part of our selves, it is our window to the world and it is the vessel in which we store the wisdom and beauty of god, It is our way of means of embracing our beloved and followers and the children of god.

Clean out your temple, make it fit for the lord to live in, sometimes we have to destroy and rebuild the house of god, but we do not have much time. Act now, tomorrow is too late.

(NEW) Latin word: Shingle, n. glarea,f.; scandula,f.

I’m currently reading :
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu 

Yesterday was world water day , and as we near the "Supposedly Hydrogen Economy" then water will be a scarcer commodity.

The theme of this year’s World Water Day is Coping with Water Scarcity. The United Nation’s prediction that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will live in regions or countries with “absolute water scarcity.” Drinking water, agriculture, sanitation and sustainable industry – none are possible without access to water and all are required to lift regions out of poverty.

One way of resolving our water problems is through the effective and efficient use of water. I’ve completed the floor plans Ate Emy’s house in Hermosa, Bataan,

The hybrid kubo/earth ship construction is built using worn-out trash dump destined automobile tires and other recycled materials. Cooling and heating is provided by the planet through the massive thermal blanket that surrounds the house. It has an extensive water system that provides both cold and hot water though a passive solar water heater system. Rain water is collected from the thatch roof and silt-filtered in to a collection Cistern, the clean water is used throughout the house, the waste water (gray water) generated at the kitchen and the baths are routed to an indoor filtering pond where water-loving plants break down and use the waste water as fertilizer and creates clean gray water to be used for flushing the toilets, liquid and solid waste from the latrines are routed to the black-water systems, to be broken down into non-hazardous soil and enriches the surrounding flora facade. 

The whole system is able to provide the house its yearly water needs. plans are available for additional dry wells for additional storage from run-off during monsoon months. The system simulates the previous job of a tropical rain forest in filtering, storing and distribution of crystal clean rainwater.

This house will use approximately 500 tires and 2000 glass bottles destined for the dump. Using recycled materials lowers down construction material costs and uses a resource that people have classified as unusable. It effectively reduces landfill use. It doesn’t look like we will be getting rid of automobiles soon, so there will always be throw away tires available.

I’m done with the floor plan after modifying my original plans from a 2-story bungalow into a 1-level unit. I’ve removed the second cistern and instead increased the diameter of cistern #1, consolidated both baths into a bigger room complete with bathtub, 2 showers, 2 toilets and dual sinks. Ive also situated all water system facilities close together to reduce piping costs. The finished plan is a 900 square feet 4 bedroom, 2 bath, hybrid earth-ship/kubo construction with natural lighting in mind.

Another side effect of building this way is that the inside walls are leaning away and provide more room as you go up towards the roof. Hopefully once we start with this project people will see that there are other ways of building their homes, back to basics again without sacrificing comfort. It is a high-tech way of building a house, make that retro-tech way of home building since we are just using what is already available for thousands of years and implementing them in a new way that resolves some of our problems at this time. So Yesterday starts the plans for Kubonismo and as soon as I head back to the Philippines, it will materialize.

I’m currently reading for the third time:
The War with Earth by Dave Grossman & Leo Frankowski
I’ve lost this book on my way to the Airport.. Damn, gotta get another copy

I’m 31 years old I tell myself, i should already be in the desert finding myself.. Which I was and I did, not exactly but did find out the path to self discovery. A feeling not of fear but hastiness, a foreboding feeling that my time here is short and I should be doing everything I can to make a difference for my loved ones and for all the beings in the universe.

But how can one start on the path of service when your beloved feels that he/she has been taken for granted, being left out, not loved? It’s a very thin line you have to walk on.. One where you give yourself, your all to the service of humanity but lose and deny your beloved her/his share, or spend blissful ignonimity in Lethe-like abandon in the arms of your beloved ignoring the suffering of the universe.

Could this be the reason why Siddharta left his Palace, wife and kids to be a renunciate? Why the Carpenter Nazarene have spent life in single blessedness… I’ve heard about this and some statisticians have actually correlated a persons productivity and ingenuity in reciprocal to his love life. Great minds fall when all consuming love is realized. Poets lose their touch… The muse leaves in the afterglow and sometimes never returns. Sometimes the pain and longing is necessary.

My choice in this matter… I choose service. Not because I am taking my beloved for granted, but because true love waits, but does not wait forever. True love supports, true love trusts in his/her beloved. Reflect on this.

And I do this not because I relish the pain of being separated from my beloved, But hoping in the future to share the fruits of my labor and to bring forth a better world to share in. Please be patient with me, I love you with all my heart, but remember that True Love is not selfish. Service means Sacrifice.

I’m currently reading for the third time:
The War with Earth by Dave Grossman & Leo Frankowski
This book is part of my personal collection.

Being an avid fan of physics, I’ve fired a lot of weapons, mainly rifles and handguns… Not nearly enough though to consider myself an expert on firearms.. I don’t consider myself a gun nut. I just appreciate things that are well made and reliable.

Guns have been around for centuries and there’s really nothing magical about a firearm. You select a target look at the front sight, center the target on the front sight and lightly initiate the trigger mechanism and hopefully the tool will reward you with an explosion that is directed to the back of the round that needs to be propelled forward out of the barrel.. and if you did everything right.. leads to its destination.

A firearm is basically composed of a tube launcher and the ammunition with a chemical propellant.

The launcher assembly or "gun" must be strong enough to withstand the pressures released from the ammunition’s propellant. The Ammo or bullet is composed or a ’round’, ball or bullet, crimped by a casing which holds the propellant and a primer that ignites it. No magic here.

The weapon must be pointed directly at the target to work, the round does not magically seek out the target. Guns don’t kill people. Injuries from gun wounds will cause lots of tissue damage and can lead to death, but the ammo needs to get there first. For that to happen, marksmanship training is a must. Marksmanship training does two things… one, it prevents injury to one’s self and non intended targets by keeping the bullets where they should be going, and second it prevents waste… Waste of time, waste of ammo. Practice makes perfect. Weapons discipline is paramount, like any other tool, improper use can lead to injury. For example, using a writing implement to clean your ears.

Anyway, tangents…..
Why I love the Farbrique Nationale Five-seven…

1. Almost virtually no recoil… I consider myself an artist.. I don’t want arthritis when i retire, also with less recoil you get better accuracy and endurance
2. Came with a case and three 20 round magazines - I’m all about conservation, but having 60 rounds available in an emergency is comforting - And you’ll feel the difference at the range (after getting used to the 2X10round)
3. High speed rounds - Hmmm
4. the 5.7X28mm ammunition - You can’t get the ammo at Walmart. Nuff said.
5. The FN P90 CQB - What is there to say.

There are better looking guns out there… But after firing most of them, for me I would rather have my 5-7 it’s small enough to CCW and it fits my hand nicely, I like its balance and the warm feeling the extra 40 rounds on my waist give me. I am not a gun freak and I don’t suggest everyone get a gun for self defense (there are many ways of defending oneself) I am a serious believer and practitioner of non-violence. But if you do get a gun for anything, please learn to use it the right way.. Practice… Practice.. Practice and then practice some more. Practice drills, one handed reloads, troubleshooting, off mag shooting.. both hands and learn everything you can about shooting… If you cannot do this then at least join a gun club or your local shooting range and take the Concealed Carry Weapons Training Class, and finally learn the local laws.. Traffic and Gun Laws. Ammo is cheap and easy, stabilizing bleeding people is harder. Don’t shoot your friends.. specially when they have a gun. Learn to use your tool properly and please RTFM.

I hate applying violence… But in a situation where you have to defend your family, friends, buddies, or the citizenry from a bad guy who is using deadly force… I’d rather have the bad guy on the ground incapacitated than having to mourn my loved ones. The trick is to apply the right amount of violence in a given situation, and the way to do this is training. Violence without discipline is just wrong.

Peace.

You want reason to practice? You practice so you don’t miss your target and accidentally hit her.. Yes. Good enough reason right?
Finished reading:
Old Soldiers by David Weber
(the perfectly cute lady is Maria Ozawa)
 

I’m currently reading:
Two-Space War by Dave Grossman & Leo Frankowski
 
 

Hmm… My flu is gone.. Thank you modern medicine. Oh well….

Clothing, food and shelter.

these are the 3 basic necessities for living.
They are not luxuries but a requirement.

How do you provide housing to 6.5 Billion souls in the world?
It’s not easy especially considering the number does get bigger everyday, it might be 7 billion before the end of the year.

We can build McMansions for everyone of them… everybody can afford the $200K houses that builders are charging for right? Why does it cost so much to build one? I’m not going to try to answer that one.

A long time ago, in a different part of the galaxy… There was this blue planet called Gaea or Terra. And when people that lived there wanted shelter they built it…… with their own hands, with what was available in the surrounding areas. Thus houses sprang up in the hot and dry climates built with clay and mud, huts in the tropical islands built with straw and bamboo walls, and in some places brick houses and even stone. These buildings were enough for them and sheltered them from the elements. There were extended families living in these shelters, and the houses were transfered from one generation to the next.

All I can say is: We need to stop building homes as if they are
disposable pieces of junk. There was a time when houses were built to
last generations, built to be efficient and in harmony with the
surrounding landscape.

We don’t build that way anymore because we do not have time, no patience, we want instant gratification, we want our houses like our food fast. Hell, if we can only get them through the drive-thru we would.

Well maybe if we are going to be this way we need to at least re-think and re-design the basic ‘home’ from the ground up. We have the knowledge, we have the technology. Instead of recreating the same flawed design five million times over, we need to start building organically, we need to learn from our mistakes. No parent hopes that their offspring are dumber than them. We must strive to procreate into perfection. Devolution is retardation, but we also need to get back to basics. "Kiss", A great engineering concept which come to mind, It stands for "Keep It simple, stupid!". A project can be so complicated that it becomes devolutionary.

We need to really take stock with what is available at the building site and use it. Build with what you have. The ancients have done this many times over and most of their structures still stand today, save for the ones that have been sacked or burned down. Let us learn from the past. "Ang hindi marunong tumingin sa pinanggalingan, hindi makakarating sa paroroonan", somebody famous and dead from my grandfather’s time said. He who do not know how to look where he has been, cannot reach his destination.

The typical house nowadays are composed of different building
materials, each piece traveled an average of 500 miles or so. Most of
the materials we cant even begin to understand how they were
manufactured in the first place and most of these materials are
considered hazardous but nobody seems to care, certainly not the
builders they don’t have to live in them.
    Just how toxic is
that PVC pipe that delivers the supposedly safe drinking water to your
faucet? How much VOCs (volatile organic compounds) are constantly
leaching out of your new house that you are breathing in? How about
paint? How safe is it? Radon anyone? Treated wood? Anybody know how to
make cement from scratch? We have perfected the art of creating a toxic
home with our wall to wall carpeting.

Our shortcuts are causing ourselves and the planet irreparable damage.

According to people much smarter than me, our planet earth is moving away from the center of our galaxy, and our galaxy is doing the same thing from the center of our known universe. Our planet was not in the same space now as it had been millenia ago, or a second ago. We can never be in the same space and time ever again. Crap.

I’m still reading:
1633 by David Weber & Eric Flint
(McMansion photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMansion)