on again, off again . . .

Here is a little bit of crunchy green stuff; a lot of Roma, WWII and Yugoslavia history; some vandwelling frugal graduate student mumbo jumbo; a smidgen of kink; and a tad of me.  just don't expect rationality, reliability or regularity. 

some posts are friends only - others i just don't care. 

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i simply cannot find a used sink and manual water pump. going to take another trip to the green project and preservation salvage store in the morning with my fingers crossed. i also want to pick up a door to use as a bed frame and some paint or stain for the cabinets i bought last week.




i have a huge box for goodwill and hope to find some material to cover my sailboat themed pillows with something fun and bright. well, ok i am not covering them...sewing me? yeah right... i did so poorly in home ec in high school that my dad made me sew for an hour every night to pick up my grade... i made a lovely voodoo doll of my home ec teacher stuffed with dirt... he let me switch to auto mechanics...
i was just pissed because i had to take a girlie class and i wanted to be with the boys, but that is a whole 'nuther story. so, thank you mom for covering my pillows again!

"Gypsy is a behavior and not an ethnicity." Dr. Ian Hancock

i have a tendency to just give everything away when i don't want it anymore. because i am really truly minimizing my already minimal life and because i could use the cash, i thought i'd try to sell some things this time. i listed that silly knee scooter/walker thing because i my healing took so long that i ended up owning the rental (still limping a bit)...it just sold for $150. i was kind of surprised. that is $150 more than i would have from dropping it off at goodwill, which was my plan as usual. and i still have the feel good warm fuzzies because i saved the guy who bought it over $200.
i am also totally getting in to the amazon trade in thing for all my text books. i may make a little more selling the books, but there is less hassle with amazon's free shipping labels and i'll use the gift cards/credit. one of the first books i traded was worth 25.12 in amazon gift card. another worth 32.60. they are starting to add up!
my books are the hardest to pare down, but i take some comfort in my kindle for those i can replace electronically. problem is that so many of my books are not available for kindle. and i still like the feel of the book in my hand! but, being able to search an entire book for text and digitally highlight is a plus. :) not to mention the physical space it doesn't take...i just have to learn to quit trying to use it as a touch screen.

the seats are out of the van. it looks so much larger already. hopefully i can get all the work inside done by the second week of may when i intend to take off toward south dakota.

the guy who took the seats is using them for a home bar (ie man cave) that he built which is in the house that he built using mostly recycled materials. i asked him if he had any interest in a sailboat and offered to give it to him in trade for carpentry work inside the van. he seemed very interested. tonight i sent him photos of the boat with more information on it and what i want. i hope he wants the deal... he will come out way ahead...way ahead. i won't have to deal with selling the boat either.

tomorrow i will send an email to the university and let them know i am not planning to be there in the fall. i am seriously considering not being there in the spring either and reapplying to michigan. i am a little frustrated at the lack of response from inquiries at florida. i think their department is just too big. that means i will leave the first week of may.

that is soon.

most of this year's everest teams are settling into base camp and starting the process of acclimation and the khumbu doctors are at work. haven't spent as much time following the teams as i usually do, but here are a few firsts planned for everest 11:

not sure if the permit went through, but this year may see the youngest climber ever, nine year old tseten sherpa.
edurne pasaban, the first woman to have climbed the world's 14 highest peaks, plans to become the first female to climb without oxygen.
jeffrey gottfurcht plans to be the first patient with rheumatoid arthritis to climb everest.
a group of about 30 cancer survivors called "Above & Beyond" are climbing this year.
federico jovine, ivan gomez and karim mella will become the first dominicans to attempt everest as part of their project to summit seven of the world's highest mountains. they call their team "Excelsior."

check out Ueli... "the Swiss Machine" he is freakin' amazing and is attempting three 8000m peaks in one season!

Ueli Steck - The Swiss Machine from Mountain Hardwear on Vimeo.

and good luck to Alan Arnette on his fourth attempt... this is his year, i just know it!!

i've been stood up. twice, by two different people who were supposed to come by and take the seats and bed from the van. free and they don't show up after i told other folks that they were taken. i'll repost the ad, first come first serve now.
as i am outfitting the van, i am running into some challenges in my anti-consumerism... some things are just really difficult to find used. i found two great countertops at the green project and will return for a door to use as a bed platform. the counters are especially useful because they are the kind that hang on the wall above regular countertops so the tops are already recessed. i won't have to border them. i am having trouble finding used a manual hand pump for water and reflective insulation. i may just have to buy the insulation...i don't imagine that is easy to find used.
grrr i hate buying new.

summer and fall are still up in the air. i think i will take a job at mount rushmore through october and then just wander around until i need to be on campus in january. i deserve a semester off. unless a really exciting funding offer comes through for the fall, i'm going to take fall off. rushmore pays peanuts, but to work and play in the black hills for a season (room and meals included) isn't a bad trade off. i also have outstanding apps at a wildlife refuge in alaska and a homeless shelter in arizona. rushmore wants an answer tomorrow though, so if i don't have responses back today, i am going to commit to them. yellowstone offered too but i have to commit to may 9 and i can't do that.

i guess i need to start thinking about selling the boat too.

A Roma woman walks with her child, from their shanty houses located opposite to a high-class office building in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, April 7, 2011. In a report released Thursday, the human rights group, Amnesty International urged Serbian authorities to "take urgent and immediate action" to halt forced evictions of Roma from their settlements in the capital Belgrade and prevent "systematic discrimination" against them. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Romantic wanderers, right?

Serbia is part of the Decade Plan, there is no excuse for this. In 2005, they promised to make legal informal settlements or to make available legal alternatives. Their Decade promise of "Improvement of situations calling for urgent action and relocation of slums" has consistently been to evict Roma, raze their homes, and pretend the slums never existed.

I stand firm in my argument that the Decade, though well intentioned, has become nothing more than political rhetoric.

But Serbia knows the EU isn't paying attention to Romani issues, only how nice they are playing with their new neighbors and how quickly they cooperate with the ICTY.

so i am writing a chapter on Tito's philosophy of equality and i can't find the words...so i decide to get up and stretch a bit.

as i do, i say, "come on, Tito, put the words in my head....what did you think of...."

suddenly i was reminded i have an entire binder full of his speeches.

damn, Tito, you communicate fast for a dead man.

he pointed the way!



but, more surprising, i actually got it!



this moment of pure silliness brought to you by too many undercaffeinated and overthoughtful moments.