Saturday, March 26, 2011

Adventures for the past 10 days ...

Mostly I was without my own house since it was 4 days worth of work to rip out old carpeting, clean it up for new flooring and putting in the new tile laminate. The results look really great and I’m very pleased with the way it all looks! Hooray!
I wasn’t able to stay in my own house for 4 nights but I was at a small hotel about 1.5 miles away.

I met the workmen every morning at the house because I had to check on and feed the cats anyway—cats were outside these 4 days. Also came back at night to do the same routine with the cats. They survived that few days of noise and uproar and are doing okay.

Everything was moved out of the house into a storage unit or put in the small storage shed I have. I put my pantry foods that wouldn’t fit in cabinets, into the storage shed shelves. It would make a great pantry for half the year if I didn’t have enough other things in there already. It just wouldn’t work very well in the hot weather though.

The upside of the hotel was a full breakfast was available every day with the room (it was a comfortable quiet room), I had access to 24 hours cable and there were high-speed computers available in the lobby for any guest to use. For the news junkie in me the cable and computers were a treat although the news the last couple of weeks seems to worsen exponentially every few hours. 

The downside was I had no kitchen. I had a microwave and lots of decent restaurants around and fridge in the room (which I didn’t use) but after being used to doing my own cooking I felt really lost without my stove or pots or other sources for cooking. Solar ovens wouldn’t have worked at the hotel setup.

Goodness, you could go broke just buying meals or prepared food to microwave ! And I could buy fruit and keep it in my room but I didn’t get enough greens in the past week I know.

When I could get into the kitchen, I could get things out of the fridge and take them with me to eat later but it was really inconvenient not just having my kitchen and food things ready for use when I wanted.And another week of eating without my kitchen and I’d begin to feel like an overstuffed blimp.

I got the tv and the computer up and running Friday afternoon. I didn't expect it to go that smoothly but it did. Also, I packed my 2010 tax info in a box and couldn’t find it for 3 days—but I found it last night when I unpacked3 boxes at home. Eek!

Glad to be back at home and have my nice new floors!
Peace, shamba

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Been out of touch

for a few due to staying elsewhere while my new floors are being put in. Everyday or many times a day, some new horrible thing is happening out in the world. Japan, radiation issues, Libya war front, Israel moved into Gaza, radiation levels in Tokyo drinking water, a unknown source of a large oil spill just south of Grand Isle, Lousiana!!!! Sweet heavens above .... then what?

My floors do look really nice, they've been installed in the living room but the rest needs to be finished in the next day or two. I'm hoping these floors will cut the dust and loose dirt in the house and I have to be more diligent about keeping the cleaning up better! A couple of new dust mops should do it and new floors should provide the inspiration.


peace for now, shamba

Monday, March 14, 2011

Melting, melting, melting ... a glowing puddle of radiative goo ?

Now, many think the fuel rods are melting in the 3 problem reactors in Fukushima 1 power plant in northern Japan.

And the Nikkei index has melted some because of the earthquake, tsunami and now probably radiation leaks even before the rods have melted through their containers. The Bank of Japan has been injecting money this trading Tuesday in Japan. Jpan is about 14 hours ahead of Phoenix time.

Of course, there is a great gap in my last entry and this one. Mostly, I'm referring to the giant 9.0 earthquake on the eastern side of Honshu island in Japan.
About every 12 hours, since last Friday, march 11, there's been some new announcement about nuclear power plants and nuclear reactors at one particular power plant. There have been explosions in the buildings the containers are in but so far no containers have been breached.

My net sites are beginning to talk about people and businesses packing up and leaving Tokyo as the radiation levels there are going up

My usual financial/geopolitical blogs are sure that the Japnaese authorities have been downplaying everything from the start. Zerohedge.com has been calling the event there right so far the past few days. Then about 10-12 hours after they post their conclusion, NBC evening news has it on, too!

Of all the things to be prepared for, anything nuclear or radiation is the one that frightens me the most. Of course, we don't know that it will reach here but the effects of this worldwide on food, business, tourism and just about anything else is totally wrecked if it doesn't stabilize completely pretty soon.

no peace tonight ya'll, shamba