http://closertofine.chessmetrics.com there's more than one answer to these questions pointing me in a crooked line... (Indigo Girls) Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:05:32 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en If you visited any of the links in Part One: The Problem of Peak Oil – or perhaps even if you didn’t – you likely noticed that being aware of peak oil is scary; doomers and survivalists abound. James Howard Kunstler writes his commentary under the heading “Clusterfuck Nation”. ... http://closertofine.chessmetrics.com/?p=270 It's been two months since we officially entered the Seed to Seed challenge at One Green Generation.  Gardening is a lot of fun, and a lot of work!  The whole family is involved, although Jamie's interests are primarily of the destructive, clipper-wielding variety.  The rest of us are putting our ... http://closertofine.chessmetrics.com/?p=241 A year ago, I learned about peak oil. Peak oil is the point in time when maximum production (extraction) of petroleum occurs. There is a peak because petroleum is, practically speaking, a finite and non-renewable resource. (Petroleum is technically renewable; it just takes millions of years and ... http://closertofine.chessmetrics.com/?p=224 Our family has increased our sustainability goals enormously over the last year; that shift motivated our move to a location more convenient to activities (for biking and walking), with a smaller house and a larger yard.  The last was very important to us, as we wanted to get ourselves involved ... http://closertofine.chessmetrics.com/?p=223 Biggest news We moved at Halloween.  Not very far, back west over the hills into Castro Valley.  Our new home is smaller than the Dublin behemoth, and we are doing our best to be efficient in our use of space.  It's pretty successful so far.  Primary reasons for moving: to ... http://closertofine.chessmetrics.com/?p=221 Is everyone's life crazy?  I mean, I'm pretty happy with mine overall, but I'm not a naturally driven writer, so it's pretty easy for me to fall off the blog and stop sharing via this medium about what's going on for us.  I was contacted today by someone I haven't ... http://closertofine.chessmetrics.com/?p=220 Jeff and I began our second juice fast of our new cycle, the last one being in late January. I have confirmed that via the fasting efforts I will achieve my immediate goal of getting within the weight requirements for private health insurance, so that is reassuring. Now ... http://closertofine.chessmetrics.com/?p=219 Jamie and I are recently returned from New York and the funeral of my grandfather, Raymond Pisani.  He was in his nineties and had been declining for several months, presumably from advanced bladder cancer for which the family had decided to cease regular treatments.  Pepa had been progressively senile and ... http://closertofine.chessmetrics.com/?p=218 A ruling came out of California's Second Appellate Court last week, in re Rachel L., that if read quite broadly, denies everyone but credentialed teachers the right to homeschool their children in this state: "California courts have held that under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional ... http://closertofine.chessmetrics.com/?p=217 Trying to get back into the habit of keeping friends and family informed about our lives, I'm going to share for you what our Wednesdays are like these days. It's a sleep-in morning for us, after a very early Tuesday; the girls' theater troupe performs in schools Tuesday mornings, so we're ... http://closertofine.chessmetrics.com/?p=208