money in the bank

So I read this article on money and then I found this and signed up for this. You can set up budgets for yourself and it texts you when you're about to go over budget. Brilliant! I can't believe this isn't as popular as textsfromlastnight.com. It oughta be.

My question, and something I want to look into further, is how did Ramit Sethi get to be so smart? His blog posts are awesome, i.e. How to get 150,000 people to read your blog in one week, or Travel full-time for less than $14,000 a year (that's just $2,000 less than I made after taxes last year but still, if I ever have money, I'd like to know how best to make it work for me)

And this guy Tim Ferriss doesn't seem too dumb either. The fact that these guys are out to help people make money, even if their advice ups their income, is suspicious but pretty great. It gives me more hope for my generation.

One of the blog links above roleplays how to get out of overdraft fees with a bank rep over the phone. Who knew people in the money-making world did roleplays? (We do them at work all the time.)

An update on the progress of Operation Grow Shit

At the moment I am attempting to grow

mesclun greens
eggplants
cantaloupe
yellow bell peppers
basil
oregano
crinkled water cress
lettuce, green and red
carrots
jalapenos
patty pan squash

with plans to put more seeds in the ground today.

I was on a roll until a cold spell came through last week and made all my seedlings look sad. I brought them into the house for some TLC and am hoping for the best.

The mesclun greens are already tasty enough to pick out of the ground and eat. I can't wait to have huge, virtually free salads this summer. Even shopping at Trader Joe's I feel like all my money goes to food, and that's without buying fancy cheese and avocados.

I like to cook colorful meals, a habit well reflected in my compost bucket >

Most of the goodness in this bucket came from a tasty shep pie recipe that Kaz introduced me to this past winter:

Sausage and Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie

* 1 1/2 pounds tan-skinned sweet potatoes, peeled, cut into 2-inch pieces (about 5 cups)
* 1 pound butternut squash, peeled, seeded, cut into 2-inch pieces (about 3 cups)
* 1 medium russet potato, peeled, cut into 2-inch pieces
* 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
* 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup


* 1 1/2 pounds sweet Italian sausage, casings removed
* 2 cups chopped onions
* 1 tablespoon minced garlic
* 3/4cup frozen peas
* 3/4cup frozen corn kernels
* 1/3 cup whipping cream
* 1 large egg, lightly beaten
* 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
* 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
* 6 drops hot pepper sauce

Preparation

Cook sweet potatoes, squash and russet potato in large saucepan of boiling salted water until tender, about 25 minutes. Drain. Return all potatoes and squash to same saucepan and mash. Stir over medium heat until excess moisture evaporates, about 5 minutes. Add butter and syrup. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Mash mixture until smooth.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 8 x 8 x 2-inch glass baking dish. Cook sausage in large skillet over medium-high heat until sausage is brown and cooked through, breaking up with back of spoon, about 10 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer sausage to large bowl; reserve 1 tablespoon of drippings in skillet. Add onions and garlic to skillet and sauté over medium-high heat until onions are tender and golden, about 7 minutes. Add onion mixture to sausage. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cool. Mix in peas, corn, cream, egg, curry powder, coriander and hot sauce.

Transfer sausage mixture to prepared baking dish. Spoon mashed potato mixture over; smooth top. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.) Bake until heated through and potatoes begin to brown around edges, about 45 minutes (or about 1 hour for casserole that has been refrigerated). Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

The Man of Our Dreams

Last night Emily and I had the pleasure of meeting Dave Eggers at an 826 Boston benefit. He was hilarious when he spoke and so excited about the work that goes on at 826, a.k.a. The Greater Boston Bigfoot Research Center, which is just a five minute bike ride from the Green Corps Commune, our lovely abode in Jamaica Plain. 826 recently released 2% of 2% of All the World's Stories, a collection of stories written by the kiddos that go to the center. Several of the kids read their stories aloud at the event and ran all around afterwards, eagerly seeking out books to sign. I bought a copy for my cousins, Henry and Isabel Janka, and was promptly bombarded by a throng of beaming ball point wielding authors, all under 5 feet tall. It was pretty rad.

Emily and I made sure to get a bit of our literary idol's time. We learned that You Shall Know Our Velocity is almost entirely truth, that Dave Eggers likes potatoes and beer, and that 826 National has never received an application from a group in Nashville. Its a shame really. There are lots of kiddos, big deal southern writers, college students and crazy old singer song writers that, when thrown together, might come up with some pretty great stories about cowboy boots, magnolia trees, debutante balls, giant Jesi* and Johnny Cash.

Lately Dave's been writing screenplays, including a collaboration with Spike Jones on Where the Wild Things Are, scheduled to come out in theatres in October. Mark Ruffalo is in the cast. It can't be bad. The trailer is neat, with an Arcade Fire soundtrack.

I feel like a new person after getting a hug from Dave, mostly because he just does what he wants, in his writing and his other projects. He's unapologetically edgy without being pretentious about it. How do you pull that off? (Check out his beat up brown shoes.)

He's the only author I've ever read that I feel truly and consistently connects with our generation. And he likes potatoes. What more can you ask for, really?

More Dave Eggers things:
The Believer
McSweeney's
Wolphin


* Jesi is the plural of Jesus, specifcally giant statues of our Saviour, i.e. Jesus of the Ozarks. See Kyla Achard, et. al 2007.

Sam Cooke- Pioneer of Soul

So Sam Cooke was and is a pretty big deal. President Barack Obama appropriated a line from Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" in his acceptance speech in Hyde Park. Rolling Stone called him the #4 greatest singer of all time. I read that and wondered, "Who are the other 3? And is Robert Plant one of them?" I looked it up and the first three are actually Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Elvis. White people only come in third. That's pretty legit. Bob Dylan is number 7. I know he was an incredible, incredible songwriter but singer? Really? Number 7? In front of Otis Redding? I don't know about that. (Robert Plant is only number 15, right behind the Reverend Al Green. And Aretha Franklin is the only woman in the first 16.)

But back to Sam. As a child Sam Cooke wanted to be a preacher. I was told that he got over his stage fright by preaching to a bunch of popsicle sticks in his back yard. He was born in Mississippi but grew up in Chicago where his high school peers voted him "Most Likely to Succeed". He sang gospel with his seven siblings before joining a teenage gospel group and later, becoming the front man of the Soul Stirrers. He and his manager, Bumps Blackwell (AWESOME NAME! Bumps also oversaw the early hits of Little Richard), left Specialty Records in 1957 and launched Cooke's more secular singing career. Not just a singer, Cooke was also a producer, Civil Rights Activist and one of the first African American artists to take control of the biz side of his music. He started his own record label and publishing company.

History is cool. Sam had soul. He also excelled in both content and delivery. Its hard to hit the notes he hit and people don't often write songs like he did. The man had style. His words were simple, as in "The Hem of His Garment"

There was a woman in the bible days,
she had been sick, sick so very long

The phrase "bible days" is a little hard to pull off in all seriousness but it totally works. This line is great too

When she touched him the Savior didn't see
He turned around and cried, "somebody touched me"

Its so simple its almost silly but Sam owned it. I think big words are mostly dumb. How can you connect with everyone if they don't know what you're talking about? Everyone can get down with Sam Cooke, that's what makes his music so great.

He used repetition in a powerful way- just like preachers do- as in the use of "sick" in the song above and "river" in "A Change is Gonna Come"

I was born by the river, in a little tent
Oh and just like the river I've been running ever since

Sam Cooke was shot at age 33 by the manager of a motel. I would write more but there is so much controversy about his death I can't begin to speculate on what really happened.

My fav Sam Cooke Songs at the moment:

1. Touch The Hem of His Garment
2. Sad Mood
3. That's Where Its At

The Beach!

Today we rode to Castle Island from Jamaica Plain. Unfortunately the weather turned halfway through the trip (see the happiness in the photo). Its great to know there is a nice beach just a 30 minute bike ride away. If it ever warms up in Boston I'll be there every weekend, making friends with the young bachelors at the yacht club.

Being on a bike is just awesome. I need to find more folks to ride with. I'd like to divide the Boston area into sections and bike a different section each weekend. I understand the city so much better now that I've started riding to work and select social affairs. Its really quite small and manageable. If it was not so brutal here in the winter I'd love this city.

Street Art In Cambridge

This is next to the Harvest Co Op in Central Square. Claire has a radar for these things and dragged me into a covered walkway full of treasures.

This is K Momma talking to Bryant Terry. We went to see him talk/cook and eat his food at BU. I like his style. In his books he includes a suggested soundtrack with each recipe. His mission is "to put the culture back in agriculture."

the beginning

So this is my attempt to make my outside of work life more exciting . If I'm going to write on the regular (regularly) then I need to make sure I have things to write about. The idea is that I'll now have to do more things and continue learning, perhaps beyond what I hear on NPR.

NPR is great though. Most recently, WBUR totally rocked my world with a piece on L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz. He wrote 13 sequels. Who knew? What I liked about the piece was less all the gushing from callers about their love for Judy Garland and the film and more the discussion of the Baum's life. It was filled with failures, including a poultry breeding business, and it was only when he said, "fuck it. I'll do what I want!" and poured his heart into the Wizard of Oz that he finally achieved personal success, and then some. Lesson being: if you're hell bent on giving something back to humanity, you should probably just do what you really want and do it well.

I can't say now just what this blog will look like but I imagine it will materialize into a bucket of random thoughts on current events, short political essays on the benefits of deconstructing our global trade system, recipes, locutions of the week (a.k.a. noli slang, for you kiddos who know about my funny way of talking), character sketches/profiles on interesting people here and there, and links to awesome funny websites like this one and this one.

Things that I've been thinking about about and would like to revist (comment if you're interested in one in particular):

1. Bryant Terry Vegan soul food, mmmm
2. Chronic pain support groups- Good idea? Do they exist for the under 50 crowd?
3. The need for politicization in the broader food movement (think Slow Food, Food Justice, everything Michael Pollan writes about, blah, blah, blah)
4. Bees - What is to be done about them dying en mass?
5. Iced tea/juice combinations
6. The New England Aquarium
7. The origin of "call a spade a spade"
8. Saving seeds- how do you do that really?
9. The history (and future?) of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
10. Sam Cooke. I can't stop singing "The Hem of His Garment."