Two events Two lessons

This weekend it was a date weekend. On Friday night we went to see Kodo at the big performance space on the U of M campus. Kodo is a Japaneses drumming troupe. They were great and we would recommend them to anyone if they come through your town. But we also learned that a drumming troupe is also popular with the younger croud which makes for an interesting audience. It is the time of year that all K-12 students seem to have a cold so there was a constant chorus of coughs throughout the show. That age group can also not figure out when a song/set is over so everyone always clapped before they were suppose to. But all in all it was a fun night. If you want to see an amazing phisical ability and cordination check them out in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPdOmY1BjAU

Last night we went to a U of M hockey game. That was equally an interesting experience. This was my first time experiencing U of M sports and might be my last. We were in the student section and boy were there die hard fans. The student section for some reason stands through the whole thing, which meant I couldn't see the game even though I was standing. The job of all the students (all dressed in yellow) was to heckle the other team and refs constantly. This meant a constant barage of cursses through the game. There were also endless cordinated cheers (that all involved cursses) that we did not know so we stuck out like sore thumbs. It was an experience but after the second period we headed home to the safety of our living room. Next time we will be sure to dress in yellow, learn the cheers, and stock up on some good curses for the refs so we might fit in.

What do you do in the Winter in Ann Arbor?

Go curling! What is curling, you ask? It involves ice, brooms, and a 40 pound rock. And yes it is an Olympic sport. With 30 other Erb students we took a trip to Canada to try it out. With lots of slips, falls, sweeping, and pushing we seceded in learning how to curl. I don't see the Olympics in our near future but it was a fun afternoon.

Check out the video of Courtney's perfect form!

Folk Music

Last night we went to the 32nd Ann Arbor Folk Festival. It had a pretty amazing lineup of up and coming artists from around the country. If you like country, folk, or blue grass we thought we would share some of our new favorites. The group that stole the show was the Carolina Chocolate Drops. They are a self described African-American String band that includes everything from the banjo to a jug. They played (and danced) to one of our favorites, The Salty Dog Rag. But they stole the night when they closed their set with a folk version of Hit Em Up Style. You can can't down load it on iTunes yet but you can hear it here on YouTube. The other part of the night that was pretty great was when Old Crow Medicine show played. One of the players from Carolina Chocolate Drops came out and played the bones with them and I think everyone was in the rafters with excitment. There were many more good artists but those two should keep you occupied for a while. Enjoy!

Obama!

woohoo! What an exciting day!
First we voted, and that was a pretty big day...

Now it's the REALLY big day!

Another great day

The temperatures finally rose above 0 today to a balmy 20 degrees. So we decided to go out enjoy the snow. It was sunny and perfect skiing conditions. We spent the morning cross country skiing and now it is back to work and giving our tired legs a break.

Packaging

Packaging makes up about 30% of consumer waste. Over the past month I think it has been accounting for 75% of our waste though. With the holidays there are all those boxes and wrapping paper, the shipping boxes, the peanuts, plastic wrap, and who knows what else. The other day we received in the mail a replacement bulb for our happy lamp because the first one arrived broken. Take a look at the amount of packaging that it took to get this one bulb to us. What we wanted (the bulb) is the thing on the far right and the rest of the stuff is what it took to get there.

But not all packaging is created equal. This product came from Gaiam an environmental conscious store. So the box is reused, the peanuts are made from vegetables and can be composted or disolved, and they have thought through everything else too. Check out the little piece of paper they give you to explain it all (yes I know that creates more waste but education is some times worth the extra waste). Click on the picture to make it bigger if you can't read it.

We decided to dissolve our peanuts instead of feeding them to our worms (they already have too much food). It was pretty cool. Check out the before and after.

Before
After (which went down the drain)There really are some cool ways to recycle out there that does make a difference. If you want to know more about where all this stuff comes from and goes check out the Story of Stuff at http://www.storyofstuff.com/

I'm about to go outside

I'm sitting here, and it's 30 minutes before class, and I'm debating with myself what to wear. I mean really, how much clothing can I put on? It's minus 8 degrees outside. All of the schools in southeast Michigan are closed for the day. But I've got a 2 hour lab to go to.


So Moshi and I are just sitting here, staring out the window. I'm thinking about how cold it is out there, but I think Moshi is just watching for birds at the bird feeder.