I did some searching, but can't find any decent answers to the following questions – I'm hoping some of you have some insight, suggestions, ideas, or links to studies that would be useful.

I'm interested in the minimum amount of space a person needs to be able to live and function comfortably in today's world.

What kind of design techniques allow for the greatest amount of functionality and comfort in the smallest space? Beds that fold into the wall or raise into the ceiling? Combining rooms in unconventional ways? Movable walls?

What are the best organization and storage strategies to keep a small space well organized and uncluttered while not forcing a person to "get rid of everything" that they're used to having around?

Is there a market for apartment complexes that emphasize minimalistic living situations? What about ones with larger common entertainment and cooking areas? (That last one kind of leans toward the idea of building a more closely knit "community", which is something I think we sorely lack right now in our society.)

Ideas? Wishlists? Essentials that you can't live without?

Yesterday spudart posted about the phrase "cutest hermit crabs" having zero google results.

His post is taking too long to get indexed and change that to "cutest hermit crabs has ONE google results"… so, I'm going to fix it. This should be up in less than 40 minutes. 🙂

Anyone have any cute pictures of hermit crabs? Put links in the comments 🙂

Do any of you have any experience with kite photography?

I doubt I'll ever get around to trying it, but it seems like a great hobby. And definitely a good conversation piece:

"What do you do?"
"I use kites to take pictures from hundreds of feet in the air"
"Ooooooh"

If you have any kite photography tips or tricks that you want to share, please leave them in the comments. And if you're a fan of aerial photography (kites or otherwise) and have a favorite (or 10), toss some links to them in a comment so we can all check them out. 🙂

If you like this picture check out the book Hanging by a Thread: A Kite's View of Wisconsin by the same photographer. Unfortunately Amazon doesn't have a preview of any of the images in the book, but you can see the cover image, which is an incredible aerial view of the Wisconsin State Capitol.

Yesterday I got my W-2 in the mail. Instead of sitting on them forever like I've done in the past, I decided to jump on my laptop and just get my taxes done and out of the way.

Twenty minutes later and my taxes were completed and filed.

My refund should be sitting in my checking account Jan 30th.

…. YAY!

I'll start out by saying that I don't like window shutters on new houses. They're completely non-functional, and many times the color choices are just.. wrong.

But what if they were made to be both decorative and functional?

Windows are one of the biggest sources of heat loss in a house. Many people put sheets of plastic over their windows as part of their winter preparation routine, which helps, but the windows are still cold to the touch.. which means it's still cooling the house down and you're still losing energy and money.

What I'm suggesting is a shutter system that folds out and over the window, creating an air-tight seal over the window. The shutters would look like traditional shutters, but would be solid rather than slatted (maybe a solid design with a slat pattern), and would have a core made of foam or some other insulating material. The shutters could be programmed or controlled manually to close at night and open again in the morning, providing no loss of light, and adding an extra insulating layer to the window during the coldest periods of the night.

The shutters would be multi-layered and hinged to be able to open up and cover the entire window. And this action would once again be automatic, with no human interaction required except to manually override the shutters by pressing a button.

In the summer the shutters could be swapped out for a "summer model" that was transparent and filtered out ultraviolet and infrared light which would prevent homes from heating up as much from sunlight coming in through the windows.

Maybe. Ideas?

In what appears to be another attempt by PETA to look like a bunch of asshats, they have launched a campaign to rename "fish". Their hopes are that by giving them a name more closely associated with cuteness, people will think twice before ordering or eating them. Really PETA? You're really wasting time, money, and effort to run a campaign to refer to fish as "sea kittens"?

From the About page on the "Save the Sea Kittens" website:

People don't seem to like fish. They're slithery and slimy, and they have eyes on either side of their pointy little heads—which is weird, to say the least. Plus, the small ones nibble at your feet when you're swimming, and the big ones—well, the big ones will bite your face off if Jaws is anything to go by.

Of course, if you look at it another way, what all this really means is that fish need to fire their PR guy—stat. Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone. You've done enough damage, buddy. We've got it from here. And we're going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it's time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?

A group that at one time, and may still, "rescued" unadopted kittens and puppies from animal shelters to "save" them from being put to sleep… only to kill them and leave them in dumpsters – is now trying to make fish cute so people will feel guilty about eating them?

There are a lot of people behind PETA, and a lot of people that support them – unfortunately it seems like the crazies get to make most of the decisions. Just think how much good an animal rights group could do if they actually put their effort into fighting for animal rights, not just making ridiculous spectacles of themselves. Just wait until they start a campaign to rename cows as "unicorns". Because no one will eat a unicorn burger.

PETA, this is not a kitten:



(Also, if you're interested in eating healthier, rather than eating things based on their "cuteness" – my buddy Cactus Joe has started a blog about Mediterranean Diets and Healthy Eating.)

I usually don't leave myself much time to eat breakfast in the morning, which means I either a) don't b) snack on granola bars and stuff until lunch c) run through the McDonalds drivethru (no more than once a week) or d) eat oatmeal or something i've made a ton of and frozen (pancakes).

A and C are not the healthiest options, B leaves me pretty hungry by the time lunch rolls around, and D usually ends up being oatmeal (boooring). So, trying to spice up option D a bit more, and keep it healthy, I decided that I was going to try my hand at making a large batch of breakfast burritos and then freeze them. I looked up a few recipes on the internet, and mixed and matched them a bit in my head to get the following recipe. A few notes on possible changes after the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground sausage
• 12 eggs
• 8 oz salsa (I used Newman's Black Bean and Corn)
• 15 oz hashbrowns (I just tossed in half a bag, the bag was 30 oz)
• Cheese (I shredded some pepperjack)
• Tortillas (Burrito size, not the little ones)

Recipe:

1. Brown sausage, breaking up into smallish chunks (like making taco meat), drain grease. (I soaked up even more grease using a couple paper towels.) Put in bowl.
2. Scramble eggs. Unless you have an enormous pan, and even if you do, I'd suggest splitting up the eggs rather than trying to scramble all 12 at once – I did 4 at a time. Mix in with sausage.
3. Brown hashbrowns. Mix in with eggs and sausage.
4. Mix in salsa.
5. Microwave tortillas until they're softer and easier to work with, otherwise they're more likely to crack when rolling.
6. Spoon mixture onto tortillas and add cheese.
7. Fold in the top and bottom of tortilla and roll into burritos.

You'll have to use your own discretion and taste as to how much cheese and filling to put in each burrito. This ended up making 17-18 good sized burritos for me.

I put them all in freezer bags and froze them immediately. To serve – I wrap a burrito in paper towel, microwave it for about 40 seconds, flip it over, and microwave another 40 seconds,  and then let it sit a few minutes to cool off. The paper towel is important, without it the tortilla will get moist and soggy where it's in contact with the plate.

Things I would do different:

• I used a maple & honey (or maple something) breakfast sausage. My apartment (even days later) reaks of maple, which is incredibly awesome – but it gives the burrito a bit too much sweetness. I think next time I'll grab one of the "mild" spicy sausages.
• Hashbrowns are cheap. Next time I might throw in the entire bag just to stretch the recipe out more.
• I spent way too much time shredding the block of pepperjack cheese. Next time I'll just cut it into slices.
• The salsa got spread pretty thin. I only used half a can, I might go with a full can next time. I might also use a "picante" style salsa instead.
• I'm thinking of adding a can of black beans, especially if going with a different kind of salsa. The Newman's salsa I used had black beans, and they're really good in it, but there are too few as it is.