So, even though it’s Easter Sunday and the family was around, I couldn’t help but think of sex today. Hot, wild, exotic sex. I had to share it with you tonight. 

Obvious Choice – Praying Mantis

Everyone knows the praying mantis loses his head once he mounts the female, but did you know  that without his head, the male doubles his duration and speed in delivering sperm to the female? Now, you know you are a lame lover when you are better dead than alive. 

Honey Bees

The the sex life of a drone honey bee is anything but sweet. After a drone honey bee gets busy with his queen, his penis falls off. And then he dies. I wonder, was the sex worth it?

Flatworms

Sword fighting to see who the girl is? Yes, flatworms do this.  ”Like all sea slugs, flatworms are hermaphrodites. In this case, the male organ turns out to be two dagger-like penises that they use to hunt as well as mate. During mating, two flatworms fight (i.e. “penis fence”) to stab each other, while avoiding getting stabbed. The “loser” who gets stabbed will absorb the sperm through its skin and then scoots off to bear the burden of motherhood!”

Snails

Snails are the keeper of Cupid’s arrows. They are also hermaphrodites, meaning they have both male and female sexual organs, but they do not self-fertilize. Before two snails mate, they shoot “love darts” made of calcium at each other. People used to think that these arrows are nutritional gifts, like you give someone you love a box of chocolate, but they much more sinister than that. The mucus on the darts allow more sperms to be stored in the snail’s uterus (and thus helped it gain an edge in reproduction).

(image from Good Magazine)

When I lived in South Dakota, recycling wasn’t prevalent. There were extra charges for a recycling bin for your home with your garbage service and they only picked up recycling once a month. There wasn’t very much public awareness of what was and wasn’t recyclable and you just didn’t find encouragement to do so. There weren’t separate recycle bins in resturaunts, gas stations, or other public places. In a way, it was out of sight and out of mind. It wasn’t trendy to recycle and there was no peer pressure. In fact, being concerned about recycling was something you could be snickered at for. Damn tree hugging hippies, anyway. 

Another list of reasons I found that people don’t recycle are:

1. “Recycling is inconvenient.” - It isn’t once it becomes habit, no more inconvenient than throwing garbage away or washing dishes. 

2. “I do not have enough space in my home to recycle.” –

3. “If they paid me, I’d recycle.” – This is a big reason for people who have always sold and collected scrap metal, cans and glass bottles.

( http://www.care2.com/greenliving)

Moving to Boulder was like moving to a different planet. There is mandatory recycling, and recycling bins on every corner, in every store and restaurant. I began recycling out of peer pressure before I even understood all the benefits. 

Why should we recycle?

It saves energy  -Recycling 30 percent of our waste in America, we save the same amount of energy of 11.9 billion gallons of gas and reduces the greenhouse effect of 25 million cars taken off the road.

• Cans: empty and rinse aluminum, cat food, steel and tin cans,  
• Cartons: empty, rinse and flatten cartons (no frozen foods packaging). 
• Glass: empty and rinse bottles and jars. Lead wrapping and corks from wine bottles are garbage. 
• Plastic Bags: bundle plastic bags inside a plastic bag and knot the top. 
• Plastics: empty and rinse plastic containers and items numbered 1-7. 
• Paper: flatten all boxes and cartons. Tie shredded paper in a plastic bag. Staples, tape and plastic windows in 
envelopes can be recycled. Staples and small paper clips may be recycled. 
• Scrap Metals: clean and dry small household appliances or pans. 
• Textiles: If possible, donate textiles to charity. To recycle, tie fabrics in a clear plastic bag. Buttons and zippers 
can stay on clothing. No rags or textiles soiled with chemicals, oil, or paint. 
• Cardboard:  Please breakdown and flatten all boxes and place them in one of the two recycling bins on the 
property.  One is near the carwash area on Central Ave. and the other is near Cypress Point Drive near units 45-
48. 
• Paper Products:  catalogs, magazines, telephone books (no plastic wrappers), cereal and cake mix boxes 
(remove all liners), computer and plain fax paper, construction or art paper (less than 50% painted), egg cartons, 
junk mail and envelopes, paperwork books, post-it notes, shredded paper (no plastic bag) 
• Plastic Bottles and Tubs #1 through 7 (all should be rinsed thoroughly): baby wipe tubs, bakery deli and 
salad tubs (no clamshells), cottage cheese tubs, detergent bottles, milk jugs (no lids or caps) peanut butter jars, 
prescription bottles, shampoo bottles, syrup bottles, water, soda and juice bottles, yogurt tubs.

And what isn't recyclable is just as important:

• Used motor oil. You can drop off your used motor oil at a certified collection center. Please call the Recycling 
Hotline at 1-800-533-8414 for a collection center near you. 
• Hazardous waste. Anything that is labeled toxic, poisonous, corrosive or flammable is considered hazardous 
waste and must be properly disposed. Used auto parts are often covered in hazardous materials and these 
should be disposed of carefully. 
• Plastic toys. Most toys are made of different types of plastic mixed together. Plastics cannot be mixed together 
during the recycling process. 
• Paper cups and plates (even clean ones). The recyclers must always assume that food residues exist, even if 
they don’t, because food waste is a contaminant for recycled paper. 
• Any paper that has touched food:  Frozen food boxes. These have a wax coating which cannot be removed 
during recycling. Beverage cups, coffee cups, bags, donut boxes, burger wrappers, ice cream cartons, pizza 
boxes, paper plates, anything that has ever touched food directly. 
• Binder Clips may not be recycled:  Staples and small paper clips may be recycled. 
• Polystyrene (StyrofoamTM): Styrofoam containers and foam packaging blocks and peanuts are not recyclable 
• Small Appliances. Unless they are at least 80% metal, they are not recyclable. 
• Metal:  aerosol can (empty or full), construction debris, nails, metal pipes or car parts, pots and pans
• Computers, printers, fax machines, etc. 

 For a comprehensive list of what IS recyclable, see http://www.recycleplus.org/.

I would like to go on and on, and talk about compost posts, re-using, creative ways governments are reducing landfill waste, and even litter, but I don't want to write a book. I am already over the length most people will read.   As you enjoy your family and holiday this weekend, keep in mind the responsible way to dispose of those plastic eggs. http://www.ehow.com/how_6922829_recycle-plastic-easter-eggs.html

Happy Easter from Boulder!

My husband is looking at returning to school and I am looking at obtaining my Master’s degree. Neither of us are crazy about the thought of more student loans, so we are planning to self pay through it. Looking at expenses, time and effort, we have both agreed it makes more sense to focus on classes and reduce our workload. We have a mortgage, two cars, insurance, and two grown daughters that need as much financial support as they did in their teens. 

Trying to wrap our heads around how to accomplish all of this, he asked me if I was willing to go back to living like a 20 year old. Sacrificing our privacy by getting a roomate, sacrificing our freedom by sharing a car. I not only said no, I said hell no. I would rather work all day and night to complete school without giving up my lifestyle. But then I started looking at articles about poverty and hope, and a shareable economy, and felt a little ashamed of my selfishness and pride.

We already share our resources and talents. I have a lady that does my hair for free and I watch her kids for her from time to time. My daughter had her car repaired for free because she babysits for a man who knows a mechanic. He pays the mechanic in his trade, she pays him with babysitting. I support a friend’s computer and remove all the viruses and garbage he downloads and he brings me vegetables from their garden. These “sharing” activities avoid everyone cost and nobody is taxed for them. 

Now city governments are getting involved. Many cities are adopting shareable economy policies to encourage sustainable economic growth and job creation. Here are the 20 policies that municipalities are encouraged to adopt and promote:

1. Car sharing and parking sharing – This includes making off street parking only accessible to car sharers, increasing the cost to park on the street, and allowing people to lease their residential parking places.

2. Carpooling and ride sharing - One partial remedy has been offered by the rise of online rideshare matchmaking sites like Craigslist, 511.org, Zimride, and GoLoco. Cities can offer other incentives by creating free carpool lanes, designated taxi stands, and encouraging public transportation.

3. Bike sharing – Bicycling is the fastest growing transportation trend in urban America. Bicycling can be encouraged by cities by increasing biking infrastructure, offering free or reduced helmets, and  commuter choice programs. “Bike-sharing is transit. Workers who use bike-sharing services around the U.S. should benefit from the Commuter Choice Program which allows employers to give their employees tax-free money towards commuting”

4.Share-able commercial spaces – Especially now, there is a surplus of vacant commercial spaces. Cities can meet needs of both the empty space and people who need a space by incentivising the facilitation of community owned commercial spaces, allowing temporary use permits, and creating disincentives for wasting commercial space and holding it  vacant. 

5. Shareable Housing – Zoning to condense housing units, shared parking, and encourage collaboratively developed communities can offer affordable housing and communities while also preserving green space and our carbon footprint. 

6. Home sharing – This includes removing restrictions to activities such as using your home as a community meeting place, selling your garden vegetables, and offering child care without a permit. 

7. Neighborhood sharing – Shared pods and sheds for storage, neighborhood emergency preparedness, and community gardens are all part of sharing neighborhoods.

8. Recreational and green spaces – Allowing basketball hoops in driveways, creating more pocket parks, depaving excess parking lots and creating community walls that encourage murals are all ways cities can encourage public (free) recreational spaces. 

9. Shareable work spaces - Shared workspaces and workshops like The Hub, pariSOMA, TechShop, and3rd Ward enrich a city by giving workers, entrepreneurs, and creative people access to space and equipment for their special projects or day-to-day work. These spaces are ultimate breeding grounds for sharing and collaboration.

10. Shareable rooftops – We should harness rooftop spaces to collect solar energy, grow plants, or create sunny social spaces. Rooftops also make first contact with a large amount of rainwater, which makes them prime candidates for the collection and management of water.

11. Urban agriculture - Sharing is a critical component of urban food growing. First, food growing is labor intensive and requires that community members collaborate and share skills and knowledge. Sharing is also critical to land access; the people who will suffer the most from a food crisis are the urban poor who have less access to resources and tillable land. Much of the land that could be cultivated is owned by middle- or upper-class urban residents, private vacant lot owners, and government entities.

12. Food sharing – Removing restrictions on places and venues that food can be shared and offered charitably is one step in sharing food. Removing laws that require commercial kitchens for anyone who is creating food to share or sell would reduce costs and barriers so people could (legally) cook and serve food for large groups and distribution in parks and other public venues would be possible. More than 15 percent of households in America are “food insecure”, and restrictions on sharing and distribution hinder our ways of closing the food gap.

13 -Public Libraries – Libraries have always been the epitome of sharing, and the budgets for libraries get cut every year. Libraries offer shared learning, workspaces, even economic development. (http://www.ipsr.ku.edu/resrep/pdf/m260.pdf) 

14. Worry-Free Sharing – This includes ways the laws and policies can change to encourage sharing, such as removing insurance restrictions for sharing cars and federal regulations regarding food sharing. 

15. Cooperative Enterprise

16. Shareable Exchange and Financial Platforms

17. Democracy and Decision-Making

18. The Shareable City Employee

19.  Making Sharing Part of the Culture of the City

20. Energy

The last five listed are complicated and have less specific ideas, each city government is integrating them in their own ways. The fact is, our economic recovery has been weak and our poverty and unemployment rate has caused us to become more creative with our lifestyles. Necessity is the mother of invention, and these ideals go against the grain of the individualistic American culture. I think they are long overdue, and I am thrilled to see so many cities being progressive and adopting these principles. 

I am a poor hippie at heart. 

UPDATE – They found him dead nearly an hour ago. They haven’t reported how or why. 

A very famous Boulder ultra runner, Micah True (Caballo Blanco), is missing in New Mexico. The legendary ultra runner was staying at The Wilderness Lodge and Hot Springs in NM when he went out for a 12 mile run Tuesday morning. True is 58 and has spent time at the Lodge over the years, and he is very familiar with the trails. A 12 mile run is a drop in the ocean for him, and he was expected to return in less than 2 hours. 

Fourteen search and rescue teams — including three dog teams, five horse teams, a National Guard helicopter and a Civil Air Patrol fixed-wing aircraft are all searching for him. There is a group I belong to here in Boulder, the Boulder Trail Runners, that gathered together and carpooled to bring volunteers to aid with the efforts. Even the author if the book that made True famous (Born to Run) is assisting with the efforts. 

True is a pioneer of ultra raves and currently is the race director of the Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon, a 50-plus-mile extreme race that took place in Urique, Mexico, on March 4th.

Boulder has the highest concentration of ultra runners in the world, and that is one of the draws that brought me to Boulder. I was so compelled to go with the group to help in the rescue efforts, but I am not qualified. This has inspired me to look into search and rescue training and volunteering, mountaineering and wilderness survival training. I am not taking any more contracts until September, so I have time this summer to train, if that is what I decide is the best plan. Regardless, my heart goes out to True and those searching for him. I am re-reading the book tonight and will continue to hope that he is found alive.

Eldorado Springs was once the home of Ute Indians who used the canyon walls to protect them from the harsh winters. They were run out by gold miners, and today the canyon is a popular place for rock climbers. 

We hiked the Eldorado Canyon Trail, which is rated moderate to difficult. It begins at 6000 feet and climbs 1000 feet over 3.5 miles. 

It is considered a technical trail with several boulder fields to cross and quite a few switchbacks and steep descent. It was fun, challenging, and wore us out.

 At the top of the trail it meets with Walker Ranch Loop, another 7 miles on the top of the trail that is used for mountain biking. We were considering going the full 14 mile loop, but we were hungry and tired so we went back down instead. At the top of the peak, this creepy old tree was waiting for me. There were no signs of fire anywhere near the tree, but the tree itself had been burned. It was definitely an eerie thing, and I was glad to leave it. 

I uploaded these pics on my mobile app when we left the trail. I didn’t add much narrative to it because I hate using my phone, and I was gently reminded by my friend, @we_deny_everything, that I should add some substance! I promise next time to have more history and notes in my log!

We came home, showered and met some friends at a bar. We were sunburned, starving and even a little sore, so the beer was that much sweeter!

For @Unstoppable_Inner_Strength – here is the only pic that was taken of me yesterday!

1. Go to Goodwill and buy a pair of size 14 -16 men’s work boots.
2. Place them on your front porch, along with a copy of Guns & Ammo Magazine.
3. Put four giant dog dishes next to the boots and magazines.
4. Leave a note on your door that reads……

Bubba,
Bertha, Duke, Slim & I went for more ammo and beer. Be back in an hour. Don’t mess with the pit bulls. They got the mailman this morning and messed him up bad. I don’t think Killer took part, but it was hard to tell from all the blood. Anyway, I locked all four of ‘em in the house. Better wait outside. Be right back.
Cletus

Hehe – sorry no time to post anything of my own, but my Tennessee father in law sent me this so I thought I would share. I wonder if I was meant to be a southern belle. 

Today is mine. It’s beautiful out, I have no work to do. My laundry is done, house is clean, errands are complete. Now what do I do?

It’s already 9 and I am paralyzed with indecision and don’t want to waste any time here! Do I hike? Do I go sit at a cafe with my book? Do I go see my family? Have coffee with my friend? Should I go to that nature museum in Denver? Should I ride my bike on the new trail that is open to Longmont?

I hate free time. It’s way too stressful.

Here is some advice. You can thank me later. 

My husband still references it when he finds himself in trouble.

He is a real author! Kinda makes me feel silly, he’s 9 and has already published a book! Here is a plug and a link for his book:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Girls-ebook/dp/B001NLKZYQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1331875699&sr=1-1

Forty years ago, our government declared a war on drugs. In June of 1971, Nixon declared drug abuse as public enemy number 1. In 1973, the DEA was born. In 1976, Carter campaigned on decriminalizing marijuana. That didn’t work out very well. 

*Thirty to forty percent of incarcerated Americans are incarcerated for drug related crimes.

*America has the highest rate of incarcerating their citizens in the world. 743 of 100,000 citizens are currently in prison.

* 1 in 28 children have an incarcerated parent.

*America houses more inmates than the top 35 European countries combined.

*America has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. 

*12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses.

*Decriminalizing illicit drugs, along with enacting modest reforms in sentencing and parole, would save taxpayers an estimated $20 billion per year and reduce the prison population from 1.5 million to below 700,000.

*Those who have spent time in prison earn 40 percent less annually after release.

If we legalized only marijuana (I personally think we should legalize them all, but that is for another blog), we could tax and regulate sales which would be an enormous revenue creator. Remember prohibition and the costs associated there? It didn’t take us long to pull our heads out of our asses then, why is this taking so long? Because we signed treaties internationally supporting the war on drugs. The first such treaty celebrated its 100 year birthday this year:

“January 23, 2012 marks the 100th birthday of the first international drug control treaty, the International Opium Convention, signed at the Hague in 1912

The treaty called on signatories to prohibit the non-medical sales of opium, morphine, cocaine and to strictly regulate their distribution and production. The Hague convention would lay the foundation for an edifice of further treaties committing the United States and rest of the world to a century of prohibition, drug wars, and concomitant crime and violence.” 

The city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands is viewed as an overly-progressive, lazy, sin-drenched city by the opposition, however nothing could be further from the truth. The standard of living is very high, legitimate business including coffee shops where marijuana is sold and consumed account for a strong economy, and the crime and murder rate is one of the lowest in the world. In short, marijuana has been legal and regulated there for many years and the walls have not burned down.

Everybody knows about the health benefits surrounding marijuana, and many states are finally bending and allowing medical marijuana use. Hemp is one of the most miraculous and versatile weeds in the world and its uses are limitless, yet the growth is still a punishable crime. 

It astonishes me the lack of common sense governments have when it comes to social and economic matters. It makes me crazy that even when evidence and public interest points blatantly in the direction of easy, obvious solutions that they still choose to ignore it.

The more I read about the birth of America, the more I see how far we have strayed.

““God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. …
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure.”

~Thomas Jefferson 

“They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither.”

~Benjamin Franklin

 PS – This is ONLY how it is here, I have so much to say about the global effects of this, but will save that for another post.

I have a confession, I am weak in American History. To rectify this, I have been reading as many books as possible lately about the presidents (not the events, though I do have 1776 waiting for me on my Kindle.) I have a general idea of many of our past presidents, but not much actual knowledge. 

I need suggestions from you who know your history. Who are your favorite presidents? Why? So far, I like most of the ones I have read about. Biographies are meant to endear. I LOVE Ben Franklin, and I like Alexander Hamilton (who was defeated by Jefferson and NOT a president). Now, I realize Hamilton isn’t popular, witty, or charming. In context of my favorite book characters (Lonesome Dove), I would consider those two gentlemen Gus and Call. Everybody loves Gus, what is not to love?? But Call – now only a few can see the beauty in Call. Social skills were not his strength. 

Maybe I like Hamilton because of his economic interests and for promoting the National Bank. I like Jefferson better, but I have to say I follow a Hamilton school of monetary logic more. Too bad he wasn’t better with a gun, that damned Burr.

Who are your favorite presidents (or historical figures), and why? Do you have any book suggestions? What is your favorite era to study? Do you think I need to get a more exciting life?

Happy Tuesday.