I went shopping today, got some groceries and stuff, and had a look in a book store just for fun. They had these "bottle 2 pen" pens, which are apparently made from recycled plastic bottles. The pen is made from a clear plastic and is supposed to be refillable. You just unscrew the tip and replace the ink cartridge inside the pen. But after a look around, I noticed that there are no ink cartridges for sale in the store. Not a single one of any kind. Seems very stupid to me. What is the point of a refillable pen, if you can't buy the stuff to refill it with? Instead of just buying the cartridge, you would have to buy a new pen with a fresh cartridge in it when this one runs dry. This creates more plastic waste. But I guess that's the whole point. If you don't sell cartridges, people would HAVE to buy a new pen, thereby spending more money, making the pen makers a bigger profit. It wouldn't surprise me a bit. In fact, companies do this on purpose all the time.
Did you know that a ridiculously large proportion of all the things you can buy, are ON PURPOSE made to be disposed of within six months? Have a look at this website: http://www.storyofstuff.com/ It's a pretty interesting 20 minute video that explains a lot of stuff about consumers and resources.
25 March 2009
15 March 2009
Recovery
It is now 11 days since I had my tonsils removed, and while my throat hasn't healed completely quite yet, it's getting to be quite decent. I can eat more or less normal food, though not very spicy or salty stuff and I still avoid really coarse stuff that would scratch my throat too much. It doesn't hurt very much anymore either. The first day or two after the surgery were quite bad, but it was OK with the painkillers and only liquid food. Then after about 4 days it got a lot worse again.
Normally, if you cut yourself, the wound closes up and you get this brown scab on it that falls off after a while when the wound has healed enough under it. That doesn't happen inside your mouth. Instead of a brown, hard scab, you get this white layer of soft stuff that looks more like a thick layer of mold than anything else. It falls off after a while, but the tissue under it is still more or less an open wound and it can start bleeding again. After about 4 days, this white stuff gradually started to fall off, revealing the wounds from the surgery. To tell you the truth, that's when it started to hurt like a motherfucker. Anything I ate made my throat burn like it was being stabbed by a thousand needles. The painkillers took away most of the ache, but it did virtually nothing for the pain of swallowing something. For a day or two, I ate pretty much nothing more than popsicles. The ice made my throat a bit numb so I was able to swallow. Now, most of the white stuff is gone, so I'm guessing my throat will be all good and ready for anything in about a week.
I've taken a bigger interest in ecology and the environment lately. I saw this show on the Discovery channel, Discovery Project Earth, where scientists and clever people build various prototypes for things that might help clean up the atmosphere and the planet. Some of the ideas, even though they work, seem incredibly far fetched and not very practical, but some ideas actually seem quite cool. One of the episodes had this big contraption invented by a guy named David Keith. It filters carbon dioxide out of the air by using a sodium hydroxide solution. Seems good, but where are you going to put the CO2 after it's been captured? Filtering CO2 is not a bad idea, but wouldn't it be better to make factories and other sources stop putting so much out in the first place? There have been so-called rules imposed against large companies, etc. but they are ridiculously full of loopholes and most large initiatives seem kinda inefficient. Take the Kyoto protocol, for example. A country can just decide to not sign it and keep doing things the way they want. Then what? Norwegian gas platforms in the sea off the coast of Norway have hefty fines to pay if their output of CO2 is over a certain limit. So they invented clever ways to filter the CO2 out of the gas they are pumping up, and put it back where it came from so that their emissions are within limits. Seems to me that that's the way to go. Necessity is the mother of all invention, so why not impose a 5 year time limit, and then apply fines of such a ludicrous magnitude that it would be financial suicide for a company to not abide by the limits. They would simply HAVE to come up with similar ways of decreasing their emissions. Companies try to make money. That's what they do. So if they have to invent stuff in order to save money, they will come up with the necessary stuff in no time at all. They are plenty enough of smart people in the world to make it happen. The only thing missing is a good enough reason, and to keep repeating the same stuff about CO2 being bad for the environment and that it causes global warming that will make ice caps melt and cause loads of trouble in about 50 years or so is just not good enough. Stock holders are making money now. They don't care about trouble in 50 years from now, especially if it means paying money to change something now.
Making things environmentally friendly can be tricky on a large scale. Even wind power has its problems. Imagine replacing all the power plants in your country with nothing but big wind turbines. It's a renewable source of power, sure, but energy doesn't come from nothing. The turbines simply convert the energy in the wind into electric energy. And any energy that is turned into electricity is reduced from the energy in the wind. So if you have enough wind turbines, they will inevitably slow down the wind. What does that lead to? I have no clue, but there is bound to be some kind of meteorological consequence. Still, it's a whole lot better than coal power plants if you ask me.
But not everything about being environmentally friendly is problematic. There are plenty of ways you and any one person can help the planet. Recycle if you can, use low-energy light bulbs, re-use things instead of throwing them away, take the bike instead of driving your car, get an electric or hydrogen car instead of a gas guzzler (if you have the money for a new car) and many other things. I do all of the above, (except for buying the new car, I don't have a drivers license). It doesn't take any extra effort, so why not? I also like building things, so I'm going to build a small but simple CO2 scrubber myself. All I need is a small airpump from an aquarium, an empty 2 liter soda bottle, some water and some green, sludgy algae from the nearest creek or pond. It doesn't cost much, and it will convert CO2 into oxygen in a perfectly natural way. Algae are the most efficient organisms in the world for this kind of stuff. They convert CO2 into oxygen by the loads, way more than trees do. Only problem is that there isn't enough of it to keep up with all the coal power plants and cars in the world. Did you know that in the USA alone, there are about 600 coal plants? Each one burns about 1,4 million tons of coal and pumps out about 3,7 million tons of CO2 every single year. It would take quite a bit of algae to keep up with that.
Normally, if you cut yourself, the wound closes up and you get this brown scab on it that falls off after a while when the wound has healed enough under it. That doesn't happen inside your mouth. Instead of a brown, hard scab, you get this white layer of soft stuff that looks more like a thick layer of mold than anything else. It falls off after a while, but the tissue under it is still more or less an open wound and it can start bleeding again. After about 4 days, this white stuff gradually started to fall off, revealing the wounds from the surgery. To tell you the truth, that's when it started to hurt like a motherfucker. Anything I ate made my throat burn like it was being stabbed by a thousand needles. The painkillers took away most of the ache, but it did virtually nothing for the pain of swallowing something. For a day or two, I ate pretty much nothing more than popsicles. The ice made my throat a bit numb so I was able to swallow. Now, most of the white stuff is gone, so I'm guessing my throat will be all good and ready for anything in about a week.
I've taken a bigger interest in ecology and the environment lately. I saw this show on the Discovery channel, Discovery Project Earth, where scientists and clever people build various prototypes for things that might help clean up the atmosphere and the planet. Some of the ideas, even though they work, seem incredibly far fetched and not very practical, but some ideas actually seem quite cool. One of the episodes had this big contraption invented by a guy named David Keith. It filters carbon dioxide out of the air by using a sodium hydroxide solution. Seems good, but where are you going to put the CO2 after it's been captured? Filtering CO2 is not a bad idea, but wouldn't it be better to make factories and other sources stop putting so much out in the first place? There have been so-called rules imposed against large companies, etc. but they are ridiculously full of loopholes and most large initiatives seem kinda inefficient. Take the Kyoto protocol, for example. A country can just decide to not sign it and keep doing things the way they want. Then what? Norwegian gas platforms in the sea off the coast of Norway have hefty fines to pay if their output of CO2 is over a certain limit. So they invented clever ways to filter the CO2 out of the gas they are pumping up, and put it back where it came from so that their emissions are within limits. Seems to me that that's the way to go. Necessity is the mother of all invention, so why not impose a 5 year time limit, and then apply fines of such a ludicrous magnitude that it would be financial suicide for a company to not abide by the limits. They would simply HAVE to come up with similar ways of decreasing their emissions. Companies try to make money. That's what they do. So if they have to invent stuff in order to save money, they will come up with the necessary stuff in no time at all. They are plenty enough of smart people in the world to make it happen. The only thing missing is a good enough reason, and to keep repeating the same stuff about CO2 being bad for the environment and that it causes global warming that will make ice caps melt and cause loads of trouble in about 50 years or so is just not good enough. Stock holders are making money now. They don't care about trouble in 50 years from now, especially if it means paying money to change something now.
Making things environmentally friendly can be tricky on a large scale. Even wind power has its problems. Imagine replacing all the power plants in your country with nothing but big wind turbines. It's a renewable source of power, sure, but energy doesn't come from nothing. The turbines simply convert the energy in the wind into electric energy. And any energy that is turned into electricity is reduced from the energy in the wind. So if you have enough wind turbines, they will inevitably slow down the wind. What does that lead to? I have no clue, but there is bound to be some kind of meteorological consequence. Still, it's a whole lot better than coal power plants if you ask me.
But not everything about being environmentally friendly is problematic. There are plenty of ways you and any one person can help the planet. Recycle if you can, use low-energy light bulbs, re-use things instead of throwing them away, take the bike instead of driving your car, get an electric or hydrogen car instead of a gas guzzler (if you have the money for a new car) and many other things. I do all of the above, (except for buying the new car, I don't have a drivers license). It doesn't take any extra effort, so why not? I also like building things, so I'm going to build a small but simple CO2 scrubber myself. All I need is a small airpump from an aquarium, an empty 2 liter soda bottle, some water and some green, sludgy algae from the nearest creek or pond. It doesn't cost much, and it will convert CO2 into oxygen in a perfectly natural way. Algae are the most efficient organisms in the world for this kind of stuff. They convert CO2 into oxygen by the loads, way more than trees do. Only problem is that there isn't enough of it to keep up with all the coal power plants and cars in the world. Did you know that in the USA alone, there are about 600 coal plants? Each one burns about 1,4 million tons of coal and pumps out about 3,7 million tons of CO2 every single year. It would take quite a bit of algae to keep up with that.
05 March 2009
Sans golf balls
Ah, finally back home. I had my tonsils removed yesterday at the hospital. I was a bit tense before the operation, since I had never been operated for anything before. I was the first patient of the day, and the operation started at around 8 am. The surgeon was quite impressed with the size of my tonsils... I think the thing that surprised me the most was how fast I fell asleep from the anesthesia. They put a plastic tube into my hand for the IV, and gave me two injections through it. The first one made me quite dizzy, the whole room started spinning. Then the nurse told me she was going to inject something that would make me fall asleep, and about two seconds later I was out cold. Next thing I remember is waking up after the surgery, still quite dizzy. A nurse came to see me with a big wet rag and told me that she was going to clean up my face from all the blood. She literally mopped my entire face with the rag, which seemed kinda funny. Was the operation that messy? They injected me with some painkillers, and I spent the next 12 hours or so mostly sleeping. I had to stay at the hospital over night in case my throat started bleeding, but it didn't. When I was awake, it really started to hurt quite a lot, so I got some more painkillers.
I had expected it to hurt mostly at the back of my throat where the main portion of the tonsils were, but it was actually much worse further down my throat. Talking was really painful. Also, I had some pretty painful bruises and cuts around my mouth. They put this metal thing in your mouth to keep it open for the surgery, and it's apparently a bit brutal.
Gin and my mom came to visit me at the hospital and gave me a whole pile of magazines to read. I didn't really have much chance to read them, though. I spent most of the time asleep even after that. The doctor checked my throat today and I got to go home at around 11. I got some prescriptions for some painkillers, so right now I'm doing pretty good. I had read online that your voice might change a little after a surgery like this, but so far I can't really tell. My throat is all swollen and looks like a real mess, so I guess I'll find out once it heals a bit more.
Overall, trying to drink yesterday evening was quite horrible, but today it's a lot better. It still hurts a bit, especially when I swallow or try to talk, but not as much as I had expected. I've had colds worse than this, so I'm pleasantly surprised. A week more and I'll be singing opera arias again. :)
I had expected it to hurt mostly at the back of my throat where the main portion of the tonsils were, but it was actually much worse further down my throat. Talking was really painful. Also, I had some pretty painful bruises and cuts around my mouth. They put this metal thing in your mouth to keep it open for the surgery, and it's apparently a bit brutal.
Gin and my mom came to visit me at the hospital and gave me a whole pile of magazines to read. I didn't really have much chance to read them, though. I spent most of the time asleep even after that. The doctor checked my throat today and I got to go home at around 11. I got some prescriptions for some painkillers, so right now I'm doing pretty good. I had read online that your voice might change a little after a surgery like this, but so far I can't really tell. My throat is all swollen and looks like a real mess, so I guess I'll find out once it heals a bit more.
Overall, trying to drink yesterday evening was quite horrible, but today it's a lot better. It still hurts a bit, especially when I swallow or try to talk, but not as much as I had expected. I've had colds worse than this, so I'm pleasantly surprised. A week more and I'll be singing opera arias again. :)
19 February 2009
Raptor visit
Today, as Gin and I were sitting in the living room, lazily watching TV, there was an incredible boom from the window right behind us. We nearly jumped out of our skins. When we looked outside, there was a very dizzy-looking bird hanging upside down from our porch, with wings all spread out and his head on the snow. It was a pretty big bird, a goshawk. No clue what he was trying to do, crashing into our living room window like that, but judging from the impact he would most likely have crashed through the glass had he been going any faster. He looked a bit funny hanging upside down from our porch, obviously quite stunned. Mom was standing on the porch, looking down on him from only about two feet away, but he didn't seem to care much. After about a minute he took off and flew up in a tree, about 5 meters away. He didn't seem to be going anywhere, so I took the opportunity to walk over and take some pictures. He was sitting about 4 meters up so the pictures are a bit from a frog perspective, but he looks like a fairly impressive bird anyway. He was obviously not hurt from the crash, and flew off after spending about half an hour in the tree. I noticed afterwards that he left a bird-shaped impression in the pile of snow next to the porch where he was hanging.
I got the date for surgery now. On march 4th, I'm getting rid of my tonsils. Good riddance, I say. I can't wait to get rid of them.I caught a cold from my dad, who had it last week, so I've been coughing quite a lot and feeling kinda beat in general. Not that I really need one right now, but it's a good excuse to just sit on the couch and read a book. I don't really have much to do anyway. I'm still waiting for my last paycheck from the job I had in Canada. Apparently there was a "mixup" with the payments, so mine never got sent. I got a letter in the mail a couple of days ago saying that it was sent out on February 7th. But that was 12 days ago, and I still don't have the cheque... Given the level of organization at that place, I can't say I'm too surprised. It was by far the messiest place I ever worked on, and the only place I've worked at where the management seemed to have no interest whatsoever in listening to the ideas of the workers. But obviously, if the dozen or so people in the higher management don't have enough good ideas, the 300 or so "grunts" couldn't possibly have any brains to contribute anything with... The few times that the employees took the initiative to try to come up with suggestions on their own, the effort was greeted with outright hostility from the management. A healthy working environment? Right.
A few weeks before I left, my fiancée and I were offered work with the same company in starting up a new office. But without any raises or promotions, the management wanted us to do exactly what we were already doing (the positions we had already resigned from) and for a salary worth less money. They couldn't possibly offer us anything else, since we would have to show some good results and dedication towards the company first. Obviously, in the three years that we had already worked there (never mind that we had each been promoted twice in that time, and had worked there longer than most others in the localization department), we had done none of that? Sorry, but that's nothing short of insulting.
14 February 2009
Snip snip
Now that I'm back in Sweden again, my stage name seems a bit out of place. I originally picked a stage name because people generally can't pronounce my real name very well. But being in Sweden, I'm most likely going to be doing most of my performances in Sweden, so having a completely anglicized stage name just seems pretentious. So I renamed my MySpace page, and shall from now on be associated with the name "Rainhat" instead whenever I do a show. Not so much a pseudonym for myself personally, but more of a project name for my musical endeavours.
I've written some new music, and my fingers are really itching to record the stuff and put it up online, but unfortunately it seems I can't do that with any satisfactory result at the moment. First of all, I don't have access to the kind of instruments I would need. I bought myself an electric bass that I'm really happy with, but the guitar I have is really not something I want to use for a recording. It works, it's easy to play, but it just sounds bad. There is no life or body in the sound. I pluck a string, and the result is just a vibrating string. There is no resonance of any kind. It sounds... dead. Dead and flat and lifeless, as if I was playing a brick with strings. Of course, I could make do with what I have and use this guitar anyway, but I would do so quite grumpily.
The second obstacle, and the one that really stops me, is my throat. I've been having problems with my throat lately. I have always had large tonsils, ever since I was a kid. The doctors kept saying that it was perfectly normal, and that they would shrink as I got older. Well, I'm 28 now, and they haven't. In fact, they have only gotten larger and larger, and quite rapidly as of late. Now they are large enough to make it difficult for me to breathe when I sleep. I have apneas and wake up at night with a pulse of 180, gasping for air. They are literally the size of eggs. That also causes some problems with my voice. I can't articulate properly and I sound nasal and stuffy, kind of as if someone was constantly trying to choke me. Try it. Grab your throat just under your jaw. Now squeeze and press upwards at the same time. That's how I sound. I don't want to record any vocals as long as I sound like this. My throat also feels incredibly unpleasant. I'd do anything to get rid of this feeling right now.
I went to see a doctor at the local clinic when I started having trouble breathing. He sent me to the hospital with a rush order, so I went there and met an ear nose throat specialist. He was quite impressed with the size of my tonsils and decided that they need to be removed quite soon. I didn't get a set date for the surgery yet, so I'm waiting for more news on that.
Having your tonsils removed is a pretty minor surgery, but I've heard that it's incredibly painful. Gin's aunt said it was like swallowing needles every time she drank something for about a week and a half after the surgery. Oh, well. I'd rather swallow needles for a week or two than have a throat like this for the rest of my life.
I've written some new music, and my fingers are really itching to record the stuff and put it up online, but unfortunately it seems I can't do that with any satisfactory result at the moment. First of all, I don't have access to the kind of instruments I would need. I bought myself an electric bass that I'm really happy with, but the guitar I have is really not something I want to use for a recording. It works, it's easy to play, but it just sounds bad. There is no life or body in the sound. I pluck a string, and the result is just a vibrating string. There is no resonance of any kind. It sounds... dead. Dead and flat and lifeless, as if I was playing a brick with strings. Of course, I could make do with what I have and use this guitar anyway, but I would do so quite grumpily.
The second obstacle, and the one that really stops me, is my throat. I've been having problems with my throat lately. I have always had large tonsils, ever since I was a kid. The doctors kept saying that it was perfectly normal, and that they would shrink as I got older. Well, I'm 28 now, and they haven't. In fact, they have only gotten larger and larger, and quite rapidly as of late. Now they are large enough to make it difficult for me to breathe when I sleep. I have apneas and wake up at night with a pulse of 180, gasping for air. They are literally the size of eggs. That also causes some problems with my voice. I can't articulate properly and I sound nasal and stuffy, kind of as if someone was constantly trying to choke me. Try it. Grab your throat just under your jaw. Now squeeze and press upwards at the same time. That's how I sound. I don't want to record any vocals as long as I sound like this. My throat also feels incredibly unpleasant. I'd do anything to get rid of this feeling right now.
I went to see a doctor at the local clinic when I started having trouble breathing. He sent me to the hospital with a rush order, so I went there and met an ear nose throat specialist. He was quite impressed with the size of my tonsils and decided that they need to be removed quite soon. I didn't get a set date for the surgery yet, so I'm waiting for more news on that.
Having your tonsils removed is a pretty minor surgery, but I've heard that it's incredibly painful. Gin's aunt said it was like swallowing needles every time she drank something for about a week and a half after the surgery. Oh, well. I'd rather swallow needles for a week or two than have a throat like this for the rest of my life.
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