Erupting again. . . I suppose just a sign of the general restlessness of the Ring of Fire right now.

Our planet is geologically active and, sadly at times like this, humans have notoriously short memories for how often these things happen. It's troublesome given how "overdue" we are for cataclysmic events in many places.

And I will admit, I am just as guilty. More here than living on the San Andreas. Though I think some of that preparedness that I grew up with was really because we were in a desert, not because of the earthquake potential. I don't think we'd have had blue 50 gallon containers of water in LA.

Thank you guys for the nice compliments on the house! We are still loving it. Like right now with the guests, it's so awesome to me how well it all works.

And thanks especially Bev about the master bath! That room is my glory. When we bring people over and give them the house tour, that's the last stop because it's so awesome. And it's so big for the 5 foot turning radius for the wheelchair, so then all the guests end up standing around in the bathroom talking. Which never fails to amuse me.

Those vessel sinks were super on sale at overstock. We bought them for maybe ten bucks more than a regular sink. Love! And yeah, I was supposed to have glass block in the shower wall, but failed to procure them in time for the tile team. And I intended for the entire shower area to be slightly bigger so that we wouldn't need a curtain at all. But my design put the showerhead on the outside wall, which not such a good idea in our seriously freezing temperatures. Oops. So the builder improvised the stub wall, and in order to keep the turning radius, it made the shower area smaller, and required the curtain.

But I still love love it. Although more rooms are seriously messy at this moment than in those photos, even with having cleaned for guests!

I had a fantastic weekend with people I don't see nearly enough. Even the fact I am now sitting in LAX waiting on a plane that is delayed at least half an hour without the cookie spread Kat gave me because as a paste it wasn't allowed is ruining it, even though I am very tired already and need the name of the cookie paste.

Well, the something I'm saying is "I'm not getting off the grid."

::clutches surge protectors to chest::

My agreement with this is one of the reasons I'm into alternative energy. If I wanted to see us go back before the age of electricity, I'd just sit back and watch humanity do what it is doing. Cause honestly that is where business as usual is heading.

It'll be interesting if centralized power being pretty exclusive turns out to be a blip in human history.

Power issues. The biggest issue for us out here with wind is water. Water is a much bigger problem for us, so the fact that some of the windmill systems are quite water intensive is an issue. Of course, we're coming off of coal using water from the potable aquifer for their slurry, when the non-potable aquifer is Right There. So, you know, lots of issues.

Uranium mining, and irresponsibility surrounding it has contributed heavily to problems on the reservations. This article is a good, if chilling narrative of the problems over the last fifty years. It ends abruptly; maybe there was a transcription problem, but the last year discussed was 2003. I started visiting the reservation in 1998, went into full time work there in 2001. I drank well water for the next four years, and tribal water for the two following, much of which may have been uranium tainted. Here's a recent article from Scientific American on the issue.

Maybe these days mining would be better, more protected. But this is still the reservation. I doubt it.

Can you talk more about wind energy being water intensive? This is new to me.

Crashing to announce important Nilly news: please check Beep Me.

WHOOOO HOOOOO Nilly Baby!