Halfway to the Edge of the Universe

Time to Change

Friends/Family, I think we have come to the end of this blog.  In an effort to reduce our household spending, we are moving to a free blog space to publish our thoughts and updates on life.  If you wish to follow us, please visit: http://paradisefallsorbust.posterous.com/

There isn't much there yet, but we will be updating more as we get the time.

Thanks for following our blog for all these years.

Josh and Sabrina. 

The Funky House part 3

So this is our final installment.  We've also included some photos in the Albums section.  Today we get into the meat of the house: the main floor and the loft area.  Here's where things get really kooky.  For people coming to visit, we are trying to forewarn you about the staircase, literally right as you come in.  So far the only one who has fallen down them has been the dog in a fit of excitement.  We still need to get gates for the stairways, but I'm super picky about what we get (NO compression baby gates).  Our kitchen is actually really cool.  The oven has settings for a bread proofer, food dehydrator, plate warmer, and convection heating.  Our living room ended up being a bit smaller than anticipated, so we probably won't have room for a dining table, but will make do with creative furniture placement.  The first floor bathroom looks SOOO much better now that it's been thoroughly cleaned and it's actually the room in the house that gets the most light.  Still have no idea what to do with the loft bathroom.  Right now the bed is serving as storage as we continue to move stuff inside for the office.  We're thinking about putting a thin mattress on it, but just the fact of it putting a bed into a bathroom is still very strange to me.  Anyway, so that's the house.  Hope you all can come by and visit sometime in the near future and witness for yourself the awesomeness of our funky house.

The Funky House Part 2

As we're sitting in our hotel room in Austin while Josh finishes a quiz for his class, I decided to get installment #2 ready.  Today we start at the "ground" floor and look at the basement.  Our basement is pretty big, but definitely interesting.  I'm convinced the first room, or Sun room, was an addition to the house.  But it's a misnomer since the room is underground and under the deck, it doesn't get much sun and stays pretty chilly since the heating system is in no way connected to the room.  We have to keep the door from the master bedroom open for heat to even have a chance of getting in there.  I'm thinking that if we end up using it as guest room, we need to buy a space heater for the room so people don't freeze. 

Our master bedroom is actually a good size, but also pretty dark since any light has to come in from the sun room.  But the washer and dryer are fairly new and pretty quiet.  The only big issue are those rocks that jut out of the walls.  There is one in the linen closet that prevents many items from actually fitting into the closet.  I tried putting a set of shelves in only to find out that they were the right fit except where the rocks were, which was right in the middle of the closet. 

Our bathroom is nice.  Turns out the past tenant just wasn't very good at cleaning up after herself.  A job that I thought would take several applications of CLR actually only required a good wiping down with some 409.  Our shower is awesome though.  It's one of those complicated ones with a rain shower head, a separate hose shower head, and those body sprayers.  My only problem is the body sprayers end up being aimed right at my head (since I'm short) and they spray right at the door, which isn't sealed at the bottom.  So we just bypass those.  But the area is a nice size and I think we're settling in nicely. 

The Funky House part 1

So we got a few requests for people wanting to see this new place that we've moved into and the idea came up to make a video.  It actually spawned from a series of emails and videos a friend of our did of his new places.  Needless to say this place definitely has a personality and the next few videos will demonstrate that quite nicely, hopefully.  Once we get set up, we'll put up pictures of what it looks like with the Kleinman touch.  To start with, we'll take a look at the outside.

We really got a good deal on the place because of the backyard.  Zoey is busy running her little heart out as she runs up and down the big hill that is our backyard.  It's huge.  But the back deck was the major selling point for Josh who envisioned lots of BBQs outside in the woods.  The new place is about 7 miles south of town in the middle of the woods.  We've been here a few days now and the hardest thing to get used to has been the fact that our lack of internet (remedied today, obviously) and no phone service (Verizon is THE only carrier out here) makes it feel more like we're on some sort of twisted vacation where we still have to go to work and run errands than that this is where we live.  I'm sure we'll get used to it, but for now is this our place.

Moving

Our house is in upheaval right now.  I thought it was a couple months ago when my sister and the 'phew moved back in after being gone for the summer, but now it's even more chaos.  My sister is trying to figure out whether to sell or rent the place.  We've decided that we need to move further south to give Josh a bit of a break during his commute.  But how far south?  We've been debating whether to move to Kachina Village, which is just outside of town on the south side, but Josh would still have to drive an hour to and from work everyday.  But we'd be closer to friends and conveniences of living in a larger town (like Target).  The other option is to move to Sedona, about an half hour south of Flagstaff.  It would give us both a 30 min commute, but  it would make it a little harder to come back and forth to Flagstaff and we'd have to give up some conveniences (like Target).  And while there are great places to explore, it's definitely warmer down there.  But in the midst of trying to figure all this out, we're busy repacking all the things we'd unpacked in May so the house will be ready for people to come by and see it if they're interested in either buying or renting.  But it also makes things iffy in terms of when we're actually moving.  We could move by the end of the month or sometime in December.  For now though, the plan is to try and get out of here sometime this month to make it easier on everyone, since the packing, uncertainty, and unsettledness can only last for so long. 

Healthcare weigh-in

 Photo by John -AP

This image disturbs me.  Greatly.  The news disturbs me and saddens me as the debate about health care, or at least what's being reported in the news, has dwindled to some pretty harsh name-calling and the distribution of false information.  Do I think we need health care reform?  Yup!  And while we may not all agree on how to do it, the level of just sheer ugliness that has erupted troubles me.  People being called Nazis, murderers, and the like troubles me.  Many times it's people who feel passionately about right-to-life issues and profess to love mankind, only to turn around and call those who they disagree with not just awful names, but names that are meant to conjure up fear and loathing for the person.  I would like to say it's just the nut cases that are doing this, but I've heard it from news commentators and it disgusts me.  It's irresponsible and disingenuous and only adds to the crap the public has to wade through to really understand an issue.  We went from a few months ago agreeing that something needs to be done, and that we'd work together to get it done, to this.  There have been lies about supposed "death panels" and taxpayers being forced to pay for abortions as well as misinformation about how health care would function.  A lot of it is built to prey on our fear and the complexity of the actual bills being proposed.  Fear that your government is out to kill you, fear that you will be forced to pay for things you are opposed to, fear that you will be restricted on the kind of care you can receive (which you already are restricted if you belong to an HMO).  I heard one debate where one side kept bringing up the death panels and when an opposer mentioned that there is nothing in the bill like that, his response was, "Well the bill is over 1000 pages long, how would you know!?"  (Death panels aren't in any of the bills by the way, there is just provisions to help elderly persons pay to consult with someone about end-of-life care, much like an advanced directive).  What also frustrates me is that politicians haven't been able to clear up the garbage from the real deal.  They've been getting these inane questions about people afraid of their government murdering them.  Instead of addressing such misinformation head-on, they've given answers that don't do much to say, "No, you heard wrong, that's not what has been proposed. . . ."  What have we come to and is this really the kind of debate we want to have?  The devolution of weighted debate to name-calling, fear-mongering, and yelling, all of the worst kind.  It makes me sad and disturbed all at the same time. 

Direction

I (Sabrina) presented at my first big professional conference last week in Albuquerque.  It went really well and I got a chance to put a face to so many of the big names in Ecology.  It's like the true geek version of star-gazing where you find yourself dumbfounded at meeting these really influential people and have them giving you feedback and suggestions on your work.  But the experience has also left me a bit perplexed as to what the next steps for me are.  Back when Josh and I were thinking about applying to grad school, I had told him that after I finished we would start talking more about starting a family, buying a house, and all those other things "grown-ups" do.  That was my plan, but I didn't really think about what exactly I wanted to do with my degree once I actually finished with my program.  Now with completion pretty much staring me straight in the face, I have no clue what to do next.  I'm not a botanist, so going along for field surveys to ID plants doesn't work for me.  I'm not a fire ecologist, so working in fires or with fire won't get me a whole lot of money to pay off these loans.  I'm also not a silviculturalist, so no working for timber companies to evaluate tree harvests.  I'm a soil ecologist.  I study all the stuff that goes on below ground that helps facilitate what goes on above ground.  So while holistic in purpose, not much demand since it doesn't actually make money.  But now back to my point.  Since the conference I've gotten some great suggestions on new directions for my summer research project, but the only way to do them is to try and get funding for a PhD.  While the job market would open up a bit, at least on the job boards, I'm not sure I want a PhD.  I'm at this point where I don't want to have to do the work for it after watching several friends work on theirs.  I don't want to be a professor and I don't want to be in charge of research projects, I just want to help at a higher level than a mere technician.  I want some autonomy, but I don't want to have to deal with bureaucracy, and grant writing, and arguing for funding from ever decreasing sources.  But at the same time, doing the problem-solving, theorizing, and interpretating sounds fun to me.  So I don't know what to do next.  I know I need to get a different job than the one I currently have for the long term, and I am staunch that I will not go for a PhD unless I get a reasonable salary (for a grad student) with full tuition remission (I'm done with student loans!).  So I guess my question is, would a PhD be worth the blood,sweat, and tears they make you give, just so I can have the chance at the kind of job that I ultimately want for the long term?  I don't know and there are times I lean towards yes and times I want to say no.  Only time will tell . . .

A case of faith

I was listening to a "This American Life" podcast this morning and they had a story about a women who had lost her faith in God following the death of her good friend to colon cancer.  Raised Catholic, she had struggled to look for a reason for why her friend had to die.  She wondered why God would have let her friend, who was a good loving person, died while she was still alive. Many devoted christians had offered explanations and reason and one in particular that caught her attention.  For the show she taped several conversation she had with this stranger about faith, God, and alot of the things she struggles.  It was painful to listen to.  She wanted an answer to why bad things happen to good people in light of a loving, caring God only to get apologetic answers on why her logic was faulty and her reasoning was bad.  She confessed later that she really did want to believe, but her questions and doubts have not been answered or relieved.  It broke my heart and made me cringe at the same time.

I think too many times good-meaning Christians miss the point in situations like theses.  She's not a person raising a hypothetical questions, this means something to her. She's not looking for logical arguments, but someone who can reconcile her doubts with her desire to believe.  I wanted to call her and tell her,  bad things always happen to good people about as often as good things happen to bad people and vice versa.  That God never promises that nothing bad will happen to people who trust in him, that he understands that pain and that confusion, that he is there for us in those dark times.  I wanted to tell her that there are several instances in the Bible where people have to face many of these trying situations only to find that God is always present and there for us.  The good side is that her conversations with this Christian stranger have got her thinking about God again.  The bad side is that I worry that the explanations she was given presents this cold, logical, rational god that does what he does without really caring about us.  The ironic part is, the most comfort she got about God was an explanation given to her from an atheist who understood what she wanted to hear about. 

Chemical Dependence

Our new little puppy has been having a problem.  She's totally house trained and doesn't intentionally go to the bathroom in the house.  But since she was little she's been a dribbler and will occassionally leave little puddles in places after she's been sitting or lying down in a spot for a while.  She doesn't notice that she does it, but we've taken to following her around with some paper towels to wipe up her little "accidents."  We took her to the vet to have her checked out because she did have a pretty bad UTI infection a few months ago that may not have completely cleared up, but we wanted to double check.  After her lab tests came back negative for an infection the doctor decided to put her on medication, which made me feel kind of bad for her.  She'll be on medication for a year or so until she can learn to control her bladder a little bit better, but I don't know how I feel about medicating her problems all the time.  Now we're not total hippies who want to cure everything with natural herbs, prayer, and sheer will.  We've both been exposed to good medical care and what medicine can do for people.  But I have a tendency to only really want to medicate when necessary to relieve a problem because I feel like medicine has its place and it shouldn't be expected to solve all our physical issues. 

We notice this morning after we had started her on her new medication that her demeanor changed.  She (thankfully!) didn't wake up super early crying to be let out.  She waited until Josh got up to let her out.  She then pranced around the house a bit, but not quite as enthusiastically as she's done in mornings past.  It kind of freaked Josh out who had gotten used to this exuberant little puppy running around the house in the mornings.  She's still curious and wants to know everything you're doing, she's just not as pushy about it.  This morning on our walk she was well-behaved and still went crazy at the sight of another dog.  But I wonder if some people would see that as a medical cure-all for behavior problems.  I'm kind of hesitant to want to look at it that way, mostly because I think she can be good even if she weren't being drugged for an unrelated problem.  We'll see how this goes long term.  Other than that, we're still trying to teach both her and my sister's dog to chill out when someone comes to the door.

Obedience

We got the new puppy on Saturday and have started the slow work of getting her trained to listen and obey us.  It's going to take some work, but she's making some good progress.  I'm adhering to the Dog Wisperer tactics of using calm-assertiveness like a dog's pack leader to get her to listen.  I like it because it emphasizes that we need to understand how dogs actually think and behave instead of anthropomorphizing their behavior.  He talks about lots of stuff concerning being consistent and understanding that bad behavior often results because the owner being unbalance (ie frustrated, angry, pitying, ie) which dogs don't respond to well. 

She learned how to fetch this weekend and she's getting good at waiting until we tell her to come into the house instead and barging right in.  She also knows that certain rooms are off limits (like Noah's room and the bathrooms) and that there are certain things in the house that are Scout's (like her bed).  We're having to work a little harder on other things however, like the mornings.  She's been waking up earlier and earlier each day (this morning was at 4am before the sun had even risen).  We're working on getting her to wait an hour til Josh gets up and then trying to play quietly with a chew toy until I can get up and take both of them for a walk.  The walk has been good but there are still rough spots.  They're not pulling me (good), but Zoey gets all defensive when she sees other dogs (bad), and they both have a habit of trying to change positions '(mostly when they notice another dog/animal) while we're running together (bad, because it makes me trip and/or inadvertantly kick them).  She's quite silly when she eats.  It's almost as if she can't get it down her gullet fast enough. On the other hand, it's gotten Scout to be WAY less picky about her food and Scout will eat right away now instead of waiting until 10pm in hopes of something else.

But we still need to look into obedience schools to help us learn how to get her to listen a bit better.  She's a puppy in that stage where she is going to try to test her boundaries as much as she can, but she's a cutie and super smart so we'll see how the next few weeks go.