strategies

ps: drying out water-damaged books n’ things with rice

Abelardo Morell

Shortly after we reported on Manny Howard’s experience drying out his water-logged cellphone out by burying it in rice, Valerie Sims emailed us this report:

Several weeks ago a minor water leak reached an old dictionary that has sentimental value for me. Within a few hours, a small amount of water had wicked up through all the pages of the dictionary from the bottom and half-way up. When I searched for suggestions, the techniques for drying books were more extreme than I was able to try at the time, so I put the dictionary in the freezer, a method said to buy time before the actual drying. Freezing does begin the drying-out process. Soon after, I read your story about Manny Howard drying out his iPhone with rice, and I tried it on the dictionary. Several pounds of cheap rice and the frozen dictionary in an air-tight container for two days resulted in a dictionary with no moisture, not any pages sticking together. And I live in a very humid climate. Thanks for the tip!

It looks like this rice antidote might be a nearly universal approach to drying out water-damaged goods; a cell-phone (fine electronics) and a dictionary (paper) HAVE to be pretty good tests…

(The photo by Cuban photographer Abelardo Morell is a water-damaged book that did not get rice therapy. Click here to see more of Morell’s compelling photographs.)

Thanks Valerie!

Related post: Impromtu Drowned Cell Phone Rescue (+ Life Lesson)

The Unexpected Delights of a Real Dictionary

08.31.10 | comments (2) | in how-to, resources, solutions, strategies |

twitter in dire straits

Leigh Fazzina was lost in a 300-acre Connecticut wood, racing downhill on her mountain bike looking for the main road, when her front wheel hit a tree root. She flew over the handlebars and slammed into the ground, to find herself bloodied and unable to walk…and panicking. She tried screaming and calling for help on her cellphone but couldn’t connect. Then she tried Twitter, the social networking site, hoping that one of her 1000 followers might see her tweet:

“I’ve had a serious injury and NEED Help! Can someone please call Winding Trails in Farmington, CT tell them I’m stuck bike crash in woods.”

At least half a dozen people, many of them strangers, responded; the Farmington Fire Department got calls from California, Chicago and New York. A few minutes after sending her tweet, an EMS team found her.

Twitter, so often maligned for being a frivolous time-waster, proved to be an unexpectedly useful emergency tool; tweets, and text messages, will often go through in areas with spotty cell phone coverage, like state parks. Fazzina seems to have broken new ground in her improvised solution; there are no records of Twitter being used to call an ambulance before.

It reminds us though of other potent ways Twitter has been used by people in dire straits to connect, like the heart-rending tweets that came out of Iran during its recent revolution, when text messaging and phone service was cut off by the government…

PS: The amateur mini-triathlon cyclist thankfully had no serious injuries, just bad scrapes and bruises. She is grateful she didn’t have to spend the night in the woods.

via USA Today via BoingBoing

Related post: An Amazing Amount of Improvising Going on in Iran

08.12.10 | comments | in community, copy this!, family + friends, outside, resources, road warrior, strategies, wheels |

emergency medicine

A few months ago, while I was clearing out a storage room in a lonely warehouse building, a friend called me on my cell phone in tears. She told me of the overwhelming fear and anxiety she was feeling about a trip she was to embark upon in a few hours, that held many potentially difficult situations.

Standing in a storage room amidst broken cardboard boxes and forgotten stuff, I listened and talked and listened, as my friend’s tears gradually subsided. “But, how will I make it through?” she asked. “What will I do if I start to panic on the long flight, or when I am in another time zone?”

I wondered what I could offer right then and there? What would be totally portable, that she could look at any time she needed to, to remind her of other ways of seeing things, the opposite of fear and sadness?

I found myself saying: “Get a pen. Now draw a heart in the palm of your hand. read more…

08.11.10 | comments (10) | in family + friends, gifts, identity, principles, resources, road warrior, signs, strategies, travel |

cardboard, crates + chairs as building materials

Tiffany Chu/Dwell

When we read that Centre Pompidou in Paris was offering a Cardboard Carton Workshop, we wanted to beam ourselves there, a la Star Trek, to see what more we could add to our overflowing file and minds about this wonderfully versatile material. We were stunned by a photo of  an archway made of cardboard sheets combined in layers and compressed; it flies in the face of the usual ways of building with cardboard, of using the flat sides as walls. It is the work of Tadashi Kawamata who is known for the spare structures he builds out of humble materials – pine boards, cardboard, packing materials, chairs –  in unlikely places. They seem impromptu (though they take a great deal of work and planning), and speak of temporariness and informality; they somehow question the spaces and structures we take for granted. Now wonder his workshop has lines around the block.

When we saw pictures of Kawamata’s art at the Pompidou’s site, we realized we had seen his work before and had a vivid unattributed memory of it: of beautiful, odd, slapped together-looking nests and houses perched high up in the ancient tress of Madison Square Park, in the center of New York City. They made us LOOK with wonder and, for a moment, imagine ourselves hiding out in one of them but we never stopped to find out who had made them. Now we know, and are inspired by a central theme of Kawamata’s art: read more…

08.09.10 | comments | in art, buildings, cool spaces, inside, materials, outside, people, projects + play, resources, strategies |

d-i-y aromatherapy baths + bath salts (cheap)


Tara Mann

We couldn’t live without the occasional hot bath to cool-out our over-worked selves. Instead of buying expensive, wonderfully-packaged bath salts, “spa crystals” and oils, we came up with a simple formula for doctoring baths that involves no effort at all, is cheap, and allows us to calibrate really pure fragrances to our mood.

We just dump a couple of cups or so of epsom salts into a hot tub; then we add a few drops of an essential oil distilled from flowers, herbs or other botanicals like lavender or rose geranium: voila, instant aromatherapy.

Epsom salts are an old-fashioned, tried-and-true remedy for stressful living, sore muscles, detoxifying (great at the first sign of a cold). You can buy them read more…

08.08.10 | comments (5) | in bath, bathing, cheap + great, copy this!, how-to, materials, resources, stores, strategies |

‘harness the power of being an idiot!’

Half awake this morning, a quote on O’Reilly Radar caught our eye: “Harness the power of being an idiot”. That’s for US, for sure!

So we followed the link to PeteSearch, the blog of Pete Warden. He is a programmer, software engineer (including years at Apple), graphics researcher and serious technology guy (he’s developed an interesting search module for Firefox). He tells the story of running into someone he went to school with at a conference, and remembering his abysmal academic career:

“I learn by trying to build something, there’s no other way I can discover the devils-in-the-details. Unfortunately that’s an incredibly inefficient way to gain knowledge. I basically wander around stepping on every rake in the grass, while the A Students memorize someone else’s route and carefully pick their way across the lawn without incident. My only saving graces are that every now and again I discover a better path, and faced with a completely new lawn I have an instinct for where the rakes are… my successes have all come when I’ve just gone ahead and just did something instead of studying it. It’s the only way to discover something new and unexpected, and even the failures build judgment.”

Boy, do we relate to Warden’s unkempt “try it and see” approach, falling into brambles, getting lost, then found. We love his declaration of POWER inherent in mistakes, which, invariably teach us a lot and often point to an unexpected path.

08.04.10 | comments | in learn, paths + processes, people, rules for living, strategies |

prosciutto as resource (w ones to try + a recipe)

Maria Robledo

We saw some fresh figs in the market the other day and were reminded of the simplest of dishes: prosciutto – ham that’s been carefully dry-cured for 8 to 24 months – and lush, gently-perfumed fruit like figs, melons, peaches, apricots or plumcots in summer…comice pears, fresh or roasted, in fall. We love this classic combo for breakfast, midnight supper, lone-lazy-dog supper, light lunch, and of course, appetizer.

There is a secret to a marriage of only two or three ingredients like this: that they be at their best. The fruit should be truly ripe and fragrant. The prosciutto should be of fine quality and sliced to order – NOT pre-sliced who-knows-when? and sealed in plastic packages which seem to suffocate its flavors and cause its creamy texture to turn rubbery. This means planning ahead a bit in order to have an ingredient so delicious and complete it requires hardly any effort at to serve or eat. Once you understand how prosciutto works, you can make it work for you. Here’s what you need to know… read more…

07.27.10 | comments | in food, recipes, strategies |

impromptu gift wrap with built-in card

Maria Robledo

Maria Robledo sent us this snapshot of a gift a houseguest left for her, with very rough-and-tumble improvised wrapping with built-in card. …Wonder what book they gave her, wrapped so straightforwardly and oddly-festively, with clear love.

Thanks Maria!

07.23.10 | comments (1) | in family + friends, gifts, reclaim, strategies |

a jar of air + memory

Tara Mann

We were trying to figure out what to bring back from a trip to a place we loved, something that would be able to remind us in a FLASH what it was like. Pamela Hovland suggested we bring back a jar full of its beautiful air, so we did, capturing it in a small canning jar. Back at home, we find that jar hold holds more than the air; it seems to hold the very place in our hearts. read more…

07.16.10 | comments (2) | in housewares, outside, paths + processes, strategies, tools, travel |

kitchen ‘tools for smashing’ + recipe: warm crushed olives (olivada)

Maria Robledo

One day, I devised a coarse olive paste as a way of using up several kinds of olives that were a little past their prime. I spread them on the counter and pitted them by tapping them lightly with a rock, one of the many pounding devices I’ve collected over the years to mash garlic, make pestos and aiolis, crush spices…The olives’ flesh broke open making the pit easy to remove. Then I kept gently pounding to smash the olives further and worked in a scrap of mashed garlic and some fresh herbs and orange zest. I use this versatile olivada as a topping for rustic bread, pizzas, and focaccias, as a sauce for pasta, even stirred into mashed potatoes When heated, the flavor of the olives becomes more complex and aromatic.

To pit the olives,tap them with something heavy-ish that has one flatish side: a pestle, a stone, a tin can, a hammer, rolling pin… read more…

07.14.10 | comments | in cheap + great, food, housewares, recipes, strategies, tools |

how to grind nuts without a food processor (moroccan-style)

Our friend Peggy Markel just got back from months of Culinary Adventures – her own, and facilitating those of the intrepid guests that embark on her “underground” tours of Tuscany, Elba, Sicily, Morocco. Peggy seems to know everybody, that is, anybody who is seriously into food in all the places she travels. She has a nose and and eye and an openness to find her way into the heart of a place, through its food. We love her reports on her Facebook page and on her blog, often in the form of teeny unedited videos that offer a glimpse into the rest of the world. (It was Peggy who sent us the clip of the Indian Water Music and the Sardinian Women Singing while they washed dishes.). Here is one of a Moroccan cook named Baijah crushing almonds for a traditional chicken pastilla at Jnan Tamsna in Marrakech, Morocco (one stop on Peggy’s Moroccan Adventure). Baijah just folds the almonds into a clean piece of cloth (or a dish towel) and whacks them with a rolling pin, a method she refers to as the “Berber food processor”.

It is a perfect strategy for when you’re staying in a bare-bones kitchen (like a summer rental) and have big ideas. read more…

07.14.10 | comments (1) | in cheap + great, food, sightings, strategies, travel |

impromptu drowned cell phone rescue (+ life lesson)

Ubergizmo

We got an email from Manny Howard this morning about an improvised save for water-logged digital appliances (and a  great general approach to take when the #$%!! is hitting the fan). We know Manny to be prone to minor disasters from his book My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm and love him for it, because he so forthrightly throws himself into things (as, it seems, do his kids):

“kids doused my iPhone with water the day before a 5-day work trip to southern France.

In a panic I called up my buddy Norman Vanamee (my best bud who I always turn to him for automotive clunker advice)…

…So the screen’s all mottled in some places, faded completely in others, the apps keep switching without my input. it shuts off and then comes back on occasionally. clearly digital cardiac arrest.

I asked Norm: So, do I go to apple store buy new phone in case this one dies while i’m on the road in France?

No way, he says, read more…

07.13.10 | comments | in community, family + friends, kids, people, resources, road warrior, solutions, strategies, travel |

italy for the gourmet traveler (+how to hack a guidebook)

In 1996, when I was about to take an extended trip to Italy, Fred Plotkin’s Italy for the Gourmet Traveler was my guide. Plotkin, who had been traveling in Italy since 1973, forged the guide from years of passionate traveling, living and eating there – over 700 pages crammed with personal notations and insider views on wonderful restaurants, trattorias, coffee bars, farms, cooking schools, festivals, and markets. He is at his best with small towns and off-the-beaten path places, like the Mushroom Market in Trentino…

“In season this is the place to buy freshly picked mushrooms. If you have any fears, you can look for the police officer who is the designated mycologist on duty. This piazza also has orderly stands selling cheese, meats, fruits, vegetables, beans, honeys, and flowers.”

In Plotkin’s guide, you will find essential bits of history and architecture and opera, as well as terrific, insightful writing. His chapter on Napoli begins:

“Fasten your seat belts! One can stand absolutely still in Napoli and feel like a spinning top.”

The guide has been so good and so reliable that it has gone through several printings; an updated edition was just published by Kyle Books. Like its predecessors, it suffers from only one problem: it is heavy, a 3-pound brick of solid information, particularly daunting in these times of overweight-luggage fees. Unwilling to travel Italy without Fred’s book, I improvised a solution (and figured out how to hack a guidebook):  read more…

07.07.10 | comments (3) | in food, outside, people, resources, resources books + zines, road warrior, strategies, travel |

andrea zittel’s investigative living

When we wrote about clipped-together cardboard box shelving a while back, we mentioned wanting to paint the cardboard boxes – coat them with something to change their look (we were thinking rubber paint) – knowing that the cardboard would swell slightly and become….something else: not smooth but sculptural, possibly even stronger once it had dried. After a few comments to the effect of: “bad idea…YOU CAN”T paint cardboard”, we put the idea aside. Then we saw Andrea Zittel’s wonderful cardboard construction, with its cryptic blurb:

“For the last year there has been a teetering pile of cardboard boxes precariously stacked against the dining room wall. Today the masterpiece was finished and installed…. Walla!”

Look at that!!! we thought as we sailed from one website to another discovering Andrea Zittel. FOR YEARS she has been following her imaginings and exploring ways to define and organize space, question assumptions about it, experiment with new ways and systems for living.

Zittel’s not-quite-finished website is all about her work as a – WHAT? -, an installation artist-designer-sculptor-lifestyle thinker and investigator… She is the driving force behind  A-Z West,”an institute of investigative living” read more…

07.06.10 | comments (2) | in art, buildings, cool spaces, dream houses, furniture, identity, inside, inspiration, paths + processes, people, reimagine, strategies |

4th of july reprise: warm fresh cherries (with leaves)

cherries-with-leaves

Sally Schneider

Since it’s high cherry season, we thought we’d reprise last years recipe for Warm Fresh Cherries (with Leaves), in honor of the Fourth of July. Too lazy to pit and stem some fresh cherries, a friend and I tried quickly sauteeing them as-is with butter and sugar, to discover the the stems and leaves provided unexpected delights:

“You picked a cherry up by the stem with your fingers, dunked it in crème fraiche and popped it in your mouth, working the fragrant flesh off the pit and stem; we dropped the spent leaves, pits and stems into little bowls set around the table, as you would olives pits or mussel shells. We ate the sublimely messy, almost primal dessert like children, savoring the cherries one-by-one and licking our fingers.”

It is the perfect dessert for however-many-people you may have to serve: easy to make, with a summery hang-out-and-spit-cherry-(or watermelon)-pit thing going on. Here’s the recipe, with our wishes for a wonderful Fourth of July:

read more…

07.03.10 | comments (2) | in celebrations, cheap + great, family + friends, food, recipes, share, strategies |

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