Invention #2: Short Pants

You know how boys used to wear short pants and then graduated to long pants when they were fully grown? Why can't we do the same thing with baby clothes? How about pants with snaps down the sides- they start out with a cuff folded up several times and the snaps hold the cuffs up. As the legs get longer you take the snaps down a notch and get a longer leg. You could have some cool, patterned fabric lining the pants.
















I haven't bought any baby clothes for Boyo yet because my mom is such a gifted second hand shopper. But if I did it would sure burn me if I bought something that he grew out of after wearing it only a couple of times.

Rhymesayer's Settin' to Bust Out of the Minneapple

MNSpeak has a nice round up of recent press coverage on Atmosphere. I'm so excited to go to the show tomorrow night. It caps off their tour and I hear there are a lot of special guests scheduled to celebrate their return home.

Invention #1: Sensory Gloves

On occasion I get crazy invention ideas so I am going to start adding them here. The latest is a 'Sensory Glove'. This would allow workers to have hand protection but not sacrifice touch sensitivity. For example, if you are working with dangerous chemicals but still need to feel small computer parts on an assembly line or for surgeons or if you are digging through rubble and need to feel where the glass pieces are.

The fingertips and palm area would be covered with pinhead sized sensors. The inside of the glove would have and array of microscopic 'wires' that would transmit the outside sensor signals to the skin of the user. That way the user could remotely feel what is on the other side of the glove.

Coco Verde

Mango Salsa

My new favorite recipe is for Mango Salsa:

1 mango cut into small cubes
1/4 cup diced onion
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro
hot sauce to taste- I use 1/2 tsp Marie Sharp's carrot hot sauce

Mmmmm

Kiva

I love the idea of Kiva! This site allows you to make microloans to African businesses. It is amazing how a small investment in American terms can make such a huge difference for someone's quality of life in the developing world. See also the picture of the Hippo Roller. I can't imagine how much work it is to go fetch the water you need from miles away every day. Go Boing Boing for publicizing these great ideas.

Fire, Stilts and Large Puppets

It is not ALL on the Internet but I'm trying to add more. Every year Barebones Productions puts on a Halloween production at a local park. Every year I start searching online for which park it will be at and have trouble finding out. I suppose I am not hooked in enough with the puppet subculture in the cities to hear about it word of mouth like I'm supposed to. In any case I got the info on the 2005 production, "Foretold" and trekked off on a cold Halloween evening to watch a giant puppet show in the dark.

It was a story of a village of the dead who hid in their houses because they were afraid of moving on to the next world. It had all the elements that make the Barebones Halloween show so memorable- huge puppets, fire, people on stilts. . .

The best puppet was a 10 foot tall T-rex skeleton that moved incredibly fluidly. The best moment was walking from the first stage will hundreds of people carrying canterns (lanterns made out of cans with holes punched in the side) to the finale at the river. Then there were fire-twirlers and rafts rowing up to take the village of the dead to the other world.

After the show a huge barge came up the river and eerily lit the fog swirling off the surface. I'm sure the bargemen were a bit baffled at the crowd of hundreds of people waving at them from the bank at 9pm.

Favorite quote of the evening from my friend C: "T is learning fire-twirling. Maybe she can be in the show next year. Maybe not- she might not fit in with those fire-twirlers who wear leather, ride unicycles and kick ass."