Que pasa con Felipe?

I found an old video tape of some experiences I've had while working for the government. A couple years ago I converted the taped footage to dvd. And, I guess, I decided to put some of the footage on Youtube. The video below is that of a practice jump in 1995. Two of my bros made the jump spot, though one hit the ground hard and was shook up. I, on the other hand, had other issues with which to contend. My first problem was holding with the wind too long before I realized I wasn't going to make it. I then ran with the wind to get as much speed to get to the jump spot, but of course it wasn't enough.

So here's the story of how Jessica and I met. In August, 2004 a friend of mine and I, when we both worked for the same National Recreational Area, were doing boat patrol along Lake Roosevelt near Kettle Falls, WA. While I was driving the boat he mentioned this gal who worked for her at the time who (1) loved to travel, (2) and was a former Peace Corps Volunteer of the Dominican Republic. He described her more, and of course I was intrigued. So the next day on my way to the headquarters I dropped by at his office and struck a conversation with her. Well, that floored me so a couple days later we had a "date" of sorts and, as they say, the rest is history. But let me direct you to our old Peace Corps IDs. Look at the red boxes. In my ID, it says I ended my service 05/22/2000. On hers it says she started her service 07/12/2000. We missed seeing each other in the Dominican Republic by about six weeks! What are the odds of that?

Library Use Increases in Seattle Area!

The above link reminds of a blog entry (found here) I made about two years ago. As I argue, why not use a resource you already pay into?

Try it out, and let me know if it's useful (or not). You'll have to click the image of the spreadsheet to open it up. The calculator also considers inflation throughout the time of investment. Enter numbers within the yellow box. The calculator assumes periodic monthly investments. Both periodic monthly investments and initial investment (if you have one) need to be entered as a negative number (roughly, you're 'taking' money out to invest in yourself). The spreadsheet will spit out the total value of your investment at nominal and real rates. I also added another worksheet which simply calculates the payments on a principal for a given period, ie. given a principal or loan, an annual interest rate, and the number of months to complete the payment, how much will you have to pay a month? Come back occasionally to see if I added a new worksheet!

Well, after about a year my worm bin is doing pretty well. I had some initial hiccups which I resolved, or at least got to the point where the worms are tolerant. Food waste should have enough moisture that you shouldn't have to add to much. That's what I did - added too much water which freaked the bejeezus out of them as they were crawling out. I also drilled more holes than I started with in the bottom to increase drainage. I also drilled more in the lid and the sides of the bin for aeration. Churning the organic matter occasionally with a tool and adding dead leaves and shredded newspapers also helps regulate moisture.

After a small jumpstart of worms from a friend of mine back in April of this year and figuring out the moisture thing, and providing a bit more food the worms are looking fairly happy. In the worm bin you'll also see a number of other organisms, which help to break down the food waste to help the worms consume it. If they don't appear to bother the worms, then don't worry about it.

I figured that after about 11 months, and now with Jessica living with me, our household on average creates about 10 pounds of food waste a week in the form of apple cores, banana peels, tea bags, coffee grounds, peelings, etc. etc. The worms even eat cardboard (not the waxy, shiny stuff), cardboard egg cartons, used paper towels (so long as it wasn't used to soak up oily foods), and newspapers (preferably black and white ink only), toilet paper rolls, and paper towel rolls. I try not to overfeed the worms so give them about half that a week, and the rest goes into our food waste bin located in our garage. But as the worm population grows, they'll be able to eat more. Regardless, I think I have enough worms to start a new worm bin, or give some up to help a friend start their own.

The bin which catches the "worm tea" needs to be checked weekly to bi-weekly. If you don't it'll start to grow bacteria and other yucky stuff. The worm tea can be used as fertilizer, which I unfortunately don't 'cause I don't have plants because of the cats. However, I'm sure I'll get plants one day.

If you haven't already, check out the crappy video. It doesn't show the worms as well, but they are there, especially where they balled up while eating the leftover pumpkin. Speaking of food, it might be beneficial to take note of what the worms like to eat. I wouldn't add peanut shells, and definitely don't add meats and cheeses. From what I can tell they love coffee grounds, and pumpkin. If you can, to make it easier for the worms chop up the food waste before throwing it into the bin. Doing this helps with the vermicomposting process. If you add orange peels or other food waste which is acidic, you can balance it out by adding egg shells.

A book I recommend borrowing at the library is entitled Worms Eat My Garbage by the late Mary Appelhof. Other sources of worm bins and vermicomposting in general can easily be found using your typical web search engines.