An inconvenient Ecuador

I heard a story on the radio the other night. actually a 'Geo Quiz'(quiz answer) about Ecuador (here is a print article if you dont feel like listening). Basically the Ecudor's government has found oil reserves under an ecologically important area of the rainforest and want to sell the drilling rights but is willing to forgo selling them if the international community will pay $350 million a year for ten years.

At first blush this sound like they are holding the rainforest ransom. But then I thought about it some more and I figured this is a global resource for biodiversity and carbon sequestration. Why should a developing country like Ecuador have to bear the entire burden for keeping this land pristine? Curious

lego car saga directors cut

Here is a stop motion animation video Oliver and I made, enjoy

Turbo Boost Michael

The first snow dump today. The whether forecasters have been very excited the last few days, and with good reason this time, well mostly just because it is the first of the season. The snow started this morning and has been more or less steady now through the early afternoon. More expected this evening.

I was excited about this. I bought a new sled for Oliver yesterday. When I picked him up form school we went shopping and bought him some new snowpants and other a couple of other things to help him have fun in the snow.

One odd thing, I could not find any nice warm socks for either him or myself. You would think that in Minneapolis in the end of November you would be able to buy them out of dispensing machines at the gas station, but no luck at Target. Well that is the only place I looked and I find that they are always missing odd things that I assume they will have. I once asked for Ritt dye (with which Ann and I were going to dye Oliver's Winnie the Pooh blue, that was all he wanted for Christmas, he kept asking, a blue Winnie the pooh)anyway I had looked all over for Ritt dye. and finally asked someone, she got a little defensive and said that they didn't carry that sort of thing. I thought she might be confused so I explained quickly what it was. 'I know what it is and I know that we dont have it.' I did better yesterday, no wool socks, but when Oliver asked where they kept there lunchboxes the lady knew exactly where in sporting goods to find them.