Some Thoughts on School

I am taking three classes at Cascadia College this semester. Biology of the Human Body, English 102, and Environmental Sustainability.

The theme for my English class is food and ag, and basically the environmental sustainability of it all. The Enviro. course is also discussing this, and today in the Bio class we discussed water, its sustainability, availability... etc. etc.

Do we see a pattern here?

I have already been slowly shifting my ideas on food, consumer products, grocery stores and the like. In fact one of the things I loved about Seattle is that Pikes Market is just filled with natural products, small business and such.

Here is a simple fact: our economy is in flux. The big business model has one fatal flaw. It makes money by having fewer workers who do more work for less money, assembly lines, etc etc.

When you buy directly from the person who makes your item, handmade online or off, then you are giving business to that particular person. If you do so at, say, farmers markets or boutiques then you are cutting out all that oil based processing and transport (trucks, robots, assembly lines) and what you are getting truly has less of an environmental impact then what you would get at, say Walmart or QFC.

If you buy local products, or even semi local products, then your personal carbon footprint will be smaller, and you will vote with your dollars to tell big corporations to bring industry to your neck of the woods, not shipping it out, and shipping back the product, because frankly the shipping of things overseas is a HUGE waste of oil reserves, and another oil spill disaster waiting to happen.

And if you think about it so much can be done via the web now, transfer data from one country to another and produce the finished product in that country, cutting costs of transport, and being more environmentally conscious.

Anyway, that is my rant for the day.

Party!

Since my artwork is so apealing to little ones I thought it was time to do something bigger with them...

Thus the party pack came into motion. Little items to put in gift bags at birthday parties. Come to think of it, a teacher or anyone else working with children could use them as incentives, rewards and other things.

So, along the lines of children here is something I turned up in Etsy today that I'd really like to share.

One of the more interesting aspects of etsy are all the self publishers out there. Some indy, some how-to, patterns, and here... children's lit.

Here is The Boy Who Had Moldy Cheese Pizza Under His Bed by Rynski. Cute book, interesting title, sure to make kids giggle at the thought of it.

Etsy really makes it possible to do things you couldn't normally do, like showing your hand made books and selling them. Even with Lulu and amazon marketplace... Etsy lets you have real books made by hand be real people, and for children that is showing them something important even at a young age.

Another interesting aspect is that a lot of sellers will sell digital versions of their books for you to print yourself. No shipping, you don't have to print it so you can save trees. It really is the pioneer of e-book trading.