Complementary life update

I wrote a little thing for my family newsletter that I thought might be of benefit to those on the other side of my family and any friends, which also includes a little bit on how we decided to go car-free:

Here’s what’s going down in Bloomington—
I (Joel) have been on furlough from my job since January, and was recently dreading going back to work in May (because I hate that job with a passion—it’s just sitting in a cavernous room with other lowlifes power dialing old people and trying to sell this stupid thing called insurance—I seriously wish it was illegal to do and the Feds would board the place up to save other job-hungry introverts from falling for its $14/hr dangling carrot) when they called me up to announce that my furlough had been extended to September! After I finished listening to the Hallelujah chorus I realized I probably should get back to work on my years-long job hunt which never seems to be over and never will be.

In the mean time, I got a totally unrelated, unpaid and inaccessible internship in bustling Indianapolis, Indiana! You see, all of last year I took an online course to earn a post-bac certificate in Geographic Information Science (GIS) to learn how to use software that you have never heard of it but it’s legit because they use it at the city planning department where I got my internship.

To alleviate the sting of the hour-each way commute from Bloomington to Indy (that’s really what people say here to shorten polysyllabic Indianapolis and it never means the state of Indiana or something that is independent or Indiana Jones) the cool planners at my internship gave me a parking pass at nearby Conseco Fieldhouse parking garage. It’s where the Pacers play (not in the parking garage of course).
The only problem is that the ―car we had recently bought in August decided to breakdown after a couple weeks of commuting. To my surprise we actually got a little bit of money from the carcass of the car. I guess people like to torture themselves and get crappy nonfunctioning cars to work again.

So we did something that has never been done before in the history of AMERICA: we decided to cut cars out of our life. It’s been going strong now for a couple of weeks and we found out that your body actually does not need to refuel at $4/gallon, put up with $250/month payments and endless repairs to live a happy and productive life. I have especially noticed that my personal barometer of road rage has gone down lately, and I have been less prone to checking mirrors every five seconds and signaling when I change directions!

Seriously, we have the bus, the zipcar, friends who think we are crazy and have hit rock bottom but will give us a lift. Well, they’re right on both counts but rock bottom is a pretty awesome place to be sometimes. No place to go but…But then the hard drive on my computer crashed. That really made me reexamine my priorities because I think I have snuck into the generation that would rather have an iPod (thanks Mom!) than a car (thanks for never giving me one, Mom). I mean sure, we have a laptop too but what about when I want to watch semi-legal live Blazer games on the computer and play Scrabble on the laptop? You can see that I have a problem.

OK, enough about me, I will attempt to talk about Alyssa. This portion will assuredly be edited for content. Alyssa is still going to school for a dual degree in Art History and Library Science but lately has been debating dropping the Art History part because it ain’t as fun and probably has less upside potential and will take longer and these Indiana winters are brutal (that’s my opinion) but then she won yet another scholarship for being in the dual degree program (the check came in the mail today) so ethically should she stay in or still drop it plus she needs to maybe do an internship this summer and she got one in Portland right away because she is awesome and Portland is awesome and we/she’d love to see family who are sorta awesome but she also tried to just see if she could get this really prestigious and good career-move internship in the big APPLE (New York, that is) at the Frick Art Reference Library (that’s seriously what it’s called, it’s not someone messing up our last name) and of course (did I mention she’s awesome) she got that internship too but how is she going to live in New York and wouldn’t money be involved in that and then there’s another factor…

Godzilla-sized migraines!!! which by my latest studies are caused by stress and folk’s it’s a ticking time bomb—the more I force Alyssa to be a brazen careerist and ignore her biological and maternal clock the more likely her brain will explode and that’s no place to be.

Other than that we have been busy not taking pictures, not making babies, not answering any questions we raised in this update, and not making trips to Italy or Australia or Camas or Eagle (and –gulp!—hopefully not offending anyone).

The Ultimate Pro/Con List of Car Ownership

Pro:

• You can go wherever you want.
• You can go whenever you want.
• You can be cool.
• You can transport a higher quantity of goods.
• You have privacy.
• You don't have to ride a bus with weirdos.

Cons:

• You have to pay a car payment.
• You have to pay for insurance.
• You have to pay for repairs.
• You have to pay for $4/gallon gas.
• You may get stranded it the middle of nowhere and have to replace a flat in the rain.
• You have to share the road with 16-year old girls, drunks and grandmas.
• You have to scrape snow/ice off your car or be rich enough to have a garage.
• You have to sit for hours on clogged highways and streets because everyone else is riding alone in a car or live so far away in the country that you have to drive for an hour into the city except once you get closer to the city all those people living out in the country are still using the same highways and streets.
• You have to pay attention to a million things around you when you drive instead of sitting back and relaxing.
• You support and contribute to a method of transportation which is relatively not as good for the environment as other means.
• You support and contribute to a culture which encourages sprawl and suburbs and drive-thrus and strip malls and parking lots and asphalt and concrete and exhaust and highways that divide neighborhoods and cause the decay of inner cities.
• You don't get to meet with people on public transportation.

and as always, my favorite con--

• You are too empowered for your own good.

Here's a link I don't expect anyone to read because it's kinda TLDRish but it makes some good points about one of the things I discussed above, sprawl.

I dig revolting against cars, phase one in which Doris gets her oats

Here are some of the early ways we are going to get around w/o a car:

• I procured a carpool to my internship in Indy.  This was the most crucial aspect of the revolt that needed to be in place, otherwise I would have needed to get another vehicle.
• We have a bus that connects us to a lot of the things that we need to do in town, like going to campus or going to the store.
• If we ever do need a car, we are setting up an account with Zipcar, a sweet car-sharing service.

Since we don’t have a car and I got a little compensation by selling my shell of a car, there is the opportunity to spend pennies for every dollar I would have spent on a car for other means of transportation.  I still have to pay for gas for my carpool, but it is theoretically half of what I was spending before, plus less because we used to use our car for getting around town everyday.

The bus also has a $1 fare.  That is only annoying because I need to be thinking about having coins or one dollar bills.  I think it would be about $30 to get a monthly transit pass, but right now I don’t think I would ride the bus at least 30 times a month.  My wife rides for free because she is a student. 

Zipcar for us will be roughly $35 a year, plus $9 an hour we use the car. Gas is paid for, as is insurance.  This is a lot cheaper than renting a car or of course owning a car. 

I also want to link to a car revolt-friendly article each time I post.  Streetfilms is putting up a series of videos called “Moving Beyond the Automobile.”  Here is a video from the series.

Revolt against cars, week one

Look, the way I figure it, I have only owned a car like 17% of my life.  I have had access to a car to drive maybe 25% of my life.  I might be a bit of a statistical anomaly compared to the average suburban American 29-year old male, which I would guess has owned/driven more than me.  I did not get my license until I was 17, I did not drive for 2 years on my mish in Europe, and then I lived in a small college town for a couple more years before I decided I needed a car (I really didn’t). 

So it really shouldn’t be that hard to live without a car.  I’ve done it before.  But before was the Czech Republic, where there are buses and trams and metros to rely on.  Before I lived a block away from campus, a few blocks from the grocery, and I didn’t have a job nor a need to travel frequently outside my two-mile bubble.

Now will be more of a challenge.  First of all, it’s not just me, I have my wife, who is remarkably tolerant of the idea of going car free.  She was the one who pushed us over the edge when I was resigned to lassoing us further into debt with a massive car loan.  Second, we live in a medium-sized American college town, except now we are far from campus and I’m not in school anymore.  Third, I have become a fat slob and am accustomed to the enormous luxury of a personal vehicle.

That being said, I will admit that my anti-car roots have been forming the last few years.  I have posted briefly before of my future utopia where we all live without cars.  While that is unlikely to ever happen, I do think that at a glacial pace things may change. 

I decided I wanted to make my personal journey without a car more of an interactive people for the two people who read my blog.  So for the next little while, I will be blogging my experience without a car.  I will relate the struggles.  I will relate the joys.  Stay tuned.

A year and three days later…

I’m alive! The only thing that motivates me to write on this blog is to review books I have read this last year.  Sometimes blogging strikes me as being sooo 2009, but I have got a bit of time on my hands so I might as well crack the whip.  Maybe this will spark me to post more frequently.

I have noticed that I have about four or five general interests that all of my reading seems to consist of:

• Sci-fi, especially over the last few years from the glorious Ms. LeGuin.
• Russian Literature, especially from the 19th century.
• Czech Literature
• Dystopias/Utopias
• Good LDS literature (stuff you actually have to look for, not usually found at your neighborhood Deseret Book)
• and recently books dealing urban planning and transportation

I also occasionally dabble in classics or books that have won awards or new and notable books.  That about covers it, now that it now includes almost every book ever written!  But for the record, I do not prefer to read Romance, Westerns, most Young Adult, Mysteries, Thrillers, Belgian Literature, Self-helps, and Political stuff.

Books I actually finished:

The Dispossessed Ursula K. LeGuin

Worlds of Exile and Illusion Ursula K. LeGuin

UKL is I think I have to now admit is my ALL-TIME favorite  science fiction author.  Every time I pick up one of her books I am just blown away by her style of writing, her creative ideas, and a little of je ne sais quoi.  Maybe it is because she is a female writing in a male-dominated field.  Maybe it’s because she lives in Portland.  When I am reading her books, it instills in me my egoizing desire to write an even better sci-fi book, which would be impossible.  She really does take a fresh spin to sci-fi, focusing on social and cultural elements rather than scientific and adventure. 

A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseini

This is another great book by the author of The Kite Runner.  It takes the reader deep into the awful, horrible world of women living in Afghanistan under shahs, mullahs, and the Taliban.  It was a good book to read at work because it reminded me that there are places worse than work (I chose to read 1984 at work next for this very reason).

Freakonomics Steven D. Levitt

This is a work of nonfiction based on a blog that I frequently read.  It tells the story of a rogue economist and some of his ideas that go against conventional wisdom, such as:  the biggest reason crime dropped so significantly in the 1990s was because so many would-be criminals were aborted fetuses, and how your name can affect how people look at you in your life and can affect if you get a job or not.  Good thing I have a strong Hebrew name like Joel.  I did enjoy reading this book.  It’s really hard to prove that anything really happens because of something else, and it’s also easy to prove anything when you meddle enough with the stats. 

Bright Angels and Familiars Eugene England

Canyons of Grace Levi Peterson

The first book is the seminal collection of quality LDS literary short fiction.  Almost every story in here is very well-written.  This book provided the jumping off point for me looking into some new authors, such as Levi Peterson.  Let me just say it is refreshing to read stories about my own culture, my own people that deal with the whole range of human emotions and experience.  Most LDS fiction gets a deservedly bad rap, but these books offer a glimmer of hope. 

The Golden Age Michal Ajvaz

This book is written by a Czech author and tells the story of a fictional island nation.  But the book does not really have a story per se, it just tells all about this people, their culture, and about a stranger visiting it.  Why does a story need a plot, anyhow?  This book proved to me that it is possible to just write a descriptive novel, full of great ideas but lacking the rigid plot format that English teachers insist every book must have. 

Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability David Owen

I just read that the word “sustainability” was voted the most jargony word of 2010.  No one knows what it really means anymore.  Anybody can claim that they are sustainable.  This nonfiction book is basically a collection of essays explaining that the most energy-efficient places are actually the most densely populated places, not far-flung country dwellers who live off of solar power.  His arguments made sense to me, but I of course agreed with him before I even started reading it.

Time Traveler’s Wife Audrey Niffenegger

Alyssa read this book first, said she didn’t really like it, and going against her judgment I read it anyway.  Mostly because it’s about time traveling, something which I have looked into myself.  It’s a so-so book, she was right.  I sorta never really actually liked either of the two selfish main characters. 

Blazermania Wayne Thompson

Dad got me this awesome coffee table book, replete with color pictures depicting the history of the greatest basketball team ever.  I devoured it instantly.  RIP CITY!

Didn’t finish:

The Scar China Mieville

Good book.  Probably the most bizarrely creative book I read all year.  I got it from the library, and couldn’t finish it in time.  I want to read more of Mieville in the future. 

Altered Carbon Richard Morgan

This was also from the library, bizarrely creative, but it wasn’t doing it for me. 

Earthsea Ursula K. LeGuin

Alyssa and I have been trying to read this book together for about a year, and we are not very diligent at it.  It is LeGuin, I know, but it is fantasy instead of sci-fi and I like it but don’t love it like the rest of her oeuvre.

Already read, wanted to read again:

1984 George Orwell

Self-explanatory.

Referenced in my book review last year:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay  Michael Chabon

I liked it but couldn’t finish it.  I lost interest.

How We Are Hungry Dave Eggers

I read all of this.  It’s a collection of short stories that I have now all forgotten. 

The Natural Bernard Malamud

I mentioned this in my last book review, and I how I didn’t really like it and like the movie a whole lot better.  That was before I read the novel’s ending, which is a lot more tragic than the movie.  And…I actually loved the original ending because it made me really think of how much of a jerk Roy Hobbes really was (at least in the novel, but it is there a little in the movie too) thus turning my world as I know it upside-down.

Books I’m currently reading:

An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser

Dispensation: Latter-day Fiction Angela Hallstrom

The BLDBLOG Book Geoffrey Manaugh

Books on the docket:

Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF  Jetse de Vries

Judge on Trial Ivan Klima

The Gulag Archipelago Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

All movies seen since Christmas, reviewed.

Preface
Unbeknownst to you—and for that matter—me, I am also a movie critic.  And you can’t spell criticize without critic!  I think some reviewers forget this, but not me.  It’s pretty safe, since I will admit up front that most movies are awful and I wish I didn’t spend so much time watching them but I blame it on society and the devil so I am exonerated from all charges and can now freely watch all the movies I possibly can with the caveat that I will snarkily comment on all their perceived failures and denigrate their creative time and effort!
To rate movies I will use my patented “outrageous number/ridiculous movie-related object combo” which will absolutely not stand up to any scrutiny or comparison.

(Theater)
Fantastic Mr. Fox
At first I was bitter at seeing another “kid’s movie” in the theater, because the last movie I saw was Where The Wild Things Are.  I enjoyed the former movie more.  It is funny.  It is cool looking.  In fact, it reminds me of how a Roald Dahl book should look.  The humor is an acquired taste, but I had already acquired it half of the way in.
Rating: 56 Boggises, Bunces and Beans

(on video)
The City of Ember
Again, another kid’s movie.  And again, I was pleasantly surprised.  The premise reminds me a lot of The Giver (which for some reason hasn’t been made into a movie) although there are some cheesy parts.  It is kinda creepy, which I don’t think a lot of movies can do to me. 
Rating:  200 Builders

After the Wedding
This is a Danish foreign film that reminds you how good non-Hollywood movies can be, just by mixing in something different like—I don’t know—an unhappy ending and morally ambiguous characters!  You know characters you can’t tell if they are good or bad, then they are good again and I’m all like huh?  Kinda like real life.  That is, if I lived in Denmark and I went to a wedding party and found out the bride was my daughter and her stepdad was dying and wanted me to marry his wife (your ex-lover).  Oh yeah, spoiler alert.  Oops.
Rating:  1,024 Honeymoons

Ivanhoe
Sheesh, all that introductory rambling and I still haven’t excoriated a movie!  Sorry, Mom, but this movie is downright silly.  And I think unintentionally so.  It was a TV movie, granted, but I’ve seen better.  I hope the book isn’t this bad. 
Rating: 2 lances

Twilight
If there is any more written about this movie or these books, the Internet will literally need to have a stake driven through its heart or be shot by a silver bullet or else it will start to suggestively force adolescent sex on you.
Rating: 9 man vampire infield and outfield

(already seen, but recently reseen)
Breach
Rating:  $3-4 billion lost in Government Intelligence
Catch Me If You Can
Rating:  3,000 bounced checks
The Three Amigos
Rating:  20 plethoras of pinatas

My formula for deciding when I can put down a book

How accessible and attention-grabbing do books need to be?  My personal theory of literature (credentials, B.S. in English, BYUI; future prolific author; extensively read--including War and Peace, James and the Giant Peach, and Reader’s Digest) dictates that the very best works would of course have interesting openings.  In practice, however, how many times do I nab a supposed classic and find myself snoring through hundreds of pages of absolutely unADHD-friendly delayed gratification?  Look, if we want and expect kids to keep reading for the sake of reading (perhaps a faulty premise), we need to feed them more saccharine laced fluff more along the lines of Twilight, Goosebumps and Everyone Poops! 
I have extra power such as pride and guilt that gets me through some of the most mundane novels, but we all know kids nowadays (and adults too) can’t be trusted to possess such valuable attributes.  It would be nice to know that you gave a book your best effort and at the same time remove the stigma of leaving a  book unfinished.  Therefore I determined that I personally would develop a formula for when I could put down a novel with a dragging plotline and still maintain a modicum of respectability. 
At first I thought I might settle on an arbitrary number, such as  one-hundred pages in.  But that is unfair to longer books, so then I decided that it must be a percentage.  Of course there are books that reward you for sticking around, but there are also clunkers that leave you scratching your head, wondering why you wasted so much time.  I feel that if you read half of a book, you should be moderately far into a plot by then, so that would be too far and too much reading to set as a benchmark.   A quarter of a book is more reasonable, but I am a literary snob so I will err on the side of the author and compromise with 33%.  Think it out:  if a book does not speak to you on some level after a third has been read, you can safely put it down.  It’s fair.  It’s only right.
Then I got to thinking that I need to have a reason to put the book down, more complex than that it is simply too boring.  So I devised this protocol:  after 11% of the book has been read and there is any tangible feeling that I do not want to continue (manifested by yawns, periods of two days or longer of inactivity, or rampant debauchery) I will draft a first warning that details the setting, plot and characters; after 22% of the book has been read and the feeling continues I will draft a similar warning along with any additional developments, and then at the 33% mark I will write a third and final summary, after which I can safely determine that the book is too boring and I can move on.  Now, if the first feeling that I want to quit is after the 33% mark, only one report is needed.  The same rule applies if the first feeling of quitting is between the 22% and 33% marks, except only two reports are needed.  If these rules are followed, all feelings of guilt will be expunged and all pride will be upheld.  If these rules are broken, guilt shall be doubled and pride will be taken away, even that which I already have.