I’m still looking for that sound.  Another post with linkage that inspires me to get back on that horse of frugality.

50 Ideas for Frugal Living (zenhabits again) - What is nice about this list is that it suggests that you decide what makes you happy, and do that.  Very Your $ or Your Life.

http://zenhabits.net/2007/08/the-cheapskate-guide-50-tips-for-frugal-living/

Renting VS. Buying (linked from zenhabits) This one has several great article links at the bottom as well as being informative.

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/07/16/renting-vs-buying-the-realities-of-home-buying/

Credit Card Hint (Getrichslowly.org) Deduct that purchase immediately from your checking account register - or quicken, whatever you use.  Then the money is always there. 

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/08/08/a-quick-trick-for-tracking-credit-card-expenses-in-quicken/

Three Ways to Ask for More Money (the Mint) - Not many people suggest the “call and ask for a lower rate” method - it is too conflict-oriented for our world.  But it works.  I’ve done it.  And it is about time to do it again.

http://www.mint.com/blog/moneyhack/three-ways-to-ask-for-more-money/

 Your hints and tips? 

Because I’m thinking about fitness and starting to get down on myself today, I’m going to post some motivational blog posts about fitness, etc.

6 Steps to lose the Buddha Belly (Zenhabits - new blog find for me)   Guess what?  No situps.  For real.

http://zenhabits.net/2007/08/6-steps-to-lose-the-buddha-belly/#more-468

5 Step plan to Weight Loss (again, Zenhabits)  For me, this was a lot of the same stuff, but it did give me the idea for doing a 30 day no sweets challenge.   I wonder if I can do that, and if the honey I put in my tea counts. 

http://zenhabits.net/2007/07/zen-to-slim-a-simple-5-step-weight-loss-plan/

Couch to 5K Running Plan (coolrunning.com) For those of us who run farther in our nightmares than in real life.  I STILL am interested in starting this.

http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

 Fight Club ends up owning you

Some guys seem to love quoting Fight Club in a way that suggests that they’re grizzled existential veterans — scarred-but-smarter straight talkers who are out there serving the hard truth and really getting people thinking about the nature of our tuned-out consumer culture. Yeah.

But, just remember: all that strident and perspicacious life advice may be coming at you courtesy of a doughy, goateed white guy who’s now watched a single DVD enough times to quote it from memory.

David Fincher should reissue a special edition that ships with a beard trimmer, a bag of Doritos™, and a large motherfucking grain of salt.

Reposted from:  http://www.kungfugrippe.com/post/7893940  Just found it today and laughed out loud.

Milwaukee is this growing amoeba.  Or at least, it is trying to be an amoeba, but failing.  And failing through infrastructure. 

This comes as a shock since so much of Milwaukee is trying to focus on growth of the region.  There’s the Milwaukee 7, their website Choose Milwaukee, and the Fresh Coast.  All the focus is trying to get more business, more value to the Milwaukee shores.  I really like living in this place, all in all.  I support amoebic growth of reclaiming Walker’s Point and the 5th Ward.  Which is why this sudden backtracking really irritates me.

How, do you say, is this happening?  By cutting the bus routes.

There have been articles about it - sure.  The Journal Sentinel has published the propose route cuts…in a tiny map off to the side of the online article.  I wonder if it was in the actual paper. 

These cuts are a bad move.  I live in an area that is south of downtown that is a growing, thriving area for young business people.  Members of this community contribute a lot to the beauty and growth of Milwaukee as a great place to live. 

A drive to my work downtown would be relatively short - 10-15 minutes at most.

But why drive when there are buses?  By keeping my car in the garage, I am decreasing pollution, traffic build-up, the line in the Starbucks drive thru, and supporting the city I live in.  I am decreasing road rage, and the ever-growing Parking Rage - that fury you feel when you either find it impossible to park downtown, OR have to pay Festival parking prices when you are parking for work.

The city has seen fit to cut almost every route that goes to my neighborhood.  In three months, it is proposed that every member of my community pick up a car and find a place to part downtown because those buses will be cut.  Buses that serve all the major businesses downtown.  Buses that are in part subsidized by the businesses downtown. 

Milwaukee is trying to remove some of the ways that commerce functions - through the access made available by public transportation.  What business is going to want to move in if nobody can get to it?  Crippling its public transportation system is not the way to bring in new growth.

There are some people standing up to this silliness.  Members of the Bayview community have undertaken to “protest” by gathering as many people as possible to ride the buses at a certain time.  They’ve attracted the attention of policy-makers, which is a great step towards making a difference.  To find out more information about these Bus Cut Protests, go to the following webpage.

 http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/BusesAreGreen/HomePage

I read a post today from writer of Employee Evolution, Ryan Healy - he writes once a week for Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist. 

It was explaining how to maintain a blog and a cull time career.

So, it actually made me think about WHY I blog, or why you are seeing more from me than you ever have. 

I’ve been considering blogging for a while.  I tossed around a few subjects, several thoughts, and then did nothing but post my feelings and personal situations.  So, it was “experiential” - meaning I complained in it.  It was in LiveJournal, and I treated it like a journal, not a blog. 

Then I got this new, nifty blog in order to write to myself more.  To post my ideas and thoughts and plans without such a large audience.  To remind myself of things.  To say what I wanted to say and not worry about hurting feelings.

I think I wrote two posts.

Lots of things go on in my life, and frankly, it seemed way too cumbersome to be additionally responsible to some electronic medium.  And why was I doing it?  To be dramatically discovered as an expert on nothing-in-particular?  To be offered a book deal?

So, it really didn’t happen.  And I eschewed blogs for a while trying to get away from my attachment to electronic fascination.  Get back to basics.  Read the things you love.  Make a difference.  These were my mottos.

As I was doing those things, I realized I wanted to share them with people.  Great articles.  Green initiatives and current happenings.  Information I wasn’t sure that people were aware of - or for that matter, had time to seek out.  I know I feel overwhelmed by information these days.  And so often, it seems disconnected from personal experience or thought.  Are there trustworthy sources?  What are the things that you aren’t hearing on the 15 second blurb on your bus ride (don’t get me started on TransitTV.)

I’d been emailing my friends with links to stories that I thought were cool.  I’m sure I annoyed the crud out of them.  And then I’d have to find that email again to forward to someone else.  It became hard to keep track of the stories I was interested in in order to share them with others.

Thus, the blog presented itself again.  And I linked it to my LJ because I am connected with so many other people there who I KNOW feel the way I do. Blogging became the most efficient, economical way to keep in touch with my favorite articles, ideas, and share them with others. 

The things I care about right now are environmental concerns, personal growth and personal finances, growing Milwaukee, and great ideas.  These things give me fire and excitement on a daily basis, and I want to share them with you so you can be invigorated to action as well - whether it is action to eat better, hug your friend, smile more, or protest.

So…that’s what you’ll be seeing here.  Links to stories, my thoughts on them, information I think you might not know yet (or that needs more attention than it is getting) and general interesting stuff.  This way our reach is exponentially growing…

And thus the name is Exponential.  And you’re reading…Exponential Connections.  (Ah…I can almost hear Ted Koppel saying it, can’t you?  ;)  )

Thanks to 43Folders that clued me to this article.

It was interesting to read about these jobs which seem to be on the top 10 list of most of my geek-friend crowd. 

Even more interesting?  Women seem to have a leg up in this area.  If you’re a woman, you have a much better promotion opportunity and long-term employment availability.  Talk about a 180.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2007-07-11/news/testing-video-games-can-t-possibly-be-harder-than-an-afternoon-with-xbox-right.php

It isn’t even about your waistline anymore.  It’s about survival!

 The Environmental News Network at a report from Reuters that more spinach has been recalled - this time due to salmonella. 

http://www.enn.com/health/article/22509

Surprising tidbit?  That mention of peanut butter at the end!!  Did anyone hear about that?  I didn’t.  Perhaps I wasn’t paying enough attention.  But apparently, salmonella was in Peter Pan peanut butter.  FDA notice below:

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01563.html

Funny, it looks like right about the time I switched to organic peanut butter.  It’s hard to give up the Jif, but it appears it will be better for my waistline AND for my survival.

What is going on with our foods? 

Ok, so it is a cheesy line.  But it’s true.

Bees are a part of the chain so intricately that I wonder if people consider just how important they are to how we live - and the rest of the world as well.

This article is about the Colony Collapse Disorder issues (no, they are NOT CAUSED BY CELL PHONES).

 http://www.celsias.com/2007/03/15/bee-colony-collapse-disorder-where-is-it-heading/

Interestingly enough, organic bees are not being affected by the disorder.  One wonders if the recently implemented nicotine-based pesticides might be the culprit afterall.  If it looks like a duck…

http://www.celsias.com/2007/05/15/organic-bees-surviving-colony-collapse-disorder-ccd/

My favorite part, however, is the question that this brings up - again.  That we put so many of our scientific innovations out there before we’ve really contemplated their effect, or tested them.  It is probably why we are so often trying to “clean up the mess” - because we didn’t spend the time in the beginning to do it right.  It isn’t just Pfizer we’re talking about here.

http://www.celsias.com/2007/04/13/colony-collapse-disorder-a-moment-for-reflection/

And finally, another reflective thought about how we are so used to drive thru existence.  Press a button, solution found.  Feel sick?  Take a pill.  We can’t be inconvenienced by the TIME and EFFORT it takes to really look into something and its causes.  Perhaps one answer is not enough.  Perhaps it is more complex than a 6th grade education can tolerate?

http://www.celsias.com/2007/06/01/bee-die-offs-from-multiple-causes/

 Edit: I am liking celsias’ effort to reconnect this issue with how we view the cycles and processes of our world and nature.    http://www.celsias.com/2007/08/25/bee-keepers-wisdom-for-human-flourishing/

And someone else added something for consideration: Perhaps electromagnetic fields still play a part?  High-frequency Active Auroral Research Project http://www.hyperstealth.com/haarp/index.htm 

(Featuring - Celsias, the only place I found somewhat intelligent sounding discussion on the bee situation.   Celsius and Penelope Trunk are quicky becoming contenders for the blogroll.)

 Your thoughts?

I wanted to take this moment to feature a fabulous tool for connecting with your inner self and the universe - the internet!

 Sure, Indra’s Web and the World Wide Web share a lot in common, but I’m finding that the internet plays well with the idea that “ask and you shall receive” aspect of interconnectedness with the universe. 

There’s a theory for tarot reading that I ascribe to - that the answer lies within the asker.  But because we do not listen to ourselves, we need some outside medium to tell us what we already know, as if nothing is true unless confirmed by outside sources (oh, to be a society that believed in itself.) So, the tarot is a TOOL that one uses to extract the answers from within yourself.  It’s like calling your answering machine and finding a message left by you saying, “Yes, you should take that job.”  The answering machine didn’t have the answer - you did. 

The internet can work this way as well.  You find what you need, when you need it, even though the answer is really coming from within you.

Take today.  I’ve recently rebegun working out.  Three days isn’t a full on habit, but only two points are required for a line and three for a trend. 

I think, however, my discipline for this recent return to activity is fueled by my stronger discipline with myself at work and reading up on news.  Not by a huge amount, but definitely more focused than before.  And the discipline that I used to get through my first ever Master Cleanse.  It was a level of discipline that I’d not shown in a long time (aided by some very helpful friends and family.)

Discipline is one of those things that is my nemesis.  I have great capability for discipline….when I am disciplined and interested.  I used to have great fortitude for staying the course.  I accomplished a great many things when younger, up to and including writing a 200 page book (it’s trash), cultivating an artistic streak in art and music, working long hours on projects. 

 Now, I have an “Oh fuck it” sort of attitude a lot of the time if I’m not getting gratification from the process I’m enduring.  There are some things that I realize aren’t for me, or that I’m not ready for yet.  And then…there are a great number of things I dearly love the idea of achieving, but find myself TDL about it (Too Damn Lazy).  That working on such and such thing is not as immediately gratifying as hugging my spouse, or checking my email, or surfing Tribe.net.  My ability to stay disciplined has, perhaps, inversely decreased with the increase of things I want to do or accomplish.

Perhaps, as a result, of realizing that a lot of promises about certain accomplishments weren’t true.  Like, getting a college degree was the only way to have a good job.  Like, getting straight A’s prepares you for college.  Like communicating with your father regularly will cause him to be more a part of your life. 

So, one of the blogs I ready regularly is Penelope’s Brazen Careerist.  Today, she pops up with this blog article about how to lose weight in 2 weeks by changing work habits.

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/08/29/how-to-lose-ten-pounds-in-two-weeks/

Being the woman of the millenium I am, I read it for every morsel of possible hint towards avoiding bingo-wings . 

It brings up the point that discipline in one area may indeed aid one in applying discipline in others.  And you have to like the discipline, I think.  It can’t be, “I can’t spend any money because I’m poor” because that is perceived as suffering, and frankly, one is more likely to be less disciplined in other areas because  of the perceived suffering (well, at least it does for me.)

At the end of the post, Penelope says:

“So I always want more self-discipline in my life.  And I absolutely found that when I became more disciplined about how I deal with my sleep and eating, I became more disciplined about working out. For the last year I have had clear goals for regular episodes of running, weights and yoga. But I have generally failed at achieving these goals on a regular basis. Something always interferes.”

That interfering “something” is ME.  In fact, her whole paragraph describes how I have been for a while.  She also says:

There is great research about how if you add self-discipline to your life in one area, self-discipline seeps into other areas of your life as well. This is important because positive psychologists are always saying that self-discipline is a key factor to making ourselves happier.

Those links directly are:

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2007/05/25/coachology-train-yourself-to-be-happier/

http://www.senia.com/2007/02/01/create-new-habits-self-regulation/

And in this way, the great circle is completed.  I was in need of finding some discipline to achieve some of my goals.  I applied a little, and found some good results, and then I find through the internet that there is proof that adding a little discipline in one area will trickle down to other areas that are important to me.  I reaffirmed my own internal voice.

The answer was in me, all along.  All I had to do was google.

This is why I hate the whole “conformist yard” city regulations.  It pisses me off.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/city_destroys_1.php