Into the Wild is a non-fiction book that was adapted into a film with the same title. Written by Jon Krakauer, the book concerns the travels of Christopher McCandless across the USA. McCandless graduated in 1990 from Emory University and shortly later gave his college fund of $24,000 to Oxfam before hitchhiking to the Stampede Trail in Alaska. McCandless embarked upon the snow-covered trail with just 10 pounds of rice, a 22 caliber rifle, a camera, some reading material, and a few boxes of rifle rounds. After 100 days, McCandless died on August 18th 1992.
Krakaeur interpreted McCandless’s ascetic personality as being influenced by the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Jack London. Krakaeur also related tales of other similar young men who disappeared into the wilderness, such as Everett Ruess who went missing at age 20 in the Utah desert in 1934. Krakaeur also dwells upon the grief and confusion of McCandless’s parents, sibling, and friends. Sean Penn directed the film adaptation which is well worth watching, just head to sky.com/hd!
Green is often associated with prosperity in areas that use the U.S. dollar as their currency. As green is the colour used in U.S. banknotes, green carries connotations in areas that use the dollar, of capitalism, wealth, and money. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, everyone in the Emerlad City wears glasses which make everything look green. The author, L. Frank Baum, included this to depict America’s financial system in his day, where the debate was raging as to whether paper money or gold should be used. All the American dollar bills have historically always been green.
Green is associated with life, growth, the east, and with sunrise in China. For those born on a Wednesday night, green is considered auspicious in Thailand. The colour green is also regarded as the traditional colour of Islam. Quoted in a hadith as having said “water, greenery, and a beautiful face” were three universally good things, Muhammed led to a persuasion towards green in the Islamic faith. Pity He didn’t mention gu 10 bulbs!
I've always been a bit of a green, since I was a kid and learnt about the damage being done to the environment, animal extinction and global warming, I always wanted to do my part.
I've always recycled and try not to waste anything that I don't have to, I carry my own coffee flask for hot drinks (and save money in coffee houses for using it) I always bring carrier bags with me when I do the shopping and I cycle on a lot of journeys - big and small - so I don't have to worry about petrol and carbon emissions.
I'm not a hippie eco-warrior or anything, I'm just doing my part, but recently I've been looking for any sort of environmental jobs that I'd be able to do, surely I could do what I'm good at but for an organisation that helps the environment.
I'll keep you posted!
Photo: epSos.de (Flickr)
We're going to completely redo our kitchen from scratch, literally demolish what's there and start again, so we've been looking at the kind of kitchen sets and fitted kitchen packages we could get.
We went to visit a kitchen showroom, and the salesman was an absolute genius at selling some quite gorgeous kitchens, but the problem I was having was how impractical it all was.
You walk around and swoon at all the beautiful, spacious kitchens kitted out with Smeg fridges and Bibo water coolers and decide you just have to have them. But you're completely forgetting that this kitchen layout is the size of your entire flat - where on earth are you going to fit a breakfast bar?
We were completely sold on one, but once we'd left the buzz of the showroom we came to our senses, and now we're back to the drawing board.
Photo: pohlenz cucine moderne (Flickr)
Apparently my grand-dad isn't in a very good way at the moment, which is really worrying because he's getting on a bit now and lives quite far away from us.
He slipped on the stairs in his house and had a very small fall, but it shook him up a bit to think how much worse it could've been, so now he's talking about only using the downstairs of his house. I've suggested we get him a Stannah stairlift so I'm looking online to see how you go about getting one and how much they cost.
I think the best option would be for him to move to a bungalow or a ground floor flat nearer the rest of the family, then we could take it in turns to throughout the week to pop in on him. I'm going to visit him later this week, hopefully I can persuade him.