Merry Christmas Everyone!

Or, Meddy Cheesemouse, as I liked to say last year, during the time of political correctness. For those of you who I don't have your mailing address, here is what I'm sending this year. I decided to consume some really old ancient art supplies, card paper and envelopes, and get some stamping tools- hope you like it! You can surreptitiously email your mailing address, if you want one, however, it will look a little different than this one, mainly because I didn't want to throw out the ugly cards, and when I work on any little thing, I'm constantly "in development." Hope you are all having a great holiday!!!

Brickbottom and Joy St. Open Studios

I made the rounds to all of the galleries a few weeks ago at the Brickbottom and Joy St. Open Studios in Somerville, and in the parking lot there was a FISH car! how cool is that?

Thanksgiving Turkey-Fire!

Classic thanksgiving day, near Lake Winnapisaukee, NH. Fireplace, Turkey, ensuing food coma, ahhhhhhh

China Blue

This completely adorable girl was the main character in a movie produced by Micha X. Peled, called "China Blue". It was created in 2005, I think by using an undercover camera or something. It follows the trail of Little Jasmine, who is the 2nd child in her family (Chinese families can only have 1 child, of course) who must leave her home in Sichuan and go to the big city and work a factory job. She's only 15, though her ID says that she's 16, but she ends up in a blue jeans factory dormitory working w/ girls even younger than her. It's a very entertaining movie because of her, but it also exposes a decently crappy blue jeans factory (with a wealthy factory owner who doesn't know how to pay his workers on time-- usually it's because he doesn't know accounting or his police chief background really didn't give him business skills, and that he thinks he can get away with enslaving his factory workers) that apparently wasn't producing garments for the United States market (they didn't show product or customer purchasing for the US). Also, the movie didn't demonstrate how much money it takes to live in China. We just see US dollar amounts, such as the $1.45 that Little Jasmine and her friends made in the time the audience watched this movie. That figure shouldn't reflect off of an American standard of living. The movie demonstrates that this particular factory and others like it have a lack of respect for people and product, and how easy it is for people to accept things that are undervalued. Like I said before, the people who won't ever want to or bother to see this movie are the ones who truly need to become aware of the effects of globalization, i.e., where our blue jeans might come from, and we should all be careful about the choices that we make when we exchange money for an object. Personally, I think I'm going to decide from now on, to wear jeans that haven't gone through a pre-washing, whiskers-sanding blasting process, and break them in myself, just like them Wranglers I had in elementary school. This decreases the amount of handling in the factory, and eliminates some steps that can help shorten production time. That way people like Little Jasmine, who worked all hours as a thread cutter, can work less, and go to bed at a decent hour.

Apples and Leef-peeping

One of the benefits of living in New England is the fact that fall=apple picking! and Apple cider! and cider donuts! and all of the leaves are changing colors now! Here is my ragtag group of smarty pants people picking apples at Shelbourne Farm before it got mobbed with stroller families.
Yes, I know this same stuff happens in other parts of the country, but nyah nyah, the scenery is wayyy better here!

Sucked in By Facebook!

I surrender!!! After the third facebook invitation, I have finally caved in and now any chance of ever maintaining a MySpace Account is forever lost, now that I have found Facebook... It's so much cuter and easier to read, and so far, people I'm pretty good friends with are "connecting" with me, no weird random strangers, yet! So now I'm addicted. Bad me. hehe.

King Corn!

So, I've been trying to find enough time to finish this really eye-opening book by Michael Pollan, called, "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and this book runs through the different food systems that the author experienced: Industrial corn, Industrial organic, Pastoral grass, and foraging/hunter gatherer. Lucky for me, while this book was getting popular, there was a movie trying to get released called "King Corn," that traces some of the stories in this book! Read it, or watch it! The two guys making the movie are decently charismatic and cute, but make sure you're fully awake when ya watch it. Go find out how much corn you have in your body in this King Corn Movie

Design Life Now Cooper Hewitt Triennale at the ICA

Time to visit Boston, y'all! An exhibit from the Coooper Hewitt museum, Design Life Now, has finally come to the ICA. Yippee! A DESIGN exhibit. There is a huge variety of displays here, from toys to robots to fashion to architecture, and the presentation is very different from the NYC exhibit- I really like it, and love explaining design stories to my fellow tour guides! So you have until January 6th to visit me in Boston, ok? Go ask Conchens for a tour of this Design exhibit at the ICA

Made in LA documentary on PBS

Just broadcast today on WGBH, my local PBS station: a P.O.V. Documentary about really amazing sweatshop workers The film is called "Made in LA" and it chronicles the fight against a really huge fashion retailer called Forever 21( some of you know and love this store!) to pay garment workers who make their product a fair, survivable wage. It's a really great story, and has very touching moments, and gray areas that mix in your head. Most of the garment workers are illegal immigrants, they are taken advantage of by their garment factory- do they deserve a voice in the United States? Yes, they are in need of basic worker rights, and they should get them. There was also a race play going on, with the workers all from South America and Mexico, the laywers and activists were of various Asian descent, and the LA based president of Forever 21 is a Korean. Lastly, the documentary reminds you that in general, fashion oriented clothing is a truly underpriced commodity, and mass fashion retailers like Forever 21 are charging way too little for their clothing. Please see this film on your PBS station.

Tour Guide Opportunities at the ICA! and Backpacking

All you all who live local to Boston, my museum is looking for some new tour guides- The training is great-- it's just like being back in school again, you get access to more than a membership to a museum, and I think it is really fun to show people how to look at contemporary art to people who aren't used to talking about it. See website here:  

Wanna become an Institute of Contemporary Art Tour guide?


On another note-- I'm in Seattle now, and C. and I went backpacking camping! I never did it before, I have only car camped before. It was really amazing scenery. We backpacked near Rialto Beach on the Olympic Peninsula coast, camped right on the beach next to the Pacific Ocean, and you can hear high tide crashing in at night when you sleep. There are rocky beaches, huge pieces of drftwood everywhere, really tall rock formations, and tidepools with starfish and sea anemones.

401(k) Venting, avoiding taxes and getting your company to pay you more money

Finally, I'm going to be eligible to start the 401(k) program at work! After casually discussing it at the lunch table, the one thing that I noticed is that there is fear and confusion when it comes to changing the dollar amount that shows up in your bank account when you sign up:
1. It sounds like people think that they won't be staying at their company that long, so they won't start on their plan, because, "why bother, I'm not going to save that much, I'll be leaving soon! " I'm thinking that these said folk don't realize that the company is going to give you a little contributing match your savings (in my case up to 6% of earnings). What does that mean? It means, "even though we didn't tell you about this plan at orientation, you actually bothered to sign up for the 401(k) , so we are going to give you even more money!" whoohoo for you! It's a bonus you barely had to do any physical work for, except fill out a form!
2. All of these contributions to your 401(k) are tax free- if you think about how much money Uncle Sam steals from your paycheck every week, it's just too fabulous of an opportunity to keep some of your earnings away from his grubby 28% hands by putting it in your 401(k) account. Income is taxed WAYYY too much. Investments are taxed wayyy less. And taxes are not going to touch your 401(k) account for a long long time!
3. Lastly, if you leave your company and you don't really care for the management of the company 401(k) plan, you can take the money with you in a traditional IRA and still not have to pay taxes on it. So who cares if you only worked there for a couple of years, you got some tax-deferred moolah in your hands that you get to keep for forever until retirement! Yippeee! This Smart 401(k) Moves When You Leave A Job, on the Suze Orman website says some really concise things about rolling over.
4. Lastly, don't go asking me if you want to pay for your overseas backpacking trip to Guam by cashing out your 401K hanging out at your old employers 401K, it makes my skin crawl. All of the friends that ever mentioned cashing out I wanted to yell at them. This is why: Not only will you get charged income tax that you avoided, but you also get an additional 10% taken away. AND you don't get to take advantage of the compounding calculator fun that an account is supposed to perform for you!
Anyway, hope I didn't make anyone feel stupid because they didn't know all this stuff, I'm just making sure everyone I know who reads this will make sure that they are signed up to take advantage of avoiding uncle sam and make their employers pay up, by signing up!

Eating Real Food

With all of the recent news about food manufacturing, I've acquired a recent slight paranoia about industrially processed food and eating food that I pay other people to make for me, like at a restaurant. One of my friends, A. has also informed me that she has stopped buying food products that say "Made in China." I was never conscious of this before, but I realized a lot of my Asian food products have the "Made in China" label.
As a result, I've been hunting for food from farms and looking for local produce. So not only do I visit Union Square Farmer's market, I also finally went to Concord, MA to Verrill Farms. They are just starting to sell tomatoes, and delicate peaches from B.'s hometown of Bolton, MA. And i found another farm, Turkey Hill Farm, in Haverhill, where they have some very good blueberry and raspberry picking! It is run by a Mr. Butt, who is plenty nice, with some New England quirkiness. But since I can't eat just vegetables, I also have to make a run to either Market Basket or Shaw's , and depending on traffic, Whole Foods, to get the other stuff.
On the shopping list-Cherry tomatoes in a bright orange and reddish pink, some Bolton Peaches, Green onions with a nice purple cast at their necks, a head of young red leaf lettuce, and carrots! Wild Blueberries! Golden Rasberries! Zuchinni that comes in green and yellow!

Birthday Flowers from C.

Yes, it was my birfday, and someone sent me flowers from Organic Bouquet to my office! Sooooooo pretty! Sooo schweet of C.R.S! And all of the ladies at work enjoyed them too, and now you get to also:

First Life= T-shirt, Second Life= Pocketbook

So, as my sister and I were perusing Target for Transformer's stuff for our little 80's Optimus Prime party we had, we noticed that there were no Transformer's stuff for girls! Waah? I'm sure some Hasbro marketing people ran a focus group, with a bunch of little girls that refused to have anything to do w/Transformers merchandise, who were NOT adult women in their late 20's/early thirties who watched tv after school when they were little because mom and dad were at work. So, I thought, why not shop in the little boys section? And buy this t-shirt?

Would I wear the above t-shirt? OF COURSE NOT! However, I would wear this:
This is a pocketbook (as they say in New England) constructed from the t-shirt in it's entirety. Only a few little scraps were not utilized. The adorable model, L., was in diapers when the TV show first came out, hehe! I'm seriously carrying this around now, and the hilarious thing is that most of the people I run into have NO IDEA what this logo is....

And did I mention, a Transformers 80's party? Some proof:

Union Square Famer's Market

My sister and I went to the Union Square Farmer's market in somerville--it's nice to go to because it's on Saturday morning. It's small, but it's really fun to look at pretty vegetables and home made pies! as the weeks go by, we will have more veggies to choose from. We brought home a small head of lettuce, some bread, carrots, shelling peas, rainbow swiss chard, and bok choy.

Issey Miyake A-Poc

Finally, some press coverage about the fashion concept I love the most more than anything in the world, way more than my thesis project! I wish I read about this earlier, the Businessweek article is from April! of last year! Waaht? Oops.
Last Year's *new* A-POC product
Sigh, if this was a high end electronic hardware product, A-POC wouldn't be as obscure as it is. It is basically a production method of clothing where no-sew clothing is programmed into a computer that weaves or knits the clothing so the seams are already in the fabric. So all you do is cut it open and wear it to your customization. Minimal labor, minimal production, optimistic view of the clothing of the future.

Manfactured Landscapes

Catch this movie when it runs through the art movie houses/movie festivals! It's called "Manufactured Landscapes" and it follows photographer Edward Burtynsky all over the world as he hunts for the industrial landscape, parts of the earth changed by humans.
This is the most COMPLETE movie about globalization, because it takes you to all sorts of places in the before and after of consumer products made in China, where e-waste goes to get recycling, to where ships go to die, and even shows the progress of the the Three river gorges dam in China.
The greatest thing about this movie is that it never makes any preachy "Gore-acle"-esque statement about the end of the workd, the documentary just shows you how the photographer, in his own lifestyle and consumption choices, searches for the beginning and the end of the resources used by the life cycle of consumer products and an American middle class lifestyle. The photos he creates are JAW DROPPING, so beautiful yet so sad. SEE IT! Those in Boston can go to the Museum of Fine Arts.

Caves

In AZ I went to these really great living caves called Kartchner Caverns, and it got me thinking about other caves I know about, namely the place where my parents got married 35 years ago! It's called The Bridal Cave and it's in Camdenton, Missouri, because they were studying at University of Missouri in the 70's. My mom said it cost them $18 to get married there, and all of the tourists at the cave attended their wedding! Now it seems like a bigger production; thanks to inflation, it's now $500!

Arizona near Tucson

At the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum
San Xavier del Bac Mission
(all photos taken by C., not conchens.)
This trip to AZ gave me a raging urge to eat Mexican food every single day until forever! Thank you to all Mexican restaurants that I went to that had homemade tamales! This Sunday afternoon, I spent some time reviewing some of the places that I went to on Tripadvisor and I also spent some other moments posting local Boston services on Angie's List-- have you ever heard of it? It allows you to review other people's opinions of contractors and services after services have been provided and money has been spent, so you don't waste your own dough on a bad experience. However, you have to pay for the site, and so far, postings are a little sparce-- hopefully it'll get better if/when it comes time for me to do some condo stuff!(?)

New Car Photo- Nantasket Beach

Its 1997 all over again..

New job.... new glasses...... and now, a new car. And yes, I actually bought another red Subaru Impreza Outback Sport Wagon! A reprise from 1997 all over again, yeehaa! Hmm, maybe I'll dig out the little 3x5 photo of my early 20-something self with that car, or save myself the embarrassment, and just show you where I got my new one:
  

Quirk Works Subaru- on the south shore

Please have yourself a little treat and click on tha little video link- I bought my "cahw" from him! And at the 50 second mark, I think, there's my cahw!

Student Fashion Show Weekend

This past weekend I attended two student fashion shows, for Mass Art and Mount Ida College. Fabulous work(for the most part)! There are some really hard working students out there, amazing sewing and construction feats by Mass art students, and quite a few Mt. Ida students willing to put together (or alas, deconstruct) some pretty bold and wacky color combinations. (Pictures to come later!)

Supervision no more

So the fabulous new exhibit has come to a close at the ICA, Supervision is no more! No more making tour groups walk around stainless steel objects (by Jeff Koons and Anish Kapoor), no more sticking my hands in the James Turrell (New Light) and watching people gasp, no more physicists trying to figure out the refraction index of the Josiah McElheny -- oh wait, maybe so, because it will be part of the permanent collection--- Anyways, the tour guides hosted a lovely wake at a nice restaurant named Sonsie, and here are two of our lovely guides in proper wake attire:

Test Driving

Happy Earf Day, Everybody!
This April and May is the month that we all are reminded by all of our magazine and media sources about how to save the earth by conserving engergy and recycling, and wearing used or organic clothing, blah blah blah. Even the fashion industry paper, Women's Wear Daily, has put out a green issue about sustainable textiles and sustainable designers, because it all trendy and fashionable to do things green, like drive a Toyota Prius!
1. This week I test drove a Toyota Prius, it was really fun! Whenever you want to start the car, park or drive, you have to press a button, it's like deprogramming yourself to grab that stick thingy in the middle before you drive. And because it's a hybrid, that means fewer trips to the gas station (my commute is 22 miles each way to work, in reverse traffic. But unfortunately, even though it feels like a faster driving car than Tomato, the Toyota Corrolla I currently am borrowing, it has an even floatier baby cradle-like ride suspension than tomato. I really care about how the car feels on the road, and during the test drive, we went over some small windy curves that literally made me nauseous! So after that experience, I'm not entirely sure getting a hybrid makes the most sense right now---- maybe if the Prius comes with sport suspension?

Toyota Prius Hybrid vehicle link

2. So I finally read that one green issue of WWD, and it's quite interesting, however it's laced with small little articles by an entity called Cotton, Inc. (you know, the "Fabric of our lives" commercial?) They support Conventional Cotton! There is one article inparticular about how educated the consumer is about organic cotton, and the facts and figures basically claim that the comsumer populace is uneducated and ignorant, and won't pay more for organic cotton clothing. They don't mention in the article when this little survey was done- I suspect it is the same research I fell upon at least 5 years ago when I was studying my thesis at Cornell. I think it's absolutely weird how Cotton Inc. feels so "threatened" by sustainable textiles!

Womens' Wear Daily reported on by Treehugger




Subaru Impreza 2008 -Conflicts in My Head

Aaccck! So I need to get a new car, I have literally not owned one/borrowed other people's cars since 2002, a whole five years, but soon I will actually have to own one, or else I won't be able to get to work! So, some of you might remember that last car was a 1997 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport Wagon, in red with the fake hood scoop that eventually got taped up inside! And I sort of want another one. At the 2007 New York Auto Show last week, they unveiled a TOTAL REDESIGN of the Impreza, and now I'm not sure what to think! From the outside, it looks like all of the other hatchbacks now, except for the AWD and hoodscoop! Ergh. It's a shrinky dinked version of the Tribeca, which had to be redesigned after only being a year on the market! ha!
However, the interior of the new Impreza WRX (the performance version) is super nice, and hence, the inner conflict- should I get a 2007 or wait until August for the new one? Will I like how the exterior looks by August? Will I want to trade in a brand new 2007 just because the new one is so much nicer? (sniff)

2008 Subaru Impreza WRX




Kimmie!!!

Have you ever heard of this TV show on FX called "The Riches"? It stars Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver, who are speaking in Southern accents (!) and my friend Teresa Huang is in the cast, in her first recurring TV role-her name is Kimmee! Yippee!!! It's on late Mondays on FX.
   

"The Riches" Monday nights on FX

Celebrity Personal Finance Gurus!

Check it out! Getting Suze Orman to sign her new book for my boss. I was all excited and nervous and afterwards, I had a celebrity high that you get from meeting someone you admire. She had a really fun 1 hour talk, that is pretty much all about her new book, "Women and Money" She yelled at a single woman w/o dependents for buying term life insurance. Public humiliation! She answered a question about the dollar value of taking care of kids at home. But basically, all the people in the audience were already on the "Suze Boat" and from what she was saying about how women like to take care of other people with their money before they take care of themselves, it was pretty obvious that those women who REALLY needed Suze's book the most were not in the audience, and and may never know to read her book in order to fix their lives up.
Anyway, check out the TD Ameritrade Save yourself plan offer in her book! It's so cool! I'm so excited about applying for this Money market account!
 

Suze the Life Changing Financial Guru Lady

A very sad girl

I was driving home tonight- listening to NPR's "All Things Considered" and they were discussing the hardship of military families who lost a loved one who was deployed. And I was so surprised when they introduced a woman named Wendy. She was a sorority sister a year or two younger than me who went to my undergrad school and then left to West Point to finish her degree and become an army officer. I don't know her that well, and haven't seen her since school, but my other sorority sisters do.

Wendy's picture and story

She was amazing in her interview. And so sad. And so deeply respectful to everybody involved in the war effort. I'm so glad I stayed late to work. I'm so glad I listened to NPR when I did. She really reminded people that whatever the people in the highest chain of command decide to do, it really affects the people and their families, the soldiers who have to carry out their orders. It must be crazy difficult for her. She also wished that everyday people had more conscious understanding of wartime and what soldiers and their families go through when they are deployed.

Girls who are cute

How cool is this? One of my friends, who lives in San Diego, got on the front page of the NY Times, because she just so happened to attend a surfing class when the journalists were here reporting on how trendy and business oriented surfing is becoming!
 Surfer Girl
She's soooo adorable in this picture! Makes me miss being unemployed, a little....

Another cute girl, A., is demonstrating that you can make FREE local phone calls on the Sergio Vega PARROT phone that is outside the ICA! That's right. Free! So go look up someone on your cell phone in the 617 area code to call and then call them on the parrot!

Patagonia's cradle to cradle- Missing that school I went to

Stuff that I learned at Cornell is coming back to life! At work, the higher ups and merchandisers had a big meeting about fit, and that the higher-ups hired a consultant to assess the fit of the clothing sold. They said that the pants here have the most consistent fit out of all of the womenswear apparel companies, and then they listed that there are so many ways that more clothing can get sold by improving the fit of the product. They have no idea that I studied so much about fit in school, and have done that class bodyscanning project...

The other thing that I was studying about was apparel sustainability, and not only shoes, but underwear is now going to be going through a cradle to cradle system! Yay for underwear! I just wish that one day that my company will get on this green bandwagon soon....

Check out the stupid yet cute video!

Patagonia recycling

Christmas Memories for 2006

So, call me weird, but I asked for a xmas tree from my nicey nicey bf this year- and it's a very nice tree. Since there was more room in his parents house, we put it up in there and decorated it with stuff that's been hiding in the attic for several years! Free ornaments! From decades past!
It's so ridiculously fun to decorate trees. In New England, it is a given that your tree will be a live tree. Ours was a very prickly blue spruce that was very wide. We had a couple hundred glass ornaments on it, but for some funny reason, the ornaments that were the most fun were these guys that were probably made by one of Cs sisters at some point...


Last but not least, Cs sister made me this very cool stocking- it's made of OLD SWEATERS! Tres chic example of reuse, no?