So it's official......

Americans are shrinking!

Great! Just what I need. It is hard enough given that all the shorties want tall men too! Now, there are fewer of them!

So, apparently the average height in the US is not 5'10" :-I That is 1 inch taller than I am barefoot! And below my low end height preference of 6'0". Sigh......

What is a tall girl to do???

Apparently, go to Holland! In Holland, the average height is 6'1". Hey, I like cheese and windmills and.... well, there is Amsterdam.... And people are taller in Denmark too at 6' even.

But this is rather depressing. We are now #3 in height amongst industrialized nations. And, they say that height is the single most definitive indicator of success across societies. Tall people are more successful, are more likely to be elected into public office..... The Romans were one of the tallest civilizations when they ruled the Western world. When George Washington, at 6'2", was elected president, Americans were the tallest people in the world and held the title for 200 years. But in my lifetime, we have lost that title.

So, some of the key indicators that can have an effect on height are 1) overall health, especially pre-natal and as children and 2) overeating at a young age which can interfere with the production of key growth hormones. This taps into 2 major issues that are plaguing our society today: Health insurance and the lack of universal health care in this country and the unhealthy eating habits of a fast food nation.

So will this be the undoing of the domination of the US in the world economy? Will we all be looking to Holland with envy as the country rises in power with an army of 6'5"+ leaders at the helm? I doubt it but....... maybe its time to make a trip to Amsterdam and Copenhagen! ;-)

Before and after pics

Okay so you asked for before and after pictures of my little yard project. Unfortunately, I did not take a specific before picture but I was able to find one I had taken a while ago. You can't see the path all that well but I think you get the general idea......

And here are the after pictures...... What do you think?

I think it is definitely an improvement. I am thinking of putting solar lights along it as well since it gets very dark back there at night.

Sometimes ignorance is bliss!

So I decided to go to my neighborhood's monthly security meeting this month. I have had some issues with folks cutting across my proprty at night to jump the fence to get to the parking lot next door and since the association does partols, I want to be the squeaky wheel so I stay on their radar.

Well, now, I almost feel less safe than I did before! I mean I live in the city so I know that stuff happens but now that I hear all the incidents, I feel a little more nervous when I go walk to dog. I don't want to be insensitive but at least one incident could have been avoided. Picture this....

you and your spouse are walking home one night from a movie in a residential neighborhood....

you notice a car pacing you as you walk along the street......

the car pulls past you and then stops......

Do you:

1) turn and walk the other way
2) stop and walk up to the door of one of the houses you are passing and knock on the door
3) take out your cellphone and call 911 or someone or
4) keep walking?

What would you do?

So maybe chivalry is not quite dead......

but work accountibility, response time and customer service might be!


This weekend I embarked on a "little" yard project. Well, I thought it was going to be a little smaller than it is turning out to be. I came up with this great idea to turn this empty area along the side of my garage into a pebble walkway. I figureed it would be a low maintenance way to maintain the space which just seemed to grow weeds and collect leaves. So I went out and bought some stuff to kill the plants and the landscaping liner fabric to keep the sun out but let water pass through and then I bought a few bags of river pebbles to see how it would look.


It seemed to look nice so I decided to keep going..... but when I actually looked at the bag and figured my square footage, it looked like I would need.......drumroll, please..... about 65 bags of pebbles to fill the space!!! Now, each of these bags weighs about 45 lbs each! (are you starting to put this all together here?)


So, over 3 trips to the Home Depot, I ended up purchasing and moving around almost 3000 lbs of pebbles!! That is 1 1/2 tons! Good thing I have been working out!


And I really needed my strength too because, of the 3 trips I took, I only got help from Home Depot personnel to move the bags and load them into my care ONCE! (for only 24 of the bags.) The other two times, the cashiers paged for loading help and NOONE came! I got tired of waiting so I just did it myself. (Sigh, story of my life......) Good thing strangers saw the absurdity of this and decided to help me. The first time this woman, who was standing by me, volunteered her boyfriend to help me load my car. The last time, this guy in a convertible who was driving up to the store saw me and asked me to wait until her parked his car so he could help me! Thank you! So it seems chivalry is not completely dead....


But I am thinking of writing to Home Depot and giving them a piece of my mind!


But my walkway is looking pretty nice!

My new favorite white person!

Alright, I already liked him because of his work on Project RED. For information see my previous post from and go get your Project RED t-shirt!) but now, I think I LOVE him! (i am exaggerating a bit but you get the idea....)

I really have to give Bono his props. He really is truly dedicated to helping the lives of people in Africa. And, in his latest endeavor, he has become to guest editor for Vanity Fair for the July issue which is dedicated ENTIRELY to the challenges and what can be done to improve the future of the the African continent.
There are also 20 different celebrity covers, shot by Annie Leibowitz, pairing different celebrities and thought leaders. Here are some of my favorites!


So go to the newstand and pick up a copy or two! And if there is a particular cover you want, you purchase a copy online here. Here is a listing of the table of contents for the edition:

Vanity Fair Special Issue: Africa

84 GENERATION KENYA
After decades of one-party rule, 90s Nairobi was a nonstop hustle, steeped in booze and corruption. No one was more surprised than Binyavanga Wainaina when Kenya began to trust itself.

96 THE TUTU CONNECTION
Archbishop Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize for opposing apartheid in South Africa. Talking with Brad Pitt, he explains why the fight for equality must go global. Photographs by Annie Leibovitz.

104 AT THE DESERT'S EDGE
Tunisia may top the list of Africa's success stories. Yet, as Christopher Hitchens discovers, five years after a devastating al-Qaeda attack, the threat of Islamic extremism still lingers in the air.
126 ENTER CHINA, THE GIANT
China's desperate oil grab is helping to fuel some of Africa's most vicious conflicts, including Darfur. Sebastian Junger follows the money, the guns, and the cycle of oppression. Photographs by Teun Voeten.

140 JEFFREY SACHS'S $200 BILLION DREAM
Extreme poverty can be eradicated, insists superstar economist Jeffrey Sachs—all it takes is determination, focus, and, well, money. In Uganda and Kenya, Nina Munk gets a tour of his ultimate battleground. Photographs by Guillaume Bonn.

156 THE LAZARUS EFFECT
aids is no longer a death sentence, thanks to miracle drugs. But millions still can't afford them. Enter the consumer-action strategy of (Product) Red. On the ground in Rwanda, Alex Shoumatoff learns what a difference buying (Red) can make. Photographs by Antonin Kratochvil.

162CONGO FROM THE COCKPIT
Despite being blacklisted, the Congo's rogue airline pilots keep trade flowing with jerry-rigged planes. As William Langewiesche finds, the family behind one charter outfit has an equally dramatic saga of wreckage and survival. Photographs by Guy Tillim.

168A MAN CALLED HOPE
When Nelson Mandela stepped out of the political spotlight, in 1999, he moved center stage in the struggle against H.I.V./aids. Bill Clinton, who took a similar path, shares his stories of the legendary freedom fighter.

170SHOWTIME IN THE SAHARA
Like a rowdy mirage, "the world's most remote" music festival fills the Sahara with explosive rhythm. MTV founder Tom Freston has scoped a lot of bands, but in Mali he hears a whole new dimension. Plus: Youssou N'Dour's West African playlist. Photographs by Jonas Karlsson.

176PORTFOLIO: SPIRIT OF AFRICA
Some see only Africa's poverty, disease, and corruption. They should look a bit closer. From archbishops and athletes to doctors and movie directors, V.F. focuses on 71 Africans who are defying the status quo. Portfolio by Jonas Karlsson, Mark Seliger, and other top photographers.

110OUT OF AFRICA
The DNA shared by the world's six-billion-plus people ultimately comes from the same place. Leading the Genographic Project, Spencer Wells traces a global debt to Africa.

116HALL OF FAME
Bobby Shriver and Evgenia Peretz nominate the Buffett siblings and the One Campaign for narrowing the gap between Africa's have-nots and America's haves. Photographs by Christian Witkin and Gasper Tringale.

118THE CONTINENTAL SHELF
Attending the first-ever Kwani? literary festival, in Nairobi, Elissa Schappell and Rob Spillman identify the grand old authors and hot young talents of an African renaissance. Photographs by Brigitte Lacombe.

198DIANA'S FINAL HEARTBREAK
As she divorced, Princess Diana found a very public new mission—to ban land mines—and a very private new man: Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan. In an excerpt from her forthcoming book, Tina Brown explores how Diana's promising second act turned dark.
Special Section

45"IT'S BONO, ON LINE ONE"
Following the 21-person relay on Annie Leibovitz's historic cover series—Warren Buffett to Oprah to George Clooney, among other high-profile handoffs—Lisa Robinson reports on their Africa connection.

FANFAIR
67
Like a prayer—Madonna's Malawi documentary brings hope to orphaned children. The Cultural Divide. Kelly Slater surfs J-Bay with the locals. Lisa Robinson's summer festivals.
Vanities

149
PHETO attraction. V.F.'s guest editor and Ed Coaster swashbuckle from Bamako to Soweto. Chris Rock's African vacation. George Wayne gushes over Liya Kebede.

A cool way to make a difference!

So I just happened to watching ABC Evening News tonight and was told about one of the coolest things ever! (well, I don't expect you to be as excited as I am but hopefully you will be inspired as well...)
I have been familiar with the concept of microfinance and microcredit for many years now. One of the things that has economic development in empoverished and developing countries is the inability for entrepreneurs to have access to capital. A vegetable seller wants to borrow $100 to set up a stand in the local market. Where can he go to borrow that money? There were very few options. He has no credit history since he has never had a bank account, no real collateral, and the amount he wants to borrow is much less than the loan minimum a traditional bank would lend. Previously, there was no place to for him to get the funds for his dream. But increasingly, there are options for these types of small scale entrepreneurs. You may have heard about the most recent Nobel Prize winner, Mohammad Yunus. He was just a Pakistani economics professor who saw the need for these types of loan in his native Pakistan and has turned it into a large lending organization that has one of the highest repayment rates and lowest default rates of a lending organization in the world. (He also founded Grameen Phone which provides loans for cellphones to women in villages with little or no phone service, who then resell use of the phone to their village mates -- when a person would typically have to travel a day or two to use a phone, this is an invaluable service.) The impact that these loans have on the people who get them and the economies that benefit from them are immeasurable! I had even looked into getting a job with the organization but the headquarters is located in Seattle :-( For more information on Grameen Bank and its sister organizations, click here.

At any rate, while these organizations sound great, there have not really been ways for regular people to be involved in them. Until now......

Meet Kiva.org!

Kiva.org brings microlending to the people. The organization, whose name means "agreement" in Swahili, partners with microfinance organizations and allows you to search through opportunities in numerous countries to lend money to needy entrepreneurs. And even cooler, there is an opportunity to pool your money with other lenders. You don't have to take on the risk of the entire loan requested. Instead, donate however much to have to spare toward the amount requested. And in the 3 years the site has been in existence and of the 9,000 loans they have enabled, they have only have one default! The site also provides information and pictures of the person requesting the loan as well as allows you to create a profile that will be shared when you make a loan. It is the personal connection that is created that is particularly appealing. You get a feeling for where and to whom your money is going. So I urge you all to go to the site, take a look and maybe donate a few dollars. Just think, for the cost of a martini or two, you could give a family in Uganda a cow!

One of the reasons ABC News did a story on Kiva was that they just recently started offering loans to entrepreneurs in Iraq. So if you feel frustrated about the war or helpless to try to find a way to help the situation in Iraq, you can make a loan. Other countries where
you can make a difference include Samoa, Togo, Kenya, Ecuador, Mexico, Azerbaijan, Nicaragua, Honduras, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Ukraine, Tanzania, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Senegal, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cameroon, Bolivia, Uganda, Vietnam, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Guatemala & Bangladesh.

To view the ABC New story, click here.

The Long Weekend.....

I hope you all enjoyed your extra day off from work (for those who had it!) I actually had a nice relaxing weekend. I didn't plan much, I think this might have been one of the first Memorial Day weekends when I didnt go out to a club (well, Friday night happy hour doesn't count, right?) There was this big music festival at the park near my house and a friend of mine and I just planned to go to the park every day. It was great! The weather was really nice. I augmented my little Jamaica tan and I didn't cook one thing all weekend!

Well, truth be told, the first day of the festival you should have seen me and my friend, walking up the street pulling two coolers with wheels packed full of premixed mojitos and sangria, crackers, cheese, chips etc, chairs and an umbrella. (Premixing drinks doesn't count as cooking does it? Even if they do have fresh fruit and fresh mint in them?) We found out spot at about 2pm and didnt leave until aftern 11pn when the last act left. The next day, we decided to be lower maintenance and just drink our leftover stuff from the day before and bring wine. (this turned into champagne mojitos but lets not talk about that!) We did get there until 5:30pm that day but stayed until the end. The last day, I went to a BBQ at a friends place and then met up with my friends in the usual spot at about 7:30pm.

All in all it was a cool relaxing weekend........ I used to feel like I had to be doing something all the time, to take full advantage of time off but more and more I am learning to enjoy just relaxing and taking everything in....Yay! :-)

My lack of hair (posts)

So, I am sure that you all have noticed that my posts are less and less about my hair. Well, there weren't all that many to start with. I have had my locks for 12+ years and to be quite honest, I don't think about it all that much. But isn't that all our goal?

• To have hair that we don't have to worry and fret over...


• To have hair that you are proud of


• Not to have the watch the weather forecast with trepidation hoping for dry skies so that there will be no frizz....


• To not be constantly searching for hair products to make your hair behave... (Well, that was my goal... can't say it was the same for Brunsli!)


• To be freed from the constant wasting of time at the salon.... (I have a good friend who goes to get her hair done every Saturday at 12:30pm -- that is just not for me!)

So I guess I have acheived that! I only think about my hair about every two weeks when I wash it or on the occasion when I get in a conversatiion with someone about it... So increasingly I am concerned with other aspects of my life, and my posts reflect that. I don't find that my hair gets in the way or anything that I have tried to accomplish. I mean, after 12 years, I have interviewed with it (many times and at various stages, not all of them that cute!), worked with former government officials and ambassadors with it, gone to grad school with it gotten 3 jobs with it.

I am basically free of hair angst (except for the occasional worry about the new little locks that are starting along my hair line), and it feels great!

But just because I don't talk about it much doesn't mean I don't love it!

What we all have been waiting for!

There is nothing like a comfortable pair of jeans. But, if you are like me then you HATE shopping for jeans. It is a painful experience because they rarely fit right and, can we just forget about the skinny jean trend..... I didn't even try!

Typically, if I can get jeans over my calves, then you have to get past my thighs.... then, the hips (and I don't have the biggest hips). Oh yeah, and lets not forget the length. It is just painful! Often I leave feeling like all jeans are made for skinny, short, narrow hipped white girls!

Now, this has gotten better over the years. A lot of companies have caught on, offering a variety of cuts, lengths, etc of jeans and there are even companies like Baby Phat and Apple Bottom that celebrate our curves. But I am already traumatized. And, now, it is almost more intimidating because there are so many more styles to try on and narrow down.

So I was intrigued when I heard about Zafu.com

At Zafu, you fill out a simple but detailed survey about your shape and preferences when it comes to the fit of your jeans and it gives you suggestions based on those answers. And then you can narrow those results down by a number of factors like fit rating, length, brand, fabric etc...

I have gotten my results and I am feeling like this is doable. I know where to start. We'll see how it all turns out. And, please let me know what you think of the results you get.

Cute little things....

Undoubtedly, if you have traveled around or lived in Europe you have noticed these cute little cars driving around... They are tall but short and seem to be a parallel parkers dream, able to fit into all those just too small spaces you runinto when searching for parking around the city. They are called Smart cars and here is a picture of one that I snapped while in Paris a couple years ago.....

Well, the Smart car is coming to the US in 2008. There are 3 models, one is a convertible and you can reserve yours now for just $99 with a credit card. Starting this month, Smart will be touring the country, demoing the cars and providing test drives.

History:

Ironically, the concept of the Smart car developed in the early 90's through with a Joint Venture between Mercedes-Benz and Swatch, the makers of Swatch watches known for their wide array of colorful designs. Nicolas Hayek, the inventor of the Swatch watch brought his ideas for an “ultra-urban” car to Mercedes-Benz.

Price/Features:

The models start from $12,000 to $17,000 and the convertible the fortwo passion cabriolet comes with an upgraded soundsytem with mp3 player connection. Leather seats are also available for an additional cost. Other innovations like the selection of energy efficient and recyclable materials, the removable door panels (you can change the color of your smart as you desire) and a high driving position for great visibility in a small car combined to make smart a true revolution in driving style.

Safety:

So I have this personal mindblock that small cars are dangerous, there is just not enough metal around me for me to feel safe. Apparently, the Smart is stock full of safety features usually reserved for high end cars incuding a protective “tridion safety cell”, electronic stability program (esp), anti-lock braking system (abs), Electronic Brake-Force Distribution Control, Acceleration Skid Control, and four airbags.

Fuel Economy/Speed:

The vehicle is designed to achieve 40 plus mpg under normal driving conditions and current standards. The car can achieve top speeds of approximately 90mph.

Size:

The cars are:

• 8.8 feet long (you can usually fit two smart fortwos in an average parking space!)
• 5.1 feet tall (the smart still has as much headroom as most luxury vehicles!)
• 5.1 feet wide (two six foot, five inch plus people can sit side by side with plenty of shoulder room to spare!)

Also, the fortwo has 8 cubic feet of storage space – 12 feet if you load up to the roof line. This area can accomodate commonly transported items such as numerous bags of groceries, gym bags and other items , including golf clubs. For trips to the airport, the trunk can also accommodate many sizes of luggage. The front passenger seat also folds down creating additional space for other long items such as skis.

So, I don't know if the Smart is right for you but it will be an interesting and refreshing entry into the American market. It would be a cute, soot around the city car.....

For more info, check out www.smartusa.com