jelyon (dot) com

(November 30th, 2008) This is the newest addition to our household, Billie ”Kitty Day” Holiday Cat. We call her Holiday. She’s anywhere between three and six months old.

Not sure I’d ever go through this exercise, but I thought the recipe was interesting. From Things Asian:

3 tablespoons un-roasted coffee
4 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoon pulverized cardamom seeds

Place coffee in a heavy frying pan, then roast over high heat, stirring constantly until it just begins to brown. Remove and allow to cool, then coarsely grind.

Place water in a coffee pot, then bring to boil. Add coffee, then brew over medium heat for 10 minutes. Pour through a strainer into an ibriq (serving coffee pot) or another ordinary coffee pot. Add cardamom, then bring to boil. Brew for 5 minutes, then pour into tiny Arab coffee cups and serve.

Emma’s Birthday at the Austin Children’s Museum: Emma got all shy when the kids started singing happy birthday. It was very very cute, and very very sweet. What I especially appreciated was asking her when we got home how she felt when everyone sang happy birthday, and having her say she felt shy. I think “self conscious” is actually what she was feeling, but let’s not quibble over a word, eh?

November 12, 2008

Take one part cupcake batter, two parts 5 y/o assiting mommy in the kitchen, mix in some beater licking and a dash of can’t stand still-itis with a shallow depth of field, and you get photos that are not quite in focus…so they need to be given the old B&W treatment. And then a little iPhoto Antique treatment on top of that.

Project 365: Aftermath of Baking

(But the tale is about the same anywhere, I reckon, unless one makes an effort to live near a bus stop or train station.)

8201 S Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78745
$1.00 (vs. $12.40 driving!)
Travel time: about 2 hours 11 mins

Bus – 1L – North Lamar/South Congress Via Lamar – Direction: Northbound
Service run by Capital Metro – 512-474-1200
5:21pm Depart Congress/Foremost (Stop ID: 5310) 1 hour 13 mins
6:35pm Arrive North Lamar Bay 3 (Stop ID: 5227)

Bus – 240 – Parkfield – Direction: Northbound
9 mins to make transfer
6:44pm Depart North Lamar Bay 2 (Stop ID: 5226) 33 mins
7:17pm Arrive Amhearst/Adelphi (Stop ID: 4876)

Walk to House – About 15 mins

Yeah.

No thanks. It only takes me an hour to drive the 20 miles from the Capitol Area Food Bank to home. OK. 50 minutes. On a good day.

Oh. And with gas at 2 bucks a gallon, it only costs me $3.50 to drive there and back. Not $12.40.

The first week has been nothing but positive. Everyone’s been so nice, and obviously pleased to have me there, it’s almost been a bit overwhelming at times. I’m kinda used to the honeymoon period lasting until just the next morning.

What I’d always hear at my for profit jobs would be “welcome aboard.” What I’ve heard at the Capitol Area Food Bank is “Welcome! We’re so glad you’re here!” It’s nice. I’m never going to work in the private sector again!

It’s a nice feeling, too, to have the sense that the Food Bank has a well run program for integrating VISTAs.

I have a feeling I’ll start getting more into the meat of the job in the next couple of weeks, and I’m really looking forward to that.

I guess I’ve always been a bit of an idealist. I remember when I was younger – when I was in the Navy I guess – thinking it might be nice to join the Peace Corps. Unfortunately, due to the career path I took in the service (Cryptologic Technician, Technical), the Peace Corps was not an option for me. Or so I heard.

Oh. Lookee here:

Does working for the CIA or having a background in intelligence disqualify you from serving in the PC? Why? Is that discriminatory?

Persons who have been employed by an intelligence agency, or otherwise have been associated with intelligence activities, are ineligible to serve as volunteers. This exclusionary policy is one aspect of the broader, long-standing policy of maintaining an absolute separation between Peace Corps and intelligence activities conducted by the U.S. government. This absolute separation is necessary to protect volunteers’ safety and to maintain the trust and confidence of the people in the countries in which volunteers serve.

I reckon that answers that. I wasn’t in the CIA, but I do have a background in intelligence, after a fashion.

So where was I?

Oh, yes. Ever the idealist. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to believe in the value of policies that help mitigate poverty and provide opportunity.

But it wasn’t until I took “Race, Class and Gender” at St. Edward’s that I started focusing on a specific area to which I thought I might want to dedicate myself. Specifically, economic and wealth inequality. (Which are, of course, linked to any number of other types of inequality.)

After I graduated from St. Ed’s in August of 2007, I continuted to stay home with my daughter until August of 2008, when she started a full time pre-K program. I started casting about more seriously for gainful employment. I realized fairly quickly that I was pretty much out of the running for many of the kinds of jobs that I wanted; a burden, perhaps, of living in a city with a well regarded school of Public Affairs.

While browsing the St. Edward’s University Career Services job listing, I took note that AmeriCorps had a number of open positions in Austin. I checked out AmeriCorps’ website, and when I saw VISTAs (Volunteers in Service to America) are specificially dedicated to fighting poverty, I knew I’d found my program.

I guess, long story short, my reasons for becoming an AmeriCorps VISTA:

• An opportunity to work in a position to help mitigate poverty.
• An opportunity to do so in my own community.
• An opportunity to serve with the Capitol Area Food Bank of Texas, which is well regarded and very active in Central Texas.
• An opportunity to scratch my idealistic itch.
• It paid enough to make it worth my while. I’d been a volunteer post-graduate intern with my Texas State Legislator’s office, but it didn’t pay, though the experience was great. I knew that it would likely be very difficult for me to find a paying position doing what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to take a position in the state government just to get a paying job. Nor could we afford for me to do a long term volunteer gig in hopes of eventually finding a position.
• An opportunity to gain skills and experience working in a non-profit environment.

Zebra in Texas: This was taken just south of Austin Texas, at the Texas Disposal Systems Exotic Game Ranch and Pavilion.

Project 365: Zebra in Texas

Lady Bird Johnson from her “Speech on the Progressive Future of American Youth.” Madison, Wisconsin, 23 Sept. 1967:

It is not enough to be dissatisfied with things as they are, unless you put that dissatisfaction to work. It is not enough to use your voice against the world as it is, unless you’re willing to use your hands and your head to build the world that should be…We must be seekers, yes. And doubters. But builders and believers too. So I urge you to begin your building now.

Click through for the full quote:

(more…)

As I begin my year of service with AmeriCorps as a Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA), I’m relaunching this blog to focus on my VISTA service at the Capitol Area Food Bank of Texas and on my Project 365.

Update: I’m using WordPress 2.6.3, and Revolution 2 “Revolution Office” theme. (Note to anyone else wrangling this theme – you’ll want to use the “thumbnail” custom field key, with the path to the file as the value. Believe me.)

And as you’ll see – I still have some work to do on getting the pictures to display correctly.