Quinoa and Black Beans - GF/CF

We recently started a gluten free, casein free diet so I've been modifying old recipes and looking for new ones. This is one that I really liked. It's hearty and easily modified to include extra veggies you might have lying around. It was also a breeze to make. I found the original recipe on AllRecipes.com.

The comments on All Recipes include suggestions of adding tomatoes, zucchini, and lemon juice. I think the next time I make it I might try adding some fresh red onion at the end, uncooked, just to add a little extra zip and crunch.


Ingredients
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
 salt and pepper to taste
1 cup frozen corn kernels
2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro


Directions
Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic, and saute until lightly browned. Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with vegetable broth. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes, Stir frozen corn into the saucepan, and continue to simmer about 5 minutes until heated through. Mix in the black beans and cilantro.

You Don't Have to Be a "People Person" to Be an Extravert, as Sherlock Demonstrates

“You have a grand gift for silence, Watson. It makes you quite invaluable as a companion." 

-- Sherlock Holmes (by Arthur Conan Doyle)

Lately I've been thinking about Sherlock Holmes. I've read one of Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories, but the latest BBC iteration of the fellow has quite entranced our family. The way the character is portrayed in the show, and I think in Arthur Conan Doyle's books as well, really is a marvelous example of the fact that not all extraverts are "people persons." (If the first retort to well up in your brain is, "But Sherlock could't possibly be an extravert! He hates having to deal with people!" then this post is especially for you.)

I believe the Sherlock character is a brilliant portrayal of an ENTP. His primary mode of operation is extraverted intuition (Ne) which means his brain is constantly on what we might think of as "brainstorming mode." He's jumping from taking in what clothes a person is wearing, what perfume he might smell on them, what crumbs still sit in their tie or beard, the mud that's on the edge of their shoes and then suddenly he's thinking about the position that person had been in, where they were coming from and where they were going to, and before the average onlooker has taken in the fact that there are indeed crumbs in the fellow's beard, Sherlock has already perceived about a hundred other details and possibilities and connections and patterns. In other words, Sherlock is inputting data from the world around him at an energetic pace and rapidly finding the connections between the data that he's assimilating. He's taking in input (That means he's perceiving, not judging. So his primary mode of operation has to do with the second letter in the 4 letter MBTi algorithm which addresses perception.) and he's taking that input from a broad swath of the external world. (That means he's doing so in an extraverted manner as extraverts tend to be broad where introverts are deep. Sherlock isn't taking a small set of data and delving deeply into it. He's taking in dizzying amounts of data from everywhere, often including areas people overlook. The net he casts is very broad.)

Sherlock's secondary mode of operation fits in well with his primary as a means of sorting out which data is important and which isn't. That secondary mode is introverted thinking (Ti). Despite the fact that he's taking in copious amounts of input, he then weeds through it very logically, discarding what he believes to be irrelevant or impossible. This secondary function is a judging function, which means that it's what Sherlock uses to make decisions, or judgements, about things. His Ti works in lock step with his Ne as it discards data that it finds unimportant, then allows the Ne to go back to work sorting out connections between the input that's been perceived.

Notice that the character tends to be full of frenetic energy when there's a new case, new input to be received, a new crime scene to case. He's using all of his senses to take in information around him and find patterns or connections within it. He seems most calm when he's processing the information and weeding out the unimportant details. When a person is extraverting, they're relating primarily to the outside world, which comes out as energy and interaction. When a person is introverting, the action is all taking place inside of them. All of the energy is running through their brain and though the brain can be running at a jillion miles an hour, the outside observer doesn't see the activity, so it looks like the person has suddenly slowed down or is inactive.

I've seen discussions online regarding Sherlocks personality type and pretty much everyone agrees he's either ENTP or INTP. In other words, everyone agrees that he's an extraverted intuitive and that he's an introverted thinker. The real question is which of these functions is primary and which is secondary. I think a fairly solid argument could be made either way, and of could it might depend upon which Sherlock (from the original books, from a tv show, or from a movie) you're considering as one character might be much more an introvert than an extravert. But the BBC version seems indubidoubly to me to be Ne first and foremost. I've looked at several clips on YouTube in hopes of finding one that most succinctly portrays what I'm talking about, and I wanted to settle on the "I'm bored" scene (which is brilliant and certainly shows my point as Sherlock can't sit still even when he has nothing at all to do. He craves the mental activity that a good brainstorming experience gives him and he'll resort to shooting the wall if there's nothing else to keep him occupied.) but instead I decided to go with this short riding crop clip. It's rather repulsive, but it clearly shows Sherlock physically interacting with the world around him in an effort to correctly sort data he's collected. In other words, if Sherlock was primarily an introvert, he would have found medical books with information about the kind of damage that a riding crop could do. But instead he collects a corpse and tests the riding crop out, quite physically, in order to collect data.


The next time you watch the show, pay attention to how much Sherlock moves compared to Watson (an introvert). Sherlock waves his arms around, steeples them in front of himself, jumps and glides and moves all over the crime seen while Watson just stands there, a bit flustered, wondering how he can possibly save a situation that he feels Sherlock has entirely screwed up socially.

Which brings me back to the fact that Sherlock is seriously not a people person. He really doesn't like people much and he frequently puts his desire for input and his cutting decision making skills far before social niceties. However, his third function is extraverted feeling, which usually seeks peace and harmony between people. As a third function, however, not only is it not very strong, but it's also a minion to the two higher functions. So when it suits, Sherlock can be charming, or he can ease negotiations or calm people down. But it's not because he truly wants people to be charmed or at ease or calm. It's entirely because it aids either his extraverted intuition (enabling him to take in and make connections with more types of data than he might otherwise have been able to do) or it assists his introverted thinking which might need help in better analyzing a situation correctly.

When people use the term "extraverted" they often associate it with being very people focused, the life of the party, hungry to meet and hang out with crowds of new people. There are extraverts that are like that. They're extraverted feelers (Fe). But there are also three other kinds of extraverts - extraverted sensors (crave new experiences), extraverted thinkers (love to check things off their to do list), and extraverted intuitives (like Sherlock). So the next time you talk about folks who are extraverted, don't give Ne's, Te's, and Se's short shrift. Recognize that extraversion relates to being outwardly focused (in some way or other). Some focus on people, some on actions, some on accomplishments and some on ideas and connects, but they're all focusing on the external.

Extravert. External. It's elementary.

Pu-Pu-Pu and a Whole Lotta of Brisket

I'm not a fan of brisket (being mostly vegetarian), but I enjoyed Rick Moranis's paean to his mother's brisket in, well... "My Mother's Brisket," one of several fun songs on the album with the same title.  You can hear this song and two others online at the New York Times article on the album entitled, "Live Blogging the Bris? This Might Hurt a Bit." (Look to the left sidebar under the photo of the album.)

The other two songs are entitled "Belated Haftorah" (Which is a bit painful to listen to. But then again, so is sitting through a stumbling 13 year old's reading of Torah at their Bar or Bat Mitzvah.) and "Pu-Pu-Pu"(in which we catch up on all the latest gossip).

If you'd like to sample even more, check out snippets from the rest of the album on AllMusic.

1, 2 Buckle My Shoe

This past year I helped out in a double dip math class at our local high school. The students were all 9th graders who were behind grade level in math and needed to catch up. Because the goal is for every student in the district to complete Algebra by 9th grade (and they're pushing really strongly for everyone to take it in 8th grade), the students needed double the amount of math time. They first needed to catch up to where they should be with their pre-Algebra skills and then they had to complete Algebra 1 before year end. I went in every Monday to help them during their second period of math each day.

I knew several of the kids from middle school and had even helped in a math class that some of them were in back in 6th grade. So I liked the relational connection I already had with them, and the teacher that ran the class was a total crack up. I really enjoyed my times helping out. But I was also somewhat frustrated at the position these kids were in. I'd been involved in their middle school and knew that they had already been in remedial classes which were meeting double time just to get them up to speed. These kids weren't dumb. They were double-timing on Algebra and many were still getting these new concepts even at the faster pace. But even when they "got" the concepts, they were still getting problems wrong because they lacked some really basic math skills. Fractions were a continual mystery, no matter how frequently we reexplained them. Decimals were a bit of hocus pocus. And greater and lesser were still concepts they were trying to wrap their heads around. But they knew that a positive slope went up and a negative slope went down. They solved for x like champs. And they coud do lattice multiplication in their sleep. (They just had to use a multiplication chart along the way.) In other words, they seemed to be able to grasp the larger concepts despite having really shoddy foundation work.

Yesterday as I was walking the dogs, we passed a mom and three kids at the park. The older two kids were busy smashing each other's sand castles and getting mad at each other over it. But the youngest was in a stroller by her mom and she called out "Puppy!" as we walked by. Her mom said, "That's right. How many puppies?... Two? Two puppies." The girl was probably only 3 years old and here her mom was teaching her math literacy. How did the mom know to do that?

When I was watching my nephew last week, he was eating carrots and chicken. He had three carrots in front of him on his high chair tray. It just came naturally to me to say, "Three carrots. One. Two. Three." And I pointed to each carrot as I said it.

I think that's what the kids in that high school class had missed out on. Was there anyone saying, "How many puppies?" when they were only three years old? Or were they learning that in kindergarten while all the other kids were beyond that point and cruising on to the concepts of large numbers (counting to 100) and adding numbers (2 puppies walking with that lady and 1 puppy walking with that man over there makes 3 puppies total).

When I was a kid I preferred the Electric Company to Sesame Street. Sesame Street was all about identifying numbers and letters and learning their sounds and values. The Electric Company moved on to phonemes and adding them together to make words. It was exciting stuff. But I probably didn't need the Sesame Street level of education because my mom had already taught me that when I was in a stroller at the park.

How did that mom at the park know to do that? Why do some moms point out that there's two puppies when other moms just smile and say, "Yes, there's a puppy."According to Paul Tough in his book, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America, parents learn that kind of behavior through their own parents, through their peers, and through reading parenting books and magazines. But many lower income parents simply don't know to do that. They're struggling to get by, focused on other things, or simply aren't in a culture that leads them to talk about early childhood education. Geoffrey Canada's program in Harlem sets out not just to educate children, but to change the culture in which they grow up - to teach value and methods of educating kids through regular life experiences.

I usually help out each year in the school my kids are at. I was a high school math teacher in my pre-parent days and being a parent helper in the classroom enables me to enjoy all of the one-on-one teaching bits without having to worry about discipline or planning. It's really a great gig. But I'm considering, for the first time since my kids entered preschool, helping out at a school that my kids have never attended. There's a local elementary school where these high schoolers I helped this past year used to attend. In some ways I felt like it was really too late to be helping those high school students. I think they're a great bunch of kids and they tried so hard to tackle Algebra. But without that foundation, it always felt illusory. So I'm considering going to where someone should have been 9 years ago for those high schoolers. Despite the fact that I know Algebra and can probably help out in a high school class that many parents might struggle in because they haven't used Algebra in decades, I think it might be worth some kindergartener's while for me to sit down with them and say, "Look at these puppies in this photo. How many puppies do you see?" It's a simple thing. But I hope that it could make the difference in some Algebra class 9 years from now.

Adam Grant's, "The Bad Habits of Good Negotiators"

In an email from LinkedIn.com today, they highlighted an article by Adam Grant called, "The Bad Habits of Good Negotiators." It seems to me like a lot of what Grant writes is true not just in formal negotiations, but in relating to people in general.

Grant's main points boil down to:
1) "...the best way to earn trust is to show trust." Even just sharing a bit of personal information like where you grew up, or what your hobbies are, can help to build a sense of trust.
2) Rank your priorities so that the other person understands what's most important to you.
3) This one may be more true of negotiations than relationships in general, but Grant says it's better not to sequence the issues. In other words, if you focus on salary first and ignore the rest of the issues, then once the salary is resolved, it's off the table. It can no longer be used to help in the next part of the negotiation. On the other hand, if everything remains on the table, then you could adjust salary in order to compensate for a change to another part of the negotiation.
4) Do your research so that you're prepared to make the first offer. Then make the first offer. This acts as an anchor to the negotiations and it's better to be the one who picks where that anchor is going to rest. (This section was particularly good and well worth reading the article for.)

My husband, Rob, is a really good negotiator. I don't know how he learned these skills, but he does pretty much exactly what Grant describes here. When he works from home and is negotiating with another company through a conference call, I'm often privy to the whole conversation and I've marveled at his ability to diffuse a tough situation, his strength in standing his ground over non-negotiables, and his willingness to capitulate in areas that simply aren't as important to the company.

I think Grant's first point is one that I don't personally connect well with. Giving out superfluous information when talking with someone just seems wasteful and inefficient. But my husband does it all the time. At first it used to annoy me. He'd be adding extra information in a conversation with the barista at the coffee shop or in a conversation with a friend around the dinner table. In my mind, the information didn't need to be there. It wasn't that it was bad information to share (He usually chats about college degrees with baristas since many are college students. Or he'll throw in a tangential experience during a dinner table conversation.) it's just that the extra information, in my mind, detracted from the real issue at hand (grabbing your coffee and sitting down, or focusing on the item under discussion). But over time I've seen the powerful effect that his seemingly random spurts of extra information have brought about. People look forward to seeing Rob enter the coffee shop. They greet him with a smile and the good will they feel towards him spills over to our son who gets extra whipped cream on his drinks when he's there with his dad. While I'm trying to get an idea pinned down or a task finished, Rob is building good will with the people around him.

Over time I've tried to do what Rob does. I've tried making conversation when all I really want is to finish a transaction and get out of there. And it works. The positive good will helps future transactions go more smoothly. And there's that community building/networking thing going on at the same time that sometimes comes back around in positive ways of its own. It's not like there's always an immediate positive reaction to chatting a little and building trust. Sometimes people are just too busy to reciprocate and I just have to pat myself on the back for trying and not let it get me down. But I think that that trust building piece, as well as being the one to step out there first in an interaction and set the anchor, can be really beneficial to ourselves, our relationships, and our community. It's good stuff, and well worth reading Grant's post.

Distinguished Service Award

Next year my youngest two will be moving on to high school. Today was the end of the year awards ceremony at their middle school to honor all of the kids who excelled or greatly improved throughout the year. Scholarships and other awards are also given out. Last year the principal started giving out a distinguished service award. The first year it went to Bobby Young, the vice principal who was leaving to be a principal up in a mountain district. I was so pleased to catch him mopping up the floor after a game at the same event where he was given the award. It just embodied the kind of guy he is.

I was asked to come and be paparazzi for the event (which is one of my usual tasks at school events). I had a copy of the program and was trying my best to follow along so I knew who I was photographing as the awards were given out. Then I saw the last award for the day, the distinguished service award. My name was next to it. I was instantly teary eyed.

Before the second to last award was given out, Mr. Mac came over and asked if he could photograph the next kid. I knew what he was up to. So I photographed the next kid and then handed him the camera. These are the photos he took. Thankfully he didn't catch me wiping my eyes. :-}

Award announced. Michaela hugged me. 

Michaela walked me over to Don at the podium.

He was going to try to shake my hand. Silly man. This deserved a hug. 

Anitra handed me a plaque with my name on it. My name! Like they'd planned this or something.

More hugs.

This is where I was photographing all the kids as they got their awards. Mac had me pose as well.

Thank you, Lincoln! I've enjoyed every minute of my time with you. I love hanging out with the kids at lunch. You teachers are the best! Hugs all around. :-)

Communism, Housing Codes, and Other Sorts of Villainy

I live in Old Town, Fort Collins. The city was incorporated in 1869, but it didn't experience its first population boom until after World War I when many Craftsman cottages were built to accomodate the growing number of residents. So while we have a few Victorians and Queen Annes, the bulk of houses in Old Town are cute 1-story bungalows with wide front porches.

In the past decade there has been a fair amount of new construction going on. Some of the building is in the form of additions which keep the façade of the original house while adding space either back or up or both. But there's been an increasing amount of "scrapes" in which the old house is removed completely and a new house is built in its place - often 4 or 5, sometimes as many as 7 times as large as the original house.

Though some new construction fits right in with the existing houses, there are occasional examples of buildings that stick out like a sore thumb, substantially changing the character and feel of the neighborhood. These houses also cause other problems such as lack of solar access. The photo above shows one of my favorite examples of solar misdealings. Note that the new house on the right is built specifically to capture the sun to the south. The patio and porch are both located on the south side of the building and the bulk of the house itself is shoved as far to the north end of the lot as possible in order for the south side of the house to maximize its solar access. The older house to the north, as can be seen to the left side of this photo, is cast into shadow. (This photo was taken in mid-March, so though the shadow blocks sunlight to the southern end of the house, in winter the new construction blocks sunlight to a much larger percentage of the older building.) Loss of solar access is not only a problem for those with seasonal affective disorder, but it can also double heating bills as passive solar heating is blocked, and it can cause ice damns that can physically damage the structure.

Some new construction fits in really well with the surrounding houses. The green house in the center of the photo above was built in 2007 and has about twice as much livable floor space as the surrounding houses. But when walking along the street, you'd be hard pressed to pick this house out among the others as being new.

Because of complaints from Old Town residents regarding the changing neighborhood, city council looked into the issue back in 2010. They passed an ordinance that would reduce the cap on housing size. But several real estate agents and builders led a petition drive to repeal the ordinance. They were successful in collecting the required 3000 signatures, representing 2% of the city of Fort Collins. Over 80% of the signatures were from people who didn't live in Old Town. The city council backed up and rethought their strategy. They decided they needed more citizen input and they needed to address more than just house size. They added character and solar access issues to what should be addressed, they hired outside consultants, and another year was spent drawing up a new ordinance. I participated in 5 of the 6 community input sessions and was quite pleased by the amount of input the consultants solicited in terms of determining the problems, goals and possible solutions. It was an excellent display of public participation, open to all, and conducted online as well as in person in order to accomodate as many local citizens as possible.

In March, the city council passed the new ordinance which made more modest changes to the overall house size limits and addressed the issues of solar access and design styles. Old Town residents were overjoyed. Though some of us thought the ordinance didn't go far enough in protecting our neighborhoods, we were still glad for some improvements to the current building codes. But several of the people who repealed the previous ordinance agitated to repeal this one as well. After we pointed out the involvement of real estate agents and builders, many of them took a back seat to the proceedings, but the repeal movement continued forward. A neighbor and I met with several other Old Town neighbors to brainstorm ways that we could encourage people not to sign the petition. We created a flyer that educates people about the new ordinance, we've talked with the local newspaper, and we've submitted letters to the editor.

Some of the discussions on the online version of the newspaper get a bit heated. But it's a recent post to the Facebook page of the repealers that really struck me as... stunning. A woman named Lynda, whose last name I've hidden, seems to feel that these added protections for residents of Old Town aren't just outrageous, but they're outright communism.

I'm not making this up. She really said that. That's why I took a screen shot.

I don't even know what to think. The goal of the ordinance is to protect people who live in Old Town from losing their sunshine, from having houses looming over their own, and from having the character that they moved to the neighborhood for obliterated. And that's communism? I apparently missed the explanation of communism in my economics class because I clearly didn't think it involved protecting a person's quality of life. In fact, my own relatives experienced communism first hand in Ukraine in the early 1900's. For them, it meant being shuffled off to Siberia and later being dumped back in Ukraine without a penny to their name. That seems like a far different experience than being told that you can't block all of your neighbor's sunlight with your new house.

Maeby - a shredding machine

This is our dog, Maeby. She likes to shred.

Winter Photos of Fort Collins - 2013

These are photos I've taken during my morning walks with the dogs over the past couple of months.

Fence across an irrigation ditch

Old cistern

Laika

Pattern of roots under a dusting of snow

Stiff branch with bendy bark

Reflection across the pond

Cattails

Geese on the pond

The sun behind the clouds

Tree with the sun behind it

Reflection in the Poudre

Reflection in the Poudre (I flipped the pic.) 

Reflection in the pond

MBTi Is More a Formula than a Set of Scales

I used to think that the 4 letters in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator were 4 scales and people fell to one side or the other, and some fell more to one side than others who fell toward the same side. In other words, each letter was like a slider and every person fell somewhere along the line.

The problem with this model is that when I would compare two people who seemed to be very similar, like an ISTJ and an ISTP, they didn't really seem all that similar. One would cower at the sight of a spider while the other was booking reservations to go fling themselves from a plane with only a thin layer of silk protecting them from imminent death.

The scale paradigm also meant that when you'd talk to people about their personality type, they'd feel like they had the option to sit on the fence, right in the middle of two ends of the scale. You could hang around the person for 10 minutes and tell right away that they were an extravert or an introvert, but because they could think of times when they had been an introvert as well as times when they had behaved in an extraverted fashion, they decided that meant they were both. (It doesn't. We all have times when we're introverting and times when we're extraverting. That doesn't mean we're on the fence in the middle. It just means that we're human.)

I had heard people talk about functions before, but I couldn't really follow what they were talking about. It wasn't until I watched several of DaveSuperPowers videos on YouTube that it all finally started to click. An introverted sensor is a very different animal than an extraverted sensor. The introverted sensor likes to collect details, data, facts. They store them up in their brain and, if you give them reason to get started, will talk your ears right off of your head about all those little boring bits of details until you're ready to shove a pillow over your own face till the pain stops. The extraverted sensor, on the other hand, likes to collect experiences. The old Mountain Dew commercials ("Been there. Done that.") epitomized the idea of collecting sensory experiences.

The more I learned about functions the more I came to realize that the 4 letters that describe a person's type are really not a series of scales, but a formula that describes the person's primary, secondary (and so on) functions. So an ISTJ and an ISTP are both S's, but they're two different kinds of S's: introverted sensor (Si) vs. extraverted sensor (Se). An ISTP (second function: Se) will have more in common with an ESTP (first function: Se) than an ISTJ (Se isn't among any of the ISTJ's functions).

Here's how the formula works. You start with the last letter of the set of four, the J or the P. This will tell you how a person behaves when they are extraverting. (We all have times when we extravert, even if our primary function is introverted.)

The INTJ (and any other person whose type ends with a J) will tend to be action oriented when they are extraverting. They will either be an extraverted thinker (Te) or an extraverted feeler (Fe). Te's are the people you call when something needs to get done yesterday. They are very practical, can-do people who will probably get to work even before you've finished telling them what needs to be done. An Fe is similar, except that they're not going to focus on things but on people. When people think "extravert" what they're often really thinking about is an extraverted feeler - someone who is people oriented.

The ESFP, on the other hand, (and any other person whose type ends with a P) will tend to be input oriented when they are extraverting. They will either be an extraverted sensor (Se) or an extraverted intuitive (Ne).  I mentioned Se's earlier. They're the "been there, done that" people who live in the now and seek sensory input. Ne's also seek input, but it tends to revolve around ideas. They love to brainstorm ways that things can be done differently or be improved upon.

Once you have figured out how a person tends to behave when they are extraverting, you know one of their top functions. When they extravert, they are either Te, Fe, Se or Ne. But just as everyone has times when they are extraverting, we all also have times when we are introverting. We're not looking out or dealing with the outside world, but we're inside our own head, thoughts, feelings, or ideas. If our first function is extraverted, then our second function will be introverted. But if our first function is introverted, then our second function will be extraverted. Everyone has one extraverted function and one introverted function for their top two functions.

Functions are something that we come to develop over time. When we're young, our primary function is the one that works the best for us, so we spend most of our time in that. But as we grow up we find that we have to learn to deal with the outside world (if we're introverts) or deal with our inner life (if we're extraverts). So we start to learn more about being in our secondary function. It's often not until we're adults that we begin to explore our third or fourth functions. If you've ever met a person who is in their 30s or 40s and they've said, "I used to be such and such a type, but now I'm more of this totally other type," that's because they're learning to use functions that they hadn't developed before. It doesn't mean that their personality has changed. Rather, they've reached a point in their life where they feel comfortable, perhaps even bored by, their primary and secondary functions and they're ready to stretch their wings a little into their third and fourth functions.

To find the third and fourth functions, you simply do some flip flopping. So if the second function was extraverted sensing (as in the ISFP example above), then the third function will also be a perceiving function (S/E), but it will be in the opposite attitude (I/E). So the other perceiving function in this case is intuition, and the opposite attitude is introvertion. So the ISFP's third function is introverted intuitive (Ni). Likewise, the fourth function is just the flip flop of the first function. So in this case the first function is Fi, the fourth function will be Te.

When using the scale method of MBTi, it's nearly impossible to figure out where you are, or where others are, on the scale. One day a person might be very secluded and thoughtful. The next day they might be the life of the party. As our circumstances vary, so do our behaviors. But there's a consistent pattern in there, and if you're start to look at the patterns, you'll see the functions emerge.

The New Myspace

I've only been using the new Myspace for a few days now, but I really like it. It's what I think Myspace was supposed to have been since the beginning - a means for musicians and bands to connect with their fans. I still haven't worked out all the in's and out's of the new site, but I thought I'd write up a bit of what I know to help others get started.

First you'll need to sign up for the service. If you've never tried Myspace before, then click on the blue "Join" button. But if you already have a Myspace account, or if you have a Facebook or Twitter account that you'd like to sign in with, select the gray "Sign In" button.

In the future, you'll be able to sign in with your username and password in the section to the right. But for now, assuming that you already have an old Myspace account, click on the dark gray bar to the left that's labeled "with Classic Myspace." (The "my" in front of that represents the old Myspace.)

To say that the new design is a study in subtlety is probably an understatement. Navigation and layout are a leap from anything else you've probably tried. In fact, I can't think of any other websites that operate like the new Myspace. The closest I can come is a newspaper or magazine on a handheld device (like an iPad). Don't think vertical. Everything is horizontal. And if you don't think to scroll right, you're missing out on a fair bit of content. That said, there are all sorts of things hidden in plain sight. I think that once I get used to it, I'm really going to like it. But right now it takes some time to figure out how to do what I want to do. Of course, once I've figured something out, it seems like it should have been obvious to me before.

The dark bar at the bottom of every Myspace page is your anchor. It tells you where you are on the site. It appears to be broken into three main sections:

1 - The lighter dark gray to the far left includes my personalized version of Myspace. When the blue bar is under the word Myspace, then I'm viewing the content that I've indicated I want to see (by "connecting" with artists.) When the blue bar is under my name, then I'm viewing my own profile. The two icons to the right of my name are for notifications and messages. The blue bar doesn't move to be under them (for whatever reason) and both of these work like toggles. Click once and you'll see notifications or messages. Click a second time and they're gone. Click - on. Click - off.

2 - The next section is a darker gray... or is that black? It starts with the word Discover and this is where you'll find the content that Myspace is going to push out to you. I don't know yet if they try to tailor it to each person or if everyone gets the same news there. While you're on the discover page, scroll right. This is a good chance to see how much content hides to the right of the screen. You can also search for content by clicking on the magnifying glass icon. (Again, the blue bar will sit under the word Discover, but the icon is just a toggle - on and off.)

The search page is a little bit trippy at first. It's a blank page with the words "Search Myspace" and "Start typing...". And that's it. But start typing and Myspace will start searching (before you even hit the "return" key.) In the example above, I searched for "Colorado" in hopes of finding local musicians. Unfortunately Myspace doesn't seem to organize bands based on where they're located yet. (If there is a way to search by location, please let me know.) So what I get instead is any song/album/band name that has Colorado in it. To start a new search, just double click on your old search term and start typing a new one.

3 - The third part of the navigation bar at the right is the music player. It's pretty straight forward, but there's one button I'd like to highlight. Any time you see the icon with two interlocked circles (anywhere on the site), it's a call for interaction. You can use it to connect with a band/musician. To connect appears to be similar to "follow" or "like." Myspace will show you updates related to those that you've connected with, and they'll hopefully also show related content based on what you've connected with in the past. But you can also use this button to do other things, such as add the currently playing song to a music mix or send it in a message to a friend.

This should be enough to get you started listening to great music. So pull up a band and get the player running so you have something to listen to while you do a few touch ups on your profile page.

To update your profile, click on your name to the lower left of the nav bar. Now look for a little pencil icon way up in the upper right hand corner of that page. (It took me several minutes to find that little bitty icon. *sigh* It's a perfect example of "Impossible till you know where to look.") Once you know where to find the icon, updating your profile is fairly straight forward.

You'll note that not every musician or band has a profile yet. If you're on an artist's page and you're viewing music, click on the name of the band/artist to see their profile page. If nothing happens and you find yourself still looking at a list of songs, then that artist has not moved their profile over from Myspace Classic to the new Myspace yet. Patience, young padawan. Come, they will. The new Myspace is, as the name implies, new. Not everyone is here yet. But it's a wonderful way to listen to music by your favorite artists, and to share it with all of your friends who aren't here yet, but will be coming soon. So spread the word. Get folks to check out the all new Myspace. The more the merrier. I think this is going to be a lovely place to hang out.

Home is a Private Place?

I grew up as an Air Force brat, so we moved around every 3 or 4 years and I got to see various parts of the country (mostly mid-west, east and west. My dad wasn't stationed in the south until after I'd gone off to college.). Eventually patterns of behavior became clear to me. Easterners do this. Coloradoans are this way. In Michigan, people expect this. I don't know how accurate my viewpoint was, but it was true for my experiences at least.

When I moved to San Francisco from Detroit, one of the biggest differences in how people interacted had to do with the home. In Detroit, when you wanted to hang with friends, you generally grabbed a six pack and headed over to another person's house where you'd sit around playing Euchre and drinking beer. You might go out and do something together outside of the home, but more often than not, hanging out meant hanging out in someone's dining room or living room. Not so in San Francisco. Not only did people hug you there All. The. Time. till it drove you nuts. But they also rarely invited you over to their place. Instead "hanging out" meant meeting up in a café or club or restaurant. (And having a pot luck meant everyone stopping by a restaurant or grocery store on their way to the event to pick up some pre-made grub.)

I just assumed that these were regional differences influenced by the cultural differences of the two cities. The Detroit area is made up primarily of middle class families who don't have the money to pay for a latte every time they get together with someone. San Francisco (even back in the mid to late 90s) was full of single, 20-something professionals who loved nothing better than to pay other people to make overpriced drinks for them. But this morning I hit upon this paragraph in Ty Grigg's post on pastoral visitations:

Home is a private space.  It is not a cultural norm to have neighbors or even friends over to our homes for dinner.  If we want to be with people, we go out.  The restaurant has replaced the space that home once occupied in society.  Typically, for younger generations (40’s and under), a visit will be at a coffee shop or to grab lunch.  In our suburban isolation, the home is too much of an intimate, sacred space for most non-family members to enter.

Ty makes it sound like this is just the norm in America these days. He's writing from Long Grove, Illinois, which I would think would be culturally closer to Michigan than California. 

So I'm wondering, do you believe this is true? Has "Home" has become a private space? Is it no longer a cultural norm that we would invite friends and neighbors into our homes? What do you think? 

Tofu "Meat" Loaf

I make meat loaf for the rest of the fam occasionally and I usually come up with some simple alternative for me, like fried sliced tofu or maybe a Qrunch burger. But today I decided to find a tofu "meat" load recipe to try out. I discovered this recipe from midgelet and really liked it. I would have just pinned it (a la Pinterest) but there are no pictures so it's a no go in Pinterability. (OK, that's a totally lame Meg-word. I openly and fully admit it. But I'm leaving it there. So deal with it.) I'm posting the recipe here so that I can find it easily again, and I'm adjusting it a bit closer to what I actually did.

Ingredients

---

• 1 container of tofu ( firm )
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 1/3 cup soy sauce or tamari
• 2 Tbs mustard
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• squirt of garlic paste
• 1/2 of a smallish onion, chopped fine-ish
• 1 cup or so of puffed millet (or some other puffed grain... or a couple slices of mashed bread)

Directions

---

• Mix everything up. Smash it into a bread tin. Cook it for about 30 - 40 minutes at 350 F until it looks toasty. 

Rememberies

As I move my content from Multiply (a site that I loved dearly and that I'm very sad to see go), I've found a silver lining. Moving posts and photos and videos and recipes reminds me of things that I'd forgotten about. Some of these events seem so recent, and yet when I look at their date stamp, I realized they happened 5 or more years ago. Some of these things seem like they happened ages ago, and yet they're stamped only a year or two previous. How could I have forgotten so quickly?

I'm still not done moving all of my posts from being "imported" to being "published," but I'm working on it. While I'm setting everything up, I'm rethinking my tags/labels, pondering what my new personalized theme should be (though I do miss the sunflower. I may just have to find a way to work that in.), and worrying (a little bit) about what great little tidbits I have on my Multiply site that I might miss as I transfer. 

I came across a very short post over there today. It's one of those things that I worry about leaving behind because it's so precious. Here's the post. It's a quote from one of my daughters (made on July 21st, 2009):

"Mom, while you were out I noted that the animals are not interested in Tabasco sauce." -- Anna


That's my girl. :-) 

That's not what it means to be an extravert!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, extraversion does not revolve around liking to be with people. There are many extraverts in the world who can tire out an introvert in a New York minute and it has nothing to do with the former being more social than the latter.

+The Wall Street Journal had an article in last weekend's paper entitled, "All I Want for Christmas Is... A Little Space." I got as far as the second paragraph and then threw it down in disgust, grabbed my laptop and started pounding out these words. Here's what the author, Sophia Dembling, wrote in that second paragraph,

"Extroverts love being around lots of people and lots of fuss. They need it for their well being. We introverts love being alone with our thoughts in a quiet room, and we need it for our well-being. It's a matter of energy. Extroverts gain it around other people; introverts are drained of it."

I'll admit that when people use the terms extravert (which they also often misspell, by the way. Jung spelled it with an "a" not an "o") and introvert, the above definition is increasingly the screwed up way that the terms are being defined. And I understand that language is dynamic and change happens. So fine, whatever, screw up the words however you prefer. But the more you screw them up, the less you'll really understand who the extraverts are and who the introverts are and why the person that drains the snot out of you is a very clear extravert even though they spend most of their time alone.

Let me start off by saying that there are four kinds of extraverts and four kinds of introverts. One type of extravert, the extraverted feeler (also written as Fe), is indeed energized by being around people. They want everyone to be happy all the time. They're party people. They'll walk up to a complete stranger and invite them to hang out for awhile. Being with people stokes their fires like you wouldn't believe. But there are 3 other types of extraverts who might be alright with the idea of being around people, but that's just not what makes their clocks tick. Extraverted thinkers (Te) love to accomplish things. They're consumate list makers who live to check things off that list. If being around people is on their list then sure, let's go hang with people. The pleasure there is not that the Te is with people, but that the Te can then check one more thing off their list. There are also extraverted sensors and extraverted intuitives. If you'd like to find out more about them, click on the "four kinds of extraverts" link above.

My point is that not every extravert is a people person. And not every introvert isn't. An introvert's primary function will be introverted (Fi, Ti, Si, or Ni), but their secondary function will be extraverted, and if that secondary function is Fe, then it's quite likely that that person is going to come across as being a people person, even though they're an introvert at heart. It's also quite likely that if you are an introvert, and being around another person drains you, it's not necessarily because they're peopling you to death. It could be. Don't get me wrong, I've definitely been peopled beyond my breaking point. But I've also been idea-ed beyond my breaking point (by an Ne) and activity-ed beyond my breaking point (by an Se) and tasked beyond my breaking point (by a Te... though I have to admit that because my secondary function is Te, sometimes I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to over tasking myself).

I encourage you to get to know yourself better in terms of understanding your own type. And I believe there's value in knowing and better understanding the types of those around you as well. But if you misuse the terms extravert and introvert, then it's quite likely that you'll end up mistyping yourself and others and the whole personality types thing will be a meaningless pile of horse dukey for you. I'm sure you've met people before that say, "Those personality tests don't work. That's all just a bunch of hooey." They're right on... if you're going to use the words to mean whatever the heck you want them to mean. In that case, you might as well not even bother.

Integrating Google+ with Blogger

Google products still aren't integrated as well as Multiply was, but it's getting better all the time. And every once in awhile there's a feature that Google has that Multiply didn't - such as being able to tag someone in a post. (On Multiply you could tag a photo, but you couldn't tag a person in any other kind of post.)

Rumor has it that we can now mention people by name in Blogger with the same kind of tagging system that's used in Google+. So, here goes: +Meirav M.   (note to self: "i before e, Except after c, Or when sounded as "a," As in neighbour and weigh"... or when spelling a transliterated Hebrew name.)

Woot! That was easy. When you type a @ or + and then start adding letters after it, Google pops up names of folks in your circles that start with that letter. It works slightly less well when your friends' names defy popular spelling customs.

OK, Meirav, how did it come through on your end? Did you get a regular notification? Did clicking on it bring you to this post? Curious minds want to know.

The Old Firehouse is in the Old Firehouse

For the month of November, the Old Firehouse that I made of Lego bricks was housed in the Albany County Public Library up in Laramie along with some other buildings, streets and other Lego bling provided by Stuart, another CoWLUG member.

For the month of December, you can view the Old Firehouse in the Old Firehouse Bookstore in Old Town, Fort Collins. I may go in at some point this week and bling it out with some Christmas accoutrements. It's right out in the open so you can peer in from the sides (not so interesting) or back (a smidge more interesting) or peek in the windows (would be more interesting if I added lights. I'm considering that).

Reaching Picasa's Photo Storage Limit

I've finally reached Picasa's photo storage limit. I knew the day would come because the amount of content I have on Multiply far and away exceeds Picasa's basic limit of 1 gig, but I thought I'd bump up against the limit and see what they say so I could tell everyone moving their stuff to Google products about it. Here's the message I just received as I was transferring an album of photos from Multiply to PIcasa (Google's photo product):

Whoops! You're out of space. You are currently using 100% of your 1 GB quota for photos. Upgrade storage

Photos are stored in your Picasa Web Albums account and are included in your 1 GB free quota for photos. Additional storage you purchase is shared between several Google products and is in addition to your free quota. Learn more

I had already decided that I would upgrade once I hit the limit. I checked out prices previously and they're comparable to what I've already been paying here in Multiplyland. Do I clicked on the "Upgrade storage" link. The first thing that greeted me was a review of the upgrade options. I had forgotten that Picasa's storage limit is lower than the other products'. Here's the Free plan:

Free

5 GB of Drive (0% used)
10 GB of Gmail (21% used)
1 GB of Picasa (99% used)

So, essentially, because I'd reached 100% (or nearly) in one of those areas, I have to upgrade to add more data to that area. I assume I could keep adding in the other areas without upgrading. But I want to transfer my photos, so I look through the rest of the options.

25 GB

$2.49 / Month

25 GB for Drive and Picasa

Bonus: Your Gmail storage will be upgraded to  25 GB.

There's also a 100 gig option for $5/month. But I don't think I'll need that much space. So I opt for the 25 gig option. It looks like you can't pay on a yearly basis. So I'll be paying $2.49 a month until I cancel. Here's the note on the site: "You will be automatically charged $2.49 USD every month starting October 16, 2012 until you cancel your subscription."

Checkout is done through Google Wallet, which is yet another Google product. I'd signed up for it earlier (in order to buy some Lego's for the Old Firehouse that I was making) so it defaulted directly to that. I don't know if you'd be given other options if you haven't already added this service. Feel free to add that info to the comments if you find out the answer on that one. 

Now that I've purchased my storage, it shows me what my current plan is, it shows the next plan up, which I'd seen before, which is 100 gig. And then it shows a plan I hadn't seen before (for 200 gig) and it shows one more option which apparently goes up into several Terabytes. Yowza! 

I was able to start uploading photos to my Picasa storage again right away. There was no lag time. I haven't received an email update on my purchase yet, though. Hmmm, I even refreshed a couple of times and checked my spam folder. So all in all I'd say that the process was pretty painless, pretty cheap, but I'm a little dismayed that an alert email wasn't sent right away to confirm my purchase (even though I know it went through since I have photos uploading right now.) I also don't know what happens if I don't pay up some month. Do I lose all my content? Some? How do they decide what would stay and what I'd lose? I'll be on the alert for answers to these questions. 

Saint Joseph's Church in Fort Collins

This is the building I'm hoping to do in Lego next.

This album is also a test to see if it's possible to still upload photos to Multiply.

Toxic Itch - Walking It Out

I've had seasonal allergies since college. My nose gets runny, my eyes and nose itch, and I tend to sneeze a lot in the mornings. It's miserable, but at least my allergies knew their place and didn't cross those symptom boundaries... until last year. Last year was the beginning of the all over, take me out of the game, body itch.

It often started with my scalp. Late last summer I worried several times that I'd gotten head lice. You wouldn't believe how much mayonnaise I smeared all over my head. (Mayonnaise is a non-toxic way to soffocate lice as well as many of their eggs. You coat your head with it, wrap your hair with a towel/rag/something, and sleep in it. When you wash it out in the morning, you'll wash the lice and their eggs out as well.) But after having a couple different people look through my scalp and not find anything, and given that the itching seemed to be fairly occasional and not limited to my neck and behind my ears (which is where lice like to hang out) I finally decided something else was going on. Besides, lice didn't explain the occasional hand itching or even the all over body itching that sometimes happened.

My hands were the other frequent victims of intense itching. I never saw welts or bumps, but they'd itch like they were very, very dry. They didn't look particularly dry, though. And putting lotion on them didn't seem to make any difference in terms of whether or not they itched.

And then there was the all over body itch. Sometimes when I was gardening or doing housework, I'd start to itch all over so badly that I'd have to run cold water over my hands to get them to feel better and then I'd lie down until the itching all over the rest of my body stopped. I tried benadryl, zyrtec and some generic allergy medicines but nothing seemed to help.

That's when I finally decided to see a doctor about it. She just shrugged and said, "Well, you'll need to stay out of the wind." So I tried, but noticed that wind or no, the itching continued. Eventually I started to see a pattern to when the itching occurred. If I did anything that caused me to sweat a bit, I'd itch. If I was embarrassed or surprised and I flushed, I itched. I started to wonder if there were toxins in my system and they were coming out when I sweated. Some time in February I came across an article online that said that muscles can store toxins unless they're flushed out through exercise. I started to wonder if that was my problem. When the itching began, I stopped doing anything that would bring it on, meaning that I stopped doing yard work, I stopped gardening, I cleaned the house even less frequently than I already was. I did whatever it took to not itch and that mostly meant not moving around too much. Even running errands would sometimes set it off - just from carrying bags from the store to the car and loading it up. I decided that had to change.

I decided that I'd just have to deal with the itch. I started walking the dog once in awhile, and by March I was walking her daily, in the hope that I could get rid of the itchiness. In the beginning I'd force myself to go at least 5 minutes past the point of utter itchination. Since I was walking in pretty cold weather, it helped a lot that I could take off my hat, mittens or jacket since the cool air seemed to help stop the itching while still allowing my body to remove the toxins. The more often I walked, the longer I was able to walk each time before being hit with the itchies. By mid-April or early May, the toxins must have been out of my system because I stopped itching for several months. But I knew that I couldn't stop walking or the toxins would just build up again.

I've been walking (nearly) every day now since last March. I've had two incidents (one at the end of September and one in early October) where I started to itch again. It was only my hands one time and my head another time, so it still wasn't nearly as bad as last year. It's an easy and cheap solution to a problem that was threatening to change my life. Now that it's the fall again and I'm mostly itch free during the time of year when it was the absolute worst last time, I decided that I need to write about my experience and hope that my story will help others that are experiencing unexplained, hiveless itching.