Dryden Is Home

The Makars - Week Update

The Makars
Originally uploaded by dmakar

Going to bed earlier - check!

Blogging every day - well, not so much.

This past week has been a busy time (though compared to the weeks before, not too bad). A quick recap:
Last Sunday, James came to visit enroute to South Carolina. We did the tour Ithaca in one hour program: Walk across Fall Creek suspension bridge, walk across Stewart Ave bridge, walk right up to Ithaca Falls, beer sampling at Ithaca Beer Company, dinner on restaurant row.

Monday and Tuesday - work!

Tuesday night: Dryden Community Center Cafe meeting (DC3) at 7pm. Town of Dryden Conservation Board meeting at 7:30pm at the Dryden Town Hall. At the same time - recreation commission meeting in the town hall lunchroom and the zoning board of appeals meeting in the main meeting room.

Wednesday night: Town board meeting

Thursday and Friday: continued work with meetings here and there.

Friday night: Dinner in Ithaca's Fall Creek at a home of a friend of mine and a friend of Arjan - - who have been dating for a few years before Arjan and I met - - and who I had met the friend Arjan knew and Arjan had met the friend I knew - - but I still didn't meet Arjan until we were both on Match.com

Saturday: Work from the home office, short break for Patriots/Jaguars game in Belle Sherman, work until the wee morning hours.

Sunday: Office organizing, breakfast at the Varna Community Association's monthly pancake breakfast (Yum!), additional clean and office organization, Ocean's 13, work, dinner, episodes of "The Office: Season 4" from somewhere on the internet.

[The picture for this post is of our front door at 1960 Slaterville Road - winter welcome message courtesy of Arjan's mom.]

Christa and Women Swimmin' 2007

Christa
Originally uploaded by dmakar

Last August 12th, my friend Christa and I canoed and supported swimmers of Women Swimmin' 2006. This Saturday (tomorrow) Christa is swimming across Cayuga Lake with Women Swimmin' 2007. I will once again canoe, this time with my buddy Dirk.

If you are interested in learning more about Women Swimmin' - a benefit for Hospicare and Palliative Care Services of Tompkins County - see their website: http://www.womenswimmin.org/

If you are interested in supporting Christa - - who Dirk and I will be trying to accompany across the lake - - use the form here:
https://secure.pageplanet.com/womenswimmin/donation.mgi?s=ws

Make you donation "In Support Of" "Christa Downey"

Town Board Meeting

Hi Mom,

Today is an exciting day in Dryden. This morning over breakfast I read an article on the cover of the local section of the Ithaca Journal with the title, "Dryden Town Board to offer insight to local government". The article goes on to mention tonight's July town board meeting at the Varna Volunteer Fire Station. Some details of the article include:

-David Makar, a member of the Dryden Town Board and a resident of Bethel Grove, was concerned his neighbors and other town members did not understand the interworkings of their town government.

-Makar proposed a resolution to the board in April to meet at one of the town's four community centers or four fire stations every other month. Varna, Etna, Freeville and the Village of Dryden have fire stations, while Bethel Grove, Varna, Etna and Ellis Hollow have community centers.

Varna was chosen for the July meeting specifically because of the tensions that exist between the western parts of the town and the rest of the town. Residents of the western hamlets of Varna, Etna, Ellis Hollow and Bethel Grove, among other areas, frequently feel isolated from the town government, Makar said.

-Many residents in that part of town have addresses in the Ithaca ZIP code, Makar said. Their children go to school in the Ithaca City School District, and, by car, they're 14 miles from the Village of Dryden.

If you or dad want to read the full article, you can visit their website and see the article here. The meeting is at 7pm tonight with a tour at 6:30 of the fire station. There has been light rain this afternoon and hopefully that will cool off the building - they don't have air conditioning - so I'll be bringing some water to the meeting. Funny though I guess - - bringing water to a fire station!

In other news, Arjan is having a good time in Turkey - she's been emailing me almost every day. The garden is exploding with peppers, the kitty cat still isn't sleeping through the night (waking me at about 4:30am), and  my trip to see you and dad is still on.

Have a good rest of the week, see you soon!

Dave

"Forever Stamps, Are they a good deal?"

This probably could go into my Economics category, should I ever add an Economics category.

Are the USPS's "forever" stamps a good deal for the consumer? "Absolutely not." Stamp prices increase more slowly than the inflation rate so stamps are continually getting cheaper. (from kottke.org):

Fr0m Slate's Explainer Column:

Should I Invest in "Forever" Stamps?
Absolutely not.
By Nathaniel Rich
Posted Thursday, May 17, 2007, at 4:10 PM ET

The postal rate climbed 2 cents on Monday, about a month after the United States Postal Service introduced its new "forever" stamp. As of last week, the USPS had sold more than $82 million worth of the forever stamps, which lock in the 41-cent rate for eternity. One man in Pennsylvania walked into a post office and made an $8,000 investment on his own. Should we all be stocking up?

Absolutely not. Since 1971, postal rates have increased more slowly than the actual inflation rate, as measured by the U.S. Consumer Price Index. So, despite the numerous rate hikes over the last 36 years, stamps have actually been getting cheaper. The 20-cent stamp from 1981, for instance, would be equivalent to 45 cents in today's dollars—which makes today's rate 10 percent cheaper than it was 26 years ago. Should this historical pattern hold, you'd be paying more for today's forever stamps than you would for any stamp in the future, no matter how high the rate goes.

In fact, this pattern must hold—as a matter of law. In December, President Bush signed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which ensures that future price increases will be kept below an inflation-based ceiling. In other words, postage hikes will never surpass inflation—and the forever stamp will never become a good investment. Incidentally, the USPS announced the introduction of the forever stamp less than two months after Bush signed the act into law.

The USPS is not the first postal agency to catch on to the benefits of a forever stamp, which in philatelic circles is known by a less sexy moniker, "non-value indicator." Canada introduced them last November, joining Finland, Israel, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Norway, Monaco, and Sweden, among others.

American forever stamps would have been a good investment if they'd been introduced much earlier. The 2-cent stamp from 1919 would have been a real bargain, at a cost of 24 cents in today's dollars; so would 1952's 3-cent stamp (23 cents today). A forever stamp would have been attractive to the consumer as late as 1971—the year the USPS was formed—when first-class postage was just 6 cents, equal to 31 cents today. The biggest rip-off in the modern era? The 13-cent stamp from 1975—which would be 50 cents today.

Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.

Nathaniel Rich is an editor at The Paris Review.

Snow!

I can't believe I don't have a weather category! Well, today it snowed all over Dryden, Tompkins County and upstate New York. I checked the local bloggers and media to see what pictures they had to report. Looks like Gary, Kathy, and then Melissa beat me to it, followed by the Journal. They only have one picture each though. I have 23 pics. Take a look here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmakar/sets/72157600082756106/

Enjoy the snow day!

Web-Media-Blog Snow Coverage to watch:

• http://grpottersblog.blogspot.com
• http://drydendailykaz.blogspot.com
• http://littlewoolgatherings.blogspot.com/
• http://www.ithacajournal.com/
• http://simonstl.com/dryden/
• http://fivewells.blogspot.com/

Are you covering the storm on your blog?

Alash at ABC Cafe

Alash at ABC Cafe
Originally uploaded by dmakar.

My cell phone's tiny crappy camera works!

Last night Arjan and I had dessert (Toffee Bar for me, Chocolate Pie for her) and a drink (coffee for me, red wine for her) at the ABC Cafe. We finished up our dessert just a few minutes before Alash performed.

Alash is a throat singing band from Tuva, a republic in the southern reaches of Russian Siberia. It had been mongolian or russian or both. There's a bit of a history on Wikipedia. Throat singing is a method of singing where the singer controls the air from the lungs to the mouth and lips using the throat like an instrument - mostly sounding like a flute. At the same time the singer is singing or humming through the throat . There's a Wikipedia article on overtone singing which is the same thing.

There's a lot of magical harmony and the four performers worked well together making it sound as though there were 8 or 12 people performing.

My friend Steve from Small World Music (and Ithaca Blog) described Tuva as a place where the people are mostly cowboys. These cowboys raise and oversee horses and yaks. When they bed down at camp for the night they sing. They've done this for generations and it is a style learned from a young age. Steve mentioned a movie called "Genghis Blues" about an aging blues singer from San Francisco who stumbles onto Tuvan music and goes to Tuva to learn and sing, "The Story of a Blind Blues Musician's Journey To The Lost Land of Tuva".

I'm sure the Tuvans don't think they are lost. It was amazing to see them sing and to think that they came from so very far away and from a time that was all but forgotten. If noone would have visited Tuva their tradition would have stayed hidden forever perhaps. We are lucky here in Tompkins County to be able to have such visitors in our towns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuva
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_singing
http://www.alashensemble.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alash_Ensemble
http://ithaca-blog.blogspot.com
http://www.genghisblues.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loxosceles/460332345/

Buckle up and Break a Leg (NJ Govs Only)

I just read this article about NJ Governor Jon Corzine:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070413/corzine-crash

He wasn't wearing a seatbelt and had substantial physical damage. Buckle up everyone! Do it for your own life safety!

The article ends with this paragraph, hmm...

Corzine was the third straight New Jersey governor to break a leg while in office. James E. McGreevey broke his left leg in 2002 during a nighttime walk on the beach, and Christie Whitman broke her right leg while skiing in the Swiss Alps in 1999.

File that under "Stranger than Fiction" and "Current Affairs"

Darfur Week at Cornell

Last time I talked to Dave (off the air) he mentioned that he checked up on this blog for information about things going on around Ithaca and Dryden. Here's something I hope Dave sees and I think every visitor to the site should be aware of. This is a non-partisan issue that is affecting thousands of lives. Be aware, be very aware.

DARFUR WEEK AT CORNELL (3/26-3/30)

One of the biggest weeks of action at Cornell devoted to raising awareness and activism on the ongoing genocide in Darfur amongst the Cornell community. Tickets for this year's Big Red Relief benefit concert will be available for sale at most of these events.

MONDAY, MARCH 26 - Candlelight vigil for Darfur (7:30 pm, Ho Plaza)

TUESDAY, MARCH 27 - Interfaith prayer service (4:30 pm, Anabel Taylor Hall)

TUESDAY, MARCH 27 - Screening of "Darfur Diaries" and Q&A with the film's director Aisha Bain about the Darfur refugee situation. Food provided! (6:00 pm, Goldwin Smith HEC Auditorium)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28 - Lecture by John Prendergast, a former Advisor of BILL CLINTON. Food provided! (6:00 pm, Uris Auditorium)

THURSDAY, MARCH 29 - Darfur townhall meeting w/ guest speakers Prof. John Weiss and Prof. Nina Tannenwald. Food provided! (6:00 pm, Goldwin Smith Kaufman Auditorium)

FRIDAY, MARCH 30 - Darfur benefit concert! All proceeds will go towards humanitarian relief for Darfuris in refugee camps. (7:30 pm, RPU Multipurpose Room)

Sponsored by: Americans for Informed Democracy, Amnesty International, Coalition of Pan-African Scholars, Cornell Coalition for Trade Justice, Cornell Democrats, Cornell Hillel Jewish Student Union, Cover Africa, the Islamic Alliance for Justice, Protestant Cooperative Ministry, the Roosevelt Institution, STARS (Students for Tolerance, Awareness, and Remembering Survivors), Tzedek: Jewish Social Justice, and YPIC. Funded in part by the Student Activities Fee.

Truly Remarkable

"Truly Remarkable" is the first thing I could think of when I heard this on the radio this morning...

"The bank said that the poor were not creditworthy. After all my efforts, over several months, failed I offered to become a guarantor for the loans to the poor. I was stunned by the result. The poor paid back their loans, on time, every time! But still I kept confronting difficulties in expanding the program through the existing banks. That was when I decided to create a separate bank for the poor, and in 1983, I finally succeeded in doing that. I named it Grameen Bank or Village bank.

Today, Grameen Bank gives loans to nearly 7.0 million poor people, 97 per cent of whom are women, in 73,000 villages in Bangladesh. Grameen Bank gives collateral-free income generating, housing, student and micro-enterprise loans to the poor families and offers a host of attractive savings, pension funds and insurance products for its members. Since it introduced them in 1984, housing loans have been used to construct 640,000 houses. The legal ownership of these houses belongs to the women themselves. We focused on women because we found giving loans to women always brought more benefits to the family.

In a cumulative way the bank has given out loans totaling about US $6.0 billion. The repayment rate is 99%. Grameen Bank routinely makes profit. Financially, it is self-reliant and has not taken donor money since 1995. Deposits and own resources of Grameen Bank today amount to 143 per cent of all outstanding loans. According to Grameen Bank's internal survey, 58 per cent of our borrowers have crossed the poverty line.

Grameen Bank was born as a tiny homegrown project run with the help of several of my students, all local girls and boys. Three of these students are still with me in Grameen Bank, after all these years, as its topmost executives. They are here today to receive this honour you give us.

This idea, which began in Jobra, a small village in Bangladesh, has spread around the world and there are now Grameen type programs in almost every country."

This was just a small part of Muhammad Yunus' Nobel lecture in Oslo on December 10th, 2006. He was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in microcredit. The complete lecture is here: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2006/yunus-lecture-en.html

I hope that Dryden can work to support something similar to get the HUD loans that we have in a bank account out to local business owners. I hope we can make a difference that spirals upwards creating jobs and businesses and an environment where business and people can thrive.

Choose Your Own NYSEG Adventure

Are a home owner like me or you rent and get to choose your electricity supplier from NYSEG? If so this post might be of some interest to you. I emailed about 20 people from around Tompkins County on their experiences with the program. The results were mostly discouraging and didn't seem to make anyone too happy to get to gamble on their energy supplier's pricing.

I posted an entire article about this here, it is current as of 9pm today (November 20, 2006) and offers some web links and advice to help you choose a supplier.

http://www.544productions.com/Energy

If you have any experiences or thoughts on this program, please use the comments field. If you are interested in being included on any other discussion emails, let me know via email: davidmakar@hotmail.com

Remember you only have until December 29th, 2006 to choose!