Alcohol Smoking and Inhaling a New and Crazy Way to Die

Just when you think you've seen a peak in stupid things people will do for the sake of getting high, trashed or getting your buzz on, along comes smoking alcohol.

In terms of the cost to your health and body, just the monetary cost in this video must have cost him some bucks.

Read this Hawaii News Now story on what is called auto Juice. The watch the 5 to 6 minute video and see what you think.

Feel free to leave a comment and if you have ever done this, I have a question. What is the hangover like? Also, how long is the buzz? Is this something a person might do often enough in a day or evening that they are very prone to ending up in emergency or just dead?

Doctors warn against alcohol poisoning. See the article at Hawaii News now.

This is nuts! Here is a video on some guy doing it.

Warning! The language is objectionable, beyond his stupidity!

They should file this under stupid ways to kill yourself!

Concerned Voices

Sharks, Farming and the Connections.

Since the days of the movie Jaws, which I remember vividly, living on an island in the middle of the pacific and also being the projectionist at our family`s theater,

The Maui Theater. I can't even tell you how many times I watched it during it's run, but I can say as a teenage camper/night diver, it did get the little voices in my head fired up when I would be in the ocean with a light at 2am in the morning, diving for lobster or whatever I happened to come across.
Once while returning in a small boat from Molokini to Maalaea with my brother and his friend, they got to sit,but the boat was so small I had to stand and hold on to the equivalent of a roll bar between the seats and the outboard motor. For anyone that has done a trip to Molokini in Hawaii, they probably could attests to the ocean conditions going across the bay, against 25 to 35 mile an hour winds. It got pretty rough.
The point of the story though is that while speeding along in this small boat, hoping it didn't flip from the wind and waves, right in front of us, a shark crossed our path. Fin out of the water and quite visible. This shark was at least the size of our boat.
It all happened so fast and there was no time to make any changes, so we actually ran over the shark as it crossed from left to right in front of us.
I remember turning around and see it swing quickly around towards where we hit it, but at this point, we were not slowing down and still had about a 15 to 20 minute ride ahead of us.

Reading the news today about a shark attack in Texas and reflecting on the number of attacks that we seem to have had in Hawaii and elsewhere. I thought I would check a few statistics on shark attacks.

While it does seem that at least the reported trends indicate that shark attacks have increased over the years, I am sure there are many reasons for this increase.

Florida Museum of Natural History

Taking into consideration many of the reasons for attacks increasing,. My simple little mind tends to automatically look at the over fishing, the destruction of habitat, the increase in need for a predator to supplement it's dwindling food supply.
But those are just things that I tend to think of after having seen the oceans reefs change and the wildlife with it, while watching the surface of the ocean go from white caps to wind and kite surfers.

So what would this have to do with farming?

So much of the oceans life and ecology is based on the water that flows back into it. As the streams and water supplies are diverted  altered, so is the ocean in which these streams eventually flow into.
The biology of just having the right type of plants growing along those streams is crucial to the life that forms in them and thus the nutrients and life forms that flow to the oceans.

As humans alter the lands with farming, increase the pollutants from farming, as well as city run-off, as they change the type of plants that once grew along the streams and replace them with different plants, each of these things cause some impact, that eventually results in a change to the oceans. Algae blooms, sea turtles with tumors, one of the many natural food sources for sharks.

All of these subtle, yet very harmful changes to our planet, will have a result. Perhaps shark attacks increasing is a change that is one of natures responses to all the other changes. So whenever a person plants or farms. Alters waters or streams. Impacts nature on the land. It is very likely that those actions will eventually have an impact on our oceans.

Just a concern that comes to mind today.

A Plastic World

<p>Having spent some time walking the rocky shoreline Waiehu side of the Kahului harbor, I always am interested in the various things that float to shore. Beyond a lot of drift wood, there is always a collection of nets and just about every kind of plastic item you could imagine.<br>
I did attend a talk on the plastic gyre in the pacific and while I had read and seen enough to know the size and implications of it, I thought of it as a lone congregating point and the only one.<br>
Today I came across the 2010 South Pacific Gyre Expedition site, (see the link), and realized it was just one of four out there.
I don't have a lot to say on the matter right now, but since I was thinking about it I thought I would pass it along and let others also reflect on it.
http://www.algalita.org/voyage/2010-south-pacific-gyre-expedition.html:

World Changes by Degrees

Maui and the State of Hawaii have been experiencing heavy VOG conditions, drought conditions exist into December, storms are passing by with very little rain or too much in a short period. Despite finally seeing cooler temperatures in the evenings and early mornings, the days remain hot.

A leading news story I came across online was about the the world's temperature rising 6 degrees, and in the Maui News letters to the Editor section, people continue urging the government to get Maui's water infrastructure up to par.

All of this had me reflecting on how putting a shaded area on the west end of my house for my aquaponics has cooled down my house. Even though it's still too hot for me, at least it's better than it would have been throughout this last year.

My water bill is half what it was a year ago and I grew WAY more food than I ever did in my yard. Plus, I have about 100 fish that I could put on the plate for dinner if I needed to. I am too attached to them presently to eat them, but would if needed. Besides, they have a job to do as my fertilizer generators for the plants. 

Looking back over the last year, some major changes have taken place in the world. Both externally and internally from my point of view. Very few were part of any kind of plan or foresight .
So in regard to climate change, here are a few things I would change in my world.

I would improve my home's roof to really cool it down by using the almost ever present tradewinds in a design to promote airflow
. 
Along with a new roof would be a solar system to provide power and deflect the sun from the roof, further cooling it.

Although I have plenty of hot water from a solar water heater installed on the roof 12 years ago, the amount of wasted water is still too high to me. In order to bring hot water to the sinks and showers on the other end of the house, I am wasting far more than I should be. 
That water could be better used in my yard than being piped off to the sewage station. 
So re-plumbing the house to keep water waste to a minimum and a way to redirect gray water that doesn't need to go to the treatment plant would be nice.

One way I was able to conserve water was to put in automatic sprinklers years ago. It's not a big yard compared to many and it holds down the sand. Using the sprinklers I rarely have them set for more than 3 minutes, once a day at 4am. This gives me a green enough lawn, even with no heavy chemicals or fertilizers.

Some people throughout my neighborhood have great lawns, but many spend hours almost every day with a hose or sprinkler on high, watering their lawns. A little in the early morning before sunrise works well for me.

Around Maui it's not unusual to see sprinklers running during the heat of the day, the wind blowing it away evaporating or very often ending up on cement sidewalks or asphalt parking lots. 

Ultimately, whatever the reasons are for our world's climate change and rising temperatures, we all have changes we can make to our personal climates within our own worlds.

EPA Future Climate Change

Sustainable Integrated Fish Farms of China

The Chinese raise more than 10 million tons of carp through the use of 'Integrated Fish Farming'. A combination of Mulberry, silkworms and carp help them keep their ecological footprint to a minimum. While it is more of an aquaculture type operation, it has similarities to aquaponics.

Concerned about What Lies Ahead

Hawaii is always being reminded of it's isolation here in the Pacific Ocean. Should a disaster take place here or many other parts of the world, we could be cutoff and left to survive on our own.

Disasters happen each and everyday around the world. So it's not an if, but a when scenario.

With record setting heat and drought conditions, food supplies will very likely continue to rise in price and there will be issues of scarcity.

Political and economic events make for a future that is uncertain at best.

Being responsible for our own survival should be a natural way of life. Fortunately we don't have to have it consume our lives in ways it has through history, but we should not ignore being prepared to deal with various situations.

Jason Richards, founder of SurviveFoodCrisis.org has put together a comprehensive packet of information on the multitude of life events people should be aware of and ways to prepare for them.

Click Here!

I won`t even begin to try and address all the points in this post, Jason touches on them in more depth.

Learning what to expect and then expecting to do something each and everyday to be as prepared as we possibly can is our responsibility.

Being sure that we are not a burden to others and even getting ourselves to a point where we are able to help others by being prepared is something we can work at a little each day.

With the Family Survival Course by Jason Richards, it can be much easier to plan our actions and be ready.

Click Here!

 

"Mottainai - don't waste what Nature gives you..."

"Mottainai - don't waste what Nature gives you..."