When recently talking to Jonathan, I listed a number of my change-the-world-for-the-better dreams. They are the pie-in-the-sky, far-too-expensive ideas that maybe a stable government or one of the top 100 richest people in the world could bootstrap. I am neither a government, nor one of those people.

The ideas I have, however, don't belong to only me. If they did, they probably wouldn't be spectacularly good (or so amazingly good that conveying could be difficult). Validating an idea is a good thing: having competition or someone else consider the same idea do this.

One of the grand-dream ideas I had was of desert reclamation.

Poor agricultural practice of the early 1900s, coupled with aggressive settling and a cessation of an unusually wet decade produced the Dust Bowl in the early 1930s. The deep-rooted, native grasses of American plains were displaced by crops, which failed to hold the local topsoil when the droughts began. The wind storms of the time eroded the land, producing dark clouds that reached the East Coast, eventually depositing the formerly placed, rich virgin topsoil into the Atlantic Ocean.

While I am unsure how much of that destroyed land has since been recovered, adjusting the boundaries of an existing desert, by helping the edges creep in with deliberate tree, shrub, and grass planting, appeals to me. The idea of adjusting the micro-climates of the edges and seeing the results over years and decades, wow, just really appeals to me, too. Being able to change unused and unusable land into a productive and usable land, wow, that's the essence of that childhood dream.

And, apparently it appeals others, also.

Thankfully.

There's a project happening in the Sahara Desert that is similar to my idea, but uses the strengths of the desert to transform the land into a productive resource. Instead of transforming the land, the strengths of the area (SUN! HEAT!) are used to create a power plant and giant greenhouses, with systems that desalinate the close-by water sources for growing food.

I first read about the Sahara Forest Project in New Scientist in January. When I read it, I thought, "Wow, yay!" It's not necessarily the desert reclamation that I was thinking about as a kid and teen and adult, but it puts to use land that would normally go unused. This makes me happy.

Sometimes a goal doesn't need to be reached by the person setting it, it just needs to be reached. I am so way looking forward to watching this project succeed.

Drupal 7 has this nice lovely toolbar at the top of admin pages, right?

It's a great idea. It adds easy access to important parts of the website. It's a great improvement from the standard administration workflow.

It also doesn't provide the delightful dropdown menus of the Administration menu toolbar. I don't like the Drupal 7 admin tool bar. Yes, it stays put (position:fixed), but it's the bastard half brother of what I'm used to having.

The easiest way to disable the default admin toolbar and enable the admin_menu toolbar?

After installing the Administration menu, in admin/people/permissions:

1. Enable Administration menu » Access administration menu for the role you want (I updated the Administrator role).

2. Disable Toolbar » Use the administration toolbar for the role you want (I updated the Administrator role).

No code modification. Yay!

Years ago, Kris and I went to a running shoe store to buy running shoes. I tried on pair after pair after pair, not really finding a style / pair I loved. I had given up, and was going to buy a pair that was "merely okay," when the sales guy brought out a pair of Mizunos. I put on the shoes and was immediately in love.

Since then, I have bought only Mizunos. The problem I've had, however, is that they have a dozen different styles, and they keep changing them. I didn't write down what that original pair was, and, well, haven't found such bliss in a shoe since.

Having found out that Amazon carries MIzuno shoes (read: big discount on shoes!), I bought one of each of their main styles to figure out which one was the style I loved.

It was the Wave Rider.

And now I know.

I'm mildly irritated the one I like is pink, but it seems to be a trend as of late. Pink, pink, pink! However, it fits well, so I'm satisfied.

Seriously, how happy would I be if this were true?

Note the subjunctive case there.

I mean, really. Seriously.

Last week, I finished reading "The Mysterious Island" by Jules Verne. It's the third book in the Captain Nemo series, even though you aren't told this until the end. Given that "The Mysterious Island" has a bunch of odd things happening on it, it's kinda clear that Nemo is around. The book is the least known of the Nemo books, isn't as good as the other two Nemo series, and wasn't a very popular Verne book.

I happened to finish the book on the anniversary of Vernes' birth.

This amused me, as Google also celebrated Vernes' birthday with a Google doodle.

I have the book because it was free on the kindle. I read it because I read random books. I recall finding Candide on my mom's shelf and reading it, to the puzzlement of my mom's husband. "Why are you reading Voltaire?" "Uh, because I liked the binding?"

After finishing "The Mysterious Island," I pondered what book to read next, settling on "The Count of Monte Cristo" as I have it in paperback with a bookmark about two thirds of the way completed. Clearly I had started reading it at some point, and not finished it. I have no idea when I started it (though I suspect it was over 15 years ago), or why I didn't finish it (I suspect, "SHINY!"), but I'd like to read it now. So, I started it.

And, what happens today, but a quote from Seth Godin from the book:

Yes, I am amused by the serendipity of my choice of books.