Neat things learned while jiggling an infant to sleep and waiting on laundry

[sethrak]

Via a thread on Unclutterer, I learned that the USPS will send customers, free of charge, sets of ten or twenty-five Flat Rate APO/FPO Priority Mail boxes. No more trying to find boxes that are neither gargantuan nor too small for a proper assortment of care package goodies. ^_^ Minimum order is a single set, either size, and shipping is about what I paid for a care package I sent davner last week, in a box bought at K-Mart. They'll send you other shipping stuff free of charge too, although obv. not *everything*. They are one of the few branches of the government that largely makes its own way on actual revenues, after all.

And via somewhere or other, I forget now, a link to this really interesting article in National Geographic on vanishing small towns in Great Plains states. One of these years I'll get around to subscribing to this and a couple of science magazines.

Well, laundry's in the dryer, Zodlings are a-snooze, and the dishwasher's doing its job. I'm off to bed.

Comments

Let the Jihad begin...

[thoth-of-nd.livejournal.com]

I remember that National Geographic article when it came out--especially the reaction we had to it. We tend to be a bit sensitive about people equating North Dakota to a desolate wasteland, particularly when we (gasp) have a functioning economy and one of a handful of state governments with a budget *surplus*. The article's a good read, just be aware that it ain't the whole story.

Re: Let the Jihad begin...

[sethrak.livejournal.com]

Heh. I took the overall tone of "These lands are dying.... Dooooommm..." with a large grain of salt, particularly the groundless assertions concerning the known deaths-by-train-runover being really suicides. That passage struck me more as scurrilous gossip than anything provable or particularly probable.

What I loved was the evocative images the story told, about the abandoned houses, and the lives that had been spent there, and the forlorn remnants that their heirs hadn't wanted and the big farmers who bought up the land couldn't be bothered to clear away. Reminded me of some of the dwindling towns we occasionally drive past when we visit davner's folks, or take less-traveled routes to get to Milwaukee.

And it brought back memories of the Little House books. Pa and the other settlers being so sure that land which grew grass so well just *had* to be good cropland. Laura and her husband getting a tree farm homestead, one of many evenly scattered across the territory by the government, because they thought it would help change the climate or something like that. Never mind that those poor trees needed more water than the land really had, which is part of why that area's grassland to begin with...

Don't worry, I'm sure the Dakotas are perfectly nice places to live - if one can bear the almighty cold. ::shudder::