Tech, geek and all things neat.

Many of you may have seen this on Oprah but the Neti pot has to be one of the strangest procedures for cleaning your nasal passage that I have ever seen. I have yet to try it and I am quite excited to give it a whirl, but I will admit that I it will take me so serious time before I can muster up the courage to purposely enact the sensation of drowning just to have a clean nostril.
A Neti pot essentially is a small tea pot that you insert, the proportionally planned spout, into your nostril and till your head to the apposing side. After you fill the pot up with warm salt water. The water then flows through one nostril and out the other. Once half the pot is empty you then turn your head to the opposite side and repeat. Cleaning out both nostrils. How this works without having the luke warm salt water run down your throat cause you to gasp, choke, then spit up salty nose inners is a mystery to me, even though I have seen countless videos of successful nose cleaning on youtube(view discretion for this link).
I always had plans on asking a monk or even a meditation practitioner exactly what they do when a nostril gets clogged up before meditation. I guess this is one simple solution that they just might preform. Not only for meditation but for any worker that deals with dust, benefit from this item. I know when I used to do concrete forming that this little device would have come in handy at the end of the day.
If anybody owns a Neti pot please feel free to share your experience. It’s definitely an interesting little device that I hope to hear more about. Even if I’m not to sure if it’ll help achieve enlightenment or if it’s just insanity.

I’m a huge fan of Funny fiction. Christopher Moore, Douglas Adams, Douglas Coupland, are just a few authors I read quite steadily. They just make me laugh all the time and I believe that people need to laugh more often. I believe that enlightenment needs laughter. To have a steadily quiet mind you need to have happiness, which derives from laughter.
Christopher Moores Lamb is one of the funniest books I have ever read. With hidden lessons and witty characters you really can’t ask for much more. As you follow the path of Jesus’ childhood you learn a completely new view point to Christianity helping the none believer not be so dismissive on the topic of religion. But instead learn how to see past the base layer and really learn the meaning behind the teachings of certain parable. Not to mention the hilarious antics of his best friend Biff, a child that even his own mother can’t understand.
This is a must read in my books. I don’t remember the last time I got so many odd looks, as I literally laughed out loud while on the bus or in public. Great read but bad for trying to keep a sane profile in public.

Yoga has become a nation wide phenomenon. With am yoga, power yoga, flexibility yoga, heat yoga, seniors yoga, childrens yoga, there’s a yoga for everyone and the family dog. With the help of companies like Gaiam, and Lulu lemon yoga has not only become an easy exercise to start but it has also become very fashionable.
Unfortunately, the meditation has been pulled out of yoga for commercial use. Turning it into a way to shape, tone and burn of those extra calories yoga has become more of a means to get the body of Jennifer Aniston, then a way to find peace in ones self. No one is saying that having a fit, healthy body is a bad idea or that working out in a gym is instant commercialism, just that yoga should also bring a tranquil state of mind with its physically demanding routine.
There are still great teachers out there that practice a more traditional yoga, whether it be vinyasa, kabbalah or one of the many other renditions. Everyone just needs to be careful on finding their instructor making sure that they get the one that best suits their goals and helps ease the mind, release the bodies tension back to the earth, and calm your breathing.

Having not done much yet, one thing that I have learned was the importance of breathing. The everyday breath that you have to keep your circulatory system active is not what I am talking about, but paying attention to breathing. Everyday, every moment, yoga, meditation, to waking up and driving to work, a person should always be conscious of their breath.

Its actually a lot harder then you think it is.

I didn’t really think that it would be hard until I tried. I started with conscious thought early in the morning when I woke  and during morning yoga. “I don’t see what the big deal is” I thought. “This is easy, whats the big deal” I proclaimed, scoffing at the challenge before me. As the day progressed though I felt myself slipping, walking down busy streets, sitting on the bus, waiting for pedestrians to finish crossing at a cross walk that was already flashing a red hand, I started to forget my breath. I start to clinch. Work was even worse. With the hassle of budgets, deadlines, and protocol it made conscious breath damn near impossible.

I’m still working on it. I try to pay attention to my breathing at all times. It may be the hardest thing to do but later we’ll all sit back and laugh at our selves. Hard is the simple that doesn’t try.