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I got an alert from checking google address cache:

http://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:ufSuaovKAukJ:www.canoe.ca/Travel/Activities/Adventure/2008/02/06/4830522-cp.html+rving+has+benefits+in+winter&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=nz

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A new tent to hang from trees - not a bad idea!

Dangling from a tree trunk like a surreal oversized pear, the Treetent is a cross between a treehouse and a tent. But Dutch sculptor Dre Wapenaar sees his creation as much more than just a novel bit of camping kit. It is, he says, a piece of art.

Wapenaar is an artist with over 20 years professional experience, but the inspiration for creating tents stretches right back to his childhood.

“I started building them when I was a kid. We had a competition in the neighborhood to build the coolest tent,” Wapenaar told CNN.

Read more here:
Tree House Tent

New Zealanders love their treehouses. Here’s a new one for the treehouse mix on this website; a treehouse that yellow pages new zealand is sponsoring. Its going to be a restaurant 10 metres up in a redwood tree. The site is heavy on flash content which doesn’t make it easy for linking pics to site, but I took a screen capture of architects plan below. Click on image below.

As US foreign polices are getting more and more unpopular, many Americans are looking overseas for another citizenship. However its not just the policies, but the economy as well. As work becomes more ‘mobile’ during the information age, the pull for Americans to go overseas becomes greater. So what are the options for Americans? Anywhere in the world - in a previous post here at Zegarkus I listed countries that allow dual citizenships (for Europe and other countries). However dual citizenship in American has always been a bit murky:

Dual citizenship became a major issue during the War of 1812, when the British military tried recruiting, and in some cases forcing, British-born American citizens to fight on Britain’s side.

For years, being a dual citizen was seen as unpatriotic, and until 1967 it was possible for the United States to revoke American citizenship for people who voted in foreign elections.

But in the 1967 Afroyim vs. Rusk decision, Supreme Court justices ruled 5-4 that it was unconstitutional to bar dual citizenship.

“It was the high point of the 1960s and individual rights,” said Noah Pickus, the associate director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. “So the notion that you could take a citizenship away from somebody would seem to violate the basic notion of individual choice.”

Today, immigrants who become American citizens have to swear that they renounce their previous citizenship, but it’s more of a symbolic gesture, and Renshon said it’s actually difficult to renounce a citizenship.

One of the biggest advocates of dual citizenship is Temple University professor and author Peter Spiro, who believes that defining one’s identity by his citizenship is a thing of the past.

“There are really no harms caused by individuals having additional citizenship these days,” Spiro said. “It’s the wave of the future, because more and more people are going to have it. It’s going to multiply on an exponential basis going forward.” via Palm Beach Post

Despite the appeal of mulitple citizenship for US citizens there is one thing
that makes shifting overseas a little less appetising: taxes:

Example: A person who holds both Australian and United States citizenship, lives and works in Australia. He would be subject to Australian taxation, because Australia taxes its residents, and he would be subject to US taxation because he holds US citizenship. In general, he would be allowed to subtract the Australian income tax he paid from the US tax that would be due. Plus, the US will allow some parts of foreign income to be exempt from taxation; for instance, in 2006 the foreign earned income exclusion allowed up to US$82,400 of foreign salaried income to be exempt from income tax.[15] This exemption, plus the credit for foreign taxes paid mentioned above, often results in no US taxes being owed, although a US tax return would still have to be filed. In instances where the Australian tax was less than the US tax, and if there was income that could not be exempted from US tax, the US would expect any tax due to be paid. via wikipedia

At first glance $82,400 does not seem like alot, but the weakening dollar against the Euro ensures that IRS can take a cut from those who make a success of themselves overseas. And the amount has increased significantly over the years:

• Tax year 2008: $87,600
• Tax year 2007: $85,700
• Tax year 2006: $82,400
• Tax years 2002-2005: $80,000
• Tax year 2001: $78,000
• Tax year 2000: $76,000
• Tax year 1999: $74,000
• Tax year 1998: $72,000
• Info via about.com

While at least there is some relief from the foreign income exclusion, the IRS would like to peek inside your bank account as well:

…Ng says the IRS is on the case. The Feds have 1,500 people (only about 2.5% of the IRS’s workforce) devoted to international tax compliance. The IRS will soon begin audits of overseas U.S. taxpayers, and it’s got several tools to help track tax dodgers who are stuffing their money in exotic locales. Among them: U.S. tax returns and forms that must be filed with the U.S. Treasury annually for any offshore account worth more than $10,000. via forbes

If you haven’t reported your overseas accounts by June 30, you could be in big trouble with the IRS. Owing to globalization, more people in the United States have foreign financial accounts. IRS officials are concerned citizens may overlook that their accounts are large enough to trigger reporting obligations.
“There are responsibilities that go along with owning such foreign bank and financial accounts,” said IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman.

Since 2000, the number of Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) forms received by the Treasury has increased by nearly 85 percent. Concern remains about the degree of reporting compliance for those who are required to file.

U.S. citizen are required to file a Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, Form TD F 90-22.1, each year if they have a financial interest in or authority over financial accounts, (banks, securities, other types of financial accounts) in a foreign country, if the aggregate value of these accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year.

Civil penalties for a non-willful violation can range up to $10,000 per violation. Civil and criminal penalties for non-compliance with the FBAR filing requirements are severe. A willful violation can range up to $100,000 or 50 percent of the amount in the account at the time of the violation. Criminal penalties for violating the requirements while also violating certain other laws can range up to $500,000 or 10 years imprisonment or both. Civil and criminal penalties may be imposed together.

For several years, the IRS kept a close eye on overseas accounts and their use in tax-avoidance schemes and should come as no surprise to those who read enforcement news closely.

Until a recent crackdown, many Americans used overseas accounts to hide money and then linked those accounts to Visa and MasterCard accounts, allowing them to pay for expenses in the United States using money that was tax sheltered overseas.

That worked marvelously — until the IRS was able to get the credit card companies’ records and has since been keeping closer tabs on offshore accounts. via santa clarita magazine

So if you are looking to hide your earnings from the IRS, you are going to have tough go - even paypal is getting roughed up by them:

…Snopes.com reported that the request for information is part of an effort to trace money that taxpayers in this country hold in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes. The site quoted Eileen O’Connor, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department Tax Division as saying, “PayPal is another one of the mechanisms by which money stashed overseas might be spent.” via accounting web

Yes, seems like death and taxes are the main reason why most US citizens remain firmly planted in American soil.

Six years ago, when I was visiting the south island of New Zealand - I travelled on a remote unsealed road in the Otago region. In the far off distance I saw strange site… it was house shifting to the east on the horizon behind the hills. I had to pinch myself, had I been driving too long? After a couple of minutes I was able to see clearly what it was - it was a house built into the back of a truck. It wasn’t transported the house per say, it was the house. It was approaching me now on the road and I pulled over (with a look of amazement), as the truck passed, the young couple inside must have seen my look of bewilderment as they smiled and waved.

So was my first experience seeing house trucks. I’ve seen a few more since then, unfortunately I don’t have the photos - but there are couple of really great sites that do! You can convert nearly any type of vehicle to a highway home; trucks, tractors and those old yellow school buses. Interested in building one? Build your own House on wheels by clicking here, here, here or join the yahoo group here.

Click here for some photos from Stu’s House Truck blog from New Zealand.

Another great Homemade Motorhome is HouseTrucks.com. Author of this site has published a book with nearly 400 pictures of housetrucks. Again click on the links to read more about the photos to see the images!

Here are some other interesting results found from Google image search on House Trucks:

This is House Dumptruck Concept from worth100.com:

Tigertruckhouse!

Early HouseTruck concept?

Papa had a rolling home…

Convert your school bus to a living space!

When I was very young, maybe 8 or 9 years old, I had a very strange experience. In fact, I only recently told my girlfriend recently about it. Its difficult to describe, becuase the experience was quite mundane - though its left an impression on me for some time. Here is what happened:

I was watching my father use a long pole-net to collect leaves that had fallen in the pool. In less than an instant, before my eyes, he was on the otherside of the pool collecting leaves from the other side of the pool. He moved about 6 metres instantaneously. How in the hell did that happen, I remember saying to myself, thats physcially impossible! My dad couldn’t have run that distance especially carrying the pole-net. I remember feeling a bit stunned, as if someone was playing with the fabric of time. Because it was such a mundane scene, I never told anyone (seeing someone shift 6 metres instantly by the pool is not an exciting topic).

For some reason - I felt like that experience has happened to me more than once but this is the only one I can remember. Recently, I have been reading the book “Time Storms” by Jenny Randle. She has a section called “Reality Blinks” - which is described in the following way:

Other witnessesses have likened it to shifting into a parallel earth where everthing is basically the same but small things have changed. If there are co-existent realities, each one different only slightly from others, what would experience if we moved ’sidways’ from one track to another? Is it reasonable to surmise that the witness may perceive this shift in the form of reality blinks - just described here?

Two friends first alerted me to the reality blink idea by reporting an event that happened to them on a visit to the Kyle of Lochalsh in Scotland. They were standing eating fish and chips next to a car park when one turned to the other, eyes gaping, and said, ‘Did you see that?’ Both had. An empty car right in front of them had suddenly moved a few yards sideways. Peter said: ‘We sort of paused mid-chip and shrugged. But whilst we both saw it, cars do not of course move sideways [it wa not on a slope]. So it wa a case of “Oh!” and on to the next chip.’

I am curious if anyone else has had similar experiences to these aforementioned “Reality Blinks”?

From Patrick Doughterty’s website

“Dougherty’s works allude to nests, cocoons, hives, and lairs built by animals, as well as the manmade forms of huts, haystacks, and baskets, created by
interweaving branches and twigs together. Many of his works look ‘found’ rather than made, as if they were created by the natural force of a tornado sweeping across the landscape. He intentionally tries for this effortless effect, as if his creations just fell or grew up naturally in their settings.”

Some of his artwork:

Chris Drury is one of my favourite Eco Artists. He has built installations around the world working with aperature to create camera obscura architecture - basically his outdoor installations create an inverted image of the natural world outside and projected inside his installation.

Here are some pics:
Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky

here is the outside image of the trees reflected inside his installation

Wave Chamber:
Click on image to follow links of how “Wave Chamber” was designed

visit Chris Drury’s site

Nils Udo is a bavarian eco-artists. A quote from Nils Udo:

“Sketching with flowers. Painting with clouds. Writing with water. Tracing the May wind, the path of a falling leaf. Working for a thunderstorm. Awaiting a glacier. Bending the wind. Directing water and light. The May-green call of the cuckoo and the invisible trace of its flight. Space. The cry of an animal. The bitter taste of daphne. Burying the pond and the dragon-fly. Setting fire to the fog and the perfume of the yellow barberry. Marrying sounds, colors and smells. The green grass. Counting a forest and a meadow.

Clearly it is only in her very last refuges that nature is still intact, inexhaustible; it is only there that enchantment is still reality. On any day of the year, in every season, in any light, in any weather; in the Largest and Smallest.

These days however, people are not interested in this. Nature is no longer an issue, except to a few Greens, who mostly can no longer tell a lime tree from a beech tree. Of course, there are many who pretend to love nature. Like the ones who claim to want peace. The fact is, they lost nature long ago. They don’t see it any more, let alone hear it, smell it, taste it or touch it. When they do in fact take a look, they still don’t see: they lost the prerequisites long ago for a larger, expansive and transitory overall view.

Make natural space into Art-space? Where is the limit on the narrow line between nature and art? Art? Life! What counts is the utopian character, the life- and art-blending character of my actions. My response to the events that mark my existence. My life. Are there art-lovers interested in my life?

A picture. A leaf, laden with flowers, drifting down a brook. Life.”

And of course, some of his work:

Here is some addition info on Nils-Udo

Mikael Hansen is a Danish artist that does “earth art”. Check my favourite work, an outdoor installation called “Organic Highway” below. From Mikael’s Absolute Arts profile:

Since my participation in the first earth-art project in Denmark in 1983 I have been fascinated by this mode of artistic expression (landart). Parallel to this I am working with sculpture, objects, indoor installations, painting and mixed media