Maybe I Should Build My Own Island »
While I probably shouldn't admit it, I will say that every once in a while I'll find myself watching some show on just how some rich person has decided to spend their money lately. They are going through money like it's going out of style, or suddenly they have discovered that they simply must by another bauble for thousands of dollars (perhaps both). It is almost like watching a car crash - especially if the rich person is Britney.
But the really rich people don't just go visit the far away exotic locales, they actually buy them. That's when it becomes really bad. It's not as if I completely envy the people, I mean though I don't enjoy crowds of people, and I think I'd like to get away from it all, I'm not really sure that I would want to own my own island. After all, how would I get my email fix? It's not as if I could afford it anyway. So when I read the story about the guy who built his own island, I thought "hey - I could do that".
Those of you that actually know me probably think it's more likely that I'll come into enough money to buy an island than it is that I'll put in the effort to build one. But the story is awfully cool. This guy spent his time collecting old plastic bottles - and what decent-sized city doesn't have a bunch of those lying around - and when he was done he had some 250 thousand of them.
What better to do than gather them up into bales, hook the bales together, lash some wood on top, dump some sand on the wood - apparently one kayak load at a time - and plant some shrubbery on the whole thing? In the end, you've got yourself an island. He actually lives there, along with a couple of cats a dog and a duck. The Mexican government apparently wanted to annex it, until it was destroyed in a hurricane. Not the first hurricane, mind you.
Not to be deterred, the intrepid island-builder has started anew. This small island isn't nearly as impressive, but it does give you an idea of how the whole thing gets started. Not long from now, you should be able to see how the island grows. It just spirals outward - which gives rise to the name Spiral Island. Potentially the thing could go on and on.
Is it safe? I have no idea. But it sure is cool. Take a look at this picture - it looks like the island has grown a bit from that first image, which is to say that it's moving along nicely, since the first one was taken in September. Now I just have to find a few hundred thousand plastic bottles and a couple of years of spare time. Who's with me?
