Category: Uncategorized

I shouldn’t try to be nice when filling out class evaluations. The training for C3 sucked. It was interesting and all, but not terribly relevant. It was 90% history. They had to add something to the training material to let us know the basic divisions within the department of the environment. it was sad. And there was no volunteerism component to the training.

They say the goal of this program is to teach you to plug you into a network of environmental activists and develop your leadership. They sure do have a funny way of doing that. Sitting in a room being lectured to definitely makes one a better leader and more connected to a community. And now, a week after the training, they want a filled in project proposal form. Yeah. Right. Community organizing by multiple choice tests. They have some serious delusions about this program.

I’ll probably do it around lunch time or something.

Moving to Lincoln Park was perfect. Awesome location. It lets me have a social life on weekday evenings, without regretting it in the morning (too much). And the place is a great size for having people over. Yay for the new place.

Spider man 3 was awful, but the company was great. First words out of my mouth as the credits began rolling: “Well, thank god that’s over.” It wasn’t really that bad, but it was fun to say. Nick, Rick, Jo(h?)n, and I sat around until the lights came up ripping the movie to shreds, and all the way back to the L, waiting for the L, and half the ride home. Until we drove Rick away with our excessive dorking out. Still, good times.

When I got home, my peapod food had arrived. And it was in the house, meaning my roommate must have let them in. Thank you, roommate. The produce is very fresh (fresher than I can get at a grocery store). The selection is modest. The convenience is top notch. The cost is also high. But not outrageously so. I think I overbought. I’ll have to have people over for dinner next week or something.

Yay new place.

I’m over committed, sort of. But most of the commitment is in my head.

I dunno. Gymnastics is fun, but painful. Not sure where I want to go with that. Spanish would be cool. it’d be neat to actually see a language through to conversability for once. WoW is a time suck, but a net social one that beats the gay chat media establishments hands down. I’ve been neglecting lj lately, and it has been good to me in the past. Met some great people on here. Gym time would both extend my life and improve the quality of it. Plus, you know, rippled abs are hot (not that I’ll ever have them). A yoga class or the like would be good too. If I want to go anywhere with the environmental thing, I’m going to have to put time into keeping up with it. And for that matter, reading the news eats major quantities of time. It’s all just crazy.

(as an aside, I never ‘got’ why people put the “Not enough hours in the day” shtick on wedding invitations. It’s almost like saying “Well, my biological clock is ticking, so I guess this schmuck is the best I’m going to do”. Doesn’t fit with the rest of the flowery language, anyway.)

I’m thinking about taking a Spanish class in the evenings. As a way to get out and meet people in the real world, while doing something useful. I’ve also considered the aerobics classes at my gym, but I suspect those will be less conducive to social contact. We’ll see. It’s about $250 for 8 weeks of spanish. Anyone interested in being my study buddy? =)

I’ve been having amazing sex with a particular livejournaler lately. You know who you are. =) You rock.

So, there’s this article about a Muslim woman from the US who encountered difficulties while wearing a full covering swim suit. What fascinates me is the reaction of people to the whole thing. My older sister is pale as a ghost, and sun burns more readily than anyone I know. She has repeatedly expressed interest in these swim suits. Not that it makes a difference, but my sister isn’t Muslim. Would people have reacted any differently to her wearing such a swim suit?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2061608,00.html

(ps, thanks, for linking to the article)

Life’s been a little crazy over the past couple weeks.

The conference was really interesting. It covered topics ranging from removing arsenic from the water supply in Nepal using local tools and labor to building a certified green fab plant in Texas. I found much of it fascinating and another large portion of it boring, but it certainly drove home the need for focus if I want to pursue any sort of a career in environmental topics. People who are broad but shallow on environmental issues are a dime a dozen. (people who are broad but ignorant or incompetent are even more common). I have several topics which interest me: green building, ecosystem restoration, behavioral change, renewable energy, sustainable neighborhoods and transportation probably top off the list. See what I mean? Narrow and focused I ain’t.

Carnival was great. Good to see familiar faces after a long time. Too much happened to recap here, but thank you all for a great time.

The day after I got back from Pittsburgh, I flew out to DC for work. The testimony I worked on got a team “above and beyond” award, which I didn’t really feel like I deserved. Sure, I worked weekends and evenings, but I got time off for that already. (Though the extra two days time off that came with the award certainly doesn’t hurt. =) Had sushi for dinner with supervisor and her husband just east of dupont circle which was quite an experience.

Back in Chicago, multiple going away lunches for my local supervisor. Last saturday was the continuation of the Chicago Conservation Corps training. (I like the people, but I’m not really feeling that engaged in the training. Probably because it’s pure lecture, with interspersed demonstrations. No hands on work. No collaboration or team-building. I’m definitely learning facts about chicago, and little bits about environmental concerns in the area, but I don’t think that was my primary problem. Learning to talk to people who don’t care much about it may be my biggest concern. *shrug* Skated from there to gymnastics, then went home for some WoW-time. I followed that up with a mini-bar crawl with a gaygamer guy. Board games on Sunday.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a great deal about what I want to do with my future, but that’s for another post.

I’m thinking of going for a Chicago area CSA. But it sounds like these things are a lot of food. I’d need a Cooking buddy. A gym buddy would be nice too.

A story about a website with user-created content, where the users took over:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/02/the-day-the-digg-users-revolted/

This is an interesting story about the coal industry, however it exercises a certain flawed logic:

Coal is so cheap and so widely available that its increased use is inevitable, but clearing the hurdle to burning it on a wide scale — separating the carbon dioxide and sequestering it — could turn out to be one of the great engineering challenges of the century, energy experts say.

Wind and sunlight are both cheaper, and more widely available than coal, not to mention renewable, which coal is not (at the current rate of consumption). I wonder whether the author would claim their increased use is inevitable. Also, I wonder if the author has failed to notice that coal is being burned on a wide scale.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/01/science/01coal.html

Yeah, there’s more, but those were just two things that caught my interest.