That's how many flights of stairs I just walked up, and the number of minutes it took my heart to slow back down to a more normal pace.
I work on the ninth floor, which is really the 10th floor because in between the 1st and 2nd floor there is a Maintenance floor. We had a fire drill this morning, which meant walking down the stairs. I had to take it kind of slow, since I'm wearing 4 inch heals and have relatively weak knees to begin with, but down is easy though, right?
I could have waited for the elevator to go back up if I wanted to, but it takes awhile to ferry nine floors of people back up. I could use the exercise too, so I decided to just trek my way up.
Oi, am I out of shape! The last two flights I started wondering if my legs were going to just give out on me, and when I got to the top my lungs actually hurt.
I know. You are wondering if I've kept up on my goal of going to the gym. No. I went three whole times... and then stopped. Early morning seems to be the only time I can get around to it, but my bed is so comfy in the morning it's hard to get out of it.
I am going to go tomorrow though - the company is doing a golf & dinner thing to celebrate the closing of a deal. I'm skipping the golf and meeting them for dinner (I don't pass up free sushi - especially really good sushi). I was wondering what the heck I was going to do with myself until dinnertime, and finally realized it would be a perfect time to go to the gym.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
My Cabbage
I really, really wish I had a functioning camera right now. Remember my cabbage? The one growing in my refrigerator that I planted in my garden? It looks like a completely different plant!
After changing from purple & white to a deep, dark purple after one day in the sun and earth, it has turned a greenish-purple color, and has a tall stem coming out the center and a set of greenish-purple leaves forming a bowl around the stem every few inches or so. The whole plant is maybe 2 feet tall.
Wikipedia states that "on acidic soils, the leaves grow more reddish while an alkaline soil will produce rather greenish-yellow coloured cabbages." So I guess I have an alkaline soil.
The structure is much different than I expected. I expected something bulbous and low to the ground - not a tall plant! There are however, what look to be seed pods near the top. Perhaps this is how a cabbage plant finishes it's life cycle; maybe it is going to seed, and what grows from the seeds would be the short bulbous growth I'm expecting...
After changing from purple & white to a deep, dark purple after one day in the sun and earth, it has turned a greenish-purple color, and has a tall stem coming out the center and a set of greenish-purple leaves forming a bowl around the stem every few inches or so. The whole plant is maybe 2 feet tall.
Wikipedia states that "on acidic soils, the leaves grow more reddish while an alkaline soil will produce rather greenish-yellow coloured cabbages." So I guess I have an alkaline soil.
The structure is much different than I expected. I expected something bulbous and low to the ground - not a tall plant! There are however, what look to be seed pods near the top. Perhaps this is how a cabbage plant finishes it's life cycle; maybe it is going to seed, and what grows from the seeds would be the short bulbous growth I'm expecting...
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Grilled Salmon
I feel like I sometimes get into a rut, cooking the same things repeatedly. I've been making a lot of winter dishes lately, and with the weather so nice lately, I felt the need to readjust and think about spring foods. I wanted to try something new.
I wonder what it is that makes us want lighter foods when the weather is nice, and richer foods when the weather is cold. Why do I want a tuna melt and soup in December and a tuna sandwich with grapes in May? It can't just be because of which foods are in season, there has to be something about the way our bodies are affected by temperature that gives us a craving.
It was a nice spring day today, I wanted to find something light and springlike for dinner. Okay, so what's springlike? Bobby's not really picky, except that he has this need to have meat in every meal, and isn't fond of chicken. I can get away with chicken every once and awhile, and he'll eat it, but it's never something he loves. Steak sounded so rich, and I just couldn't get excited about a burger.
I spent a little time looking around Epicurious and came across this recipe: Grilled Salmon Steaks with Lime Butter. Fish - perfect! Hmm... and what to have with it? Something light...I've had a lot of salad lately, so that wasn't too appealing... grilled veggies I think. And something about grilled salmon and veggies makes me think rice.
On my way to the market, Bobby called to say Josh would be joining us for dinner. Unfortunately the fish selection at the markets near my house are pretty slim. No fish steaks of any kind; I was able to find some pretty fat salmon fillets, so that would have to do. Two fillets seemed just the right amount for the three of us.
Instead of mixing the pepper into the lime juice and butter, I just mixed the lime juice and butter, poured it over my fish, and ground the pepper onto the fish. I let it sit a bit longer than just while the grill warmed up; it also marinated while I prepped the veggies before starting the grill.
My veggies were pretty simple - just one zucchini and one yellow squash sliced into thick discs, one red pepper cut in 4 squares, and 6 baby bella mushrooms. I coated them in Italian dressing, making sure the mushrooms had plenty under the caps.
While I preheated the grill, I started some jasmine rice. I figured that it would be nice and light and go well with the fish. I cooked it in a tiny bit of canola oil at first so it wouldn't be sticky, and added a little lime juice to tie it in with the fish. By the time I added the water and covered it up, the grill was ready.
I put the mushrooms on first, since they were pretty fat, and when I threw on the salmon they flamed up pretty high (which I kind of expected with the butter). The flams died down after a minute or two, and I threw on the rest of the veggies. The salmon flamed up again when I flipped them, and once the flames died down I basted them with some of the leftover lime butter from the marinade pan.
By the time I pulled everything off, the rice was just finishing - I love when everything finishes at the same time. Half of a fillet was enough for each plate, with another half left over if anyone wanted. Perfect.
Everything was really tasty, and I achieved the lightness I was looking for. Josh was raving about the mushrooms, in fact he said they were the best mushrooms he'd ever had. The fish was tasty but not over-citrusy, and the rice complemented the others perfectly. The boys ended up splitting the left-over salmon, and all that was left in the end was some rice.
I wonder what it is that makes us want lighter foods when the weather is nice, and richer foods when the weather is cold. Why do I want a tuna melt and soup in December and a tuna sandwich with grapes in May? It can't just be because of which foods are in season, there has to be something about the way our bodies are affected by temperature that gives us a craving.
It was a nice spring day today, I wanted to find something light and springlike for dinner. Okay, so what's springlike? Bobby's not really picky, except that he has this need to have meat in every meal, and isn't fond of chicken. I can get away with chicken every once and awhile, and he'll eat it, but it's never something he loves. Steak sounded so rich, and I just couldn't get excited about a burger.
I spent a little time looking around Epicurious and came across this recipe: Grilled Salmon Steaks with Lime Butter. Fish - perfect! Hmm... and what to have with it? Something light...I've had a lot of salad lately, so that wasn't too appealing... grilled veggies I think. And something about grilled salmon and veggies makes me think rice.
On my way to the market, Bobby called to say Josh would be joining us for dinner. Unfortunately the fish selection at the markets near my house are pretty slim. No fish steaks of any kind; I was able to find some pretty fat salmon fillets, so that would have to do. Two fillets seemed just the right amount for the three of us.
Instead of mixing the pepper into the lime juice and butter, I just mixed the lime juice and butter, poured it over my fish, and ground the pepper onto the fish. I let it sit a bit longer than just while the grill warmed up; it also marinated while I prepped the veggies before starting the grill.
My veggies were pretty simple - just one zucchini and one yellow squash sliced into thick discs, one red pepper cut in 4 squares, and 6 baby bella mushrooms. I coated them in Italian dressing, making sure the mushrooms had plenty under the caps.
While I preheated the grill, I started some jasmine rice. I figured that it would be nice and light and go well with the fish. I cooked it in a tiny bit of canola oil at first so it wouldn't be sticky, and added a little lime juice to tie it in with the fish. By the time I added the water and covered it up, the grill was ready.
I put the mushrooms on first, since they were pretty fat, and when I threw on the salmon they flamed up pretty high (which I kind of expected with the butter). The flams died down after a minute or two, and I threw on the rest of the veggies. The salmon flamed up again when I flipped them, and once the flames died down I basted them with some of the leftover lime butter from the marinade pan.
By the time I pulled everything off, the rice was just finishing - I love when everything finishes at the same time. Half of a fillet was enough for each plate, with another half left over if anyone wanted. Perfect.
Everything was really tasty, and I achieved the lightness I was looking for. Josh was raving about the mushrooms, in fact he said they were the best mushrooms he'd ever had. The fish was tasty but not over-citrusy, and the rice complemented the others perfectly. The boys ended up splitting the left-over salmon, and all that was left in the end was some rice.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Organizing My Life
I often think that companies should hire me to review their products - kind of like what Tom Hank's character does for that toy company in Big. Reviews from an average, everyday user's perspective. I have a lot of "this would be so much more useful if..." moments, and I so want to share them with the manufacturer/provider that I have actually written emails in the past to Google and others about what changes they could make that I think would make the product better. Some ideas would just be nice, others seem like basics that have been overlooked and are quite frustrating.
For example, I use Outlook for my contacts so I can sync nicely with my Blackberry, and I like to fill out the records completely (contact management was one of the main reasons I wanted a Blackberry so badly). I feel like there are some improvements that could be made, like instead of having just spouse and children fields, you were given the option to select another contact from your contact list.
Right now, if I happen to have a full contact record for say, my brother AND his wife, then I have an calendar entry for their anniversary for EACH of them. If I delete one and alter the other so that it indicates that it is THEIR anniversary - then any time I make any change to either of their contact records, I have to re-make my changes, and delete duplicates. You should be able to define relationships between contacts.
Also, I want to be able to put people's appropriate salutations, middle names (for some reason, I love knowing people's middle names), nicknames, etc. in there, but I don't necessarily want that showing up as the Full Name. In fact, sometimes I want to a record to appear under the person's nickname. I can manually change the "File As" name, but when Outlook makes the entry in my calendar for their birthday or anniversary, I don't want it to display "Mr. John Q. Public, Jr.'s Anniversary" and "Mrs. Jane R. Public's Anniversary," I want it to read "John & Jane Public's Anniversary."
And on the subject of email (admittedly what most people use Outlook for) why does it require so much effort to mark an email as spam in Outlook? You should just be able to click "junk" button. Unless you have a seperate spam filter that has that functionality, you have to junk messages one at a time, right click on the message, select the junk email options, and then select the option to block that sender. Oi... I'm tired. I could create a toolbar for it, but how many people know how to do that? This should be a basic.
I would like if Outlook incorporated the function Gmail uses in organizing emails - I love that emails are grouped with their string. Instead of listing out every single email, each string is listed. I don't know about you, but I wind up with long email strings at work, often about where lunch is going to be that day.
I got a little worked up on Friday and downloaded some toolbars for Outlook: the Xobni toolbar, and the LinkedIn toolbar. If you are constantly looking for some file that someone sent you awhile back, Xobni is awesome. When you are in your Inbox, it displays information about the sender of that email - phone number, frequency of emails, people included on emails between you (in order of frequency), and my favorite, files that have been exchanged via email between you. It doesn't seem to be something I need all the time, but when I do, it saves a great deal of time.
The LinkedIn toolbar just connects my Outlook to my LinkedIn profile. A link is shown for others' LinkedIn profiles, and I can click a button and Outlook will navigate me to my page. It's not something I use extensively, but so far it seems kind of neat.
Google's products have been the target of much of my pseudo-reviews too. I use Gmail to manage my personal email and my email for Bobby's business - but I can't open vCards with it. If someone sends me a vCard, I can't even forward it to my work address so I can open it in Outlook and enter the information into my Gmail contacts. vCards are not proprietary to Outlook either - they are the standard. I'm not sure how Google intends to do well with GAFYD if you can't even utilize vCards.
In fact, I find Gmail Contacts pretty lacking. I do like that you can enter contact information as Work or Home or even another category, but I wish it had more fields, and cross functionality with the calendar. And most importantly, I really, really, really wish I could sync my contacts with Outlook. I so hate having to maintain two seperate address books, and so my Gmail Contact will likely remain out of date.
On the topic of Gmail/GAFYD - syncing with Outlook is such a pain! You can't sync contacts at all, and syncing calendars has only led me to a crashing Outlook or duplicate (triplicate, quadruplicate, and centriplicate - yes, I just made that word up - entries). In Outlook I use categories to organize my calendar entries (and everything else), but in Google Calendar I have to create whole sperate calendars for things to show up in different colors. Syncing that seems to present a problem in itself. I've abandoned Google's Calendar altogether.
Oh, and I signed up for the Blackberry Owners Lounge, because I'm in love with my phone and want more stuff I can put on it - but for some reason they send out their emails in HTML... which I cannot read on my Blackberry. How does that make any sense at all?
For example, I use Outlook for my contacts so I can sync nicely with my Blackberry, and I like to fill out the records completely (contact management was one of the main reasons I wanted a Blackberry so badly). I feel like there are some improvements that could be made, like instead of having just spouse and children fields, you were given the option to select another contact from your contact list.
Right now, if I happen to have a full contact record for say, my brother AND his wife, then I have an calendar entry for their anniversary for EACH of them. If I delete one and alter the other so that it indicates that it is THEIR anniversary - then any time I make any change to either of their contact records, I have to re-make my changes, and delete duplicates. You should be able to define relationships between contacts.
Also, I want to be able to put people's appropriate salutations, middle names (for some reason, I love knowing people's middle names), nicknames, etc. in there, but I don't necessarily want that showing up as the Full Name. In fact, sometimes I want to a record to appear under the person's nickname. I can manually change the "File As" name, but when Outlook makes the entry in my calendar for their birthday or anniversary, I don't want it to display "Mr. John Q. Public, Jr.'s Anniversary" and "Mrs. Jane R. Public's Anniversary," I want it to read "John & Jane Public's Anniversary."
And on the subject of email (admittedly what most people use Outlook for) why does it require so much effort to mark an email as spam in Outlook? You should just be able to click "junk" button. Unless you have a seperate spam filter that has that functionality, you have to junk messages one at a time, right click on the message, select the junk email options, and then select the option to block that sender. Oi... I'm tired. I could create a toolbar for it, but how many people know how to do that? This should be a basic.
I would like if Outlook incorporated the function Gmail uses in organizing emails - I love that emails are grouped with their string. Instead of listing out every single email, each string is listed. I don't know about you, but I wind up with long email strings at work, often about where lunch is going to be that day.
I got a little worked up on Friday and downloaded some toolbars for Outlook: the Xobni toolbar, and the LinkedIn toolbar. If you are constantly looking for some file that someone sent you awhile back, Xobni is awesome. When you are in your Inbox, it displays information about the sender of that email - phone number, frequency of emails, people included on emails between you (in order of frequency), and my favorite, files that have been exchanged via email between you. It doesn't seem to be something I need all the time, but when I do, it saves a great deal of time.
The LinkedIn toolbar just connects my Outlook to my LinkedIn profile. A link is shown for others' LinkedIn profiles, and I can click a button and Outlook will navigate me to my page. It's not something I use extensively, but so far it seems kind of neat.
Google's products have been the target of much of my pseudo-reviews too. I use Gmail to manage my personal email and my email for Bobby's business - but I can't open vCards with it. If someone sends me a vCard, I can't even forward it to my work address so I can open it in Outlook and enter the information into my Gmail contacts. vCards are not proprietary to Outlook either - they are the standard. I'm not sure how Google intends to do well with GAFYD if you can't even utilize vCards.
In fact, I find Gmail Contacts pretty lacking. I do like that you can enter contact information as Work or Home or even another category, but I wish it had more fields, and cross functionality with the calendar. And most importantly, I really, really, really wish I could sync my contacts with Outlook. I so hate having to maintain two seperate address books, and so my Gmail Contact will likely remain out of date.
On the topic of Gmail/GAFYD - syncing with Outlook is such a pain! You can't sync contacts at all, and syncing calendars has only led me to a crashing Outlook or duplicate (triplicate, quadruplicate, and centriplicate - yes, I just made that word up - entries). In Outlook I use categories to organize my calendar entries (and everything else), but in Google Calendar I have to create whole sperate calendars for things to show up in different colors. Syncing that seems to present a problem in itself. I've abandoned Google's Calendar altogether.
Oh, and I signed up for the Blackberry Owners Lounge, because I'm in love with my phone and want more stuff I can put on it - but for some reason they send out their emails in HTML... which I cannot read on my Blackberry. How does that make any sense at all?
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Live & Let Live
I don't know about you, but I love red cabbage. I put it in almost every salad I make, although admittedly, I don't make salad's often enough. I almost always have a head of red cabbage in my refridgerator; It seems to last forever - I just cut off the browned bits and shave myself off some.
Last month I pulled out my head of cabbage and found that it had a growth - literally! A new cabbage head was growing out of the center. Inside my refridgerator I was not just storing but actually growing food! This is what it looked like on April 12th:
Last month I pulled out my head of cabbage and found that it had a growth - literally! A new cabbage head was growing out of the center. Inside my refridgerator I was not just storing but actually growing food! This is what it looked like on April 12th:
I've had food grow in my kitchen before - ginger root, potatoes, onions sometimes, but that seemed to happen more often when the food was in the cupboard or drawer. But a cabbage? I considered planting it, but decided I'd just keep it awhile, shaving my bits around the new head. Heck, I would have fresh cabbage all the time!
Yesterday I was cleaning out the refridgerator, and found that my cabbage had tripled in size. I finally decided to let it live, and planted it in my kitchen garden. I buried the base and left the new growth above ground. I started wondering if cabbage was a winter vegetable and needed colder weather to thrive. Had I killed it by taking it out of the cold and planting it in the ground just as the weather was warming up?
This morning I had an answer of sorts. When I planted the cabbage, a majority of the leaves were white with purple tips. After only 1 day in the sun and earth, the whole new head is a rich, deep purple. It seems to be happy in it's new home. I wish my camera were working so I could show you the change...
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Tasty Eggs
I don't like plain eggs. I'll eat them, because if feels more responsible than a big waffle coated in butter and maple syrup, but in general - I don't like them. Hard boiled is okay, but the rest - eh. If I'm going to eat them, I usually try masking taste with other ingredients, like sauteed onions and red peppers.
I was watching Ratatouille again recently (I know, I'm a little obsessed), and I wondered what Remy put in his omelette. I know it's an animated film, but I also know the Pixar guys worked with a professional chef to develop all the dishes in the film. I'd never had eggs with herbes in them before, and I started wondering what would be good. So I did what I always do - searched the Internet for a recipe to try.
Almost all the recipes said to use "your favorite herbes" which really was no help. One recipe for "Luxury Scrambled Eggs" called for adding cream which I thought might be interesting... I'd tried adding milk before, but never cream. This morning I decided to just give something a try; this is what I did:
I mixed together 1 egg, a little bit of cream (maybe 2 tsp? - I didn't measure), some chopped parsley (maybe 1 1/2 tbsp.?), salt & pepper. In a small pan, I melted a small pat of butter, and threw in the chopped white and pale greens of 1 scallion. After those softened up a bit (maybe 2 minutes), I added the egg mixture. I cooked that for a few minutes longer, mixing it around occasionally. Just before it was finished, I threw on some diced tomatoes and grated a little edam cheese on top.
Oh, it was so good! This is my new favorite way to eat eggs (it actually tastes nothing like plain eggs). Next time I'm going to try adding in some mushrooms as well. It was so beautiful too! (I would have taken a picture but my camera has died for good this time.)
I was watching Ratatouille again recently (I know, I'm a little obsessed), and I wondered what Remy put in his omelette. I know it's an animated film, but I also know the Pixar guys worked with a professional chef to develop all the dishes in the film. I'd never had eggs with herbes in them before, and I started wondering what would be good. So I did what I always do - searched the Internet for a recipe to try.
Almost all the recipes said to use "your favorite herbes" which really was no help. One recipe for "Luxury Scrambled Eggs" called for adding cream which I thought might be interesting... I'd tried adding milk before, but never cream. This morning I decided to just give something a try; this is what I did:
I mixed together 1 egg, a little bit of cream (maybe 2 tsp? - I didn't measure), some chopped parsley (maybe 1 1/2 tbsp.?), salt & pepper. In a small pan, I melted a small pat of butter, and threw in the chopped white and pale greens of 1 scallion. After those softened up a bit (maybe 2 minutes), I added the egg mixture. I cooked that for a few minutes longer, mixing it around occasionally. Just before it was finished, I threw on some diced tomatoes and grated a little edam cheese on top.
Oh, it was so good! This is my new favorite way to eat eggs (it actually tastes nothing like plain eggs). Next time I'm going to try adding in some mushrooms as well. It was so beautiful too! (I would have taken a picture but my camera has died for good this time.)
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Food Crisis
I came across some thought provoking articles on the global food crisis and on global food production that I wanted to share:
Fresh Air interview: Paul Polak, Tackling Global Poverty His Own Way
Paul Polak, founder of the nonprofit International Development Enterprises, has spent 25 years working to eradicate poverty in Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and other countries in the developing world.
His perhaps-surprising conclusion: Government subsidies for the rural poor often make things worse....
Wall Street Journal Opinion article: Africa Does Not Have to Starve
Rapidly increasing world food prices have already led to political upheaval in poor countries. The crisis threatens to tear apart fragile states and become a humanitarian calamity unless countries get their agricultural systems moving.
Now, with conference committee negotiations over the final shape of the Farm Bill at a critical stage, Congress needs to change the foreign food-aid program and help avert this calamity. The Bush administration has urged, rightly, that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) be allowed to buy food locally, particularly in Africa, instead of only American-grown food....
Fresh Air interview: Paul Polak, Tackling Global Poverty His Own Way
Paul Polak, founder of the nonprofit International Development Enterprises, has spent 25 years working to eradicate poverty in Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and other countries in the developing world.
His perhaps-surprising conclusion: Government subsidies for the rural poor often make things worse....
Wall Street Journal Opinion article: Africa Does Not Have to Starve
Rapidly increasing world food prices have already led to political upheaval in poor countries. The crisis threatens to tear apart fragile states and become a humanitarian calamity unless countries get their agricultural systems moving.
Now, with conference committee negotiations over the final shape of the Farm Bill at a critical stage, Congress needs to change the foreign food-aid program and help avert this calamity. The Bush administration has urged, rightly, that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) be allowed to buy food locally, particularly in Africa, instead of only American-grown food....
Local News
I recently added local news to my Google News page, and since I don't get the newspaper it's kind of nice having a way to see my local news.
But today the first news article I saw was not very pleaseant. Just so happens this occured all of two blocks from my house: 17-year-old shot in face in Anaheim
But today the first news article I saw was not very pleaseant. Just so happens this occured all of two blocks from my house: 17-year-old shot in face in Anaheim
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
My Green Sympathies
While I'm not a militant environmentalist, I do have some serious green sympathies. For example, I don't think we should legislate to prevent people from buying ridiculous gas-guzzling vehicles (unless there is some justifyable need, like business purposes), but I would encourage eco-friendliness and reserve the right to be judgemental of those that aren't.
I think there are lots of reasons to try to be more eco-friendly. Not just for environmental reasons, but for economic reasons as well. Reducing waste is good in any system, and renewable and sustainable resources are preferential to limited ones. It may cost us more in the beginning, but I think it likely it will pay off in the end.
Driving cars that get better gas mileage only saves me money (and I like that). The more we recycle instead of fill landfills, the less total resources each of us is consuming, and therefore the more people the planet can support (and let's face it the population isn't shrinking). Whether you buy the global warming arguement or not, it certainly won't hurt the environment if we try to be eco-friendly.
Personally, I'm regularly thinking of how I can make small changes in my behavior to be more eco-friendly. Mostly little stuff (recycling most of my trash, starting a compost heap, considering gas mileage when purchasing a vehicle, walking or riding my bike instead of driving on occasion), but I try not to be wasteful. I wish there were better public transportation around here, and would love to one day have a house with solar panels (I realize I would still need outside energy, but love the idea of reducing my dependence).
I came across the article below today, and was excited by the idea. Even if they do not accomplish their goal of carbon-neutrality, I love that they are making a try, and I believe any reduction would be a good thing. I've posted the intro below, but you can click the link to see the rest.
Abu Dhabi Aims to Build First Carbon-Neutral City
by Joe Palca Listen Now [7 min 46 sec]
Morning Edition, May 6, 2008 · In Abu Dhabi, there's an area of nothing but wind-swept desert. But 10 years from now, if all goes according to plan, a city of 6 square kilometers housing 50,000 people will rise in the United Arab Emirates — and it will be carbon neutral.
The project, called Masdar City, will burn no gas or oil, so its contribution to greenhouse gases will be minimal. Masdar is the centerpiece of emirate Abu Dhabi's plans to get into the renewable energy market, a hedge against the day its oil wells run dry....
I think there are lots of reasons to try to be more eco-friendly. Not just for environmental reasons, but for economic reasons as well. Reducing waste is good in any system, and renewable and sustainable resources are preferential to limited ones. It may cost us more in the beginning, but I think it likely it will pay off in the end.
Driving cars that get better gas mileage only saves me money (and I like that). The more we recycle instead of fill landfills, the less total resources each of us is consuming, and therefore the more people the planet can support (and let's face it the population isn't shrinking). Whether you buy the global warming arguement or not, it certainly won't hurt the environment if we try to be eco-friendly.
Personally, I'm regularly thinking of how I can make small changes in my behavior to be more eco-friendly. Mostly little stuff (recycling most of my trash, starting a compost heap, considering gas mileage when purchasing a vehicle, walking or riding my bike instead of driving on occasion), but I try not to be wasteful. I wish there were better public transportation around here, and would love to one day have a house with solar panels (I realize I would still need outside energy, but love the idea of reducing my dependence).
I came across the article below today, and was excited by the idea. Even if they do not accomplish their goal of carbon-neutrality, I love that they are making a try, and I believe any reduction would be a good thing. I've posted the intro below, but you can click the link to see the rest.
Abu Dhabi Aims to Build First Carbon-Neutral City
by Joe Palca Listen Now [7 min 46 sec]
Morning Edition, May 6, 2008 · In Abu Dhabi, there's an area of nothing but wind-swept desert. But 10 years from now, if all goes according to plan, a city of 6 square kilometers housing 50,000 people will rise in the United Arab Emirates — and it will be carbon neutral.
The project, called Masdar City, will burn no gas or oil, so its contribution to greenhouse gases will be minimal. Masdar is the centerpiece of emirate Abu Dhabi's plans to get into the renewable energy market, a hedge against the day its oil wells run dry....
Monday, May 5, 2008
I'm Out
I have been spoiled with good olive oil.
For the last two years or so I've been able to acquire very fresh, tasty, olive oil direct from Italy. I picked some up on my own trip in 2005, my brother and his wife have brought me bottles when they visit, and my mom brought me back two bottles when she went to Italy in October... and now it is all gone. As far as I know, there isn't any on it's way to me in the near future.
I'm sure I'll pull through, but I found myself saddened when the last of my Christmas bottle was eaten up. I'll go check out the olive oil selection at my local Italian market - maybe they have something fresher than I can get at the market. Or maybe I must now just go to Italy and bring myself some :)
For the last two years or so I've been able to acquire very fresh, tasty, olive oil direct from Italy. I picked some up on my own trip in 2005, my brother and his wife have brought me bottles when they visit, and my mom brought me back two bottles when she went to Italy in October... and now it is all gone. As far as I know, there isn't any on it's way to me in the near future.
I'm sure I'll pull through, but I found myself saddened when the last of my Christmas bottle was eaten up. I'll go check out the olive oil selection at my local Italian market - maybe they have something fresher than I can get at the market. Or maybe I must now just go to Italy and bring myself some :)
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