Another One? Holy Crap!

In the Abel World we are working outside often.  The front yard is in need of repair, as are the garden beds there.  The back garden bed is getting a fence to keep out the canines, lest the trample.  They’ve already succeeded in ruining and attempt to aerate the soil.  Pack pack pack they go.

The front is getting water and grass seed.  I’ve done intensive raking.  Were the house under our ownership, I would probably nix such attempts and create a waterless landscape about the trees, involving rocks and cacti/shrubs.  It would be very nice.  The front is sporting some beautiful tulips at present, and will soon contain tomato, cucumber, and pepper plants.

The back is the main garden area.  Garden stuff.  We’ll be throwing down some rye grass seed and watering periodically, but not often.  Mowing is about it for intensive work.  I can’t wait until we’re back in Michigan.  The grass grows a bit easier there.

Mediawise, I have been playing Super Mario Galaxy.  Meh.  It’s okay.  There’s a few challenges best described as minigames that are a bit fun, but overall I’m not that excited.  It’s a good story for a Mario game, and it’s nice to see Luigi get some face time, but I’m fairly underwhelmed by the Wii.  Perhaps if we ever get WiiFit as we’ve promised things will change.

Tomorrow is my first WGU test in Health and Fitness, which I will probably rock hard.  I scored quite well on the preassessment.  That was without reading any of the class materials.  Now that I’ve browsed them somewhat, I think I’ll do quite well.  I am still at a loss as to why such a class is necessary, but whatever.  I suppose I could have checked into some sort of appealling, but after my financial aid debacle, I didn’t have the energy.

Don’t know that I’ve mentioned it, but I’m getting an Alphasmart Neo.  All you can do on it is write.  Which I like.  I’ll write more about it another time.

Saw “Monsters Vs. Aliens” last night.  I kept thinking about this image. Which is a little off base, as Dreamworks does make some nice flicks.  I will agree Pixar has the better batting average.  MVA was pretty funny, but not overwhelming.  I think it could have been a lot better, but can’t think of how.

Rogue has been “fixed.”  Not that she was broken.  It requires the dreaded cone, and I’ll take pictures later on.

Just had to let her out.  Dead grass from spray.  I hate spraying and still don’t know why I did it.  I was remined of the Lorax, as I often am when I am outside.  The very ending when the Onceler says something like “And all that was left beneath the sour smelling sky, was my thneed factory, the Lorax, and I.”  It’s pretty much one of the greatest things I’ve ever written and I should probably look it up.  Ah-Ha!:

Now all that was left ‘neath the bad smelling-sky
was my big empty factory…
the Lorax…
and I.

And that’s one of the most beautifully written passages ever.  About the end of oxygen, no less.

 

Fuel

Hello.  I think today may be a writing day.  Although there are rumors in my brain of chili.  I can’t be sure.  It’s a windy day today.  I am lax to venture outdoors.  Now, if I were wise, I would post date some posts so they weren’t published until later.

I am probably not that wise.  I’m not too concerned with building a flowing readership here anymore.  Sons do that to you.  Although, I am quite concerned with starting school again and getting a sweet teaching job.  Seriously, I’m an awesome teacher.

I was watching some nonsense this morning on Sci-Fi called “The Triangle.”  I’m not going to discuss it, although I will say that Sam’s Mom has hilarious insights on movies of this nature and could probably make a killing writing such trash.

There is a scene wherein the ship they are on (it takes place in a triangle, I think you can figure out the rest) is being set to blow up using boat fuel as the fuel.  And I thought about fuel and our nation’s dependency on it and how awful it really all is.

So, I was thinking about things we all know to be fairly true.  The holistic changes needed here in the ol’ USA.  I mean, this global warming business and fuel crunch really need to be dealth with holistically at many levels.  It’s all interconnected quite complexly.  (FYI I am thinking faster than typing so things may get muddled).  It reminds me of “Freakonomics,” and amazing book you all should read.

I was thinking about car fuel and how ludicrous the whole thing is.  Holistically speaking, we should not be looking for alternative automobile fuels.  We should be looking for ways to make our population far more self-mobile without cars.  You know, public transportation.  We all know this.  But really, what are we doing about it?  Especially now that gas prices are back down?

(Sidenote, Wired has an excellent op-ed on that subject I totally agree with).

Well, by artificially raising prices you force people to look for alternative methods.  The solution here is a little bit of backbone on the part of Government.  “Look, here’s the deal American People.  Gas prices are high.  They’re going to stay that way.  You can choose to bitch or you can choose to find alternative transport.”  Now, I think if we seperate personal transport costs from public transport costs, things would really brighten.

Imagine if I have to pay four dollars a gallon for gas.  Always.  It’s maintained somehow with magic.  Imagine the extra money paid for tax on this is used to keep the cost as low as possible for public transport.  Suddenly, it’s easier to create public transport systems and maintain them to a high quality.

Imagine then, if schools were given some sort of subsidy for teaching students about the public transportation system and how to effectively use it safely.  What then?  I think this may seem ludicrous to those who use the train all the time, but those of us in Urban Sprawl, USA get very confused by the stopping and the going and the connections.

Here’s the other education angle:  Make getting a driver’s license harder.  By shifting to a public transport education (which some of you are saying is stupid right now) you take away the funding for driver’s education.  Seriously.  Part of the reason so many of us own cars is because it’s so easy for us to be allowed to drive one.  Of course, they are much easier to operate on giant lanes and long stretches of American towns.

This is all just off the top of my head.

Anyway, by having individual consumers pay a little more at the pump, you also make it worth businesses while to find alternative freight transport.  Get rid of these carbon offset things, since they are absolutely worthless, and give business tax credit based on their actual carbon footprint.  A mega super business like Wal-Mart could possibly be enticed to build a better transport system than giant Diesel trucks.

I’ve never understood the lack of a decent rail system in this country.

Now, I am just flying by the seat of my pants here, so I’m really not looking at potential flaws.  The main flaw in all the plans I’ve heard from anywhere is this:  Patience.  People just aren’t willing to wait the many years it will take for these holistic changes to increase quality of life.  That’s a big deal.  It seems certain to me that a full scale enactment of the plethora of holistic changes would result in a bit of a dip at first followed by a slow climb.

That’s if the politicians could ever agree on such a thing.

But I remain hopeful that we can change.  People just need to realize it isn’t easy to do so.  There’s no silver bullet as the media says.  We do what we can in the Abel household.  We recycle a lot of items.  Which drives me crazy because there is so much extra packaging that is wholly unneeded.

Anyway,  I think most of my friends would agree.  I just wish there were a way to convince everyone else.

 

Earth Day & April Poem #22

I suppose we all know it’s earth day.  Earth Day.

Nature Poem

The wind whispers through the trees
as I crunch the twigs on the trail.
Standing upright, my eyes at the sky
Colors bright and vibrant.
Grendel (the canine) runs ahead
A smell too keen to ignore
as he sniffs and lets me pass
and he runs to catch up.
We are alone
together.

Earth Day was started by Senator Gaylord Nelson in the sixties.  It was for us to celebrate the earth and promote ways to care for it.  I am surprised there isn’t more buzz considering the climate change debate going on in the world.  By buzz, I mean celebrity specials.

Every big day in this world of ours seems to illicit a special on TV.  Either a Christmas, Easter, or Halloween Special.  There’s some sort of celebrity spectacular involving musical acts and fast cuts to the President laughing and applauding.

Where’s the Earth Day Special?  I suppose such an event would seem counter-productive, considering all the resources that would go into such a thing.  I feel I must protest the lack, though.

 

Greenin’ Up

What is the deal with styrofoam/polystyrene?  Is it recyclable?  Is it not?  I cannot believe the massive amount of styro generated by Stillwater.  It’s all they use in the cafeteria at the school I sub for.  It’s all they have at the gas stations.  What on earth caused Oklahoma to miss the entire styrofoam discussion in the past two decades?  That stuff is BAD.

It’s really bad when it’s found in a river.  While you are walking your dog.

I use my own coffee mug when I go places and recycle what I can.  But the vast amount of food trays I see thrown away makes me very depressed.  I wonder if there were some way for students to bring in their own reusable plates?  I know that polystyrene is far more hygienic but I don’t think that’s worth the bad qualities.

In other environmental news, I am trying to find a “green” pair of shoes and it is driving me crazy.  It is not very easy to find a place to try them on nearby.  I can go to a place that sells certain brands, but I am never assured that they will fit right or that they will have the style I want.  Plus, I have flat feet and that doesn’t help.

I suppose I will continue just doing what I can here at home.  We have a clothesline and we have been turning down/off the heat when we leave the house.  I can’t wait to move back to Michigan and build my dream eco-home.  It is going to be killer.

I wonder if the media attention on green homes is good or bad.  It would be great if they got more exposure when someone builds a fancy eco-home, but at the same time,  I sure would like it if people were all “ah, I have that stuff already.”

 

The Labels of Hell

Why do we still have labels on cans? I don’t understand. Cans are wholly recyclable, as are their labels, but why do we need this extra work? Are the food companies trying to secretly promote 1/2 calorie exercise? I suppose when you only use cans once in a while, it’s not a big deal. We use canned goods an awful lot so I feel as though half my kitchen time is spent on can maintenance.

It seems as though the technology would be in place to print labels directly on cans. I suppose that the cans are manufactured away from the food processor so it would be hard to match these things up. Perhaps it would be marginally more expensive. But I would be willing to pay a few cents more if it meant I didn’t have to peel off any more labels. I’m green, but I’m lazy and that’s a terrible combo.

The extra cost wouldn’t be that big a deal. The Verde sector wouldn’t mind paying, I’m sure, as it would be less to sort. The anti-conservers wouldn’t care. If you had told people years ago about people paying through the nose for gas with nary a care, you would have been laughed at. But people are still driving a city block in their military transports to pick up Sissy from ballet.

To tangentalize, I find it interesting that most city-folk probably have a smaller carbon footprint than the country folk.  Of course, us sub-urbanite folk are no doubt the worst.  Even I, with my bicycle, drive most anywhere.  It’s very hard to bring a load of groceries home on the bicycle.  I’m trying harder, though.

So, can labels.  I feel like mailing them to the companies but that would waste paper.  “What are these for?” I would ask.  “Print right on the damn cans!”

Wouldn’t it be fun if there were no labels?  Think of the hijinks!  Okay, this can could be delicious baked beans.  Or it could be nasty beets.  Alphabetizing store shelves would help.  People would also have to get over this brand bias they have.  I have never been able to discern Green Giant from LocalCo.  Name brand cereals are something else all together.  But those packages are very recyclable.  I don’t understand why we still need the boxes, but whatever.