Vibrant.(Still) Unrepentant. Badass. Old. Queer

Well, I'm done with my job-applying for the week! HUZZAH! I am not done with the cleaning and organizing and straightening of the household. Why do I need to clean and organize and straighten, you ask? We'll get to that in a minute, but first ... Time for a fun recap of the Paul Ehrlich Lecture at the World Wildlife Fund yesterday evening. I arrived a bit late. Fortunately, nothing in DC *ever* starts on time. The conference room was packed . There were two seats left. After I sat down, I realized why those two seats were open. Hello, Big Pole Blocking My View of Dr. Ehrlich. I didn't take any photos, so here is a Dramatic Recreation in MS Paint: The title of Dr. Ehrlich's Lecture was "The Dominant Animal of Biodiversity," and here are the highlights of my notes (yes, I took notes! It helps me to maintain focus): -Humans are the Dominant Animal of Biodiversity. Let's drink! -Cute boy keeps staring at me. Should I wave? Smile? Nod? Or ignore him. -Not cute ...

Have you ever read a book which you thought was really interesting/thought-provoking, but then come across a line which made you question all of that? Well, it happened to me this weekend. I was reading Power to the People: How the Coming Energy Revolution Will Transform an Industry, Change Our Lives, and Maybe Even Save the Planet by Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran. It's an older book (published in 2004), but some of the ideas presented are still relevant: fuel-cell technology, energy deregulation, etc. I thought a lot of what the author was arguing made a lot of sense ... until, towards the end of the book, I read this: "And while none of this fancy technology will change the locations on the planet where God put petroleum, it should certainly debunk the claims of those that insist that the world is about to start running out of oil." Um. What? And, now, for me at least, the book is ruined. *sigh*

The salto spread thinly on bread with hummus and spinach made a fairly decent sandwich. On impulse, I bought a book from Amazon.com, American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau , edited by Bill McKibben, foreward by Al Gore. I read the review in today's WaPo and thought, "This is a book I should have." So I bought it. Interesting that I left a comment about one of Bill McKibben's books on GayProf's blog yesterday (or was it the day before?). I still want to buy a couple of t-shirts, but I'm waiting to see if the April budget will allow the purchases. I think it might. Not consuming alcohol for an entire month tends to be a great way to save money (especially if you drink like a vuboq). In case you're interested (and live in housing built before 1978), EPA promulgated a final rule today which requires firms/individuals hired to do renovation/repair/painting to provide owners/tenants with information regarding the hazards of lead-based paint an...

From an EPA Press Release: Can you picture what it means to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 1 million metric tons? News stories are packed with measurements of greenhouse gas reductions, but it can be difficult to understand them until now. EPA's new Greenhouse Gas Calculator helps you turn greenhouse gas savings into more easily understood everyday terms. The calculator converts greenhouse gas-related savings estimates, typically presented in "million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents," into familiar terms such as the greenhouse gas emissions that would result from: · Driving a particular number of cars for a year, · Using a particular amount of gasoline or barrels of oil, · Using a particular number of tanker trucks' worth of gasoline, · Providing energy to a particular number of homes for a year, · Growing trees across a particular number of acres for a year, · Recycling a particular quantity of was...

Dear Teachers: While I appreciate the fact that you are not only trying to instill a sense of environmental awareness into your young charges, but also teaching them how to write and present an intelligent argument, I wish you would do a little research before providing them with a general address to the Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters in Washington, DC. Why is that? For one thing, the people who work in the EPA mailroom are duuuuuuuuumb ... and lazy. Rather than read your students' letters to determine where they should go, they will send them to me. It doesn't matter if you're writing about water pollution or air quality or dumptrucks from Canada unloading garbage in the state of Michigan (up to 350 per day! Dumptrucks, not letters). We are the catch-all, and I'm tired of catching it all. So, here's a brief tutorial of the EPA website: 1. Go to http://www.epa.gov/ 2. Select your issue (in this example, we'll use "wastes"): 3. Look for ...

And so am I! OMG! Maybe I'm a WIZARD too! OK. I have nothing else to say about that, so here are some photos from the Solar Decathlon from last weekend. This house here is Cornell University's entry. AND, we all know who is the biggest Cornell Booster around . I took that photo just for you (OK, and you too). I didn't go into any of the houses. I didn't have the patience to wait in the lines. Cornell's house was kinda blah on the outside, but not the most hideous one there. And, here's the house from Montreal University (or University of Montreal or something). It looks very French, no? Yeah, I don't think so either. My big concern was about the plants growing on the side. Like, what if it didn't rain? Would you have to water your house? I mean, really, I can't keep houseplants alive. I don't think people should have to keep a house alive too. Fortunately, DUN's SCGB told me last night that the houses are not only watered by rain, but also...

Al Gore, on whom I still have a big ol' boycrush even though his face is as wide as a glacier ( according to BOSSY ), and the UN's Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize . The Washington Post (I think I read it in the article linked above) raised the point that the Nobel Prize Committee is trending away from conflict resolution and towards people and organizations that promote and work to attain social stability. I would like to take it a step further and say that the Committee is not merely awarding the prize to those who promote social stability, but also to those who promote stability through environmentally sustainable/beneficial ways. The Nobel Prize Committee is turning over a new, greener leaf. Al Gore and, 2004 Laureate, Wangari Maathai 's green credentials are obvious. Al Gore has become the face of climate change, while Wangari Maathai founded the African Green Belt Movement . Perhaps, less obvious are the green contri...

My brain is bankrupt! I'm on Chapter 11 of the stupid training manual. One of the weird things that happened in the conversion process from WordPerfect to MS Word (and, believe you me, we wouldn't have converted, except our clients switched programs) is that the letters i, f, and y, when they appear in that order, have been replaced by "@." Thus, "notify" is now "not@." That took me awhile to figure out. GAH! Meanwhile, I have this vague memory of hearing an NPR story this morning on the new hugely destructive bomb the Russians tested recently. I can't find a copy of the story, but I remember the reporter saying something along the lines of "it's [4?] times as powerful as a nuclear bomb, without the environmental destruction [damage?]." All I remember thinking was "um. yeah. besides the BLAST area being totally destroyed." I guess that doesn't count as environmental damage.

GAH. I've been trying to write a decent cover letter for two days now, and I can't. Everything I come up with is Crappy McCrapshispants. I have updated my resume. I have selected a few sample links. All I need is a cover letter. [Oh, this is in reference to this job .] G-forking-D cover letters. H8 them. Passionately. Also, I am trying to update EnviroWonk more regularly now. I need to get back in the Environmental Grooooooooove . I switched templates, which means all my linky goodness was lost. I'll work on rebuilding those at some point. Skip on over there to take a look. Tell me whachuthink. Tomokito came over last night to return my corkscrew. We had some wine and a nice chat. We will be having Saturday Afternoon Margaritas this weekend! *woot* I finished reading The Rug Merchant and wanted to type up a brief review today, but I left the book at home. I'll do that tomorrow (or tonight if I can get online). I suppose that's it for now. More la...