Little Update

Excerpt from letter to the girls

Aside from today (rainy) the weather has been absolutely perfect lately. I keep doing my best to just soak it up and enjoy while it lasts.

Our bathroom floor is finally(!!!) repaired but I have yet to clean up the dried grout powder stuff completely, and the dining room ceiling still has a big gaping hole. meh. We're having a house concert here (for Brooke Brown Saracino) at the end of the month though so that gives a nice deadline for me to clean and my mom to get things fixed, although the plastering of the ceiling might be hard because not many people in town do it and the guy she found who does is pretty booked up. If it's not done in time though we can have the concert at my mom and Jeffrey's, so it's nice to have a back up plan.

I started an online music theory class through Berklee School of Music (Boston). I've only done one week so far which is learning the notes and beats, which I already knew, but looking ahead I can see there is a lot more to learn that I don't know, or don't know well at least, so I'm hoping it will fill in some gaps in my theory knowledge. Plus I'm taking it for credit so if I decide after this that I want to keep going I put it towards a songwriting certificate or something like that. One of the big things I got out of my songwriting camp was that there ARE certain concrete things you can do to write better songs, and knowing that somehow gave me the drive to go out and learn as much as I can about it.

I've also been doing an exchange with a local songwriter - Sharon Bousquet, where I do some internet/computer work for her in exchange for guitar or songwriting coaching and it's been pretty great so far, it's only once a week but the stuff I've learned has really opened things up for me and now I just need to get better at practicing - it's like lifting weights, all the knowledge in the world won't build the muscles!

Work at 3mix.com is good but I think it will get a lot better once there is a live site with users in it up and running. Right now I'm mostly just testing things for bugs, and writing a little bit. I'm supposed to write an article for the Source about the company but I'm having the darndest freakin' time doing it. Not sure what's wrong and it's very, very frustrating!

Radio show has been going pretty awesome, interviewing a lot of cool musicians and getting more confident talking on the phone: http://kruufm.com/blog/heather

If all goes well we will be getting a scooter tomorrow morning. It seems like a good way to use the both less of the car and gas. One of the ideas at one point was to sell my car, which will likely still happen in the near future, but it's so scary to think of not having a car, especially for the winter. It also makes me really pissed because I feel like I should be able to NOT need a car and figure out how to live without one. There are plenty of people who seem to manage without, my brother being an example in this very house!! He rides his bike or walks in almost all weather, he has a trailer that he can carry groceries and his entire Farmer's Market set up in, and in the winter there's a bus for special needs people that he can take to work. It's the winter that scares me the most. It's not like we won't have ANY car, Gilberto would keep his, and I also know plenty of one car families. And I could really use the money from selling my car to help pay for the scooter or my music class. ARGH! Anyway, I guess we'll see how it goes with the scooter for a little bit before making that decision...

100% Clean Electricity in 10 Years

Sounds good to me!



From wecansolveit.org

"$427 million. That’s what the oil and coal industries spent during the first half of 2008 on lobbying and advertising. They’re protecting their interests – and hurting ours.

This ad is running on TV right now, but we need millions more to see it. The special interests will outspend us, but we can compete head-to-head with them when we find ways to share these messages for free.

We want 50,000 people to watch this ad in the next 72 hours. Will you help? Please forward it to a friend..."

Print Greener! For Free!

I haven't tried this yet since I'm not at a place with a printer, but it's endorsed by the Wall Street Journal and a few other reputable businesses, so I figure it must be good. It's a free software program that helps eliminate the printing of those stupid pages with hardly anything on them, "like that last page with just a URL, banner ad, logo, or legal jargon". It also has a free PDF writer, so you don't have to buy Adobe Acrobat to write PDFs. Seems like a no brainer!

http://www.printgreener.com/index.html

All biofuels are not created equal!

Copying this article from Ty of Girlyman from this blog post because really I have no way to say it better. I think this was the same thing she wrote in response to a NY Times article and her response was featured by the editors as being a great other opinion they wanted to highlight.

All biofuels are not created equal!
by ty | March 3, 2008
Recently the biofuel industry has come under increasing attack from the press. The production of this so-called "luxury fuel" has been blamed for deforestation and for stealing land used for food crops and using it for biofuels instead.

This blanket condemnation frustrates me. While many of these claims are valid for the biofuels industry IN GENERAL, there is a tendency to ignore the fact that biofuels come from many different sources; like most products, biofuels do their best work when produced locally. To ignore their potential by acting like they are all produced the same way is irresponsible.

These recent attacks from the press ignore the fact that in many communities across the country, biofuels are produced via local oil recycling efforts. For example, our local biofuel source here in Atlanta is called Refuel Biodiesel; all its biofuels come from local waste oil supplies and do not contribute to deforestation or any other global ills. Biodiesel made locally from used cooking oil yields about 6 units of energy for every unit invested. In addition, biodiesel emits 78% less CO2 than petrodiesel. If produced in a responsible way, its contribution to the fight against global warming is significant. For more information, check out the FAQ section on Refuel Biodiesel's site:

http://refuelbiodiesel.org/

I agree that like many of our industries, the biofuels industry needs to be rethought. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater; let's support local biofuel programs the way we are increasingly supporting local produce. Please feel free to ask any questions, and do spread the word, because the smear campaign against biofuels is very damaging to our efforts to have viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Thanks, everyone. xo ty

Where the Candidates Stand on Environmental Issues

Chart from the grist.org .

Dang. I had no idea there was such a difference across candidates.

Another Reason Why Google Is My Best Friend

I often say that Google is my best friend because of how often I use it, and how often it provides me with amazing answers to things. Sometimes I'm amazed when people ask questions online, my first thought is "but why didn't you Google it?" Or when I'm chatting or talking with friends and they mention something I don't know, I Google it and voila! Suddenly I'm informed! And Google translator has really helped me out on hundreds of occasions.

So on top of all this marvelous assistance, now Google is going green, according to this article on CNN.

HOORAY!!!

In other news, I am back home, cold and cranky and cansada. (That's "tired" in Spanish. I was on a roll with the "c" words there, had to keep going.)

Chico Bags Rock!

And so does their commercial!




http://www.chicobag.com/

I love how they squish down so small, and they have a keychain hook, so I never forget it. Especially since most of my times to the store are unplanned, on the way home form work or something.

HOORAY!

Worms Are Amazing!

I just went to an extremely educational event hosted by the Big Green Summer interns, that was all about composting and vermicomposting - which is composting with the help of worms. Apparently little red compost worms can eat almost anything! Food scraps, straw, manure, newspaper, non-glossy junk mail paper, natural fiber cloth like cotton, silk and wool - they just munch it up little bit by little bit and turn it into stuff that's super nice for soil and plants!!! Of course it's easier/faster for them if you give them smaller bits to start out with, but oh my sheesh - if you do it right you can set it up inside your house and they'll eat it up fast enough it won't even smell! They highly encourage such practices for people in city apartments who don't have the yard space for a big compost pile.

As I was driving home I started getting really upset. This stuff makes so much sense for the sustainability of our planet, and it's not that hard really. How come it's not something they teach/establish/encourage on the level of ALL public schools?? (and while we're at it, real world relationship skills should be required curriculum too! but that's a whole different post) I mean, apparently a few schools have vermicomposting programs to deal with their cafeteria scraps, and so do some zoos (huge producers of organic waste), but it seems like there could be a HUGE market potential for people to provide/set up these services all over! Restaurants, grocery stores, offices... Not only do the worms get rid of the unwanted stuff, the by-product (worm castings) is GOOD for the environment! Seriously! What the heck?!

Green things!

It's been rainy and warm a lot the past few days and that precious green creep of the spring grass coming in has been making me smile. It's amazing how spring makes things so happy in so many ways!

Found a couple interesting Green living websites over the past few days too.

The first one 18seconds.org (apparently that's how long it takes to change a light bulb - who knew?) is about compact florescent light bulbs. I was glad to find it actually because we switched a bunch of our light bulbs out for CFL's but then heard from Stacy that they contained mercury which is really bad. But the website explains that a) it's a very small amount of mercury, and b) if you dispose of the bulbs properly they reclaim the mercury and it never goes out into the environment. I've added a badge down the right side of my page that's supposed to track how many people in your city have bought CFL's and the positive impact that's making.

The other thing I found through my friend Alexis' blog was Colin Beavan's blog about his year-long "no impact man" experiment. He's a writer in NYC and trying to live with his wife, 2 year old daughter and their dog and produce no net impact on the environment. So super reducing - no buying new stuff, food local to 250 miles, etc, and participating in trash pickups and charity or such to negate the impactful things they can't give up or get rid of. The whole thing is going to be a book and a documentary too. The idea also is not that they necessarily live like this forever, but that by completely committing to the experiment they will really know what they NEED to live and what they don't. Makes my few spiffy light bulbs look paltry by comparison and makes me feel a little guilty about going clothes shopping last weekend. He's getting backlash about it being a publicity stunt and such, but sheesh he's doing it, so that much less impact on the world, plus anything that gets ideas out there for people to consider - that seems more important to me, so I applaud it.