Colorado knowledge

Time for another "droppin some knowledge" post. I'll follow this up another time with some pics from my Colorado trip. A work trip, but lots of fun too.

1. Firs = flat & friendly (the needles)
2. Spruce = spinny & spiky (the needles - meaning that you can spin the needles in your finger)
3. Aspen trees have the ability to clone themselves. So an Aspen grove is generally all one tree - you can tell because they'll all change colors at the same time. They clone themselves as a way of adapting to conditions where there are not male & female trees nearby.
4. There's a Lodge Pole Pine beetle infestation in the Rocky Mountain National Park. The female beetles burrow into the tree and then bore up the tree, laying eggs along the way. The males burrow in and create a blue-green fungus along the outer edge of the tree. The larvae eventually burrow their way OUT of the tree. And... the tree dies. So a lot of the Rocky Mountain National Park has these "red" trees that are dead Lodge Pole Pines. And then yellow Aspen trees that are changing colors.
5. Lichen = algae + fungus. Some lichen grows 2 square inches every 100 years.
6. Elks do this crazy mating thing around this time of the year. The bulls kind of keep their cows all together and make sure that no other bull tries to steal them. Kind of herding their group. But to get the cows attention and kind of make themselves sound tough to other bull elk, they make this kind of eerie screeching sound called a "bugle."
7. There is tundra in Colorado.
8. There is snow on mountaintops in Colorado in September. There's even a range called the "Neversummer Range."
9. You can get many more types of New Belgium beer in bottles in Colorado than in California. Not a huge surprise, given that it's brewed in Fort Collins.

hi from shadowcliff

just saying hi to my new friends i met in colorado

Bacteria to the rescue!!!

Nature rawks!

........

EPA has proposed a remedy to clean up soil and groundwater contamination at Romic Environmental Technologies Corporation. Romic is a 14-acre hazardous waste management facility located in East Palo Alto, California.

If you've got two minutes, I recommend checking out the video press release on the EPA site, which also has more details about the project.

Proposed Cleanup Approach

The proposed plan of action for contamination at Romic relies on enhanced biological treatment as well as other approaches. The enhanced biological treatment uses cheese whey and molasses as a food source for natural microbes that live in the soil and ground water below the Romic facility. These microbes break down the contaminants into carbon dioxide, water and salt. Tests of this technology at the Romic facility have shown as much as a 99% decrease in the amount of contamination. Implementing the remedy site-wide will require installation of a few hundred more injection wells than the 60 which now exist. Thereafter, the molasses solution will be injected throughout the property. EPA hopes to use this technology at more cleanup sites in the future, because it demonstrates rapid and effective results using inputs which are non-harmful (in this case, food-grade products), while using less energy resources than traditional pumping and treating of groundwater.

A Carrie Bradshaw moment.

...my very own Carrie Bradshaw moment.
Courtsey of my run at lunchtime on Friday, outside along the Embarcadero. It was midday and pretty darn warm outside. Hot, even. Well, hot for San Francisco. After I got out of the kind of "office building" area of the city and onto the Embarcadero (a pathway along the bay), I took off my tank top and ran in my sports bra and shorts. This is not uncommon - lots of runners on the Embarc, some with shirts, some without. After about 30 minutes into my run it occurred to me that I had not gotten any unwanted attention. No cat calls, no whistles, no "hey baby" from the construction workers...not even a "you go, girl" from a gay guy. And it was, well, a little bit concerning.

Why do we (in true SATC speak, I'm talking we as women here) act disgusted when men call out to us on the street, but then feel like something's missing - like there's something *wrong* with us - when there's no attention paid to us at all?

Of course, if this was really SATC, I'd have some great story and insight following that question. But I don't. I don't have any answers or deep analysis. Probably because it's not that deep a question and I just really wanted to pretend like I had Carrie's shoe collection, great apartment or fairy tale ending with Big.

Anyway, I was composing this post in my head (it went much better there than in actual words, but I'm not exactly known for my awesome writing skills), I had thoughts of taking a picture of my abs to show you that while they're not perfect, they're not horrible. I at least know that I was wearing shorts that don't have tight-muffin-top-causing-elastic. But really, that's not the point.

What up with being so hypocritical? So wanting of attention? This is coming from your very own brass-balled, no bullshit kind of gal.

*sigh*

On the flipside, grow a pair, men of San Francisco.

Exercise update. It's not good folks. Here's what happened last week...
Monday - nothing. homework.
Tuesday - pilates
Wed - spin class (yay!)
Thurs - pilates
Friday - 40 min lunch run
Saturday - nothing. was at a friend's bridal shower & then did homework.
Sunday - more homework.

Ratatouille, by non-chef Kirby

Exercise update...
Wednesday - 40 minute run at lunch
Thursday - pilates
Friday - nothing. Did manage to drink a lot of vodka though. That's exercise... for my liver.
Saturday - ran with LRM. Far. Like 11.5 miles. Lots of hills and stairs. Wouldn't have done it alone, that's for sure.
Sunday - nothing. Lots of school work.

Despite the mountain of school work, I *did* make a pretty awesome dinner for myself. A sort of improv ratatouille... tasty and required little work outside of cutting:
1. saute purple onion (1) & garlic (3 cloves) in olive oil in a big, deep pan
2. add cubed eggplant (1) and sliced zucchini (3)
3. add tomatoes - here's where it got interesting. I added the rest of a container of cherry tomatoes, two big tomatoes cut into cubes and a box of this tomato sauce "starter" from Trader Joe's
4. add some water
5. add some spices - salt, pepper, Cayenne pepper for some heat, sage, rosemary and oregano. If I had bay leaves, I would have added one or two, but I don't have any.

I ate the ratatouille over some polenta slices - Trader Joe's has these tubes of polenta. Just slice, heat & serve. The rest of it I portioned out into containers for lunch and put it over some brown rice. Hopefully this will help with my need for efficiency in the morning when I'm heading out to work AND it's pretty darn healthy too.

Benefit concert on Wed, Sept 12!

Hi Friends,

Just posting an invite for an upcoming benefit next Wednesday, Sept 12th. A good friend of mine volunteers with Girls For A Change, a national organization that empowers thousands of teen girls to create and lead social change.

Voce Communications is bringing out the PR/media community to support the organization, raise money, drink some booze and network. They have a great band confirmed: Off the Record that is comprised of media legends, such as Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal. Think Journey meets Cat Stevens :)

What: Girls For A Change Benefit

Where: Rockit Room

406 Clement Street (between 5th and 6th Ave.)
When: September 12 @ 7pm

Why: Raise Some Money for a Good Cause

Entertainment: Off the Record Band

Horsepower... redefined.

From the wonderful folks at TreeHugger...
The Naturmobile, by Fleethorse.

Power. Measured in horsepower. Bus. Powered by actual horses.


Oh please, tell me that people are not going to buy into this idea. A life cycle analysis is not required to show the world that this is NOT an energy-efficient mode of transport.

Really effing hilarious video though. Maybe it's actually a big ol' hoax? Complete with a dance tune from about 2003... someone help me out with that song.

Pictures, pilates and planes

...Sigh...I wish I could have made more out of the long weekend, but I got caught up on my reading for school AND did a lot of work in my apartment. I have unpacked all the boxes in the living space of my apartment (there's probably one box of random stuff in the closet), put together all of my Ikea furniture and hung some pictures on the walls. This is pretty much the first time I've put so much effort into my apartment - I guess because I plan on being here for a while and because it's just me here in my little 150 square feet of peace.

So I said I'd update on my exercising. It's going... but not great.
Friday... yoga
Saturday... 30 mile bike ride. Beautiful day to ride in Marin.
Sunday... nada, studying. Save for a quick ride to GG Park.
Monday... just some bike commuting to North Beach for dinner.
Tuesday... pilates.

Going to try to stick with pilates on Tues/Thurs. Why? Because the instructor is this super positive, smiley, happy guy. He's big on taking little breaks to smile, think happy thoughts. At the end of class you lay down and do a sort of "corpse" pose like at the end of yoga classes - and he talks you through a visualization. Today it was jumping out of an airplane (with a parachute!). I dig having some time to focus my mind while I'm also exercising my body.

Thinking happy thoughts... like what? What makes you happy? Picture yourself blissfully happy. Where are you? Who are you with? Maybe you're alone. Maybe you're somewhere other-worldly. Or you're doing something simple. Maybe you're in your house. Is it loud or quiet? Are you active or relaxing? Indoors or outdoors? Day or night?