To Do List

Life long "wish-lists" (aka. affluenza side-effects) for me are over-rated. I enjoy a pretty wish full-filled life as it is. Smart and sexy wife. A beautiful and witty daughter. And being lucky enough to have not become house-poor in the current housing down-turn etc., are just a few rarities I now enjoy. But, I ran across this video clip and have decided that there may be a few extra things out there I would like to witness with my family and friends.

I remember in the early 80's, the infrequent coverage of televised space shuttle launches made it a special event. My brothers would watch the launch before we went to school and
the video excellently portrays why we were intranced.

So, therefore I add a pre-dawn shuttle launch to my obligatory "wish-list"

But I'm not hurting anyone but myself....

I came across this article, thanks to a link on Marry’s blog, and it’s stayed with me ever since so I decided to share an excerpt with you. Viewing our consumer-based culture through the lens of addiction hits the nail right on the head. What better way to celebrate Earth Day than to boil our environmental situation down to its root cause.

Industrial civilization -- and its end product, consumerism -- has disconnected us from nature, the cycle of life, our communities, our families and, ultimately, ourselves. This unnatural, inorganic, materialistic way of living, coupled with a marked decline in society's moral and ethical standards -- what the French call anomie -- has created a kind of pathology that produces pain and emptiness, for which addictive behavior becomes the primary symptom and consumption the preferred drug of choice.
What most of us experience when it comes to addiction," says Erickson, "is a pattern of continually seeking more of what it is we don't really want and, therefore, never being fully satisfied. And as long as we are never satisfied, we continue to seek more, while our real needs are never being met."
“Addiction in one form or another characterizes every aspect of industrial society,” wrote the social philosopher Morris Berman, and dependence on substances or corporeal pleasures is no different from dependence on "prestige, career achievement, world influence, wealth, the need to build more ingenious bombs or the need to exercise control over everything."
“The patterns of behavior endemic to consumer society are so much more dangerous than substance abuse, because they are perpetuating a culture that is literally eating itself out of house and home.”

We can all go out and buy hybrid cars and take re-usable bags to the grocery store and I applaud every green effort. Yet even the "greening" of products and practices all around the world is coming close to propaganda in itself. To truly solve environmental problems, we must stage a cultural intervention, get to the root of the issues, and recognize that virtually everything must change. Overwhelming is an understatement. But we won't care for the Earth until we learn to care for ourselves and each other.

So here's where you start. Spend your daily energies connecting with yourself, your family, your community, and the place you live. If you’re a parent, it is absolutely paramount that you take your kids outside to play. Teach them how to connect with who they are and how great it is to truly connect with another person. I promise that they will show you how to embrace the beauty in your own backyard.

Earth Day Purism-ism

Having a few moments before the day began, I wandered the web reading as much Earth-Day related material as possible. I have come to the conclusion that ultimately, I believe many more people are catching on and starting to celebrate environmentalism in their own ways. Which is great. Overall, at this point, I think that as long as more people understand that ecological activism is much more than a radical, "Tree-hugger" movement, practiced only by dread-locked hippies, we all win.

Practicing good stewardship over our natural resources, in order to protect the environment for our children is the ultimate in utilitarian ethics. Anyone, who loves to experience the serene beauty nature has to provide, is by definition, an environmentalist. If you love watching wild animals in Yellowstone, or recreating in Grand Teton National Park, and even enjoy a simple day in the nearest forest, you are environmentalist. If you advocate open or park space in your neighborhood, you are an environmentalist. If, in the city where you live, your favorite street just happens to be richly tree-lined, you have an innate connection with our natural world, and therefore, I believe we all have an innate connection with the land and should take part in trying to protect it.

What is most interesting, is to question why are more and more people taking a part in greening their lives. Ultimately, it may be due to mainstream media tracking the current trends of pop-culture. I never pursue pop-culture news, but have noticed a rise in reports of stars who are greening their lives in some way or another. Even Paris Hilton drives a hybrid although its a Yukon that gets only 20 or so miles per gallon. Leonardo Dicaprio, after producing the movie "The 11th Hour" is getting more publicity for his environmental efforts. Overall, since we as Americans are more intune with mainstream media, this Eco-Pop movement, however minimal their actions may be, is being noticed as socially acceptable form of lifestyle.

But, no matter the lifestyle, whether it be of the dirty, desert-rat hippie who will never deviate from his purist environmetal ideal, or the multi-million dollar pop-star who is trying to assert themselves by publicly deviating from current unsustainable trends, any attempt to change our current reliance on unsustainable means will ultimately save the earth.

P.S. Turn off your lights!

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes… Well, more like head, elbow, knees and knees and a bunch of bruises

So, how is my triathlon training going, you ask? Ugh, life just seems to get in the way. Jon had to spend four days in Moab for a work conference at the end of March so before he left I thought I’d get in as many workouts as I could. Well, I did, including a 5:45 a.m. spinning class after a hard run the previous evening and sleeping a total of two hours that night. Then I was at the pool at 6 a.m. the next morning still very sleep deprived. Needless to say, it was a bit much on my body and I ended up fighting off a cold and feeling like complete crap for almost a week later. And then the crappiness culminated in the worst migraine I’ve suffered in the past two years, including the requisite puking. Anyway, onward and upward since then.… well mostly.

I’ve also been suffering severe knee pain during my runs for the past few months and finally decided I should get it checked out. In the past when my knees started to hurt, I knew it was time for a new pair of running shoes. But Jon bought me a great new pair for Christmas and the pain still wasn’t going away. I stereotypically followed the pattern that most other injured runners do: 1. Ignore the injury and run through it, 2. Quit running for a while and pray that it will go away, 3. Attempt self-treatment, then 4. Seek medical help. So here I am, almost finished with three weeks of physical therapy for patella-femoral syndrome, which is really just a polite way to say that my genetically defective knees, plus an imbalance in quad strength versus cardiovascular strength, equals one gimpy runner. I always knew this before but now I live religiously by it… strength, flexibility, and cross-training and lots and lots of ice.

Since I’ve had to take my knees out of the action during therapy I have been swimming with a floater between my legs and pulling with just my upper body. I was actually fine with this because I could focus more on my stroke for a while. But being the klutz I am, I wasn’t used to how off-balance I felt at the end of the lap and I smacked my elbow into the concrete… yup, it’s still sore a couple weeks later.

THEN, last week I got the green light to do some biking. So I hungrily installed my new clipless pedals, which Jon gave me for our anniversary, onto my freshly-tuned bike and slipped into the accompanying shiny bike shoes. Of course I knew I needed to practice clipping in and out so I did a few turns on the lawn and then cautiously headed down the street with only one foot clipped in. I slowed down to practice clipping that foot out but the other foot had stealthily clipped in. So yes, I took the obligatory “Buck Bybee” tumble into the pavement with the bike still attached to my body. Everyone has to do it once while learning to clip out, so my turn’s done now, right? RIGHT?? At least I didn’t land on my knee.

Despite all this, I actually am getting in some good training time and really learning (maybe the hard way) how to balance everything. But apparently I need all the help I can get.

EARTH DAY!!

Earth Day is April 22nd! Celebrate and go buy a CFL light bulb, ride the bus instead of driving, use no lighting during the daylight hours and visit these sites!

www.18seconds.org

www.rustletheleaf.com

www.globalcool.org

www.energystar.gov

VW Update

Well, contrary to what my contributions to our little blog site may reflect, I have had time here and there to work a bit on our Volkswagen Westfalia. Even though I haven't documented any progress,“Daisy” has seen quite a transformation since last year.

Once upon a time, about September of last year, Marianne started receiving some rather inquisitive remarks during her normal Sunday meetings. The good sisters were referring to the seemingly growing fleet of Volkswagen buses in our driveway. This due to my acquiring yet another VW bus, a 1968 VW from a local property owner who was ready to send it to the junkyard and eternal demise. Ultimately this find was a godsend, since I planned to remove the rather bulbous fiberglass topper on Daisy, and replace it with a closer to original canvas pop-top, which this donor bus had, and the ethic of keeping vintage cars form decaying in a junk pile is a cause I contribute to. Consequently, I suckered my brother Jeff into helping me tow the motor-less donor, speckled with years of unsightly bird art, from its lowly driveway spot to its new spot, in our lowly driveway. It was, to say the least, not an improvement to the neighborhood’s property values.

During its time in our driveway, the operation of surgically removing essential parts began and it was time consuming yet fun. But, when the time came to use my angle grinder to cut into the pristine 30 year old, vintage sheet metal, I sweated every detail. This critical piece of metal was pivotal in the restoration of Daisy’s pop-top roof and I have been called many things, but professional Auto-Body Technician was not one of them. Therefore, I scoured old photos of VW buses to estimate the location of my cuts. I measured twice, three, even four times, only to back off as I second-guessed myself. I even ventured onto a couple of Volkswagen-only websites to search their discussion forums for any sign that maybe another, out-of-his mind sucker had planned, conquered and documented this territory. No such luck, I was on my own. In fact several people from the VW purist end of the spectrum laid into me, heckling what I was proposing as an abomination to the VW scene.

Whatever. Feeling as though I have to sail, rather than drive, my VW down the freeway with that huge piece of fiberglass above me is an abomination to my scene.

Anyhoo, I took a deep breath and sliced out a rectangular piece in a dimension I thought should fit Daisy. Afterward, as I placed the metal aside and I was pleased with what else I had scavenged from the donor bus, I pryed the white bubble-top off of Daisy's roof and fitted it to the donor bus. What I didn't anticipate was encountering extensive rust around the rim of Daisy’s roof. This was a problem. One that I wasn’t happy with but was true to the roller-coaster of highs and lows of the car restoration experience.

After the dust settled, the neighborhood heaved a sigh of relief as I had the donor towed away as part of an agreement with another local VW nut, in exchange for the welding and rust repair I needed. Which pretty much brings me current. Next will I post details of the pop-top install and removal of all the interior furniture, cabinets and paneling in order to sound deaden, insulate and lay new carpet and wood floor.