Downtown San Diego

It's not very often that there are wispy clouds during the summer. It's either clear or totally overcast.

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My cat when she was a kitten

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Just drink the damn tap water

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/07/27/pepsico.aquafina.reut/index.html

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Eco friendly trash bags?

A contradiction?

So I've nearly eliminated plastic bags from my life. I shop mainly at Trader Joes and the local food coop (which I can walk to, an extra bonus!), so I use my own bags. Most places I do small errands and opt out of taking a bag. But now I've found myself "needing" bags around the house for putting trash in. I always used extra Target bags or other similar sized bags for lining my trash cans, and I'm down to my last one. Usually just one bag a week or so. Do I buy eco friendly biodegradable bags somewhere? Or is there something else I'm not thinking of? Anyone? Maybe Siel can help me here.

Update: 10/26/2008
To purchase eco friendly trash bags, check out the selection of biodegradable bags here.


For more green tips check out my other site, Idealist Cafe

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Admiration

Dear Blind Woman and Seeing Eye Dog at the bus stop today:

I admire you immensely, and am humbled more than words can express when I see people like you. You face the world without seeing it yourself, but experiencing it through the eyes of your dog, something I cannot imagine. You have the courage to leave your house every day, hell, you have the courage to cross the street without knowing what's there. Every time I see a blind person getting on or off the bus, it makes me realize what a gift most of us have in our sight, but also makes me realize that there are other ways to experience this world.

Thank you for inspiring me.

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Man, I just love these guys more and more

I read these lyrics today, they're great.

Bloc Party
Pioneers

If it can be broke then it can be fixed, if it can be fused then it can be split
It's all under control
If it can be lost then it can be won, if it can be touched then it can be turned
All you need is time

We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?

A sense of purpose and a sense of skill, a sense of function but a disregard
We will not be the first, we won't
You said you were going to conquer new frontiers,
Go stick your bloody head in the jaws of the beast

We promised the world, we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?

Breath in, breath out

So here we are reinventing the wheel
I'm shaking hands with a hurricane
It's a colour that I can't describe,
It's a language I can't understand
Ambition, tearing out the heart of you
Carving lines into you
Dripping down the sides of you

We will not be the last.

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this is interesting

So I was looking at my web stats, and someone found my site by doing the search "fucked girls fiji" ... and their location was Iran. Now that's funny.

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Somewhere 15 years hence: The Futures meme

A few days late, but here is the meme Green LA Girl sent me.

What do you fear we’ll likely see in fifteen years? Loss of some low lying coastal cities (like Mission Beach here in San Diego, which is a tiny strip of land that floods every winter when we get high tides); Also people just starting to realize that this global warming thing might actually affect them. Of course it will be minimal compared to people around the world. Dirtier air because our pollution standards seem to always be something like "get emissions to 25% of 2000 levels by 2025" instead something like of "cut emissions by 50% and create cleaner technologies ASAP before we're totally fucked"


What do you hope we’ll likely see in fifteen years? People of all types caring about the environment as more than something to exploit; these same people realizing that we can live the lives we want with the technologies we are used to without exploiting the environment. Also, people actually stepping up and doing things as opposed to talking about them like they care and then heading off to the mall in their SUVs.

What do you think you’ll be doing in fifteen years? Something I am passionate about, likely involving work for the environment and/or helping people live in sustainable ways around the world; being with someone who shares my passions. I am confident that this will happen. 15 years is a long time. I hope I find my passion much sooner than that.

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Bloc Party - Waiting for the 7.18

Bloc Party
Waiting for the 7.18

I love this song.

Waiting for the seven eighteen
January is endless
Weary eyed and forlorn
The Northern line is the loudest

Sitting in silence in bars after work
I've got nothing to add or contest
Can I still kick a ball a hundred yards?
We cling to bottles and memories of the past

(Give me moments)

Just give me moments
Not hours or days
Just give me moments

Grinding your teeth in the middle of the night
Let the sadness off those molars
Spend all your spare time trying to escape
With crosswords and Sudoku

If I could do it again, I'd make more mistakes
I'd not be so scared of falling
If I could do it again, I'd climb more trees
I'd pick and I'd eat more wild blackberries

(Give me moments)

Just give me moments
Not hours or days
Just give me moments

Let's drive to Brighton on the weekend

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An Update

Well, I haven't really written about this topic lately, but I did allude to it in one post where I was saying I felt helpless. I guess for my 1 faithful reader (?) I will explain my situation and what I was alluding too.

I am separated from my wife and will likely be getting divorced.

I never thought that I would be a 28 year old divorcee. But I suppose I will have to get over that one. It's strange, I mean it sucks, the person who I spent the past 5 years with will not be there with me anymore. That is hard. But we have done a lot of talking and have decided that all things considered we will be better off separate. I am trying to look at the bright side, that now I have the opportunity to live on my own terms, and do all the things I've wanted to do without having to consider anyone else.

This is why I have been writing recently about my disinterest with my job. I mean, for the immediate near term I want to keep the job, save some money, but I am really trying to figure out what I want to do. Now that my ties to California will be gone, it's a big world out there.

It's starting to hit me that though I've been in CA for 7 years, my life became centered around my wife because she has family in SoCal. And over the years my friends have slowly moved away. So now I'm realizing that I'm a long way from home, and basically have no friends to speak of. I mean, I've got work people, but don't really want to hang out with them outside of work. I've been asked if I'm thinking about moving back east ... And my answer is no. I know a lot of people when presented with this situation will go back to what is familiar. But I don't want to do that. I mean on the one hand, I feel like I grew away from most of my east coast friends because of being out here and being in a relationship, but on the other hand, it wasn't because I was doing the typical "guy meets girl forgets friends" thing, it was a conscious decision. I love my friends, but I guess while I am still friends with them, I don't want to go back and live the lives that they've settled for.

I have talked about it over and over in my blog, and I'll say it again, I really feel like there is something out there for me. Some passion, some life, some adventure that I will find. And maybe getting separted from my wife is just another push in that direction?

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My morning ride to work...

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What the fuck is wrong with people?

Three people in the visitors' gallery of the Senate got arrested after protesting the fact that Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer.

They were member of an anti-abortion rights group called Operation Save America/Operation Rescue, and after the arrest the web site posted:

The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer, placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the one true god, Jesus Christ, this would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers.

What the fuck is wrong with Christians (or any other religious crazies for that matter)? Who are they to think their god is true and all others are not?

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I was thinking...

...Do you think the sticker that they put on organic fruit to indicate the produce number and that it's organic is organic? I think about it every time I peel the sticker off my all natural fruit and am left trying to get the sticky glue off of it.

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These blogs are great!

Check it out.

http://bentobjects.blogspot.com

http://www.reallybent.blogspot.com

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Sad Sad Sad

Stole this from The Worsted Witch who I believe got it from Green LA Girl.

"in Fiji, a state-of-the-art factory spins out more than a million bottles a day of the hippest bottled water on the U.S. market today, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have safe, reliable drinking water. Which means it is easier for the typical American in Beverly Hills or Baltimore to get a drink of safe, pure, refreshing Fiji water than it is for most people in Fiji."

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/117/features-message-in-a-bottle.html

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Live Earth

Overall, I think Live Earth wsa prerty darn good. Obviously, there was the pretty large double standard of trying to be green while having an event of that proportion. But I really LOVED the commercials they had on TV during the airing of it. Most were good messages about saving energy, conserving, etc. I saw them on Bravo and CNBC, can't vouch for any other stations. And I also loved the fact that in addition to the music, they had announcements and good quality messages and suggestions scrolling across the screen in the background of the stages. I will say that there was no new information for me, but for most people I think just alerting them to the fact that there are little things they can do is a step in the right direction.

On the flip side, I think it's a little crazy for some of the stars to get up there and be preachy about conserving when you have people like Kanye West who are about the bling bling and rapping about gold diggers, lol. Another note, I never heard of Akon before, but I was impressed, he was good and didn't seem too thuggish compared to most rappers. Just my first impression of him.

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Helpless

That's how I feel lately. I've got some personal shit going on, and today I'm watching Live Earth highlights, and I just feel like I should be doing more. I also watched Blood Diamond last night and thought it was an awesome movie, but clearly movies like that make people take a second thought for an evening, then they forget. I just want to be part of something bigger than going to an office everyday and looking for escape afterwards. I don't know where to turn and or steps to take, and I'm getting sick of waiting "for the right time"

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