So I was listening to NPR's Science Friday last week, and they had NY Times columnist Tom Friedman on, talking about his new book The Earth is Flat, which is all about globalization and greening our transportation industry. (you can hear it on MP3 download here, for the time being -- dunno how long the link will last -- and it's mighty good listening, about 45 minutes. Highly recommended.)
And then I read this Op-Ed piece (which originally ran in the NYT). He touched briefly on this topic on Science Friday, but this is an expansion of the idea.
I swear to God, it was wonderful hearing this guy. It was so wonderful to hear an expert -- and a prominent NYT columnist, at that -- say all the stuff I've been shouting about for the last year on this blog, and say it in a nonpartisan way. He was basically like, "look, this is not a partisan issue and we don't have three years to spare. We need another "Moon Shot"-style push for technology now, right this minute, or the Indians and the Chinese are going to bury us so fast it'll make our heads spin, and we won't be able to react because they'll have not only our purse strings, but all the brainpower."
Go man go. Now if only people will listen to us hollering in the wilderness.
Now the railroad came generations ago
And the town grew up as the crops did grow
The crops grew well and the town did too
They say it's dyin now and there ain't a thing we can do
I don't have to read the news
Or hear it on the radio
I see it in the faces of everyone I know
The cost goes up
What we made comes down
What's gonna happen to our little town
The summer is full of thunder
The kids run and play
Momma got a new wrinkle
Poppa ain't got much to say
Rust grows along the railroad track
The young folks leave
They don't come back
And I don't have to read the news
Or hear it on the radio
I see it in the faces of everyone I know
The boards go up
The signs come down
What's gonna happen to our little town
Tom lost his farm
And we lost Tom
He left in the night
I don't know where he's gone
What he'd lost
He just couldn't face
What we're losin' can't be replaced
I don't have to read the news
Or hear it on the radio
I see it in the faces of everyone I know
The reason we're here
Is the farms around
So what's gonna happen to our little town
We've seen hard times
Many times before
Maybe this whole thing is just one more
It never was perfect
Maybe no one's to blame
To see it die like this
It's a god damned shame
And I don't have to read the news
Or hear it on the radio
I see it in the faces of everyone I know
The sun comes up
The sun goes down
But what's gonna happen to our little town
-- Greg Brown
I just watered the garden with fish emulsion, and now all the flies in the neighborhood are at my house, circling the plants, saying "Hey, baby -- what's that bewitching scent you're wearing?"
A Landfill near Columbus is going to be used as a Methane-harvesting plant. On its way out, the methane will turn a microturbine, which will help heat and power the plant. Then it'll be turned into Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) which can be used to power CNG cars in the city's fleet. Later they hope to turn the methane into Methanol for use in Biodiesel production, and for hydrogen extraction.
Details here.
After six months of impatient waiting, I am now running my car on B99 -- 1% petrol and 99% soy. Contrary to popular rumor, my tailpipe does not smell like french fries. It smells like slightly sour cooking oil.
However, I will say this: The car's pickup seems extra-smooth and fast, and there's no detectable, awful, cloudy diesel stank like there is with B20 or regular diesel, and that's a hell of an improvement. The car smells *good* as opposed to like an eighteen-wheeler. And the jerrycans of B99 don't smell *at all*, which is pleasant compared to B20, which still stinks thoroughly of petro-diesel.
I was having a long, frustrating day today. When Paul IMed me in late afternoon, I couldn't even stop to talk.
While I continued pounding code, he went to the store, came home with brats and sweet corn, and by the time I smelled what was going on, had grilled us dinner.
I love my husband so much.
(And, as per the rules of the house, I did dishes.)
I made a blueberry-rhubarb pie with some blueberries from farmer's market and rhubarb from Paul's mom. My husband, an avowed rhubarb-hater, ate three pieces.
We have a neighbor -- don't know where he lives -- named Charlie. He's a short hispanic guy who roams the neighborhood looking for empties to return for their deposits. He walks with a very pronounced limp; says he fell off a roof on his construction job and can't work anymore, so he helps out the family by collecting bottles. He always has a huge smile on his face and is very kind, and last summer, he narced on the guy who stole a bike out of our backyard. Good to have guys like that on our side.
The other day, he left me two flowers, a geranium and another little succulent, on our front porch, with "Para Ti, mi amiga" written on their plastic cups in grease pencil. He is so getting a loaf of my good bread.
A month of ten-to-twelve hour days at the day job do not make for very productive evenings at the evening job. Especially when the evening job also requires computers. My eyeballs are breaking.
Paul helped me scan the first batch of pages for the new book last night. There are 39. This is very significant, as I will now be holing up in Prepress Hell for a while, retooling dialogue and finishing pages "in post", as we say. I'll be lettering, adding word balloons and computerized gutters, and using the rubber-stamp tool for cleaning up the odd cat hair and coffee ring that worked its way onto the page.
After that: Beta-readers, look out!
So, my Vogelein site is a big piece of crap lately. I haven't updated it in over six months, not even to post my appearances.
There's method to this madness, at least a little bit. The site's such a disorganized mess that I'll be redesigning it from the ground up before much longer, and until I do, I don't feel like putting any work into the upkeep of the current site.
Expect changes, and big ones. I'm gonna teach myself DHTML navigation, amongst other things. There'll be a proper blog on the News page, better organized previews, and (Hopefully) a significant preview of the new book.
It's coming. I promise. If anyone's wondering where all my time's been going, it's been going into the new book. Isn't that what anxious readers want to hear, anyway? That I don't have time to sink into the website because I'm generating pages for the new novel as fast as I can?
In other news, I'm taking a minor break from the book to do an Ancient Duskie/Midhir pinup, in the style of Carla Speed McNeil. Crossy-crossy Hatchy-hatchy. My hand's still all crampy; I gotta hand it to the girl. She does a page that intricate Every Day. She is my Art Goddess.
Anyway.
Back to work. Keep an eye out; I hope to have the new site up by the end of June.
So in planting the garden, we had ourselves a catastrophe. We moved all my Triffids out of the Guest room/Library/Nursery so that Mike and Dagny could stay there, and put the plantlings in Paul's and my bedroom.
And left the door ajar.
The cats somehow broke in and mowed down nearly all the pepper plants. I started those seedlings in March. I was heartbroken. The total casualty count was at least eight seedlings, and they also damaged a couple tomato plants, a cucumber and ate the leaves off my ogen melon.
Dammit. I'd been so careful with those stupid plants, nursing them, starting them, potting and repotting. Visiting them every day, giving them dead fish to drink.
Next year, I've decided, I'm just going to get a couple aquariums from Recycle Ann Arbor, fashion screen lids for them, and put a shop-light on a timer-switch. Then I can just put them in the basement on a table and be done with them.
Had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend. We had lots of people through the house as a more-or-less informal housewarming. Thew and Tishalro drove all the way in from Syracuse (!!) and it was fantastic to see them. They're planning on moving back within a year, and we can't wait. Nothing makes a place more liveable than good friends.
Tish described our house as having "Caribbean" colors. While that wasn't our original intent, the reference works, I've decided. The colors are all deep and saturated, boistrous and attention-getting, but not overpowering (at least I hope not). The original inspiration for the house was our neighbors Jeff and Jefferson, who have even more over-the-top colors than we do (A salmon entryway / staircase, highway-sign-green dining room and lipstick-red bedroom). We loved it, but turned the brightness and contrast knobs down a little (hard to believe if you've ever been in our house). We love it, and though it's too much for most people to live with every day, the general consensus is that it's nice to visit, which is exactly what we wanted.
Mike and Dagny came out for the better part of the weekend, and man, it was good to see those guys. They're such positive and wonderful people, and I'm so very lucky to have them in my life. Now we just gotta get Mike done with his movie and the both of them hitched and started building on their EarthShip. Yay!
Virus, Steve and Wendy all dropped by, and we got brief visits from a few Kzoo locals as well. We grilled our way through about fifteen pounds of venison, and even got to have smores. It was a wonderful weekend. I even, thanks to the kind teachings and ministrations of Tish and Dagny, got my garden planted!
It was also an excuse to get our house clean for the first time in months. So now, after all the dishes, bedding and towels have been washed and put away, we're relishing in a temporarily clean and cat-hair-free home. Yeah, that'll last.