No Impact Man

See the blog here and the mocking here. So I found this through a blog, Little Birds, that Ms. A links to, and it sounded pretty neat. The guy has even been featured in the NY Times. But I've read through some stuff and thought about it for awhile, and discussed it with my intelligent and skeptical sister, Karen, and I'm thinking this guy is cracked out. It is great to try to reduce your environmental impact, but seriously, no toilet paper? I use recycled paper. And while, yes, it is still waste, what about the water he is wasting with his 'cleansing bowls'? I just don't know about this. And to top it all off, he is hesitant to talk about what he thinks are "private" (despite the fact their lives are being filmed) like toilet and cleansing specifics, feminine hygiene, and birth control. We all know that CFLs are a good idea by now, but I think really most of us don't know what we should be doing about those pesky tampons and the fish-mutating birth control. Some help you are, No Impact Man.

I'm going to go there because he won't. Just in case you are wondering about the feminine side of things (although I realize some of my dear readers are not interested in contraception and by default having periods right now), some of No Impact Man's readers suggested the following: www.gladrags.com, www.thekeeper.com, and Mirena. To be honest, I am not an environmentalist in this arena of life. I like my trusty tampons and BCPs. However, I was recently thinking that maybe I could explore the use of an IUD or IUC to prevent the hormones that I inevitably pee out and travel to the waste water treatment plant from hurting nature. I am a little concerned about the copper-release aspect (IUD) and the hormones still used in Mirena, an IUC. Also, Mirena is most recommended for people who have already had children, although they claim as soon as it is taken out you return to your previous state of fertility. After a year of using it, it is supposed to reduce your period by 90% or eliminate altogether, thus making scary environmental options like The Keeper unnecessary. What do y'all think? For some reason, even though I'm all in favor of organic cloth baby diapers, I twinge at the idea of cleaning those re-usable pads. Eeew! As far as toilet habits go, I think recycled paper and 1.6gpf or dual flush toilets are just fine for us. Most people waste more water in the shower than in their daily toilet trips. Get a composting toilet if you want to, but for god sake, don't forgo toilet paper. I mean really!

In other, low impact living, here's what I do:

• CFLs
• Walk around town
• Use heat as little as possible by bundling up
• Use air as little as possible by opening doors and windows, or covering windows with thick shades in the summer
• Recycle everything I possibly can
• Try to limit purchases, or at least buy eco-friendly or recycled items
• Compost food scraps
• Try to turn off power strips at night
• Drive a car that gets 40mpg
• Currently trying to get creative and reuse things I currently have instead of buying things. I recently made a picture frame for some wedding pictures out of a partially broken old frame and some pretty paper. (Okay, it was my first try, so it's not that great...)
  

• Line-dry clothes
• Wash clothes in cold water. Most detergents now are designed for this. Speaking of, I use 7th Generation detergent.

Some things I would like to do:

• Get rid of more things (mostly Matt's). And by get rid of, I mean donate, not throw away
• Read magazines online instead of the paper version. But I love getting magazines in the mail y'all. Finding them in the box and flipping through them... It's just so, so textual.
  
• Move to a small apartment with a smaller ecological footprint
• Get rid of some furniture when we move and buy some smaller used, recycled, or eco-friendly items. I have my heart set on some things from Gaiam.
  
• I have mixed feeling when it comes to buying things. Is it better to buy nothing or to buy eco-friendly and recycled items to support the market and encourage it. We can never honestly end consumerism, so wouldn't it be great if it was green consumerism? What do y'all think?
• Not drive ever. I'm not sure how to go about this since Matt and I like to explore the lovely out-of-doors. Is this a sacrifice we should be making?
  
• I would really like to get off those BCPs. I don't want to hurt the froggies!
• Be more activist in encouraging green and healthy lifestyles.

I would like to hear from you, my dear readers. Any other suggestions or thoughts? Neat ideas? Things that would make better use of my time (like not wasting so much energy using this laptop)? Requests not to hear any more about a little bit gross bodily functions? While we're on the subject, I have seen some great links on Inhabitat to eco-underwear and lingerie as well as eco-sex toys. Enjoy!

Something Neat

I've spent the better part of an afternoon browsing through Inhabitat. This is a great website. I'm not a design-freak, but I'm thinking I would like to start exploring the right side of my brain. Anyway, this site blogs about sustainable housing design, eco fashion design, and some other neat design-related things. I'm totally into buying an eco-prefab house someday. And the cardboard furniture kits (mostly for kids)? Really neat.

In other news, has anyone tried Good magazine? At first I wasn't sure if I liked it, but we just got our second issue and I think it's great. It also has a bit of a design-bent, but sort of more in how the magazine is put together and not it's content. Also, a subscription is $20 and the whole amount is donated to the charity of your choice (out of a list of 12 or so). We somehow ended up with two copies of the same issue, so if anyone would like to check it out, we'd be happy to send one to you.

Also, small towns and mail men

Monday morning we went to the PO to pick up our 7 days of mail that we missed on the honeymoon. We only got one tiny package, and we wondered aloud at the counter what had happened to the larger packages we were expecting. At any rate, we went home.

Around 3:30 pm, the mailman stopped by, in his personal vehicle, to let me know that the lady at the PO had forgotten to give us two large packages and that she felt really bad about it. He hadn't brought the packages because he didn't know if we were home, and I suppose he didn't want to be carting around someone else's packages in his own car. Maybe that is illegal. At any rate, he said we were on his way home and he just wanted to let us know. How nice! I can't even believe it. This would never happen in a big town. That is another reason why I love Socorro.

My return trip to the PO reminded me again why I don't like Socorro. I don't want to go into it.

Today's Blog is About my House

Okay, well I don't own a house, but we rent this rather large 3 bedroom manufactured home, of which you may have previously heard, in the sleepy town of Socorro where rent is quite low. I have discovered that in Albuquerque we will be able to rent a small 2 bedroom apartment for the same price as this house or a 1 bedroom apartment for slightly less than that. We all know this is not my favorite house. But it has wrought-iron screen doors on the front and the back that we love to have wide open, letting the breeze blow through. The back-yard is huge, although un-landscaped. It currently contains a shed, a horsehoe pit (two I guess) and a clothesline. Next door there is an empty lot. We have a lot off space. A lot.

I hate to clean this house. It is way too big. We ended up here because we wanted a 2 bedroom house or apartment so I could have a home office, but this was the only thing we could find that was not in some way scary. It is only scary by association (i.e. the houses down the street). But, I wonder if moving back into an apartment will make me feel closed-in. Granted, I love porches and balconies, and I don't have one here, so that would be nice. But won't it be loud? Won't the neighbors annoy me? Won't I wish I had a clothesline and a horseshoe pit? But then again the house might be clean. I don't know where all Matt's stuff would go. Hopefully Goodwill, but that is another story.

You know, I was just reading this, and I found it to be quite boring. Is my blog always quite boring? Is that why no one reads it except my sister (because she is family and she has to)? Oh well. No one has to read it. I just get bored so I like to think out loud. And today I am thinking about my house.

Workin' Girl

I accomplished so much today that I don't even know who I am anymore. I fixed the logic glitch (or two or three or four) in my model (I hope) and pretty much got it calibrated without crazy numbers. Then with my spare time I went ahead and revised the journal article that I have been sitting on for two months. I didn't finish, but I got a huge start and sent it off to my co-authors. Maybe sometime in the not-too-distant future you will find me if you Google search my name and Journal of Environmental Management. Just maybe. Then, and only then, will I be famous.

In other news, I am taking a poll. Who thinks I should go back to school? If so, part-time or full-time? I don't think I'm going to get any money out of them and tuition runs about $198/credit hour, of which I need 48 to graduate, unless they count some of my prior graduate credits. In addition, how in the hell do I know if I want to be a planner? As it turns out I didn't even want to be a hydrologist. And I stopped wanting to be an engineer about 7 years ago even though I am now a practicing (in name only) Environmental Engineer. Anyway, opinions anyone?

What California Taught Me

Ya'll. I love this word. Or contraction. Even though I always contract it in the wrong place. I think it looks better that way.

I have been back in Socorro, New Mexico, for about 12 hours now. We went to the post office this morning. There were 3 dogs outside, without leashes, patiently waiting for their owner, who was presumably inside. Inside, a woman with a baby pulled a ringing cell phone out of her cleavage, answered it while at the counter being helped, and proceeded to have a very loud, very annoyed conversation with someone who may or may not have been her mother about someone who may or may not have been the baby-daddy. (I don't even know how to write that 'word.') These are some of the reasons I know I am in Socorro. How else do I know? I live in a manufactured home. Let me just point out that there is not necessarily anything wrong with manufactured homes. But this manufactured home is very old (for a manufactured home) and very rickety. And it is in Socorro. That is what is wrong with it. How else do I know? It is quiet. That is a good thing about Socorro and is one of the reasons I sometimes like it here. The other being that I can walk places and there is a park down the street with tennis courts. The other is that it is not as scary as Albuquerque. The reasons I don't like it here are multitude. I will not go into them now.

On the last day of our honeymoon, as we were not flying out until 8pm, we stopped for a few hours in Berkeley to check out the town and campus and to see our friend Jenny again. Jenny and I used to have the same lives, sort of. We went to UA for two years and got degrees in hydrology. Then we both worked from home for two different National Labs making a lot of money. Now she is working on a PhD and I am still working for the National Lab. She misses the DOE. I wish I didn't know what the DOE was. Berkeley is beautiful.

Whenever I tell people I work from home, I get one of two responses. 1) Wow, that must be so nice! 2) Wow, I don't think I could handle that! I go back and forth between these responses in my head. 1) If I didn't work from home, I couldn't be writing this blog in the middle of the day. If I didn't work from home, I couldn't have slept in until 9 this morning in recovery from my honeymoon. If I didn't work from home, I wouldn't see my husband (!!) as much. If I didn't have this job, I would not be able to travel as much. 2) If I worked in an office, I would have a distinct line between work and home. If I worked in an office, I would not look around the house for things to clean and then never do it. If I worked in an office, I would talk to people other than my husband on a daily basis. If I worked in an office, I would probably get more work done.

In the beginning of my work from home, I did well. I have been slacking lately. I think it is because I know it will be over fairly soon and maybe sooner if I work too hard.

What California taught me is that I shouldn't take my DOE job for granted. I should aspire to live somewhere with public transportation and hiking down the street. It's not like I didn't know these things before. I mostly just thought the title was cute.

I think we will have to (get to?) move to Albuquerque soon. These are the things I want out of it:

• Proximity to walking/jogging/hiking paths
• Public transportation to UNM and my job (if I have one)
• Weekly boxes from Los Poblanos Organics and a work-share to get 1/2 off
• People to talk to and maybe even friends!
• Things to do with my husband instead of watching Netflix

Will I miss Socorro? Will Matt ever miss Arizona (or admit it)? Will the grass always be greener? I assume so. On all three counts.

PS Do you love how I've been throwing the h-word around?

Honeymoon

Matt is posting complete daily synopses (I use this term loosely) of our honeymoon on Baillie Blog. If you have a lot of time to kill, check it out. We are having a great time out here in sunny California, where we have not seen a drop of rain and fog for only an hour or so one morning. We must have done something good.

Tomorrow morning we leave the Mendocino Coast to travel to Yosemite, where instead of cliffs, beaches, and ocean, we will spend time with rocks, snow, and waterfalls. And probably a lot more people. And probably just as expensive. Our dinner tonight, which was cheap by Mendocino standards, cost $35. This is worse (monetarily) than being in Switzerland! I suspect we may also be without internet connections, so this could be the last blog until we return.

This afternoon, as we were sitting on a bench at our hotel overlooking the sea, we were discussing what we would have done with our honeymoon had Karen and Bernie not generously offered to send us on one. I guess they must have offered a long time ago, because I don't even remember contemplating this question before. We decided that we probably would have been staying at a Marriott in Phoenix and watching a lot of spring training. And that certainly does not sound bad, but we would have missed out on a lot of great things. Some highlights:

• The trainee rental car shuttle driver in Oakland
• The 'maze' between Oakland and San Francisco
• AT&T Park and the Battlecry! (Evangelicals that prevented our tour)
• A complete walking tour of San Francisco that totaled probably close to 5 miles the first day and over 10 miles the second day. (It's really the best way to see things and the whole coast is beautiful!)
• Getting drunk with Jenny for old time's sake (I know you're not supposed to see people on your honeymoon, but we figured one day out of 10 wouldn't hurt.)
• A cute little B&B on Washington Square with a cocktail hour, breakfast-in-bed, and a bay window view of the cathedral and Coit Tower.
• Golden Gate Bridge
• The drive on Highway One to Mendocino
• An even cuter Inn with a fireplace, porch overlooking the sea, picnic tables overlooking the sea, benches right up on the sea clif, the nicest hostesses (I think this is a B&B term), and tasty breakfast.
• Thai burritos
• The entire Mendocino Coast: Mendocino Headlands State Park, Russian Gulch State Park, Point Cabrillo Light Station, MacKerricher State Park, Jughandle State Park, Spring Ranch State Park, Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden (we seriously hiked at all of these)
• Seals and Sea Lions and Whales

I have to mention whales again because I am so excited about them. We kept looking for them for three days and never saw them. Finally this morning, at a park I didn't even want to go to, we started seeing spouts. And then we got out the binoculars and started seeing bodies that go with the spouts. Granted, we never saw them fully, but it was so cool! And while all this was happening, we watched some sort of heron-like bird fishing and eating his catch. He had some problems involving the fish or eel (not sure) flipping itself around the bird's beak. Very amusing. It was so fantastic!

Anyway, tonight is our last night in this great Inn, and tomorrow we venture on. We are pretty excited! Thanks again (so much) to Karen and Bernie and we will talk to ya'll later!

I just have to add a post-script that we have not turned into B&B people. We don't fit in at all, and yet I love it.