Recycling ABQ 4-6

I'm way behind on blogging about my recycling-picking-up adventures. I've also been on vacation a bit lately, spending a weekend in the Silver City area and this past week in northern Michigan (my first ever visit to Michigan, it included a trip to the fabled Upper Peninsula, my first ever chance to see a home game of my longtime favorite sports franchise, the Detroit Tigers, and several hours spent picking wild blueberries, among other activities). However, I did some collecting before these trips, and am now getting around to listing them while cleaning the house. I don't remember the dates on these, so I'm just going to list them all at once.

Trip #4: ~1 mile, OSE building to house:
Total of 26 pieces, although this counts as one piece an entire Alibi, which maybe should count as like 30 sheets of paper, as we all know that is what it would have ended up as had I not picked it up.

2 glass bottles
8 aluminum cans
13 plastic bottles
3 pieces of paper

Trip #5: ~1.1 miles, Community garden to house:
Total of 21 pieces

1 glass bottle
3 aluminum cans
14 plastic bottles
2 pieces of paper
1 chipboard box

Trip #6: ~0.6 miles, ATC to house:
Total of 39(!) pieces (my plastic bag become overburdened and started to tear; I had to leave it somewhere, walk home, get another bag, and come back to complete this collection)

18 glass bottles
5 aluminum cans
13 plastic bottles
3 pieces of paper

Total number of pieces so far is 158:

38 glass bottles
31 aluminum cans
67 plastic bottles
6 plastic bags
13 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box
1 tin can
1 chipboard box

Amazing what a holiday weekend (4th of July in this case) will do to a town.

Recycling ABQ 3

I had to go water the garden today, so I made another walking trip up to my old house at 11th and Mountain here in town. I noticed a lot of stuff on my way up, but decided not to pick it up, rather getting it on the way home. Today I took a plastic bag with me for collection. After doing my thing at the garden, I started collecting recyclables, but took a different route home, stopping at the old house to pick up mail (the postal system is seriously ridiculous here, and it apparently takes a month to start getting your mail forwarded; I have never had this problem during all of my moves in Arizona, where mail starts getting sent ahead pretty much immediately) and chat with the old landlady, then stopping at the grocery store.

On this 1.1 mile trip, I collected a total of 25 pieces:

1 glass bottle
6 aluminum cans
12 plastic bottles
2 plastic bags
3 pieces of paper
1 tin can


Total number of pieces so far is 72:

17 glass bottles
15 aluminum cans
27 plastic bottles
6 plastic bags
5 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box
1 tin can

Recycling ABQ 2

This morning I walked Alison to the ATC again and continued my recycling-clean-up project. I took a slightly different route, and maybe paid a little more attention, and came up with even more recyclables than yesterday. Today I found a plastic bag on the road, and used that to collect stuff. Today's total was 26 total pieces collected:

3 glass bottles
8 aluminum cans
9 plastic bottles
4 plastic bags
2 pieces of paper


Total number of pieces so far is 47:

16 glass bottles
9 aluminum cans
15 plastic bottles
4 plastic bags
2 pieces of paper
1 cardboard box

Recycling ABQ 1

I have decided to undertake a new project. This project takes very little extra time out of my schedule, but I hope it will be eye-opening. The premise is this: when I walk around town (which I do much of the time), I am going to begin collecting recyclables that I find on the street. I am going to document how much, what, and when I collect.

I started this yesterday with an eye toward glass. I was walking Alison down to the ATC in the morning, and I noticed two beer bottles, one of them on top of a newspaper box. I decided that I needed to collect these bottles because otherwise they would end up as broken glass all over the sidewalk, as tends to happen; I left them there for the return trip. On my way back home from the ATC, I found seven (SEVEN!) beer bottles in a parking lot, obviously left there by jackass revelers from the weekend. Carrying these all in my hands was a little difficult, but then I found a cardboard box lying next to the curb, as if sent there specifically to help me collect recyclables! I ended up getting home (keeping in mind this is a ~2/3 mile trip) with 21 total pieces collected:

13 glass bottles
1 aluminum can
6 plastic bottles
1 cardboard box.


Perhaps after the weekend it won't be as bad?

My other motivation for doing this is that these recyclables on the street will most likely never get recycled (this is based on intuition, not facts). So I do not collect trash, just recyclables. I also have been coming up with some ground rules for this project:

1. I won't pick up anything disgusting.
2. I won't put myself in danger.
3. I won't pick up glass shards, although large pieces of bottles are ok.

I hope this little project of mine will make downtown Albuquerque a slightly nicer place, and maybe inspire some other people to clean up their own towns.

Thank you, California

I have a couple blogs from my Oregon trip written, but I don't think I'm ever going to post them. I would have to insert pictures and such, and meh.

Instead, let me take this opportunity to once again congratulate California on being progressive enough to allow for-real same-sex marriage, joining Massachusetts as the only states recognizing full marriages for homosexuals. I hope that other states fall into line and that those states that legally recognize some kind of union (Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, D.C., Oregon, Washington, and Texas) (just kidding about Texas) up the ante soon.

Get this! New Mexico recognizes same-sex marriages granted in other countries! They're like one step above the no same-sex marriage states, and one step below the pro same-sex marriage states apparently. Go middle-grounders!

Philomath is Where I Go

I am making my first trip to Oregon this week, and I have been approaching it with some trepidation…I’m not sure why. For some reason, I really haven’t been looking forward to this week. The point of my travel is to attend a week-long workshop on temperature sensing using fiber-optic cables. While that likely sounds incredibly boring to everybody else reading this, it’s interesting to me (not the actual physics, mind, just the application), and hopefully I will use it in my research.

This workshop I’m attending (at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest in central Oregon, east of Eugene) starts on Monday, but I’ve come up a couple of days early (with a colleague; for the next week, when I say “we” I will be referring to the two of us, unless noted otherwise) in order to meet with on of the gurus in hillslope hydrology, a professor at Oregon State University in Corvallis. My plan was to meet with him, then spend a couple days exploring the coast of Oregon before heading down to the workshop.

My day today began at 3am (Pacific Time), when I got out of bed before my alarm went off to get ready to go to the airport. My wonderful wife got up to drive me to the airport. (Speaking of my marriage, lately I’ve been a very bad husband in a lot of ways. Alison is truly patient to continue to tolerate me. I’ve came to a realization today that, in spite of earlier protestations to the contrary, I really am Michael Scott. The difference between myself and him is that at least he was the one bringing home the money in his relationship. Oh, and I actually graduated from college. And when I tell my jokes, I know they’re not funny. I have made a little poster for myself that says: “Think: WWMSD? (What Would Michael Scott Do?) Do the Opposite.” I hope that motivates me. I have become less and less responsible since I met Alison, and I think it’s because she is so responsible that it’s easy for me to totally rely on her for everything. My faculties in a lot of areas have slipped because of this. I don’t know, maybe it’s something else, but this seems to fit.)

My flight left around 6am to quickly head over to Phoenix. As those of you who read my wife’s blog know, we went to Pittsburgh recently, and I reflected that Phoenix is about the ugliest city to fly into. There is no green anywhere, except on the golf courses. Some little kid who was kicking my chair the whole way knew another kid who was talking about all the dirt. Yeah. Most other places you go (Tucson and Las Vegas being obvious exceptions) at least look somewhat alive when you head toward them. And this is one of the fastest growing cities (and therefore one of the fastest growing water demands) in the country.

No time to do anything in Phoenix, and the food in the airport was terribly overpriced, so I just did crosswords for awhile. The next flight was to Portland, and shockingly this flight was not full. It has been a very long time since I have been on an airplane that was not chock-a-block full of people. And not just a few seats were empty; my row only had two people, and I had traded seats with somebody else, and my original row also only had two people. The row in front of me only had two. It was actually very nice. A pleasant flight, and I got like two and a half articles read, which for me is quite outstanding. We arrived ahead of schedule, but then we had to go to baggage claim, then to the rental car place, then we had to wait for the shuttle, and the rental car lots are actually not really at the Portland airport, so we had to drive awhile. And they “upgraded” me from an economy car to a small SUV (a Hyundai Santa Fe) which I’m sure gets only about 2/3 the mileage. While in the airport restroom, I had the pleasure of getting to listen to somebody’s phone conversation, which they held while sitting on the toilet. At some point the guy’s reception cut out, which made him quite upset. I say, the cell phone companies should have no obligation to provide you with reception inside of a restroom. Phone calls are not so urgent that you have to make everybody around you uncomfortable by considering that you might be blasting a dookie while talking to a fellow businessman.

The drive to Corvallis took about two hours, and it was pretty pleasant. We grabbed Subway on the way, and today was Free Cookie Friday, so that automatically was a spirit lifter. In Corvallis we parked on the campus of Oregon State University and walked for awhile so I could meet this hydro guru. I think it was a productive meeting, but who knows. Afterward we went to a local book store where I picked up a guide to hiking along the coast. We went to dinner at Block 15, a local brewpub, because I am obsessed with the idea that I am a beer snob, even though my palette is not at all refined enough to really identify flavors, or what is actually a good beer, and my memory is so poor that I don’t remember what tastes like what anyway. In fact, if I didn’t take notes I would have no idea what I actually liked. I will not have this problem with the beers at Block 15, however, which I universally disliked. I tried a 5-beer sampler, with their Brown Porter, Trubbled Monk Belgian, Aboriginale, American Wheat, and Golden Glo. The last two were very light, and really had absolutely no flavor. It was almost as if I was drinking tonic. The Aboriginale was extremely hoppy (to the point that it was difficult to finish and made me feel a little nauseated), the Belgian was very strong (in a not-so-good way), and the Porter was so-so. I actually drank the Porter first because I thought it had the least chance of being a beer I would like, and I thought it was only OK…but it turned out to be the best of the bunch. I did admire the fact that the brewery uses wind power, they purchase carbon offsets, and they feed their spent grains to local livestock. So at least they are low-impact.

We grabbed groceries before heading out of town (I asked a lady on the street to direct me toward a grocery store, and she told me how to get to the Safeway…then also told me about the local grocery store (which was unfortunately too far out of the way)…then also told me about the farmer’s market (which was unfortunately not until tomorrow)…what a town! And I bought cherries at the Safeway; one of my life’s goals is to live somewhere where I can grow cherries) and driving toward the coast. We first passed through the town of Philomath, from which this post takes its title (the title is actually a quote from an old R.E.M. song, so I’m sure it was meaningless to 99.9% of the world population). This took awhile, but the road was just beautiful. I like the whole coastal range area…lots of tall forests, although there are also numerous clear-cut scars everywhere. We drove into Newport, then headed north toward Lincoln City. We camped at Beverly Beach State Park, which was quite nice (if a little noisy, since I chose a campsite that was right next to the highway, and also very close to the beach access). After arriving we took a little hike up the beach to Devil’s Punchbowl (a collapsed sea cave) and back, about 2.8 miles total according to the guidebook. It was beautiful, although the wind was quite cold. There were very few people around. The goal was to see the sunset, but the western horizon was unfortunately cloudy. The hike back, we decided to try our luck with hiking above the beach, and ended up walking down a highway the whole way. This was somewhat harrowing, but it was still pretty light out (this being about 9:00 P.M.) so nothing bad happened. Once back to the campsite, we set up tents and I brushed teeth and went to sleep. It feels great to be out camping, even if you can hear the traffic noise all night. Connecting with nature, at least to the degree one can by backing one’s SUV into a campsite and unloading the tent from the back.

For us to read the fine print, you actually have to print it.

Today is the 5th anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech, which was delivered from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln. Since that speech, nearly 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq. Today, the administration is doing some backtracking on this subject. They are now stating that the banner (the big one that said Mission Accomplished) was not specific enough, and that the speech and the banner referred only to the mission of that particular carrier, which was just a few miles off of San Diego at the time, returning home from a tour in the Persian Gulf.

"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said 'mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission," White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. "And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year."

First, God forbid that the media brings up the fact that there have been almost 4,000 deaths since our president claimed that major combat operations were at an end five years ago (keeping in mind that we were only involved in WWI for 1.5 years, and WWII for less than 4 years). And second, does anybody really think that the speech referred only to that aircraft carrier? The quote above indicates that the entire misconception is due to the wording on the banner. Let's examine the speech itself, shall we?

Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.

Why would he address "my fellow Americans" to tell everybody that the carrier is home?

This nation thanks all of the members of our coalition who joined in a noble cause. We thank the armed forces of the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland who shared in the hardships of war. We thank all of the citizens of Iraq who welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own country.

All of this past-tense formulation ("shared," "joined") certainly indicate that this sharing and joining is not going to go on any more, because it is no longer necessary.

And tonight, I have a special word for Secretary Rumsfeld, for General Franks and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States: America is grateful for a job well done.

I think it is pretty clear that the president was referring to combat operations for everyone when he says, in the first third of his speech, "job well done" explicitly directed at "all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States." I don't think that Dana Perino can justifiably state that there was an implied additional clause after "United States" that should have been "and happen to be sailors on the USS Lincoln."

The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001 and still goes on.

Victory! Victory in Iraq! OK, seriously, again we are supposed to believe that this was implicitly directed only at this group of sailors?

In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th, the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States, and war is what they got.

I didn't want to get into much anti-war sentiment in this post since that isn't the point, but does anybody still believe that our invasion of Iraq was "proportionate to the offense" when the didn't actually do anything to us? Our "proportionate" response to nothing is an invasion that leads to the deaths of nearly 100,000 Iraqi civilians (from Iraq Body Count)?

Only at the end of the speech did Bush actually talk directly about the sailors on board the Lincoln. The administration has tried to set itself free from the "Mission Accomplished" sign, correctly stating that that particular phrase was never actually used in the speech. But you make a speech that indicates that the military was victorious already, and you hang a "Mission Accomplished" banner in the background, and what do you expect? I have to believe (for my own sense of well-being) that the people that run our country are not actually dumb, and understand the full ramification of what they are doing; in this light I believe that the "Mission Accomplished" banner was there to give the American people something simple to see and identify with so that we would feel good about the war. Instead, the press secretary states that they regret not adding some (what would have been) fine print to the banner. Not buying it Perino, try again.

P.S. I love the implications of the following quote from today's news article, considering Bush's military record:

After being landed on the deck of the carrier in an S-3B Viking 30 miles off the coast San Diego (Ari Fleischer said the president "could have helicoptered," but "he wanted to see a landing the way aviators see a landing"), Mr. Bush appeared in a flight suit to the cheers of the ship's personnel and the glare of television lights.