Posts from April 2011

Beer club!

:-) the heidi special, served in a tacky penguin mug
Spiffy, speedy new machine.

Cafe taza

I could tell @terry didn't quite believe me that seeing bears is a pretty common thing at home. There was a bear cub hanging around my former house at home this morning. A neighbor posted these on fb and I stole them since I couldn't share them on fb. Someone commented, "yeah that same one was way up by my house yesterday around 3"

Terry won a cup stacking game as part of the buffalo science museum beerology fundraiser. This is a very fun event. I was surprised we didn't see anyone we knew... well, someone recognized me and handed me four unused drink tickets, and some stranger handed us an additional two drink tickets... Did I mention it was fun? We heard Peter Jablonski talk about the history of breweries in Buffalo. We looked at several science museum exhibits. As a former DC-area resident, I perceived it as more like a museum of old museum exhibits than a serious museum. At the same time, the WNY exhibits were kinda cool, and Stuffy the bison was very cute. Snowshoe rabbits... not so much. Chruscikis are yum, the pizza was gross. K Sisters Pierogi - yum.

Is so tedious. I want to take it with me already but it has to be able to do anything I need while I'm out & about. So far I like it a lot. It's so light! I wish it had an external volume control (standard on toshibas).

We're not learning much but listening to green wash is interesting and giggle-inducing.

I'm at the cornell law school fracking conference with my friend hannah. We're laughing at the industry hacks. They sound like idiots in comparison to the academics with their nuances and complex understanding. Maybe we'll go to ithaca beer company to celebrate our hippieness with some flower power.

Topic Idea: "What would I have done for a living in an alternate universe?" suggested by tinypliny

I'd be a photojournalist, travelling the world to find the best light, the best shot, the best story.

I was a photographer for the Penn State yearbook and loved it. I really gave thought to at least minoring in photography but ended up just majoring in sociology and then going to grad school. One of the biggest obstacles for me is that I hate to travel. I figured this out in high school when I did a 10-day tour of Japan and then the next year did one in France with side trips to Italy and Switzerland. Travelling makes me crazy and sick. :-( Even to be a newspaper photographer wouldn't be very satisfying - it's a grunty tedious job and it would require living in a city. Oh, right, I currently live in a city. I have fantasies of being a light, easy traveler. I'm really much more of a turtle - I have to have my STUFF with me. I like stuff. I like consistency in my sleeping arrangements. If I could be a photojournalist with a small RV, that might work. *giggle*

I love my phone. However, I left BOTH outlet chargers at Uncle Dudley's two weeks ago and charging from a USB port on my laptop takes a while and requires laptop to be on. (I know, I could use my tower, but that's in the living room and I use the phone for a back up alarm clock.) I forgot to plug it in last night and today I've been going from client to client and it's run out of battery twice. Client 1 showed me his super cool charging pack - a 3-cell mophie juice pack. I'm in love. I want this sooo bad. But they don't make it for anything but iPhones. booo.

What do you think of this solar USB charger?

I presented at a conference on fracking at UB today. Last night I was pretty freaked out about how different I am - the dinner was excruciating - my dinner companions, fellow presenters at the conference, were cracking jokes about Pennsyltucky, and this one particularly arrogant companion was bitching how she had to go to Wilkes-Barre. oi. Hanging out with rich city folk can be very draining.

I talked about Pittsburgh's ban on natural gas extraction. Instead of taking a traditional zoning approach, PGH went the radical route and established a bill of rights for the community and nature: the right to water, the ecosystem's right to exist and be healthy, the right of residents to sue in defense of the ecosystem/nature. Then they said that for purposes of natural gas extraction, corporations aren't "persons". Corporate personhood is a long-established piece of U.S. law and it's almost impolite to question or challenge this concept. But I did it. They liked the pictures.