What happened here?

I came across some photos on Flickr (thanks to a posting on Boing Boing) of an abandoned Detroit book depository. Only it wasn't abandoned empty. It is full of materials! I'm not quite sure what happened, what the course of events was, but there's evidence of fire, and it's gotten to the point where mushrooms and even trees are growing in the piles of decaying books. Go here to see the photos, and here to read a blog posting by the guy who took them. It's really frustrating to think of all those books gone to waste.

A year's worth of trash

From Treehugger:

Ari Derfel of Berkeley, California, saved his trash - including what he generated when he went out - for an entire year and ended up with a kitchen and then a living room full (96 cubic feet to be exact) of mostly food packaging, bits of paper, and the odd condom. He composted all his food scraps and over time, became obsessively careful about what he bought and consumed. As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, Derfel's experiment was a vivid demonstration of the fact that while we throw away lots and lots of trash, much of it never really goes completely away.

One of the most interesting and thought-provoking results of Derfel's experiment was his feelings around trash maintenance - he spent a lot of time sorting, and rinsing and drying his trash, the pre-process many of us are well-acquainted with in preparation for recycling, which Derfel denounces as 'wasteful' in his blog, saveyourtrash.

"Of course recycling is a powerful first step in becoming aware of what one consumes," Derfel says. "That said, [recycling] takes enormous amounts of energy and clean water..."

While Derfel says recycling is a needed alternative to using up raw materials, it can also show a lack of effective design around our own consumption. Why for example, must we all take home untold take-out packages instead of having personal, reusable containers? Derfel plans to give his accumulated trash pile to an interested artist - there's gotta be a treehugger out there who qualifies. Via ::SF Chronicle

Original article.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. There's a reason why they're in that order. I remember when I heard about Ed Begley, Jr. fitting all his trash into his mailbox...I don't recall if it was one week's, one month's, or what. I think cutting back on packaging in any significant fashion would be harder than any other environmental undertaking. It really permeates to the core of our way of life. But just because it's a daunting task doesn't mean we should give up without even trying. Baby steps...

Whole Foods

I've told so many people about this story from The Consumerist, I decided to post it here in my blog:

What did Whole Foods Associate Manager Ted Donoghue do when his West Hartford store lost its computer system during a major snowstorm? Nothing! After realizing that the registers were down for the count, Donoghue issued simple instructions to his cashiers: bag the customer's groceries and wish them happy holidays.

No storewide announcement was made and the store ended up giving away groceries worth $4,000.

[Manager Kimberly Hall] said Donoghue did not consult headquarters before making his decision and said she has heard no negative feedback from the top brass.

"They just totally trust us to do what is right for our customers," she said.

It didn't appear to be a big deal to Hall. In fact, neither the store nor the chain sought publicity for what happened.

Just as turtle hatchlings know to shimmy towards the moonlit sea, employees freed from constraining corporate codes know exactly how to provide unimpeachable customer service. Great work, Ted!

Original article here.

Animal-lover's dilemma

There's a trial going on right now in Galveston, TX. You may have heard about the man, James Stevenson, who shot and killed a cat because he claimed it was stalking endangered birds. He admits to killing the animal, and even to the act being premeditated, but he insists he was doing it to protect the birds. Apparently the case has drawn attention from bird lovers and cat lovers alike, and both sides are strident in the defense of their positions.

I myself am a cat person. In fact, my care for birds is so low that I even consent to eat the chicken and turkey variety. So of course I think this guy deserves to be punished. The key factor in the case, which will determine whether or not he is convicted, is whether or not the cat was feral, or belonged to someone. It lived under a bridge, so was not a traditional pet, but the bridge's toll taker did feed it and provide toys, so in my opinion, that makes the cat his pet.

However, I do see his point about the cat being a problem for the birds. But isn't that nature's way? It's one thing when a species is bordering on extinction due to human destruction of its habitat, but when the animal's own natural predators are to blame, I think that's called "survival of the fittest."

Here's the link to the article in the NY Times (free registration required), if you care to read more.

Wrong in so many ways...

From AP:

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — A ball hit by Rob Lowe during a celebrity golf game hit the Iowa state bird in mid-flight Wednesday.

The 43-year-old actor was hitting an approach shot on the fourth hole when his ball hit a goldfinch, dropping about 50 yards short of the green, The Des Moines Register reported.

As the rest of the players in his group broke out in laughter and applause, Lowe raised his arms in mock celebration.

"That's my birdie," he said after looking at the bird, which lay motionless on the ground.

"That's unbelievable. Who comes here and kills the state bird? Only me."

Lowe, who appears on ABC's "Brothers & Sisters," was playing in Principal Charity Classic Pro-Am at the Glen Oaks Country Club. He also starred in NBC's "The West Wing."

I kept waiting for the paragraph that would say, "After realizing the bird had actually been harmed, a Good Samaritan quickly rushed the ailing animal to a nearby vet." But no. Everyone stands around and has a good hearty laugh. Infurating! And I read this shortly after reading Gabrielle's post from Wednesday, which, by the way, I heartily second.

Super DVR, other stuff

I totally love my TV and my HD DVR. I love them so much, in fact, that the DVR is frequently maxed out, and things don't stay on the hard drive for more than a day or two before they are automatically erased to make room for new recordings. You would think 160 GB would be plenty of space, but it's actually only enough for 20 hours of HD programming. So after reading some online forums, I recently bought a 500 GB external hard drive, one that would meet all the specs other people recommended. I hooked it up last night and voila! Oodles of room. Then this morning, I wanted to rewind live TV to hear something again (Matt Lauer was in South Africa) and I noticed I could not do it. I tried a ton of different things (powering off, etc.) but nothing made a difference. I hopped on the web at work today and discovered a different forum where lots of people reported the same phenomenon. The solution? Don't watch live TV! It's kind of an absurd notion at first, but then I realized I don't watch that much live TV anyway. For instance, last night, I waited until 9:20 to start watching Grey's Anatomy, so that I would always stay ahead of the commercials. It works fabulously. And on the occasions when I do watch live TV, I can just hit the record button so that in the event I want to rewind, I will be able to. It seems like a small price to pay to be able to record lots of HD movies and stuff. I guess it's just one of those quirks that might get fixed in a future patch. (From what I've read, my HD DVR unit was plagued with problems when it first came out, and slowly they've released patches--downloaded automatically while you sleep--that have remedied almost all of the complaints.)

Not much else to write about. Life is pretty quiet these days. The office is slow, but I'm still enjoying my coworkers. Now that I think about it, this is the first job where I haven't had some major complaint within the first year of working there. Wow, that's amazing. For a while, it appeared as if I'd never find the ideal situation, and I started to wonder if I was crazy for job-hopping in my quest for perfection, but now I seem to have found it, and I'm so happy I did not settle! Good lesson for other parts of my life.....

If you ever check out some of the blogs I read, you should head on over to Blueberry Pie and Head Full of Pixies. They've had some big posts recently.

In local news, a Wake County judge recently ruled that it is illegal to require a student to attend a year-round school. This is ludicrous! He cited the state law that says school must not start sooner than August 25 and must not end later than June 10 as his support. I think that law needs to be struck down, because with the kind of growth our county is experiencing, there is no other way to manage the huge enrollment numbers. Unless you want split schedules, where some kids go to school at 7 am and get out at 1, while others go at 1 and get out at 7. Like that wouldn't mess up parents' schedules! Ha!

So I'm having a little bit of a conscience crisis regarding watering my yard. The lawn, especially in front, has lots of brown spots, but I feel bad just dumping water on it because water is such a precious resource. What makes my lawn deserve this water, when so many billions of people don't even have reliable access to water for their daily needs? Of course, me choosing not to water my lawn will not give them access to water, but there's still an irrepressible twinge of guilt involved. Add to that the fact that I have a serious case of "keeping up with the Joneses" when it comes to my lawn. I am constantly inspecting other people's yards to see if theirs is better or worse than mine. Next door, theirs is Ugly with a capital U, while across the street, theirs is lush. I'm somewhere in the middle. I'd love to have a gorgeous lawn, but I don't want to be a water guzzler.

And then there's the fact that I live by myself in a dwelling that is over 1900 square feet. Talk about wasteful! I should be living in something that's 400 square feet, with solar energy and zero carbon footprint. But I know that is totally unrealistic. So what, I'm just supposed to say oh well, I guess I'll just be a guzzler? I saw an article this week about how the polar ice caps are melting much faster than they originally predicted. This global warming thing is dire, people, and we really have to start doing something. I don't know what I can do to make a difference, though. I try my best and do what I can, in terms of turning out lights and turning off the shower when I'm soaping up, using canvas shopping bags, and recycling everything (I'll even bring home empty plastic bottles from a business trip just so I can recycle them at home). I suppose I do more than a lot of people, but I know I could do much more, and I just have to figure out what. I feel compelled to pressure others into greener ways, but I am no proselytizer. So here's my suggestion for today: Please subscribe to Ideal Bite's daily tip. It is so awesome. They give you easy little ways you can make a difference. Not every day's tip will apply to your life, but most will, and it is very well written and user friendly.

Devastating North Raleigh Fire

I was sitting in my office Thursday when a fire truck raced down Six Forks Road, sirens blaring. This is not terribly uncommon, since there's a fire station about half a mile from our building. But then several minutes later, another truck sped by. And ten minutes later, another one. "What's going on?" I thought to myself. Or rather, thought to myself out loud, which prompted a coworker to look up the local headlines online. There was a fire in a North Raleigh townhouse subdivision. I had heard in the weather forecast earlier that there would be high winds and low humidity, which in California always meant prime wildfire conditions. But you don't hear about wildfires much here in North Carolina. Things are too lush. But somehow, a home had caught on fire, and because it was attached to many other homes, and it was windy, the fire spread quickly. In total, 27 homes were destroyed, and 11 damaged. The cause? "Carelessly discarded smoking material."


I will spare you a rant about the ills of smoking, however I must express my disdain for smokers who carelessly throw their still-on-fire butts out the car window, or onto the ground. Not only is this littering (a big pet peeve of mine to begin with) but it's also dangerous, as evidenced by this horrible fire. If 10,000 acres of brush burn because wind knocks down a power line, that's certainly a shame. And of course it is sad to think of the poor wild animals who perish in a fire of that size. But when you see the photos of people's homes completely burned to the ground, and you hear of their pets being burned alive (either because the family wasn't home at the time to rescue them, or they had to flee so quickly they didn't even have time to grab their pet) and it's all because of a stupid cigarette butt, that is really just appalling.


What's scary is that it could happen to anyone's home due to the carelessness of another human being. I could be so compulsive as to check 5 times that my curling iron is off, but someone else's absent-mindedness (or worse, complete disregard for others) could just basically ruin my life. And that's what happened to these poor people of Pine Knoll Townes.

Here's a link to some photos of the devastation. If you are compelled, help here.

Drama in Apex!

Hey everyone! Thanks to those of you who wrote in your concerns, either on my blog or via email. I am okay. I did evacuate Thursday night, but I'm back home now and everything seems to be fine. I guess it was a pretty big deal since we even made the national news!


I went to bed unaware of any drama, but I got a call from a friend around midnight, telling me that they were evacuating parts of Apex and to turn on the news. At first there weren't many details, but finally they posted the address of the warehouse that exploded. When I entered it on Google, I saw that it was about a mile west of my apartment! They kept showing an evacuation zone shaded red, and I was just outside the south end of it, but at the same time they said to leave if you're within a mile radius of the warehouse. And since we were dealing with a toxic gas cloud that knows no boundaries, and the possibility of shifting winds due to an approaching storm, I decided to go to my parents' house. We stayed up until about 2 am watching the news, and when I went to bed I couldn't fall asleep for a long time.

The next morning I woke up and checked the news online to see what the status was. I had several trainings scheduled at work that day, so I decided I should go in. Of course, I was going to be late, so I had to reschedule the first training, and have my coworker do the second one. And then my other two cancelled on me right before their appointments! Oh well, at least I didn't use any of my paid time off.

On the way home, my usual freeway offramp was blocked, so I tried surface streets, but that way was blocked too. I asked the officer guarding the street when it might open, and he said he didn't know. Then he asked me where I was going. I told him the name of my apartment complex and he said, "Sure, you can go there." And I was like, "How? There are cones." He said kind of sarcastically, "Do you see the spot in front of my car with no cones?" As if I was supposed to know to just drive right through his roadblock! Anyway, I said thank you and went through. When I drove into the complex, I saw tons of cars, so it wasn't like it was deserted or something.

On the way to my massage appointment this morning there were still a few streets blocked but most of them were reopened. Now we just have to worry about whether the water is contaminated from the runoff. I tell you, something's gotta give, because a) I bet no one had any idea that toxic chemicals were being housed practically in their backyards, and b) the company had been cited multiple times in March for safety violations. Gosh, it makes you wonder about all the other stuff that we go around living our lives blissfully ignorant of.

Where's the ark?

Prestonwood Golf Course, Cary, NC - June 14, 2006

Yesterday, the "remnants" of tropical storm Alberto made their way through the Triangle region. If you live around here, you could not escape the news coverage, but for those of you out-of-staters, I'll fill you in on the drama. The rain started around 4-ish in the morning, and by the time I left for work a little before 8 it was falling at the rate where you would start invoking felines and canines to describe it. My drive to work was a white-knuckler, but at least the freeway was not flooded. Once I got onto Six Forks Road, however, I found that the lane closest to the curb was more or less unusable due to the rushing torrents of water in the gutter. I made it to work fine, though, and even early. We always keep the radio on for a little background music, and at noon they switched over to carrying the audio of their TV sister station's news broadcast. We found out that Crabtree Valley Mall was closed due to the parking lot flooding,


and we kept hearing about all the streets that were closed.

Sunset Lake Road, Apex, NC - June 14, 2006

The newscasters must have said a hundred times, do NOT drive through water, and yet still people did it.

(This guy ultimately got a ticket for crossing a police barricade.)

Online I was able to watch video of the live coverage and they kept showing the feed from the traffic camera located at the intersection of Glenwood and Creedmoor, which showed a flooded out street and cars floating in it. Crabtree Creek was something like 5 feet over flood level. By 2 pm, Apex had gotten 6.7 inches, while Raleigh had gotten 7.6! We're talking in a matter of 10 hours, people! Considering that, the area managed relatively well, although there were some, uh, major problems.

Sinkhole near the Wake-Granville border, June 14, 2006

By the time 5:00 rolled around, I was fearing the worst for my commute home. After nearly five hours of listening to all the frantic reporting, I was more than a little on edge. I even called to cancel my massage (gasp!) thinking that once I got home, I would not want to risk leaving. Well, wouldn't you know, I get out on the roads, and by that time they were bone dry! Quite a relief. As soon as I got inside my apartment, I began inspecting for leaks, because I've had leaks before. I noticed that my kitchen floor had a puddle, and I looked up to find water dripping from the light fixture! I called the management office and they offered to send their on-call maintenance person right away, but I'd dealt with that guy before and he was useless (not to mention I smelled alcohol on him). So I said to just wait until tomorrow. Knowing my luck, I figured the water in the fixture would dry overnight and the guy would come in the next day, see nothing amiss, and think I'm a loon (especially since this is my fourth call for a leak--that bathroom ceiling was quite a bugger for a while). But this morning there was still water in it, so at least the guy will see I have a legitimate problem. Let's hope it's an easy fix!

All photos "borrowed" from WRAL. See the slide show of over 200 photos here.

Update: Yeah, no one came to take care of my leaky lighting fixture today. Grrr!! Also, on the news at the gym, I heard that even after all that rain yesterday, we are only one-tenth of an inch above normal for the year. So we're caught up from the drought, but not for long. Since there's no rain in the forecast until late next week, we'll be behind again in a matter of days!