Monday, October 6, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Where'd the Hair Go?
Several of you commented that my hair seems a lot shorter in the recent blog posts. There's a reason for that. My good friend Carrie had some fun playing with scissors.
The thought was that if I didn't cut my hair during the year I was gone, maybe it would be long enough to donate when I returned to the country.
Most places require 10 inches. To my great surprise, my ponytail measured in at 15. Guess that will do.
Carrie was a bit nervous because I kept making her cut more off. But how else are you going to end up with lovely hair covered shoulders? Plus, she's an expert in disguise. She definitely has a backup career if dance falls through.
Greg begged us to keep the ponytail after it was cut off to help him speed up growing out his beard, but in the end he caved and let us send it in to Locks of Love*, he figured they needed it more.
*"Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis." (http://www.locksoflove.org/)
The thought was that if I didn't cut my hair during the year I was gone, maybe it would be long enough to donate when I returned to the country.
Most places require 10 inches. To my great surprise, my ponytail measured in at 15. Guess that will do.
Carrie was a bit nervous because I kept making her cut more off. But how else are you going to end up with lovely hair covered shoulders? Plus, she's an expert in disguise. She definitely has a backup career if dance falls through.
Greg begged us to keep the ponytail after it was cut off to help him speed up growing out his beard, but in the end he caved and let us send it in to Locks of Love*, he figured they needed it more.
*"Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis." (http://www.locksoflove.org/)
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Political Canvassing
We were in Portland, Oregon for Labor Day weekend and did some volunteer work with both the Obama and Jeff Merkley campaigns. They were both pretty different experiences and rather surprising.
Jeff Merkley is running for US Senate in Oregon against the incumbent Republican. He's very progressive on a lot of issues and it would be great to see him get into the Senate. I had given some money to him last December and thought it would be great to volunteer for the campaign while we were passing through Oregon. So while in Seattle I sent the campaign an email and signed Mekayla and myself up to do some canvassing.
I had thought that canvassing would be something I would hate, and Mekayla would love. She just tends to be a lot more willing to talk with random strangers than I am. Boy was I wrong. Mekayla hated the idea of interrupting people's days and trying to convince them to vote for a particular politician. It turns out I thought it was incredible fun.
Once I got over the initial wierdness of knocking on strangers doors and I more or less got a rythm of starting the conversation I had a great time talking with people and talking about issues with undecided voters. Even though I didn't know all of the details of Jeff's positions I could always fall back on talking about Democrats in general and the reasons why I was supporting them. I knocked on about 85 doors and talked to about 25 people. Not a bad success rate for a Saturday over Labor Day weekend.
The next day we decided to volunteer with Obama's campaign doing voter registration. This was a bit more in line with something Mekayla was happy with. We essentially stationed ourselves in a high traffic location at an art show and made it really easy for people to register.
For both days we got a lot of "thank yous" on the street and they were both great experiences. And it adds a whole different dimension to our road trip across the US to actually connect and talk with locals along the way. We hope to volunteer with some other Democratic Senate campaigns as well as Obama as we continue to travel.
FYI, I've gotten a lot of my information about the Senate campaigns from the Senate Guru Blog and making donations through their ActBlue Expand the Map page.
Jeff Merkley is running for US Senate in Oregon against the incumbent Republican. He's very progressive on a lot of issues and it would be great to see him get into the Senate. I had given some money to him last December and thought it would be great to volunteer for the campaign while we were passing through Oregon. So while in Seattle I sent the campaign an email and signed Mekayla and myself up to do some canvassing.
I had thought that canvassing would be something I would hate, and Mekayla would love. She just tends to be a lot more willing to talk with random strangers than I am. Boy was I wrong. Mekayla hated the idea of interrupting people's days and trying to convince them to vote for a particular politician. It turns out I thought it was incredible fun.
Once I got over the initial wierdness of knocking on strangers doors and I more or less got a rythm of starting the conversation I had a great time talking with people and talking about issues with undecided voters. Even though I didn't know all of the details of Jeff's positions I could always fall back on talking about Democrats in general and the reasons why I was supporting them. I knocked on about 85 doors and talked to about 25 people. Not a bad success rate for a Saturday over Labor Day weekend.
The next day we decided to volunteer with Obama's campaign doing voter registration. This was a bit more in line with something Mekayla was happy with. We essentially stationed ourselves in a high traffic location at an art show and made it really easy for people to register.
For both days we got a lot of "thank yous" on the street and they were both great experiences. And it adds a whole different dimension to our road trip across the US to actually connect and talk with locals along the way. We hope to volunteer with some other Democratic Senate campaigns as well as Obama as we continue to travel.
FYI, I've gotten a lot of my information about the Senate campaigns from the Senate Guru Blog and making donations through their ActBlue Expand the Map page.
Twenty-nine years of crazy cakes
Well, another year has come and since we are once again on the road we are again baking in a random kitchen. But Mekayla's great birthday cake tradition continues. We took over her cousin Pamela's kitchen for the day and then Mekayla, her Dad, and I cooked throughout the afternoon and into the evening.
This time the cake was a flourless chocolate torte. We of course decorated with a lot of fruit and chocolate shavings. And to kiwi-ify it another part of the cake was made from Grace's Pavlova recipe. A Pavlova is essentially a type of meringue, but Australia and New Zealand argue over who actually invented this version. Grace swore us to secrecy and provided us with her secret family recipe for this event.
Now to answer the big question everyone is asking: What shape is it this year? Naturally the shape had to capture a bit of our time in New Zealand and the idea that we have been traveling a lot. So the shape this year is a Maori canoe, called a waka.
One of the great things about the word "waka" is it is now used in Maori for as the root word for any mode of transportation. So the word for plane translates as "canoe of the sky". And the word for car "waka whenua" [wa-ka fen-u-a] translates to "canoe of the earth". We gave our new car the nickname "waka whenua" also.
Before dinner we also continued to hone some of our Indian cooking skills and made what turned out to be a quite good vegetarian meal.
So our journey across the US has begun. We are now in San Jose, and today we leave for some camping in Yosemite.
This time the cake was a flourless chocolate torte. We of course decorated with a lot of fruit and chocolate shavings. And to kiwi-ify it another part of the cake was made from Grace's Pavlova recipe. A Pavlova is essentially a type of meringue, but Australia and New Zealand argue over who actually invented this version. Grace swore us to secrecy and provided us with her secret family recipe for this event.
Now to answer the big question everyone is asking: What shape is it this year? Naturally the shape had to capture a bit of our time in New Zealand and the idea that we have been traveling a lot. So the shape this year is a Maori canoe, called a waka.
One of the great things about the word "waka" is it is now used in Maori for as the root word for any mode of transportation. So the word for plane translates as "canoe of the sky". And the word for car "waka whenua" [wa-ka fen-u-a] translates to "canoe of the earth". We gave our new car the nickname "waka whenua" also.
Before dinner we also continued to hone some of our Indian cooking skills and made what turned out to be a quite good vegetarian meal.
So our journey across the US has begun. We are now in San Jose, and today we leave for some camping in Yosemite.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Four days left!
We have a mere four days remaining in New Zealand, and are running through a mixture of emotions. We are looking forward to seeing everyone back home and exploring the US a bit, but we are definitely going to miss many things about NZ and a number of people here as well.
Our general route back to Boston goes like this:
But enough un-subtle hints.
We have also finished sorting through and editing our 15,000 New Zealand photos (I am not exaggerating). We're going to spread out the posting of the best of them so nobody is overwhelmed (us included). The first set takes you through all the places we have gone tramping (backpacking). And features such pictures as this:
The second set are various special occasions (like my 30th birthday) and look a bit like this (this is actually Grace's picture):
You can view them all from here. We will probably put up some more just before we leave, and then put up the rest after we reach the West Coast (of the US, not the rain soaked paradise of New Zealand's South Island).
Our general route back to Boston goes like this:
- Hawaii: I can't wait to get away from winter.
- US West Coast: We have weddings to go to in Seattle and LA in Aug and Sept, so we'll be wandering down the coast.
- Colorado: Probably go up through Utah because it's supposed to be scenic and amazing.
- Some random route through the southern portions of the US to the East Coast.
- DC, NY (state, probably not the city)
- Then Boston.
But enough un-subtle hints.
We have also finished sorting through and editing our 15,000 New Zealand photos (I am not exaggerating). We're going to spread out the posting of the best of them so nobody is overwhelmed (us included). The first set takes you through all the places we have gone tramping (backpacking). And features such pictures as this:
The second set are various special occasions (like my 30th birthday) and look a bit like this (this is actually Grace's picture):
You can view them all from here. We will probably put up some more just before we leave, and then put up the rest after we reach the West Coast (of the US, not the rain soaked paradise of New Zealand's South Island).
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Happy 4th of July... It's snowing.
While everyone is enjoying the summer sun we thought we would break your revelry of northern hemisphere chauvinism (I read that recently in a book) with some greetings from our wintry wonderland.
Of course, really snow here in Christchurch isn't quite the same. Being on the coast means even at 45 degrees south latitude it is still somewhat temperate. For instance when I said it was snowing, I should point out that none of the snow stuck to the ground because both before and after the snow it rained. It rained a lot. And there were some great 130 km/h wind gusts to keep the rain falling at a 45 degree angle. (I think most of the snow was falling up earlier). Of course a few hundred kilometers away there are glaciers and mountains where the snow never melts.
So tomorrow when you walk outside and bask in the sun's glow for 16 hours of the day please spare a thought for those of us on the other end of the world who just finished celebrating the WINTER solstice.
Mekayla and Caleb under a water fall in Milford Sound.
Me walking on clouds on the Kepler track:
Our hike on Franz Joseph Glacier:
Of course, really snow here in Christchurch isn't quite the same. Being on the coast means even at 45 degrees south latitude it is still somewhat temperate. For instance when I said it was snowing, I should point out that none of the snow stuck to the ground because both before and after the snow it rained. It rained a lot. And there were some great 130 km/h wind gusts to keep the rain falling at a 45 degree angle. (I think most of the snow was falling up earlier). Of course a few hundred kilometers away there are glaciers and mountains where the snow never melts.
So tomorrow when you walk outside and bask in the sun's glow for 16 hours of the day please spare a thought for those of us on the other end of the world who just finished celebrating the WINTER solstice.
Mekayla and Caleb under a water fall in Milford Sound.
Me walking on clouds on the Kepler track:
Our hike on Franz Joseph Glacier:
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Thinking Forward
Hurrah!
I've landed a job with Landcare Research, a top NZ environmental research organization. Much of the work that they do is scientific in nature, studying the natural environment (plants, animals, soils, etc), but they also think about how we as humans could be living our lives more sustainably. I'm working in their Sustainability and Society group.
This is all quite exciting for me because I've been spending quite a lot of time during our travels trying to explore different aspects of sustainability through reading books, interviewing people, taking courses, and just keeping my eyes wide open. My hope is to figure out a bunch of different ways of how I might be able to focus my work more into this area.
But maybe I should back up a little. The word sustainability gets thrown around a lot these days, but what does it mean? First of all, it's more than just 'environmentally friendly'. When we think about sustainability, we think about what it will take for us to live in a way that meets the needs of today's people and environment without jeopardizing that of future generations. This takes into consideration the environment, yes, but also economic and social factors.
In any case, trying to make our society more sustainable pretty much always requires change of some sort. Change in the way we think, change in the way we act, change in the systems we build... it all depends. So, my job is to help think about the best way to bring this change about. In order to do this, you need to understand the people that it would impact. By doing this, you can design ways to bring them along instead of causing more problems or contention.
The particular project I'm looking at is in the commercial building sector. How to encourage and spread the uptake of sustainable building practices. If you have ideas, or examples of people doing this well, let me know.
Here's a few photos since it's always fun to have photos in a post. They're from the Earth From Above exhibit, which was on display in cities across NZ. Check out more of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's work on his website ( http://www.yannarthusbertrand.org/index_new.htm )
I've landed a job with Landcare Research, a top NZ environmental research organization. Much of the work that they do is scientific in nature, studying the natural environment (plants, animals, soils, etc), but they also think about how we as humans could be living our lives more sustainably. I'm working in their Sustainability and Society group.
This is all quite exciting for me because I've been spending quite a lot of time during our travels trying to explore different aspects of sustainability through reading books, interviewing people, taking courses, and just keeping my eyes wide open. My hope is to figure out a bunch of different ways of how I might be able to focus my work more into this area.
But maybe I should back up a little. The word sustainability gets thrown around a lot these days, but what does it mean? First of all, it's more than just 'environmentally friendly'. When we think about sustainability, we think about what it will take for us to live in a way that meets the needs of today's people and environment without jeopardizing that of future generations. This takes into consideration the environment, yes, but also economic and social factors.
In any case, trying to make our society more sustainable pretty much always requires change of some sort. Change in the way we think, change in the way we act, change in the systems we build... it all depends. So, my job is to help think about the best way to bring this change about. In order to do this, you need to understand the people that it would impact. By doing this, you can design ways to bring them along instead of causing more problems or contention.
The particular project I'm looking at is in the commercial building sector. How to encourage and spread the uptake of sustainable building practices. If you have ideas, or examples of people doing this well, let me know.
Here's a few photos since it's always fun to have photos in a post. They're from the Earth From Above exhibit, which was on display in cities across NZ. Check out more of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's work on his website ( http://www.yannarthusbertrand.org/index_new.htm )
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