Best of luck to "An Inconvenient Truth"

Not since Michael Moore's documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the Oscar have I had such a good reason to watch the award show. This year it's Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" that has been nominated for best documentary and best song. I'm looking forward to his speech, should he be given the award. What a great opportunity to reach a wider audience (than his film and his talks reach) and spread the message of reducing greenhouse emissions to slow-down climate change.

Update: Congratulations to "An Inconvenient Truth" (notice typo in previous post) for winning two Oscar's last night. They teased us a little bit with Leonardo DiCaprio asking Al Gore if he had "anything else" he wanted to announce in front of such a large audience... Oh, how I wish!

Mea Culpa

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've been a bit fatigued these days and haven't had too much to say. I have been cracking up at the Ph.D. comics lately (if you click on the image, you'll get the true colors and an enlarged image).

Maybe the humor doesn't translate if you've never been in graduate school. But you have to think of a situation where you are working hard to finish and the cross an undefined goal line somewhere off in the void and everyone in your family thinks in terms of concrete deadlines. Will you be done by graduation, because we want to be there and plan our holiday travel? Research is all about following leads and some can paths can take you straight into a dead end, so you have to head back and take another path that will lead you to the answer to your question. Rinse, wash, and then repeat until your committee says you are finished. I am so happy to be finished with graduate school. Don't get me wrong... I loved that time in my life and if it wasn't for the guilt (an energy sapping emotion to the nth degree: why are you resting at home, you could be working? why haven't you finished yet?) I wouldn't have minded being a student forever. Now all I have to worry about is publications....

Peace everyone

My friend Sheila sent me this picture. It was taken by Gerald Hebert of the Associate Press on Tuesday Feb 13. Peace everyone!

Meany Lodge

We had a really nice day at Meany Lodge with some friends. It was opened in the 1920s on land donated to the Mountaineers club. They have a rope tow that takes you up ~1000 feet and then you can ski down and take the rope tow back up. The lodge has a communal approach and everyone chips in to cook meals, clean up, etc. There were alot of families there, a troop of boy scouts, and groups like us who were only up for the day. If you like family summer camps, this place has that kind of vibe. If you want to teach your kids how to ski, this seems like a nice way to do that. The slope is small but uncrowded and nobody is stressed. You also don't have to drop 50-60 bucks for a lift ticket + the fee for classes. Everyone is volunteering, so the costs are minimal ($25 for a day pass which includes lunch). I didn't do any skiing, but walked about a little and enjoyed chilling out in the lodge.

The best thing about Meany is that they pick you up in a "Snow Cat". I wouldn't call it a Snow Cat, that makes me think of the big plows used to groom ski resorts. It looks like a truck you'd see in the Caribbean with bright colors and speakers blaring reggae or soca music. Only this truck has been covered in tarp and has serious snow handling capabilities. The driver is sitting in a little box in the middle of the truck that looks like the inside of a formula one car (you have to squint really hard to see it). The snow was a bit melty, so the drive up was a little worrisome -- would we be able to make it up there? The drive down at the end of the day was nothing but pure fun. We picked up some good speed and if you want they'll tow you on your skis behind the truck. That sounds like a blast, just make sure you've got your video camera prepped for the yard sales that will surely follow.

Happy Birthday to me!

Today is my 32nd birthday! Lots of exciting things going on.

We went out to a superb dinner last night at Le Gourmand. It's a really nice French restaurant (the owner is an American chef trained in France) in Ballard. We've been dying to go there but were waiting for a good occasion. The meal was fabulous, but be prepared to drop down serious duckets if you ever go there. Right adjacent to it is a bar with a simpler menu called Sambar. It's owned by the same people as Le Gourmand. The atmosphere in the bar is posh without being intimidating. They have steak frites and croque monsieurs... so you know we'll be back for that.

Tonight we are having folks over for birthday cake and a movie, Little Miss Sunshine. We've seen it before, but it was so good I am happy to re-watch it. The characters in the story are so dysfunctional and yet so funny.

Tomorrow we are going to a cooperative ski lodge about an hour away from Seattle. I'm not going to ski, but I'm going to definitely frolic in the snow and possibly build a snowman. Afterwards, I'm planning on drinking hot cocoa and sitting by the fire in the lodge.

Weekend at Edgefield

I spent the weekend with four amazing friends from graduate school at the McMenamins Edgefield hotel in Troutdale, Oregon. It was lovely to catch up with the ladies and laugh, dish, shop, eat, drink. We went to breakfast on Saturday morning in the hotel restaurant and saw a group of five ladies about a generation ahead of us doing the same thing. How great would it be to have a tradition of coming back to the same place as we head off into our twilight years. I hope when I age, I become one of those cantankerous but fun-loving old ladies.

We rented out the family room. In terms of space and accomodations it was great. But the second night, it was bitterly cold in our room and they couldn't do anything to fix it. We had space heaters (provided by the hotel) that kept blowing a fuse and knocking out the power in the room. Finally, we hooked up the heater with an extension cord to the outlet in the hallway and the power crisis was averted. We were wrapped up in a bazillion blankets, playing card cames, laughing, and enjoying the drinks the hotel gave us.

Edgefield is a funky sort of place and prides themselves on it. It used to be a hospice and various things during its history and the artwork reflects all the older residents. It's kind of nice but kind of "The Shining" all at the same time. That's all part of the charm. That plus the seemingly unlimited number of places to drink and eat (winery, brewery, distillery, restaurants, bars, etc.). They even supply the rooms with pint glasses for beer. Because of that, people book the hotel for weddings and it can be very crowded. It was definitely crowded this weekend and we had to wait a bit at all the restaurants.

They call Edgefield a European-style hotel *but* I've yet to visit a hotel like that in Europe. Anyway, most of the rooms don't have bathrooms and you share bathrooms with the other hotel guests. They are nice bathrooms and except for in the morning rush when everyone is trying to shower are kept in pretty clean condition.

We ended up getting comped one night after complaining about paying peak rates to essentially camp (e.g., blankets, darkness, etc.). So that was very nice of them. All in all it was a great trip. Next time, we are talking about renting a house on the Oregon coast.

Yoga

It's not a New Year's resolution, but I am trying to incorporate more yoga into my weekly exercise routine. I was doing yoga-lite at my local gym, but this year I signed up to the yoga studio just next door, yogalife. My intention is to work on my form and become a bit more serious about yoga. In other words, take classes more than once a month. Anyway, so far so good. The first class I attended was a Level II-III Hatha class and I instantly realized that I'm more of a Level I.
Is there a Level 0? It's alot of fun and the classes are always full.

I'm also seeing B's chiropractor. Basically, I'm attempting to improve some of my neck and back issues and improve my posture and alignment. Yoga fits into that nicely.

I hope I can persuade some of my friends to join me for a yoga class. I've already run into a few people I know there. It's funny how the city may be huge, but the world is small.

Romero Britto

If you watched the Superbowl opening show and wondered who the artist was that inspired the artwork, the answer is Romero Britto. He's a Brazilian artist who is based in South Florida and is really popular there. His art is all about celebrating and appreciating life. You may or may not have liked the show, but basically that was his vision of the world. I am not sure how I felt about the show, but it definitely reminded me of home and made me miss Miami a little.This painting is called "Heart Kids"... I just pulled it off a website with some Britto paintings.

IPCC Report

The new IPCC report just came out saying the following...

"The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that is not due to known natural causes alone"

The report also says that we are going to have to deal with some consequences (warm temperatures, sea level rise, increased hurricane strength) for centuries even if we curb greenhouse gas emissions. Obviously those consequences will be reduced if we can stabilize our greenhouse gas emissions.

It's not all doom and gloom, but with this report in hand hopefully we can get some movement in our governments to effect some real change.

In other climate news, Al Gore was nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his global warming work. Way to go, Al!