apple juice

The Kyoto standard went into effect today, and we are not a part of it.

In an editorial today in the Star Tribune, it is argued that Minnesota is close to being at the standard, and that to continue Minnesota’s legacy as a green-er state, we should aspire to the Kyoto protocol, even if the US gov’t isn’t going to adhere.

The editorial also contained this tidbit, which I fould very interesting:

More than 800 wind turbines across the state, largely on agricultural land, provide 595 megawatts of power — enough to power every household in Minneapolis. Minnesota’s farmers are also leaders in the biofuel sector, with a growing number of farmer-owned ethanol and biodiesel facilities.

There are 13 ethanol plants in Minnesota, three under construction, and three soy diesel plants under construction or planned. With the proposed increase in the ethanol mandate for gas in Minnesota (from 10 to 20 percent by 2012), and mounting demand for biodiesel, more such plants are expected.

It also talks about solar panels being installed on gov’t buildings and how IBM saved almost $800 million in the past 15 years by becoming more energy efficent. Anyway, fun things to think about.

What is this… Texas?

As far as I could tell, they were glued to the hood.

Okay, remember how I was all excited to find that call forwarding feature on my phone? Eric N. said “Make sure they aren’t charging you.”

I called them up to make sure that, yes, it would not cost additional money, just minutes on my plan.

Got my bill for the last month today. Nice $43.15 additional charge applied for call forwarding usage.

*blink, blink*

So I called them up and they credited me, no argument or anything, but seriously.

I figured out what the trick was… “minutes on my plan” is the same thing as “minutes billed as if you went over your available minutes for the month” back when I had the 350 minute plan with Qwest , and I would talk for 500 minutes, those extra 150 minutes were like $50? Yeah… same deal.

So we’re back to the old arrangement.. no call forwarding…

Does anyone use call forwading on their cell phones?

Hello Friends and Family,

Do not be alarmed if you call our cell phones and get our home answering machine or my work voice mail… you are not crazy, you called the correct number…

It’s just that I discovered how to utilize the call forwarding feature on my cell phone, so we are going to try that out and see how it works. Our house exists in a 40’x130′ black hole of cell reception… as anyone who has tried to call us knows. I think I saw the AT&T Wireless crews out on our block the other day. They had “Singular” written in magic marker on their hats. As in, there is a singular, non-stationary spot inside of our house for which you will receive full signal strength. They had tape measures and survey equipment, and little boxes with antennas. I’m not sure what they were up to, other than obviously thwarting my attempts to use their service. I’m still the poor fellow you see in their commericials at the breakfast table with only 1 bar above his head. Where I sit at work I have 5 bars. Crystal Clear, all the time. At home, it’s hard to say, but depending on atmospheric conditions, the position of the moon, the tides, solar flare activity, if it’s recycling day, and whether or not Yeti has gas, between 1 and 5 bars.

On another note, I figured out how to work our answering machine. Actually it’s Doug‘s answering machine, but I think he bequeathed it to me when he moved out of our apartment in Golden. It’s a Southern Bell machine, back from when there was a Southern Bell telephone company (ahh, the good old days, before anyone had a cell phone that could fit in your pocket). Regardless, there is no manual. The internets were no help in that regard either. So, today, at lunch, I just started mashing the buttons and it worked. I suppose it got tired of resisting me after 5 years of dutifully recording our messages.

We will now know the exact date and time you called, and you will be greeted by my friendly voice instead of that otherworldly character that has been inhabiting the machine until now.

Seen on a (seemingly homemade) bumper sticker over lunch:

“Bring it on, Iran!”

Uhh, yikes!

(sorry, no photo… it drove away too quickly)

Before I started running, I would always point and laugh at people from my car, asking the occupants, “Don’t they just look like they are in pain? Why do they always look like they are in pain?” We would laugh, safe with the thoughts that people who run are nuts.

I was out for a run yesterday with Yeti. It was about 5 degrees and the windchill was about 10 below. I’m not really what you would call a serious runner, but at one point this summer, we were going out about every other day, and I’ll admit it… I was enjoying the exercise. Once or twice I think there was even a feeling of “runners-high” where I kinda felt like I could just run all day, Forrest Gump style. Besides, I was constantly amazed at how far I could actually run without dying.

So we start out yesterday, and I’m instantly thinking that it’s way colder than I thought, my knees and hips feel as though at any moment, they’ll freeze up and I’ll tip over to the ground like an action figure you’ve carefully arranged on the table. My jaw feels slow, and I’m uttering primal grunts at Yeti to slow down. She’s looking up at me like I’m crazy, and she’s running as fast as she can. I’m sure she was thinking, “Let’s get this over with as soon as possible.”

I take the normal route to begin, hop on the creek trail, head east towards the lake. I arrive at Bloomington Ave. and make the snap decision that there is no way I’m going to run around Lake Nokomis today, so I take a quick right, and then a right again down onto the dirt path on the south side of the creek. I had never been on this dirt path before. Maybe I thought all the leave-less trees would provide some cover from the wind. I was thinking a lot of crazy things at this point.. the cold is not a friend of your brain’s.

Now I’m weaving down the dirt path, dodging roots and branches, I think my ankle just rolled over a bit, not a problem since I can’t feel it anyway. I nearly fall off the embankment at one point where it had eroded, Yeti is weaving around like crazy, making it hard to stay on the path.

I finally see the end of the trail, where it heads up about 30 feet to the road again. I moan something to the dog and kick it up a notch. I emerge from the trail and onto the sidewalk. A car passes, our eyes meet. Instantly I know.

I’m one of those people who look like they’re in pain.

If I have any readers left after the past couple weeks of very few updates, here’s what I’m thinking…

I’m tired.

I’m just worn out from the past month of nonsensical political madness. And I don’t want to get drawn into the stupid bickering about Kerry’s Vietnam Service, who’s more rich, etc.

When we’re talking about that, we’re not talking about real issues. And from where I stand, we have some real issues in this country.

Undeniable issues that both sides should see. They should matter to everyone.

Here’s what matters:

• Fixing Health Care
• Making sure kids are fully educated, and can get to college if they want to
• Making sure we have a clean environment
• Bringing fiscal responsibility to government
• Keeping the economy stable and growing

Here’s what “does not matter”:

• Gay Marriage. True conservatives (in the political sense of the word) would not want more governmental regulation in your personal lives. Marriage itself (the definition) should be defined by those who preside over it, the Churches. A civil union is the legal matter that the state needs to concern itself with.
• Gun control. It is sensible to try to prevent criminals from owning weapons. Hunters, your guns will not be taken away.
• Missile defense. Seriously, who are they kidding? Who is going to attack us with missiles? (I’m talking about the large ICBM types here)

In a broad sense, one can think of every issue in terms of economic value. Healthy people work more productively. Well educated, healthy kids contribute more to society. Striving for a cleaner enviornment is good for the economy.

Issues like Gay Marriage, Gun Control and Missile Defense are for narrow-minded people who have a black and white world view, and aren’t seeing the big picture.

Unfortunately, the “Republicans” who fit this description are the Republicans running the party these days.

Don’t look now, but your party has been hijacked, and no one is strong enough to stand up and take a stand. (John McCain, Colin Powell? Where did you go?)