Walking can be bad for your health

Today on my walk with Nigel, we crossed State to walk in San Roque, one of Nigel's favorite walks which takes us down past Steven's Park. Usually it is a nice walk, and Nigel is so excited that the pace is quick, but not quick enough for me to almost fall over is disbelief when I saw a sign in someone's window that said:

Prop. 8 = Free Speech

What?!?
So is being against women's right to vote, or being against slavery and saying so, but no matter what, you still look like a bigoted jerk!

I really don't get the arguments for Prop. 8. It has nothing to do with children, nothing to do with your own marriage, nothing to do with YOUR definition of marriage, really it doesn't have anything to do with you, period. Hate and fear mongering have no place in our State's Constitution. Leave it out. If you don't want to marry a gay person, then don't. But don't keep others from doing so themselves.

Vote NO on Prop 8.

The Palm...

he's everywhere. Including The Troubadour last night!

Ever wondered what kind of fish you are?

Neither did I... but now I know.

I'm a Blue Marlin.

How do you use your right to bear arms?

It seems some folks shoot birds -- eagles no less -- beaks off and leave them to die. Just another reason for gun control if you ask me.

Yikes!

I've always been worried about peak oil but I kind of always hoped I was just being a little pessimistic and it would not be something I'd see in my life time... but according to the newsletter I got from the Community Environmental Council (CEC) it is coming soon and they are trying to start to plan for it.

I know I should be happy that our community is discussing peak oil, but YIKES!

Nutrition label

There was this ad on the bus from the Ad council. I tried to take a picture of it with my handy dandy iPhone, but it didn't come out. Thankfully, someone else thought it strange and posted this on flickr.



For all you baby eaters out there, there's hope for you knowing more about what you're eating. Babies are now going to be required to be labeled with their nutritional information.

Bus'n it

Today I took the bus into work. I'm ashamed to say, it was my first bus ride to work. It took 30 minutes total time -- that includes the walk from my house to the stop, the wait for the bus, the ride on the bus, and the walk from the stop to my office. That's it. The walk each way is 5 minutes tops. The ride is a straight shot down one street, no transfers involved. There were plenty of seats. Pretty pathetic.

Bike to work day

Today is Santa Barbara's Bike to Work day. I biked and this my bike at work to prove it.

Got milk?

14 tons of spilled Oreo cookies snarl Ill. traffic . That's a lot of cookies.

If I were a band

I want to play too. Meme from George.

1. Click on this link. The title of the page is the name of your band.


2. Click on this link. The last four words of the final quotation on the page are the title of your album.


3. Click on this link. The third picture is your album cover.


4. Take the pic, add your band name and album title.

I don't have much in the way of photo editing around here at work, so this is the best I can do with paint. It looks a bit punk rock if you ask me.

Favorite bumper sticker of the week

Today, driving into work there was a construction truck in front of me with a bumper sticker that read "I <3 my wife" (but instead of the <3 it was a heart)... so sweet!

oh no!

150 pandas unaccounted for!

iPhone blogging with photos 2

I'm trying again.. Can't help it, I'm a geek.

iPhone blogging with photos??

I'm trying out blogger's Blogger Mobile.

Holiday for a Drive

Every time I hear the news mention the "Gas Holiday" I think to myself, "oh yeah, Memorial Day is coming up. It is a big holiday for driving and using gas." But then I remember it is about the gas tax and I have to admit, I kind of tune out. Things like that seem to be a drop in the bucket of expenses and are more showy than helpful. But with the big deal they are making in the news... I'm not sure if I should be for or against gas tax holiday. Hard to tell with all the itsy bitsy sound bites from our presidential contenders. Is Obama out of touch is a holiday good for Americans? I don't know. Luckily I received a TeraPass newsletter in my inbox this morning that had a very good article on why it isn't such a swell idea: Like a holiday, except awful in every way. In it they summarize a couple of peoples opinions. One of these is from Tom Friedman:

the policy amounts to borrowing money from China (in the form of an increased deficit) and shipping it to Saudi Arabia (by boosting oil purchases).

But it goes deeper into it by summarizing Jonathan Alter at Newsweek:

• A gas-tax holiday would fail to provide relief to consumers. Not only are the sums at stake piddling, but the windfall would likely go to oil companies, not drivers.


• A gas-tax holiday is environmentally irresponsible. Providing inducements to drive is exactly what we don’t want to be doing right now. (Although, to be fair, the basic uselessness of the tax break is such that it won’t really affect gas consumption one way or the other. Not sure this is a selling point, though.)


• As gas-tax holiday is fiscally irresponsible. The federal excise tax on gasoline is used to fund improvements in our crumbling highway infrastructure.


• A gas-tax holiday is shortsighted. Gas prices are going to keep going up, and up, and up. Insofar as high fuel costs are a problem, solutions need to be long-term and structural.

Blogging by Email

sounds cool, but is it true??? This is a test.

holy crap! it works.... I think iPhone blogging is in my future. look out!

MEMED, by George!

Ok George, I'll do this but I was on a good non-blogging roll there, you have to admit.

Here are the rules:
A) The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
B) Each player answers the questions about himself or herself.
C) At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1) Ten years ago I was...
I don't know, that was ten years ago... I was almost 30.

2) Five things on today's to-do list:
make coffee, feed the dogs, walk Mookie, not work on my project at work (bosses orders!), do this meme for my sweetie.

3) Things I'd do if I were a billionaire:
I'd buy land up in Paso Robles with a great view, build a modest house that's mostly windows. Grow veggies and tend some goats and sheep and hang out. I might even invite family and friends to join me. I'd also probably try to fund hunger type programs among other things.

4) Three bad habits:
Bad habits, huh? I don't squeeze the sponge out well enough (according to George), I nag (but I can't help it because it is very effective at home AND at work), I nervously open and close my watch clasp which makes it not stay closed.

5) Five places I've lived:
Poughkeepsie, NY, Boulder, CO, Raleigh, NC, Mission Viejo, CA, and Santa Barbara, CA. Can anyone guess the pattern from the first 4 places? I'll give you a hint, it wasn't the army and my third grade teacher coined the phase (at least to me) "I've been moved."

6) Six jobs I've had in my life:
A clothing salesperson, an escort for classes of Japanese English language students, a release engineer, a "Solutions Engineer," a "Principal Technical Consultant," and a "Computer Scientist." That last job title cracks me up. It sounds like I should be wearing a lab coat.

So now I have to tag 5 people... I don't know 5 other bloggers, how about three? Trekking Left, Marty, and Cookie Jill.