Ding dong, the witch is dead!

I desperately want to love HP as much as the old-timers do. As scary as the shootings and such are, I feel relatively safe here, and I think there's a lot of good in HP. We have a great new art center and beautiful lakefront access. The residents are generally nice, super-well-educated, and highly liberal. But there's this crazy vocal minority among the residents that resists change in any and all forms. And by change, I mean even keeping up with the times. If you know me, you know I'm usually on the side of local, independent stores and environmentally-friendly everything. But some HPers make me look like a stuffy capitalist. Take The Point, for instance. The City wants to shore up the Point by adding some concrete. The aim is not to ruin the natural beauty but rather to protect the natural beauty from being washed away by the lake. Sounds reasonable. Except that HPers felt the need to stop the project because the City was replacing limestone with concrete. Shirts and bumper stickers with "Save the Point" popped up everywhere. While I may sympathize with the protesters, they took things too far, and as a result, nothing has been done 6 years later. So, the Point could just wash away. How's that for saving the Point. I could go on and on about the ridiculous protests in HP (including the one that led to a vacant church 2 blocks from me becoming a crime and rat haven instead of a condo building). The thing that has my blood boiling right now is the misguided attempt to "save" the HP Co-op, the worst grocery store I've ever been in, and unfortunately the only grocery store within a mile of my house. I don't trust myself to be eloquent about the situation, so I'll leave that to the folks at HP Progress and the Chicago Maroon.

I can only assume that HPers desperately need to fight "the man" and are willing to sacrifice common sense to find a cause to champion. If only they could band together to do something useful, like improve retail options and fight crime in the neighborhood.

I can't wait until Thanksgiving! I've been planning the menu for weeks now, and of course I'm excited about the (non-turkey) food and my brother's homebrew beer. And the football in HD. But mostly I'm super-excited to see my parents and my brother and his fiancee and Matthew's parents (although I've seen them recently). Brian and Claire have never seen the condo or met the cats, and now that they're back in Ohio, it's a lot easier for them to come. They will not be bringing their crazy dog, since she would probably terrorize the kitties. :)

I waited so long to do my review that they released a new model. Whoops! Sony hasn't changed too much on it, so maybe I'll still do that review eventually anyway.

I'm loving Directv right now. We're getting new HD channels weekly. Woo! Yesterday was SciFi and Bravo, which were the two I was most excited about. Unfortunately, it seems like someone forgot to inform the networks to film/broadcast in HD because the programming just isn't there yet. No Eureka or Top Chef in HD. As long as the next seasons of Project Runway and Battlestar are in HD... (Yep, I'm a big geek.)

Speaking of geeky, I'm now addicted to three sci-fi shows (Doctor Who, Torchwood, Eureka) that Matthew's not even watching, so I suppose I should stop blaming him for my nerdiness.

Go Indians!! Yes, I flip-flop teams whenever I feel like it. Deal with it. :)

Coming, eventually, my review of my new toy: the Sony Reader! Short review: I LOVE it. Now, off to read.

A very happy birthday to Matthew (who is now OLD)!

We're back from Oregon. We had a fantastic time; pictures will be up sometime. I was so happy to get back and see the kitties yesterday, but now I'm at work and less excited to be in Chicago. :)

Further attempts at greening the world... We are currently attempting to do even more to save the planet. The latest:

- Air drying laundry. The laundry room has a clothes line, and I got a drying rack with a Bed,Bath and Beyond gift card. Last night we washed three loads of laundry and only dried two. That's, um, progress, anyway. We'd have more motivation if we actually paid for laundry, but we're trying.

- I posted a sign in the women's room in my building at work asking everyone to please turn off the light when they leave. It's a staff-only restroom, and no one is here this summer, so it's really been a lot of wasted electricity when the light's been on all the time. There's been mixed results so far, but it's definitely an improvement, and the sign reminds me to shut off the light as well.

- Also at work, I've been shutting off my power strip and unplugging my printer every night when I leave. I don't know how much power is drained by electronics that are off but plugged-in, but no power drain has to be better than small power drain. :)

- At home, I'm keeping chargers unplugged unless actively charging. I'm also attempting to use a solar-powered charger for my phone, palm pilot, etc. That hasn't yet been a complete success, but that's mostly because we don't have any windows that get sun all day, which means that the charger doesn't really have a chance to collect enough sunlight to charge the devices. I'm still working out a solution to that one.

- My next purchase will be a Sony Reader, which will allow me to buy and read books electronically, all with a very low power drain! Beyond the obvious environmental savings of the paper used to make paper books, I'm also saving the packaging and shipping costs (i.e., fuel), since I tend to order all of my books online. For books I cant find electronically, I plan to switch to ordering from Better World, a fantastically cool company that sells used books, ships them with carbon-neutral shipping, and uses the proceeds to fund literacy programs! And they do this all while still offering great prices!!

- And, of course, we're continuing to recycle, replace old incandescent bulbs with energy-efficient compact fluorescents, take our own bags to the grocery store, etc.

- Oh, and we're working on fixing a leaky faucet.

- Finally, I'm considering approaching my condo board about installing solar panels on our roof. And/or developing a Green Roof.

That's all. For now. :)

Green tip of the day: Sign up for daily tips from Idealbite.com. And check out their website for the tip library. They have some really great ideas, and most are fairly easy to do.

From their top ten: Stop Junk Mail. (If this works, I will be the happiest person on the planet.)
The following websites ask for some info and then promise to help you cut down on junk mail.

• DirectMail.com


• DMA Consumer Assistance


• OptOut

I promised Al Gore that I would throw a Live Earth party. I failed in that promise, unless Matthew, Smokey, Bandit, and I count as a party. :) I let down Al Gore, but I can't feel *too* badly about that as long as Al Gore is letting me down by not running for president. (Dream ticket: Gore/Bobby Kennedy, Jr.)

We certainly didn't watch all of the coverage, even though it was in HD. We did watch a spectacularly boring rendition of "Black Hole Sun" by Chris Cornell and an amusing attempt by Tom Chaplin to get the London audience to sing along with "Somewhere Only We Know," which isn't exactly a sing-along song. I found the highlights from the non-English-speaking countries to be much more enjoyable, especially from China. The best part, though, was definitely all the little mini-movies and hints for saving the world. I can only hope that it will make some difference. It certainly made me feel guilty for not doing enough, and I already recycle, take my own bags to the grocery store, replace old lightbulbs with fluorescent bulbs, walk or take public transit whenever possible, etc.

So, since I failed in my promise to hold the party, I will at least ask everyone to sign all or part of the Live Earth pledge: http://liveearthpledge.org/. Don't do it for Al Gore; do it for the future of our planet.

My green tip for the day: Stop buying bottles of water. Please! A much more environmentally-friendly, not to mention cheaper, option is to buy a Brita or Pur faucet mount or filtered pitcher. Get a Nalgene bottle or two to carry around your water, and you'll save a ton of money and reduce your carbon footprint.

My quad *still* hurts! Damn getting older. It's kind of just hitting me that I'm turning 29 next week. Not as bad as Matthew turning 30 next month, but I definitely don't feel young anymore. :)

I just booked our plane tickets to go to Portland at the end of July. My mom and dad will join Matthew and me, and we'll be visiting my brother and his fiance. It will be the first time Matthew and Claire will have met, and it's also the weekend of the Oregon Brewers Festival. Beer-woo!

The problem is that now all I can think about is going to Portland. I desperately need a vacation, and I haven't left the city much this year (maybe a week in total) since Christmas. Plus I miss my brother and haven't seen Claire in ages. At least work will be quieter after tomorrow, but still two months is waaaay too long to wait. :)

I feel like a tech geek today. Actually I wish I was more of one that I am. Maybe I should've gone to Carnegie Mellon to study computer science instead of NU for religion....

Anyway, on to my geeky accomplishment of the day. You may have heard that Mozilla finally released Thunderbird 2. It's not that big of an update over 1.5, but I like to have the latest and greatest of these kinds of software (unlike my officemates who resent having to move from Eudora to TB and never want to update). I love Thunderbird, but it's only really usable in the work world because of the Mail Redirect extension. Unfortunately, when I installed TB 2.0 today, I was informed that the extension wasn't compatible with the new release! I spent waaay too long looking for a similar extension, or news about when the extension would be updated, to no avail. And then I read Mozilla's instructions on how to build a new extension. I did not build my own, but I did use my new-found knowledge to tweak the existing extension so that it would work in 2.0. And it works now!!!

/sad geektalk

I had a dream last night that I ran a marathon in one hour and was asking people whether that was a good time. Keep in mind that I can't quite run a half marathon in two hours. And that a one-hour marathon would be a world record. By over an hour.

I am *not* registered for the marathon this year. But I may start running again.

The crazy cat lady approves of this story. Or, more accurately, the people in the story.

My brother and his fiancee, who may or may not ever actually get around to planning their wedding, have discussed melded names. Which do you like better--Pollstein or Steinpoll?

Off to Ohio in two days. Yay!!! Grandpa is turning 80, and the whole family is gathering to celebrate. It's not the exciting spring break that all of my students are on now, but it'll work.

I'm not sure why aldermanic candidates have their addresses printed on the ballots, but I learned from that that one of my candidates, "Junebug," is homeless. I'm not sure how to feel about that. I was voting for the incumbent anyway.

The treehuggingpeacenik approves: Australia bans incandescent bulbs.

I went home early yesterday because of the snow, thinking, "I can finish up a couple of emails at home." I ended up working until 9:30pm. So much for my snow day. At least I had a cat cuddled up next to me to keep me warm.

I can't talk about anything that's bothering me at the moment, even in code, without running the risk (albeit a very small risk) of losing my job. So I will just be quiet. :)

A few random and disjointed items:

1. I just received a Peyton Manning jersey in the mail. :) Its origin was a mystery, but one that was quickly solved via phone call to my mom. My always-surprising father was the sender. If Peyton pulls off the win on Sunday, I'm wearing it to work Monday.
   
2. I had to take the kitties to the vet yesterday for booster shots. Keep in mind that I have no car, so going to the vet involves carrying the kitties half a mile in the frigid cold. Luckily Matthew was home in time to help, but it was still a pretty miserable experience walking there. After a brief but expensive appointment (in which I learned that Smokey and the Bandit are *exactly* the same weight--9.11 pounds) the kind vet offered us a ride home. My faith in humanity is restored.
3. A character on House last night had been a comparative religions major at Northwestern. Beyond the extreme unlikeliness of a random person having majored in religion at NU (the year I graduated, I was the only person majoring in just religion, and the others would have described themselves first with their second majors, i.e., psychology or economics), this girl did not in any way strike me as either a Northwestern student nor a religion major. She had very obviously East Coast sensibilities that seemed untempered by a stint in the Midwest, and more importantly, she was clinging to a faith in God , and obviously a Christian God, that is rare, if not completely unknown, amongst religious studies scholars in non-religious universities.
   

Both of my teams are going to the Super Bowl!! Now what the hell do I do?

For the record, I'm rooting for Indy. Peyton deserves to get a Super Bowl ring before Rex does.

I did not make a New Year's resolution to blog more often.