Thursday, December 17, 2009

Flexible, Shameless, and DIY- My Trifecta of Sustainability

Part of living sustainable is being flexible.  Oh tomatoes aren't in season?  Perhaps I'll try my sandwiches with cucumbers instead (or perhaps I'll try and convince Pumpkin to do that but fail).  Bus/train doesn't come right now?  Take a walk, run a short errand, read a book, read a newspaper, read a magazine, send a txt, catch up on the phone with a friend until it does.  

Part of living sustainable is being shameless.  Bike seat stolen?  Txt a bike friend, make a freecycle post.  Accepting a stack of work pants from a shopaholic.  Letting everybody know you need a carpool somewhere via facebook.  Americans value independence, I am enamored with dependence.  It brings us together and most times, people are happy to help you out (especially if you bike to their house to start the carpool).  I couldn't do it without my amazing network of friends and family, but then again, who knows if it is the cause or effect of my dependence.  In other words, do I have such a great network because I depend on them or because I value relationships over buying stuff?

This month I will be receiving two items of significant value, for free.  (1) Rockband 1&2 (only missing a guitar), from a guy I dated a couple of times, and (2) an used Intel Core Duo CPU, from a long time friend who works for Microsoft.  In both cases, the guys thought of me from fond memories.  

For (1), we used to play Rockband late into the night so when he had to give it up upon moving into noise constraints, he thought of who it would bring the most joy to and he thought of me.  That's fantastic, because I have wanted Rockband since it came out, but found the $200 price tag completely outrageous.  I was flexible in waiting, and now, rewarded!

For (2), we've built computers together and he's constantly trying to get me to upgrade.  After falling for consumerism once or twice in college, his case has been harder to plead.  With each upgrade, my desktop remained unused for the intended gaming and instead for basic computing and so I learned my lesson.  But I'll certainly take a faster processor to go with 2 GB of RAM (also given by him, at an earlier date) if it's free.  Since the almost demise of my laptop (which Jon and I have taken apart and put together at least 5 times), I'm finding the desktops superior specs (and large monitor) very alluring.  

I shamelessly accepted both gifts.

Finally, part of living sustainable is doing it yourself.   If my bike gets a flat, I know how to fix it (whereas fixing a car would be far more complicated and potentially lethal).  Cooking from scratch is cheaper than cooking from boxes, is cheaper from cooking from frozen, is cheaper than going out.  In this case, I have to know how to connect Rockband to my Xbox 360 (like any xbox owner would).  Perhaps harder is installing a CPU, but in terms of computer part upgrades, it's really one of the simplest (RAM being the easiest).  

But why should they give?  What do they get?  Nothing (that they know about- but delicious homemade Christmas cookies and my gratitude are in store!).  Or is it a question of what do they have to lose?  Nothing.  So then perhaps, it's a case of having everything to gain.

SF Muni Changes

On December 5th, the SF Muni underwent "major changes in service." While the rest of the populace seems alight, it seems to me this was a long overdue change. Muni was created when SF voters decided to hand government the job of a plethora of competing private transit companies. This is why MUNI lines make little sense, whether traveling parallel a street apart or a slew of buses following each other at once. They were a legacy of competing lines, now under one authority, and thus, outdated. So, about two years back, Muni decided they would implement a Transit Effectiveness Project which tracked Muni ridership and other statistics for years.

Long story short, we are now seeing the final product. A few lines were cut completely, others shortened, but many have extended and/or increased service! For me, it doesn't make a huge difference because I rarely take the bus. But these days it's been colder and/or raining so Pumpkin has been less inclined to bike around, probably out of worry the cold/wet will turn her into a...pumpkin? Sometimes I have to follow suit but don't fret, dear readers, it is not without taking a stand for biking first.

Yesterday, I had my bike to get around downtown but didn't really feel like battling the uphill home so Pumpkin insisted I take her muni pass (yay!). After biking to the farmer's market, I took the 5 to connect to the 43 home. I usually ride the underground but if I have a bike, no matter what time (yes, I do get bitter when laws are overly expansive), they won't let me on so I have to opt for buses.  While riding it, I discovered that 6 connects to the 43 as well, but more importantly the 44 at the same stops! Both are good options to get up the hill, so I really should have been taking 6 all these years (it also cuts in closer)! Everytime I think I know public transit, it surprises me again. Amazing =D.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Squaw Peaks!

While I wait for the rain to subside (and the ground to possibly dry up) before I bike, a little note from sustainable cow.  I'm going skiing this weekend!!!  It's my favorite sport these days, with endless variation (tree skiing, jumping, moguls, groomers) and challenge (tree skiing, jumping, moguls).

This season, two of my friends and I got season passes to Squaw, which I just discovered is ranked best out of all the ski resort for environmental policies.  See http://www.tahoeloco.com/archives/3627.  They were ranked on habitat protection, protecting watersheds, addressing global climate change, and environmental practices and policies.  Not that that affected our purchase, at the time we just wanted to get in on their 60 year anniversary deal and my Kirkwood vote was trumped.  Oh democracy.  

Good to know though!  Ski resorts aren't exactly environmentally friendly.  They ruin the natural landscape for slopes, encourage development, and those pesky snow makers/lifts/thousands of people driving up from the bay.  And in the summer, when the snow is gone, the impact is so much more apparent (as you can see from my trip to Whistler last summer, above).  But from all the "Keep Tahoe Blue" bumper stickers I see and from the actions of my fellow ski buddies, it's clear that more exposure to nature means more deep seeded environmentalists. 



It's a beautiful place.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Public Transit- this should not be that hard.

The San Francisco Airport is about 2 miles from caltrain, so one would think public transportation would be a viable and thrifty method to get between the two.  One would be sorely mistaken.

On behalf of my youngest sister, I've been looking up ways to get in between the two and apparently, to get from SFO to Millbrae station (home to BART and caltrain), one has to take airbart to San Bruno BART (caltrain also has a san bruno station you can alledgely transfer to, but is a MILE away), then BART one station to Millbrae.  For a total cost of $6.90.  For 2 miles.  At 15 minutes, if you time the 2 transfers right.  Hah, not likely.  The trip down from Millbrae to Mountain View station, where somebody else will have to pick her up in a car, is $4.25 (and 24 miles away).

This is so nonsensical!!!  When getting of a plane, one has very few options.  Your suitcase keeps you from walking, and you can't put a bike on a plane.  So BART decides to charge a $4 surcharge for exiting the airport.  And taxi's have a $2 surcharge (so that 2 mile trip is $11).  We. Are. Just. Trying. To. Save. The. World. People.  Throw us a bone!  Public transit should not take at least 2x longer, and cost 2x more!  What kind of viable business plan is that?

The kicker being, of course, that before BART, there was a free shuttle from Caltrain to SFO, and the biggest kicker of all being that it had a ridership of 350 people/day.  Not viable.  California is a convoluted and inefficient amalgamation of patchwork legislation, touted and passed under the guise of progress, but instead, makes life harder for us all.  And no, that's not necessarily a dramatization.  Just ask our fleeing businesses.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Eating Out

Eating out is a tricky affair if you want to stay sustainable. You have to find some way to cleverly ask the waitstaff, without insulting them, where the meat came from. You have to order the correct portions or bring your own take out box, all the while beating back over eager waitstaff. You have no idea whether they recycle or compost back there. Finally, because restaurant standards of sanitary are dictated by law, they err on the side of safety which inevitably means more water wasted, less reuse (can you really keep those bones for tomorrow to make stock?), and more. According to Green Your, "[r]estaurants consume more energy per square foot than any other US industry—over 2.5 times the average commercial building; use large amounts of water; and produce an average of 50,000 pounds of trash a piece per year."

But Pumpkin adores eating out (or perhaps she adores not cooking), and sometimes there are occasions that need to be celebrated. Such as PASSING THE CA BAR!! So although she was treating me, I insisted on finding a place to suit our needs. It had to be cheap but sustainable. A seeming conundrum.

Then I found Careme 350, a California Culinary Academy student run restaurant. It seemed fitting to end my educational career with fine food prepared by students. And indeed the food was fine. I wish I remembered the fancy names but basically I had a mussel appetizer, steak entree, and double cream creme brulee dessert. While there were some minor setbacks, such as a runny creme brulee and over salted fries, I loved the entire experience and would highly recommend it to people who don't get hung up over the small things. We left extremely full and a little smarter since the professor chef was so willing to ask us questions about our meal and the dessert bar was a lesson right in front of us.

Best of all, they got to practice without wasting the food and we got to eat on the cheap and possibly sustainable. The waiter (a hospitality student), said that my steak was sustainably grown, but I think he might have been fudging it since they advertised that the fish was sustainably caught but nothing else. Either way though, the food didn't go to waste and we supported an institution that gives back to their community and will produce future chefs of the world. A profession I truly believe makes the world a better place. And for just $17/5 course meal too. Sweet.

Other yelp reviewers complained that the entire affair took 2 hours, but I was happy to slow down. It occurred to me one day that most of my lunches for 2 can be under an hour, and dinner at an hour. It made me sad that this was how often I got to see certain friends. When you go out, you are certainly paying enough to enjoy yourself, so why not do it? If a movie is $10 for 2 hours, then dinner should be at least 2 as well. So enjoy ourselves we did, cracking jokes, talking about whatever it is we talk about, eating in small bites, and really critiquing the food.

Oh we took Pumpkin's pork leftovers home in their box but the bread disappeared too fast to save. Work in progress. They became a delightful lunch the next day for me, supplemented with napa cabbage. Perfect!