What is my relationship to the Earth

I've been giving this a lot of thought lately (well, for many years) and trying to figure out how I should relate to the Earth around me. I love hiking, I love waterfalls, I love green spaces and I love the fact that my field of work (dealing with roofing) is looking to advance in "garden roof" technology which involves basically planting everything from basic shallow root grass-like systems (more like moss) to full blown grass and trees on roofs in cities. The installation and maintenance cost for these systems is higher than for traditional systems, but the benefits to the owner in insulation, heating and cooling bills as well as the benefits to the community in oxygen production, reduction in "heat island effect" (how it is always hotter in a city than out even in the suburbs) and control of rainwater runoff are also very substantial.

Anyway, I got off track there. Often, any time you talk about caring for the environment, people will refer to you as being an "environmental whacko". Now, I don't mind being labeled a whacko, but I don't consider myself an environmentalist. I see too many times that environmentalists want to put humans at best equal to nature and often below nature and I do not believe this is the economy that God has ordained.

So, I thought of myself, for a while, as a conservationist. But I see more and more that conservationists tend to see nature and the environment as there for humans to use as we see fit and we make decisions based solely on what is best for humans. In this view, things like mountain top removal coal mining is a good thing because it is a cheap way to tap into an energy source that we can use. From what I have learned about mountain top removal... it is bad for the environment, it is bad for the communities in those areas and it is bad for employment as the high level of automation has forced many out of work.

Recently, I finally was able to coin a phrase (I'm sure it is in use elsewhere, but I had never heard it in ths context) that I think describes my view - "dominion-ist". From the book of Genesis, I believe that God has given man dominion over the environment. It is important to know that dominion does not equal domination. We have a responsibility to care for the environment and nurture it but, at the same time, we are placed over it. Some decisions we make might be seemingly bad for the environment, but some might be bad for us. Like life itself, it is not cut and dry such that I think we should ALWAYS put the environment first, nor do I think we should ALWAYS put ourselves first. God has given creation into our care to have dominion and take care of. It is an enormous responsibility that I think we need to do a much better job of taking seriously.

On the road again

I am off to travel again tomorrow. Headed back to Wilmington, DE for another three days of fun and excitement testing sealant and photographing the cleaning efforts on a stone panel building. Maybe this time I'll get to ride a swing stage or climb up and down scaffold stairs (I'd prefer riding the swing stage, I don't like stairs). Anyway, kind of hoping the pool is an indoor pool so I can do some exercise there as I have heard that treading water is a good way to get cardio exercise... if not, I'll just do about 150 laps in the tiny pool and look something like Tim Meadows in the SNL skit where Jim Carrey was the lifeguard at the hot tub.

http://flimmr.passagen.se/movie/jim_carrey_lifeguard_on_duty1.action

(this is a link to the video, couldn't find an english one that would play, but this is in english, just with subtitles)

Slow and steady progress...

Well, I lost another pound this week, bringing me to a total weight loss of 35 pounds for the year. This is 5 pounds more than my original goal and 17 pounds away from my updated goal. I am happy and I feel like I lost some inches in the waist and size in other areas, just not weight this week, if that makes any sense.

On the exercise front, I have just discovered a new outlet for my exercise other than walking (which I enjoy and have some good areas to walk in). I just discovered that the whitewater center (very convenient to my place of work) is offering a "Allsport Pass" for the year for a cost of $139. I can flatwater kayak, raft, climb, rent mountain bikes, do the zip line or eco caching any amount of time for the whole year. I figured it out quickly and roughly any combination of these items about 5 or 6 times will pay for the pass. I think I will invest part of my NC tax refund in myself, so to speak, and get this pass and get out there and exercise. There is also a pretty decent restaurant there that I can grab food at before heading home (as long as I budget my food purchases the rest of the week).

Speakingof food purchases, I am excited that a friend will be taking me tomorrow to the farmer's market and a local grocery store to help me learn how to eat healthily and still inexpensively. This will be good, as I know how to eat cheap and I know how to eat healthily, but need help putting the two together.

It's been a great Lord's day.

First day of furlough

So... I have some friends that work at Clemson University and they have been forced to take unpaid furlough days this year in an effort to not have to lay a lot of people off. My company last week informed me that we are all going to 4 day work weeks with a 20% paycut. I have decided to refer to this as a weekly furlough because it seems to be easier and conveys more of the unpaid sense than "day off".

The question is... what to do? I'd like to travel around and see different areas. However, I do not know how long this will last nd don't want to blow savings on unnecessary things. Luckily, today and tomorrow I have plenty to do in preparing a Sunday School lesson, catching up on some reading, and doing some MAJOR house cleaning (have traveled for three straight weeks and the place is a WRECK). In the future, I figure I can do more writing for this blog and I have kind of been thinking of writing about some of my travels in life to different baseball parks (have seen this idea with college football stadiums, Alabama football RV tailgater crowd for a season and hiking the AT) so maybe I can include some skeleton chapters here and the one person that reads this can tell me to give it up, give it mroe work, or it's good. I also have a paid parking pass to the whitewater center so I can go there and walk or splurge for a $20 flatwater kayak session on the Catawba or just do a bunch of walking in the parks around the house. Also, I will be looking for odd jobs or lawns to mow or things to paint (preferably for spending money).

If you have any other ideas... feel free to let me know.

Weight loss

Well, I weighed in at 248 this morning bringing my total to 34 pounds for the year and just 18 pounds away from my updated goal of 52 pounds for the year. I am happy about that and also happy that I can now wear a size smaller pants, yay for me.

Ouch.

Found out earlier this week that, due to the downturn in the economy and some clients freezing projects we were working on and others outright defaulting on payments, my company is going to a 4 day work week effective immediately. This sounds great until the other part comes around... an accompanying 20% reduction in pay.

I know, I know, 80% is better than 0%, but this is still a big chunk of change and it is going to hurt. Apparently, I am the only person in the company that is working right now as I have been putting in long hours each week since the second week of January (all billable, no sitting around wasting time). Oh well. The memo states that no reduction in client satisfaction accompanies this reduction in hours and pay. So... if my schedule keeps up, it looks like I am going to be losing 20% of my salary while still working 50-60 hours a week. Doesn't that sound like fun? Oh well, times are tough all over.

Anyway, I am out of town this week and had gone over my paid time for the week as of yesterday. Looks my donating of my time has already begun. My uncompensated time for this week looks to be a minimum of 30 hours. Wow, guess I can just work 8-10 on Monday and go home for the week. If only I wasn't expected to complete this report for this trip I'm on now that was budgeted for two 40 hour weeks. I'm sure I can do just as good of a job in two 32* hour weeks as I could have in two 40 hour weeks. Oh yeah, I'm also gone for 4 days on another trip the last week of April, I sure am glad work is slow at our company...



Okay, I'm going to go whine in private, I apologize for taking your time.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards

In recent years, baseball teams have begun to build "old style" ballparks back in revitalized areas of the cities (or as part of revitalization projects) and moving away from the cookie cutter stadiums out on the suburbs of town. I think this is a great idea and love how the ballparks look different in each city, not like in the past where Three Rivers in Pittsburgh, Riverfront in Cincinnati, Fulton County in Atlanta, Kauffman in Kansas City, Oakland Coliseum in Oakland all looked the same as massive concrete round stadiums, many of them used for football and baseball. The economics of using a stadium for football and baseball sounds tempting, but unlike basketball and hockey, football and baseball just aren't designed to be played in the same stadium. Any stadium that can fit a football field inside is not going to have a good layout for baseball (see Dolphin stadium) or will have bad seating that can't be used for one sport and looks odd (see Oakland Coliseum). This whole movement back started with Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, MD. So, imagine my joy when I discovered that Baltimore was only 80 miles from my hotel, the Orioles were playing at home on Wednesday AND due to flight schedule and work load, I could go down for a game. Having learned my lesson from the night before, I found a ticket in the center field bleachers online and I bought it. So, with ticket receipt in hand, I hopped in the rental car and took off for Baltimore and the fulfillment of a long awaited dream. As you can see below from the picture taken from my seat... I had much better seats.

View of the warehouse in left and center field from outside the stadium.

This was a much more enjoyable evening for me, the fans were much more positive for their team (though they did boo Yankees' first baseman Mark Teixeira mercilessly after MD native Teixeira said he wanted to play for the Orioles and then turned down a good offer from them to sign a monstrous contract with the Yankees). Now, there were a lot of Yankees fans at the game, and several of them were very annoying. Behind me was the "Over-reactor" - he would make a big production of standing up every time a Yankee got a hit or made a routine defensive play and clap loudly and look around as if daring somebody to say something. In front of me was the "Anticipator" - any time the ball was hit (but especially by a Yankee), this fool would jump up (blocking my view). This was annoying but humorous when it was a harmless fly ball, but very aggravating when there was a good play made as I would either have to have stood up to see it or turn in my seat to see the replay on the board. And there was "Nickname Guy" somewhere behind me. He had a nickname for every one of his beloved Yankees. Nickname Guy soon became "Obnoxious Drunk Guy" by last call in the 7th inning as the Yankees were losing and so he just started yelling loudly about how many titles the Yankees had won and on and on. He was severely disliked and the other Yankees fans in the area began to yell fr him to shut up, as well. He was given a standing ovation when he left after the top of the 8th inning, but that is probably what he wanted as I have a feeling underlying "Nickname Guy" and "Obnoxious Drunk Guy" was his true persona... "Attention Whore Guy" who is so insecure about themselves that they just want people to pay attention to them. It is best to ignore "Attention Whore Guy" as any attention just feeds them, but it is so hard to ignore their actions as they have a lot of practice and are very good at what they do.

Citizens Bank Park

This past week, I traveled to Wilmington, DE to make an inspection for a project with work. As Wilmington is just 30 minutes south of Philadelphia, I decided that I would try to make it to a Phillies game while in the area. As the schedule worked out, I got into town early on Tuesday afternoon and the Phillies playes the Braves at 7:00 that night.

One thing I learned, if you know where you want to sit and there is a seat available online when you check 3 hours before the game, go ahead and pay the convenience charge and get the ticket. I did not do this and just assumed the tickets would still be there when I got there. But, I was wrong and ended up with the choice of sitting up in the 4th level down the left field line or paying $75 to sit field level behind the home plate area. As you can see from the pictures below that I took from my seat... I chose the $13 ticket up in the 4th level.




Now, let me say, I am not a Phillies fan, at all. I am not a huge Braves fan, but I did grow up on them before moving to St. Louis and becoming a Cardinals fan, so I do not hate them. I was definitely going to be low key and just try to enjoy the game this night (Phillies fans have a reputation for being rough, and as it turns it out, the people in my section did NOTHING to disspell these rumors). Enjoying the game was a bit difficult due to the new combinations of curse words and lack of any hindrance to direct them at anybody, anywhere (I work around a lot of construction sites and enjoy the movie The Big Lebowski and this was a bit of a shock for me) and the bitter cold temperatures (the lying thermometer said 36 degrees, but it sure felt much colder). However, I was able to take some solace in the success of the Braves as the folks around me did nothing but rip into them (of course, they took it out on their own team, too as Jamie Moyer, a veteran pitcher very important in their world series victory last year, gave up a home run in the first inning and the guy behind me said he didn't want to be crude but he wished that Moyer had died in the offseason - and NOBODY said anything about this...). The best moment I think was when they were dog cussing Chipper Jones (as they had been doing all night) and he promptly crushed a HR to left center field, doing nothing to slow down their talk.

All in all, it was fun to visit the park and eat in the restaurant named after Harry Kalas (the legendary announcer that has done a lot of work for NFL Films and does NFL games on the radio in addition to his work with the Phillies) and I always love a baseball game.

Lot of catching up to do...

Okay, it has been a while but things have been hopping in my life recently, forgive me. First of all... after a week of not being able to work out two weeks ago due to travel, weather, errands, etc., I did not lose any weight that week. So... after another week of travel and no exercise, I was happy to have lost a pound this past week. More importantly, I am now able to wear a size of pants that I could not get on, much less wear back in January. Now, they are a little snug, but I have full range of motion and they are not stretched at all, much less stretched to the point of ripping seams.

So... I'm excited. I also was able to make it through Easter dinner today with friends without succumbing to temptation. First there was macaroni and cheese (a personal favorite). Of course this was much easier to resist as the hostess provided a separate dish with whole wheat pasta, which was really good. Then there was the bread, really great rolls, and also some great looking potato dishes. And to top it off... dessert included banana pudding (one of my all time favorites) and this incredible chocolate cake (with the texture of cheesecake, ooh, I need a tissue, my mouth's watering). Now, I understand that having one piece wouldn't have blown my diet, but I am also realistic to the complete lack of self control I have when it comes to food, especially dessert foods. That one piece would have led to two and then to me stopping on the way home for mint oreos or peanut butter m&ms or ice cream or something because, "hey, I've already gone off the diet today." But, I made it and I was able earlier in the week to go to two MLB games without getting junk food. Again, probably could have made up for it in other places, but this time I wanted to try to get away from associating fun with bad food. Maybe I am going overboard, but I would rather err on the side of caution rather than fall back onto the path of diabetes, heart disease and possible stroke (all things that run in my family at a high rate and that can be curtailed with being healthy).

I knew it...

One goal I forgot about as it has been 3 months before I can begin to accomplish it.

Going to minor league ballparks - I have some friends that will be wanting to join me on various trips and am even more excited about that. I love baseball games alone, good time to think about the game and think about life. As much as I love that, going with friends can be even better as you can talk through these things instead of just thinking.

In addition to minor league games around the Carolinas, I plan on going to some major league and minor league games around the country as I travel for work. Next week, I will be in Philadelphia for some work 30 minutes away in Wilmington, DE. The Phillies have a game on Tuesday night and I intend to ride over and go to the game. I am excited to see a game in this new ballpark (I saw one in old Veterans' Stadium when visiting my uncle one time). I will take pictures and post some here. Very excited about the opportunities I will have to visit different parks as my company appears to be sending me to a lot of different areas.

New Year's goals update...

Happy April, now 3 months into the new year, I wanted to review my goals for this year.

I can't remember the order, but bear with me:

1. Weight loss - I wanted to lose 32 pounds this year. As of Sunday, March 29, I have lost 30 pounds already this year. I am excited about this progress and will be setting a new goal when I lose this last two pounds. I could tell today while working on a roof and climbing ladders and up and over roof dividers and on top of parapet walls that I had a much easier time getting around than just two months ago on the same roof. This makes me very happy and encourages me to continue.

2. Running a 5K - This goal has been shelved for the time if not forever. I went through a lot of steps to end my issues with shin splints. I went to an orthopedist, physical therapy, bought special custom made orthotics and nice running shoes. None of this helped at all. I have turned to other forms of exercise, instead. Swimming, elliptical machines, spinning and longer walks on nice days are now how I get my exercise.

3. Hiking 12 hikes - Also shelved for the above stated reason.

4. Reading the Bible - So far, I am still on track and up to date with the Bible reading schedule I chose.

5. Reading Calvin's Institutes - I added this one a few weeks in. I have a reading schedule for this, too. So far, I am up to date on this reading, as well.

I am enjoying and benefiting greatly from both of these readings and very glad I have decided to do them. I look forward to each day's readings.

I believe these are the goals I set forth. If not, I will be adding further updates. Thanks for following along with my progress as I seek to reap the benefits of caring for the life that God has given me as I seek to give it back to him.