Monday, February 27, 2006

the second coming of christ...

apparently, a hardware store in manchester (right down the street from my old apartment, actually) has become a mecca for those interested in seeing the image of jesus in a piece of sheet metal. and if you're feeling particularly inspired by the whole thing, you can even make a bid for it on ebay (but you might want to hurry up; bidding is already over $500).

i don't even know what to say, aside from the observation that if jesus has time to be sending signs in the form of sheet metal to a connecticut hardware store, then perhaps he's got his priorities a bit mixed up.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

i was a guest speaker at a wetlands-related meeting today, and presented my research to a room full of people who i was certain would immediately recognize me as a fraud and run me out onto the streets, possibly lashing me with phragmites stalks on the way out the door.

instead, i got two job offers. muahahaha, i've fooled them all!

in other news...




this is brilliant. who wants to share a pint?

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

clean water and flood retention: unconstitutional. who knew?

the supreme court is hearing a case by a michigan developer who claims that the clean water act is unconstitutional. you need to click the "listen" button to get the real meat of the story (my favorite part is where he tries to make the environmental consultant rip up the report stating that he needs to apply for permitting). at first i was surprised that the supreme court even agreed to hear the case; however, the more i think about it, the more i'm betting that it's based on the nebulous terms that define the clean water act itself. the wording of the act states that it applies to "navigable waters of the united states." traditionally, this is interpreted as all waters of the united states, which extends the coverage to wetlands. intuitively, this makes sense: though many wetlands are not 'navigable', if you dump chemical waste into a wetland, you can't act all surprised when it shows up in the nearest river. so wetlands are covered by the clean water act, and based on that, our friend the developer was told that he had to apply for permitting before he could bulldoze his (at least partially) wetland-classified parcel of land. truth be told, the vast majority of wetland-related permit applications are granted either entirely or conditionally. but did this guy bother to apply? nope, he just started bulldozing. brilliant.

my worry here is that somehow, someway, the supreme court will rule in this guy's favor. if that happens, wetland protection is going to be in big, big trouble. ugh.

look at that...weeks without a substantial entry, and then i go and get all political and topical on you. i wonder if this will be a hot topic at the meeting i'm speaking at on thursday...

Thursday, February 16, 2006



states i've been to...i'll be able to add oklahoma and new mexico after i drive through them this spring!
create your own visited states map

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

from the livejournal ladies...
Four jobs I've had:
* exercise rider at a horse farm
* vet tech
* shelver at the university library
* teaching assistant
Four movies I can watch over and over:
* Monty Python and the Holy Grail
* Guys and Dolls
* The Professional
* the Lord of the Rings movies
Four places I've lived:
* Oxford, CT
* Willimantic, CT
* Manchester,CT
* North Windham, CT
(wow, that's boring...)
Four TV shows I love:
* Grey's Anatomy
*any nature documentary
*that's all I've got for this one...
Four places I've vacationed:
* Arizona :)
* Chilean Patagonia
* Colorado
* Montana
Four sites I visit daily:
* gmail.com
* students.uconn.edu
* treehugger.com
* lifehacker.com
Four places I would rather be right now:
* in arizona
* at my graduation three months from now
* on vacation
* asleep
back to the same ol' daily grind :P. had a great weekend; dana came on friday night and was supposed to leave on sunday morning, but ended up staying until tuesday morning because of the blizzard that we had here. but now he's gone, and i'm back to focusing on the work i need to get done for my thesis and the presentation that i have to give next week. boo. time's a-flying, though, and i'll be out there before i know it.

today i:

    woke up early
    went to an environmental policy meeting
    read about dry depostion of nitrogen
    gave blood
    ate chicken tacos
    made a johari window

not my most productive day ever, but it'll do.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

yaaaaaaaaaay! i can wear contacts again! i've been wearing my glasses since november (scratched corneas :P ), but i got a clean bill of eye health today. woo hoo!

also woo-hoo:


oh yeah. i pre-ordered that. why? because i'm addicted. and sunday's episode ROCKED my SOCKS off (fyi, as of 7:30pm on tuesday, that's an abbreviated recap. the full one should be up in the next few days). okay, the socks stayed on, but holy edge of my seat, batman! i can't wait to see the conclusion this weekend. but what i can't wait for even MORE is for dana to be here! he's only coming friday night to sunday morning (so basically, a day), but it's better than nothing and we haven't seen each other since christmas. so yeah. that's the biggest 'yay' of the week :). which is nice. i haven't had a yay-filled week in a while. it was starting to feel a little past due...

Friday, February 03, 2006

finally! some progress with the data! i'm finally starting to feel like i'll be able to get this thesis written. time is passing by so quickly...and, i've got an official time frame for moving out to arizona (end of may). not exactly sure how i'm getting my stuff out there (psh, u-haul, not renting trailers to vehicles with soft tops), but i'm working on it. baby steps. apparently before i go, i'm going to hike mount washington with ray (and abbie and adam? yes?), so that should be fun. exhausting, and cold (mid may, most likely), but fun. and a nice farewell to the northeast, even if it is only temporary. the job market out in arizona is starting to perk up a little too, which is encouraging. i can't speak for the job market in general, but ones in my field were sadly lacking for a while there. and no cracks about "well duh, there's no water in arizona." i assure you, there is, in fact, water in arizona. they just hide it really well ;). found a job listing for a water quality specialist right in the town we'll probably be living in, but it's almost entirely lab work. i can do lab work, but i find it repetitive and boring, so while the pay is decent and i'm certainly qualified, it's not at the top of my list. there are a few that look interesting, though. i know there's always consulting jobs, but i'm gunning for something in a federal (or at least state) program so that it will be easier for me to transfer jobs later on. i'm not ruling out consulting entirely, though...it's certainly not going to hurt my resume to have two years of consulting work under my belt later in the game.

this is a boring entry, but i wanted to write something because i've been slightly less than prolific as of late, and this is the stuff that's been on my mind lately. so that's what you get. tough noogies.

almost 1 am, eh? to bed with me, i guess...