Weekend Trip to Victoria

This past weekend, I spent a good 24 hours in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, and just off the mainland in the ocean. To get there, me and a friend named joel, had to take the bus starting at 8:30 am to get to the ferry and eventually to get to downtown Victoria at 12:30pm. The ferry was really cool because you just sit out in the breezeway and watch the islands pass by (while everyone else stays inside, for some odd reason.

After we got to Victoria, we found ourselves around the 'touristy' area of town, with Parliament, a National Geographic IMAX museum, wax museum, and famous Empress Hotel all around us. We stopped by Parliament to be told tours were in a couple of hours (so check that off the list); we stopped by the museum to find that tix were $28, and the exhibits consisted mostly of natural history (which I find myself pretty well versed in, so check that off the list); wax people scare me, and thus check that one; and the hotel is pretty damn cool (check the pic below), but we looked like vagabonds (big backpacks), so walking in probably would have been an interesting experience.

We also ran into a street performer who was juggling flames and balancing an axe on his chin while some kid kicked him in the legs... yeah, kicked him in the legs (btw, what is the deal with street performers, they do cool stuff, but they try to make people laugh and its just awkward... I just begin to feel sorry for them. If you're going to do something odd, just do 'that' something odd and don't try to make me laugh... I leave it to comedians to do that). Also, I saw Darth Vader playing the violin (!)

ParliamentThe Empress Hotel

After walking the streets for a while and doing some window shopping, we visited Vancouver Island Brewery and Phillips Brewery. We got a tour at the former and learned quite a bit of info (4 ingredients to any beer are : water, barley, hops, and yeast, used in that order... also all beer fit under two types of beer, ales and lager, depending on whether the yeast bottom feeds or top feeds).... anyway, we had some interesting convos with some peeps there and got to see the assembly line.

After that, we did some more window shopping. Joel got some soap on his hands in an organic soap shop, and decided to rub them on some clothes on a street mannequin, only to be yelled at by the owner and a pedestrian. He walked briskly off.... I acted like I didn't know him and began to talk on my cell phone (I happen to think it worked out for me).

We then proceeded to Beacon Hill Park to play some football and check out the park/beach scene. We came across South Park School (seen above) and met some 'very interesting' people that you'll have to ask me about. Anyway, we concluded our night by going to a bar that had a volleyball court on top. We hung out with a bunch of different people, and were having a good time until Joel decided to throw a haymaker at the volleyball and knocked it over the large net onto the street.... in my opinion, Joel didn't have a good day with luck. We then spent the rest of the night at the bar and on the dance floor, all while having our massive backpacks nearby. Walking out at 2am of a pretty nice bar/club with those on must have garnered some remarks from some people, but they don't know me!

Morning After

PS Pictures were taken with no battery life, which was kinda hard to do

Everybody's doing it!

Hey all (or actually, few.... I need to enhance readership),

I just had another blog officially posted at Celsias.com. It can be found here:

http://www.celsias.com/article/pro-environmental-behavior-everybodys-doing-it/

PS If you want to find more articles written by 'yours truly', click on the link to the right of this story titled, 'See other articles written by Riley'

Impressive...well, not quite so impressive events of the past week

As the title suggests, I have had some 'not so impressive' moments this week. I wish I had a top 10 list, but I guess I have 2-3 days to finish the list out. In no particular order...

-I went golfing Wednesday. The whole time I was on the course, I had 2 birds flying around me... most likely because I smelled or something, but I like to think that I had some sort of magical aura, and they were warding off ..... something. This also reminds me of the last time I golfed in Tempe. I had a crow doing a suicide bomber dive towards my head on at least 3 occasions (most likely because I was carrying nuts as a snack). Talk about taking my focus off the game.

-That same day, I birdied a par 3.... the hole was 61 yards long. Yep! You decide what is impressive about that (I'm pretty sure Tiger Woods has never birdied a 60 yard par 3, see scorecard, which you can click on). I probably should have took a 2nd ball out and used only my putter on the hole.

-I ran 3 miles today... decided to take my shirt off to see if I can get the white torso a little more 'not-white'. I'm pretty sure I initiated some conversations in the passing cars.

-I've been conducting interviews with city staff all week. After the 1 hour of talking to them, I get to go listen to the 1 hour interview and transcribe onto the computer. You know the saying, "I'll never have that _____(enter time, ie 1hour) back".... well in my case, I'll never have those 2 hours back.

-I laughed for about 2 hours Wednesday at work in my cubicle. The problem was that I was at work, and so I kept it all the laughter inside.... it was worth it, but the abs sure got a work out. (check out the website, http://dontevereply.com/).

- I usually get to work at 9:45am. I knew I had an early meeting on Wednesday, so I set the alarm for 8am, with the goal of getting to work at 9am (for a supposed meeting at 10am). Why? Good question, since my normal time would have gotten me there on time. Instead, I get to work at 9:15am, only to play around on the internet for a while. Turns out, that the meeting was at 9am, making plenty of sense why I decided to wake up so early.

-Tuesday I rode my bike to work (like most days). When I got off work, it was raining. When I got home, the guy I am living with, just started laughing. It was one of those kind of laughs that just spoke, 'You're an idiot... and I'm loving every minute of it." To me, the rain felt pretty good, considering I have lived in PHX for the past year.

I'm back

A year and a half ago (January 2008), I started to write for an online climate change blog called Celsias, so I could further develop my writing skills (as I was not in grad school yet) and also stay on top of current enviro news. Over the course of the next 6-7 months, I had wrote 10 articles, which you can still find, each one giving me enough chump change to fill up the gas tank.

My Profile Pic @ Celsias, Shenadoah Mts in back

After I started graduate school, I found it harder to continue with Celsias because I was already doing enough reading and writing. . . I took a good 8-9 month hiatus (Heather bet me how to spell 'hiatus' and I won) from Celsias. But now that I am in summer, and often find ample amount of time to do something at work, I have started again. Except this time, I'm basically writing from my head and not having to do loads of research to write an article. This one took me maybe 30-40 minutes, so in the end, I hope that it doesn't sound like I put less time into it. You be the judge...

http://www.celsias.com/article/going-local-era-globalization/

PS if you like it, DIGG it at the Celsias website

Will my Masters degree pay off?

So I was reading the NYtimes on my day off here in Canada (It's Canada Day, ironically right next to July 4th) and came across this article.

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/what-is-a-masters-degree-worth/

The article discusses the merits of obtaining a Masters degree and whether its worth the investment. Some degrees pay off, others don't. Also, they talk about whether its smart to enroll into graduate school when the economy hits the proverbial outhouse (note: I was in grad school when it hit the outhouse). The overall message that I got from the article is that in most cases, it is not advantageous financially to do so, but at the same time, a HS degree 30 years ago is today's Bachelor's degree. Then again, when the school is picking up the tab, it's probably a different story.

Finally, there is the elephant in the room? Of course no one mentions ifa MA in Sustainability is worth it, but who knows? I happen to think it is going to create huge dividends for me and my peers.... if I didn't why would I be doing what I was doing. Thoughts?

Riley in Vancouver.... WHAAATTTT?

So as some of you know, I'm in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada (just south of Vancouver) for a summer internship to help me finish my degree in sustainability. I am working at Richmond City Hall with the Sustainability Manager on some project including their overall sustainability framework as well as their possilble Olympics Sustainability Programs for the 2010 Winter Olympics. I'm also doing my own research on whether Richmond would be categorized as a sustainable governance structure as according to the academic literature... basically I've read a lot of journal articles and will begin interviewing city employees soon. It's the opposite of titilating (wanted to use that word), but its mentally stimulating at times.

At the same time, I've been trying my best to do lots of things on my own in the city of Vancouver. I've been playing with a bunch of 'average' (and that's nice) softball players and have been quite impressive. I'm known, for the 'first time' in my life, as a deep ball hitter, and everytime I get up to bat, the left and center fielder go stand next to the fence, which doesn't make much logical sense, but it still puts a smile on my face. I also make at least 2-3 webgems a game, which earns a bunch of 'jaw-dropping' faces, in which I laugh. I also have been going to downtown and have been riding my bike around.

My girlfriend (oh my) just came up for the past weekend and we had a great time.

On Friday, I picked her up from the airport and we went to Stanley Park (which is like the Central Park of NYC) and rode our bikes along the seawall. It is amazing! If I ever lived here, it would be for that park and that park only. We then ate at a Japanese restaurant in which our waiter continued to say 'Cheers!' after every word. Example: Here is your water... cheers... and would you like your appetizer now?....(me) Yes... Cheers, cheers. I'll have it out, cheers. Heather then bought me an ice cream cone in which I got Black Walnut... delish choice. I told her that was my favorite moment of the trip because I was slurping it up and spilling it all over myself ... I really felt like a kid. Plus, we were on the beach watching a sunset.

On Saturday, we visited the Museum of Anthropology at the Univ of British Columbia (UBC) which basically had a lot of totem poles and artifacts from the First Nations tribes. Heather liked the ceramics part of the exhibit, only because it was European and she thought she knew a few things :) . After that, we went to Granville Island, which is an old industrial area turned into farmer's market/pedestrian friendly shopping area and ate her b-day lunch/dinner. Fish tacos for me, veggie pizza for Heather, and all the uneaten food.... for me (garbage disposal alert!). Afterwards, we went to the Coldplay concert for her b-day (wow, I am a great guy,... but humble). They were filming it for their DVD concert tour, and although I didn't know many of the songs, we both had a fantasmal time. I have hummed a few of their songs for quite some time now. Here is a photo of us on Row 37 on the FLOOR!

Sunday---> Lazy Sunday (check out the SNL video clip if you've never seen it,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V6aXCRTICo). We walked the beach, ate fish and chips, went to a winery, and rented Marley and Me... not a bad show.

On Monday, we drove from Richmond to Whistler Village, stopping for about a 3 mile hike up a steep mountain called Stawmus Chief in Squamish, BC. Isn't that a mouthful? The hike was kinda tough, as it involved ladders and chains bolted to rocks to help us up the mountain. Once we reached we sat down for a 2 minute snack and immediately were bugged by another group of hikers who decided to sit down next to us and laugh loudly. Cool, real cool... not like I hiked 3 miles to get away from people and enjoy a panoramic view, but keep laughing buddy. Anyways, we probably were leaving anyways because a little chipmunk kept running up to me and darting all around. I wanted to reach out and pet him, but was afraid of getting diseases... I already have enough of those (I'm KIDDING). Well, after the hike we went and walked around Whistler Village and ended up eating at Spaghetti Factory (yep, they have one in Canada). I forgot about the spamoni (probably misspelled that) ice cream... I dig it.

On Tuesday, Heather flew out, back to PHX.... tear drop (not really, because I'm a MAN!). This was probably too long of a post... I remember being told to keep it brief and interesting, none of which may have been the case.

PS Heather has all the photo's, so maybe she can post them.... hint, hint

***Update: Heather posted the link to the photos under the comment section***

I wrote this a while back, while I was dramatic, possibly because I was a teacher...

If you could read the next chapter of your life, would you do it? If yes, would you be willing to make a change if necessary?

If you could read the a book documenting your child's life, would you do it? If yes, would you be willing to step back, address how your actions may have positively or negatively affected your child and change them?

If you could read the next chapter in the Earth's lifestory- maybe the next 50-500 years, would you do it? If yes, would you alter your lifestyle so that man was not such a negative biophysical force on this planet?

Disappointingly, most people only have ever considered the 1st question. The 2nd question comes up, proving that we are not completely self-centered. However, the 3rd question does not come up enough, and when it does denial is the result. As a species, we are not thinking in the long-term as we should. We are the self proclaimed "most powerful, intelligent, and dominant species that ever existed" and yet we have not as a species, as a nation, as a community, and for many, as an individual, not addressed the local and global environmental problems that are heavily prominent today ............................ It's disheartening to me....................We all live in bubbles, but we must remember that we find ourselves in a 12 mile film (6miles down, 6 miles up) where all life, as we know it, exists. All of our actions are felt at the global scale........ Go for a walk tomorrow, not down the street, not in a park, but in a secluded place, somewhere on a mountain, in a forest, or by a meandering river. Feel that moment for more than 5 minutes. By feel, I mean leave all your worries-cell phones, engagments, mental stresses- behind and be in that moment at that time. Stay in that secluded natural setting for an hour or so. Tell me what that feels like, .......really write or email me.......because all our environmental problems are not going to be important/urgent until we all realize what a gift we have. At that time, you may begin to ask yourself that 3rd question. Then we can all join together and get to work.
---Riley's thoughts at 11:54 pm EST on 7/2/06