Better post something… I’m wasting my best domain name!

April 2, 2010 on 4:33 pm | In ethics, people, science, travel | No Comments

Ohhh riiiight…. I have a blog.  No, I didn’t forget about it – but one might wonder why I haven’t posted anything new since last November.  Well, let me just make this post into a few tidbits about what I’m up to lately so it won’t take too long, and then I’ll get back to my busy day.  (I hope to resume semi-regular updates shortly, though!)

• Work. Shortly after my last post, I left the Great Satan-errr, the United States of America for a couple of weeks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.  It was a big project for my company, and I was fortunate to be one of a team of three nerds that were sent to install LIS software and train lab technicians at the UAE’s largest clinical reference laboratory to date.  It was a bit surreal, as it was my first trip outside North America and it felt more like I was in Las Vegas while a bunch of Arabs were in town.  That trip deserved a blog post all to itself, but I missed the last two weeks of the school semester and was therefore trying to keep up with biology and statistics, and then finals and then holidays and… you get it, I’m sure.
• School. This semester it’s chemistry, which is not nearly as hard as it seemed when I took it at age 19, when I was still trying to figure out why I should get up for class if I wasn’t going to miss the school bus.  I’m still working 8-5 Mon-Fri, but Tuesday night I have a three hour lecture and Wednesday night it’s a three hour lab. I want to be annoyed with my classmates who don’t understand how much of a privilege it is to be there (they’re always rushing through the lab to get out early), but I’m sure I was just like them once. Plus, I still procrastinate like there’s no tomorrow, so I haven’t grown up that much.
• Farming. I’ve been helping out where I can on the best new community project in Baltimore, the Ash Street Garden (aka Baltimore Free Farm).  It’s an inspiring groundswell of sustainability consciousness, DIY ethics, cleverness, and crunk-punk-rap-rock-folk-core anarchy in action — without pissing off the neighbors!  If any gardening or sustainability enthusiasts in the Baltimore region read this, you should definitely stop by some day to see what we’ve done with the place.  It was just a bunch of tree stumps and garbage piles a mere two months ago; today it is well on its way to the terraformed cathedral of urban agriculture it is bound to become.  Anyone is welcome to volunteer and join the fun.  If you have any experience in gardening, construction, farming, landscaping, plumbing, beekeeping, integrated pest management, or non-profit law and finance, you are especially needed!
• Vacation. That’s right – Celeste and I spent an awesome week last month exploring the Pacific Northwest, including Whidbey Island (where we stayed with her ‘rents), Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Vancouver, Olympic National Park, the Hoh Rainforest, Rialto Beach, and Port Townsend.  Olympic National Park and seeing my cousin Jeremy in Olympia were the highlights for me. . . Vancouver kicked ass, too.
• Training. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration because I haven’t really done that much of it yet, but I’m trying to condition myself to endure 140 miles of bicycling in two days from Rehoboth Beach, DE to Baltimore, MD.  Shannon, my brother’s girlfriend, is the organizer of Ride For The Feast, which raises funds for Moveable Feast, a nonprofit organization that provides free meals to HIV and breast cancer patients. So, on May 15/16, Shannon, Mike, myself, and others will ride our asses off (literally, maybe) for this noble cause.  If you want to support my effort (please do!), you can make a contribution to Moveable Feast through my fundraising page.  Your contribution will help me achieve the $1,200 fundraising goal I’ve set for the event.  More importantly, though, it will bring the compassionate gift of good nutrition to our neighbors whose survival depends on it the most, at a time when their ability to provide for themselves is most diminished.
• That’s it! I have no other excuses not to be blogging. We’ll see what happens…