My Ass Hurts

For two weeks now I have been wanting a bike very badly! Well I finally got to ride one and now I'm unsure about the situation. I jumped on my roommates bike and my roommate and I set off into the neighborhood. Now I know that I haven't ridden a bike in almost 10 years but damn I think this guys bike is messed up! It wouldn't shift gears and these damn hills out here!! I was huffing puffing and dying to get up those hills! Oh my god a few times I had to just stop and walk the damn thing up the hill. I was so mad and now as I sit here my ass hurts. I know I'm out of shape and I'm in the process of losing some extra weight but damn not cool. It was embarrassing and shocking how hard it was. I thought it would be a breeze with a bike but apparently not.

I so want this!!! Someone please buy me one? It's only 13 thousand dollars. See it here

Party at my house

Party like a rock-star. While not original it worked. I decided to host a little party with the group at my house. The theme was to dress like a rock star. Everyone came over and we totally started "having fun". Very low key, nothing over the top, I found some shot glasses that had blinky lights but nothing crazy. However the group totally went at it and not even an hour into everyone seemed pretty drunk.

I made the fatal mistake of busting out the 190 proof everclear!!! I didn't think anyone would really drink the stuff, I mean come on, everyone knows that crap is legal poison sold in a liquor store. Well a few people enjoyed the stuff and one person really enjoyed it and had a shitty night because of it. I freaked out a little (probably because I was drunk) but for good reason damn it! Everywhere I or my family has lived, neighbors have HATED us. I don't know wh)y, we are cool and don't do anything shady, no parties or anything. Maybe we are just too out there? Anyways I wanted everyone to be quite so the neighbors don't get mad and start to hate me. I know I will only be here for a few months but still...

Anyways I'm pissed because I didn't take pictures, I know I can't grab photo's off my camera right now but I should still take pictures, and I will now try to.

Oh and I totally have a new appreciation for the house I live in. Everyone thought it was sweet, with a "secret" room and what not. (Now called the Morocian room) I thought the house was already sweet, well it turns out there has been some campfire like circle with a fire pit hiding in the jungle called a backyard. (Discovered the next day while the roommate and I cleared the jungle with masheti things)

For sure I got the party spot... Damn my neighbors are going to hate me. :(

Food

The highlight of my day was finally going to the store with a car! Bloody hell I don't think I have ever been so excited to go grocery shopping. A fellow GOT'er took me to the store and I went crazy, filled up my cart, and spent over 100 bucks. I'm so happy I can eat more than P&J sandwiches. :'),

Petitioning

Today they trained us on how to petition out on the streets. They wanted us to get some live practice for later on in the semester. I was a little anxious but thought it would be a good experience. But I was totally taken back by the fear and reaction of others in the group. Some were extremely nervous about it. Others didn't want to do it. I guess I forget that some people don't like talking to perfect strangers on the street. Something I really would like to get better at!

I'm not going to lie, it's hard to go out into a very busy intersection trying to get busy strangers to fill out post cards. I'm talking like downtown D.C. here, no joke, suit and tie's walking around in a hurry. I stood next to a busy metro entrance and did my thing. Of course I kicked ass and went beyond the goal set. I was very proud of myself. :-)

Plus I had a ton of fun, I can't wait until Delaware!

End of Week Two

It's Friday and I awoke to find a very cloudy and raining morning. I definitely didn't mind the rain since we mostly watched movies today. We watched An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gores movie. Today was actually my first time ever seeing the movie, which often surprises people.

Why haven't I seen it before?

Well to be honest I knew I would know all the information already. Yes, that is big headed of me. I knew the movie would just piss me off! It's no secret that the U.S. hasn't done enough to combat Global Warming and that's why I'm mad. Anyways, we watched it and I of course didn't learn anything new! However, it didn't make me that mad, and that's because I AM doing something about it. In fact, in two weeks I will be in Delaware working on a campaign called Project Hot Seat _info and working very directly towards fixing the problem.

What did make me mad was the complete bullshit film they made us watch afterwards!

An Inconvenient Truth or Convenient Fiction?

It was some Global Warming Denial film and honestly it was such crap. Very vague and nonsensical, using extremely non-convincing "claims". Point being, the film tries to make people think scientists don't really know what's going on with Global Warming, when the truth is they do! We are killing the planet and we're going to be totally screwed if we don't do anything about it and fast! Anyone can see for themselves here, thousands of scientist from around the world have compiled thousands of pages of text and books. What does it all say? That we are totally fucked if we don't do something to reverse or stop Global Warming. Honestly people. We NEED our government to act!

Ok back to the point. After we watched the movies are advisors let me determine how we should discus the movie. I broke everyone up into two groups and had everyone search online to see where this "organization", (Pacific Research Institute) and this idiot guy (Steve Hayward) in the film was getting it's money from. What do you know! ExxonMobile... hmm. What a shocker.

I just don't get it. Why would oil companies try to hide the severity of Global Warming from us? When trust me, in fact they have gone through great lengths to. Why don't oil companies spend all their money on investing into renewables right now. That way they can be the first and biggest in the game. People won't hate them, well after a name change, at least. They could dominate the energy world, just, with ultra-clean and renewable energy. I just don't get the strategy. They can be just as rich if they beat everyone to the race! Instead they play some kind of game with us (the public) and hurt the environment.

I'll tell you this, they will be making NO money if the planet is thrown into complete and utter chaos by environment damage that can't be reversed.

Big Oil = Horribly Flawed Business Plan

Money

I don't have enough and I don't know what to do. :-(

Big Cities = Slow Going

I find it odd that things seem to move faster back home in Fresno, California. See in D.C. I don't have a car, while this is very very green, it's annoying! I love walking places so that doesn't bother me most of the time, but riding and waiting for the damn bus does! At home, if I got the urge to go do something, I would be up and out of my seat in less than a minute and be down the road.

Here I have to walk down the street. Wait at the bus stop for 1 minute to 45 minutes! Then get off the bus and get onto the metro. Then get off the metro and either walk or get on another bus. It takes freaken forever to get anywhere or do anything. I am either late or too early. There area I live in (Cheverly, MD) has NOTHING near by besides a 7-Eleven and a supposed gas station. Sooo I have to walk VERY far or ride the damn bus somewhere. Still don't know how to ride the bus to the store and it sucks.

Monday

I needed to badly get my haircut and redyed. I dyed my hair from bright insane blue to black, and I didn't do a great job going to black. I made an appointment to get my hair at 5. So at 3 I left for the bus and the metro. I got off at the station and I had 55 minutes. I grabbed something to eat and chilled until 5. Then I had to wait 45 damn minutes tell the guy even got to me. I decided to get the color touched up, so another 30 minutes. While washing out my hair he soaked the entire back of my shirt!! Another 15 minutes. By the time I got home it was almost 9. :-|


My Hair


Why does everything take so long here....


I think I would kill for a bike, anyone want to buy me one!?

First GOT Weekend

After GROP (inside joke) we just couldn't get enough of each other. It was Saturday night, so myself and a few people from the group and other folks, headed for some clubs in a two trendy parts of town. Adams Morgan and some other area... I was very tired but way pumped up. I felt really excited for some reason. Anyways, after a lot of waiting and the night being so late, we only ended up in two places until we called it a night.

Things weren't totally crazy and I only had one beer all night but I still had fun. I spent a lot of time talking to one of my new friends from the group. Seems like we have a lot in common as we both live to travel.


Sunday

We still needed to hang out and keep the party alive! =p So two of the lovely girls from the group hosted a party at their apartment and most of the group was there. Very nice party but I wasn't in the best of moods. Issues with a certain woman in my life left me in a crappy mood. However, I did still have fun. Just didn't show it.

GROP I mean GORP!

So to wrap up our first week in GOT, Greenpeace sent us all on a retreat in Lexington, Virginia. a.k.a. the middle of nowhere in Virginia. We all crammed into a very nice modern cabin in a forestry area. The purpose of this retreat called GORP or Greenpeace Orientation Retreat in Pennsylvania (this year it was in Virginia but the name stuck), was to build team cohesion and basically make sure we're all friends.

The weekend was filled with some expected team building exercises like untying a "human not". That's where we all grab hands in the middle of a circle and try to straight out everyones arms. That night we made our way to a campfire and all had a merry time. (Maybe a little to good of a time!)

The next evening everyone was in a very good mood and really enjoying the trip. Then we all had to make "life maps", we had to draw and map out key events in our lives on a big sheet of paper, basically events that lead us to Greenpeace and on that very trip we were on. Everyone sat quietly for about 30 minutes and made their maps. Then came the evil part. We had to present them to the group. Doing so brought back some unpleasant experiences and events for a few, including myself. The mood went from giddy and happy to unpleasant and depressing. People didn't share as much as they wanted to, myself included, but it was enough to kill the mood.

Other than the life maps the weekend was very cool. It did bring us all closer together, so the mind tricks do work. By weeks end it had felt like we all knew each other for months. Very very odd.

The First Few Days of GOT

After all this time of waiting and saving, the GOT semester started. I finally was able to put a face to the names I've been seeing for several weeks.

I meet the group and they had us play a few name games to break the ice and help remember everyone. Then we went over all the beginning stuff for the program, put us on the Metro, and took us to Greenpeace's head office in downtownish DC. We got a personal tour of this very cool "Green" building and everyone seemed very cool. Apparently we will be spending a lot of time in the office which gives us "Student Activists" a chance to meet all the green peace folks.

Lucky for us, a live protest was going down that night, at the very nice DC Nationals Stadium. Exxon Mobile wants to name one of the greenest Stadiums ever built! So a few of us GOTers got to head out and help protest in front of the stadium while others petitioned for signatures to send management. I enjoyed helping out, and of course I couldn't turn down free tickets to a game! ;-)


Once again I'm very sorry I don't have pictures. I need to get a card reader for my camera. If anyone has one for a Sony Camera, by all means, let me know.




From BlackBerry


Yay an update!

First Day Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. After all these months of waiting, I finally start the GOT program. Just one thing, they are sending us on a protest after we are done. They said it should be a 12-13 hour day. That's going to suck with my blisters on my feet. Oh well it should be a good start the program and show us just what we're in for.

Not sure if what we are doing is on the dl so I will talk about it after. This is going to be our first real life protest! I'm a bit anxious as I don't know what to expect. Wish me luck!!

Getting Settled

I have been in DC for one week now. I'm getting settled in at my new place. My roommates are very nice and everything is great. Except, the heat! It's hot here, not as hot as Fresno, but really humid! Fresno, Ca is basically a desert in the summer. Very hot and dry, but here, it looks like the mountains but feels like the rain forest. (I've been to a rain forest before)

Today I finally went to the store and got some food. I've been on the starvation diet most of this week. I don't have a car so walking is my new form of transportation, that is, when there is no bus or metro. It was a very long two mile walk. Not too bad on the way there, warm but I was going down hill. The way back however, with 40 pounds of groceries, was NOT fun. There was one very steep hill. I've been wanting to go hiking for years now, never did and this is similar I imagine. Yet, I wanted to go to the nice cool Sierra Mountains, not a damn rain forest. Anyways, I have some food now and I don't want to do that grueling walk again!!

I found a place to live

Ok I still can't upload pictures I have taken. I left the cord to my camera at home. :-/ Sooo I will have to wait tell I get a package from home. However, I got a some good pictures, I promise. Real touristy stuff.

After meeting with several people; I found a place. It's a cool house very close to the place I will need to be everyday. I meet the last roommate today for lunch and she is very cool. I was very much pleased. I guess I'll be living with just two of them for a while. I move in tomorrow. Finally, I got a place.

Oh and going out in DC is way more fun than Fresno. :-)

I am here!

So I am in DC and I FINALLY have a decent internet connection. I've been at this hotel for 2 days now and the internet has barely worked half the time. I finally routed the connection to my person server and bam! Now it works great... Why I don't know. (Way more secure this way)

It has been a hectic few days. I landed in Dulles Airport and made the HUGE mistake of staying in the area. I had to take a rip-off-taxi ride to and from the way far away metro stop. Very bad idea. It would have been cheaper to check into a much nicer and better hotel near a metro and in the city.

Now I am in the city and close enough to the metro but this hotel is costing me a lot of money every night!! I can't afford to stay here any longer. I've meet and talked to a few cool people about moving into a few places, but it looks like I will have to wait a few more days. I should have booked a bed in a hostel. Looks like everything is booked until Thursday. Damn this blows, I feel like I am bleeding out money! Some one get me a damn band-aid.

More to come tomorrow. Stay here or try for a hostel?

It's Time

It's Wednesday September 3^rd and I will moving in just 4 days! The time has really flown by... Here is what I have going on in the next few days. :-)

Friday:

• Last day of work


• Dinner with family


• Night out on the town for drinks

Saturday:

• Finish packing


• Say goodbye to everyone


• Drive to San Fransisco for the night

Sunday:

• Fly out to D.C. in the morning


• Meet potential new roommates


• Sleep

Cars Cleaned

It was really hot, over 100 degrees actually. My family was kind enough to come out and help me wash cars for hours on end. We didn't wash nearly as many cars as I had hoped for but the money I made will go far! My boss even came out to say hello, as well as a few other friends. I was sun burnt and tired, but hey, every little bit helps. Thanks to all who came by or helped!


Pictures!

Car Wash!!!

Check it out...

Plane Ticket

I bought my plane ticket and I'm for sure going to D.C.! It was really touch in go for a while as to whether or not I was really going to go. However, I am now!

Phone call with Greenpeace

Last night I had a great conference call with a few people from Greenpeace and a graduate of the GOT program from a few years past. She offered some great insight into the program and told us all she learned from it. This girl was very motivating and her motivation and enthusiasm really excited me! It has confirmed what I already knew. I need to do this! No matter what I can not let this unique and amazing opportunity pass me by.

I still need a lot of help and I have to raise more money. I know I can use this chance to make a huge positive change in our of lives. :-)

New Blog!

In an attempt to help others go green, I have created a blog called "Going Green on the Cheap". It's of course a blog about going green, but basically it's about sure fire ways to reduce your impact on the environment and save a nice chunk of change in the process. I invite all of you to check it out. Of course any feedback is welcomed! :-)

Going Green on the Cheap

Letters Sent.

Today I finished sending letters to all of my family. If you're reading this and you're a family member then Welcome! I just want everyone to know that although I don't post everyday right now, I will when I get to D.C. I'll have quite the active schedule and everyday will be something new and different!

It's Offical! I can leave...

Today I got the "official" word from my employer that I can come back to my job after my stint in D.C. It looks like I wont be able to work remotely for a few hours a week like I originally wanted. (I'm a computer programmer) I also got a very nice donation from my uncle today! I still need a lot of help and I'll be mailing out more letters in the next few days to family and friends.

Dear Family, HELP ME!

Today I start sending out letters to my extended family asking for help with my endeavor. I'll be contacting family who I haven't talked to in sometime so I'm not sure what kind of response I will receive. I'm starting to think I will be able to make this thing happen.

I can now say with certainty that I am over a 1/4 of the way there, in terms of money that is. I'm very excited by my recent large donations but I will surely need more!

I'm feeling lucky

Last night (Friday the 13th), I was feeling really lucky. My girlfriend and I headed to the local casino for some fun. I had lost the $40 I went in there to play with and she was still on her first $20. We were about to leave and I started walking around trying to find the last slot machine so she could drop her money in. Then I spotted a dollar machine and had "a feeling". I told her play this one, I have a good feeling. After about 2 minutes she won $973! I was so happy I was jumping up and down. Needless to say, I got another nice donation to my cause! :-)

Way of the furture? Hopefully for me it is. I want.

I've been following along with this company, Aptera, for a while now and the more video's I watch of the thing, the more I want it! This plug-in electric hybrid claims it will get up to 300 MPG. It looks a little funky but if it comes out and actually works as claimed, I will so trade in my car and get one. Of course that is if I still live in California and need a car. :-)

High prices at the pump? I want it to be higher.

Since I live in California and I have to drive everywhere, I use a lot of gas. I will admit I don't have the most fuel efficient car and in fact my car is made to have more horse power and speed than economy. My Acura gets low 19 mpg on the street and 23 on the highway. It now cost me over $60 dollars to fill her up! I don't like spending more but I think I should.

Most people would love gas prices to go down and can't cringe at the thought of paying even more for gas, I on the other hand want to see it go up $8-10 range. Yes I know it sounds crazy but hear me out. If regular unleaded gasoline regularly topped $10, demand in the US would finally decrease. I predict that instead of long-term forecast of increase demand there would actually be a forecast for further decreases.

I really don't like paying more and more money every week to get around and I really do not want people to suffer even more in this current economic down turn. My friends, family, and I would all surely be hurt by such high prices and everyone's life style would have to change but that's just the thing, we need to change and quickly. Without a big push from state or the federal government change wont happen, at least not nearly as fast. We all have been to slow to act on this and I'm sad to say we will probably have to learn this lesson the hard way. I don't really think gas will reach such highs anytime soon unless there were a huge disaster (i.e. embargo, bad hurricane in the gulf, etc.) and I wouldn't want the U.S. to have to change it's ways in such a painful way with a huge shock to the economy.

What do I want to see happen? For starters, I want the federal government to do one of two things, either pass a law mandating that all automobiles (not including RV's or RTV's) in the US have a minimum MPG of 50 by 2015. Much higher than what is currently being talked about in Congress and in a few states. Another option would be for the federal government to make all states adopt such laws, just like when the federal government wanted states to raise the legal drinking age to 21 in the 80's.

The second thing I would like done is a gradual tax increase on gasoline (just like in Europe) to help convince people that they should really consider buying more fuel efficient cars. This law should aim to raise gas prices by .50 cents a year until it reaches a set price, maybe at $15-20. This of course would have to take into consideration the natural raise in the market. I think a lot of American's keep buying gas-hogs because they hope and think gas prices will ease. If people absolutely knew prices were going to increase year after year and eventually be $10+ a gallon this would quickly stop. That way the change could be quick but gradual.

This would be far easier than doing nothing and just letting one big disaster shock the global market and leave us unprepared for such high prices. I for one wouldn't mind paying $10 a gallon if my car got 100+ MPG. Now if only there were politicians brave enough to pass such laws...

Huge Donation!

I'm so excited! Although my campaign to raise money for my move is going slow. I just got a huge donation of $2,000 dollars! I'm very pumped about this. It's a huge step in the right direction and just one step closer to D.C.

RE: Fundable

My first $10.00 donation!


...I had to donate it to myself but whatever it's a start.

Fundable

While brain storming for ways I could jump start my campaign and collect money from people in a safe, secure, and legit way, my step-dad told me about a site called Fundable. I had surprisingly never heard of it before. I've heard of sites like it and similar techniques, just not this one site. I checked it out and I liked it, so I am now officially using it. :-)

Not a bad deal... You start a fund raiser, set an amount, tell everyone why you want money, then start collecting. The catch is you aim at giving everyone something in return. Plus if you don't make your amount in the time alloted or you don't reach your goal at all, everyone gets their money back.

Btw, check out my fundable page!

Tell me what you think.

New blogger

I am now going to start blogging very often from this point on. I am very new to the world of blogging. I obviously know what it is. I'm far from a noob as far as technology and the internet goes. I just never had anything to blog about. Now I do, I'm on a mission to get to D.C. and like always, when I want something, I make it happen. Happy reading everyone!

Lets do this!

So after weeks of waiting I finally got the good news! I've been accepted into the Greenpeace GOT program! Yay out of hundreds of applicants they picked me. I can't help but wonder what exacttly it was they liked so much. My major? The fact that I actually care and do something about it? My job? Who knows and for now I don't care!

First Post!

Hey look at that! This is my first post. Yay for me!