Thanks Google.

I really appreciate the effort the good people at google.com put into celebrating lesser-known special occaisions. Two days ago, Monday, April 27, was the birthday of Samual Morse. Morse was an American painter, inventor of the telegraph, and most obviously the Morse Code. So, in honour of his birth Google put up this header:



With these interesting little images Google manages to remind, most likely, millions of people every day about some of the most important and unappreciated events in human history. The invention of the telegraph completely altered the way people communicated by making long-distance transmission accessible.

This morning I was doing a little more research into this idea of the ever-changing Google header and I came across an intersting project. An Australian graphic designer named Rhett Dashwood has been collecting images of letters from Google Earth. He managed to collect images of all 26 letters of the alphabet within the state of Victoria in six months of searching. I imagine this could turn into a very cool font in the near future. Of course, people from around the world are flooding Dashwood's inbox with Google Earth letters as we speak. O, and he also found a perfect 250 in a farm field along the way.



Later,

One more thing.

I almost forgot to mention: even though the barstaff were completely accomodating at the Grad Club tonight they delivered my burrito with *gasp* disposable utensils. The kitchen wasn't officially open except for pubfare and apparently they weren't very interested in washing the dishes. Not only did this already sabatoge my Earth Day pledge to myself, but the knife and fork were virtually useless against the toasty burrito exterior. To say the least, I was very frustrated. I have definitely learned that lesson a very hard way and I'll be packing my own knife and fork from now on. I just really didn't do a very good packing job for this trip in general.

Out of control.

I just looked over the most recent posts I've made here and I feel like I've started to move away from the original spirit of this blog. Good thing I came to Kingston today for the Ontario Ecology and Ethology Conference (OEEC). I've already ran into so many, um, very familiar faces and talked to a bunch of really interesting people. OEEC is an annual conference that rotates to different Ontario universities each year. It's mainly organized by grad students with the aim to brings together students from a wide range of backgrounds. Here we can gain some practice presenting our ideas to a larger audience than usual. I'm also enjoying the opportunity to spend some more time with my peers and people who are at the same point in their careers as I am.



Today I boarded the VIA in Guelph and came across the shore of Lake Ontario to Kingston. The old downtown part of the city where Queen's University is located is truly beautiful. The Lake is just to the south and every building is built of weathered limestone in old Ontario style. I really like taking the train because it travels in places you never get to see when you're in a car. There also isn't near as much stopping and starting. Well, and I have a soft spot for trains in general. I actually decided to stay at the one little hostel in Kingston. It is exactly 1.5 blocks from the edge of campus right near the City Park. I sort of feel like I'm visiting my grandparents, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Tonight, the first event of the conference was a mixer, of sorts, at the Grad Club. The bartenders were very nice and baked a burrito for me since I hadn't had anything to eat all day long. We drank Guelph beer and had sweet potato frites. The conference organizers gave each attendee a wooden USB key made by a cool little eco-friendly company. Which was cool, because I could definitely use one of those this summer for carrying presentations to conferences. They also handed out native wildflower seeds and I happened to receive Virginia Mountain Mint which is one of the species Paul used to plant in his quarry to alvar projects. Of course, his seeds were from western Ontario populations and these are from the east. I'll have to take them home to my parents house and find a patch of garden that hasn't been trampled by the pups.



I'm excited to see some interesting talks tomorrow. The conference programme is very well done and the more I look through it, the more interesting topics I notice. Unfortunately, mine is up against a talk called Darker, Longer, Better, so I have a feeling that might attract a larger audience than my drawn out, probably over-complicated, title. Ah well, just one of the bugs to work out before I head off to Halifax. Speaking of bugs, Kingston seems to be completely full of millions of tiny grass bugs. They cluster along the sidewalks and anyone not from around here can feel seriously swarmed. Almost everyone I talked to tonight mentioned them and they cover the fronts of all of the buildings.

Okay, I'm out, but I'm also back on track.

Cass

Talking about our ideas.

Awhile ago a friend pointed me in the direction of ted.com. Ted is an annual conference created to bring "together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives" about Technology, Engineering, and Design. The ted website was created to archive these talks and spread these good ideas across the world for free. I've been watching some of the clips and trying to find the right one to post here. Today I noticed ted mentioned on the Ravelry chat boards in the Geekyknitters group and was led to this clip:

I knew I had found the right one. This video is very interesting. I've actually seen a lot of photos of the crocheted coral reef. I love the idea of incorporating mathematics and sciences into my crafty endeavors.

More Haekel.

I'm working on my new header so that I will feel happy when people look at my blog.

Came across this:

Knit-o-meter.

I've added a new gadget to the sidebar of my blog. It's called the Knitmeter and it keeps track of how many metres of wool I've knit this year. Um, so far, I've knit myself almost all the way to Jones Baseline. I'm on my way to Rockwood. I think I'm going to try to get home to Warsaw by the end of the year!

Happy Earth Day!

In Canada, April 22 is Earth Day. On this day, we take some time to reflect on how we, as individuals and as an entire nation, celebrate environmental awareness and reduce our negative impacts on the ecosystem. Andrew said he would sleep in, not turn on any light, and not do any work so as to reduce his energy consumption for the day. That didn't work out because his parents came to visit and go out to lunch. This, however, is a perfect example of why it is important to incorporate environmental awareness into all of the activities of our daily lives and avoid making lofty promises to the earth one day a year. Not that I think Earth Day is about one day, I just like to think of it as the day to celebrate all of our hard work every day of the year.

One of my favourite parts of Earth Day is when TV shows do special clips about environmentally conscious people. I suppose I should turn the TV off and save power, but it would just get turned back on and the one-day impact is what we're trying to get away from here. My favourite clip this year was on MTV. Nicole interviewed a hockey player from the Boston Bruins. His name is Andrew Ference and he's a good Canadian boy. He started his career with the Calgary Flames and one day he was asked, "if you could go to dinner with any celebrity who would you pick?" Andrew replied, "David Suzuki." Of course, this got picked up by the Canadian media and David Suzuki's people called Ference's people and set up a breakfast meeting for the two Canadian celebrities. Or something like that....I said I saw it on MTV. Andrew said he ended up having the breakfast with David and they collaborated to start a program to green-up the NHL. This is a pretty big deal because the NHL is mainly about over-the-top use of resources. Players may fly to three different cities a week. Giant ice sheets don't actually exist naturally in southern Florida, or even Toronto in June. Not that this really matters to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Andrew started with the Flames and had all of the players buy carbon credits to offset their travel for the season. This initiative has spread across the league and now 500 players have signed on to purchase credits. More can be read about this project here.

Of course, all of this got be thinking about daily actions I take to minimize my negative environmental impact. Andrew and I don't buy many disposable items. I think I've had the same roll of parchment paper since we moved in together. We use cloth in the kitchen and for all of our cleaning. I try to eat a mainly vegetarian diet and buy local food. I don't have a car, we walk, bike, and use public transportation. I try not to accept plastic bags and I rarely use disposable containers. I'm moving out of my house at the end of August to visit Australia. So, I really need to cut down on my belongings and most importantly not accumulate any more. I'm thinking I want to make a somewhat of a pledge to use NO plastic bags or disposable food containers for the entire year. I am also wanting to make a pledge to NOT purchase any clothing or accessories that are not made in my country of residence. I think I can take this on for a year. Lots of other people are doin' it. Also, I have this great collection of food containers and craft supplies, so I can take or make my own.



The reason I want to make this pledge is that I am completely aware of my impacts when purchasing food and clothing, but I still make the wrong choice once in awhile. I feel like I need to figure out why I make these choices when I do. So, I'm going to use this blog to comment when I feel like slipping up.

There's definitely more to come on this one, but I need to work on my thesis now.

Cass