Hiking

I think maybe my son has been instilled with a love of nature and being able to enjoy spending time in the natural world. Early this week we had snow, rain and then it all started melting again so we had muck and mud. On Saturday, we had sunshine and the result was that my son wanted to be outside. We trimmed shrubs, bushes and trees trekking around in our rubber boots, decided against playing soccer in all the muck and mud. We ended up taking a hike on the trail we use mostly in the summer time, that we call the cellphone tower road. In the summer time there are so many different types of plants, flowers and animals that bloom along the sides of this trail. Usually in July or August we have masses of butterflies, so many that you can't see the bushes underneath. There are also all the wild blackberry bushes that make for very good eating and jam. Off we went on our little jaunt, putting in 4-5 miles with parts of the trail being on a steep incline. Making it to the top is hard but definitely worth it. Maybe we'll try Big Bald if the weather dries out more in the next few weeks.

As for the daily plate, I've not actually tracked my food intake using the website. I try to track my and my family's eating through the use of a weekly menu. We try to make it catchy around here, so we have Meatless Mondays, Taco Tuesdays(traditional Mexican food), anything Wednesdays (meaning leftovers out the refrigerator or freezer, Seafood Thursday (seafood of different kinds and some new dessert which turned out to be secret chocolate cake made with beets this week), Pizza Friday (we make it all ourselves using a Naan bread for the pizza dough and different types of flour), Souper Saturday, and Finger Food Sundays (fruit and veggie trays). Maybe next week I'll post a sample menu.

On a side note, so looking forward to Salem spring break. Florida, here we come!!! Hopefully, we'll be able to take in some historical sites in St Augustine, visit the Timucuan Ecological Preserve, the Everglades, some hiking, swimming and who knows what else. Have a fabulous week everybody.

Biking & Group Project

I am thrilled about my group project by completing qualitative product research for Novant Health. This is a great opportunity for me to experience some qualitative research work as an undergrad for my Sociology major. I will need some experience and this will enhance my knowledge about what people in society wants and needs are, by surveying numerous of college students throughout Salem College, and maybe expand to Colleges and Universities in North Carolina. My group has came up with fantastic ideas that will help to implement products that people actually need and want, or perhaps desire. I am excited about working with my group also, because they seem really interested in the topic, which makes the group work as a team, in the group project.

I did not bike this week due to the inclement weather, therefore I just exercised a few days and practiced some yoga, which was well needed after a stressful week prior to midterms.

Projects galore

I was very happy to have a sort of reduced load this week.  I'm sure I would much rather have spring break for both WSSU and Salem at the same time, but I was able to get alot of work done this week at Salem.

It was great to have Matt and Nick back on Wednesday to help get the wheels rolling on the student projects.  I heard so many good ideas bouncing around those rooms, I'm excited to see what ends up sticking.  We will spend a little time on Monday hearing from one group about recruiting the other students to participate in their project.  The semester will be over before we know it, so keep up all the hard work.

As far as my personal outdoor/health goals I have been keeping up with riding and eating healthfully.  I have to say I have a new obsession with Tofu that is kind of hard to manage.  I haven't been eating any wheat/gluten or caffeine, but I still find it really difficult to stay away from all dairy.  Whey is in my protein shake AND in my protein bars, I love greek/bulgarian yogurt.  Thursday is traditionally gelato at Caffe Prada day, and they haven't had dairy free Blood Orange Sorbetto in awhile, so I've been "forced" to get the dairy gelato!  Sad I know.

So after I was rained out last weekend AND on Wednesday & Thursday this week, I had to get half of my 70 miles on a spin bike.  Finally on Saturday the sun began to shine again and it was a beautiful day for biking.  A portion of Salem Creek Trail was under water again, but I was not alone and the water was not as high as it was on my ride on Monday.  Here is a clip of me at the creek ford. 

How has everyone been doing?  Its nice to see the posts of you getting outside with your families.  Any ecotourism adventures planned for spring break?  I want to hear about it.  I think I will be heading up to the Virginia Creeper Trail, which is a Rails to Trails project that intersects with the AT. The trail takes the rider 34 miles from Whitetop Station, near the NC state line, to Abingdon Virginia.  Check it out.

http://www.vacreepertrail.com/

Running! Finally!

So this was the first week I was officially cleared to start training hard again. I've been running everyday as well as playing tennis. I feel so much better this week than I have the past two weeks. I still have to take it easy as far as how much I do everyday but I am excited to be able to run and not just stationary bike. I have also been tracking my exercise and food intake on myplate for 13 days straight. It is getting more difficult because I am getting more busy as the semester goes on. I am planning to track this for at least the whole month of March. This will work well with our projects because it may be able to show how exercising everyday and making healthier food choices can change a person. Also having talked to my group I am confident that we will have a n a mazing project but we will need the classes help.

My First Bike Ride/ Media Article

Today, I finally had my first bike lesson and yes I am learning how to ride a bike in college, it was fun. I learned how to balance on the bike and brake speaking of braking when I was younger and I would see people riding bikes and my sister tried teaching me the bikes brakes were on the pedals meaning when you would ride you would stop by bringing the pedal back with your feet. Nowadays the brakes are on the handles which if you ask me is much easier, I am so excited to learn more in my journey to riding a bike. As far as my article I'm writing about it this week because I realized that I have as o yet to talk about it and fiqured that I should. My article was about poisons in the Hudson River and fish in that river seemingly being resistant to those poisons. In fact they are storing them as fat the Atlantic Tomcod do this but the article when on the say that the predators of the tomcod would be harmed by the chemicals that don't harm the tomcod and eventually harm humans when the predators move up steam and are captured and cooked. The article also when on to talk about adaptions to the chemicals overall I found the article really interesting. Also this week my group for the project went to CDI and had a tour, went to lunch at mellow mushroom and talked about ideas for the project such doing video clips and other ideas basically trying to plan out exactly where we want to go with the project.

Beautiful Saturday

I hope everyone enjoyed the extraordinary day today, it was so lovely outside. Too lovely, in fact. I woke up early and did some brainstorming for my group's project (I'm with the CDI folks), and intended to spend the rest of the day knocking out some papers. However, the sunshine was way too alluring and I found myself blowing everything off to take my kids and dog on a terrific hike/bike ride/scooter ride throughout our neighborhood. It was an excellent stress relief, I realized. For when we made it back home a few hours later I was so much more relaxed and able to focus on some of the assignments that had been set aside when Miles (my son) was in the hospital a couple of weeks ago.

I feel really excited, more excited than I had initially thought I would be, about the bike project with my group. Since meeting yesterday to nail down some specifics I feel like I have something concrete to start working on. It's also been fun getting to know members of my group and hearing about their different experiences biking and hiking and what have you.

Japan

The horrible (and amazing? Can I say that?) earthquake felt by Japan was an incredible 9.2 on the Richter Scale. How crazy is it to think that where we live, on this Earth, the planet breaks apart and tears down everything humanity has built in it's place. Crazy. Mother Nature essentially rules every part of our lives. No matter how hard we try to escape her, or how many funky buildings we create, she always has the last say. The video below shows just how crazy she can be. This whirlpool is just hanging out, in the ocean, doing whatever it feels like. Maybe it's just me, but this weekend totally shook me up and brought me to a whole new outlook on the world and how we look at it.

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2011/japan-earthquate-creates-giant-whirpool/

I also just heard about Patagonia Music- "Music to benefit the environment." Zac Brown Band, Jack Johnson, and others have songs up on the website you can buy through iTunes. The sale of each song goes to a different environmental charity.

http://www.patagonia.com/us/media/music

One last thing, GO DUKE!

A Frustrating Spring & Infinity MPG

Rain, rain, go away.  I was able to get in 40 miles on the bike last week, but my weekend plans for finishing my 70 miles for the week, were thwarted by about 2 inches of rainfall.  The weather was pleasant enough until about 3pm on Saturday, when the skies opened up.  I teach on Saturdays so I was unable to get out onto the trail before the rain started.

Not to be dissuaded, I was able to get on the trail after class today. Unfortunately, I was unable to finish the 18 mile loop, because the trail was under water halfway along the greenway (the perils of floodplain greenway trails - pretty, but unpredictable after a rain storm).  So I was forced to turn around.  I was still able to get in about 10 miles because I repeated the section between Salem College and Washington Park.  I know this will not be the last weekend that my bike plans are spoiled by the rain.  I just have to remember, wet springs come with living in North Carolina.

I also took a "detour" to spot the frogs I had been hearing in the new temporary pools all along the greenway.  The sound of frogs calling is one of my favorite signs of spring.  While you are out walking or biking around, take note of some of the non-native species of plants and animals.  I suggest a simple google/wikipedia search of "non-native plants/animals NC" to get an idea of just how many of the plants and animals you see on a daily basis are not naturally occurring in this area.  It looks like we will have perfect weather this weekend, I can't wait to get out on the trail again.  I just wish there was more trail out there to explore. 

While reading Desiree's blog post about the "3 feet please" campaign, I got distracted and found another cool t-shirt design with a bike logo.  Kind of along the same lines as the LA Metro campaign.  I can't wait to see what the "Buzz about Bikes" or "MST" groups come up with if they choose to include print design into their projects.

Alcoa article/Kiva

I read an interesting article from the NY Times titled, "An Icelandic Battle of Wildlife vs. Voltage." The world's largest aluminum company is Alcoa. There have been schemes for decades to build dams on three rivers for hydropower, in Iceland. These rivers are "alpine spillways for billions of gallons of glacial melt." In April of 2007, Aloca came on board to propose a $1 billion dollar investment to build a smeltering plant on Iceland's beautiful landscape. Alcoa stated that this would create 2000 construction jobs and 600 to 1000 permanent jobs. Alcoa says that this would be a social engineering experiment to test to see if the area could be repopulated. There are 280,000 residence. While damming 2 of the virgin rivers, Alcoa stated that they would build turbines to generate 700 megawatts of electricity. 80% of Iceland's electricity would be used to make aluminum. The environmentalists were outraged stating that Iceland was selling thier birthright and ruining their tourism image just for a few jobs. The plan was approved by Parliment but was eventually killed by environmentalists who paired with Iceland's State Planning Agency. They said the dams would do too much environmental damage and the economics of the plan were too vague. The agency's decision was again overturned by the environment minister and Alcoa employs 700 people today. They do; however, have a "Ten Million Trees" project that entails all Alcoa companies will collectively plant 10 million trees, all over the world, near the Alcoa sites. This should be completed by the year 2020. They recycle and was named the world's most sustainable company in 2008. The do have an ECO ALCOA plan in place. I Googled "Iceland and Alcoa" clicked on the first icon and then clicked environment. Interesting.

China Puts Forth Energy Intensity, Carbon Intensity and Total Energy Consumption Targets in Twelfth Five Year Plan in Effort to Tackle "Unsustainable Economic Growth" | Barbara Finamore's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

China Puts Forth Energy Intensity, Carbon Intensity and Total Energy Consumption Targets in Twelfth Five Year Plan in Effort to Tackle "Unsustainable Economic Growth" | Barbara Finamore's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC