When I was a young pain in the ass, my mom used to cook eggs and bacon for breakfast a lot on weekends.  She would always cook up the bacon first, and it would leave this thick sludge of bacon grease in the pan. By that time, the delicious scent of the bacon would have carried me out of bed to the kitchen table, and I’d watch my mom crack a few eggs and toss them into the grease and scramble them for me.

I hated those brown, greasy, sort of lumpy eggs. One morning, I told my mom that as she set them in front of me.

“Can’t you clean the pan first? I hate eggs made in this gross bacon grease. I’m not going to eat these! They’re horrible. I mean look at them.”

I probably stuck my tongue out at them.

My mom said, “Fine! I’m not making you eggs anymore. I like my eggs this way. If you want them made differently, you can learn to do it yourself. You’re old enough.”

She probably should have added that I was being a stupid little snot. I don’t remember her saying that, but she should have. Because I was.

And that was the moment that started me off on one of my favorite hobbies – cooking.

I got my mom (and sometimes my dad) to show me how to make different things. I got to enjoy the light, fluffy eggs I really liked. I started making other things – cookies, hot dogs, burgers, tuna salad – exactly the way I liked it. I became a culinary artist, digging into the pantry and mixing up things with the maniacal verve of an evil scientist. And oddly enough, my mom liked my creations enough that eventually, I started helping with the cooking.

I’d find notes waiting for me when I got home from school.

“Keith, there’s some ground beef I put out to thaw. Can you mix it up the way you did the other night and start dinner around 4 or so? Thanks, Mom.”

I had developed a useful talent and a hobby I loved, thanks to my mom not putting up with me being a snot. So on this Mom’s Day, appreciate the lessons you learned because she wouldn’t put up with you. Sometimes you don’t appreciate the value of a good swift kick towards the edge of the nest.

1. Another bank
2. Yet another Walgreens (because there’s a CVS across the street)
3. Yet another CVS (because there’s a Walgreens across the other street…seriously, it’s like tic-tac-toe)
4. Yet another Publix supermarket with yet another Subway (because the closest place with both of those is a mile away, although our next door neighbors are now a Subway…)
5. Yet another liquor store, so we can all drown our sorrows about yet another strip mall

I stopped at the display of food at the cafeteria entrance, trying to decide on something fake-healthy for lunch. You know, it’s not oats and fruit, but if most of the population saw you eating it, they’d say, “Oh, eating healthy, huh? Good for you!”

I settled on the Veggie Melt Ciabatta. Nice mushrooms and peppers and herbs, which by themselves are mostly healthy, along with some melty cheese and oil and some big fat bread so my subconscious would be fooled into thinking it was something more akin to a Whopper.

So I go to the deli counter, and ordered the Veggie Melt, gesturing to the sign.

“The what?”

This is not the first time I have had this experience. I did a little Vanna White action at the sign. “The veggie melt?”

“The what?”

Fine. I pointed.

The guy turned the sign around and pondered it a bit. “Wow…veggie melt?”

Then, accepting the quest on the sign, he leaped into action. He read each line of the description, carefully adding each item to the sandwich. On at least two occasions, he goes off on a quest to find the ingredient. When he came back with the bowl of mushrooms, I silently hoped that he didn’t find them growing back behind the building.

Finally, he handed me my sandwich, which actually looked quite a bit like the display one by the entrance…except…it’s a veggie melt…and it’s not actually melted.

“Thanks,” I say. It was just that kind of day.

At least the sandwich was good.

From the article:

In the end, Walt Disney World Entertainment replaced a total of 34
arc-source fixtures with 74 five-watt LED fixtures, cutting the total
power requirements by at least 40 percent (in white light) and by as
much as 90 percent or more in a primary color.

I’d really love to move to using LEDs at home, so I wish these CCrane bulbs were a bit cheaper. Ok…a LOT cheaper. But I really like the light quality of LEDs in general, so someday I’m going to switch. I actually paid a premium to use the earliest flourescent lamp bulbs in my living room lamps almost 15 years ago when I bought my house. They lasted until a couple of years ago, just about the time compact fluorescents were starting to catch on. So I’m thinking it’s time to switch over to LEDs since everyone has CFs now….

Let us rise up and be thankful,
for if we didn’t learn a lot today,
at least we learned a little,
and if we didn’t learn a little,
at least we didn’t get sick,
and if we got sick,
at least we didn’t die;
so, let us be thankful.

-The Buddha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXP3hQ7jaUk

More William Shatner PSAs on the Sierra Club web site.

Having only ever really cruised the local Florida waters before, it was an odd experience to pull into our final port and know there was still 4000 or so miles between us and home, and many hours before we could start that journey. When we made our way up to deck for breakfast and I sat looking out at the cold, damp, misty mountains, I found myself thinking about the things I hadn’t gotten to do in Alaska. I hadn’t walked on the side of any of the majestic, snow-covered mountains. I hadn’t seen a bear, despite being told there was one every square mile. I hadn’t seen a moose, even though I was told they were very, very dangerous — even moreso than bears. Would I regret not having done those things? Probably a bit. Ahead of us was our long final shore tour that was described as a trip up a tramway to have lunch at a resort, and then a trip to the airport to sit around a few hours and wait for our flight.

And yet there were still surprises left. Like the fact that once we were comfortably ensconced in our motor coach, we would have to travel through a very odd tunnel. The tunnel that leads out of Whittier, which is the only way in or out of the coastal town in a ground vehicle, is 2.5 miles long and a single lane. It was built by the military when Whittier was a military town, and was there to provide the military supply train a way to get to the base. Now, vehicles can drive through for $12. There’s a set schedule as to when the tunnel is open in each direction to what kind of vehicle. For example, our buses had a window from 10 – 10:15 am.

And I say buses because, although they could fit us all on the one giant motor coach, they had to split us up when we went through the tunnel. You see, in case of catastrophe, there are pull-offs arranged throughout the tunnel with supplies, air, protected areas, and they are sized for a specific number of people. So a single vehicle can only carry a certain amount of people.

Credit to military engineers, I found the tunnel to be very safe-seeming and had a blast driving through it. I kind of wish there was a tour. It looked like an amazing piece of engineering. Though our tour guide told us if you drive through with your windows rolled down, it’s kind of smelly.

After that we paused to take a peek at the Portage Glacier, and collect the rest of the travelers on our bus from the tunnel overflow bus. Then we proceeded on to the first surprise of our tour, a stop at the Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center.

Yes, fate had heard my thoughts. Here we were, pulling into the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, a beautiful, huge nature preserve where they take in animals who, for whatever reason, are no longer able to live in the wild. At first, we were just rolling through in a motor coach with a guide aboard chatting about the animals. There I was, snapping some fairly crappy pictures through the windows of the coach, thinking, “Just let me out here. I’ll get a taxi to Anchorage!” And sure enough, we get to the brown bear area and we get to leave the coach! Woohoo!

The brown bears there were AMAZING! Giant! Stupendous! Aboslutely terrifying. And yet, somehow, cute. While I was taking the pictures, I saw some space further ahead and started to jump forward into it when the biggest bear in the enclosure, right in front of me, stands up on it’s hind legs and just towers over me. I’m standing there, looking up, going, “Holy sh– wow — oh, my!” And then I think, camera! And of course, the bear drops back down. Still, it was amazing to having this giant, furry, clawed and toothed wall of hair towering over me. I’ll trade the pictures for that moment of OMFG. Lest you worry about us, the sort of flimsy fence between us was labeled “electrified”, and the bears didn’t seem interested in getting past it. They seemed perfectly happy in their huge environment. And best yet, they seemed happy and curious about us. As we hopped back on the bus, one of them was floating on his back in the water with his paws sticking up. The perfect image of some little tourist statue labeled something like, “Getting Bear-Naked In Alaska!”

I thought we were going to get trapped back on the bus for more riding around, but they took us over to the visitor’s center and dropped us off to let us explore a bit. I was ecstatic! I got to see just how big mooses actually are. And how absolutely stunning a red fox is. So brightly colored, and the eyes are gorgeous! It look just like a little dog as it made it’s little turn and sat down in front of me, soaking up some sunshine with its eyes squeezed tight in satisfaction.

The black bears looked and acted amazingly like dogs for as big as they are. The one I have pictures of just flopped himself in front of the tourists, looking like a contented hound. When he’d had enough of our clicking away with our cameras, he went and checked out some bones that looked fairly worked over. Finding not much to chew off them, he started using it to scratch his face and head. It was absolutely cute in a sort of morbid, glad that isn’t my bone kind of way. You have to keep thinking, as you watch these bears, how absolutely huge and strong they are. I think I’ve said of Alaska before, Nature there left me feeling small.

I was almost sorry to jump back on the bus, but I was hungry for both food and more adventure. Our next stop was the Alyeska Mountain Resort. Driving up to it, there’s a quaint little town of artist houses. One house has beautiful stained glass in the windows. Another, through the big bay windows you can see a giant stuffed bear. I must be in the wrong line of work if artists can afford these kinds of houses!

We rode a tram up to the house. Our tram driver closed the door and yelled, “Lightspeed!” Nice! Made me feel like I was at home. (“Lightspeed to Endor!”) At the top, we got to pick out a little boxed lunch kind of thing in the snack bar, which turned out to be fairly yummy (Natasha and I both had crab salad sammies) and included a, to quote Natasha, “cookie as big as my head!” After lunch, we explored the mountaintop. Yes, I wanted to walk on a mountain, but in the end, I decided I didn’t want to walk very close to the edge with all the ice and wet mud around. But the view was still amazing, especially since the sky was full of para-glider thingies. They have a tandem service up there for people who want to learn or try it. It looked amazing. The tandem team that was up there while we were basically were able to swoop back and forth around this little sort of rounded valley between the peaks, right near the visitor center. Swish! They’d fly over to the edge of the mountain and just catch a wind coming back and shoot back to their launch area, until they finally shot off the side and glided over the valley. Must be exhilirating. I would have peed my pants!

Our next stop was the Alaskan Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. It’s a fascinating living museum covering all the native cultures in Alaska. There are your typical museum pieces in a small area, but there are also native artisans right there, answering questions and selling their wares. If you’re more into living culture, there’s a stage where the gregarious young cultural instructors were playing music and teaching people native dances. Outside, arrayed around a lake, there are examples of the kinds of dwellings the native people build. Each one has a small stuff of cultural reps who can tell you about traditional native life. One of the reps there showed us a rain chaser, a kewl, whizzing device you spin on a string. He said he’s used it that morning to make the rain go away. I have to admit, it looked pretty miserable in Whittier, and it was cold. But by the end of our tunnel ride it had warmed up and we were gifted with a sunny day for our explorations, so I think there is some magic in Alaska!

Anchorage brought back a little bit of home. I knew we must be getting close when I saw the Sears, and the Target shopping plaza under construction. Soon enough we arrived at the airport, and soon after that our giant metal raptor was whisking us away from the frozen north. With one last look out the window, one last look down upon the glaciers rumbling down the majestic mountainsides, I said “Thanks” to Alaska, for showing me there was still wilderness out there, in my very own country. Still hardy settlers, struggling to survive surrounded by the immensity of the natural world. I’ll take home the absolute conviction that we need to protect every bit of this we can.