Someplace that's green

Happy (late) birthday to curtisleach! Hope it was a great one!

Must post. Killed Kel'Thuzad on 25-man. Won beautiful shield covered in little skulls.

I am very pleased.

My photo for this week: "Shopping"

Catching up on Real Life Comics this morning. This one made me laugh.

Zoo pics! These are my favorites of the batch, and the rest are on Photobucket. The prairie dog and ground squirrels are by Jason.



( Read more... )

http://s301.photobucket.com/albums/nn58/alanna_liadon/SLC%20Zoo/

I just got this from the Freecycle group and want to pass the idea along. X-posted to damnportlanders and some emails. Better that everyone get it lots than people not getting it at all, right?

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We throw out tons of garbage. Along with garbage, though, we also throw out lots of valuable items – items that others would love to own.

Here's how it typically goes – in your garage is a great bike you rode maybe twice in five years. It's taking up space. When you finally get sick of looking at it, you wheel it out with your trash on garbage day. Problem solved? Not really.

So here's this beautiful bike out by the curb, free to a good home. But no one knows about it. And the people who rush by on their way to work are too sleepy to pick it up. So your bike winds up with thousands of others like it – rusting in a landfill.

Meanwhile, millions of kids all over the place would love to own that bike. This culture of excess ownership and waste is prevalent in our country. It wasn't like that in the old days – just ask your grandparents.

So I created "Curb Day" to reduce the number of valuable items going to landfills. I'm hoping Curb Day becomes a national event twice per year. I'm hoping it makes us less wasteful and makes millions of usable free items available to those who could use them.

Curb Day is a simple two-pronged solution:
1. Let's not throw out valuable items with our garbage
2. Let's put our items out on the same day – so others can easily pick them up

The first Curb Day will be on Saturday, May 16, 2009. On that day, or the night before, people are encouraged to take their valuable (but unwanted) items to their curbs. Because this is a weekend, it will not interfere with normal trash pickup. There will be treasures on neighborhood curbs all over the country. People will be out en masse picking up these free items. Kind of like Halloween!

The key to success is promotion. If everyone knows about Curb Day, it will be a safe and efficient way to transfer goods to those who are willing to pick them up.

( Read more )

www.curbday.com

Happy birthday to sara_super_id!

"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."
- Michelangelo

I saw deer on the way to work this morning. They graze in a field near my office, staring at the cars as if wondering why they aren't eating the grass too.

I discovered that the yogurt I usually eat (Yoplait) has high fructose corn syrup and all sorts of other unnatural-sounding things in it. As part of paying more attention to what I eat, I chose a brand with a much shorter ingredient list. I get the impression that this is what yogurt is *supposed* to taste like. It's very tart and not as creamy, and doesn't give me that bleeehh feeling that I sometimes get after eating the sweet kind. An excellent improvement.

More dancing goodness today. :)

I saw people planting trees today. It made me smile.

Horde guild name new favorite: Tauren in "Steaks on a Plain"

I got one of my photographs made into a Mother's Day card. My first photo in print! :) It came in the mail today and I am pleased with it. I have a long (very long) way to go before becoming an actual photographer but that would be pretty darn neat if I take the time to learn.

So many things to learn! But so much Warcraft to play...

In other news, I am feeling great today. Is that news? Well, it's good anyway! I went grocery shopping and bought fresh fruits and organic things, and nothing with high fructose corn syrup in it. And hot dogs, cause every healthy basket of food needs hot dogs. Plus the snapshot_hunter weekly photo subject is "Yellow" and I want a picture of yellow mustard on a hot dog. I want more practice taking pictures of food. It's so pretty.

This made me smile on the way home: A car on the freeway with large white letters in the rear window: BANANA (I want to meet that person!)

Got new tanking gear in WoW - tried it out this morning when horde attacked me and I won. *take that, horde* :P My main just hit 76. I'm trying to get the children's week title, and only have one achievement left, which the level and new gear should make easier. DPS'ing is less stressful but I still totally love being a tank.

The patio plants are doing well. Strawberries have their first little white flowers, and one of the grape plants has leaves and is starting to twine around the balcony bars. It's almost warm enough that I can plant the herbs.

Time to go enjoy my evening.

Wow, I have been slacking! I blink and two weeks of birthdays have passed.

Happy birthday to freyis, luzclarita, tygr_kitn, jpfingstmann, wednesday40, cd_vision, and matrixleap!!!!

Inspired by typsie's list of 100 things.

1. Be in a belly dance performance
2. Hike the Pacific Crest Trail
3. Learn Spanish
4. Get a pet rat
5. Bring my drawing level as high as I can get it
6. Ditto with watercolor painting
7. Learn a musical instrument
8. Hike the Grand Canyon
9. Get a Bachelors Degree
10. Buy a house (hey I didn't have to keep it!) :)
11. Go to a Live concert
12. Buy a car
13. Take classes about car maintenance
14. Meet my dad
15. Try out grad school
16. Get my feet wet in the Atlantic Ocean
17. Have a porch herb garden (ongoing!)
18. See Yosemite National Park
19. Go skinny-dipping while camping
20. Learn the plants and wildlife of the Wasach Mountains while I still live in Utah
21. Improve my photography skills
22. Make a binder-style cookbook of things I have made, and add a new recipe to it every month
23. Plant flowers in unused city spaces for naturalizing

Places to travel to:
New York
Japan
Italy
Mexico
Hawaii
Alaska
Florida



... more later.

[Edit: both del and strike work. Thanks you two!]

Out of curiosity, what server(s) do you all play on? What are they like?

"If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"

- John Wooden

Butterflies
Leaking water
Vacation to Portland
Train

Happy birthday to mystical_chickn!

"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want."
- Ben Stein

I stopped by the belly dance studio as planned, and I start classes next week! YAY! I will be going on Tuesdays to the 6-7pm Beginners class. Any of you SLC gals want to join me? It's $15 for registration (good for lifetime) and $10 per class, due at the beginning of each month. The instructor seems nice. There were 7 women there for yesterday's class so it doesn't seem like it will be crowded.

Once I get good at it I plan to join one of the Performance classes so I can be in a future performance. I am very excited at that thought. It gives me one more reason to practice!

Tonight I cooked swordfish for the first time. Also decided not to use a recipe.

Two swordfish steaks, in baking pan. I left the skin on the edges assuming it would come off easily after cooking, which it did.
Cover fish with honey
Drizzle with 1/4 cup Pina Colada mix (Mr/Mrs T brand)
add 1/4 cup water
cover fish with crushed macadamia nuts
350 oven for 30 minutes (baste after 20)

Served with cinnamon rice. Next time I plan to add raisins to the rice and add a side dish of asparagus. It turned out delicious. The larger steak was much more tender; the smaller one seemed tougher even before cooking so I suspect that was the issue. It's not fishy-tasting at all to me (although I did have a tuna melt for lunch so that might be an incorrect taste-test).

This is also the first time I have figured out the correct rice/water ration for making brown rice in the rice cooker at high altitude. Not that I knew the ratio at Portland altitude, but still. It was perfect! 3 rice, 7 water, sprinkle cinnamon over the top, hit cook.

No pictures this time. I was hungry.