Friday, December 30, 2005

Self Assessment

An activity during the two college courses I took with Mary Lou Kish, one of my favorite professors at Ithaca College, was a self assessment. Part way through the semester, we would write about our experiences so far and what we foresaw for the rest of the class. In today's entry, I've decided to lay out some similar text I composed earlier this week as part of a response to a craigslist post. I figured you'd also enjoy a catchup to where I am today in my life.

Part of my passion is in the technical industry. Specifically, it lies with the Mac, and I spend much of my time following this realm. Part of my work is also committed to a handful of local individual users whose computing experiences I help improve with patience and guidance. Another passion is for environmental awareness and Earthly care. This clashes somewhat with my Mac interests due to the toxins and heavy metals used in computer production so far. However, I do my best to balance the two.

Two of my other jobs engage me environmentally: Part of the year I work for the DC Government on green programs; the other part I've started spending with the Teva Learning Center, a Jewish environmental education program for day school students in New England. The latter is the better because it keeps me outside a lot, hiking trails and talking to people about cool, green possibilities and more, and because I get to engage with an awesome community.

My third deep interest is in effective communication, which guides my work described so far. My fourth job, meanwhile, is at the Adams Morgan Farmers Market; I feed my desire to be fed numbers—in addition to delicious food—and speed customers through the line, and I get to prove my Tetris skills while loading the truck at the end.

Free time? Sure, I've got that, too. I love bicycling and use my bike both for exercise and for getting there. Frisbee and tennis are my favorite other athletic activities. Indoors, I follow a handful of TV shows (mostly crime and sci-fi), love to cook delicious meals that don't take too much effort most of the time, and spend hopefully not too much time playing driving games on my PS2. Better to drive recklessly on the screen than in real life, let alone drive at all. And then there are movies, best watched at home with company, and with cinnamon-infused popcorn (a new specialty) made moments before and smoothies.

To account for my desire not to drive due to a personal impact on fossil fuel use, my politics are quite left and fuel my drive to spread common sense in the world. My overarching goal in life: to educate people from an environmental perspective and influence them to move from pieces to peace.

Monday, December 26, 2005

. . . but food still pretty good

While I miss my buddies from TevAdamah, I'm still able to enjoy some yummy meals. Tonight, though out of tofu (I'll have to get two packages this week), I made spaghetti. No, really no connection to be assumed between the two foods, but I made a sauce with: elephant garlic, tomato, fresh spinach, frozen peas, prepared roasted veggie tomato sauce (from Whole Foods) and mixed grated cheese.

I think the garlic is giving the best kick, but overall my meal seems to taste better than had I made it, probably with fewer ingredients, last summer. I didn't even remember to season it additionally and it still tastes really good. Yay me!

Driving again

No, not for real. As you may know, I choose not to drive. Not fond of the direct impact I can have on pollution from fossil fuel use. I bike most places locally now, instead, and get rides from friends and family when necessary. Public transportation is fine, too. Otherwise, I'll probably wait until I can affordably have a hydrogen fuel cell under me and perhaps some other cool, new, future innovations.

Anyway, I recently bought Need for Speed: Most Wanted and started playing this week on my PS2. Having played NFS: Underground and Underground 2, previously, I've found the style of play significantly different. It's cool with much better graphics and animations, and a more solid plot line as if it were a movie.

The premise of the game is that my nice BMW was taken by the #1 most wanted reckless driver and I have to work my way up the ranks by racing the other 14 before I can race him and get it back. Along the way, I have opportunities to take other drivers cars, get special upgrades from a back room in the shops, and, perhaps best of all, get chased by the cops. In doing so, I create a bounty on myself and on each car I drive.

Game play is set with races and driving in both day and night and, instead of drifts (which I miss), there are tollbooths and speed traps . . . and half the game is about getting chased by and outrunning the cops. And I can break things along the road more so than before, like street lamp posts and smaller trees, which used to be all solid objects. Missing, however, are gaining points for drafting other drivers, e.g., and the need to do special things to recharge nitrous oxide volume; it recharges gradually on its own when used.

A worthy purchase, though; got a good deal with a holiday coupon from EA Games, the publisher. Notable, too: Most Wanted recognized my existing profile of Underground 2 on my memory card and rewarded me with extra cash. I've so far completed about 20% of my first career, especially after many hours of gaming Friday night. I think I'm taking a break for a bit, though, while I get my stuff unpacked and reorganized in my room this week.

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Life at "home" not the same

Yeah, life isn't the same at home. So far, it's like life at home always was, except with a few more friends nearby (or soon to be so) to do stuff with. So, I've turned to Craigslist to find more and get myself out of the house—or bring company into it—while I'm on unscheduled vacation this week. I certainly miss being at Freedman. Had I not had home and work responsibilities to return to, I would have jumped at the opportunity to say for the winter.

I'm going to a Chanukah party Thursday at the home of quasi-family who are my parents' neighbors and were mine for the 15 years I lived there. Mike Tabor is my "boss" at the Adams Morgan Farmers Market. Esther Siegel works on establishing affordable housing in the area. I had hoped Mike would come to talk to Adamah this past season, but I just didn't plan ahead enough. I've volunteered to bring my famous tofu veggie ben fry. I'm so happy to be able to use my wok and griddle again. (They're kosher enough by my standard but can't be rekashered to anyone else's, it seems.) Ceramic titanium non-stick is amazing!

Monday I made the above dish with Chinese marinade and served it over red quinoa. Tuesday, I used the leftovers with spaghetti and tomato sauce to have my own sauce creation, and had leftovers of that for two more meals. Yesterday, I made french toast for breakfast. I used a dense cranberry walnut bread no one else seemed to be eating. Toppings galore: maple syrup, yogurt, granola, apricot jam, and banana. Lunch was a sandwich with tofu marinated in Annie's Goddess dressing and topped with fresh spinach on my usual oatmeal bread from Whole Foods. As you may have read in my last Teva blog post, I biked home four full bags of groceries on Tuesday for my first Xtracycle-equipped food shopping trip.

I spoke to Casey last night. He was about to hit the road, having spent Shabbat with friends in New Jersey. He said he'd call me today so hopefully I'll hear from him soon to chat about getting together this week. When I called yesterday, I greeted him with "Hi roomie," and he understood the concept but started off naming his roommates before me (from camp last summer and Israel before that). Took me a second to realize that and remind him to whom he was speaking. Of course, he was so happy to hear my voice as I was his. Perhaps I'll get to invite him to Thursday's party, too.

A smile to my face at the moment because Strong Bad's fhqwhgads just came up on iTunes. Have a happy day! Happy Chanukah, too.