What to do with Georgia Pacific's old Lagoon

.

Viewing old treatment lagoon over flower beds at WWU campus.

I guess I don't really care whether it becomes a marina, or a park. It's just another thing for people to fight about.

Then there is someone, I know, who suggests just leaving it a waste water treatment lagoon. Who knows, we may have future needs for the lagoon as a treatment facility.

Another writer leans toward the marina idea because he says it brings income and "having a job, being able to eat." is an important priority.

Well, I don't consume very much and I still can live on "part time" work, but it does take money to build something. There are many exciting plans for Bellingham's central waterfront (the old GP mill site), of which this lagoon is just one section.

A bit south of the lagoon are plans for trails, parks, mixed use neighborhoods, old building restoration. There are even plans for relocating WWU's Huxley College of the Environment down there.

I just want to see them get something done, before I pass from this planet.

Maybe the marina is most practical, just so that something gets done. A revenue source.

At least it's a plan that's been on a roll.

There is still a long process of studying, community input and clean up ahead. It will be several years before things really get going. Maybe I am advocating being hasty, in planning, but I just want to see fences come down and the new waterfront take shape, what ever they decide, with-in reason, to do.

There is now the "Bellingham Bay Initiative" as some folks feel there needs to be an even more thorough cleanup than what's currently proposed.

I just point out that 42 thousand people die each year in car accidents. Why can't we throw up a bunch of "paper shuffling" roadblocks in front of the cars?

As for what they do with mercury in the old GP site; it may not be a dreadfully serious hazard. I tend to trust "departments of ecology," and so forth. They will be studying it, planning things and taking extra precautions, for years.

One can count on that.

It was said that the process will cost reams of paper and a truckload of "copy machine toner."

I just hope I am still alive, and able to take a stroll, when that new "waterfront neighborhood" opens.

Service station gone, but old reader board remains. Says, "ride your bike."

.

I am not sure why they tore down this old filling station near my home. Besides the reader board, there is little left in this weed tangled lot. Little besides an aeration device. Must be for environmental cleanup.

Could said service station be the victim of a leaky tank?

Anyway, I like the message. With all the problems of an oil economy, it is time more people rode bikes. Public transit also.

World Naked Bike Rides 2006. Links to some pages I found

Seeing pictures on the web is one way to participate, especially if the city one lives in does not have this kind of event. Bellingham hasn't allowed this type of event to take place.

It has erotic appeal and that's okay. Car companies have used sex to sell cars for years. Several years ago, I remember a car ad with a quote that went,

"The Shape You Want To Be In."

They were talking about some sleek sports car.

It really makes more sense to talk about "bicycling lifestyles" in this way. If you want to get into better shape, bicycling is a great thing.

More people should market bicycling in this way. People are motivated by something they can change in themselves, rather than necessarily changing the world.

Yes, changing the world is admirable, but the world is so large that one person's effort is hardly visible. If people ask, "where's the payoff?" it is easier to point out the health benefits, or possibly the money one can save not driving.

Then again, maybe people are too selfish. Being part of the process of changing the world should motivate folks; whether it does or not.

Anyway, pictures on the web are something one can enjoy now, with out having to wait until bicycling solves a big chunk of the world's environmental problems.

But, I might ask, as you watch, "don't become a couch potato, letting the computer do all the bicycling for you." It's just a thought.

Here are a few links that have been publicized in one of the Seattle WNBR sites. Hope these great sites remain on the web for a long time. My thanks and admiration to the folks who put them together.

Warning: many of the links go to nudity.

Update 2008
Search around in Flickr for 2008 wnbr or naked bike ride images. Especially good images come up for San Francisco. Some make you pass the "18 and over screen" also it may help to be a Flickr member. Flickr is a free photo sharing service. There's actually a lot of good stuff on Flickr.

Images by an excellent photographer. He also has a big web site with many other images of landscapes, cities and what ever.
2006 Images in Seattle.

Clothes Free TV did a real good video of the Seattle ride in 2005. People have posted it to at least one free Wiki site, last I knew.

I found these things in a whole bunch of web pages linked from
wiki.worldnakedbikeride.org.
Check out San Francisco's images.

Can the economy, people have become accustom to, survive peak oil?

As I bicycled to Village Books for a talk by author James Howard Kunstler, bike racks around that store were all full. Eventually, I figured out a way of parking behind a large rack.

I thought, "wow there is going to be a lot of cute young cyclist guys here."

Inside, the room was a sea of gray hair; like mine. Biking, of course, is for all ages. I assume much of the audience arrived by bike.

Then again, maybe the rack was full for a different reason.

Anyway, that book called "The Long Emergency" provides a wake up call to American culture about how rising oil prices can impact a society dependent on cheap energy. I've also seen the film "End of Suburbia" which this author had a part in.

Yes America's motoring culture is in for some speed bumps. Everything from drive-up businesses to the way agriculture is powered could be in trouble as oil prices keep rising and the world gradually runs out.

More can be found about that book's ideas from other web sites and reviews if you aren't already familiar with the concepts.

I agreed with about 65 percent of the talk.

It was interesting to hear Kunstler's take on his visit to Google Corporation. He seemed to describe it as a bunch of kids who also don't "get it." At Google, they are thinking technology will solve these problems. Google kids would say, "technology" and "energy" are interchangeable and one can just "plug in" technology when energy runs out.

Kunstler would scoff, but maybe "replacing energy with technology" isn't a totally crazy way of thinking. For instance tele-commuting can replace the long distant drive.

I do still have quite a bit of faith in technology even though nothing, of course, is magic.

As for Democrats and Republicans, he mentioned that neither political party seems to be talking about what needs to be done; like revitalizing America's railroads. Yes, so much of the discourse is living in a dream world. It is like being in denial.

He seemed to say, the Democrats are wasting time discussing things like "gender identity" while Republicans aren't doing much for the rail either, as would be expected. We still have a ways to go in order to get train service up to the level of, say, Romania.

Well, I feel some of the "sexual politics," that Democrats discuss, is central to the transition we need. For instance discussing more sexual choices can lead to reducing population growth.

Also, I love riding the train, but most people, I know, cite their "family situations" as the main reason why they don't ride the train. It still costs less to drive a car full of kids than pay train fare for each member of the family.

Of course, as energy prices go up, it may be cheaper for even large families to take the train, rather than drive in the future.

The effects of spiraling oil prices can be shocking on agriculture and industry, but I would like to offer some reassurance; if my opinions amount to a "hill of beans."

We still have lots of coal.

Nuclear may enter the mix as well. Wind, solar and hydrogen fusion are coming along, albeit too slowly.

I would guess that agriculture and industry can be more adaptable than things like automobile dependency.

Air travel might be in trouble, for sure.

The logistics of getting energy to the plane is hard to imagine, if coal is an energy source. Still, our human capacity for inventiveness could surprise us to no end.

Coal can be a greenhouse nightmare, but I keep hearing about technology that captures the carbon and keeps it from being released into the atmosphere.

Am I a dreamer? I guess.

If nothing else, the train can still bring folks that "thousand mile" salad, incase people think that the cornucopia of foods and products that folks enjoy from all over the world is grinding to a halt.

Yes, I do think America is in for some big changes, but I felt a streak of "American style rebellion" as I biked home from the talk. This isn't stopping me from "motoring around" with the legs on bicycle peddles. I've never driven a car

"Hang in there America," I hope we can survive the "peak oil" transition without going into the doldrums.

Agri-Industrial Food

Traveling to my childhood home, back in 1977. It was in an epicenter of the so called "Green Revolution." Pullman, Washington where agricultural science flourishes at Washington State University.

Some folks don't like the fact that they are tinkering with genetics, fertilizers, feeds and so forth to increase crop yields. It keeps getting more sophisticated. Grafting in orchards, cross breading, even irrigation could be seen as a form of manipulating nature.

Agriculture, itself could be considered manipulation, I guess. Should we go back to "hunter gatherer" societies?

Not with 6+ billion people to feed.

Now days, there are ever more technological "fixes" from the lab.

I feel it isn't all bad, it's basically just an outcome of population growth. With 6+ billion mouths in this world to feed, what do you expect?

Almost 30 years ago, I took a tour of some agricultural facilities on the WSU campus.

First stop was a beef farm where they were doing a lot of cross breading. The tour guide was a bit embarrassed to say that part of his job was to jerk off the bull. Semen samples were collected, frozen and used in various breeding pens.

Another stop was the WSU nuclear reactor.

Yes, the nuclear reactor.

Various experiments, samples, seeds and so forth, are irradiated in this small research reactor. No power generated.

We even experienced an "emergency core shutdown" during the tour. It wasn't planned as far as I know.

I can now say I was in a reactor during a shutdown.

Right after we looked into the reactor pool, we headed for the next stop on the tour. Alarms sounded as we proceeded down a concrete star well.

People had questioning looks on their faces. The tour guide said, "just wait here, I'll find out what's going on."

In a minute, he came back to say a minor glitch had happened in a control panel and the reactor always errs on the side of safety. It shut down till they could figure out where the glitch was.

No loss, except for, probably, the experiment that was being run.

The tour continued. No big deal.

One memory from that tour was looking down into the deep blue water of the reactor pool. There was a fuzzy blue glow. Tour guide said it was neutrons interacting with water molecules around the reactor core. Also one could see a few spent fuel rods sitting on the bottom of the pool.

When I was in high school, I found a little trail that led into some bushes behind that reactor building. I decided to see where it went and ended up bushwacking my way along the backside of the reactor building. I wasn't that much of a dare devil, but that seemed like a strange thing to do. No one was around at the time and I suvived with no problem; so I think.

Actually, I have wondered why my hands seem to glow in a dark room, at times.

Just kidding.

Healthy Fast Food For Living Alone

But some might disagree.

My sister helped confirm my habits by sending a clipping from the May 23 Spokesman Review.

"Chocolate milk may be the new Gatorade."

Bike racers in the Spokane area are finding that "plain old chocolate milk" is just as good, if not better, than so called fitness drinks.

I'm not a racer, but the bicycle is my transportation. Chocolate milk is a fast source of energy, protein, vitamins and minerals. It's better than so many fitness drinks which can taste like chemical toilets and cost twice as much.

Still it isn't always easy to find. There are drive up coffee spots all over town and just about every restaurant, bar and store has it's coffee, but cartons of chocolate milk? Not common.

Some people say chocolate milk isn't healthy, all full of sugar, dairy, even the low fat that I drink. Then they sip their coffee with sugar, or eat an ice cream cone.

A friend suggested I try "soy milk."

Soy is supposedly healthier, yet it's more expensive. The flavor doesn't hit the spot for me. This friend then admits that she drinks her soy with whipped cream; a whole bunch of whipped cream.

I just drink the carton of chocolate milk and skip the whipped cream.

One can get a quart carton for as low as $1.29 or $1.39, but in just a few places.

Bellingham Food Co-op only stocks "organic" chocolate milk and it's about twice as expensive.

Living in downtown Bellingham, I find myself frequenting places like Rite Aid Pharmacy or the Grocery Outlet for my fix.

If these aren't accessible, I end up at "filling station convenience stores;" heaven forbid.

At Rite Aid, groceries aren't the main stay, but so many people live around there that they stock a few groceries for convenience. Still, one occasionally finds an "out of order" sign on that refrigerator.

Someone recently wrote a letter to the Herald saying we need a "grocery store" in downtown Bellingham. A grocery store that is near where so many people live.

The city is emphasizing "downtown residential" so wouldn't a supermarket be the next step?

A Haggen's, or something?

Unfortunately, these "one stop for everything" kind of markets seem to be all out by the freeway.

Well, we do have groceries, but one must piece together several businesses to make it work.

Good produce at the Food Co-op and also at the Public Market on Cornwall, but one must go elsewhere to get affordable chocolate milk.

Then we have bargain foods at the Grocery Outlet, which usually stocks the milk. Grocery Outlet has a lot of things at good prices, but it's inventory is unpredictable. "They've got it if it's a bargain," such as "overstocked" at another store.

Walking to the Grocery Outlet isn't very inspiring either as that intersection is one of the crazyest near downtown Bellingham. More than 4 streets come together in a big jumble and one of the corners is a "no croswalk" corner.

So, I go to more than one place for my groceries. No, "one stop for all" supermart. I hear that's common in Europe.

With my active lifestyle, apples, carrots, chocolate milk and graham crackers go a long ways. Then I usually eat one restaurant meal per day. Restaurants are a good way to get salad. When one lives alone, salad makings can go bad in the refrigerator.

How long does it take to eat a whole head of lettuce?

For single people, these often go bad, thus causing one to never buy salad makings.

Friends of mine say they prefer eating at home, but you see them in their coffee shops and bars. They spend as much on cookies and beer as I do on my restaurant meals?

Living alone and having no kitchen or garden has an influence my eating habits.

Bicycle touring has an influence also. Everything, including "the kitchen sink," doesn't fit into bicycle panniers.

"Organic living" gurus may scoff at me as they drive home to their suburban kitchens and gardens.

One restaurant meal per day with a salad, chicken or fish works for me. Then it's fast foods like peanut butter sandwiches, graham crackers, apples and chocolate milk.

2006 Pride Festival Pictures [Link]

Bellingham's Fourth Corner Pride Festival was good. June 4 2006. Downtown at Depot Market Square, also known as the farmer's market structure. Sometime between noon and 5 PM around 1,000 folks dropped by. The Herald said hundreds. One person, I talked to, said 1,200. Maybe it was 900? What ever. A big turn out anyway. Also featured in June 5th Bellingham Herald.

Besides many folks from various lgbt walks of life, there were people from the general public who also stopped by. It's getting to be more of a respected "Bellingham event." Next year, folks say "the city" will be among the co-sponsors, what ever that means.

It should.

Many organizations, such as PFLAG, Evergreen Aids Foundation as well as a lot of individuals pool together to make this a success. Even my web page and Yahoo Group makes it's mark. Thanks to the many folks who attend, and some heard about it on my sites.

I hear that "Pride Festival" was the first "non Farmer's Market" event to use the new facility called Depot Market Square. They were still finishing things up around the edges. Construction machinery was evident behind fences.

Last year, the pride festival was at Blodel Donovan Park and several years back, the mayor was one of the speakers proclaiming our legitimacy; also stumping for the "gay vote."

Each year glbt folks, and friends, become more recognized in our city.

Did traffic kill Eyman's latest initiative?

Referendum 65 failed to get enough signatures to qualify for Washington State ballots. It was an attempt to overturn Washington's new law adding sexual orientation to the anti discrimination laws. With that initiative out of the way, the new civil rights law goes into effect Wednesday. Gay rights leaders can now celebrate.

It would have been poetic justice if Tim Eyman's referendum was squashed in traffic. At 4:30 PM, 1/2 hour before the signature deadline, a radio report said that an Eyman aid was hurrying toward Olympia with the last of the signatures. Radio said, "It's possible that I-5 traffic could determine the fate of the referendum."

Eyman first became famous for filing an initiative that cut car tab fees in Washington, thus leading to huge cuts in funding for public transit.

Since then, some transit agencies have recovered the lost revenue by adding other taxes.

Gee, maybe those last signatures for R-65 could have traveled to Olympia on Sound Transit? Whoops, I wonder if Sound Transit even goes to Olympia? With more funding, it could. Things like Sound Transit can slide people right past bottle necks on I-5.

Really, the traffic was a moot point. It looked like Eyman, and his aids, may have gotten to Olympia on time; barely. Hurrying up the steps just before that deadline, possibly panting all the way, there still weren't enough signatures.

Speaking of panting, when I hear Tim Eyman on the radio, he sounds like he's hyper ventilating. That's a byproduct of seeming to be angry much of the time. Why those bleep bleep politicians and we're not going to take it anymore.

On Monday, Eyman decided to capitalize on his negative image by showing up at a press conference in a Darth Vader outfit. That press conference was to announce that he was going to wait one more day to turn in the signatures. Rather than comfortably getting them in a day before the deadline, he decided to struggle clear to the last moment.

Well, he didn't make it. Washington State can now include sexual orientation in it's non discrimination laws.

Better to have Bush speak out against gay marriage while he is low in the polls

He could do a lot of damage if he were high in the polls. Bush's low approval rating can help pull down the fortunes of "Focus On The Family" type groups that oppose alternative lifestyles.

My poem.

Religious intransigence. Intransigence almost sounds like insurgency. "Islamic fundamentalist insurgents." "American way" intransigent platforms.

Battle between "closed minded" minds.

Having to keep order with the barrel of a gun.

Policing the world, rising deficits, overpopulation, greenhouse gases, too much "hot air."

It isn't working very well, or at least so say the polls.

The world is hard to manage, especially the intrasigent, insurgent, fundamentalist sides of the world.

Our President on a rough ride.

We need more "alternative lifestyles." Innovate cause there's got to be better ways.

When a sinking ship speaks out against gay rights, hopefully folks of common sense will swim away. Hopefully folks can swim to new paradigms.

Good News From Mexico

There was an interesting segment on today's "Day To Day" show on National Public Radio. Segment titled "Rising Feminist Voice in Mexican Politics." It is about the candidacy of Patricia Mercado. She is running for President of Mexico. She may not be among the top two candidates, but her vision is the beginnings of a new vision in Mexican politics. Supports feminist issues, gay marriage and so forth. New perspectives, rather than the tired old left or right.

I find this interesting as things in Mexico, such as population growth and economics, effects us here in the USA. Population growth especially. These things effect us via immigration. Newer thinking about human sexuality is needed.

Show is archived on the NPR web site. Go to "Programs" and find "Day To Day" Then visit June 1 show for audio.