Swingin' through life

Plastic Recycling in SF

2008-06-08T18:51:47Z

I was just informed that the recycling rules in SF have changed.

According to the SF Recycling website, the change is that plastic tubs can now be recycled. Oops, I was dumping those into recycling all along!

Why can't I put all plastic items in my blue cart?
Unfortunately, not all plastic is acceptable because there are not companies that will take it all from us, (even if it has the recycling arrows on the bottom). We do accept:

Empty plastic bottles (#1 thru #7). A bottle has a neck smaller then its base, (i.e.: soda, shampoo, catsup, detergent).
NEW: Plastic tubs and lids (#2, #4, & #5 only). Examples include yogurt, margarine and sour cream.

In the process of searching, I found an Oakland women's site with some great information. Especially her FAQ and the pages linked from there.

where plastic comes from (I think I was just having a conversation with someone about whether plastic came from oil)
what can be recycled, why recycling is downcycling
her experiences in trying to reduce consumption to 0 - she's had to give up tortillas since they ONLY come in plastic bags

BTW, one easy thing I can recommend to everyone is to always take your own re-usable bag(s) shopping. Just leave one in the car/entry/wherever so you have it when you need it. I know, you say that you use the paper/plastic bags from each trip for home purposes, but we've been doing this a while, and really, we always have enough back-store. I'll happily discuss with you :)

And yes, I'm no angel. As one twitterer famously said, uh, yesterday

"Until your tattoo ink and ironic hats can be shipped via fixie, I wouldn't get *too* smug about gas prices."

Blogged with the Flock Browser

This is my neighborhood

2008-05-12T21:30:56Z

I subscribe to a google group mailing list SOMA Southern Station Newsletter dispatch. I like that it's a way to find out what 's happening according to the police in our neighborhood.

The normal writing definitely lacks objectivity and written rather poorly. Usually it consists primarily of drug and knife conflicts on 6th street. This week though, the regular author "out of the office" and someone else is doing the writing. While the writing is a little more dry, it seems to cover a more realistic range of activities.

A couple samples "On Sunday 5/4/08 Officers Pedroza, Ueber, Tursi, Gordon, and Reyes were dispatched to a bar located on 1st Street regarding a drunk male who was inside the bar playing with a knife. The Officers detained the male who still had the knife concealed in his pocket. The suspect also had numerous packages of cocaine in his possession. He was booked at County Jail.

On Sunday 5/4/08 Officers Tursi and Gordon were on patrol when they saw a vehicle driving at a high rate of speed and run a red light. The Officers performed a traffic stop and contacted the driver who appeared intoxicated. The driver was booked at County Jail for driving while intoxicated. The Officers responded to the station for a very long and tedious report. While the Officers were at the station completing their report dispatch requested that Officer Tursi respond to South Van Ness and Mission regarding a person sleeping behind the wheel of his car that was stopped at a traffic light. Officer Tursi responded and saw the driver asleep behind the wheel. He tapped on the window but the driver was unresponsive. A few minutes passed and the driver awoke and looked at the Officer who was standing near the driver's window. The driver suddenly drove off, running two lights, before he gave up and pulled over. The driver who already had a suspended license was booked at County Jail. Officer Tursi returned to the station with twice the paperwork."

Art, Food, Boys, Museums, Walking.

2008-04-28T16:54:31Z

This mexico city trip had everything packed into 5 days that we planned to see in the 10 days of our previous trip.

Check out our travel photos on Flickr, and you might enjoy this animation of one of the innovations (useful?) in the mexican crosswalk.

Trip to the DF

2008-04-19T16:55:47Z

Fountain in Presidential Palace, originally uploaded by lindyboi.

We arrived thursday. Started taking photos and actually seeing daylight this trip. This is a beautiful chamber of the presidential palace just off of the Zocoló. Puts our presidential "palace" to shame. But hey, what doesn't. A few more photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lindyboi/

Sisters in the Park tomorrow

2008-03-23T02:26:50Z

because it might be easter! Already!

So my favorite annual-friendly-for-the-whole-family-until-noon-then-just-friendly-for-most event is tomorrow, in Dolores park.

music, basket contest, the usual works! Hopefully nice weather too :)

Looks like we'll be arriving in Dolores Park closer to 11:30 am to try to score a bigger spot. Cell phones are your friend, use them to find us.

Bands will be playing on and off from 12:30 through 2:30. And the hunky jesus contest (Everyone's Favorite Time of Year (tm) ) will be after 3. Full schedule on the flier

If you're bringing more than just yourself, consider bringing an extra blanket for space. And of course your preferred park bevarage/snack.

Oh yeah, and there's probably some tithing of sorts - if you want to support the work the sisters do (and putting on this show is WORK but so is the thousands of dollars they give to bay area causes every year) consider bringing a small donation. Of money, honey.

switch on the tap, off the bottle

2008-01-30T21:45:12Z

No, I'm not talking about beer.
A number of reasons why you are better off drinking water from the tap instead of purchasing (over-marketed) bottled water.

My favorites cited reasons:

Americans buy 28 billion water bottles a year, all that plastic and the energy used for manufacturing and transportation is very hard on the environment
Why would you want to pay more for a product whose quality is worse than the water that flows from the faucet in your home?
City tap water must meet standards for certain important toxic or cancer-causing chemicals, such as phthalate (a chemical that can leach from plastic, including plastic bottles); some in the industry persuaded FDA to exempt bottled water from the regulations regarding these chemicals.
For those who feel tap water is any less clean than bottled water, filters may be purchased; buying filter cartridges once or twice a year requires much fewer resources than buying bottled water each day

So, whether it's your budget, the environment, or the convenience, bottled water is NOT the way to go.

Like to carry it around? Purchase your own re-usable water bottle for less than the price of two "disposable" bottles!

Plus remember, all that jazz about fresh mountain water? Usually a load of bull. Do you remember where Pepsi was getting its bottled water? c'mon, people.

who's a-twitter?

2008-01-18T17:37:56Z

And who's willing to be? After enjoying the status updates on FaceBook I realized I wanted to go one further and try this "twitter" thing.

Same username for me, of course.

Seems like this could be useful for social/work coordination/synergy. On the other hand, the wider the shared network, the less value my range of messages will have.

Seems like the way to do it is

sign up for the account
find friends (import gmail addresses, but also putting out this post to find who else is on it)
set up my cell phone and GTalk addresses for easy post access
Set up the friends I want to monitor to use the IM address for twitters.

Then, free and clear. Use IM to twitter@twitter.com to set updates, and see updates from monitored friends. Use the web page for additional browsing, more friends. It's the finding people part that's hard... That's why I'm posting this :) to find out which of you are already doing twitter or could be arm-twisted to do so. Lovingly, of course. For our mutual enjoyment.

Oh yeah, and for those of us still dabbling with FaceBook, no need to lose status updated - you can have your twitter and sync it too.

woman in fridge

2008-01-07T22:03:49Z

A bit of a complicated trope (I love that word!)

So here's the comic. Enjoy if you can, and remember, there's no boy word for "whore" or "bitch"!

Do you know who you're aligned with on the issues?

2008-01-03T17:39:50Z

Glassbooth - Your results: I'm aligned with Kucinich.

Intresting non-partisan site. Give it your issue priorities and strength of conviction.. and it will show how you compare with each of the candidates. includes history of voting and choice quotes.

But, um, are we allowed to vote issues in the coming election?

Look what we got for boxing day!

2007-12-28T18:27:59Z

HanneAnika12-27a.jpg, originally uploaded by lindyboi.

Yup, that's my new neice, with her mother, my big sis.

Class action settlement for globetrotters

2007-12-13T20:05:17Z

This came in the mail yesterday - a class action settlement for ATM, visa, mastercard foreign transaction fees between 1996 and 2006. I was initially skeptical, but it seems real enough, so thought I'd share.

"Now, as part of a $336 million settlement in a national class-action lawsuit, refund forms for those obscure surcharges are being mailed to about 30 million globe-trotters. So if you traveled to a foreign country in the past decade and used a Visa, MasterCard or Diners Club card, check your mailbox, because you could be owed money."

Basically, attacking the banks or networks for what is considered an excessive amount to convert money internationally (which I always wondered a bit about yet never complained too much about)

At the low end, you send back the first form and get $25. Nice.

But if you spent more than a week overseas, they recommend you send the second form. I believe all you have to fill out is approximately the amount of time that you spent overseas and some of how that itme was spent - no financial details necessary.

If any of you had large business expenses overseas, then you would want to consider the third form.

Apparently it's legit - if you didn't get one, or want to read more, there's contact info over here.

Utility Cyclist

2007-12-11T21:07:16Z

Yes I am. You probably are too.
i'm not sure if Burning Man counts, though.

Updates. From. Me.

2007-12-08T01:33:42Z

I don't have a wheat allergy. One day before heading to Paris I experimented eating wheat (challah, bread, pasta) to confirm that the lack of symptomps the prevoius two weeks was in fact due to wheat. And.... nothign happened.

Which is very good, because we were off to Paris for two weeks! Some (!!) of the better pictures can be found over at Google's Picasa Web.

Other updates. Playing Mario Galaxy (whee!). Attempting tennis. Preparing for my big sister's first baby, due right around christmas!

One friend is having a tough day.. I'm glad that one of our dear friends is around to support him.

hot news - I have a wheat allergy!

2007-10-29T18:33:19Z

At least, it sure seems that way - I've been avoiding wheat for two weeks now, and my digestive annoyances, constants through the last 3 months, have almost entirely disappeared! Note that this does NOT seem to be a gluten allergy, since I seem to be fine with rye, rice in all forms, etc. But it does seem that Trader Joe's has gluten-free diets, and Whole Foods supports both wheat-free and gluten-free diets. Both web-sites also offer disclaimers that it's not their fault if you end up having a reaction :)

Here's a bit that just came up on Alternet about the gluten condition, Celiac Disease

AlterNet: Health and Wellness: Stomach Pain in a Slice of Bread: Gluten Is a Quiet Culprit:

Two companies are looking into a pill, a supplement to help celiacs metabolize gluten, but that'll take at least another six to eight years to develop, Monarch says. "For a disease that affects one out of 133 people in this country, that's latent in many people, you'd think our federal government would be pouring money into this," Switkes said. "But, it's not."

Seems like supplements are a couple years off. I wonder about the wheat equivalent?

Tomorrow I plan to test whether eating a big chunk of wheat bread does, in fact, wreak havoc. Not today - I just found and removed a tick on return from the east-coast, and I need to wait out and see if there's any reaction to THAT. Gulp.

ICAN but didn't

2007-10-06T22:55:50Z

Another Republican official with interesting bathroom antics. My favorite part, of course.

"Conley wrote that had the investigation been allowed to continue, it likely would have concluded in DiFatta's arrest on obscenity charges, including a possible attempted crime against nature."

I really do prefer the term like public indecency.

Tangent:
Asha asked yesterday about my thoughts on scarlet letters for sex offenders, even after serving terms.

The most important part of my trained response is that the category is really bad. The legislation that we passed last year barring registered sex offenders from living within a short distance - never mind whether it's effective at its intended purpose - makes in irrelevant punishment on all the categories of sex offender that have nothing whatsoever to do with a threat to minors.

Now, for those "serious" sex offenders - offenses against minors, or involving violence - should they be identified, branded,registered for life afterwards? Man, I really wish to think our penal system is capable of rehabilitation. But how do you really know?

My old co-worker (with kids) thinks that once people cross certain lines, they forfeit their right to a normal life. What do you think?

27 was the year

2007-10-05T09:37:29Z

that Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain both died. Oh yeah, Janis Joplin too.

Wow.

My sense of being younger than everyone? I think it's pretty much gone. Forever.

I think I have to give up some excuses of "well, there's still time" in the process of acknowledging that.

Holy shit.

oh yeah, had a nice goodbye dinner for BTB at Burma Superstar, and lots of talking with visting Rob about australian, some politics, and why london is SO the place to go for IT.

But. 27. Did I mention I'm 29? suddenly that's not young any more.

where does one repair leather at this late date?

2007-09-28T23:33:39Z

Or at all.
Well, I've had this pair of pants I've owned for 8 years, since my first paycheck.
Theyr'e either real leather or not, I'm not sure. They're surprisingly comfortable and cool, which I think is due to the awesome inner lining.
I haven't worn them in a couple years because, well, they've been tearing - the button fly AND the side pockets are both showing more than they're hiding. Mostly frayed threads, that is.

I have no idea where to get them fixed.

Ideas? I'm thinking of carrying them on critical mass and stopping in every place that's still open.. at that hour. Yeah.

I think this is too late :)

clean the inbox, cleanse the soul

2007-08-25T19:30:02Z

.. is hard to do. I keep missing things friends sent, and feel stressed when I realize I'e been out of touch.

The "good" news is part of hte reason why - I no longer hover over my various inboxes, pressing refresh/re-check every minute or two

Anyways, this guy's been collecting some solutions for the eternal inbox.
It's called "Inbox Zero" with the idea that you just keep it clean, by applying a bunch of tactics so that you never feel/get bogged down again.

One of the key paragraphs for me (which probably applies to much of life ;) )

"If you’ve allowed your email to get out of control, and you can trace any of the resulting procrastination and inaction back to feelings of guilt, low self-esteem, or just the general feeling that you alone completely suck at this, quit it now .You are so not alone. Everyone I know (including me) is overwhelmed with email and unsure of how to make it better in a given day. Beating yourself up about it is the worst thing you can do, since it just reinforces the core fears and anxieties that kept you from dealing with the problem in the first place (buy this book, dammit)."

what the hell?

2007-08-03T06:44:23Z

This popped up in an ad as I was going through the flurry of communications prompted by signing up with Facebook, and I clicked on before I could see where it came from. But a quick google search turned up this site.

Can someone please clarify - is this the first pro-choice homophobic sticker ever? Or is it gay-friendly? Or was it just designed to hurt my brain?

But, along with signing up from Facebook, I did just solve another javascript bug for work.. and exchanged an e-mail with my first German ex, whom I haven't talked to since my last visit to Berlin. So I'm feeling pretty satisfied. We even talked about meeting up in Paris in early November.. yup, the Neighbor and I just bought tickets for 2 weeks!

I plan to work for a few days there to extend my vacation time.. is that so wrong?

Things I already knew about us.

2007-07-13T23:40:09Z

An "article" about Cindy Sheehan's upcoming run from conservative newsletter, Human Events

Both women are good at attacking President Bush. This is a top concern of voters in the 8th Congressional District of California, which takes in most of San Francisco. This is the city where “leaders” tried to force the Blue Angels from performing flyovers, the ROTC are considered Mephistopheles’ children, and military men and women must avoid wearing their uniforms in case they are mistaken for members of the Village People.

How many emotional/irrational tie-ins can you count in this assessment? I'll give you a starter - this assumes that no military folk are into uniform fetishes :)

It is fun, sometimes, hearing how the opposite side "criticizes" my viewpoints.

FF: ROTSS

2007-06-22T00:48:55Z

Don't watch it. It was marginally better than the first - and that's an insult.

However, if you have any interest in reading any of the following titles (or have any you'd like to share) I've now started picking up some comics. Dorky, yes :)

Civil War (F4 Torch, Sue, and Reed play central roles in this)
Buffy TVS: Season 8
Fray (Buffy mythology centuries in the future)
Watchmen (rated one of Time's top 100 novels. It's dense.)

Back to work. That movie, which we saw as a team, was so disappointing that I want to think I got SOMETHING out of my day!

The clearest sign the time of the fauxhawk has come and gone

2007-06-07T18:43:42Z

Have you even actually seen an employee leaving an Apple Store? No, and you never will, because the employees are actually grown in vats of pure hipness, and are stowed in hermetic containers at night to keep their fauxhawks glossy.[1]

But that's too bad, because I still like mine. Now I just need to get some gloss-creating stuff. In time for the Client show tonight!

[1] Excerpted from the Alt Text explanation of why apple MUST be insane, doing things like inserting your name and e-mail into music you purchase.

push the button

2007-06-05T21:05:16Z

Re-post - the lyrics to NIN's Capital G have been getting to me.

I'm sick of hearing about the have's and the have not's
Have some personal accountability
The biggest problem with the way that that we've been doing things is
The more we let you have the less that I'll be keeping for me

Yes, Zombies did invade

2007-05-26T19:45:39Z

Well, didn't go biking or pillowing.. we DID find the zombies though.

I went down just outside a jewelry store they were daintily rioting in.

Then we walked/shuffled/carried bicycles up to union square where the organized undead spoke up for Brain-Eating Rights.

There may be more news of the aftermath here

Afterwards, just settled in and watched The Insider, realizing halfway through it was based on actual events. Oops.

zombie, pillows, or just bikes?

2007-05-25T22:12:28Z

Zombies:
http://www.eatbrains.com/

Pillow Fight:
http://sanfrancisco.tribe.net/event/9b4ab840-f324-425f-b339-92c5d4e5096a

Friday, May 27
6pm
Justin "Pee Wee" Herman Plaza

Rules:

1) Tell everyone you know about PILLOW FIGHT!!!
2) Wait for the Ferry Building clock to strike 6:00pm
3) Don't hit anyone with out a pillow (unless they want it)
4) Don't hit anyone with a camera
5) HAVE FUN!!!

And of course bicycles:
I think I'll just be on foot this time. Or plan to be on a bike wearing duct tape.