A little reminder to myself to get some things knocked off that pesky to-do list.

Taking a trend that I have noticed around the interwebs and the fact that I suck at coming to my blog often enough (but am awesome at checking my reader in the morning), I am introducing “Morning posts.” Pretty low-key showings-off of some of the things that tickle my brain while I’m waiting for the coffee to kick in.

• The Agitator blogger Radley Balko just moved to Nashville right about the same time as one of my best friends so his adventure in discovering the city really is kind of a glimpse into what a newcomer to the city is experiencing. Sounds Like the Scariest 5K Ever

• Around here in the Pacific Northwest, trees are so abundant that they all kind of live together to create the landscape. They never really get a personality but in the case of “Domesticated Trees,” you really get the feeling of the tree feeling outside of its natural environment, and what it has to go through to “fit in.” Woah. Did I just make a self reflective statement based on trees? Domesticated Trees via DoobyBrain

• Love this shirt. $500 though? Sad. Prime Minister Hatoyama Shirt via Orange Crate Art

• iPad will never replace book. There is a very engrained philosophy behind the physical object and how that begets the idea of free and equal access. Some excellent quotes from NYT Opinion post:

…I didn’t grow up reading texts. I grew up reading books.

The entire impulse behind Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iBooks assumes that you cannot read a book unless you own it first — and only you can read it unless you want to pass on your device.That goes against the social value of reading, the collective knowledge and collaborative discourse that comes from access to shared libraries. That is not a good thing for readers, authors, publishers or our culture.

Also noticing that I really need to redo my Wordpress theme. This one was made from scratch as a learning experience so, lots of missing bits… weekend project!

The symbol of our country… delegated to keeping my food from being sloppy

Did one of my crazy rounds of driving yesterday and ended up in Centralia, WA. A town somewhere between Portland and Seattle along I-5, it seems to be some sort of touristy, glorified bathroom break… which is weird because I always hit Centralia after being on I-5 for about 10 min.

Anyways, one of the largest and most obvious eateries in the area is Country Cousin which happens to be owned by the Ramblin’ Restaurant Group… did not know this till I went to their website. (Love Mercato, BTW) The menu is the familiar fair that you would expect along a major interstate. The stuff that’s palatable by most American drivers: burgers, sandwiches, most items with a decent amount of meat… their specialty being some sort of pot roast. Tough choices for an ethical eater.

Their yak burger is a standout item though. The meat is harvested in Elma, a town that I pass through on my drive from Hoquiam, where, along the way, you might actually see future burgers out in the field. It’s kind of pricy; 9.99 for a cheeseburger but it’s an excellent price to pay for leaner meat which won’t cause stomach cramps.

Bah, rambling! Trying to get one point across: Food is excellent… atmosphere is unique but… service needs a big boost. I read some reviews where people were complaining about uppity teenagers but it was honestly a diversely aged staff that day. After working in a restaurant, a person becomes more tolerant of waits and frazzled servers; I mean, it was me at one point or another. Sadly, our waitress did a big no-no: bringing the check out with the food.

Ughhhhh… This move pretty much says “My customer relationship is completed. I probably won’t even come check on your water glasses.” (Which was the case) I feel bad since I wanted to like the place because it is locally owned and, in some aspects, locally supplied. Once this happened, though… I started noticing weird things like the ceiling treatment which is faux made from particle board screwed to the old ceiling.

Perhaps it was just the day or something but, it’s really tough for me to say that people were what gloomed my experience at a restaurant.

So, around these parts, the local talk radio source is KBKW and, on certain mornings I happen to catch Coffee Talk with Doug McDowell. I have grown to respect this show because Mr. McDowell is typically not a personality that makes uninformed claims and the guests are respected even if some fundamental disagreements could be brought up. There are even times when listeners can hear him change and develop an informed opinion on air.

The issues of the show are typically local and the station really is the best source for information in the area… I really can’t say much for most of the other shows but I would think that I would have some major disagreements with most hosts. I believe I heard, at one point, a host state something to this extent: “you wonder why there are 50 year old men who run and diet just to have heart attacks… we’re humans! It’s not in our nature to exert ourselves!” Yeah… and driving in a car and watching TV is.

Anyways, this post is about a phrase that drove my respect for Mr. McDowell down a bit: “I don’t care about my carbon footprint and never will.” Ugghhh… Really? Okay… lets think about this a little: concern for a personal carbon footprint isn’t about yourself: it’s about changing a norm. We live in a country where household energy consumption is beyond obscene and, worst of all, we somehow are setting a standard for how life should be around the world! Cars, houses with “personal space,” and more things to fill that personal space.

This is a bad thing. What the world needs is a country that sets an example for a sustainable way of life… especially one that can be taken to a worst case scenario of worldwide scale. Take all the personal choices that we make and multiply them by the population of the world and, even without numbers, we realize that the earth simply couldn’t sustain that kind of consumption and growth. An awesome carbon footprint quiz to take is this one through Redefining Progress which gives you the number of earths that it would require to provide the resources if everyone lived like you.

What concern for carbon footprint does is give a personal measure of impact and that our choices really are the cause and effect of many systems.

Just needed to get that out of my system.

I was on a roll today:

• Got up at 6:00 am
• Stretched (It’s a big deal! Really!)
• Checked the forecast and rode a bike to the office space
• Worked and researched all morning on Wordpress themes and plugins

To top it off, I walked to Safeway to pick up some better things to eat for lunch. All was going according to plan and the day was really pretty nice for being an overcast day on the Harbor. I mean, around here, you have to savor any day there isn’t rain coming down.

Okay, hop on another train of thought: I’ve done my fair share of yelling at people out of the car window; “Hey lady!” and “Do you have any Grey Poupon?” being at the top of the list with some random, unintelligible words thrown in. All fun and games in high school and by walking down the road now, I understand that I could fall victim to one of these random shoutings. No problem by me; I used to do it and really, our gobbledygook utterances never were meant to stick with you.

Back to today: I could deal with a lot of crazy comments and I can even play along when someone comments about a weird bike or hat or jacket but, when it pushes a button that’s totally off limits, even jokingly, I just don’t know what to think. That button is called “intolerance,” kids.

When someone yells “faggot,” I honestly don’t know what to think or where they’re coming from. I don’t know if it’s some high schooler stupidly playing a joke like I used to (but totally NOT like I used to) or if it’s someone with a real issue with homosexuals. I’m not confrontational to begin with but if someone goes so far as to assess that they can yell “faggot” at me because they saw me off in the distance with a corduroy jacket, cardigan sweater and black framed glasses, they’ve pushed me into a full on……….. retreat-to-safety mode.

So, thanks random Aberdeen pickup truck driver for freaking out a straight guy who dresses a little different than you with a misdirected and disgustingly intolerant comment. Now to plan some alternate routes for riding my bike so I’m not passing over the same path too often.