Bring Your Beloved But Broken Item to the Repair Cafe

Posted on May 3, 2013 by

RC-LogoSquare
The 1st Repair Cafe for New Paltz is coming right up!

When: Saturday, May 18th from 10AM to 3PM

Where: The New Paltz United Methodist Church on Main Street (corner of Grove, just up from the Bus Station).

What: Repair Café is a free meeting place that is all about repairing things—together.  The idea was born in Amsterdam in 2009, quickly spun off satellites around Europe, and has just begun to pop up in the U.S.

Toss it? No way! Bring your beloved but broken item to the Repair Café.

When you arrive, you will find tools and materials to help you make the repair you need.  You will also find “Repair Coaches” with the special skills to help.

We’ll be ready with 7 worktables:
MECHANICAL, ELECTRIC & ELECTRONIC * THINGS MADE OF WOOD * CLOTHING & TEXTILES * DOLLS & STUFFED ANIMALS * DIGITAL DEVICE RECONFIG * GLUE, STRING & TAPE * READING TABLE

Yes, there are limits:  

  • Your item must not be larger/heavier than one person can carry.  
  • No gas-powered engines.  
  • No bicycles (for now).

We can’t guarantee that the item you bring to Repair Cafe will get fixed.  All we  can guarantee is that you will have an interesting time!  And you’ll know more than when you came in.  And you might share a screwdriver with some very nice neighbors.

Coffee& tea are free;  savory & sweet bakery treats and fresh fruit will be for sale on the “Café side” to sustain you on your repair journey. Many of the bakery items will come from The Bakery on Front Street—one of New Paltz’ most popular bakeries.

We (the organizers) invite the interest of any person with repair skills to volunteer as a Repair Coach.  Best thing to do is email John Wackman at jwackman@gmail.com.

The Repair Café will be an ongoing event, 3rd Saturday every other month through 2013.

Repair Café is sponsored by the New Paltz United Methodist Church and the Climate Action Coalition of New Paltz.  This project is also coordinated with the Town of New Paltz Recycling Program and the Zero Waste Initiative of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Dutch organizers have also established the Repair Cafe Foundation, whose purpose is to replicate the idea everywhere. To see the story of how it got started and how it’s grown, see their English-language website.

And if you do Facebook, go to the Repair Cafe New Paltz page for frequent updates & news.  https://www.facebook.com/RepairCafeNewPaltz   Pls Like & Share!

***

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Something really big in return

Posted on March 14, 2013 by

From Thomas Friedman’s column in last Sunday’s New York Times,
titled No to Keystone. Yes to Crazy.

“We need the President to be able to say to the G.O.P. oil lobby, “I’m going to approve this, but it will kill me with my base.  Sasha and Malia won’t even be talking to me, so I’ve got to get something really big in return.”

What might that be?

Photo credit: Danny Johnston/Associated PressSteel for the Keystone XL oil pipeline may end up getting used. If it does, then President Obama will need to make it up to his green base.

Photo credit: Danny Johnston/Associated Press
Steel for the Keystone XL oil pipeline may end up getting used. If it does, then President Obama will need to make it up to his green base.

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Come on Down to the Climate Rally

Posted on February 19, 2013 by

climate rally logo

SUNDAY Feb 17, 2013  5:30AM      Three buses get on the NY State Thruway. Two from the “catchment area” of New Paltz, Poughkeepsie and surrounding towns, and another from SUNY-New Paltz.  3 of 130 buses from 28 states converging on D.C.  The New Paltz Climate Action Coalition organized the bus I’m on.

10AM–Baltimore.  I used to always enjoy looking across from I-95 to Camden Yards, the ballpark that ushered in a new era of human-scaled ballpark design.  Now I see that it’s dwarfed by the brash, back-to-business-as-usual Baltimore Ravens stadium.

Then I spot an eye-catching bill board with 2 pictures and one word: Unplug.

FrogBillboard

Nice thing to see on the way to a Climate Rally, eh?  (I thought Baltimore’s science museum–the Maryland Science Center–might be behind it.  But they’ve disavowed all knowledge.  Turns out it’s the 3 orgs above.  More about the campaign at DiscoverTheForest.org.)

11:30AM  We get off the bus at the Washington Monument (still closed from the August 2011 5.8 earthquake)  It’s breezy, and now we feel just how cold it is (in the teens with the wind chill).

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Throughout the day it’s clear that easily more than half the people here are college age.  Polar Bear hats and costumes are a popular theme.

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*****

Volunteers are giving out cardboard “Clean Air – Rally Signs” by the hundreds.

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There’s a large ceremonial drum in this picture–look carefully and you can see mallets in action. The sound is fantastic.  Gathering of the tribes.

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climate rally from stage

Starting at Noon, the speakers address their comments mostly to the President (“Lead!”) and to the young (“Don’t be chumps!”).  Lots of emphasis on the Keystone XL pipeline as a line in the sand.  (The Christian Science Monitor has a good piece today on that).

When Chief Jacqueline Thomas of the Saik’uz First Nation starts speaking, a man next to me says: “Hey, look up there–a red-tail hawk…two of them… wheeling!  Isn’t it significant that they come while she’s speaking.”  They certainly are not seagulls.  Soon the hawks fly off towards the Potomac.  I don’t think many in the crowd saw them.

Red-tail_Hawk_

march past eob

*****

As the march makes its way to The White House, the crowd of 35,000 swells (so say the reports) to 40,000.

*****

*****

Signs & Banners on Parade!

Imagine Solar
Done with Being a Fossil Fool
Leave it in the ground!
Only my Mind & Rice should be Dirty
Why haven’t we Climate Changed?
Fossil Fuels Fuel Freaky Weather
Snow Women Against Fracking

And: Would we let terrorists poison our water supply if they said it would create jobs?

When we reach The White House, the sun comes out.

IMG_0591

Been awhile since I was in a huge crowd of people like this–young & old & in-between– marching, singing, chanting, laughing.

Most popular song: This Land Is Your Land (of course).  We struggle to remember the verses.

Most popular chant: Hey Hey Obama/we don’t want/no climate drama

Overheard:  Man: (with enthusiasm) Fracking is Attacking!  Woman: Is that a cheer?  Man: What do you think?  Woman: I think you need to make it more catchy.

IMG_0593

President Obama, are you ready to lead on global climate change?

***

Photos in this post are from my camera, except “Red-tail Hawk Harlan’s – Calurus” by Dominic Sherony (accessed from WikiCommons), and the 2 rally photos with watermarks from 350.org

To see a terrific video of Van Jones speaking, go to The New York Green Advocate.  Thanks Paul McGinniss!

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A sense of repurpose

Posted on January 28, 2013 by

The ReUse Center in New Paltz is up the hill from the Recycling Center.  It’s a steel frame building built by the Town as a “store” for stuff that oughta be useful to SOMEBODY!

I expected to find an eclectic mix of items saved in the nick of time before they went into the landfill — soulful, you know, like a thrift-store.  Fix-it, clean it, put it to use.

Instead, I found boxes and shelves and bins of decidedly un-used manufacturer’s leftovers.  Hundreds of small wooden pieces from Woodstock Chimes–some shaped like wings, some like little chairs.  Cosmetic gift bags from Kiss My Face.  Plastic tubes that once contained titanium knee-replacement parts.  Plentiful but essentially soul-less odds & ends.

And God created glue guns

Laura Petit, the Town recycling coordinator, had a great idea:  get in some artists, school teachers, crafters, home fixer-uppers.  Give ‘em glue guns and “let them run wild.”  See what they come up with.

Those of us there did our best.  And once we got going, some decent configurations began to take shape.  Laura calls them “recipes for recycling.”  Possibly.  For seasoning, we had our choice of hundreds of small cardboard cards with shiny-surfaced images of…Americana!

It’s important to say that the ReUse Center is an evolving enterprise.  The goal is to have stuff coming in & going out of there faster than a minnow can swim a dipper.

4 “R”s

The 3 “R”s–reduce, reuse & recycle–are all on the increase in the Hudson Valley.  In 2012, New Paltz reduced the garbage leaving the Clearwater Transfer Station by 20%–more than 100 tons, saving the town a cool $10,000 in disposal fees.

Make that 4:  Results.

Last Saturday morning at the New Paltz ReUse Center, John Wackman, Eric Bravo and Alyce Conklin created “recycling recipes” for people wondering what to do with odds and ends available at the center. The project ideas have been posted by the materials so others can use them. (photo by Lauren Thomas)

Last Saturday morning at the New Paltz ReUse Center, John Wackman, Eric Bravo and Alyce Conklin created “recycling recipes” for people wondering what to do with odds and ends available at the center. The project ideas have been posted by the materials so others can use them. (photo by Lauren Thomas)

**Thanks to Erin Quinn for the title of this post.  Her article about the Recycling Recipes event is in the New Paltz Times.  Thanks also to Lauren Thomas for the photo above.

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Wolf comes to the Hudson Highlands

Posted on January 16, 2013 by

I have been in transition, moving from the shoreline of Connecticut to the Hudson Highlands. (I am more Mountain than Sea: I know this about myself).

In November I got invited to a workshop at the incredible Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz NY. The people I met that day–brought together by Mohonk Consultations–are involved in an astonishing array of sustainability initiatives – this region is humming with activity.

That is where I met Wolf Bravo.wolf bravo

Native of Peru, founder of Sustainable Urubamba Valley in Cuzco, Wolf is an organizational consultant (he does a lot of work in New Jersey).

And he’s working to establish a Tool Library in this county.

To quote from Erin Quinn’s article in the New Paltz Times this week: Why not a tool library, where community folks can borrow a spade, shovel, fertilizer machine, ladders, hand trucks, hedge trimmers or a circular saw?  After all, we have a library that lends books, magazines and DVDs.  And we have a seed library that sells and lends heirloom seeds from the Hudson Valley…

800px-Garden_tools (1)

Right in line with Ulster County’s goal of creating “a safe food system that increases and improves the nutritional level in the Mid Hudson Valley.”

And right in line with New Paltz’s role as an EPA-designated Zero Waste Initiative community.

Tonight Wolf is giving a presentation about the Tool Library at the New Paltz Community Center.  And on Saturday January 26th, he’s giving a “Tool Fix It” workshop.

I’ll be right in line.

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Fruit is Fast Food

Posted on June 1, 2012 by

There is something startlingly                                                                                                       new at the convenience store                                                                                                                 of the gas station I frequent:

a Chiquita banana display                                                                                                                     free-standing                                                                                                                                     right up front, near the registers                                                                                                       95 cents

The only fresh food in the place!

Amidst shelf upon shelf                                                                                                                 aisle after aisle                                                                                                                                      of x-treme sweet/salty snacks

I tell you,
the colors are dazzling!

Other than that
far as I can see
they mostly sell lottery tickets

& you can’t eat those either

***

Thanks to Marai Wise for sending me this pic from Elahi Holistic: Where Ommm meets Yummm.

Is this part of the Food Revolution?

An Edible Alliance?

Is this farming some kind of PHARMN??

A marketing niche ripe for filling?

See a video about  ”Chiquita to Go”:   Want bananas for your c store or foodservice operation but they’re always too green or too brown? Look no further, Chiquita To Go offers extended shelf life technology of up to 7 days longer than traditional bananas.

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Hyper-Miler-Zen-Driver

Posted on April 30, 2012 by

This week I accomplished something rare in my world:  I made the light at the intersection of Routes 77 and 80.

Big deal, huh?  Let me explain.  I play a driving game called hyper-miling:  you maximize your car’s gas mileage by making changes in the way you drive.  You become more aware of the traffic dynamics around you.  You tune in to the machine you are driving.  And yes, you become one with the road.

Call it intelligent-non-aggressive-eco-conscious-zen driving.

Who knew that there are a gazillion websites devoted to exposing “the driving habits of the ignorant and the wasteful”?  It’s thoroughly mainstream.  Check out Hypermiling.com for example–loaded with car ads.

The basics:  maintain a consistent speed; no jack-rabbit starts; no slam-braking.  Accelerate slowly, coast into stoplights.  Drive as far as you can without coming to a complete stop.

Twice a week for the last year, I’ve commuted 35 miles each way from Guilford to Newington CT.   For a hyper-miler-zen-driver, it is a route filled with perfect challenges.

I think of it as a cross-country course with three legs.

The 1st Leg:  Over the river & through the woods

50 yards from my driveway is a sign that reads Scenic Road 13.9 mi.  Rt. 77 begins here and takes me straight north on one of the most quietly beautiful stretches of road anywhere.  It criss-crosses the West River to its source at Lake Quonnipaug.  Past frame houses built in the 1820s and 30s, past a barn sign that reads “Insulting Manor.”

It’s a fun road to drive.  It undulates and winds, dips and climbs.  There are three hair-pin turns. It cuts narrowly through rock outcrops and perilously close to 100 year-old trees.

Then there is the place where Rt. 77 rises up sharply and drops down to the intersection at Rt. 80.

It’s the best spot on the game board.  Heading north, you  get a split-second glimpse of the light from a quarter-mile away.  If it’s yellow or green,  you won’t make it.  If it’s red, you’ve got a shot at the green.  This was my week.

The 2nd Leg: Quonnipaug to Durham

The road crosses Menuckatuck Creek and a couple of miles later, I’m hugging the shoreline of Lake Quonnipaug–a classic New England pond.  Through four seasons I’ve seen it in every humor: glistening with sunlight, draped in mist, defined by ice.

Then the road climbs the shoulder between Bluff Head and the Broomstick Ledges.  The Mattabesset hiking trail crosses there–part of Connecticut’s fantastic network of trails marked and maintained by the venerable Forest & Park Association.  You’re in a higher-elevation valley now, with  pastures and cows, bringing you into the town of Durham.

Durham is strung along a ridge line.  Brenda’s Main Street Feed is there.  So is the Moses Austin House–father of the founder of Austin, Texas.  And don’t miss the Durham Kitchen restaurant:  ”Come in and sit around our table.”

The 3rd Leg:  14 stop lights in 4 miles

The last leg on my hyper-miler gameboard skirts Middletown and joins the mighty stream of commuter traffic converging on Hartford.  The last 4 miles of my trip is on the Berlin Turnpike–a commercial strip that runs me through 14 stop lights in 4 miles.

I haven’t kept a log, but more often than not, my hyper-miling skills serve me well and I can drive it without stopping, say, more than once.

Am I annoying you?

It’s important to say that driving under-speed is not part of the strategy.  So, what about that BMW driving up your butt?  Pull over, let him pass.  My karma ran over your dogma.

Who’s the most fuel-efficient driver in the world?

Find out at the annual Green Drive Expo:  ”The place to explore technology, fuel efficiency, cost savings and eco-conscious transportation.”  The event keeps growing, and this year it’s in two locations: July in Madison WI (my old home town), and September in San Francisco.  It is where you go to compete in the annual “MPG Challenge.”

For a hilarious account of a ride-along with one of the “kings of hyper-milers”, see the post on Mother Jones “This Guy Can Get 59 MPG in a Plain Old Accord. Beat That, Punk.”

The 30% Pay-off

Pump prices have skated north of $4, and hyper-miling is undeniably a skill game with real-life benefits.  MoneyTalksNews.com put up a survey a few days ago based on research by the car site edmunds.com.  Which of these strategies will improve your gas mileage?

a)  Use your AC minimally

b)  Maintain proper tire inflation

c)  Drive less aggressively

d)  Use cruise control

What does the research show?  The answer is c).

Proper tire inflation and minimizing AC use have a negligible effect.  Using cruise control increases fuel efficiency about 7%.  Driving less aggressively–aka “calm driving”–can increase fuel efficiency by a whopping 31%.

Kramer’s Way

My twice-weekly drives up and back on Route 77 came to an end last week.  I no longer need to make the commute to Newington CT.  I will miss it.

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Kramer is obsessed with how far he can drive with his gas gauge on Empty?

In my life I’ve watched exactly 3 episodes of Seinfeld.  3 of 180.  And one of those was a repeat of that episode.  

Weird, huh?

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Here and Now

Posted on March 31, 2012 by

March 31st, and we may see a little snow here in southern New England, to go with the flowers now in full bloom in Olmsted Outlook, tended by the intrepid Olmsted Irregulars.

I’ve just received word via email blast that today’s “Chicken in the Snow” fundraiser has been cancelled “due to inclement weather.”  What?  Isn’t a little adverse weather the whole idea?  But we can be glad that all of the chicken dinners–250 of them–are being donated to the Community Dining Room courtesy of the Guilford Rotary.

One year ago I posted First Frost/Last Frost to Some/Home, and during these last few days–as spring arrived about a month early–it has received a spike in hits.

Between then and now we experienced the infamous “October snowstorm” (aka “arbor-geddon”) that knocked out power to 800,000 homes–more than tropical storm Irene in August (and forced the resignation of the CEO of Connecticut Power & Light).

There was plenty of occasion that week to drop into a conversation, say at the community center serving breakfasts, that the essential character of climate change is not warming.  It is unpredictability.  Nonetheless, this was the only winter when, in the memory of local old-timers, the ground did not freeze–not in this town.

I am re-reading Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and this morning this is what I find:

I have been thinking about the change in seasons. I don’t want to miss spring this year. I want to distinguish the last winter frost from the out-of-season one, the frost of spring. I want to be there on the spot the moment the grass turns green. I always miss this radical revolution; I see it the next day from a window, the yard so suddenly green and lush I could envy Nebuchadnezzar down on all fours eating grass.

This year I want to stick a net into time and say “now” as men plant flags on the ice and snow and say, “here.” But it occurred to me that I could no more catch spring by the tip of the tail than I could untie the apparent knot in the snakeskin; there are no edges to grasp. Both are continuous loops.

In 1973, when Annie Dillard was writing Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, I was her neighbor, living a mile or so away on the slope of the same Tinker Mountain in Virginia.  Climate change was nowhere on the horizon.  Now, I have little doubt that she continues to watch for the mystical transformation of the season.  And wonder, as do we all, what the seasons will bring for our children.

Oil painting by William Blake. Nebuchadnezzar’s story is told in the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Daniel.  Wikipedia offers this summary: “While boasting about his achievements, Nebuchadnezzar is humbled by God. The king loses his sanity and lives in the wild like an animal for seven years. After this, his sanity and position are restored and he praises and honors God.”

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Two Paragraphs that Kick Ass

Posted on March 5, 2012 by

Thomas Friedman’s column in yesterday’s Sunday New York Times was one of those that pressed play and made me want to pump my fist.  Maybe like my friends who went to a Van Halen concert this weekend.

Here are two paragraphs:

This is a column about energy and environment and why we must not let the poisonous debate about climate change so tie us in knots that we cannot have any energy policy at all, particularly one focused on developing much more efficient use of resources, through better designs and systems. If you are so reckless as to dismiss all climate science as a hoax, and do not accept the data that our planet is getting hotter and the oceans rising, I can’t help you. That’s between you and your beach house — and your kids, whose future you’re imperiling.

But you better believe this: The planet is getting flatter and more crowded. There will be two billion more people here by 2050, and they will all want to live and drive just like us. And when they do, there is going to be one monster traffic jam and pollution cloud, unless we learn how to get more mobility, lighting, heating and cooling from less energy and with less waste — with so many more people. We can’t let the climate wars continue to derail efforts to have an energy policy that puts in place rising efficiency standards, for buildings, windows, traffic, housing, packaging and appliances, that will drive innovation — which is our strength — in what has to be the next great global industry: energy and resource efficiency.

Friedman then cites two new books; both proposing business models for our future.

Gasoline is a hair below $4 a gallon again.  The last time we were here, those pump prices seemed to be spurring populist support for a national energy policy of (gasp!) a “balanced mix of production, conservation and innovation in alternative fuels” (per President Obama this week).

Do I hear a power chord?

Cool energy metaphor: phones have replaced lighters at concerts (...but you knew that)

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Dumb & Dumber

Posted on February 9, 2012 by

My friend Linda is a wealth of aphorisms and wisdom gleaned from the women in her family–her mother and her aunts.  I keep a list of phrases passed down through the family tree. “It’s better to rust out than to rot out.” “She who hides can find.” And “We might as well be drunk as the way we are.”

But one of the funniest is: “People are dumber than anybody.”

This came to mind as I read about two developments in the last week.

First was the opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal on January 27th titled No Need to Panic About Global Warming, submitted and signed by 16 scientists who say “that nothing should be done about CO2 for several decades.”

There has been enormous push-back from the larger scientific community over the egregiously misleading claims made in the WSJ piece.  The Union of Concerned Scientists posted one of the best rebuttals.  And the letters to the editor are too good to miss.

On the WSJ website, there is also a video interview with William Happer of Princeton, the lead author of the editorial.  In it, the WSJ editorial page assistant editor, in an astonishingly goofy manner, evokes “global warming hysteria”, stumbles over the name of the United Nations IPCC–(clearly not to be taken seriously)–and can’t resist bringing “climategate” into the conversation.

Herding citizens toward cities

Second, is the reporting in Saturday’s New York Times titled Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing U.N. Plot.  The piece begins:  ”Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy.  They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.”

In Some/Home, I have always been careful to maintain the distinction between a thoughtful piece and a rant.  But these two items are pushing me toward the edge.

Specifically, I fear that irreparable damage has been done by the WSJ piece.  In Washington, “climate change is already a four-letter word.”  Is there any way in which President Obama or any other candidate for public office can cut through the morass of disinformation?  The answer is pretty clear:  in this climate, the issue would be a un-winnable drag on his or her campaign.

What do you know about Agenda 21?  

In the NYT article, I learned for the first time about the 1992 United Nations resolution called Agenda 21: “a sweeping but non-binding resolution designed to encourage nations to use fewer resources and conserve open land by steering development to already dense areas.”

It has become a flash point for the paranoia-driven protests against sustainability.  Tea Party activists cite the belief that man-made global warming is a hoax, and that the U.N. is imposing a one-world order.

But this is just the fringe that refuses to be told what kind of light bulb they can buy, right?  Apparently not:  ”In January, the Republican Party adopted its own resolution against what it called “the destructive and insidious nature” of Agenda 21.

Linda’s mother was right.  People are dumber than anybody.

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