Keep CA state parks open - public hearing on Tuesday 4/15 in San Jose

I just sent this message out to family and friends:

Dear friends and family,

If you share my concern about the state government's plans to close a number of state parks, I invite you to join me at a public hearing on the closures, to be held in San Jose next Tuesday. At this hearing, the State Park and Recreation Commission will be accepting spoken and written public comments. Details on the time and location of the hearing are given here:
http://coastsider.com/index.php/site/news/state_park_closure_hearing_in_san_jose_april_15/
I haven't seen confirmation of these details from an official source, so I recommend contacting the California Department of Parks and Recreation to confirm the date/location before attending: 800-777-0369, www.parks.ca.gov

Also, please spread the word to other interested folks who might be able to attend. Hope to see you there!

Science Debate 2008

I heard about this today and it interested me. You can join as a signatory to show your support for the debate and for candidates to accept the invitation. From their website:

Science Debate 2008: Call for a Presidential Debate on Science & Technology

Science Debate 2008 is a grassroots initiative spearheaded by a growing number of scientists and other concerned citizens. Science Debate 2008 has invited the presidential candidates to participate in a debate on policy issues affected by science and technology, to be held on April 18.

The debate may include such policy issues as: American economic competitiveness and support for scientific research; policy approaches to climate change; clean energy; the healthcare crisis; science education and technology in schools; scientific integrity; GM agriculture; transportation infrastructure; immigration; the genome; data privacy; intellectual property; pandemic diseases; the health of the oceans; water resources; stem cells; conservation and species loss; population; the space program, and others.

This is a policy debate. It is not intended to be a science quiz. Nor are we interested in state-level battles such as the evolution versus creationism/ID debate. Our goal is to find out how aware candidates are of America's major science and technology problems and opportunities, and how they propose to offer the kind of visionary leadership and policy solutions that will tackle those challenges and ensure America's place as the most scientifically and technologically advanced nation on earth. This is your opportunity to demonstrate that you are such a leader.

The debate will be held at 7PM on Friday, April 18, 2008 at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is four days prior to the Pennsylvania primary. The debate is non-partisan. All viable candidates for President will be invited. It will be held even if only one candidate participates.

The cosponsors have reputations for putting on fair and informative events serving the best interests of the public and the highest principles of this nation. We intend to make the debate available for broadcast on nationwide television on April 18 and re-broadcast at a later time on both television and the internet.

Mushroom growing kit, day 19: harvest and feast

We picked several of the clumps of mushrooms today. Here's the first:


And here are a couple more clumps:


The mushrooms await their culinary destiny...


Which is to be prepared with the following recipe from the MSSF cookbook:

Mock Abalone

Serves 4 as a side dish

Sautéed oyster mushrooms are similar to abalone in taste. Serve them hot.

• 1/2 cup flour
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/8 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1/8 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 small garlic clove, minced
• 1/8 teaspoon paprika
• 1 pound oyster mushrooms (cut large ones in half)
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons mild vegetable oil
• Lemon wedges and/or soy sauce

Put the flour, salt, pepper, marjoram, thyme, garlic, and paprika in a small paper bag. Add the mushrooms and shake well.

Heat the butter and oil in a sauté pan or skillet and sauté the mushrooms on each side for 2 minutes or until golden brown. Serve immediately with lemon wedges and/or soy sauce. (by Lois Der)

Here the mushrooms are getting coated with the seasoned flour:


And now into the pan!


They're cooking up nice and golden:


Getting the fixin's out. For mock abalone, gotta have our salt, lemon wedges, and tabasco:


Bon appetit!


A closer look. The spouse pointed out that they look like pork chops.



And so we ate them. Delicious! The texture and appearance does bear a resemblance to abalone or some other mild shellfish. I do think that this dish attests to the fact that ANYTHING breaded and fried in enough butter tastes good. The spouse commented that "it tastes like something as unhealthy as you would get at the county fair," which is not necessarily a good thing in his book, but is fine by me :-)

More recipes and pics to come, I'm sure - those mushrooms are ready to eat!

Read the entire saga of the mushroom growing kit

Mushroom growing kit, day 16-18

Day 16, front:

Day 16, back:

Day 17, front:

Day 17, back:

I see stir fry in my future.

Day 18, front:

Day 18, back:

Notice how the edges have gotten quite frilly and turned up.

We are going to be eating a lot of oyster mushrooms very soon. Fortunately, the Mycological Society of San Francisco has an excellent online mushroom cookbook with a whole section devoted to fabulous oyster mushroom recipes.

Read the entire saga of the mushroom growing kit

Mushroom growing kit, day 15

The silly spouse insists that I photograph the mushrooms every day. He is pretty enthusiastic about the mushrooms himself, and waters them obsessively. Sometimes I have to remind him that it's my birthday present :)


Yes, this is the same clump of mushrooms next to which I held the quarter in earlier posts.


This is the back side of the kit. The Big Momma mushroom is actually hiding on this side - way at the bottom.


An underside view.

Read the entire saga of the mushroom growing kit

Green Your Career

Last Wednesday I attended an event called "Green Your Career", sponsored by Acterra and held at the Green Building Exchange. Five panelists in various green careers gave short presentations. The moderator was Carol McClelland, who runs a career coaching business and website called Green Career Central.

I didn't learn anything hugely profound that I didn't know already. The panelists had diverse backgrounds and careers and had interesting stories. However, there wasn't any particular panelist that I felt like I identified with closely, in terms of what they are doing in their career. Also, for the "Green Technology Career" presentation, I would have liked to hear from an actual technologist (the panelist was a marketing person working at a technology company). However, I really appreciated the expertise of the moderator, who asked some excellent questions of the panelists (given below) and dished out quite a bit of good advice herself.

Download the presentation handouts here. My own notes follow:

Introduction

• Positioning yourself for emerging industries
• Be realistic about the current state of your target green industry/company. Is it emerging, or is it mature and well-established? This affects how ready they are to hire.
• Engage in policy-influencing activities; these will create the green economy sector that you want to work in
• Check out the GreenerComputing newsletter

Green Marketing Career - Lynn Strand Marks

• Whatever job role you may have now or in the future, you can always advocate green values to the people and processes you interact with
• Marks only figured out what her calling was about 6 mos. ago!

Renewable Energy Career - Max Greenberg

• Salespeople for residential/commercial solar energy installations are in big demand

Green Building Career - Danny Beesley

• Beesley doesn't just give out green building advice, he has also given green career advice to many people who have asked him and has served as a mentor

Green Technology Career - Krista Van Tassel

Environmental Management Career - Michele Beasley

What one experience best prepared you for your current green career?

• Reframing past experiences and applying them to the current job
• Acterra's Be The Change environmental leadership training program
• Real estate experience
• Hands-on construction experience
• A background in traditional marketing
• Working with diverse groups/stakeholders/volunteers

What are the hottest jobs in your green sector?

• Behavioral/creative influencers
• Marketing writers
• Solar energy sales consultants
• Solar design engineers - residential and commercial
• Solar installers - work under a foreman (who is usually a licensed electrician) to install solar energy systems
• Solar hot water systems
• Internships (unpaid) at the Green Building Exchange (they are a start-up and don't have the money yet for all the areas where they would like to grow/hire!)
• GreenPoint Raters - these are professionals who apply the GreenPoint rating system to assess how green a new or existing home is. In general this job requires some experience in construction, you must also get additional training on the GreenPoint system. Regulatory changes in the SFBay are causing a local surge in demand for GreenPoint Raters.
• Home building performance - consultants who assess energy efficiency of homes. Policy changes are in the pipeline which may result in the federal government subsidizing this particular sector in the near future.
• Green your current job! E.g. an in-house corporate event planner who decided to green her company's functions
• For advocacy groups - policy research experts, advocates
• Internships (usually unpaid) at Greenbelt Alliance
• Elected officials - consider running for office!
• Urban planning

What training was most important to you for your green career?

• U.C. Davis - studied both human development and agriculture
• Previous work with people with developmental disabilities - learning to communicate, not necessarily with words; learning about different ways to solve problems, think, and relate
• Social work
• Find mentors - lots of them
• Diversity in jobs, broad experiences, life experience
• "Speaking the language" - knowing how to communicate with many different types of people/constituencies/stakeholders/organizations
• Working with passionate/knowledgeable/idealistic/committed people within my green company
• Entrepreneurial skills
• "DIY" degree, certifications, seeking out learning opportunities - e.g. the
• Build It Green training programs
• Variety
• Meeting people - maintaining a good rolodex - networking
• Taking initiative - one panelist "volunteered" for Sun Microsystems' Eco Reponsibility Initiative even while she was holding a different job within Sun. It was hard work! But when new positions were created as part of that initiative, she was tapped to fill one of them!
• Urban planning, policy, environmental management
• Mentors - meet people for coffee, lunch; it's amazing how many people are happy/willing to meet with you and talk!

How did you find your current green job?

• (From a self-employed panelist) Meeting the right clients - companies/NGOs with a green angle
• Discovering your team's hidden passions and then turning that into a values-based company mission
• Having a strong intention
• Monster.com
• Roll with the punches - One panelist had a crappy interview. He had to buy an expensive last-minute plane ticket to get there, dropped his laptop, and felt like he said all the wrong things at the start of the interview. Yet, he was able to salvage the situation and eventually get the job!
• Craigslist
• Idealist.org
• Build your reputation for high-quality work within the company you work for

Sun Eco Responsibility Initiative

• Started as an R&D solution to an engineering problem - 5 years ago! (product line of energy-efficient processors)
• It turned out that IT cost problems were also environmental problems! (high energy consumption of data centers coupled with high energy costs)
• A way to sell their energy-efficient processor - so it seems there is a strong marketing aspect to this initiative

Tips & tricks for making the leap into green careers

• Know your green niche - YOUR special passions, skills, talents
• No magic bullet
• First focus on passion, not money

There were more tips, but I had to leave early! Check out Green Careers Central, though.

Alternative Gift Registry, and some very good news!

One of my major accomplishments this week was to finish my volunteer website development project at New American Dream's Alternative Gift Registry (check it out!).

You can see a few things that I worked on. Among other things, I added a bunch of new resources to their Green Celebration Tips page, and if you create a registry and browse the list of sample gift ideas, you will see a lot of my contributions on that list.

Finally - some nonprofit technical experience to add to my resume!!!

The best news of all is that after I completed this project, their IT guy said that he has some consulting budget money this year and would like to hire me to help with various projects as the need arises. Yay!!! I said yes and quoted him an hourly rate, which I have revised (upward) based on my findings on hourly rates in the nonprofit world. One caveat: I must pray that their funding does not suddenly dry up as it did in the last go-round!

New career, here I come!