Not one to work much on Saturday’s, or any time beyond my normal 45-50, I’ve taken today to attend a conference of the New England Organic Farmer’s Association. Here in Vermont there are hundreds of members. There are over 900 attendees at the conference! Clearly sustainability and security of food are real issues. Here in VT it obvious how seriously people take this stuff. I’ve got free time at the moment because the seminar I chose to attend has over 30 people standing and sitting on the floor, not to mention it’s on policy in the VT state legislature. There are 12 other seminars running at the same time and most of them are over-flowing like this one is. I’m just amazed. If America could generate the same type of interest at the national level in organics and sustainability, we might see the type of groundswell interest that the US needs to improve and secure its food supply. Possibly other types of resource over-consumption would be positively impacted as well. I’ll just keep coming to these events and sharing the knowledge and resource of this great group.
For the record, I managed to fill my car for the 58 mile (one-way) trip. That made me feel quite a bit better about coming out. The trip is also underwritten by my employer, a fact that I can’t easily overlook and am very thankful for. Thank you, NGA! I’ve made a few contacts so far, spoken to many interesting and earth-friendly folk and I’ve learned quite a bit. I hope my chosen seminar for the last session of the day is not quite so crowded. I’ll be sure to be early for this one . I even got to meet and chat with our newest VT State Senator: Bernie Sanders. That did not hurt . We at NGA are trying to get him to back one of our programs. Serendipity, I guess.
Winter has eased enough for me to think about shifting my Uniscorcher into winter commuter mode. I removed the lighting during the darker/colder period last month. Looks like the cold is going to ease up for a bit the next few weeks and I’m going to make a specific effort to keep my petrol-pot in the driveway and the Uni-muter on the road. Check back with me at the end of next week for the ‘mute stats.
There is no rust on my chain so far this winter. That is maybe not such a good sign. Last winter I rusted/lubed/rusted/lubed for quite a few cycles. This year has been more than a disappointment. Since my pneumonia in November, I’ve felt the cold more than ever, lost some weight and likely lost some circulation in my orbital parts that doesn’t seem to be recovering. My mom says I told you so with respect to “getting older” and how things just don’t work as well or stay as warm as they once did. VT is mostly too cold and snowy for that.
Kind of missing the ability to go ride trails in the winter like we could back in the Bend, Oregon days. Though it was cold there too, it was often possibly to drive 30 minutes or so out into the desert and get some good riding in. In fact, Bend and the surrounding area is home to some great riding that is realistically only usable in winter due to extreme dryness and dust in the “normal” riding season.
I have skied and snowboarded more than most folk will have the chance to in their lifetimes and decided a few years ago that enough was enough and came to the realization that I should focus more on work and ugh…”retirement”…settle down and make some money, ya know? I’ve been very successful at that. My wintersports motivation has suffered. I’ve been logging some good miles on the skinny skis, but haven’t ripped any tele turns. I’ve been up on the snowboard for a grand total of 10 runs for the year. Not quite like the beyond-my-wildest-dreams-100-plus day years of old. But it’s all part of the plan.
I figure if I can just save about 3 million, I can go back to my old 200 days of sport a year ideology and live healthily and happily ever after. I only need about $2.99 million more and I’ll be going back to the dream for sure. (laughing)….
A couple of big hit songs or movie scores would do a lot to help my cause. Let’s just say I’m continuing to pursue that dream. I really don’t expect any major windfalls to jumpstart my climb to retirement, but a couple of big checks certainly wouldn’t hurt. More on that later.
OK…time for my next seminar.
Catch you later.
G:5