New and Exciting forms of Transportation

I wrote earlier about how I decided to sell my car over the summer. I've now been carless for half a year and it was a great decision. One of the most interesting parts of not having a car is coming up with other ways of transporting yourself. Although Atlanta isn't the most walkable city, it is very possible to live here and not own a car. The weather is nice enough and the terrain is flat enough that walking, biking, and public transportation are pretty legitimate options for transportation.

The first few months of being carless, I relied almost entirely on my bicycle and ZipCar, which is a car-sharing service available in most major cities. But then I realized how efficient and useful a scooter could be, so I decided to buy one. At the time, I wasn't sure if it was a good decision or not. But it's a perfect way of getting around the city. It's got a basket and everything. Perfect for running errands or going grocery shopping. Also, it gets about 70 mpg, and I don't have to spend $600 for a GT parking permit. I can park the thing wherever I want! No registration, no insurance, no motorcycle license required because it's under 50cc. And there's room for a passenger. This is usually what I look like when I'm riding it around:



Also, Grey and I decided to build a tandem bike from 2 vintage road bikes that we found on craigslist. This thing took a ton of time and effort to build, and it's still not complete. But at the moment it's rideable. I'd say it's the definition of a franken-bike--we used 3 frames, various parts from other bikes, tires and wheels from my bike, and brakes from Grey's bike. So neither of our personal bikes is rideable at the moment, but it's alright because we have an incredible homemade tandem. Onward to the pictures.


This was when we still had 2 frames..trying to get the spacing right before welding.

Our roommate Clayton helped with cutting and welding. He did a great job.
"Best Friends for Life". Molly was the head decorator/painter.

Lots and lots of clearcoat.

Working at the local bike co-operative, Sopo.

Coming together, but still missing a few things.

We turned our hallway into a bike workshop.

This is the current state of the tandem. It's definitely a head-turner.

It's impossible to be upset while riding a tandem, or a scooter with a basket on the back. Two-wheeled transportation is the way to go!

To Shoot or Not to Shoot

I've been thinking lately about some things that I'd like to experience in my life but haven't gotten a chance to yet. If you know me you might be a little surprised by this, but I really have the desire to go hunting at least once. Growing up in Western Pennsylvania, hunting was a big deal to a lot of people. There was always a pretty noticeable amount of my friends missing from school on the first day of hunting season, and I always got a chance to eat some deer jerky later on in the season.

Nowadays we are so far removed from our food that most of the time we don't even think about where it came from. Some people may think of this as a good thing, but I think it's one of the major downfalls of having a highly industrialized food industry. Our food is not something to be taken for granted, and one of the reasons I don't eat a lot of meat anymore is because I really have no idea where it came from or how the animals were treated. Fruits and vegetables aren't a big deal because anyone can grow them in their back yard, but meat is a different story. I have a feeling that if everyone could see the industrialized and non-regulated process of turning a cow into a McDonald's hamburger, the beef industry would be absolutely screwed. Veggie burgers for everyone! Yum.

Anyways, I would think of my hunting experience as kind of an emotional experiment. I've never seen an animal die in order to become someone's food. I wonder if I would feel happy after shooting a deer or a boar or a turkey. I'm sure that after a day of waiting outside in the freezing cold for even the slightest glimpse of an animal, I would feel relieved at finally getting one. Maybe I would feel remorseful and upset that I took the life of another creature. I wonder if it would make me feel more thankful about getting the opportunity to eat meat, rather than taking for granted our seemingly endless source of factory-farmed meat. Regardless, I would feel a thousand times better about eating a wild animal that I killed rather than one that comes pre-marinated in some shrink wrap in the meat section of Kroger.

So someone please take me hunting, and I'll let everyone know what it's like to actually feel connected to my food.

The Burgh, Part 1

It has really been a while since I updated. My apologies. I've been spending the summer so far either working at Newcomb & Boyd or outside enjoying (and sweating in) the hot Georgia summer. I just got back yesterday from a trip to Pittsburgh, a place I rarely get to see anymore. I'm beginning to realize that my love for the city grows more and more each time I go back. Maybe it's the nostalgia that many people feel for their hometown after they have been gone for a while. That definitely has something to do with it, but there are a couple other reasons in my case. This may seem kind of superficial, but Pittsburgh's recent sports success has made me even more loyal and proud of the city.

I'm sure you all know that this past year both the Steelers and the Penguins won championships in their respective sports. This may not seem like a big deal to most people, but for a Pittsburgher, it's like winning the lottery. When Santonio and Big Ben held up the Lombardi Trophy for millions around the country to see, it was as if we as Pittsburghers were also up there, proudly holding that trophy for everyone to see. It was the same way with Sidney Crosby and the Stanley Cup. I felt as if I were right next to him drinking champagne out of that big shiny Cup. And I'm not even that big of a hockey fan compared to some of the people I know. Chad Hermann describes our pride at that moment of sports history so well...

"And I'd like them, if only for a moment, to consider the sustainable growth, or perhaps the community benefit, of living and sharing and carrying those moments within you, of waking up with an extra bounce in your step and what feels like a fluttering rally towel in your chest, knowing that everything you do, every last bit of work or stress you face between now and the end of the week or maybe the start of next season, will come a little easier, will carry a hop and a smile and a whole lot of buoyant, extra energy because those gritty, gutty kids just kept on working and winning and making you feel, even on the most dark and dismal of days, that you, your family, and your wonderful little corner of the world had one more thing to look forward to, to be thankful for, and now forever to celebrate, together."

I ran into Evgeni Malkin (#71 for the Pens) in the Atlanta airport the other day, and I was so starstruck that I didn't even know how to react. I knew that I had to say something to him to congratulate him and the Penguins for their championship, but I ended up stumbling over my words while saying something along the lines of "nice job Geno..we're proud of you!" I think I spoke so quickly that he didn't really understand what I was saying. Poor Russian. It's funny that he can walk all over the Atlanta airport and no one will know who he is, but as soon as he walks up to the gate for the Pittsburgh flight, people are smiling at him and congratulating him right and left. Instant celebrity status.

It was an incredible season for the Penguins and made me so proud to call Pittsburgh my hometown. Nice job Geno.

Five down, four to go

Last week I finished up my fifth semester at Georgia Tech, and it ended up being the best semester that I've had since I've been in college. It was not only the best grade-wise, but also the most well-rounded and worthwhile semester so far. 

Most of you know that last fall I got involved in a student organization on campus called Environmental Alliance. I hadn't been involved in any real organizations until then and i decided that it was about time to get involved in the campus. By the time spring semester came around, I got drawn further and further into the organization and ended up being deeply involved in almost every environmental event and made contacts with some of the most important people at Georgia Tech. I felt like if I wasn't at class or doing homework, I was at some kind of meeting with Housing, Facilities, RHA, Recycling, or SGA. It was almost too much to handle at times.

Why does all of this matter? I think the key to success in college or in the real world is to find a cause that you care about and become passionately involved in it. Whether it's the environment, human rights, volunteer work, charity, the arts, or anything else that ultimately helps to make the world a better place--it adds more of a meaning to your life. It gave me the motivation to keep working hard in my classes.

At this point in my college career, I have no idea how I made it through past semesters without being involved in some sort of organization. The monotonous nature of Georgia Tech's course curriculum (especially for engineering) seems like it's enough to drive a student to madness without something else to balance it out. One of the things that GT needs drastic improvement on is overall balance of it. As a science and math school, it should require students to take at least one humanities or arts course each semester. The amount of science and engineering classes that they make us take is borderline ridiculous. There's no way for us to become well-rounded people who can contribute to society without having a balanced curriculum. This doesn't just apply to math and science-related majors--liberal arts majors should be taking plenty of science and math courses as well.

We students need to become more involved in the world around us. Next semester I'll try to dedicate even more of my time to sustainability initiatives at Tech and in Atlanta. We made some big steps last semester with the overall sustainability of Georgia Tech, but it still has a long way to go. And as you can tell from my last couple posts, I'm really excited about the direction that the city of Atlanta is moving in. The Beltline keeps progressing and I really want EAGT (my organization) to get more involved in the community by volunteering for the Beltline initiative. Something else that I'd like to get involved in is Engineers Without Borders. With so many things going on around me that I'm interested in, I couldn't think of a better time to be a college student.

Critical Mass

On the last Friday of every month, people organize an event in every major city called a Critical Mass. It's a group of people, anywhere from a couple dozen to several thousand, that take over the city streets on their bicycles. They stop traffic and ride around the city in order to raise awareness for bicycling. Since I'm selling my car soon and getting more and more into biking, I decided to participate in Atlanta's Critical Mass with a couple friends. 

The Atlanta CM website said that they start meeting at 6pm at Woodruff park, which is right smack in the middle of downtown Atlanta. We headed down there from campus right around 6 and waited for about 30 minutes as bikers poured in from all directions. It was a beautiful day and the park had a celebratory atmosphere. By 6:45, there were several hundred bikers of all different shapes and sizes scattered around the park. I noticed so many different kinds of people: young, old, gay, straight, black, white, asian..even a guy riding a GIANT purple unicycle. Not to mention I got a chance to meet a local celebrity (sorta): Angel Poventud. And yes, he was wearing the same green dress that he's wearing in that picture.

The guy in the green dress yelled out "MASS UP!" and everyone got together and started biking. We rode the length of Peachtree Street from downtown to the south edge of Buckhead, through Tech's campus, up to Piedmont Park and through Virginia Highlands, and ended up in Little 5 Points. I felt like I was involved in a giant celebration of Fridays and Bicycles. Wherever we rode, people came out of their houses and restaurants and waved to us. The frat houses at Tech held up a sign that said something like 'You honk and we drink'. And even though we didn't have horns, I still saw them drink a lot of beer. Even drivers didn't seem that upset that we blocked up traffic along some of the busiest roads in Atlanta. Most of them just had a confused look on their faces. It's not every day that you see hundreds of bicyclists riding down Peachtree Street. 

I can see how a lot of people dislike the idea of a Critical Mass. It's a great idea to promote bicycles and to make Atlanta a more bike-friendly city, but it seems like CM might give cyclists a negative image around the city because we were blatantly violating traffic signals. It might not be a great thing if it happened more than once a month, but I'm all in favor for designating one day for the cyclists to take over the streets and not have to worry about the constant threat of cars. It seemed like the police were pretty supportive, or at least neutral, to the whole event because I didn't notice a large presence anywhere along the route. I look at the whole thing as a celebration and not a protest. And I'm all for celebrations.

I overheard one of the other bikers saying that being involved in CM is like turning Atlanta into a giant park. We had the ability to bike down some roads that I would never even dream of biking down because of the ridiculous traffic flow. We got the chance to see the city in a way that I've never seen it before. I felt like I was actually a part of a community because I wasn't shut away from the rest of the world in a car. I'm free to see all the people and places that make Atlanta such a unique city. Hopefully more people become involved in it in the future and our numbers grow from several hundred to several thousand. Can't wait until Critical Mass next month!

Two Sides of Atlanta

I went on a bike ride today through the Midtown/Virginia Highlands part of Atlanta. A lot of people might not think of it as the most bike-friendly city, but parts of it are actually pretty good. When you first drive into the city on one of the highways, it looks like a sprawling mess of roads and skyscrapers. It has some of the widest and most congested roads I've ever seen in my life.You can be driving on an 18-lane highway at midnight and traffic will still get backed up. How the hell does that happen? Most of the time, people can't even walk to the grocery store. The public transportation system is sparse considering the population of the metro area. Downtown is so spread out that it doesn't even really feel like a downtown. Buckhead is so far away that it looks like a separate city. It's been rated as one of the most wasteful cities in the country. This is the image of Atlanta a lot of people have. But I'm starting to see a separate side to Atlanta that makes me very hopeful.

The neighborhoods in Midtown and VA Highlands are a great start. They're mostly small houses with little gardens on tree-lined streets, right in the middle of Atlanta. When I was biking, I felt like I was transported back in time. I saw things that you don't see much in most suburbs. Almost no cars on the streets, people walking around and biking, neighbors visiting each other, and even some little markets advertising their ice cold Cokes and old-fashioned coin laundries. All within walking/biking distance of the shops, restaurants, and office buildings of Midtown. Not to mention Piedmont park, where there's lots of space for people to take a break from the city.

A lot of condos and apartment buildings have been coming up along Peachtree street and Atlantic Station. People that live there can use MARTA, work nearby, and walk or bike almost everywhere they need to go. This is the way a city should be. There's high income housing, middle income, and lower income housing. If you live at Atlantic Station, you can go almost anywhere you want without the need for a car. There's a movie theater, grocery store, restaurants, office buildings, gym, and almost everything else within walking distance. And if it's not close by, the shuttle takes you to the nearby Arts Center MARTA station. It's the opposite of the suburban sprawl that's been eating up the entire metro area and a model of how a community should be designed.

I guess it's kind of ironic that I'm so against the idea of suburban sprawl since I grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh. Being under the age of 16, there's no way to get around unless someone drives you around in his or her car. To me, the idea that I need a car to get anywhere is kind of ridiculous. That's simply not how cities should be designed. The suburbs were created as a way for people to escape the poverty and problems of the city. If there's a problem in the city, it doesn't mean that all the rich people should run away from it and have a nice house with a two-car garage while other people are suffering. They should come together and help the less fortunate people. It's too bad that this is just the way it works in America. I could go on about this, but it can wait until another post.

Back to Atlanta. Besides the new housing thats sprouting up all over the city, there are a lot of new initiatives to make it a more sustainable and people-friendly place. A couple weeks ago, the Freshman Council at Georgia Tech organized a "blackout party" in honor of Earth Hour. I was really surprised to hear that our city councilman Kwanza Hall was going to show up and talk to us. I didn't get a chance to meet and talk with him, but I really like that he showed us so much support by coming out to an event and talking to the students.

It really seems like Atlanta is committed to making itself a better and more progressive city. Every new building in both the city and on campus has to be LEED silver certified. There can't be a net loss of trees from this point on within the city limits. Downtown is aiming to be a 'zero waste' zone. The beltline initiative is gaining momentum and support from both citizens and congress. Suburban sprawl is slowing and more people are moving back to the city. Mayor Shirley Franklin is going to hire 200 new policemen. There will be an electric streetcar running up and down Peachtree Street. Georgia Tech will be reducing its energy usage by at least 15% by 2020. Trees Atlanta and other NPOs seem to be gaining more and more support by the day. Car sharing programs like ZipCar are making it possible to not own a car and still live in Atlanta, and bike lanes are popping up everywhere.

It's still no Portland or New York, but there's much more to Atlanta than meets the eye.

Costa Rica

I was lucky enough to go to Costa Rica with my family over spring break. We stayed in the capital, San Jose, but we ended up seeing a pretty big portion of the country by taking day trips. At first I didn't really know what to expect through these trips since they were arranged by a small travel agency in our hotel. I really didn't want to be those tourists who go around in a bus, get out for 5 minutes at a time, take lots of pictures, and continue on our way. 

Instead, I thought we should just go to the main bus terminal in San Jose, pick a place and visit on our own without any guides or anything. But now when I look back on it, I'm really glad we did a bunch of guided tours because we learned so much about the country and got to do some things that we never would've had a chance to do otherwise. Plus the only spanish I really know is what I learned in 11th grade, so I can basically just count to 20 and say the alphabet. 

I was going to meet my parents in Charlotte and fly straight from there, but we ended up in a little predicament with the airline. What is it with airlines? I think they all have a grudge against me. We ended up staying overnight in Charlotte and leaving the next day. It really surprised me that the flight from Charlotte to San Jose is only 4 and a half hours long. That's almost nothing! I was expecting something more like 6 or 7 hours. 

Tuesday, March 17th:  We got to San Jose in the afternoon and didn't really have time to do much except go downtown and walk around the city. It had a really nice downtown area that was really pedestrian friendly. There were lots of tourists walking around intermingled with all the "Ticos", which is a nickname for people from Costa Rica. Even though the downtown is small, the city is enormous and very sprawled out just like most US cities, and traffic there was terrible. I thought Atlanta traffic was bad..it doesn't even compare to San Jose. We ate dinner at a small restaurant downtown that someone at the hotel recommended. I had my first taste of fried plantains there. They serve them with every meal in Costa Rica and they're incredible.

Wednesday, March 18th: We decided to go on a big day tour on Wednesday. It seemed like we did so much that there wasn't a moment of resting. But I really got to see the landscape and the people of the country, even though we were going everywhere in a mini-bus with a tour guide. The first thing we did was go up to the top of a volcano called Volcan Irazu in the Central region of the country. Apparently if you get there early enough before the clouds get really thick, you can see the Pacific and the Caribbean from the peak of the volcano. We ended up getting to the top around 11:30am after picking up lots of other tourists that were staying all over San Jose and eating breakfast at a small restaurant on the way up the mountain. This particular volcano had a road that winded all the way up to the peak, which is about 12,000 feet above sea level. I thought we were going to die a few times because they don't really use guard rails in Costa Rica, but our bus driver was great. The tour guide Victor did a great job of explaining to us the history of the still active volcano. Of course I took lots of pictures from the top of the volcano and some of them actually turned out really good. Unfortunately there was a lot of cloud cover so we couldn't really see much past the mountain except for the peaks of a few other mountains. But it was still incredible to be so high up and looking down at the clouds and everything else.

After the volcano, we traveled north through the rainforest for a boat tour of a river called Rio Saripiqui. Costa Rica does an incredible job of protecting its land and it seemed like every hour or so we were driving through another enormous national park. It's really incredible how the scenery, weather, and landscape changes in Costa Rica. It seems like every possible type of ecosystem is packed into this country that's not even as big as West Virginia. It went from being dry, warm, and sunny in the central valley to being incredible humid, rainy, and even a little chilly in the rainforest. I heard Victor talk about how 6% of the world's biodiversity is in Costa Rica. It may not seem like much, but he compared it to 3% in Brazil, which contains the Amazon Rainforest. We made it through the rainforest, stopped and got some snacks, and got in our little boat, which Victor nicknamed "The Titanic". It held about 20 people. I decided I like the Costa Rican sense of humor.

We traveled north along the river for about an hour and a half, almost to the Nicaraguan border. We would stop about every quarter of a mile and Victor would point out various plants, animals, and birds. At one point we stopped and he said, "on the right you will see two homo sapiens fishing. They are really rare around here." Victor was the man. When they decided to stop the boat, I knew they saw an animal that they wanted to show us, but I could never see it until they actually pointed it out. At one point we stopped under a giant tree and Victor pointed to some small black shapes high up in the branches. He said that they were howler monkeys, and as the captain turned the boat's motor back on with a rumble, the howler monkeys responded with one of most unique sounds I've ever heard. It was incredible. We saw a lot of other animals, including bats hanging from a tree trunk, some ducks, more homo sapiens, an iguana, a blue heron, and a couple crocodiles.

Thursday March 19th: We were exhausted from our day trip on Wednesday. We decided to go on a tour of a coffee plantation, since Costa Rica is so famous for its coffee. The place that we went to is the packaging and roasting center for a company called Britt Coffee. If you go to the San Jose airport, you'll know how big of a deal they are since every store in the airport is a Britt store. 

The plant was about 15 minutes from our hotel, just north of San Jose. They had a small field of coffee plants just outside and two tour guides took us through the fields and explained the entire process to us. They told us that coffee plants can produce fruit (coffee comes from a fruit!) for up to 30 years. I thought it was really exciting to hear how committed they were to waste reduction, organic coffee production, and overall sustainability. They don't use any man-made chemicals and pesticides on the coffee plants. This prevents chemicals from seeping into the ground and ending up as run-off into streams and rivers, and eventually the ocean. Also, it's much healthier for the workers, since coffee has to be picked by hand. Also, they use all of the remnants of the processed coffee fruit as compost for the fields. As one of the tour guides put it, they mix it with "chicken shit" first.

It's crazy how much the coffee fruit has to be processed before it can actually be used. Once the fruit is skinned and processed enough to get to the coffee bean that we know inside, the beans have to be dried on a giant patio and constantly raked by workers. After that, they take it to a roasting oven where it's roasted for a different amount of time depending on what type of coffee it is. I also learned how to make espresso and cappuccino at the end of our tour. The people at Britt were really friendly and knew just about everything that you would want to know about coffee.  

Friday, March 20th: This was our last full day in Costa Rica. It seemed like the only part of the country that we hadn't seen was the coast, so we scheduled a boat tour to an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean called Isla Tortuga. Even though the island is a big tourist attraction, it wasn't that crowded and it was still in beautiful condition. A bus picked us up from our hotel and we headed out to the pacific coast while stopping about halfway for a delicious breakfast of rice and beans, scrambled eggs, some cheese, and of course fried plantains. 

The boat was pretty large and the crew even played some music for us. I got a chance to meet some really interesting people from all over the place. Of course there were a lot of Americans but I also got to meet a couple Costa Ricans that were on the tour as well. When we got close to the island, most of the young people separated from everyone else and went snorkeling. The water was incredibly clear and a couple of the tour guides came with us. I really appreciated them coming because every few minutes they would swim to the ocean floor and pick up some new and interesting creature to show us. They pulled up a couple different types of starfish, a sea cucumber, and even an octopus! The water was really clear, which I wasn't expecting at all since it was in the pacific ocean. 

Saturday, April 21: Our vacation came to an end on Saturday. I was definitely not ready to leave Costa Rica. I'm really thankful that I got the opportunity to see such a great country. The thing that I liked most about Costa Rica is the beautiful scenery and national parks. It seems like the country is making a real effort towards conservation. During the dry season, the entire country is powered by renewable energy and it seemed like most people are pretty environmentally aware. Since it doesn't have an army, it invests that money into healthcare and education which I think are two of the best possible uses for government money. What a great place.