Californication meets Tranpacificism

I visited this NGO called SCOPE in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. As their website seems currently inaccessible, you can take a look at their a photo album which showcases some of their projects.

I was a little frustrated during my time spent with them. They didn’t have the vision for projects like greywater re-use, or affecting the sewage outfall from normal houses. They also seemed un or under-interested in spreading gardening, notably on a household scale which could not only directly affect hunger, but also give a place for their compost to go, easily closing the loop.
Here’s a cool Wired story: “Build a Square foot Garden,” which helps illustrate that a lot can be down with a little. (Bit of space, in this case.)

I also ran across a WSJ video, posted on Conscious Consuming‘s blog, about Urban Farming. I’m a really big advocate of urban farming. Partially because people are leaving the “Rural”/”countryside,” but also because that’s where the people are, and there’s a _lot_ of wasted space in cities. People should be close to their food, in location, understanding, and more.

I think I had a lot more to say on this, but going to close this post at this..

Wow, as of nov’11, most links in this post are dead! Eek.

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What’s happenin’ New York City! So I spent 2 weeks in New York, which sounds like a long time, but I still didn’t feel finished with it! I’ll tell you what I did there though, because it was fun! BTW – I was in NYC (and Philly and DC and Chicago and Niagara Falls) in ’92 for a quick jaunt with my parents+bro, which i can still remember bits of.

Well first I must tell you that, by coincidence, the day after the wedding (the day I left Chicago for NY) was my good friend Lydia‘s birthday! What’s the chance of that! She had a whole+cool day planned out, from morning til night, with dinner at an interesting sounding place, Habana Outpost a “Eco-Eatery”, that I missed due to major lagging. I’d like to have such an action-packed (and convenient!) birthday myself! Hmm, better start thinkin if that’s the case! But Derek was already visiting Lydia, and anyways her apartment is tiny.. so what to do! If I didn’t have to drop my stuff off elsewhere in NY first and then come over I could come over faster.. (I could have, I still lagged, d’oh!) Then.. (DUN DUN DA DUH!)
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Cool, added paragraphs to this post and WordPress Auto-save did _NOT_ work. Ar! So I start again.. This post was going to be my thoughts before my trip, but unfortunately I didn’t make it, so! Here’s what I did, and could have done, but back-dated. I flew from SJ to O’Hare and took a Coach USA bus to Milwaukee, WI to visit some family (mom’s sis+her fam), and saw Downtown while I was there. It was interesting to see they had a a riverwalk as well, which was kinda cool, not too many interesting things on the way though. It was generally chill (and cold by the lake , I wouldn’t have guessed that they had such a happening downtown! Maybe everyones downtowns put San Jose to shame, dunno! And I took the public/city bus to get there, I always enjoy a nice ride on public transit–especially when I’m feeling less shy..

Unfortunately I didn’t do anything for Earth Day/wk but sleep/hang out in the burbs, there was cool stuff going on in Chicago, as I found on a (live earth-related) Earth Day website, ranging from events at UoC, interfaith discussions, hikes, Mt. Trashmore at Northwestern(!), and a park cleanup. Alas.. Next year? I visited Milwaukee, Chicago and the burbs in this trip though, what was in downtown you ask– (BTW, Just uploaded all my Chi and Mil pix)

It's the Cloud Gate

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(originally titled “Action coming soon,” but Saqib thought that _I’m_ doing some new initiatives, so changed.. it’s really more of a Mass Update #1, This post mostly written weeks ago..)

So, I’ve done a couple of things now. I’ve got the contact info for the 2 YHA Hostels (one official, the other not so sure!), got in contact with a few trekking organizations (Get off Ur Ass, Ozone India, Kalypso Adventures, Kali Rafting, & Empowercamp.com), emailled a few friends, Anand Bemra and Venkatesh Murthy, who were really involved with HSS in the US, to get some ideas on what I could do in terms of service (and will no doubt be connected into Sangh ^[1] ). Possibly not surprisingly, Venkatesh has only been in Bangalore for 6 months, and has ALREADY started a new project! It’s called Youth for Seva, and its intent is to see volunteerism among India’s youth similar to what is seen in the US. I also emailled another friend (Niket Sirsi) to get some ideas of what to do in terms of adventuring.. (more…)

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This was originally titled “What to do after Graduation?”, but I changed that to that last post (re end of college career), (Then “Passage..”) and now this is here more to tell you what happens for me immediately after graduation & my trip. I hung out in Arcata for a little over a week after Commencement and the related multiple days of packing up. (Links to Goodbye pics album)
The extra week involved visiting friends+hanging out in Arcata, Eureka, and then on the way down as well (Santa Rosa, SF Bay Area, Sacramento), and then I got home, brought all my sh*t in the house, and started unpacking, so I could repack, and have more space. I didn’t finish, oops. I was supposed to be planning my trip as well, and I neither did that, nor bought a Lonely Planet guidebook (there are two, India, and South India, one of which I bought last time (where is it?)), nor checked out the LP’s Thorn Tree Forum (recommended to me by John), or did any other sort of internet research. But what do I really want to do there? (more…)

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