Sustainable Energy/Building/Health

FYI:

NESEA's BuildingEnergy07:
The Practice of Sustainability – Building for a Changing Climate
March 13-15, 2007 at the Seaport World Trade Center, Boston, MA

BuildingEnergy07 features in-depth workshops and sessions by more than 150 experts on a wide range of topics - climate change in the U.S. and abroad; carbon stabilization; high performance buildings--including green hospitals; adaptive re-use; large scale renewables; daylighting; near net zero energy buildings; wind power; green design; integrated water systems; solar applications; financing green projects; green campuses and institutions; human health issues.... and much more. This year's focus on Climate Change includes a FREE PUBLIC FORUM on Wind Power in the Wild. If you care about sustainability, this is where you belong! For more information visit http://buildingenergy.nesea.org.

Baby report

I've been asked for a baby report. Here's the deal: She weighs three pounds and has three months to go. She is currently in the 40th percentile (basically average size). She will grow at an incredible rate in the next three months. It's said if babies kept growing at this rate they'd weigh 200 lbs by the time they were one year old.

She kicks me all day long but really seems to be prone to dancing or running a marathon or building a rocket or something betwen about 3AM and 7AM. She occasionally gets the hiccups in the evening, which feel like a light rapping. She does not have a name, since you slackers never send me any.

She swallows, sticks her tongue out, blinks her eyes, and has a lot going on in her growing brain. She has some hair growing out of the back of her head, which looks Very silly on an ultrasound. She is working on getting some good working lungs. She is spoiled by having a very large pool to swim in. And since I'm now supposed to be taking it easy and am being monitored weekly due to frequent "false" contractions and the small amount of extra amniotic fluid, the baby also has her own weekly TV show (ultrasound).

This week on her show she entertained an ultrasound tech, a resident, and the department head by showing how much she moves around constantly, and then while on an extreme close up she took her time with a long yawn. Here is a photo from last week's episode of Baby TV. It's not as clear as past ones, but is also kind of remarkable, as it shows her face (tilt your head to the right) with chubby cheeks, rather than her previous Skeletor look. We may not see that again until she's out in the world as she's big enough that its hard to capture that on the ultrasound now.

Tucson, AZ

After a few anxiety-producing pregnancy issues and a couple days of tests to be sure I was travel-safe, I went to Tucson, AZ this week for the gem show. This is like at least forty gem shows that take over the town -- convention centers, giant tents, whole hotels where every room is a different vendor. . . it goes on and on and on.

It's overwhelming for the heartiest of shoppers, and was definitely a bit much for this way pregnant lady. I stopped a lot, watched a lot of demos and presentations and workshops, and chugged a lot of water. I saw people I knew and met people I'd heard of, tried new tools, learned about gems, and I had a very good time. I bought just a few things; mainly I got an understanding of the scene for other trips.

My friend, jeweler Jade Moran, traveled with me, and we stayed with my wonderful aunt. So, it was as safe and comfortable and fun as possible. The last day, the three of us just went and played. We drove down to the artist colony town Tubac (a day before their extensive arts fair began!) and wandered galleries and outdoor sculpture gardens for half the day. (This fountain dripped water off of her hair, which was super cool....)



Then we went back north to the Sonoran Desert Museum, which has miles of trails going to various outdoor live wildlife exhibits. Since the kicking beachball and I were a bit tired by then and we had a short amount of time to see the sights, I got wheeled around in a wheelchair at high speed, screaming and laughing as we visited bobcats and ocelots and several enclosed aviaries.



We admired the view from the visitor center of Saguaro National Park, then stopped in a mountain pass to watch the sunset before going out for Mexican. It was a fabulous day.



I'd only been north of Phoenix before, so it was a real treat seeing the cacti and very Western movie type landscape of closer to the border. I don't think I'd want to mountain bike there...they had me nervous enough about going flying from the wheelchair. See, it's a rather sharp place:





And...you always have to make sure you're not being followed!