Plus 1 to A2

So excited to be at TEDxUofM today! Inspirational updates to...

canuckemma — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 09:36:23 -0400

So excited to be at TEDxUofM today! Inspirational updates to come…

This popped up since last night near my place. No idea what it’s...

canuckemma — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 10:13:00 -0400

This popped up since last night near my place. No idea what it’s all about. The especially weird part is that a cop saw me taking photos, and stopped me to question me about it. Apparently someone called the police to report that someone was taking photos — perhaps suspiciously?

Update 1: Later that afternoon, the artists added “this” to the phrase. What are we supposed to remember?

Update 2: And the following morning, the whole thing was gone. Especially weird.

Spring is coming! First week I’ve seen pussywillows at the...

canuckemma — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 11:24:56 -0400

Spring is coming! First week I’ve seen pussywillows at the farmers market. They almost didn’t make it home since they fell out of my very full pannier biking back.

Happy Purim! Last night I attempted to make hamentaschen, the...

canuckemma — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:58:38 -0500

Happy Purim!

Last night I attempted to make hamentaschen, the cookie traditionally eaten on the holiday since they’re shaped like the tri-corner hat of Hamen, the bad guy of the story of Purim. Neat triangles are much harder to make out of dough than I expected.

The filling is normally apricot, poppy seed, or dates, but I used a fig-orange mixture, since I had dried figs left over from Tu B’Shvat.

The cookies might be a bit misshapen, but they are far the most yummy hamentaschen I’ve had. Hopefully Devin from Real Good Food and the guests at his potluck agree.

Guess who’s the guest blogger at Concentrate Magazine this...

canuckemma — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 10:24:01 -0500

Guess who’s the guest blogger at Concentrate Magazine this week? Today’s post is on getting around without a car, urban planning, and building community. Please share your thoughts!

My favourite way to travel. Off to Chicago to judge the Clean...

canuckemma — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:38:00 -0500

My favourite way to travel. Off to Chicago to judge the Clean Energy Challenge tomorrow!

I’ve grossly neglected writing about my involvement in the Michigan Clean Energy Venture Challenge. Short story is that I’ve been mentoring a team, EVStation, which is building an app to help EV drivers find appropriately located charging stations. They tied for best prototype! More on that later…

Happy 3rd birthday, SELMA Cafe! Gorgeous cake from local pastry...

canuckemma — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 13:29:39 -0500

Happy 3rd birthday, SELMA Cafe! Gorgeous cake from local pastry chef Sweet Heather Anne, showcased at SELMA’s volunteer party this weekend.

Happy Mardi Gras, Michigan style! Paczkis (pronounced...

canuckemma — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 09:40:40 -0500

Happy Mardi Gras, Michigan style!

Paczkis (pronounced “punch-kees”?) are a Polish treat, kind of like a doughnut, eaten on Shrove Tuesday as a last-ditch attempt to consume as much fat and sugar as possible before Lent.

Thanks to a couple co-workers for bringing them in!

I admit to preferring pancakes, but didn’t get up early enough to make some. Maybe for dinner instead?

Parsley! Just before Tu B’Shvat last weekend, an obscure...

canuckemma — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:15:45 -0500

Parsley!

Just before Tu B’Shvat last weekend, an obscure but fun holiday of the Jewish birthday for the trees, I visited the Matthaei Botanical Gardens, where the Jewish Cultural Society hosted a family-friendly event for the occasion.

One of the booths at the event had DIY parley planters. Mine finally sprouted today! Hopefully they can replace the larger plant that I seem to have neglected…

Thanks to all those who shared in Tu B’Shvat seder I co-hosted! Since the meal revolves around various types of fruit and wines, I was reminded that these holidays are much more fun to celebrate in a Mediterranean climate. We did our best to represent Michigan with some dried cherries and frozen strawberries & blueberries, but please forgive our carbon footprint for the imported citrus, pomegranates, nuts, and bananas.

Win a Valentine from Common Cycle! Send a love poem for your...

canuckemma — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:08:24 -0500

Win a Valentine from Common Cycle! Send a love poem for your bike to info@getdowntown.org to win one of these snazzy, homemade spoke cards.

Or, you can be one of the lucky people to have a card delivered straight to you, if your bike is in just the right spot today. I could be tucking one in your spokes soon…. (I didn’t mean for that to sound dirty.)

Happy Valentine’s Day! Here’s some advice if you’re looking for a green idea for your sweetie.

Back to winter! Freshly carved ice sculpture (of a bull outside...

canuckemma — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:59:07 -0500

Back to winter! Freshly carved ice sculpture (of a bull outside a local bank) to prove it. The artists said they’re doing about 20 around downtown this weekend.

Ann Arborites, mostly hippie-leaning, learned how to compost,...

canuckemma — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:43:45 -0500

Ann Arborites, mostly hippie-leaning, learned how to compost, track the sun throughout the year, and pick a doula at the ReSkilling Festival this past weekend. It was held at the Rudolf Steiner high school, where I think you graduate with unheard of levels of self-esteem and creativity.

I showed up at the event as a volunteer with Common Cycle, which hosted a winter cycling workshop. The answer this year, though, of how to bike in the winter is to put on an extra sweater. (Weather this weekend was amazing — almost 50F and sunny. Last year apparently there was a blizzard.) But we still gave a crowd of about a dozen people — mostly women — a range of tips on how to make it through the cold, wet, and snow.

I felt especially excited to present, since I got reacquainted with winter biking tips at an earlier Common Cycle workshop. I wanted to return the favour to other cyclists now that I have a bit of experience, and can prove that even someone who’s lived in California for the past 5 years can handle a bit of snow.

The first photo above is of an earlier session on winter tree identification. I mainly wanted to attend that one since it was outside on such a gorgeous day, but I’ve also been meaning to boost my understanding of Michigan ecology. The leaders, who I think were students at the School of Natural Resources, gave simple (albeit hard to remember) tips on what to look for in the absence of leaves — including whether the twigs branch opposite or alternating; the colour of the buds; and the shape of the bark. I need a good guide to follow these “diagnostics,” but I’m excited to boost my tool kit of field techniques.

Back inside, a display from the Hands On Museum was a fun way to nerd out understanding how the sun travels throughout each day and the year, and how that affects insolation on you house and solar panels. This is a great tactile way to get at concepts related to passive solar construction, and is much more intuitive the version where the light stays static and the “Earth” (i.e. table with your model on it) moves. My friend Matt, who was presenting on his Net Zero Energy Home, was impressed by the exhibit too.

If you missed this year’s ReSkilling Fest, check out the Hour School for more peer learning in your community.

New tire Not the best time to write about winter — since...

canuckemma — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:29:59 -0500

New tire

Not the best time to write about winter — since it just turned back to spring a few days ago! — but I did want to follow up with how the biking’s been going.

A couple of weekends ago, I finally got around to upgrading my tires. I’d been riding on some slick touring ones, which only sort of work in snow. Instead of dropping the ~$90 (each!) on studded tires, I took to the advice of Adam at my local bike shop, Sic Transit, who said I’d be fine most of the time with cyclocross (knobby) tires. After my 15% WBWC discout, they’re only about $50 each. And I went the even cheaper route of only buying one for up front.

My chance to test out the new cross tire came just a few days later, when we got a nice dusting. A world of difference. I can actually turn! It’s still not perfect, and I did slip a bit when I tried to make too tight of a turn up a small hill.

With the spring-time weather we’ve been having, I’m much happier with a knobby tire that works almost all the time (and getting off and walking for the small sections where I can’t plow through), rather than dealing with the loud, slow studded tires I’ve heard about.

We have a house! To rent, at least. Starting in August. As I...

canuckemma — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:02:31 -0500

We have a house!

To rent, at least. Starting in August. As I mentioned, we’ve been looking to move after our lease is up this summer. And it’s been kind of frustrating.

But the search is over! With the help of zillow.com, I found a post for a unit not listed on craigslist. After a few drive-bys, and two walk-throughs, we signed a lease this past Friday.

I’m really excited. The photo above is kinda crappy (although everything outside looks crappy this time of year), but it’s to show off our new deck. The house is all to ourselves, with 3 bedrooms — enough for a separate study and guest bedroom — so visitors are welcome even more now. The outside is pretty tacky (a weird extension with weird siding), but the inside is nice, with a connected living room and dining room, and hardwood floors and woodwork. The kitchen even has a gas stove and stone countertops, although it is laid out a bit strangely.

Location is great — on N 7th St, between Miller and Huron, overlooking a park. Both of our commutes to work will be almost exactly the same, but my walk/bike in will be much prettier. And most importantly, it’s a much faster walk to bars & restaurants (15-20 min vs. 30-35 min we have now).

Move-in is the weekend of August 4, so mark your calendars for helping schlep, or more importantly, chilling with beers on the deck afterwards!

All politics are local

canuckemma — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:08:43 -0500

Another reminder of why being in a small city is great for getting connected to your community: In the past week, I’ve gotten to meet both my local city councilor, Sandi Smith, and the Mayor of Ann Arbor.

I met Sandi at a Green Drinks event, since it’s organized by her son. Sandi and her partner had just returned from Lansing, advocating for domestic partners’ rights. She explained more about the issue, which I’d heard about in passing, but hadn’t heard the latest on. In Michigan, it recently became illegal for state workers to receive benefits for their domestic partners. While this doesn’t excuse the immorality of this law, at least state university employees (including at UofM) are exempt, and the City of Ann Arbor will continue to offer benefits to domestic partners. I’m guessing it’ll be awhile before the law changes in Michigan, but hopefully pressure from cities like Ann Arbor and large institutions will help.

Yesterday, at the after party for the Worst Day of the Year Ride, held at Arbor Brewing Company, the mayor — who introduced himself as John — stopped by to chat with a friend I was sitting with. So exciting! Especially great to see him dressed in bike gear. I complimented him for his fast, personal response he sent me about the crosswalk ordinance; he said he tries to get back to all of his constituents quickly.

A far cry from anticipating watching motorcades fly by when President Obama visits on Friday.

In other news, I couldn’t attend the ride part of the Worst Day of the Year Ride since I was in a 5-hr board retreat for the Washtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition. We sadly didn’t get through our very ambitious agenda (finalizing our first 5-year plan and our 2012 work plan, among other smaller items), but we did accomplish a lot. I’m really excited for the organizational growth and actual changes on the ground that we have in store!

Padmapper is a godsend. We’re looking to move this summer,...

canuckemma — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:51:00 -0500

Padmapper is a godsend.

We’re looking to move this summer, to a place that’s more walkable to downtown, a bit bigger, and less boring. (We had 5 days to look for a place in the greater Detroit area in the middle of the summer, and boring but functional is what we got.)

The rental market in Ann Arbor, and probably any other college town, is ridiculous. Starting to look for an apartment in January, for a lease to start in the summer/fall, is late to the draw. Finding a grown-up place in a walkable neighbourhood is even more challenging. I don’t think we could find exactly what we’re looking for (good location, house-like, back yard, bike parking), even if we wanted to pay an arm and a leg.

I’ve been scouring padmapper for any decent listings that come up. Much, much easier that sifting through pages and pages of craigslist ads that aren’t anywhere near where we’re looking, since padmapper pins all the listings from different sites on a map. But even the places I’ve bothered to see in person have been mostly duds. Today, my significant other is doing a second viewing of the most promising apartment I’ve seen. Hopefully it passes his smell test.

Luckily, this whole process, while frustrating, isn’t as soul-sucking as looking for a job.

Silver lining to winter progressing: it’s actually getting...

canuckemma — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:28:48 -0500

Silver lining to winter progressing: it’s actually getting light out when I head out to work! Much less depressing than leaving and coming home in the dark.

And we’re back. To a balmy Michigan winter! Yes, that is...

canuckemma — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:58:00 -0500

And we’re back. To a balmy Michigan winter! Yes, that is indeed blue sky you see. In January. Not shown: thermometre at 50F — almost t-shirt temperature for this time of year.

I know I’ll eat my words soon when it plummets below 0, but so far we’ve only had a few weeks of weather worse than San Francisco. And a whole summer of much, much better.

Our guests were quite industrious at our holiday party last...

canuckemma — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 09:36:00 -0500

Our guests were quite industrious at our holiday party last weekend. I inherited ~30 lbs of (mostly stale) brightly-coloured candy from the previous gingerbread decorating extravaganza I attended. I wanted to dwindle that down as much as possible, so I brought out the goods at our place.

My first attempt at royal icing and gingerbread turned out rather successfully. (Pieces stayed together, and no one died of salmonella.) Emerging from the pile of sugar included a structurally sound and detailed house by the carpenters, and some really creepy gingerpeople by the artists in the croud.

I don’t think we made much of a dent in the candy pile, though, especially since we were also given a 3 lb bag of gummi bears (which I remember being delicious, but sadly are off-limits to me now since they contain gelatin).

The party gave us a chance to mix friend worlds, eat piles of food, and add brandy to whatever we were drinking. Thanks to everyone for coming!

Finally, a white Christmas in Nova Scotia! And just yesterday,...

canuckemma — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 08:37:49 -0500

Finally, a white Christmas in Nova Scotia! And just yesterday, it was gross and wet and grey — more typical for a Maritime winter. Hopefully the snow lasts for tomorrow night, but the roads get cleared so I can visit friends and family…