First.
Let me say that as I'm writing this, my incredibly supportive and loving friends are purchasing a ticket for me back to Indiana to spend what I'm sure will be a wonderful long weekend. I love them all. I'll be coming in October 1st, and leaving that Monday. Prepare your hearts, minds, and livers accordingly.
Second.
I've found a new inner strength through a source I'm sure many people have used before. Sometimes I feel that the spirit of this man who lived for us here on earth, to bring us out of our worldly misery into a new light is flowing through me, and permeates every inch of my body. When I think of his works, I find peace inside. If it's not obvious already, if you are asking "Who is this wonderful person whose life work serves our human brothers" I'm talking of course of Billy Joel. My job is incredibly fulfilling, and I'll miss it a lot. Even the most fulfilling job doesn't guard against the stresses of life though. That's why lately when I'm feeling stressed, usually from financial matters, I turn to the Gospel of Billy J:
Third.
As far as my life in South Carolina goes, I wasn't kidding about the fulfilling part of the job. As some of you may know, I'm working on a really cool Sustainability project. The project my office is producing involves renovating 3 historic houses so that they are more energy efficient--Using solar technology, energy efficient lights, better and eco-friendly insulation--things like that. A parallel project is in the works. It is the brainchild of a really cool student here who is very dedicated to the cause of environmental sustainability. He noticed that the dining halls put out a lot of food waste here. Five Thousand Pounds to be exact. Per dining hall. 20,000 pounds a week in all. A WEEK! 20,000! It boggles my mind. Since our island land fill is...well full...waste like this ends up being incinerated. With lots of human waste, incineration is understandable as recycling isn't always possible. With food waste though, it just doesn't make sense to incinerate that much food, putting all of its carbon in the atmosphere, when local farmers and gardeners could benefit from such a bounty.
This student researched urban composters and found one that is perfect for a crowded city like Charleston. It is custom built to fit any location. It can process any amount of waste that you specify. It produces both solid and liquid fertilizer, so farmers and gardeners can use the solid type, and the college can fertilize its lawn with the liquid type. It produces no odor. It's perfect. Oh yeah, and it costs $300,000 per composter. With 4 needed, that's $1.2 million dollars needed. Did I mention the college is near broke? Since $1.2 million is probably impossible, we are trying for the cost of 1 composter. The money saved from not having to cart away the waste can be slowly accumulated until another one is affordable, starting the process over again. Since it really doesn't make sense to stop the release of carbon by incineration, only to put more into the air by transporting all this compost on trucks, he wants to convert diesel trucks to veggie oil, which can be filled up at the same dining hall where we are making the compost.
All in all, this is a very expensive, very hard project. I'm amazed he would take it on--I know I would never have had the time as a student. To do what I can to help him, I decided to try to find funding for his cause. After about 5 straight days of searching, I found a grant for up to $500,000 for research into waste reduction, including composting. The catch is, it will only cover 25% of overhead (you know, equipment, like a $300,000 composter and a $10,000 bio-diesel truck)--or $87,000. Still its a great start. The other catch is that it has to be research into waste reduction. As soon as I get word from the student in charge of all of this, I'm going to try to form a coalition between local farmers, the college, Charleston Recycling, the City's Green Council, and the Environmental Science department to start a research/case study project that will allow us the grant to get this project going (and hopefully these partners will chip in on the cost). So that's what's taking up about 75% of my time at work.
Remember. Click on the links on the left. Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.
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