My MPMF

This is a little late, but I still had a blast on Friday Night at the Mid Point Music Festival.

kk

it's a one eyed, one hatted puffy orange music lover... 

  

 Tracy Walker at Coffee Emporium

obviously these listeners are very impressed.

 

shake your grove thang, dancin' man. (at Segway)

 

the crowd is enthralled with Wake the Bear

 

croonin' (Wake the Bear)

 

Wake the Bear's shoes and beer.

 

the Sundresses! (kinda...)

It was awesome to celebrate great music in all the cool spots downtown.

(ya know, except for Cadillac Ranch...)

recycleDbin at Urban Cincy!

Hey everyone! I wanted to let you know of a new venture I am embarking on. I am now a contributing writer for one of Cincinnati's more well known blogs,  UrbanCincy . Not that I'm abandoning recycleDbin any time soon. This gives me a chance to meet new people and help cover all the exciting things happening in and around Cincinnati. So... yay!

Diary of a DAAP kid: home sweet home?

picture credit

A couple weeks ago, I left home to do some traveling. Guess where I ended up? Home. Confused yet? Let me explain. As a college student, I feel like I have two places I call Home.

Back Home again, in Indiana... 

The first of these is the area where I grew up (for me, this is small town Indiana.) I still have a bedroom there, full to the brim with memories from childhood and high school. When I go back to spend a weekend or a holiday, my mom cooks me dinner, and we go on bike rides and talk about how much Franklin is changing and growing as a city.  Franklin-home is a comfortable haven, full of memories from friends and times past, reminiscing, and spending time with family and old friends.

However, it's been four years since I've spent any significant amount of time living in Franklin. It seems like every time I go back, there's something that's been built (or worse, torn down) that has changed the familiar landscape of my past into something new and unknown. My roots are in Indiana (and I will always swear my allegiance to Indiana tomatoes and corn over Ohio's!) but I don't know if my heart is there anymore.

old roomies and I outside our humble abode in Clifton.

 Home #2, is obviously Cincinnati. I didn't grow up here, but I've done a lot of exploring and experiencing in this city over the last four years. People are usually surprised to find that I didn't actually grow up here. I feel really lucky that Cincy has so much to offer, and that I've been able to burst the Clifton bubble and get into the rest of the city. I feel connected here in a way that I didn't back in Indiana. Maybe it's the history, the architecture, the events, or even the people... but this city has a tangible hold on my heart.

Even so, it's not like I grew up here. So in a way, it's kind of strange to have two places that I feel quasi-connected to. Two Homes. I am certain that I am not alone in this feeling. I know when I graduate that I will want to get out of town and explore the rest of the country in a way that I haven't yet had the opportunity to. But will I ultimately end up in Cincinnati?

For now, the answer appears to be "yes."

Being green in Boston

  

I had a fantastic time in Boston over Labor Day weekend. Great food, great friends... it was a wonderful all around experience. There was a lot to take in, and our hosts showed us around many of the different neighborhoods of good old Beantown.

Seeing as how Boston is such a progressive and well-established area, I was interested to see what sort of strides the city has taken to become more sustainable. Obviously the first huge thing was the public transportation. The MBTA is a really great system of rail, subway, bus... and boat! Yep. They have boats that take passengers from one side of the bay to the other. It's pretty awesome.

 

view from the ferry

They are also installing solar trash receptacles around the city center. We saw them over by Fenway park.  They look kind of like green mailboxes, but they have icons of people throwing stuff away on them, so there wasn't too much confusion. They hold up to 150 gallons of trash, and the solar panels run a compactor. Hopefully they can also do this with recycling - cans, maybe?

 

too bad it's not a recycling bin!

My friends and I ended up spending an afternoon at Harvard, and I noticed that the campus has been making efforts to "green" their facilities. They had signs around the grounds inviting people to "sit down, it's organic!" The sign didn't elaborate on how the groundskeeping was organic, exactly. I didn't see any goats mowing the lawn, so I assume that they are no longer using chemicals to treat the grass.

 

cool public art installation on the very "green" grass

The good folks at Harvard have also "greened up" their bathrooms. While using their facilities at the Harvard Museum of Natural History (I highly recommend visiting, and not just for the bathrooms!), I noticed that they had installed low-flow toilets and solar powered, motion sensored faucets! Not only that, but even their foamy soap was eco-friendly.

 

 

My only disappointment was, even with all the fancy new equipment... the only means available to dry one's hands after washing up was with paper towels. Seriously? All this new fangled equipment and you couldn't install an air dryer? 

So Harvard's Eco-Score Card gets a B from me. Good effort, but it doesn't make sense to have equipment that's been around for years (i.e. air dryers) in your bathrooms.

Overall, I had an amazing time. I highly recommend visiting. The whole time I was there, I couldn't help but wonder if someday Cincinnati could aspire to be as awesome as Boston. I think we are on our way!

Diary of a DAAP kid: another vacation??

That's right, kiddies. I'm heading out of town to Boston over Labor Day weekend. Hopefully I will find some sweet recycled stuff... maybe even ride the local public transportation!

At any rate, may your Labor Days be filled with sunshine and not too much styrofoam. Cuz that stuff sucks.