Happy Earth Day

My senior year in high school I found myself with all the credits to graduate early except 2 credits in Government. To get the last credit I had to take Government the last Trimester of the year. That meant the last trimester of the year was 7 or 8 classes of filler. All electives but the one Government class. The all time best elective that trimester or any time really, was Ecology. Mr. John Blackman was the first person I ever heard speak about Earth Day. He and his wife Margaret (who was also my 5th grade teacher and Jr. English teacher) were the coolest teachers at OHS. They and their 3 boys, were great stewards of the Earth. Mr. Blackman started my journey to turning green. Thanks Mr. Blackman! I appreciate you, but I'm driving my family nuts.

Last Saturday I attended the Live Green Expo in Plano, along with thousands of other people. Jolea and I had gone a couple of years ago, I think it was the first year they had it. This year I met up with Lourdes and her daughter Jackie. I'm not into crowds, and it was a lot more crowded than two years ago. They had about 3 times as many vendors and booths also.

Ed Begley Jr. was scheduled to speak. He was late. Probably couldn't get in the place, they had all the entrances blocked. That didn't stop me (it's amazing how invisible a little green Miata becomes when driving IN through an EXIT), thank goodness they didn't have those severe tire damage things on the driveway. I got a fantastic parking space.


Well Ed finally made it. Standing room only as we all waited on the Fire Marshal to show up. I started feeling kind of claustrophobic, and heard that the City of Plano would have the entire video on their website this week, so I ducked out. I was waiting on Lourdes and Jackie, they had to park half a mile away, and walk over.





That's a little better, I had my camera zoomed all the way in... sorry for the blurriness, I could only hold my camera up and hope for the best. I was so afraid the camera would hone in on the bald spots in the crowd. Looks like it did.









Jackie was mugged by a duck just after she and Lourdes got there. We walked around to all the booths, picking up freebies like pens and pencils made from recycled junk and paper, jar openers made from old tires, shopping bags made from scraps of fabric, and lots of pamphlets explaining GREEN products that were made from virgin paper. I bought some Soap Nuts to try out. They are nothing more than the husk of the Soapberry. Yeah, good old Oklahoma Soapberries. I may be check on planting a Soapberry tree and grow my own laundry detergent. There were lots of booths with home improvement products, from low flow bathroom fixtures to wind turbines. Cars to push mowers. Food and gardening products too. It's a pretty good expo, reminded me of when I was a kid and Dad would take us to the Oil Show in Odessa. Except there wasn't that distinct smell of crude oil and diesel in the air. And this expo was a whole lot smaller than the Oil Show and I never once saw a big barrel chested man slap someone on the back and offer him a shot of Jack Daniels. I guess the good old days are gone. This little expo has a lot of growing to do to catch up with an Oil Show.






Oh look, two hours later and Ed is still talking. He was losing people at this point, you don't tell Texans to give up their big SUVs and trucks, it's a big state, with big roads and streets and huge garages.......... and we make our own oil and gas and we have Rick Perry.....



Monday morning, my friend Angela shows up in my office with this.... her husband works for the City of Plano, and he was one of the guys who was there for the set up and take down of the whole Expo. Angela's exact statement when she came in with this bag was, "some Yahoo who spoke at the Expo went off and forgot his gift bag. So they gave it to Juan. I have no idea who this Joker is. We got a light bulb, a really nice T-shirt, a bunch of junk and some organic dog food, I'm giving it to Lourdes"






Dog food and cat food...









Here's Loudes with her bag of dog food and some Home Depot water bottles that I had scored, but decided not to keep them... I recycled them on to Lourdes and Jackie.

Today is also Administrative Assistant's Day (Secretary's Day) so Judi, Maria and I are being treated to lunch at a posh Country Club in Irving by Cristie. It's something she does for us every year. Next year Lourdes will go with Maria and I (Judi is leaving to man her husband's office.) I better post this and get ready for work.

Have a great Earth Day, turn off the lights and eat off a real plate today.