November 2011 - Page 4 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

R is for Recycling

It cost the city tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade the system, but for alleviating my guilt at throwing away a yogurt cup, it was worth every penny.

When we were away this past summer, we had our mail held. And I swear that my favorite item that I saw once we retrieved it was a flier from the city of Albany about its new recycling policy. No longer did the city only take plastic items with the #1 or #2 in the triangle; it’s now taking #1-7!

This was hugely important for us, as we are very active recyclers. So those yogurt and cottage cheese containers, which tend to be #5 or #6, we just hated to throw out.

My wife would sometimes put leftovers in them, but unless they were well-labeled, I’d mistake them for their original packaging info until it was too late. Some were saved for school arts and crafts, but there are just so many craft projects one can do. It cost the city tens of thousands of dollars to upgrade the system, according to the newspaper story at the time, but for alleviating my guilt at throwing away a yogurt cup, it was worth every penny.

I hate going to the returnable center at the local supermarket. A lot of recyclable, but not returnable, items that people bring end up in the trash. I’ve noticed over the years that a lot of people around here just don’t spend the few minutes to separate out the recyclables and it makes me…peevish.

One element of the new city regulations that I ignore is the “Single Stream Curbside Recycling Collection”. I still segregate my paper products from the bottles and cans because of the bottle entrepreneurs who rifle through the recycling bins. I figure when they open up the green bin and see that’s it’s all paper and cardboard, they’ll leave it alone, and only go through the blue bin that has the recyclable – but not returnable – bottles and cans.

ABC Wednesday – Round 9

Firsts

I essentially inherited both jobs from a guy named Walter Jones, who was the godson of my parents; his grandparents were my godparents.

I used to do these things called Sunday Stealing, but I stopped mostly because the questions started getting a bit repetitive. I found that to be somewhat true with this iteration as well -Have I sung karaoke? – no; have I kissed in the rain? -yes.

But there was a section of firsts that was fresher, so I decided I’d do that, and JUST that.

1.Who was your first prom (or homecoming) date?
Cecily. It was her prom, BTW, though she also went to my prom a few months later.

2. Who was your first roommate?
Ron Fields, a graduate student. His most obsessive habit was writing down EVERY SINGLE thing he spent money on, in these little spiral notepads. Coffee – 25 cents, candy bar – 10 cents. One day, he bought a used car ($1000).

3. What alcoholic beverage did you drink when you got drunk the first time? The first time I drank, I got a little tipsy. It was at a bar on Clinton Street in Binghamton, NY, which, according to legend, had more bars per mile at the time than any other street in the United States. My sister was singing there with a band, so my drinks were free. I was 18 and it was legal for me to drink. I had a Tom Collins, and it was so tasty, I had another. I WAS able to walk home.

4. What was your first job?
My FIRST first job was delivering the Evening and Sunday Press in Binghamton, NY. My next job was as a page at the Binghamton Public Library. I essentially inherited both jobs from a guy named Walter Jones, who was a couple of years older than I was. He was the godson of my parents; his grandparents were my godparents.

5. What was your first car?
I don’t remember the make, because it was really the Okie’s car. I know it was red and had a push-button transmission. I knocked a Dumpster over with it once.

6. When did you go to your first funeral and viewing?
Oh, it was so long ago that I can’t remember. Someone from my church, no doubt. The first one that I can remember was Agatha Green, my grandma.

7. Who was your first-grade teacher?
I had two because I had started school in February, and by September the teacher I had left; maybe she got pregnant, which happened a few times in later grades. Anyway, one was Mrs. Goodrich. BTW, I also had 2 teachers each in second, third, AND fourth grade.

8. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane?
From Binghamton to Albany, when I was about 16. I was going to something called the Governor’s Conference on Children and Youth, and I was one of seven representatives from the Southern Tier. We flew in a plane with about a dozen seats, in a thunderstorm; I was terrified.

9. When you snuck out of your house for the first time?
Undoubtedly to see my HS girlfriend.

10. Who was your first best friend?
Possibly Ray Lia, with whom I was in Cub Scouts.

11. Who was your first Best Friend in high school?
Hard to say. Probably Karen and Carol, who I’d known since kindergarten, and saw just this summer.

12. Where was your first sleepover?
Don’t know that I ever did growing up. People slept over at our house, though.

13. Who is the first person you call when you have a bad day?
Probably Norman.

14. Who’s wedding were you in the first time you were a Bridesmaid or groomsman?
Trying to remember. I was in two weddings on successive weekends, for Ray and Pam, and for Uthaclena and she who shall not be named, in October 1976.

15. What is the first thing you did when you got up this morning?
Check my e-mail.

16. First time you tied your shoelaces?
I was REALLY late at this. I had loafers until I was nine, I think.

17. Are you Facebook friends with your first crush?
No, and I have no idea where my first crush is.

18. Who was the first person you met from the blogosphere?
Gordon from Blog This, Pal! who I met when I went to Chicago for a conference in 2008. Well, there may have been some local bloggers from the Times Union site before that; I don’t remember the chronology.

19. What was the first music album that you bought?
Beatles VI.

20. Who was your first celebrity crush?
Annette Funicello.

Getting to Work Has Just Gotten Tougher

The Capital District Transportation Authority, the bus service for the Albany/Schenectady/Troy, NY area, has instituted a major revamping of its buses in Albany. It’s not just changing a few schedules, it’s dropping some buses and adding others.

For me, taking the bus to church has gotten easier when we have an early service; the first bus is now 8:04 rather than 8:52.

On the other hand, getting to work, starting tomorrow, has gotten a whole lot more difficult. I pretty much laid it out here. There might be one or two other options, but these involve the daughter leaving for school much earlier than has been her habit.

The other fact is that the bus to Corporate Woods won’t be going by my building, but rather I have to walk down this curvy road in the morning, and, worse, walk up this curvy road, where vehicles go terribly fast, at night, with no sidewalk; when it’s been snowing, that’s potentially dangerous, especially the way the Brinks trucks barrel down that road.

Something else: CDTA has gotten rid of some of the bus stops in order to increase fuel efficiency. One of them is about 20 feet from our front porch. I’ll miss it for nostalgic reasons. When I was taking the Daughter to preschool, we would often run to the stop just ahead of the bus a block away.

Unhappy Valley

It’s POWER, and the peculiar notion that “we can look the other way because of the rightness of our cause.”

As you may know, Joe Paterno, coach of the Penn State University football team for 46 years, was fired this week, along with the university president, Graham Spanier. Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky…has been indicted on charges of sexually abusing eight boys over 15 years… Paterno, who, reportedly, was specifically told of one terrible incident, and mentioned it to university authorities without any follow-up, had been revered on the campus. The football program had been a model of a “clean” program. If you have the stomach for it, check out the grand jury indictment against Sandusky [PDF], which, as the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office noted, “details a disturbing pattern of sexual assaults on young boys, all of whom Sandusky met through his involvement in the charitable organization known as The Second Mile – an organization that Sandusky himself founded.”

It was clear to me early on that Paterno had to go, preferably before this weekend’s home game; he is the face of PSU. It’s peculiar to me, though, how people who don’t follow sports are blaming the influence of sports in society for this debacle. It’s not just sports per se, or religion (see: the sex coverups THERE) or politics. It’s POWER, and the peculiar notion that “we can look the other way because of the rightness of our cause.” As this ESPN article notes: “Joe Paterno and Penn State officials were faced with a critical choice about damning information and chose to protect the program. This is what power has become. This is what power has always been.”

So the following morning, my wife tells me that the students are rioting because Paterno got fired. Surely she’s mistaken; maybe they were rioting as a result of the outrage over the stain to their community. Nope, she was right, although, in the light of day, some students have been wearing pins in support of the victims of the alleged crime.

For a greater understanding of the complexities of this case, I recommend the two articles cited here.

World Pneumonia Day – November 12, 2011

Save the Children received a grade of A in the December 2011 Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report.

I knew instinctively that childhood pneumonia deaths, once too common, are now very rare in the US. I’ve been told that they have decreased almost 99% since 1939, thanks to the discovery and availability of effective medications. But children from developing countries aren’t so lucky. Each year 1.4 million children under 5 die from pneumonia – more than any other cause. More than from AIDS, malaria, and measles combined!

Here’s a short Mission: Pneumonia Quiz. Better yet, go to the World Pneumonia Day page to watch a video and read a personal story of how pneumonia affected one family.

This event is sponsored by Save the Children, which, not so incidentally, received a grade of A in the December 2011 Charity Rating Guide & Watchdog Report from CharityWatch, formerly the American Institute of Philanthropy (AIP); I’m a member of CW, and I checked its database to verify that indeed STC’s cost to raise $100 is only $10, quite low as these things are calculated. Moreover, they have an “open book” policy when it comes to finances. The 2011 Save the Children Gift Catalog is now available.

Pneumonia is the world’s leading killer of children, but there are viable solutions. I recently read the Lancet study about how the administration of oral amoxicillin to the children aged 2–59 months in a Pakistan region by community health workers has provided “strong evidence” that the methodology used is likely to “contribute further to a reduction in the number of pneumonia deaths.” That is quite promising news, but it takes resources, money well spent in creating a solution.

Photo credit: In Pakistan’s Haripur district, Lady Health Worker Naseem bibi counts 1-year-old Usama’s breaths, before successfully treating him for pneumonia. A new Lancet study by Save the Children shows that children treated by community health workers at home were more likely to recover from severe pneumonia than those referred to a health facility, the current standard of care. Just ahead of World Pneumonia Day, the study offers new hope for treating the world’s leading child killer in communities where hospitals and doctors are out of reach. Credit: Save the Children