Green, Green, Green

How appropriate that I would spend St. Patrick's Day in Sacramento at the Green Summit and Exposition. It was all about "green" today. Most importantly I remembered to wear my holiday shirt:
Kari wore hers, too. Nobody questioned our team spirit today.

The green summit was really good. We could only talk our boss into sending us to the keynote speakers and the exhibition hall because it was free. Of course this year had the best classes yet, but not so great that I wanted to shell out the $150 class registration fee myself. One of the keynote speakers spoke about greenhouse gasses and climate change and reporting trends. That is, if you believe all that hooey about global warming. What do a bunch of scientists know?? The second speaker was from the State energy department and spoke about the federal stimulus package and what was available to local and regional governments. Perfect timing since both Kari and I had been asked to look into stimulus funding opportunities for work.
Kari always laughs whenever I whip out my camera in public places like this. Is nothing sacred?! In between speakers we perused the aisles of the exhibition hall. That's code for loading up on free goodies. All the booths have tons of free stuff, but since this isn't our first time we don't have such a 'snatch and run' kind of attitude. Now we actual stop and (cough, cough) ask about the products. What fun is that? Have no fear though, I did manage to get a new shopping bag, a recycled pen and a composting bucket. We tried to get one of the composting buckets last year but got there too late. This year as soon as I saw people walking around with them I grabbed Kari and told her we needed to run to the other side of the hall (where they were last year) quickly and get some. It was like "Supermarket Spree" where we were literally running down isles looking for their booth, grabbing each others' arms and calling out directions. We have no shame for free product. The main difference this year was that there was an auto "green" mall where a dozen or so electric and hybrid cars were parked. We checked out the Zenn electric car that struggled to go even 30 mph and only had an initial charge range of 15 miles. We could probably do two donuts in the parking lot before the batteries died.


We left the summit around 1:00 pm and were greeted by a parking ticket on our town vehicle. Apparently Kari only stuck the blank sticker to the window, but not the actual parking stub showing we paid. Oops. $35 for our mistake. We're going to try and send in the parking stub and get out of the ticket. How gay is that?

I got home around 3:45pm today and immediately went out for an hour long walk to try and compensate for the chipotle chicken sandwich and platter of fries I ate for lunch at the brewery. That will be followed by an extra long visit to the gym later tonight. What an exciting way to spend my first evening alone. Chris was in Sacramento today, too, for a wastewater conference but he'll be there until Thursday. How am I supposed to have a local fireman block party if I'm spending all my time exercising? And then tomorrow night I'm meeting my old boss, Linda (who works at City of Chico), at her work at 5:30 tomorrow night for drinks and grub at Johnnie's (where we went for our anniversary). I already looked at their online menu and am eyeballing a rum and diet coke and an order of spinach pepper dip (spinach & roasted red peppers) with flatbread. Yum, yum, yum. But not so yum that I have to walk 2.5 miles and spend 30 additional minutes at the gym. Nothing's worth that 'yum' again.

Oh, before I forget, check out my new favorite cookies:
They're chocolate chip cookies but made with pumpkin, applesauce and splenda. And best of all, the recipe only makes 8 cookies so I'm not innudated with them. That reminds me that I ate the last two today so I should make another batch tonight. Good thinking! And speaking of cooking, we did make sure to make some corned beef and cabbage this last weekend since Chris would be gone today.
Against Jessica's urging we ended up crockpotting the beef and cabbage because there were no baking directions on the bag. I did roast the red potatoes (in a rub of evoo, garlic salt and southwestern seasoning) though. It all came out really good. There was the perfect amount of leftovers for Chris the next day and that was it. If somebody (maybe Jessica, perhaps) were to supply me with the baking directions I might be persuaded to pick up another roast and try it again. Just saying.

Alright, off to make some cookies before fat camp starts. We're not that interested in it this year, but I'm no quitter. And we're not watching Dancing with the Stars. There are absolutely no "stars" we give a rip about. Why can't they get Mel Gibson? It's not like he's doing anything, right? Or Keanu Reeves? MC Hammer??? Hammer time!!!!