It’s been awhile. I’ve been washing a lot of dishes and thus been absent. The festival is up and running and we just finished the poster for it today so I figured I’d post it so you could all preview(if I even have any readers left). You can read all about the festival at the website provided on the flyer. Adios for now mis amigos.

….for the record I have no idea why it isn’t showing up. It should be…I’ll try and fix it later.

Well the first annual UNCW Environmental Film Festival is shoring up pretty nicely. The date is now official, the weekend of April 18,19th. It’ll be a Friday night, and all day Saturday event. We’re going to have sponors from local places like Tidal Creek Co-op and the local biodiesel guys. All that’s really left to do is get the films lined up and figure out how we are going to do everything…so basically there’s a ton left to do. But I can officially say that I am the director of the first annual UNCW Environmental Film Festival…and that’s not too shabby for a dishwasher.

Apparently the Daily Show did an episdoe awhile back in 2000 when they covered my hometown region. I don’t remember it, but apparently as you will see they did. The video loads awfully slow, or at least did for me and I almost didn’t post it because it’s practically not worth the time or trouble if you aren’t from where I’m from…anyway there it is.

Today my ever present boss was at it again with insightful ideas like “recycling is worse for the environment than not recycling”(I think she read it in a book). So my mission right when I got home was to see if there is any truth to what she said. Is recycling worse for the environment than not recycling at all? This of course comes as a concern to me because I drink a good 4 liters of diet mtn dew/pepsi a day. I kill a lot of two liter bottles, but always make sure to recycle them on campus because my apt. complex just put their recycling bin contents in the trash. I even make bird feeders out of them, I know it sounds awfully gay, but hey, it’s being reused for a good purpose and the house finches and cardinals love it. When looking at recycling we have to take in the whole picture. This doesn’t mean only looking at a plastic bottle and knowing that it will get melted down and reused. Instead, we need to look at the whole process, which includes fuel costs, emissions, and chemical processing as opposed to just putting it under ground somewhere and letting microbes munch on it for the next thousand years. In my quick search for the answers I’ve found conflicting information. Some say it’s good and saves a non-renewable resource, while others say it’s using up more of the resource your trying to save by recycling. Although, plastic does take up an extremely large amount of space in landfills for its weight. One of the problems with recycling is that it’s costly. For companies it’s easier just to make it from a virgin product. However when oil and natural gas prices rise, the demand for recycled plastic does to. Aluminum is much more efficient to recycle than plastic, the most in fact. However, aluminum is also very abundant and easily taken from the earth. So which is worse spending the money on recycling or continuing to mine? Opposition says that because the ore that aluminum is smelted from is so abundant, we shouldn’t worry about recycling. The same goes for plastics, because they’re derived from petroleum, we shouldn’t worry. The theory being that with the price of gas going up it will leave more petroleum in the market for plastic production, because it’s so much cheaper to derive from petroleum than gasoline(although that sounds a bit fishy to me). Paper is another big one. My father is a paper salesman, so I have a bit of an interest in this. His company has an environmental specialist on board, but when dealing with larger paper product producers it’s something that must be hard to manage. Much paper comes from paper farms where the trees are grown specifically for paper use. This is a much better option than going and hacking down forests. However, where these paper farms once were, were actual forests. It could be said that now it isn’t posing much of an environmental risk, but it did at one time, and continues to be a poor ecosystem for native animals. This is especially true in the Southeast U.S. where much of the trees for paper production are grown, not to mention sprawl. Not too far from Wilmington you can see these tree farms. The ones I’ve seen have been owned by International Paper. So does recycling benefit or cause harm to the environment? It’s hard to say. There are pros and cons to both. Recycling saves a material from rotting in a land fill for years. Not to mention the greenhouse gases that landfills produce, like methane. I know a landfill back home was thinking about trying to capture the methane produced and using it to produce power. This doesn’t even touch on the issue that trash isn’t localized. Instead it’s shipped from one place to be buried in another. If people’s trash was buried in their own backyard, I think they’d be a lot more apt to save. However, it also takes energy to put it back into a reusable form. What’s the best answer? Let’s go way back to “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Notice how recycle is the last one? REDUCE. If people would just cut back, use things more than once, and be creative about it. I use my paper bags over for things like ripening fruit or just a good cabinet liner. In the end consuming like we do will outweigh any benefits given by recycling. It just promotes the consumer ideology that is so engrained in our heads. We’re going to have to relearn how to live. Cuba is a great example. They get by on so little, but yet manage to make things work with ingenuity and creativity. America doesn’t award those ideals, instead it awards consumers to buy more stuff and make more money in a perpetual cycle that will be our demise. It’s time to wake up and start cutting back, reusing and yes recycling.

I just got out of a film put on by the school as part of their “sustainability” series. it was called The End of Suburbia. I gotta say this was a really cool film. It brought up many good points which include, peak oil, unsustainable housing, over consumption and the downfall of the American dream. Essentially the jist was this. Peak oil is the idea that oil production will peak somewhere around NOW or the near future. With production from then on decreasing and the demand only increasing we will be in serious trouble. Natural gas has the same problem. The Northeast almost ran out of it last winter. Some would say “why don’t we just convert everything over to electric so we won’t have to rely on oil.” Well, how do you get electric? Coal and Natural gas along with some other ways such as Hydro.

The film covered the history of the suburbs from when it was for the affluent who wanted to get out of the city, to when it because a way for more middle class to live away from their jobs and the grime of the city. Back then they had rail cars much like buses that would stop and pick the workers up. Company’s like Standard Oil and GM bought those railways and tore them up to pave roads for their automobiles. Thus started the American dream. Living far from your job and taking a highway to get their in your new car which you were encouraged to by along with other cheap shiny stuff for your new house which eventually have become the McMansions. There was a wide array of speakers in the movie, one even included a former Cheney energy adviser, Matthew Simmons and he adamantly said that peak oil is real and we aren’t doing anything about it except running full speed ahead off the cliff. However, 20-50 years from now oil will become so expensive it won’t be economical to buy it. What do you do when you can’t afford to buy gas to drive your car to work? Or how about heating your home, or even transporting food from southern California to New York so you can have your salads in December. It will all go out the window. Such little things that we all take for granted because of cheap oil. Suburbs will become the new slums because there won’t be a way to support that type of living. Instead multiple use housing will have to start. However, if we don’t start that now it might be too late to begin it when everyone wakes up and realizes this is a problem. What energy will we use to build these homes so it’s affordable. It just won’t be possible to go on living like we live now. Everything as we know it from air condition to driving over to grandma’s house will either have to change or become non-existent. Yet we insist on oil as a cure all. Dare I say we might even be trying to secure all of the untapped oil in Iraq? There are a lot more oil wells in Texas than there are in Iraq…strange. Of course all this doom and gloom doesn’t have to happen. We can start conserving. The UNCW teacher panel tonight insisted that even by little things like turning off lights or turning the ac down or washing with colder water, all are small steps. If we all did that we could make a sizeable impact. They did quite a good job at not only educating but entertaining. We will need to start making an impact or this doom and gloom will come true. We can’t just wait around for some technology to be handed down by Jesus to free us of oil. It’s going to be a hard road full of sacrifices made by everyone. In the end it’s everyone who will suffer so we have a responsibility to start living smarter. Here’s a link to the film’s website. I encourage people to check it out if at all possible. It really gets you thinking.

Lately I’ve been more consumed by politics more than ever. I just can’t seem to figure out where I fit in. The more I think about it, I don’t want to fit in. I want to decide on each issue as it comes, rather than have to be in one party which has an umbrella over certain ideals. I don’t like the democrats and I don’t like the republicans, but agree with some of their points. It’s hard being independent in this day and age. Especially when most people my age don’t give a second though to politics. I find this so sad. We are privileged enough to be born in America, which I truly believe to be the greatest country on earth. However, I don’t see any appreciation for that privilege. Just to be clear it isn’t a right, it is a privilege. The right to free speech? No, it’s a privilege. If it wasn’t for our soldiers fighting for our freedom we’d have none of it, hell maybe even speak German. I don’t agree with this war completely, but think radical Islam along with the environment are the most important issues on the world stage this day. I hope both of those concerns go away, but it won’t happen unless people start paying attention to whats going on. We all have the ability to change the world for the positive, but many choose to sit back and do nothing. I figure I’ve got 60 years left if I’m lucky, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste them sitting around watching a bunch of politicians fill their pockets and do nothing to improve the state of things. As Americans not only do we have the ability to change our country for the better, but also the world. That doesn’t mean we should be starting pre-emptive wars to bring “democracy” to countries. However, we do need to be the change we wish to see. You can’t preach something to someone if you don’t live it yourself. Case and point, Al Gore. As much as I think the guy has brought global warming to the forefront of the environmental movement for everyday people, he does live a life which isn’t in accordance with what he preaches. Sure he buys carbon offsets, but really come on, if you want people to follow you, set an example where you show sacrifice, the same sacrifice you ask other Americans to make. Not all of us are made of money, and being environmentally friendly might only be feasible in the form of using paper instead of plastic bags at the grocery store or riding your bike more. But you know, that’ll make a difference, however small. If everyone made a small change we could collectively do something great. The sad thing about politics and the do nothing generation I’m a part of is that I don’t see that change coming. People my age want to party and hang out. I don’t have any problem with that, I love a good night of drinking and getting rowdy too, but at the same time that should be balanced with the responsibility that comes with being an American. You have a responsibility to make sure your government is doing the right thing. I write this blog more out of frustration than anything. You can rant all you want but who knows what good it will do. Hopefully someday the message will be spread and all we can do is keep spreading it until something happens and people wake up. Until then then, this buds for you.

The “Economic Growth Index” study gave an ‘F’ to Erie, Niagara, Orleans, Genesee, Allegany and Chautauqua counties, while Cattaraugus and Wyoming counties received a grade of ‘D.’

I completely feel for the folks back home who feel like they can’t get a break. However, when I look at the alternative, a economically thriving area such as Wilmington, North Carolina, I can only shudder at the consequences of a “thriving” economy. The problem seems to be that our economy works on growth. Stagnation is a cancer of the economy. The world we live in is not unlimited. We only have a limited amount of land, water, air and animal/plant life. If our economy aims to keep growing forever and ever there will come a point where there is nothing left to sell but the ruins of old condos and bottled air, presumably owned by Pepsi or Coke. You can preach about it all you want, but to some people it just won’t sink in until it’s too late. They won’t wake up until the last tree has been cut down for a gated development called something like “Long Gone Forest.” I still have a bit of hope people will stop being blind to it, and with the hope feel the responsibility to bring it to people’s attention. It’s the ones that are most blind and careless when it comes to protecting our world that we must give the most attention too. I’ve found more often than not it’s not that people don’t care, but rather they just don’t understand. It’s like when you tell someone of the genocide in Sudan, they might say, “oh that’s horrible” and then go back to watching Jeff Foxworthy’s new game show. But, if you could show them first hand the devastation, I don’t know a single person who wouldn’t try to contribute in some way to stopping it. People do care, they just have to much other junk in the way. Like my buddy over at Jackburnslives.com says, “it’s not the earth that’s in trouble, it’s us.” We’re only a blip on the timeline of earth. We may off it just as soon unless we wake up and start being proactive about protecting the earth and our resources. So today as I went around snapping photos that thought ran through my head and so did and old poem I had to write for class.

A lot can change in twenty years
even a simple cable repair man can see that much.
My view from the top of the telephone pole used
to be refreshing. A flat sand worn landscape
brimming with sea birds and evergreens.
Now plastic condos litter my view
from my crows nest of telephone wire.
They stand in the footprints
of stamped out copper roofed homes.
The four lane road down below hides
the old two lane “county 21.”
The same road that used to carry beat up chevy’s
now fills up with Mercedes and BMW’s.
Hell, you can’t even see the ocean
unless you’re standing on the shore!

They call it “progress”, I think not.
Long ago a man wrote, “the woods are lovely, dark and deep.”
So, with no longer to go before I sleep
I hope to dream of creeper vines reaching over concrete
of trees to shadow the shore
and gulls to roost in the apexes
of mansions long abandoned beside the sea.

As some of you know I’m spearheading the first annual “Cape Fear International Environmental Film Festival.” It’s a long name I know. The point of the film festival is to bring awareness to global and local environmental issues through different media outlets such as photography, poetry, and mainly film. This will be happening next spring through UNCW’s facilities, if all goes as planned. Well, today I met with UNCW’s film dept. chair, Dr. Buttino. He finally gave me the go ahead even though nothing is final until it gets approved through the school. Now I’ve got to meet with a group of academic advisers to lay out the blue print for the festival. This way, Dr. Buttino can take the semi-concrete plan over to his friends in the Environmental Science departments and see if they want to get on board. In the end I’m hoping the school will sponsor it, and with help from the students and faculty it could become something really big for the area. More importantly I hope it just gets the message out there. Anyway I’m open to taking suggestions or ideas for the festival. So if you live in the area or just have an idea, feel free to leave a comment of email me at seancarr54@yahoo.com. Thanks.

Just messing around with FCP and some photos from home, Italia, Alaska, and the southland. The song is by Tom Russell who’s going to be on Letterman tonight. He’s the man. Like I said, I just am messing around so I don’t want to hear any suggestions or critiques. If you do say something, I will tell Michael Vick where your dog lives.

Figuring out all my programs that came with Final Cut Pro. I’m too impatient to read the manual so I’m figuring it out as I go. This is my LiveType intro for all my stuff that I just figured out last night. yay for me.

Tomorrow morning, well in about 5 hours I’m waking up to drive 2-3 hours south along the coast the the Santee Coastal Reserve and Francis Marion National Forest. I’ve been in Wilmington for over a week, and that’s just too long. Time to get out and do some hiking, biking and photography. Apparently there’s plenty of alligators down that way, which is what I’m aiming to get a bunch of photos and footage of. I’m taking the mountain bike too, because they’re hiking/biking trails and I can cover a lot more ground with the bike. Still haven’t decided if I’m going to stay down there overnight. If I do I can illegally camp in the reserve because I have no reservation, or I could spend money on a hotel. Most likely I’ll just spend all day and drive back and crash. Adios.

Just found a cool new site tonight while surfing the web. WWW.LOWBAGGER.ORG ….That’s it for now. Other than that I’m getting this whole film festival underway. Talking to the head of the film dept. at school and probably then the dean and other faculty in the environmental science depts. Started a myspace page too for the fest. It’s taking for slowly but surely.

Click To Play

Just started messing with the Alaska footage some more and put some small clips together to some music. Hopefully I can get start on the whole thing this week sometime…meanwhile check the video out.

I just returned from a few days out at Linville Gorge and Chimney Rock in the mountains of North Carolina. I needed it. I don’t know what it is about Southeast North Carolina, but I just can’t wait to get out of it. I’m really more of a mountain and freshwater guy than flatland and saltwater. Don’t know if that has much to do with it, but I’m sure it plays its part. Anyway I decided to get outta town on a whim the other day. I told my friend I was leaving early in the morning to drive out to the mountains. I had no real plan or even any idea where I wanted to go. So he said he’d come along. I had a party. We drove I-40 west until we saw signs for Linville Gorge where we pulled off and got a hotel room. When the southern lady at the desk saw two guys asking for a single room, she got “suspicious.” The single was just to cut down on the cost even though the room was still 70 bucks. The bed however was the biggest one I’d ever seen and was more than enough to accommodate us and possible a couple of homeless vagrants. After we got the room we drove out to the gorge and started hiking. At first we went to a very tourist filled area and just saw some scenic vistas along with kids trampling the ground in front of us. Soon after I got the photos I wanted from there we drove up to “Table Rock” and started hiking. You drive most of the way up the mountain, but still have a good 30 minute hike straight up after the parking area. That hike was well worth the effort, as the view rivaled some I’d seen in Alaska. The best part was nobody was to be seen. I could have stayed up there and camped out for the night. If I’d been by myself and not already gotten a hotel room I’m sure that’s what I’d have done. The solitude was pretty amazing. There were also little bowls carved out of the rock. Some were filled with water and some were dry. I came to the conclusion that over thousands of years these bowls were carved little by little by the rain they held. I don’t know if I’m right, but I’d like to think I am. After Table Rock, we went back down and to the hotel to change and grab some dinner. The lady at the hotel told us that the Brown Mountain Lights were nearby. I’ve heard about these lights ever since I was a young kid introduced to a haunted North Carolina book. I had to go being so close. So after dinner Justin and I drove out to where you were supposed to be able to see them. Of course, we saw nothing. Disappointed, but not deterred we stayed out there and looked at the stars for close to an hour. It was so dark and clear that I saw more stars than I’d seen in a long long time. It was well worth the effort even if the Brown Mountain Lights didn’t want to put on a show for us. Of course, it could have been that Justin was calling them names like “cowards” and pussies” because they wouldn’t show. I don’t know if going out to see what may or may not be imaginary lights or calling possibly fictitious lights names is worse. After that we went back to the hotel and promptly passed out. Today we woke early and drove down to Chimney Rock. On the way we stopped at a roadside gem mine and bought a bucket of dirt. The bucket unearthed some really cool gems. From there we headed to Chimney Rock where I was forced to face my fear of heights climbing on the side of cliff the entire time. It was beautiful but sometimes annoying because of all the people. Table Rock was by far the highlight of the trip, and had I known about it earlier I would have planned the trip to be a solo camping mission to the top, although the company was nice to have for the ride. Now I’m back in Wilmington, and watching Scott Coady’s films because if I’m helping the guy in October it’d probably be a good idea to see what he’s made already. Tomorrow I might take the kayak out for my first plunge into the water for the year. We’ll see though, I’ve never taken it out, don’t have a rack and don’t have a life preserver. Plus I don’t have health insurance. Safety first.

I’m back in Wilmington finally. My excitement to be back couldn’t even be described. Of course I’m kidding. Being back is really kind of just blah. I’m trying to harbor no ill will towards this place this time around. It’s been pretty easy just letting stuff that would normally piss me off slide by. On the other hand there’s just nothing here that captures my interest. Today I went mountain biking with my friend. There’s nothing to look at but sand and pine trees. It’s all flat, and quite frankly just boring. I guess that’s the best way to describe being back, boring. I’m trying to plan things to take up my time, kayak trips, bike riding, selling photos…etc. Back home or in Alaska I could walk to the river or hike up the hill/mountain down the road. Down here there doesn’t seem to be anything I want to do besides leave. 3 or 4 hours west gets you into some nice country where the foothills start, but from there eastward it’s pretty flat. I’ve been to some other areas around the coast and never had any problems with them. North Carolina really is a great place, but Wilmington and the surrounding area just doesn’t have the spirit and comfortable vibe the rest of the state does. Maybe I’m biased after three years of suffering from constant bombardment by rich, dumb blondes, huge SUV’s with only one occupant, and the widespread deforestation that gives way to the housing developments named “Silent Oaks” or ” Pinegrove Forest.” I think Alaska helped me deal with that stuff though. Before I’d just get fed up and not want to have anything to do with it. At least now I’m able to shake it off and try to be proactive about it. The Environmental film fest is slowly taking form, and I’m working on what to do to get the Waste Management people to pick up recyclables in our apt. complex. We’ll see how it all goes, one step at a time. This place does suck though. Give me some grizzly bears, moose and a heaping mountain range. Aight brah, I gotta go kick it at the beach…surfs up!

Into the Wild

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I did alot of hiking today. It was a good day, spent outdoors for the most part. I saw a hawk, bald eagle and a black bear when I was hiking alone down by the Eagle River Nature Center. I was too busy staring at it to remember to take a photo. Anyway, I just wanted to post that Into The Wild now has a trailer online and I gotta say the movie looks pretty good as far as I can tell. If you haven’t read the book do so. Here’s the link to the trailer….CLICK

So here I am, back in Eagle River, Alaska. I’m about 20 minutes from downtown Anchorage and surround by mountains that rise so high towards the heavens it hurts your neck to look at them. I’m really starting to dread going back to the lower 48. It isn’t even so much that. Even in Anchorage you are getting back to the “mainstream.” Life in Denali and farther north was really something. I’ve never met more interesting people in my life, or good natured for that matter. Usually you think Alaska is a place where people come to get lost. They’ve had it with life as usual and Alaska is about as far away from life as usual as you can get. However, on occasion people find themselves here. I’m not saying I have, but this place, the mountains, the vast wilderness, the pace of life, has caused me to look deeper within than I ever have before. Maybe it’s the lack of daily communications junk that were fed. My t.v. watching has been kept to almost zero. I have a phone and it works, sometimes. I’ve been able to get onto the internet long enough to upload my photos. I’ve actually had to deal with people, face to face everyday. Thankfully, 9 out of 10 of them have been some of the most inviting and outgoing people I’ve ever met. I’ve said this in a previous post, but I think the mountains humble you. That is if you don’t see them as a potential for profit, like alot of people here. The resources in Alaska abound, and therefore people who would like to make money off them also abound. That’s just the way the world works, hopefully, if there are enough grizzly bears, the population of those profit minded people will be kept to a “healthy and sustainable level.” On the way back from Fairbanks to Eagle River, we stopped in Denali again and picked up some people for the trip south. They were 4 guys who had summited Denali. That itself isn’t a huge feat by climbing standards. However, the freedom and sense of purpose must soar with the elevation. I myself dont wan’t to climb anything that high, I’m girlishly afrad of heights(any feminists can kiss my butt, yes I said girlishly). Though, being in the mountains takes your spirit to places it’s never been. Suddenly though, it gets body slammed by a 800 pound sumo wrestler who after pushing your face into the dirt says, ” get a job you fucking hippy.” So it goes…I’m off to Wilmington to get a job for a year. Yaayy! I’ve learned that you don’t need much. People up here get by on a lot less because they’re resourceful and creative. Something most of the country lacks. Returning to a place where people drive huge SUVS a mile down the road to get groceries or a paper, or drive Mercerdes just for the status symbol, well that’s going to be a hard transition. I can only see myself getting more hardlined “hippy.” Not that I like hippies, because I don’t, but the usual way of the world just ain’t working for me anymore. I don’t know if I’ll get by from riding my bike more or starting a recycling center at the apt. complex, but somethings going to give. I have a feeling it’s going to be my temperment towards the less accepting. Ya, I know that’s a hypocritical statement, especially coming from me. I’ve learned a lot about myself in Alaska though, I’ve been able to deal with old things, start thinking about new things and overall just coming to a place in life that I really like. Will it stay after I leave? I doubt it. I’ll probably be bogged down in the same old miserable crap John Doe is, driving his kids from the housing development called “Willow Woods” to his kids soccer practice. I’ve started reading Into The Wild again too. Maybe Mccandles was a little out there, and ill prepared to take on the Alaskan wilderness, but his views on the world and his frustration with it I can easily relate too. Dude.

Today we went into Denali National Park. Instead of doing the usual tourist trap stuff we decided to rent bikes and go straight for it. I noticed afterward that the buses that take you deep into the park to see the wildlife were full of old, southern fat people. I don’t know how to explain this phenomenon, but it was perplexing nonetheless. Jeremy and I rented the bikes for 40 bucks for the whole day. I figured it would be an easy ride though the mountains and we’d see a ton of wildlife. Well, it turned out that for 20 miles from the start of the only road goes uphill. Literally, the whole way was uphill. Needless to say we walked a good portion of the Tour De Denali. We didn’t see any animals on our bike ride either except some really fat rabbits. When we got back to the main lodge there was a mother moose walking through the brush with her two kids. All of the fat, southerners I referenced couldn’t contain themselves and had to rush over towards the moose at the dismay of the lodge staff who specifically advised them not to. Apparently, a moose, possibly that very one has been charging campers. It’s kind of funny. Well anyway like I said the ride was completely uphill. So, the ride back was alot more fun than the ride in. Downhill the whole way. So I took my $3000 video camera and grabbed it in one hand and held on to my handle bar with the other. Was this a smart decision? No, probably not, but it was pretty fun and the footage is pretty sweet. The fact that I sang stupid songs in an Irish accent the majority of the way down hill probably had something to do with it. Tomorrow we head for Fairbanks. Although I love the hostel and all the people, especially Steve the pirate, it will be good to see some civilization. We’ve basically been keeping the bar acrossed the street in business and hanging out in the hostel common room chatting with all the fellow travelers for almost every country and state you could think of. It’s been a really good experience so far. Although, Jeremy complains because he says my farts are rancid. I really can’t argue with him.

I just got back from my trip to Rochester, NY to visit my brother. It’s only about two hours from my hometown and is a nice drive through the countryside for the most part. I hadn’t been to Rochester since I was a little kid. My uncle lives there and I used to go up every now and then to visit but not in a good couple of years. I was surprised too, because I don’t remember liking Rochester, but it is a great little city. Of course like all of western NY it is having economy problems. A perfect example of it is if you drive downtown. You will see a new building and right next to it a vacant building that is huge. It’s like that throughout this entire region. I guess the big downfall for Rochester has been the recent dying off of Eastman-Kodak. The factory and offices themselves take up enough space to fill a small town. Everything is going digital though and once film switches over like still photography has, I imagine that’ll be the nail in the coffin. The trip was fun though, my brother had the day off so he showed me around. We drove all over and stopped down near the waterfront of Lake Ontario which is really pretty. We ended up cooking out with a few of his friends and burnt the shit out of our chicken. It still tasted half way decent though because we cooked it using Chiavetta’s marinade. After his friends came over we drank some beer and playing Bocce and some beer pong. Since everyone else had work the next morning only me and my brother went out to the bar, where I proceeded to kick his ass in darts and pool. After a few pints of Labatt Light we stopped at Country Sweet chicken down the street and got our fill of the best chicken wings on the planet. Then we went home and proceeded to stink up his house with horrible gas. Yep, we’re real winners. I have the photos on my new flickr account if you want to check them out.

Newly added photos to a newly updated flickr…Here they are…. CLICK

And away we go. I’ve been home for just over a week now and haven’t done too much. I mean I have, mostly seeing the family and relaxing. I’ve yet to get out to allegany state park and do some hiking and riding, although when I mentioned it to my dad today he seemed half interested in going. I really do love the area here. It’s beautiful. Nothing but small towns peppered throughout rolling green hills mired in early morning fog and afternoon haze causing the hills to disappear after only a few miles. I drove out to Salamanca the other day which is on the Indian reservation. The state park is adjacent to the reservation and right near the Allegany River. It just astounds me how much natural beauty we have in this are. What pisses me off about the whole thing is that people complain about how it sucks here and there’s nothing to do. I guess I can only say, appreciate while it lasts. Although to be fair, I was saying how much I hated it before I left for college. It’s one of those situations where you have to get out and see the world and realized how things are away from our quite rural section of the state before you can really learn to love it. I know one day this area like the rest of the country will turn into the overdeveloped south. With the population of America booming and the natural resources and land being used up, it’s only a matter of time. My point being, I wish the people around here would start appreciating the land while they have it, instead of putting the area down all the time. Sometimes the simple life is the better life. You don’t need a huge house and SUV to be happy. I can understand the economic situation though, but that’s a societal problem and not so much a local problem. People need to put more emphasis on collective growing and local foods. As my friend Beau over at Jack Burns Lives.com says, “bioregionalism.” In other words work within the land and ecosystem you have locally. It’s a great idea, and I think that could spur not only environmental awareness but also a higher appreciation for what this are really has, instead of worrying about what it doesn’t have.

Anyway on a brighter note…my town put up these 3 foot fiberglass squirrels all around town. They are painted after certain themes or businesses which sponsored them. I remember hearing about them last year. I thought it was a really bad idea. Apparently they did it because we have a large population of black squirrels in the town and they are somewhat rare…I guess. Anyway the fiberglass squirrels are a real hit, and they look pretty good. I made my mom take a photo of me with every squirrel today, and of course giving the thumbs up in every photo, a trend I started back in Italy. I’ll have those photos up soon. I have them on my new Mac, but I have to transfer them to this computer to put them on the internet because we don’t have wireless and I lost my flash drive. Speaking of flash drives, I just bought a 300 gig external hard drive. Along with final cut pro suite and a panasonic prosumer camera. All in all costing me somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 grand. Plus I bought a new sleeping bag for my trip to Alaska which is only about a week away.
I guess I could go on and on about what I’ve done this week, but I’ll save you that information because I know it’s not really that interesting to most of you. In the mean time I’m going to go down to the river and take some photos and dip my feet in.

I posted a new link…www.masonwinfield.com, he’s a local author that writes about regional folklore and paranormal things. I encourage you to read his website. It’s got a lot of good information and interesting stories. Hell even buy one of his books off amazon. It’s local stuff, but if you’re into paranormal and folklore you’ll get a good read.

Here’s some photos of my trip home, just a few. Like I said I’ll post a lot more when I can switch them to my moms computer which has “the internet.”

…”grandma” Paar, grandma Carr, and me eating at one of the best restaurants in town, the beef and barrel.

…Driving down the road and thought this would be a nice photo. Luckily ’round these parts you can stop in the middle of the road, get out, take a photo and hop back in without worrying about any traffic.

…View of Rock City Park scenic lookout. Sure would be scenic if there wasn’t so much haze.

Well I’m finally back home. Graduation is over and I left north carolina to come back to rural new york for just over a week. Then I’m off to Alaska for two weeks with one of my friends. I’m filming the whole trip. Hopefully I’ll have time to edit a bit and throw some clips up on youtube.com for you all to see. If not I’ll at least upload my photos when I can find a wifi signal. It sure is nice to be home and hear nothing but the peepers at night and the occasional train, rather than the drunk 19 year old downstairs in the parking lot. I’ve been taking a ton of photos since I’ve been home. I figure as long as I have the digital camera I might as well, so I’ve been snapping way more than I should. That’s what is great about digital though, if you don’t want it you just erase it. Problem solved. I’ve got quite a few things planned during my time home. I want to get out to Allegany state park and do some hiking and mountain biking, along with photography out there. This whole area is so beautiful with the trees and hills and river. It’s really a photographers dream, and I appreciate it a whole bunch more now that I’ve living in Wilmington, NC, home of the SUV and self righteous Christian. I’m also planning on spending alot of time with my dog, because well he’s my dog. I saved his butt from the pound a few years ago and we’ve been like “peas and carrots” ever since. I wish I had something interesting to tell you guys, but really I’m just planning my trip to Alaska, visiting with family and trying to soak up as much time outdoors as possible. However, I did put a new saddle on my mountain bike. None of that expensive crap either, I took it off my old “eco terra huffy” and slapped it on my trek. Nothing against Bontrager, but that huffy seat is super comfortable compared with the one that came on the bike. Oh well, I’m heading out now, gotta get up early and buy a new prosumer camcorder, final cut pro and a sleeping bag for the trip to Alaska. have a good night, and godbless!

Long time no post right? I’ve been pretty busy, excuses I have plenty. I’m in the process of moving from my house to a new apartment - almost done, though. I’ve been logging in some miles on my 4runner during this whole process. It seems like you have everything and then boom, you forgot the vacuum cleaner or something. Then it’s a mad dash across town, through the traffic and endless lights - only to do it again once you have what you left for. On top of this whole moving debacle I’m trying to find a job for a little while. I need to find a job for three months because I’m going to be gone for most of October(hopefully) helping Scott Coady film his “Collegiate Tour Baby.” After that it’s time to find a solid job for a year until grad school which I have yet to apply to. I figured that I wouldn’t need to go to grad school, but now I see the error in my thinking. It will probably turn out for the best though. In this year off I’ll have time to gain more experience, make some money to pay the bills and be able to concentrate on things I want to do like hiking, camping, starting film festivals etc. Speaking of festivals, the one I want to get going in this town seems to be looking up. I’ve talked with a few festival directors by phone to get opinions and ideas. All of them were very helpful. As of now I see it being an international festival which is based through UNCW. That way funding and publicity isn’t such an issue. Having it at UNCW or at least run by them will allow for distribution deals and an automatic audience. Besides getting students involved is the way to go because in the end this festival is about changing people’s ideas about the environment, and who better to affect than students who are going to go out into the world and hopefully reflect the ideals they believe in. However, all of this is a long way off. It’s going to have to start small and do a snowball effect like every other festival. I’d like to be the festival director, but I realize once I leave next year that I won’t be able to do as much of that, so maybe co-director will be an appropriate title after I go to grad school. That is fine by me, because in the end it’s not about me, it’s about getting the message out and changing the way people think. As long as I can help do that or at least initiate the process I will feel somewhat fulfilled. Other than that I’m just planning my trip to Alaska with my friend Jeremy Payne. That’s going to be from June 10-24. We’re starting in Anchorage and slowly working our way northward to Denali and finally Fairbanks before departing southward again for the plane trip home. I’ll be recording the entire trip and making it into a travelogue. I might even be able to post some of it on the blog using Youtube.com if I have enough time to go and capture some of it while I’m there. If not I’m sure I’ll be posting plenty of photos and updates as long as I have an internet connection. That’s all for now. Do me a favor though, sit down for a few minutes outside, or take a walk and just observe the nature and sounds around you. It’s quite relaxing as long as you don’t have cars whizzing by or 19 year old, fresh outta highschool college students yelling how drunk they are. Also, drink a Coors original. I’m campaigning for that beer to make a comeback.

Well today was a very productive day. I woke up went to the gym and worked out. Then had my last class of my undergraduate career, in which we were given cookies that our teacher baked(nice gesture I thought). Not that you know this but I just had to take a minute to catch a big ol’ wolf spider that was crawling on my bedroom floor. I then tore its legs off and squished it!(actually I’m just kidding, I caught it in a cup and let it outside like I do with all the spiders I catch in here, even the huge brown recluse that was hiding out in my shoe the other day). After that I went to register for the CRAGBRAT mountain bike race around our campus. When I got to the desk to give them my registration form(along with the 10 bucks) they said it was canceled. Apparently mountain biking is so popular that I was only the second person to put in a registration form. Disappointed, but not yet given up hope I drove down to Blue Clay rd where the mountain bike park is. Had a hell of a good time beating myself up on the trails and jumps there. I plan on taking my buddy down there this Saturday as a replacement to the CRAGBRAT race, he’s never been there and I’m sure it’s going to be a fun time watching him fall over on his bike like I did the first time. I’ll try to take photos this Saturday, but I don’t dare take my D-50 out there because of the nature of the riding. I came home after than and showered only to have my buddy call me and ask if I wanted to go riding on the trails at school I obliged and we went down there for a bit but I gotta be honest after riding at Blue Clay, the school’s trails just get old and boring. Nothing but flat sand with a few jumps here and there. However, the most important thing I did today was email about 10 environmental film festivals for research to help me get started with the one I’m hoping to get going in this town. One lady emailed me back and asked me to call her this week offering all the info I need. She’s the festival coordinator for the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival. It’s all looking good so far, but its definitely too early to tell. That’s all from here. This here is white lion, steppin’ back now, leaving the airwaves for the rest of ya(CB talk lol). Ciao.

With the coming closure of my undergradute education I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s coming afterward and what I’ve accomplished so far. As to what I’ve accomplished so far, its been your normal accolades of honor roll, deans list, eagle scout, crap like that. It doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot because that’s all it is is an accolade. I’ve got some unknown times ahead of
me. Almost a little more than a year off until hopefully grad school which I have yet to apply to. I’ll have to find some work within that year and I’m hoping I can somehow start making a larger impact on the environmental front. I know film is a great way to do that. The problem with film, is finding people who aren’t too egotistical and self-minded. That’s somewhat hard from what I’ve seen so far. Within this next year I’m hoping to meet like minded people who can help start realizing those ideas. On the personal front I’ve also got a few things lined up. I was at the grocery store today and I realized the impact I was having. First I was driving to a store I could easily ride to in 10 minutes or so. Second I was getting all plastic bags to which I’ve amassed in a giant pile in the closet, even though they never get reused. So today I’ve compiled a list of thing I can do and will try to do from here on out to lower my environmental impact and raise awareness at the same time, locally of co