The Action Potential

As usual, I’d like to start out with an apology for not posting more often! Jeez.

My first month of work has totally flown by and I love my job. I’m working on a lot of cool projects and getting into the swing of life at CDC. My main project has been trying to expand the analysis I undertook this summer of schools in close proximity to high volume roads. Another project that’s kept me busy has been helping to get data organized for the Haiti response. Most recently, though, I’ve been putting together some maps for an upcoming Congress for the New Urbanism workshop. The people I work with are amazing and it has been really nice to return to my branch!

I’m starting to feel a lot more comfortable in Atlanta. I went on another great Beltline hike this past weekend. We had great weather for the event and nearly fifty people showed up to explore the rails-to-trails/urban connectivity/renewal project that is underway. At this point the beltline is still far from finished: when we were walking across the old railroad overpass that spans Ponce de Leon, we could see traffic moving through all the holes in the bridge! Egh.

The mundane treasure of this month has definitely been my kitchen. I’ve been reveling in the freedom of having a great place to cook – and of having some good grocery stores nearby. I’m hard-pressed to pick a favorite, but I will say that (Vermont) goat cheese mixed with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, and fresh pepper is basically like heaven incarnated as salad dressing.

The more exotic treasure of this month was my trip to New Orleans! After the Saints won the Super Bowl, some friends and I decided that missing this Mardi Gras just wasn’t an option. We drove down for Mardi Gras weekend and enjoyed just about every lovely, amazing, indulgent thing that glorious city has to offer. When we came back to Bourbon Street on Sunday morning, every street sign for it had been stolen but it was unmistakable because they were using a snowplow to clean up all the bottles and beads.

In other news, I want to congratulate two of my friends for their work at sea. One, Katie Spotz, was a classmate and dorm-mate of mine who is nearly finished with her solo row across the Atlantic to raise money for clean drinking water. The other, Ronnie Anderson, is just starting her sailing journey on this (absolutely unreasonably beautiful) boat:

Kudos to them both!

Ah – there is a huge rain storm pelting Atlanta right now. The fog and storm is so thick I can’t even see out of my window to the house across the street.

Tomorrow I start work! That means that today I want to give you all on update on how I have been entertaining myself since moving in.

DeKalb Farmer’s Market
Oh, man. This place is incredible. I have been enjoying picking out ingredients at random then trying to figure out how to turn them into meals when I get home.

During one trip to the DeKalb Farmer’s Market, I noticed that they were selling ground chicory and decided to give it a try. Eugh. Turns out the only way to make chicory palatable is to pour it down the drain…and refill the cup with coffee. From coffee plants.

Arabia Mountain
I spent a great afternoon exploring this wild moonscape just outside Atlanta. The “mountain” is a huge outcropping of granite that’s covered in lichen, moss, and tiny flowers.

Beltline Hike
Yesterday I went on a seven-mile hike around the North Western section of Atlanta’s Beltline project.
The beltline is an awesome initiative to connect Atlanta communities through a light rail network. As the project gets underway, there’s some nice hiking along the abandoned rails that are going to be used…and along some not-so-abandoned rails. It was a fun chance to see Atlanta from a totally different perspective and meet a really cool group of people.

D.M.V.
I have spent countless hours trying to get a Georgia driver’s license and to register my car. The DMVs here are more surreal than most – which is saying something. They are all run like poorly organized (and needlessly popular) delis. Take a number. Wait for a few hours. Most recently I went to get tags for my car and found the waiting room had pews in place of chairs. Oh, Georgia, did you really rob a church to furnish a government office?

Met my neighbors
One of my neighbors is an obese and nimble cat named Ralph. Here, Ralph attempts to sneak through our cat door to steal our cat’s food. (He does this all day, every day. He is often successful.)

Two of my favorite tales of my human neighbors should give you some sense of the community. (I would not characterize it, generally, as a community where people slip through the cat door to steal food, so I feel obliged to go on):

Once, I looked up from a desk where I was writing and saw a little boy playing in our yard. He was about four years old, had no parent with him, and was consumed with the concerns of his imaginary world. He went poking around the yard, finding leaves, playing in puddles, and generally amusing his adorable self.

A few days later I came out of my front door and found that my neighbor from across the street was sitting in one of our porch chairs, reading the paper. “Good morning,” she said. “Your porch gets more light at this time of day.”

Hi all-

I am back from my (great) trip to Panama! I just posted a summary of the work we accomplished on my research blog, but just wanted to update you on some of the other highlights of the trip:

5. Camp food
Hooray for textured soy protein, cowboy coffee, and copious quantities of hot sauce!

4. Howler monkeys
I loved waking up to the spine-tingling sound of howler monkeys yelling at the rain. It is of some comfort that my new place is right next to a mosque, so I am now being woken up by a muezzin call. Can’t complain.

3. Rainstorms under LAI=7
The canopy was so dense (leaf area indices (LAIs) of 7 are unheard of in the Appalachians!) that when there were down-pours of rain, hardly a drop reached us.
To experience such stillness in the midst of violent wind and rain can only be described as a spiritual experience.

2. Hiking to the boundary of Kuna Yala
Kuna Yala is an independent, indigenous province that borders Panama province. Our hike there brought us through lush cloud forest and a fog bank so thick we could barely see thirty feet ahead. The warm, moist climate had given the area an exuberance of life that is unrivaled by any other I’ve seen. Every individual tree surely supported more species than there are in an entire New England forest. Each tree, though small in stature at that elevation, seemed to be just dripping in epiphytes, bromeliads, orchids, mosses, lichens, insects, and birds.

1. The beauty of the rain forest

Hey again. In the spirit of reviving my long-abandoned blogs, I also posted on my old research blog. I’d forgot it even existed so this was only my second post in two years. Click here to see it.

As for now, I am still stranded in Panama City. Both of our partner-NGO’s trucks are broken (!) – we’re waiting on transmission repairs for one and new brakes for the other. Hoping to get out to the nature reserve on Wednesday!