Day 29

So much for the winning streak. I spaced out and the next thing I knew I was eating a Club pannini, which has turkey and bacon. Oh well, everything else was just fine, the driving and showering and such. I talked about board games with my instructors, because we're nerds like that. Only a few more days left until I can eat meat whenever I want. I'll probably still thing about it every tim eI do eat meat, but it's not like that's going to stop me. I mean... c'mon. Bacon.

Day 28

It's getting closer, I was just checking the calendar and seeing when classes (and this project) would be ending. In two weeks from tomorrow (May 31st) I'll be giving a presentation about this carbon diary/journal thing. It's supposed to be a poster board presentation, but maybe I'll try and do a powerpoint instead, you know... to lower my carbon footprint since the computers are already in place. I can review that more later, but I think to give myself plenty of time to work on it I'll be ending this on Friday, though I might do another post or two just to wrap things up, this Friday will be my last meatless day. Though I have to admit, I'll probably still keep eating those Trade Joe's corndogs, those are pretty tasty.

I didn't have any meat again today, even though I could hardly tell the corndogs were meatless, and I managed to even avoid eating too much junk food at school, which was good. The normal driving occurred and I did buy a coffee, and one for Lindsey, but she can take the credit for that one. I'd like to say I was planning an exciting trip for the summer, but I'll just be taking classes and hopefully working on an internship, so no worry of flying anywhere either.

Day 27

After grabbing some groceries at Trader Joe's I managed to keep another meat free day. Carbon footprint was the same as usual in terms of driving and the other things. I didn't use any extra plastics or papers or any of that stuff.

Day 25 & 26

I had a great weekend, thanks for asking. I did some hanging out Friday evening with a friend, and enjoyed some veggie Pud Thai, then went to Marrymoore park and grilled on Saturday while playing Frisbee. We got to watch some LARPing and sword fighting by these guys while we enjoyed burgers, soda, and the sun. Don't hate, it was entertaining, and there was like 76 of them so they could definitely team up and kick your ass with their foam swords and shields and pikes and... well the arrows are pretty much worthless.

I walked for 8 miles with my parents and their friends on mother's day Sunday, then ate a 1/2 pound burger to counteract all that calorie burning. I also hung out with Ben on Saturday night, just remembered that. I did a bunch of driving around and meat eating and all those fun things that kill the environment. I know it's terrible, but I had a great time.

Day 24

As promised, here is another thrilling installment of "Oh God, Why Did I Give Up Meat?" Now as I've said before it isn't actually all that bad, the most difficult part is finding things at school that don't have meat that aren't just chips or other things that are equally horrible for you. Going out to eat can be a bit difficult as well since they tend to put meat on everything, including the salads, and you know I can't really blame 'em for that. Who wants to eat a big bowl of dry leaves? Speaking of salad, I had one of those yesterday with a little bit of bacon and some chicken. I know it's meat, but I didn't really want pancakes for lunch again so I decided to say F-it and go for the salad. It's mostly non-meat, so that counts, right?

I had to drive a bit extra yesterday, to meet my mom for lunch so I could get that salad that had meat in it. I also ended up ordering a pizza for dinner, which of course means someone else had to make it, bake it, then drive it out to my house. So there's 800 tons of carbon going straight into my footprint, or is it gigatons? Whatever it is, I'm sure it wasn't very helpful to the world. I'll do my best to avoid getting pizza delivered from now on, and instead maybe swing by the Safeway or something on the way home and grab a pizza there instead. Saving the cost of someone making an extra trip out and back to my house.

I also had to fill up again yesterday, I suppose that in itself isn't too bad but it's always a good remind as to why driving is bad, mmk? I suppose if I have 40 grand or so I could buy an all-electric car and reduce my CO2 emission by 30%, since we're about 30 percent hydro here in the PSE district. Or I could walk 2 miles, ride a bus, walk a little more, then wait and ride another bus to school and work... I guess this is why I'm just driving my car. I will agree though that reducing your usage should be your first step to improving your carbon footprint or your energy usage. That's right, I just made a connection between Gail and Dave's classes.

Too good

Day23

No extra driving, no extra showers, no laundry, and no ordering t-shirts from Iceland. Meat was successfully avoided with a PB&J sandwich, egg salad sandwich (it was meh) from the famous Stop Watch Espresso down on the lower level. Dinner was some cheese pasta and toasted french bread again. I know these are getting far to short and not nearly as entertaining, I'll try and work on it or something later, I've got class again.

Day 22

So far so good, I think. The carbon foot print has remained pretty much the same except for the lack of meat, which is a good thing of course since that's what I'm supposed to be cutting out. This is going to be another very short post because, as you may have noticed from the time stand, I forgot to write this in the morning and I'm frantically trying to remember what I ate yesterday.

Ok, fine. There's nothing frantic about it. I know I had broccoli and cheese, some toasted french bread, and some pasta for dinner last night. Then I think there was some snacks and random little things for lunch and a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast.

Day 21

The more of these I write I find myself way "day [whatever]" in a way that one might if they were stranded on a desert island or hold up alone in the zombie apocalypse, but surely being without bacon for 5 days in a row for 6 consecutive weeks can't be quite that bad. I shouldn't even be complaining this week, the weather has been amazing since last weekend and is supposed to stay that way until the next.

No meat again, so good on that, except I had Velveeta mac-n-cheese which turned out to be not nearly as good as I remember it. Oh well, that's all for today because I need to eat before class.

Day 18, 19 & 20?

Ok, so I just realized that I missed Friday by accident so I'll just lump it all into the weekend and call it good.

Friday
Drove to and from school, then to and from my friend's place in Ballard. I had pizza twice because both times it was free, the second time it even had meat on it but it was only a couple hours from the weekend so I called it good. I mean, how am I going to turn down free pizza? I'm sure the both and creation process make plenty of carbon though.

Saturday

I did a lot of sitting at home and doing nothing, but that's good because low carbon, right? I did drive into town then home again, but it was for my Dad's birthday dinner so I can't really say it would have been legit to skip that sort of thing. I had some awesome food, which included meat, however it was all supposedly grown locally. Within 360 miles of the restaurant, apparently. Other than that I spent most of my time at home eating left overs and trying to fight off the urge to cook the pound of bacon I have left in my fridge from last weekend.

Sunday
So I did plenty of driving. I went to Issaquah, then somewhere else in Issaquah, then one more place, then came home. The first one was my buddy and I looking around for a supposed hiking trail which we had no luck finding, then we gave up on that and went to Tiger Mountain instead and hiked 8 miles. That was good times, my legs aren't even that sore... well except for the blister. Then we went to XXX Burger and got some giant burgers with even bigger 22 Oz. mugs of rootbeer. A perfect way to counter hiking up a mountain, calorie wise.

In recap I'm sure it was a heavy carbon weekend for me, but I can't really say that's too unusual. Avoiding meat on the weekdays is getting easier, but I'm also starting to doubt that it will actually make that big of a difference in my carbon footprint once I go back and do the calculator.

Day 17

Oops, I accidentally had some pepperoni today. I didn't even think about it and grabbed a subway with a friend while killing some time between classes. Everything else has been good, spent a big more gas so I could fill up my car, but that's how it works. However, I had some awesome "black bean patties" for dinner, they have some other veggies like squash and the like in them, but they were pretty tasty despite not actually having any buns to put them on.

Overall it was a pretty good day for the carbon footprint even if I did accidentally have meat. Maybe I'll make up for it by not cooking two pounds of bacon this weekend... or maybe not.

Day 16

Ok, I have to give a shout out to all my readers, especially you Germany-based blog-trolling bot. You were here before those Russian blog-trolling bots and therefor are clearly a much more dedicated fan... or fans, I don't really know how many of you there are. I only know I get around 5 page views a day and I'm  fairly certain none of them are real people, but I'm ok with that because I don't actual care. Not caring is nice, it makes it so I don't have to worry about what people think. Speaking of being egocentrism, here's the days recap.

• No unnecessary driving. +0 points
• No paper cups. +1.25 points
• No excessively long showers. +2 points
• Did not print out 23 pages. +0.75 points
• Did all of the tings above, just not to the extreme. -15 points

Needless to say, besides avoiding meat I'm probably doing a horrible job at reducing my footprint, though I'll just saying I'm taking the scientific approach and only changing one variable at a time to measure the real impact of it.

Day 15

First off I just need to share this. It's not like it's the first time I've heard it or anything, plenty of those views are mine, but I was listening to it just now and decided the world should know about it... so I'm going to do something besides post it on a blog no one reads. Maybe.

I had to wash some clothes yesterday and I don't think I have energy star appliances. While this isn't really any of my own doing, it still counts because of all that water and energy (yes I used a clothes dryer because it wasn't one of the four days a year you can dry clothes outside in Seattle). That's the big difference, the rest is the usual drive to and from school, sit at the computer all day, and eat things not containing meat while I wish they contained meat.

Speaking of not eating meat, I hear my man Mike put his carnivorous cravings aside as well, though I think he might just be crazy enough to be trying to give it up all seven days a week O.O Not sure I'd be capable of that, I mean, no more bacon or chicken? I might be able to do without the rest so long as I could sneak a burger ever now and then, but I already feel like this not eating meat thing is making the weeks drag out. Maybe it's just because I'm hungry all the time, whatever it is it's probably a good thing considering the quarter is just flying by.

Day 14

Not a bad day Monday, mostly snacks and other things but at least there was no meat. Here be the carbon recap.

• Driving
• Computer use (electricity)
• Hot shower (Nat Gas)
• Paper cup for some coffee
• Printed 23 pages for an audit for 205
• Had the air handler shut down for a tour, so that saved us some power.

I've been trying to decide if I'm actually eating any healthier or if I'm eating a lot more carbs and other crap that's beefin' me up, pun intended. Anyway, I've noticed plenty of driving, but that's almost all just going to school and coming home, and electricity use. The electricity use I'm sure I could cut down on but  I'm just too used to using my computer.

Day 12 & 13

Weekend recap, because I was having so much fun eating bacon and other meats I didn't have time to write about it. Actually, I only had meat a few times, but it was glorious.

• Drove a few hours in the car to visit nature, drove a few more to do some volunteer work at a school. (Lots of drive, -15 points)
• The meat eating took place, of course. (-10 points) but it was part of the plan (+7 points)
• Leftover boxes from said food. (-5 points)

So I made it through a week of vegetarian eating and now all I need is to do it 5 more times... well it could be worse, could be raining.

Day 11

It's like I can smell the bacon it's so close.

• Shower and wearing clothes I didn't make myself
• Drive to school
• Use of paper coffee cup
• Snacks tat came in plastic packaging
• Drive back home
• Drive to Thai place
• Eat Thai food
• Drive home
• Sleep

Day 10

Well it's Thursday, which means it's almost Friday, which means it's almost time for me to get some bacon. As expected, I'm very excited and can't wait to hit up somewhere with awesome bacon, like Alexa's Cafe, or maybe make my own... or both. Despite the challenge of avoiding meat I feel like I've been eating healthier because of it, even though that probably isn't exactly true. Alright, carbon time.

• The usual shower and car rides, but no extras. (-3 points)
• Food was all meat-free (+4 points)
• No plane rides (+7 points)
• The usual power usage (-6 points)

I think this is where some renewable energy might come in handy since I don't see myself reducing my computer usage any time soon. However, then I'd have to do more carbon footprint analysis on the PV panels, wind turbine, damn, geothermal power plant, or hamster-in-a-wheel device that I picked to help supplement my power intake.

Day 9

Victory. Another day without meat, including fish.

• No more driving than normal (+3x^[4+y]/9x)
• No meat or things waste of plastics (+Q=325*0.89*ΔT)
• Took a long shower (-3.14)
• Used plenty of power :(

The food was good, I think avoiding meat is actually more difficult than I thought it was going to be, in part because I'm at school most of the day. To avoid buying a ton a little snacks I have to bring a lot of my own food, or I really should be bringing a lot of my own food. I have been, but it seems like I'm always hungry now even though I can't eat that much at one sitting. That's not a bad thing though, I know it's healthier to eat a bunch of little meals than a few big ones.

Day 8

Bad news everyone...
Today I ate more salmon. I know, right after I said it was like cheating and I wouldn't be doing it anymore. How could I help it though? I was hungry and it was a free meal. I can't even afford free meals because I have -$3 in my bank account, which means I can't even take free things unless people give me $3 with it. Admittedly, I live with my parents so it's not like I can't just bum some money from them, which I already have.

So what was on my menu Tuesday?

• Protein bar and almonds for breakfast
• Teriyaki salmon for lunch
• Trail mix and more protein bars for snacks
• Tomatoes and cream cheese for more snacks (weird, I know)
• Finally, white bean and orzo soup for dinner

Other carbon items include the usual drive to and from school, I bought a water bottle but I refilled it a few times, maybe I should remember to bring my own from now on, and unfortunately the teriyaki salmon can in a styrofoam box which probably kill 30 baby seals and put 1337 pounds of carbon into the sky... and made the O-Zone hole over the arctic a little bit bigger.

Day7

Monday, official start of the week for not eating meat. I made a mistake in eating plain old eggs for breakfast... won't be doing that again.

• No meat for day 1! (+9 veggie points)
• Drove to meet mom for lunch  (-3 Earth points)
• "Dinner" at school with a bunch of snacks with plastic wrappers (-10 points)
• Salmon patties for dinner, they smelt so good I couldn't help myself. I've hear fish doesn't count, I suppose it does so I'll try and avoid it. (+/- 5 points)

I have a feeling this would be much easier if I had remembered to save some money because I wasn't getting paid for a while.

Day 6

Shockingly, I didn't have any meat on Sunday, which is probably a good start because the weekdays are certainly going to be hard enough to avoid being carnivorous... or omnivorous, or both. I also managed not to leave my house.

• Some biscuits for breakfast and broccoli for dinner, recycled packaging (aww yeah)
• Didn't use any gas (awwwww yeah)
• Used electricity being Batman on my computer (I am Batman...)
• Used a reusable cup to drink tea, then composted tea bags. (Winning)
• Took a really long shower (Losing)

Day 5

Oh, it's the weekend and a nice one too. Just look at that awesome view? I was actually supposed to make a non-routine trip to school to work on some Trace700 stuff and pulling down some sensors, but I completely forgot about it in wake of the sunshine and spent all day hanging out with Julian, my friend and former roommate. I helped him change the oil in a couple of cars, played some Might and Magic turn based game for as long as we could (approximately half an hour) and made some cheese and rice stuffed bell peppers for lunch. Believe it or not, I actually went all of Saturday without any bacon, though there was some meat in there on the pizza I had for lunch. My plan was to stock up on veggies this weekend to spend the weak not eating meat, unfortunately I forgot about a couple more expenses and only have a few bucks this weekend, so it looks like I'll be winging it next week. But here's the recap for Saturday.

• Didn't drive more than a mile (but road with someone for a few) [positive]
• Changed the oil in 2 cars, which is bound to be bad, but we replaced it recycles oil and brought the used oil in for recycling. [neutral]
• Ate healthy-ish (go me) and use fresh produce to cook (less packaging). [positive]
• I still used the computer and plenty of power. [negative]
• Recycled packaging from lunch and dinner. [positive]

Day 4

Friday! Friday! Gadda get down on Fri- NO

• 1 bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich and 1 cup of coffee in a paper cup. +5 awesome points, -10 environmental points
• Drove to school yet again. -more points
• Drove to DQ and ate horrible fast food with Jon, went back to school, then went home. +20 you suck points.
• Have some chicken taquitos that came in a plastic package.
• Sat at home and did nothing the rest of the day.

My parents left today. This means I'll be home alone for the weekend, which means I won't really be eating much of anything so I'm sure those watching my giant carbon footprint will be pleased to see it not-grow much this weekend. In fact, I don't even have plans so I'll probably just be sitting at home at my computer using that 33% hydro power from PSE for 18 hours a day while bitching about the stupid people writing reports on the Anders Breivek case.

Day 3 (follow up)

I think I'm going to put a lag on these entries so that I write about the day before each time. This is because of my extreme lack of motivation to do anything in the evening except play video games and watch Futurama. So let me finish up this recap of Day 3.

• Drove home from school instead of biking in the rain at about 5:30. -3 goal units
• Ate soem chicken that was raised who-knows-where and used a bunch of power sitting at the computer. -8
• Turned the water off while brushing my teeth. +1.08

I think I'm currently sitting at 40 - Love with the environment right now. I know the drive to and from school really isn't something that I can change since bus stops are so far and I can't live on my own or else... well or else I would be already. I could stop using these stupid paper cups for coffee (-19 mili-points) and bring my own mug or something, that's a decent idea, being that it's pretty easy and I'm lazy as hell. I could cut out coffee all together, but I'm already giving up weekday bacon (and all meat for that matter) so I think I'll keep coffee for now.

Day 3 - Early

I know it's not the end of the day yet but I have to make note of the awesome news that this project is going to be a lot more fun than I originally anticipated. We got this example carbon diary and it turns out I get to be super sarcastic and use my own personal, made-up points system that I never have to explain! Ok, sure, I was already being super sarcastic about it all, but that's just how I am anyway, the point system is going to be amazing and will likely change units without notice. So don't worry, there will be no "ten points from Gryffindor!" quotes because even that would be far too logical.

I also won't be breaking my day down in to 15 minute increments, or even by the hour, because that's just a bunch of time that I'd rather spend being green somewhere else (+7 goal units). I think I'll just list the bigger things, so you can count on showers, driving, things I use through the day, and of course food since that's going to be my big change. For starters, here is my day so far.

• 15 minute shower. -3 awesome points
• Forgot to eat breakfast. +2 awesome points
• Had subway for lunch (with meat). -10 awesome points
• Used laptop to write carbon journal. -5 awesome points
• Realized that using the computer saves paper, ink/pencils, and means the writing will actually be legible. +π awesome points

I won't argue that this seems stupid as hell; it'll get better, I promise. It's a good, at least I hope it is, that will get me on the path write down more things.

Day 2

Day two of the footprint, but not of abandoning sweet, sweet bacon. I heard this was supposed to be every day, so let's see how horribly I butcher that part. Every day I drive my 30-miles-per gallon car to school and back home, Monday through Friday, and I go into the downtown area of Seattle every other week or so, but that's about all the driving I do. Besides the driving I used lights and computers at school and home, as per usual. I didn't fly in a jet, which is nice since I'm poor and coach seats are very similar to sardine cans. Since everything I do in life generates 9,000,000,000,000 tons of carbon I think I'll just focus on what I'm going to be changing, the food.

I had a bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich on an English muffin from Whole Foods for breakfast. Then A ham, bacon, and turkey club panini for lunch and I'm currently enjoying some left over meatball and pepperoni pizza for dinner. See all that bacon in there? I need to get it in while I can. I've been thinking about different things I could eat that don't have meat in them to still get plenty of protein and so far I've come up with the obvious eggs, beans, and eating enough carbs I get so full that I forget all about protein. Thank god I have the internet to give me ease of access to "how to not starve to death while not eating meat" diets, because let's be honest, without bacon you're only surviving, not thriving.

The Unthinkable

So I'm taking a "Carbon footprint and Sustainability Analysis" class this quarter, I suppose that means it isn't surprising that I'm being asked to keep a daily journal or "budget" of my carbon emissions. Carbon emissions and the blog is called Carbonated. I wasn't kidding when I said I loved puns and word play. Just be happy, group, that I didn't steal our name from that (CabroNation) for this, and it's because I care about you so much.


Ok, back on topic. I need to make a poster at the end of all this that "highlights a change that you made and your rational for making that change" .... a change, eh? Well, I could move out of this giant house and live with 5 roommates in a studio apartment downtown, unfortunately I can't afford that or find roommates for 3 months nor have a won the lotto, so I need to find another option. Being that I'm a nerd I don't go out all that much, so my driving is pretty much limited as it is and to take the bus I'd have to drive a third of the way to school to catch a bus that leaves one major player left... meat.


If you know me at all, just hinting at not eating meat is rather blasphemous. However I'm not actually that big of a meat eater, and by that I mean I don't really consider it a necessity (bacon excluded) I just don't make any conscious effort to avoid eating it. That being said, I'm willing to bet I eat a lot more of it than I think (and I suspect I eat plenty) not to mention all the other terrible, Earth-destroying things I do in my day.


I'll be real with you and admit there's no way I'm giving up bacon totally, I mean I just bought a shirt last weekend that has the words "bacon powered" printed across the back in all caps. It's just not going to happen. I saw on a TED Talk once this guy pitching his idea for "weekday vege" which is just a few syllables short of what its full name, weekday vegetarian. This, as you might have guessed, means you can eat meat on the weekends so long as you went 5 days without it. Five days without bacon? The hell are you trying to do to me Gail? I know, I know, giving up meat was my idea and I can't blame anyone else for that.


The point of the blog (aka the journal) is to log my carbon emissions but in truth I'll probably use it for bitching about eating fruits and salads and healthy things while trying to fend of the onset of depression caused by an acute lack of bacon... or something like that. In short (is this post short? I hope not) I'm going to be putting a bunch of crap here I don't expect people to read.

Some technicals:

• I'm starting the blog right now, but I'll officially start logging and avoiding bacon on Monday 4/23
• I won't be pigging out on every scrap of meat I can get my hands on during the weekends (this is for you, future self. I'm watching you.)