Sunday, January 16, 2005

Greasemobile

I saw an article today about a local woman, Becky Johnson, who uses vegetable oil to power her diesel car. She calls it the lil Grease Beast, and she sponsored a "Greasel" forum/film festival at the Westcott last night. As I understand from the Syracuse New Times article, Greasel can be obtained easily from local restaurants.

Becky is part of a local collective that is focusing on greasel as a sustainable alternative to dependence on fossil fuels. I think their website is called something like "Grease my Ride." I'll have to check into it.

As I understand it, Becky's car/van has some kind of filter built in and a special tank. She starts the car on diesel, then it switches over to greasel. The article noted that it is possible to switch a diesel car to greasel with a bit of modification. Becky is going to take her "film festival" on the road and will "drive it across" the U.S. The local greasel collective wants to see if they can possibly get a local distribution site for greasel instead of having to beg a regular supply from local restaurants.

I have heard of "greasel" before. Ruth Ozeki's novel "All over Creation" features anti-globalization activists who drive a Winnebago powered by Greasel. They pull up to the local McDonald's and get french fry grease on their way to protesting global agribusiness corporations.

Interestingly enough, the Post-Standard also ran an article about Willie Nelson's biodiesel. He just started a business of distributing/selling Biodiesel, which seems to be like greasel, although it can be used in diesel cars without any modification to the fuel system. Part of his argument seems to be that we can use Biodiesel and support farmers instead of fighting wars over oil.

Food for thought. I guess my next car will be a greasemobile.

Saturday, January 15, 2005

Maiden voyage II

I picked the sunniest day of January to start a blog. Go figure. I should be out running, skiing, walking briskly through the streets....

What I hope for this blog-experience:
--that I will keep it up. I do write journals (old-fashioned leather bound variety), so maybe I can carry over into this venue.
--that I might use it as a space to reflect on "place." Since I taught a grad. course last summer on Writing a Sense of Place, I have been intrigued about trying to write/engage the concept of place through everyday experience. I hope to write some about Syracuse, about my passage between the eastcoast and the westcoast as a transplant to upstate New York from Washington state.
--that I can get some of the folks at the Nottingham to try their hands at blogs. They are curious about them.
--that I can read the blogs of my colleagues. They are always jawing about their blogs and urging me to visit them, well it's showtime now.

Well, off to the MOST....

Maiden voyage

Here goes.....

Husband Posts

This works. No problem. Bye.