My new favorite application

Cinch for mac (or Sizeup for Windows) is amazing.. Instantly resize windows to have two side by side panes of perfectly equal dimensions. AWESOME. I have been wishing for something like this forever. Funny how only today do I actually do something about it. I knew this was available when Windows 7 came out, but I'm really happy there is a Mac compatible program that works just as well.

Simply drag your window off screen and instantly resize to half the screen. Perfect for taking notes in class while searching the web (or for other, more productive reasons as well). Be sure to take a look at this highly recommended program. It's a Cinch.

Tree Bombs.

My new favorite song

Credit to Julia Hilkey for unknowingly introducing me to quite possibly my new favorite song. Ben Sollee's "It's Not Impossible (Boys Don't Cry)." I met Ben in Frankfort after the I Love Mountains rally on the capital building. He plays cello and sings. He excels at both. You should check him out. Bonus points: The music video was shot at the skate park in Louisville, KY.

The rally was a great day. I had to skip class for the early Monday morning rally, but it was definitely worth it. Over 1000 people attended, and while Gov. Beschear didn't take our message to heart completely, he did budge a bit and gave in to talks with some of our best environmental agents (Wendell Berry, KFTC to name a few). Activism at its best. Hopefully I'll be doing something like this during the summer. Apparently there is a march in West Virginia that sounds exciting. We'll see if I can fit that in. You should try too.


Tree Bombs.

This.

This. is a great show. It's called Big Ideas for a Small Planet and for some reason I can only find the 3rd season of it on Netflix. The show's focus is on creativity, innovation, and environmentalism as it surveys three different ideas per episode with an overarching theme for the whole show (examples include design, babies, entertainment, games, architecture). The show is ridiculously simple and that's maybe its best attribute. There is no emotional detachment if you don't see all the episodes back to back; instead, you can learn a few interesting facts and leave after the 20 minutes have elapsed. I'll keep this post short but I did manage to find this somehow on netflix and thought more people should watch this neat little show. My favorite episode was about edibles -- this summer I plan to grow my own food in my back yard.

Here's a shitty wikipedia article about the show. I could have found something more significant, but this is about as much research as I'm capable of doing at 1:35 AM (that's ante meridiem for my more stupid reeders).

Tree bombs.

One small caveat...

Though I don't except every post on here to be environmentally related, a good portion of them will be in some way. Today I discovered just how well my Economics major fits in with being environmentally responsible as both look at ways to reduce usage of materials in order to best save money, resources, etc.

Here is a video of something awesome that I wish would be happening in Louisville, KY but instead the smart people of Philadelphia, PA are taking advantage, and it's all about trash cans and solar panels.

Another eco thing I'm really interested in is called Solar Mosaic. The concept is brilliant. If you can't have solar panels on your house because you rent, your house doesn't receive a lot of sunlight, or any other reason, you can buy into a solar panel project that will be placed at a local school, church, or building with a roof that is more applicable for solar panels. Once the project is completed, you are compensated for 100% of the money you put into the project. I think I might just have to throw a few bones at this one. Almost reminds me of the million dollar homepage.

Alright, seriously, that was the last hyperlink for a while.

Tree Bombs.

Tree Bombs

Now for my first actual post. Why is it called Tree bombs? There's two reasons: For one, I found this great article on treehugger.com (one of my favorite, and often referenced websites) that talked about repurposing old war planes for uses other than killing thousands of people (lame). One idea was to replace the actual bombs with thousands (we're talking 900 of them) of tree seeds in an effort to replant forests which have been destroyed. Although there's a few things to think about in this scenario -- mainly the biological idea of introducing non-native species and how they can literally ruin ecosystems -- there's something very cool about flying in a plane, planting 900,000 seeds, and knowing you very well have created a potential home for millions of little critters.

The second reason for Tree Bombs is because of my good and faithful friends who know I am an environmentalist (read: hipster) at heart. By connecting my general apprecaition of Mother Earth with the fact that my father is from the Middle East (read: oil and bombs) you can start to piece together the puzzle that is this blog's name. Whoa whoa whoa Chris! You're friends are ignorant!! Yes, they're pretty silly; that's why I'm trying to educate them. Hopefully with these posts my friends and all people around the world will begin to see how we can innovate, repurpose, reuse, and rediscover things about this world which we never thought possible.


Tree Bombs.

So I decided to make a blog...

For a few reasons. 1) I am constantly on websites like treehugger, reddit, digg (RIP), youtube, wikipedia, google, etc. and I'm always finding information that I think is useful and wish other people would know about. Thus, what better way to reach an audience than through a blog they will doubtfully ever see? Am I right? Thought so.

Essentially, this will be the opposite of what you're used to. No real revisions or intense thought. Just sporadic, whatever-I-feel-like-writing-about writing. I hope that's ok with you because it's perfectly fine with me. On a side note, you'll notice that some things don't quite match up. For example, I started making a list in the first paragraph (see: 1)) and then I completely forgot about it; this further emphasizes my lack of seriousness throughout this thing, but I do honestly hope that readers will attain some knowledge of the interconnectedness of the world, the environments in which we all live, and the small actions we can all take to make sure the Republicans don't kill us all.

No, just kidding, I'm a registered Republican and I support Rand Paul...but I also like Barack. I'm somewhere in between, I guess you could say. Actually, people have told me that I'm not really anywhere on a political spectrum because I'm in so many places at once. To them I say, yes. You are correct. Because as Jay-Z said,

"A wise man once told me / don't argue with fools, / cause people from a distance cannot tell who is who."

I'll be posting a little more frequently than weekly (hopefully). I found the bold button. I'll use this to highlight important topics/ideas throughout the posts. Aside from that, stand up, get uncomfortable, and don't enjoy the show.

Tree bombs.