Getting ready to 'head out'

Blogging somehow become less of a priority when you work for two weeks straight, while at the same time getting ready for a cross-country road trip.

This is my last issue at Audubon, and yes, it is pretty sad. I've only ever felt like a real journalist while I've been working there, despite all the bullshit I had to go through as an intern. I've gotten my best clips there, met some amazing people in the process and I'm glad I spent the better part of 8 months there. I am going to continue to freelance with Audubon, as well as contribute to their flowering blog. Please check out my first blog for them:

http://magblog.audubon.org/node/69

This is only the first of many ranting posts about half-assed environmentalism I hope to make. It may be elitist, but at least it's honest. The normal Joe can do so much more for the environment than he thinks. And the high paid people are definitely not doing enough. I hope to reach both groups.

Meanwhile, Mike and I are planning our epic cross country trip.


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This is our trip (roughly). We're heartily planning it.

Meanwhile... just as you are so happy to leave somewhere, you are so aware of the good things about where you live. Going to open-air brunch on Saturdays... Randomly finding Farmers' Markets... When I came home and walked around my Astoria neighborhood, I saw a wedding, shining in the sun. All the guests waited for the couple to come out. They were 50 feet from the elevated subway. I choked back tears as I watched that couple triumphant, emerging from the sun-glazed stone of the orthodox Greek church. So many things you might hate about this place... in the context of all that is good, you never notice how much everything around you is truly beautiful in its own way.

Despite that, we are ready to go. Both of us are eager to find jobs where we will be happier, and moving in together ain't so bad either. I love this kid.

Slowly becoming a responsible adult

As I prepare both for my departure from my internship at Audubon, and my roadtrip across country with Mike, I've started taking baby steps toward being ready to job search hardcore-like once we get there. One of these steps was getting a decent business card. I went on overnightprints.com, and on a whim designed and ordered my own business cards. I read in a book my mom bought me about getting from college to career that if you can't get rid of 250 business cards pretty quickly, you aren't networking nearly hard enough. And seeing how it's about "who you know," I figured it was a good step.

They do include my phone number, BTW but I don't want thousands of blog fans calling me up ;)

So yeah your basic hippie journalist card, equipped with green text and tree. They actually turned out much better than I expected. Can't wait to give them out at the next Greendrinks NY, a group of people involved in the environmental industry somehow that meets every month. I've been on their list for a few months now but haven't had the guts to go because (I know this is silly) I didn't have a card to give out. It's so embarrassing when people give you their card and you have none to give back. Problem solved! Inebriation with other like-minded green people, here I come. Please also see this hilarious "American Psycho" clip that inspired me to make a kick-ass card
Last Thursday my Macbook's hard drive died. Literally. It was about ten minutes before I was going to leave for work and I turned it back on to quickly check my bank balance and all I got was this flashing folder with a question mark. I went to the Apple store and they said there was nothing they could do except give me a new hard drive. Then I went to a place that does data recovery, paid $650 up front for them to get any files they could off the old drive (this was after my editor said they could reimburse me for it). I've been working on Mike's computer (thanks, sweetie!)... waiting for the past week to see what they can do. Got a call today saying that nothing could be salvaged. So once the new drive is installed I get to start all over. I didn't really back up much, but once I think about it, a lot of the stuff that is important to me (including these blog posts) is already on online servers so what I lost is really not that bad.

My roommate Evan's father is here visiting from Greece, just arrived this afternoon. He's staying until the end of the month. Already I can see this is going to be an education. He, with his thick Greek accent, spent the last 20 minutes trying to tell us that the U.S. government gets us too worried about credit cards and money troubles to realize how much they're f-ing us over. If people had more time to get up and protest about things, we'd have month-long vacations and cushy retirement allowances like those in Greece, I suppose.

That's about it for now. If you have any suggestions for specific places Mike and I should visit on our cross-country trip, comment! Neither of us are really very good at planning trips so we could use the suggestions.

Sorry she hasn't seriously blogged in awhile,

Shawno