Fall Trips, Foiled!

I've been out of commission lately after an impetuous tussle with a bike trail got a little too heated and resulted in 12 stitches in my knee, among other gashes. That was the second of two really excellent fall trips I had planned.

The first was a jaunt up to Pittsburgh for a memorial service for a professor of mine who died this summer. Even though the leaves weren't turning yet, I had a lovely drive out. It was kind of strange to be back at CMU whilst not enrolled as a student, but I welcome relations with my former professors that are on a more "real person" kind of level. Look Ma, I'm a real person now! I stayed for free [in exchange for manual labor and a list of favorite dinner suggestions] and checked out a Feist concert while in PA, too. Good times.

After that, I headed out on a 4-day biking and camping trip with a friend. We planned to bike along the C&O Canal from Washington in the direction of the Cumberland Gap (where a different trail picks up those on their way to Pittsburgh), where our only real goal was to reach Harpers Ferry. As fate would have it, we wouldn't even reach that modest distance! Although that probably had something to do with our road bikes' relative sensitivity to dusty, gravelly trails; the bikes with us and all our stuff strapped to them were just too unstable. Rubbernecking was the fatal step that sentenced me to a day in the hospital and at least a week of hobbling. I can't be thankful enough for the plentiful, gracious runners that shuttled us to the hospital and helped us take care of our bikes. Now, I'm pretty sure the best way to show my appreciation is to pass on the good karma.

Injuries aside, the trail is a really beautiful place to ride, walk, or hike! If only it were paved. The canal locks make some mini waterfalls every so often, and the terrain is almost completely level (except the gravelly hills at each lock) so it's not difficult. I can't wait to get back and try again - and maybe this time get some camping in.

NPR Story on Biofuel

Earlier this year, I got word of a new company that has the first plans to build a cellulosic ethanol plant in Georgia in 2008. Range Fuels plans to use waste products from corn production (and hopefully, waste products from other proliferative agricultural processes too) to make ethanol. More and more companies are seeing this time of environmental need as an opportunity to be innovative, and the news media is all over those kinds of stories, too.

Just today, I ran across an NPR Story from a March '07 Talk of the Nation (Science Friday) show about the viability of biofuels in which a Range Fuels CEO serves on a panel that addresses this particular method of weaning the US off its "fossil fuel addiction," including US enthusiasm over Brazilian ethanol. From my perspective, the reason this story is so great is that they go into the issue not only from a ChemE perspective but from a sustainability point of view.

One particularly keen question that came up is, how can we support corn-based fuels when they are one of the largest users of petroleum-based fertilizer in this country? That's one more very large reason for spreading the use of composting!