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I wanted to try something new, so Friday I (with a little help from the girl) cooked up a whole fish. I bought a 2lb whole mackerel, largely because it was the least expensive option at Whole Foods, though it is also one of the most sustainable fish to eat. I followed this Whole Foods recipe for red snapper, with a few adjustments to save time and make use of available cooking dishes. Nesting one pan in another was something I didn’t have the pans for, nor was I motivated enough to make an aluminum foil tent above the whole thing.

It was about as simple as it gets. I had the fishmonger (cool job title) clean the fish, so all I had to do was chop up some scallions, cilantro, and ginger, and stuff it in and around the fish. I tossed it in a standard 9×13 pyrex baking dish, though it didn’t quite fit. A mackerel is a fairly long fish, so it’s head and tail stuck out a bit, similar to the picture below. This is from a another mackerel blog post; my hands were a little too slimy to be taking pictures.

While I was getting the fish ready, Clara put together a simple dressing of soy sauce, honey, and peanut oil. We drizzled that over the top, and after 30 minutes in the oven, the fish was ready to go. The best part was, at this point the meat just fell right off the bones. Easy to serve, and even easier to clean up. The fish head in the trash started to make my apartment smell slightly fishy, but that’s a minor downside.

We had an “open house” at work this evening, which meant a lot of relevant people from PNNL, the University of Maryland, the DOE, and other local, related, organizations, came to mingle at our “new” office. New meaning 6 months, maybe? I’ve always been in the same office. Unfortunately, tonight I went from being one of the better dressed folks in the office to one of the most underdressed. I guess I missed that memo. Will it be too conspicuous if I’m a little more business-casual the next couple days? We’ll find out.

On the plus side, I had an easy ride this morning with Matt before work. It was dark, or near dark, most of the ride, but Hains Point is pretty calm and peaceful at 6:30am. Makes for a good, low effort fall ride, and (as I’ve said before) a great way to start the day.

I spent a solid few days in Chicago this past weekend; caught a 6:30 flight on Friday evening, and a 6AM flight Monday morning, so I didn’t miss much work. I think I finally have the route from the plane to the bus down; it took me about 25 minutes. This is somewhat of an accomplishment, as (in my opinion) the signs to the airport transit system are not very clear. But I did it with plenty of time to spare, and earned bonus points for making to Evanston well before I had planned to.

Saturday Clara and I went up to Deerfield for a nice little family brunch, mostly prepared by my mom, though Anna makes a mean muffin. And on top of that, I got my haircut while I was there. I have not had much success with haircuts in DC; Kim, who has cut my hair since I was about the height of the kitchen counter, does the job best. Immediately after that, Clara and I headed downtown to do some shopping. Somehow I always come back from trips to Chicago with much more stuff than I started with. This time it was a solid winter coat. On the way back we stopped at the Lincoln Park Whole Foods, which is a little over the top with it’s own suite of little restaurants and massive health care products section, but the trail mix bar as clutch.

Sunday was John’s Chipotle party, the winnings from a very successful contest entry.  More guacamole than I have ever had in one sitting, given I got it on my burrito AND with chips.

It was a solid weekend, but I missed out on impressing the Coppi guys with a weekend ride, and seeing as the weekend before I crashed (although not my fault, seriously), I really need to get in a solid group ride or two this upcoming weekend.

After a quick stop at the Farmer’s Market to grab some fresh eggs (free of many of the fun issues of eggs at big supermarkets), I went to this years Green Festival. I walked around the floor of various vendors selling their “green” goods, including Clif Bar, Honest Tea, Numi Tea, a lot of small businesses selling t-shirts and random crafts, an expansive hemp-themed section, organic chocolate, and off course the somewhat outlandish advocacy organizations. And there was greentropolis, where the kids got to play with old boxes.

I stopped by Ralph Nader’s talk, which was really really dull. That old man is just off his rocker. It felt like a rambling rant about corporations, food, television, and all the issues that like far left seemed to get excited about. The interesting thing to me was that the far-left crowd attending the speech really wasn’t all the interested. His talk wasn’t going anywhere. There were a few claps from the front when he said something along the lines of the nuclear power industry gets too many subsidies, but other than that the people around mean seemed to be waiting for it to end.

So, Greenfestival DC, not as exciting this year as in the past. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t go to as many of the talks as I usually go to, and there were plenty of smart, interesting people on the show floor. I’m glad it happened, but I really hoped they would keep pushing the boundaries a little further.

Thursday night I went down to CycleLife in Georgetown for a yieldtolife fundraiser. Dave Zabriskie, pro cyclist, recent Tour of Missouri winner, and goofball extraordinaire, was there to talk a little bit about the foundation he started.  Not the most exciting chat (he was in kind of a quiet mood, I guess) but I definitely support educating drivers, cyclists, and kids on how to be safe on the roads. Nobody likes getting hassled by cars.

Dave seemed to focus primarily on trying to educate drivers, and make them envision a cyclist as “life”. He mentioned that when a driver sees a ball rolling across the road, they instinctively slow down, because they assume a kid could follow. DZ and his wife Randi want to get drivers to elicit the same response for cyclists.

On top of drivers being a little smarter, I think cyclists can respect cars more. We can all be buddies on the roads. It was a fun event and I hope they keep pushing this little project of theirs.

I leave for work around 8, and get back between 6 and 7. Being gone all day, coupled with it getting darker earlier and earlier, makes it hard to get some time on the bike. One way I’ve dealt with it is by commuting to work on my bike as much as possible. But a pair of 9 mile rides on a fixie a few times a week isn’t going to keep me in the shape I need to be first up the local club ride hill climbs (that’s my most exciting goal these days). I’ve been riding after work a couple times a week, for 25-30 miles, either as a slow recovery ride with some UMD friends, or a tempo solo workout. The best weekday workouts I have been getting have been the 6:30 (AM!) rides with my buddy Matt; we head down to Hains Point on the Potomac and do intervals for an hour or so. It definitely gets the legs moving, and is a good start to the day.

Of course, I’m still riding on the weekends consistently; I aim for a 50 mile ride both Saturday and Sunday, one being a fast group ride.

Come winter things might change. I have a trainer, and my apartment building as a fitness center, though it is tiny. For now, things are going well.

The past couple days I was at a Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage (CCS) conference here in DC. CCS, if you don’t know, is basically a way to capture the carbon dioxide emitted from power plants, refineries, and natural sources, and store it permanently, most likely in deep geological formations. It was an interesting conference because the policy-oriented people seemed to be thinking more long term, focusing on the use of CCS with power plants. The business folks, while not generally as interested in solve the climate change issue, cared about capture carbon non-the-less. They see a short term business opportunity in using carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). By pumping carbon into nearly depleted oil fields, 10-20% more crude oil can be produced. EOR is the last gasp of a dying oil field.

In order to make CCS beneficial, it must be used on the large point sources of emissions, mainly power plants. But in this case CO2 is just a waste product; there is no motivation for power plant owners to make the huge capital expense required to capture CO2. This is expensive technology, and it is not going to happen unless there is a broad societal understanding of the need to reduce emissions.The numbers are debated and always changing, but you will probably need a price of at least $60 per ton CO2 to justify the expense to the power sector. The technology is doable, and there could likely be full-scale coal plants with CCS in 5-10 years, but only if project developers can be assured there will be a sufficient price on carbon, and it won’t change with the next election cycle.

I think CCS has a role to play if we want to get emissions down without an excessive burden on the economy. Wind, solar, biomass, and nuclear will all play an important role as well. I think the natural gas lobby might actually help to get climate legislation off the ground; with half the CO2 emissions of coal, gas stands to gain a lot.

It’s taken me a few days to adjust back to living alone, after Clara visited for 5 (fantastic) days. My apartment is decorated much better now, but it still feels empty.

I picked up a couple Michael Pollan books from the Mount Pleasant library (omnivore’s dilemma & in defense of food) which I’ve been starting to read. I am learning all sorts of exciting things about corn. I agree entirely with Pollan’s general theme of eat more real food, like fruits, vegetables, things that aren’t processed. But he hates a little bit too much on corn for my taste.

Biking hasn’t been so hot recently. I don’t think I was on a bike between Wed. the 2nd and Thur. the 10th, when I commuted to work on my road bike. I didn’t really notice, which is slightly concerning – usually I get more stir crazy. This morning I went on a good slow but steady 50 mile ride with a couple of my Maryland buddies and tomorrow morning (hopefully) I’ll get a ride of similar distance in with the Coppi guys, and get right back into the swing of things. If I get really ambitious (or my more-ambitious post-Ironman Matt pressures me into it) I might even get down to do some sprints at Hains Point down by the Potomac. I would like to have a strong winter of training, and there is nothing that should stop me from that. If I’m not careful my sister will start out sprinting me…

There’s no story behind this. I went for a little walk around my neighborhood, and grabbed this shot. I like the one guy briskly walking by at the bottom, makes for a nice scene (and it’s actually a fairly busy street).

You really need to be careful when you try to buy things on craigslist without a car. I bought a non-descript microwave the other day. The seller refused to give me an idea of the size of the appliance, ignoring several emails. I figured it wasn’t that big of a deal, I would go over and check it out, and if it was too big to deal with I’d say no thanks. But when you show up at someone’s house or apartment, there is some sort of unwritten rule that you really better buy the thing, unless there is something wrong with it. This was the 1.5 cubic foot variety of microwave, not the 0.7 cubic foot kind. It’s large. I picked it up, and it didn’t seem to heavy, and proceeded to carry it down the street to my place. I figured at slightly under a mile, it couldn’t be too bad.  The first minute or so was easy, but it got exponentially harder. I proceeded to make a bit of a fool of myself, awkwardly carrying this giant thing down a fairly well trafficked street, stopping to catch my breath every 100 feet or so. My arms were so numb afterwards it was a challenge to feed myself, or hold a phone to my ear. But, I have a microwave now, so all is good.

Just be careful what you get yourself into…