Green Day

Back in the mid-nineties, when my brother and I were in college, my brother took some courses on geology from a geologist at OSU (Go Buckeyes!) who had drilled out cores of ice from the poles and brought them back to the US for study of the planet. My brother would talk about walking into the locker where they kept the cores and making the jokes about putting their tongues on the ice to have a "Christmas Story" moment.

In the summer of 2006 my brother and I were parting ways, residentially speaking--he was moving from our apartment in Sunnyvale to live with his girlfriend in Fresno, and I was moving to the City. The week after we moved we went back to clean the old place, and a friend of mine at the time helped us. That weekend it was about 100+ degrees in the South Bay and around 90 in the City (which wouldn't normally be shocking in July, but this is San Francisco, which is supposed to be cold year around). Since our old apartment didn't have air conditioning, we decided to go to a movie to cool off.

The movie we went to see was "An Inconvenient Truth." (See my entry on my old blog for July 23rd, 2006.) We were enjoying the coolness and the movie, and then Al Gore starts talking about ice cores. "Hey," says Michael, "I know that guy...that guy was my teacher."

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About the same time my brother was taking the geology class I was taking a class in 20th Century American History, with the history professor who fired me up to take history as a minor. One of the guys in the class mentioned that Al Gore was coming to speak in Springfield, down in front of the job outreach center on Glenstone Avenue. Did I want to go? DID I? Do bears pee in the woods? I was an independent leaning strongly to Democrat in a red county (back before they called 'em red and blue), and I went with all of the eagerness and passion of seeing a rock star. Gore is a dynamic speaker, as anyone knows who has seen this movie, although in the movie he is more effective than he was when I saw him--at that point he was doing a lot of bellowing. I didn't get to shake his hand (luck of the rope-line), but it was great to hear him breathe fire into our minds.

And then to do it again last year.

And THEN get recognized for it...Oscar, Emmy,

And now Nobel.

I don't want him to be president. I want him to stay right where he is, and keep doing good. Let someone else rot in the White House.

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I am the only person in my workplace without a car. This limits me for special projects, and makes my boss think that I am holding back on my career.

But I'm working to save our lives.

Or, at least extend the life of the planet another 3 to 4 minutes.

And that may not be much, but I bet if the World Trade Center Towers would have collapsed 3 to 4 minutes earlier, someone might not have been able to say goodbye.

Or "I love you."

So I'm giving you 3 to 4 more minutes to do that while I walk the world and breathe in your exhaust. I know that some of you need cars. But not all of you.

I may never get promoted. But we'll live longer.

Thanks much, Al. Kudos! You deserve it. But then, I always thought you deserved it.