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[ewt]

Still short of fuel in Ontariariarioioio. How would you cope if you couldn't buy fuel for your vehicle? How would you get to and from work? If you run a business, what would happen to it in the event of supplies being disrupted? Get used to thinking about these questions.

Also relevant to Canadia, 9-year-old Canajan citizen held in US detention centre. His parents are not Canajan, see. Anyone know more about what's going on here? Anyone have an address for Canajans to write to about this? Also, is this FBorFW comic a comment on it?

Green Feet will be a sustainable evening of dancing somewhere in North London on Friday, 1st June. You are invited to come along in your finest recycled outfit. I really ought to get around to making that reflective road-cone dress sometime soon... but if not, perhaps some plastic-bag knitting (I've realised that I can spin the plastic bag strips rather than just knitting/crocheting with the strips themselves!) or even just my skirt of recycled silk from charity shops will do.

Trees and crops reclaim desert in Niger. I am getting more pro-tree all the time.

A few people have recently mentioned Earth shoes. See, I'm finding that at the moment I have two pairs of comfortable shoes - one is a pair of MBT trainers I bought last spring, and the other is a pair of . I've just spent a couple of days wearing my sensible Ecco lace-ups, and while my feet don't hurt, my hips and back do; there is support, but virtually no cushioning. But - I can't wear the MBTs and the Crocs all the time, the MBTs are stupidly ugly (and too heavy for summer really) and the Crocs always look like I'm ready for a day at the beach - fine in summer, but not so much in winter. Not really professional enough for teaching or performing! So. I'm considering buying a pair of Earth shoes, next time I have any money, because they do have quite a wide range and they appear to be similar to MBTs in terms of how they work. Something like Allure or Classy would probably be best - adaptable, can basically take the same role as my Ecco shoes were meant to, and would mean I don't have to make a decision between something comfortable (ie not-pain-causing) and something that looks appropriate for the setting. There's also the problem that if I do wear one or two pairs of shoes ALL THE TIME then they wear out much faster, so it's actually better to have more pairs and rotate them.

I'm going to have to have a sort through my existing shoes and boots to decide which ones to keep and/or modify, and which ones to get rid of. I'm wondering if I can get or make some sort of negative-heel insole that could be used with my hiking boots and other shoes. Hmm.

Comments

[velvetpurrs.livejournal.com]

Short of fuel would be a problem. Not for me so much on a personal level, although it would obviously impact on getting food etc into the shops, which would then impact me directly - but from a work perspective, it would impact it tremendously.

I drive. All over the place. And for work. I work from home a lot... but - and it's a big but - there are things that cannot be done remotely. Installing new equipment in racks in our core network, similar on customer site. Can't replace a box that's gone pop remotely. Can't diagnose all faults remotely either - sometimes you really do have to be there to sort it out and fix it.

I've worked through the original (not the rather damp squib second round) fuel protests. Because it was only a short-term thing, but with no definite end in sight, we got to work from home except in an absolute emergency, in order to conserve the fuel we had in the car already. That meant that we delayed installs till the far side of the protests. Obviously if fuel is short for weeks/months, there is a limit to how far we can delay that sort of work, because customers need it to function as a business, and we need the customers in order to function as a business.

I do remember working out how much fuel I had left in the car when it had got low, and thus how many miles distance I could go in order to try and get petrol, and still leave myself enough to try a second place, and then make it back home in the event neither had petrol. I phoned round all the garages within that distance, in the small hours of the morning (about 2am as I recall), and headed out to one hoping that most of the rest of the population would be in bed and not doing what I was doing.

As for rationing - given the miles I can do in a single day (my mileage fluctuates wildly between nothing one day, and several hundred the next) being allowed 1/4 of a tank of fuel per week would effectively be as much use for my work as being allowed none at all. My car is small-family-sized - the sort the wife runs the kids around in type, relatively economical, and not a huge hulking executive bargewagon either, but there are days when even going out full means I am looking at filling up somewhere on the return journey - I really do sometimes have to do 400-odd miles in a day.

I'm not sure what the answer is. I like to think that maybe, because of the work I do, we might get special dispensation to have more fuel, but I suspect that will actually not be the case. We don't save lives on a daily basis, though without functioning networks some of our customers wouldn't be able to provide materials and services to the people who do, so it's a tricky one really.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

If it comes down to it I'm within walking distance of work. That assumes the lack of power has made the tube unuseable. If the fuel shortage is serious enough that the cars are off the road, I'd be happy to cycle in, which would probably take me about what the tube takes now.

However being near the centre of a fairly dense town of several millions of people, I suspect I'd not be walking so much, I'd be trying to conserve energy, since there wouldn't be much food with which to replace it. In reality therefore I'd probably have quit town before it got serious.

On the other hand, on the basis that I earn above the average wage, one would assume that either a solution is found before people like me can't afford to eat, or else society has already collapsed, and since my work would be fairly relevant in these circumstances, I imagine I could be persuaded to stick around.

[403.livejournal.com]

If my part of the U.S. has a fuel shortage for any length of time, the state of Arizona is pretty much toast. We have to ship food in, because there isn't enough water available to grow enough for all the people who live here. Much less have any left over for those same people to drink afterwards. My plan is, and always has been, to jump ship for a damper part of the country before things got too bad.

Earth Shoes

[(Anonymous)]

'Way back in about 1973-74, I owned a pair of navy blue, leather, Earth Shoes, very much like the "classy" style. I really liked them quite a lot and although I wasn't experiencing any back or leg pain when I bought them, I thought they were a good idea and would counter the negative effect of any heeled shoes. I bought them in Toronto on Yonge Street and when we moved to Moose Jaw in 1975 I was unable to replace them when they wore out. It's very cool to see they still exist. I hope you find some you like.
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