Mr. Chiotos' Record

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Monday, February 18, 2008

Holy Crap...

There's lots going on...

Had to take the last part of today for myself just hanging out and being human and getting space away from work with Abe and Dana and Jordan and Matt. I went in early today ready to grind out some great work and started out that way - but got hit with some pretty big and disappointing news this afternoon. Madeline (SEAC staffer) is heading out this semester to work for the Energy Action Coalition and that puts SEAC in an odd spot with her being so important to us these past few months. So - I definitely needed space after hearing that.

This past weekend was great. Going fishing was where its at - we hit up the Buckhannon River Saturday afternoon and went trout fishin. Didn't see any fish, didn't catch any fish, no nothin, but it was a gorgeous day on a gorgeous river. Hanging out with Sarah and Tadd rocks.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Valentine's Day

Here I am at 1 in the morning on valentine's day kinda doing work, kinda messing around. It's been a great valentine's day - did work - chatted with people - watched some Dr. Katz - i enjoyed it.

Going fishing tomorrow with Sarah & Tadd - that'll be great.

This is sticking in my mind from chatting with Bobby earlier tonight...talked to a fella that had water testing from 10 years ago that say there are 4x above safe drinking water standards SDWS for Manganese.The fella just said.....ill be dead and gone before people get water here"



Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Getting a Schedule

Here we go - write write write

I'm here in the SEAC office getting ready for the day to start and continuing with writing in this thing as often as I remember to.

I've taken these past couple of days as a weekend - and even though I did work Monday, I'm in denial about it, so I'm not thinking of it as a work day. I just happen to use my free time sitting on email in a coffee shop...Yesterday was a pretty great day off, here's what I did

-slept in
-watched a lot of the office
-stayed on the couch
-made better burgers
-made cheesecake



Posting pictures from this past Sunday's Young Dems' Day on Kayford which I'm hoping is a building effort.















Above: Chuck Nelson, retired deep miner and volunteer organizer with OVEC
















Above: The crowd of good folk up on the mountain that day




















Above: Susan and James Tawney who are fighting a strip mine in Nicolas County

















Above: Donna Branham who's fighting a mountaintop removal project in Mingo Country



















Above: The Crowd





















Above: Yours Truly

















Above: Rod Snyder the President of the WV Young Dems speaks

















Above: These used to be mountains, and we can still save the ones in the distance

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Here I Am

Well, I seem to write in this thing a lot from roadside fast-food joints. I really don't spend that much time in mcdonalds and long john silver....i swear....

SEAC is sucking up huge amounts of time this week and it'll probably do the same next week. I'm headed down to the Southern Student Renewable Energy Conference wayyy down South on the Georgia - Florida border. I'm giving a fundraising workshop and facilitating a white alternative group - so it's going to be a pretty intense weekend. Here's the travel schedule:

leave Charleston, WV tomorrow afternoon & get to Clemson, SC tomorrow night
leave Clemson, SC Friday morning & get to Valdosta, GA Friday afternoon
leave Valdosta, GA Saturday afternoon and get back to Charleston in the Saturday AM

Its a ridiculous weekend - but it's going to be worth it and amazing and inspiring to be with people and all that jazz...I just wish there was a train that went the whole way...trains rock. they also choo choo

Young Dems Day on Kayford is this Sunday - this is coming together and is even going to have a video that goes up on YouTube - hell yeah! We're fancy

I'm really really looking forward to taking a week off - depending on how the February grant writing and fundraising drives go, I might could take it in late February - otherwise taking it in March. I have a lot of time off that I haven't taken and I could (if I wanted to) take a week off per month and still have vacation left over. I won't do that, but a week of little work every 2 months sounds great! Especially when spring and summer time roll around...get out and go fishing and chill. I'm planning on going fishing real soon here - probably next Friday with Tadd and Sarah and maybe Dana.


Planning on my week off being full of projects - making a lamp out of my mannequin legs...working on a garden at moms...visiting friends...a good big bunch of stuff

Anyways, things are good, I should get on to Dana's so I have a couch to sleep on...