A school year ends, a new career begins, in between, mayhem ensues

This is a long overdue post that will hopefully get me back in the habit. There is far too much for me to cover since my last post so I’ll just try to keep it brief, do a quick recap and continue on - more personal than sustainability related (as if possible to separate the two)....

Michelle, Mauricio and I finished up our thesis on time, staying awake to catch the couple hours of darkness each night down the home stretch. We were very pleased with the final product, and hope to get a quick approval after a few finishing touches. The tool we developed through our research – CDM Select is also looking good, as we put the finishing touches on version 2.0, which incorporates the feedback we got from the experts we interviewed.

We are working on a proposal to do some work with our research at the COP (Conference of Parties) in Nairobi in November – the COP is the annual international climate change negotiations, the “Kyoto Protocol” came out of these negotiations during the 1997 COP in Kyoto. Anyway, we’ve been in contact with some of the organizers in Kenya and are looking into tracking down funding for capacity building workshops on Strategic Sustainable Development and CDM Select. Any ideas for funding? let me know.

After the thesis was handed in, we had a great “graduation” weekend. The events were all very homegrown, modest and self-organized – and very fun and meaningful.

It was tough to wrap up the year and realize that I wouldn’t be seeing most of my classmates regularly, but there was so much talk about keeping our network alive and flourishing, and so much energy from our crew that I have little doubt we’ll stay in touch and be working together constantly.

After grad people started dispersing, and my buddy Damon from Dartmouth / NYC came to visit – we rigged up a flexi-fuel Volvo s40 and hit the road. We checked out Göteborg and met up with friends in Stockholm, where we checked out the city on a beautiful spring day, hit up a really hot (or really terrible, depending on your perspective) club, and had an absolute blast.

After a quick turn around back in K-town, Michelle and I flew back to Boston, checked-in with the fam, had a big night out in Boston with the Manch-vegas crew:

Then we headed up to Dartmouth for my 5^th year reunion. This is always a magical place to come back to, and this weekend did not disappoint, we had a solid turn-out and caught up with many I hadn’t seen in far too long. We played a little pong and had a few beers:

Had a pig-roast courtesy of the Jenks’ – Vermont’s finest and then some:

My favorite dog in the world made the 18 hour drive from Atlanta:

We made a quick stop at the Dartmouth Organic Farm:

– and all too quickly it was over.

Luckily we had a couple more days left up north, visiting the Ford’s beautiful home in Vermont. I got to show off the straw-bale house that Spencer and I built with his sister – and we got to meet her beautiful son. Really lacking on the pictures here, sorry - here's one of me, Michelle and green mountains:

Next, a quick stop in Burlington, where I got to play some lacrosse and realize how fully out of shape I am – a full treat, nonetheless. And finally, we cruised through New York, recharged on some of that big city energy, had a good meeting with some people from the UN that helped with our research and caught up with a bunch of old friends – thanks y’all for coming out.

Then we returned to Manchester – which turned into an epic 8-hour drive due to flooding and traffic (funnel walls) – just in time to catch my dear friend Blair’s wedding. It was a great scene – everyone looked beautiful, a non-traditional ceremony, complete with B’s giant dog Wiley walking down the aisle. Again, lacking in pictures, sorry - here are some of the less-desirable guests:

Now we’re finally settling down and really catching up with work, etc. Greenland Enterprises has its first official project, which will involve laying the groundwork for fundraising and business-network development for the program. It will be nice to give something back to this amazing program after all it has given me, and I suppose a few more months in Karlskrona should be bearable – I had actually forgotten how beautiful it is in the summer, so I’m excited to get back.

Of course in the midst of all these travels there has been constant interest, excitement, skepticism, collaboration, argument and dialogue about what we’ve been doing this year studying sustainability. I’ve been shocked (and stoked) by how many of you have been reading the blog – and am very grateful for the feedback, positive and negative. This blog was started as a running journal for my time at the MSLTS program, but of course I have no intention of letting it slide – we’ll see what it morphs into. So, thanks again. Now that I’m caught up hopefully I can get back to some more interesting content – keep reading, keep rockin’ … stay going.