Build Day in Poughkeepsie

Today we took part in a community revitalization project in Poughkeepsie, NY; I was part of the stream revitalization team, which was the perfect job for me. As many of you know, streams are one of the loves of my life. From following them from my house to the Potomac River in Virginia to studying them as a geologist, I have seen my fair share of streams, and this one was in bad shape. Streams provide a number of 'ecosystem services' from helping to support life that plays a critical role in nutrient cycling to providing recreational value to people living near them. While researching streams in the inner city, Washington, D.C., I came to understand that a community that grows up around a stream that has been turned into a drainage ditch will have a hard time respecting other parts of the environment, and this certainly seemed to be the case in Poughkeepsie. We pulled out almost an entire car's worth of parts out of the small stream as well as well over a dozen bikes and all sorts of trash. It was a great time for me, as I couldn't think of a better way to spend a day off the bike (which is a sad day for me) than stomping around in a stream.

So the most important story from this day follows:
At lunch time, we headed up to a community center where we were to get lunch and meet up with some community members. We arrived a bit early, so I laid down in the middle of the community center's large tile floor and promptly fell asleep. The rest of this story has been relayed to me by innocent bystanders. Apparently, while I was out cold on the floor, the mayor of the city came in and gave us a talk, thanking us for our work. I slept through the whole thing. The moral of this story is... well I am not sure that there really is a moral to this story. But the point is that I am a tired puppy these days.