Advocacy Project: My Political Representatives

This week's post is identifying our political representatives. I will be identifying my Wisconsin representatives, as I am still a registered voter back home and participate via absentee ballots. I will hopefully eventually be a Minnesota resident when I get an awesome job and can move to the Twin Cities, but for now, Wisconsin it is!
The President of the United States is none other than Mr. Barack Hussein Obama, who is a Democrat. You won't have much luck getting in touch with our Commander-in-Chief on your own, but you can contact the White House if you'd like to try to reach him. Our Wisconsin senators are Herb Kohl (Democrat) and Ron Johnson (Republican). Mr. Kohl can be contacted via his website, and Mr. Johnson can be by his website as well. My two State House representatives are Chris Danou (Democrat) and Dean Knudson (Republican). Chris can be reached by his email, and Dean can also be reached by his email. My Democratic State Senate representative is Kathleen Vinehout who can be reached via her email. Unfortunately my other State Senate representative is Republican Sheila Harsdorf, who earlier this year we tried to get out of office in a recall election. A former high school teacher of mine, Shelly Moore, ran as a Democrat against her. We were unsuccessful is removing Sheila from her abusive post of power in the Senate. You can email Sheila if you'd like to ask her why she has decided to turn her back on the residents she supports. Our Wisconsin Governor is Republican Scott Walker, who has gotten his fair share of media attention for his decisions for the state regarding union rights. If you would like to contact Mr. Walker, you may email him.

Reflection: Weeks 1-7

The first half of the semester has been very informative and fun! We have covered a lot of information I never really thought too much about, and have had lots of eye opening experiences thus far.
I really enjoyed my Read n Seed project the most. It has been a while since I read a book at all, let alone one so informative and beneficial. I learned a ton of new information about the trash we create by making stupid decisions throwing stuff away that has tons of other uses. I will definitely use the things I have learned through this book for the rest of my life and try to spread my knowledge to others the best that I can.
Although I haven't had to learn too much about blogging or HTML myself, I have enjoyed helping others learn these skills. I remember when I first started out learning these tech skills and they were very confusing, so I really like being able to help my fellow peers get better in these areas to help maybe open doors to them being able to express themselves better through the world of blogging.
Although I have seen a couple of the documentaries we've watched so far, the ones I hadn't watched were very informative as well. Also, the class discussions of these documentaries have a lot more insight to offer than just watching them by myself and having my own opinion to judge the whole thing off of.
Overall, this class has been awesome and I look forward to learning lots more in the second half of the semester. I have enjoyed every aspect of the class so far, and I know there are even better parts yet to come!

Eye Opener: Junk on the Brain

Antiquing in the form a verb is defined as looking for or shopping for antique furniture, articles, etc. Junking is finding discarded items that others have decided are trash and finding new purposes for that item or restoring it to usable condition. A flea market is usually held outdoors, where antiques, used household goods, and other oddities are sold. A thrift shop is a shop that sells used items, especially clothing and household goods, usually to benefit a charitable organization. Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value. A resale shop is similar to a thrift shop or resale buys their items from others and then resells them.

All of the above terms are very important to environmental health because they are all instances where others are being responsible and recognizing that items do not have to be at the end of their life cycle and can have lots of other purposes besides their original one, or even be restored at a reasonable cost to be completely usable.

There is Father Time Antqiune store at 395 S Lake Ave Duluth, MN 55802. They can be contacted by phone at (218) 625-2379 but do not have a website listed for their business. Jadco Special Haulers is a junkyard you can go digging through at >4011 Rehbein Road, Duluth, MN 55803. They can be contacted by phone at (218) 724-5538 ‎and do not have a website listed. HERE is the link to a website that posts flea market locations based on the area you search, so that would be a good way to keep up on where some flea markets are. Goodwill is a local thrift shop that is located on Garfield Ave and can be contacted by phone at (218) 722-3050. You would be able to practice upcycling at any of the locations litsed because all you have to do is find some trash from those places and practice upcycling with them. An example of a resale shop in Duluth would be Plato's Closet located at the Burning Tree Plaza which can be contacted at (218) 733-9455.

I do like to go to Plato's Closet and Goodwill on occasion, along with other stores such as Savers. These stores can be great places to get deals, steals, and unreals! Buying used instead of new sometimes just makes sense because of the way so much older stuff is built to last as opposed to our current mass produced cheap stuff that constantly breaks creating more waste for the world.

One awesome project I found on Junk Market Style was a Reel Bird Feeder. I thought this project was an awesome deal because movie reels are a prime example of stuff that has limited uses in modern day society with so much new technology, but this person found such an awesome reuse for a large and bulky item that would take up a lot of room in a landfill or salvage yard. Another great project using the same item, a movie reel, can be found on the site too, a Reel Plant Holder. You could probably think of endless things to put inside these reels once you get thinking about it (i.e. maybe even candles?!?) Being a sucker for plant life and well placed greens in a house I found this Planter idea very nicely done too, as they took old metal boxes that didn't serve a purpose anymore and simply placed a plant in and placed them in a good spot in the house.