Pella without the tulips

I got to travel with a group from work to a landfill near Tracy, Iowa today for an Environmental Management System Audit. The best part about Tracy - the town we never really went to - is that it's near Pella. We went there for lunch.

But first, I have to tell you about our drive to the landfill in the State of Iowa van. I had made arrangements to pick up co-worker Becky at a Casey's gas station in the town of Monroe. She lives in Pleasantville, and there was no need for her to drive into DSM to then drive back that way. Becky is 7+ months pregnant. She arrived before we did and was standing outside the store minding her own business when a guy gassed up his car and offered her a ride. And some $. Evidently, despite having a laptop on her shoulder and being dressed in decent clothes, Becky looked like a hitchhiker! I told her she shouldn't carry that stick with a bandanna filled with clothes on the end of it on her shoulder...I chuckled about it all day. It's kinda freaky though.

The tour part of the Audit - Jeff by truck, Becky and Leo from South Central Solid Iowa Solid Waste Agency

Our audit was interesting. We get to ask the nice people who work at the facility all sorts of things about what they do to protect the environment.

The interview part of the audit
 

After the tour part of the audit at the landfill, we headed up the highway to Pella for lunch. We went to the Windmill Café on the square. Afterwards we couldn't help ourselves - we stopped at a bakery for a treat.


town square

yummmmmm

Dutch Letter heaven...

I


Looking in the store window

 

We headed to Grinnell to the waste Transfer Station after lunch - to see how things are going there. They recently started collecting household hazardous waste there and they now accept shingles for recycling - from houses not from businesses as part of the EMS program. Saving space in the landfill and making roads out of shingles. Good stuff! Tomorrow - I'm off to Garnavillo with Scott.

Iowa City Site Visit

Bits and Pieces

At left is their stom water handling system - it has a green, growing roof.

I was in Iowa City yesterday for a site visit. They're participating in the Environmental Management System Program that I am lead on. The consultant we work with, Cory, flew in from Ohio to attend. We met at their brand new Education Center at their East Side recycling collection facility. Too cool!

They planted two biocells - and there are solar and wind elements!

They're going for LEED (top environmental stuff!) certification

Brooke and Cory chat about compost - scintillating!

I had a twelve hour day - had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to take off an hour later. We met at 8 a.m. at the Ed Center, and moved to the landfill at 9, working though lunch - slogging through identifying the environmental impacts stemming from the operations the Iowa City Landfill is in charge of. Because once they do that - they can work on controlling them.

It's exhausting work. The eight staffers who participated were really good sports though, so that helped. And Cory is like a coach - he draws people out. I am the scribe, typing stuff on my laptop. Plus I chime in when needed. We had a great meeting.

But I was tired last night, woohoo coach. And damn those migraines have been a bitch this week - the weather, hormones? Don't know. But I've been doomed to take Frova each day which also adds to my exhaustion. Today I was pretty worthless at work until about noon. My Supe Jen and I hiked down across the river for lunch at Big City Burger. My first time there. I had avocado on mine, and homemade chips. Good food!

We sat outside on a lovely day at Big City

Glad to be home in Creston today. 

Yowza got thru that!

Participants eagerly await information

I was in charge of a workshop/conference for work today. I was kinda stressed about it. Because I'm a control freak. It was for the Environmental Management System (EMS) program that I'm lead worker on. It was at the Botanical Center and around 30 people attended.

Laura - consultant, presides

Laura, our consultant from Dallas and I worked together on the content of the workshop. She put together the PowerPoints and the training materials, so she's been stressed too. Laura arranged for a guy from EPA in Washington, who is an EMS expert, to talk after lunchtime. He sat in on our morning sessions and was very complimentary of our program. ;>)

I introduce our speaker

Pat Boddy

I also lined up a couple speakers for the workshop, including Pat Boddy, former DNR Deputy Director. I put together some materials in preparation for the speakers - especially Pat who talked about setting good goals. Because in EMS, the participants - in this case, Solid Waste Agencies, set annual environmental goals to help them meet the requirement of continuous improvement to be in the program.

Goal-setting assistance could help each of us! Who couldn't use help figuring out just what we're really trying to get at!?!

It was a little confusing for some of the participants. But the basic idea is to get at - what is your REAL purpose for a goal you are setting? Here is an example that we had to work through.

A solid waste agency sets a goal of hosting 500 people in their educational center in 2011. Is that a good goal? It's measurable. But what does that number tell us? Not much really. What we talked about today is what the real goal should be. What is that agency was trying to accomplish by bringing people into the ed center? Mostly likely education about the facility services - recycling/disposal etc.

So a better goal might be behavior change after facility tour. To measure this, the facility could poll users to find out how they knew about the services.

It's like the difference between losing weight to fit into your jeans, and eating healthy for your lifestyle. Your goals need to be beyond the quick fix number. It's kind of a hard thing to wrap your mind around...

Jim Horne US EPA talks EMS

Anyway - I'm back at it tomorrow morning! Can you tell - I love this stuff!

Tomorrow will be a smaller group. Next year we'll be doing this conference again -  I'm already planning how I might do it better! Control freak!

Fried, but in a good way!

I'm fried tonight, so pardon me if this isn't my most scintillating post. I've been traveling the state of Iowa again, with a motley crew of co-workers, auditing Environmental Management Systems at solid waste agencies. Cast of characters:My supervisor

• Jennifer - her husband and 9-year old daughter were at home, where Molly only ate the carbs out of her school lunch
• Becky - a mommy who left her husband in charge of a couple kiddos. Becky actually partially dressed sleeping Trent the morning she left, and left a reminder note about "show and tell" Ah I remember those days... 
• Jeff - partner Nick was left in charge of pooches Leia and Lucy.

This week we visited Cedar Rapids Linn County and the Waste Commission of Scott County in Davenport.

Scenes from the audit, Scott County - wow, doesn't this look exciting?

Jen, Jeff and Becky look over the recycle beetle located at the CR Linn Landfill

They're doing good things for the environment at those places, despite what you might think about trash and landfills! I enjoy getting out and talking to the people that are on the "front line". The ones that run the dozers, collect household hazardous materials, pick up litter and run the scale.

But man, being on the road two days, and having to be "on" all the time. It's quite wearing. I drove about half the time - thank goodness Jeff shared with me. The traffic across I-80 is a bitch!

The scale operator keeps the bad stuff like chemicals and other hazardous things out of the landfill...plus she has Milkbones!

These are the types of projects our participants are doing - setting goals to sell composters and rain barrels and surpassing them - continuous improvement!

I was glad to get home to Joan's yesterday evening. The furnace guy was there - to the tune of a new motor for $600+. Joan was not a happy camper for a 7 year old furnace..

Paul returned home Wednesday evening from a successful hunt in South Dakota. He was with Mike Huston and Tom Sullivan- college buddies. Next - a weekend trip with my High School homegirls - Chris and Paula!

Busy Week

And I'm fried! Do you ever have those busy weeks? The ones where you have stuff back-to-back with little breathing room? That's the story of my week this week. Good thing there's a vacation in San Antonio at the end of it!

Monday I arrived in DSM just after 7 a.m. and rushed to complete my PowerPoint presentation in order to practice with Scott, my co-presenter. Then it was off to JimmyJohn's to pay for the lunch order for my Tuesday Auditor Meeting (14 lunches - all on my credit card plus tip $149). Got back and discovered they forgot to ring up a Coke. Phone call..more time.

Off to the dermo - ya'll already heard that story. Tuesday's meeting was at the beautiful State Library building a/k/a Ola Babcock Miller building. Historical, wood, tile. Nice meeting room. Poor Laura, my co-presenter went to the downtown library by mistake. Oops! She wasn't too late though. Gave me a chance to hit up my Supe about my job evaluation - she says it will be in July. (my 2.5 year anniversary is coming up June 19)

The Audit meeting went swell! Attendees were engaged and learned a great deal. Laura kicks ass in the training department - and I hope I had a little to do with it as well. L and I put the agenda together. And I chimed in on topics. In future years I suppose this stuff will be my baby - though it makes me nervous to think of it!~?!

Today was the big meeting - at the Bot. I never felt totally in control of the PowerPoint process as Scott pasted the application we were presenting on into the slide show. And he had fancy stuff (balloon and such) flying into his slides. I am a control freak and would rather have been in total control. (Like a 2-year-old...MINE). Plus another presenter had a few slides we stuck in.

When it was time to present, I felt I could have been smoother. More polished. Nailed it. I got a little distracted and stuttered around at times. But so it goes - I was nervous with my supe and super supe in the crowd.

But my friend Christine just texted and said "nice job today - very informative" so that makes me feel better.

Got an offer!

It was a pretty good day today, for a Thursday, even though I didn't get to go home. The 9.75 hour work day went by pretty quickly, actually. It was chilly out, so I didn't mind staying in at lunch and eating tuna. I kept busy finishing up designing a Survey Monkey survey for our stakeholders. Kinda fun really.

We had a pre-EMS (Environmental Management System - with a 9 member Council made up of a variety of stakeholders) meeting meeting today. The EMS meeting is tomorrow - and is bound to be contentious. A couple meetings ago a kinda got emotional and spoke up too much. But hey, last meeting I did great! So, note to self - zip lip again tomorrow. My boss Brian gave me "the look" today when he said "let's all keep our emotions in check" or something to that effect. What?? Me, lippy?

After work I attended the Planned Parenthood book sale. I got a cookbook, a couple books for Pablo (poolboy books on pool maintenance) a couple novels and a CD.

And I got the best phone call I've had in a long while! Jud called once - we discussed his job hunting dilemma - he'd gotten a call from a recruiter advising him of a job he should apply for at a coffee maker manufacturer 60 miles SW of Des Moines. Jud gulped - That's in Creston! Ick! I told him not to rule anything out - perhaps this was how he could break into the working world...and it's not that far from KC where his girlfriend Kara will be living. My maternal pep talk. He agreed to at least apply.

He also had an interview lined up in Minneapolis Monday. While he was in class, he'd had a call from the Altec Company rep he'd interviewed with two weeks ago, but had missed it, and the guy was gone for the day when he returned the call after 5 PM.

Jud and roomies - and, oh look who's in the back ground!

Five minutes later he called back jubilant. He has a job offer from Altec in St. Jo, Missouri! It even came with a signing bonus. St. Jo is just an hour from Kansas City. And isn't that far from Creston either. Yep - a pretty good day...

Home early

Baled out of DSM early this week. I've nearly got all my hours for the pay period that ends tomorrow. So I decided to head home today and work the four last hours from my own home.

I deserve it! Especially after I was successful in my quest to be in control of my emotions (and my mouth) at today's important EMS meeting. Of course the Council delayed some of the decisons which are the root of my stress, so I have the March meeting to look forward too! Always something...

But now I'm home, where my heart is!

On the road

I'm on the road again. Hit the road at 5:30 a.m. today - picked up my supe and another colleague. We headed to Davenport for an Environmental Management System audit. It was more fun than it sounds. We meet with people from the local recycling facilities and landfill. We get to ask them questions about what they do.

You prolly know by now I am interested about that stuff. I AM the trash lady after all! So I like talking trash.

After our long day, Jeff, Jen and I drove to Dubuque and checked into the Fairfield Inn. We ate at the Olive Garden nearby (I had a nice cocktail) and now I'm relaxing before I hit the hay.

Tomorrow we hit the audit trail again at the Dubuque Solid Waste Agency. I hope we cruise through it and get back to Des Moines at a decent time - like 6 PM. Today sucked for a Weight Watchers participant!

It was a dark and stormy night

Geez - I've been a busy gal. Work has been crazy busy - who knew garbage could cause one to work this hard!?! I told you all about the pilot project I've been working on - Environmental Management System or EMS for solid waste planning areas.

We have been doing a year-long project with six solid waste agencies - they're trying out being an EMS. We hired a consultant to help lead them through this process - it's a whole new way of viewing all the systems they deal with - trash, recycling, water quality, greenhouse gas, education and organics. There is more to it but I know blah blah blah.

Anyway - we're nearly to the end of the year and area thinking of what happens next. The EMS Council who oversees this project along with my department, decided it would be good to do a short video promoting the project so that other solid waste planning areas will consider becoming EMS in the future.

DNR has a Communications Bureau who gave us an offer we couldn't refuse to do this video. We wanted it done in time for the big fall trash conference in early October. I first met with Communications in early August to talk about the project - a teeny tiny young woman who is a graphic designer (she works with our department frequently) and 2 videographers whom I'd never met before. Crusty older guys - more like my age.

We set up a tentative filming schedule for each of the 6 pilot area locations and I had a bare framework for what we wanted to say. Now...all these weeks and several snafus (dead camera batteries, filled video cards) later, it's time to put the video together. Needless to say, I - there person that has never put a video together before - should not be the person ramrodding this project. Hell I don't know what I'm doing!

So I had to have a mini-meltdown - not really but I did go to my new Supe Jen and told her all about it. Then I dropped her name downstairs at Communications. That and the due date got things doing! I spent several hours sitting in a cramped video room logging video clips Thursday.

Then I met with my new Supe to talk about my job - to explain what I do. That ended up taking a couple hours - I could have talked longer. I love what I do! She's very interested and hands 0n - much different from Al, my former supervisor. It will be a change learning to work with someone who is into what I do - I will enjoy having someone to "have my back".

I took off in the rain from work a quarter to 5 for a 6 PM meeting in Osceola. Yikes - emotion, controversy, naked ladies. Okay there were no naked ladies, but it was a stress filled meeting with a city and the rest of the county feuding about the future of the solid waste in the area. Raw emotion! My other Supe Alex was there along with an Engineer Mick from DNR. Plus about 7 board members and 10 people in the "crowd".

When the meeting was over Alex and I grabbed a bite at the cafe across the street - he's still eating vegetarian so he went with the fried platter. I had lasagna - my first break of the day to eat. The drive home was awful - windy, dark and rainy. Hard to see. I didn't get home until 9ish. Pretty much a 14 hour day - I was beat, but love what I do!