AK Forum on the Environment

This week I've been attending the Alaska Forum on the Environment. It's the environmental specialist portion of my job. That being said I've had a meeting with the accountant, personal banker, and finally was able to migrate a legacy account and update a registration on the general manager portion of my job. I feel like I've just been bouncing from one meeting to the next. I'm using that as my excuse for not posting Friday (travel day) and Monday (lunch meeting and dinner meeting). Tonight is another dinner meeting but it's more and less casual. Wining and dining. I love it especially when I'm the one getting wined and dined. Beacon is taking some of it's clients out to Crush for dinner. Since I'm such a fantastic client, I was invited. Love it. Plus it means more time with my friend Shauntel.

So far my favorite thing about the conference has been these sculptures. They were created with marine waste that floated ashore. The jelly was created by an artist, who then inspired students in Kodiak to create Ophelia, the octopus. It really is incredible how beautiful the sculptures are considering it's all stuff that's been thrown away and was a hazard to the environment.

Giant, gorgeous jelly

My favorite keynote speaker so far is Annie Leonard. She created the story of stuff. The way she spoke just captivated my interest, there was such passion and conviction in her voice as she talked about her life's passion. She made us all chuckle when she said that it was humbling for twenty years of her life to be summed up in twenty minutes. However, that twenty minutes speaks volumes and has started some amazing dialogue about how much of the earth's resources we're using and just throwing away.

Meet Ophelia. Soon she'll be moving to the Sea Life Center in Seward.