As a self-proclaimed greenie, I take issue to Styrofoam plates at family gatherings, five cars parked at Grandma’s and relatives that don’t recycle. With all my opinions and complaints, one would think I’d be a strict vegetarian, but truth be told, I adore meat. So, I’ll likely be consuming some turkey on Thursday, albeit, free range.

Still, this holiday season, I’ve started researching ways to green the gatherings. I came across a rather bloody cartoon PETA video, as well as some practical steps toward sustainable celebrations.

Enjoy the fruits of my research. And have fun playing the turkey-plucking game, if even for 4 seconds. The biggest problem with the game is that while the images are gruesome, the game ignores the reality of delicious smells emanating from the oven stuffed with a turkey that is stuffed itself with rosemary, gravy, bread, cranberries and juices. I’m sorry to say that the game will feel like a forgotten comic strip to meat lovers sitting in the kitchen inhaling that juicy warmth. Still, there are green options for everyone, from carnivore to vegan.

Check out To Turkey or Not to Turkey.

Some ways to thank the earth and give some green love:

*SEVEN TIPS for a GREENER HOLIDAY SEASON (including throwing an outdoor party to save some heat by making your own).

*GREEN YOUR THANKSGIVING (including donating your turkey fat for biofuel!).

*SUSTAINABLE THANKSGIVING TABLE (with meatless and meatful options).

*SIERRA CLUB HOLIDAY CHEER.

*YAHOO’S GREEN GIFT GUIDE (including a Trendsetter section for the “coolest person you know”).

*HOLIDAYS IN HARMONY WITH NATURE (as in, in the comfort of your own “holiday yurt”).

Among its dish on the internettiness of our facebooky-bloggy-image-crazed culture, Sunday’s New York Time Magazine The Screens Issue, featured a crazy genius multimedia project called Immersion.

Photographer Robbie Cooper shot video of kids’ faces as they played video games. According to the Times, Cooper is “particularly struck by the intensity of people’s experiences while interacting with digital realms.”

Watch the kids. They are so captured by the screen, it’s as if they’re playing the sport, fighting the war, driving the car themselves, which is, I guess, the point of games and gaming.

“It’s fascinating that a world that’s purely visual can have a physical effect,” Cooper told the Times.

He shot the project with the high-resolution RED camera (which TGR used for some footage in its new flick Under the Influence ), and then took stills from the footage.

To me, the still slideshow and the accompanying video (better on the Times’ site than YouTube) are at once genius (concept, shoting logistics, lighting) and a little sad (aggression, intensity and time spent staring at a screen…).

As a pro-Googler, photography lover and greenie, I’m always searching for people and companies that produce a powerful product by combining environmentalism and art. I recently discovered GHG Photos, a stock photography agency that tells a human environmental story through its images.

The agency is a coalition of science, environmental, nature, and documentary photographers who have spent the last several years focused on the emissions, effects and mitigation attempts of those Greenhouse Gas emissions – GHG.

The photographers at GHG, which include Gary Braasch, Steve Kazlowski and Joshua Wolfe, are also available for talks and corporate assignments.

At a time in history when going green has taken a backseat to saving green under mattresses, when journalism jobs are being slashed left and right, I commend these photographers for pursuing the story telling.

And just as photographer William Henry Jackson’s early photographs influenced Congress’ decision to designate Yellowstone the first national park, the GHG photographers hope to inform the climate change debate by helping people see and understand how we are affecting the planet.

I was nine beers into a PBR 12-pack watching the fire in that Mexican outdoor fireplace thingie sway side to side. I was trying to get a good bed of coals going and I might have been the slightest bit over zealous when I loaded the wood. To my right arranged in ascending order, on a neatly folded towel, were a white gas-loaded 5 ml, 10 ml and 20 ml syringes all tipped with large bore hypodermic needles. See… it takes this type of orderly preparation when you’re trying to summon up a God.

As I swilled the last of PBR #9 and cracked #10, a little voice inside my head chimed in: “Agent, this might not be the brightest idea!” I dismissed that voice as easily I dismiss that whiny one that complains “You left the toilet seat up again!!!!” Then, I bent over and picked up the smallest syringe.

The 5 ml ejection into the fire sent the flames shooting out the top of the stack, barely clearing the roof of the garage. The roar of the fire was more than I expected and heightened my anticipation for for the next two syringes. I quickly grabbed the the 10 ml syringe and emptied it. As I was admiring the flames shooting over the roof of the garage I heard two loud slapping sounds behind the garage.

My beer-addled brain couldn’t figure out what the sounds were so I immediately proceeded with the 20 ml syringe. Halfway through the 20 ml syringe, as I stumbled away from the heat, my neighbor’s porch light turns on. He barreled out his back door screaming

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE ???”

It was too late to stop, so I emptied the contents of the last syringe. My patio looked like that volcano in front of the Mirage hotel. As the flames subsided and my pupils readjusted to the sudden decrease in light, the first thing I saw was my neighbor standing in my yard wearing boxers and a stained wife beater T-shirt. His hairy belly sticking out like a waxing crescent moon. Boy, was he pissed.

It turned out that the loud slapping sounds were two sections of his freshly burned cable TV wire hitting the back of my garage and cedar fence. It also happened that the night I decided to have my little ceremony coincided with the same night he paid $49.95 to get the WWE Super Smackdown Championship from Pay Per View. It took quite a bit of fast talking, $50 in cash and my last two beers to get him not to kick my ass.

So you’re probably asking why the hell I would try something this stupid. Here is your answer: I did this last year with a 6 pack and only one 3 ml syringe of white gas. The Snow God seemed to like it because the next day it started snowing and it never seemed to stop until there was a record 600 inches. I am not sure that last year’s fire ceremony was directly responsible for the epic snow fall but then again I am not sure that wasn’t.

So I figured I would cover my bases, hedge my bets and hope this creates another record year.

Agent 420 lives in the northern rocky mountains where he works as a freelance safety consultant. His specialty is organizing, leading and participating in safety meetings. His other writing can be found here.

Switzerland is an amazing place. I have to say the people here have a very high standard of living. Things are expensive, but everything is clean and tidy and the trains are always on time. I have been filming Fred Nicole on some amazing stuff.

On Sunday, we went to an area where huge orange leaves blew across problem as Fred climbed. Certainly some of the best video I’ve ever shot… an amazing athlete in a perfect setting doing incredible things.

I have a ticket to take the train down to meet Fred’s brother Francios who is also a very strong climber. He will show me some new boulders he has and I am looking forward to adding another name onto the roster for Pure, especially someone so talented as Francois.

I have started my euro-English accent. Here’s some stuff I said today:

“Do you know where is the restroom?”
“He seems very sympatic” (french for ‘friendly’)
“What is the time of which these trains are running?”
“Perhaps we first take a coffee and after that we catch the train.”

Also part of the Euro-accent is speaking English slowly and more clearly than normal, so you all will have to forgive me when I get back to the US because I may speak to you as though English was your second language.

Sorry in advance.

Prolific climber and Cloudveil ambassador Chuck Fryberger is also a videographer and blooger. Check out his Web site.

It’s 2004 and I think I am hallucinating the biggest, most vibrantly blue butterfly I have ever seen. Its wingspan is so massive that the blue wings beat every 10 seconds … or longer.

“Wow! Look at that butterfly, beautiful!” this is grunted behind me and I mutter, “Thank God” under my heaving breath. It wasn’t a dream. I’m just dying of exhaustion!

This is one of my more lasting memories of La Ruta de Conquistadores. The “Ruta” as it is called is considered one of the hardest mountain bike races on the planet. Let me just say, “I can witness!!!”

The Ruta’s route in 2004 was a three-day stage race going west to east across Costa Rica, beginning in Jaco, on the Pacific coast ending at Playa Bonita near Limon, on the Caribbean side.

Some of my other great memories are of climbing up to near the top of Irazú (dormant volcano) while clenching my cheeks as I had to drop the deuce and could not find an appropriate spot until I was in the woods near the crest of the climb.

On the descent of about 20 miles I had four flats. Luckily, I had heard that the descent on Day Two was hairy and I carried four tubes with me that day, three tubes on the other two days. I will never forget on that first stage trying to clean the mud — which is clay-based “gumbo on steroids” — with jungle creek water along with about 20 other racers at the same time in muted jungle canopy light. Also during Day One after about an hour of racing I hiked –a- bike with about 200 of my closest “friends” (I had heard and found it to be true that it would be best to conserve energy) for an hour or so.

Then of course, the 16 or so miles of rail road track. Yup, you read right. On the last day racers follow and race on a decommissioned rail road track, I still think I have some loose fillings from going down those tracks. Oh, and did I mention that you are crossing the Reventazón and Pacuare rivers (both running Class 3) on decommissioned and unmaintained bridges that are missing pretty much every other trestle?

The bridges range 15 to 40 feet above the water.
Good times. …

La Ruta just finished for 2008 and is now a four stage event. Plans for next year and beyond are to make it five stages. All I know is that over three days, I spent close to 30 hours in the saddle and barely made the time cut on the second day.

I would recommend racing La Ruta to anyone who wants to test their limits in mountain biking. I have competed in 24 hour mountain bike races both solo and as a team. La Ruta make these races look like a weekend fun ride.

That’s why for my 50th (yes, I am on the downhill side of the 40’s) in 2011 I am going back to La Ruta with nine riders from Missoula to share the pain and … oh yeah, fun.

Jedzilla is married and a father of two who is trying to use his snowboard instructor background to potty train his eldest child. Stay tuned for a post on that subject. …

I’ve always thought the wilderness could be the neutral meeting ground for peaceful and harmonious experiences. A place where people from all different nations and creeds could come together to enjoy recreating and meditating in the sounds and smells of the forests and rivers.

Not so.

At least, not so for those hoping to commune with nature through flyfishing in North America.

According to the British fly fishing site “The English Fly Fishing Shop,” fly fishermen visiting the states could die in the wilds and never come home.

Here is the introduction to the cautionary page (click here then scroll to the bottom of the page for the entire WARNING):

What are you talking about I hear you say. This guy has gone mad. He has been fishing in the sun too long. I am very serious. Non Americans fishing in America are in danger of being killed or of being seriously injured. There are hazards like bears, alligators, stingrays, poison ivy, hunters with guns and monster sharks that can cause you harm if not fatal damage. The locals know of the dangers and take steps to try and avoid being hurt. Here in Britain there are no dangerous animals to interrupt a great days fishing. I hope to help you have a safe fishing vacation by providing you with knowledge you need to avoid the pit falls of fly fishing in the America Continent.

The author later goes on to detail those hazards. His list includes sharks, jellyfish, warm seawater bacterium, coral rocks & shells and mountain lions, to name a few.

Maybe because I live in a place populated by mountain lions and bison and elk, or maybe just because the warning is so outrageous, one of my favorite highlights from the warning is about elk:

ELK
American Elk are mostly benign but in the autumn, it’s rutting season and male elk are getting combative, “bugling” to attract mates and deter lustful opponents, just at the same time you might be stalking giant 15 pound, 30 inch brown trout as they spawn in America’s numerous public access rivers. It’s also hunting season in America, so you should wear blaze orange if you are out fishing in the wilderness. The wearing of silly fur hats with antlers is strongly discouraged here! In certain American “wilderness areas” you could find yourself in the middle of a herd of 1,000 or more elk as they migrate through your favorite fishing hole. Simply remain calm, don’t make any sudden movements, and for God’s sake don’t apply any commercially-available “elk rut scent” behind your ears! A bull elk agitated by the rut might get the wrong idea about your intentions, and the results (and surgery bills) could be tragic.

I don’t know if I should laugh or just stare in wonder at this warning.

If the author is serious, and I’m still guessing, one interesting result of the warning creeks and rivers of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and beyond will be devoid British accents and full of grizzly-fighting, coral-wrangling North American hard men.