Jahnke’s Thoughts

One of my closest friends during University plays floor-ball. For my ex-girlfriend Kathryn, it was dance. My old boss at MIT was an incredible artist, with a niche comic book franchise world wide. A lot of the time, I feel like I’m missing my thing. You know, that thing you want to do all the time, and never get bored of. The one that you obsesses over, and are super passionate about. Don’t get me wrong – I have hobbies. I like playing squash, I go to the gym four of five times a week to run or lift weights. I read a lot about politics and current events, and am really in to technology. I’m starting my MBA part time in August and have a full time job. Playing poker and shooting pool always makes me happy. I’ve traveled internationally, and have done a ton of camping and canoeing trips. I guess it just doesn’t seem like any of those are my thing, or that I’m doing them often enough.

I remember in high school, my thing was music. I listened to a ton of it, knew how all the major artists were connected, and played saxophone obsessively. I was good at it, had a ton of people I could play with, and it was great. Jazz band practice for hours every week, the classical quartet, marching band, private lessons, the ska band, jamming randomly with friends in basements. My buddy Nick and I used to skip our lunch periods and play in the music rooms. Then, when I got to University, I stopped making the time and didn’t put in as much effort. I got distracted by school, friends, other priorities – in hindsight – most of them wasteful and self indulgent. I wasn’t in the music department, and soon, the skill curve seemed insurmountable. Now, I can barely read music. I feel embarrassed and guilty. No wonder it doesn’t feel like my thing anymore.

It seems that some people are lucky, and innately know their thing. Photography, a job or business they’re super passionate about and engaged with, a sport or a volunteer organization – there are tons of them. It feels like it’s something very lacking in my life right now. I know it will take hard work, time, effort, and a deliberate thought process. A thing makes life exciting. I could look forward to it, feel energized by it, get inspiration from it, and be creative with it. I need a thing.

I live in San Francisco, but work in Palo Alto. Until I learn how to fly, I’m stuck with commuting by either car or train. The train costs me less, allows me to enjoy the commute more, and is way more environmentally conscious. Unfortunately, I don’t have one of those jobs where I can telecommute – for the most part, I have to physically be in the office five days a week. I manage two people, and have a lot of meetings every week. Being in the office for face time is important. I’m also the type of person that is way more productive in my office than I am at home. I was like that in university during my student days too. When it was time to buckle down and get stuff done, you’d always fine me at the library.

I leave Noe Valley around 6:55 most weekdays to ensure I can find a parking spot and catch the 7:19 baby bullet express. When I arrived at the 22^nd and Pennsylvania Caltrain station this morning, I saw three workmen taking measurements and spray painting the sidewalk and dirt with lines. I used my powers of deduction to figure out they were getting ready to put up a fence. It also helped that there were little, pink, plastic flags every three feet where they were spray painting that said ‘fence’ on them.

It’s amazing how quickly work gets done when there is a private company commissioning said work, as opposed to the city. Granted, I’m making a pretty big assumption here, but this is what it looked like at the beginning of the day …

And then their progress when I returned to San Fran. Pretty impressive, if you ask me. In January of this year, I noticed that something was being constructed at the top of the paved hill on the southwest corner of the train station that me and other Caltrain folks walk down to get to the platform. A few months later, a sign was put up on this storage tank that read Dogpatch Biofuels. I’m assuming they are the ones putting up the fence. I’m actually kind of glad to see someone taking more ownership over this little patch of the city. It’s really gross seeing how many people dump their garbage there. Piles of it. I’ve seen car parts, broken appliances, clothing, industrial waste, florescent lamps – you name it – it gets dumped there. Maybe this fence will stop some of that.

So today, after work, I decided to pop in to Dogpatch Biofuels to learn a little bit. I’m kind of interested in renewal energy in general, and I think after I finish my MBA, I’d like to start a new career in the industry. The woman I spoke with was named Michelle, I assume she’s the owner. She told me that they’re selling about 300 gallons/day, which I figured is about 20 cars worth. It took them about one year to get a permit from the city, and they’ve been operating since January.

They get their biodiesel from a third party wholesaler, and then sell it retail at this location. The city, through the public utilities commission, collects grease throughout the city, and sells it to these third parties, who then clean, process, and refine the gnarly grease into usable biodiesel. She told me the city collects it from restaurants through the waste water division, which makes sense. If you’ve ever poured bacon grease down your sink (which I have a million times, because I love bacon and cook it quite often), you probably know it can clog your train fairly easily, not to mention make a mess of your sink. Imagine if every restaurant in the city was just dumping grease down their drains (as I imagine they have been for years), how nasty of a mess it would make in the sewers.

So once this biodiesel has been properly refined, you can use it in any regular diesel engine. There are a few things to be cautious of. One is that it starts to get pretty thick and unusable around 0 degrees Celsius. I’m from Canada, so that means most of the country for most of the year wouldn’t really be able to use this pure form of biodiesel. Michelle mentioned you can mix it with about 20% regular diesel fuel to address this issue. She also mentioned the refined biodiesel is a natural corrosive, so you have to be aware of that and change your fuel filter about three times as often as you normally would with conventional diesel fuel.

Finally, and I found this pretty disturbing, diesel engines made since 2006 don’t work so hot with biodiesel. I guess the EPA changed their diesel engine regulations around 2006/2007, and engine manufacturers conformed with these new regulations at the last minute and as inexpensively as possible. I guess that’s why I see so many old VW’s and Mercedes driving around with biodiesel stickers on their bumpers. I wonder if the car industry is in cahoots with the fuel industry to try and nip biodiesel in the bud? She told me about this site save biodiesel that has more details.