Cycling around the world for Peace

At the moment we are in Virginia Beach, Virginia and staying with our good friend Mr. Shahram and his respected family. The name Virginia Beach reveals that it is a coastal city, on the coast of Atlantic Ocean. Shahram had gotten to know us through the satellite program called Iran Jahaani dar yek marz, which translates in to; “Iran, a world within one boarder”. He has been helping us, spiritually, technically, and guiding us through out our way, introducing new friends and finding places to stay, setting cultural meetings along the way, arranging interviews with media and also lately created our relatively new domain name www.24iran.com so our Iranian followers can easily remember the site name. We would like to express our gratitude to him, and his family, also other Iranian, American, European families that directly and or indirectly have supported our movement toward World Peace and Conservation of Environment. We recognize the fact that without you good people none of these would have been possible
Another family that we came into contact is Haririnia (Abbas, Mahbobeh, and Reza). This was another successful family that we arrived at their house in Woodbridge, Virginia and received a lot of help from. On our departure day, the weather was cloudy, cold and felt like it wants to snow. According to weather report we only had half a day of partly cloudy weather and our trip to our next stop, Virginia Beach would have taken 2.5 to 3 days however Abbas asked one of his employees, Ma’ora to take us on her pick up truck closer toward Virginia Beach so we only had to pedal one day, especially when the forecast for the following day in Virginia Beach was freezing rain. The route we had decided was route or highway 17 which is a country road and is considered a shortcut. This road is full of hills and has lot of scenery. We were not aware of a secret plan and were wondering why Maora is not dropping us? Every hour driven by car would have been equivalent to a day of cycling for us. Finally we were dropped closer to Norfolk area so we only had one day to cycle and get to Shahram’s house in Virginia Beach. Upon our arrival to Shahram’s neighborhood I felt a car was following us, when I turned around found him quietly filming our pedaling. Segments of that video was later used in our CNN international interview

In the one and half hour or so we were in the truck with Maora, which is a Mexican American lady, we felt like we know her for years. It was no wonder since she was extremely nice and friendly.It seems like God had picked all his good people and laid them along our path to teach us lessons along the way. In one place teach us to appreciate our home, another place to be generous, and next to Abbas, Mahboobe and Maora lesson of humanity and helping your fellow man! It is not because we had a ride with their car, but reasons that may be beyond the scope of these notes and possibly we will write in great detail in our future travel experience book

The following day we learned we just missed few inches of snow in Woodbridge, good thing we left when we left.At any rate we possibly will stay in Virginia Beach to catch up with our work, including our notes about the museum, interesting places we saw in Washington, DC, continue our contacts with media, try to get a university or two give us a chance to plant a peace tree and have presentations and hope the weather get warmer as we go further along winter and god willing have a milder weather

Green Building
During the period we were staying in Washington, DC, we came into contact with a group that is active in Conservation of Nature and Peace. The name of this group is Friends Committee on National Legislation, or FCNL for short. Some of the members of this group were present at the ceremony for planting trees number 19 and 20 near the Capital Hill. Few days later we were invited to give a presentation about our trip, show a film about Iran’s nature and also visit their home office, the Green Building. This building is located near Union station which is the central train station for Washington, DC.The Union station itself is big and about three floors plus additional four or more stories for parking spaces. It really deserves a good description for this fine building. On the day that we had an interview with CNN, we spend few hours at this Union Station and took several pictures, however due to September 11 incidents we were reminded that we can not take pictures of structures only. It had to be a picture of someone posing for camera.
One of the slogans of this institute is: “War is not the answer”What we saw in Green Building
This building has features that qualify it for second highest environmental standard. Upon our arrival, Jim Fine and Kate Gould greeted us. Jim had traveled to Iran last year and has special interest in Iran and Iran's culture.
Due to lack of sufficient time we wanted to start our tour quicker, we got to the elevator and were told in order to save energy it would be best to use the stairs next to the elevator.
As we were going up the stairs, we were explained that, in order to interest people to use the stairs more often, we have decorated the stair ways nice and have used a fine stones; where in majority of buildings stair ways that are built, least amount of time has been spent on design of its atmosphere, appearance, and generally are not kept very clean and well lit. Basically neither appealing nor inviting.
We continued on our tour of the building after our Video presentation and discussion of goals on this trip. Upon our arrival to the third floor, there was a picture frame on the wall that showed the picture of the roof. I must admit, had we were not told it is the roof of that building, we would have thought, it is picture of a garden. The roof was full of plants that were planted in an organized fashion and beautifully. According to researchers the roofs that are covered by tars and asphalt, can get up to 150. degree Fahrenheit, consequently, the rooms below will become overheated. By planting on top of the roof, not only it absorbs the rain water, but also it keeps the roof at ambient temperature and therefore cooler rooms. These roofs may cost about $20,000.00 more but within 5 years, the savings in energy will pay for it and the environment will also be in better shape.
This building also has another interesting design, and that is the varieties of sky lights used to take advantage of sun light and energy. Windows and sky view or sky scoops were more common in older days however less Sun light is being used in modern houses.
The green Building is fairly unique building in many ways and since the FCNL has done a superb job describing the building, there is no need to reinvent the wheel; the following description is taken right out of their website, which I strongly suggest to visit and take a tour of the building. Here is the link: http://www.fcnl.org/building/
New office a greener pasture
FCNL, a strong proponent of the environment, wanted for its restored office increased energy efficiency, better environmental quality, and green materials and resources. “My favorite part of working on the FCNL project was that our client was as dedicated to green design as we are, and we don’t find many clients like that,” says Gina Baker, AIA, director of sustainable design at Burt Hill Kosar Rittlemann.FCNL hopes the following features will qualify the building for LEED certification:

A green roof that absorbs rain runoff and decreases the building's heat island effect; the roof is landscaped with low-maintenance sedum plants that do not require irrigation
A south-facing, glass-faced, copper-sheathed light scoop on the roof that captures natural light and conveys it downward into the three floors of the building's central core through glass block floor panels
A geothermal system that uses 10 wells, each 350 feet deep with contained piping that delivers non-fluorocarbon fluid at a constant 55 degrees F for the building’s heating-cooling system
Natural materials for the interior, including bamboo flooring throughout the building; wood trim from certified, sustainably harvested beech and maple; and recycled acoustic ceiling tiles and carpets
Energy-efficient windows made of low-emissive glass that allow light into the building while insulating against heat and cold.
The renovation also included ADA-compliant access ramps to the front and side doors, an elevator to all floors with voice-annunciation system, and widened hallways. “Our vision for this building was one that would have a lot of light, be ADA compliant, and would walk softly on the earth by being a really green building on Capitol Hill,” says Joe Volk, FCNL executive secretary.
Green in the details
The FCNL building also features finishes with no volatile organic compounds or toxins. Components are largely made from renewable-source materials and manufactured or harvested within 500 miles of the project site. During reconstruction, waste was salvaged and reused, and the building’s furniture is made from recyclable materials. “The modular furniture can be moved around so future generations aren’t stuck with the way we set up the workplace,” explains Volk.
To complete the green picture, the FCNL roof is also equipped for future installation of a PV array, the electricity contract purchases renewable-energy-source credits, and the low-energy electric traction elevator has no hydraulic fluid. Low-flow toilets and water fixtures and environmentally friendly cleaning material round out the sustainable elements.
“The general committee, with a risk of faith, exercised the courage to take on the opportunity to create a new building on Capitol Hill for the next 60 years of our work,” says Volk. “This building is a metaphor for our work. FCNL has to rebuild another house—a house of democracy, which is threatened and falling down. We need architects to build that house of democracy back so that it is safe, secure, and strong, but also so that it reflects all the values of America in the way we tried to do this building.”
In order to see the report on planting trees #19 and 20 please visit http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=3092&issue_id=123