My longest-standing friend in the world turned out to be an HVAC engineer (who voted for McCain — I don't think I even know him anymore), and the last time we got in touch, before I could tell him what I've been doing, he started telling me how much he dislikes LEED. "We do most of that stuff anyway, but now we have to spend a bunch of time we don't have filling out forms to prove that we did them.

The giddiness over the election of Barack Obama was still fresh in the building-industry-related events this week in Boston. Thursday morning, a session exploring New England's clean-energy future started off with a recitation of the president-elect's statement the day before on cap-and-trade and other energy priorities, which prompted the first of two bursts of applause.

One subtext this week was overload. First of course, there were the two shows, BuildBoston and GreenBuild. Two three-day shows — one an annual Boston event, the other a one-in-a-generation visit by as big a force as there is in building these days. Somehow, they overlapped on two of their days — the last two days of BuildBoston were the first two days of GreenBuild. From what I could gather — I spoke to some people who might know, but in casual conversation, not in interviews — you could view this as yet another little skirmish between architects and the USGBC.

I am, of course, voting for Barack Obama on Tuesday. He is the clear choice, especially considered in the light of John McCain, who, to me, is a pale, sorry version of what he once presented to the American people, a hope for honest, straightforward leadership. "Craven panderer" is about all he has left, and it has been disgusting to watch.

In Colorado, it's illegal to harvest rainwater, because someone downstream owns the rights to that which falls from the sky.

In California, almost 20 percent of electricity goes to the treatment and delivery of water.

Nationally, public water systems use 50 Billion killowatt-hours of electricity to operate.