Nadav Malin and Scot Horst offered up a great, head-twisting presentation about product certifications called "It's Certified Green But What Does That Mean?" to about 500 people.

I'm no fan of vinyl, but someone (actually a lot of someones) keep buying lots of it, year after year. Why? A recent article, "Vinyl makers push for New Urbanism market," in New Urban News looks at the benefits. Since vinyl is pretty much Evil (I picture it as the smoldering stuff in the toaster oven in "Time Bandits") in the environmental world, I thought this article was pretty fun. Apparently there is a campaign afoot to get some respect for vinyl siding, and it's winning over people in the New Urbanist community.

This morning began (for me) with a 7:00 (early!) session called "Legally Green: Legal and Practice Issues of LEED," presented by Betsy del Monte and William Quatman. The room had a capacity approaching 400, and got close to filling up. Betsy's presentation was, for the most part, understandably basic. The big majority of the audience, by show of hands, had not worked on a LEED certified project, or a LEED certifiable project, and were not LEED APs. They were there for continuing education.

I came to Boston yesterday, giving myself plenty of time to check in at the sprawling Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (BCEC) for this year's AIA National Convention before heading out — pretty much cluelessly — to get a closer look at this historic city. I'd been tipped off that the Freedom Trail, a walking tour following a thin red line that ties together many historic sites in town, was a good thing to do.

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Jerelyn and Alex Wilson of BuildingGreen

What kind of truck doesn't use any gasoline or diesel fuel to move heavy materials around the city? A bicycle truck, of course. Back in March BuildingGreen was introduced to The New Amsterdam Project , a bicycle trucking firm in Cambridge, Ma.

The AIA 2008 National Convention and Design Exposition — "We the People" — starts next week Thursday, on the East Coast for the first time in almost a decade. As usual, BuildingGreen will be there. If you are, too, come see us at booth 14079. We also have people involved in a couple sessions.

If I could adopt a conference, it would be the USGBC Cascadia chapter's Living Future 'Unconference'. As someone who generally prefers to stay behind the scenes talking shop, it was a delight to find myself surrounded primarily by the obsessed of the green building world. Even better, as presenters we were encouraged to bring our own big challenges to the table and get attendees to help us address them — which is exactly what we and many other presenters did.

As Research Director at BuildingGreen, I dabble in - or dive headlong into - a wide range of BuildingGreen internal and collaborative projects, and am part of the team working to make the GreenSpec product directory as robust as possible.