The next time your trash bill comes, think about how angry you would be if someone started stealing it before the garbage man came in the morning.
Angry? You'd be delighted, right? No more having to pay the bill if someone hauls it away on a regular basis free of charge. But who would want to steal your trash, right?
My wife and I don't get to the movies very often, but we were talking for months about going to see the new Indiana Jones flick. Then, those who went before us had a warning: Don't waste your $9.
Wait, what did they say? The movies are $9 per ticket?!!! Definitely not going now, especially with the reviews I've been hearing from people I trust making it sound like Rocky V.
So instead of the relief from day-to-day monotony found in a cinema, I took my fly rod and waders and took off toward Delta, stopping just short of the hamlet for a little Sulphur and Rusty Spinner action on Muddy Creek near Bruce. I already paid for my fishing license, so it was free.
Well, pretty much free. It used to be pretty much free.
So I went home this weekend and visited a friend of mine who is into demolition derby. He's working on a car that runs on alcohol because it supposedly lights on fire less easily (I've been to his demo derbies, and that's a large problem).
Anyhow, he said the fuel is cheaper than gas -- only $3 per gallon. Wow, I thought, why doesn't everyone start doing this.
Then, like the ethanol boom that hasn't been, he dropped the other shoe. His car eats alcohol about three times faster than gas. So it's actually about $9 to do what $4 gasoline would do.
Do you think we'll ever come up with an easy alternative to gasoline?
Hybrids may have been hip, trendy cars a few years ago, but now for some people they are becoming a necessity as gas prices continue to rise.
Because they are in such high demand, car dealerships are seeing them fly off the lots.
One dealer quoted in this story said, "I'm selling every one I can get my hands on. The day the car comes in is the day the car goes out,."
He has a 30-day wait list for the Prius and only one Camry hybrid left on his lot.
Have you considered buying a hybrid to help with the gas costs?
Apparently it's not worth it anymore to let your engine run when you are stopped instead of idling it. Modern fuel injection takes care of those problems, so just turn your engine off when you're going to be stopped for more than a few moments.
That was just one of the good fuel-savings tips in an article I saw on CNN this morning.
The list was one big duh (don't tailgate or drag race away from traffic lights and stuff like that) until I got to No. 5. That one was a paragraph filled with a bunch of old wives' tails about idling your engine that were contradicted. No. 6 wasn't bad either.
To see the list, click here.
This morning, my phone rang, and on the other end was John Shelley, owner of John Shelley's Garden Center and Nursery, a southern York County landscaping business that caters to those who want new landscaping designs for their homes using higher-end plants.
And after two minutes on the phone, I wish I would have gotten him into a story that was already in today's paper.
What he told me was this: He got out of the vegetable gardening business years ago, but starting recently, his ornamental landscaping customers began requesting something a bit odd. They wanted raised garden plots - patches framed with timbers for growing vegetables -incorporated into their designs.
"People want to grow a Victory Garden in their backyard," Shelley told me, referencing a government initiative during World War II.
Right now, my home is a pile of clutter three times what the quarter-house apartment can hold. It's my wife's belongings (we just got married), my belongings from my previous apartment, and all the stuff we got for wedding presents so we could start our lives together.
Too much stuff. I just want to purge. But I just can't. It's possibly stuff someone could use. Or maybe not. How did it get this bad?
Do you feel like clutter is imposing on your life? What do you do about it?
If you saw this story in this morning's paper, you already know National Geographic's study rated America the least green out of the 14 countries studied.
In three out of four categories -- housing, transportation and consumer goods -- American ranked dead last. In the other category, food, we ranked above Japan.
The Greendex Web site is really comprehensive and let's you check out how different countries scored. There's also a quiz you can take to test your knowledge on environmental stressors and you can fill out an evaluation to see where you score on the Greendex.
No offense to my father and mother, my sister, and my new cousin-in-law. But I don't want to drive an average of 400 miles per weekend to see them for the rest of this month.
But these people are close to me. They are family. I want to cut out the driving, not seeing them.
So really, what are my options here?
In my exploring of the expo, I saw a lot of really interesting displays companies had set up. I didn't have time to take pictures of all of them, or even stop and talk to every single person there. That would have been quite the challenge.
Here's a quick look at two more of the business that were there.
I'm trying to get as much mileage as I can out of my trip to Europe last month. The way the economy is going, it's the last time I'll be there until after I'm dead. And that's only if I get cremated and my ashes get blown all the way across the Atlantic.
Anyway, they have a lot of these Smart cars over there, and I think the coolest thing at first glance is that you can back into a parallel parking spot, with your bumper to the curb and the hood toward traffic. And you still don't stick out any farther than a normal sized car.
I wanted one.
Then I got back to the states, and realized why no one has one here: SUVs.
Last night the Phillies wore green baseball caps instead of the traditional red. The green hats were to bring attention to the organization's initiative to be more environmentally conscious.
Here's what Allen Hershkowitz, a scientist with the National Resource Defense Council had to say about the plan:
"The Phillies' commitment to renewable energy and ecologically intelligent operations will hopefully set an example for all institutions in Philadelphia and beyond to follow. The fact is that we will successfully address the threats posed by global warming and biodiversity loss only if every consumer, and every organization, moves towards ecologically intelligent purchasing. The Phillies are doing that, and hopefully their millions of fans will do the same."
What are your thoughts on this?
You can read the full press release here.
