Archive for the ‘Environment and Green’ Category

Not as advertised

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

We bought our house here almost three years ago. One of the first things that I did was to try to replace as many light bulbs as possible in the house with CFL bulbs. Our bathrooms have those large globe-shaped light bulbs and it was hard to find the right shape CFL bulb for them at first. And they tend to be expensive to buy, but they promised to save electricity and last much longer than the standard incandescent light bulbs. Well, the master bathroom has a strip of 6 lights on it. I decided that I would replace three of the standard bulbs with CFLs, and then as the standard bulbs burnt out I would replace them with CFLs. Much to my surprise, the CFL bulbs are burning out faster than the standard bulbs! I wonder why, and I have to say that it is very aggravating because they cost so much more money to buy in the first place! I’m not convinced I’m saving any money doing that now!

Onward and upward

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Happy 10th birthday to FilesAnywhere!  Who is Filesanywhere you ask?  Well, they are the most established and largest Online Storage company in the business.  Their customers include all types of industries as well as regular folks like you and me.  Their services include remote backup and the ability to share files online, hosting, disaster recovery, and much much more – to many for me to list and still sound like a person who isn’t just reading a list!

I was looking at their website just now and to be perfectly honest with you the multitude of services that they provide simply amazed me.   I was just clicking on links for what seemed to be forever, and each new service I learned about seemed even better than the last!  I can see how this company could be a huge benefit to many organizations.  It’s hard for me to really fathom how a company can offer so many services.

One of the things that really impressed me was that it became fairly obvious that this company’s services would be valuable in a businesses attempt to reduce their carbon footprint.  Reduction of paperwork is a good goal, and is made easier with their services.  In this day and age of technological advances coming fast and furious, ten years is a birthday worth celebrating and self-congratulations.

A mobile society

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

Have you ever sat at a traffic light and watched all of the cars drive by?  I was doing that the other day and trying to see if I saw more than one make and model of car go by.  There is such a huge variety of cars out there!  I think that I have a love/hate relationship with cars.  Sometimes I think that they are a necessary evil.  We need them to get to places quickly. But they are extremely expensive and hazardous to the environment! 

Don’t get me wrong, as much as I love horses I don’t want to go back to the days where horses were our mode of transportation!  What I don’t like about cars and trucks is that for many of them there is a built in obsolescence that forces the owners to buy new cars or trucks because they wear out quickly!  Gone are the days where they lasted a good long time!  And I don’t like how many of them are status symbols.  I was talking to my neighbor yesterday about his son and he told me that his son was looking for a ferrari review to help make up his mind what kind of car to buy.

As for me, cars that expensive are simply a form of gluttony!  Flaunting wealth just seems so tasteless to me!  I don’t understand why someone needs to buy a vehicle that costs that much money when they could get a perfectly good vehicle like a ford flex or acura and have plenty of money left over to spread around and help some charitable organization to get closer to their goals.

Poison Ivy

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

When I was a child I could wear shorts and run barefoot through knee-deep poison ivy and it never bothered me. Not a bump or a rash or itch. But now that I’m an adult I am astonished to discover that I have developed an allergy to it! So I avoid it. Imagine my dismay this morning when I woke up to find some poison ivy bumps on my hands. I haven’t been anywhere NEAR any poison ivy! So I have to assume that I got it from checking the pockets from my hubby’s jeans before I washed them a few days ago. He had dumped them on the bedroom floor (where they stayed for a few days) and when I decided I was sick of them and was going to do a load of towels I grabbed them, checked the pockets (no money darn it!) and tossed them in the wash.

Since HE had a poison ivy rash last week, I now have to assume that I got the poison ivy off of those jeans. GRRRRRR. Not a happy camper!

I hate to clean windows

Saturday, July 4th, 2009

Aunt Winnie told me that she has just found out about a window cleaning service in london that she is going to hire to clean her windows from now on.  This window cleaners company is called NCPM-247.  She said that they are the most environmentally friendly company she could find to do the work for her.  They have an software program that they use to give quotes to their customers – this program actually finds their house on satellite so they can see the house without actually going out there!  This enables them to give accurate quotes.  They use reclaimed rainwater and Rain-X to clean the windows.  Using Rain-X on the windows helps to keep the windows clean longer – it repels water and dirt.  This reduces the amount of times the windows need to be washed, which saves both money and the environment!  I wish that there was a company like that here near where I live!  I’d use them in a heartbeat!  I hate to clean windows with a passion!