Reduce, Reuse, Regift

No, I'm not going to suggest you give folks some of your used stuff as a gift, even though I wish that were more socially acceptable. I'm going to build on an idea Ian had last week.

The idea is great. Reusable gift bags are better than 1-use wrapping paper. Even better is a bag that can be used all year long. Ian's idea is to give gifts in reusable tote bags, like those you get from Target and your local grocery store.

Tweaking that idea a bit, I figured the bags we have are already red and green. Why don't we decorate them a bit and really have a winning idea? With all the cold and snow, it gave the kids something to do. After the presents are out, the decorations come off and you have a great bag. Bonus is that Target had these bags on sale for 50 cents which is even cheaper than the typical gift bag.

Snow Blower Needed

Last winter was the first that my husband and I owned a house, so it was also the first winter that we were solely responsible for clearing snow from our driveway and sidewalks. Of course it was also one of the most active winters for snow so our one big shovel and a mini car/kid shovel got an excellent work out. We decided that never again would we only be able to clear one half of our driveway before our hands started to freeze in a gripped position, and this year we caved and bought a snow blower.

Snow blowers are as bad as lawn mowers when it comes to spewing fumes and junk into the air, so I wanted to make the best choice possible and that meant going electric. In most cases, electricity from power plants is created from cleaner burning than the gas and oil in a lawn mower or snow blower and in our case, we have a wind energy purchase agreement with our provider, so the amount of energy we use is then generated from wind farms, although the energy we receive may not be from the wind farms.

I know that our friends, family, and neighbors will laugh at us, but who couldn't use a little laugh every once in a while? We bought the Toro electric snow thrower and had two opportunities to try it out already.

And the verdict? It is a significant upgrade from shoveling! I cleared our drive way of 1-3 inches of snow in 10 minutes once I determined the best way to avoid running over the electric cord. That right there is the reason we got it and I am so happy. Of course it isn't perfect, and if you already own a gas powered snow blower, the Toro electric would probably feel like a significant downgrade. It's all plastic, so it's pretty light. This is good for me, but again, not if you're used to a metal blower. The two biggest downfalls for us is the need for an electric cord and the snow chute where the snow gets thrown out. Being tethered by a cord means that we have to stop and reroute the cord to reach both of our sidewalks (we live on a corner), but this still takes less time that shoveling. The chute is something we will be working on to modify. It theoretically has three positions to direct the snow, but once the blower is started and the snow comes out, the chute defaults to almost straight up. It still moves the snow, but now it's at the whim of the wind and sometimes backfires in our face.

And now for some action shots of my husband trying out the Toro for our second round of snow clean up. Look at that Toro go!

Iowa Passenger Rail

A few weeks ago I attended the Iowa Passenger Rail Advisory Committee meeting held in Ames. The meeting included updates from cities like Dubuque, Quad Cities, Iowa City, and Des Moines as well as legislative updates from Iowa DOT members and an Amtrak representative. The general consensus is that there is a lot going on with rail right now, but most are trying to figure out how the new administration will affect opportunities. The most interesting part for me was the discussion with the Amtrak rep. He shared that their ridership has increased for the past five years, but usually at only 1 million passengers per year. In 2008, their ridership increased by 3 million for a total of 29 million passengers. The best part about that statistic is the fact that no new services (new rail lines) or frequencies (additional runs on an existing rail line) were added, yet every passenger rail line saw an increase which has never happened before.

We talked a lot about how states can position themselves for matching funds and the best way to set up a successful partnership with Amtrak. The best strategy right now seems to be to partner with Illinois which is currently pro rail and has doubled passenger rail funding. This would add rail access to Chicago from the center of the state, entering at the Quad Cities, and the northern part of the state, entering at Dubuque. I don't know how much I am able to share publicly from the meeting, but I did find the existing Amtrak line across Iowa from the Iowa DOT's site.

One thing that was clear during the meeting was that now is the time to pressure our state legislators about passenger rail. It is currently one of their priority items, but it was stressed that it needs to be pushed as one of the top priorities for Iowa to get its foot in the door and start receiving some of the funding coming from the government. The next meeting will be held in February and I'm sure all involved hope to learn more about passenger rail plans from our new administration.

Bus Adventures

Six months ago I posted about my husband and I giving up one of our two cars and depending on public transportation. A lot of things have happened since then so I thought I would post an update along with some recent thoughts.

This past summer the city I live and work in experienced a historic flood that devastated too many people. My company's building was affected which means my transportation route changed to fit my new location. Our public transportation department was also affected, and although they have done a great job adapting, everyone who uses the system had to adapt. In spite of the tragedies, I was excited about testing my commitment to one car living and trying out how most of the riders use the system by transferring routes. Doing this initially doubled my commute to and from work, and since my husband dropped me off and picked me up from my bus stop, it extended his work day by an hour. Since the department lost several buses in the flood, they were on limited route rotations meaning the buses only came once an hour. Luckily the time my first bus came was reasonable, but it meant that I had to bust my butt on mornings that I was tempted to sleep in a bit and catch my normal "second option" before the flood. My extra hour on the bus didn't bother me much since I saw it as more time to read books, watch podcasts, and listen to music, and eventually I found robot mode in the morning to get me out the door. Unfortunately it put some unforeseen frustration on my husband who has to mold his day around my bus.

Recently the transit department revised the schedules in the afternoons to help heavy routes get to the transfer location on time (we have a collect and disperse model). This extended my evening commute by fifteen minutes, not too bad considering what I had already adjusted to. Then there was last week.

My husband had some work related, but not work required gatherings he wanted to attend out of town. Since his company had not asked him to participate we could rent a car ourselves or I could get myself to the bus without him. Being stubborn, I chose the latter. We walked the 1.2 miles to get to my bus stop and found that it took us 40 minutes at a leisurely pace. I found that I could make it in 26 minutes when it is dark and I'm cold.

Wednesday evening rolled around and was when I would first experience getting home without a pick-up, from my usual bus stop (there is one closer, but not ideal. See below.). Everything went smoothly, but I decided to not go with that plan the rest of my days surviving alone. First of all, there is only a "sidewalk" on one side of the street, which happens to be the opposite side that I am dropped off on. There is an underpass for a golf course that spans both sides of the four lane street, however, there are no lights under there since no one is golfing at night, and who in their right mind would be walking in a world with cars? There was no way I was going to test my luck even in our relatively safe town. So I played frogger and past the first test on my trek home.

Next I noticed that there were only two or three street lights the whole 1.2 mile walk home. Again, our city is pretty safe, but come on! The sidewalk was very uneven and I would have really appreciated some light to help out. The last part of my journey before my neighborhood was the worst. Once crosses the last main intersection there is no sidewalk and no lights at all, and to top it off with a cherry, there is no shoulder, just a steep slope. I was walking toward oncoming traffic like we are taught, but I learned that this really only benefits you if the cars see you coming. You know they are getting close when you are blinded by headlights while you hope that you don't misstep, roll your ankle, and end up in the sidewalk-less ditch.

Of course I made it home the two and a half days that I was commuting completely solo, but I made adjustments to catch the inconvenient closer bus which provided residential streets with sidewalks for more of the walk home. So by the end of the week, my total commute to work was 1.5 hours and my total commute home was 2 hours. Two hours in a city with the population of 160,000! Two hours in a city that takes 30-45 minutes to drive across! I would expect this in a large city like Chicago, New York, or D.C., but Cedar Rapids, IA? Ridiculous.

There is a point when stubbornness becomes stupidity and I found that last week. I am not going to break my commitment to a one car lifestyle, because I am lucky enough to not experience this every day, but on my long trips home all I could think about was the people that do. How can you do anything besides get to and from work with a system that takes so long and stops running at 7:30? How can you pick up your kids or be there for their basketball games? The simple answer is probably that you can't and that is sad, but the worst part is that most people would suggest getting a car to solve this problem for someone. I have the option to buy a car and I have the option to move to a city that feeds my public transit obsession, but for now, I have two and a half years to help Cedar Rapids see something better than a two hour commute home. I can't recommend public transit to people who would experience what I did, but for those that would have a ride lasting 30 minutes or less, I'll start with you.

Emotionally Break-even

Kelley Blue Book has a nifty new green section of their site. I normally don't dig web based calculators, but they have a nice tool where you can enter your current car, your desired green car and it will tell you how long it will take to break even. Even better, they let you input additional dollars per month that you'd like weighed towards breaking even, emotionally.

This is going to blow my green cover (yes, I drive an SUV), but here's a calculation I did.



This again points out to me that I don't drive enough miles to make fuel economy my #1 vehicle decision point. I guess that's why I still have an SUV :)

Goodbye Yellow Phone Book

I've posted about this long ago, complaining about how wasteful it was to get multiple phone books each year that I won't use.

I see today that others are starting to get behind this cause as well. Do we really need these paper beasts any longer? Aren't online directories and smart phones making this all obsolete? I can only hope so.

If you're having trouble finding it, here is the direct link to specifically getting off of phone book mailing lists.

Slick new bike

I recently saw an article on the new Ultra Motor A2B electric bike. This looks like a pretty slick bike. It's not too traditional looking, but it has a sorta Mad-Max, utilitarian look to it in my eyes. If I didn't already have a motorcycle, this might be a nice option for commuting and around town errands. Heck, with the 20 mile range, I'm pretty sure some of our contributors would be able to get to work on one of these. Recharge at work and have a fresh charge for your ride home. Sure, it costs around $2500, but if you had a 20 mile one way commute, it could pay for itself in 2 years in saved fuel costs alone, figuring you cut out 10.4k miles/year at ~$0.12/mile(figure from AAA for Medium Size Sedan). Plus you'd be helping out the environment.

--JOsh

EDIT: This article is the one that originally got me thinking about this entry.

Carpooling on the Rise

After catching an article on carpooling, I decided to give a couple of the links in the article a try to see if there was anything local showing on them. Imagine my surprise when both CarPoolWorld.com and eRideShare.com had some local entries. I've long since relegated myself to the fact that, living in Iowa, we generally don't get much participation in these sorts of sites. Glad to see that even locally people are trying to get into the ride sharing.

--JOsh

Trip Home: Looking Back

Some final thoughts from our recent trip from the Midwest to the east coast and back.

Not all train stations actually have a train. I'm still confounded by this one.
Buses are not for me.
Power is everywhere!
Regional trains are a level or more above long distance trains.
Comfort is in!

A few things you may want to bring on a train:

Blanket – You can buy one on the train for $15, but I would just bring something if you know you'll be cold.
Food – You can buy it, but it's expensive and could run out.
Entertainment – Books, iPod, laptop, DVD player, and chargers. I don't mean you should bring all of these, and it should be tailored to your trip, but the options are wide open. We read through all of the books we brought and I was able to write posts as we went along without being cutoff by my battery. I really appreciated that.

Improvements:

Provided entertainment – It could be a nice perk to have “in route” entertainment like planes provide. There is plenty of space in the back of the seats to provides a nice size screen. The Acela train did have headphone jacks in the chair arms, but I didn't check them out to see what was playing.
Speed it up – No question, we need high speed trains for long distance train travel. We may take a train from the Midwest again if we find an option that doesn't include a bus, but it won't be our only mode since it does take so long.


U.S. train travel isn't for everyone right now. Our bus mishap could have been a lot worse if we were traveling with anxious kids. I don't want to deter anyone from this mode of transportation, but I also don't want to paint the picture too pretty. Give Amtrak a chance or at least compare it to other options when you plan your next trip!

Trip Part 5: Sold Out!

Well, we have visited all three of our locations for this trip and are settled in on the train taking us (closer to) home. We boarded at Union Station in D.C. and the train is sold out! We had to wait a bit to find seats because every one of them was going to be filled. This brought to light a great benefit of train travel. If the train is full or, I imagine, over booked, you can still get on and will eventually find a spot from conductors reshuffling people, or people getting off at the next stop. With planes, you don't have the option. You don't get to go if there isn't a seat and the plane doesn't move if it is taking longer to seat people. So far the train is on time so there is hope that our trip back will be better than the Indi-Philly trip out. This will be my last “during trip” write-up, but I will pull together some final thoughts about our trip once we are home.

Trip Part 4: Acela, King of the Rails

Our trip from New Haven to D.C. was on the Acela Express business train. It is a "high speed" train that runs from Boston to D.C. and it was definitely the nicest train we rode on during this trip. The train cars were more modern and had almost a futuristic feeling, and the dinning car was more organized than the first train we were on. The trip took about five hours, but it didn't feel like it. Other than watching some of the sites as we pulled into New York, Philly, and D.C., I took a nap and arrived rather refreshed.

After dropping off our things at my friend's house in Arlington, we ventured toward the city and watched how our capitol does the 4th of July from the Iwo Jima park (thanks to marzipan9 for uploading that video from almost exactly where we were). It was a good show and other than the firework smoke blocking some of the view, we had great seats. The Metro trip back to the house was quite the experience, but didn't take at all as long as I had planned. The D.C. Metro is more of what I expect public transportation to be like in a big city. We used it most of Saturday to visit the few attractions we left time for, one of which was the botanical gardens. We didn't make it in time to go inside, but the outdoor gardens feature two areas highlighting solar and Seattle's eco ratings for new building structures. It's free to see and great to read about some of the specifics being added to city building plans. D.C. was a great way to end our east coast trip.

Trip Part 3: Regional Bliss

Our second train brought us to Connecticut, New Haven to be exact. We are actually visiting a friend closer to Hartford, but there were more connection times available in New Haven. We did rent a car since the part of Connecticut we are visiting is more a collection of villages than a city. The train ride had no surprises other than we had to search a bit for seats. We found two fairly quickly and got to watch the mass exodus in New York City.

I love the style of the New Haven station. It is the smallest for us this trip, but has a ton of character! I have also decided that all sizable U.S. train stations have only four options for a name or can combine those names: Union, Penn/Pennsylvania, Grand, or Central. Smaller towns along the way just use their name. No major travel excitement other than getting two power sources in our aisle!

As for Connecticut, it's awesome and beautiful! The area we were in and drove through was so lush and so full of history. The town we stayed in was established in 1702! We went blueberry picking with a friend of our friend and were able to eat them right from the bush. No spray, yay!

Final stop, D.C. for the 4th!

Trip Part 2.5: Philly's Spoke Problem

We were only in Philadelphia for a full day and some change by the time our late train (three hours late) got in and we had to catch our next one to Connecticut. We had a pleasant trip visiting Keith's cousins and staying with his aunt and uncle.

While in The City of Brotherly Love, we used the local rail system to get to and from the Amtrak station and downtown. It was pretty much like any other public rail system, but we found out from the cousins that they have a similar "wheel spokes" problem as the Cedar Rapids bus routes. They do have buses that help offset the problem and they allow full size bikes on the trains during off-peak hours. Folding bikes are always allowed!

The big negative was the cost. Off-peak, one-way rides from our "hotel" to the center of the city were $4.25 per person and peak, one-way rides were $5. Obviously people making this commute frequently would buy a month pass, but as a tourist it was more expensive than I had anticipated.

One of the great "green" things about our Philly trip was wandering around the downtown area and finding a great local ice cream shop, called Franklin Ice Cream or Franklin Fountain, that used bio-compostable spoons and garbage bags. They had really good ice cream and an untouristy, but historic appeal. I believe it is located on Market St. near the river. As we walked back from the river on Market St., we found The Big Green Earth Store and stopped in. They seemed relatively new and their website isn't quite up yet, but it would be great to see them grow and expand. The guy behind the counter was very friendly and informative. I loved that he wasn't overbearing with other customers that had stopped in to check out being green. The store had decorative and functional items including recycled glass bowls, recycled cardboard wall designs, bicycle chain frames and bowls, recycled dinnerware, cleaning supplies, home fragrances, solar backpacks, reusable bags, I could go on. They even had a laundry detergent refilling station which Keith dubbed The Vat. The idea is that you can bring in any container and fill it up with detergent, then pay for how much you take. You reuse containers and prevent more containers from entering the landfills.

Our Pennsylvania portion of the trip was short, but extremely fun and well worth the stop. Good luck to The Big Green Earth Store, and cheers for public transit that runs on time!

Trip Part 2: The Whistle Goes Woo

We finally made it on the train! After waiting for almost five hours in the Indianapolis train station, we were finally able to climb aboard and crash in our spacious seats. The train was two hours late getting into Indianapolis, so the dark, quiet train car was a welcome change from the harsh buzzing lights of the station.

Boarding the train was different than I expected. All passengers getting on were lined up and we were allowed to board by size of group (large parties first) and then by the order that we were standing in line. They assigned us seats on the fly. Keith and I were the first couple in line so we were given seats at the front of the first train car. We have a large set of windows, seats that recline and have leg rests and foot rests. We were given the seat numbers to sit in when we boarded, but several people have switched seats as people have gotten off. The only complaint about our seats so far is that there is an Amish family sitting behind us and they woke up way earlier than my 3am bedtime would have preferred. Not only did they wake up early, but they were talking in normal voices across the aisle, not helping us get a full morning's rest. This could happen in any travel situation, so no marks against Amtrak for this. I do think it would be worthwhile to try traveling in a private room during a long distance trek. I haven't tried exploring beyond the dining car to see if this train has any.

We have a single power socket on our section of the wall, which we have used to recharge our laptops from their use in the train station (picture also posted later). So far access to gadget food has been a pleasant surprise. The people food, however, met my expectations exactly. Expensive, mediocre, and runs out fast. With the train being near full capacity the whole trip, several of the food choices have diminished before we ventured back to eat. Both hot and cold options were listed including pizza, hot wings, hot dogs, sub sandwiches, chips, candy, and a variety of drinks. I bet we will stock up on food supplies for the trip back.

The scenery as of late has been very pleasant. We are somewhere in West Virginia and there are creeks and rivers winding along our path, and we are surrounded by green foothills. At least I'm guessing they are foothills.

As the second section of our journey, things have gotten better. I would rate this long distance train better than the smaller, slow trains in Europe, but nowhere near the high speed, first class trains like the TGV, not surprising. Our first real stop will be Philadelphia where we will be attempting to use the public transit system to get around!

Update: Picture of power on the train

Trip Part 1: No Trains in Peoria!

My husband and I have finished the first section of our East Coast vacation and the adventures have already begun.

We have been planning on going east to visit friends and relatives for a couple of years and this one was set to be that year. I convinced my husband that we should take Amtrak out since we could travel between our three destinations via rail and I would love to see how good or bad US rail travel is. I had high hopes and was very excited.

The hardest part was planning our routes. I can't say that Amtrak's website is terrible, but it definitely leaves several things to be desired. I am only partially blaming this for our first "adventure" of the trip. Having never ridden Amtrak before, I probably should have called to get help in finding the best way from the midwest to the east. I saw that Peoria had an Amtrak station and we happen to have friends who live there. We decided this would make an easy starting point to our journey plus provide a place to stay overnight. Well surprise surprise when we find out that Amtrak doesn't actually have a station in Peoria. You get bussed to an Amtrak station. We found this out after our friends asked some co-workers and informed us when we arrived. They speculated that we would ride the bus about 30 minutes to the Bloomington-Normal station. Wrong! We got to ride the bus from Peoria to Indianapolis, about 5 hours including the various stops along the way. I felt my excitement hit the bottom of my stomach and I immediately felt terrible for pulling Keith into my crazy plans. So far he hasn't killed me or complained, but I'm still sorry!

Now why am I sorry? Nothing bad happened, we aren't later because of it, the other passengers were enlightening, but didn't interfere with anyone's trip. I think comes from two places: the fact that we didn't know ahead of time, and the fact that I realized my euphoria during our trip declined with this news. I believe I have just found a personal boarder between willing to do the "right thing" and finding little benefit while adding perceived unnecessary annoyance. Keith and I discussed the difference between driving a personal vehicle and riding a bus, and while I will proudly support people who always choose busing long distances, to me, this will always be the last option I look at and will most likely pass on. I imagine that I won't be on any more long distance buses unless it is involved in a group tour. Sorry, here is my limit.

I am currently writing this in the Indianapolis station so we still have quite a way to go on our journey. While sitting here I have been comparing my surroundings to my other travels. There are large wooden benches reminiscent of old train stations. Not the most comfortable if you have to sit for three hours, but they do add some charm if you pretend you're in an old movie. The lack of wireless is unfortunate considering our long "layover", but that isn't a given at all airports either. Maybe we will have better luck further along our trip. The buzzing lights also detract from an otherwise sparsely occupied, quiet environment. The object of awesomeness here is that there is a charging station available to charge electronics (I will post separately when i can pull the picture off our camera). Now why can't more airports have these? I am impressed.

This is just the first post for this trip, so check back for an update and my first impression of actually being on an Amtrak train (still hopeful).

Updated: Picture of the charging station

No Bikes Allowed?

Brief bit of background... I have been pretty busy lately because my company's building was one of the many that were affected by the flooding in Iowa. We now have a temporary location which means that I needed to try out a somewhat new transportation route to get there.

The way our bus routes are set up means that any cross town destinations include a transfer at the central hub. I can still ride my normal route to the hub, but now I need to take an additional route to the new location. I decided to do a test run since I was on my way down to help clear out the building and I used my Strida to get to my first bus. Other than it taking almost twice as long to get to work, the trip down went smoothly. (Note: I was impressed especially since the normal bus hub was destroyed by the flood and they are using a new location with tents as a building right now.)

What prompted me to write this post happened on the way home. I rode the first route back to the transfer point and caught the second leg of my journey. There was one other guy already on the bus. I sat down and held the Strida right in front of me as usual and then the bus driver said something about it. I didn't quite hear him and figured it was a typical "what is that?" or "that's interesting/cool/weird." comment, but I asked him to repeat. He asked if it was something that I still didn't catch and I responded with "It's a folding bike." Then came the comment... "Well you can't have bikes on the bus." Ok, I understand that, but this is a folding bike, and I'm moving to the front of the bus because you just prompted an in depth discussion.

A polite verbal discussion ensued, and below I have a few of his points and my responses:

Driver	Me
The rules say no bicycles on the bus.	Hmm, first driver to tell my I can't bring this on. I'm surprised it hasn't come up before. As I understand it, the rule is meant for full size bikes because they take up so much space. Mine is folded and compact, and in the same space as my feet. No one could be where it is unless they wanted to sit on my lap.
If everyone can't do it, no one can. If everyone brought their folding bike on the bus, there wouldn't be enough room and they would have to wait for the next bus.	If everyone one brought their child in a stroller, there wouldn't be enough room. Cedar Rapids would be so lucky to have that problem. If enough people have to wait for the next bus because they are full, maybe buses should run more frequently, again we would be so lucky...
If everyone brought their stroller, the transit directors would make a rule that strollers couldn't come on either. I have a unicycle, should I be able to bring that on the bus?	Yes you should be able to bring your unicycle on the bus as long as you can keep it out of the way.

Other tidbits:
We talked about the buses getting bike racks and he shared that he has worked in large metropolitan transit organizations (no specifics) where people have taken another passenger's bike off the rack if it was nicer than theirs. I don't imagine this to be a huge problem in CR, but I could be surprised. He also said several times that he personally didn't care if I had the folding bike on the bus, but "the rules say...". Apparently he is a runner and bikes himself, so he is very excited that he can ride his bike to work, put it on the bus he's driving, and then take it off to go home. I don't agree with him taking up a space that actual transit riders would use, but I didn't mention it because we had reached my stop.

So for anyone who might read this, what do you think about folding bikes, or compact transportation in general, being allowed or not on public transit? I know large cities handle it, but I don't have personal experience there. Am I at fault because bicycles are not allowed, or should rules be bent or updated to handle alternative transportation that is reasonable?

Fewer Cars Than People

How many families do you know that have a car for each family member? How many have more cars than people? Well my husband and I have been testing the one car per family lifestyle and after two successful months, have decided it works perfectly fine for us! We started by not driving my 1996 Honda Civic. It was there if we needed it, but during most of the two months it has been blocked by mulch and we have never had a reason to free it.

Our system relies most heavily on public transportation. My husband drops me off at the bus stop or I ride my Strida to the stop and take the bus from there. Now that the weather is nicer, I have the option of riding my full size bike all the way into work. The one time that I drove to work, my husband was working from home. When making this decision we thought of scenarios where we would both need a car. We decided that if we run into one of those situations, it is just as easy to rent a car the few times that we will need an extra. We also discussed when we would need to own two cars again. For us, this would be when we decide to have kids, but this would hinge on if we really needed another vehicle. I don't subscribe to the belief that having one child requires that you get another car. This includes adding cars and getting a bigger vehicle. I completely understand the reasons where it is required, but there is still the opportunity to maintain a one car household with one kid. This will be one of those play it as we go situations to ensure that we make the right choice.

As of right now, my Honda is getting tuned up to be passed along to my brother and replace his less efficient S10. Hopefully we will make the hand off this weekend and gain a large area in our garage! The other nicety is that our car insurance will go down a little bit. It won't be a life changing amount since my car is old and we don't have full coverage on it, but it will still be more money that we can put to other, more exciting things.

So try out a new transportation style. Not everyone can give up a vehicle, but driving one less day a week or one less week a month will not only save you gas money, but open your eyes to changes you can make, or changes in transportation that your community could make to help out its citizens.

Couple of quick links

Green Construction Comes to Eastern Iowa:
KCRG.com Article

A link from my mom:
360 Electrical - These are neat outlets you can retrofit anywhere that can turn 360 degrees to allow you to plug in those awkward power blocks, though you should probably have them on a power strip so you can kill the vampire power suckers.

--JOsh

Steve Sleeve

We've heard about how Apple has made efforts to make the MacBook Air green. Now the accessories are following suite. Timbuk2 is bringing us the Steve Sleeve.

We've overbuilt the hell out of this sleeve and spec'd earth friendly materials throughout. Ultrasonic seam welds use a notoxic glue, the durable exterior softshell fabric (just like the stuff in mountaineering jackets) & low pile brushed fleece lining are made from post-consumer pop bottles (PET). The buttons are made of Poly PET and the string can be reused to tie your shoe in a pinch.

I dig the design and the green efforts.

Earth Hour

Plan to go for a walk outside (or any other activity that doesn't require the lights to be on) on Saturday at 8pm Central. Earth hour is a simple way you can conserve even a tiny bit of energy. Turn off your lights. Turn off the TV. Turn off your computer. Maybe you can even turn down your electric furnace for the hour.

Find out more at EarthHourUS.org.

Clarion Hotel, Cedar Rapids

So, today at work I was awarded with a special prize as part of my participation in the "Big Brothers, Big Sisters BOWL for Kid's Sake". The prize was a mini-weekend stay at the Clarion Hotel in Cedar Rapids. On the little gift certificate, I noticed the phrase:

"Cedar Rapids Largest Family Owned GREEN Hotel."

Dem's fightin' words, boy. A quick google search revealed this page on their website: http://www.clarioncr.com/green.htm. What a pleasant surprise! Not only are they doing the standard 'linens' stuff of reusing towels, but they also are using low VOC paints, bamboo flooring, hybrid cars for airport shuttles... and more!

I find it refreshing that they even went as far as putting recycling containers in the guest rooms, empowering us to help in our own little ways. Check it out, and next time you need to stay in CR, consider the Clarion FIRST. It truly is a nice place, and they are doing their part.

-- I

An Open Letter to Subway Sandwich Shops

Dear Subway,

Hello, my old friend. As you know, I visit you a lot. Like, a total shit-ton. I probably eat there 5 to 10 times per week, and there have been a few things that have been bugging me. It's not me, it really is you, and I want us to have a good relationship going forward, so I feel like I should tell you these things now, instead of letting it drag on and on. I can't make you change, but think about these things, okay?

First, can you please get rid of those god-awful plastic straw wrappers? Seriously, they are *impossible* to open. I usually break two straws before I successfully get one open without damage, and that is just wasteful. Plus, the plastic wrappers do not degrade nicely in our landfills, and every little bit helps the environment, ya know? I know, I know, some people will think you are killing a tree, but at least you won't be using oil to wrap your straws, and you can always sponsor tree-planting programs to help offset your use.

Second, when I'm visiting your store, it's usually just me that I am ordering for. I don't need that huge plastic bag to carry my sandwich and chips in. I'm capable of doing it by myself. I bring this up because it's not that I can't refuse the use of the plastic bag (I often do), it's just that other people don't think about it the same way I do, so maybe it would be nice to give them the option, okay? "Hi, would you like a bag to carry your sandwich, or can you handle it on your own?" That's all.

TWO layers of paper? Seriously, I'm not sure why you need that little square at the beginning of my sandwich assembly process. The bread usually spends some time bare-assed on that white cutting board for a little while while it is cut, so why do we need that extra square of paper? Any germs that it picks up certainly hasn't killed me yet. Besides, your sandwich artists usually do a great job of keeping those things pretty clean.

Those are the big things that have been bothering me, so I hope you understand. Just pay attention to these things a little more, okay? I still love you, even if you are hanging out way too much with that Jared jerk. He used to be fat, you know.

See you around.

-- I

First Strida Ride!

Today was the perfect rush of adrenaline. We were running late and missed the opportunity to catch my usual bus. My husband was sick and I felt bad that he was burdened to drop me off at my bus stop. The weather was a nice 45-ish degrees and the roads had finally rid themselves of snow. With all of these conditions perfectly aligned, I made the quick decision to break in my Strida and find out if my solution had any hope. The short story is that it worked! I got to the bus stop and back home in one piece. My morning bus driver suggested my solution to another rider, and I got plenty of comments (providing great leads into encouraging other people to bike or ride the bus). The long story involves some areas that I would like to improve for my next trips and comments about the bike. Here is my list:

1. The ride is much more vertical than I'm used to. This is something I knew ahead of time and I'll just have to get used to it. My main problem is that habit makes me try to dismount forward of the seat. This *doesn't work* since it's an A frame and there is a big bar there. I really need to remember this so I don't continue to look ridiculous when getting off!
2. I need to aim better when putting the two wheels together in the folded position. The magnets are quite strong and pull the wheels together quickly, so I didn't get them centered well this morning, which provided opportunities for the wheels to separate when I pushed the bike over cracks and bumps.
   
3. Weight is important! The bike was actually pretty heavy to steer even though I was just pushing it. It's more that you have to control the direction of the bike and keep it from wobbling too much, so hopefully this will get easier as I become more adequate at driving a folded bike.
4. I need to find straps/Velcro/something to hold the handles still when they are folded down. They currently flop around and can get caught on various things while trying to steer the folded bike. They were also a problem on the bus. I was able to fit the bike right in front of me on the bus, so that it was between my seat and the seat in front of me. The handles are about head level and could smack me in the face or hit the person in front of me in the head. Luckily neither of those things happened today, but I did spend the whole time on both bus trips holding the handles still.
5. I love that there are straps to lock the breaks. The was so helpful while I was both waiting for buses and on the buses.
6. The bike is adequate for riding the approximate mile that I have to get to the bus stop, but I wouldn't want to go touring around with it.
   

That is all I have for now, along with a bunch of excitement that my scheme worked on the first try! Now to commit to getting rid of my car...

Give Your Mail Person a Break

How much mail do you get that you really need? Most of the stuff we put in our recycle bin is junk mail, and I am sick of getting catalogs for the people who previously owned our house. A few months ago we signed up with Catalog Choice to limit the amount of useless mail we receive. I have to say that I have noticed a significant difference, at least with catalogs, and it's free. They have all of the major catalogs and even more that I have never heard of. Their service makes it really easy to go in and cancel catalogs and magazines at any time. I try to do this at least once a week with any catalogs we may have received.

The next step I am taking is to stop the rest of the junk mail. I have read about some other services that work with all kinds of junk mail, but several require a fee: 41pounds and GreenDimes are a few. The best option I have found so far is through the Direct Marketing Association and costs $1, but in my opinion, that is one dollar well spent. You are able to put up to 5 names per address which is nice since I still get a lot of junk mail sent to my maiden name. I recently signed us up and was surprised by the "are you sure" page. They post the following information to try to convince you to stay on the list (I added the bold formatting to highlight certain content).

Important: you have selected to eliminate all mailings from organizations participating in the DMA Mail Preference Service.

What you will miss.

The average household can save 1200 dollars per year from marketing offers.
You will no longer receive savings offers from these companies.

In fact, you will no longer receive offers and special savings for more than 80 percent of all commercial offers.

And you will miss the environmental benefits of shopping at home rather than driving to the mall!

By replacing just two shopping trips to the mall each year with shopping by catalogs or direct mail, DMA estimates that Americans could:

• Reduce the amount we drive by 3.3 billion miles.
• Reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 3 billion pounds.
• Save more than $490 million on gas costs.

When you click here, your name will be removed from future consumer prospect lists and you will see a significant reduction in all catalog and other commercial offers. If you wish to reconsider, click here and uncheck the box removing your name from DMA's member prospect lists.

DMA and all its members support the Commitment to Consumer Choice guidelines designed to better serve consumers and your right to choose to receive more of what you want and less of what you don't want. If you have questions about the CCC please visit the DMA web site homepage.

I found it interesting that they were pointing out the environmental benefits to receiving junk mail. Perhaps some people drive to stores often enough that receiving tons of paper is healthier for the planet, but I don't fall into that category. Also, I would rather spend my time searching online for the few products that I shop for each year, than waste it sifting through junk mail to find the two coupons I would use. So here is to fewer pieces of junk mail and more time to spend reading useful things like books!

Rant: Big Box Wasteful!

-- Begin Rant --

While in my local Menards store today, something dawned on me like a light coming on over my head. Actually, a light WAS on over my head. Lots of them. THAT was the problem.

Walk into your local big-box home improvement store, and wander on over to the lighting section. They all do it. Lowes, Home Depot, Menards... EVERY single light they have on display is *on* during business hours (maybe longer!).

Is it that hard to let customers turn it on and off if they want to see what it looks like? Is an 'on' light more likely to sell than an 'off' light? Even if so, do they sell enough of them to justify the damage to the environment AND the bottom line of their electric bill?

C'mon, Big Box! Get on the green bandwagon and turn off those lights. Our planet will thank you. At least I will.

-- End Rant --

2 R's

Reuse, Recycle

Stumbled across these bottle openers made from used bike chains & sprockets on a forum I frequent and thought they looked pretty cool. You can even get your own custom logo engraved on them.


More re-'cycle'd (ha ha) items here:

https://www.resourcerevival.com/store/retail?category=21

--JOsh

Smarty Pants

Along with buying the Strida in Chicago, we also went north to Lincolnwood to test drive a Smart Car. We had no intention of buying one, but I really wanted to get inside and see what they were like to drive.

I scheduled our test drive online to make sure we didn't drive all that way and have to wait in a line or something. We met with one of the sales guys and then someone that knew more of the nitty gritty details gave us a tour and test drive. Let me tell you, these cars put everything into perspective. They are very small compared to the SUVs the US has lovingly embraced, and it blatantly points out how little room you really need (if you don't have kids in the car). And this small that I speak of is in no way a negative in my opinion. You get in the car and you forget that you are driving the smallest car on the market. It had very little difference in "size" feel from my Honda Civic. It feels very secure and stable not like a toy as I imagined. Better proof of my testament is my husband's reaction. He really just went along to make me happy and had very little interest in the car, but after he drove it he was blown away at how nice it felt to drive.

The car is an automatic manual so it has the fake manual shifting provided through paddles similar to what I hear is in the Pacifica. I'm not a car person so I can't give you good specifics, and questions might be better answered on the Smart Car website or you can feel free to ask them in the comments and I'll dig through the documentation we were given, but no promises! Below are some pictures that we took of the Smart Pure and Smart Passion Coupe models.




Me in the Smart Pure which is the bottom of the line model. It comes with automatic locks and that is pretty much it. No air conditioning, no super brake things, no power windows, very pure.








Below is a comparison of the dash in the Pure (left) and the Coupe (right). Of course you can upgrade the Pure if you want some of the features in the Coupe.















Trunk shots. The first is looking from the driver seat to the back of the car and the second is with the tailgate down. The tailgate also has a compartment for storage.
















One of the disappointments is the mpg rating. I was expecting it to get 50+ mpg and some stories reported 60-70 mpg before release. The EPA says that it only gets 33 in town and 41 highway according their upgraded 2008 testing. The Smart's website also shows its 2007 rating, before the EPA changed, as 40/45. I wondered how this could be with such a small car, but the nitty gritty guy pretty much answered it when he told us that the US version had to be beefed up to weigh almost 200 lbs more than the UK model.


Driving the Smart made me wish that we had a good reason to buy one, but both of our cars get good gas mileage and we're actually thinking about getting rid of one of them because we don't use two frequently enough. If you're lucky enough to live near a dealership or don't mind driving to get to one, I highly recommend taking one for a test drive just to get a new perspective on small cars.

Benefits of a Contortionist

This past weekend my husband and I went to Chicago with several missions. We visited quite a few of our friends, but I also had other reasons for going. The first was to find a folding bike.

Background: I have started riding our bus system almost daily. In fact there are few reasons that I don't ride any more. One is not waking up in time which isn't usually me being lazy, but rather because I'm sick. This doesn't happen often and all I can do to control it is prevention. Another cause is if my husband is sick or otherwise unable to take me to the bus stop. This also isn't me just being lazy, but instead a problem of our city's bus system. The closest bus stop to our house is only a 14 minute walk, but it only comes every hour and a half and the times don't work well with my schedule. The second closest option is 1.4 miles according to Google Maps so my husband drops me off on his way to work and this requires him to be a part of the plan which can cause problems for both of us.

Options: I can increase my riding rate by finding an alternate way of getting to the bus stop. One option would be for the large post office parking lot across from the stop to double as a park and ride, but that will take a lot of pushing and more people than just me to make that official, plus that would require me to drive and I don't like that option even if it is only 1.4 miles. I could walk, but maybe I am being lazy here or maybe thinking of the unshoveled sidewalks turns me off. This would also require me to get up earlier to allow time to walk and if I'm going to do that I might as well take the bus that comes closer.

Solution: Ride a bike. This is not a complete solution because our buses don't have bike racks and I wouldn't be allowed to bring a full size bike on the bus. The complete package is to ride a folding bike to the bus stop, fold it up and then hop on the bus. I started looking into this option several months ago and have been digging through the options since then. There are several companies that sell folding bikes and for the most part they are just like regular bikes with frames that allow the folding part. Of course these won't work for me. These "regular" folding bikes fold into a compact form I call a "bike ball" and they almost require a bag to be easily carried. I wanted something that folded into a form similar to an umbrella or cheap baby stroller. In all of my searching I could only find two options, the Strida and the A-Bike (see comparison video here). I preferred the A-Bike because it was the smaller, lighter, and more compact of the two even if Ryan thought it looked like a circus clown bike. The problem is that they are currently sold out and I sometimes have problems with patience. The other problem was that I could only get one from the UK as they have no US dealers and I like to try before I buy. This is how the Strida became the better option and I decided that I needed to go to Chicago (the closest dealer to me) and check one out. That brings me to today, well yesterday, when we arrived at Rapid Transit Cycle Shop. I talked with the sales rep for quite a while on their experience with the Strida, the positives, the potential negatives and I was very pleased with his helpfulness and honesty about the bike. He also showed me a Bike Friday folding bike which was the closest "regular" folding bike in weight that they sold and they highly recommended. I decided that the folded form would not work in my situation and went with the Strida especially after he told me they had a trial period and would be somewhat flexible with me since I lived so far away. The following is a series of pictures of me demoing how the Strida folds along with some tidbits that I discussed with the sales rep.

Me on the Strida. Both the Strida and A-Bike are called A Frame bikes so they are more upright than a normal bike. This one makes me sit almost straight up. The seat is adjustable for different heights so others may not be as upright as I am.














This is the Strida by itself. It also came with a rack that I had them take off at the shop. I still have it, but I plan on using my back pack to transport stuff and the rack just added extra weight and an extra thing to get in the way.






The pedals fold in to stay out of the way.



















The bottom part of the A frame attaches to the front with a pin clip. It slides right on and clicks into place, and to take it off you push on a tab to release and pull up. The sales rep mentioned that this was the part that I had to be the most careful with. The top point of the "A" is a pivot point that has a spring and a plastic cap. They experienced a problem with the plastic cap cracking when the front leg is allowed to go much further forward than it is when fully assembled. Strida did supply them with a replacement cap, but it's something to note.




Next, the front leg swivels to the side enough to get it past the pedals and lock into place with the rear wheel. Magnets on both wheel axles keep the wheels together. I noticed that the magnets are very strong and it is pretty hard for me to get them apart. While looking through the manual tonight I found a section that talked about changing the strength of the magnets. I may have to play with this if it continues to be too hard for me to pry apart.






The last fold of the frame is to bring the bottom bar up and snap it between the two other bars. This feels very secure and provides that umbrella form that I was looking for.






The last folding that is done is the handle bars. they pop out and fold down. There are also loops at the end to hold the brakes down and lock the wheels if you want to lean the bike against a wall.













And now you have a folded Strida ready to roll or hang out in a tight spot.












I haven't had a chance to put the Strida into action yet and we just received another dose of snow today so it may not happen right away. Some things that I will note that I don't like, yet still purchased to try out. The last picture shows how tall the bike is when folded. It is taller than I would like in a perfect world and that is one of the key reasons I preferred the idea of the A-Bike. The A-Bike has telescoping legs so it folds into a shorter package. Also, it is pretty heavy. It is listed at almost 20 lbs. which could get annoying if you had a long distance to carry or maneuver it. These two issues will be ones that I plan on analyzing to see if this solution works for me. I will be posting updates about my Strida experience as I give it a try.

Here, you recycle this

So you want to recycle, but you have things other than the typical paper and plastic. You have broken toys, an old TV, or a monitor and other computer parts. Where can you take it? Well I don't know, but Earth911 probably does! Earth911 is a relatively untapped resource for me, but one of their very useful functions so far is the Recycling Center search. You simply type in what you want to recycle and the area you live in, they do the rest by pulling up recycling options near you. Give it a try!

CFL and After

One of the methods I am using to be more energy conscious is very judicious use of CFL in my house. Thus far I have replaced several entire rooms, and I intend to continue this until I am completely rid of incandescent.

I originally planned to wait and replace as incandescent bulbs burnt out, but at this point I'm wondering why I shouldn't reap those savings sooner. Especially when companies such as Alliant Energy are providing rebates for purchasing these bulbs.

One thing that has concerned me with CFL though is my perception that people are relatively uninformed about how these bulbs should be disposed. The mercury in the bulbs means that they can no longer simply be tossed in the trash.

I was very encouraged though to see a flier up at my kids' gymnastics class stating the a CFL recycling program had been setup in a nearby town. This prompted me to look for and then find some additional CFL recycling information and information for Iowa specifically.

Luckily for me personally there is a center about 10 minutes away. I do think there is still a need to greatly expand on the number of these centers available, so I hope more people will setup local drop off centers.

4 R's and Electronics

Do you have a lot of electronics in use at your house? Would you like to know how much electricity they are using? Try the MyGreenElectronics Energy Calculator.


The site also has some general advice on making your electonics use more green.

Green Hanging

Last week, my wife & I were shopping at Wal-Mart for a few things to manage our hanging laundry when I happened to run across hangers by Merrick. They're made in the USA, from a corn base. They're recyclable, but based on a few comments on Treehugger, only by municipalities that have the correct capabilities. I was pretty impressed that Wal-Mart of all places would carry something like this. And the pricing wasn't too bad either, at about $3.50 for 5 hangers.

--JOsh

Build Your Home Green

On January 7th my husband and I, along with fellow poster Josh and his wife, attended a local workshop titled "Building a Sustainable Iowa". It was hosted by Center on Sustainable Communities and involved a presentation by Marc Richmond from Practica Consulting followed by the ability to visit with green vendors. The information was aimed at people building new homes or current homeowners wanting to make green choices.

I found the session very informative and presented from a reasonable point of view. Marc briefly covered what he called the "doom and gloom" side of building that we all hear about, but live so far away from. The majority of the time he discussed common misconceptions, pitfalls of making green choices, and tips. Here is a list of some of the items that really stood out for me:

• Every product that you purchase for your home from the building components to the paint and furnishings can contain harmful things like formaldehyde. These will "off-gas" for many years even if you can't smell it. Look for products with low or no VOCs and low or no formaldehyde.
• Don't get caught up in perfecting your projects. There are pros and cons to every choice so you have to do your research and find the products that fit the best with your goals.
  
• There are many green factors, so rank their priority for your purposes to stay focused. Some of the green factors mentioned were energy efficiency, sustainability, and indoor health.
• You may have a very efficient furnace, but if your duct work was done poorly and leaks, heating your home may be up to 30% less efficient than you think. Getting your system tested can point out areas that need to be sealed better.
• Insulation should completely fill the space between the studs. This has been a common problem with builders and is one of the easiest ways to lose money on heating your home. Watch insulation installation carefully if you are building a new home and remedy the problem if you have an existing home.
  
• Another good test for new and existing homes is a home pressure test. This will test for leaks around windows and doors, electrical sockets and other common culprits.
  
• Don't believe that green materials are always too expensive. Most green products are a few dollars more or even less than their counterparts, and if they are that close in price, why wouldn't you pay a few dollars more to make your home last longer and be healthier for your family? Isn't it worth it to raise your children in a safer environment?
  
• Green products have a lower quality than the old stuff, not! Marc pointed out that many green products have been on the shelf for years, but people don't think to look for them. A good example was paint. "Regular" paint hasn't changed for years, but low/no VOC paint has been evolving to keep up with regulations in states such as California. This means that eco-friendly paint is using the latest paint technology while the "good" paint is still using 20 year old technology.
  

The vendors at the show included companies involved with insulation, paint, windows, gas and electricity providers, construction and building materials that can be reused. I look forward to researching and possibly working with some of these companies for our home projects in the future.

CitizenRe Post 1: Rent Solar

This will be the first of a series of posts on CitizenRe.

I mentioned that my husband and I bought our first home last summer. We bought it because we like it, it's in a great neighborhood, it's close to my husband's office and he can drop me at a variety of bus stops on his way to work. We also bought it to grow into because we hate moving and will have kids some day. This last point means that it's bigger than we need right now, but my green side has come to terms with that because it also means that we are making long term decisions on improving it, more than just aesthetic modification.

The first major one is to add solar. For a long time this was a future goal because of the high up-front cost of solar combined with living in a state that doesn't have good solar rebates. This changed the day of the 2007 National Solar Tour. After visiting a local nature preserve that uses solar panels, we went out to lunch and found a flyer for CitizenRe, a company that promotes solar by renting and maintaining the setup through it's REnU program. The deal sounded really great which was the problem. It sounded way too good to be true. So I sat on it, talked it over with a coworker who has some hobby panels, and did some research online. I found that other people were concerned that it was a scam and there were plenty of arguments on both sides. Finally I decided to sign up and find out if it was real or not. I spent time reading through the terms and conditions and nothing looked fishy so I dove in.

I received a call from the sales manager assigned to us, but didn't answer so I only got the welcome message as a voice mail. Then we were sent papers to sign, confirming that we wanted to join the program. I recently received an email confirming that the papers arrived, but still no word about anyone coming to design our solar system. It is important to note that as of this date we have not been asked for social security numbers or any personal information other than our address and names and even the papers that we signed stated that we were not locked into anything until a systems engineer came and designed our solar setup and we approved it. I bring this up because the sites I found had incorrect statements along those lines.

I hope to have more exciting updates about our personal experience with CitizenRe, but for now, here are a few links that help prove that they are real if you believe what you see on TV.

CitizenRe on Living with Ed

Green Air

Computer's certainly aren't the greenest thing in your life, but hopefully things are getting better.

Today Apple released the new MacBook Air. The interesting part is that the computers' green angle was prominently featured in the keynote that introduced the computer to the world. That suggests to me that green is now a selling point of computing hardware.

As a Mac user myself, I've taken notice of efforts by Apple to reduce packaging for their products across the board. The real reason they do this might lie within retail warehousing requirements, but even so, you have to love less waste. I could put half a dozen Mac mini boxes in an old tower computer box.

90 mpg Honda Civic

Someone posted this on another car forum that I'm a member of, and I found it somewhat interesting.
http://forum.ecomodder.com/showthread.php?t=290

It's a a Honda Civic that's been modified for aerodynamics & fuel efficiency. Can't say I can stomach the looks, but at 80-90 MPG, you can't argue with the results.

I wonder what small things we could all do to our vehicles to add a few MPG without making them look quite so outrageous?

--JOsh

Subscribe and Save (Money and Earth)

Put aside the question of whether cloth diapers are greener than disposable diapers. Let's say you are a new parent and have decided disposable diapers are the only option. How can you still be green?

One option is Seventh Generation chlorine-free diapers. Seventh Generation has a whole raft of earth friendlier products. We've found their diapers to be fantastic for our boys. They're the only ones that keep the diaper rash away, they fit great, and they don't leak. I like that they are simple and free of unnecessary dyes and pictures. Our family doctor exclaimed "Those are some good looking diapers!" the first time she saw them.

Seventh Generation tell us...

If every household in the U.S. replaced just one 40-count package of size 3 conventional diapers with our chlorine-free diapers, we could avoid 133,000 pounds of pollution from entering the environment.

The only problem with Seventh Generation diapers is they're more expensive than the rest. That's where the subscribe part comes in. Amazon allows you to save 15% when you subscribe to things like diapers. As an example, you can get 136 size 4 delievered to your door for 35.69. This can be cheaper than Pampers at your local Target, even with a coupon! Since this is a subscription, you don't have to think about it. I love not having to run to the store just for diapers.

Of course there are greener options for diapers, but if you just want to do what you can without too much hassle, I recommend Amazon and Seventh Generation.

True Stories

This past year I have become more vocal and more active in green awareness. I didn't make this a goal at first and really just woke up one day and realized that I was already being proactive, so why not put some thought into it? For me, the best turning point I can think of was when I started to ride the city bus to work. I came to love using the buses where I went to college because they provided a warm, dry, quick way for me to get around campus and they were free for students. In my adult life, a city bus route was a 3 minute walk from my apartment and the downtown station was a closer walk than the free company parking lot. It also became free for me to take the bus a few months after I started riding because my company started providing free bus passes to employees. From this change I started slowly adding other environmentally conscious aspects to my life, but it still took a while before I completely woke up to what I could do.

After purchasing a house I felt more empowered to make important choices and that my decisions really had an effect, plus it was fun for me. I started looking for eco-friendly cleaning products, and I got overwhelmed by this so we still use whatever I have leftover from when I lived in an apartment along with a few eco-friendly samples. We also started painting rooms in our house and just completed the third painting project. This last time we used no VOC paint from Sherwin Williams and I think we finally have an efficient painting process even if we aren't perfect yet. Each time I try something new and am successful, I feel good even if I'm just easing in.

In future posts I plan on sharing more information about current projects my husband and I have planned for our house and other changes we're making in our lives to evolve.

Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry Displays Green

Ian's favorite corner of the web (and coincidentally the midwest), Chicagoist, is reporting that the Museum of Science and Industry is building a fully functional 3 story "green" home that will be available for exhibit beginning May 8, 2008.

If you happen to be in Chicago over the summer, make sure to check it out. It may help you decide on what technology is practical for you. Just make sure to use Chicago's excellent rapid (mass?) transit system while you are there. CTA Trip Planner.

http://chicagoist.com/2008/01/08/museum_unveils.php

Welcome Party

The description for this site should explain our goals clearly. Posts to this blog will be written by and about typical people living in the Midwest and the green things they do or care about. Hopefully, it will also provide information about local green businesses, programs, and products. The larger green blogs do a great job covering these areas globally, but I live in one of the many smaller cities in the middle of the United States and I want to share options available in this area and also learn about new ones. So if you stumble across this site and find the information useful, or have something to share, please let us know and help enrich our greening lives!