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.