Greetings everyone, it’s been a while hasn’t it?

Carmen and I just got back from spending two weeks in Alaska, land of dial up internet, pretty pretty nature, and flesh eating mosquitoes. We had a lot of fun up there spending time with my family, seeing my little, though taller, sister graduate from high school and going on a small road trip from Fairbanks to Anchorage on a “mission from god” to find my mom a new reclining chair.

While we were in Alaska we did the following:

• Visited somewhere that still had snow on Mother’s Day
• Drank a lot of very expensive wine, more than we I should have but it was fun and I wasn’t sick so all is well
• Dug a hole to China attempting to statisfy my sister and retrieve the time capsule we buried there over 10 years ago. Alas, I couldn’t find it even though I knew exactly where it was within 2-3 feet!
• Forced my sister go walking in “nature” twice
• Introduced my mom to geocaching
• Got lost geocaching and left my sister stranded in the woods on a bench with nothing but a cellphone. It wasn’t that traumatic for her though she just sat there and waited which is good because if she had come looking for us she would have been lost too!
• Saw exactly 1 moose, 2 reindeer, and some funny looking cows
• Spent a lot of time with friends and family
• Shopped and Dined with a friend from college who lives in VA now but comes to AK in the summertime
• Spent more time than is healthy in malls
• Saw the mountains but not Denali

We probably did lots of other things that I’m forgetting but you don’t need a play-by-play do you?

While in Alaska we both realized how nice it is to be somewhere rural and “in nature” where people own houses on land for reasonable prices far from their neighbors and everyone is so laid back that jeans and carharts are the norm anywhere you go. We also realized that Alaska, especially Fairbanks, does not have an active recycling program, meaning everything goes to landfills! EEK! It’s funny, I started recycling to humor carmen and have learned to appreciate it over time but now after being in Alaska and thinking about how much non-biodegradable material is going into landfills, especially in a place so beautiful as Alaska it totally freaked me out! So much, in fact, that I spent part of today writing the local Alaska government officials about it to see if they’re doing anything to promote recycling. We’ll see what happens or if anyone responds to me. I sent 2 Mayors emails along with the Governor and Lt. Governor and 2 Senators. I attempted to write the congressmen but he only holds audience with Alaskan citizens *way to not get my vote if I ever chose to move there, not that I would vote for you anyway because you’re a Republican!* It would be cool though, if someone emailed me back and said they’re actively looking into ways to start a recycling program, it’s a lot to ask and is totally wishful thinking but I think something’s gotta change.

Ok, so we’re back now and hopefully we’ll start posting more often in the coming weeks. Carmen is busy with work so it might just be me for a while but we’ll see what happens.

Now, I leave you with this pretty picture taken just prior to abandoning my sister in the woods in order to be grown-up idiots looking for tupperware, also known as geocachers.

Today, thanks to the wonderful ideal bite eco-living tip, I finally found the kind of website I’ve been begging other sites to post about. Beyond Grey Pinstripes is a pretty cool site about green MBA programs around the country and the world. Carmen has recently been looking for a green program to attend while I finish my Bachelors degree – our local school is in the top ten and carmen has considered going back to school, brainy girl that she is.

My adviser has been pushing me to go for an MBA after graduating but there are a lot of factors that keep me from seriously considering it.

1. More school?! Are you serious? It will have only taken me 7 years to get my Bachelors. Actually though, I took a break to move across the country to be with carmen, get a CMT (certificate in massage therapy), get some real-life “work” experience, and now work full time and go to school full time. I feel like I’ve been in school forever and will only have a crappy B.S. in Technology Management when it’s all said and done.

2. Holy crap school is expensive! I’m $30,000 in debt for undergrad alone and we just finished paying off all of carmen’s loans – and she’s been out of school for quite a while! Now I’m looking at $30,000+ more for an MBA AND I will have to continue to work full time while getting it. I feel like I’ll be dead before being able to pay for all this. Life sucks enough now just doing undergrad work I can only imagine it gets worse when you’re in graduate school. I keep hearing carmen’s horror stories from back in the day along with my other super smart friend at Virginia Tech. and neither one seemed to be very happy about being in grad school. It’s a lot to consider.

3. I don’t want to be a manager! *stomping foot, crossing arms and pouting* The whole MBA thing always flashes “MANAGER” like an annoying neon light whenever I think about it. But then I read about people with MBAs who are working in the sustainable industry who are far from being managers. Simran Sethi totally rocks it with her work on Treehugger.com along with her hosting gig at Sundance Channel’s The Green and occasional guest appearances on The Oprah Show. Also, almost everyone on staff at Terrapass.com has an MBA, they’re totally cool and also, not managers… I think I really need to think about what exactly someone with an MBA does. The only people I actually know who have MBAs are all managers and I don’t think I could do that. I want to be in the middle of the action, I’ll lead people but I don’t want to be so stuck in bureaucracy that it means sitting at a desk and attending meetings all day instead of getting my hands dirty.

4. I don’t entirely know what I want to be when I grow up! Blame it on genetics, but I take after my mother in terms of what I want to be when I grow up. I don’t even think she knows what she wants to be yet. To prove my point, here are things I have shown interest in in the past:

• Egyptology (the ratio of mummies to Egyptologists is not that competitive, plus, curses that kill you!)
• Forensic Pathology (still very interesting yet too germ-filled for one with OCD)
• Fly Airplanes (I would love to again but see #2 above – grad school is on the extra value menu compared to the cost of flying)
• Professional Archer (also with the expensive and very time consuming – no work, no school, no life, just archery. All. The. Time.)
• Library Clerk (boring)
• Massage Therapist (highly lucrative yet I’m a specialist and I was too unmotivated to start a business)
• Cashier at Whole Foods (HATED IT!)
• Land Surveyor (fun, dirty, no money)
• Computer Call Center Representative (learned a lot but got paid very little)
• Computer Programmer (fun but I run out of things to do and I like to break things and fix them more)

Here are things that I am interested in today:

• Green Building (I wrote an entire thesis on this for my degree and my dad was a carpenter so I’ve enjoyed construction my whole life. Plus, tools? Pretty.*)
• Breaking Computer Programs (I have a knack for breaking things, why not get paid for it)
• Technical Analysis (Fixing broken work processes to make things better)
• Research (I like to learn)
• Being on Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list (how cool would it be to make the list as someone who deals in sustainability)

I like everything too much and can’t narrow it down to just one thing. Actually, I think if I did I would just get bored. But really, my goal is to make Forbes and if I want to do that I have to get an MBA. There’s one big problem though, I have a problem with change. When I think about getting a new job, going to grad school, and/or moving to a different state my heart starts racing and I can’t breathe. Fortunately for me I have one more year until I graduate and thus have a year or more to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. The idea of attending school #17 doesn’t sound too bad though.

The more I think and read about it, the more interested I am in both carmen and I each getting an MBA just to up the statistics of women who have MBAs. The Aspen Institute wrote an interesting document about women and MBAs here check it out if you’re interested.

* for those of you who are geeks this should come to no surprise that I am referencing BTVS here:
DAWN: (worried) So, what do we do?
BUFFY: Easy. We burn the house to the ground and collect the insurance. (Dawn continues looking worried) Plus, fire? Pretty.
from “Flooded” Season 6, Episode 4

Today’s entry was sparked by carmen’s sister inquiring about mercury in compact florescent lights (CFL).

We are currently working to move from incandescent light bulbs to CFLs because they use substantially less energy than incandescents. We’ve been silently working on this for a few weeks now and as we try new things so do we learn!

I did some research and yes, CFLs have a very small amount of mercury in them – but not enough to make you sick. The mercury is contained as long as you don’t break them and if they do break and you clean them up properly you should be fine.

This fact sheet from the EPA says that the creation of an incandescent light bulb actually puts more mercury into the environment than what is contained in a CFL. It also has info on how to properly clean up a broken CFL light bulb. The amount of mercury in a CFL is roughly the size of the tip on a ball point pen – substantially less, even, than that contained in old thermostats. On a side note – I used to break thermostats when I was a kid so I could play with the mercury inside – ah the good ‘ol days of playing with toxic chemicals.

With the creation of incandescent lights emitting (overall) more mercury than a CFL I think we’re definitely making the right choice to change out our incandescents with CFLs. The reason incandescents use so much power is because they’re emitting more heat energy than light energy – CFLs generate very little heat and thereby are more efficient. You also lower your risk of incandescent light-related fires. My friend burned his house down with an incandescent light a long time ago and I also melted the hood of my frog tank with an incandescent so I know they can be pretty dangerous.

Here is another fact sheet on the safety of CFLs containing mercury. They’re perfectly safe as long as you don’t break them and you also want to recycle them when they go out years from now. Hopefully by then we’ll have decent recycling facilities for CFLs. Currently, if you just throw a CFL in the trash it’s going to a landfill where it will be broken and the small amount of mercury contained in the bulb will be absorbed into the soil. Currently IKEA is one of the only businesses who offer CFL recycling to their customers. YAY IKEA!

When we swapped out a three way incandescent with an equivalent of 75 watts CFL we noticed that it was a lot dimmer than our previous incandescent. We changed it out with an equivalent of 100 watts CFL and noticed a brighter light. Overall though it’s still probably going to be a little dimmer than an incandescent – that’s the price you pay for a more economical/environmentally friendly bulb!

For the brightness issue we learned that you really have to find the right wattage. If you’re using a 60 watt incandescent – go for a CFL that is the equivalent of a higher wattage incandescent. I *think* that when a light fixture says only use X watt bulbs they are primarily speaking about incandescent bulbs and it’s primarily because of the heat they emit and the large amount of energy they use. With CFLs you have to worry less because the equivalent wattage of an incandescent is lower. For instance, a 60 Watt Incandescent can be replaced by a 14 Watt CFL if the max is 100 Watts you’ve got a long way to go!

It is also important to get the right bulb for the right job – there are different CFLs for 3-way and dimming fixtures. This website should be able to help find the right bulb for the right job.

As part of our mission to change the lights, we have pledged to change out 10 incandescents with 10 CFLs this year thanks to the Environmental Defense Make the Switch campaign.

How many light bulbs are you going to switch?

Check out this cool table with stats on savings with CFLs versus incandescents from the Environmental Defense website!

So, lea already gave you the low-down on our recent purchase of new reusable water bottles.  We each wanted different things out of our new bottles, and I chose a Sigg bottle.

 This one:

SIGG 1.0L Lifestyle 2006 Series I – Reusable Bottle - in the “curves (black)” style

Purchased (of course) from reusablebags.com – can’t say enough good things about that site!

Anyhoo – back to the product review.  I really love this bottle so far, and I’m happy with my choice.  I chose the 1.0-liter size, which holds 33oz – because it was the same size as my Nalgene bottles were (32oz).  SIGG carries a lot more colors and styles in their 0.6L (20.4oz) size, but I thought that would be too small for me.  I was happy to find a design that I liked in the 1.0L size, because I did want something fun with style and personality.

Here are my other thoughts on this bottle so far:

Pros:
- Good size – not too big and still holds plenty of water
- Stays cold enough for me (but I have developed cold sensitivity due to some recent dental work, so this isn’t as big a priority for me as it used to be)
- Water tastes great!  No icky plastic flavors – actually, no strange flavors, ever!
- Smaller mouth than the Nalgenes I had before – easier to drink from
- Lightweight aluminum

Cons:
- Can’t fit ice cubes in it (but see above – I haven’t really tried yet due to my coldness issues)
- For some reason, I keep forgetting to close the darn thing completely when I put it in my bag to take home after work – so end up with a bag full ‘o water!  However, I really don’t think this is the bottle’s fault, we should probably chalk this up to “user error” as they say in my industry (or PBKAC, or ID10T error, or… choose your clever acronym!)

All in all, I’m very pleased with this SIGG bottle and would definitely recommend them and/or buy another one in the future!

S0 – if you are still using those plastic disposable water bottles as your method of staying hydrated all day – consider your options and remember to REUSE! 
 

Long before studies came out about the potential problem with nalgene bottles I stopped using mine because I could never get them clean enough. Washing by hand left me with soap-flavored water for days on end (despite my obsessive rinsing) and the dishwasher left all kinds of funk inside. Just thinking about it makes me queasy. To make matters worse, my obsessive-compulsive tendencies tell me that glass and metal (in general) are cleaner than plastic because they aren’t as porous.

After banning nalgene bottle use (I still have them if anyone knows any fun things to do with them) I lived on bottled water. I know bottled water is bad – bad for you and bad for the environment – but it was the only way I could drink water. To my defense I would buy a large quantity of it and reuse the bottles for about a month before replacing them. Not an ideal solution but I’m a heavy water drinker (I also don’t drink the tap water from work) and I needed a temporary solution.

When we bought our wonderful reusable bags we both bought reusable metal water bottles too. I bought a 40 oz. Kleen Kanteen (because it was the biggest) and carmen got a Sigg bottle.

So far my bottle has several pros and cons.

Pros:

- holds a lot of water

- seems to stay colder longer than carmen’s Sigg bottle

Cons:

- water sometimes tastes metallic

- fell on the ground today when I got out of the car and got pretty dented which made me sad, especially since it’s steel!

- I don’t like the loopy lid but it’s only cosmetic and there are replacements available

Overall, I like my bottle a lot. One bottle usually lasts me most of the day, which is important, and it stays cold for about 5 hours without any ice in it.

This past week has been light on the change our lives and save the planet front. Work, school, and other personal events have made it hard for either carmen or myself to even think about anything other than being at home and relaxing in front of the TV.

Today though, I have been reading about carbon offset programs, primarily those from TerraPass.com and I found that our current home energy use uses about 19,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year and our car uses about 11,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. After reading a lot on the terrapass website it got me to thinking about our energy use. I went to our power company website and looked at our electricity and gas usage (because we’re paperless like that) and I was shocked to find that the numbers are going up!

Our goal is to work to significantly decrease the amount of energy we consume on a monthly basis.

Here’s what we can do:
change the lights to compact fluorescents
turn off the lights (good for me because I’m a cave dweller)
lower the thermostat or raise it depending on the season
abstain from using the air conditioner this summer – use ceiling fans instead
buy a new door (our current door to the back yard has a giant hole in it that lets a lot of cold air in and hot air out)
unplug electronics when they’re not being used

We’ll keep you posted each month with how we’re doing!

Hurray! My homeland is learning about recycling and the badness of plastic bags!

Sometimes, in spite of everything, both carmen and I have sinking feelings of despair and hopelessness when it comes to making a difference. This project, while still in its infancy, has helped to improve these feelings – we feel empowered and already feel that we can make a difference.

So far, I have found that it’s the little things that bring such great inspiration in life and make me want to be better. Carmen plays a large role in inspiring me to think positively and be less apathetic about everything. She’s the driving force behind keeping me from constantly spitting my gum out on the ground outside because, you know, apparently that’s bad – who knew. She also helps inspire me by bringing new ideas and things to do into my life that keep me entertained – I have a very short attention span.

Aside from carmen, I recently found inspiration from one of my favorite authors, Jeanette Winterson, on a day when I was feeling like everything was particularly futile. I felt like my participation in such things as the Human Resource Campaign’s “take action” pleas were as good as sending spam e-mail to local and national government officials. I was also skeptical of the difference I, myself, can make in the world. Then I happened upon Jeanette Winterson’s February Column and like a sign from the universe, she inspired me by writing the following:

For the first time ever, I have momentarily given way to despair. I look at my geo-thermal heating system, and my eco-bulbs, and my recycling, and my half a bag of rubbish per week, and all the trees and hedging I’ve planted – not just now but over the years, and I feel like I’ve done nothing – or rather the something that I have done is nothing.

But I know I can’t think like that. No matter how little, no matter how pointless it seems it has to be done, because as well as the direct impact, there is something harder to quantify, which is a spirit of change. And that only happens when more and more of us believe that our efforts are worth the effort.

If one more person says to me ‘Ah but China… meaning so what’s the point of anything we do, I will stuff their smug, knowing despondent face in a bucket of low-fat yoghurt.

HOW WE LIVE MAKES A DIFFERENCE. If we fall victim to the ideology of apathy we go straight down into that Dante circle of Hell reserved for those ‘who willfully live in sadness.’ The sad shake of the head, the worldly-wise shrug of the shoulders, what can we do? Answer – everything we can do, big and small, and bring up the kids to do better. There might still be time. I believe in second chances and miracles, whatever the weather, whatever the science. Oh God, give it a go. Who is to say for sure that it’s too late?

I can’t willfully live in sadness and despair and if I do I don’t deserve to be here wasting the Earth’s energy for no reason. Maybe what I do with my life won’t make a difference. I would like to hope it does, but if it doesn’t at least I can go down saying I did all I could in the time I was given. Living that way makes a difference to at least one person, me.

My task of the week is to find suitable replacements for our nasty household cleaners – some of which make it hard for me to breathe after I use them. I know that can’t be good. My other goal is to find products which are comparable in cost to our current cleaners.

This pdf file has lots of helpful information on what to look for in a greener cleaner.

In brief, things to look for in a greener cleaner:
non-toxic
concentrated
products that do not have bad water softeners including EDTA and NTA in them
biodegradable
less than .5% phosphates
no bleach or sodium hypochlorite
less than 10% VOC concentration
non-petrolium based
neutral pH (7.0 and higher)
recycled and recyclable packaging

Here’s what we have now, and we don’t need any comments on the badness of each of these. We know they’re bad, that’s why we’re replacing them!

Cleaners:
Multipurpose Cleaner: Mr Clean 28 fl oz – $5
Wood Cleaner: Pledge Spray 12.5 oz – $5
Shower Cleaner: CLR 26 fl oz- $6 (rilly bad stuff)
Toliet Cleaner: Lysol Toilet Cleaner 24 fl oz-$4Glass Cleaner: Windex
Glass Cleaner: Windex 26 fl oz – $4 
Bleaching Agent: Bleach – $2
Carpet Cleaner: Capture (one for stains and one for smells) 24 fl oz x 2 – $14 (hurts my lungs)
Dog-related “incidents” Cleaner: Nature’s Miracle 32 fl oz - $9
Liquid Dish Soap: Dawn 25 fl oz- $4
Wood Floor Cleaner: Orange Glo Hardwood Floor Cleaner 32 fl oz – $8

Total Cost: $61

Alternatives we want to try from 3R Living:
Multipurpose Cleaner: Mrs. Meyer’s All Purpose Cleaner 32 fl oz – $8
Wood Cleaner:  Howard Naturals Wood Cleaner 12 fl oz – $9.50 
Shower Cleaner: Going to try Mrs. Meyer’s All Purpose Cleaner and see what happens!
Grout Cleaner: Oxy-Grout Grout Cleaner 14 oz – $8
Toliet Cleaner: Mrs. Meyer’s Toilet Bowl Cleaner 32 fl oz – $5
Glass Cleaner: Mrs. Meyer’s Window Spray 20 fl oz – $5
Carpet Cleaner: Mrs. Meyer’s Carpet Cleaner 32 fl oz – $8
Dog-related “incidents” Cleaner: Nature’s Miracle (actually, I think this is an OK product but I need to double check)
Liquid Dish Soap: Mrs. Meyer’s Liquid Dish Soap 16 fl oz – $5
Wood Floor Cleaner: Mrs. Meyer’s All Purpose Cleaner works on floors too!

Total Cost (s/h not included): $48.50

We’ll keep everyone posted with what we actually end up buying – who knows, we may be able to get some of this stuff locally!

I read an interesting article on treehugger today about Microsoft Vista. This came days after carmen advised me that she loved Vista because it had lots of “little widget thingies” (her words, not mine). Being the geek in the house, I have read the articles about Vista, even way back when it was still called Longhorn, and found very little that would move me to spend an exorbitant amount of money for a new OS. Carmen and I aren’t huge fans of Microsoft per-se. We both used Mac computers back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth and computers were shaped like bricks. And I have dabbled in the art of open source Linux but we have hung on to our Microsoft products primarily because we get a super work discount – can you say XP professional for $15 – yes thank you.

After having read the article on treehugger I have to commit to the fact that this laptop will not fall victim to being one of the “10 million PCs will be scrapped” to make way for a shiney new Vista-compatible box. I will only purchase Microsoft products when I must in order to survive and I will work to move to the open source wonder of Linux – when I can get the damn wireless to work with it! How can you not love something that involves such a great community effort to create something available for everyone – for free.

Linux Rocks!

This picture is everywhere but I can’t find who the original creator is.