My Earth Day, 2010

Happy Earthday! For those of you who read this, follow my Tweets, or have friended me on Facebook, you should know by now that I'm a treehugger. So, even though when I said, "Happy Earthday" to a customer, and they replied, "Oh! How old are you?", I put my best green footprint forward today.
When I first started commuting to work on my Trek FX 7.3 last August, I figured it would replace maybe 3 car trips per week. Over the past 2 months, I've driven to work three times, cycling the rest!

The one thing I haven't gotten comfortable doing yet, is cycling in foul weather, so when it started to downpour an hour before I was finished my shift, I glared at my phone, wondering if I'd chicken out and call my mom to pick me up. I paced in the breakroom for a few minutes before changing into my cycling jersey, and putting my phone into it's home on the bike (the under-seat bag). I rode. Not only did I ride, but I rode to Home Depot to recycle the dead CFL that was sitting in my 15 year old JanSport Bag.
I was worrying that finding a safe place to lock my bike up at Home Depot would be difficult. Not only was it pretty easy, but an associate even offered her assistance! (The gesture didn't go unnoticed, guys, thank you.)
I recycled the CFL, unlocked my bike, and continued to my last stop of the day.

While eating gourmet ice cream isn't environmentally friendly, doing some fundraising for the MS Foundation, and having fun with my new friends and teammates was just as important as me honing my treehugger lifestyle (such as it is). Again, finding something to secure my bike to worried me earlier, but managed to be a pretty easy task again.
While bike racks aren't widely available in Warrington/Warminster like they are in more bike-friendly cities, there are plenty of signs, poles, railings, and other immovable objects with which I could lock up against.







All-in-all, my EarthDay wasn't too eventful, really. While I would have loved to plant some trees, build composting bins, start a garden, or any of a million "green activities" I could have done to celebrate our planet, in the end, I did what I've been doing for awhile now. Now, back to tackling my "Boulder List".

Awakening (my trip to Boulder, CO)

After my recent trip to Boulder, Colorado, to visit my girlfriend (she's currently attending Naropa University), I fell in love (with the city) and it's environmental consciousness.
One night, I took out my 2 year old moleskine, and made a list for myself. It was a list of environmental and health goals that I'm currently doing and want to do more, or goals that I haven't tried yet, but want to.

I'm currently:
-Recycling (plastics, glass, and metal as directed by the township)
-Cycling (7miles roundtrip to work in fair-weather)
-Unplugging (vampire adapters, unused appliances, lights, etc)
-Laundry (using Tide Coldwater, full loads)

I want to:
-Begin composting
-Take shorter "Navy" showers
-Cycle more (grocery trips, visiting friends/family, etc)
-Mowing using my reel mower (consistently instead of when I feel like a workout)
-Laundry (hang drying whenever possible)
-Gardening (at least a few vegetables, maybe get involved with a co-op garden)
-Spend more time outdoors

So, there's my list. I definitely consider myself a tree-hugger, but by no means are any of these things "ridiculous" for the average person to at least try...right? My gameplan over the next few weeks is to tackle each one of these. Some I'll start immediately, while others I will have to ease into. Also, while I don't want to inconvenience anybody with my new environmental awakening, I do want to influence people to try living more sustainably in their own rights as well. I'll be thinking about how to do that as I go.

Now I ask, "Am I nuts? What do you do that's Earth friendly? Any tips for me as I begin to whittle down these goals while making them habits?"

Catalyst's (can we recycle more?)

I have a great story today, which brightened my otherwise, hectic workday at Staples.
As a student at Upper Moreland Middle School, Mr. and Mrs. Rosenzweig both taught (math and life science, respectively). I only had Mrs. Rosenzweig, but I can tell you the few lessons I remember the most. Learning to spell her name (which still comes in handy even as I write this post!), was as simple as singing the letters to the Mickey Mouse Club Theme Song. Learning the different parts of a cell was a easy as singing the cellular rap.

and...

The letters we wrote, on unbleached, recycled paper, to companies asking them to recycle more.

Fast forward to present day, I'm working at the Copy & Print Center at Staples, busily printing holiday calendars, Christmas letters, Masters Thesis papers, and so on. Mrs. Rosenzweig and her husband come in for a printing project. I recognize her and she recognizes me back (I think my name tag helped).
Then...she asks,
"I noticed you don't recycle waste paper here?"
I instantly flashed back to that lesson, and told her, that it was one of my first suggestions upon starting my job at Staples. She said she was proud of me for speaking up about it, and then she took it a step further. She asked for Staple's Corporate phone number and address!

In these crazy times, economically, environmentally, and technologically...with our education system and parenting styles being forced into change...sometimes it just takes one small catalyst to put things into motion. If you're not that catalyst, who is? If you're not that catalyst, why not?

(Yes, I was watching Heroes while I was writing this. Hence the title)

Can we go paperless?

After starting my temp agency assignment, and while trying to keep up with all of Steve Dembo's Google Academy tweets, I came to a realization about my own habits...


I am closer to living a paperless lifestyle than most. (Thanks, Google!)


I don't print emails, because Gmail archives them forever. Similarly, all my contacts are saved in Google Contacts (now a separate page!), or my cellphone. I've been scanning (or snapping cameraphone shots) of all receipts that I want to save, and syncing them to Evernote. I've even given up paper maps in favor of Google Maps either on my laptop, iPod Touch, or cellphone!

I'm definitely not the tinfoil-hat type, so privacy concerns don't, umm...concern me, but wasting paper does. Today, I photocopied invoices (which were originally triplicate carbon-copies), then had to file the originals. Following that, I dug through a Xerox box full of receipts, travel records, notes scrawled on napkins, business cards, and more. So, I ask...wouldn't Google and Evernote (and whatever else you needed) help you slow down your use of paper?

I need your thoughts, folks. I want to make a statement here, but I need to know I'm not nuts on this...

photo credit: AP_PHOTOS

Almost 400 miles/10 Gallons of Gas! [hypermiling]

I shouldn't have to say anything more...but I will. By using MyMileMarker, I've been able to track my mileage since July, 2007, and improve my driving habits significantly.

Hypermiling.

Simply put, hypermiling is "hacking" your vehicle's EPA listed fuel economy rating. For example, my 2002 Saturn SL1 has a listing of 23 (city), 34 (highway), and 27 (combined). According to MyMileMarker, my combined average is 34.6!

So, how do I do it? Drive slower (55mph, no more!). Coast to stops (or even better, time your traffic lights), and accelerate slowly. I'm including my delicious page of hypermiling links, because it's how I learned. The thing that sticks with me most is this quote,

"When you're stopped, your car gets 0 miles per gallon."

I'm still learning too. I'm certainly not an expert like Wayne Gerdes, or those "Prius guys", so I still have much to learn. I've been experimenting with Potential Parking and Ridge Riding to see if it helps.
The biggest thing I worry about is safety, though. It's not worth my life, nor anyone else's, just to safe a couple bucks in fuel. That means, NO DRAFTING (usually, lol), and you actually have to be more aware of your surroundings and traffic flow. I recently applied for a Hypermiler decal from the Hypermiling Safety Foundation, which was formed specifically to make people more aware of hypermiling, and make hypermilers safer in their pursuits of greener travel.
While my goal would be to never have to drive, when I'm forced to, I'd rather do it as efficiently, cheaply, and the least dependant on oil as I possibly can. Wouldn't you?