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?"

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