Saturday Coffee 4/12/08

Happy Saturday All!  I am glad the weekend is here.  What a flaming bag of dog crap this week ended up being.  My day job boss quit suddenly last Friday and left me holding said bag of crap.  I won't get into specifics, but the goings-on this week absolutely solidifies my decision to branch out on my own.

I had a birthday this week.  Darla bought me some panniers!  Those are bags that attach to a bicycle kinda like saddlebags on a horse.  I got a couple of bucks too, so I am going to update my helmet and pick up a headlight and tail light.

We got a pretty early start to our Saturday.  Mallory needed to be out the door early to take the ACT today.  We took advantage of that and walked the dog and I pulled the bikes out and cleaned them up a little and filled the tires.  My Moms and Pops are coming down today to take me out for birthday lunch.  I am leaning towards the Brazenhead so we can watch some soccer.

There are a couple of blog posts that I wanted to pass along that I found interesting.  lifehack.org has had some pretty interesting "green" articles recently and this one caught my attention. Beth Terry over at Fake Plastic Fish had a write-up on an urban composter.  Even though she isn't 100% sold on a tumbler, composting is the way to go.  I can't tell you how much less waste we are producing now that we are composting.  I haven't put the trash can out in two weeks.  I just now put one bag of non-compostable, non-recyclable waste out there.  My pile will just about be ready in time for start of my garden.  Green Living Online has a post about how to property dispose of your CFLs.  If you haven't replaced your incandescent bulbs yet, why?  When I made a large switchout to CFLs, I noticed about a 200 kWh drop in my electric bill.  That is staying consistent as I track my consumption to the previous years.  GLO also had a pretty good article about getting rid of your plastic water bottles.  I have stopped using my Nalgene bottles and am either reusing a POM glass jar or a Sigg metal bottle.

Two last notes, Earth Day is April 22.  Try to do something green that you normally wouldn't on that day.  And for you folks in the Northwest Columbus area, Saturday April 26th is SWACO hazardous material recycling day over at Ashland's parking lot at 5200 Blazer Parkway in Dublin.  So, if you have dead CFLs, paint, non-rechargeable batteries to get rid of, don't throw them in the trash.  Properly dispose of them at this event.  Find more info about it here.  Sadly, they do not accept ammunition, hand grenades, or mouthy teenagers.