My apologies to loyal readers who have patiently waited for a blog post for the past couple of weeks. I've been spending most of my time consulting at a terrific local company, helping them with I.T. support and development projects.
Unfortunately, that has allowed me precious little time to sit down at my laptop and reflect, think, observe and bitch!
More soon! (And thanks for reading.)
Thanks to the Presentation Zen blog, I discovered this tremendous video about environental sustainability and over consumption.
Sounds boring.
Sounds complicated.
This presentation disproves both assumptions. Annie Leonard may have just won a place on my "Hero Wall".
If you had just landed in the U.S. with a mission to understand the political geography of the planet, could you determine how many countries exist in the world?
Not by reading the news.
Based upon mention in mainstream U.S. media, after Iraq, Iran, North Korea and China, it would seem that few other countries exist.
As we debate who has the best foreign policy credentials in the run up to the presidential election, perhaps we should ask our candidates a basic question: "How many countries are there in the world?"
I wonder how many would know the answer.
I didn't. I had to look it up.
There are 195.
When you consider how much focus we invest on Iraq, it seems we have precious time left for any other country (including our own). It also strikes me as odd, that all the bad guys would hole up in one or two countries - when they have a choice of 195.
It's a big world out there. Perhaps its time we recognized that fact.
But there is no more mistakable sign of Spring that the roar of gas engines, that permeate the neighbourhood.
And I'm not taking about lawn mowers. I'm talking about snow blowers.
That's right, snow blowers.
As anyone can tell you, it's not a great idea to store gas powered tools with the gas still in them.
And so the passage into Spring is announced (in my neighborhood, anyway) with a chorus of idling snow blowers, burning off the remaining gas.
I'm becoming a little more environmentally conscious as I get a little older. I never struck me as environmentally responsible running the gas tanks dry of all my yard tools, before putting them away. I have enough guilt using gas powered equipment in the first place. But running gas tanks dry is adding insult to (environmental) injury.
And so, with my new found treehugger conscience (and with gas approaching $4 a gallon), this year I decided to try something different.
No, I'm not going to leave the gas in the tank. That would be engine suicide.
This year I invested in a fluid pump. For a few bucks, FleetFarm provided me with a way to transfer my snow blower gas and avoid adding to the engine choir each Spring.
Too bad it took a city boy thirty years to figure out what every farmer already knows.
Why aren't these things on sale each Spring and Fall? It makes great environmental sense and trust me, there are a LOT of people (at least on my block) who don't know they exist!
