Check Your Host’s Status

I started at about midnight, so by one o’ clock I had backed up the good ol’ database and deleted some important parts of Wordpress.  I was just beginning to put in the new Wordpress mess, when everything stopped.  So’s I head over to check Dreamhost’s status, and what do you know, everything is gonna be down for the next couple of hours. Whups.

So at that point there was nothing to do but wait ’til today to fix it. Luckily, it looks like everything is shipshape.  Next time, I will make sure to check if my host’s service will be going down right in the middle of upgrading Wordpress.

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New Milk Jug Design Pros

• Less shipping materials - The old jugs had to be packaged with heavy shipping crates. The new ones can be stacked with just a layer of cardboard between them.
• More efficient transport - Less shipping materials means more milk jugs can be transported in each truck, so companies save money on gas and cut down on air pollution.
• Shipping labor cut in half
• Water usage cut by 60-70% - The old shipping crates had to be sprayed off after each run, since milk would spill on them and birds would roost in them
• Lower milk cost! - “Sam’s Club said [there] was a savings of 10 to 20 cents a gallon compared with old jugs.“
• The new milk jugs fit better in your fridge.

The Bad Side of New Milk Jug Design

Amy Wise, a homemaker in Ohio, said the new-fangled gallon jug spilled milk everywhere. Judging from the picture, I’d say her main problem is that she’s trying to pour the milk into an imaginary cup in her left hand. No wonder she looks frustrated.

Many people say the new milk jugs are harder to pour. But I think with more practice, people will get used to them quickly. With all the benefits (less pollution, cheaper milk, easier transportation, and more efficient use o’ materials), methinks that the new milk jug may be here to stay.

* The bodacious picture of Amy Wise was taken by David Maxwell of The New York Times.

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1.  Avoid left turns - UPS plans its routes to minimize left turns.  This reduces gas usage because left turns generally mean you car has to sit and idle while waiting to turn.  This helped UPS save $12 million last year!
2. Reduce idling - I did not know this, but UPS has a “no idling” policy, so no matter how short of a stop a UPS driver makes, they turn off their engine.  This reduces idling time by 24 minutes per driver a day, which saves them $188 per driver per year!
3. Plan your route - UPS plans out its routes to be as efficient and direct as possible.  Remember, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!

If you can’t read that good, here are some gas saving tips from UPS… IN VIDEO FORM. 

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It seems too easy to be true, but if you visit this site, you can click and drag a tree onto a state. When you do that, they’ll plant a tree in a park in that state. It only takes less than a minute, so por favor go to their site.

Here are their rules for planting trees:

Each family can donate up to five trees under this Program. Participants pay no money under this program. The donated trees will be paid for by Odwalla, Inc. up to $50,000 worth of trees.

Gadzooks, $50,000 of trees to be planted!!

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By cleaning mess out of my razor and drying it every time I used it, I stretched its life to half a year, a lot longer than the average razor!

If you haven’t tried it, I heartily suggest you try cleaning out your razor blade and drying it (with a towel or what have you) after each time you use it.  Not only will you save money, but you’ll also be reusing some good ol’ resources by putting forth only the slightest of effort.  ‘Tis a win-win situation, ’tis.

P.S. It turns out my razor came with two blades, so I didn’t have to buy a new razor at all, just put in the new blade and bah-bam, new razor.

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Introduction of Gimpy

For the last couple months, me n’ Tiff have been feeding Charlie (a stray cat who basically lives on our back porch) and Gimpy, a mangy cat who broke his front leg several months ago and has been hobbling around everywhere holding it up off the ground. We got a trap from Safe Haven for Cats (a no-kill shelter) and, after catching a wily raccoon twice by mistake, came home on Wednesday evening to see Gimpy sitting in the metal cage. Once we got close to him, we could see that he was hurting for certain.

Gimpy’s Horrendous Condition

The front part of his broken leg was small and withered, and his bone was actually sticking through his skin. His nub leg had an open ulcer, which kept leaking blood as he feebly tried to lick it clean. His paws were covered with blood, and every time we got near the cage he’d try to escape, only hurting himself worse. Fleas roamed his nappy hair with impunity. The next morning, when me and Tiff put his cage on top of a blanket in the back seat o’ my car, we thought he was a goner for sure.

The End of Gimpy?

We brought him in to Safe Haven, and he sat there in his cage meowing and bleeding on the floor. Eventually, the vet came in and said that Gimpy looked feral (unadoptable) and that they weren’t set up to fix his leg, so they’d probably have to kill him. She ended by saying that she’d call us later in the day, probably to ask permission to put him down.

Gimpy’s Judgment

Later that same day, they rang me on my mobile cellular telephone. Hands a-trembling, I answered, prepared to muster forth the permission to end this miserable-excuse-of-a-cat’s life. Instead, I heard the joyful volunteer’s voice as she told me that Gimpy had been de-flead, neutered, and had his leg bandaged. In a few days, they were going to amputate what was left of his tiny front paw, and they expected him to make a good recovery and be adopted out. I collapsed in a fit of euphoria and relief in my work parking lot, praising Zeus for His infinite kindness toward this cat.

Por Favor Donate to Them

And so the Legend of Gimpy came to pass. In recognition of the jawsome work done by the volunteers at Safe Haven, I axe you, I implore you, to PLEASE DONATE A WEE BIT OF MONEY TO THEM. When they ask you why, just tell them Gimpy sent you. They’ll knowingly nod, and quietly pocket the money accept your much-appreciated donation.

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1. Go to Isla Earth
2. Sign up for the E-Digest on the left side o’ the screen
   
3. Fill in the required parts of the form. Where it says I want the sample of free organic coffee, just put “Yes” or “Heck yeah” or something to that effect.
4. Wait by the mailbox.

That’s it. Hopefully this free organic coffee sample comes through. I am wondering how different organic coffee will taste. Since it’s free, I got a feeling it’ll taste superb.

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Around where I live, there’s lots of roadkill that can be seen each and every day, including deer, squirrels, opossums, and even the occasional caterpillar. My vision stays blurry while I drive because of the constant flow of tears caused by the pointless deaths of these noble animals.

Hopefully this free bumper sticker will remind other drivers to slow down and be on the lookout for animals crossing the road instead of, in a morbid ironic twist, distracting drivers and thereby causing them to run over even more hapless creatures.

Anyhoo, if you click the picture above, you will be well on your way to being a proud owner of a gen-u-ine bumper sticker. So godspeed to you, and help spread the message that people needs to be careful and not run over any animals (or small children).

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That’s a huge amount. Dang, just staggering. To put this number in Joe terms, it’s like if for every four apples you buy at the store, you have to throw one of them in the trash. It’s a waste o’ time, money, and natural resources. Of course, a large amount of the wasted food is not wasted by consumers, but by the food industry (mainly restaurants).

Most of that food, when thrown away, just ends up taking up space in landfills. Fortunately, good ol’ North Carolina is stepping up to the plate and leading the Southeast in “food waste source reduction and recycling, which includes composting”, according to Mary Beth Van Pelt, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientist based in Atlanta. N.C.’s eventual goal is to ban food waste from landfills, just like they banned yard waste from landfills in 1993.

Many restaurants are taking their own steps to reduce food waste, both by improving efficiency and by composting their old food. Watch, if you please, this video on a restaurant in Portland that’s doing its own commercial composting:



If the world (not just the U.S.) can improve how efficiently it uses its food, prices would drop, everyone would have enough to eat, and we’d be filling up landfills more slowly. So por favor, the next time you’re about to buy some food, make sure that you end up eating it (or donating it to me).If you somehow still want to read even more about food waste (and what is being done to lessen it), lo recomiendo este sitio.

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The Tour d’Coop turned out to be really cool. When people think of raising chickens, you think of a farm out in hickville, but it turns out a lot of people in Raleigh raise chickens. Each house we went to was in a “normal” neighborhood. Most of the houses had really nice backyards, with little vegetable gardens, water cisterns, homemade chicken coops, and rain barrels.

There were probably around 10 visitors at each stop, and the yellow-t-shirt-clad owners were happy to dish out folksy nuggets o’ chicken-raising wisdom.

Fun Facts about Raising Your Own Chickens

I learned these here chicken facts during the amazing Tour D’Coop.

• Heat is more dangerous to chickens than cold (most can survive outside in winter)
• Make sure the chicken fence goes at least a foot into the ground to keep out burrowing predators
• Protect chickens from hawks, raccoons, dogs, cats (some dogs and cats can get along with them)
• At night, the hens get sort of “dumb” and slow, so make sure they’re safe
• Chicken poo is a good fertilizer
• Basically an egg a day per chicken!
• Easy to take care of, “like an aquarium”
• No rooster needed, so you won’t be waking neighbors up at the crack o’ dawn
• Orange yolk instead of yellow, because of more beta carotene

After all that learning, I think I’d like to raise me some chickens in my backyard one day. All the eggs I can eat (and give away), plus I get to watch chickens run around. It’s a win-win situation, I tell you! On that note, I will leave you with some pictures of the homemade chicken coops that I laid my eyes upon that fine day.

More sources:
Make Magazine - Backyard Hens
News Raleigh

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