Mephistos

I bought some CDs sometime in the last week or two.  I pleased to observe as I browsing the shelves looking for the specific music that was appealing to me that date that about one half of the new music is packaged in a card stock folded case.  To many I am sure this is not such a big deal, but it made me very happy to see it. Seeing such cases over the regular plastic jewel cases was a positive step for the green movement.  Yes, they are made from trees.  However, trees are renewable resource if managed correctly and the case it self is then recyclable and further biodegradable.   And given that I usually buy a CD put it in my case and end up maybe keeping the jewel to put a data CD in to give to someone, if I am lucky to remember such, it is a win-win. Read more…

I have been a little bit irked about somethings pointing to the Christmas Holiday already.  It makes me kind of sad that I am getting irked as Christmas is up there in regards to my favorite holidays and certainly I appreciate the thought of giving is wonderful.  What is getting me though is the commercialism of it all.  It used to be when I was kid you did not see Christmas stuff until at least the day after Thanksgiving, at least I remember it that way.  Now a days though, the day after All Hallows Eve the Christmas stuff starts going up in the big (and little) ‘box’ stores.  Christmas advertising, especially why you should by this or that or shop here and there for you loved ones is going into overdrive.  It is enough to make one forget about what it is all about and just be sick. Read more…

I am driving around somewhere the other day and I got really annoyed about the traffic lights.  It usually works, especially on stretches of by-passes and main through routes that you get stopped by just about as many lights as there are on the stretch of the road.  I have always thought this was kind of lame.  After all, the idea of the traffic signals is to keep traffic flowing in as orderly a fashion as possible.  In fact what usually happens is the lights retard the flow of traffic by causing excessive amounts of stopping. Read more…

I admit I am using a play on words in the title.  Many is the eve that I am spent in the two places.  Ad to that the restaurant that is now in its 2nd or 3rd iteration that used to be a drug store across the corner and Irish Pub down the street named McCarthy’s and you pretty much have my social scene for a large part of my college years, some what during after college and especially after the divorce so many years ago.  And to just show how things are cyclical in nature, where did I start hanging out again after things went crazy back in 2007?  Gosh, that really seems like it was longer ago then that now. Read more…

I spent sometime early this morning catching up on some blogs that I have not managed to visit much lately for one reason or another. As I was reading through several suggestions and ideas from a couple of the sites in regards to moving toward a more green idea or way of doing things I came across a couple of things with which I have issue or just a point to make. Read more…

I had this thought that just would not let go of me for some reason this eve as I drove from the gym to the office for a bit of work.  The thought was just how I probably hit at least four of the deadly sins over the weekend.  The more I thought about the more I realized that even in my corrective action for some of the number, I probably transgressed another one.  I was probably put in this mindset by the french film I saw yesterday that starting with a viscount commenting about the only sin left to an old man was that of gluttony, as he devoured a chicken leg.  The more I thought about it, the more I really thought it would make a good blog and so here I find myself at nearly 4:30 a.m. in the morning contemplating not so much my ability to check the big ones off, but rather contemplating how hard it would be for someone to not, if honest with themselves, transgress at least one or two on occasion. And quickly, while I am thinking of it, the small image above is of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things. Read more…

A good thing has come out of having my car broke down and in the shop for repair.  Yesterday afternoon I went and picked up the more rugged of the bikes (the one one needs work anyway and is in Danville).  Then given that all other plans had fallen through I road the bike downtown.   It was a good little trip to downtown and made me remember my college days a little bit, as when in college I had a bike around for a couple semesters and I also road right through part of Transylvania’s campus on my route.  I rode to a couple of different places once down town and much later - somewhere around one in the morning, I headed back home.  I think all told I probably rode close to five miles, but really can not say for sure. Read more…

I have been thinking the last few days of several things that I (and sometimes along with my roommate) do that are fairly green and in many cases actually a cost savings over what it would be if you were doing the non-green alternative. I thought it might be a good list of things to share here. Yeah, I know most of these are easy and no brain power really required. However, just in case I have tried to list out the reasons why I personally think they are green.

• Converting to the low wattage light bulbs.  I realize that they are bit more pricey then regular bulbs, but the equivalant light output for often times 1/4 or even less of the actual power to be used.  Further, while the replacement bulbs are a bit pricey and it is questionable if they would actually pay for themselves with the power savings over their life time one thing is for sure.  They do not typically burn out like nomral light bulbs do.  As a matter of fact, I have had some of these bulbs Read more…
  

This is something that really got into my crawl yesterday evening and has been bugging the crap out of me every since then.  Every time I think about it just makes me almost mad all over again.  Let me set the stage.  Living where I do, we have a recycling program.  Actually a very good one.  They have recently been running an ad campaign, which i have seen just once about not using the cardboard box as a refuse container.  This is especially emphasized by the cardboard getting wet and breaking open or dogs roaming and getting into the refuse.  But instead of having those problems Read more…

It has been to long and I have been lazy - enough said about that.  Anyway, I am on a bit of a roll with this going green thing today.  Just had a conversation with the new roommate a bit ago in regards to greenness.

It is amazing to me the things that can be recycled in some of the bigger towns and cities around.  It is amazing to me also just how much the recycling programs have grown and expanded over the years.  I can recall just a few years ago for instance, when here in Lexington you couldn’t recycle slick print paper, which meant by and large they could not take magazines, now then can.  It also used to be that there was nothing to do with electronics but to toss them.  These days however, there a drop offs for such things as even computers and monitors - which is a very good thing.  Granted, here in central Kentucky Lexington is the only place with such options, but it is growing.  Even tiny Wilmore has an aggressive recycle pickup program, of course many more smaller communities have yet to even make that step, but it is coming.

Even in those communities there are a lot of things that are turned over and hence recycled many times Read more…