My mum and I were watching the local (Seattle) news when a report came in ("Breaking News!") that a building in downtown *where I live* was on fire. They had no other information except the address and said they were sending a van down, but it takes 2.5 hours to get from there to here, so we knew it would be a while for any update. We had to run to the grocery store which is very close to the fire's location, so we thought we'd just take a peek while we were there. Apparently, so did everyone else in the town.
Seriously, at 7PM-ish on a Tuesday night there was a traffic jam in *this town*. There hasn't been a traffic jam here in 100 years.
I got the groceries we needed, then discarded any pretences and drove closer to get a good look. There were so many cars and pedestrians (people were taking their children closer so they could see) that we had to drive around for a while. We parked at the library and walked down the street to find half the town standing around behind the police tape, filming with their phones and cameras, chatting, and generally having a time as good as you can have when there's a building on fire and it's bloody cold outside.
I will say (in case you're judging harshly) the building was a furniture store's warehouse; no one lived there, no one was inside at the time, and there are no adjoining buildings that would be in danger. Also, the building was very old and rickety, and could probably benefit from burning down. They have good insurance and other locations and the business itself will be fine.
We saw quite a few people that we hadn't seen in a while and chatted with them and with strangers. The coffee and ice cream shops down the block were probably busier than they've been since they opened. I noted as we walked toward the crowd that this seemed to be a bigger turnout than any of the summer events and fairs that we had here a few months ago.
To give some perspective; in Seattle (in Greenwood) there was a 3-alarm fire (the one here was called a "multiple-alarm", whatever that means) that was covered fairly heavily by the local news stations and even then, I only saw people related to the businesses in attendance. They have better things to do in the city.
I wish we did.
28 October 2009
15 October 2009
It's Blog Action Day!
This year's topic for Blog Action Day is Climate Change.
Personally, I can certainly attest to the CHANGES in the climate! This summer, in particular, was absolutely unbearable. If I'd been able to drive I would have tried to get to one of those cooling centres they have for pensioners. What I did instead was confiscate my mother's boyfriend's window-mounted air conditioning unit, put it in my library (which is the coolest room in my house) and moved in. I lived in the library for 4 months.
One thing that intrigued and angered me: I read in The Morning News' newsletter, the part with "What does this map represent?" It's (obviously, since I linked to the file from the article) a map of participation in the Kyoto Protocol. Green means ratified, yellow (I don't see any on the latest map) means ratification pending, grey means undecided, and RED means REFUSED TO RATIFY.
Notice the only ones who are red? The USA! (and Puerto Rico, which is part of the US.) This is disgraceful.
The Kyoto Protocol is basically a promise to cut emissions. The US is the largest producer of emissions and we won't even promise to try!? We're the ONLY ONES. This is not a place where standing alone is a statement against some great evil, or a Lone Ranger stand that says we can do it better on our own (... and wasn't that a major problem with the previous administration's stance on international relations?). Asinine.
On a positive note: Our own Mayor Greg Nickels (Seattle) started a campaign to get other mayors of cities around the country to ignore the fact that the upper-government wouldn't ratify it, and pledge to cut emissions in their cities on their own. It's been very successful (after a quick check on Wikipedia, even more successful than I knew before!).
Anyway, I don't know nearly enough about the Kyoto Protocol issue, but I intend to read up.
There are so many other issues related to climate change, not least the simple change in lingo to "climate change" from the less-descriptive and often-misleading "global warming" (just ask all the arseholes who say "Where's this "global warming" [with finger quotes] they've been promising *snicker*?" on a cold day).
For my part, I have gathered every appropriately-sized bag we had lying around the house, folded them, and put them in a slightly larger bag, and put that in the trunk of the car. Then I added a line --DON'T FORGET BAGS AND COUPONS-- to the top of my printable grocery list. The few times I forget my bags (or I've done a great big shop and used them all), I either say "No bag, please." and put the purchases in my handbag, or I buy another reusable bag wherever I am (I have actually had to use plastic bags, but only rarely). I must have at least 20 bags now, and I've spent a grand total of $3.98 for them: Two $1 each, huge, pretty bags from Ikea, one 99¢ pink breast cancer bag from Top Foods, and a 99¢ bag from Trader Joe's (though that doesn't count the souvenir bag I bought while travelling for $26-ish that I have conscripted to use as a grocery bag, since it wasn't purchased with that in mind) and the rest were free, mostly with-purchase from supermarkets. So you don't have to spend a ton of money on reusable grocery bags, and you don't have to only use bags that are meant to be reusable grocery bags.
Other small steps:
Happy Blog Action Day,
Personally, I can certainly attest to the CHANGES in the climate! This summer, in particular, was absolutely unbearable. If I'd been able to drive I would have tried to get to one of those cooling centres they have for pensioners. What I did instead was confiscate my mother's boyfriend's window-mounted air conditioning unit, put it in my library (which is the coolest room in my house) and moved in. I lived in the library for 4 months.
One thing that intrigued and angered me: I read in The Morning News' newsletter, the part with "What does this map represent?" It's (obviously, since I linked to the file from the article) a map of participation in the Kyoto Protocol. Green means ratified, yellow (I don't see any on the latest map) means ratification pending, grey means undecided, and RED means REFUSED TO RATIFY.
Notice the only ones who are red? The USA! (and Puerto Rico, which is part of the US.) This is disgraceful.
The Kyoto Protocol is basically a promise to cut emissions. The US is the largest producer of emissions and we won't even promise to try!? We're the ONLY ONES. This is not a place where standing alone is a statement against some great evil, or a Lone Ranger stand that says we can do it better on our own (... and wasn't that a major problem with the previous administration's stance on international relations?). Asinine.
On a positive note: Our own Mayor Greg Nickels (Seattle) started a campaign to get other mayors of cities around the country to ignore the fact that the upper-government wouldn't ratify it, and pledge to cut emissions in their cities on their own. It's been very successful (after a quick check on Wikipedia, even more successful than I knew before!).
Anyway, I don't know nearly enough about the Kyoto Protocol issue, but I intend to read up.
There are so many other issues related to climate change, not least the simple change in lingo to "climate change" from the less-descriptive and often-misleading "global warming" (just ask all the arseholes who say "Where's this "global warming" [with finger quotes] they've been promising *snicker*?" on a cold day).
For my part, I have gathered every appropriately-sized bag we had lying around the house, folded them, and put them in a slightly larger bag, and put that in the trunk of the car. Then I added a line --DON'T FORGET BAGS AND COUPONS-- to the top of my printable grocery list. The few times I forget my bags (or I've done a great big shop and used them all), I either say "No bag, please." and put the purchases in my handbag, or I buy another reusable bag wherever I am (I have actually had to use plastic bags, but only rarely). I must have at least 20 bags now, and I've spent a grand total of $3.98 for them: Two $1 each, huge, pretty bags from Ikea, one 99¢ pink breast cancer bag from Top Foods, and a 99¢ bag from Trader Joe's (though that doesn't count the souvenir bag I bought while travelling for $26-ish that I have conscripted to use as a grocery bag, since it wasn't purchased with that in mind) and the rest were free, mostly with-purchase from supermarkets. So you don't have to spend a ton of money on reusable grocery bags, and you don't have to only use bags that are meant to be reusable grocery bags.
Other small steps:
- My family is trying to get away from unnecessary use of kitchen paper towels.
- We've started buying natural vegetable cellulose sponges (available at Trader Joe's, for instance) instead of the "normal" ones in the supermarket because the natural ones are biodegradable and even compostable! I promise they work just the same.
- I've also put small recycle bins in all the rooms, including the bathroom (all those tissue rolls), right next to the regular garbage cans, to make recycling easier and convenient.
- I'm thinking about buying gerbils again. Yes, this is related. :) Gerbils, while tons of fun to watch and play with, are mad about chewing. They will take care of all of your paper towel and bathroom tissue rolls, as well as any other cardboard, Kleenex, scraps of paper, sensitive documents you want shredded, etc. Really, they will go through it all. And they're SO cute.
- I planted a garden, but it's all gone to seed. *FAIL*
- I have made a plan that instead of turning the heat up when I'm cold, or even getting a blanket, I'm going to hop on my exercise bike! It warms me up, it's good for me, and I'll be damned if I don't start losing some bloody weight!!
- I seriously think twice before buying anything that comes in a glass bottle/jar. We have recycling picked up with the garbage, but NOT GLASS. Supposedly it breaks in transit and clogs the sorting machine, or something, but still... We have to gather all the (heavy, sticky) glass and haul it to one of the glass recycling bins around town. Inconvenient.
- That's all I can think of at the moment, and I'm sure this post is long enough as it is. :)
Happy Blog Action Day,
Gem
P.S. - Back in the affluent '90s, when everything was disposable, we had bought a pallet of toilet tissue (or so it seemed) and gave our 4 gerbils a full roll in each tank (they were in two big cages connected by tubes). The next day we came in to find the tanks FULL to the brim of white fluff, and no gerbils in sight! They had chewed it all into smaller bits, then dug tunnels like ant farms! You could see them in their little tunnels, scurrying about. Hilarious!
12 October 2009
B&N finally gave me the answer I was looking for.
"Thank you for your inquiry.
Barnes and Noble returns all expired and unsold magazines to the vendor."
So there we have it. That wasn't so bloody hard, was it?? I noted that this email was from someone other than the idiot I was emailing before, so hopefully it's just that one idiot, and not the whole company.
Now on to other companies... namely, the original: Staples.
Staples apparently doesn't have a universal corporate policy. They just let each store handle the expired magazines as they will, which usually means just throwing them in the locked Dumpster. I'm going to start with my local Staples, where I used to work. I hope they've changed their practices since I was there, but we'll see.
Not that anyone's reading this, but posts will continue to be sporadic, since I'm busy in real life. I'll be here on 15th October, though... it's Blog Action Day.
Toodleoo.
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