My green isn't so green

I have a confession to make. I live in Phoenix and I have grass in my backyard.

You may be disappointed in me. There is a part of me that shares your disappointment. Until I walk out on my thick lush grass, feeling each little blade on the bottom of my feet. Random bits bending between my toes. Ah... that is happiness.

Now, I water as rarely as possible. I have only a small part directly outside my door done in grass so I can enjoy it - but the rest is naturally xeroscaped and/or has pavers which allow water to go into the earth without requiring any additional water use. Really. I tried. But I couldn't escape the lure of the green lushness.

Today I walk outside and find that perhaps we've been under watering a bit as we've gone from having just one small yellow patch to having 4 large sized yellow patches. Not good. Yellow crunches below my feet - not squishes. And, once it's gone yellow it takes even more water and resources to bring it back. And I have no idea how to do that truly organically. I bought stuff at Home Depot that looked natural enough, but upon further review - most likely it's not the best choice.

So, tomorrow I'm going to start looking into organic options for my lawn. Heck, I might get wild and see if there is something I should be doing for the rest of these plants too besides just watering them. For now though - the focus is my green. Less than a week until July 4th and my green - isn't so green. I think it's trying to tell me something.

Sigh.... I'm listening.

Green computing

Like many folks, I work in an office. In most of my jobs over the past many years, I've worked right along the IT (Information Technology - aka the computer geeks) group learning their struggles, interests and culture. I always fit in just enough to blend, but not so much I was completely taken as one of their own. But only in the last week did I hear about green IT.

In a recent article of PC Magazine it was discussed that currently 40% of an IT budget is spent on Energy. This is a shock! These folks are typically paid QUITE well and that equipment is not cheap, and needs constant attention/upgrades - so 40% is a big number. 70% of the companies said that power and cooling were their biggest issues. Again - a bigger issue than having to make these systems talk to each other? Or making the IT folks get along with sales? Now, as someone who is often freezing because they can never JUST cool the tech equipment, they always make the office freezing too - I kinda get it. And of course if you're making the whole office that cold, we're using a ton more energy than we should - and coincidentally paying more for it than is needed. They've estimated that by 2009 Energy costs will be the second highest cost for IT groups - behind only labor. And did I mention how much these folks often make?? That is huge.

Now, just to follow this one more step, the same research found that based on that these business will be looking to make some changes based on these rising costs. What happens when costs go up? Well, the end client pays more AND they start outsourcing. It's anticipated that by 2010 half of all data centers will either relocate or outsource their data center. And when they move, those great paying jobs that currently manage the data will go with it. So the question becomes, what can we do about it??

We have options. Companies can add solar panels to help offset their total energy output. Let's put solar ceiling tiles on all the buildings in Silicon Valley! Industry as a whole can invest in finding less expensive renewable energy sources. But while those are more long term solutions, apparently there is also green computing for today.

Green computing is new to me, but not to IT professionals. There are web sites talking all about it. It's been wikipedia'd. Turns out Google (my dream company) already has plans to be carbon neutral by the end of 2007. I'm shocked, elated, and feeling a bit behind the times.

Almost every company has an IT department. Almost every home has a computer. What aren't we doing? What should we be doing? What should we not do?

One final thing to peruse from the PC Mag source...

Each 1 megawatt datacenter requires:
- 17,000,000 kwh Electricity
- 60,000,000 gallons of water
- 145,000 Copper
- 21,000 lbs Lead
- 33,000 lbs Plastic
- 73,000 lbs Aluminum

Return of the carrot

So today, on a day were I had to drive 30 miles so I could smile and nod at a few folks for about half an hour, only to turn around and drive right back - I'm given another "one day soon you'll work from home" carrot. Good timing.

But seriously, in today's world of video conferencing, web cams and easily shared picture and video via cell phone why are folks still driving across town for a meeting? Sure, sure, sometimes it's worth it. You created something they need to see live. You know you don't have a product that sells itself so you need the smile in the suit to sell it for you. But maybe it's just so you can expense your lunch? Business folks need to think about it. My time, is their time. I bet some folks would appreciate a shorter meeting. Maybe it will never work, but it sure would be nice.

So, today I was told that soon - as soon as next week, I'll be set up to work from home. Do I believe it? No. But - I'm hopeful that by the end of July I might see something happen. Just in time for me to pay more for energy to cool my house all day to stay home. Just when I thought this was a carrot, it turns out to be a fairly even split. Less gas, more electric energy. Casual clothing, but greater need for accountability. Yea, well - I'll take it. Bring it on. The heat won't last forever and I know I can do the job. Bring on the carrot. I'm ready.

Waterbottles, sunscreen and name tags

Every day of camp those were the three things that said at least 20 times a morning to my campers before they were allowed to go out to breakfast. And shoes. Apparently my kids aren't used to leaving carpeting because no one wanted to wear shoes.

Meghan - You need to re-fill your water bottle. Emma - I see your name tag still on the bed! Alena - Where is your water bottle? Jaycee - Did you put the sunscreen on your face?

It was like a constant rotation. Every morning.

What does this have to do with being healthy? These kids were drinking water. Lots of water. They made it a habit. And they were learning to be healthy in applying sunscreen before even walking the trail out to breakfast. We talked about how important it was. We ended up in discussions about global warming.

The camp recycled their aluminum and plastic bottles. We talked about how it meant less trash in the world. And, since this was a church camp, we talked about how we were being better stewards of the earth by keeping it clean and making less waste. God wants the earth to be clean. And even though it totally wasn't pushed on them - the kids got it. They were all volunteering to recycle and I didn't see a single kid litter the whole time. Absolutely perfect. Isn't that what it's really all about?

Just like the rule you tell kids when playing with messy toys - this place needs to look as good when you leave as it did when you walked in, if not better. Same thing with the world. You may have enjoyed playing - but it's time to clean up.

Apparenly stress likes Burger King?

Ya know how I said no more fast food? That died today. The culprit? Emotional eating.

Feeling stressed. Uber bad day. In a rush. Nothing going right. Running late. Feeling out of control. Everything is going wrong.

And then I'm hungry.

Sooooo... I drive through Burger King on the way back to work. It took care of lunch and did calm me down - but it kinda pissed me off that it worked. I feel like now that I'm realizing it's an emotional thing - I should be able to rise above it. Oh well. If Oprah, with her personal chefs, personal assistants and limitless funds, still eats out of emotion - I don't feel quite as bad. BUT - it doesn't solve the fact that I can't keep doing this. [Side note: While Oprah can't solve her own eating issues, she sure is talking about it! They are doing some thing called "Get with the program" (I'm sure this is yelled several times to the audience's loud applause.) that takes you through the many steps of "the program". There are many on emotional eating. This one - talking about stress induced emotional eating is my favorite. You want me to write it in my journal? Sure - one more thing to think about and stress about when I forget or get behind. I don't think so.]

Another bad thing about my day? Almost an hour spent driving basically without purpose for an hour (with escalating stress by the minute of course) in my non-gas friendly car.

Today was not green. Today was not healthy. Today was more Bust than Healthy.

--------in w/ the good air----out with the bad-------whooooooooooooooo............--------

Tomorrow I leave for camp. A church camp were I'll be a counselor for 5 little girls, aged 8-10. Days filled with fun and panic. Nights filled with quiet and exhaustion. As nervous as I may be in that I've never done this before, I am looking forward to it very much. Re-connecting with nature and children. Our world, our future. That is the best motivation ever to be green and live healthy.

Its time for a little recalibration of the old internal circuits.

I look forward to it.

Green Drinking - Trend sweeping the nation!

I think we should call the practice of having a Designated Driver - "Green Drinking" because after all - it means you are going to carpool. And doesn't it sound more fun? Designated driver sounds so... clinical. Or something your mom would say. But if a group of friends said they were going to go out for a round of Green Drinking that sounds fun! Ideally, they drive the car with the best MPG that fits them all. Less gas, more fun, more laughing with your friends, less risk. Who doesn't love this?

You see, I'm generally the Designated Driver - like to call it the "Double D". I'm happy to be the DD at any time. But others aren't so fond of it. I wonder how much is the "not drinking" part and how much is that awful name.

Green Drinking is the trend of the future. I think I'll start using it tonight.

Bad, bad, less bad, and good

Bad #1. A few days ago, at the end of a period I will refer to as my fast food binge against responsible eating, I went to Carl's Jr. I ate a $6 Burger Combo meal. It was darn tasty. The fries were surprisingly good. I didn't even bother with the diet drink. I was THAT bad. That said - I kind of which I'd discovered it before I was trying to be healthy because it was all quite tasty.

Bad #2. The day after the $6 burger, for some bizarre reason I decided to get on the scale. 234. My binge had not gone unnoticed by my hips. Crap. I so rarely get on the scale that I've never seen that clear cause/effect before. Knowing it would happen in the long term is a very different thing that seeing that eating crap for two weeks immediately gave me two extra "bonus" pounds. It was a reality check for me.

Less Bad. Actually kinda good. On the box of the Carl's Jr. Fries, I learned that they re-use their fry oil to fill the tanks of their fleet of vehicles. What? What?? I did some looking online and found out that this isn't a national thing - but something being done by the owner of 52 locations in AZ. I have to say, while this didn't make me feel less bad for eating the food, I felt a bit better in supporting the cause. One article mentioned that they aren't getting any govt kick back or assistance for that either. How great could it be to offer even a .001/cent per gallon tax rebate for any vehicle running on frier oil! Isn't there a fast food spot on almost every major corner? Even if companies just had their own vehicles running on it - that would be a big difference. Might make the town smell more like french fries - but I'm ok with that.

Good. For 2 days now it's been healthy food only. I haven't been to the gym in about 3 weeks I think?? I wonder why I'm even paying the $50/month for the two of us to go. But I am. Because I'm hopeful. And when I get back from camp (where I will be from this Saturday through next Wednesday) I definitely want to get back in the swing of things. But for now, focusing on what I can control, I am at least eating better again. No more falling off the wagon.

Canada is my not-so-secret BFF

One more reason to move to Canada!

Free health care, equal rights, and now this! A Canadian Premier has said that to save energy this summer, businesses should keep it at 79F vs the 73F where it normally rests during the summer. While 79 is certainly comfortable enough - it's not very comfortable when you're wearing a suit so he's suggesting that everyone dress in a cool, comfortable and CASUAL manner! No heels??? No suits with matching purses and shoes and scarves? WOO HOO!

I have a strong opinion on this for several reasons.

1. How awesome is it to put on clothes that actually fit for the weather and not for how cold it's going to be in the office! This would also save energy as most folks end up wearing 2 outfits a day - work and home. Less clothes getting worn, less clothing to be washed! For folks "going out" right after work you either have to bring clothes with you to get wrinkled under your desk or you have to go home to change. Which does what - oh yea - wastes gas.

2. I happen to work in an office that tries to keep it at 73F. Every once in awhile I can get it down to 76F, but that is on a lucky day. Most of the time - I'm wearing a jacket. A jacket. In Phoenix. In June. Why should businesses be wasting that kind of money on AC? How about putting that money towards the rising costs of health care? Or maybe into a profit sharing program?

3. Let's admit it. It's summer vacation. Half the folks in the office are talking about what they are going to do on vacation or what they did on vacation. Or they're talking about what they wish they were doing on vacation. The other folks don't have anywhere to go, don't have any money or don't have any time off left after spring break. We know it's summer at the office - why not look like it? Do my shorts offend your eyes? I didn't think so. Let's go with it!

In the mean time I'll be driving in the heat, in heels and a suit, to a super cold office - unable to even telecommute. Come on American politicians! Get inspired! Steal some great ideas from your own back yard! We can do it!!!

Recycling away from home

I have a new good habit that K is not at all happy with. I bring home recyclable goods. Had a can of soup at work? Clean the can and bring it home for the recycle bin. Sure, that Starbucks tastes good, but should the plastic cup it came in just get tossed in a landfill? Nope. Bring it home and recycle it.

Of course, I wouldn't need to do that if businesses were able to use the same recycling process that residential folks get. But of course, it's not they don't. At least most don't.

So, I have a bag in one of my drawers were my recycled goods go. Paper with unclassified information. Plastics. Aluminum cans. Glass containers. It's all going home with me.

K tells me I'm bringing home trash. I tell her that I'm saving it from the trash. She rolls her eyes and mutters under her breath a bit. I can make out the word "trash" and some less family friendly verbiage.

Imagine if everyone did this. Just recycling the things they used each day outside the home. The container your sandwich came in to the lid to your drink. Now picture that one out of 5000 would pick up the random piece that someone else left behind. A can here and there. We would have so much less trash going down into the land fill. And maybe - just maybe we'd keep the recycle processing plants busy enough that they would actually expand the program to accept new materials.

I may not be able to compost and I don't have any land immediately available for urban gardening, but I'm going to do everything I can to reduce how much is going into the trash can at home - and at work.

8 glasses or 10 or 16... or 5?

Water.

This post isn't about saving it. Or conserving it. It's all about drinking it.

I'm not great at drinking water the way I've been told I should. I'm much better than I was years ago. But I'm not where I need to be. I most likely average 4 glasses a day. A gradeschooler could tell you that you should be at 8 a day. I need to be at like 10-12 for weight loss from what I hear. Dear heavens! On days when I'm really good and have say 6 glasses I can hardly stay out of the bathroom. How in the world would I double that?? I overheard someone say that their trainer told them they should be drinking 1oz for every pound of their weight. 120 lb woman, 120oz water. If your glass held 8oz, that 120 woman would need to drink 15 a day! And the 200lb woman? That would be 25 glasses a day. After hearing all that - I decided it just could not be right. (So much for trusting an overheard converstation) So I looked it up and guess what I found from my favorite friends at Snoops? Even experts have no idea where the 8 glasses a day came from.

So I googled "drinking water each day for weight loss" (without quotes around it) and here are some of the other web-bits I found.

- Body building site said you should drink at least a gallon of water each day.

- This writer swears that eventually you will stop peeing every 10 minutes. I'm not sure that I believe her. But maybe it's just because of the name of the web site.

- While about.com would not normally be a sited spot, I had to appreciate that article is both balanced to say how it's healthy to drink more water - but that that there is also a danger in drinking too much water. Some folks forget about that and go too far - with dangerous results.

- A guy with an MD and who uses fancy words like isotonic and thermogenic says that most adults should drink 1 glass of water with each meal and 2 additional glasses through the day. I think I like this guy.

- I don't like this guy. He uses formulas that don't work in my favor at all. 1/2 oz per pound + more if you are in a hot climate + more if you are athletic. I'm fat. I'm in Phoenix. 2 out of 3 right now. One of these days it might be 3 out of 3, but 2 is bad enough. He even details what your hourly water intake should be. Based on his handy dandy table I should be drinking 8.25 oz of water every hour based on being awake 16 hours. I think not.

So, no magic solution out there I'm sure. But I'd like to get to a point where I consistently did 8 glasses a day. Even if they can't all decide why it's important, it's important. I know it.

I'm just so tired of running to the bathroom.

Hunting for the gas saving carrot

One of the reasons I accepted my current position was the ability to work from home. When first having conversations with them it was going to be 100% at home, but with a few occasional client trips. Works for me. Then about 2 weeks before my start date it became, 2 days a week in the office and the rest of the time from home. I think it was 2 days before I began that it became 100% in the office for the first month or two of training - then it will go to the 2 days in 3 days out model. Fine. Makes sense to me.

I'm on month 7 and I'm still driving 5 days a week. The carrot of working from home is firmly in place, but just when I think that it's almost in reach, they get a longer stick.

Making this change would be great for my time management, great for the company (in ways I can't describe here for risk of leaking my super-secret identity), an extra income benefit (Which would officially be my first benefit as the company does not provide any others. Of ANY kind.), and oh so importantly - would be a major check mark for me on my living healthy mental checklist.

So for this reason, the whole benefits thing, and a host of other issues, I believe I'm going to start up my job hunt again. But I have an interesting quandary. How soon can I ask about telecommuting? I don't want to work at home 100% of the time. 1-2 days a week at home would be absolutely ideal. In for meetings, for team building, to develop relationships - all great things. I've seen a few employers totally turned off by asking about working from home though I've never understood it. Every job where I've worked from home I was actually more productive than when in the office - at least 95% of the time. The other 5% is for when I'd work from home while sick. So yea, less productive than normal - but more productivity than if I'd just taken the day off for sure! I've seen some articles that show it's gaining in favor, but not quite enough to make me confident bringing it up in a 1st interview.

I'll keep looking for input here - and I'll keep hoping the perfect job will come along. With tons of benefits, a corporate recycling program, parking spots for carpoolers and a bold telecommuting policy. Fingers crossed.

Fast Food, Fast Fat

I ate McDonald's today.

McDonald's isn't good for the environment. McDonald's isn't good for me. McDonald's didn't even taste that great. But McDonald's was there when I was rushed and had no time left and had to get back to the office. And I really really wanted a big super cold Coke. With a McDonald's sized straw. Phoenix in June. It's hot. These are not excuses. I could have at least gotten a salad - but I got a Fish. I decided to see just how bad I'd been.

So, based on the lovely McDonald's Nutritional Facts I realized that I just ate about 1260 calories of which 48 grams were fat. How is that even possible? I was still a bit hungry afterwards. Not that I finished the fries, but somehow I don't think that will make enough of a difference. I just can't do that anymore. Even when it's hot. Even when I have a craving. That is just insane. When did it become ok to have that many calories in one meal??? And not even a fancy meal! And not even including dessert!

Fast food scares me.

Tomorrow I'm thinking spinach salad for lunch. Brought from home.

Hybrid conspiracy?

This weekend I had a few friends over to my house. One friend recently purchased a Honda Civic. She mentioned that she actually went there specifically to purchase a Civic Hybrid - and the sales people talked her out of it. Talked her out of it? I was shocked. That is until another friend who bought a new car last year (after her prior one was totaled by the insurance company for damage that didn't seem that large - though we'll leave that waste topic for another post...) said that she's looked into Hybrid cars herself and she had several sales people who told her specifically to not buy a Hybrid. They said to wait a few years for the technology to improve. That's when the shock turned into a bit of anger.

Are they joking?

Yes - technology will always improve. But if you are buying a new car today, Today - not next week, month or even looking around for next year, then why not get the best technology that's available Today? Oh no. Buy a car that will use 25 MPG for now because those darn 60 MPG cars aren't as good as the 80 MPG cars will be in another 5 years. Just wait to buy one of those.

Then it hit me.

Why would two very different girls, in two different parts of town, with different agendas have the exact same experience? Profit margin. Not only do Hybrid's cost more to the consumer, I bet they have a lower overall profit margin. What do you want to bet that there is less of a commission for a Hybrid car?

I'm not a big conspiracy theorist or anything - and 2 does not prove a pattern, but it's enough for me to make a fairly firm guess. I'd love to find out for sure of course (let me know if you know) but I'm going to assume it unless I hear otherwise. When I finally have the money for those hybrid car payments - there is no way in the world they could keep me from it. That may not happen for a long time of course, but I'm already looking forward to it. I'm going to go visit pictures of my future baby right now...

Paper or plastic - or neither one?

I shopped for the first time without using plastic grocery bags. It was awesome. I used one big "keeps hot stuff hot or cold stuff cold" bag that I'd bought some time ago - and actually had used once before for grocery shopping at a store across town - but only so the food would stay cool on the way home. It wasn't made for ecological purposes.

So, I used my giant blue "keep stuff cold" bag and a black mesh bag that I've used for tons of things in the past, and appears to be made ideally for the beach. It wasn't a gigantic shopping trip, but not exactly small either. And I packed everything into those bags. With some room to spare in the blue bag. I will definitely need to get a few more bags - which was always a plan. I think K is more accepting of it now too. It was cool to see that what would have been 6-8 bags was all held in these 2 bags. No cart needed and easy to take into the house. Quite convenient.

But I found some plastic bags that I just couldn't shake. The plastic bags in the produce section where you put your apples/onions/pears/lettuce. Not sure what good options there are for that. Not putting them in a bag doesn't work well because they have to be grouped, weighed and moved easily by the check out person. And I really don't want them loose in the cart or dragged along the counter w/ who knows what on it. So, they need to be separated, but in see through containers that bring no additional weight to the table. Crap. Maybe something mesh? But dang - that could require quite a few bags.

So while I haven't removed myself from ALL plastic bags - no more plastic shopping/carry out bags. Just produce bags. Any good ideas on that?