Peak Magazine Subscription

At bookstores everywhere in the Moorestown Mall named B. Dalton.

I just started a couple magazine subscriptions in the past few months, so naturally the expiration notices are already arriving en masse.  The last one actually struck fear in my heart.  Newsweek sent me a brown, craft-paper envelope - no indication of sender - with big, bold letters stating "LAST NOTICE - YOUR EXPIRATION IS APPROACHING!"  Now if that's not an explicit death threat, I don't know what is.  Either that or existentialism via postal carrier. 

"My passport!" we'll pretend the middle guy exclaimed.

Why have I chosen to let my periodic mailbox friends lapse?  Ugh.  This stupid environmental...thing.  It's as though I did something ecologically disastrous in a past life or something.  Maybe I was in charge of throwing those Manhattan post-war confetti parties or something, and in the days leading up to the parade I'd bounce around the supply room incessantly barking "more confetti!!"  God I loved confetti...

And now here we are, on the brink of man-made cataclysm, and I have to read my Good Housekeeping online, like a chump.

How deleterious is the magazine publishing industry?  Let's find out.  Do you know how many are sold every single day?  I went to the only source that counts - Yahoo! Answers - and learned I wasn't the first to inquire:

Quat a lot indeed!  I'm definitely going to dig a little deeper and talk to the store staff/manager to find out.  Naturally I'll specify WHAT magazine - are we talking about you?  Wheels?  So many variables.

[Fourth-wall break: that was the "Best Answer"?  This world is f@%&ed.]

Of course, this doesn't account for the vast number of mags produced and not sold.  Sure they're recycled.  But the embodied energy in the quat-a-lot of never-even-once-perused issues of BOP and Tiger Beat is so staggering as to induce apoplexy.  (Do they even make those magazines anymore?  Yes.)

So like it or not, no more confetti parades for me.  Thank god we didn't just wrap up a seven-year foreign war, or I might suffer a relapse.

You'd Think Solar Installation Companies Would Work "It's on the House" Into Their Marketing. Or Maybe You Wouldn't, I Don't Know.

 Had that dream again last night. You know the one - you open the hybrid microwave-mailbox to find an envelope so ragged and abused it looks like Marty McFly sent it from fifty years in the past.  You rip it open to find out that the installation of your new solar array is scheduled for this Wednesday, and the state grant came through - the whole install is free!  It goes on to note "make sure the elevator in your house is clear of debris so installers can work safely and quickly" - that's when the dream-panic kicks in: my elevator is a mess!

It'll have to remain a dream for now.  It's not that the glorious photovoltaic array that taunts me while I sleep is too costly - the financial gymnastics that can make it wildly affordable are very much in place and available.  No, I'm merely abiding by the ever-cherished Energy-Efficiency Pyramid.

It was gonna be called the Energy-Efficiency Triangle, but then they thought, come on...

See it?  Yeah, there at the top - Renewable Options.  Damn that's up there.  To express why, let's go through a boring exercise.  Say you currently use 1000 kilowatt-hours per month.  Your monthly electric bill, thus, $200.  In order to completely replace your utility needs with renewable solar, you'll need an 9.4 kW system (assuming the Northeast's average of 3.5 'sunny' hours per day).  Neat, fork over the $60,000 (post-incentives) and it's yours. 

Above, a 10 kW system, in order to show your inability to afford it.

That is, if you're living in Stupidville, population one.  And the one is you.  And you're the mayor.  And for some reason you still campaign during election season.

Picture any pyramid you've ever seen.  No one starts at the top.  Sure, paratroopers, but they were so rare in Ancient Egypt.  The bottom is where it's at.  You take the first step - understanding conservation in general, performing energy audits, using the web as a resource for study and planning.  If you're bipedal, you proceed one foot after the other, ascending Mount Sustainability incrementally, bumping your summer AC up to 77, popping in CFLs where they oughtta be, and caulking the s-word out of your leaky walls.

Different Mario.

There's still a long way to go before you're relying solely on the Big Yellow Dude in the Sky.  The sun, we're talking about. Wait who did you think?

And so I'm somewhere in the middle. Sure I've extended my reach upward here and there, then slid back down to collect some of the lowest-hanging fruit I missed.  It's like when Mario completes a level, but then runs backs and has a coin-collecting fiesta. 

Let's go back to your hometown of Stupidville for a second (btw, you're mayor and sole voter - change the name?).  You only "use" 1000 kilowatt-hours because you haven't yet climbed the EEPyramid.  Picture any number of movies where there's a montage and through a series of physical and spiritual exertions, our main character grows substantively and by the time the montage is over, is a changed person.  Similarly, run up the various steps of the pyramid, and you'll quickly reduce your energy needs.

Wow.  Talk about incontrovertible.

Diminish your dependence on frosty AC and toasty heat?  One-thousand kilowatt-hours suddenly drops to 900.  Kill all your vampire outlets that trickle wattage when devices aren't in use?  900 is now 880.  Ditch the hot water when washing clothes or running the dishwasher?  Down to 825.  Caulk up the leaks, spray insulation where needed - 800.  Now to some heavy hitters - replace the old fridge, hot water heater, or best of all air conditioner?  Watch that 800 fall to 700.  Send your kids to boarding school?  Sweet, merciful five hundred.

Made up numbers, I know.  But if you can cut your electrical use by half, suddenly your cost-prohibitive solar installation becomes not only palatable, but straight-up appropriate.


EDITOR'S NOTE: I tried to 'shop a solar panel under Rocky's arms as he climbed the steps of the art museum.  Evocative image, eh?

OJSTW Quandary: If W Gets S'd, How Will I Lazily Waste My Mornings?

Caught a really superior TED talk today.  Jason Clay from WWF explains how the great changes in the market that are needed shouldn't be coming from the consumer side - it will just take too long, and we'll be in a Costnerian waterworld by the time the mindshift is made.  Instead, an intense focus should applied to the real movers and shakers - the top 100 companies that are directly involved in the commodity trading of the world's most precious and endangered resources (think pulp for paper, cotton, biofuels, etc.).

He argues that transforming these companies into sustainable purveyors will generate a kind of market gravity and pull in smaller producers to the same ecologically suitable practices in order to stay competitive.  

You watch now.

LOLpower: four

Alright, Um, Stalkers...Caterpillars... Gas Prices - OH, Things That Creep!!

Out of sight, out of mind.  So goes it with gas prices.  It's an okay metaphor - not perfect by any means - but here's what I'm saying: when the price of gas at the pump isn't at the forefront of the national discussion, we seem to forget about it and how critical it is to crafting our government's foreign policy.

Again, for effect: our government's foreign policy.  Sound important?  It should, I wrote it in italics.

And no, we're not at $4.11 per gallon, where we peaked in July 2008.  We're sitting relatively pretty at $2.74.  Of course, the days of $1.50 a gallon are long gone.  We've come to accept high-twos as the new norm.  It's doesn't take a crystal ball to predict we'll soon view the low-threes as the new norm.  But if there's one indicator the nation should be following like Tiger on the 18th, it's the price we're paying at the pump.

"Good try, n00b," my one friend who's smart at this stuff would say.  "Per barrel pricing is where it's at.  And I don't say 'n00b'."

Seventy six bucks.  Seems paltry compared to its record of $145 that same July 2008.  But if there's one commodity where pricing can be artificially invented as though out of the ether, it's petroleum.  I don't know that for sure; the real answer might be pork bellies, but when's the last time a pork belly drove you to work?  Don't answer that.

Fact is, there's a sleeping giant on the other side of the world.  Actually the giant has been rising for some time now, but it's one of those giants that's way, way bigger than you think once it's fully upright.  Like a giraffe, I suppose.  This giraffe is two-headed - China and India.  You can picture it.

Take a look at this technical statistics graph I drew up.  What jumps out at you right away is how much the expected China/India demand is probably going to be as compared to the current demand.  The number of oils used by these two exploding nations is going to skyrocket, not to mention grow stripes.

What does it mean?  It means when that striped demon-Giraffe is fully-awakened and sprinting, the finite supply of oil will be in that much greater demand, thus pressuring prices upward.  How up? 

Fifteen dollars per gallon.

Nah, probably not, but let's keep an eye on it, mmk?

Bringing Home the Gold: Trophy Recycling, and My Curious Distaste for Sporting Commemorations

Clearly not won for Best Photographer.

One way writers like to start an examination of a topic is to offer the etymology of the word itself.  It tends to cast the topic in a new light and asks that the reader consider another - presumably simpler - culture's perspective.  In this historical frame of mind, a more profound understanding is supposed to surface.  I guess.

Well this post is about recycling trophies.  And you know what?  Trophy in any other language still means trophy.  Latin, trophaeum - monument to victory.  French, trophee - spoils of war.  I'm none the wiser having learned that.  Or am I?  I'm not.  What's clear, however, is that the concept of 'trophy' is nearly ageless.  But it's our consumer culture that has turned it into a first-place beast.

Cleaning out my old room, I decided the thirty or so trophies I'd amassed throughout my childhood didn't warrant sitting on my mantle.  For one, I'd have to get a mantle.  There's just no place in a latter-twentysomething's home to showcase all the teams I was a "Participant" on.  That's right, participant.  Sure there's a championship in there, a couple all-star games, but the majority of them are of the "He Totally Rostered!" variety.  This post is not intended to elucidate the virtues or lack thereof of "awarding" everyone, thereby diminishing the prestige of the actual victor.  Instead, it's to ask where the effsies are all these trophies gonna go??

Think about it.  If every kid averages 1.5 recreational sports, 6 years of participation, 2 teams/leagues/seasons per year, and earns 0.25 merit-based awards per year, that's 22.5 trophies per person.  Where, pray tell, will these shiny little monuments of mediocrity end up?  Sure, that half-a-trophy gets thrown away - its little dude on top is missing its head.  But let's extrapolate on this math for a sec. 

Do you know how many ten to fourteen year-olds there are in this country?  Imma tell you.  Twenty mill.  Yup.  Brats, too, but that's another story.  So these twenty million brats kids will grow up, slowly drop from their respective sporting teams because of their a) badness at said sport, or b) growing interest in opposite sex.  They'll attend college, drink all the beers, and get a job they tolerate.  Meanwhile, this small slice of the American population will be carrying in tow...a half a BILLION trophies!  

If all those trophies were lined end-to-end, they'd still be...a half a BILLION trophies!  And if you tried to stack them vertically, you stop right away because trophies are odd-shaped and cumbersome.

Half of a billion trophies.  It's like a word-play thing.  If you don't like it just move on.

"But writer guy," you ask, "where did you come up with all those little stats?  Source please?"  Man,  I dunno, I made them up.  Full disclosure, there.  Come up with your own stats if you so choose, but you can't deny that there's a trophy problem in this country.  And our political leaders are all too quick to just sweep it under the rug. And surprise, surprise: Big Trophy's behind it.  And you know what happens when you ask too many questions of Big Trophy?  They give you a goddamn trophy. 

Step one is disposing of the existing glut of these memorials.  There's actually a good amount of services that will recycle them.  Check this out for a more serious treatment on the subject.  Planet Green also spits game.  There's really just a few options - the items are stripped down for their recyclable materials, reused with a new nameplate (often for charitable organizations), or turned into art.  Ogle below.

Image Credit: Green Eco Services

And here's Hunter Cross, who just went berserk with a glue gun and made this happen at The Dallas Contemporary for an installation in late 2007.  More pics at the link.  Obv.

Image credit: Hunter Cross

The next step is the trickier one, which I'll only touch on briefly.  That is to change the mentality of the American athletics community.  Terrific, you took third place in districts.  Celebrate?  Absolutely.  Memorialize with millennia-to-decompose cubic foot-occupying closet fodder?  I dare say no.

But being a part-time unpaid blogger, I totally understand the psychology behind it.  High-fives fade.  The joy, the smiles, the one idiot that dumps Gatorade 95% on the ground and 5% on Coach Thompson - all memories worth keeping.  But we feel a compulsion to embody these memories in a...thing.  Something that lasts a little longer; something to give the memories life - but not immortality.  May I suggest...

1. Ice Sculptures for winter sports
2. Watermelons for summer sports

Wow.  Environmentally-devastating tradition over.  New, sustainable and let's face it, super-cool one begun. Armies of farmers and ice sculptists gainfully-employed.  Now that's a victory for everyone. 

And as for Big Trophy?  If they want to play in the 21st-century sporting arena, they'll retool their shops and get busy on that water-freezing machine.  Which I guess is just called a freezer. 

Renaissance Man Crush....GO!

So there's a great resource on the web that shows you how much electricity it takes to do all sorts of things - run your washing machine, light your home, freezify your popsicles, etc.  It's been my go-to for a couple years now, and today being Sharing Wednesday (somewhere, probably) I thought I'd bestow it unto you: www.michaelbluejay.com.

Yes, that does read "I was born into a cult". 

If you're feeling clicky, your first thought was like mine - when did Weird Al start wearing suits?  Au contraire, Frenchie, that in fact is Big Mike Bluejay, Human Extraordinaire.  In addition to creating the web's definitive guide to household energy use, Mr. Electricity (a moniker that appears to be self-donned) also drops comprehensive knowledge on the process of home-buying, how to snag cheap plane tickets, bicycle safety, and his stint as a Ben Folds Five groupie (natch...).

Google "cheap airfare guide" - Bluejay's on top.  Google "household battery guide" - it's Bluejay season.  "How to buy a home"?  The Bluejays are in town for a three-game series.  If you were dorky enough to ask Jeeves "what's a boss site about saving electricity?" - you guessed it: the North American Coastal mother-flyin' Bluejay.

Homey just slays search engines.

It harbors hope, doesn't it?  One guy, rockin' long last-century locks, just pwning number one rankings.  Sure, his page looks like it was designed in 2001 - but it's actually from '98, so dude's a visionary.  Don't hate on his skills.  (BTW - search "website design tips"?  Yup.  A Michael Bluejay Joint.)

Why is he worth noting on a blog about saving humanity and all of nature's creatures and the environment and music and love?  I'll let the man speak for himself.

He doesn't use air-conditioning until it gets up to 96°.  He's never had a beer in his life.  He sleeps on blankets instead of a bed.  Anyone else picking up on the Chuck Norris/Jack Bauer/World's Most Interesting Man vibe?  I'm just sayin'...

So should we idolize him?  Raise him up to the vaunted status of welebrity cewebrity Internet icon?  I don't know.  All I know is I want to get an apartment with him and possibly write his autobiography.  That's right, autobiography.  That's how inside his brain I need to get.  Also seems I would make more money that way.