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Telling Tales: An Early Christmas Schnoodle
Hi Folks: The link for the following story showed up in my email Inbox today, and this being Christmas and all, it was too beautiful not to share. It was written by Trevor Lautens and first appeared in the December 24th edition of the Winnipeg Free Press.
Love and hugs,
Mike.
Being Green – Update
Hi Folks:
I usually do my ‘Being Green’ posts on Fridays, but since tomorrow I expect to be tied up with ribbon and force fed turkey or something like that, I thought I’d do it today instead.
I have a few things to share with you this week. First some news:
Largest Solar Energy Project in New York State Approved
“Uniondale, N .Y. — Long Island Power Authority President and CEO, Kevin S. Law announced that the LIPA Board of Trustees approved power purchase agreements (PPAs) with BP Solar and enXco Development Corp. thereby creating the state’s largest source of solar power on Long Island. LIPA’s Solar Energy Project will introduce approximately 50MW of renewable energy generated on Long Island onto LIPA’s electric grid, enough to power 6,500 households and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20,000 tons per year as well as reducing other greenhouse gases…”
SMUD Gets 60 Percent Energy Savings from an Older House
“The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) hopes a new demonstration program will save owners of existing homes money and also spur a new spike in home remodels that really make a difference. The SMUD Energy Efficient Remodel Demonstration (EERD) program is a comprehensive, whole-house approach to retrofitting a home with energy-saving and energy-generating equipment and measures…” Also: http://www.smud.org/en/Pages/index.aspx
Greener Gadgets
While not directly related to ‘green building’ per se, “The Greener Gadgets Conference tackles all of the issues surrounding energy efficiency and sustainable design, from innovative advances in packaging and product manufacturing to end-of-life recycling solutions. It also highlights ways in which electronics make a major impact by utilizing renewable energy in developing nations…”
EPEAT
Somewhat related to the ‘Greener Gadgets’ above, EPEAT is a new certification system for electronics. One might think of it as a ‘LEED’ rating system for computers and similar devices. “EPEAT is a system that helps purchasers evaluate, compare and select electronic products based on their environmental attributes. The system currently covers desktop and laptop computers, thin clients, workstations and computer monitors…”
Haworth Achieves 0% Landfill Status
This is really good news: “Holland, Mich. – Haworth, Inc. announced that all U.S., Shanghai and Pune manufacturing facilities, as well as the company’s global headquarters, have achieved zero waste to landfill status. Preliminary results show that Haworth’s U.S. manufacturing facilities have gone from 4.6 million pounds of landfill waste in 2008 to zero in 2009…”
and
LED Traffic Lights Reduce Electricity Costs, But They Can’t Melt Snow
One of those unexpected consequences. LED traffic lights are replacing standard traffic lights in some municipalities. The new lights greatly reduce energy consumption, and they also produce no heat to speak of.   “But it turns out, as snowbound municipalities are just now discovering, that that excess heat was very useful for melting accumulated snow. Now that everyone’s switched over to cooler-running LEDs, snow tends to pile up and obscure the lights, leading to a situation that’s annoying at best and dangerous at worst.
For now, local governments are coping by sending crews out in snowstorms to clean the lights off with compressed air and brushes, as no one’s yet stepped forth with a design-related fix…”
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Newsletters, etc. this week include:
Sustainable Facility’s Targeted e-News on Energy: Efficient Lighting
ED+C’s Targeted eNews: WaterSense
GBI Insight newsletter from The Green Building Initiative
Jones Lang Lasalle Global Sustainability Perspective – December 2009
FP Innovations – Forintek’s ‘The Straight Woods’ newsletter includes this article:
Selling Wood Products to the Green Building Market – A Guide for Wood Product Manufacturers: Understanding Green Programs (LEED and Green Globes)
Sundance Channel Eco-mmunity Greenzine
Finally (for now), the latest edition of BC Homes Magazine showed up in my (postal) mailbox this week. This magazine is put out by the Canadian Home Builders Association, and subscription is free. There are some good articles in every issue. Now I just need to find time to read it! Maybe tonight while I’m waiting for St. Nick to show up. We always knock back some milk and a few cookies together, talk about the logistics of landing on green roofs, the access challenges provided by direct vent fireplaces, things like that…
Well folks, it’s Christmas Eve, and my wife is waiting patiently for me to finish my typing here. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, the Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa, Saturnalia or something uniquely your own, we offer our best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season and a 2010 with as much health, joy and prosperity as you can handle!
Mike.
Poetry Corner
With Christmas just days away, today’s Poetry Corner honours three women who have written poems about this particular topic. I went straight to the top – the cream of the crop. These women you already know by name, but you may not be familiar with their seasonal writings.
Notable Women: Christmas
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (March 6, 1806–June 29, 1861)
The Holy Night
We sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;
The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,
Softened their horned faces
To almost human gazes
Toward the newly Born:
The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooks
Brought their visionary looks,
As yet in their astonied hearing rung
The strange sweet angel-tonge:
The magi of the East, in sandals worn,
Knelt reverent, sweeping round,
With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground,
The incense, myrrh, and gold
These baby hands were impotent to hold:
So let all earthlies and celestials wait
Upon thy royal state.
Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!
Helen Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968)
The only real blind person at Christmas-time
is he who has not Christmas in his heart.
Louisa May Alcott (November 29, 1832 – March 6, 1888)
(better known for writing Little Women)
O the Beautiful Old Story
1. O the beautiful old story!
Of the little child that lay
In a manger on that morning,
When the stars sang in the day;
When the happy shepherds kneeling,
As before a holy shrine,
Bless’d God and the tender mother
For a life that was divine.
2. O the pleasant, peaceful story!
Of the Youth who grew so fair,
In His father’s humble dwelling
Poverty and toil to share,
Till around Him in the temple,
Marveling, the old men stood,
As through His wise innocency
Shone the meek boy’s angelhood.
3. O the wonderful, true story!
Of the messenger from God,
Who among the poor and lowly,
Bravely and devoutly trod,
Working miracles of mercy,
Preaching peace, rebuking strife,
Blessing all the little children,
Lifting up the dead to life.
4. O the sad and solemn story!
Of the cross, the crown, the spear,
Of the pardon, pain, and glory
That have made His Name so dear.
His example let us follow,
Fearless, faithful to the end,
Walking in the sacred footsteps
Of our Brother, Master, Friend.
Source: Carol 255, Rev. Charles L. Hutchins, Carols Old and Carols New (Boston: Parish Choir, 1916). Author is listed as “Louise May Alcott” in the original of this book.
Mike’s Writings IV
Hi There:
Please click this link first. I’ll wait.
Welcome back. I thought maybe it was time I shared some of the things I’ve been writing about recently rather than only my writings from the past, so here goes…
Marcia’s Meanderings
Happy Monday!
In fact, it’s the last Monday before Christmas. Are you ready yet? If not, then I wish you playful power shopping that will energize you as you find the absolutely perfect last minute items at the greatest of prices and in the least amount of time!
My mind certainly has been meandering today – wandering here and there  – and not settling many places for long. Realizing that my level of inspiration was teetering on the brim of several different containers of thought – all varying shapes, sizes and colours – I chose one of the most colourful of them all.
There’s been a story that I’ve had hiding in my personal ‘Marcia’s Writings’ folder on my computer’s Desktop. This story has been sitting there since my daughter-in-law was still carrying our first grandchild – our beautiful, happy and precious Hayden who is now 20 months old.
The story of Grandma’s Gift came to me in a flash one rainy afternoon and wouldn’t let me rest till I had written the last sentence. It was a pleasure to write – fun and freeing and fabulous!
Before submitting it here, I had thought to change the name of the little boy in the story to be that of our grandson. However, this is the story of a different Grandma and a different child…
It’s time to reveal this story out to others. I’m sensing it needs to be told. It may be just the story for you. It may be that I need to do this for me. Either way, I’ve placed it under Marcia’s Stories within Our Stories … but you can just click Grandma’s Gift to read it now if you have the time ….
In Light & Laughter,
Marcia
He Says, She Says…
Hi Folks:
Andy Williams wrote:
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling
And everyone telling you “Be of good cheer”
It’s the most wonderful time of the year
It’s the hap-happiest season of all
With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings
When friends come to call
It’s the hap- happiest season of all…”
This time of year is a special one for many people. It can also be a time of sadness and challenges.
Keeping that in mind, we thought we’d share our thoughts on ‘Christmas…’
Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View
Telling Tales
Hi Folks:
I haven’t told any stories on this blog for a while, and if I let them build up too long, well, it might not be pretty. Actually, that reminds me of a technician I had working for me once. Great technician, but every once in a while she’d just burst out giggling. I asked her about it and she replied, “I don’t know.. they just build up!” I’m the same way, except instead of giggling I start babbling. Like now for instance.
Okay, on with show. I’ve had the privilege of working over more than half of Canada (so far), and I’ve been involved with some really interesting projects and some wonderful people. Sometime late in the last millenium I had two separate opportunities to work with black bears. I’ve accumulated a number of bear stories that I carry around with me, and I thought I’d take a moment or two to share one of them. In the first bear project on which I worked there were three main aspects to the work. One aspect was to create a map of the habitat of the area, and another was to create a map of bear movements by using radio collars on certain bears. In this way we could overlay the bears’ movements onto the map that we’d created so that we could try to interpret where the bears were going at different times of the year, and possibly why. The third aspect of the work was the most ‘adventurous’, and that was dealing with the bears themselves. In a nutshell we set out traps for the bears, and when a bear stepped into our trap s/he was anaesthetized, weighed, measured, and samples were taken to determine both the age and the health of the animal. Yes this was potentially dangerous work, especially on occasions when we had a cub in the trap and his or her mother was less that 10 or 12 yards away and watching intently. I must say up front that every precaution was taken to respect the health and integrity of both the bears and the staff, and every step was taken to minimize the stress caused by our interactions. We did have some bears that seemed to find their way into our traps regularly, and there was some suspicion that maybe they liked the drugs… Yes, that’s a joke, and no, the anaesthetics are neither narcotic nor addictive (just in case that one swept past you).
Being Green… Update
Hi Folks! Friday has come around once again., so that makes it ‘Green Day’ here on our blog. I took in two webinars this week, both kindly provided by the Building Technologies Program at the US Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy division.
The first was the second part of a series on the ongoing efforts in Greensburg, KS. In the spring of 2007 the town of Greensburg was nearly obliterated by a class 5 tornado, and when they decided to rebuild the town, the decision was made to rebuild it as a model of green building and green technologies. Many different people, departments, governments and private industries have been and continue to be involved in this process. I think it’s inspirational, and a good model to use for future rebuilding efforts when and if they should arrive. The presentation slides from the second webinar as well as the slides from the first in the series and a video recording of the first presentation are available at the DOE, EERE website. The next webinar in this series is expected in January, but I don’t have a firm date for that yet.
The second webinar I had a chance to see was titled ‘Activities and Programs Relating to Energy Efficiency Retrofits in Residential Buildings’. While it may be true that the average homeowner is more aware of ‘green’ products today (i.e. solar panels, solar hot water, wind turbines, ground source heat pumps, etc.) it has been said over and over again that for most buildings in existence today the first steps should be to make those buildings more efficient. This can be achieved in many ways – better windows, increased insulation, better weathersealing, etc. This webinar addressed these issues and also the challenges faced by homeowners who have expressed an interest in pursuing these options, in three areas. From the slides of this presentation:
- Access to Information: Consumers do not have access to straightforward and reliable information.
- Access to Financing: Homeowners face high upfront costs and are often unable to recoup the value of their investment.
- Access to Skilled Workforce: There is an insufficient amount of skilled workers to expand energy retrofit programs on a national level.
The slides from this webinar are also available at the EERE website; more information will be provided when it is available.
From the e-mails I received this week:
- The December 2009Â issue of Environmental Building News is available here.
- The folks at ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers) have made available a series of six ‘Advanced Energy Design Guides’. There’s one for Small Healthcare Facilities, one for Highway Lodging, one for Small Warehouses and Self-Storage Buildings, one for Small Office Buildings, one for Small Retail Buildings and one for K-12 School Buildings. The guides are in .pdf format and can be downloaded for free, but registration is required. The guides can be found here.
- The latest e-newsletter from Green Building Advisor is available here.
- The latest Targeted e-News from Environmental Design + Construction (re: Energy Star) is available here.
- And finally (for now), the latest Eco-mmunity Greenzine bulletin from Sundance Channel is available here.
- The latest Healthy Building Network News is available here.
That’s about it for now, but before I sign out I want to add one more link to promote some folks I know at the Okanagan Science and Technology Council (OSTEC), specifically the ‘Clean Tech‘ group.
Have a great week, and if you have any links to share, leave a comment here!
Mike.
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Michael Moschen: Juggling Rhythm and Motion
Hi Folks: I’ve been a fan of Michael Moschen for a long time, and it’s definitely not just because we share the same first name. There’s a common misconception that the words ‘kung fu’ relate specifically to the martial arts; actually, ‘fung fu’ is a term relating to anyone who has taken what they do and elevated it to an art form, achieving a mastery of their craft. With that definition, Michael Moschen is definitely a kung fu master when it comes to juggling. When you listen to him speak of his art, he goes far beyond the basic dynamics of moving the balls around and he speaks of positive and negative space, of movement, of rhythm, of balance…
Michael’s website has some information about Michael and his work. There are also images and some videos of Michael under the ‘Press’ section. Here’s an image I ‘borrowed’ from his site:
Michael Moschen in action
There’s a longer video (37 minutes) of Michael doing some demonstrations and explaining a little about his work during the 2002 TED Conference. It’s well worth seeing.
And Michael, my hat’s off to you!
Your fan,
Mike.