Toxico 10:15 PM

In the burning fields of Southern California’s Imperial Valley, the honey bee population is dying, and so are millions of fish in the Salton Sea. Meanwhile, the squatters of Slab City try to live off the grid and hold on to what’s left of the American Wild West. VBS travels to this apocalyptic landscape.
catch the 2 episodes here at vbs.tv

The plum tree 5:21 PM

Soon after we moved to our new home, we discovered that we had a plum tree in front of our house and as a welcoming gift gave us its fruit each day for almost 2 weeks, we later found out from our neighbor that this area used to have lots of plum and apple tree's.

Santa Rosa Solar Fair 2009 2:37 PM

A little video of our Day at the Santa Rosa Solar Fair on June 20th, lots of solar panels and good humans, music was great, it was solar powered all the way, a cool band was performing that day, they are called "fishbear" what a cool eclectic sound.
I took a picture of the green jobs links, too lazy to type it so go ahead and knock yourself out getting a green job.
Peace

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto 11:32 AM

This morning C and I decided to make something, keep in mind this is not Martha, or Craft magazine, we just got a couple of packages on the mail and decided to take the empty boxes and fill the morning with a craft project, instructions are as follow: take a couple of used boxes, get a glue gun(garage sale find)and... good luck , you are on your own. At one point I decided to put shelves on Mr Roboto and it took a lot of time,(hence the lack of good arms for the robot) in any case, it was a great project,we had lots of fun.
Mr. Roboto is currently used as a shelving unit for little toys, check out the slide show below.

How to fold a t-shirt in 2 seconds 12:38 PM

For people that have a tight schedule



For those of you who are crafty, I present you, the ECO Friendly t-shirt folding device (same 2 seconds, and half a Sunday to build it)




I have not decided yet what method to follow, if I build the device it might bring back unwanted memories of my time working in retail. If I learn the 2 seconds technique Camilo will be delighted to help me fold them and unfold them and fold them again….hummm

Messenger Bag out of Trash Bags 2:18 PM

I think we are going to give this a try...

FREE REUSABLE BAG 9:25 AM

The folks at reusablebags.com are giving away a free acme reusable shopping bag, we have several of this bags and carry them everywhere, the bag is free with your purchase of $50 of more, use this coupon code for reusablebags.com during checkout FREEEACME (case sensitive).
Hey, if the coupon works just send me a comment that way others will know if the coupon is still active.

Switching plastics water jugs with a better eco-friendly alternative 10:26 AM

In our quest to find better alternatives for mindfully living and in lieu of the aggressive research found all over the web regarding BPA in plastic, we have decided to stop purchasing the 2.5 gallon plastic water from the supermarket.
What does this mean? Well it means that we will need to embark in a quest for finding a safe alternative…below is our story.

We have evaluated all options out there, for example; water distilling, without getting to technical, the only thing that I don’t like about water distilling is dealing with hot water that takes 3 to 4 hours to boil to produce 1 gallon of distilled water and then gets poured into a plastic bottle for the cute price of $139 + shipping

you can purchase it here or if you have issues with plastic(like us) then you have to buy this

with the glass container for the economic price of $199.00 + shipping. But wait…since we don’t like plastic we will need to upgrade to the glass bottle and end up spending approximately $250 for clean distilled water. Ouch !

The pros: none for us

The cons: having a toddler running around the house with boiling water on the kitchen counter top every day for 4 hours sounds like a little hazard to me, plus it will be another task assigned to me, and I can barely keep up with the bread maker

but that’s another story.

Then after being frustrated for a couple of days trying to find a better solution and after extinguishing all my web searching capabilities I started exploring the option of having a water crock like this one

$26 approximately you can buy it here
we have a European kitchen with black granite counter tops so we we re thinking it will look awesome, but then I realized I had to either put in it on the corner of the counter (were Camilo grabs everything ) or further inside the counter(real estate is getting precious in the counter top neighborhood of our house) , for that I will need to purchase a counter crock stand $14 approximately

you can buy it here ...And then, the magic question arises… here comes the plastic bottle

Polycarbonate… NICE PLASTIC # 7 for just $16.95 , you can buy it here
once again we bumped into the plastic issue with little alternatives out there, but wait… long live the beer and wine brewing companies that still use glass bottles, remember… nice glass carboys in 3 or 5 gallon sizes ,so I decided to buy 2 of the 3 gallon carboys

from this friendly website They are made in Mexico and cost a mere $16.29, .66 cents cheaper than their endocrine disrupting plastic counterpart and safer for you and the environment.
Assuming that once filled they were going to be heavy, I purchased as well the Carboy Handles for 3 gallon Carboys

for a mere $5.76 the hauling of this puppies will be from our apartment to the car- to the supermarket shopping cart- to the car and back home, I’m planning on taking them for a ride every 10 days or so.

For lids, Ed at brewgadgets.com hooked me up with a couple of lids, this guy has the best prices on the net and the best service as well, plus he is very fair with the shipping(actual shipping charges) so ship it to your office and save a couple of bucks more.

But wait…here is the best part, I bought the carboys first and when I was getting ready to buy the water crock I then realized that we have an open kitchen and the main art piece of our home will be this huge artifact of approximately 70 inches tall on top of a counter top. So there I was again with another dilemma, but after doing a more extensive research and since we shifted last year from plastic water bottles to kleen Canteen stainless steel bottles, I searched like crazy for a stainless steel water dispenser, and.. Look what I found
I purchased from this restaurant supply site it is for tea, it gives a little industrial look to the kitchen and there a lots of options out there (insert pictures of other options)pricey tough, this one is the one that works best for us,(plus I’m already tired of this race and I can relax a little now that I’m approaching the finish line)

Price was $102 including shipping and a stainless lid (it comes with a plastic one).

In conclusion here is the final tab:

2 Water carboys + 2 lids + 2 handles + shipping = $60
Stainless steel tea dispenser + stainless steel lid + shipping = $102
Total BPA free water dispensing = $162.

approximate cost of disposable 2.5 gallons water jugs $2 to $3
refilling at you local grocery shop $.29 cents per gallon

You do the math...(if you fell like it)
in the long term you will save money and save the environment.. that is if you are switching from plastic water jugs to glass and stainless steel.

regarding the plastic spigot... I'm working on it.

And here is the final picture



We are exhausted…Long LIVE the INTERNET!

Reduce Reuse Recycle 12:20 PM

we should all learn this song and sing it loud ! don't mind the s instead of c, it is still a great video

Plastics , the need to educate ourselves 9:35 AM

You know that thing about plastics and the chemicals that leach into our food and water (BPA) that everyone has been talking about for a while? I have come to realize that Camilo has been our inspiration to find out more about all this topics that concern us. It is not that the corporations are bad, they are a business and they are protecting their own interests, and the government creates agencies to protect the interests of this companies , point and case the FDA the most underfunded , understaffed and underregulated agency of this country, and there is still people out there that will say after reading a product label, "look it is FDA approved" and they feel safe(go figure. You know about this, maybe you have or had a business, or work for someone that has a business, the bottom line is that you have to make money, so it is our duty as consumers to protect ourselves, to be informed and pay attention when red flags are brought up, if you do a search on this topic(BPA)online you will find endless research that has been published for several years. Mainstream media outlets(local newspapers, local TV/radio stations, etc)do not address these issues until it is too late, exhibit A, the mortgage crisis, local newspapers were being inundated with advertisement from construction companies, mortgage brokers, lending banks , furniture stores , remodeling companies, everyone wanted a piece of the pie, so think about this, if I was the owner of that newspaper's and my top priority is being profitable, why will I scare my advertisers by publishing negative information that contradicts the following of the masses?...Local newspapers will address the issue once everything starts unfolding and markets start to crash and advertisement from those mayor players are not pouring in anymore.

So my advise is simple...inform yourself...take all information slowly...whatever damage was done, is done already, but do take action...change...evolve...into a better human being, one that is informed in protecting its own individual rights by the choices one makes.
Below is an excerpt form the Diane Rehm Show, that aired yesterday morning, the link below the title takes you to the transcript and the audio interview, it was great and it got rowdy at times.
BPA exposure and human health concerns
http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/04/29.php#19037
A draft report by The National Toxicology Program found there is 'some concern' that exposure to BPA, a chemical found in many household products including some water and baby bottles, could lead to human health risks. We'll talk about questions raised by the findings.
Guests
Steven Hentges, American Chemistry Council PhD Senior Director Polycarbonate/BPA Global Group
Frederick vom Saal, reproductive scientist and professor, Division of Biological Sciences, College of Arts & Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia
Warren Foster, director, center for reproductive care and reproductive biology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
John Bucher, associate director, National Toxicology Program, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Tony Clement, Health Minister, Canada

Earth Diapering 10:09 PM

oh cloth diaper . you been so close and so far , you are a reminder of what mother earth needs , and I'm a sucker for all this things that benefit you , so here I'm(my favorite phrase) asking for your advice again , I had you , acquire the complete pack and I let you go, know I will try again , now stronger, now believing that I will alleviate your pain, welcome home mother-ease , let's see if it is as "ease" as you say.