Package angst

OK, I admit it...like many other people I buy stuff from online sites such as Amazon, ebay, buy.com...Buying from an online store is convienent, saves me gas, and in many cases no sales tax. Recently I purchased a 4 gig microSD card for my Blackberry and it arrived in about a week or so. Everthing was great except for the package in which it was shipped. As you can see from the below image, the shipping package for this small, and I mean small microSD card, was really, really large. It measures 11 x 16...Come on people, use a smaller shipping package! Save the planet and svae yourself some money...What do you think? Am I being a green nut? Have you experienced package angst? Am I nuts to be nuts over this?


The microSD card is circled in yellow...

Today's harvest

Today we picked green and wax beans, 2 green peppers, a cucumber and a zucchini from the garden. Earlier this week my sisiter stopped by and picked 5 eggplants, peppers and a bunch of beans...The garden is going strong and we are looking forward to the tomatoes as well as more zucchinis and cucumber in the next week or so. The only thing that is driving Theresa nuts are the number of slugs attacking the beans. In order to controll the slugs, she has put dishes of beer to attract and kill the slugs.

Vacation notes

Hello all! Just returned from our vacation and wanted to post a few thoughts about the vacation and photos. This is the first time I used Twitter and TwitPic to update our vacation. Let me know if I bored you with my twits and photos... In addition, I used my Blackberry Curve with Internet access, via the EDGE network and wi-fi, to map our driving course, get local address and phone numbers, weather update, news as well as to submit my twits and twitpics. I have to be honest...it was really nice to have the Balckberry on the trip.

Itinerary took us to these following cities:

• Burr Oak, IA
  
• Galena, IL
  
• Springfield, IL
  
• Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO
  
• Mansfield, MO
  
• Wilson Creek Nat'l Battlefield in Springfield, MO
  
• Independence and Kansas City, MO
  

A few of the highlights:

• Lincoln home with original furnishing
  
• Old State Capitol where President Lincoln lay in state following his assassination
  
• Dana-Thomas house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is a whopping 12,000 sq. ft. residence which still retain much of its original furniture and stained glass windows
  
• Laura Ingalls Wilder's home in Mansfield, MO
  
• Hotel where the Ingalls worked at in Burr Oak. 25 cents per night will get you 1/3 a bed...
  
• Catching crawdads in Mansfield, MO
  
• Seeing my first Indigo Bunting in Mansfield
  
• Truman house which looked as it did in 1972 when he passes away. And, seeing his trademark hat and trench coat
  
• KC Royals baseball game even though we caught in a downpour and hail!

Reflecting pool at the Dana-Thomas House

Old Illinois State Capitol

Route 66

Gateway Arch

Wilsons Creek

Canons at Wilsons Creek

Crawdad...

Killdeer eggs hatched!

Since June I've been watching a Killdeer nest at our local park. The nest, under a young maple tree, has survived heat, thunderstorms, Relay for Life event and the 4th of July fireworks. Yesterday morning while biking to the bus stop I took a photo of the eggs just as they were beginning to hatch. At the end of the day I ago checked on the nest and saw two of the three immature Killdeer birds running with their mother and father!

My little energy talk

A few days ago I was a party and ran into an old 'advisee' from the U of M. He has been working in the financial market since the late 80s. We started to talk and I asked him about the impact of $4.00 per gallon has on the market. And, shortly I asked his opinion about the current energy issue. This is a bulleted list of main ideas from our conversation.

• $4.00 per gallon is here to stay
• US is using 3 to 5% less gasoline than same time last year..."the market is working
• drilling (having more drilling rights) will NOT decrease price per gallon for a long time, if ever...
• expanding drilling rights does not guarantee that oil companies will explore as that will cost billions...
• why put money into exploring if you can make billions selling current supply of oil
• NIMBY
• we still have access to oil...no long lines at the gas station
• China is having an enormous effect on the global petro market
• ethonal is not the answer
• ethonal decreases your gas mileage
• ethonal is having an effect in food price
• what will happend to all those hybrid car batteries once they die?
• 2010 is an important as that is when US auto factories can be fitted to produce hybrids
• No more SUVs from automakers
• if you have a SUV, it's your until it dies...no one wants one!

Please note this is base on my recollection...I could be wrong or misheard what he said.

Mulch

Just spread some coco hull mulch on the flower and veggies garden this past weekend. Why mulch, here are a few reason...

• it smells nice
• keeps soil cool in the summer
• prevents moisture lose by retaining water
• provide organic matter to soil
• makes bed look nice

Do you use mulch? If so, what kind...straw, leaves, hay, grass, wood chips???

Compost...

Since the veggie garden has been dug in the back yard we started to compost our food scraps. We currently have two bins on the north side of our house and a counter compost bin where we deposit food scraps such as egg shells, raw vegetables and fruit (no hard pits). Luckily the two compost bins face our neighbor's garage and we have not had any complaints. The veggie garden has received three to four bin of compost thus far.

Here are a few photos