Tag Archive for 'energy'

Angie’s List blog; new dogs for adoption; mixing with Ableton Live

Published by Tristan on April 4, 2008 in AdoptAnAnimal.org, Angie's List, Indiana, animals, energy, environment, music and podcast. 0 Comments

This post isn’t as focused as those previous, but read on, kind sirs and madams:

A big week for me at Angie’s List and for Adopt An Animal. At Angie’s List, I set up our magazine department’s blog and released List-en up!’s first true video podcast. I say “true” video because previous episodes were in what was technically a video format, but were basically a still-image slideshow with pictures to accompanying the audio. This time, though, I actually followed a home energy auditor and videotaped the house-inspection process. After watching the video, I hope you have an audit performed on your home to find out how much money you can save through some simple energy-efficient upgrades.

Blue House Blog logoAs for the blog, you’ll notice that its design is basically the same as the Angie’s List podcast site. For the “Blue House Blog,” as we’re calling it (thanks to Brandon Smith, Angie’s List magazine artist and Goldfish Don’t Bounce bandmember, for the awesome logo!), I used the same Wordpress content management system, and the same theme, K2, simply because it works well. It looks good on its own, but is easily customizable and functions quite well for the most part. And though I have little PHP-programming experience, going into the code and fiddling with certain things isn’t too difficult. And there’s a tremendous network of free plugins, forums, and bloggers that serve as terrific resources for any Wordpress-related problem.

On a Wordpress-related note, I’ve posted some more dogs for adoption in Indianapolis at my Wordpress-based Adopt An Animal site. Please check them out (an adult female German Shepherd and adult male Pit-bull mix) and let me know if you or someone you know is interested.

Finally, I hope to install Ableton Live this weekend and create my first digital mix of some songs I’ve been really into lately. If you have any experience with Live and have tips to offer, please let me know. Thanks!

Indianapolis Power and Light: Hiding behind a green mask?

Published by Tristan on February 6, 2008 in Indiana, energy and environment. 0 Comments

CFLs save moneyI just received a free Home Energy Efficiency Kit from my local electricity provider, Indianapolis Power & Light (IPL.) As Napoleon Dynamite would say, it’s flippin’ sweet!

After I found out about it from Shawndra (whom I met once at the only Irvington Green Initiative meeting I’ve been to :P ), I ordered a kit online at IPL’s website (click here to order one ASAP if you’re an IPL customer) less than two weeks ago, and it was on my doorstep when I got home today. I pretended I wasn’t excited about it and let it sit on my kitchen counter for awhile, but couldn’t resist the urge to open it before my wife got home. Continue reading ‘Indianapolis Power and Light: Hiding behind a green mask?’

Comparing the candidates’ views on green policy

Published by Tristan on February 1, 2008 in asides, economy, environment and politics. 0 Comments

Care about climate change/the environment/our national energy policy? If you drive a car, eat food that travels via a gas-fueled vehicle, use electricity, or are alive today, you should.

Thus far, the presidential candidate debates have been sidestepping the environmental and energy-related issues. Not to say that the war in Iraq, health care, and the economy aren’t important, but everything’s related, so we should give consideration to other things. This handy-dandy chart from Grist compactly compares the candidates’ viewpoints on greenhouse emissions caps, fuel economy standards, renewable energy, biofuels, coal, and nuclear energy. Since few people in the mass media are talking about these things in the primaries, you might want to research it yourself before picking a candidate.

           

Open-source, affordable, green housing on the way

Published by Tristan on January 25, 2008 in asides, economy, environment and home. 0 Comments

Everyone’s been talking the past year or so about global warming, going green, etc. In terms of housing, green construction standards (such as the US Green Building Council’s LEED) have been a hot topic in the U.S. and in other parts of the world (India’s wealthiest resident is building a 60-story “green” home in Mumbai). It’s all well and good that wealthy people like Al Gore are going green with their mansions, but what about the estimated 1/3 of the population that will be living in slums by 2030?

Architect Cameron Sinclair might tell you with a straight face that those people will make decent homes out of wealthier people’s “green” refuse. Sinclair, winner of 2006’s TED prize, started the Open Architecture Network to spread affordable housing throughout the world — a rather impressive goal. The projects in the network are rather interesting, to say the least. According to Sinclair, “Someone’s working on a $700 house. The Now House is a World War II retrofitted home that’s carbon-neutral… There’s a spinach-powered house, there’s a grow-your-own clinic, a clinic you eat. All of these projects have to be sustainable.” So even though the gap between rich and poor isn’t shrinking, it’s good to know that people like Cameron Sinclair are planning a future that’s better for everyone.

Waking up and going to work is stressful. What can you do about it?

Published by Tristan on December 27, 2007 in activism, asides and work. 0 Comments

Grogginess, grogginess, please go away. Grogginess, grogginess, please don’t come back another day.

After 5 days away from work, I had one heck of a time getting back into the swing of things this morning. Though my grogginess probably wouldn’t have been helped with the addition of grog, I felt like I could’ve used some to help me navigate the treacherous waters of work. Luckily, I came across this article called “7 ways to restart your day”, which will hopefully help me feel better about waking up early and slogging away every weekday.

Among the tips:

As soon as the alarm rings …
Spend your first 15 seconds awake planning something nice to do for yourself today.

Get up
The longer you lie there, the more you ruminate, the darker your outlook is likely to become, says Christine Padesky, Ph.D., coauthor of “Mind Over Mood.” So get vertical and make a cup of coffee, take a shower, feed the cat …

Drink …
Two glasses of water upon awakening, the time when our bodies are dehydrated, says Susan M. Kleiner, Ph.D., author of “The Good Mood Diet.” Dehydration causes fatigue, which affects your mood.

Move it
Just a few minutes of movement — a fast walk, for example — raises energy and reduces tension, says mood expert Robert Thayer, Ph.D., professor of psychology at California State University, Long Beach, and author of “Calm Energy.”

Investigate
When you’re dogged by anxiety or the dread you woke up with, try to pinpoint what’s causing it. If you can figure out why you’re upset, that’s halfway to feeling better.

Be kind and thankful
Do something nice for a stranger or friend and see if you don’t feel better about yourself. Also, jot down three things that you’re grateful for. It seems so simple, but counting your blessings just has a way of making you remember the sun is shining.

Laugh at yourself
Look at your own life and try to appreciate the absurdity of what doesn’t go exactly according to plan. Acknowledging how little control we actually have over what happens is sometimes a most freeing gift to yourself.

Hope this helps (you and me!)

Also, this blog has some good points about work and vacation. Additionally, timeday.org is a good place to check out and advocate for. Timeday.org is the website for Take Back Your Time, a major U.S./Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment. Sounds good to me!

Chris Jordan’s interpretation of American mass-consumption

Published by Tristan on November 27, 2007 in art, asides and shopping. 0 Comments

Chris Jordan - Skull with Cigarette

Chris Jordan, a Seattle-based artist, has some amazing photography and digital artwork at his website. In his current series, “Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait,” Jordan takes statistics from American culture (energy usage, the environment, consumerism) and digitally parlays those stats into thought-provoking (that term’s often overused, but in this case it’s appropriate) works of art. The image at left is composed of 200,000 packs of cigarettes, the same number of Americans who die from cigarette smoking every six months.

Check it out — you probably won’t believe what you see.