San Francisco has just banned plastic grocery bags.

it will be really interesting to see how the conversion goes off, what kind of impact customers see in terms of increased food costs to offset the bio-bags (the plastic bags cost about a penny, the new bags cost 4-8 cents).

Ikea has already announced it will start charging 5 cents for a plastic bags, with the proceeds going to efforts to save the planet.

Frisco is always looking to jump into new ways of being "green". i know they were considering recycling dog waste to use the methane gas for something. though i can't recall if that went anywhere.

perhaps King County (where i live) will follow S.F.'s lead and try something. i know a number of organic grocers are selling and suggesting cloth bags. We don't (yet) shop at those stores because they are not very close to our house and the organic prices are still a decent price above "regular" food--even for this yuppie!

question: would you be willing to pay an extra 5-10 cents on your grocery bill to get a biodegradable bag? would you rather bring your own cloth bags?

we just watched "an inconvenient truth"....wow. what a heartwrenching, scary as hell, and powerful movie. you all need to watch it. i know why it won an Academy Award

i don't care if you are Democratic, Republican, like Gore or despise him, like Bush or despise him. this movie dives through the politics and opens up the reality of our world--a world we are destroying and that we can do something about it.

Abi and i had a long discussion about what we can do to help after the movie was over. we need to replace our hot water heater. we've looked into the tankless water heaters because they are much more efficient (you don't constantly use energy to heat 80 gallons of water when you are out of town or the house). but we have balked at the price--we'd need to live in the house 7+ years for it to "pay for itself" in the savings we'd see each month on our energy bill. but after seeing this movie i think we decided we might go with it because it is the right thing to do--maybe not for us immediately, but for us down the road, for whomever owns the house after us, and for our lil contribution the planet.

we have also already decided to start replacing our lightbulbs (as we need to buy more) with the energy efficient ones. again a bit more expensive, but they last longer and save more energy, so worth it. we will see a more immediate return on investment there. :)

the hardest one for me to come to grips with is cars. you all know how i love cars.... and my BMW. while my mileage is in the mid 20's it still isn't near the hybrid levels. but in the next few years we will replace Abi's car. we are thinking it might work for us to have one kick-ass car (the bimmer) and one hybrid car (which is getting more en vogue...so who knows, it could be kick-ass in the near future!). she has a fairly lenghty commute each day, so it would be worth while.

so i urge all of you to take 1 hour 40 minutes to watch An Inconvient Truth. you can also go to www.climatecrisis.net to learn more about what you can do now to help. every little bit helps, and the results just may save the planet...

ddv

My mom and grandma left yesterday after a week of staying out here in the mostly soggy Pacific Northwest. We had a great time seeing the sites, driving around, eating, and just lounging about the house. many hours were spent all sitting around working on projects and talking: Abi was doing homework, mom was doing Brazilian embrodery, grandma was doing counted cross-stich and i was playing Xbox360.

 

We went to the Tacoma Museum of Glass. Abi and I hadn't been there before, so it was a lot of fun to do something new for all of us. we actually got a membership to the museum--so we can go back in teh future for free!

 

We also took a day trip driving up Whidbey Island. after a short ferry ride we started driving across the island. we stopped at  a few different artisan spots, had some pie, and tried to outrun the power outage that came along with the Pineapple Express storm that was blowing through. we failed in that attempt--everywhere we went, the power seemed to drop out just as we made our way through the first store! the main point of the trip was to get to Deception Pass, a great (and narrow) bridge that connects Whidbey Island to Fidalgo Island/mainland. we stopped, hiked around and took some pictures, before making our way back to the mainland and I-5 to take the interstate back home.

 

While Abi was at work one day, I took mom and grandma through the Ikea experience. grandma made it about 1/4 of the way through before she decided to hold down some chairs in one of the "rooms" and in the cafeteria. mom and i soldiered on looking at all the cool things we could buy for the house. we did write down a number of window coverings to bring back for Abi and i to decide how we want to cover some windows in the kitchen to cut down on the heat in the summer.

 

Friday we took another ferry ride after Abi got off work to go to Poulsbo WA to see some old family friends, Peggy and Dave Moon. the weather was finally beautiful and it was so great to stand on the front of the boat and watch the water, the mountains and the islands all come into view. it was truly what Seattle living is all about. We had a great time chatting with Peggy and Dave. they gave us the great news that they are moving back to Billings, so mom and grandma will get to see them much more often! we went into "Washington's Little Norway" in the town of Poulsbo for dinner--a fish house on the marina. then it was back on the ferry home to get ready for mom and grandma to leave.

 

it was a whirlwind trip and a lot of fun. i'm pretty sure i'm missing loads of details and activities, but oh well. :)

 

ddv