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

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. As 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!

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Beautiful 100% Recycled Business Cards from Natural Printing

I received an order of business cards for Adopt An Animal the other day from Natural Printing, and they look great! (Check out the design below.) This is the first time I've designed and ordered business cards for myself, and I'm quite pleased with the final product. I originally thought about using a service such as VistaPrint to get free cards, but they didn't offer 100% recycled (as far as I could tell), and I couldn't quickly figure out a way to simply upload the custom card I designed myself instead of using their templates (such was the case with similar free-business-card sites.) I found a few other places online offering recycled cards, but most required huge orders and were considerably expensive. Natural Printing allowed me to order a relatively small number of 100% recycled cards (don't be fooled by the rather unattractive example) for a relatively cheap price ($60.) Sure, it was more expensive than VistaPrint's free cards, obviously, but with Natural Printing, I got exactly what I wanted, quickly, and supported a small business at the same time. This being my first business card design, I was a bit apprehensive that I may have set up the printing layout incorrectly. Natural Printing's website gives guidelines on how to set up your design's layout so it prints correctly, and though the directions are easy to follow, Mark from Natural Printing let me know of a minor problem shortly after I submitted my order - the version of Adobe Illustrator I was using (CS2 12.0.1) was too high, even though it's a few years old. So I saved the design as a PDF, sent him the update, and quickly heard back from that my design was good to go. About a week and a half later, the little box showed up, stuffed with perfectly aligned little cards. I chose to use a one-sided design. I originally thought about including Adopt An Animal's services on the back of the card, but I realized that many times when people give me business cards, I write notes on the blank side about the organization or the person I met. I could've used lighter ink on the card's backside had I used it, but chose to go the simpler one-sided route. I also figure that it's a good idea to use matte printing, because glossy cards are virtually impossible to write on. The one minor issue I have with my order is that the heavy-duty, pure-white cards say nothing about being 100% recycled, which I think would be a nice feature and selling point for Natural Printing. I'll probably let Mark know about this and see what he says, but in the meantime, if I order more cards, I might just put a small watermark on the bottom mentioning this fact. It might look a little self-congratulatory ("Hey, I use recycled products!"), but with so many business cards floating around out there, people may as well start printing them on recycled paper!

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High-quality consumer products are hard to find

With the global economy's increasing interconnectedness, it's easier to find more consumer products at cheaper prices. But are some companies sacrificing quality for a low, low price? And do we really need all the things big-box stores stock that are supposed to make our life easier? People are concerned with the financial cost of all the things money can buy, but what about the environmental cost? Not to mention the growth our economy could see if we brought some good ol' fashioned Made in America production back to "the homeland" (I use that term even though it gives me the creeps.) Though I think it's a sad state of affairs when it seems that everyone on earth is usually considered a consumer (or potential consumer) foremost and a living, breathing human being second, when I do think of myself as a consumer, I like to think of myself as an informed consumer. I scour ratings and reviews — online and in rags like Consumer Reports — of products I'm interested in, and usually think long and hard about my potential purchase and whether it's worth it. In my opinion, the products below are not worth their weight in gold (or rather something cheaper, since gold has just hit record-high prices.) Exhibit A: Kidde Fire Extinguishers and Carbon Monoxide/Smoke Detector I received a small red Kidde fire extinguisher when I moved into my house about a year and a half ago. It had been sitting on our kitchen counter, ready to save our lives, when I decided to finally hang it on the wall in its cheap plastic bracket a few weeks ago. I looked at the extinguisher's meter and was dismayed that it read "Empty." I checked the information that came with the extinguisher; it told me to contact Kidde. So I went to their website, emailed them, got a response back a few days later asking for more info about the device, didn't hear back from them, and received a white version as a replacement a few weeks later, with no note. "Great!" I thought. "I'll just get rid of the old and hang the new one up." But I opened the box and noticed it had powder covering the bottom, as if it had been used or had sat on a dusty shelf for quite some time. Then I looked at its meter. "Empty," it read. Kidde must have given me either a) a unit that someone else had but was defective or b) a unit that was sitting in storage for quite some time and wasn't checked for fullness before it was shipped out. To make matters worse, that same week our Kidde-brand carbon monoxide/smoke detector went haywire for no apparent reason. Freaked out, I ran around the house and hurriedly checked our other detectors. They were all fine, so I correctly assumed there was no CO threat. This little gizmo has a meter on it showing numbers signifying the danger level, but when it malfunctioned, it simply said "Err." I looked this up in its manual, and lo and behold, just like the fire extinguisher, it told me to contact Kidde. So I unplugged it, and though I wanted to smash it with a fire extinguisher, I simply took its battery out. Enough with Kidde. Their customer service was poor, their products were even worse, and I am NOT putting my and my family's safety in their hands. The malfunctions of the two fire extinguishers and one carbon monoxide/smoke detector are enough to deter me from buying anything from them again. Exhibit B: iRobot Roomba Vaccuum Though I'd always been skeptical of iRobot's Roomba vacuums, I was lured in by a good deal on Woot! for an iRobot Roomba Scheduler with Intellibin for Pets. Many of the shoppers who commented on this particular unit said it did a great job of picking up dog hair. I didn't have to read any more: anything that can help me maintain cleanliness with three large dogs wreaking havoc in my home sounds like a great product to me (the operative words being "sounds like.") I ordered the vacuum, enthusiastically read the instructions and set up the timer with the included remote. The unit made its superhero-music-sounding beeps and started up and began its seemingly wondrous duties. It was quite entertaining for a bit: my dog Aja had a grand time attacking it, at least until I stopped laughing at her antics and walked away. The vacuum's not quite as entertaining as Rosie, the vacuuming maid robot on the Jetsons, I concede. Anyways, I was really excited about not having to sweep three dogs' fur up every day. At least until the Roomba ran its course the next day. It doesn't do well with transitions between carpet and wood floors. The dirt compartment is only about as large as my fist, requiring frequent emptying. There's not much space for the grime it picks up, when it does pick it up. The unit doesn't do a good job picking up three dogs' fur: no matter how many times it sweeps through the rooms, clumps of fur and dust bunnies are always present afterward. In the Woot! comments section, people were sure to say "this won't negate your having to vacuum regularly, but it does help." But this cheapo product does not help enough. I would've been better off to save my money from it, sweep the house daily myself, and use the money saved to reward my cleanliness with a beer every day. This product, like the next one, is much better in theory than in practice. Exhibit C: Philips Norelco All in 1 Grooming System G380 I bought this item because I was tired of looking like one of the scruffy dudes from heavy-metal band Mastodon. Well, I didn't look that hairy, but still, my face needed some regular mowing. So I decided to give this razor set a try because it had lots of cool attachments. I opened it up, charged it, and tried it out. Surprise, surprise: I was disappointed. After trimming my goatee and mustache, I had to go back with scissors to cut all the long stragglers so they matched their neighbors. I've used the razor a half dozen times so far, and the results haven't gotten any better. The attachments are quite flimsy, though I will say none of them broke when I accidentally pulled the unit's cord and sent the whole set crashing down onto our tile floor. It still works (relatively speaking) in spite of the set's shoddy appearance, so I can't fault it too much. Side exhibit I bought a lot of plastic film and tape to prevent drafts from coming in through our home's old windows, but the stuff wouldn't stay on no matter how well I cleaned the surfaces or how much tape I put on. I was trying to be green and save some heating energy this way, but since the plastic didn't work, I guess instead I wasted some oil in the process of trying to make my home more efficient. Which brings me to the point that most consumer goods, even if they're "natural," contribute to loss of natural resources in some way. And so... Though I think it's important for people to have safety devices in their house (maybe not from Kidde, though), and I think iRobot's vision of hassle-free cleaning is wonderful, and I think Norelco's razor looks cheap but can take a hit, I do think most consumer-goods companies need to focus more on high-quality products and less on selling huge quantities of product just to make more money. It's no wonder that the United States, though relatively sparsely populated, has the one of the highest carbon footprints per household of any country in the world. Go to any big-box store in your local suburb, and you'll find aisles and aisles populated with products that: a) are most likely cheaply made, b) are most likely produced with lots of oil, and c) you could most likely do without. My advice (which I need to take myself)? Do your homework before spending lots of money on something like a robot vacuum. Read reviews and ratings online, and most importantly, if you have a friend or family member with the item in question, ask them what they think and see if you can try it out yourself. If you aren't sure or are skeptical (like I was with the vacuum), don't buy it. If you buy something whose quality is disappointing, return it, sell it on eBay, or put it on Craigslist or Freecycle. If you buy a few things from a company and all disappoint, don't support that company again. And most importantly, consider where your money would be better invested (your home? a good dinner? your retirement fund?), and what impact the production of el-cheapo goods will have on your grandchildren's future on this planet.

Have you recently made a hugely disappointing purchase? Are their some companies who, no matter how many times you give them a chance, keep producing sub-par products? Do people need to stop buying so much crap? Write a comment and share your opinions!

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Indianapolis Power and Light: Hiding behind a green mask?

I 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. Inside were two compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), a hot water gauge to check water heater temperatures, a refrigerator thermometer, an awesome luminescent night light that emits a nice light-green glow for only pennies a year (even if left on for 24 hours a day, every day!), switch and outlet draft-stoppers (glad I bought and installed these a few weeks back :P ), a water flow meter bag to determine faucet/showerhead efficiency, and finally my favorite thing (barely edging out the night light): a "Spoiler" low-flow water saving showerhead. I haven't installed any of it yet because I wanted to show my wife the nifty package. Well, I lie: I just couldn't help myself from testing and installing the night light. It's cool of IPL to offer all this for free (though it's probably wrapped up in my monthly electricity bill somehow). Hopefully it will offer people who don't know much about saving energy an idea of where to start. There are many things we can do to improve efficiency, without going as far as installing solar panels or moving to the Arctic tundra and living off the land (good luck with that.) I can't help wondering, though, why IPL is offering all this for free. It's the third in a short series of things that made me go "hmm..." (ah, how I miss C + C Music Factory.) The first, part of IPL's "ongoing commitment to protect and preserve the environment," was their installation of a new 565-foot stack and scrubber that reduces sulphur-dioxide emissions. The old one was big, but the new stack looks friggin' huge and sends off an impressive, relatively clean, white, mostly water plume, especially on clear days. Check out the picture below. Okay, so that seems like a good idea. I haven't done much research, but it has to be an improvement on the original stack. Anyway, the second thing that made me go "hmm..." was IPL's offering of a renewable power option (click for info and to enroll), which I signed up for last year. You can specify how much of your energy you'd like to come from renewable sources (10% through 100%), and then IPL's magic Green Power Option elves send electricity from Midwestern wind farms or Indiana landfill gas generation plants (sounds pleasant) to your home. I don't really understand how the whole "sending electricity from somewhere distant" process works (that's my phrase, by the way, not IPL's), but it sounds somewhat like what Enron was doing when they were trading and shifting energy between states and rather distant regions (check out Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room for an entertaining and informative look into what happened.) I'm not blaming IPL for anything. From what I can tell (I admittedly haven't done a lot of research on their history), they're making some good moves towards going greener. But I can't help being somewhat suspicious when members (or at least acquaintances) of the carbon cabal shed their smoky appearances for green. If IPL is indeed charging full speed ahead toward a clean future, kudos to them. If not, well, no one likes to be greenwashed, even if if they don't yet know what the term means.

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Comparing the candidates’ views on green policy

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.

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