I return from a whirlwind tour across the country and back again: 12,000 miles in 14 days from Los Angeles to Denver to Detroit to Los Angeles to Detroit to Los Angeles to Chicago and finally back home to Los Angeles. And if you think that was hard to read, you should be glad you weren’t the one spending all those hours in those snug and uncomfortable airline seats, seated next to snoring passengers with smelly feet.

It doesn’t matter which airline I flew, and I did fly several, it seems they all ran late, connections were delayed or cancelled, and baggage was always a hassle. It became a joke for me that the new airline slogan was “We’re not happy unless you’re not happy!”

I don’t usually check a bag if I can help it; I do this as a way to speed my way onto and off of the plane and out of the airport as quickly as possible. But sometimes it was necessary to check my gear, and when it left my hands, I always said a silent prayer to ensure its safe return.

After discussions with a friend of mine about these travels, he shared this story he knew about Dave Carroll, a musician from the band “Sons of Maxwell,” whose precious Taylor guitar was broken by careless baggage handlers. (If you don’t know much about musical instruments, Taylor guitars can be worth thousands and thousands of dollars; his was worth $3500.) The story is documented in the following lighthearted, but pointed, music video created as a response to the atrocious customer service he received when trying to get his guitar repaired.

P.S. After this video was posted, Carroll did ultimately receive compensation from United for his guitar’s repair. You can find more videos about the situation here at YouTube.

Enjoy!

Californians have overwhelmingly called for the Legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger to find a solution to save state parks,” Ruskin Hartley, executive director of Save the Redwoods League, said in an announcement made on July 24, 2009. “Today, both houses of the Legislature approved a bill that spares the majority of state parks from closure, but leaves an $8 million budget gap for the Department of Parks & Recreation. This funding cut means that about 30 to 50 California state parks may have to close.”

For more than 90 years, Save the Redwoods League has been dedicated to protecting these ancient redwood forests so all generations can experience the inspiration and majesty of redwoods. In 1850, there were nearly 2 million acres of ancient coast redwood forests in California. Today, less than 5 percent remains and faces threats from logging, development and global climate change. Since its founding in 1918, the League has completed the purchase of more than 181,000 acres of land and helped develop 59 redwood parks and reserves for everybody to enjoy. » Read more

Rumors abound that “Pirates of the Caribbean” co-stars Kiera Knightly and Orlando Bloom will be pairing up once again: This time to star in “The Fever Returns,” a remake of 1977 cult dance classic “Saturday Night Fever.” Apparently the film will be reset from Brooklyn to London, and it’s still unclear whether the movie will be a remake, or a sequel to the original film.

In the meantime, if you didn’t learn to do the hustle thirty years ago, here is a tutorial, so you can be ready for the disco dance craze the new film is likely to inspire.

Our emphasis here at eCycleGroup is to share different perspectives on all kinds of sustainable and  eco-friendly subjects; this is the second of two stories intended to identify some pros and cons of the alternative engine choices available now and promised to come to market in the future. (Click here to read part one,  which focused on emerging automotive technologies, such as hydrogen, electric, and hybrid electric/gasoline powerplants.) Part two focuses on the variety of alternative fuels currently in production. You can find a list of that operate on these fuels by searchng at fueleconomy.gov

Diesel
Diesel is produced as a byproduct of the distillation procedure that produces gasoline. Both gasoline and diesel are produced from the same crude oil. As part of the production process, crude oil is heated, releasing different hydrocarbon compounds at different boiling temperatures. The lightest components — such as ethane and propane — evaporate first. The next components, called naphtha, are used for making gasoline. Finally, the heaviest portion of crude oil is used to make diesel fuel.

Diesel engines are known for their high strength and durability, and today’s modern diesels are typically much cleaner and more fuel efficient than their predecessors. Thanks to today’s high-tech direct injection diesel engines, the days of smelly, sooty diesel discharge are long gone.

Some diesel engines have been modified to burn biodiesel,  which is a domestically produced, renewable fuel derived from natural oils like soybean oil. Biodiesel is produced without petroleum, though it can be blended  with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. Biodiesel blends of up to 20 percent can be used in any diesel engine without requiring any modifications to the engine or the fuel system. Some specially prepped vehicles are even able to use post-consumer oil products recycled from restaurants — like old french fry cooking oil! You can find out much more at www.biodiesel.org » Read more

Join the folks participating in Nike’s special “Supernatural” training program at Bear Butte Running Camp — with bare butts. And yes, you do get to see them.

“It’s more than just a high-altitutde training camp. It’s about natural running. Or as we like to call it: super natural running,” explains nude camp director Dave Olds, a real-life running coach from Los Angeles. The  commercial also includes real-life Nike endorsers Lauren Fleshman, Nick Symmonds, and Kara and Adam Goucher.

The camp’s philosophy is clear:
“At Bear Butte Running Camp, we take a less-is-more approach to training. We strip away the boundaries and comforts of modern society in order to embrace the inherent benefits of natural running, and use those benefits to become faster, stronger, better athletes….

To enhance personal and athletic growth, campers must be willing to shed, at least while at Bear Butte, urban conveniences not found in the great outdoors (i.e., cellphones, television, mp3 players, shorts).”

The two-minute video is intended to promote the Nike Free 5.0  running shoe. Find out more at http://insidenikerunning.nike.com

Our emphasis here at eCycleGroup is to share different persepectives on all kinds of sustainable and  eco-friendly subjects, so we thought it might be useful to identify some pros and cons of the alternative engine choices available now and promised to come to market in the future. There’s a lot to digest here, so we’re breaking it into two segments, with part two to follow next week.

This week, we’ll focus on emerging automotive technologies. Next week, we’ll discuss the fuels themselves.

Hydrogen:
I’ve had several opportunities to drive Chevy’s Hydrogen Fuel Cell Equinox and it offers excellent performance. If I had a couple million dollars, I would absolutely build a 700-bar Hydrogen fueling station in my neighborhood to help create one tiny piece of the infrastructure required to support this emerging technology. While Eeperts suggest urban areas should have enough Hydrogen fuel stations located close enough to each other so that users will have ready access to fuel, even building just 100 fueling stations around Los Angeles would require an investment of 200 million dollars.  And as if that’s not enough, the prohibitive cost of producing the fuel cells themselves puts the feasibility of this choice far into the future. Hydrogen-powered vehicles have been manufactured by BMW, Ford, General Motors, Honda, and Toyota. Can you buy one? Some are available in specialized fleets, but none are yet for sale to the general public.

Electric:
We’ve all heard about the Tesla electric car and are amazed by the performance (0 to 60 in four seconds) promised by this battery-operated sports car, but did you know that it is powered by more than 6800 lithium-ion computer batteries? Besides being incredibly expensive ($98,000) have you considered how the battery performance of your laptop degrades over time and how this is likely to transfer to the performance of that little car? And where will all those little batteries go after they lose their effectiveness? Again, this car is too expensive and impractical to be considered a viable option for the average consumer. » Read more

I SO wish I could speak Japanese, so I could understand what’s going on over here at http://clockwork.shikisokuzekuu.net/

All I know for sure is that this video of the little coffee-making robot is very cool, but also a little bit creepy. If you check the poster’s home page at YouTube/user/mujakiclockwork you’ll witness her evolution from learning how to perform with Kendo swords, to becoming a breakdancer. Meanwhile, her hairstyle evolves along with her actions.

Kathy Kelly is a 39-year-old single mother who works as a law librarian for a law firm in Erie, Pennsylvania. The industrious recycler has created a handcrafted line of bags she calls “BookBags“  using  repurposed book covers from outdated lawbooks. We found her and her fabulous bags over at Twitter.

One of her tasks at her firm Knox, McLaughlin, Gornall & Sennett is keeping the legal reference books up-to-date. As laws change, the books are constantly being replaced: Sadly, most of them have no distributional value once removed from the library shelves. As a person with a concern for the environment, she was interested in recycling the old books, but discovered it was difficult to find a recycler who would even take books, especially hard-covered books.  After a great amount of effort she was finally able to convince one of the local recycling companies to take them, but she would have to remove the covers first.

United States Code Annoted

About two years ago, Kathy returned to work after a surgery and came back to discover a giant pile of mail that included volumes of updates.  One update, the United States Code Annoted (pictured here) included nine volumes covered in gorgeous maroon leather-like material.  She knew she would have to remove the covers to recycle the paper of the book, but it still seemed like such a waste of that beautiful fabric to throw it away (not to mention, creating plenty of garbage).  For a few months, she simply collected the book covers; she didn’t know what she was going to do with them, only that she would figure something out.

One day, in one of those “eureka!” moments familiar to many inventors, Kathy envisioned a small purse her mother had given her when she was younger, and started playing with the idea. » Read more

The Century Council has been sending out an innovative eCard for the Fourth of July holiday that reminds people to stay safe this Independence Day and not drive drunk. Click below to start the video, or you can also view the eCard here at The Century Council.

I first learned about The Century Council and its efforts to stop underage drinking when I posted a story for AskPatty.com reporting on the organization’s support of Brandon Silveria and his “Make the Right Choice“  Program. The Century Council is a national not-for-profit organization funded by distillers dedicated to fighting drunk driving and underage drinking; through educational efforts such as the Silveria lecture and video program, The Century Council educates students across the country about the hazards of underage drinking and driving.

The special Fourth of July eCard demonstrates some activities that might happen on a typical Fourth of July holiday – a burger flips on a grill, a flag waves, somebody tosses a horseshoe. But it ends with images of what happens when someone has too much to drink, gets in their car, and puts lives in danger. It all happens in the blink of an eye, and then?

Forty years ago, my own mother was killed by a drunk driver. She was the first car off a green light when the other car sped through a red light and tee-boned her car, killing her instantly, leaving my father a widow and her four children without their mother. I was barely four years old, but my siblings were old enough that they have memories of the policeman coming to our home to tell us the bad news. They remember her funeral, though have no memories of the event, or any of my mother who was taken away before she was even 30 years old.

I hope this eCard will serve as a reminder to all my readers to stay safe this Fourth of July and NEVER drive drunk. If you click on the link to view the eCard at the Century Council,  it will also allow you to send the eCard to a friend, and even post it to your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July!