Asha Anujeeva

I was shopping at my local Wal-Mart and heard some of the employees talking about how pretty soon Wal-Mart will be requiring their customers to bring their own bags!  I wonder how well the customers are going to be taking that!  Personally, I’m glad – I have several canvas shopping tote bags that I bought a long time ago that I would like to use for my weekly groceries.  Even though I bring most of my empty Wal-Mart shopping bags back to the Wal-Mart for recycling, I really would prefer to not have to deal with them.  Although they DO make good little trash can liners!

I was reading a BBC.com website news story today about how 48% of the world’s primate species are facing extinction.  The article explains that a large reason for that was the deforestation of the world; people are cutting down and/or burning the forests that the primates live in.  That was depressing news.  But what really surprised me was to read in the article that the extinction is being exacerbated by hunters who are hunting the primates for food!  I did not realize that people considered monkeys as edible!  I don’t know why, I just never really thought people would eat monkeys.  That makes me especially sad, since I consider primates to be so closely related to humans that it almost seems cannibalistic to eat them!

According to an article dated May 29, 2008 in the LA Times, there is a company that is planning to use algae to start producing a crude oil that can be used to make gasoline and diesel fuel.  The production of the fuel uses carbon dioxide, which would help to clean up our greenhouse gases problem.  It can be refined in existing refineries and be used by the existing cars and trucks on the road.  It plans to reach full commercial scale in five years.  The company that is planning to do this is called Sapphire Energy.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful, getting oil from algae instead of fossil fuels!

Yesterday I took my niece, Tabitha, to the playground at our local park. I love to have Tabitha visit, but she sometimes gets a little bit excited and has occasionally broken things in my house, so I choose to take her to the playground instead for our visits.

As I watched her play on the slide, climbing up the 10 or so stairs to slide down again some 40 or 50 times and then move on to the swings for a bit and then to the merry-go-round, I noticed that the mulch they had on the ground was made of rubber.  I had never seen this before and found it very interesting and different.

After our playground romp, we went to the local ice cream shop for a sundae.  She decided that she wanted a banana split instead of a sundae. She ordered a hot fudge sundae and I  had my peanut butter sundae (my personal favorite).  Of course, being only 7 years old, Tabitha got fudge all over her clothes and face.  Her mother will have an absolute fit!!!  But, that is what being a kid is all about, isn’t it?  You should be able to get messy when you eat ice cream. 

After Tabitha’s visit, dropped her off at her house (after a little clean up in the bathroom at the ice cream shop) and went home and did a little research.  I found out that there is a company called Rubberecycle Playsafer that recycles old used tires and sells this rubber mulch for use on playgrounds and in horse arenas.  It makes a softer place to land if a horse or child falls, it is good for the environment and gives a person or a horse more sure footing.  I think it is a wonderful idea for recycling of tires and lasts much longer than traditional mulch.

A friend told me I could save t of money on printer ink if I bougt refilled cartridges from a store called Cartridge World. So I drove all the way across town to check out the store and heir prices.

The cost savings was supposed to be about half over the HP Brand name cartridges, but that’s not true – it’s more like 15%. But I went ahead and bought one to try it out – after all, I saved 15% and had already driving all the way over there.

Print quality was supposed to be the same as OEM, but that’s not true from what I saw when I printed out several recipes and couple of photos to mail to my mom. The recipes are just for me to have handy, so print quality was not a big deal. But the ink was noticeably lighter, especially the black type, than the other recipes I have in my binder.

But if you are pinching pennies and can’t get to a COSTCO for their refill service, which is cheaper than the Cartridge World price, it might be worth it to you to try Cartridge World. You can save a little money if you don’t mind a lower print quality, plus recycling the used cartridges is the green thing to do.