Repell-em Blog

I hadn’t used my suitcase since last May.  When I brought it upstairs from its storage place in the garage, I had to kill a few spiders that had taken up residence in there before I could use it.

When I put it back on the garage shelf after returning home, I did some serious thinking.  You have to understand that I HATE BUGS!!  ALL BUGS.  Yes, I know spiders aren’t bugs, but they’re close enough.

Then I thought, DOH.  Repell-em!!!

So before I stored my suitcase away, last May, I put a Repell-em trash bag in it.

I’m going to San Francisco tomorrow, to the BlogHer conference.  I needed my suitcase again.  I wondered what I’d find when I opened it.

It was actually no surprise that not a single insect of any kind was in that suitcase.  In fact, the inside of my suitcase has never smelled so good!

Mmmm.  Some people put a sachet in their luggage.  From now on, I’m just going to put a Repell-em trash bag in mine.  The good smell lasts longer, and it repels bugs.  Whatta deal!

I think that, as of right at this moment, I have given some Repell-em trash bags to everyone I know who loves to go camping.  I sent tent mats to my brother and my two nephews, because they like to sleep right on the ground when they camp, and I mailed a Repell-em tablecloth to my sister-in-law, because she lives almost exclusively out on her deck once the weather begins to get warm.

One of my friends had a really good idea about using Repell-em bags in a campground.  He said that when you’re stuck in a campsite close to the public campground bathrooms, the possibility of animal and insect attacks is increased, because animals and insects just naturally gravitate to any area that contains smelly, edible substances.

He recommends substituting Repell-em trash bags for the cheap trash bags that parks tend to use.  This makes the entire park safer and better -smelling not only for your own family’s use but also for the benefit of everybody in the vicinity of the Repell-em bags.

If your local parks occasionally request donations, why not donate some packages of Repell-em trash bags?

Speaking for myself - and my enthusiastic sister-in-law - I would NEVER use any other kind of outdoor tablecloth now that I have seen first-hand what my Repell-em tablecloth can do for me.  Spread that Repell-em cloth on your picnic table and you will be completely rid of flies, ants, bees, raccoons, possums, stray dogs, and pretty much anything that has ever annoyed you while you were trying to eat outdoors.

Repell-em products work no matter what kind of weather you’re having, too.  Even in the hottest, most humid climates, Repell-em products keep on working.  And as long as Repell-em keeps on working, you won’t have to worry about the bugs or the animals bothering your campsite or your family.

My mother belongs to a missionary society, and these ladies regularly pack boxes full of necessities and maybe a few luxuries to mail to the members of their church who are currently living overseas, most of them in very hot countries and with very few amenities to make things pleasant.

Mom was telling me about a letter they’d received from one of their missionaries, and in this letter, a lady was describing their never-ending battle with scavenging animals and insects. She told the church ladies that she and her family were always covered with bug bites, always itching, always shaking the sheets to be rid of the spiders and heaven-knows-what else. There is always a bug in everybody’s shoe, always an animal sniffing around the trash, and it was to the point that it was dangerous to let the children play outside. She described the stray dogs and coyotes, the raccoons and other wild and semi-wild and even fairly tame animals who made hash and hay of any trash or garbage. This lady lamented that even though churches sent really nice, expensive trash bags all the time, none of them could stand up to the insects and hungry animals of this area of the planet.

So, I gave Mom one of my boxes of Repell-em trash bags to pack in the missionary box, and I asked the church ladies to ask the missionaries if they would mind reporting back to me on whether or not the Repell-em product did the trick and kept the bugs and stray animals away from the bagged garbage.

When I hear, I’ll let you all know!

One more thank-you to everyone who entered the Repell-em contest; those of you who responded in time with your mailing information should be getting your sample very soon.

There will be another Repell-em contest in the spring, so keep watching this blog for details!

And hey, if you plan on sending a box of whatever to missionaries, friends, etc. who are living in a hot, insect-y country, you might consider putting some Repell-em products in there. I’m betting that Repell-em magic will make a world of difference to someone who is living a world away, trying to make the world a better place.

I love Christmas Trees. As a kid we would drive an hour out into the middle of the country, trudge deep into the woods until we found the evergreen with the perfect shape, and bring home a beauty for all to see. As an adult my wife and I got married during December and the place was covered with trees. We always put up two. A fancy one in the front over looking the street and the tacky one in the living room. Of course the tacky one is my favorite since it’s filled to the brim with literally 150 ornaments featuring everyone from Snoopy to Spiderman. Oh and gone are the days of chopping our own, we went fake a looong time ago. The thought of it taking all those years an evergreen to reach the size of a Christmas tree only to be cut down and tossed to the side of the road after a few weeks just doesn’t seem right.

This year we aren’t  the only ones worrying about the environmental impact of Christmas, Rockefeller Center is getting in on the act as well. The 84-foot tall Norway spruce which will take it’s place in a line long of trees going back to 1931 will be covered with 30,000 energy-efficient LEDs (light emitting diodes). That’s five miles of Christmas lights. And to make things even greener the lights will receive the majority of their power from solar cells located on a nearby building. "Now they (New Yorkers) will see an example of green leadership which may inspire them to make greener choices in their own lives," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg last week.

This year’s tree lighting will kick off on November 28th with the usual giant sized ceremony. After which the tree will be lit daily form 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. until the first week of January. Oh and then instead of being tossed aside like the trees in my day, the Rockefeller tree will be used by Habitat For Humanity to build homes for those in need.

Did you notice how the price of gas jumped up between Wednesday and Thursday of last week? Wednesday night I took a glimpse as I drove past my local station and was excited to see the sign reading $2.48 a gallon. Like a gazillion others across the country I was planning a trip over Labor Day weekend and I was going to need to fill up a couple of times. Never the less instead of stopping right then and there to fill up I just kept on moving promising myself I’d stop Friday night on my way out of town…the price Friday night? $2.58. It jumped .10 in less than 48 hours!!! Then by Labor Day it did it again with gas going to $2.69. How could this happen? Nothing major happened in those two days to increase the price of gas.

I keep up with the headlines. No major earthquake hit South America. Sure there’s a hurricane or two swirling around out there, but no where near an oil field. I did a scan of the news and not once did I find where a terrorist had threated to kill some important dignitary…and how come that affects the price of gas? I know our system is set up to where things like price gouging and taking advantage of something such as one of the busiest traveling holidays of the year by rising the price of gas shouldn’t happen right? I mean .10 in two days may not seem like much, but of all times to edge back up how come it just happens to be when half the country is on the road going to visit the other half? I can’t prove this but you have to know the gas station owner’s handbook is like two pages long with the phrase “Always raise prices before a holiday” printed in giant bold letters on one page and “We only lower prices in the middle of the week when people only drive to work and back” on the other. You just wait and watch the price of gas during the weeks leading to Halloween. They will start to dip a penny or two maybe a nickel, bump up a couple of cents just so we believe it’s part of the economy, it may even fall down as low as $2.25, and then just as million of parents get ready to load up the minivans with candy crazed rugrats all dressed like Captain Jack Sparrow… WHAMO!!! the price of gas will shoot up to $2.98. No reason will be given, but we all know why…everybody loves a good holiday even Big Oil.

Say what you want about what exactly makes up a disaster, but in my book anytime radioactive material is leaked into the ocean it qualifies. I understand the uses for nuclear power and how it has the ability to produce more energy than regular plants ever dreamed of creating, but like Spidey said “With power comes great responsibility”. Earlier this week Japan took a direct hit from a 6.5 earthquake that caused more than a few buildings to crumble and roads to buckle. The quake waged some major havoc on Tokyo’s nuclear planet. At first the plant initially reported that only 100 barrels containing low-level radioactive waste were tossed about, but now days after the event that number has increased to 400!! To make matter worse the lids of 40 of them came off and 315 have leaked sending the toxic waste into the Pacific!.

“We made a mistake in calculating the amount that leaked into the ocean. We apologize and make correction”, said a spokesman for Tokyo Electric adding that the amount spilled was still “one-billionth of Japan’s legal limit” First off all any radioactive waste dumped into the ocean should be too much and the fact that there even is a legal limit it is too ridiculous to comprehend. Second this whole thing smells of a cover-up and we all know it. How do I know this? As per a report from Yahoo News

 “Meanwhile, TEPCO spokesman Hiroshi Itagaki said that information accumulated by studying aftershocks shows that a fault line stretches under the ocean near the coast, which is not far from the plant. He declined to say how close to the plant the fault might come. Osamu Kamigaichi, an official at Japan’s Meteorological Agency, which monitors earthquakes, said it was possible the fault line stretched to underneath the plant grounds. Though reports are that no radiation has made it’s way outside of the plant, one can only imagine what is really going on. This recent disaster is the thing of nightmares that calls to mind scenes from Chernobyl and other disasters that will take us ions to recover from.”

We can build a giant plant to harness nuclear power, but we don’t have any way of knowing that a fault runs under the ground where we want to put it! Whatever!! The fact is this whole mess reeks of cost cutting and corporate penny pinching. Now we all must suffer the consequences.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I recently read this article on China’s attempts to control the weather. As if coming straight out of wild west tales of Indians being able to conjure up rain clouds by dancing wildly around a campfire, it is being reported that China is pumping an estimated $90 million dollars into producing rain for it’s farmers. How do they do it? By using rockets filled with silver iodide being fired by “32,000 people, 7,100 anti-aircraft guns, 4,991 special rocket launchers and 30-odd aircraft across the country.”  With annual rainfall less than that of most other countries, China is training farmers to look for potential rain clouds and fire the rockets for a wage of $12k a year. Plus this form of climate control is a great asset when it comes to fighting wildfires and sandstorms.

So does it work? Before I give the numbers how bout this little bit of info, the China is promising that by the time the summer Olympics are held there in 2008 they will be able to ensure clear skies for the duration of the event. Experiments are being conducted that would allow farmers armed with the chemical rockets to be stationed miles away from the Olympic events and ”explode” any potential rain making clouds, causing them to empty their water before they can interfere with the games. At an amazing success rate of 20%, climate controlling is said to have been successful during the 1993 East Asian Games and again in 1999 for Word Horti Expo.

At this point it’s unclear if the chemicals used are literally raining pollution down on the people of China, but with each new test comes more research and new ways to ensure a clean rain. With Israel and Russia also conducting weather experiments, one can’t help but wonder if the United States should take steps in the direction in an attempt to end the drought being experienced by parts of the country.

I live in North Alabama and though it’s not Alaska, it does get down in the teens a handful of nights every year. Occasionally we will get some snow, but most of it splits and heads either North to Tennessee or South towards Birmingham. There’s a saying around town that goes “If you don’t like the weather around here, wait ten minutes and it will change.” I’ve seen snow in May, spent Christmas with temps in the 80’s, and lived through massive ice storms that took years to recover from. Generally though our winters stay in the lower 50’s during the day and only dip down to the upper 30’s at night. Nothing shocking. Just cold temps and a nice frost every few weeks.

Still though we have a winter and I can’t imagine living someplace that doesn’t. Let me rephrase that, I can’t imagine having one and then having it simply disappear over a matter of years. Apparently  that is exactly what is happening to the climate in Hong Kong. According to scientists between 1961-1990 Hong Kong winters contained an average of 21 cold days every year. Fast forward merely 10 years and that number was cut by half. Jump another 50 years and winter goes away completely. Don’t just take my word for it, the director of the Hong Kong observatory Lam Chiu-ying says “According to our projections, toward the end of this century … there will be less than one cold day each winter, so winter practically will have disappeared”

Why the drastic change in temperatures? Well there’s that whole global warming thing, but the main reason may be due to Hong Kong’s enormous population. With 7 million people squeezed together in an area roughly 426 square miles, Hong Kong gives new meaning to concrete jungle. When you have that many people constantly building and destroying vegetation, there’s not much chance for the land to cool itself down during the night. Without the change in season, there is some concern as to what changes are exactly in store for Hong Kong. Essentially the climate will change from a semi-tropical to a full-tropical region.

Remember the days when gas was under a dollar a gallon, half your paycheck didn’t go to buying milk, and water came out of the tap instead of plastic bottles? Remember that Christmas morning you woke up to find Santa had been listening all year and finally you had that new bike you’d been begging for? I must have worn out two or three growing up. There would be days where I circled the entire town on that bike. Eventually though I did what everyone else does when the time comes…I trade those two tire in for four and never looked back.

Fast forward 17 years and I’m surprised that a number of people my age are going back to those old bikes in an effort to cut down on gas cost and maybe even help the spread of Global Warming. Tired of paying $40-$50 every time they visit the pump, commuters all across the country are looking for alternate ways to cut back on oil and gas consumption. Websites are popping up all over the place featuring ideas, tips, and bike trips for those that like to ride in groups.

The ReCYCLEry in a non-profit organization out of Carrborro, NC. that promotes cycling as an alternate source of transportation, plus goes as far as giving tips on how to repair bikes.

The Durham Bike Co-op holds events for bikers every weekend around Durham, NC.

ProBicycle is using the power of the Internet to promote bike safety. The also runs a tally of the number of bicycles being  produced every second.

Ken Kifer’s Bike Pages attempts to encourage others to go back to two-wheel transportation by highlighting the environmental, physical, and mental effects of riding.

Bike Commute Tips is a blog written by Paul Dorn out of California. Paul is a huge bike enthusiast and writes a few times a week about the surge of people putting down their car keys and picking up their handle bars as a way to get around town.

Bikeleague.org is a bicycling advocacy site, which has a membership of over 300,000!! Originally founded as the League of American Wheelmen in the late 1800’s, the site gives the latest news on cycling related issues being discussed by the government, areas around the country that are bike friendly, and encourages people to push for safer transportation laws.

Will this new wave of bicycling activism eventually lead to death of gas powered transportation? Of course not, but what many hope it will lead to is a world filled with fewer health problems, a lower dependence on oil, and a decrease in Global Warming. Now excuse me while I go take a spin around the block.

Imagine waking up in your bedroom surrounded by beautiful windows and ornate sky lights. You stumble to the bathroom where the commode is environmentally friendly, uses little water, and is chemical free. The shower kicks on with the push of a button and the water, like all the water in the home is heated/cooled using geothermal power. After a quick trip to the closet to grab some duds, you make your way to the kitchen for home grown oranges that come straight from the backyard. Finally you collect your things and trudge off to work….which happens to be located in the living room. You take a deep breath of the clean air all around you, give a quick peek out the window at the people walking from place to place (very rarely does a car ever drive by), and just before you log on to the free community internet service you thank your lucky stars for Sky, Florida.

What is exactly is Sky, Florida? Though still in the beginning planning stages, it very well could be the first “green” city in the country. Covering almost 575 acres in southern Florida, the town is estimating that 600 families will someday soon be living lives with a virtual zero carbon footprint. Your carbon footprint is basically the impact your life has on the surrounding environment. The type of car you drive, how much gas you use, the food you eat, the size of your home, your electricity usage, etc….are all factors that determine what percentage of the environment you are effecting.

The town plans to use geothermal ducts under the ground all running out from a central location to heat/cool each home. A community garden estimated to be about 250 acres in size will reduce the food that will be needed to truck in . All appliances and electronics would be run by solar power. This won’t be a convent, commune, or compound though ,cars will be aloud since obviously not everyone will have the luxury of working from home or being home schooled.

At this point with several years ahead before Sky becomes a reality, not only is the idea growing in support from potential homeowners but also members of nearby Clarksville city council. While critics complain that trying to save the local environment by striping it and building a housing development makes zero sense, Sky’s designers feel that the effort it worth it since population increases demand new places to live.