SEE Expo

As promised I'll update you all a little on how things went at the SEE Expo out near Asheville this past weekend. We have had a few days to digest everything we saw and while it was a small show, there was plenty there to see. Most of what was there was more to do with energy efficiency and alternate energy sources (as expected) but there were plenty of good leads on products that would fit with Green Home Headquarters' vision. There was one true star there in my opinion, and that was the good people at Earthpaint (www.earthpaint.net). The products looked great, all raw materials were sourced within 800 miles, they are currently using wind energy offsets and they are a local (Asheville based) company. I hope to get some samples soon so I can try some things out and I will be sure to pass along anything that I observe. They will be coming to Raleigh in September for the southern ideal home show and I can't wait to go and see them again. If you have a chance please give their webpage a look and if you have any needs for paint in the next few months (at least until Green Home HQ opens!) I hope you'll at least give them a thought before you go and get the nasty toxic stuff at the local homecenter.

Back From Vacation

Sorry for the long gap in posts, but Anna and I were of to the mountains for the last week on vacation. I'll let you see just a small sample of some of the beautiful scenery. It was energizing, fun and tiring at the same time. We really managed to fit a lot into the week. There were two separate hikes to waterfalls, one very challenging hike to the top of Calloway's Peak at Grandfather Mountain, a trip to blowing rock, an 8 hour drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway (100 miles with stops at several overlooks, the town of Spruce Pine, Crabtree falls, an apple orchard at Alta Pass and a trip to the top of Mt. Mitchell), A visit to the SEEExpo for some time spent with the business (details on that to come) and bike riding at the Biltmore Estate. Like I said, a LOT of fun. I think we are all set to go to rededicate ourselves to getting the store moving forward and hopefully find time for some more trips like this in the future.

Thin Solar Cells

Found this article a while ago about thin film solar cells. Am I the only one that wants to coat everything I own in this stuff?? There is one application in particular that I think will catch on n a big way. Wrap your roof shingles in it and create an entire roof of solar cells. I've seen this talked about over and over again, but we finally might almost be there with it.

More Links

Just found some more stuff. This one is about the incredible size of the phone bills that AT&T is sending out for the IPhones. Literally one of the biggest wastes of paper I have heard of in a while. Just sad... In the process of reading that though, I found some of the linked articles on how Apple is working on cleaning up their environmental image(one and two). We were planning on buying Apple's for our business anyway for a myriad of other reasons, but the new updates they are working on just make it that much better. I had heard about what they were trying to do, but the new Imacs are definitely a nice step in the right direction.

Anyway, if you are into the electronics and that sort of thing, I found a great site as well (www.ecogeek.org) for the environmentally conscious techno geeks among us. It is right up my alley, so I thought I would pass it along.

Today's Links

Anna passed these along to me the other day, some good info in there.

This one is about the junk is household cleaning chemicals, no news there, but good to see that it is on something as visible as AOL.

This one talks a little about some of the green cleaning product companies and how they are making things happen without harmful chemicals. Probably the most important bit in there is just how, as we all find out, there are many levels to green and some of these companies really don't live up to what my expectations for that would be. Is it really a green product when they still have the same chemicals in smaller amounts?

And finally, This article is pretty cool. It describes the top ten, or should I say, THEIR top ten new environmental technologies. There are some pretty neat things in there, most of them are really, to me at least, not what I would call advances. Like #8, you mean planting things can actually make the planet cleaner and nicer?? What a discovery. and #9 is. quite literally, just sweeping the bad stuff under the rug. I wonder why the energy companies like that idea so much? Could be that they wouldn't have to change anything and just keep collecting truckloads of cash. And #3 with Hydrogen energy cells. That one isn't new, but it is about 30 years away, just another one that the oil and energy companies LOVE to try and slip in as a "solution." Anyway, I make this article sound horrible don't I? It isn't all bad. I love the ideas they have about harnessing the power of the ocean. If we are able to convert just 1% of that energy to electricity, we would have enough to power everything human made on the planet and have plenty to spare. That is DEFINITELY an area to pursue and would probably be #1 on my list. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Raven Rock

I thought it would be fun for our first ever post to our blog to just talk a little bit about our recent trip to Raven Rock State Park. It is one of those pretty small little parks that litter the landscape in North Carolina. This one is right along the Cape Fear river near Lillington, only a matter of about 30 or so miles down south on 55 and 401 from Cary. It was most definitely worth the trip. Plenty of trails, lots of nature. The park gets its name from the huge rock feature along the banks of the river, which is quite impressive. You really have to see it to appreciate the scale of it. There are quite a few steps to climb down though to get to that part. My legs are still sore from it, but definitely more than worth it. Even with it being well over 90, it was still bearable because of all the shade. It was definitely evident that the drought was being felt there as the river was clearly low and the creeks and streams were almost totally dry. It was sad because there were several places where the creek would have been BEAUTIFUL with water flowing. Maybe we will make it back sometime after a nice rain.