TransitTales

Seattle, MN

Enough with the rain already.

My neighbors' yard looks like a hay field ready for mowing

Females and Fast Cars

I'm neither an 18-34 year old woman, nor a fan of cars driving around really fast in a circle, so I just don't get this. The article attributes it to savvy NASCAR marketing of hunkish drivers.

But that marketing happens in a receptive context. Ours will be a car culture until the last drop of dinosaur goo is internally combusted.

You Can Use Wind Power

Or, Heading Off the Coal-Nuke Grid

Last night I signed up for Xcel Energy's
Windsource program

It's a program whereby an energy customer (me or you) buys blocks of wind-generated electricity. You can buy as little as 100 kilowatt hrs. per month (at a cost of $2), or 200 kilowatt hrs. per month for $4, and so on. Xcel says the averge residential customer usage is 700 kilowatt hrs.

I signed up for 300 kilowatt hrs at $6 per month--meaning that from now on, about half of our home's elctricity will come from wind generation. I can increase the amount later. It's annoying that the energy market is such that I have to pay extra for a renewable source, and that I had to hunt around to find out about this after hearing about it by chance. But it's one way we can demonstrate demand for clean energy while using clean energy ourselves.

Windsource is endorsed by the Sierra Club (kiss of death for conservatives, no doubt), which emphasizes that the program is a good start, but shouldn't let Xcel off the hook. We need more renewable sources and options.

Looking North

Time for another Midwest hazecam view from Grand Portage on Superior's North Shore, out in the direction of Isle Royale.

Just because, for me, Lake Superior is the center of the universe.

The First Iced Coffee of the Season

A sure sign that spring, and the return to self-propelled commuting, is at hand.

In a week or two.

Where The Skies Are Not Hazy All Day

Also courtesy of the Midwest hazecam here's a view of downtown St. Paul on a crystal clear blue afternoon yesterday:

Also courtesy of the Midwest hazecam celow is a view at the same time from Grand Portage on Superior's North Shore, out toward that jewel in the big lake, Isle Royale:

This camera is at the "Grand Portage Indian Reservation/Isle Royale National Park":

"The Anishinaabe Grand Portage Reservation is located in Cook County in the extreme northeast corner of Minnesota, approximately 150 miles from Duluth. The camera looks to the east out towards Isle Royale National Park, which is located in Lake Superior. Isle Royale National Park, which was established in 1940, is a federal Class I area and, as such, receives special protection from air pollution. The park encompasses a total area of more than 850 square miles and extends 4.5 miles outward from the island (which is 45 miles long and 9 miles wide at its widest point) into Lake Superior. Roadless Isle Royale is accessible only by boat or float plane. This area generally has lower levels of air pollution than urban areas in the Midwest."

Take That, Ownership Society.

As i was posting the previous entry, I heard our neighbor's snowblower go past. I had been just about to go out and shovel. Instead I opened the front door and waved a "thank you."

Such shared small engines make sense, especially in our neighborhood, with small lots and no real driveways to speak of. Of course, newer developments are built to isolate people form each other, and the long driveways to the three-car garages practically require a snowplow.

Still, why do we feel that we each have to own our own machines, rather than share? Convenience, and marketing primarily. That and an ideology of individual consumerism as identity and worth.

So here's to my neighbor, who just struck a blow against the Ownership Society.

To Snow or Not To Snow

The skiier in me wishes for more snow in what has beome a depressingly familiar snow-deprived Minnesota winter.

But I must confess, there's a part of me that takes some comfort in the fact that certain loud, polluting monstrosities

are doubtless seeing less action. Of course, the ATV's and SUV's can always provide a subsititute winter speed/power/macho/polluting/littering fix.

So here's to a wish that if is going to be cold here, it might as well snow at least once more this winter.