Zino’s Recent Comments

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  Great advice!

  Vinegar forever!On Umbra on Method cleansers posted 1 year, 3 months ago 23 Responses

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  The nose knows...

  Just blow your nose on a (hopefully) clean handkerchief after a long, urban bike ride. See that grime in there with the formerly bits of you?

  A mask certainly can help keep the particulates down but it's hot in the summer and likely will steam your glasses as you huff-and-puff, so be careful.

  The one bit of bummer on this note is the "sudden death by REALLY REALLY LARGE particle" problem, otherwise known as a vehicle, bearing down on you blindly as the driver simultaneously dials phone, eats bagel and changes iTune settings.On Umbra on exerting yourself in traffic posted 1 year, 4 months ago 5 Responses

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  RE: Recycling

  This is yet another instance in which the manufacturers are the most perfectly-placed to step up and take responsibility for their own production decisions.

  They will know how old and in what condition each seat is. They also should be best able to recycle the seats that are ineligible for re-use. Perhaps a seat is young enough to be reused, but for how long? Will it expire halfway through the career of the second owner?

  It's another opportunity to push for cradle-to-cradle manufacturing practices. All manufacturers receive an invisible subsidy in that it's left to purchasers and localities to pay for recycling or disposal of their cast-off products. If they make it, they need to OWN the ancillary burdens of it through the product's entire life-cycle.

  Charge original buyers a deposit (to be returned) for bringing the spent seats back to any baby store for return to the manufacturer for recycling as part of the purchase price.

  Maybe the deposit is picked up by the locality for low-income folks, since they won't need to dig a pit to put it in.

  One other thought: Why don't automobile manufacturers have their own designs for child restraints purpose-made to fit their cars? One imagines they'd be good for the life of the car, as all the other seating and safety-related systems are. Not least, they'd be easier to install! Volvo made a feeble effort at this with their child booster seats on some models. Do they still even do that much?

  Too much design energy (and potential for failure) is due to these seat manufacturers having to make the harness attachment points vague enough to fit any car. This leads to greater likelihood of improper (unsafe) installations by new parents who've got a LOT on their minds already. I say, get the auto companies to tackle designing this value-added device into each car (as an option, at least, available to be bought and installed at the dealer).On Umbra on car seat recycling posted 1 year, 5 months ago 8 Responses

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  Elope!

  Ride your bikes to the Justice of the Peace and get hitched. Then go stay on an organic CSA farm for a week picking vegetables and milking organic cows. Bonus: this honeymoon will make whatever you do in your newly-married daily lives seem easy.

  After returning home, send hand-made-from-recycled-pulp paper notes to family and friends that you're already married and in lieu of gifts to please just send recycled, large-denomination green, uh, greenbacks, that is.

  Use what greenbacks you need to throw a huge post-vow potluck dance party for the nearest and dearest and give the rest to Grist.On Umbra on wedding registries again posted 1 year, 5 months ago 14 Responses

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  Best to attack at dusk

  Just enjoyed watching an invading army of these critters, having dropped from a tall wild cherry tree, marching across our patio as though to carry away our house just west of Charlottesville, Virginia.

  If you choose to remove the tents from your trees, be aware that the caterpillars are out crawling around during the day, feeding their gluttony. They return, as the evening cools, to the warmth of the commune. So the best result comes from timing their involuntary drop into soapy water for the hour or so just before darkness, when the nesting population is at home watching American Idol.

  Although they do love eating our fruit tree leaves, I don't believe these were Gypsy Moths, in our case. The caterpillars don't look like the ones I saw online.On Umbra on tent caterpillars posted 1 year, 6 months ago 14 Responses