Every store you go in, there are plastic bags. Grocery stores are horrible for plastic bag use. The cashiers seem to just put in a few items before reaching for a new bag. Sox and I bought some of the cloth re-usable bags, and I really like them. What fits in 3 cloth bags, used to end up in ten or more plastic.
When I first started reducing bag consumption, I started by requesting no bags for items I can easily carry by hand, or in my backpack. Each week at work I tend to head to the grocery store to get lunch supplies for the week. If I can walk through the store, and not need a basket, then I won’t get any plastic. Reasonable rule, but some of the cashiers are incredulous when I decline a bag, and have 6 items or more. I am only going upstairs so it isn’t a big deal.
This weekend, I needed to head to the store to get some lunch for Sox and I. When I drive to the grocery store, I quite often forget the bags in the car, but this time I was walking, and remembered to grab one before I left. I felt quite good about this since it signalled to me that the cloth bags are more of a first thought, and not an afterthought. The return trip home was nicer due to the cloth bag not cutting into my hand like the bunched up plastic bags do.
Now, any time I come home with more plastic bag, I feel bad . This is quite a mindset change, that I hope more people can make.
One thing that I like is that many shops give a discount when you bring in your own bag. Strangely, if you say no bag, you often don’t get any discount. The result is the same (no plastic bags leaving the store), but the environmental impact is technically a little better (some resources were used when making the cloth bags). I would love to see more stores offer incentives to people not using bags or bringing in their own. I just remembered that MEC donates money to a charity if you decline a bag.
Important day for sure. Head on over to the family blog to see more.
They posted some financial documents today.
Since inception through December 31, 2007, we incurred aggregate net losses of $50 million.
Ouch.
Tis that day again. To celebrate I got up extra early and came to work. Woohoo, nothing like sitting down to your desk at 7am. Blech. I have some things to do today though, and I’d like to duck out early. That all adds up to the early rising. Yoshi didn’t mind since he got breakfast earlier than normal.
Happy Birthday me!
Turned out someone in the US had tried to buy something from HomeDepot, and used my card number. They had the wrong expiry date though, and that flagged something at MasterCard. They canceled my card so I got to cut it up.
Nerve wracking at first, but not too much hassle after that. Just need to update the automatic payments.
Dogs are fast. It was a couple blocks from “home” when I caught up to it. No matter what I tried, the dog would not come to me, so I walked behind it a bit while it wandered towards the shop.
I had to get my truck, and when I saw the dog again, it had headed up Wilmot Rd. I parked, and went back to the shop in case the owner returned.
A lady crossed Oak Bay and looked a little frantic, and began asking if someone had let her dog loose. I told her where I last saw him, and she ran towards the rd and thanked me.
As I got to my truck I looked over and saw she was hugging the dog. She thanked me again, and I was very glad I took a few minutes from my day.
This is their newest truck, and they’ve only had it for 8 months. On the front of the truck there was a spray nozzle that is directed from within the cab using a joystick. Next to the joystick is a screen showing an infrared view of what the nozzle is seeing. We could clearly see the hot spots on a person standing in front of the camera.
This is the truck we rode in. It’s hard to get the right scale in this picture, but that step on the back bumper was about 3 feet off the ground, and the tires are about 4 feet tall, and extremely wide.
Inside the cab there was a lot of equipment, indicators, levers, switches and gauges.
That is one happy boy. He was a little stunned at first, and was quite overwhelmed, but I think he had a great time. I know I did.
I never would have thought that Victoria International Airport would have so much big equipment. I always think of it as a rinky-dink airport with nothing much going on. I was pretty impressed with their setup.
I took my camera in hopes that I would be able to get a couple shots off, and I was not disappointed.
We ran into another pointer there named Starbuck. Very handsome, and very similar to Yoshi.
Spring has definitely hit. Most of the park looks incredibly brown still, but once you look a little closer you can see the buds on the trees and on the blackberry vines.
Someone was apparently trying to feed the birds. Seems like an odd thing to do in an off leash dog park.
The sun was out, and there wasn’t much of a breeze. This made for a very enjoyable time for me. Yoshi behaved himself quite well too, which allowed me ample opportunity to take pictures.
