We’ve been hearing a lot about genetically modified produce these days. “GM” produce is the end result of bio-technology tinkering with the natural world. Scientists discover traits and genes that do certain things like protect a plant from herbicides or a particular insect or predator that might devastate the crop. They then take these traits and genes and in the lab, breed them into whatever plant they’re trying to genetically modify. According to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in 2006, a total of 252 million acres of transgenic crops were planted in 22 countries by 10.3 million farmers. They also suggest that bananas producing human vaccines against infectious diseases like hepatitis B, fish that mature more quickly, cows that are resistant to mad cow disease, fruit and nut trees that yield years earlier, and plants that produce new plastics with unique properties are currently on the horizon as scientists are tinkering with them.

Now I don’t know about you but the idea of genetically modifying natural plants and animals, especially ones we’re going to eat is pretty bothersome for me. I think it’s as bothersome as cloning. It could reduce bio-diversity or the natural distinctions between different varieties of a plant and animal. On top of that, the foods have only been in our markets since the 1990’s so we don’t know if there are any long-term health risks from eating “GM” food. Avoiding them in the produce department is as simple as looking at the little static stickers stuck to every piece of produce these days.

A four digit number on the produce static sticker means it’s conventionally grown. A five digit number beginning with “9″ means it’s organically grown. A five digit number beginning with “8″ means it’s genetically modified produce. I will now be paying close attention to those little stickers the next time we’re shopping!

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Would you like to take a few simple steps to make sure your Super Bowl party is a little friendlier on our environment? Well you can and it’s pretty darn simple just by choosing a few key products that help us all tread a little lighter on our planet. I’m not talking a smörgåsbord of vegan food with a bicycle powered television pumping out the highlights of the game either!

Every Super Bowl party will inevitably have beer. So why not go the sustainable route and pick some beer that’s not only tasty but eco-friendly. New Belgium brewing company, brewers of Fat Tire and a variety of other lip-smacking good beers take pride in helping out our environment. The all employee owned company runs its brewery off of wind power and even takes extra steps like turning the steam generated in the brewing process into even more electricity. I’ve also heard they compost their leftover grains and hops. Frog’s Leap Wine is a great choice if you’d like to sport a little vino in your red plastic cup. The winery uses organic grapes and water-saving farming methods. They’re also 100% solar powered.

But what about chips you say? Pick up some bags of Kettle brand chips. The Salem, Oregon snack food company has restored damaged wetlands at their corporate headquarters where blue herons have now returned en masse. They also operate one of the largest commercial solar power arrays in the Pacific Northwest, saving 65 tons of CO2 every year and they buy wind power for the rest of their electrical needs. Agricultural waste left over in the potato chip process is turned into animal feed or compost and their used cooking oil is turned into bio-diesel, powering a fleet of company cars. That’s pretty cool!

Maybe you need some plain yogurt to make dips. Stonyfield Farms, a New Hampshire based company, supports many organic farms. They have a tree planting program to offset their CO2 emissions and they give 10% of their profit away to environmental causes every year. That amounts to about $3 Million dollars in donations every year.

Want dessert? Try some pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Though they’ve been bought out by Unilever, the company is still doing good. They donate about $1 Million annually and donate to local community projects. The company started an alliance for dairy farmers. It’s a way to keep them in business while improving their environmental practices.

If you need some pre or post game enery, try a Clif Bar. The company’s products are certified organic and are packaged in recycled goods. They moved a bakery near a distribution center to reduce greenhouse gasses, their employees get paid for volunteering in the community and they can get money toward the purchase of a hybrid or bio-diesel vehicle.

Last but not least, when it comes time to cleanup, you can use environmentally friendly cleaners made by Seventh Generation. I’ve talked about the company before. You can read their benefits on the environment and look into other green cleaners by checking out this blog post. Simple steps and easy products to make your gathering greener.

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Our night turned interesting rather quickly!  I ran home from work to have dinner with Talina like I do most weeknights.  We had just sat down to a meal of chicken and asparagus when she started smelling something weird, like a burning smell.  Like most guys, the smell didn’t hit me for a few more minutes after my better half already noticed it.  Concerned about the smell, I ventured into the kitchen to see what was going on, expecting that maybe a small bit of food was burning in the oven or the burner on the stove was left on.  I found neither.  In fact the stove and oven had been turned off for more than an hour but yet there was a thin, blue smoke pouring out of the vents on back of the unit.

The fumes were burning my eyes and lungs but I figured simply unplugging the cord that provides electricity to the igniters on the gas stove would solve the problem and get rid of the smoke.   A few minutes later, smoke was still wafting from the back of the stove and filling up the house.  At this point I decided it was out of my hands and called 911.  They told us to evacuate the house until the fire department arrived.  Luckily we didn’t have to stand in the snow and cold for very long because the firehouse is right around the corner from our house!

The firemen were perplexed but decided to shut off the gas and haul the still billowing stove out into the snow in our backyard.  They used their nifty infrared heat device to figure out what was burning inside and began methodically taking the stove apart to work their way into the internal components.  Inside, the firemen found that one of the igniter wires for the burner had arched with another piece of metal or wire and started the insulation burning.  A few handfuls of snow and a couple cups of water later, they deemed the fire officially out.  Whew!  We dodged the big bullet on that one.  There was no damage to the house but it wreaks of electrical fire now and we’re without a stove.  Now we’ll have to get in touch with the property management company to get us a new one.  What fun!

Talina posted some pictures of the mayhem on her blog.  Check it out!

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It looks like we’ve got another massive round of winter weather heading our direction here in the mountains of Arizona.  The sun has been out the last two weeks but temperatures have been super cold and we still have a ton of snow left on the ground from the last storm!  It’s good though.  Our parched streams, rivers and lakes all need water and it will help to delay wildfire season a bit this year.  I knew it was going to be a good day…even a good week though when I opened the blinds in the bedroom to see the ice crystals forming feathery art on the window.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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You’d have to be like an ostrich with its head stuck in the sand if you haven’t heard one bit about the current state of our economy. Houses are foreclosing at record rates, new homes aren’t selling and there’s already an 8 month glut of unsold homes sitting on the market. Add to that the staggering amount of debt a lot of Americans are carrying around and the situation begins to take on some epic proportions.

I just finished watching an interesting documentary called “Maxxed Out“. While I was unsure about it during the first ten minutes, it actually turned into a pretty interesting piece looking at the real impacts of our love for credit. The impacts are extremely sad and disheartening and your left feeling like everyone is just preying on people, waiting to make a quick buck off of them. How did we ever get to that point where people became so engrossed with greed that they will absolutely crush the people underneath them to better themselves? Some would say it’s simply survival of the fittest. Luckily, I’ve never been too wrapped up in the rat race. I was for a time but quickly had a thought about two years ago that it just really wasn’t worth it. I’ve now paid off debts and am in the process of cleaning up my credit. We want to be able to bite while the housing market is down over the next year and get us into a home, so we can finally stop throwing money down the drain in rent every month.

Our government now wants to toss several hundred dollars at each of us so we can go out and “spur the economy”. While I’m honestly not going to sneeze at an $800 check headed my way from the federal government, I’m also not going to go spend it willy nilly like our President and representatives would like me too. Do we really need that new plasma screen TV? No! What you need is to spend more time with your family, get out and enjoy the fresh air or do something good for yourself and our environment. I’m hoping that most Americans will use the money to pay off a debt or throw into their savings account. I know how difficult it is to achieve that financial goal of 3 months worth of pay sitting in your savings account in case of emergency. This just makes it even easier to get there. If you can save 10% of your paycheck, in just a year you will be close to having one month’s worth of pay saved up. That’s not too hard, especially when you add in the “economic incentive” check that will show up in your mailbox.

I know people who just aren’t being smart right now, who still think they’re going to make a mint off someone else. That’s just not going to happen and people really need to buckle down, analyze their spending and be smart about what their paying for. The feds just cut another key interest rate by 0.75% so now would be the time to look at refinancing major purchases like homes and cars. Haggle with your credit card companies to see if you can get a lower APR and save yourself some money on all those interest payments. There’s a lot of websites out there that can help you shop for better deals in the banking system like Finance Genius. If you shop around, you could potentially save yourself hundreds if not thousands of dollars in finance charges and interest. Do something good for yourself in 2008 and become financially fit.

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Did you make a New Year’s resolution to take a college class or learn something new this year? How about taking more online classes if you’re already a student, saving you the money spent on gas to get to campus? Well, another fun blurb in this week’s edition of U.S. News & World Report is about the free, online classes offered by major universities like MIT, Yale and the University of Tokyo. The caveat of course is that you don’t get credit for taking the classes but I think it’s a pretty cool way to expand your mind and learn something new from the comfort of your home. I think it’s a pretty cool idea, although I wish you could get the credit for it!

Nonetheless, MIT offers the most free classes online with dozens of complete courses available. Just click onto the MIT Open Courseware site, pick some classes and start learning! They also launched a new sub-site aimed at high schoolers this year. It offers fun, “how-to” courses like building stereo speakers and guitars and even some AP courses for science and math students.

Yale offers full video versions of it’s most popular courses in astronomy, poetry, philosophy and psychology. They say they have plans to add up to 30 more classes in the near future. Check out their online courses by going to Open Yale.

There’s also an Open Coursework Consortium that can link you to dozens of free courses from Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins and several schools overseas.

If that’s not enough and you’re still yearning for more education, you can head to iTunes University. There you can find free audio and video lectures from Berkeley, Duke, Standford and several other schools and download them to your portable device. Now get out and learn something new!

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It’s Not Easy Being Beautiful

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