Foul Balls

Foul Balls, originally uploaded by Matthew Baldwin.

Man, I love this moments in time photos, the reactions of everyone are awesome.

A Texas Rangers fan, center, gets hit by a foul ball from Minnesota Twins' Craig Monroe as other fans react in the seventh inning of a baseball game Saturday, April 26, 2008, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Winco paid me for using my own bags!

Well, it wasnt much, it was 6 cents per bag but still, its an awesome gesture. Also another side note: I carried all my groceries with 2 bags. If i were using plastic I estimate using around 8 bags. Those canvas bags are pretty tough and durable.

Ouch. $4.119/gallon

Ouch. $4.119/gallon, originally uploaded by jonathanerichall.

Thats it, I'm buying a hybrid. Better yet, electric only with a solar panel roof!

Ed Begley Jr taught me something.

Did you know that if you dont remove the cap from a plastic bottle, they wont recycle it? I was watching one of my new favorite shows "Living with Ed" on HGTV and Jessica Jenson, a "green expert" said "They just chuck any bottles with lids on them."

I had no idea. Kind of sucks doesn't it. It makes sense if the caps are not recyclable and the millions (i hope) of bottles they receive each day.

Lesson of the day: Don't put the caps back on the bottles that you recycle, you'd be wasting your time.


Like I said above, "Living with Ed" is one of my new favorite shows. Ed Begley Jr. is an actor, and a huge "green lifestyle" activist. His show is about the day in the life of Ed and his wife and sometimes they visit other green homes in the area. What appeals to me so much about this show is that his wife is not a carbon copy of ed, she wants to live a hollywood lifestyle and is resistant to many of the things ed does, but ultimately gets convinced to care about our planet. Genius. Set your Tivos to "Living with Ed", give it a try. What I like most about Ed is hes not the stereotypical "im better than you because I'm green" pompous ass. To better show my point his website writes it beautifully:

He does the following four things that lure you in and we can all learn from:

1. He never preaches about what he is doing. If he is asked, he will tell you exactly what he thinks and never pass judgment on those who are outside of his box of thinking.
2. He doesn’t expect everyone to live like him. It’s this little thing he does where he has his personal goals and you just naturally aspire to be like him. He makes it look so easy and he doesn’t ask anything of you.
3. He walks the walk 100%.
4. He is way ahead of the rest of the world. Ok, maybe the rest of the world has been told to take care of the planet over and over again, but he actually listens and cares about future generations. We all are obsessed with being more technologically advanced, but maybe Ed has it right with his one simple phrase: Live Simply…So Others Can Simply Live. Is it technology that is ahead or living simpler?

He's awesome, I'd like to be like him.

The World is Just Awesome.

Ive probably watched this 100 times off of Cazi's blog, I figure I'd share it with all my readers. It's a feel good ad, to me it refocuses my view of the world to be all encompassing, not just the violence/crime/war we see on the news. After watching it, im all "The World IS Awesome!!!!"



Happy Earth day....Earth!

Earth Day! 8 Things I'm doing and you can too!

In my opinion, everyday should be earth day. Its funny, I used to give my friend Cazi a bunch of crap about his sudden reformation to being green. I believe over the past year I've slowly have learned that it only makes sense to go "green." I don't necessarily believe in Global Warming, or that the melting of the icecaps are going to destroy us all, but I believe in the reduction of the dependence on oil, and the using reusable items that decrease my addition to the landfills.

Think Globally, Act Locally. Over the past year I've started to act locally, even as local as my own home. And everything I've done is easy and inexpensive, and makes only common sense that everyone would want to do the same.

1. Stop using bottled water. Buying bottled water is ridiculous. A Costco package of 24 bottles comes shrink wrapped in plastic around cardboard, then the one serving bottles are plastic. I've seen people go through two or three bottles. Why? Because its "healthy" or "convenient?" A little over a year ago Cazi turned me on to Camelbak Water Bottles. These bottles are made out of lexan plastic, it's non-porous and doesn't change the way the water tastes like and doesn't allow for the spread of bacteria like refilling normal bottles can. I've found since owning one that I drink more water per day than I ever have. I refill my bottle 4-5 times a day at work, thats around 15 cups of water per day. So I urge you, don't buy bottled water, buy a reusable bottle and refill it from the tap or purchase an inline filter or Britta system.

2. Change out regular light bulbs with compact fluorescents. Ideally the LED bulbs are the best but I cant see paying $30+ dollars per bulb. I've replaced all my bulbs in my house with CFLs. Even the ones in the vanity stip in the bathrooms. They even look like the normal bulbs. Example of power savings: I have a vanity strip in the bathroom that has 8 bulbs. Previously there were 120watt bulbs making it 960watts/hour. Say I had those lights on for a half-hour a day for a year, thats 175,200 watts/year. With my 7 watt CFLs I would use 1,278 watts a year. ITS A NO BRAINER. why waste the electricity? If not for enviromental reasons, then for money reasons. In addition to the above savings on energy costs, the average life of a CFL is between 8 and 15 times that of incandescents.

3. Bring re-usable totes to the grocery store. Ive bought about 8 of these bags at a buck each. So what am I preventing with my $8 investment?

• The raw material of plastic bags is oil. Therefore, the more we use plastic bags, the more we waste oil - a non-renewable energy source.
• The petroleum-based plastic bags take decades to break down, so if they are not recycled they litter. It creates visual pollution: in the streets, on the beaches etc. Also, they can clog roadside drains, which could cause street flooding during heavy rainfall.
• Plastic bags can be recycled but it rarely happens: according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, only 1% of plastic bags were recycled in 2000, against twenty percent for paper bags.
• They endanger wildlife and particularly sea life such as sea turtles and dolphins which can die of entanglement, suffocation, and ingestion because they assume that these bags are jellyfish

Whats more that I like about these reusable shopping bags is that I tend to put more in them. They are super strong and the handles don't cut off blood flow when I try to carry all the bags in to the kitchen in one trip. I challenge you all to switch to these reusable bags.

4. Recycle. Since moving to my new house, I've started recycling. I bought two blue trashcans, one for home and one for work, and started saving bottles and cans. I've encouraged my cooworkers to not throw away their soda cans and to use by blue can. Ive had it only a few weeks and its overflowing. I've since gone paperless at work and a coworker and I setup a paper only trash can that when full will be recycled rather than just thrown in the trash. The trash company gives us 3 cans. Why not use em.

5. Use bamboo whenever possible. Bamboo grows so quickly, the root system isn't damaged by harvesting and it's so plentiful -- "For a lumber harvester, the yield can be 25 times what you'd get from regular ol' trees" -- growing it is really green. My cutlery organizer is made from bamboo. My sheets are also made from bamboo, they are crazy soft.

6. Look everywhere for a green alternative. I use Seventh Generation trashbags. I bought a doormat made from recycled tires from wal mart. I bought High Efficiency front loading washer and dryer that uses a third of the electricity and gas. I had a tankless water heater installed instead of a normal hot water heater also only using a third of gas of what a normal hot water heater uses. I participated in Earth Hour and turned off all my lights and electronics.

7. Read the "Green" blogs frequently. I read several blogs frequently learning about sustainability and ecofriendly things to do. Check out my frequently read blogs:

• Treehugger.com
• Re-nest.com
• Ecorazzi.com

8. Call your Representative or Senator and ask them to enact tough and fair climate change legislation.

Think about it, being green is just common sense.

Hi, I'm a mac.

Some said it would never happen, but never say never. I bought a mac.

I wanted to buy a small portable laptop that would make travel and school more convenient. My previous laptop was 17" and weighed in at 8 pounds. It sucked to carry that plus books across campus and the desks there are about 16" so needless to say i barely had enough room to open the laptop.

My macbook is 13" and weighs in at 5 pounds. It actually feels lighter than that, but I've been working out ;)

I love it. Really all I use the laptop for is to stream pandora on the unfiltered wifi at work, and to take notes in class. I've since made an effort to go "paperless" at work committing to using my laptop for meeting note taking.

Each time when someone learns I bought a macbook, they ask me "hey, did you get the macbook air? it's sooooo awesome!" bah. Sure the Air is awesome that its real thin, but really its nothing more than a paper weight(even though its light). No dvd drive, no external internet connection, bah. Hey my 13" is pretty small, it fits in one of those fancy inter-office mailing envelopes.

I'm happy with the macbook so far, If I need windows I have it at home or can remote into my machine at work, or I could load it right on the mac, but until I have to(which I think will never come) I'm leaving it the way it is.

So yes, I am now a mac owner, no looking back.

4/13/08 - First time I turned on the A/C

556A_020923, originally uploaded by jonathanerichall.

Today marks the first time in my new house that I've turned on the air. As many of you know It takes a lot for me to flip the on switch. It got to 98 outside and 85 inside, figure its time to pull the trigger.

Birthday Girl

Birthday Girl, originally uploaded by jonathanerichall.

On Saturday, Nicole's roomates, friends and brother(me) got together in Pacific Beach for a Pub Crawl Scavenger Hunt Birthday Celebration Spectacular. As part of the party we all had to wear something neon, I wore neon shoe laces. It was lots of fun, the idea was the losing team would buy the winning team pizza but 4 bars later, winners/loosers/scorecards were out the window. I think we all had a great time. Also, gotta love being able to update your facebook status from m.facebook.com on your cellphone.

More Pictures on my flickr page.

Bat to the face!

jawbat3, originally uploaded by yorkhock.

This is a picture I saw through digg, whats not funny about this picture. Other than just like someone tripping is funny, he doesn't even put his hands up to protect his noggin, I'm guessing its Thirsty Thursdays and hes protecting his beer. The guy(or girl) in green behind him has a priceless look on her face. The guy in black is clearly stoned. The woman in pink stripes is obviously checking out the guy on first base and clearly not watching the game. The guy on the right is sacrificing his daughter and most likely his mother-in-law. The lady in red thinks her cell phone will protect her and the red headed girl in front could care less. How funny, one second in time, so many different reactions. Priceless.