Thursday, June 15, 2006

BIO diesel

*Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, designed it to run on vegetable and seed oils like hemp. In fact, when the diesel engine was first introduced at the World's Fair in 1900, it ran on peanut oil.

*Two decades later, Henry Ford was designing his Model Ts to run on ethanol made from hemp. He envisioned the entire mass-produced Model T automobile line would run on ethanol derived from crops grown in the U.S.

*Even in the 1920s, the oil industry had massive lobbying power in Washington. Lobbyists convinced policymakers to create laws favoring petroleum based fuels while disgarding the ethanol option.

*Nearly a century later, amidst oil wars in the Middle East, Global Warming, and a nearly depleted oil supply, the U.S. government is finally shifting attention to fuels that are more along the lines of Diesel and Ford's original ideas.

*In an interview with the New York Times in 1925, Henry Ford said: "The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that sumac out by the road, or from apples, weeds, sawdust -- almost anything. There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."


from organic consumers.org

Monday, June 05, 2006

Central park today

Mother nature in gotham.

happy monday

i'm temping at a shoe showroom this week and i'm in dire need of a pedicure. it's embarrassing. i'm with all of these feet professionals and my toes are in sorry shape. i'm wondering if i can get one during lunch, but then i will miss out on that whole eating thing.

i also need a facial. i need to test one out before the wedding and i'm running out of time. you are supposed to give like six weeks i think between facials, but i don't have that many weeks and of course i don't want get the facial right before the wedding because that could be a big mistake and then i would break out on my wedding day and then the world would end.

i had some sort of dream about the wedding last night- it was positive- i just don't remember the details. then, right before i woke up i had this dream that i was at my dad's office (only it wasn't his office is was some other space with lots of stairwells that just represented his office), and we were on a scavenger hunt looking for something with a pie and the number 81. and everyone was searching, searching the office. i had somehow infiltrated the other team and was searching with two other people, when i happened upon a binder that was labeled "cobra" and then it had a pie chart with 81% marked out of it. we were so excited to have found the item- when the other team walked by us in the stairwell, i stuffed the binder under my shirt. as they walked through the doorway i yelled "ITS A BINDER!! LOOK FOR THE COBRA BINDER!!!" and ran as fast as i could. then my alarm went off.

fascinating.

there are shoe models sitting out here in the lobby. can you imagine the life of a shoe model? they are attractive, short (size 5 feet i think). they wear pretty little clothes and have shiny legs. i wonder how they keep their legs looking so nice, because i try, but it doesn't always work out. last week a mosquito used both my knees as an all you can eat buffet while i was sleeping and i had no control over it. what do you do if you are a body parts model and it's mosquito season? wear lots of bug spray all the time, even a night? what if you cut yourself shaving?

i bet they have nice pedicures.

and don't have old lady bunions like me. (ewww old lady bunions- but mine are soooo attractive, no really, they are)

the shoe models (who seem like perfectly nice people) are talking about other models and purse dogs. god! why can't i be like a hair model or something?

oh god someone just totally read over my shoulder all about my old lady bunions. signing off now.

Friday, June 02, 2006

48 days to go

and i just get dizzy thinking about it. a new month brings a whole new load of things to do on my list at theknot.com. thank god for this list, or else i would have no idea what the heck i am doing. i know there are things that i should be doing, that i have just been putting off. ugghh. sometimes i love all this planning stuff and sometimes i just want someone else to do it.

i had two showers the weekend before memorial day weekend. and they both were lovely. have i sent the thank you notes out yet? nope. i'll be working on those today. i have to send flowers to the shower hostesses as well.

i have to figure out where we are staying in mallorca.

i have to figure out how many rows of chairs we are having at the ceremony and buy pew flower holders.

I MUST MEET WITH THE FLORIST!!

we have to write the ceremony and our vows (just a little thing).

i have to finalize the hair appointments for that day and find another makeup artist.

when am i getting my next haircut?

transportation for that day?

hotel room for wedding night?

who is staying with bonnie and champ while we are gone?

do i want to buy earrings or just go with my pearls?

invitations were sent out yesterday! thank the lord our friend who designed them took care of mailing them from the post office himself. so it's official now, there's no backing out. ha ha!
we're only giving people two weeks before the rsvp, so they can't put off making a decision. but everyone received a save the date, so they should all have, well, saved the date...

Thursday, June 01, 2006

"it's just what the world don't need, another stinking tragedy"

the carnage that greeted me last night when i returned home from a friend's birthday party was pretty gruesome.
at first, i couldn't bring myself to look, let alone examine the remains.
the poor little squirrel didn't stand a chance- his body parts were spread all over the room and it was pretty clear that he hadn't put up much of a fight. when i searched for witnesses, all i could find was a terrified fish, trembling under the couch.


the two resident dogs have no idea what happened.

they claim to have gone out for an ice cream cone and returned to find the squirrel had up and committed suicide."we just didn't know he was so depressed. if i had known, i would have done my best to get him help. but now i guess it's too late." said bonnie as she coughed up a fur ball."i had nothing to do with this, and my attorney has advised me to make no other comment."