Its Annoying – Recycling CDROMS

Johannah14 Comments

Its Annoying – Recycling CDROMS

 

Recycling is usually not annoying for me.  It’s something I think we all should do on a regular basis.  There are so many useful things today that can be made out of recycled and reused materials that it just doesn’t make sense to fill a landfill instead of recycling.   But I have a dilemma – while I want to recycle the pallet of used CD/DVD media that I have in my warehouse, I cannot find someone who really wants to take the material off my hands.    After searching for a minimum of six months to find a recycler for my one  pallet of used CDROMS for recycling, I am getting annoyed.  There are a few places who will, but they aren’t local, and they will charge me several hundred dollars for the privilege.  I really want to recycle, but I don’t want to have to pay to give them away.  I understand that the process to recycle this media isn’t an easy one, and not many recycling centers even want to attempt the complex process needed to break down the media back into usable products.

PET7

If you have ever tried to recycle your CD’s – you may already know they are a #7 to the plastic industry ~ the  official “other”  category of the plastic family.   Anything that doesn’t fit into categories #1-#6, get by default into #7.  CD and DVD media falls into the #7 category because they are made of a combination of aluminum, polycarbonate (PC) plastic, lacquer and many times, if printed, ink.  They are not one of the easiest plastics or products to recycle.  Many recycling centers won’t even consider taking them.  Most #7 plastics are non-recyclable and some can be downright dangerous to you.

Nalgene water bottles, some Tupperware, some baby bottles, the inner lining of soft drink cans, some clear plastic containers as well as CD/DVD media are made with something called polycarbonate (PC) plastic.  This particular plastic releases a chemical called Bisphenol A or BPA as it decomposes.  BPA is a hormone, much like estrogen, and it when it leeches into our food and water supplies can cause significant health issues.  

So I thought I’d provide some “alternative” ways to recycle them into art and avoid piling them into a landfill.   Please note:  I am not a crafty person. I do this in partial desperation to encourage people to “want to have” used CD’s so that they can freely be creative!

First, I covered the CD.  I used regular CD label stock as well as using a large white adhesive label, tracing and cutting out the circle size I would need to cover the media.  If you don’t have CD label stock, you can always use adhesive sheet paper.  Alternatives to that include using paint (always fun for kids) and/or paper glued to the CD.  If you use paper, consider construction paper, or something a little more substantial in weight because the glue won’t dry super smooth and may soak into the paper.  After I affixed the circles I had cut out – I used a one sided razor blade to “shave” around the edges.  The beauty of covering the CD is that if you wanted to let the little ones color or draw on them, you’d be able to do that now and you’d be done.

CD label

These are now ready for the next step in the process. You can trace, draw, color, or even provide stickers for your artwork.   And if you plan on hanging the artwork you could do that through the middle of the CD.  If you want to use a string, or ribbon plan ahead and do it at the same time as your adhesive label material to hold it in place! 

If you have talent in the art or craft department, you probably can make some wonderful things! Sadly, I don’t.

Additional Ideas

If  you have thousands or want to use more than just a couple CD or DVD media pieces to complete your project, this next group should give you some more challenging  ideas.  These are not recommended for children.  The CD’s when broken, cut or punched can make very sharp edges and you should never let children attempt to do any of that themselves. 

Additional Ideas

 So now can I get anyone to take about 25,000 of these?

 

Planning for Retirement is Annoying

Johannah5 Comments

There is nothing I would like to do than to complete a retirement plan.  Everywhere I read they encourage you to have one.  However, the whole idea for me gets caught in a million intertwined catch-22 scenarios and so involved I can’t get it free to complete it. 

Retirement Ahead is Annoying

At first, I just wanted to guess about our planned income in retirement, and see where, and then how we would need to live to accomplish a “not running out” of money before we ran out of life scenario.  As you can see that’s 2 guesses already in the plan – one the amount of income, and two how long we might have to live.  Caught in this type of guessing game really messes with my brain.  I haven’t even considered the cost of living, and inflation in my plan yet… and I am not the type who likes to guess about that many things at once. 

Since I prefer knowing that I have all my bases covered, I’ll start by thinking I’ll live to 100.  Is that reasonable based on my personal family history? – not even close.  My parents made it to 69 years old each, my one sister died at 61 and another at 52.  Most of the people in my family were lucky to make it to a ripe, old 72 – 75 years.  And while I know life expectancies are higher and I know that I could easily make 75 (I am now 57), there is no guarantee or simple way to guess just how long.

If I really pick 100 – then I have 43 more years that I will need income. That’s a lot. I think I should pick a more reasonable number… like 80 – that should be enough, right?  But, what if it isn’t?  Shouldn’t I just worry about that if I get close?

Eighty only gives me 23 more years to live, and time is running at a breakneck speed for me.  If what’s left of my life is that short, shouldn’t I just throw caution to the wind and enjoy it?  Take that vacation, quit my job, hang out and sleep in?  Maybe I should start selling all my stuff on eBay and that might help finance my “enjoy myself” lifestyle for the next 23 years.  In a way that makes sense, because as I age I will use things less and less – and when I finally pass away they’ll be less to fight over, divide or to sell at the estate sale. 

Well, now that’s what I call turning something that could have been annoying into something enjoyable.  And seriously since the planning part isn’t working for me, I am going to just decide to go with the flow and enjoy every day and moment that I can – and consider the plan accomplished.

Common Sense

Johannah10 Comments

Common Sense 

Do you have it?  I always thought that someone who does something foolish is lacking in common sense…. but I am finding out sometimes people are just fools and to me that’s annoying!

Every day I see examples of people acting, doing and saying foolish things.  Who do they think they are kidding – doesn’t anyone else see the ridiculousness in all of this?   All my life I would have done just about anything not to be a fool.   Yet today people seem to embrace foolishness and call it being unique, one of a kind, “who they are” or “how they roll.”   I beg to differ.  You are not a fool if you dress differently, like a certain style of fashion or music, or even if you are unique in some bizarre way. 

You are a fool if you blatantly violate the rules of common sense.  Common sense says you don’t walk in front of a moving car – unless you are trying to kill yourself.  It says you don’t drink household cleaners or “mess” with bath salts.  It’s that small voice that says this is just plain wrong, don’t do it. 

Your common sense is lacking, and by my definition you are a fool if for example, you are a judge and make a ruling that clearly wasn’t backed up by the witnesses for any reason.  If you are a police officer who pulls someone over for having a light out and then beats the crap out of them because you felt like it.  If you are a mother who thinks she can have her crack and still take good care of her children.  If you are a father who thinks buying video games each month or anything else is much more important than paying your child support and worse still doesn’t understand that those children are your responsibility.

When you take things that are valuable in this life (justice, order, parenthood) and throw them away in favor of your own selfish and sometimes childish wants, needs or desires, instead of doing what’s right, and what needs to be done you are a fool.

I just pray I never fall victim to any of your foolishness.

Changing Times – 11 Things I Didn’t Have

Johannah16 Comments

I am not keeping up.  Things move so fast anymore that I can’t believe it’s actually 2012!

What annoys me today is teens and young adults take things I never knew existed, saw or had totally for granted.  They expect more from technology, and they whine when it’s not available.  So I thought I’d make a list of things that I didn’t have growing up which today we take for granted.  Here goes:

The Beatles

When I was growing up there was no:

  • Color TV  – it was actually just coming out – my parents bought one, it caught on fire and that was the end of that.
  • Microwave Oven – we bought one of these after we were married, a Quasar. It still works, and we still have it (35 years later), it’s a huge and heavy appliance and we aren’t sure how to properly dispose of it.
  • Canned soda –  wasn’t available.  Soda could only be purchased at the soda fountain in your local candy or variety store, or in quart glass bottles.
  • Bottled water – all water in those days came out of the tap, like it or not.
  • Microcomputers, and all that go with them like floppy disks, hard drives, and memory chips.
  • Cell phones – if you needed a phone, you would have to knock on someone’s door and ask to use their phone, find a telephone booth and have a dime, or just not have a conversation. No one called to tell you anything, like they’d be home late, or the traffic was bad, you just had to wait it out and wonder.
  • The Internet – no online games, no such thing as email, and certainly no facebook.
  • Satellite Dishes/Cable TV – we got the NY stations, all 3 of them from a antenna strategically placed on our rooftop – analog not digitally.
  • CD or DVD’s – that’s right… none. We did have 8 track tapes and record players. If you wanted to see a movie, you had to go to a theatre. In 1965, the ticket price for a movie was 35 cents.
  • Digital Cameras –  my dad loved photography, so he had a Polaroid camera which allowed pictures to develop right before your very eyes – otherwise your camera needed film and developing to get a picture – and that method was far from instant.
  • Air Conditioning – if you wanted air conditioning you bought a window unit to cool your bedroom. My dad installed an attic fan that basically sucked the outside air in each night. It was powerful enough so that you felt a breeze with your windows open, but it wasn’t always a cold breeze. Air conditioners were available but expensive and most households attempted to do without them where I lived. Most cars also didn’t have them because it was an expensive option.

Elvis

Anyone want to go back?

Severe Straight-Line Winds

Johannah

Who would have thought a straight line wind system coming from the Midwest, and generated, fueled and propelled by the high temperatures and humidity could cause so many issues.  They can be as powerful and deadly as tornadoes.

As I write this, 2 days after the incident occurred suddenly and violently, we are still without power. The wind hit like someone had turned on a switch, and a powerful one at that. The first indication was the wind, which came on suddenly, and sounded loud and violent.  When we saw it was bending the 60-80 ft. tall trees I have on my property, we headed for the basement.

The basement was for shelter not only the storm but also the rain, lightning and thunder which followed those winds. The winds reached 71 miles an hour (anything over 58 mph is considered severe) at Dulles International Airport and that’s just short of a hurricane velocity (Category 1 hurricane starts at 75mph). I knew this was incident was possible, only because for some reason I turned on the 6PM news that night. I don’t usually do that.  And I admit I was struggling to fully understand what they meant by a fast and dangerous “straight line wind” headed our way. Now I know.

StormCollage

Not only are we still without power, but we are without internet service as well. This also means no television service and no phone service for those who have the bundled services with the cable company. Many of the phone towers for wireless service have been down or out for one reason or another. Some of the 911 phone lines are not operating at all, traffic lights aren’t working and as of last night I heard that at least 7 people have been killed locally by storm related injuries.  Trees and pole damage is obvious, but most can’t access any information about what’s going on without power.  Ice is hard to find and at a premium cash price because even credit card processors aren’t available for charges.  The ATM’s aren’t working and neither are lots of gas stations because they cannot pump the gas out of the ground without power.  The destruction is not 100% in our area, but it is widespread  with random pockets of homes and businesses not only without power but also damaged.  Even the National Guard has been activated.

When this happened Friday night, no one thought it would take at least into Monday or Tuesday to restore power to our area. However, the electric companies are reporting many electric poles have been snapped in half. Replacing a telephone/electricity pole and moving the wires from one to the other, I am told, takes a normal crew half a day, and they have to find the broken ones first. The other reason  we’ve been told for the delay is that many of the crews could not be reached by phone to even know they should come in and work the weekend.

Usually since we have a whole house generator, our household weathers these outages with nary a concern. We function normally and conveniently and go about our daily lives. The cable service and internet hasn’t ever before been out for this long. I am glad that we purchased and installed that generator in 1999, as that generator as it has helped us in winter and in summer with power outage incidents. It’s still a wonderful help, it’s just that without the internet or phone service it’s a very different existence.

Life isn’t “normal” any longer and it makes me wonder – if the sun spots cut off or destroy the satellites, or any other incident for that matter, how prepared are we really to be cut off from the internet and that interaction with “the world”?

UPDATE:  07/02/12 – our internet and power is back on at home, but not at work.  Without internet, our business cannot process our orders, or do our shipping tags for UPS or USPS.  Worse, we cannot get through to the internet provider as all we get is a busy signal on the phone. Thirty minutes of “storm”, three plus days to recover.

UPDATE 2 : 07/03/12 – we have internet at work!  However the news is reporting that some residents won’t have power till this weekend.  Crews have come from as far away as Canada to help restore power.  Washington DC has even sent buses to neighborhoods without power that will just sit there with their air conditioning on to help with the heat.  It’s hot today, but it’s going to continue to be hot throughout the week.  The last time this happened in this area was 1980 – and it proved that the basic underlying power grid isn’t engineered to handle this type of weather event.