Scott Jangro wrote a nice piece today about how insanely wrong bottled water is. The most abundant resource on our lovely planet and we bottle it up to make a profit, burning fossil fuels along the way. Some of my friends would call me a Tree Hugger Scott, but I’m not that insane about it. I don’t even recycle much anymore (only because its too difficult in my condo and the building doesn’t have facilities for it. Yes I’m lazy too.).

But, what is the real cost of bottled water? Do a Google Search and you’ll find article after article about it. This article goes on to show how much impact bottled water has on the environment. I don’t know how accurate it is as I haven’t done my own research, but common sense tells me that bottled water does more harm than good, at least the way we Americans treat it. I’ll admit there are parts of the world where clean water is hard to come by, making bottled water a necessity. But we don’t (and shouldn’t) send them hundreds of cases of personal bottles. Five or ten gallon jugs please. You know, the reusable kind you send back to the company for reuse.

Bottom line. You pay $1.50 (sometimes more) for a bottle of something that you can find for free. Think about how much oil goes into the manufacturing of the bottle. Then how much to put the water in the bottle. Then to deliver it to you. Then to recycle it (if you recycle it). Starts to seem…insane?

Update: David Wilk from TurnToTap found this post and gave out some kudos for writing it (should thank Jangro since he got me thinking about it. I took a look at TurnToTap and there seems to be some good information there. Check it out!

I just wanted to wish anyone out there who reads my blog as well as all my friends and family a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Hopefully everyone is enjoying good food and good company on this great day!

If you haven’t noticed, my site has a new, fresh look to it. Not being a CSS designer by trade, this is something I have struggled with for a bit. I’ve always wanted a nice, clean site, but haven’t really had the skills to do it on my own. Having seen a few sites that I sites that I admire and poking around some How To articles on using CSS and DIV elements to lay out a site, I think I’ve figured it out. The site colors haven’t changed much, but the layout has. I’ve stretched things out a bit more, which gives me a little more space to separate the different page elements. This hopefully makes the site “easier” to look at.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock lately, you surely know about the California Wildfires that are ravaging San Diego County and other parts of Southern California. Firefighters haven’t been able to get a break lately it seems, but hopefully they will later this week. This touches home particularly for me since my brother now lives in Oceanside, CA which is part of San Diego county.

Image courtesy of CNN.

He was able to call earlier in the week and get an email out saying he was ok (he’d just returned home from his Honeymoon too…welcome back buddy!), but communication is sporadic since authorities want people to limit phone calls to emergencies only (and you can hardly get through anyway). Last I knew, he was 10 minutes from the current evacuation line, but now that Camp Pendleton has been evacuated (his wife works there as a Marine), I’m pretty sure they’ve been told to get out. Hopefully this is all under control soon and my brother as well as everyone else there can return home and get back to their lives.

UPDATE

My brother sent me the following image he took from his car (click for larger version):

The windshield is a little dirty, but you can see how much smoke there is in the air an how the sun is just a faint orange ball. He’s about 10 miles or so from the nearest fires and haven’t had to evacuate, but they’re not out of the woods yet. He said its finally snowing in San Diego (we’re originally all from the Northeast), except there’s no snow. Its snowing ash!

I also found this video that basically shows the same thing. I’m not sure how far my brother is from this guy, but my guess is that they are pretty close.

I don’t know how I missed this one, but a link from ESPN.com’s Page 2 took me to this video clip of Denis Leary and Lenny Clarke doing a guest spot with Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo during a Red Sox game where they absolutely rip on Mel Gibson.  Its absolutely hilarious!