I can’t believe that I did this, but I actually stopped recycling after two street magicians told me it was a bad idea. But I started back up a couple months ago & my family thinks I’m nuts every time they see me digging thru the garbage for things to put into my recycle bins.

I’m putting about 3 or 4 full recycle bins out to the curb each week. Last month, I noticed my garbage man putting all my recycling in with the regular garbage (the trucks have 3 bins on the front - 1 big one for garbage & 2 smaller ones for paper & containers) I called the garbage company to complain & when I told the lovely lady that answered the phone that the garbage man mixed my recycling in with the garbage, she promptly told me “No he didn’t.” I asked if she could see my house from her desk, which seemed to upset her. She told me she’d have a talk with him when he got back & then hung up on me. I was livid! I instantly typed up a letter to the company and cc’d our small local paper as well as the town. 2 days later, the paper called & said they were going to print the article. The next day, the town supervisor called & informed me that I was not the only one that had noticed this. It seems my garbage company has “too much recycling” and not enough trucks, which is why they mix it in with the garbage from time to time. She agreed that this is completely unacceptable.

So now the garbage company is reviewing their recycling practices. Whoever was in charge got fired (I sorta feel bad, but not that much) They are looking into creating an incentive based recycling program where we’d get a large bin that’s for nothing but recycling. It’d have en electronic control panel on it & they’d weigh it before it was put into the truck. The more weight you recycle, the more reward points you get for discounts & whatnot at local merchants. We shall see.

Things I have done so far to try & conserve energy (and these things have contributed to me cutting my electric bill almost in half in the last 6 months as well as my gas bill)

• I have pretty much replaced every light bulb in the house with fluorescent light bulbs. You can find them for about $2-3 each if you buy 4 or more. And, if you wanted to by hip & different, they also have colored fluorescent bulbs: black light, bug repellent yellow, red, blue, green and more. They even have different sizes for refrigerators, ceiling fans & more. Just click here to see a lot of different options.
• Based on the recommendations from An Inconvenient Truth I have turned down the heat in my house. They recommend 2° and I really don’t remember what we had it set on last year, but I’ve been keeping it around 66° during the day & 64° at night. I usually pump it up to 68° when I wake up so that the house gets warm before The Bride wakes up & yells at me. I also have AC and I’ll be making sure that’s not set too low during the summer.
• I’m using an indoor dryer vent during the winter. This serves 2 purposes: it heats the house with something that would have just been completely wasted and it also ads moisture to my house, which is very dry in the winter. I came up with this one my self
• I had an energy efficient hot water tank installed & I will be having a 98% efficient heating unit installed shortly.
• I’m having areas of my house re-insulated.
• I’m turning off unused lights & electronic goods.
• I’m washing all my clothes in cold water (my family would never have known if I didn’t tell them)
• I’m trying out some organic cleaning products.
• I’m also recycling, but you can read more about that on the recycling page.

Things that I hope to do in the near future:

• Use recycled paper (I’ve got about 1/2 a ream sitting here that I need to use up 1st)
• Install low-flow shower heads (I have to get one & hook it up to see how it is before I ask The Bride if it’s ok, if she even notices)
• Buy a Fuel Efficient Car. I’ve got a Yukon Denali now - and I do love it - but 13.7 MPG is not gonna cut it. Lease is up on October & I’m really hoping that there’s a decent SUV on the market by then (I need 4 wheel drive - we live on a hill & it’s almost impossible to get up the driveway in the snow)
• Plant some trees & get some indoor plants (The Bride has a tendency to kill them)
• Buy Organic Food

While I’ve never thought of myself as a “tree hugging hippie” and I know for a fact that I am not even close to being 100% environmentally friendly, after watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth I decided to step it up a notch.

This area will cover some of the things I am trying to do so that my family & I are a little more conscious of the environment.

Hockey is the best sport on the planet - period.

I really wish I could invite all the non-hockey fans in the world over to my house to watch a couple games. I have a friend in Australia that’s visited here a couple of times. We took him to a game & he was hooked. Each time he comes over, I try to take him to as many games as possible (we even went up to Ottawa last time to see a game) He used to be able to catch a couple games each week on ESPN, but they dropped the NHL a couple years ago.

Versus does a decent job with their NHL coverage with 2 or 3 games each week & a ton of playoff games. NBC just sucks.

It really is a great game - if you’ve never paid much attention to it, try & catch a game or 2, as the playoffs are about 3 weeks away.

Part of my love for football stems from living in the Buffalo area as well as my love for Fantasy Football. But part of it is that I do really like to watch football. I realized this a couple of years ago while watching a game where I had one guy from my fantasy team playing & he got hurt early on. I just enjoy the game.

The Sabres are my true love. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve followed them. I’ll admit that I lost interest in hockey during the lockout, but about a month before the 2005 season started, days after watching some really old Stanley Cup games from the 70’s (people are still pissed that Philadelphia beat us) my wife gave me season tickets for Christmas (yes, I got my gift a couple months early) and those 2 events got me back on my hockey kick really quick.

As I type this, my Sabres are loosing to Pittsburgh 4-3 with 5:24 left in the third. I have hope.

I’m a big Bills fan as are most of the people in the Buffalo area. I’ve had season tickets for 8+ years now. We tailgate before every game & we get there about an hour before the lot opens so that we can get our favorite parking spot (which means I’m usually out of the house by 6:45 AM)

I think the Bills are entering their 5th rebuilding year - you can tell because we let go pretty much every name you’d recognize on the team - but I’m a fan none-the-less.

I’m a mid-thirties male & I like my sports

I think I’m like most people that have professional sports teams in their area - I follow them & could care less about other sports.

Seeing as I live in the Buffalo, NY area, I’m a big hockey & football fan. When I was a kid, I did follow basketball a little, but that stopped shortly after the Braves moved to San Diego (now the LA Clippers) We do have a AAA Baseball team, but let’s be honest - not too many people care aobut minor league sports. I’m mixed on baseball - I can watch it of there’s a really good pitcher & I do root for the Yankees when they are on, but other than the World Series, I don’t pay too much attention.

I did find NASCAR 3 years ago after the NFL season ended & the NHL was in lockout. I do watch it as much as possible, but last year I sorta flaked out on it once football started back up.

I’m pretty much stuck with Time Warner Cable. We used to have Adelphia, but I think everyone knows what happened to them I was sorta happy when I found out that Time Warner was taking over for Adelphia, as I have a friend in the Syracuse area and I was jealous of all the programming & HD channels he had.

Of course, my joy went away very quickly as soon as the NFL Network was dropped.

My recent complaints to them have been the lack of HD NHL games. We don’t get the Versus network in HD. Last year was great, as Versus simulcast the Playoff games in the now defunct INHD2 channel. This year, the only HD NHL games I’ll get to see are the few that NBC decides to give us as well as games involving Canadian teams that I can watch on CBC via my antenna.

If you have Time Warner, you’ll remember all their football commercials from last year as they tried to convince people that they really didn’t need the NFL Network. These commercials also focused on the HD games they were broadcasting (which was insane, since they did not have the Fox HD channel at the time) Time Warner needs to step up and back hockey the same way they want everyone to believe they back football.

If you have Time Warner, go here & put in your zip code. The click the Customer Service links & email them. Tell them that you want to watch the NHL Playoffs in HD & that they should get the Versus HD channel in their lineup ASAP.

The usual list of stupid & silly sites will be back soon. For now, please visit the old pages, which will remain on line forever.

As always, if you know of a stupid or silly site, please email it to me.