A Tale of Two Homes and One Hypocrite

Holy cow. There are just some things that just royally piss me off. One of them is being a blatant hypocrite.

When you mention ‘Global Warming’ I am sure that one name comes up in your mind – Al Gore. You would think that as one of the leading Global Warming elites (he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his Global Warming ‘work’) he would put his money where his mouth is, right? you would think that as much money as he makes off all his appearances, books, and movie (An Inconvenient Truth) that he would be able to afford a “Green” House, right? Well, you were wrong.

As it turns out, President Bush is far more Green than Gore is. Pardon my language, but how the hell is that possible? Bush gets wanked on all the time for not being environmentally friendly enough (remember Bush and the Kyoto Treaty?) and Gore gets praised for being so eco friendly. So what is the justification for this kind of behavior all you Gore-is-the-eco-god peeps? How does someone with all the means to be entirely eco friendly get away with doing the exact opposite of what he advocates? Heck, I am sure people in the industry would give him crap for free just beacause he is such a high profile!

Below is the snopes article and TRUE verification.

LOOK OVER THE DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FOLLOWING TWO HOUSES AND SEE IF YOU CAN TELL WHICH BELONGS TO AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.

HOUSE # 1:
A 20-room mansion (not including 8 bathrooms) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool (and a pool house) and a separate guest house all heated by gas. In ONE MONTH ALONE this mansion consumes more energy than the average American household in an ENTIRE YEAR. The average bill for electricity and
natural gas runs over $2,400.00 per month. In natural gas alone (which last time we checked was a fossil fuel), this property consumes more than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house is not in a northern or Midwestern “snow belt,” either. It’s in the South.

HOUSE # 2:
Designed by an architecture professor at a leading national university, this house incorporates every “green” feature current home construction can provide. The house contains only 4,000 square feet (4 bedrooms) and is nestled on arid high prairie in the American southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat pumps drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground. The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in winter and cools it in summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or natural gas, and it consumes 25% of the electricity required for a conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern. Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then irrigates the land surrounding the house. Flowers and shrubs native to the area blend the property into the surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE # 1 (20 room energy guzzling mansion) is outside of Nashville, Tennessee. It is the abode of that renowned environmentalist (and filmmaker) Al Gore.

HOUSE # 2 (model eco-friendly house) is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas. Also known as “the Texas White House,” it is the private residence of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

So whose house is gentler on the environment? Yet another story you WON’T hear on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC or read about in the New York Times or the Washington Post. Indeed, for Mr. Gore, it’s truly “an inconvenient truth.”

Thanks to this site for bringing this story up.

Road Biking Fun

Yay! I really am getting into the whole road biking thing. It is super nice out (at least right now) and I like scooting around town on two wheels under my own power.

I am really, really craving getting that Edge though. While riding around is fun, it isn’t exactly what I would like to do. Since I am such a competitive person I would like to have stats for my ride. And to have stats, I would like to see how long I was actually riding and how fast I was going during that ride.

Speaking of competition. I rode the canal and there was a guy that got on the canal right after me (Gilbert Rd and Warner). At the road crossings I obviously had to slow down to make sure that traffic clear. A couple of times he caught up to me and was crossing the street with me. One time being where there was a giant concrete ledge (the curb that was undone due to construction) that I wasn’t about to jump on a road bike. he was able to jump over it while I took a detour of about 20 feet so I could use a small ramp and a little section of sidewalk. I knew he was right there behind me and made good time getting over that curb whilst I took my detour. So what do I do once I got back on the trail? I blasted it. Pedaled until my legs lit on fire. Then the wind started kicking up – of course, in my face, not at my back – and I wouldn’t allow myself to step the gears down to make it easier. Nope! This was my chance to get more distance between us. LOL. I’m a crazy bat…

Today’s ride was 33.5 miles. Interesting enough, when I mapped it out on google maps, it said that it would have taken me 1 hr and 15 mins to drive that. For me, it took me 1 hr 40 minutes. So using that, I suppose I went an average of around 20 mph. Yay! But then again, I was taking the canal, of which I can’t trace on Google Maps,  so my average was probably closer to 18 mph. Still nice.

Bike Ride Around Chandler

It was a nice bike ride. My sit bones are not quite used to riding that far, so I was hurting a bit by the end. some of the roads were not very road bike friendly as they not only didnt have a bike lane, but they didn’t have a shoulder – so I just had to ride in a car lane with traffic. Yikes! I had fun waving to all the people also out there biking and running and walking strollers around. I also had fun racing cars off the line like I was some sort of dragster. LOL. So, here I am 34.5 miles later after the ride. This trip does confirm that I really would have liked to have an Edge bike computer, or well, any bike computer so I could have seen how fast I was going and how far I had gone. I think it would have been nice to have a cadence sensor too, even though I have never tried riding with cadence. Seemed like it would have helped out some. It would have also been nice to have a route where I was not stopping at every light too. I guess on the plus side, I got plenty of practice clipping in and clipping out! Oh, and riding in just bike shorts wasn’t as weird as I thought it would be. Probably more comfortable than shorts or the shorts/spandex combo.

Hawes Trail: 2, Me: 0

So… Cody, Eric, and I went mountain biking on Hawes Trail last weekend. This is the second time that Eric and I rode it and Cody’s first time. Last time, I crashed (see pictures on earlier post) into multiple rocks and scuffed my legs up pretty good. This time…. Well…. just watch the slide show here. (LOL)

Hawes Trail: 2
Me: 0

And nevertheless, I will be going back many times. The trail is awesome…

Hawes Trail 23FEB08

So last week I tried to ride a mountain bike with clipless pedals. If you don’t know what those are it is where your foot is actually attached to your bike. It helps you pedal and helps you to stay in control of your bike more.

However, as you can see, when you are attached to your bike, and you are too much of a n00b to know how to get off, you crash. What can’t be seen is the multiple bruises on my legs, as well as my sore shoulder muscles from basically pile driving myself into rocks.

There was a few times during that ride that I was getting downright pissed off. It is frustrating to be falling and not be able to get off your bike. You just get to tip over and watch yourself – seemingly in slow motion – fall over onto an awaiting cactus or rock. And oh yeah, and I don’t do mountain biking like Cody defines it (down a paved path on a mountain bike).

Oh, and sorry for my severely white legs….

Edge 705

I admit, I have some serious issues that I need to work on. One of them being that I can’t stand it when people get stuff that I want – so I have to get it too, but get the next model up.

Rewind a week or so… my friend gets the Edge 205. What is the Edge you might ask? It is a GPS for your bike! Why in the heck does someone need a GPS for the bike? I know, I know… it is quite ludicrous! Now I am looking at the 705, which is 3 models up from my friends new toy.

So I try to rationalize this little baby – after all, the thing costs at least $400 – so I have to have a reason to buy it right? Right. Well, come to find out, this thing is more than just a fancy bike toy that I will use on the weekends, it is a complete trainer. One where you can ride the same path and analyze every little bit of it – elevation, your heart rate, time, distance, speed, speed over certain terrains… um… EVERYTHING! So what is my rationalization? That if I spend that much money, I will have to go outside more so I can use this thing! Ha!

So it seems that as soon as I get enough money that I will be going after this little puppy.

Sheesh… I’m going to have to join gadgets-anonymous…