Monthly Archives: March 2007

Hey, We Know That Guy!

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EMBRACING THE ENVIRONMENT | Chicago Tribune

When Steve Levinthal got ready to build his house in Glenview, he knew he wanted it to be environmentally friendly and energy-efficient–translation, "green."

Levinthal chose a green architect, Nathan Kipnis Architects in Evanston, and green builder, Sturm Builders in Northbrook, to help him design and build his green house. The result is a house that is ahead of its time in green features.

Instead of a furnace and air conditioner, its geothermal system heats the house in winter by pulling heated fluid from the Earth, then cools it in summer by sending the fluid back. Solar panels on the roof generate electricity. Two-by-6 wall studs, set 24 inches apart, allow for more insulation and use less wood. Inside, green products include low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints and cabinet finishes, bamboo flooring and nontoxic adhesives.

Levinthal's house is the exception, at least in the single-family market. And the special features are mostly available at the custom level, where buyer, architect and builder form a green team and take time to track down green materials.

That's our friend Steve! We didn't know this article was going to appear this soon – David mentioned that he'd just talked to Steve about it recently.

What a rip, neither of the two photos of Steve or the 3 other photos of "green" features in his house are on the online edition of the Trib.  

[tags]ecology, green house, geothermal system[/tags] 

 

FDA: Chemical Found in Pet Food Recall | Chicago Tribune

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FDA: Chemical Found in Pet Food Recall | Chicago Tribune

The Food and Drug Administration said it found melamine in samples of the Menu Foods pet food, as well as in wheat gluten used as an ingredient in the wet-style products. The FDA was working to rule out the possibility that the contaminated wheat gluten could have made it into any human food, but was not aware of any risk to people.

It wasn't immediately clear whether the melamine was the culprit in the deaths of more than a dozen cats and dogs and the illnesses of hundreds more, said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine.

In a news conference, FDA officials said that the apparently melamine-contaminated wheat gluten also was shipped to a company that manufactures dry pet food, but they would not name the company. The FDA is attempting to determine if that company used any of the wheat gluten, imported from China, to make dry pet food, Sundlof said.

Dammit! WHAT COMPANY is that manufacturer of dry pet food???? I've got a brand new back of Iams Dry Lamb/Chicken right now in the kitchen, and I don't know if it's safe to give to Riley or not, as Iam's wet canned "cuts and gravy" was actually made by Menu Foods, the Canadian company that's being blamed for making contaminated pet food under so many different store and "premium" brands.

I've known about this story since just before we left on vacation and I made sure my supply of Purina Fancy Feast was not on the "contaminated" list before we left. I also let my petsitter know about it. The really tragic and unaccountable thing is that Menu Foods apparently had some inkling more than a month or more ago that there was a problem with their "cuts and gravy" line that they made for a bunch of different brands.  

And… melamine? Not rat poison? How weird. As it happens I'm also listening to a news update right now from NPR. 

Riley is fine and is extremely happy that we are home. He's been keeping us under his eye ever since we returned last night, and it freaked him out a little when I went out for about an hour to get some sandwiches and snacks. He has remained within a foot or less of my person ever since. And last night, he purred so loudly and head-butted us so insistently that it took a long time to settle him down so we could get to sleep.

But I'd still really like to know what the hell the deal is with dry pet food.  

[tags]Menu Foods, FDA, pet food recall, melamine[/tags] 

Tropical Rainstorm

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Our last full day in Tortola wasn’t terribly ambitious; when we woke up we were feeling sort of lazy and so we didn’t make good on our vague notion to drive over to the beachy north shore and snorkel for the day. Good thing we didn’t, because at about mid-afternoon the clouds ganged up and deluged on us. At first it was a pleasant cool sprinkle, and then it was like a cosmic bucket was upended on our end of the island.

After congratulating ourselves for spending the day at home, we went back to reading our books. We’d laid in some supplies so we were good for lunch and dinner if we didn’t feel like going out in the rain.

After a while, though, the rain came in to us.

raindrops

Yes, one more reason not to recommend Fort Recovery to friends and clients; the rooms are attractive, but the “villas” are overpriced, the beach is small and weedy, the “exercise room” is a joke, the wireless internet access is wonky, the pool is tiny and shady and missing basic safety items like a handrail and depth markers, and the buildings take on water when there’s bad weather. On their website and in their ads, it sounds like a marvelous retreat,with spa services and daily yoga classes on their large boat dock/deck, but we never saw any yoga other than one guy working out on his own. And I never bothered to check out the spa stuff because it appeared likely that the spa stuff was tucked in the back of the “reception area” as an afterthought much like the un-air conditioned “exercise room,” or it was conducted on a battered open-air platform out by the boat dock.

After several days’ stay we concluded that a lot of the guests were friends and family of the owner, who was helpful enough when we had minor complaints about the noisy air conditioner in our villa and willing to change us to another, nearly identical villa. But the vibes were kind of weird.

Anyway, after watching several small streams pour into the living room from above and scrambling to find various garbage pails and pots to catch the drips, we decided it was a good thing we weren’t caught somewhere at the end of a bad road in a deluge.

All in all, we collected about a half-gallon of rainwater in our various receptacles, which would have run down the middle of the living room and perhaps reached electrical cords if we hadn’t decided to have a lazy day in instead of an active day out.