• Home Improvement

    Hey, We Know That Guy!

    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…

  • Hot Off The Presses - The Life of Riley

    FDA: Chemical Found in Pet Food Recall | Chicago Tribune

    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…

  • Traveling Along, We're Adventurers

    Tropical Rainstorm

    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…