Which would be a better birthday gift. A room filled with 1000 adorable kittens, or a death ray?

DEATH RAY!!!!!!!!! FTW
I would trade 1,000,000 kittens for a death ray

Ask me anything

Are you a hopeless romantic?

ehhh kinda

Ask me anything

Formspring

So I'm still super busy. Trying to get an actual post together...but that isn't happening so far. anyways I made a formspring recently, so feel free to ask me anything

Update finally!

This is gonna be a mix post. Below are some pix I've taken recently that kinda show a good blending of the natural and mad made

Me jumping off a pier into Lake Superior...that is such a cold cold lake

High Voltage lines in my backyard with these cool clouds.

Backyard again. I love the silhouetting in this photo.

St. Bernard's in downtown Akron, OH at sunset

Taken on my way to the Norton Cider Festival.

(no I was not driving)

Oh and I found this while randomly looking about for news and such

This was part of an article about the best cities for starter homes in the country.

Akron is number 4

4. Akron, Ohio

Zillow median home value: $117,400
Month-over-month change: +0.15%
Avg monthly mortgage payment: $570.32
Mortgage payment as % of income: 14%
Unemployment rate: 10.1%
Cost of living: 75.2

There have now been four consecutive months of monthly appreciation in Akron, a city where residents enjoy a cost of living nearly 25% lower than the national average

Dayton also made the list at number 2.

Well, that's all I have for now. College is keeping me plenty busy, not to mention poor.

Green in College

So I know I said i would have pictures of my dorm up for the next post, but that just isn't happening right now. College has kept me plenty busy this past, as has launching my Youtube channel,

GJC TV.

Life on campus has been pretty nice. I've met a bunch of cool people, had some great food, used the rec center quite a lot, and enjoyed a variety of campus activities. One thing that bugged me about it though was the apparent lack of green initiative. Recycling bins are far and few between. The only "green" thing about UA is it large amount of green space that was planted recently. UA's greeness ends there.

So while I try to find the person or people I need to get something rolling here, I started little eco-friendly practices in my dorm room.

1) I put one the boxes i used to move in under my bed to be a paper recycling box. Whenever I go home I take the paper with me.

2)Next to the paper box is another box for plastic bottles. Next time I go home I'm gonna bring back another one for cans

3)All of my electronic...stuff is plugged into a power-strip so at night or when I'm at classes I can turn the power-strip off and use less... vampire energy I believe its called. (everything except for the fridge...that needs to stay on)

4)This is the one that is hardest for me, taking short showers. At home my incentive (so-to-speak) was to keep our water bill down. At Akron, there is no water bill...for me at least. So it is taking all of my will power to keep showers relatively short.

You Tube Channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/GJCTV?feature=mhum

click it

subscribe to it

enjoy it

all my videos will be uploaded here

Moving

So tomorrow I move into my dorm at Akron U.

The whole thing is bittersweet really. I'm excited that its a dorm and me and such, but now I can't see all my cool peeps everyday D:

oh well that's why skype was invented

once i get pix of my dorm room I'll try to upload them

Upper Peninsula of Michigan

Okie Dokie, Picture time.

So at the beginning of the month me and my family went to Grand Marais, Michigan for vacation. While up there we visited numerous waterfalls, hiked through miles of forest and sand dunes, and saw the pictured rocks. The upper peninsula is amazing. The coast of it is hardly developed and everything is just beautiful......except the horseflies from hell...but that's another matter entirely. So to view the pictures in the order they were taken scroll down to the bottom of the post and proceed to scroll up to look at them. Otherwise scroll down and vicariously enjoy the awesomeness that is the upper peninsula of Michigan.

The links will take you to a site that will tell you more about the subject of the photo

Taken about around a half hour later than the pic below this one

A beautiful sunset over Lake Superior

Taken around 9:30 P.M.

A cool waterfall...I forget the name of this one

Another waterfall. The upper peninsula is full of them

Miners Castle taken form the platform behind it. Part of the Painted Rocks

Miners Castle

Miners Falls. Located near Miner's Castle oddly enough

Not quite sure how this happened

Taken on Hurricane River Beach...a Floating Tree

On Hurricane River Beach there are all these ship wrecks that are scattered along the beach.

The area had a very eerie feeling to it

Kinda Creepy

These ship wrecks are well over 100-110 years old

A shot looking straight down from the top of the lighthouse

When the lighthouse was decommissioned the lighthouse service, now the Coast Guard, completely destroyed the interior.

The National Park Service is now working on restoring the interior.

The Au Sable Lighthouse.

It warned ships of a sand stone "reef" that extended out from shore for about a mile.

I got to go up into it

"Hey dude"

I stood right next to that sign

The Log Slide a.k.a. The Devil's Slide

A 500' drop to Lake Superior.

I slid down and climbed all the way back up.

And yes, you were allowed to...

it just wasn't recommended that you do if you aren't ready for 45 minutes of intense climbing

Just to show the scale of things. (scale provided by my family)

Its about a 600' straight drop to the lake

This is showing a transition area where the forest turns into the dunes

This was taken along the trail to the Grand Sable Dunes

(which are actually growing each year)

Grand Sable Falls

We were on this road for about an hour. Taken around 9:00 at night

The Mackinac Bridge.

For whatever reason it perfectly fits in with its surroundings

This is the sun breaking through clouds.

Taken as we drove over the Straits of Mackinac

Sorry

My laptop came in recently so I've been trying to get everything transferred over.

Once that is done you will get Michigan pics and what not.

One last note I move into my dorm on the 19th...wish me luck!

Back from Michigan!

So for the past few days I have been on a much needed vacation with my family in the upper peninsula of Michigan.

It was amazing, we went swimming in Lake Superior every day and ...it was great

expect pics and more detail in the next couple of days

Go New Jersey! and some other stuff

So to make up for the lack of posts here is a super post. ^^

Both houses of the New Jersey legislature overwhelmingly passed the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act on June 28, 2010. The act creates financial incentives for offshore wind development and sets a target of 1,100 megawatts of wind generation off of New Jersey’s coast. New Jersey is among a handful of states in the running to incentivize and complete the nation’s first offshore wind development.

The act authorizes a 100 percent tax credit for capital investments of $50 million or more in new offshore wind facilities. Total tax credits for all projects are initially capped at $100 million, but the state’s Economic Development Authority may increase that amount as long as the total among specified programs authorized by the legislature does not exceed $1.5 billion.
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So I haven't posted in a while because July has been really busy so far.

Anyway, I hope that everyone had a great 4th of July.

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So, unless you've been living in a hole or disconnected from civilization in general I'm sure you've heard about the oil spill in the gulf. However, the oil might not even be the worst part. In fact it is vary well possible that the worst is yet to come.

The following was published May 8, 2010 on

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/07/robots-working-position-giant-box-oil-spewing-gulf-mexico-work-ahead/

--- A group of BP executives were on board the Deepwater Horizon rig celebrating the project's safety record, according to the transcripts. Meanwhile, far below, the rig was being converted from an exploration well to a production well.

Based on the interviews, Bea believes that the workers set and then tested a cement seal at the bottom of the well. Then they reduced the pressure in the drill column and attempted to set a second seal below the sea floor. A chemical reaction caused by the setting cement created heat and a gas bubble which destroyed the seal.

Up on the rig, the first thing workers noticed was the sea water in the drill column suddenly shooting back at them, rocketing 240 feet in the air, he said. Then, gas surfaced. Then oil.Deep beneath the seafloor, methane is in a slushy, crystalline form. Deep sea oil drillers often encounter pockets of methane crystals as they dig into the earth.
As the bubble rose up the drill column from the high-pressure environs of the deep to the less pressurized shallows, it intensified and grew, breaking through various safety barriers, Bea said.
"A small bubble becomes a really big bubble," Bea said. "So the expanding bubble becomes like a cannon shooting the gas into your face."

"What we had learned when I worked as a drill rig laborer was swoosh, boom, run," Bea said. "The swoosh is the gas, boom is the explosion and run is what you better be doing."---

According to Helium.com (Scientific News site site)

---Geologists have warned oil companies working in the area that massive pockets of natural gas, containing high concentrations of methane gas, exist deep beneath the sea floor. Discoveries of natural gas is of course an important part of exploration. But the pressures of these pockets, or "bubbles", was predicted to be far higher than current technology can deal with. Typical well head pressures are in the 1,500 pounds per square inch range. Geologists warned that gas pressures could range between 30,000 and 70,000 psi. Some reports indicate the actual pressure at the well head is 100,000 psi.

The threat of a methane gas explosion in the Gulf has been attributed to fear mongering. Is there any evidence to these claims? Robotic submarines are returning some very frightening video footage of methane gas hazards. Cracks and fissures are opening up on the sea floor over an area of several miles. A number of "pock marks" have appeared on the sea floor as far as 20 miles away from the original blow out. Oil and methane gas is escaping from areas that have never even been drilled.

----------

This appeared in another article on the same site

By some geologists' estimates the methane could be a massive 15 to 20 mile explosive bubble trapped for eons under the Gulf sea floor. In their opinion, the explosive destruction of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead was an accident just waiting to happen.

According to worried geologists, the first signs that the methane may burst its way through the bottom of the ocean would be fissures or cracks appearing on the ocean floor near the damaged well head.

Evidence of fissures opening up on the seabed have been captured by the robotic submersibles working to repair and contain the ruptured well. Smaller, independent plumes have also appeared outside the nearby radius of the bore hole itself. ---

If the methane bubble does break the surface every ship in its immediate vicinity would sink due to the rising methane decreasing the density of the water. As the bubble rises, it pushes water out of the way. The displaced water has to go somewhere, ergo...tsunami. The wave would race out in all directions and in little time wipe out the gulf coast.

Then there is the fact that methane is flammable...but hey Lebron left Cleveland for Miami and that's what's important.

Happy Father's Day!

First off I would like to say Happy Father's day to all the fathers, grandfathers, greats, and other fathers.











Second: here is another sunset photograph I took yesterday



Thirdly and lastly:
This article courtesy of POP SCI magazine

In 1983, engineers at General Electric experimented with an “unducted fan” engine. Without the external casing, airflow through the blades increased, delivering more power for the same amount of fuel. The thing was loud, but the company pressed on because the trick could reduce fuel consumption by as much as 26 percent. Then fuel prices dropped, gas guzzling became acceptable, and GE mothballed the project. Now that airlines are again conscious of fuel costs and carbon, the idea is back, and new tech is making it feasible.
Last September, GE began wind-tunnel testing a one-fifth-scale set of the blades at NASA’s Glenn Research Center. Using computational-design advances, engineers are redesigning the original blades to evenly distribute the air coming off the tips when they spin at supersonic speeds, which should reduce the noise. The setup more than triples the airflow through the blades, says Theresa Zeug, the project’s lead engineer, and allows them to be 14 feet wide, four feet wider than today’s largest. The engine also saves fuel by tilting the blades to control speed—rather than throttling up or down—which lets it run at a constant, efficient rate.
GE will probably have to execute some spin of its own to get the public on board with the fearsome design, which engineers have dubbed the “flying Cuisinart.” But GE has time to figure that one out: The engine won’t be ready for midsize jets, such as the Boeing 737, until at least 2020.

Pool

So my pool is finally filled, fixed, sanitized, and cleaned. Thanks to the solar heater it is already at a comfy and refreshing 80 degrees

oh and here is an interesting little thing I picked up from thecoolist.com

Throughout the world, our rivers and our drinking water is horribly polluted by industry, by waste both chemical and human. Vincent Callebaut Architects have envisioned a floating monument to green conscious urban living– one that not only traverses the rivers of our cities, but cleans their water in the process. The Physalia Amphibious Floating Garden uses a bio-filtration system to clean our rivers much like a typical aquarium filter, but in this case the filter itself is the garden on its surface. The Physalia is covered in four gardens, exterior and interior, that provide foliage and awareness to its visitors, while taking in water from the river below and filtering it before it returns. Sure, we may never see on of these beyond the rendering stage, but we appreciate the vision of Vincent Callebaut.

NY pics and eco-future

This is going to be a combined Post.
First are a few pics from my recent NY trip the next is a few cool 'green' things.

The Citigroup building:
The first photo is not mine. However, it shows the massive stilts the building sits on. The building has a roof slanted at a 45° angle. It was originally intended to be covered in solar panels, but the direction it was facing was more away from the sun and the solar panels were dropped.


Here is my photo. I never really got a chance to get close to the building so this is the best shot I could get.

The Empire State Building

Don't know what building this is, but there was the sun.

Rockefeller Center

Hearst Tower

The Hearst Tower became New York City's first skyscraper to achieve LEED Gold accreditation from the USGBC when it opened its doors last year. 80% of the steel used to make the behemoth was recycled. On the inside, the floors and ceiling tiles are made from recycled materials as well.

The diamond shapes on the building's facade aren't just for show either. The diagonal grid required fewer steel beams to achieve the same rigidity as a conventional skyscraper, and the design allows more natural light to enter the tower.

What's more, rainwater is collected on the roof and is funneled into a 14,000-gallon tank in the basement. The Hearst gathers enough water from the sky to account for 50% of the tower's usage. It's pumped into the cooling system, used for irrigating plants and for the innovative water sculpture in the main lobby.

So that's it for the NY pix

I do have more but they did not turn out an my ego refuses to let them be posted

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Now comes the second part of this post. The green part.

To start it off lets all give a round of applause to the following for their efforts at a green transformation.

Greensburg, Kansas
After a tornado devastated the town in 2007, destroying 95% of the town, the community decided to rebuild as a model for a green town. Hoping to be completely carbon neutral by 2017 Greensburg will be powered by a mix of solar, wind, and geothermal.

Maldives
Going green for this island nation means a lot. A rise in sea level of only a few inches will put most of it underwater. To set an example for others the Maldives are investing their tourism dollars into energy infrastructure offsets. They hope to be carbon neutral by 2020

Vatican City
Dubbed "the green pope" in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI is working to make the Vatican Europe's first carbon neutral state. He's off to a great start already by installing solar panels on the Vatican's auditorium that produce 300,000 kilo-watt hours a year.

Masdar City, Abu Dhabi
Working to be carbon neutral by 2020, oil rich Masdar City is spending over $20 billion to transform itself into an Ecotopia by capitalizing on its other abundant energy resource, sunshine. It already draws significant energy from a 10-megawatt solar farm and has plans for an advanced array of mirrors to reflect sunlight to a central tower.

Well that's all I have for now...oh While in N.Y.C. I saw many Prius Taxis and a Prius Police Car ♥

New York Trip

So tomorrow I am going to New York with a bunch of my favorite people ever until Sunday
We'll be seeing Chicago, Wicked, and Billy Elliot
Expect pics soon after

I just realized

So after talking about a favorite series of mine with some friends I realized just how much Poke'mon is pro-environment

Quite a few of the movies focus on the delicate balance of nature or the care of creatures

just a thought ^^

I gots a card reader!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok so I got a SD card reader for my birthday
so now
picture time! :D
(If you want a full view just click the picture)

so here is a couple pics of the solar heater






Best part is...its free to run ;)

Next are some photos of the memorial day storm




10 minutes later



the churning sky





the aftermath




And to finish off this post an amazing photograph of a sunset I took the Saturday before Memorial Day