Posted by Dave on March 7, 2010
It is probably not a new revelation to most of you that hemp once grew tall and proud throughout many regions of the United States. Before bored advocated of Prohibition teamed up with politicians and others seeking to push mostly Mexican immigrants back South of the Border during the rise toward the Great Depression and eventually leading to the “Reefer Madness” era, hemp was widely grown and used for dozens of applications in the U.S. including paints, cosmetics, fabrics and foods.
It seems, after many years of difficult struggle, groups such as the Hemp Industries Association and Vote Hemp might finally be gathering the momentum to bring hemp back into the mainstream of American society. These two organizations are teaming up this Spring to bring us Hemp History Week, May 17th-23rd. This is not the same thing as, “Smoke a Doobie, Attention Deficit Day,” or “Bake a Ganja Brownie for your Favorite Earth Sprite Day.” WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on February 28, 2010
As I metaphorically dug this last week, flipping participles and pretense skyward over my head and up to the sunny surface of my thoughts (and out of the maddening depths of confusion) the revelation suddenly dawned on me while seated and flying with Southwest somewhere over the eastern half of Utah.
I will call upon someone with a modicum of professional talent in Salt Lake City to make the prototype of “One True Pants.” Yes, the pair of pants that all others will one day bend the knee towards and acknowledge as king. How could I expect this pair of pants to be found wondering the savannas of retail America? No, the one true pants has yet to be woven together in the womb of its father’s mind. Too far? Yeah, I don’t even understand myself anymore.
Recently though, I found more helpful insight from Eric VandenBerg, the founder of the Hemp Barn. What will really blow your mind about a place called the Hemp Barn is not that it is primarily an earth-friendly upholstery store, or that it was founded by a young, non-hippy male, but that it is based in Salt Lake City. I know. Miracles never cease. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on January 9, 2010
In my last blog I chided hippies and granolas for not having the business sense to provide the world (or at least me) with a swell pair of hemp pants 34X34. Finally I found my savior, well within the bosom of hippie-womping hicks and sensible country folk, Orvis Clothing.
Orvis is the only clothing store with a website that sells hemp pants in size 34×34 for men. I know. A powerful statement made by a man wearing cannabis crafted clothing, but true. Nowhere else could I find my coveted pants. Orvis had two colors to chose from in 3 different inseams and several waist sizes. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on December 5, 2009
Credit: Modcell
Avert the eyes. Yes, they are at it again. Brits hold no modicum of decency when it comes to their efforts at mating sustainable products with modern building methods. Hemp and straw are so pure and modest, while industry is so brutish and base. Will it ever work?
Modcell is attempting, in their Flying Factory, to create the illusive commercially viable, modular, super-insulated, high-performance, low energy ‘passive’ buildings built using renewable, locally sourced, carbon sequestering materials. I know, I know. Crazy. When will these money hungry, earth-lovers give up? WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on July 24, 2009
Salt Lake City is going passive. Joe and Rebecca are teaming up with Brach Design and Fisher Custom Building to build Utah’s first certified passive house. That is the plan anyway. Brach Design is Utah’s only certified Passive House architect and this will be his first passive house if everything turns out right.
You may be thinking, “Who gives a diddly ding dang do.” But let me tell all you Flanders swearing neigh-sayers, this is pretty ding dang diddly cool. Let’s not forget that 76% of all electricity produced by U.S. power plants goes to the building sector. Passive House started up as PassivHaus in the UK, but that was too stinking European sounding for God-Bless-’Em-Americans, so we changed it to Passive House Institute US, but it is the same thing. Passive House is a certification that literally beats the insulation off of rating systems like LEED. The graphic shows it pretty well (although LEED is not pictured because it is a bit like comparing apples to oranges). But the point is that Passive House is the stiffest energy efficiency standard the world has seen by far. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on July 4, 2009
I just can’t feel bad about it. Post modern luxury and hippie just shouldn’t go together, and that is what so many of the most recently reencarnated pre-fab housing gurus have been trying to do. It has been doomed to failure since the start. Now the economic “downturn” is finishing the job, and I am hopeful that it may be one more good result that comes from it.
I think Buildblog puts it best in their recent post, “Pre-fab houses don’t work.” They go on to list 10 reasons why pre-fabbers have gotten it wrong at a time when I believe that most things were in their advantage to get it right. Like so many other huge changes that are taking place across the U.S. in the way that we think and live, this time of economic malaise could have been an opportunity for radical visionaries to rebuild American housing. Instead we came up with a stupider and more convoluted way to build the same old, stupid and convoluted environs. God bless America. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on June 27, 2009
So the typical definition of affordable housing is less than 30% of your income. And yet, the 2007 Census revealed that over 40% of American home owners are spending at least one-third of their income on housing, and the percentage is rising. Low to moderately low income people are the fastest growing category within this stat as well.
Housing prices are falling. For people in lots of debt at the moment, this is bad. For people that own their home it is a slight bummer, but no big deal. For people that would like to be home owners this is actually good. The problem is that property prices are not falling in most areas. Most property has maintained a strong and constant value for a while. The exceptions are areas where their is little to no practical use for the land, and therefor unimportant for our discussion. So, even after the economy bottom’s out and starts to rebound (assuming that it will), there will be little help for people wanting to own a home in proximity to a place they can actually live. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on April 15, 2009
Oh the misery of being morally responsible in a morally corrupt world. When should a corporate entity be given a break on their sustainability policy and when should they be bypassed for the lesser of many evils? I will be the first to admit that the waters are shark filled and the fields are filled with mines today when it comes to tracking original sources for refined and fabricated materials. But some actions and policies by companies have to be held to account, right?
It has been known for years now that almost half of the timber coming from East Russia is harvested illegally and that much of what China is using in its growing factories comes from
East Russia. It is also widely known that much of the finished products that we buy here in the United States are fabricated in China. Companies such as IKEA and Home Depot have even been visibly seen making efforts to discover and root out illegally and immorally harvested timber. But at what point do we consumers call the bluff and say enough is too much? WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on April 3, 2009
I love Homer Simpson, but this is one quote I just can’t get behind. Am I the only one, or are there others out there that start to carve shivs from salesperson writing utensils when they hear the words “would you like to purchase the extended warranty with that?”
I’ve tried everything as a remedy to the extended warranty. I have tried buying cheep pieces of crap that can be replaced a dozen times before the expense adds up to the warranty. I have tried buying top of the line appliances that I figure shouldn’t need an extended warranty. I’ve tried bribing repairmen, making fake threats and even begging. None of these has worked, with one notable exception. (I begged a genius at the Apple Genius Bar to have mercy on me and my two year old imac that needed a new logic board. He looked suspiciously around to see if this was a Steve Jobs orchestrated sting operation and then kindly agreed to fix it for free!) WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on March 28, 2009
Uppity folk may call it offensive, but rednecks just call it home.
There are a lot of different names for it these days. Some now call it reuse. Polite, cute little title. Some still call it salvage. Some call it practical stewardship. Some call it scavenging or hoarding. I just call it pickens. Whatever title you give it, rednecks have always known about the sustainable reuse of material goods. The ranch I grew up on had an advanced system for it. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »