A Good Day to Help Mother Earth

Thanks to my crew today for helping dive into the muck and mud to pull out 25 bags of trash and recyclables, 4 tires and an industrial sized propane tank. All in all it was a good day since the rain held off, but there was alot of mud and alot more trash and junk than I had imagined! It definately felt good to know that what we pulled out will not deteriorate in the stream and marsh, and will be disposed of properly. Well worth the sacrafice of 3 hours on a Sunday AM. There is actually another section of the marshy area still left that we did not get a chance to hit because of alot of poison ivy, so I think we will be back in the fall.

Thanks again to Ainslie (my wife), Dave, Mike and Mike for pitching in!

THIS Sunday May 17 Clean up day in Herndon: Starts at 10AM

Hi all,

Last time I will bug you about this. Hoping everyone can turn out! We will start at 10 AM at the site on Sunday morning (see map on the link below. I will have bottled water and donuts, and I picked up gloves and trash/recycling bags from Fairfax County so we should have everything we need. I have also scheduled VDOT to come by on Monday and haul away the trash we pull out.

Weather for Sunday as of right now, is calling for showers (40%), but this is a stream we are talking about, so we would get wet anyway. Wear boots if you can as the area could be muddy.

Thanks in advance to everyone for helping out!!

http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Herndon&state=VA&address=Dulles+Green+Blvd+%26+Innovation+Ave&zipcode=20170&country=US&latitude=38.96414&longitude=-77.4165&geocode=INTERSECTION

2 weeks to go until Dulles Greene Clean Up

Tomorrow will be 2 weeks to go until the May 17 clean up day at Dulles Greene Apartments in Herndon. Looking forward to getting out there and cleaning up the trash and debris that litter the creek/stream and the stormwater run-off area.

Earth Day at AOL

This morning AOL employees were treated to a re-usable green bag on our chairs, along with a note wishing a Happy Earth Day 2009. Also of note, on the internal employee website, it says that AOL recycled 150 tons of materials last year and won the Green IT Data Center award for greenest internet data center.

AOL also launched a Green toolbar for your browser today. Download it at
http://toolbar.aol.com/green/

So Happy Earth Day everyone, plant a tree, clean a stream, change a bulb or use reusable bags. Then, don't just do it today, do it everyday!

Volunteer to clean a creek

I have attached some pictures in the picture gallery on the right side of the page to show the area where we are going to clean up on Sunday May 17. After taking a close up tour of the area, I am very glad we decided to do this, and excited to help clean up this area. As you can see from the before pictures, the area is full of trash, old tires, construction debris, etc.. From walking the trails made by some animals (I could see some deer tracks and maybe something else), the animal inhabitants of the area will be glad to see this stuff out of there!

So, I encourage everyone to look into volunteering and helping clean up the environment.

Dulles Greene Clean Up Day May 17

I will be coordinating a clean up of a stream and stormwater run-off area in Herndon, Virginia on Sunday May 17 from 10 AM to 1 PM. I have been driving past this site for some time now, and it as now become my mission for the spring to clean up the area and remove the trash, debris and other stuff floating in the storm water run-off area and lining the creek that feeds into it.

Here is a map of the area, and I will post some before (and then after) pictures of the site as well.

We will be coordinating this effort through Fairfax County and the Alice Ferguson Foundation, and they will be providing the bags, gloves and other clean up materials.

http://www.fergusonfoundation.org/index.html

Please join us if you are in the Northern Virginia area

Green Tech

Working in the Internet technology sector, I wanted to highlight a couple of companies that are putting their best foot forward for Green tech. Of course, Google is putting alot of effort, money and resources behind coming up with green technologies including helping the make the "smart grid" a reality. By creating an "energy Internet" all of your appliances and electronics can talk to the network and the electric utility, and turn on and off depending on energy consumption and pricing factors.

Article Here

AOL is also doing its part as well. AOL is a finalist for the Uptime Institute's 2009 Green Enterprise IT (GEIT) Awards for Data Center Energy Efficiency Improvement. The 2009 GEIT Awards program honors organizations that have distinguished themselves by reducing energy consumption in their data centers and beyond. GEIT Award finalists have gone beyond instituting established industry best practices to implement cutting-edge green IT systems. The Institute introduced the GEIT Awards program in 2008 to create institutional awareness that IT energy efficiency can enhance bottom-line profitability while meaningfully reducing overall corporate carbon footprint.

Article Here