The Point

I grabbed this information from a local independent bookstore where This book will be being signed by the author TONIGHT, good stuff…

$68 vs. $43 – Local businesses support local economies!

Several recent economic studies have concluded that locally owned independent businesses reinvest far more money in their local communities and economies than chain stores do.
One study determined that for every $100 spent in their stores, local businesses give back $68 to their local economy. By contrast, for every $100 spent in national chains, those companies return only $43, meaning that those chain stores take away $57 from that same local economy.
Patronize your local businesses. Good sense for you good cents for your local economy!

Top Ten Reasons to SHOP LOCALLY…

Local character and prosperity. Your community’s local character and prosperity thrive when you support its unique and diverse locally owned businesses.

Community well-being. Local businesses foster community well-being by building strong neighborhoods, sustaining communities, and contributing more to local causes.

Local decision-making. Local ownership means local decision making by people who live in the community and share in the effect of those decisions.

Local economic benefits. Keeping your money in your local economy supports local jobs, funds more local services through sales tax, and invests in neighborhood improvement and development.

Local jobs and wages. Locally owned businesses create more jobs locally and, in some cases, provide better wages and benefits than chains do.

Entrepreneurship. Local entrepreneurship fosters economic innovation and prosperity.
Public services costs. Local stores in town centers make more efficient use of public services and community infrastructure than big box chain stores.

Environmental impact. Local stores help sustain vibrant, compact, walkable town centers, which in turn are essential to reducing sprawl, automobile use, habitat loss, and air and water pollution.
Healthy competition. A marketplace of tens of thousands of small businesses across our country fosters healthy competition and ensures innovation and low prices over the long term.

More choices for you. An abundance of small locally owned businesses, each selecting its own product mix, guarantees a much wider range of product choices for everyone in the community.

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Is something I usually hate doing. Today, I’m putting new tires on my wife’s car, something I’ve postponed longer than I should have.

I kept thinking I might try to hold out and trade it in, and I may yet do that soon, if so the best choices for a family vehicle for someone who needs to haul a ladder occasionally and take a trip to the beach with a family of four including a diapered child but also is trying to minimize their choking of the ozone…are the Saturn VUE Hybrid and the Ford Escape/Mariner/Tribute, which is the better choice since it gets better mileage and now has 100% recycled cloth seating!

After some further review I’ve also narrowed down my own new car choices to two… The Volkswagen CC, which is based on them bringing a manufacturing facility to Chattanooga and the fact that it’s one of the best looking sedans out right now and it gets 31 MPG hwy (which is where most of my driving is done)…and the American green choice, the new 2010 Ford Fusion/Mercury Milan Hybrid which has just been given its EPA MPG ratings of 41 City/36 Hwy…AWESOME for an American mid-sized car!

I’ve just bought some time with Erika’s car getting new tires, but mine went over 120k miles this week…it’s about time to take some test drives.

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I want to change the world! I see a World Vision commercial and I’m immediately stirred, though I don’t cry like one friend when I see commercials for unwanted pets…

Our family has given to various causes and even volunteered with several organizations. It’s not enough…

If we try to change everything, we usually end up changing nothing, so…

Here are the places that need it most…

I started with the poorest places and found that they were also the most dangerous…

Poorest Countries in the world–
The order changes based on which list you look at, but most are in Africa
Rwanda…you can buy coffee
Burundi…they export coffee and tea
Tanzania…give them some tourism dollars, safari and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro

Afghanistan

Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere
Haiti

Poor Cities in America
Detroit, MI
New Orleans, LA

SO…this year i’m going to focus my giving of resources (time and money) to–

Tanzania–one of the poorest in the world

Haiti–Poor western country

New Orleans–Poor U.S. City

Southeast TN–Home

I’m not sure what this will involve, and I’m definitely open to ideas and suggestions…

let’s change the world

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I’ve touched on things I’m doing about my environmental impact, but haven’t put anything in a list for you…it’s time to fix that. Here they are…

Top 3 things you can do to immediately UP your GREEN, I’m gonna give you FOUR!

4. Setting your thermostat just 2 degrees lower in winter and higher in summer could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.

3. Replace your shower head with a 1.5GPM low flow version–This has become one of my favorites, it’s so easy I can do it myself, and I am definitely not plumbing inclined! The average two shower a day household will save over 7,000 gallons of water a year, more than paying for the cost of even the best new shower head.

2. Replace Light bulbs with CFL’s or even LED’s if you can find them inexpensively enough. Your home accounts for nearly half of all your consumption, this is a quick and easy way to lower it. If every U.S. family replaced one regular light bulb with a CFL, it would eliminate 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gases, the same as taking 7.5 million cars off the road.

1. Change your purchasing habits…buy local, buy in bulk to reduce packaging, buy recycled, and simply buy less…

Honorable Mention–Tell others to do the same, if everyone just did those three things above, we could DRASTICALLY improve our environment…

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I’m a Registered Republican, but in reflecting over the passing to a new presidential era, I was reminded of some of the Bush-isms of the last eight years, here is one of my favorites from the decider…

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” –Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

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There have been a few songs written about Saturday, and in my informal polling, it’s most people’s favorite day of the week. I’m not sure if I’d go that far, but I do enjoy college football so Saturday wins the award for best sporting events day in my book.

I travel a fair amount for work, but can almost always count on being home on Saturday to hang out with the family. In the BC (before children) days, the morning usually started late, these days I’m often awoken around sunrise via a flying elbow to the back of the head delivered by Alexander, after a little retribution we make a trip to Hardees or Bojangles for a Biscuit, c’mon we live in the SOUTH….

After that, it could be anything from house cleaning to a trip to the park

The most important thing about the day is that whatever gets done on Saturday gets done TOGETHER in our house! It makes for a fun day. Family naps, wrestling, vacuum cleaning, ahhh…

it’s gonna be a great day!

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I’ve been running a bit since the first of the year, but today I kick it into high gear!

Today’s run officially starts my twelve weeks of marathon training for the Music City Marathon on April, 25th. Here is the schedule I’ll be following…

Week 1–3.5, 3.5, 3.5, 3.5, 5=19 miles
Week 2–4,4,4,4,6=22 miles
Week 3–4,4,4,4,7=23 miles
Week 4–4,4,4,4,8=24 miles
Week 5–4,4,4,4,10=26 miles
Week 6–4.5,4.5,4.5,4.5,11=29 miles
Week 7–4.5,4.5,4.5,4.5,12=30 miles
Week 8–4.5,4.5,4.5,4.5, RACE (Knoxville 1/2 marathon)=31.1 miles
Week9–5,5,5,5,13=33 miles
Week 10–5,5,5,5,14=34 miles
Week 11–5,5,5,5,15= 35 miles
Week 12– 5,5,5, RACE (Music City Marathon)=41.2 miles

It’s gonna be FUN!

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I’ve got a lot on the mind today, and plenty to do…so I’ll just give a little James Joyce style rant to you here…

–Getting back in the swing of things with work, it’s gonna be a different, challenging, fun, good year! I’m not just saying that because Mark Johnson could read this

–I’ve pretty much covered the quick fix/easy stuff for conservation at home…next steps, alternative fuel vehicle and solar/wind system

–I’m officially a gun owner, picked up a hunting rifle and self defense pistol, next step is to get my NRA card!

–The Congressional district I live in is going to be incumbent-less for the first time since 1994 in the next election…should I run?

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