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Minor site construction.

At zero255zero, quality is more important than quantity.  That is part of the mantra right?  Green, frugalistic, and minimalistic.

With that said, this site is going to undergo a little bit of construction.  Mainly on post content.  Fewer entries per week, but better post quality.  I hope to incorporate more of the things that I do personally, since this blog was created to chronicle my green, frugalistic and minimalistic journey.

In the meanwhile, stay green.

The abbreviated grocery run.

A quick picture of some sustenance that I managed to squeeze into my bag.

No car?

I say no problems.

One step closer to the pseudo NY lifestyle.

I officially have no car. Yeah I finally did it, got rid of my car, now let’s just see how long I can last with out a vehicular automobile driving machine.

It all happened last week, and I’ve been getting around just fine with my bike and good ol’ public transportation.

My goal is to last all the way through next winter, so we’ll see what happens. So why no car?

Here are just a few reasons:

• Great way to be green
• Save money (gas, insurance, maintenance)
• Don’t have to worry about parking
• Challenge myself

By the way the picture up there is supposed to represent one less car. Hence the empty space in between the two cars.

Sliced and diced to imperfection.

I’ve been bringing my lunch to work more and more lately, and have been experimenting with idiot-proof salads.

One of the easiest lunches to prepare has to be the tofu/fruit salad.  I just chop up some tofu, slice some strawberries, throw in some garden salad, and top it off with some fat free croutons/low fat dressing.

Throw the reusable Tupperware into the fridge, and she’s ready for lunch the following day.

If you’re like me and like preparing your food the night before, hold off on throwing the croutons in, since they’ll get soggy.  Instead wait until the day of to throw them in.

Gazelle: a 15 sec review.

I wrote a post a couple weeks back about Gazelle.com, which is a site that buys back your used electronic items.  Earlier this week I received payment from them.

If I were to give them a letter grade from my experience, I would give them an A-.

Here’s the breakdown:

Ease of use:  If you know how to get on the internets, you should be able to navigate through the site.  A

Shipping:  They provide the postage, invoice, and label.  All you have to do is package it nicely and drop it off at UPS.  A

Turnaround time:  Approximately 2 to 3 weeks, from the time you drop it off at UPS.  A

Customer Support:  They have an online chat system, where you can chat with a rep.  A little slow, but it works.  B

Money:  I opted to get my money through Paypal, which went smoothly. A

Trade In-Value POLICY:  I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised by how much they offered me for my old MP3 player.  They gave me a quote of $48.

However I kept checking over the next couple of weeks and the price kept going up!!!  Good right!?!  The quote for my exact same MP3 player kept going up, from $48 to eventually $59, where its at right now.

The problem was that they won’t match the latest quote, they go with the quote that you print out and ship with your item.  So I essentially lost $11 for sending it in early.  And I know that I included the cables for the second one, but I ended up finding the cables and sent them in with the package. B-

I would still highly recommend  Gazelle.com.  All you have to do is print and ship, and within 3 weeks you can get a nice little cash treat for crap lying around your house.

Waterless toilets. Ok just urinals.

I remember handing out questionnaires for my senior project back in my undergrad days.  The questionnaire mostly dealt with water use on campus.

One of the questions was about waterless urinals.  Many people were opposed to them, simply because of the hygiene issue.  Since I had never used one, I also had concerns about smell and cleanliness.

Well, I can finally say that odor is not a problem.  There is a waterfree urinal installed in one of the restrooms at the location where I am taking a class this week.

I didn’t detect any odor before or after using the toilet.  Although I did smell some asparagas during use.   Haha, or the string beans from Whole Foods.

Apparently there is some sort of filter that not only traps the odor, but filters the pee, before going down the drain.

Think about it though, at 1 gallon per flush (the standard for most urinals today), you could be saving a lot of water and money!

Also, since it doesn’t flush, I guess this is literally just a “urine hole” then??!?  You know as opposed to urinal.

More info here:

http://www.sloanvalve.com/186_234_ENU_HTML.htm

Super green week.

I had to travel to Cupertino today for work related training, and will be going there for the rest of this week.

Since I had to get there super early, I decided to get there by bike and bus to forego the early morning traffic.  It only took about 35 minutes!  I think that it would have taken even longer if I had driven on the freeway.

For those of you who don’t know, Cupertino is home to the mother of all Whole Foods.  I would have to say that it is at least twice the size of your regular Whole Foods.

The instructor gave us an hour for lunch, so I biked over to Whole Foods, and grabbed lunch.  It was kind of pricey, but it was fresh and healthy.  I packed everything into my bag and went back to campus to eat.

I bought a bunch of vegetarian food, and threw it into a box.  By the time I got back to campus, it was all nicely mixed from the ride haha.  I pulled out my trusty point and shoot to document.

Along with the main entree, I snagged an Odwalla bar and some sushi.  My beverage of choice was water filled up from the campus break room in my Klean Kanteen.