iOS7

I've never claimed NOT to be an Apple diehard. I've been using Apple products since I was in elementary school and have never personally purchased any computer that was not natively running an Apple operating system.

When it comes to the iPhone, it took me a few years to get on board. Due to the lack of availability on my provider's network at the time it first came out, I was not an early adopter of the iPhone but whoooey did I want one badly.

That said, I was one of the masses who pre-ordered the iPhone 4 when Verizon first started carrying it in early 2011. Fast forward to October 2013 and that very same phone is still with me. I'm well past my available 18-month upgrade pricing to get a new phone but have yet to feel the need to upgrade to the iPhone 4S or the iPhone 5. My phone works fine, has a decent camera, and aside from slowing down because I've clogged it up with apps and photos, there is no reason to get a new one.

Recently, Apple unveiled iOS7 and the new iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

What does any of this have to do with the premise of this blog, you're asking? At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I'll continue.

When iOS7 was announced as a free upgrade, and supported on the iPhone 4, of course I was excited. As an Apple diehard, I'd followed one of the live bloggers from the Apple event and was intrigued by all the new bells and whistles.

Fast forward to a month after upgrading and I wish I could pay to downgrade. If you have an iPhone 4 and have not upgraded to iOS7, don't.

Today is 10/24/13 and "Today"
has been clicked. The date is selected
but is off the screen on my iPhone 4.
Clearly designed for the larger
screen of the iPhone 5.

Does it run? Sure. Does it have all the new bells and whistles? I guess. It's hard to tell when I'm waiting longer for apps to open, have all kinds of problems with iMessage, Facebook won't even load anything, and sometimes my phone just decides not to be connected to the internet anymore. It looks like it is, but it's not. I've even noticed a view of the Calendar that is clearly designed for the larger screen of the iPhone 5 (see photo at right). IOS7 is plagued by bad UI/UX and my experience thus far with it on my device that's a few years old really tells me something, and this is what ties this post back to this blog.

Amidst Apple discontinuing the iPhone 4 and 5, leaving just the 4S (free with upgrade pricing), 5C (new) and 5S (new), they had to find a way to get people like me to upgrade their hardware. I fall into the category of people (in Apple's eyes) who can afford to upgrade and they need me to because they are losing market share to the plethora of Android devices. The problem they face is that I didn't (key word) NEED to upgrade. As I stated before my iPhone 4 is in perfect working condition.

Heck I still have (among about 5 other iPods that have come and gone from my life) an original iPod Touch that is perfectly serviceable as a music and video playing device, for Pandora, etc. what Apple never did to me with that device was to offer an iOS upgrade that rendered it useless - instead whatever iOS version that came out at that time was simply not supported on the device and it would not let me upgrade if I tried. Thank you for that, Apple!

Long story short, I believe that Apple intentionally allowed the iPhone 4 to run iOS7 so that enough of us suckers would upgrade (for FREE! aren't they nice?!) and have a bad enough experience with it that we would finally give in and buy a new phone. It's been well established on this blog how I feel about waste in today's society, and this whole theory of mine highlights the mindset that seemingly will never stop... That we have to constantly upgrade our stuff for the purpose of keeping the economy going, at the expense of the environmental implications of all these iPhone 4 devices that were otherwise perfectly fine and the environmental and personal cost of all these iPhone 5 devices that will offset them. It's the whole concept of buying a car, maintaining it, and keeping it for years and years until it won't run anymore vs. leasing and getting a new car every few years. There are so many implications of the production of that new car every 3 years that far outweigh any slight gain in fuel economy.

I'm a 'buy it, care for it, and use it for a long time' kinda guy. And I don't appreciate my friends at Apple forcing me into a different mindset with my now sluggish iPhone 4.

Nissan Leaf...Reserved

June 16th, 2010... The day I reserved my Nissan Leaf.



About two years ago (and two years after we bought our Prius) I vowed that my next car would be fully electric. Back then I figured it would be a plug-in Prius, or something else from Toyota. After all, they lead the way in hybrid technology.

Gotta admit, before the Leaf, I never even considered buying a Nissan. Why the change? Well because the Leaf is the first fully electric car for the masses. Skeptics will argue about the longevity of the battery life. Or that 100 miles in a single charge is not far enough. After all the $100k Tesla Roadster goes 245 miles per charge.

We don't have that kind of dough in my family. In fact the Leaf, admittedly, is a bit of a stretch too. But I fully believe that to see the world change in the ways that my wife and I want to see it change, takes sacrifices. It's not cheap to go solar and it's a risky move to buy the first mass-produced electric car. But heck, we only live once and why not take a chance on something new. Revolutionary. I can't wait for the day that I am plugging my car into an outlet whose electricity is produced by the solar panels in the back yard.

Toyota affected serious change with the Prius and I applaud them for seeing a niche and going after it with gusto. Next time you are driving around, count how many hybrid vehicles you can find. Every major automaker has at least one model.

Will more electric cars come out with longer ranges than the Leaf? I sure hope so!! With China set to have 200 million cars on the road in the next decade, I can only hope that before long, I can't drive anywhere without seeing hoards of clean, quiet electric vehicles.

Battery-powered lawnmower

I mowed my lawn today.

Historically, this has not been something worth writing about. But today was different. Today was the first time in my life that I cut the grass and could hear myself think. The first time I could smell the fresh-cut grass as it was being shortened without breathing noxious fumes. The first time I didn't spill gas all over the place while filling my carbon dioxide spewing machine.

Enter my new Neuton CE 6 battery-powered lawnmower. It's quiet, maneuverable, and fun-looking. Is it a super powerful manly man beast of a machine? Of course not. I could care less about all that. Then again I am the kind of man that is not impressed by a Hemi, Hummer, or hog.

However, as I mowed under the solar panels that had charged the batteries running this new clean cutting machine, I did have a growing sense of getting somewhere. Lawnmowers are far worse than cars when it comes to polluting, and I am happy to have eliminated that portion of pollution that had been coming out of my yard.

I am so looking forward to the next generation of automobiles that are 100% electric and are charged at peoples' homes, where photovoltaic cells and small wind turbines are commonplace and no longer the exception. It seems that with the right people making the right decisions, that future doesn't have to be too far away.

Green is the new black

Not to get all morbid or anything, but there was an interesting article on CNN.com a couple months ago (yes, I did forget to publish this post) about natural burials. I guess if one chooses to be buried, unless they plan on being exhumed one day and having their coffin raided for the untold riches within like an Egyptian tomb, why not go with a biodegradable coffin? Or maybe toilet paper mummification? Forget cremation, think of the garden that could grow in that cemetary!

Bamboo

There has been so much talk about bamboo lately, and for good reason. I don't even know a fraction of its uses other than for flooring, fabrics, and to use as a blow-gun of you are a ninja. It's one of those really strange things in this world that is almost impossible to kill, grows hearty and rapidly, and is strong. I happen to have some growing in my yard and part of my reason for this post is to warn people about it.

Bamboo spreads. Like poison ivy (the plant and the rash). After seeing the little patch of bamboo in my yard, several people have told me they wanted some. And I could easily give it to them. This patch came from my parent's house in the form of 5-10 roots about 10 years ago.

What people don't often notice is the 40-mil plastic barrier sticking out of the ground about 3 inches (it is hidden by edgers). Those 3 inches above ground are supported by 33 inches below ground. That's right, I dug a 3-foot deep trench around the bamboo patch and it took countless hours to pull up all the roots and rhizomes that had spread into the surrounding grass area.

Bamboo must be contained. Period. It is a HIGHLY invasive species. When planned for, however, it can make a beautiful natural fence or privacy screen. Too often, though, I see peoples' yards where the bamboo is simply spreading out of control, and there is not a lot you can do about that once it starts. Ask my parents. They started with 3-5 clumps of roots and shoots. Ten years later, they had a forest of bamboo behind their house and after several days (at a time and multiple attempts at this) of serious manual labor trying to dig that stuff out, it keeps coming back. The people they got it from were digging it out with a backhoe.

My basic point is that if you want any of my bamboo, you need to approach me with a 10-step plan of how you plan to contain it.

World's Best Cat Litter, literally

We have cats. Four of them actually. Some go outside, some don't. It's a zoo. Anyway, with that many cats, one goes through a fair share of litter. We used to get Fresh Step litter ($11.99 for 30 pounds I think at BJs). The stuff is so dusty though and it stinks up the basement, leaving a film of dust on everything.

One of my new favorite products in the world is called World's Best Cat Litter. It's amazing. It is litter made from corn. It clumps just like regular cat litter but smells SO much better and has NO dust! The first time Sage went in to take a tinkle, she even thought about eating the litter. And the best part (aside from the dust elimination) is that it is completely biodegradeable.

This litter costs a little more than the Fresh Step, but for the dustlessness alone it is totally worth the extra few dollars. And this is coming from someone on a limited budget and a lot of felines.

Toyota Prius

I'll admit it, I love our Toyota Prius. I love that we sacrificed a lot of things to be able to afford it, and every time I sit in the driver's seat, I feel lucky to be sitting there. It's a car. It's not just a car. It is a life-altering vehicle. It is a sign of the times and its popularity speaks volumes about what so many people actually want.

Not Hummers. Not Lincoln Navigators.

While I don't doubt that there are many uses for such vehicles, It's not commuting up a scenic highway that passes from Old Saybrook, CT to the hospital this doctor must work at in Middletown. Ridiculous. I see this guy on the highway and want to ticket him for idiocy. Sure he has earned the money to buy expensive things and show off his success. Great! Good for him! Does he have to drive such a ridiculous vehicle to do it?

Back to the Prius. We had a car that kept breaking down and it was just time to be replaced. We sold it to a guy that fixed it up and bought it to save himself money on gas because it happened to get much better mileage than his current car. We knew we wanted a Prius, but good luck finding one. People buying them today, off the lot, are lucky. There are tons of people like us who put down a deposit, submitted an order, and waited months to have the privilege of driving this futuristic machine.

The Prius changes the way you drive. It gives you a gentle reminder that accelerating too fast burns more gas. It shows you right up front how much gas you are using, and when you alter your habits a little, it rewards you with a little green car icon, like a friendly pat on the back saying, 'hey, you have generated more electricity than in the previous 5 miles.'

The Prius is far from the only hybrid car, and is one of several gas-reducing technologies out there. People often compare only the bottom line (price) and the miles per gallon. The Honda Fit probably gets better gas mileage than the Hybrid Civic, but it's missing something. The Toyota Yaris no doubt gets much better mileage than the Toyota Hylander Hybrid... But the next time you pull up to a red light next to a(ny) hybrid vehicle, I want you to roll down your window and listen.

Enjoy the silence. That silence is the sound of gas not burning. My favorite thing, every time I drive the Prius, is when the gas engine shuts off, while driving or at stops. It is such a wonderful feeling.