Paint formulation in the past few years has been going though a transformation as volatile compounds are removed in favor of water based mixtures. I use water based paint for everything, except porch floors where the latex substitute just doesn't seem to work well.

So now I have several layers of different formulations of paint on some really sound red pine that needs to be stripped.

I have been eying this really overpriced infrared paint remover for some time and a week of vacation and perpetual procrastination seemed like a tipping point to cough up the money.

Chemical Paint removers wind up in landfills and soak the wood with stuff that may retard a lasting finish

Sanding is really time consuming and makes alot of dust possibly making lead airborne and takes away the wood.

This device works by heating the paint with infrared light allowing it to be easily separated with a pull scraper. And it works.

The unit operates below the vapor point of lead so it isn't burned off into your lungs like may occur with a heat gun. The lower temperature of the unit also lowers fire risk over a heat gun.

Energy-wise it uses alot of electricity (1100 watts) that maybe produced by coal or some other non-renewable resource. For argument sake, I will be optimistic and say my electrons came from nuclear or the York Haven Hydro Station, which has quietly and cleanly been producing power since 1904.

Worker productivity is up while labor costs are down for the second quarter of this year; that combined with a use or lose week of vacation meant it was time for a motorcycle trip.

My riding buddy only has the weekend off starting Friday at 5 p.m. and this is the weekend Hurricane Hannah decided to take a whirlwind tour up the east coast.

Some of my most interesting adventures on a motorcycle have been weather related. You really don't care about weather in a car, but on a bike you are at the mercy of what the sky offers.

It can be the most miserable and the most inspiring of moments. The agony of bone chilling cold with rain driving into your crevices followed by the sweetest scents of spring blasting though your smile. The extremes are memorable, a privilege lost with life inside climate controlled buildings or behind tinted windshield glass.

The direction for this trip was easy. WEST ! and FAST !

I have to smile at people who interact with motorcyclists. The guy behind the counter at Hess said to me on Friday about 5 p.m., "the clouds are closing in fast" My neighbor told me, "it's going to pour tomorrow, did you hear the forecast?" There is usually at least one story about a nephew who was skewered by a chain link fence.

I really don't have a death wish. I just like living.

So as usual we hit the road two...ok, three hours late and the clouds are getting thick. I check the radar and can see the swirls of Hannah pulling up through Maryland. I figure if we can just get over the eastern divide, we will beat the rain by heading mostly west first via the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

It's a great night for riding. A couple hundred miles of interstate, temperatures in the 60's and not one drop of rain. As it turns out, we were even lucky enough to set up tents and get to sleep before a gentle rain that ended before dawn.

Memorable motorcycle weather

Frozen early morning fog on Interstate 91 between Vermont and New Hampshire. It was Summer.

The York County Solid Waste Authority's Resource Recovery center was the first waste-to-energy plant in the state. Now there are about five, said Ellen O'Connor, the manager of the community services division.

By recycling trash to energy, York County saves 13 acres of landfill space each year. The plant generates enough electricity to power 20,000 homes.

While hybrids have tended to go upscale in price and equipment or relegated to high end SUV's, this market niche has more of a global vision aimed at neutralizing a price difference between a hybrid and traditional gas powered car.

Look for the car to go on sale next Spring.

The 2009 all-new Highlander will be equipped with either a 3.5L V6 or a 3.3L hybrid powerplant. Toyota is expanding the Highlander's powertrain line-up for 2009 by adding a more fuel efficient 2.7L four-cylinder engine. The new engine produces 187 horsepower at 5,800 RPM and 186 lb-ft at 4,100 RPM, making it the most powerful four cylinder engine in Toyota's line-up.

The new 2.7L engine comes with a 6sp automatic transmission. Toyota has not released the fuel econ figures as yet, these figures will be announced closer to the January 2009 launch date. The Highlander was first launched in 2001. The Japanese deportee version is called the Klugger. jamaica-gleaner.com

The new federal mileage stickers (in effect after this vehicle was purchased) are a more realistic assessment of hybrid mileage. Everyone knew a Toyota Prius didn't get 60 mpg, but that was the law and the number was legal and every other manufacturer used the same standardized testing.

Ethanol reduces mileage. I have given up trying to fill up with pure gasoline because that option just doesn't seem to exist in the York area anymore. Every pump seems to sport the 10% mix with sayings like "enriched with ethanol" and pictures of corn stalks.

Corn based ethanol is a counterproductive alternative form of energy helping to increase food prices and lowering the national fleet fuel efficiency. Compared to gasoline and diesel, the gas mileage in ethanol is the least. Ethanol yields about 30% less gas mileage than gasoline. The stuff even takes more energy to produce from field to consumer than it is worth. Ask our politicians why they love it so much.

My neighbor Chuck says his Chevy pickup with a 6 liter V-8 gets 11 mpg whether he runs it hard or takes it easy. It's basically a simple, large displacement energy converter that doesn't strain or change it's operating function to adjust for load.

Hybrids use several tools to squeeze mileage out of a gallon of gas so mileage can vary widely.

Being green around the year 2000 meant driving a tiny hybrid Honda Insight with a "Save the whales" bumper sticker plastered between those funky rear fender skirts. These lone conservers were few and far between navigating a sea of SUV's, consuming 5 times the fuel, labeling them liberals.

I have never understood the label liberal because it's often applied to one who chooses to conserve resources (or reduces profit?); which would be conserve-ative..? It's one of those strange spins of economic-politics, like having a trade embargo with Communist Cuba for 40 years when Communist China has become our dominant trade partner and labor force.

The innovative minds of yesterday that invented (and capitalized on) modern convenience, today capitalize on those inventions and innovate new layers of surcharge and ownership, adding layers upon layers of costs to consumers.

Green today means more about marketing than solution. Under the complicated layers of production of products and energy delivery, consumers have realized that they need to take steps to simplify and extract value out of everything that empowers their existence, but are left with more green static than tools to fix problems.

Capitalism is this wonderful/horrible thing where opportunity seems unlimited yet the long-term prognosis screams metastasized cancer without a moral thread sewing the futures of consumers together.

CEOs have replaced feudal lords. It's questionable which leader has a greater motivation to support their underclass.

I ran across this interesting, ranting article from a South Africa paper, How hybrid cars cause hunger thetimes.co.za The hybrid part doesn't make sense, but the historical perspective is fascinating.

The author relates modern agribusiness selling food stock to the highest bidder (corn for ethanol) to the emergence of apartheid where black people were forcibly removed from fertile farming land, relocated to unproductive land and forced to work on big commercial farms as underpaid laborers..

Patel points out that in the 2000 years before the British arrived in India, famines occurred once every 120 years. After the British imposed the market on India's agricultural production, famines occurred every four years.

Despite the shortcomings of feudalism prior to the arrival of the British, India's landowners fed peasants when harvests were bad. For millennia, a moral economy prevailed, which ensured that nobody starved.

The 51-year-old Michigan Truck Plant, located in Wayne, Mich., will start building the Focus in November when it kicks equipment now used to build the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUV to it's Kentucky plant. A third shift will be created to boost production of the Ford Focus.

Ford's Cuautitlan Assembly Plant, located in Mexico, is to begin building a Fiesta subcompact car in 2010. The plant currently produces the F-Series pickup trucks. The Louisville Assembly Plant, located in Kentucky, also will begin producing a new small car in 2011. It is now home to the Ford Explorer.
wsj.com

The freshman transition program at Susquehannock High School aims to alleviate some of the fear related to high school. Visit students on their first day.

I don't know where a sedentary person who gorges on meat and drives a full-sized SUV fits into all of this...

• Meat requires much more fossil fuel to produce than vegetables and grains; about 145 times more for beef than for potatoes.


• If the entire world ate the way the U.S. does, the planet's entire petroleum reserves would be exhausted in 13 years


• The typical American could save almost as much gas by going vegetarian as by not driving.

Everyone is familiar with 19th century water wheels powering small grain mills, but what was interesting about this pre-1850 installation was that they used four efficient turbines (see picture below) to drive an entire factory through mechanical transfer.

Water was gradually constricted by narrowing water tunnels, condensing the volume of water creating more power. Think of your finger squeezing over an open garden hose.

It was said that the factory could make fabric cheaper than mills in Baltimore.

Free power harnessed by American innovation 150 years ago ran an entire factory.

No worries about a 30% increase in the cost of natural gas. No hostile foreign governments to feed with our dollars. No commodity speculators to profit by escalation of price brought on by an energy monopoly strangling the economy. No competing for oil with India and China.

Free domestic power by harnessing the flow of nature.

Tunnels that brought water to the mill.

A random visit to Morgan E. Cousler Park with two Hula-Hoops. Park visitors try their hula and talk about their memories.

Because industrial farming draws on the economy of scale, our food is increasingly grown in concentration in specific areas of the country. This is so common that it has shaped much of our country's geographic identities--the western Plains are wheat country, the Midwest is the Corn Belt--but it has reached extremes. For instance, approximately ninety percent of all the fresh vegetables consumed in the United States are grown in California's San Joaquin Valley.xix

This national-scale system is possible only because it uses large quantities of fossil fuels to transport food products to the consumer. It is now common practice to ship food not just around the country, but around the world. (In 2005, more than $120 billion of agricultural products crossed U.S. borders as imports and exports.)xx As a result, the average American foodstuff travels an estimated 1,500 miles before being consumed. sustainabletable.org

York is surrounded by local produce growers and this time of year produce is plentiful.

Jump to the extended entry for a list of local suppliers of produce.

The cheap plug-in electric mower I purchased at the beginning of the summer is great.

Some handle hardware kept falling apart, but that was fixed with some lock washers for $2. It's quiet, doesn't stink when it runs, requires no maintenance and I haven't bought a drop of gasoline for a mower since.

The scooter that replaced the truck for commuting two months ago now has over 1000 miles on it.

Chuck's co-workers asked him if we was going to keep using it now that gasoline has dropped more than 50 cents a gallon. His reply, "No, now it just costs me $3.50 cents to fill the tank instead of $4." He often marvels at how much more money he has in his pocket now that it isn't getting burned up on gasoline to push around a huge metal box.

So as the summer comes to a close and gas prices decline because of a reduction in demand, the question is will people go back to consuming as it becomes more affordable.

There was a time when copper roofs were the longest lasting roof next to slate, however acid rain can reduce the life of a copper roof in some parts of the country to under a decade. The lead coating is resistant to acid rain.