U.S. Post Office Sucks

Never put anything is U.S. Post Office mail box by accident. They have no capacity or will to do deal with such a simple mistake.

Last week I bundled up a bunch of personal checks some friends sent to me into a deposit envelope and went to an ATM machine to make a deposit. I took some letters with me to mail. My brain skipped a cog and I accidentally put my deposit envelope into the mail box. It was Sunday.

First thing Monday morning after about an hour of phone tag between 3 different telephone numbers I get an unconcerned and unapologetic supervisor who tells me that nothing can be done if I don’t want to loiter around the mail box on a work day on the chance I will come across the mail carrier who collects the mail. According to him all mail goes to a huge factory like, automated processing plant. Anything the machines can’t deal with goes to a dead letter place and anything without an address, like a bank envelope gets destroyed.

I told the guy that I would be willing to travel to pick the envelope up, but that I couldn’t take off of work to travel to another city to stand around a mail box.

No dice.

I know I am not the first or last person who holds down a job 9 – 5 who has made this mistake. I was really shocked that the Post Office has no way to deal with such a simple matter as putting an envelope aside for someone to come pick up. I got the impression that they do not want to bother, that they do not have to care, they know they do not have to care and that they do not indeed care.

It is the classic example of what you get in an organization when there reduced accountability.

Don’t make this mistake, you will be SOL like I am.

The situation is the same as if I decided to flush the checks down the toilet.

First Green Shave

This morning I had my first shave with an electric razor.

Usually I wait until after I get out of the shower to shave to take advantage of my facial hair loosening up from the humidity. This morning I used my electric razor fresh out of bed as an experiment.

I got a much better shave, even under those conditions, with the electric razor.

I did not turn on my sink once, I conserved water, I used no shaving cream, I put no shaving cream made of who knows what pollutants down the drain into the Chesapeke bay, I did not press the button on my aerosol shaving cream can, I will no longer have to throw out the metal from such cans, I will no longer have to throw out metal from the blades I use , I will not have to throw out plastic from the handles and I will not have to buy any of these things any more.

Ironically, I have even saved electricity and thereby reduced global climate change emissions. Electric razors use less power than it takes to pump water into my bathroom sink for shaving with another method.

My barber told me that if I rinse out the razor after each use and store it outside of my bathroom to protect it from humidity that I can make my razor last for many years.

Huge drop in pollution from my daily habits, less mess, fewer trips to the drugstore, and a better shave. Whats not to like ? 🙂

Go Green!

Wind Power & Hot Air

I recently signed up to receive wind generated electricity from my power company. Luckily I have a friend who worked for years with the Chesapeke Climate Action Network who knew a lot about the issue. As with everything else that has the potential for real change, some powerful people will have their interests slightly diminished and will try to spread misinformation. Aside from the fossil fuel industry my friend warned me that many rich people try to prevent windmills from being put up on aesthetic grounds and even animal welfare grounds. Basically they don’t want the things in their backyard.

Interestingly, the news today provides a quick rejoinder:

From:
The SFGate Article

“In the United States in 2003, wind generators accounted for only three-thousandths of 1 percent of bird killings — no more than 37,000 birds. That same year, possibly as many as a billion birds died in collisions with buildings, and electrical power lines may have accounted for more than a billion more deaths, the report said. And domestic cats were responsible for the demise of an estimated hundreds of millions of songbirds and other species every year.”

 


“In the eastern United States, up to 41 bats are killed annually for every megawatt of wind energy generated along forested ridge tops, the report said. In Midwestern and Western states, the number is lower, no more than 9 dead bats per megawatt. Unfortunately, poor statistics about the size of bat populations — which are notoriously more elusive than birds — make it hard to estimate how severely such kills affect bat populations, the report said.”