Diesel is the New Look in "Green"

The eco-friendly-minded woman is confronted everyday with an assortment of “green” items. Clothing companies devoted to making garments without any synthetic fibers, recycled cardboard cup sleeves at Starbucks, even make-up that comes in biodegradable boxes with flower seeds mixed in. (The add says that you can plant the used boxes in the ground to grow a garden.) Not that I’m against saving the environment but, honestly, I think some things go too far.

And then there are the cars. At first it was the cute little “girly” cars like the Honda Insight. Then the family sedans started “going green” with cars like the Toyota Camry Hybrid and now, the Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid is soon to make every soccer mom “green” with envy. Although these cars make great strides in fuel efficiency and lower emissions, they come up short on power and towing capacity. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for breathing clean air. I understand the need for lower emissions vehicles, but what’s a horsepower hungry girl to do when all the low emissions cars just won’t give the performance she craves? Enter: BlueTec.

BlueTec is the clean diesel technology that Mercedes is beginning to use in their diesel engines. Until recently diesel engines have not been able to meet the increasingly rigorous emissions restrictions in the U.S. European countries have been using diesel-powered vehicles for more than 65 years. Diesel cars get 20-30 percent better gas-mileage than conventional gasoline engines without sacrificing horsepower. Hmm... sounds good to me. So why hasn’t the U.S. jumped onto the diesel engine wagon? It’s because the U.S. has stricter emissions regulations (1/8 of what is allowed in Europe to be exact). On top of that, the diesel fuel available in America had higher sulfur levels than that in Europe until last year, meaning that our diesel fuel would clog the filters that make the European versions more efficient.

Last October, the U.S. switched its diesel to a cleaner, less sulfuric version, making cleaner diesels possible. This is where BlueTec comes in. The problem with diesel has been high Nitrogen Oxide (NOx) outputs. What BlueTec does is it takes a catalytic converter that targets the NOx and stores it and then eventually transfers it to a second catalytic converter which converts the chemical into water and safe nitrous gas. This whole process gives up little if any horsepower. A few car companies have already begun making cars with BlueTec technology for the U.S. market. Carmakers such as Honda, Mitsubishi, and General Motors have all made promises of cleaner diesels after the year 2009.

So, while it may take a few more years for these new diesels to hit the market as hard as the hybrids have, I definitely don’t mind waiting a little while longer before I “go green.”

The University of Constant Technology

This is not your parents’ college. Today college kids are bombarded with technology not ever imagined 30 years ago. While it was virtually unheard of for a college student to have their own computer a decade or so ago, a student without a computer now wouldn’t stand a chance in today’s college courses. Not only do students carry a computer with them from class to class but they also carry a cell phone, an Mp3 player, and maybe even a Blackberry.

Yesteryear’s students would leave the “real” world for a few hours to go to class and concentrate on the notes their professors would scratch onto those sea-sick green chalkboards. Today, most chalkboards have been replaced by whiteboards, and those few historical artifacts that remain make wonderful backdrops for the new power point presentation screens.

Students learn to type fast because if they slow down for a minute the presentation screen may change to the next power point slide and those un-typed notes will forever be lost in that land where all old digital presentations meet their untimely demise. While the students are typing madly away at their laptop computers, they are simultaneously receiving text messages from friends and relatives giving them a constant stream of social information. One hand on the computer keyboard and the other wearing away the tiny buttons on their cell phones, now that’s multi-tasking.

And then there are websites like Myspace and Facebook. Students often have one laptop window open to a word document for notes and another open to these social networking sites. Students are given more information at one time than any earlier generation.

While they aren’t at school, students are at their jobs or doing homework or sleeping (if they get the chance). If you add up all of the time each student spends doing these activities it equals well over 24 hours. That’s not taking into account time for the student to drive from school to work or any free time to see family or friends. How do the cram all of these events into one day? They must be multi-tasking geniuses.

It may seem like a great thing to have so many multi-tasking protégés ready to hit the workforce after graduation, but there may be some unforeseen toll it will take on these students. What about exhaustion? Depression? Or other stress related problems?

Sure, the students of today have amazing technology at their fingertips; more informational power than ever before… but is it too much for them to handle? More importantly, what is the point? Where is this constant stream of information taking us? There has to be some culmination right? What happens when this information hits so hard and so fast that our brains simply can’t register it any quicker? Is that the point we really want to reach? The flow already strains students today… what about the next generation?

"True Love Cafe" Gets No Love From Me

As a restaurant, True Love Café falls short on every level. The service (or lack thereof) is minimal. The cashier behind the cafeteria-style counter was semi-friendly but kept wandering off in between customers because, in her own words, she “had something to do in the back.” Once at the front of the line I noticed a slight scent of alcohol in the air. I’m not quite sure if it came from the very animated cashier or not.

The restaurant boasts two dining rooms but one of them is in the front yard and one is in the back. The restaurant is basically a converted house; I wasn’t sure but it looked like someone was living on the second floor. The tables looked as if they were bought in bulk at a Home Depot lawn furniture sale.

The food tasted as I thought it would: like a bunch of teenagers put together some snack foods that they found in the kitchen. With items such as Pizza Paninis, Nachos, and Hummus it definitely didn’t cater to one particular food palette. They did however, have an extensive specialty coffee list, written on chalkboards strewn across the ordering counter. Some of the names for the flavors were fairly creative too, such as, White Hot Chocolate and Michael Jackson Hot Chocolate (hmm… interesting choice).

The “dining room” in the back of the house was a giant cement slab covered by a large white tent. The “Home Depot” tables were scattered haphazardly around the room. There were obviously no smoking regulations (if there were they weren’t enforced) which may cause a large headache for the non-smokers in the area. At one point, mid-meal, I noticed a restaurant worker taking out the trash right through the middle of the dining room (I wonder if that meets FDA regulations).

Despite the restaurant’s many shortcomings, it did succeed on one level (perhaps the level it was aiming for in the first place). It makes for a low-key hang-out for college-age people. With wireless internet available one could sit and do homework with friends and just hang out. So while I would not recommend this as a great place to eat, I would tell people that if they want a place to sit and use free internet, I know one.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I could try to be original, name any other holiday and make up some reason to say it’s my favorite, but in all honesty Christmas is my all-time favorite. There are so many little things that make Christmas my favorite; maybe it’s mom’s burnt cookies or grandma’s 50 year-old Christmas lights (which I’m sure are a fire hazard). Whatever the reason, there is no other time of the year I enjoy more.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area so having a “White Christmas” was unheard of. My home town’s Christmas decorations consisted of giant lit-up snowflakes stuck on the lamp posts down town and a giant tree covered in yellow ribbons. Whoever decided that yellow was a Christmas color should have been fired.

For me, the Christmas season always started the first week of December. My mom and dad would take my brother and me to the Home Depot to pick out a Christmas tree on their lot. My dad would bring his pocket knife and cut the vinyl strings that bound the boughs of each tree. As my dad cut the ties the tight green cylinders would spring to life. It was kind of the urban version of taking the family out to the woods to chop down a tree.

From that week on, I would walk, eat and sleep Christmas. My mom and I would decorate our house with garland and icicles while my dad and brother would spend hours outside putting up Christmas lights. My dad’s Christmas lights were perhaps the most comical part of the Christmas season. He always had some weird obsession with anything multi-colored or blinking. One year it was a giant blinking arrow on the corner of our house. Another year (trying to symbolize the true meaning of Christmas) he decided to make a Christmas light-covered cross. What he didn’t think about before making it was the color lights too use- we ended up having the only house on the block with a giant red cross on our chimney. I kept expecting to get donations left on our door step.

Christmas day always came too soon. My entire family would gather at my grandparents’ house to eat dinner and open presents. My grandma always had a tea tray filled with home-made cookies made from recipes handed down through years. I remember that as my grandma became more and more health conscious over the years her cookies began reflecting the lack of fattening ingredients. When I was little, almost all of her cookies would be gone by the end of the night, but now they are nearly always left un-eaten.

My favorite part of the day would be after all of the presents were opened and the extra-dry turkey had been consumed. My family would usually gather around the table and play board games. The kids were allowed to be on their parents’ teams, which would make the kids feel so much older.

So, while I never had a sleigh ride, or made snowmen on the front lawn, Christmas was still the most thrilling experience for me. Too use the all-too-familiar cliché- it is simply the most wonderful time of the year.

The Trouble with Customer Service

The thought of dealing with a customer service representative can make a consumer cringe. It seems that everyone has a story of an employee who was rude or had a bad attitude towards a customer. As an employee in the customer service department of a grocery store I try not to give employees a bad rap. I try to make every customer feel like their concerns are a priority and their problems will be addressed. However, customers themselves do not always return the favor.

For every costumer’s story about a rude employee I have a story about an unruly customer. Although I may get stressed out by the customers throughout the day I usually come away laughing because sometimes that is all you can do.

Some of my favorite stories to tell are the ones that tested my patience the most. For instance, I once had a customer reach across my counter to answer my phone. I believe she wanted to make a personal phone call, but instead of using the pay phone outside or asking to use my phone she reached across my counter just as my phone started to ring. She picked up the receiver and then realized that someone was on the line and began to hang it up. I ran over to the phone and kindly took the receiver from her before she could place it back down and answered the phone. The customer gave me the dirtiest look like I had just violated her right to make a phone call or something. I couldn’t believe what had just happened.

I often run into customers that assume that they know how to do my job better than I do. I sell Money Orders at the customer service center and I once had a customer who thought he knew how to make them better than I did. After 20 minutes of the customer yelling at me for every one of his 25 money orders he finally told me that “it wasn’t as hard as it looked was it?” and that it looked like I was “finally” learning and might be better at it the next time he came by. I believe this was the only time I actually snapped back at a customer. I tried to stay calm and politely tell him that I had been doing this job for four years, I knew what I was doing, and if I wasn’t doing it right then he could come and try to figure it out for himself. I felt awful after I said that and I haven’t snapped since but sometimes customers are worse to deal with than the employee.