Romanticize The Fallen

It’s really surprising to me how many companies don’t recycle at all. I don’t expect every company to go and move to solar or wind power or anything but they could at least recycle the paper they use so that at least some trees get saved. I didn’t realize how bad some companies were until today. But first let me explain how we deal with recycling at work.

The majority of our paper comes from printing invoices and faxes coming in. We go through a case of paper (5000 pieces) about every month and a half to two months. That’s 30,000 pieces of paper a year. The rest comes from legal pads, envelopes, catalogs, and newsprint ads. When we buy paper for the printer/fax and copier we order a case. So we always have boxes laying around. Everything that can be recycled is thrown in boxes then once they’re full I go through and organize it into the different types. Catalogs, Paper, Newsprint, etc. Then I take it to a lumber store that’s on my way home and has those multi-colored domed recycling centers in their parking lot then I take 5-10 minutes and put everything in the correct container and everything starts over the next day for the next month or so until it’s full again. (See photo: Left is all catalogs, right is paper, envelopes, and newsprint.) Of the 30,000 pieces of paper roughly 2000 of every 5000 (case) ends up in the recycling. The majority of everything else either goes in the filing cabinet or is mailed to clients. Some ends up being shredded due to keeping private information from being stolen e.g. credit card numbers, credit card offers, etc. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out where to recycle the shredded paper and it ends up in the trash. But we have a very small shredder that only needs to be emptied once every month or two.

Now back to the first paragraph where I said “I didn’t realize how bad some companies were until today.”. Today I saw one of our downstairs neighbors at work. We’re on the second floor and my desk has a view into the parking lot. They are a magazine that distributes it’s magazine on fishing to Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. They also have 3 other branches, one is in New Jersey and distributes to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, another is in New York and distributes to all of New York, the final one is in Connecticut and distributes to all of New England. The one in the building with us is the one that distributes to Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. (I had to mention that since I have yet to write a About Me section and people might not know I’m in Maryland.) Our neighbor came out of their office with a dolly stacked to the top with their magazine. I assumed they were going to put them in their van to go deliver them. I went to get something out of the fax machine and looked out the other window and he was throwing them all in the dumpster. I assume they were copies that didn’t get sold and were brought back when they took the new copy to be sold. I thought it was a waste considering he could of put it in the back of a vehicle and taken it less than a mile to the Western Auto parking lot and put them in the recycling bin. Well as I sat at my desk working I saw him come out again with another dolly full. I watched him come out with a total of 8 dollies all full to the top and throw them in the dumpster. I counted one of the times and he had 11 stacks to fill the dolly. Each stack looked to be roughly 25 copies, it may of been more as the dumpster is a decent distance from my window. Some were still bound together from when they delivered them. Even at only 25 magazines per bundle that’s 275 magazines per dolly and 2200 magazines in total just thrown in the trash. I’m not sure how many pages a copy is, I should have grabbed one from the dumpster, but it’s at least 20 pages since they’re selling it. That’s 44,000 pieces of paper at least thrown away in a hour. They couldn’t take 30 minutes of their time to stack it in a vehicle, drive less than a mile, recycle it, and come back. They publish the magazine weekly. Their site is showing 50 magazines this year, it only shows issues up to December 9th. So lets see 50 issues a year at 2200 copies tossed each week (estimated) and 20 pages (at least) per issue. That’s a staggering 2.2 million pieces of paper a year.

That’s a lot of paper. If they’re using that much how much do you think larger companies are using? If they recycled all of that they could at least off set some of what they are using. Even if they are using 100% recycled paper to print their magazine they’re still throwing it away. I really don’t understand how something like recycling that many copies doesn’t get brought up at some point.

That’s it for tonight. Go start recycling and save a tree.

September is quickly coming up and with it the latest Site Sprint. Site Sprint is a personal competition to get a website designed and completed in one month. In this case I’m still not sure whether it needs to be done by September 30th or October 1st. I said it was a personal competition, by that I mean you’re not competing against the other sprinters or for any type of prize. You’re just trying to see if you can actually get it completed in the time.

I’ve had issues in previous Site Sprint’s and never finished. Those were mostly due to lack of planning. This year we’ve been given all of August to plan and I’ve been planning like crazy. I’m going to be pushing myself harder than before to get my sites completed. I’m going to be attempting to complete three sites this year: JustinKendall.com, 9KiloFoxtrot.com, and a newly acquired site that I am going to leave everyone in the dark about until launch day.

I have all of the rough thumbnails drawn. I need to take them in Photoshop and do a couple of checks to make sure everything is going to fit together or if I’m going to have to come up with a different layout/design. I’ll be making regular updates here about the sites starting September 1st. They will all be tagged with Site Sprint so you can easily find them.

You can find out more about Site Sprint and follow along with the Sprinters by going to the Site Sprint website SiteSprint.info, following @SiteSprint on Twitter, or following the hashtag #sitesprint on Twitter.

Basic idea behind the show:

My opinion on the new show.

• I’m definitely on Jr’s side.
• It’s good to see some of the old faces like Vinnie.
• I think it’s great where Jr’s new shop is. There couldn’t be a more perfect place for him to setup shop.
  I think the shop is a great size. They never really showed much at the OCC shop. We pretty much saw Sr’s office, the fabrication area, the machining area, and Jason’s office. There’s a lot more to that building than that. They showed the basement once or twice and they showed the upstairs once in the episode where Mikey and another employee were looking for ghosts. Hopefully we’ll see a lot more of Jr’s shop.
• Liked the bike OCC was working on during the episode. But mainly just the wheels.
• I think Sr. driving by Jr’s shop and stopping in front of it was kind of a bullshit thing to do.

I was surprised by how fast the episode seemed to go by. Probably just because I haven’t seen it in forever and I was excited for it. I can’t wait to see what happens in the weeks to come. Hopefully a lot of awesome bikes from Jr’s shop. New episodes can be seen Thursday at 9PM on TLC.


What are your thoughts on the new series?

A lot of people have the dream of hitting the lottery and having a “better” life. For the most part they all want the same thing cars, big houses, expensive items, trips around the world, maybe a jet. Of course that all depends on how much you win. If it’s under 10 million your options for a jet go down drastically compared to if it was 50 million.

Lets say you hit the lottery and go back to my question. What would you do if you had 100 million dollars? All of the taxes have been paid and you have 100 million dollars to spend on whatever you want. Or if you don’t play the lottery lets say you were just handed 100 million. What would you do with it?

Personally I would do the following:

1. Pay off my student loans as well as my brothers.
2. Donate $5,000,000 to To Write Love On Her Arms.
3. Donate $5,000,000 to Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
4. Donate $5,000,000 to the Rob Dyrdek Foundation.
5. Buy 100 – 200 acres of land.
6. Get 20 – 30 acres of said land zoned to commercial use.
7. Get a 30,000 – 40,000 square foot building built.
8. Build a decent size house, nothing too fancy. (3 bedroom, large office, 3 – 4 bathrooms, big kitchen, big living room, 3 car garage)
9. Build a house for my brother
10. Build a house for my mom
11. Renovate my grandmothers house
12. Build a large pole building (40′ w x 100′ l x 20′ h) for lawnmowers, tools, etc.
13. Start a company
14. Get a company started for my brother
15. Setup a scholarship for graphic artist. Giving away $40,000 for tuition, a brand new fully loaded Mac Pro, and lots of design equipment to one person a year.
16. Buy my mom a new car.
17. Buy my brother a new car.
18. Buy the two cars and trailer I want/need. (Dodge Challenger (Personal Vehicle), Ford F-450 Super Crew Dual Rear Wheel (Work))
19. Set my cousin up with a business of her own.

My list is roughly 27 million dollars. It’s surprising just how much land costs. I guessed on most of the prices but I guessed high so that it wouldn’t be over what I guessed. Mine wouldn’t be blown on random things. I have a master plan in my head. The majority of that list goes to help other people. Aside from the house, pole building, and car. Everything else goes to help family or complete strangers.

I know that’s only 27 million of 100 million. So where’s the other 73 million go?

• 10 million would go into my savings.
• 60 million would go into my company’s account for projects. (Not sure what yet)
• 3 million would go into a account to help with random things that come up. For example: If a volunteer fire company nearby needs a new truck and are raising money for one some could be donated to that. Etc.

I know people are seeing that 60 million going into the company I start and thinking that’s selfish. And I agree it looks selfish but it’s really not. Let me put it into perspective for you. The money will go for funding other companies I want to start or that my brother wants to start or some other family member. I fund the company, they pay back whatever I spend to start it for them without paying any type of interest on it, I get no money out of it. I just get back my investment. To have me fund their company they have to agree to a few terms. One being they can’t rip people off and over charge. Another being that 15% of their yearly profits go to To Write Love On Her Arms (5%), Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (5%), and the Rob Dyrdek Foundation (5%) for the first 5 years they are in business. Then when their 5 years are up if they want to continue to donate to those organizations they can, if not that’s their choice.

I also have a couple of ideas for business’ I would start where 100% of the profits would go to those organizations and I wouldn’t see a dime of it other than what it cost to make whatever the company sold. Realistically that money that came in would just go back out for more merchandise. It’s kind of a infinite loop.

I may not always come off as the smartest person in the world but I do have a master plan.

What would you do if you had 100 million dollars?

Organization Info:

To Write Love On Her Arms
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
Rob Dyrdek Foundation

I’ve been watching the series Whales Wars since it first started 3 seasons ago. That’s where I first learned about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Recently I visited their site to read some information and noticed their online store. I couldn’t help myself, I had to buy something. I ended up buying all of the different patches they have. I also made a donation, albeit a small one.

Some background on Sea Shepherd Conservation Society:

Established in 1977, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) is an international non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization. Our mission is to end the destruction of habitat and slaughter of wildlife in the world’s oceans in order to conserve and protect ecosystems and species.

Sea Shepherd uses innovative direct-action tactics to investigate, document, and take action when necessary to expose and confront illegal activities on the high seas. By safeguarding the biodiversity of our delicately-balanced ocean ecosystems, Sea Shepherd works to ensure their survival for future generations.

And some background on Whale Wars:

WHALE WARS documents the ongoing battles in the icy Antarctic waters in each adrenaline-fueled season. Watson and his eclectic group of international staff and volunteers — labeled activists and heroes by some, eco-pirates by others — take a hardline approach to eradicate whaling and what they view as ocean-law violations. Highlighting the controversial whaling trade and the tactics that the Sea Shepherds deploys to attempt to cripple it, the series documents the group’s 3-month expedition across icy Antarctic waters. WHALE WARS follows a masterful match at the far end of the globe as both Sea Shepherd and the Japanese whalers engage in an environmental showdown with millions of dollars at stake. The team of oceanic crusaders join forces and set out to risk it all to save the whales, even if that might mean not all crew members make it back to port together.

Pictures of the patches I bought.

Sources:

About Sea Shepherd Conservation Society – Who We Are
About Whale Wars – Whale Wars