Save the trees

In my family we used to celebrate Christmas with an overly large pine tree. It was such a hassle to tie it to the roof of the car and drag it inside getting sap and pine needles all over the place.  After several weeks the tree started to lose all its needles (mainly because it was dead) so we dragged it outside and kicked it to the curb along with copious amounts of wrapping paper and boxes left over from Christmas. It makes me sick to think of this whole process and how much stuff we threw away that could easily be recycled.

So after years of dealing with real trees, we resorted to a large fake Christmas tree, the one that required 12 different levels of circular color-coded branches that would occasionally fall apart or get lost so that year after year the tree began to look more and more like a stump than an actual pine tree.  I despised our fake Christmas tree it was such a pain in the neck to put together and most the time it made you forget about the joys of the holiday season. To add to the frustration,  The boxes that it came in took up nearly a quarter of our attic space. The whole process of making the fake look real was downright pointless and time consuming.  Decorating should be fun and most of all you should enjoy doing it and enjoy the end product.  

So this year I did some research on different trees you can purchase or create in your home. A smaller real christmas tree would be more ideal, less expensive and more eco-friendly than a large tree. Each year, 33 to 36 million large Christmas trees are produced in America, and 50 to 60 million are produced in Europe. That’s a lot of energy and resources wasted on the production of Christmas trees that get thrown away in the end.  But so is the production of many things  that are produced for consumption.  I decided the best approach is to stick to what creates the less waste and space. 

Choosing a smaller tree over a large tree is definitely a smarter decision. I found a tree that comes in a pot and can be re-planted after its done being used for Christmas.  You can order it or pick it up at a gardening store and decorate it at home, then after Christmas you are not throwing it in the garbage.

The German designer  of the Buro Tree is another innovative tree idea. He made a lightweight Christmas tree that is easy to assemble, takes up virtually no space, is made of recycled materials and can be decorated. 

There are limitless options for creating anything and if you don't mind breaking a few traditions, the end result is fascinating!  This year I created a chalk Christmas tree with a friend of mine.  The wall was painted with chalk paint and we decorated the tree to the size of the wall. Accenting it with ornaments and lights, made of chalk!  It was a fun project that captured the Christmas Spirit. 

Critical Mass in Nap Town!

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A few friends and I are gathering a small group of bicyclists this upcoming year (for one and only one day) to ride through the streets of Annapolis and reclaim the streets that cars generally frequent on during rush hour.  This is certainly a dangerous but extremely exciting event to partake in and the more participants the merrier.  We are trying to spike an interest in other bikers to join in so that we have a large body of bikers to frequent the streets of Annapolis. I made the flyers (shown at left...date is non-specific to the event) that roll up and fit easily in the spokes of wheels with the goal to distribute as many as we can to bikes located around town. And we'll make sure to skip the police bikes.

Critical Mass is a bicycle-centered social movement or as most authorities would call it, a social protest.  It consists of a large gathering of bicyclists that meet and clot the streets slowing cars down and stopping all regular traffic patterns.  In some large Critical Masses, all intersections would reach their "Critical Mass" due to traffic being so heavily backed up.  Contrary to belief, the participants in the Critical Mass see it as a celebration and a unique spontaneous gathering where friendly law abiding citizens from the city would gather and reclaim the streets of their city.  

Past Critical Mass's have gathered up to 300 participants. It's a real traffic jam, but only for those commuting by car!  The event is to be held on the last Friday of every month around 5:30pm (right in time for rush hour) and requires little to no direction at all.  You just show up and follow whomever you wish or lead your own way around the streets.  The idea is not to use any official route when riding that way it is not percieved as a devised attack or social protest.  Sometimes a tactic called "corking" is used so that participants can reconvene back to the pack to keep the numbers strong.  Basically corking is when a few bikers block traffic from side roads so that the mass can freely proceed through red lights without interruption.  

Needless to say, Critical Mass pisses people off and especially those individuals in charge of traffic control. Eventhough all participants are law abiding citizens, people in their cars get frustrated and angry and as one can easily believe, they do outrageous things to release their road rage.  

The event originated in the streets of London where hundreds of bikers started the movement because they were tired of being pushed off the roads-roads that they had every right to frequent on. It's a powerful statement that will surely cause a riot! 

Chicago 2005 Critical Mass

Colorful Retro Sailing Designs

Earlier this summer, in between planning for the annual boat show and preparing for a 4-day sail-a-thon, my co-workers and I brainstormed some ideas for sailing t-shirt designs. Luckily, we have an in-house decoration team that can make customized shirts by a dye-sublimation processes that enables you to use as many colors as you wish. So I came up with some very colorful retro sailing designs, while following the guidelines of...  a.) having the Chesapeake Bay represented in the design, b.) depicting a larger vessel than your average "overused" dinghy and c.) putting the company logo in the design and keeping it low key so as not to be too obstructive. These are just a few samples of the end result...