Green Thursday: Don't throw out the old computer

Getting a new computer? Don't throw out the old one, its full of poison.

Toxins Found in Your Computer
Lead: Many older TV and Computer monitors can contain up to 4-8 lbs of lead. It is also used in the soldering on the circuit boards. Exposure can cause brain damage, nervous damage, blood disorders, kidney damage, and developmental damage to fetus. Children are especially vulnerable. Acute exposure can cause vomiting, diarrhea, convulsions, coma, or death.

Mercury: Light bulbs in flat panel displays, LCD screens, switches, & printed wiring boards all contain mercury. High levels of exposure contribute to brain & kidney damage, harm the developing fetus & can be passed down through breast milk and fish consumption. Exposure through ingestion or inhalation can cause central nervous system and kidney damage.

Plastics & Polyvinyl chloride (PVC): Make up to 14 pounds (about 20%) of an average computer. Dioxin can be formed when PVC is burned. Combinations of plastics which are difficult to separate and recycle are used in printed circuit boards, in components such as connectors, plastic covers & cables.

Cadmium: SMD chip resistors, infrared detectors, semiconductors, older types of cathode ray tubes, and some plastics contain cadmium. It concentrates in the body & can cause kidney damage & harm to fragile bones.Long term exposure can cause kidney damage and damage to the bone stru cture. Cadmium is a known cancer causing substance

Brominated flame retardants (BFRs): Used in plastic casings, released when electronics are dumped or incinerated. BFR’s likely endocrine disrupters, reduce levels of the hormone thyroxin in exposed animals and can potentially harm the developing fetus in pregnant women.

Barium: is used in the front panel of the CRT to protect users from radiation. Short-term exposure to barium can cause brain swelling, muscle weakness, and damage to the heart, liver and spleen.

Beryllium: is found on motherboards and connectors and is a human carcinogen.

Hexavalent Chromium: Used for corrosion protection of untreated & galvanized steel plates & hardener for steel housing. It can cause DNA damage & asthmatic bronchitis.

Dioxins and Furans: Used in the plastic casings, released when electronics are incinerated or thrown in a landfill.

Here's a good list of places in Wisconsin that will take your old computer.

Every Green Thursday, LipsYard will deal with an issue vital to our global environment.

Christmas in July

Every July 25th, retailers, especially in warm summer climes, celebrate "Christmas in July" with big sales and special deals. While not going to the trouble to put up a tree, one can dream about what would be in presents under the Christmas in July tree:

My one wish (aside from a 46" flat panel TV,) would be that everyone just show a little more respect. Don't litter, respect where you live.

Give the other guy on the freeway some slack, so what if you get there 30 seconds later?

Try not to fire guns at other people and kill them. This makes sense all the way from the inner city to the far corners of the globe.

I guess a little more love, however 'sappy 1960's' that sounds, is what we all need.

Good luck with that, and "Merry Christmas in July, 2007!"

Sunflower power primer

Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) poke their heads high above the LipsYard garden. Nearly 3,000 years ago (before Cher!) the Sunflower was domesticated for food production by the Native Americans. Lewis and Clark made mention in their journals, and it was brought back to the Old World by the early European explorers and widely cultivated there, too.

Sunflowers exhibit heliotropism. At sunrise, the faces of most sunflowers are turned towards the east. Over the course of the day, they move to track the sun from east to west, while at night they return to an eastward orientation.

What is usually called the flower is actually a head of numerous flowers crowded together. The outer flowers can be yellow, maroon, orange, or other colors. The seeds inside the circular head that we eat are actually fruit, while the true seeds are encased in an inedible husk. (This sounds like it was created in Dick Cheney's office to hide the truth!)

Corndog knowledge from long ago

We're live at the Waukesha County Fair for the weekend, and just down the way from our KTI Street Studio is Squire's Dog Haus.

33 years ago, I worked in the Dog Haus on the summer fair circuit with my friend John Squire.

John was a year or two ahead of me at Burlington High School, and I needed a gig for the summer.

Corn Dogs are hot dogs, on a stick, dipped in secret cornmeal batter, then deep fried to a dark brown. We also served 26 flavors of snow cones.

I have no idea how many dogs were made that summer, but I know I haven't had one since.

Aside from learning the fine art of Corn Dog making, that summer I also learned the secret to making out on the Rock-O-Planes: You and your sweety have to be first in line, so that you had plenty of time for the fun stuff while they loaded the other cars, before the ride started spinning for real. After the ride was over, you hoped to be last unloaded for a little more fun.

Time off to catch up

This year I'm spelling July "V A C A T I O N!" taking every Monday and Tuesday off. So what will I been doing? Catching up on piles of stuff here and there that I haven't had time to deal with.

Going for a bike ride every day with Charmaine and keeping an eye on our local Sandhill Crane family.

Taking in the new Harry Potter movie.

I love how Dolores Umbridge, the Ministry's overseer of Hogwarts, is the embodiment of "No Child Left Behind!" By the way, can you believe how many commercials and movie previews they play before the feature? Our showing was listed at 12:10, and the first time we saw Harry Potter hottie Daniel Radcliffe was 12:25.

What did my $7.50 ticket buy? The opportunity to be held captive for one ad after another. I will admit that I enjoy the sneak previews, but they were showing things for Christmas, March, and even next summer! Guess I'd better start planning my vacation now.

Blue over art

Back in 2000, Milwaukee County Chief Executive (and art critic,) Scott Walker, egged on by the talk-radio folk, helped to kill the "Big Blue Shirt" art installation by Dennis Oppenhiem at Mitchell International Airport. No public money would have been spent on the project, but it wasn't a statue of a conservative hero, or a portrait to hang in a gallery, 'like art should be.' It was intended to be a 'Pop-art' torso housing different rooms in a house, which were to represent organs of the body. Scott Walker made it into a negative symbol of Milwaukee's blue-collar heritage. Is hard work such a bad thing?

Milwaukee Magazine Art critic Tom Bamberger wrote back then,
"For the record, the artist has said he picked blue by process of elimination – red, green, and yellow didn’t work. But no matter, we all can have our own opinions. Blue can signify the working class but also those who work for IBM, a blue-chip company. It was the color of the Union Army in the Civil War. There are “blue-blooded” aristocrats, blueribbon committees and Paul Newman’s blue eyes.Picasso had his “blue period” and we all wear blue jeans.We love watching the Blue Angels and we salute our red, white and blue flag. According to the polls, blue is our favorite color, not surprising since it’s the color of the sky by day and the earth from space."

7 years later, we still have a barren parking ramp to greet visitors to our city. "Welcome!"

I just returned from a trip to Denver, and one of the first things I saw downtown made me think about the failed 'shirt:' The Big Blue Bear!


He's over 40 feet tall, and is peering into the Denver Convention Center. Isn't it wonderful? It sure gets people talking. I wonder if everyone who lives in Denver is a big blue bear?

Here's how Denver's Big Blue Bear was created.

French? You bet!

Bon Jour! It's the 26th annual Bastille Days in downtown Milwaukee! Everyone's French for the weekend (even you conservatives who don't like them.)

It's one of my favorite summer festivals for a variety of reasons:

It's free!

The food is great (and this year you pay cash, not that goofy buy the tickets game)

It's not the same old music. Check out the schedule here

The people are from here, not down south if you know what I mean.

And they bring their pets on their back! (Who needs a coach purse?)

Here's our summer tour entertainment - the Milwaukee Bucks free throw contest. Get the most in a row and you could find yourself shooting at halftime of a real game. The record from Summerfest is 42 in a row! I would be lucky to get 1 in a row. Get more details here.

Here's the Statue of Liberty (a gift from France!) trying her hand at the free throw game.

Bastille Days is silly with street performers, too, like these creepy tall human puppets.

One of my fav foods at Bastille Days is the ice cream crepe from the Creme and Crepe cafe (yes they provided product for tasting!)

Here's Jane and her crew hard at work wrapping your favorite ice cream (coffee for me) in a paper-thin crepe (a French pancake) and slathering it with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Yum.

Marcus Monroe works his juggling magic.

Happy Birthday America!

As we celebrate our Freedom...

remember you can only buy things in these tents, not set them off!

But if you get busted, maybe one of these guys can get you out of jail.

Cranes in the LipsYard neighborhood

Downtown Milwaukee has cranes,

Sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis) Dad, Mom, and chicks on parade.

We have a nesting pair of Sandhill Cranes out in the LipsYard neighborhood that we see on our daily bicycle ride through a local park. According to the International Crane Foundation's annual Crane Count, there were only 33 pair spotted in Waukesha County in 2005. They are stately birds, walking in a slow, jerky manner, eating along the way, with the little chicks scurrying behind.

About 10 years ago we took a sidetrip at the Wisconsin Dells to the Internation Crane Foundation. The birds were very exotic and rare at the time. How wonderful that today we can see them in a natural habitat less than a mile from the LipsYard. Next time you're in the Dells, make sure to visit.