Archive for the ‘The Environment’ Category
December 31st
There will be a Blue Moon this New Year’s Eve! The Moon will be so large and bright that it’s supposed to be visible in New York’s Times Square! 
For more than half a century, whenever two full moons appeared in a single month (which happens every 2 1/2 to 3 years), the second has been called a “Blue Moon.” In our lexicon, we describe an unusual event as happening “once in a blue moon.” This expression was first noted back in 1821 and refers to occurrences that are uncommon.
After large forest fires or major volcanic eruptions the Moon has reportedly taken on a bluish or lavender hue. Soot and ash particles, propelled high into Earth’s atmosphere, can sometimes make the Moon appear bluish.
Another definition, which was recorded in the early issues of Maine Farmer’s Almanac, describes a “Blue Moon” as the third full moon in a season that has four full moons.
Over the next 20 years there will be about 15 blue moons, with an almost equal number of both types of blue moon occuring. No blue moon of any kind will occur in 2011, 2014 and 2017.
One explanation connects it with the word “belewe” from the Old English, meaning “to betray.” It can also mean “blue” or “to fool”–perhaps because it betrayed the usual perception of one full moon a month.
“Blue moon” appears to have been a colloquial expression in England long before it appeared in an American almanac! According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first reference to a blue moon comes from a ditty recorded in 1528: “If they say the moon is blue, We must believe that it is true.”
For a fuller explanation of a Blue Moon see the article on InconstantMoon.com here.
For more background information on the controversy over the two definitions of Blue Moon, see the Sky and Telescope article, “What’s a Blue Moon?” here.
As we end this year and move on to another one, Leah and I both offer our warmest wishes to all for a very happy, healthy, and good New Year!
To our reviewers and guest bloggers – Thank you for volunteering your time and expertise. It has been invaluable to Quo Vadis, and also to your peers in various communities and social networks. We are very appreciative of all the insightful and constructive comments and suggestions we have received via this blog or email; and for great photos for our flickr album and blog banner. And thank you, too, for the expressions of encouragement and support. They have meant a lot to us. Leah and I have remarked this blog often has the feeling we are all talking together as a group of friends.
Again, our deepest thanks, and best wishes for 2010.
November 5th
Here is the first group of Equology reviews. By and large, I was extremely pleased with everyone’s reaction to the recycled planners. 
My thanks and gratitude to all the volunteers and reviewers. All of us at Exaclair–and the head of marketing for France mentioned this to me, too– are continually amazed by the depth of care, detail and the total comprehensiveness of the reviews we receive. Thank you.
Your comments and suggestions are a reliable compass to indicate if we going in the right direction, and what adjustments we should make.
I held my breath waiting to hear how the paper performed with pens. I was able to confirm the larger versions are made with 89 g paper; and pocket size is 74 g paper. Based on my experience with fountain pen customers, I do not market any book as “fountain pen friendly” unless it is 80 g and up.
I think, overall, like other products – the larger books performed well with fountain pens, and the smaller ones less so. Also, the paper is not the “extra white” of Clairefontaine, but plain white with a slight grey tinge. When I felt the pages of my Equology Sapa X the paper seemed to have a little, a hint, of texture.
Read more about Equology here.
Jeff Abbott reviewed a Scholar.
Brad reviewed a Textagenda.
Inks, Nibs & Paper reviewed a Sapa X.
Laurie reviewed a Minister in her new notebooks and planners group on Flickr.
Lauren from Pennington-on-the-Paper reviewed a Scholar.
DizzyPen reviewed a Sapa X.
Diane from Pocket Blonde reviewed a Textagenda.
The Pen Archives reviewed a Scholar.
Thanks so much again! More reviews will be posted soon.
November 4th
Stephanie already blogged about this over on Rhodia Drive, but since it affects Quo Vadis products, too, I figure it’s worth repeating — Clairefontaine, our sister company and the paper-maker for all Quo Vadis notebooks and planners, recently updated their inks in order to abide by the most stringent European environmental standards.
The inks that are used to create the rulings on Clairefontaine paper are now water-based rather than petroleum- or solvent-based. The colors are the same, but they are now made from vegetable oil pigments — from sources like soy bean, corn, and linseed oils — rather than mineral ones. And as Stephanie pointed out:
By replacing mineral oil with vegetable oil, we reduce or even cut out volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions. VOCs are carbon-containing gases and vapors that are released from solvents used during the printing process. In liquid form VOCs can also affect water and soil quality.
You can read more about Clairefontaine’s commitment to the environment on the Exaclair website.
October 28th
Stephanie’s post at Rhodia Drive yesterday totally struck a nerve — I want it to be spring again, too! Fall is usually my favorite season, at least in the ideal East Coast version when it’s 60-70 degrees during the day and crisp and still at night. Fall is harvest, fall is weekend hikes and bracing swims in chilly, sun-lit ponds. But this year’s harvest was terrible because of all the rain, and the past few weekends have either been too cold or too wet to head out to the mountains.
In the meantime, I look at the unripe tomatoes on my kitchen counter (half of my plants didn’t even set fruit until September, which made them easy targets for last week’s near-freezing temperatures) and think wistfully about next spring, when the garden cycle starts again. Hopefully with better weather, fewer pests, and other improvements based on the mistakes I made this year… better stakes for the cucumbers, more space for the zucchini, and maybe next year my irises will actually bloom, though God knows what they’ve been missing during the past 2 summers! Really gets you thinking long-term, gardening.
In the meantime, anyone know a good recipe for fried green tomatoes?
October 27th
I’m changing my planner for 2010. For the past several years I have used Space 24 and loved it. I had a full page to write down everything I needed to do that week for work and home: people to call, dry cleaning reminders, scribbled notes for books to buy, my noon class on Wednesdays, projects to work on, mailings, and all the other memoranda of my life. As usual, I would get done about half of what I planned to do, so I’d erase various notes and distribute them over the next week or two. The paper is strong enough to hold up to lots of erasing.
This year, Quo Vadis introduced Equology – a planner line made with recycled paper. As a former staff member and volunteer with the Sierra Club, and a committed environmentalist, I had a real dilemma on my hands: stay with Space 24 or go over to Equology.Â
I hasten to add the Clairefontaine paper used for Space 24 is made with strict environmental standards. The mill manufactures much of its own energy, all the pulp and wood by-products come from FSC and PEFC certified forests — none from old growth forests — and the water is cleaner when it leaves the mill then when it arrives. So clean, in fact, people can fish, swim and boat downstream within sight of the plant. With a background in Sierra Club fights in Alaska over logging practices and pulp mill pollution, that is pretty impressive.
But, recycled paper is recycled paper. I made the decision to give Equology a try for a year.
Then, I couldn’t find a format that would exactly meet my need for a notes page. Read the rest of this entry »
September 8th
Reading about a new book by E. L. Doctorow, “Homer & Langley,” got me thinking about the clutter in my life. 
Whenever my room or my sister’s room looked particularly messy to her, my mother would stand in the doorway and say, “This place looks like the Collyer brothers.”
That was her hint the room looked pretty cluttered with books, clothes, shoes, sneakers, records (yes, I know this dates me!) and various stuff I found or collected. It was time, according to my mother, to get it put away or throw it out.
The more my room was cluttered the harder it was to get started. It was an effort even to decide where to begin.
Accumulation creeps up even on the neatest person, as anyone will attest as they pack up an apartment or house for a move. Where did all this stuff come from? Pick up an object that you have completely forgotten about, but holding it brings back memories of people, places and events of the past. “Should I put it in the box or get rid of it?” sometimes becomes a very hard decision if we reconnect with a strong emotional attachment or memory.
Some people, myself included, need to create in the middle of a mess, with papers and objects strewn all over close by for reference and ideas.
But when does “good clutter” become overwhelming, debilitating, isolating? Does cluttered time mirror a cluttered space, or can the two be separate in a person’s life?
June 29th
Thanks to Pentamento for the first review of our new Equology eco-friendly notebooks and planners… Reading it reminded me that I’ve been meaning to post my own photographs and impressions, so here goes.
I, too, love the heavy duty rubber-like cover, to which pictures don’t really do justice—it’s soft and bumpy and dry, sort of like a cat’s tongue:
Read the rest of this entry »
June 23rd
Quo Vadis staffers are in the process of finalizing plans for 2012 editions and cover styles. But, will we need to discuss 2013? Maybe not, if the scenario of the movie 2012 comes true.
Roland Emmerich, the director of the mega-hit, Independence Day, and the eco-thriller, The Day After Tomorrow, brings his third crack at the apocalypse, this fall’s 2012.
See the movie trailer here.
December 21, 2012 is the day various sources throughout history predict the world will experience a massive cataclysm.
The Mayan Calendar – 2012 gained the patina of doom with the best-selling 1966 book, The Maya, by Harvard archaeologist Michael D. Coe. He noted that the Mayan culture’s famously complex “Long Count” calendar simply ends on 12/21/12, speculating that civilization might come crashing down on that date.
Galactic Alignment - Astrologers have also pointed out that during the winter solstice of 2012, the orbital planes of the solar system and the twelve zodiacal constellations will intersect with the “Dark Rift”–a black bit of the Milky Way located next to Sagittarius. Some argue this intersection is precisely why the Mayans–who were brilliant astronomers–ended their calendar when they did.
Timewave Zero - And then there’s counterculture thinker Terence McKenna, whose Timewave Zero theory–drawing off elements from the I-Ching, the teachings of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, and modern fractal mathematics–determined that 12/21/12 is the exact date of a profound change in the world.
Pole Reversal - One theory that has some traction in the scientific community is that a solar flare will cause a sudden shift in the magnetic orientation of the earth’s poles, causing all kinds of planetary problems like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. NASA is predicting strong solar activity around 2012 and there’s evidence that the magnetic poles are slowly weakening, something that reportedly presages a reversal. (Of course, most scientists think this reversal will take centuries, not days, to occur.)
So how does Roland Emmerich end the world in his film? “Pole reversal,” he said in an interview this week. “All kinds of stuff going on. But it’s basically major earthquakes and volcano eruptions which kind of cause this global flood.”
“We found this obscure theory of ‘Earth crust displacement,’ written in the ’50s by someone called Professor Hapgood. Albert Einstein wrote the forward to his book. It pretty much says every X number of years the whole Earth’s crust shifts, all together. We thought that was a great underlying theory that can explain why there can be a flood.”
Emmerich was asked what is he going to do to prepare for the fated date.. He said, “I don’t believe that the world will come to an end in 2012, but it’s a great scenario.”
June 18th
And now, as they say, for something completely different… My first daylily of the year! I’m not sure what this variety is called (I swiped it from my mom’s garden last year), but it’s now the first daylily to open for the second year in a row… I love how it looks against the industrial green garage door thingie that serves as a section of our fence.
April 28th
The latest entry to our “Where to Go” contest comes from Julie Bynum, who writes in with an account of her trip to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, or BWCAW.
Last summer (August) I spent 3 days canoeing and camping in the BWCAW. Now believe me, I am not the outdoorsy type, but the area is absolutely awesome. The trip I took was through the International Wolf Center, which is located in Ely, in partnership with Outward Bound. The people and the area is not to be missed. It is on NatGeo’s list of top 50 places to visit. Here is a link to my photos of this trip and here are two of my favorite photos; and this is me!
I forgot to mention the best part of this trip:
NO CELL PHONES
NO RADIOS
NO MOTORIZED VEHICLES OF ANY KIND
In fact, the only sounds of civilization at all during the trip was the two times that the Park Ranger airplane went over.
For more photos of this trip and others, check out Julie’s pBase site.
