Wayne Wind Power?

Rob Burke wonders whether or not he'll have a fight on his hands with Wayne Township. I mentioned Rob's car wash in a prior post, and how he's now blogging about his business and the environment. Rob wants to put a windmill on the car wash property that will decrease his dependence on the local power grid for electricity. Right now, he has an array of solar panels on his roof that have generated almost 5,000 kwh for the car wash. That's nice, but what if his need is more than that?

Township zoning ordinances will allow the windmill to be 50 feet high, but it needs to be 100 feet high (with 20' blades). Rob's not sure whether or not the township will fight him on putting the windmill in, but he's not optimistic.

Personally, I think they should let him, and not just because he's a friend. New Jersey has quite a few programs that help home and business owners afford things like solar panels. NJ really pushes clean energy, and there are all sorts of incentives and rebates available for forward-thinking business owners if they invest in equipment that harnesses renewable, clean energy sources. I don't think the township stepping in to block Rob's windmill idea would be very productive.

I think it would probably be a good thing if customers and passersby saw Rob's business making its own energy. It might make other business owners ask whether clean energy makes sense for their business, and prompt some consideration of the programs NJ is pushing so hard.

Rob's asking for input on his blog. If you have a few minutes, stop by and give him some words of encouragement if you feel so inclined.

The Banana Jr 6000 Lives

This Flickr user has faithfully recreated the Banana Junior 6000 computer from my favorite comic strip of all time, Bloom County. Very nice mod, although I might have chosen "IBM Sucks Silicon" rather than "Whoa."

Slippery Slopes

I made a point of telling all my friends back in the day that when they passed smoking bans at bars, more restrictive laws would follow not far behind. And you can see the machine in action. I can see both sides, but as a former smoker, I don't like seeing people who smoke having their freedoms restricted. The big push lately is the whole second-hand smoke thing. I can understand wanting to ban smoking in places where there's poor ventilation or where smoke can reasonably be expected to accumulate. But out in the open air? Let's bring some perspective to all of this.

The bus traffic along Madison Avenue here in Manhattan makes for some poor air quality. As a matter of fact, the worst air quality in the city, as determined by those air quality instruments hiding under those mysterious green boxes on the sidewalk, is right on Madison Avenue and 42nd Street. I'd venture to say that many New Yorkers risk premature death by merely breathing. (And the American Lung Association would say the same thing.)

Yet you don't see activists proposing that we ban bus traffic, do you? Everything's a trade-off, a compromise. And I don't think that anything is wrong with smokers drawing a line in the sand and saying that they'll be pushed no further, considering what they've had to give up in recent years.

If the slope is that slippery, however, and we find smoking limited to private property or some other such crapola, I'm going to use the same slippery slope logic and arguments to go after McDonald's and other fast food restaurants for the damage they do to the state of public health. As long as we're taking away people's choices, why shouldn't we make crappy food our next target?

Hangin' at the Wash

Yesterday afternoon, I spent some time with old friend Rob Burke (former COO of K2 Design) at his car wash in Wayne, NJ. For the past nine months, Rob and his partner Rob Kaplan have been running a car wash and quick lube after buying the business from its former owner and renovating the heck out of it. Rob and Rob have made a ton of improvements, many of them geared toward environmental responsibility and efficiency. For instance, they've put an array of 58 solar panels on the roof, which have provided around 5,000 kilowatt hours of electricity for the facility (and it's tied back into the power grid). They've also invested a ton of money in a system that reclaims waste water, as well as a sewer hookup. They also have two furnaces that burn the waste oil from oil changes to provide heat energy.

You might figure "What's really interesting about a car wash?" Well, there's quite a bit, actually. In walking around the grounds with Rob, listening to him passionately describe the improvements he's made, it became obvious that there were a million interesting stories (some little, some big) about the car wash, environmentally friendly business, running a small business in general, etc. To help tell those stories, Rob now has a fresh copy of Wordpress running on his domain - WayneAutoSpa.com.

Dan Arabia from Novocent Partners (the agency my cousin Al Crisafulli co-owns) came out to shoot some photos of the renovated site and offer some additional marketing advice. Dan will be designing a Wordpress theme for Wayne Auto Spa in the coming days. Underscore (well, me anyway) and Novocent will be lending a bit of support to Rob with his marketing efforts.

I ended the day at the car wash by walking Rob through the Wordpress dashboard and interface. He was very enthusiastic and had that passionate look in his eye that seems to come with an introduction to blogging and direct conversation with his customers.

Even if you never intend to go to Wayne, NJ, much less get your car washed there, drop by Rob's blog if you have the time. As he's just entered the blogosphere, it would be cool if you could drop him a line with some words of encouragement.