The other day one of my church colleagues handed out a paper. He said he printed on two sides to save trees. Some hot air dryers in bathrooms have a similar tree saving statement. I chuckled because it's like saying you're not eating corn to save a corn plant.
We're not saving trees at school. The three copier machines were going strong last week churning out student work pages, study guides and tests like mad. On the flip side, we sent a group of teachers to two other private schools to investigate the latest advances in electronic textbooks. This is a significant issue in the school systems. Our public schools have had a book shortage for years. Many of our own texts are 10 years old. Electronic books could fill in this gap, but the needed infrastructure is daunting. If your children have electronic books, you know what I mean.
I don't know what the final answer will be for our school, but I'm pretty sure that electronic text books are in the future of most schools.
I'll close with two thoughts, one on economics and one on safety, well maybe three thoughts.
One: Yesterday I bought two five quart containers of synthetic motor oil. Yes, my car takes 9.5 quarts (nine point five). Anyway, the cost was $37 for each container. Then I noticed that regular motor oil was about $30 for five quarts. I guess I've been in the dark lately about the price of oil. Gas prices are so volatile we forget that motor oil is also affected but at a slower pace. Not much price difference to buy regular oil over synthetic.
Two: For safety, my wife and I have witnessed three red light runners recently ... and by runners, I mean their light red, our light green and they are just now entering the intersection. Another issue is that many of our streets are east-west & north-south. As the sun tracks back across the sky, it is closer and closer to dead east at sunrise and dead west at sunset, directly in your line of sight at those times. Seeing becomes difficult and makes more likely the missing of traffic lights. Be aware of these phenomena and take extra care on the roads.
Three: Pie (π) day is coming up: Saturday, March 14, (20)15 at 9:26 am (and pm if you are not on military time). Tee shirts are available online. Numberworld reports that as of December 2013, π has been calculated to 12.1 trillion decimal places. Hey, if you print that out perhaps you might want to print both sides to save trees!
Gene Canavan is a retired West Point Graduate and Paper Mill Utilities Manager and lives in Prattville, Alabama, USA.
