Easy, eco-money

I have never had so much fun with web-sites before that didn’t involve porn!

Just kidding! About the last part anyway... because these web-sites are awesome! Both involve making money from recycling and cutting down waste, with minimal efforts on your part required. Green for green, I love it!

Ok, so the first site is like a sperm bank, for gadgets.
The good folks at Hewlett-Packard have developed a trade-in program where they’ll give you money for your goodies that you don’t want anymore. (Although it’s run by HP, they are pretty open-minded, and are open to all makes and brands.)

Instead of jumping off your adventure with selection of enhancers like “Edward Penishands,” “White Men Can’t Hump,”or “Batman in Robin,” the fun here begins when you choose the genre of equipment you want to trade-in for straight cash. These options sound so mundane in comparison- such as cameras, computer monitors, or PDAs. You probably have tons of this stuff all over your house anyway, why waste it if you could better dispose of it, and make money at the same time?!

Further information is needed to estimate the worth of your unwanted load, like make, model, age, etc. Once you share all the details, and they receive and assess your special delivery- a check is put in the mail to you. HP will make sure your bits and pieces are placed in fostering new homes, and everyone has a satisfying happy ending.

Other options in this vein: CellforCash.com pays up to $100 for used cell phones, depending on the model , or see Kiplinger's "What to do with your high-tech has-beens" for additional information.

The second site helps you recycle and cut the waste of money.
When I found this site, MissingMoney.com, I seriously sat down, made myself comfortable, and entered every person’s name I could think of to see what their “unclaimed” money situation was.

States are at this very moment, sitting on billions and billions of dollars worth of unclaimed assets- from lost bank accounts, misplaced bonds and securities, dividend checks, uncollected utility deposits to unclaimed insurance policies.

I felt like a contestant on the “Price is Right” when I entered my own name, silently repeating “Big money, big money” to myself. I had nothin'. However, my dad had 3 pages worth of listings. My aunt and my friend’s dad had a few. No one I have (ever) worked with had any- but that person whose mail we accidentally got one time? Yeah, that person had some unclaimed money too. (All you need to check is a person’s name and state. I wasn’t trying to steal identities or anything, just being nosey!) I have even returned to “Favorite Grandchild” status (narrowly beating out my sister, who to my grand-mother’s infinite joy is the first of us to get engaged,) since alerting my grand-mother to the fact that my grand-father had three unclaimed deposits.

This is a ton of money, that is currently just being wasted, and you should all know by now how I feel about things being wasted… not good!

Other options in this vein: To cast a wider net, go to UnclaimedAssets.com to learn where to look for billions of dollars' worth of unclaimed assets held by the federal government, including Social Security checks, tax refunds and pensions.

So.... um, this is kind of awkward, but what are you still doing here?!
Go, click away, and be merry! (And feel free to let me know what kind of money you were able to score from these sites!)
Best wishes! xoxo

Reincarmachination: A New Life for a Sad iPod

You know that heart wrenching episode of Sex and the City where Carrie “sad Macs” her lap-top? She was just wearing some over-alls, minding her own business, working on some sassy Sex article, when all of a sudden- the computer screen went blank, and a kind of scary face with the eyes X’ed out and a tongue hanging out of it’s mouth (am I making up the tongue part?) popped up.

When I first saw that episode, I wasn’t even sure if this phenomenon was real, or made up for Hollywood’s sake. Until, it happened to me.

There I was, at the gym, trying to get pumped up for a nice 4 mile run. After a quick stretch, I went to turn on my i-Pod and get it to the perfect play-list for the occasion. Waiting to hear the cacophony of adrenaline boosting rhythms from Missy, Beyonce, or new Britney, I was instead greeted by silence. Looking down to see what the problem was, I saw that ugly, sad face with the creepy X’ed out eyes (and possibly a lolling tongue) staring back up at me. I had sad podded my i-Pod! There would be no running that day.

Now happily ensconced in a new hot and heavy relationship with my i-Pod Shuffle, I sometimes still reminisce about my first i-Pod, and the love that once was. They say you never forget your "first", and for good reason. So many memories together; those long walks on the beach, steamy baths, road trips, soothing me to sleep… and now, literally a shell of what once was, is tucked away in my secret girls-stuff drawer because I don’t know what else to do with it.

Hopefully you never had to look into those evil-for-sure XX eyes yourself, but chances are that even if you have never had the unfortunate experience of an MP3 player dying in your arms- you still have upgraded to a newer version at some point over the past few years. Realistically, with the ever increasing menu of features appealing options available; colors, LCD screens, smaller sizes, it would be really, really hard not to have traded up. (Damn those amazing marketing and inventing geniuses at Apple!)

But, with this being the case, you are now kind of like me. As much as you might love that new trophy MP3 player, you’re still stuck with the remains from the ex.

Enter Reincarmachination: DIY ways to get a second-life out of your gadgets, in this case-iPods.

If you Google the topic of dead iPOd uses, you’ll get the some seriously nerdy suggestions like “How to Measure the Height of a Tall Building Using Only a Dead iPod and a Stopwatch.” (Seriously. Read below if you don’t believe me.) I however, am more interested in beautifying the world, both at large, and in my home. So instead of throwing these things out and contributing to the 1.9 million tons of yearly discarded electronics coagulating in the landfills, I wanted to come up with some suggestions that get some extra, albeit unintended, use out of past-their-prime MP3 players.

When I put the question “Hey, do you have any ideas for what you could do with a dead iPod?” to my usually outside-of-the-box thinking boyfriend, he thought for a second before replying.

“Why don’t you give it to Jack to take apart?”

Although the idea to give it to my 12 year old nerd brother for his amusement would provide an unintended use for the thing, my initial response was exasperation. Giving an old MP3 player to your favorite nerd to geek-out with was the best solution he could come up with?!

Curious as to what a bonafide nerd would suggest, I asked Jack the same question. His response?

“Umm, Popular Science’s website has a link to things people can do with old iPod circuitry and parts?” Thanks Jack, but again- don’t know that’s advice I want to spread amongst a bunch of girls?

Determined to come up with some outstanding ideas on my own, I set about dismantling the thing to see exactly components I was dealing with.

Unfortunately, the immediate discovery that the shell of the iPod was comprised of one piece dashed some of my initial ideas. (I.E. Fashioning an iPod into a compact. Wouldn’t it be cool to reach in your handbag, pull out an iPod, flip it open and use the mirror inside to ideally just powder your nose, but more realistically probably checking for Spinach between your teeth?)

Having to face the literally cold, hard facts of my endeavor, I wracked my brains to come up with other ideas.

The first idea to take sprout: an iPot. After having removed the innards of the iPod, you could put some soil inside the remaining shell, and through the hole where the control pad once was, plant some herb or flower seeds. The contrast of technology and nature would be very interesting, and the little plant growing out of an iPod would brighten up your office desk, kitchen sink, or random window sill. Bonus nature points for being able to see the growing roots through the screen.

Or, you could create an iPod Coated Candy Shell by using the empty iPod shell as a container for the candy of your choice. You should probably avoid sticky confections in this scenario, as they might be messy. However, gum, nerds (the candy kind, not the brother kind), tic-tacs, or candy hearts would look cool showing out from behind the iPod screen, and would be kept whole and fresh behind the protective casing.

Alternatively, you could keep it intact, and place standing up on a bookcase or desk somewhere as a decoration/knick-knack. In 20 years, it will be neat to have the thing to be able to show your kids what you used to listen to music with. (Lord only knows what music technology will be employed by that point!)

Whether you take the iPod apart or not, there is an awesome guy in Denver who will buy whatever iPod surplus materials you find yourself with. On average, depending on the model and it’s condition, he pays around $20 to $50 dollars for your iLeftovers. This guy buys people’s unwanted and busted devices, and then either fixes and resells them, or salvages the parts and resells those; all the while reusing his packaging materials and walking to the post office to pick up his packages. It’s a great concept, because he is getting re-use out of parts and pieces most people would have no idea what to do with, and making it worthwhile for people to contribute the needed goods for his business.

I know I will be seeing green all over if after creating my Flower iPot, I can be paid for the remaining guts, while preventing the addition of my stuff to the trash graveyard!
http://www.buymytronics.com/

If all, all, else fails, Apple has a recycling program that collects their dead minions.
http://www.apple.com/environment/

If all, all, all fails, feel free to get in touch with me- I have a little brother you could make very happy.

How to Measure the Height of a Tall Building Using Only a Dead iPod and a Stopwatch

1. Go to the top of the building.

2. Drop the dead iPod off the top of the building.

3. Using the stopwatch, measure the length of time, t, that it takes for the dead iPod to fall from the top of the bldg to the ground and smash to smithereens.

4. Using your above time measurement, and knowing the acceleration due to gravity, g, you can compute the height of the building:g = 32 feet per second per second = 9.8 meters per second per secondBuilding height = 1/2 g * t * t