If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed.

Do you think the United Auto Workers will act any differently now that it owns 17.5% of GM or 30% of Chrysler? Kinda a tough balancing act that I am very excited to see the results of.

I am not sure if you have heard of Shai Agassi and his bold plan to rethink personal transportation, if not you need to take the time to watch this video and catch up on him. There is a good chance this guy leads the way to the transportation revolution this world desperately needs.

Many of you have emailed and asked what you can do to help out with the orphanage and the kids over in Africa that we are going to help and I think I have just the thing.

We are going to have a raffle and see if we can’t raise some money for these kids. Are you ready for this? Because we not only need you to buy raffle tickets but we need you to send this post around to everyone you know to see if we can’t raise some serious money for them.

What is this raffle for you ask? Well its for a 2009 Honda Metropolitan scooter of course!

It was the office scooter we purchased in February and has only 150 miles on it. Since we are moving to Ethiopia we [Read more →]

I just got the most recent issue of Good magazine and am seriously impressed.  They have consistently delivered on their promise of being “An entertaining magazine for people who give a damn” but this time they stepped things up quite a bit.

It’s called reinventing our wheels and has more than 10 different pieces on the state of our transportation system here in America and what we can do to fix it. The writing is inspired and the topic is more relevant than ever not to mention that they chose to get away from the “Obama is awesome” message that every other magazine in the country is writing about (not that they do not like him its just that they were smart enough to write about something else instead of more bla bla bla about how amazing he is).

So here is a little pat on the back to the folks over at Good Magazine who continue to put together something with a heart and soul. Keep it up!

But it would not be right to have such a glowing review without a jab right? OK so here is the deal – the full back page is a Ralph Lauren Rugby ad….Are you kidding guys? Does anyone still buy Ralph Lauren Rugby clothes? Do they even still sell those? I can not believe how some brands survive for so long. Some things were meant to last 6 months then go out of style…Rugby gear…Yeah its one of those things.

Levi

I have a challenge for you today. I got an email from Scott Beardsley at the bike kitchen and he needs help figuring out what to to with all their used bike tires… Apparently they have a ton of them and are tired of seeing the trash overflowing with them.

So the challenge of the day is to see if we can all come up with a way to recycle old bike tires (and tubes) without a bunch of machinery or extra cost involved. It has to be simple and usable by enough people to use up all their spare tires.

Ready?

Just when you thought the Hummer limo had the gold medal for wasteful travel something like this comes along…

One of the things that we really enjoy as a company is when we take this online community of people with a shared passion for all things “sustainable” and get them together for real. It’s what I believe the internet is really for after all. Connecting people.

Starting in mid March we are going to host a new series at the Good project called What Makes Good? At least 3 times a month we are going to have a different person give a presentation on topics that may vary from things like LEED certification and what it takes to be certified as a project to gardening in Sacramento (what to plant when) We may even pull in someone to teach a class on defensive bike riding in the urban core, or perhaps a movie now and again.

The events will be held at the Good project but occasionally when we think we are going to have a big crowd we will host at the Green Sacramento Shop.

When we say what makes good we don’t just mean the Good project that is just one example of how to live a good green lifestyle we will be all over the map with new ways to live out your passion.

Look for an announcement over the next few days in your email (if you are signed up on the top right of this page) We will be letting you know the what when and where for the first of What Makes Good?

And so we get the ball rolling right now in 100 words or less comment below your answer to What Makes Good?

Ready? Go.

Levi

The Hummer….

Its now been proven that people who drive Hummers get nearly 5 times as many tickets as the average driver…Ouch.

As if you needed another reason not to buy one.

Levi Benkert

Every few months I get the idea that I should buy a scooter to get around town on. There are three of us at LJ Urban that share a little car. The idea is that we leave it at the office and ride our bikes in and use it for meetings if we need to. Although I have to admit (so as to not risk someone else exposing me instead) that I kind of hog the car. My excuse is that I have more away from the office meetings but somehow it ends up at my house more than it should. So every once in a while I get a hankering for a scooter. I do enjoy bike riding, its just the times when I have to get across town in 5 minutes because one meeting went long and another has already started where it would be nice to have the option. Once a few years ago I actually got one. It was just about the smallest Honda scooter you could buy but it was really fun to ride. But apparently when you are on the phone with the insurance company and you tell them you want all the coverages, you could not possibly mean all of them, like the one where when you get your scooter stolen it would get replaced. So yeah…Only 4 months after I bought it someone stole it and my insurance company told me that I had not chosen the theft option (which was only $3 more). If you are sensing a bit of left over frustration in my voice its because there is.

Anyhow I think if I did go for it again I would have to get something like this little hot rod. It was built by Portuguese craftsman Carlos Alberto who took an old Vespa and took apart the body and crafted himself a pretty cool machine. Even the seat is made of solid wood. Apparently the wood weighs considerably more than the original but for as neat as this thing looks the slower speeds are forgivable.

Doug commented on the new Shirt site about our (former) car.  I wanted to share my response.

doug // Dec 27, 2008 at 6:15 pm
What ever happened to LJUrban’s car?

Doug,  Good question. Oh the Zap! Or as we used to call it Zappy. It turned out to be an extremely experimental technology. And spent more time in the shop than it did on the road. Its favorite place to remind you that it was not a finished technology was at stoplights on J St. You would be sitting there waiting for the light to turn green… Silent as usual, no idea that anything was wrong then the light would turn and you would push the pedal down and…… Nothing. It was like a moody old man. Sometimes it gave you all it had and would do just fine but more often than not we would have to get the whole office together and go on a Zappy retrieving mission. So sad to see it go but we eventually decided that it was best to give it a good home back at the dealership where they could care for it better than we could.

Levi Benkert