Wednesday, August 8, 2007

this works pretty good!



My best street find of the summer was a used air conditioner. Last week, as I walked home from my favorite new coffee shop I came across an air conditioner on the sidewalk. It had "This works pretty good" written in black sharpie across the top. "This works pretty good" is way better than recent "90+ degree days in Brooklyn", so I ran to my studio, grabbed my luggage cart and loaded up this treasure. (you have to be quick with good garbage in NY)
In about an hour I had the new-to-me AC up the flight of stairs to my studio (thanks George, the nice passerby!) and installed. And the person with the black sharpie was right "This works pretty good". Which is a good thing because after carrying and installing it, I had worked up a good sweat.

Eco note: Going without air conditioning may seem like a more eco-friendly alternative. With that said, sometimes it's hard to work in blazing hot conditions and altering the temperature can make a person more productive and have an overall better quality of living. I'm all for the Lazy Environmentalist mentality where an ideal world would be making the easiest choice would also be the greenest choice. I dream of a world where SUVs run on water and even generate electricity, and where plastic discards turn into nutrient-rich compost.
And I could've gotten the most energy efficient AC model. But I only need it a few days a year and this one was, in fact, FREE and I am keeping it out of landfill a little longer. And if using it makes me more productive then it is a more eco-friendly choice.
See - being eco-friendly is seldom black and white... It often comes in shades of green.

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