San Diego & Riverside Counties| Real Estate Blog

Earth day Celebrating 40 years

Did you know:

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb, we would provide enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, save more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

Some Earth Day freebies & discounts

• Gain free admission into all 392 U.S. national parks now through Sunday, April 25.
  
  
• Babies R Us will give you a free reusable tote bag if you bring a valid coupon(PDF) into its stores through April 22. Plus, you'll get a 25% discount off all the clothing and shoes you can fit into the bag.
  
  
• Origins is offering a trade-in program on Earth Day only. Bring one of your current skin-care product bottles -- empty or full, from any brand -- to an Origins counter and receive a free full-size cleanser. Choose from Checks and Balances Frothy face wash or Perfect World antioxidant cleanser with white tea.
  
  
• Get a chance to win a $20,000 green home makeover by registering on the Purex website by April 30.
  
  
• Enter a sweepstakes to win 1 of 10 smart for two vehicles by making a pledge to help protect the environment on Safeway's website through April 27.
  
  
• Sign up for the Drive Home Green sweepstakes on Target's website through the end of the month. The grand prize is a 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid.
• Add a green pledge to the Sierra Club's Earth Day map for a chance to win a trip for two to Hawaii.
• Travelocity is offering up to 40% off prices at 40 green hotels across the globe.
  
  
• Travelzoo is giving discounts on U.S.-based, LEED-certified hotels.
  
  
• Walgreens will refill your printer cartridge for $1 instead of its usual $12 on April 22 only. It's also offering a 22 percent discount  on its green products through April 30.
  
  
• Drugstore.com is offering up to 40% off products from its "green and natural" store through April 23.
  
  
• Numi Organic Teas is giving a 20% discount on April 22 -- just enter Eday40 at checkout

Upcoming Events

·     Earth Day Program - A Day of Science

Apr 22 2010 - 9:30am - San Diego, California

·     Wildlife Preserve and River Cleanup Event

Apr 24 2010 - 12:00pm - San Diego, California

· Earth Through a Lens Exhibit of Finalists' work

Apr 22 2010 - 9:00pm - Palm Springs, California

·     Green Screen - USGBC OC (EGB) and The Newport Beach Film Fest

Apr 28 2010 - 8:30pm - Newport Beach, California

 

By the way…if you know of someone who would appreciate the level of service in real estate we provide, please call me or have them go to www.CountyProperties.net  and I’ll be happy to follow up and take great care of them.

2009 Leonid Meteor Shower

During the 2009 Leonid meteor shower, you may see anywhere from 30 to 300 shooting stars an hour, depending on whether you're in the right place to see the showy peak on November 17, experts predict.

With the highest number of meteors streaking across the skies around 4:45 p.m. ET, the Leonids peak will be effectively invisible for viewers in North America and Europe.

In those regions, sky-watchers are advised to venture out away from bright city lights between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. on the 17th, when they should see 30 to 50 meteors an hour.

(Find out how light pollution has changed our views of the night sky.)

But in Asia, the peak happens during predawn hours, so observers there will have a front row seat for this year's showy display.

"Thanks to advances in computer power, since the 1990's we have been able to predict these upswings in activity," said William Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.

"This year there is going to be a Leonid strong outburst [during the peak], where the rates may race up to 300 per hour," Cooke said.

"But it may have a surprise in store, as well, and bring an unpredicted short peak at some point, so it's worth it for everyone [all around the world] to go out and look."

Leonids Shower a Temperamental Rock Star

The Leonids are so named because they seem to radiate from the constellation Leo, the lion, which rises above the northeastern horizon between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., depending on your location.

Like other meteor showers, such as the Perseids and the Orionids, the Leonids happen when Earth plows through a trail of debris left in the wake of a comet orbiting the sun.

When a comet gets close to the sun, melting ice releases pieces of dust, most no larger than a grain of sand. For some comets Earth annually crosses paths with the orbiting debris, which burns up in our atmosphere and creates meteors.

(See pictures of the 2009 Perseids.)

Among the annual sky-shows, the Leonids shower is like a temperamental rock star: In most years it delivers a modest show, with rates of about 15 shooting stars an hour.

In other years, however, the Leonids can suddenly erupt in spectacular meteor storms, with rates of more than a thousand meteors an hour.

That's because the trail of comet debris that creates the Leonids is uneven. The parent comet, Tempel-Tuttle, nears the sun every 33 years, leaving behind fresh clumps of material.

"In exceptional cases, the Earth will dive right through a very fresh trail lain down by the comet, and rates will be truly astronomical." said Geza Gyuk, an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

The Leonids shower of 1833, for example, saw as many as a hundred thousand meteors an hour—equal to an average of 30 meteors a second, Gyuk said.

2009 Leonids: Modest but Still Worth It

For the 2009 Leonids, experts are forecasting a more modest but still notable sky show, as Earth brushes a 62,000-mile-wide (100,000-kilometer-wide) cloud made of debris left behind from cometary passes in 1467 and 1533.

As with any meteor shower, there's no need for fancy optical equipment to enjoy the show, NASA's Cooke added.

"The best way is to use your unaided eyes so that you can take in as much of the overhead sky as possible," he said.

"Simply lie back, arm yourself with some warm blankets and hot chocolate, and just look straight up."