I signed our family up for Amazon Prime this week.  I’m not exactly a first mover here but finally got around to it.

If you don’t know, you can pay them $80 a year to cover all shipping and then never pay for ground shipping and overnight is only $3.99.

My goal is to eliminate the need for some shopping trips to Costco or the grocery store for large, bulky stock up items like paper towels, diapers, detergent, etc.  The prices are very competitive and it’s really convenient.

The question is:  Is it more efficient in terms of saving on transportation costs?  I suspect it is as long as I but multiple items in one session.

Scenario 1:  I make 1 trip to Costco and stock up on all I need.  But I assume that my box of Tide detergent went from manufacturing, to a distribution center, to the store and then to my house.

Scenario 2: Using Amazon Prime, the Tide goes from manufacturing to a large AMZN dist. center. to the UPS truck and over to my house.  Theoretically 1 less hop.  Plus if the UPS guy has a truck full of deliveries, then on a mass scale, I suspect it’s much more efficient.

Don’t know about you, but I find myself thinking much more now about where my stuff comes from – be it Chilean Sea Bass ‘flown in today’ or a box of detergent.

 

I recommend it:  click here for a free 2 week trial

I just returned from Las Vegas yesterday and noticed thse trash bins all over the Mirage Hotel and Casino

We'll do the Recycling for You: Waste is sorted and sent to recycling facilities

This just plain smart.  I love it.  How many times have you wanted to recycle a water bottle (or in the case of Vegas, a beer bottle) but haven’t been able or willing to look all over the place.

I’d love to know more about a program like this.  Who does it for them?  How much does it cost?  If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

I took my kids yesterday to ride a river barge to the new Museum Reach portion the Riverwalk here in San Antonio.

First of all, there’s a lock system where you board.  That was a first for us.  The delta in river level is 9 feet and it only takes about 5 minutes to get from one level to the next.

Veiw from lower portion of lock

From there we traveled a little over a mile up river.  We passed the San Antonio Museum of Art which was the original Lone Star Brewery.  Finally we got out at the Pearl Brewery.  There we saw a fantastic display about the new $1.35 million 200 kw solar array on the roof of the old brewery.  The work was done by Meridian Solar.  The Pearl owners got $400k in subsidy from CSP Energy, which is almost 1/3 of the cost.

There was also a great interactive display which my 7 year old couldn’t be pulled away from.  You can track real time how much energy the panels are generating and whether the facility of buying the extra amount from CPS or selling power back to them.  She loved it.

I highly recommend you check it out.  If you do, bring a hat and a water bottle.