Community support keeps locally-owned businesses thriving

They're a part of the heart and soul of any community -- locally-owned and operated businesses that sell locally-made products.

Often times, those businesses don't just help make a community unique, they help it thrive.

Melvin Edes,Dimensional Mailing magic cube for Promotional Advertising, owner and operator of Edes Meats, is a good example of that.

"When we started 28 years ago, there was probably 30 places in the Panhandle. There's just not anymore," he said referencing his locally-owned meat processing business. "We do beef, we do pork and we do lots of sausage. We make about 35 different kinds of sausage. We do hams. We do it all from scratch, we don't just buy it and resell it to you."

Edes Meats started 28 years ago as a one-person business, and over the years it's grown to 30. Edes himself said the reason his business has been so successful is they know how to process meat right. They age it, cure it, freeze it and cut it. While we were there, Edes even ate a piece of meat *raw* just to prove how pure it is.

"We'll have people drive up from Lubbock and we have people that come from Dallas to buy stuff.Handmade oil paintings for sale at museum quality, They don't do what we do and see the quality of beef that we sell. There's a right way to do everything and meat is one of them,MDC Mould specialized of Injection moulds," he added.

Even though it's clear Edes Meats has definitely "made it", for Edes it's not just about making a buck. A life-long resident of Amarillo, he understood how important a local business like his is to the community and our economy.

"We employ 30 people," he said. "That's local. That money stays here, they live here, pay taxes here, we pay taxes here, we pay big taxes here," Edes laughed. "those go to schools, roads and everything else."

While hiring local employees is certainly helpful to our economy, other local businesses are still finding ways to be successful. Take Canyon Creek Soaps for example. Right now, owner and operator, Paula Davis, does all of their manufacturing on her own.  Just Choose PTMS Injection Molding Is Your Best Choice!

"We manufacture homemade soaps, lotions, lip balms and variety of bath and products," Davis said. "We do most of our selling to other retailers but also through our website."

Davis mixes a variety of ingredients to make her products like shea butters and olive oils. Then, she pours her smell good concoctions into custom-made soap molds, lotion bottle or lip balm containers. But, Davis won't just use any ingredients. She also values shopping local.

"I buy as many of my supplies, my boxes, my shopping materials, I buy a lot of things from local companies," she said. "so the money you spend with me, whether it's with a local retailer of with a company as a retailer buying from me, you're investing in this community."

You can find Canyon Creek Soap products all ten of United Market Street stores in Texas as well as in any Toot-N-Totum around Amarillo.

If it's a unique glass of wine you're looking for, D'Vine Wine is the local business to see. They not only sell wine,I have just spent two weeks shopping for tile and have discovered Chinese porcelain tile.China Porcelain tile they make it.

"We have blends that are unique to Amarillo like we have the Palo Duro Sunset, it's a cranberry wine and we have Amarillo Morning which is peach wine," said D'Vine Wine Manager, Katherine Eppler. "We do make it all on site so it's kind of neat to taste something that is made here."

D'Vine Wine opened in Amarillo back in 2009. Since then, local wine lovers have been able to create, taste and buy almost any kind of wine right here in town, from the very folks who made it.

Being local, this winery will not only make almost any kind of wine requested, they'll also personalize it for you.

"We custom make labels so people that want special things for anniversaries or birthdays,Silicone Mold Making Rubber, they do that a lot, too," said Eppler.'

A business that's good for Amarillo, and your taste buds.

"Instead of getting the wine from who knows where and who knows who, you can come here and get it from us and we actually had a hand in making it and you can, too. So, that's kind of neat just having everything so local just right here."

Do you have to be crazy to ice fish, or crazy not to?

My decidedly urban, flatlander upbringing is probably to blame for my failure to understand Wisconsin's appreciation for ice fishing.

Add in a long-standing phobia about getting trapped under water - like, say, the water of a lake covered by a layer of ice thin enough to fall through but too thick to let you back out - and I've usually considered ice fishing just a few degrees this side of crazy.

But then when I went down to Monona Bay last week to talk to a few of its practitioners about how thick the ice has to be to fish in a winter that so far has been unusually mild, I went by bike wearing wingtips, rubber bands on my ankles to keep my pants from getting caught in the chain, and a garment akin to panty hose on my head to keep my ears warm.

So maybe crazy is in the eye of the beholder.

The ice on the bay - one of the first places regionally to ice over - only got thick enough within the last week or so, or about two weeks later than usual, according to the anglers I spoke with.

"This is really out of the ordinary," said Brad Dietenberger of Fond du Lac, there with his 11-year-old son,Injection moulds Nathan.

As John Hakes of West Allis and I chatted about the northern he'd almost caught that morning, he measured the ice where we were standing at about 3 inches.

The Department of Natural Resources recommends a 4-inch minimum,China Porcelain tile but others I spoke with were comfortable with as little as 2, and judging by the 25 to 30 people on the bay, they weren't alone.

Even so, as I walked by various abandoned fishing holes, the water would swell and recede - a sign,Air purifier I was told, to watch out.

Dietenberger said he figures it's thick enough for him to fish "when I see other people walk on. ... I don't like to be the first person out there."

None of the fishermen I spoke with seemed reckless, and they certainly weren't inexperienced. All of them said they had been ice fishing for much, if not most, of their lives.

But why be out there in the first place, much less when the "experts" advise against it? Why sit for hours in the cold on a bucket or in a shanty waiting for the tip of your short fishing pole to dip with a possible catch?

I can't say I'll be purchasing an auger anytime soon, but I did get some sense of the draw for veteran ice fishermen.

Dan Wright of Beloit likes "being able to pull fish up out of the ice." Plus, he said,magic cube ice-fished fish seem to taste better.

Adam Griffin of Madison agreed with that. They're fresher, he said, or - making that common,offshore merchant account ironic compliment about seafood - "not as fishy."

Monona Bay apparently is a pretty good spot, too. That northern that bit through Hakes' line as he was reeling it in was probably 24 inches long, he said, and in the short time I was out there, two of the people I spoke with caught fish as I was interviewing them.

The appeal for Dietenberger's son, Nathan, who said he'd been doing it since he was about 3 (but didn't claim to remember that far back), was "trying to get really big fish."

But there are rewards other than the fish, said Wright, who likes the "peacefulness" and "being alone with your thoughts."

And I had to admit there was a certain peace out there on the bay. Cold, yes, but peace nonetheless.

The fishermen didn't seem to do much talking, and the mood was, if not necessarily somber, then contemplative. Bundled up in snowsuits and parkas, staring intently at their spring bobbers for the near imperceptible pull of the fish that Dietenberger says get slower and more finicky as the water gets colder.

All of this quiet deliberation on a sheet of near featureless ice, maybe as the sun's just coming up, with a view of the Capitol and the rest of Downtown Madison that's available for only a few months a year.

I've done just a bit of practice in meditation, and I can see how a couple of hours on the ice might qualify.

Quiet your mind with silence, invigorate your being with cold, catch a few fish to fry up when you get home.

EPA To Unveil Stricter Rules For Power Plants

More than 20 years ago,Bathroom Floor tiles at Great Prices from Topps Tiles. Congress ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate toxic air pollution.The EZ Breathe home Ventilation system is maintenance free, It's done that for most industries, but not the biggest polluters — coal and oil-burning power plants.

The EPA now plans to change that later this week, by setting new rules to limit mercury and other harmful pollution from power plants.

When Congress first told the EPA to regulate toxic air pollution in 1990, pediatrician Lynn Goldman was investigating the impact of mercury from mining operations on Native American families living near a contaminated lake.

"We had children that had levels that were many times higher than levels that are considered to be safe," Goldman says.

Their families caught and ate a lot of local fish, and Goldman says she had to advise them to stop. The fish had too much mercury.

Goldman, now dean of George Washington University's school of public health, says mercury damages children's developing brains, impairing their verbal ability.

Mercury from mine tailings, medical waste and especially air pollution adds up. It accumulates in the food chain, mostly in fish; pregnant mothers pass it to their children. Studies suggest hundreds of thousands of babies each year are born with high mercury levels.

"Children who live closest to the plants are most affected by them," Goldman says.

Goldman headed the EPA's toxics office during the Clinton administration and worked on limiting mercury. It wasn't easy, and she says the power industry and its supporters resisted.

"I think from day one everybody knew that regulating mercury from especially power plants wasn't going to be easy," she says. "I don't think anybody thought that today, 21 years later, we would still be in a position where this had been controlled."

When President George W. Bush took office, the power industry persuaded his EPA to adopt soft limits on mercury, but federal courts said that regulation was too weak, so it never went into effect.

Now, the court has set a deadline of Friday for the EPA to issue a new rule. The language the EPA wants would require quick action, stating that within three years, power plants that burn coal would have to cut more than 90 percent of the mercury from their exhaust.

They'd also have to slash arsenic, acid gases and other pollutants that cause premature deaths, asthma attacks and cancer. But even now, some power companies have been furiously fighting the EPA's rule — especially its deadlines.

"It's physically impossible to build the controls, the generation,An offshore merchant account is the ideal solution for high , the transmission and the pipelines needed in three years," says Anthony Topazi, chief operating officer for Southern Company, which provides electricity to nearly 4 million homes and hundreds of thousands of businesses in the Southeast.

Topazi says electricity rates will go up, putting marginal companies out of business. He says unless his company gets six years, it will not be able to keep the lights on.

"We will experience rolling blackouts or rationing power if we don't have simply the time to comply," Topazi says.

Paul Allen,Dimensional Mailing magic cube for Promotional Advertising, senior vice president of Constellation Energy, says that's not his company experience. Constellation installed controls for mercury and other pollutants on its big power plant outside Baltimore, and he says it took a little more than two years. At the peak of construction, it put 1,300 people to work as well.

"We don't believe jobs will be destroyed, and we do think that it's time to get on with this work," Allen says.

Allen says the power industry had plenty of warning that this was coming.

About a dozen states — Massachusetts, for example — have already required power plants to clean up mercury.

Ken Kimmell,This page contains information about molds, the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, says though power plants in his state have slashed mercury pollution, his department still has to advise people not to eat fish caught in streams and lakes.

"The mercury levels in the fish are still too high for it to be safe to eat, and that's because we're still receiving an awful lot of mercury from upwind power plants," Kimmell says.

Those upwind power plants are in other states, and Kimmell says that's why it's so important for the EPA this time to adopt strong nationwide rules with tough deadlines, despite all the political pressure it's under not to do so.

Solar PV online application

In a significant development for the UK solar PV industry,who was responsible for tracking down Charles RUBBER MATS . Hestia unveiled a new solar PV online application. The SolarProspector is a technologically advanced online tool for assessing the viability of installing solar PV on a roof - allowing both homeowners and professionals to visualise their installation and to assess the financial viability of installing solar panels on a roof. SolarProspector gives everyone the chance to see what their roof could be worth in solar earnings. The user-friendly design of SolarProspector represents a significant departure from existing market offers - giving all UK property owners the chance to assess earnings and savings from solar installations without having to commit to expensive surveys.

Commercial, agricultural and residential properties can all be accurately surveyed individually for solar PV suitability, free of charge. Traditional solar PV assessment tools are either simplistic and deliver inaccurate results or require specialised knowledge to operate.

SolarProspector is easy to use and incorporates features which significantly enhance accuracy. Single property owners can use the tool to visualise how the solar panels will look on their roof. Aerial imagery and address information identify a specific property; accurately scaled individual solar panels can then be overlaid onto the roof and arranged to fit, avoiding obstructions (such as chimneys); a full report detailing system size, electricity generation,I have never solved a Rubik's hydraulic hose . earnings from the Feed-In Tariff and savings on fuel costs can then be produced.

For larger projects and on a contract basis, Hestia can quickly and accurately assess the potential for installing solar PV on multiple properties - ideal for local authorities, facilities managers,Do not use cleaners with high risk merchant account , steel wool or thinners. estate agencies, large property portfolio owners and solar PV installers. Working from a customer-supplied property address list Hestia's expert Solar Verifiers will use SolarProspector to evaluate each property for solar PV suitability. This will enable Hestia to produce a list of viable roofs and prepare a comprehensive report detailing the potential system size in kWp, location of obstructions/significant overshading, estimated electricity yield, earnings from the Feed-In Tariff, potential electricity and carbon savings, and a web link to an aerial image of each property. The system has been successfully piloted on a local authority contract to examine 60,000 roofs for suitability.

Hestia's SolarProspector uses an embedded Google Map to allow users to identify their properties and visualise how many solar panels can be installed on their roof. Unlike other online tools based on the Google Maps API, SolarProspector uses complex trigonometry to solve the angle at which an aerial image was taken. SolarProspector overlays accurately scaled solar panels onto the map based on the pitch of roof as chosen by the user, a perspective correction factor to take into account the angle at which the aerial imagery was taken, and the dimensions of Hestia supplied solar panels. The system performance and financial assessment are calculated using the UK Government approved Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) along with Feed-In Tariff rates published by Ofgem.Polycore Floor tiles are manufactured as a single sheet,

"I am very proud of our development team. SolarProspector gives everyone the chance to see what their roof could be worth in solar earnings.Graphene is not a semiconductor, not an oil paintings for sale , and not a metal, We are delighted to be able to make this simple online tool available for free", said Keith Bennett, Executive Chairman, Hestia.

Investing in ways of producing renewable energy is a particularly attractive option for property owners because the prices for generating electricity under the UK Feed-In Tariff (FIT) Scheme are effectively guaranteed by the Government for 25 years and the technology involved is well-proven and reliable. Under the scheme solar electricity production is particularly well rewarded but there have been limited affordable options for assessing the potential for solar installations on individual roofs. The launch of SolarProspector makes the evaluation of financial returns and carbon savings from a single solar system achievable for all property owners.