May 16, 2011

Next-to-Last Shuttle Mission

Posted by Brenna Long

In case you missed the Space Shuttle Endeavour lift off this morning, watch this video. Only one more shuttle is left to launch. The Space Shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to launch in July. It will be the last shuttle to launch form NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. . . .


May 15, 2011

Green, Sturdy Furniture

Posted by Brenna Long

With a durable product and green materials, J.L. Miller Company Cabinets is here to stay for generations.

J.L. Miller Company Cabinets started in 2004 when Joshua Miller came back from a trip to Wyoming and decided to set aside his architecture degree and build furniture. “I’ve always been concerned with the environment and the outdoors,” Miller says. “Furniture was a natural extension of that world.”

In Waukon, Iowa, this small company started with Miller and a few friends building each piece of furniture by hand. Three different collections give buyers more choices, including the FieldWorxs collection inspired by the curved blades of the Wyoming prairie grass. Within the collections, the company offers products from dog beds to dressers to cabinets. For the regular furniture pieces, one craftsman builds the work from start to finish in a few weeks, and the company does all of its own shipping across the country. . . .


May 13, 2011

Never Missed a Class

Posted by Brenna Long

I walked down the hill with my campus map in hand. I was off to my first class at the University of Kansas. I left about 30 minutes too early, but I didn’t want to be late for my first day. My class was Pre 101. A class where I would learn about all the resources on campus and how to embrace KU. That was August of 2007.

Yesterday, I woke up a little late, pulled on some clothes and dashed down the hill for my last day of class. My final class was magazine publishing, where we just presented our finished magazines – nothing too stressful. After the short class, I walked out of the journalism building done with college classes. . . .


May 10, 2011

Use a Digital Tire Gauge to Get Better Gas Mileage

Posted by Brenna Long

Proper tire pressure equals better gas mileage for your car, and tires that are properly inflated save you money — more than $50 a year. To the single user that is a nice little pay off, especially considering a tire gauge costs less than that. But now the question is, which tire pressure gauge works the best?

I remember my dad checking my tire with the simple sliding-stick "pencil-style" pressure gauge. That is the only kind of gauge I saw for years. But the sliding-stick gauges don’t give a precise measurement and wear out over time. Then I got my own car, and I would have to check my tires somewhere other than home. Resorting to a worn-out public gauge at the gas station, I would try and get a reading with the beat up tire gauge. . . .


May 9, 2011

Farmville Comes Alive

Posted by Brenna Long

Personally, I have never been into Farmville, but with 32 million people playing daily, it must be fun. If you don't live on a farm, it might be as close as you can get to actually growing crops and raising livestock.

If you want to interact with a real farm, now you can. For $49, you can help make real decisions for the Wimpole Estate Farm in Cambridgeshire in England on MyFarm. The farm is an experiment by National Trust, a conservation nonprofit in England, to get people involved with farming and looking at food production. . . .