On Tuesday, three of our members were off to Newark Airport to travel to the great country of Ecuador. Surrounded by beautiful mountains and volcanoes as well as historic buildings and churches…Ecuador is a beautiful history-rich country that many do not get to experience.

I for one have been there….had a great time..discovered a lot…when do you get to see things like this….(yes i took this)

Andy, Chris, and Haney will be travelling to Ecuador but are really nervous about their travels.

Will they have the same experience down there as I have?

Pictured here is an Ecuadorian guard…..guarding the northern border of Ecuador where it hits Colombia considering just earlier this year they broke off ties with Colombia. Ahh this northern Border…where a U.S. citizen back in 2001 was kindnapped and held for ransom by Colombia.

Now According the US Department of State (travel.state.gov)

The U.S. Embassy in Quito advises caution when traveling to the northern border region of Ecuador, to include areas in the provinces of Sucumbios, Orellana and Carchi and northern Esmeraldas. U.S. government personnel are under limitations with respect to traveling alone and over-nighting in these areas due to the spread of organized crime, drug trafficking, small arms trafficking, and incursions by various Colombian terrorist organizations. Since 1998, at least ten U.S. citizens have been kidnapped near Ecuador’s border with Colombia.

• Most beaches lack consistently staffed lifeguard stations.

• U.S. citizens should carry identification at all times, including proof of U.S. citizenship.

• Crime is a serious problem in Ecuador, and visitors should be alert and cautious.

• Hundreds of Americans are robbed every year in Ecuador.

• Travelers should avoid wearing expensive-looking jewelry and watches.

• Always be aware of your surroundings, and try to not travel alone.

• In Quito, travelers should be particularly alert on the crowded streets of south Quito, at the Panecillo, in Old Quito, and in the areas of El Tejar, Parroquia San Sebastian, Avenida Cristobal Colon, and Gonzalez Suarez.

• In Guayaquil, take extra caution in the downtown area at night, in the street market area of La Bahia, at the Christ Statue (Sagrado Corazon de Jesus) on Cerro del Carmen, in the airport area, and in the southern part of the city.

• Criminals sometimes use incapacitating drugs such as scopolamine on unsuspecting tourists in order to rob them.

See guys…there is nothing to worry about!

P.S. Don’t forget your twenty bucks you need to get out of the country!

Some memories from my last night in Hong Kong and Typhoon Hagupit:

Before dinner, in the lobby of our Hotel.

And yes that is correct, I’m doing the whole “Hey look how important I am on my blackberry, yet I still have time to point to the Typhoon level 8 warning sign and show everyone how awesome of a job the hotel is boarding up the windows.”

After seeing this one might want to reconsider going out for dinner on a night like this considering Hong Kong is located right on the water. We considered staying in, but 3 seconds later we decided how often do you get to go out on a Typhoon night.

Though Hong Kong is pretty small and it’s subway system pretty efficient there are still some places where you can’t simply hide from the elements.

Though the path was trecharous, we eventually made it to dinner, and after dinner my friend told me about a place of legend in Hong Kong. A place where boys become men, and men become drunk, and women become scared of the drunk men who were once boys. A place where this transition takes places only on treacherous nights like these.

And that place my friends, is Typhoon. Apparently they serve free shots when a Typhoon hits level 8, talk about sytematically trying to weed out the riff-raff of society.

Well that’s where it ended. A little night cap here and a little night cap there and before you knew it we were on a plane the next day flying over the typhoon to Taiwan and back to from Taiwan to the US.

So on a final note I’d like to bid my friends Typhoon Sinlaku and Hagupit farewell, you will be missed, we had good times, almost became BFFs if you had not tried to make out with me and whispher sweet nothings in my year.

Not bad though, all in all 3 typhoons/hurricanes in 2 weeks for the Red Ledge staff. Looks like a record we’ll have to try to beat next year.

2008

Red Ledge 3:

Spinning Swirly Things: 0

2009

TBD

I’m sitting at the airport right now waiting for my flight back to the US and my itinerary for this trip just happened to fall out of my bag. After some review I realized that I’ve been on over 8 flights for this trip alone.

Being at an airport and watching the crew dump thousands and thousands of gallons into the planes I started thinking about everyone going “GREEN” and how they are all avoiding this “UNGREEN-NESS”. I make this type of trip maybe 3-4 times a year, our product development director (Haney) makes the trip about the same number of times, and that’s pretty much it, we’re a pretty small company so hopefully we’re not making too big of a dent.

“How little of a dent is it really?” I thought myself, so I looked it up.

Figuring between Haney and myself, our Asia trips a year equate to roughly 144,000 miles traveled. This is what our carbon footprint is (assuming 0 for everything else except air travel). So how little was our dent actually?

“MUCH LARGER THAN AVERAGE” apparently. In just our air travel to Asia, we exceed the national average of by about 4 times. This is 4 times what the average person’s carbon footprint is calculating ALL travel and ALL other carbon creating activities. Guess it’s a bigger dent than expected. I can’t even begin to imagine the dent that bigger companies with entire sourcing departments pumps out. Talk about some ridiculous Carbon tonnage.

But what can we, at Red Ledge, and as an industry do? I guess first off is we can reduce the amount we travel, but given the scope of the industry now and how much product is being made overseas, I don’t really see the travel dying down excessively, especially seeing how global the world economy is today.

So unless they come out with some sort of hybrid airplane or electric airplane, I doubt we can solve this problem this way.

Fear not though, the ingenious people who brought you the carbon footprint calculator also (conveniently) suggests that we can buy off our carbon sins with so called Indulgences RECs (Renewable Energy Credits). Basically we give them money and they invest it into wind power or harvesting methane from poop.

Sweet deal I thought, nothing beats throwing money at a problem to make it go away. Credit card in hand, I was ready to save the planet. Then I saw some fine print about the terms of the REC:

Hmm. So when the project is done, it will take 20 years for 1 ton of our carbon usage to be offset. So for the 30 tons we used for traveling to Asia this year and with only this share of the wind turbine, it would take…let’s see:

30 tons x 20 years = 600 years. Fantastic.

So for 10 years of Red Ledge operations (assuming 2 travelers), our Carbon tonnage should be wiped clean by the year 8009 (assuming our wind turbine doesn’t break down or need additional maintenance and improvements). Nice. In addition to my wind turbine I’m also going to start telling women that I’ve taken my 30 tons of carbon and put it in a nice little spot in the ground and eventually after a couple years, they can go and collect a diamond.

Well, I guess if Indulgences RECs aren’t the answer, I’ll just have to figure out some other way to get around the world for now.

With the passing of Summer it is time to reflect on our failures to reach our summertime goals. And by “our goals” I clearly mean Andy’s goal to reach peak physical condition by the end of the summer. Located in his office was a picture of a professional Australian swimmer(note below) which we all believe was there for motivation.

Somehow he lost site of that goal; I suspect his gym partner Haney had something to do with this upset. They started off strong from what I gather, protein shakes and 6am workouts. Tales of Haney helping Andy squat 250lb, things looked promising, goals obtainable. Unfortunately, that picture has long been removed and the locker room stories are all distant echos. What we have to live with now is acceptance of who we are meant to be…I give you Andy at his finest.