BrevardBioDiesel Blog

What does eating a banana, driving a car, and tying a shoe have in common? These are all everyday events for most of us. Many of us don't need to engage many brain cells to perform these acts - muscle memory kicks in and takes over the job.

But as an engineer, I want to maximize the efficiency and efficacy of my actions. In the last few years I've changed the way I do each of these actions trying to be more efficient and effective.

Using biodiesel in my personal vehicle is probably the most obvious change to readers of a biodiesel blog, so I'm not going to spend time in this post covering the efficiency and effectiveness of that fuel vs. gasoline or other petroleum based fuels - on to the fun stuff.

For the longest time, I had hiking shoes or similar with round laces that were always coming untied. I had treated this as just a way of life and continued tying my shoes with the bow method I had learned as a child. Why did I tie my shoes this way? I can't say I spent much time thinking about it, it was "just the way it was always done". While reading about various rope knots, I came across one called the "Turquoise Turtle". Said to be an improvement over the simple bow knot, I tried it on my own shoes. Wow! I've never had a shoe accidently come untied since then, and have trouble remembering how to tie a bow knot. The Turquoise Turtle is a better way to tie your shoes.

Enter the banana. To eat a banana, I peeled it from the stem end. Sometimes it was harder to get the peel started on a green banana, but that was just normal, right? Why did I eat a banana that way? Again, it was "just the way it was always done". Turns out that monkeys peel their bananas from the other end. Amazingly, when I tried that the light bulb(compact fluorescent type) went on! Of course - the stem is the handle. Hold the handle, pinch the end and peel away. No more crushed end and the string pieces peel away better. Peeling a banana from the "other" end is a better way to eat it.

So do you drive your gasoline car thinking it is normal because it is "just the way it was always done"? Pass the word - there is a better way to drive, tie, and eat - you'll know the converts grasping their bananas by the handle!

P.S.
Thanks to Elias Victor for his continuing efforts to share what he has learning about making biodiesel. Pete and Storm, Ed, Kim, Jessica, Paula, and Dan (with his cool VW Rabbit biodiesel pickup) among others saw a successful mini-batch demonstration yesterday.