What is this blog?

In a nutshell, I'm going to journal the greening of our home in Redwood City, California.

Who are We?

We are a regular, middle-class couple that has been married for 3 years now. We have a 1700 square foot house in Redwood City, which is not very big. However, real estate costs a lot here in the Bay Area so we couldn't afford much more. We have no kids, but 2 4-month-old rambunctious kittens. (Although they have grown so fast, it is weird calling them kittens now.) Edwin (that's me!) works as a software engineer for a large, online Internet company that you have all heard of (no, not that one, the OTHER one), and my wife Margaret works in sales for a large mass storage company.

Why are we Doing This?

We are not particularly green right now, but we are figuring we should do what we can. There are two primary motivations for this:

1. Save money. I figure if you do it right, you increase efficiency. This saves us money in the long run. We may have to spend some money up-front though to get the higher efficiency. But, if it pays for itself in a reasonable amount of time, we will do it.
2. Be good to the environment. We are not particularly political, and being green to me is not really a political issue. I would classify us as fiscally somewhat conservative and socially somewhat liberal, so not your stereotypically California Democrat like you might expect for someone who is going to green their home. We are just two people who want to make sure that the earth is okay after we're gone. I'm a pretty logical person (which makes sense for a software engineer) and to me, the rhythms and cycles of nature are a good example of how a closed system like the earth can operate at 100% efficiency.

There are also a few secondary motivations, like health, comfort, and of course keeping up with the Jones'. ;-)

What are we Going to do?

At first, we want to do things that are not going to cost a lot. Later when we have saved up some money, we can spend it on more expensive things if they make sense and pay for themselves in the long run. What I mean by "make sense" is that we are not for example going to buy a new car just to get the better gas mileage when our current cars are perfectly serviceable right now. However, when it comes time to buy a new car, fuel economy will be a top priority. (That, and cool gadgets! Hey, I'm still a tech-head software guy after all. ;-)

Our goal is not to become green tomorrow, or even next week, but to slowly change our lifestyle in a permanent way to become more and more green as we go along.

What's Next?

In the next few posts, I'll document what we have done already before this blog was even started. Then, I'll write about new things we have done to become more green.

So stayed tuned for reports from your average family doing what they can to become more green.