Celebrate Spring Break Locally!

For those of us in education, whether we be students, faculty, or parents of students, it is Spring Break in AZ! And even if you don't get the week off, it's hard not to feel the Spring Break fever. So let's celebrate Spring Break and do something fun this week!

For many of us, a beach trip is not in the cards. Fortunately, we have a lot of awesome fun things to do right in the Valley! So, in honor of Spring Break, I'm going to list a few fun ideas close to home that everyone can enjoy!

Phoenix Art Museum- If you are looking for a relaxing, cultured experience, the Phoenix Art Museum is a must see. And, with free admission on Wednesdays, it's an inexpensive option too!

Tempe Town Lake- if you are craving a day at the beach, but can't escape to CA, Tempe Town Lake is the next best thing! With spacious lawns for tanning and picnicking, paddle boats, and restaurants and shopping in the nearby Mill Ave district, you have plenty of options to have the quintessential Spring Break beach day away from the beach.

Girls' day out- get some girlfriends together and splurge on a facial or mani-pedi and a little shopping in one of the great shopping centers in the valley. Scottsdale Fashion Square, the Mill Ave district, Fiesta Mall, Chandler Fashion Center, and Superstition Springs Mall are just a few of the great shopping centers around the valley. Pamper yourself, have a fancy lunch, and do a little shopping!

The Great Outdoors- Arizona has some of the best weather of the year in early Mrch, so if you enjoy the great outdoors, now is the best time to soak up the sun! Go hiking on one of our many gorgeous trails, many of which are practically IN the city, so no long drives required. If you have a day or two to spare, drive up to northern AZ and go camping on some of our beautiful campgrounds.

Kids' fun in the sun- For good family fun on hot days, head to a pool! Sunsplash in Mesa has some great water slides and wave pools. Local junior highs often allow people to swim in their pools for a very low price as well. Just be sure to keep an eye on the kids around water so everyone has a safe and fun time!

Check out your city's website for local events coming up to get more great local Spring Break ideas!

And don't forget to make your Spring Break extra relaxing by letting Clean Air Cab take you out on all your local Spring Break adventures! We recently added a text message notification system so, after you book your trip, you can get a text message letting you know when your driver is on their way and who they are.

Comment below or on our Facebook page to let us know what your local spring break plans are and what you think of our new text message system!

   

Education is Important!

I started working at Clean Air Cab the summer after my freshman year of college. I'm graduating from Arizona State University the end of this semester and I'm still at Clean Air Cab. In the nearly 3 years I've been there, I've had something like 4 positions. I sometimes joke I could run the company if I needed to! 

I bring this up because I want to talk about Clean Air Cab's involvement in education. Many of you have seen our awesome ASU cabs driving around, but did you know we donate money to ASU to provide a yearly scholarship for a student in need?

I brought up my own story to illustrate how deeply Clean Air Cab is committed to supporting education. I started there as a call taker with hardly any experience. I started 6 months after opening, so the company was even smaller then. I quickly came to know the managers and owner. They were always willing to work around my crazy school schedule so I could support myself. As I continued there, I was given the opportunity to move up and work in the office. I worked full time as an office admin for a summer and was allowed to work part time handling the accounts when I went back to school. They saw potential in me and let me have the opportunity to learn a whole new skill set and push myself in a professional setting that would otherwise have been unavailable to me. 

Steve, the owner of CAC, and the managers there don't just throw money at causes to look good, they really care! And they show that in more ways than the wraps on our cabs. 

"Clean Air Cab is excited about making this donation to Arizona State University," said Steve Lopez, the company's founder. "Our business is built on sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation, and we're proud to support the next generation of innovative young leaders as they learn and put forward their own solutions to our greatest 

challenges."

Many of my friends and other college students have had the opportunity to work for Clean Air despite inexperience and odd schedules. So, when you take a Clean Air Cab, know that you aren't just supporting the scholarship we donate to, but you are supporting the college students who work there too! By supporting Clean Air Cab, you are supporting our investment into a better future.

For more information on our involvement with ASU, go to our website, or simply click here.

**I should note, there are a lot of amazing people who work at Clean Air Cab that aren't college students, but I wanted to focus on our involvement in education this week. I'll talk about some of the other types of people we support at another time. 

Clean and Green!

Every day at Clean Air Cab, we clean a LOT of cars. Every morning and every evening the cars are inspected and cleaned before they are allowed to go out on the road again. That many dirty cars, along with maintaining a clean office, this means we use a lot of cleaning products! We try to run our company using as many eco-friendly practices as possible, and cleaning has become a significant part of company activities, so why not write about it?

CAC is a very family friendly company as well as an eco-friendly company. So when we think of cleaning, we aren't just considering the environment when trying to eliminate chemicals from our workplaces, we're thinking of our kids (who often frequent the office) too! Finding greener ways to do your cleaning is good for the Earth and your health!

The cheapest, non-toxic, natural, all-purpose cleaner you can use is simply vinegar. Yes, plain old vinegar! Vinegar isn't a new trick- plenty of mothers and grandmothers have known of its secret cleaning powers for generations- but that doesn't mean there aren't new things we can do with it! 

The biggest deterrent in using vinegar as a cleaner is it's unpleasant smell. I for one, do not want my home smelling like a pickle after I'm done cleaning it. Fortunately, it is incredibly easy to infuse vinegar  with other scents! For a lemon-scented cleaner, peel two lemons, put the rinds in a jar, pour vinegar over them and let it sit for a week. then put it into a spray bottle and clean just about anything in your home! For other scents, add drops of essential oils to spray bottles of vinegar, like lavender. Once the vinegar is infused with a scent, the "vinegar smell" will dissipate shortly after spraying it and you will only be left with the delicious scent you have infused! (Using cleaning vinegar, which is a little more concentrated, is recommended. Depending on what you are cleaning, you will want to dilute the vinegar with water as well.)

Vinegar, it seems, can be used to fix almost anything from clogged sinks to stained carpets, to chemical build-up in bathrooms! Check out my sources below for more great tips!

The scent-infused vinegar idea came from this great blog!

Check out this webpage to learn about even more of the many uses of vinegar!

                                                              

Keeping our resolutions!

Keeping in the new year's theme (January isn't over yet, I can keep this up for another week!), I thought I'd write about how to be successful in keeping our new year's resolutions! Last week I wrote about what some of Clean Air's resolutions were, so it only seems fitting to make sure we have a plan!

Fortunately, psychologists have done a lot of research on resolutions so we don't have to guess at how to keep our resolve up! So here are a few tips:

1. Make resolutions! It seems like a no-brainer but people who don't think resolutions are worthwhile only have a 4% chance of reaching goals while 46% of those who commit to resolutions reach their goals! And most of the 54% who don't keep their resolutions fall off in the first week. So if you can make it past the first week you have a fighting chance! Hopefully we've all made it past the first 3 weeks of the year.

2. Keep your goals realistic. Maybe instead of shooting for a marathon when you're an inexperienced runner, try for a 10k first. Maybe try to loose and keep off 30 pounds instead of 100. know yourself and push yourself, but don't overdo it. Reaching too far often causes people to become discouraged.

3. Start when YOU are ready, not necessarily at the first of the year! So for those of you who didn't get around to making resolutions January 1, try for February 1! Know what will work best for you.

4. Get support! Support from others is key in keeping yourself motivated and accountable. Ask a friend or relative to call you every so often to remind you of your resolution and keep you accountable. Post your resolution and your progress to Facebook or any other social media site. Those little "likes" can be just the boost you need to keep going!

5. Log your progress. Keeping record of your progress helps you to see how far you've come and makes you be accountable to something, if not someone. It also helps you to see that your goal is in sight! (I really like sticker charts. Some people may like notebooks or online planners)

6. Do one thing at a time. Do NOT make 50 resolutions! It's hard enough keeping one! You will likely get overwhelmed and quit early, accomplishing none of them. You can do two if they are related though, like loosing weight and exercising more. But trying to stick to a diet while quitting smoking may be too much to take on at a time. Tackle things one at a time and really blow your goals away!

7. Reward yourself! you're working hard, reward your progress! But make sure it's a reward within your goal. For example, don't reward yourself with a big piece of cake after sticking to your diet for a week. Maybe go out dancing or get a pedicure instead. Helpful rewards will give you the boost you need to keep going.

I got all of this awesome information from an episode of NPR's Science Friday which can be found here. (CAC's owner, Steve Lopez, and I share a love of science and innovation so anytime I can sneak some cool science in here, I will!)

Good luck with all of your goals and resolutions this year! Comment here or on our Facebook page and tell us what your new year's resolutions are and how you are doing! Maybe Clean Air Cab can be apart of helping you become a new and improved person!

New Year, New Opportunities!

With a new year comes a renewed sense of determination to make a difference and do better than in the past. That is especially true for Clean Air Cab as we look forward to giving back and making more of an impact on the community and growing as a company. 

Las year we gave $10,485 to Susan G Komen, $9,012 to Phoenix Children's Hospital, $23,543 to Mesa United Way, and a scholarship to ASU.

This year, we are hoping to beat that! 

This past year our managers, employees, and drivers have worked with the Boys and Girls Club, Helen's Hope Chest, Arizona Breast Feeding Bag Project, Phoenix Children's Hospital, raised money for families in need, volunteered with food drives, helped each other move, given free rides to friends and strangers in need, and so much more! And that's just on their own personal time!

Clean Air Cab values service and giving back because our community is only as good as the people in it. We believe we're all in this together and if we can help out, we should! 

I have personally seen CAC become a company of tight-knit people (we refer to ourselves as a "work family") who value family, education, people, and the planet!

This year we hope to continue expanding the company and our "work family," give back to the community more, and make the planet a little greener. 

Keep a look out for our new developments in social media including more contests/giveaways, a Pinterest and maybe an Instagram too! We are determined to make 2013 an even more spectacular year than the last!

CAC is Thankful!

At Clean Air Cab, part of our goal as a company is to be a part of the solution. We give back to our community through green business practices and charitable donations. But we know that's not enough. That's why out general manager, Brandy Lovato, is so passionate about volunteering and personal service. She serves on the board for the Boys and Girls Club and is always encouraging everyone to do their part and volunteer. It seems like she's always sending out an e-mail or putting up a flyer about an event that needs volunteers! We're really lucky to have her in the office because that kind of attitude embodies the vision for the company and helps to create a positive environment where you know the people in charge aren't just about profit. We really care about our customers and the people in our community and what better way to show that than by serving them?

Last week, the Boys and Girls Club held their annual Thanksgiving dinner. It's a huge event for people that may not otherwise have the opportunity to have a Thanksgiving dinner. Because it's so large, they need a lot of volunteers to help with all of the food prep and serving. True to form, Brandy made sure we all knew about it and asked everyone that could to come. We had a great turn out. 4 of our dispatchers, Liz, Linda, Sunshine, and Kayla (not pictured), Sunshine's son, Liz's daughter, our operations manager, Dennis Armstrong, and Brandy along with her sister and daughter came to help out. Everyone had a great time doing their part!

 

This picture does a good job of showing how big the event was.

 

Everyone had a great time and took a lot away from the experience. I asked Brandy and Dennis to tell me what they had to say about the event and volunteering.
 

Brandy said,"I started volunteering serving Thanksgiving dinner last year with the Boys & Girls club with my 15 year old sister and 6 month old daughter to show them both that we have to give back to those that need it. I started it as a family tradition with my family that turned into something I also did with my work family. It brings me great joy to help those in need and bring a smile someone’s face.”

Dennis said,"It was very rewarding and fun to work alongside CAC employee’s and community to put a full Thanksgiving dinner out for the ones less fortunate. I especially enjoyed working the roll distribution table with the Liz's daughter and Sunshine's son."

 

Sunshine gave an especially touching account of the event.

"I have always thought about volunteering for Thanksgiving as I have friends that have done it in the past, but have not had the opportunity arise until this year. Most of the holidays in the past few years, my son and I have been on the receiving end of the charity spectrum, so it was extra special to me to be able to give a little back! I was excited to be a part of the Thanksgiving dinner service at the Mesa Boys & Girls Club, and I thought it would be a wonderful experience for my 12 yo son Gavin as well. When we arrived, the smell of turkey was permeating the entire parking lot and inside of the building! It was quite a treat to see so many people there to volunteer, and it took a few minutes to figure out who the "go to" folks were. When I finally figured out who to go to for jobs, I was able to help out at a few different things...dishes, making sure each station had all the required foodstuffs, handing out rolls...and finally my favorite part- putting whipped cream on the pie slices and being bombarded by the pie-hungry children! I couldn't say how many slices of pie I topped, or how many smiling little faces I saw, but I can tell you it was well worth the time, the backache and the wihpped cream covered t-shirt I had to work my over-night shift in! I truly felt blessed to be a part of putting so many smiles on so many little faces! I think that this will become a family tradition in the years to come!"

 

So this holiday season, Clean Air Cab is greatful to have so many amazing people working here! We have great drivers and dispatchers and cashiers and lot attendants that regularly go beyond customer and driver expectations and office admins and managers that put service and people before everything else. We are lucky to have such a caring work family here!

Algae in your Gas Tank?

Everyone has their different reasons, but I think we can all agree that it would be nice to have a reliable, renewable fuel source. This makes it a very exciting time for alternative energy research! Clean Air Cab's owner, Steve Lopez, is a huge proponent for alternative energy and hopes to eventually make this company a part of the development of cleaner, renewable fuel. Clean Air Cab currently proudly partners with Arizona State University and donates to their scholarship fund. We believe education is extremely important and that the research ASU conducts can lead us to a "greener" future. So, in that vein I thought it would appropriate to write about an exciting development in the field of renewable fuels that ASU has become a part of! Algae! Many of you may be confused by this, it seems like such an unlikely source of anything you'd put in your gas tank, right? Well, think again!

Algae is a very diverse speicies, but the main type of algae being looked at for use as a fuel is microalgae, a cingle celled organism that can grow almost anywhere. Algae produces a lot of oil and fat, almost 60% of it's mass can be made up of oils! That makes it a much more efficient source of oils, like ethanol, than corn, which is currently the most common source of ethanol. The table below shows how drastic the difference between algae and other sources of biofuels is.

 

So how does it work? Much like most plants we are familiar with, algae uses sunlight, carbondioxide, and water to function. What makes algae unique, though, is that it needs no soil and can grow in slaty water or waste water. This opens up a lot of opportunities! Algea will not compete with food crops because it isn't used as food, it won't take up necessary farm land because it can grow places crops can't, it can provide an energy efficient way to treat waste water, and it can prevent an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere because it absorbs CO2.

The pictures below illustrate the way an algae cell produces ethanol and the algae fuel cycle.

The oils from algae can actually be refined using current oil refining processes and one company,  Sapphire, has even succeded in making a fuel from algae that is chemically identical to gasoline!

 

Many companies are just a few years out from being able to produce algae fuels at a commercial level, which puts algae in the spotlight for the future of renewable fuels.

 

However, there are some draw backs that may keep algae from being a big player in energy for some time. The major drawback is cost and efficiency. Right now, a lot of research still needs to be done to make the production of fuels from algea cost and energy efficient and it can be tough to find investors for such research, though an increasing number are supporting algae research. The logistics of harvesting oils from algea on such a large scale and effective production are still in the works.

 

But, despite these hurdles, it may not be long before you're filling your car with green juice!

One of the field demonstration photobioreactors developed for algae feedstock production at ASU.

 

 

Sources:

http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/green-it-gets-algae-biofuels

http://refuelingthefuture.yolasite.com/third-generation-biofuels.php

http://www.personal.psu.edu/nyg5099/blogs/worldcampus/2012/04/

http://biofuels.asu.edu/biomaterials.shtml