Exploring Durham’s Scrap Exchange

A place worth checking out in Durham is the Scrap Exchange. It’s a nonprofit that sells the most random stuff that factories and businesses probably would have thrown away. Instead of going to the landfill, Scrap Exchange volunteers pick up the eclectic materials and take them to the the nonprofit’s 13,000-square-foot warehouse in downtown Durham.

If you have a penchant for exploring, it’s easy to spend hours in there on your first trip. Blue barrels line the front of the store and are filled with everything from puzzle pieces to leftover lapel pins. There’s also an art gallery that always features unique pieces. The latest exhibit is the $20 art show, where everything in the gallery is for sale for $20.

At NBC17, our reporters have been exploring ways to save money, something we’re all trying to do a little bit more of given the increase in gas and food prices. I told our news director how rad the Scrap Exchange is, so he sent me there with a photographer, who helped me put together my first-ever package for TV. I also took my own camera and produced a story for Durham.MyNC.com, a community news site that our station also produces. Here’s the resulting video or you can read the full story here.

I’ve asked some of you this before, but what are some of your favorite places in Durham (or around the Triangle for that matter) where you can spend a lot of time without spending a lot of money? Who knows, maybe I’ll have a chance to feature it.

Celebrating biodiesel production in Durham

The chain link fence lined with barbed wire doesn’t exactly make Durham’s Green Oil Campus look like the most welcoming location. But drive through the gate, and you’ll meet some of the most friendly, passionate environmental advocates around. I visited the campus Friday because Carolina Biodiesel, one of the many organizations operating behind the fence, was celebrating a recent upgrade that will allow the organization to produce commercial quantities of biofuel (they’ll start by producing about 1,000 gallons a week, but will eventually make up to 3,000 a week).

Several other organizations are also housed on the Green Oil Campus, including Greenway Transit’s pedicab and biobus and limo rental service. Here’s some more info about the campus:

Other enterprises based at the site include sister organization Forests of the World - a fair trade company, My Taller — a Hispanic mechanics shop, and YIKES! a new non-profit youth organization. The Green Oil Campus, as the Durham headquarters location is called, was born when Carolina Biodiesel leased the old Exxon-Mobil/Standard Oil Fuel Depot on Angiers Avenue a year ago from Orange Recycling, a local commercial recycler running its fleet on biodiesel. The site has since then been in a process of conversion from an unsustainable, polluting paradigm into a pioneering biofuels distribution point and a community center for environmental education.

The campus also features a large warehouse space that will be turned into “The EcoLounge,” where organizers hope to have semi-regular Friday night “enviro-edutainment events” and Saturday afternoon workshops.

The campus is located in Northeast Central Durham, an economically challenged neighborhood, and the folks who work there are trying to build relationships within the community.

Neighborhood children are encouraged to pop over and say hello and can often be spotted shooting hoops in the campus’ driveway.

If you ever have a chance to pop over to the campus, definitely take advantage of it.

Bunnies are nasty little animals

Sure, they’re super soft, but that’s the only positive thing I can say about rabbits. I can’t stand them. My parents go me and my brother a rabbit when I was about five. We named him “Hopperoo” and built a pen for him in the backyard of our house in Chicago. The only thing I remember about Hopperoo is that he used to bite all the time. He eventually dug a hole under the fence and got away. Good riddance.

Fast-forward to my freshman year of college. My friend Karen needed someone to watch her rabbit while she went to New Orleans on spring break. It was litter box trained, she said, but that didn’t seem to be the case. That nasty little rabbit pooped everywhere but the litter box. It was disgusting. Oh, and all he ever did was bite too. What’s the fun of having a pet that bites you all the time?

So I’m happy to see that the Apex, NC-based nonprofit All Creatures Rescue & Sanctuary is holding its third annual “Adopt a Plush Bunny” campaign to help prevent impulse purchases of Easter bunnies in the Triangle area.

The “Adopt a Plush Bunny” campaign features “adoption” kits that come with a plush bunny of your choice, an adoption “contract” and care guide, a coloring book, and lots of other information on rabbits and rabbit care! Impulse pet purchases are almost always misguided, but when the pet is as misunderstood as the domestic rabbit, it can be even more problematic. Contrary to popular perception, rabbits are not cuddly pets happy to be toted around.

The organization is teaming up with the SPCA of Wake County to help keep bunnies out of the hands of people who won’t take care of them. Apparently, animal shelters and rescue groups receive an influx of rabbits following Easter each year. I volunteered at the SPCA of Wake County in January and was surprised to see rabbits there. Here’s some footage I took of the local bunnies.

Maybe you’ve had a better experience with bunnies than I have. If so, try to help me see the light.

I’ve snacked on venison and I’m not afraid of live bait

For the most part, I grew up in the country. Rural southern Illinois to be exact. Each year my high school boasted “Drive your Tractor to School Day,” sponsored by the FFA (Future Farmers of America). Some of the smaller local schools canceled classes on the first day of deer hunting season. I remember going to my friends’ farm houses and riding pigs and horses, and even jumping off barn rafters into piles of hay. Fishing was a staple of my summers. Venison was its own food group during deer hunting season. And it was common to see pickup trucks with a dead deer hanging out the black and blood dripping down the road during the killing season.

So I had to smile when I read about the upcoming Dixie Deer Classic outdoor show scheduled this weekend at the N.C. State Fairgrounds. The 28th annual event features seminars on “Cooking Venison,” “Preparing your trophy for the Taxidermist,” and even something for the ladies: “Becoming an Outdoor Woman.”

Perhaps the highlight of the event will be the “bragging boards:”

Of course a visit to the Dixie Deer Classic would not be complete without seeing all the deer that are scored placed on display around the scoring room.

And I would be remiss in not sharing the details of how you too can have your deer head judged:

Getting your deer head scored at the Dixie Deer Classic is really simple; you just bring it with you. The price of admission includes scoring one deer head, so all you have to do buy your ticket to get in the show, and then take the deer head to Building Three, The Exposition Center. There you will find in the middle of the floor the “Fortress” or scoring room. The east side of which is the Check-In Counter, where you check in your trophy. This is also where you go to claim it when you are ready to return home. That’s it. Your trophy does not have to be a taxidermy prepared mount, we will score just the antlers on a skull or skull plate. We will NOT score sheds.

The event is sponsored by the Wake County Wildlife Club, a non-profit that promotes conservation and education and fund raising for hunter education, safety classes, wildlife research and more.

Anyone else ever live in a town where deer hunting season led to canceled classes and playing with pigs didn’t seem strange?

Buying gourmet goodies may help save some land

I haven’t been to A Southern Season in Chapel Hill since I moved back to the Triangle. For those of you who have never been, it’s a gourmet market that you can easily spend hours in if you’re hungry and love to shop (it’s so fabulous that I have a girlfriend who actually shrieks every time you say you went without her). You can take cooking classes there, sample wines on the weekends, dine in its restaurant (the Weathervane) and shop for delicious candies, coffees, housewares and oh so much more. OK, I’ll stop now, I’m starting to sound like a commerical.

I bring this up because I found out today that A Southern Season is teaming up with the Triangle Land Conservancy for a day-long fundraiser next month. On Tuesday, March 17, the market is giving the conservancy 5 percent of all retail sales. The conservancy works to protect open space and other natural areas in Durham, Wake, Orange, Chatham, Johnston and Lee counties. The nonprofit is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, according to a news release I read today.

Anyway, if you haven’t been to the market in a while or *gasp* not at all, this might be a good excuse to check it out.

Donating Blood Can Get You Drunk

I donated blood on MLK Jr. Day. You should too. It doesn’t hurt. If you don’t like needles, just look away and take a deep breath, and you’ll do fine. The American Red Cross really needs your blood. To find the closest place to donate go the the Red Cross Web site and type in your zip code.

The Triangle chapter is incredibly low on type O negative, B negative and A negative blood. And if that’s not a good enough reason, then look at it as a good way to save money. Because everybody knows if you donate blood and go out drinking afterward you get tipsy a lot faster, thus spending less on beer. The Red Cross does not endorse this behavior, as the Minnesota Daily recently reported:

Dr. Gary Bachowski of the Red Cross said donating and drinking doesn’t fit with the philosophy of giving blood to those in need. “It’s our policy to collect blood from donors who really don’t have any other reason to give other than that it’s a good thing to do,” he said. … Donating and then drinking can also be dangerous, Bachowski said. When a person donates blood, a tenth of his or her blood volume is removed, he said. In an average man, that equals about a pint of blood.

When was the last time you donated blood?

A Day at the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

I participated in a local initiative today designed to get people to volunteer on Martin Luther King Jr. Day instead of taking the day off. I spent part of the day giving some love to cats living at the SPCA of Wake County, 200 Petfinder Lane, Raleigh.

Here’s what the shelter offers:

Forget the Presidential Candidates, Vote for a Dog

If you want to cast a ballot in advance of the presidential primary, consider voting for a local dog.

One of the dogs that found a home through the Neuse River Golden Retriever Rescue (a local nonprofit that does exactly what its name implies) is a finalist in Circuit City’s “Find the Next Firedog” contest. His name is Hank, and if he wins, NCGRR will receive $50,000 and Hank will star in a Circuit City commercial.

Even if Hank doesn’t win, the organization does. The group has already received $1,000 because of Hank’s finalist status and it will receive an additional $1 for every vote he snags, that’s according to the organization’s president, Jennifer Edwards. Edwards sent an e-mail campaigning for Hank that was forwarded to my in-box (I do not know her, Hank or any of the others involved).

Voting runs from Sunday, Jan. 6 through Jan 25. Edwards says he is the only Golden Retriever in the contest and the only dog from North Carolina. To vote, click here. I’m going to remain objective by not voting, but if you vote, Edwards says you will receive an e-mail with a link to confirm your vote and it may go to your junk/spam filter.

Oops, Another Unplanned Teen Pregnancy

Today is apparently the day for talk about teen pregnancy.

This morning I learned Britney Spears’ 16-year-old sister is pregnant. For the record, this is information I would rather not have taking up space inside my mind, but the headline guiltily caught my eye today.

Anyway, two hours after learning this disturbing news, a Durham-based nonprofit dedicated to preventing teen pregnancy sent out a press release about an upcoming program on the topic of preventing teen and unwanted pregnancy.

The Adolescent Pregnancy Coalition of North Carolina is sponsoring the event, which will showcase an effective teen pregnancy prevention program. Details of the plan were not in the release, but they’ll be released at the Feb. 27 event.

In the meantime, if you’re curious about what might happen if stupid people keep reproducing, check out Mike Judge’s 2006 flick “Idiocracy.”