For those of you that missed the news a couple of months ago we partnered up with CarsForums.com and we have our own forum area titled Used Auto Parts and Car Recycling – Just today we cracked 2,500 views and are looking forward to having many more visit.

We have some really great topics over there and I would like to encourage our members and visitors to swing-on-over and contribute!

Thanks again to everyone that has helped this partnership become such a great success!!!

This piece of news is quite funny and probably falls into the area of weird.  It seems in Sunnyvale the adage ‘finders keepers’ does not count when it is public servants finding cold, hard cash!  because amid the crushed soda cans, plastic bags and soiled cardboard, a shower of $100 bills started raining from the ceiling.

Workers at the Sunnyvale recycling station ran giddily about early Tuesday morning, catching the cash and stuffing the money inside a plastic bucket. They had even found a body among the hundreds of thousands of tons of recyclables sorted at the SMaRT plant over the years. But cash? Buckets of it? Never.

“It just kept coming,” Geronimo Martinez, 57, a supervisor at the station, said Wednesday, “more and more. It was crazy. I thought at first it was a joke.” All told, they retrieved $3,200 — and now Sunnyvale police are sorting out the mystery of how hundreds of Ben Franklins ended up in the trash. Sunnyvale spokesman John Pilger said the money was in a load of recyclables that came from Mountain View. Could it be drug money? Stolen from a bank? Someone’s life savings? If it’s yours, good luck claiming it.

Pilger said the money has been booked with the city’s Department of Public Safety. If the cash goes unclaimed for 90 days, it will be turned over to the city’s general fund.  That is a bit of a downer, I would like to see half go to charity and the other half go to the workers themselves.

It seems those amazing ‘fuel efficient’ hybrids are guzzlers of a different type!

The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgetry and consumer goods.  That makes Toyota’s market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world’s dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand grows.

Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tonnes annually in several years unless major new production sources are developed. One promising U.S. source is a rare earths mine expected to reopen in California by 2012.

A Toyota spokeswoman in Los Angeles declined comment on its resource development plans. But media accounts and industry blogs have reported recently that Toyota has looked at rare earth possibilities in Canada and Vietnam.

For this Friday I thought I would put down some of my favorite ‘car’ quotes, let’s start with my absolute all-time favorite!

If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 MPG.
Bill Gates

Electric cars aren’t pollution-free; they have to get their energy from somewhere.
Alexandra Paul

Environmentalists have a very conflicted relationship with their cars.
Tom Arnold

If all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day Weekend.
Doug Larson

Canada’s own Retire your Ride program is an initiative of The Government of Canada, Clean Air Foundation and its partners, designed to enable people to get their high-polluting cars off the road and reward them for doing so. The program is committed to improving air quality by responsibly recycling vehicles and aims to retire at least 50,000 vehicles per year until March 31, 2011.

And this is all fine and dandy and I am a big supporter of anything that encourages folks to help the environment and it even puts a few bucks in their pockets. But there is a big problem when it comes to the fact that these cars need to be running and insured – and they only get $300 for a car in that condition.

What that means (and I know because I was in this situation with my 1994 Concorde that had only 75k kilometers on it) is: I have to get rid of my current car that is serving its purpose of getting me around to work and play but I only get a paltry $300 which won’t even cover one month of my new car payment of $400 for a Honda Civic. So really what is my incentive? Now if it was like the USA and I was getting a $3,500 discount off my new car I would say whoa, that pays for 10 months of my new car and maybe my old one would be dead by then anyways.

It is good to see various car companies coming out with incentives above the $300 the government is offering but to make this program a ‘real’ success I would like to see the minimum amount raised to $900 or even $1,200 for each car brought in through the program.

The ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program now renamed CARS was a huge success in the USA because it offered a real, worthwhile incentive to get old cars off the road, now it is time for the Canadian government to step up and offer more to make the Retire your Ride program even more successful.

Green Planet has some really good TV commercials, here is one of my favs:

This one is both cool and environmentally friendly – I think they will have to give out free samples to convince folks though!

The convenience of a disposable baby wipe is now available in a natural, biodegradeable and renewable alternative! Our Bum Boosa™ Bamboo Baby Wipes are made from renewable bamboo, are soft, absorbent and naturally scented with lavender and sweet orange essential oils.

Your baby deserves the best! Bum Boosa™ Bamboo Baby Wipes is a unique, 100% biodegradable product that was developed with both the planet and infants’ sensitive skin in mind. Our mission is to provide a new option for a widespread consumer product that, through its use, trees and water are saved. We are able to do this by drawing on the benefits of a bountiful, regenerative and sustainable plant for our alternative nonwoven fiber: bamboo.  Bum Boosa™ aims to consciously care for our consumers by making baby wipes with the promise of high quality natural ingredients, honesty and integrity.

Love the product, love the logo and the company is quite clever!

Here is my chat with Joe Bessler of Bessler Auto Parts, a great interview with lots of clever insight from Joe who is a really nice guy that is willing to share his success with others, including the lord.

Q. Hi Joe, can you please give us a brief history of your business?

A. Do you want the long version or the short?

Q. Well for this interview let’s go with the medium version?

A. I was an employee at another salvage yard. Basically decided I liked the business and I began to look for and pray for opportunities and the Lord sent several our way. One day I was approached by Charlie Patrick, a long time friend of my dads and the owner of Patrick Auto Parts. He wanted to retire but could not find anyone with the money to buy him out. So he divided his business into smaller specialty yards, found hard working, ambitious young adults who might be interested and offered them an opportunity. Charlie literally put me in business for myself.

Q. I notice your business has a very progressive website, utilizing video, images and some good internal content. Why do you spend so much effort on your site and has it produced positive results?

A. We believe that 50% or more of our business originates on the web.  For this reason we feel we have no choice but to invest in our website.

Q. What do you think the future holds for auto recycling in your local area and across the USA?

A. The number of auto recyclers decreases every year so the ones remaining have more and more opportunity as we move into the future.

Q. What is a typical workday like for you?

A. I get up at 6am, get ready for work, I try to get to 6:45 mass as often as possible, I arrive at work at U-Pull & Save around 7:30am, I try to get through my email first thing.  Then usually I have meetings with my managers.  I try to go to lunch with one of our managers and then I head to our full service yard which is 20 minutes away.  I repeat the morning routine there and before I know it 6pm is here and my wife is calling wondering when I will be home for dinner.  Nothing boring about my work day!

Q. If you were not running this business in this industry what do you think you would be doing right now?

A. Beats me, I cannot think of a business I would rather be in.

Q. If someone was thinking of opening their first auto salvage yard what advice would you have for them?

A. Keep your overhead low, work like a dog and with a little luck you might make it.

Q. Since the auto industry (new cars) has made so much front page news over the past 18 months what is your take on its future and why do think they got into so much trouble in the first place?

A. I think the unions ran the auto industry into the ground and jobs by the millions out of our country.  Also over regulation and government mandates have destroyed auto makers.  Government take over of these industries will only make the problem worse!

Q. When you’re not working or talking cars what do you like to do in your spare time?

A. My family is first so I spend as much time with them as I can.  I like to do volunteer work at church or our local food pantry, I like to water and snow ski, I love going to our lake house.

Q. What is in the short and long-term future of Bessler Auto Parts?

A. Short term our business is booming which makes the long term view look good.  But if we don’t get control of our governments run away spending, we will all be run out of business by taxation.

Thanks for your time Joe and I really enjoyed your honest answers, best of luck in the future.

Here is some Friday humor that is more ’smile and grin’ than ROTFLMAO.

Police in Florida are using the promise of a stimulus checks (similar to cash for clunkers) to make some arrests.

Authorities in Fort Lauderdale say they sent letters to fugitives offering them stimulus money. The suspects were asked to call a hot line and set up an appointment to pickup a check from an auditorium where “South Florida Stimulus Coalition” banners hung.

When the fugitives arrived, they were identified and arrested on offences ranging from grand theft to fraud to attempted murder. Police spokesman Sgt. Frank Sousa says the two-day sting was dubbed “Operation Show Me The Money.” Sousa says the sting saved man hours and allowed police to make arrests in a controlled environment.

I think this is pretty funny and a great way to get fugitives in.

Most folks mistakenly think it costs a lot of extra cash to go green but if you use your head you can actually save money many ways.  Here is an example that was posted over at muchapedia.com

Compact Flourescent Light Bulbs use around 1/3rd of the amount of energy, and last about ten times longer than the bulbs most people regularly use. So, if you calculate what it would cost to buy 10 of the light bulbs we normally use, and factor in an electric bill that is 65% higher (for lighting), it becomes very obvious that CFLs actually cost A LOT less.

Let’s just do the math:
One 60 watt CFL bulb saves $56.00 in energy costs as compared to using a standard 60 watt incandescent bulb at 12 cents per KWH. A three pack of compact flourescent bulbs will run you about $7.99. So, basically, for 8 bucks, you can save almost $170.00.

Furthermore, today’s compact flourescent bulbs emit a very soft, warm light just like the incandescent bulbs to which we have all grown accustomed. You don’t have to sacrifice your comfort to live green. These principles apply to just about every green living tip around. We can save (a lot of) money without compromising our contentment. In fact, by living green, we are helping to preserve, and even to enhance, our quality of life.

I really need to go out and pick up more of these money saving bulbs!!