Safety Tips for Tomorrow's Bike-To-Work Day at Guidance

Before Your Ride:

• Plan your route. The Guidance office is a great central location for riding. Bike paths lead to Marina Del Rey from the South Bay, the West Side and Culver City. Two good resources for mapping a bike ride are www.mapmyride.com and www.gmap-pedometer.com.


• Check your bike. Do you have air in your tires? Is everything working properly? If you will be riding in the dark, are your lights working?


• Do you have everything you need? Be sure to bring a bike lock if you are parking your bike outside! If you need a change of clothes, it will be easier if you pack them the night before. If you are using the shower here, don’t forget your towel. If you don’t have a helmet, pick one up tonight. Be sure to ride with a cell phone, money for emergencies, ID and an emergency contact.

On Your Ride:

• Wear a helmet. A helmet is to riding a bike as a seatbelt is to riding in a car.


• Watch for cars. While there are lots of bike paths in the area, you will be riding on the streets with cars in part. Do not assume that they see you, even if you have the right of way.


• Watch for obstacles and slick streets. Tomorrow’s forecast is sunny, but the streets might still be wet, so ride carefully. Also keep an eye out for potholes and debris. If you are riding by parked cars, be extra careful for people opening their doors.


• Wear comfortable clothing. The morning might be chilly, but you will warm up as you ride. Layers will help keep you as warm or cool as you need to be.


• Enjoy your surroundings! You will notice a lot more on your bike ride than you do when driving into work. It’s spring and Ballona Creek is blooming! The ocean looks great from the strand, and there are lots of people out and about.

Have a great ride!

Rachele
Guidance Green

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*Participation is completely voluntary.

HP features interview with Guidance CIO Jon Provisor

HP, the world's #1 provider of PCs and workstations, has featured an interview with Guidance CIO Jon Provisor on their HP Communities blog, 367AddisonAvenue.com (that’s the street address of the birthplace of Silicon Valley - the HP Garage). Check it out at http://bit.ly/gDyont.

It's Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day everyone! To honor the occasion, Guidance has joined Tree Musketeers’ Partners for the Planet (P4P) Network. As a P4P Member, Guidance is helping mobilize and inspire communities worldwide to plant and care for trees, while providing leadership opportunities for youth.

How are you celebrating Earth Day? Guidance CIO, Jon Provisor, answered this and other questions for HP’s blog 367AddisonAvenue.com (that’s the street address of the birthplace of Silicon Valley - the HP Garage). Here’s a link to the blog post - http://bit.ly/gDyont.

To learn more about Guidance Green, visit http://www.guidancegreen.org.

Look who's been featured by HP

HP, the world's largest IT company and leading provider of PCs and workstations, has showcased Guidance on its latest YouTube video campaign. Guidance has been featured alongside HP clients' DreamWorks and Viacom for using energy-efficient HP hardware to reduce our carbon footprints.

Since 2008, Guidance has been working with HP to promote green computing and other eco-friendly solutions as alternatives to traditional computer hardware. Guidance uses HP's energy-optimized ProLiant® servers (DL360 G5 and DL380 G5), with the low-voltage Quad-Core Intel® Xeon® Processor L5420 to offer green hosting solutions to clients. In addition to energy-efficient monitors and desktop solutions, Guidance has also reduced the company's internal energy consumption by virtualizing most of the company’s development environment.

Click on the image below to watch the short video clip HP posted on YouTube. Enjoy!

Guidance Green turns 4!

Our environmental committee, Guidance Green, is turning 4 next month! Since 2007, Guidance Green has spearheaded our company’s efforts in reducing its carbon footprint and overall impact on the planet’s natural resources.

To celebrate our fourth anniversary, Guidance is hosting an event on Wednesday, March 9th from noon to 1pm at our corporate headquarters in Marina del Rey. Join us as we review our green accomplishments over the last four years, along with catered food, eco trivia, contests, prizes and much more.

You can also enter our “From Trash to Treasure” contest for a chance to win cool cash prizes. Bring something you have created out of recycled items and turn your trash into cash!



For more information, contact us at green@guidance.com.

Hope to see you on the 9th!

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Debbie E.
Guidance Green

Come to the Green Side. They Have Pancakes.

My foray into Guidance Green started with the promise of an IHOP breakfast. As I enjoyed my blueberry banana nutty grain deliciousness at the Guidance Green Committee meeting in late January, I learned a few things.

For example, you can recycle batteries here at Guidance. As a matter of fact, we'll recycle all your household eWaste and hazardous materials - oil, paints, pesticides, electronics and more. I've been wondering what to do with this bag of old CFL light bulbs. Now I know, and I'll be bringing them by here soon. There's a full list of things you can recycle above the mail cubbies in the kitchen.

There is a Guidance Green section on Guidance Connect (Guidance's Intranet), and a section on the Guidance website. Both of these pages have great information about reducing environmental impact, individually and as a company.

Guidance Green's fourth anniversary is coming up in March. Guidance made a commitment to reducing energy waste, reusing items, recycling as much as possible and expanding the Guidance Green mission into the community back in 2007. Check out this blog post by Debbie to learn more about our upcoming anniversary event --
Guidance Green Turns 4!.

I am excited about being part of Guidance Green. As a member of the Guidance Green committee, I can offer ideas to help make Guidance as environmentally-friendly as possible. Working for a company that has this kind of philosophy is important to me. If you would like to be a part of Guidance Green, just drop us a note at green@guidance.com. It's a chance to do some good things and - if you are lucky - enjoy some pancakes.

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Rachele M.
Guidance

Opting out of Yellow Pages (Guidance Green)

Yellow Pages is doing things right! Their books are made from outdated directories, with non-toxic inks, dyes and adhesives, and not from freshly cut trees. They have taken proactive measures to decrease their carbon footprint. But even so, I have no need for their phone books (what’s the Internet for?!). And chances are you don’t need yours either.

So, I went online to find out if there was a way to opt-out from receiving the phone book – or phone books (I receive about 5 of them every year!). And surely enough, there is. The site is called YellowPagesOptOut.com and it provides plenty of information on how to opt-out from receiving the books and how to recycle the ones you already have at home. They also have an interesting Resources section with links and additional information on Reducing, Reusing and Recycling, including DMAchoice, an online tool developed by the Direct Marketing Association to help individuals manage mail such as credit offers, catalogs, magazine offers and other mail offers.

I hope you find the site useful. Stay green!

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Gabby M.
Guidance Green