Showing posts with label Lady Ashley Hughes Environmental Consulting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lady Ashley Hughes Environmental Consulting. Show all posts

Monday, 30 April 2012

Bolshoi

Ashley Hughes drinking champagne from chocolate red-soled heels
I am thinking of going back east to catch the Bolshoi ballet in Toronto later this month. Every time I see the Bolshoi ballet, I have a fleeting visual of Russian men drinking vodka out of ballet slippers...



Ashley Hughes Vancouver, Ashley Hughes Consulting, Ashley Hughes, Lady Ashley Hughes, Lady Ashley Hughes Vancouver, international business, Environment, Lady Ashley Hughes Environmental Consulting, 

Thursday, 26 April 2012

Double Entendres

So.

There is this elephant in the room.

Ashley Hughes looking a bit sad and bewildered after an encounter with the elephant in the room. Luckily it is being donated to a museum for education for children.





 Technically more a garage than a room.



Ashley Hughes Vancouver, Ashley Hughes Consulting, Ashley Hughes, Lady Ashley Hughes, Lady Ashley Hughes Vancouver, international business, Environment, Lady Ashley Hughes Environmental Consulting, 

Monday, 23 April 2012

Nine dragons

Zhang Yin (or Cheung Yan as she is called in Cantonese), runs one of the worlds most successful paper recovering and container board manufacturing businesses. She started the company with her savings of $3,800. Today, nearly 17 years after its founding, the company turns over business worth $3.8 billion. Dragon Lady Yin and her behemoth pulp "recycling" company Nine Dragons paper, is a true tale of trash-to-treasure. Nine dragons is symbolic of " highest fortune", something that this self made billionairess can relate too.

Monday, 16 April 2012

The Personal Invitation

I've always considered it a particular privilege to be asked into someone's home while abroad. To accept hospitality is to cross the threshold from simple tourist to something more.

Giving my best to Luxembourg.


Saturday, 3 March 2012

He, is most Noble.

Last night, our discussion was around a Nobel prize winner, and the world's dwindling supply of helium (He).

It’s the most Noble of gases, meaning it’s very stable and non-reactive for the most part. It is created by the radioactive decay of terrestrial rock and most of the world's reserves have been derived as a by-product from the extraction of natural gas.


Some stars show us the way


Both hydrogen and helium, the first two elements on the Periodic Table are very abundant in the universe (about 92 percent and about 8 percent of the atoms, respectively). Helium is rare on Earth while hydrogen is abundant. Helium does not combine with other atoms while hydrogen does. Hydrogen is one of the two elements that make water. Under standard conditions, there are no combined or molecular forms of helium. Helium is non-renewable and irreplaceable. Its properties are unique and unlike hydrocarbon fuels (natural gas or oil), there are no biosynthetic ways to make an alternative to helium. All should make better efforts to recycle it.

Helium plays a role in nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectroscopy, welding, fiber optics and computer microchip production, among other technological applications. NASA used large amounts annually to pressurize space shuttle fuel tanks. Helium’s use in science is extremely broad, but its most important use is as a coolant. Liquid helium is vital for its use in cooling the superconducting magnets in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners. There is no substitute because no other substance has a lower boiling point. Helium is also vital in the manufacture of liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and fiber optics.


But as you may have gathered, I tend to dream big. A couple years ago, I was discussing mining helium from the moon with a colleague. It used to seem far fetched, but now that civilians are undergoing "vacations in the stratosphere", more frequently our conversations drift to mining on asteroids and the moon. Speaking of other planets, another place where helium occurs naturally is, of course, in the gas balls we call stars. Researchers think that the solar wind from our sun may have deposited some helium-3 on the moon’s surface. If we use that up too, we could look a little further, say Uranus or Neptune, which have helium-rich atmospheres.

“The moon is the El Dorado of helium-3,” says [futurist Marshall] Savage, and he’s right: Every star, including our sun, emits helium constantly. Implanted in the lunar soil by the solar wind, the all-important gas can be found on the moon by the bucketful. Associate professor Tim Swindle and his colleagues at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona have already begun prospecting. Swindle has mapped likely helium-3 deposits on the moon by charting the parts of the lunar landscape most exposed to solar wind against the locations of mineral deposits that best trap the element. [Wired] 


Back on earth, due to America's push to sell off all of its helium reserves by 2015, Russia will be the world’s next major source of helium. Russia also has the world’s largest reserves of natural gas, where helium certainly exists. During the retrieval of natural gas, helium is secondary and much of it is wasted. Due to fracking, the helium is quenched (released into the atmosphere), and there is no chance to retrieve it once its gone.


DLA Energy just increased its helium orders from one firm, Dubai-based Global Gases, by 50 percent — from two million cubic feet to three million. Phil Kornbluth, an executive vice president with Global Gases supplier Matheson Gas, says it’s a substantial increase.
This post is dedicated to methanex, but more specifically Ken Vidalin. I am also going to mention Leo Hathaway, a geologist, just for FUN, silly. 


Sunday, 14 August 2011

Adopting new traditions... and hacking life

Ashley Hughes has a wonderful experience and lesson on how the proper construction can endure the seasons, time and mother natures wrath. (Now time for my lady-like nap)
Find a little king in your cake, and you are king for the day. In my case, queen. Here is a little tour of one of the villa's, my favorite, Alisa's beach house. The construction is 100% typhoon proof, 100% cyclone proof and 100% beautiful.

Here is a sneak preview

Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Seeing things from the lady's point of view.

A portrait of a lady: Ashley Hughes at Tucker's Point, Bermuda.
I once heard a quote along the lines of "what you see in others, lies within you". It is funny, that with those 8 words, I find myself repeating them whenever a less-than-positive thought crosses my mind about another. I find it helps me in my judgement making process. I look at people and situations a little differently, and it redirects my way of thinking. Walk a mile in another's (hopefully stylish) shoes, as you do not know what journey they have had.


* a lady like Ashley Hughes, leaves Vancouver to travel to places like Bermuda to observe their rain-water collection methods and use of solar power.