Houston Auto Repair

Green Business Logo Certifiably Green! Henry and I believe strongly in the ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ principle. Long before starting our business, 20 years ago, we were dedicated to protecting our planet through Green practices. When the opportunity to become a Green Certified Business arose we said, “Pick us! Pick us!” We were the first Green Certified Business in Santa Cruz County. That was April 2004. Now the City of Santa Cruz has taken over the program and we have now re-certified for the third time. Interested in being certified as a green business? One key change in becoming Green was to replace all of our light fixtures with new, more energy-efficient ballasts and bulbs. This saves about $60 per month in our electricity bills. The energy usage difference after upgrading was ... read more

Balance: We are looking for balance in our lives. Balance is different for each person. Being able to accept whatis is balance. Acceptance of what is does not mean that there is no striving for the betterment of self. It means to embrace what is and to see everything from the lighter side of self. When your meditation is balanced your heart opens - allowing room for more. Yin Yang Heart

Happy New Year to You – 2012! This is the time of the year when we all reflect on the last year and our lives in general. We think about what we want to bring in for the new year and reflect on what would be best for our life. It is the perfect time for goal-setting! Here are seven goal-setting tips: 1. Make it a treat! Set up a good mood for your goal-setting time. Create an environment that makes you feel good. Build a fire and pour a glass of wine, sit in the middle of a grove of trees, pick your favorite beach spot, put on some great music, or get snuggled up in your coziest blanket and pour a cup of tea. 2. Set goals for all the main areas of your life. We tend to set the most intense goals in the area where we want to effect the most change. We may set all our goals regarding better finances or fitness and forget to set goals in the other areas of our life. The eight categories we use are: Family & Social, Spiritual & Mental, Physical & Health, Business ... read more

Remember KIT from the TV series Knight Rider? Well, just when we think Google has run out of surprises, we learn from John Markoff at The New York Times that a small team of Google engineers has been quietly running robots on our highways. Not just one or two robots sneaking a few miles down a lonely country road late at night, but eight autonomous vehicles traveling more than 140,000 miles in the last year on everything from freeways to traffic-clogged downtown districts. Google’s car-bots have confidently traversed roads that would leave many drivers white-knuckled, from San Francisco’s pretzel-twisty Lombard Street to Big Sur’s narrow, cliff-hugging Highway One. Sebastian Thrun and his Google Team have accomplished something that even the most optimistic experts in the field thought was five to 10 years off. Little wonder that Thrun’s team jokingly refers to the effort as their “Drive-thru Manhattan Project.” Before word of Google’s ro ... read more

There was a man who worked for the Post Office whose job was to process all the mail that had illegible addresses. One day, a letter came addressed in a shaky handwriting to God with no actual address. He thought he should open it to see what it was about.   The letter read:   Dear God, I am an 83 year old widow, living on a very small pension. Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had $100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension payment. Next Sunday is Christmas, and I had invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with, have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope. Can you please help me?   Sincerely, Edna   The postal worker was touched. He showed the letter to all the other workers. Each one dug into his or her wallet and came up with a few dollars. By the time he made the rounds, he had collected $96, which they put into an envelope and sent to the woman. The r ... read more