Earth Day, Superadobe and water clocks

Claremont will celebrate its annual community-wide Earth Day this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Village.

Among the activities will be speakers and presentations on the environment, alternative transportation and sustainability, tips on how to "Green" your home or business and save money, music and entertainment, fun and educational activities for kids Educational workshops and displays and exhibits by "Green" organizations.

Activities will take place along Sceond Street from Village Square to City Hall. For more information about Claremont's Earth Day celebration, call Chris Veirs, Senior planner/Sustainability Coordinator at (909) 399-5486.

Also on Saturday, Uncommon Good will have a groundbreaking for the first public superadobe building in the United States. The ceremony will take place at the Claremont United Methodist Church at 211 W. Foothill Blvd. beginning at 10 a.m.

Superadobe is a construction method used to create a unique ecological form of building that uses onsite earth for 90 percent of its construction material, eliminating the pollution associated with standard building materials. The technique produces visually beautiful, cost effective, and zero carbon footprint structures through its passive heating and cooling systems in harmony with both the best of age old architectural wisdom and today's greenest technology.

The dome will be the home of Uncommon Good, from which it will carry on its charitable activities, and also will function as an environmental education center for the public.

If you're looking for an appropriate Earth Day gift, consider Claremonter Mark Bedol's water-powered alarm clock. It was featured this week on Live with Regis and Kelly.

Celebrity sightings in Claremont?

Not quite, but Mark Bedol is working hard to make the Village a secret shopping getaway for Hollywood's A-List celebrities.

Bedol is the owner of Village West business, Bedol What's Next, which sells unique clocks, gadgets and office supplies.

Bedol's hottest product is the Water-Powered Drop clock, celebrated as a "green" product as it requires no batteries. Recently, Bedol and his daughter Laura made an appearance at the Bravo award show at the Orpheum Theater to hand out the clock in a gift basket to celebrities.

Whenever Bedol meets a celebrity, he makes sure to promote Claremont and invites them to come to town visit his store. "I know we can stimulate interest in Claremont and get it to be the ‘hip’ destination," Bedol said. “It was really fun meeting these A-Listers. They were very interested to know about our popular product and learn about our store in Claremont."

Unfortunately, Bedol's store is temporarily closed for business. A water leak from a planter outside his store (not from his clocks) caused damage to the wall and floor of the business. The city has to do tests for mold, replace some of the wall and flooring. The store should be up and running sometime next week.

Thanks Mark for sending in these photos. (photo credit: www.imwphotography.com)

Mark Bedol and Playmate Kendra Wilkinson of Girls Next Door

Neil Patrick Harris of How I Met Your Mother

Torri Spelling poses with the water clock

Comedian Kathy Griffin