This suprised me.
Saturday April 7, 2007
Wednesday April 4, 2007
A Tale of Two Houses
House 1:
The four-bedroom home was planned so that “every room has a relationship with something in the landscape that’s different from the room next door. Each of the rooms feels like a slightly different place.” The resulting single-story house is a paragon of environmental planning.
The passive-solar house is built of honey-colored native limestone and positioned to absorb winter sunlight, warming the interior walkways and walls of the 4,000-square-foot residence. Geothermal heat pumps circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground. These waters pass through a heat exchange system that keeps the home warm in winter and cool in summer. A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof urns; wastewater from sinks, toilets, and showers cascades into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is then used to irrigate the landscaping around the four-bedroom home, (which) uses indigenous grasses, shrubs, and flowers to complete the exterior treatment of the home. In addition to its minimal environmental impact, the look and layout of the house reflect one of the paramount priorities: relaxation. A spacious 10-foot porch wraps completely around the residence and beckons the family outdoors. With few hallways to speak of, family and guests make their way from room to room either directly or by way of the porch. “The house doesn’t hold you in. Where the porch ends there is grass. There is no step-up at all.” This house consumes 25% of the energy of an average American home and you can get it from removals eastbourne. (Source: Cowboys and Indians Magazine, Oct. 2002 and Chicago Tribune April 2001.)
House 2:
This 20-room, 8-bathroom house consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year. The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, this house devoured nearly 221,000 kWh, more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone, the house burned through 22,619 kWh, guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of this energy consumption, the average monthly electric bill topped $1,359. Also, natural gas bills for this house and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year. In total, this house had nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for 2006. (Source: just about anywhere in the news last month online and on talk radio, but barely on TV.)
House 1 belongs to George and Laura Bush, and is in Crawford , Texas .
House 2 belongs to Al and Tipper Gore, and is in Nashville , Tennessee .
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp
Friday March 30, 2007
Oops!
Seems like my attempt at getting rid of spam also got rid of most people’s ability to post a comment. It was a setting in the options on a new plugin that did it. I’ve turned it off so hopefully you can comment away now.
Sunday March 18, 2007
Alton’s pancakes
I decided to try Alton Brown’s pancake recipe the last time I made them and they were so good that’s what I’m using from now on. Here’s some pics to get you hungry.
That’s the batter. I find I have to use a little more buttermilk than is called for because I use Knudsen’s which is very thick.
This is the griddle we use. I got it through a Boeing awards program.
And here’s the pancakes cooking. Yummy!
Monday March 12, 2007
One month, technically.
My quit date was February 12th so technically I have been a non-smoker for a month. Yeah yeah, it was a short month but that’s my story and I’m stickin to it.
At $5 a pack I’ve saved about $140 so far. Of course I never paid $5 but see above.
Wednesday March 7, 2007
Day – 3 weeks plus a few days
I haven’t written anything about not smoking lately. That’s because there’s nothing to say about it other than I’m still not smoking. I guess I could call myself an ex-smoker technically. I saw the Doctor on Monday and told him about the not sleeping. He didn’t want me to stop the Chantix because he was quite surprised that it was working so well. He actually thought I was going to tell him I couldn’t do it. At any rate he prescribed sleeping pills to help me get some rest. I will probably take my first one tonight and see if it helps for tomorrow. If I get good sleep tonight and am still sleepy tomorrow then I’m going to worry maybe it’s something besides the Chantix. I really hope my body doesn’t need to smoke to stay awake.(just kidding there folks)
Oh yeah, I guess this is 24 days and the cravings are lessening a lot.
Saturday March 3, 2007
New Akismet
There is a new version of Akismet available. I got to thinking it wasn’t working all that well because I’ve gotten several over the last few days. When I went into the Akismet page I realized I’m just getting hit at a very high rate and it does catch almost all of it. I decided to check if there was a new version anyways and there is. It includes this nifty little widget that tells how many spam it’s caught. At the time of this writing it had caught 7055. What’s it up to now?
Friday March 2, 2007
Bon voyage
We took Mark and Heather to the harbor so they could do their cruise this afternoon. They are on a 3 night LA to Ensenada Mexico cruise. I get to go back down there Monday morning and pick them up. Betty and I were thinking maybe we should do one too one of these days.