Almost 50 percent of a houses energy cost is wasted on heating. It all goes up and out the roof. The shame is that energy, these molecules were brought to us from coal mines and gas resevoirs from thousands of miles away have an incredible cost to all of human kind. It's not just the check you write out to the energy company, but why that check isn't five times higher that should worry you. Why is your heating bill only $125 a month, when it should be for all intensive it should be $600? That cost is being aborbed someplace. Where?
A shower in Los Angeles, just to get the water there and heat it costs $35 per shower. But the cost is about 1/100th of that cost. Where is that extra cost going?
Zero Energy Homes are here. The science is here and now- The problem is that the immediate resources and the momentum to change are not.. The UK is ahead of the USA in this, with a mandate that says all new home in the next 10 years need to be ZEH. That is the on-going frustration. Why are we behind? Why doesn't this make sense to people here in this country?
The reasons to do it are all sound. The reasons why we don't can be boiled down to a single reason- complacency.
It doesn't make sense to people because this energy costs almost nothing for the American people. Our government has found "creative accounting" ways to subsidize this cost- That is the reason the USA has almost $8.7 trillion in debt right now. It has been trading money from one pocket to another- selling our national and the worlds security for low energy costs and cheap crap from Walmart.
Part of it is the science. It sounds like something out of a science fiction comic book- Argon and Krypton gases entrapped in double pane glass. R-factors and K- factors. The marketing of it hasn't been very cohesive. There is a need, but no one knows about it yet.
Here is an article done by a guy that works for Oak Ridge talking about ZEH. More on this later.
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/005948.html
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Drivel
I just deleted two entries over this week- I re-reread them and realized that they were the two of the most self indulgent things I have ever written. Drivel.
Why do blogs always seem to end up there? I guess you want to explain how you see the world- but you forget your audience- and you get lost.
Either that or you just show what a prat you really are.
Anyway- sorry...I'll work on getting better-
The Vegan one may be next on the hit list.
Why do blogs always seem to end up there? I guess you want to explain how you see the world- but you forget your audience- and you get lost.
Either that or you just show what a prat you really are.
Anyway- sorry...I'll work on getting better-
The Vegan one may be next on the hit list.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Why I hate Vegans
Vegans are smug.
Vegans are elitist.
They are strange, skinny and almost always tree hugging flakes that float on the edges of society. They wear PETA shirts. They all get together and have pot lucks and yammer on about how evil the meat and fashion industries are. They don't wear leather shoes, or belts. They like hemp. They like hemp a lot (smoke it, wear it?).
They don't eat honey. They smell like incense.
Question: Would you rather sit next to a Vegan or an Insurance salesman on a 5 hour flight from LA to Boston?
Don't answer.
Then why did I chose to be part of a club that I had no intension of ever joining. I could blame Chris Martin of Coldplay. I saw him a couple of years ago in concert- all hopping around and Energizer bunny like- and yes he is a Vegan. I could blame Thom Yorke of Radiohead, he's one too. I could blame National Geographic and that stupid article about longevity that they published a couple of years ago (almost all the people who lived over a 100 didnt eat meat).
Instead, I will blame my right hand.
About two years ago, I found that I was having trouble closing my right hand. It hurt. Not a little, but a lot. I didnt know if it was arthritis or not. I never went to the doctor to ask. I was worried that he would put me on drugs that I didn't want.
There were also other problems besides that- I weighed about 255lbs, which was great! I was down from an all time high of 280lbs. But I had hit a plateau, no matter what I did, I couldn't get any lower than that.
I also felt like crap. Because I felt like crap- I was crabby too. Funny how that works.
So in November of 2005 after a blood test that showed my blood sugar rising- I made a commitment to lose that extra weight. I read on the internet how people that didn't eat dairy products, had less of an incidence of arthritis. Between Chris, Thom, National Geographic, the internet and my right hand I said- Fuck it.
I'll try this meatless thing.
A year and a half later- No pain in my hand (that cleared up in about two weeks after I quit all meat products). Blood sugar dropped. Lost 38 lbs. Didn't feel like crap anymore. I am told that I am more fun to be around.
All because I stopped eating meat and meat by products.
It's a simple thing, but something that is evokes the strangest reactions from people. It's like I am so odd that I don't eat meat. Why? What difference does it make, if I dont want to eat something that had a hoof or a claw? Why should it matter to anyone other than me?
Only after making the change, did I realize some of the other things- Like about how the meat industry is riddled with diseased animals that the USDA is letting through the system. About the amount of hormonal supplements that is in dairy which is making 10-11 year old girls reach puberty. There is also a chemical in meat that is addictive as well. It's similar to coffee and nicotine.
There is a whole catalog of reasons why eating meat and meat byproducts is bad for you. You know it is- deep down inside- but you eat it anyway.
Cause you like the taste.
Read Michael Pollens "Omnivores Dilemma" for a clear and reasonable take on the whole issue of Industrialized Food. Its not propaganda, he isn't a vegetarian or a vegan, just a good writer. He tries to explain where our food comes from, which is a hard thing to do.
All I know is that for someone my age, I don't ever have indigestion- I am more flexible and in better shape than a lot of people I know. I have more enthusiasm about life, and I have a general sense of well being than I have ever had before.
So I am being smug and elitist. Comes with the territory. But I am not a fanantic about it- that is my saving grace.
In my closet, I have to admit, that I have a PETA shirt too- However it's a little different than most of the PETA stuff out there- No sad eyed baby seals. No rabbits with burning eyes
The shirt says:
People for the
Eating of
Tasty
Animals
I hate Vegans- I need to find another name for it though since I am one.
Any suggestions?
Vegans are elitist.
They are strange, skinny and almost always tree hugging flakes that float on the edges of society. They wear PETA shirts. They all get together and have pot lucks and yammer on about how evil the meat and fashion industries are. They don't wear leather shoes, or belts. They like hemp. They like hemp a lot (smoke it, wear it?).
They don't eat honey. They smell like incense.
Question: Would you rather sit next to a Vegan or an Insurance salesman on a 5 hour flight from LA to Boston?
Don't answer.
Then why did I chose to be part of a club that I had no intension of ever joining. I could blame Chris Martin of Coldplay. I saw him a couple of years ago in concert- all hopping around and Energizer bunny like- and yes he is a Vegan. I could blame Thom Yorke of Radiohead, he's one too. I could blame National Geographic and that stupid article about longevity that they published a couple of years ago (almost all the people who lived over a 100 didnt eat meat).
Instead, I will blame my right hand.
About two years ago, I found that I was having trouble closing my right hand. It hurt. Not a little, but a lot. I didnt know if it was arthritis or not. I never went to the doctor to ask. I was worried that he would put me on drugs that I didn't want.
There were also other problems besides that- I weighed about 255lbs, which was great! I was down from an all time high of 280lbs. But I had hit a plateau, no matter what I did, I couldn't get any lower than that.
I also felt like crap. Because I felt like crap- I was crabby too. Funny how that works.
So in November of 2005 after a blood test that showed my blood sugar rising- I made a commitment to lose that extra weight. I read on the internet how people that didn't eat dairy products, had less of an incidence of arthritis. Between Chris, Thom, National Geographic, the internet and my right hand I said- Fuck it.
I'll try this meatless thing.
A year and a half later- No pain in my hand (that cleared up in about two weeks after I quit all meat products). Blood sugar dropped. Lost 38 lbs. Didn't feel like crap anymore. I am told that I am more fun to be around.
All because I stopped eating meat and meat by products.
It's a simple thing, but something that is evokes the strangest reactions from people. It's like I am so odd that I don't eat meat. Why? What difference does it make, if I dont want to eat something that had a hoof or a claw? Why should it matter to anyone other than me?
Only after making the change, did I realize some of the other things- Like about how the meat industry is riddled with diseased animals that the USDA is letting through the system. About the amount of hormonal supplements that is in dairy which is making 10-11 year old girls reach puberty. There is also a chemical in meat that is addictive as well. It's similar to coffee and nicotine.
There is a whole catalog of reasons why eating meat and meat byproducts is bad for you. You know it is- deep down inside- but you eat it anyway.
Cause you like the taste.
Read Michael Pollens "Omnivores Dilemma" for a clear and reasonable take on the whole issue of Industrialized Food. Its not propaganda, he isn't a vegetarian or a vegan, just a good writer. He tries to explain where our food comes from, which is a hard thing to do.
All I know is that for someone my age, I don't ever have indigestion- I am more flexible and in better shape than a lot of people I know. I have more enthusiasm about life, and I have a general sense of well being than I have ever had before.
So I am being smug and elitist. Comes with the territory. But I am not a fanantic about it- that is my saving grace.
In my closet, I have to admit, that I have a PETA shirt too- However it's a little different than most of the PETA stuff out there- No sad eyed baby seals. No rabbits with burning eyes
The shirt says:
People for the
Eating of
Tasty
Animals
I hate Vegans- I need to find another name for it though since I am one.
Any suggestions?
Monday, February 19, 2007
The Mayberry Solution
I went to a seminar yesterday about Sustainable Living. The speaker was a teacher at a college aboiut 100 miles from here. He drove a Prius to the lecture- He gets 48 miles to the gallon.
Smart guy- Spent the first 10 minutes explaining about Peak Oil, National Debt, Hurricanes, Global Climate Change and how we are all in the shitter- or soon will be.
Oh yeah, Walmart is bad- Bad, bad, bad.
These are all things I pretty much agree with. Peak Oil- The end of fossil fuels and their use in the world is at an end in next 20 years. Check. National Debt- currency trading- China has more of our bonds than we do- not a good thing. Check. Global Climate Change- all the big brains agree, it's our use of fossil fuels. Check.
I don't like Walmart. I don't shop there- mostly because they treat their people like crap. I also think that importing $15 Billion a year in goods from China through a single distribution arm is wrong for the country and the world.
His solution- We have to go back to real honest to gosh neighborhoods. Where all the people have vegetable gardens in the backyard. Where you walk to work. Where the dollar you spend stays in the local area. Where you buy stuff from a local grocery store, not a place like Walmart (remember, Bad) where your dollar goes to Arkansas- or worse China. Where you don't buy new bright shiny stuff from big places, but you trade stuff with your commnity.
In otherwords- Mayberry. He see's the solution to the world problems is turn back the hands of time and have everyone move back to Mayberry.
He might be right. From a social perspective, if you think about all of our fears- all the pressures of modern society- It's because we go outside of our neighborhoods way too often- We don't stay on our city block. We shop in far away places for stuff from far away lands. We work far away from home. We take our kids all over the state for sports competitions on the weekends- we have become this strange race of stressed out nomads- mostly because we aren't on our own turf, with the people who we live with and hopefully trust as neighbors.
Wouldn't it be great if there was a Floyd the Barber, Aunt Bea, an Andy and a Barney, a Goober and a Gomer? All people we knew and trusted with our lives? Church Socials and picnics, gazebos and the corner grocery store.
But we won't invite Goober- He always creeped me out.
Leave Floyd out too- He was always "Oooohing and Ahhhhing" too much.
There was other stuff that he metioned- more practical stuff, like insulation- Heat loss from poor insulation makes up for 43% of wasted energy in a home. Apparently there was a study in Colorado that said with the new materials avaiable to keep heat in your house- You really shouldnt ever need a furnace- That you could keep your house warm with the junk mail you get through the post. Also, Energy Star appliances- front load washing machines-florecent light bulbs use less than a quarter of the energy than old light bulbs. All good things.
But coming away from the discussion in my head was the Mayberry Solution. The ultimate answer. Turn back the hands of time- shun this Global ecomony as a sad experiment. Embrace your neighbor. But that requires that you take a hard look at your neighbor, which means that they have to take a hard look at you.
I have four vegetable beds in my backyard. Should I go to my neighbors and offer to build them a couple? Should I plant a fruit tree in everyones yard- (these were some of the suggestions he made to me after the meeting)? They already think I am kind of a nut anyway (because of being Vegan) . This would solidfy their thoughts- but if it helps save the world? Isn't it worth it?
Of course I am not naive enough to believe that- I know that changing my neighbors mindset is almost impossible.
In the meantime, I will be calling insulation people and getting estimates. I plan to start planting a couple of fruit trees this spring.
Maybe a another vegetable bed?
Smart guy- Spent the first 10 minutes explaining about Peak Oil, National Debt, Hurricanes, Global Climate Change and how we are all in the shitter- or soon will be.
Oh yeah, Walmart is bad- Bad, bad, bad.
These are all things I pretty much agree with. Peak Oil- The end of fossil fuels and their use in the world is at an end in next 20 years. Check. National Debt- currency trading- China has more of our bonds than we do- not a good thing. Check. Global Climate Change- all the big brains agree, it's our use of fossil fuels. Check.
I don't like Walmart. I don't shop there- mostly because they treat their people like crap. I also think that importing $15 Billion a year in goods from China through a single distribution arm is wrong for the country and the world.
His solution- We have to go back to real honest to gosh neighborhoods. Where all the people have vegetable gardens in the backyard. Where you walk to work. Where the dollar you spend stays in the local area. Where you buy stuff from a local grocery store, not a place like Walmart (remember, Bad) where your dollar goes to Arkansas- or worse China. Where you don't buy new bright shiny stuff from big places, but you trade stuff with your commnity.
In otherwords- Mayberry. He see's the solution to the world problems is turn back the hands of time and have everyone move back to Mayberry.
He might be right. From a social perspective, if you think about all of our fears- all the pressures of modern society- It's because we go outside of our neighborhoods way too often- We don't stay on our city block. We shop in far away places for stuff from far away lands. We work far away from home. We take our kids all over the state for sports competitions on the weekends- we have become this strange race of stressed out nomads- mostly because we aren't on our own turf, with the people who we live with and hopefully trust as neighbors.
Wouldn't it be great if there was a Floyd the Barber, Aunt Bea, an Andy and a Barney, a Goober and a Gomer? All people we knew and trusted with our lives? Church Socials and picnics, gazebos and the corner grocery store.
But we won't invite Goober- He always creeped me out.
Leave Floyd out too- He was always "Oooohing and Ahhhhing" too much.
There was other stuff that he metioned- more practical stuff, like insulation- Heat loss from poor insulation makes up for 43% of wasted energy in a home. Apparently there was a study in Colorado that said with the new materials avaiable to keep heat in your house- You really shouldnt ever need a furnace- That you could keep your house warm with the junk mail you get through the post. Also, Energy Star appliances- front load washing machines-florecent light bulbs use less than a quarter of the energy than old light bulbs. All good things.
But coming away from the discussion in my head was the Mayberry Solution. The ultimate answer. Turn back the hands of time- shun this Global ecomony as a sad experiment. Embrace your neighbor. But that requires that you take a hard look at your neighbor, which means that they have to take a hard look at you.
I have four vegetable beds in my backyard. Should I go to my neighbors and offer to build them a couple? Should I plant a fruit tree in everyones yard- (these were some of the suggestions he made to me after the meeting)? They already think I am kind of a nut anyway (because of being Vegan) . This would solidfy their thoughts- but if it helps save the world? Isn't it worth it?
Of course I am not naive enough to believe that- I know that changing my neighbors mindset is almost impossible.
In the meantime, I will be calling insulation people and getting estimates. I plan to start planting a couple of fruit trees this spring.
Maybe a another vegetable bed?
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Winter Dreams
It's 3:30am and I am awake.
It seems that with the inactivity of winter and sickness comes vivid dreams- like the ice on the branches- a dream's logic is frozen, encased and unable to move- yet undeniable in its accuracy and believability- until consciousness makes you say, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS THAT ABOUT??
Case in point: I just dreamt that George Bush and Dick Cheney tried to sell me an investment plan in oil. It was in the lobby of a hotel I had stayed at last year, Montreal I think. Very chic and modern.
Dick and George were all twitchy and nervous as they pitched me their plan, which was a strange combination of not only oil, but sugar interests as well. But the kicker was that it was vegetable oil, canola oil I think, not crude.
You know, the stuff you make cakes out of.
I have never understood the commodities markets, so I listened patiently.
In the sales literature, inbetween the company profile and the financial information, they showed a section on their human interests- chairties, etc. They showed that they put on puppet shows of Mary Poppins for hospital kids with some of the profits.
But because it was a dream, the puppets came to life on the page. They spoke in Cockney slang, like "Ya know, Mate!" and "Luv ya Guv!"
Then they started whispering to me, telling me not to buy the plan, because they were being held captive at Gitmo- being forced to do this play, over and over again- in some sort of Groundhog Day of endless repetitiveness.
The "Bert" puppet (the Dick Van Dyke character) said in a low tone, "I can't stand it guv, they pull my strings, they pull them harrrd! It makes me cry at night."
At that point Cheney quickly closed the brochure and snatched it out of my hands.
Sheepish and uncomfortably silent, Dick and George sat there looking at their shoes for a moment.
I thanked them for their time- then moved on in my dream.
What is interesting, (and of course I see the irony of the dream)- is that I think the people at Gitmo probably deserve to be there. They are bad people. But unlike a lot of people, I also see the war as a necessary action to protect our oil interests and keep our economy stable.
The war isn't good or evil, it is just a necessary cog in this huge consumeristic engine that is called, the Western ecomony. If we choose to drive minivans, buy billions of dollars worth of inexpensive goods from China and fly all over the world with this monsterously wasteful technology (that I am all too willing a participant of-) then peoples lives are going to be effected- economically, physically and spirtuality. I have to accept the guilt/responsibility of my actions with full consciousness. It is my dollar which is causing this pain in the world- Yet it is that same dollar that keeps my family fed and clothed- Where does Solomon's sword stop?
My family is my small tribe and I am their elder. When I strip away all the convienances of the modern world, there is nothing left but instinct and love for them.
By the way, I also don't hate Bush or Cheney- but I guess I after tonight, I wouldn't buy the ingredients of a cake from them.
It seems that with the inactivity of winter and sickness comes vivid dreams- like the ice on the branches- a dream's logic is frozen, encased and unable to move- yet undeniable in its accuracy and believability- until consciousness makes you say, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS THAT ABOUT??
Case in point: I just dreamt that George Bush and Dick Cheney tried to sell me an investment plan in oil. It was in the lobby of a hotel I had stayed at last year, Montreal I think. Very chic and modern.
Dick and George were all twitchy and nervous as they pitched me their plan, which was a strange combination of not only oil, but sugar interests as well. But the kicker was that it was vegetable oil, canola oil I think, not crude.
You know, the stuff you make cakes out of.
I have never understood the commodities markets, so I listened patiently.
In the sales literature, inbetween the company profile and the financial information, they showed a section on their human interests- chairties, etc. They showed that they put on puppet shows of Mary Poppins for hospital kids with some of the profits.
But because it was a dream, the puppets came to life on the page. They spoke in Cockney slang, like "Ya know, Mate!" and "Luv ya Guv!"
Then they started whispering to me, telling me not to buy the plan, because they were being held captive at Gitmo- being forced to do this play, over and over again- in some sort of Groundhog Day of endless repetitiveness.
The "Bert" puppet (the Dick Van Dyke character) said in a low tone, "I can't stand it guv, they pull my strings, they pull them harrrd! It makes me cry at night."
At that point Cheney quickly closed the brochure and snatched it out of my hands.
Sheepish and uncomfortably silent, Dick and George sat there looking at their shoes for a moment.
I thanked them for their time- then moved on in my dream.
What is interesting, (and of course I see the irony of the dream)- is that I think the people at Gitmo probably deserve to be there. They are bad people. But unlike a lot of people, I also see the war as a necessary action to protect our oil interests and keep our economy stable.
The war isn't good or evil, it is just a necessary cog in this huge consumeristic engine that is called, the Western ecomony. If we choose to drive minivans, buy billions of dollars worth of inexpensive goods from China and fly all over the world with this monsterously wasteful technology (that I am all too willing a participant of-) then peoples lives are going to be effected- economically, physically and spirtuality. I have to accept the guilt/responsibility of my actions with full consciousness. It is my dollar which is causing this pain in the world- Yet it is that same dollar that keeps my family fed and clothed- Where does Solomon's sword stop?
My family is my small tribe and I am their elder. When I strip away all the convienances of the modern world, there is nothing left but instinct and love for them.
By the way, I also don't hate Bush or Cheney- but I guess I after tonight, I wouldn't buy the ingredients of a cake from them.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Darts and Lepers
Well, so much for doing anything this week.
The lung monster doesn't let me walk more than 6 feet without hacking. I sound like Brenda Vaccaro on a 4 day bender of bathtub gin and unfiltered Camel cigarrettes.
Between ice storms, snow days and cancelled flights- everything got put on hold. The boys were home, wife was home. Everybody here and I sat on the yellow chair doing emails and barking excuses through my cough into the phone. Lovely.
The last few days, I have felt like a leper- not wanting to infect anyone else. Everyone has been staying away from me- I have been sleeping in another room and eating at different times, staying about 10 feet from everyone.
Unclean! Unclean!.
Every hour or so, I would get hit with a Nerf dart- Once in the head. Wrapped around one of the darts was a note that said, "I love ya, Dad. "
Somehow that beat the heck out of the Mucinex I have been taking.
The lung monster doesn't let me walk more than 6 feet without hacking. I sound like Brenda Vaccaro on a 4 day bender of bathtub gin and unfiltered Camel cigarrettes.
Between ice storms, snow days and cancelled flights- everything got put on hold. The boys were home, wife was home. Everybody here and I sat on the yellow chair doing emails and barking excuses through my cough into the phone. Lovely.
The last few days, I have felt like a leper- not wanting to infect anyone else. Everyone has been staying away from me- I have been sleeping in another room and eating at different times, staying about 10 feet from everyone.
Unclean! Unclean!.
Every hour or so, I would get hit with a Nerf dart- Once in the head. Wrapped around one of the darts was a note that said, "I love ya, Dad. "
Somehow that beat the heck out of the Mucinex I have been taking.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Sick
Have something I picked up in either Texas or when I got home from my youngest. Fever, chills and stuff I don't want to describe to you coming up in tissues.
Slept in the sun room for two nights- Left TV on, too many adverts for useless crap and systems to buy real estate.
The good news is it was quick. I think the fever part is past. The bad news is I have to go to the doctor. I hope I dont have to get an X-ray.
So much to do with work next week too. So many places to be and so little time.
SOmehow I will get through it. I always do.
Slept in the sun room for two nights- Left TV on, too many adverts for useless crap and systems to buy real estate.
The good news is it was quick. I think the fever part is past. The bad news is I have to go to the doctor. I hope I dont have to get an X-ray.
So much to do with work next week too. So many places to be and so little time.
SOmehow I will get through it. I always do.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Temple TX
Sitting next to my dad on the couch at his house in Temple TX. We are looking at pictures of the kids- video of Italy after a nice afternoon of shopping and Mexican food. Dad had a margarita with lunch and is asking for a scotch and soda, although no one seems to be listening to him.
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