I am looking out my window right now (as I am eating my sandwich at my desk) and I see that the wind is blowing vigorously. The trees are swaying and the flowers and bushes are doing some serious side bends…and I am sitting here lamenting about all of the energy that is not being collected.
My lament reminds me of that solar energy commercial that I posted some time ago where the batteries were falling out of the sky (as a metaphor for solar energy hitting the earth) and the punch line was “too bad we don’t use it”. It is too bad that we are not using all of this wind.
So my wish list (for myself — and anyone else that wants it):
1. A Plugin Hybrid car — Toyota preferred, but I promise not to be too picky.
2. Solar Panels for the House
3. Vertical Axis Wind Turbines for the House (at least two of them).
I have no idea whether or not they even make #1 (but perhaps I can get someone to retrofit a production Hybrid with a plug. I have no idea whether I can get the permits for #2 or #3, but I hope that these guys can get at least the solar permits. I just sent them an email. I will let you all know what comes of that email.
Oh, and in the meantime, here is a podcast of a telephone interview where Matt Kelly discusses the possibility of a two-way synergy between plugin hybrids and the electrical grid with Keith Parks, an energy trading analyst formerly with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Michael Lamb, executive director of Utility Innovations. All three on the podcast are articulate and seeming well informed. It is an all around good podcast.
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via Matt.
Paul’s contest got me thinking again about what I want for Christmas.
I always do my best thinking on this topic way to close to Christmas for it to make much difference — my family is typically done with shopping and often pissed at me for having made picking a present for me so hard. The only reason that I can come up with for procrastinating this so long is that I am in a service industry where everyone wants to push everything out before everyone else takes vacation — and that means that my early December is wicked-busy. This year was no exception. Today is day 2 of my vacation — I was so busy the first half of this month that I needed the entire first day to decompress.
So now I sit — in a quiet house (not totally quiet, Airtunes is playing Sarah McLachian right now — recent tracks). Paula and my two girls are out on a play-date and it’s just me and the laptop — ah, the life.
What more could I want? Continue reading ‘What do I want for Christmas?’
This morning, Presbyterian Pastor Ben Daniel (of Foothill Presbyterian Church in San Jose) delivered the annual “stewardship sermon” at the Stone Church in Willow Glen.
The stewardship sermon was delivered by a visiting pastor, Ben joked, because it is a sermon where the pastor asks the congregation for money.
Church regulars, having immediately identified my family and I as visitors, began to apologize to us about the sermon before the service even started. Little did those church regulars know, but we came to hear Ben speak (without a care as to his topic — note, we are NOT church go-ers…we are Ben Daniel groupies). And Ben did not disappoint either us or the Stone Church “regulars.”
Paula and I clearly learn something from each of Ben’s sermons. This morning, however, Continue reading ‘Stewardship and an Election Party’
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