July 2006

There were 43 posts published in July 2006 (this is page 3 of 5).

Greening The Modern American Household

Today is expected to be the hottest day of the year so far. Days like today naturally make me want to squeeze all the energy efficiency out of my house as I can. That’s when its apparent that some of the things society is doing now are just plain wrong.

Take the electric dryer, for instance. It ranks second only to the air conditioner for eating up electricity, ironic since the air conditioner and dryer work against each other. The dryer uses a huge amount of electricity, and for what? Why do we use electricity to heat up clothes inside when its 100 degrees outside? The engineer (or miser, take your pick) inside me just thinks this is wrong. I say its time to bring back the clothesline.

In the past, when you wanted your clothes dry, you hung them out. And you know what? That works just fine. Hang out the clothes and on a day like today they’d be dry in an hour. Heck, they’ll even smell fresh. And you get a bonus of not using a watt of electricity, avoiding the smog that generating that electricity would have caused. What’s wrong with that?

Well, people are squeamish about having their skivvies in plain view of the neighborhood, for one. I can understand that, but still I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. If everyone did it people would get used to it. I bet they’d even feel pride in helping reduce our country’s energy dependence. For now, though, our misguided ideas of what’s acceptable keep the clothes inside.

On another note, why do I burn natural gas to heat my water to 125 degrees F when my attic’s temperature is 140 degrees F? Why not put a water tank in the attic and make use of that waste heat? I wouldn’t even have to put a solar water heater on the house, it could stay inside.

And speaking of solar water heaters, why do homeowner’s associations have such distaste for them? Why not use that energy productively? Seems to me a neighborhood with solar water heaters is a neighborhood of smart people. I’d want to live in a place with smart people.

There are so many ways to improve the “green factor” of the modern American household. Just a few simple steps it would make a huge difference in our environment.

Bonus: Nice to see The Independent Weekly is thinking like I am. It recently ran an article on steps you can take to be green.

Bloggers Everywhere Cheer As Feedburner Acquires Blogbeat

Feedburner, the largest syndication feed management company, has announced its acquisition of Blogbeat, a Raleigh web analytics company. Terms were not disclosed.

I’ve used Blogbeat for over a year now and have really enjoyed the insight its provided me into the happenings here at MT.Net. It’s really a great way to keep up with your blog’s visitors.

This story has particular meaning to me because Blogbeat is my brother Jeff‘s company. I’ve watched as he’s worked very, very hard to make his site successful. I can’t say enough how proud I am of him, to take an idea and make it happen the way he did. Not to mention doing it with two young kids at home.

Congratulations, Jeff!! I know Feedburner will treat you and Blogbeat very well. Just don’t forget us little guys, ‘k? 🙂

Off To Atlanta

I’m off to Atlanta now for a mini-trade show tomorrow. It could be busy or it could royally suck. We’ll see.

Keep cool, y’all.

Satellite Tuning Mystery Solved?

I’ve got a WinTV DVB card set up to scan the skies using a satellite dish from A Well-Known DTH Satellite Provider left over from the previous residents (wow, that’s a mouthful). Tuning the card has proved problematic as I’ve never been able to switch satellites cleanly. Instead, I’ve had to switch polarity a few times before the card would lock on to a channel.

Borrowing a ladder, I hiked up to the dish, took a look, and with the help of the Internets figured out the problem. It seems the DTH Provider’s equipment wasn’t initially designed to work multiple satellties. The switch used to change satellites was a proprietary hack to get the dumb equipment working with multiple “birds.” Because its proprietary, my DVB card doesn’t know how to talk to it.

I could wire both LNBFs up down to the garage and switch manually if I wanted, or I can wait for a new DiSEqC switch gets here next week. After that, its on to buying more dishes and increasing the number of channels I can view!

(For a primer on all this mumbo-jumbo, I recommend a visit to the FTAList website.)

Perfect Day

I think yesterday was a perfect day. It just seemed that everything went our way. Everything was easy.

We started off waking up a little on the late side from a good night’s sleep. We were soon joined by some happy kids for a good breakfast. Breakfasts where kids eat well are always a treat. We had no shortage of eaters!

Kelly took the kids out to Holly Springs for the birthday party thrown for Hallie’s friends. I went for a quick visit with my brother before getting started on mowing the yard. It was oppressively hot work but it got done and looks great.

Once the family was back we had a pleasant lunch, full of laughter. We then played a bit before getting the kids settled for their naps. Then Kelly and I took a nap: a nice long one. Man, that was refreshing!

After napping a bit, I went to work getting little things done around the house that I’d been meaning to do. I cleaned up my desk, shelves, and other junk that has been sitting around. I backed up some files on my server that had been neglected for a year or two. I felt plenty of energy for getting done things I’d needed to get done for a long time.

Once the kids woke I sat with them on the couch, looking at sailboats in a magazine while Kelly cooked a tasty dinner. Once dinner was over we spent some fun time outside with the sidewalk chalk and blew some bubbles, too. Then it was bathtime for the kids, followed by a textbook-like bedtime for the kids. Kelly and I remarked it was the first time in a while that the kids went to bed with no complaint whatsoever.

Oh, there was one bedtime issue that needed solving. Travis kept telling me something that I couldn’t understand. He was saying something like “door timer off” and said it patiently about thirty times in a row without a hint of frustration. I would just shake my head and tell him I’m sorry I didn’t understand. Finally, I brought Kelly up for assistance.

She listened to Travis repeat “door timer off” a few more times before she burst out laughing.

“So, what is he saying?” I asked, preplexed.

“Door came off,” she said through her laughter. “He’s talking about his bus!”

Travis has a toy bus he loves to sleep with and the door had come off of it. Travis never even looked at it the whole time he was talking about it, so I had no clue. Mommy to the rescue, once again!

The kids were mostly quiet and settled when a short time later we heard a knock at our door. Our neighbors Frank and Brea from down the street had invited us over to play cards. After rigging up an extended baby monitor, we were delighted to join them. Though I lost in our round of Hearts, we all had a wonderful time. In fact, we got back close to 1 AM!

Its so cool to live in a neighborhood where things like that can happen. It was also cool that our perfect day had a few extra fun hours added to it.

Hurricane Party Warning

A look at the calendar shows that an important anniversary is approaching. September 5th, 1996 was the night Hurricane Fran slammed ashore at Wilmington and took I-40 straight through Raleigh. Many were without power for a week or longer. Among downed trees and powerless apartments, I invited friends over for a hurricane party. That night we grilled food and partied under one of the clearest, deepest night skies I’ve ever seen.

September marks ten years. Its time for another hurricane party! We’re hosting a party at our house the afternoon and evening of Saturday, September 9th, when we’ll recreate hurricane conditions. There’ll be grilling, drinks and fun, but no lights! We’ll make an exception for air conditioning and refrigeration (wouldn’t want any ham to go bad). Oh, wind, rain, and falling trees aren’t anticipated, either.

So mark your calendars! Look for more details when we get closer. The wind is building . . .

Taking A Breather Between Trips

I got back from Charlotte Wednesday evening after a successful training session. I was happy to see people so fired up. Orders were being placed even before the session ended! You gotta love it when that happens. The success I’ve had in doing product training makes me wonder if I should leave sales engineering behind and focus on that instead. It’s something I’ll have to ponder.

I’m working from home today mainly because my car has been due for regular maintenance for months now. K made an appointment for it and we’re finally getting it done. I’m also home because I’ve been traveling a bit lately and its nice to be at home a bit. This upcoming week has me going to Atlanta for an overnight trip. The following week I spend a night in NYC.

Travel, travel, travel . . . That’s one thing that being in training would help with. Sure, a trainer gets to travel: sessions are held all over the world. Its just that the frequency of travel isn’t as great. And when training I am doing something I feel is more productive than some of the recent SE trips I’ve made, some of which could have easily been handled by local SEs or field engineers. I seem to have a knack for training, so I’m gonna have to figure out if I should pursue it.

We’ve got an “open” weekend here at Chez Turner, a rarity lately. Summer is zooming by. I told K yesterday that there are only 10 weekends before its October. What’s sad is I still haven’t been sailing this season. We haven’t been up to Lake Gaston, either. Our summer vacation to Panama City is approaching soon, though, and we’re all looking forward to that. This morning I showed Travis the picture we took on the beach before he was here and told him he’ll join us in a new picture soon. Our last Florida vacation was two months before Travis arrived.

Then again, its nice just being here and taking it easy for a change.

Cheap Thoughts: Spam As A Secret Message

What if those random-seeming words at the bottom of spam emails are really a secret message sent to me by space aliens? I mean, if they can leave random shapes in cornfields, who’s to say they don’t know how to write spam emails?