Spinning My Own Electrons

After reading the N&O story about businesses generating their own power, it made me wonder what it would take to do this at home.

The typical residential power rates are pretty high. If I converted to a Time-Of-Use plan and found an alternative way to cover my demand during peak hours, I wonder how much money I could save? Certainly not enough to afford a big, honking, million-dollar diesel generator, but how about a bank of batteries and an inverter? Or a smaller generator (preferably powered by natural gas)? What would it take to cover my air conditioning?

Of course, I don’t use nearly as much electricity as would be required to make this a worthwhile endeavor, but its fun to imagine, anyway.

On The Mend

I successfully played with the kids last night and safely tucked them into bed. To my surprise, I found the energy to read my book (Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life And Universe) and chat with Kelly before I went to bed. I also found my stomach much more open to food and drink, so I helped myself to toast and a glass of water or two. After spending the day fighting to keep things down, that was progress.

This was followed by a peaceful night of sleep. Upon waking, I got the kids ready to go, chatted with Kelly again, and took Hallie to her summer camp. T and I also stopped in at the office of $FORMER_EMPLOYER to drop some stuff off.

Kelly had called the Harris County (Ga) health department to get the pool checked out. That pool is considered a private pool and thus out of their jurisdiction but the fine folks there followed up with the resort owner to make sure the pool was properly maintained. It apparently was, or is, though the health department says that this far out, whatever bug may have been in the pool has long since disappeared. So we’ll never know.

Good to be out of the woods on this, though.

Feeling More Human

I’ve spent the day dozing and aching. By about 5 PM I began to feel somewhat human again. The timing is great because Kelly is leaving for the next two days so I’ll be parenting solo.

Wow, this has not been fun.

My Luck Runs Out

I became the latest victim of the stomach bug this morning at 4 AM. Because of my prior fundoplication surgery I may be in for a long recovery since I can’t, uh, empty my stomach.

If anyone comes up to you and offers to make you sick, don’t do it! Trust me on this.

Drupal To WordPress Migration Script

I’ve done some tweaking of the Drupal to WordPress migration SQL script that’s been bouncing around. I’ve put in SQL to migrate the user table. I’ve also used the REPLACE MySQL extension to change old links to my blog, as well as change the ‘–break–‘ tags to ‘–more–‘ tags.

Here’s my copy, where

  • wp_ has been replaced by mt_ (for my mt.net database tables)
  • mtdotnetMigration is the name of my imported Drupal migration database
  • www.markturner.net is my website address (to convert references in the content to mt.net posts)

If you use this script, you should change these values accordingly.
Continue reading →

Jack

Jack
Widespread Panic

Jack was really a jester
Who held his one good eye on the queen
And there sat the king beside her
He’s pointing his sword up and down with every scene
And the wizard’s in the corner
Catching peanuts between his teeth
And the dog’s lying in the shadow in the archway
There’s one good dog sleeping filled with good ol’ dog dreams
Continue reading →

Exhaustion

Exhaustion is driving single-handedly for 8 and a half hours, caring for your sick spouse and kid, spending a restless night as spouse deals with said illness, then spending the next day caring for everyone. Hallie became the third (and final) victim of the stomach bug this evening right before her bedtime. I could have three sick family members on my hands tomorrow, though Kelly seems to be rallying at the moment.

Life is full of adventures, isn’t it?

Chinese Hospitals Use Fake IVs

Boy, it’s a good thing I didn’t get sick during my trip to China. Chinese hospitals were found to have given patients fake IVs.

That’s the thing I found with China: everyone around was trying to make a buck, usually at your expense. This seems to proceed with the blessing of the officials. I think these food and drug scandals are early tremors. The Big One – one where thousands of Chinese die due to unbridled greed and corrupt regulation – will strike any month now. Even so, I doubt the Chinese government has the will to actually protect its people from its own crooks. It will take a few very large riots before anything changes.

Stomach Bugged

Kelly has been hit hard by the stomach bug I mentioned in the last post. Travis is also a victim though his spirits are considerably better. I found out my sister-in-law, niece, and nephew fell victim yesterday during their drive back. I feel bad for them. At least we were home when it struck.

My guess is the “resort’s” pool. I’m thinking the kids might have swallowed the water while (most) of the adults did not, though Tanya was in the pool and I don’t think she drank the water. It could be a virus, or simple food poisoning. I’d appreciate hearing from any fellow Turners who may have also gotten sick (or gone swimming and didn’t get sick).