Deep freeze

For our 3rd anniversary, Shirls and Doc got us this deep freezer. We somehow fit it into the back of the Scion and drove it home from Menards. We even carried it downstairs, set it up and read the instructions.

Single stream recycling

Pretty excited about our new Bloomington-issued 90 gallon recycling bin. I've been waiting for this bad boy for months. Recycling doesn't get any easier than this.

Power Smart

What's the average length of time elapsed between your typical blog? Whatever it is, I think I probably  quadrupled it.

This post comes from the basement of 5 Ridgewood Terrace in Bloomington, Il. Why is he writing in the basement? you might ask. Short answer, it's because I signed us up for Power Smart pricing through Ameren, our electric company. Long answer, read on.

I am a bit compulsive about electricity usage in our house. I don't like lights on in rooms that no one is occupying; I unplug power cords when the items are not in use; I just can't seem to find the perfect light timer. When compact fluorescents came on the market, I was all in. I purchased over $100 of light bulbs at one time. I even bought compact fluorescents for my dad for Christmas. (sorry Dad)

Knowing that I'd just reduced electricity output by approximately 75%  by switching to CFLs allowed me to relax a bit. But that was only a temporary fix.

A few months ago, I noticed an insert in my electric bill that mentioned Power Smart Pricing. I skimmed it over and I knew this was something we had to try. The way it works. If you're not Power Smart (power dumb, I suppose), you power costs you the same amount at 10 a.m. as it costs at 5 p.m. and you just pay for your usage. The idea with Power Smart Pricing is you pay whatever power costs at the time that you are using it. So, if power costs 2.7 cents/kWh at 10 a.m. you pay that amount at that time but if it costs 9.2 cents/kWh at 5 p.m. you pay that amount at that time. By enrolling in the program, you can save money and help keep the grids from getting overwhelmed by shifting your power usage to less popular times.

Sounded like a great idea to me. I pitched it to Laine and she was immediately on board. "If there's anyone who would actually pay attention and benefit from a program like this, it would be you" she told me. I filled out some paperwork, a guy came out and installed something on our meter and we were up and running.

The first few weeks were pretty uneventful. We would check the cost of power each day on a website and there wasn't much change during the month of May. There wasn't a big price swing from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. so, while we still tried to lean toward the cheaper hours, we weren't too concerned. Then June came. In May, the highest cost of power I had seen was somewhere in the 5 cent range, but 3 cents was pretty average. When I checked prices this morning, I saw my first hour of 9.6 cent power -- it was scary and exhilarating.

Over the course of the day the price of power was set to creep up hour by hour. 8 a.m. - 4.3, 9 a.m. - 5.2, 10 a.m. - 5.8, 11 a.m. - 6.5, 12 p.m. - 7.1 (the tension is building), 1 p.m. - 7.5, 2 p.m. - 9.6, 3 p.m. - 9.6, 4 p.m. - 8.5, etc. On the website, any hour that's over 4 cents is highlighted in yellow and any hour that's over 8 cents is highlighted in red. This was my first red sighting.

Don't worry though, we set had a plan. We cranked the AC from 7 a.m. until 8 a.m. while power was still under 4 cents. Then, we shut everything off and left for work. I felt good about the plan. I left the house at 70 degrees at 8 a.m. and it was going to be about 94 degrees outside. When I got home at 5 p.m. it was 80 degrees in the house. I escaped to Walgreens to run some errands but returned to an 82 degree house at 6:00 and that's where the temperature leveled off.

82 degrees is a pretty warm house but that's just the main floor. Turns out our basement stays at a cool 74 degrees. So, that's why I'm writing from my basement.

From the road - the loneliest hotel room

I haven't been very diligent about posting over the past few weeks. Maybe there just hasn't been that much to post about. Traveling isn't always exciting and it's typically better if that's the case. This isn't exciting either but I thought it was kind of funny. One of the last hotel stays I had, they put me in this room (see picture below). It was such an odd location - sandwiched between the elevator and some major closets. I felt like I was in Fairfield timeout.

From the road - getting around town

Tonight, I am staying in the Fairfield Inn and Suites in St. Charles, MO. The city of St. Charles seems quaint and nice but there's always the ugly side of the city. This other side of the city is home only to hotels, Cracker Barrel, and pavement. Trying to go for a run is nearly impossible when leaving from hotels on the other side. Typically, as is the case today, your only option is to run on the access road parallel to the interstate. Sure, you'll keep a good pace knowing that you have to be prepared to dive to the safety of some corporate lawn should a Ford pickup careen around the corner, but it's not very relaxing.

Today, I drove to Lindenwood University's campus to run. This proved to be a good idea but it left me a bit disappointed. Is there such low demand from pedestrians for basic accommodations (i.e. sidewalks)? It seems as though we have, as a nation, tacitly decided that we need cars, buses, or trains to get us from point A to point B, even if point A and B are a five minute walk apart.

Now that Laine has relearned how to ride a bike, we have been trying to make the transition from biking for fitness to biking for transportation. We spent Sunday morning and afternoon biking from place to place. We even biked out to Buffalo Wild Wings, which is on the "other" side of Bloomington-Normal mind you, to watch football. It seemed like an odd thing to do and it wasn't easy. We had to take back roads to avoid four lane traffic and all that comes with it (people lashing out with insults of all kinds (people really resent foot and bicycle traffic to an unhealthy degree)) to make it to Buffalo Wild Wings. I should point out that there was another bike chained up when we got there, so this is not an original idea, just rare.

I hope that we will move toward, instead of away from, urban planning that takes non-motorists into account. Although it was not very easy to get where we needed by bike, it was fun. We enjoyed the sunny fall weather and I feel like we added something to our day that had been missing. It's so easy to never go outside anymore and I'm realizing that we should make a conscious effort to get outdoors more in the future. Maybe one time I'll bring my bike with me when I travel. I'll lock it to a rocking chair when I eat at the Cracker Barrel.

From the road – speech to text

My new fancy phone - the HTC Incredible - has a feature where I can speak into the microphone and my words will be put into text and sent via text messaging. Last night I was leaving the hotel and driving to a college fair and I thought it would be a good time to send Laine a text. Since I was driving, the speech-to-text function made a lot of sense. I spoke into the microphone, "On my way to the college fair" but what the phone sent as a text message was "hey on my way to the college fair honey." I must have had the sweet husband feature on as well.

From the road - piercing

Well, I'm back on the road.  I had my first two high school visits this afternoon and will have my first college fair this evening. Since I'll be alone with my computer more than usual over the next couple months I am hoping to create more frequent blog posts. This first one will be quick, just to ensure that the bar is set low.

My very first high school visit of the 2010 - 2011 recruiting year was Edwardsville HS and the first two student hands I shook were abnormal. I didn't notice when I shook the girls' hands that anything was unusual but I overheard one girl comment to another about how anytime she shook someone's hand her hand hurt. I looked over and noticed that she was looking at her hand and the next thing I noticed was that she appeared to have a floating gem on her right ring finger. It turns out that it was a piercing. In her finger. It didn't go all the way through - it was simply a stud. Both girls had this piercing, as they explained, because they are best friends. Now I have never had a piercing but I am typically in favor of them. This one, however, struck me as a poor decision. I hope that this poor decision is a lesson to these girls and not the first of many poor decisions over the next few years.

I've posted a picture that I found online for those who can't quite picture what it is I saw.