Here comes the sun

Yeah, yeah, I haven't posted in a while, and reading this post my make you hate me. I have to say though, I love this time of year here in AZ. Usually it's fairly warm, staying in the upper 60s low 70s. This winter however, has been a little cooler. I was listening the the local weather guy here the other day and he stated we haven't hit 75 since Thanksgiving. That's very rare here. Speaking of rare, it's been rainy. Here. In a desert. This weekend however it's going to be very nice. Finally we're getting back in to the 70s and may top out at 76 on Sunday. I can't wait. I love having all the windows open and feeling a warm breeze blowing through the house. It's not just me that likes the windows open, the cats love to have the windows open too. They like being able to smell the outside air and hear all the birds better. It's this type of weather inspires me to work on the yard and generally gets me going. With family back home in Wisconsin just getting snow dumped on them. I was just checking the Wisconsin local weather channels, looks like they got a little over a foot of snow last night with more coming this weekend with some extra cold air following that. What a contrast. Hate me if you must, but I'll be loving the weather here this weekend.

Dude Seriously.

There are tons of terms that seem to come and go. In the 60s you had "Man" and "Groovy". In the 70s we were given "Dude", "Foxy", and "You know". Ahhh the 80s, it was then we were given the Valley girl, with terms like "Bitchn", "gag me with a spoon", and "Totally". Now some of these terms and lasted, and some have not. Recently we had the term "Bling". Which was popularized to the point where it became uncool to use it. MTV even had a small commercial where they officially retired it. I guess that's how most of these slang terms go. Why though? Why do some terms seem to endure and some fad away. "Dude", "Man", and "You Know" sticks around to this day. I'm wondering if it's because of who was expected to be using these terms. I remember in 6th grade my teacher hated the term "You know". He stated you could always tell when someone was being interviewed, if they were well educated or not, as they'd use this term frequently. He'd say, "No, I don't know, that's why your telling me". That may have contributed to some of these terms sticking around. They wouldn't be used that often in amongst the middle to upper class and therefore stay "cool". That and they were what I'd call soft slang. They weren't too overboard with breaking from normal speech, and now have been adopted into our everyday language. One in particular I can't wait to go away that is now becoming popular is "on Steroids". I'm soooo very tired of this term. You hear it all the time to describe things that have tons of features added or are overgrown, "it's like your TV on steroids". It's just getting used too much for me and now annoys me when it's used.

"Dude" though is different, and I'll tell you why. It's soo versatile. Which may be due to it's age. When writing this post, I was originally going for something completely different. When looking for good slang terms from different decades, I've found some things out about it. It seems to originate back in the late 1800's. Yes that's right, I put it in 70s, and that was because it became popular and used more mainstream about that time, but that's for later. It seems, and this comes from Wikipedia, "Originally "dude" meant a city person in the country, with strong connotations of ignorance of rural ways. It is believed the word has its origins in the Irish word "Dúd" (pronounced Dood, like mood), which means someone who looks or acts foolish or out of place." A term we refer to now a days as "City Slickers". It was actually a pretty derogatory term until the late 60s early 70s when surfers started using the term for more familiar purposes. Throughout the 80s the term became even more versatile. It crossed gender lines (although more in a joking manner as "dudette" and such) and began morphing, and now, depending on tone, it can be used in any part of a sentence and can replace very many words.

Personally, I love the term due to its versatility. Even more now that I know some of the history behind it. Then again who knows. In 50 years no one may be using it anymore and there'll be someone writing on how weird we were to use such a crazy slang term.

What a pain in the Foot!!!

So yesterday morning, I woke up to my Achilles Tendon being sore. What a strange and weird thing. I can put weight on it fine, it only hurts when I walk (i.e. when I move my foot up or down). I've had the issue twice before, and can't seem to pin down exactly what's causing it. The good thing is it only lasts 3 or 4 days then goes away altogether. At least until next time. It's not like the whole back of my calf hurts. It's just the very bottom where the tendon attaches to the heal. Besides hurting when I walk, it also hurts to touch it, more of a soreness then real pain.

Doing a little searching on the net revealed that it's either Achilles Tendonitis or Peritendonitis. It's the strangest thing because everything I've read so far states it's from excess activity (that's not me), the other is from poorly padded or very flat shoe soles. The funny thing is, I've had the same shoes for a while. Now that I'm writing this down though, I'm thinking it may be my sandals. I never had the issue before I bout them, and only ocationally get it after a weekend. The only issue I have with this is that I actually walked around less with them this weekend then any other this year. Heck I walked a ton in them while on my Vegas Vacation a couple months ago without issue. This sucks too, because I really like them, as they're very comfortable. I guess I'll have to shell out some cash and get some new ones and see if I get this issue again.

It's Electrifying.....

This morning on my way into work I heard a commercial for professionally installed Solar panels. They stated, "...it is actually possible watch the power company's meter run backwards". Little background, I've been interested in solar power stuff for a while now. It's continuous energy, all you have to do is collect it. Now living in AZ, the sun shines what seems like 360 days a year. You'd think this would be a easy fit down here. Well, solar is just not there yet. Back to the commercial. So I went to their website. The cheapest system they have they claim produces something like 295 Kilowat hours per month. Sounds like a lot. Well checked my Electric bill and the smallest amount of electricity demand I used in one month was 1100 Kilowat hours. Yeah I could cut some corners here and there, and bring that down, but that's besides the point. The numbers speak for themselves...

Now the amount of electricity coming from the panels would be generated during peak usage times, so my house would be eating up all that juice while it's being generated. I could get bigger systems but again lets stay with these numbers for now. Let's say the electric company would give me full value for this electricity generated. I look at my bill and I pay (because of the plan I'm one) $0.04765/kWh, that means with this system I'd make $14/mo. using this system. Let's say I drop the plan I'm on and start using the most expensive on peak kWh plan. The plan that has the highest cost/kWh is $0.18200/kWh that's the summer rates so this is the most I'd ever be able to make using a solar system. That equates to $53.69/mo. Now we're talking. That can do some damage to my bill. Then we look at the cost of installing the system. To install it costs a little over $12,ooo. This system has a "10 year SMA inverter warranty and 25 year solar panel warranty". OK lets say that everything lasts for 25 years, and by some miracle the electric company gives me that high rate/kWh year round. Also that this system will consistently produce the stated 295kWh/mo. for the entire 25 years. That means every month this system pays me $53.69/mo. How long would it take for me to make back that $12,000? Now the site does state that the state government would give me a rebate of $3,000 and that the Fed would give me a 30% rebate. So if I get all that it would bring the cost of install down to $5,400 for the install. At $53.69/mo that makes $644.25/yr. That all means that it would take a little over 8 years for the system to pay for itself, and for me to actually start making money while using it. In reality though, I wouldn't be getting that high rate year round. It actually drops to $0.10918/kWh during the winter, so that's only $32.21/mo during the winter (Summer=May-October, Winter=November-April). After all the calculations, that means $515.40/year or it would take a little less then 10.5 years for the system to pay off. By then I'm sure there will be much more efficient panels, this also assumes that I'll be living in this house for that long. It also assumes best case scenario for everything. It just doesn't add up yet. One of these days, this will all work.

By the way, a system that would meet my lowest month electrical use would cost $46,400 before rebates. It would take 52 panels with each panel measuring 5x 2.5 ft that's 130 square feet. I think that may be a hard sell to my HOA. I really wish that solar was a little more efficient and not so costly to implement. It seems like such a great way to get electricity. I think that the cost still has to drop in half for it to really start taking off. These are much better numbers then it was when I first started looking into it. About 5 years ago, it think I calculated that it would take between 15 - 20 years for it to start paying off. So maybe in 5 more it will finally get there. I've heard some good rumblings about newer panel types that have much higher efficiencies, being made cheaper productions methods using a die. So maybe just maybe...

Clearing the air

On May 1st the Arizona smoking ban went into effect. Smoking is now banned in all indoor public places. Most of the bars were making a big stink (kind of ironic) stating that they are going to loose a lot of business because of this and may end up going out of business.

On Wednesday the home town Pro. Basketball team the Phoenix Suns were playing game 5 of a possible 7 game series in the first round of the playoffs. They were up 3-1 in the series and if they win they would move to the next round. This game was shown on TNT. With most people having cable the game would be viewable by most people. I having a TiVo and Wednesday being a particularly busy night for TV shows. I would either miss some of the shows I watch or miss the game. A third option however would be to go to one of the local sports bars and watch the game, allowing the shows to be recorded for viewing later.

The first place we went to (Buffalo Wild Wings), was packed, with standing room only available. Many people chose to do just that, stand. BWW had always been non-smoking as local city ordinance had already passed a no smoking ban.

We decided to try another bar that we liked a lot but stopped going to as the smoke was just too much, Uncle Bears. I must be getting old, as it was so bad most nights that I had to shower when I got home because I just couldn't sleep from the smell still hanging on me. This place was also packed, although not as much as BWW. BWW was always a more popular place, as most chain places are. So this wasn't a surprise that there were less people here, that's why we liked it and why we thought we had a chance for a seat tonight. They've updated things big time at Uncle Bears (by the way it's named after the owners dog, which is also their logo, a yellow lab with a handkerchief around it's neck) They've always had a lot of TVs but now instead of the old big screen big box sets, they now have a bunch of plasma and LCD screens. It was so much nicer in there now.

I think we'll be going back much more. Then I'll be able to gage how much the ban is effecting them. To be honest, I don't expect it to mean that much. With the old city by city ban I can see how they may be effected, as people would just go to the next city and smoke. With the whole state having the ban there's no where to go but outside. There's a couple other places too that we had the same issue with, and now may be revisiting. It's nice to have choice again. Oh, and the Suns won...hehe

I'm Learning... I'm Learning

So for the past couple months I've been taking some Cisco classes at the local community college. I figured since I'm managing this network, I might as well know some stuff about it. That way I don't have to call in a contractor every time there is a network issue. Today I was doing some checking on some of the circuits. Making sure that I some of the updates I requested are actually showing on the lines. Now a year ago at this time, I would have no idea how to do this nor have any idea that some of this stuff needed to be done. The best part was I noticed an issue. Nothing really major, you see each branch has two routes to reach us here at the main office. One of those routes wasn't letting anything come through. From the people at the branch perspective they wouldn't see a difference. The issue is though they were using the backup route and not the main one. So now if there was an issue with that path they wouldn't be able to work. So after about 2 hours of checking and troubleshooting (again a year ago I wouldn't be able to see this issue, much less be able to troubleshoot it), I concluded it had to be an issue with our network provider who we lease these lines from. I called them and explained them what I saw and they checked stuff on there end and they saw the issue was a configuration problem on their end. They updated their end and blamo (yes that's a technical term) the primary path showed working on my end and I had a great big smile on my face. Not so much that the issue was resolved but that all the stuff from those classes was actually sinking in and that I could intelligently speak with the provider and get this issue resolved, all with the people at the branch not noticing a thing.

The Return

So the one thing that I hate most about taking a vacation is having to come back. It's not so much the work thing, I really like my job, as it is getting back into the routine. Everything is just a little askew. I'm a fairly organized person, so this little bit bugs me a lot. Things just take a little longer, as you try to find the pace you were at before. It's also hard to buckle down again and get things done. You have the energy now to do it, but the want you need to get started isn't there yet.

While on the Vegas Vacation, the hotel was great and we had a fantastic time. I had the worst luck though. I started to think that the decks were stacked, as the dealers continuously got 21 after 21. Now I don't mean they had Black Jack, that would have been a little too cruel. I mean they were showing a 5 or a 4 and 3 cards later they'd have 21. I counted it on one table and out of 10 hands the dealer was able to pull out 21 7 times. At another table I got Black Jack myself 4 times, of which I had 3 push because the dealer had it too. The race was fun though. My roommate placed a bet on the winner at 7-1 odds. Well done on his part. He was mister lucky for the weekend, so at least I know where some of my luck went. It wasn't very crowded, which was really nice, as the sun was pretty hot. They said the temp was in the low 80s but the sun made it feel much hotter. If you've never been down in the desert the sun burns a little hotter down here. I've lived in the North and the sun feels warm up there, but down here it down right burns. I think it's because it much more direct sunlight, so the sun doesn't have to go through so much atmosphere to hit you. Well that's it for today.