DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

I remember an episode of Fantasy Island where someone faked his (her?) own death in order to find out what his friends and family really thought about him. He attended the funeral in disguise to eavesdrop on the impromptu reviews of his ex-life.

I feel the same way about reporting that a couple people on the everythingdulcimer.com discussion board have checked out my song, Ode to Soup. The reviews thus far are somewhat mixed — too much guitar, not enough dulcimer, not very soup-like. I guess it wouldn’t be a big hit at the Ren Faire (nor the Campbell’s office party).

But I’m grateful for the attention. Special thanks to Marcy (a real dulcimer player) for the nice words and traffic.

Here’s the link: Hammer Dulcimer in rock music

At the time of my second solar anniversary, I posted my analysis of power generated and electricity fees incurred during my second year with grid-tied PV. It’s easy to monitor the amount of electricity we generated, but much harder to track some numbers that are even more interesting, e.g.:

• electricity consumed
• dollars saved

Why? Mostly because PG&E’s “trueup” bills are a frickin’ nightmare — a dozen pages of mousetype arranged in incomprehensible tables showing daily fluctuations in “unbundled rate components.” I can’t make any sense of it at all. Presumably this was PG&E’s design goal (obfuscating usage and cost data), for there’s no other reason to inflict this sort of mind-numbing minutia on a paying customer. It’s worse than bistro math.

Fortunately, the good folks at Sun Power employ a crew of photovoltaic gnomes who crunch all the numbers and spit out an annual report that answers the interesting questions:

My total out-of-pocket cost for the year was $105, which includes the $65 reported earlier plus the monthly annoyance fees PG&E charges all grid-tied PV generators.

The total electricity cost I would have paid PG&E had I not installed solar is $936. This figure is lower than I expected. My 2003 actual figure was $890; between higher usage and rate hikes I would have expected my non-PV costs to exceed $1000 for 2005. Perhaps Sun Power’s calculations don’t cover the over-baseline penalties that PG&E applies to the electricity bills of everyone who doesn’t happen to be photophobic, cold-blooded, and/or live under a bridge.

The $936 I didn’t pay, less the $105 I did, yields an $831 credit toward my photovoltaic breakeven date — previously projected to January, 2015. Again this is smaller than I expected, but as rates continue to rise I have to conclude that future years’ savings will grow disproportionately large.

When I signed up for cable internet service from Comcast in late 2003, I was impressed with the speed — 2182 kbps.

I’d heard stories that they’ve been upgrading their network. It seems to be true; my connection just measured 5741 kbps.

So, something for nothing. And we get to watch the Olympics too.

Time for the annual water-heater maintenance: flush and rinse, as prescribed by waterheaterrescue.com.

I was surprised by the mound of squishy, transparent, booger-like nuggets that poured out of the tank last year. This year I used a strainer to catch them. They are pretty disgusting. I have no idea what this stuff is.

I don’t know what to make of Office Depot. They seem to frequently offer innovative recycling initiatives, but they donate 88% of their campaign contributions to so-called “conservative” candidates (apparently via the National Retail Federation, which as far as I can see has no official party affiliation but is clearly sympathetic to Republican causes) . I applaud their sense of responsibility regarding the environment, but I wonder if they’re doing more damage through their political contributions. Maybe I’m making too big a deal out of a $10,000 donation.

Anyway, Office Depot is currently offering to exchange your used inkjet or toner cartridge for a ream of 35% post-consumer recycled Envirocopy paper. It’s a pretty neat deal. You were probably going to toss that inkjet cartridge into the landfill anyway. Instead, now you can print 500 pages of dumb emailed jokes, recipes you’ll never use, unfocused red-eyed photos of your munchkins, etc., and throw those in the landfill instead.

Update, 2007-02-06: Never mind; Office Depot’s inkjet cartridge recycling program has begun to suck.