Can't Buy Our Way to Save Energy

A recent TV program featured a segment about how it's actually more environmentally correct to buy a used car with good gas mileage than it is to buy a new hybrid car. Their point was that it would take 10 years of lower gas usage with a Prius to offset the power it took to build that same new car. One commentator said something to the effect of "We can't buy our way to save energy."

That really struck me. Isn't that the American way? Buy our way out of our problems? What do we do to save energy? Buy Energy Star products, buy compact florescent bulbs, buy reusable shopping bags, buy a hybrid car, buy a tankless water heater. Do you notice a theme here? Buy, buy, buy.

He stated that the real way to save energy is to STOP USING SO MUCH OF IT! What about turning off the lights? What about walking to the store? What about taking shorter showers?

I remember being in Kindergarten during the first energy crisis and my teacher showing us how to take a shower so we use less water (get wet, turn off the water, soap up, shampoo, then turn the water back on to rinse). We were being taught how to shower in SCHOOL! Now that seems so strange, but not back then. We were told that in order to save energy we had to do without. Now we're told that in order to save energy, we need to do with more, but just a different kind of more.

Well, I'm as guilty of over-consumption as the next guy, but I am happy to report that I still haven't turned on my air conditioner at all this year. Baby steps, baby steps.

By the way, my mother said that she missed my blog, so I'm starting it up again -- I'm such an obedient daughter (cue my mother rolling her eyes).

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Alas, my blogging days will have to be put on hold until who knows when.

My messy house, my unfed children, my mounting loads of laundry and the impending arrival of yet another school year are calling my name and I need to respond.

Also, I have been called as second counselor in my ward's Primary Presidency and I feel that this is where all my creative juices need to be flowing right now.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments you've made and for all the terrific blogs I've read. It's been a great 10 months.

So long, farewell, adieu, goodbye, ciao, sayonara...

Brangelina Babies!

Sure, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is fighting his indictment for war crimes committed in Darfur and the wildfires in California have now turned to mudslides, but what was the news all about yesterday?

Brangelina babies!

Yes, Angelina Jolie gave birth to twins (is there anybody who DOESN'T have twins these days?) in Nice, France. Of course, I'm thinking that the explosive amount of news coverage for this blessed event is really because all the reporters and crew really wanted to just hang around the French Riviera for a few days.

Oh, I also suspect that the person doing the closed-captioning for NBC doesn't approve of the rapidly expanding Jolie-Pitt family. Every time it was supposed to read "Brad Pitt," they typed in "Brat Pit."

I've found a new love...

I've found a new love -- it's NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" radio news quiz show.

I guess this program has been on for the past 10 years, but I just discovered it. I'm not much of a radio listener, but I saw a story about it on TV (oh wonderful TV, is there anything you can't do?).

It's funny, it's topical, it's witty, but best of all it makes my job of watching the news worthwhile.

"WALL-E"

Back when we were doing our "Family Camp" staycation, someone surprised us by leaving on our porch a bag of goodies (soda pop, popcorn, candy) plus a gift card for a local movie theater.

We ate the goodies right away and saved the gift card for "WALL-E."

Jeffrey loved the movie (robots, space, trash -- all his favorite things). Frances liked it (bonus -- she actually did NOT throw up while in the theater). Alice-Grace was fine through the opening credits and then the craziness began (that girl can't sit still to save her life). Nigel liked the movie.

I thought it was OK, but just too darn LONG! Is that a bad sign that I can't even sit through a children's movie? I felt like a child again playing "Risk" with my brothers (where I would always be France so that I could get invaded quickly and stop playing that mind-numbing game).

We did have a great time, though, seeing a movie when it first came out in a nice cinema. Thank you, movie pass and candy fairy!

Please note that I haven't posted lately because I've been so busy at work. Here are my favorite closed-captioning mistakes that I've seen lately:

"John McCain" was typed as "John Muck Contain"

Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt's daughter "Zahara" was typed as "The Horror"

Fuelish Endeavor

Yay! I did it. For the first time in a long time, I kept within my gasoline budget for the month. In fact, I only filled the gas tank once in June and had $2.18 cents left over and a quarter of a tank to spare.

This is no easy feat considering that gas is over $4 a gallon and our only car is a 20-year-old minivan that gets 16 miles per gallon.

I tried to walk whenever I could, consolidate my trips, and no idling (sorry kids, no drive-up dinners for you!). If I was really good, I'd be like UPS and only make right turns (but then I'd end up in a lot of dead end streets).

I've noticed that I'm not the only person trying to save gas. I see a lot more people walking, riding bikes, riding scooters, driving golf carts -- I even saw two guys going down the street on Segways!

Oh, did I mention that I still haven't turned on our air conditioning this summer? I'm trying to see if I can last the whole summer (just ignore the sweating husband and kids panting in the corner).

Big Bad Blood Ban

To get extra money I've been selling my plasma. Besides occasionally being turned away for low iron, everything has been going well.

That is, until Friday.

I passed all the tests (barely) and I was laying back ready to watch "The Princess Bride" when "Jacqueline the Ripper" gouges my arm with the needle. No blood comes out. I'm usually a bleeder, so that was a little odd. I guess you can't just pull it out and start over, so she starts twisting the needle in there trying to get just the right spot. After five minutes of this, she calls "Susie the Slasher" over. Susie gives it a try for five minutes. As a last resort, they get "Bonnie the Butcher" to jab the needle around my poor disfigured arm.

They finally got the blood to flow (where the plasma is extracted out of it), but they couldn't get the red blood cells back into me. So Bonnie calls the head honcho, "Steve the Stabber," over to figure it out. By this time, my ears are ringing and I'm getting tunnel vision. I told him to just take the needle out and that I was NOT feeling well.

The next thing I know, I'm being woken up from the best sleep I've had in my life. No, no! Let me sleep! I had passed out.

They had taken out about twice as much blood as you normally give when donating blood, and had returned none of it to me. After much resting, drinking of fluids, ice packs on my neck, bag on my stomach in case I started to hurl, and a woman taking my blood pressure every two minutes, I was OK.

The good news, they still paid me. The bad news, I'm banned from the plasma center (at least for the next two months -- but seriously, would you go back?).

Happy Trails to You!

In my crazy job of monitoring TV news, I get to watch a direct feed from the network (which means that besides watching the live broadcast, I also get to see what goes on during the commercial breaks and before they start taping).

The other day there was this comical exchange during the sound check between the anchor in New York and a male reporter (who was wearing some decidedly "girly" rain wear) in the Midwest at the scene of the Mississippi River flooding.

Anchor: Hey, Dale Evans called. She wants her boots back.

Reporter: Very funny.

Anchor: No, really. They look great. I just have one question. What did you do with the culottes that came with those?

When the news really did air, the anchor was very serious and professional, but I did notice that the reporter had covered his boots with a thick layer of mud.

Oh, and you know how I love finding mistakes in the closed captioning. Every time it was supposed to read "Morales," it said instead, "More or less."

Family Camp Day Seven: Pirate Day

Why couldn't the young pirate go to the movie? Because it was rated "arrrr"!

OK, bad joke. Like dinosaur day, pirate day kind of fizzled (maybe it's because we're burned out on family camp, maybe it's because real life started creeping in, I don't know).

We went to a local park (please note that we do go to a different park each time) and made pirate hats and paper boats. We then sailed the boats in a little stream. It was a good competition between Nigel's and Frances' boats. Poor Jeffrey, his boat kept getting stuck in the weeds (we said it was picking up passengers). Mine didn't win, but it did keep its shape the longest (my origami skills are awesome!). Alice-Grace didn't want to get hers wet.

After a picnic lunch, I had lots of games and activities planned (buried treasure in the sand volleyball court, see how many pretzels you can pick up with a hook-hand, pirate "Simon Says," etc.), but it all dissolved in a puddle of tears because Jeffrey kept falling down and he was convinced it was the park's fault (not his slippery shoes).

Once we got back home, everyone soon scattered and then we ended up in the pool. Pirates went swimming, didn't they? OK, maybe not of their own free will, but they did go swimming. Can we call that a "walk the plank" activity?

Then our day was eaten up by Frances going to her church group activity and Nigel heading off to scouts. I had to go to bed early because it was back to work for me the next morning.

We actually did our pirate craft the next day. Here are our rice crispy treat pirate sculptures. Frances did an island (check out the palm tree) with a cave full of gold coins. Jeffrey did a treasure chest full of gold coins and a pirate ship and a cannon. Alice-Grace copied Frances' island, but hers has barrette fish and a bridge.

(photos of rice crispy creations coming soon)

That's the end of our family camp. It was a lot of fun and the kids really got into it. They looked forward to the different themes and activities and although we didn't get to everything that I had planned, it was wonderful just to be together. I was amazed by all the FREE activities within our city and it was good for the kids to realize that you don't need to spend a ton of money to have a good time.

Family Camp Day Six: Science Day

I thought I'd start off our sixth day of "family camp" with a homemade breakfast. Well, I guess it's been a while since I've used my antique Manning Bowman waffle iron because when I turned it on, billows of smoke filled our kitchen. Instead of waking the kids up with the delicious aroma of waffles, I woke them up with the smoke alarm going off!

Well, it is science day, after all. I was glad to see that they all promptly got up and started crawling towards the front door to get outside (those fire drills must be working).

After breakfast (the waffles were yummy, by the way), we headed out to the local University campus to check out their science building. There were lots of hands-on exhibits and we all had a great time. We'll have to come back when the Planetarium is open.

Then we went to another science building to check out the fish tanks. Jeffrey was enamored with the lobster and Alice-Grace couldn't get enough of the sucker fish.

We had a nice picnic lunch on campus (where we accidentally threw away Alice-Grace's bracelets that she was keeping in her lunch sack for "safe keeping").

Then it was off to the college library. We saw an exhibit by one of our friends (if you want to be a great artist, be our neighbor -- so far in our travels we have been to museums where THREE of our past next door neighbors' artwork has been on display) and we loved checking out the huge globe. "Hey, look, it's Sri Lanka!"

(photo of us pointing to big globe coming soon)

Then we headed to the art museum (art can be a science, right?). This is where Alice-Grace remembered her lost bracelets. This induced much crying, which caused the security guards to circle around us giving us the stink-eye. I took Alice-Grace back to our lunch spot and after much trash digging, we found her bag with the treasured bracelets still inside (please note that her "bracelets" are actually hair rubber bands). We went back to the art museum and then, exhausted, headed home.

Back at home we did some science experiments on surface tension (you know, sprinkle pepper on water and then add a drop of dish soap to see them disperse) and then we brought out the Diet Coke and Mentos. We had never done this before, so it was totally exciting. It was especially fun because cousin Fred gave us a special rocket launcher just for this reason.

(photos of Diet Coke shooting into the air coming soon)

That night, we went to a local park to FINALLY do our campfire (you know, what we tried to do on day one of family camp but the weather was nasty). Nigel taught us how to build a proper fire and we roasted marshmallows. The kids loved it.

(photo of kids roasting marshmallows coming soon)

Then we did Alka-Seltzer rockets (put an Alka-Seltzer tablet and some vinegar in an empty film canister, put the lid on and watch it shoot into the air) until our container flew on top of the pavilion roof and did not roll off.

Luckily there was lots to do at the park. Frances loved playing "Robinson Crusoe" under a big pine tree. We then played at the playground and in the sand volleyball court before heading home.

Another great day of family camp! One more to go!