Twitter Updates for 2008-07-10

• watching strong bad for the first time in years. #
• @pennig If you stay away from google reader too long, you’re just asking for trouble. #
• I’ve been on hold for 5 minutes with no hold music, i’m so bored. #
• is it too much to ask to have consistent and predictable weather? #

cost efficient living

I have been thinking a lot lately about the energy crisis and our wallet draining window air conditioners. My research has taught me that a $30k install of solar panels should be enough to power your entire house and send the excess back to the city for a cash credit.  Time for Math…

My house is dirt old and energy bills at peak times upwards of $300 a month and at the low times about $180 per month.  If I financed solar panels for my house my monthly payment would be about $285 per month, but I wouldn’t have to pay a monthly electricity bill and the extra amount would actually make money from the electric company (I have not been able to find any details about what kind of credit you get).  So over the course of the year the solar panels would probably cost you a little bit more not including the unknown credit amount.  Of course I would need the resources available to finance this deal.

A much greater option is putting solar panels on new build houses.  I’m going to assume that the cost of installing solar panels during the build of a house would reduce the price of the panels and installation by 25%, so instead of paying $30k for the panels you are only paying $22.5k.  But you still gotta pay for it, right?  But when you amortize that into the price of a house you see a huge difference, the cost of a $220k mortgage for 30 years at 6.5% is $1390.55 but the payment on a similar mortgage for $242k is $1529.60 at a difference of only $139.05 and you never have to pay an electricity bill.  Once you sell that house and someone else buys it the actual cost of those solar panels have completely disappeared.

This seems like a no-brainer to me, and I just can’t figure out why we are not seeing this in practice.  Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?  Not to mention the tax benefits on the state and federal level and the cash rebate program that the State of Minnesota runs.

-Josh

Ginger in the shower on a busy saturday

We started stripping the paint off of the old bathroom door today.  Our plan is to convert that original bathroom door into a pocket door.  Originally we were going to just repaint the doors but after stripping the paint off we really like the wood color, and now we are rethinking what we want to do with the the doors and the trim.

Stripping paint is terrible work.

I also stripped the paint off of these door plates and I think they could be very nice looking, but I have no idea what kind of metal they are or how to finish them to look the best.

And I thought I would share this picture I snapped of Ginger tonight while we were giving her a bath.

Last night I had some fun at Best Buy helping my parents pick out a brand new HDTV.  I’m surprised at the quality of HDTV’s, I don’t think they are very good.  You really get what you pay for and the affordable ones are just crap.  The CRT HDTV that we got two years ago still has one of the best looking pictures I’ve seen, it’s too bad it’s gigantic.  My parents ended up with a Sony Bravia 32in and for the price I think it was the best thing Best Buy had to offer.

-Josh

Professional Communication 06/03/2008

Work was unbearably busy today.  Did you know everyone in the world comes to my bank to cash their social security check on the third of each month?  It’s true.

We had some customers arrested today too.  They were trying to cash a check for 2k that had some obvious red flags and one of our bankers was able to keep the customers attention occupied until the cops showed up and walked them out in cuffs.  Cool huh?

If nothing else, my Professional Communication course allows me time to IM, blog and spend some good quality time with Travian.  Just a few weeks left of this course.  Tonight we are writing a dress code for a company… Something like this sounds good. ->

Just so we are clear, Firefox 3 RC1 is the best web browser ever.  I can only imagine that the final product will be even better.

There hasn’t been much news in my life.  My parents are still dealing with their house, they are moving into a townhouse this weekend and that’s where they will stay for the next several months while their house gets fixed.

I guess I gotta do some work now.  Parting question: “What would the dress code be for your business if you were in control?”

-Josh

no more twitter updates

Is that okay?

Dads tornado photos

Here are the pictures that my dad took of the storm damage in Hugo.

http://picasaweb.google.com/glenn.schlick

 

-Josh