News and Views From my kids accomplishments, to my heretical perspective of the world

Here’s Devon’s latest commercial, for Lipton Peach ice tea.

I bought $3.90 cents worth of electricity this month from the local utility, SRP. With the $15 service charge and taxes, my total bill will be about $20. Last year I paid $113 in April.

I was actually building up a credit, but then two things happened:
1) We had a few cloudy and partly cloudy days last week when I didn’t make as much electricity;
2) I bought the Chevy Volt electric car half-way through the billing period that can use up to 10 KWh a day to fully charge.

All that considered, the $3.90 is not bad at all.

The weather is starting to turn hot — we should hit 100 this weekend — so my bills are going to go way up. But I still expect to save $100 or more each month.

I posted a few days ago about mixed marriages. Interestingly, the Pew Research Group just published a survey on mixed marriages in the US. A few results:

— About 15% of all new marriages in the US in 2010 were interracial, compared with less than 7% in 1980.

— About 9% of white, 17% of black, and 27% of Asian newlyweds in 2010 were in interracial marriages. I think this may partially reflect the ratio of available partners in the general population. If you are non-white, there are many more potential white spouses than of your own race.

— Broken down by gender, white men and women were about equally likely to enter interracial marriages (9%), but Asian women were at 36% vs. Asian men at less than 17%. This mirrored the street scene I saw in Thailand.

— Interracial marriages in general are more likely to divorce, with a notable exception that Asian/white marriages were LESS likely to divorce than white/white marriages.

I woke up this morning before 7:00 to the sound of boots on the roof. They got an early start.

The job for today was to install the mounts into the roof that the panels will attach to. They also mounted the inverter to the wall.
As usual, right-click and select “View Image” to see a larger version of the picture.

Here are the workers early this morning moving tiles around on the roof.

Here’s what one mount looks like. The tiles still haven’t all been replaced.

Here you can see several of the mounts, after the workers had finished for the day.

Here’s the inverter, attached to the wall just inside the gate. It is huge! This location doesn’t get much sun because of the neighbor’s house, but to prevent any sun at all from shining on it they will put an awning over it. I have no idea what the awning will look like.

They will come back on Monday and Tuesday to finish the job.

We made it to Taiwan, but not without some excitement. As we were getting ready to go, at 4 in the morning, Derek slipped while running down the stairs. His foot hurt, but he was able to walk on it.

We barely made the plane to San Francisco, but finally seemed like we were safely on our way. But when Derek tried to stand up, he couldn’t put any weight on his foot. He made it to the door of the plane, but had to be met there with a wheelchair.

The rest of the trip he got wheelchair rides on and off the planes, in Tokyo and Taipei. It actually wasn’t bad, being taken to the front of the lines, boarding early. The worst part was being the last off the plane, but then we zoomed past the other passengers waiting at immigration or security.

The next day he was feeling much better, and able to walk a little. By now, he is back to normal.

We made it to Taiwan, but not without some excitement. As we were getting ready to go, at 4 in the morning, Derek slipped while running down the stairs. His foot hurt, but he was able to walk on it.

We barely made the plane to San Francisco, but finally seemed like we were safely on our way. But when Derek tried to stand up, he couldn’t put any weight on his foot. He made it to the door of the plane, but had to be met there with a wheelchair.

The rest of the trip he got wheelchair rides on and off the planes, in Tokyo and Taipei. It actually wasn’t bad, being taken to the front of the lines, boarding early. The worst part was being the last off the plane, but then we zoomed past the other passengers waiting at immigration or security.

The next day he was feeling much better, and able to walk a little. By now, he is back to normal.

The doctor today said I can lose the sling. He is very pleased with my “excellent” progress, but warned me to not get cocky and try to do too much. Another 6 weeks of slow strengthening, and then I can start to ramp it up once the repair is strong enough.

But I can:
– Run
– Ride a bike
– Sleep on that side
– Dribble a basketball (but not shoot)

After 6 weeks, it is a start of a return to normalcy.

Mom/Grandma got some new hearing aids yesterday, and it looks like they are going to be a big improvement.

She got the Bernafon Verite 6 from Costco. After putting them in, she thought they weren’t working at first because sounds weren’t distorted or tinny sounding like they were with her previous hearing aids. Yet she could hear us talking even in quiet voices, so obviously they were working.

Later, sitting at home in her apartment, she suddenly looked up at her cuckoo clock and said, “I can hear it ticking!” She hasn’t heard that for a long time.

They come with Bluetooth, a wireless connection. It allows her to hear her TV directly through the hearing aids, and also answer and talk on the telephone without touching the phone.

The TV part works well, but there is a bug or defect in the telephone system. I could get her cell phone working fine, but not the home phone. So for now she will have to continue actually picking up the handset to talk. But I’m pretty sure we will get that worked out eventually.

So welcome back to the hearing world, Mom!

What? Wait a minute — I thought the ACLU was against religion…

Students wanted to post the Ten Commandments on their school lockers, but the school wouldn’t let them. The ACLU defended the students right to do so.

Sounds backwards, doesn’t it? But this is exactly the point. The ACLU defends civil liberties, period. One of those liberties is freedom of religion, and the concomitant separation of church and state.

If a public school administration was posting religious sentiments, that would violate the separation of church and state. The government can’t promote one religion over another. However if a student is allowed to post anything on their locker, but is prohibited from posting religious items, such as the Ten Commandments, that ALSO violates the separation clause, because then you have a government entity discriminating on the basis of religion.

The ACLU is not anti-religion. It is pro- freedom of religion.