Some Blog Site

Our local electricity provider mailed us an informational flyer recently. They seem to have started a new program where they compare everyone’s electricity use and let you know where you stand in the rankings.

The last month’s ranking are deceptive, because we hadn’t turned the heat on much. The year-long comparison is better, because it shows our use across all seasons.

My first thought was We are winning! Our neighbors will never be able to catch up to us!

(Yes, I realize that lower is supposed to be better.)

I had many other thoughts next. I’ll try to make some semblance out of them and present them here.

2. I don’t care how much electricity my neighbors use. I use what I need, regardless of how much other people need.

3. We are a family of 6. I bet our grocery bill is significantly higher than average too.

4. Wait, isn’t the electricity company supposed to sell me electricity? Isn’t it counter-productive for them to persuade me to use less electricity? Is there a government requirement or incentive for them to do this?

5. That “Who are your Neighbors?” section is wrong too. There are not 100 nearby homes that have electric heat. Everyone I know around here has either natural gas or propane or wood stove or geothermal. We are the only ones with electric heat, which is obvious because the graph of the neighbors doesn’t change significantly in winter like mine does. Maybe the utility company is confusing geothermal with electric resistance heat.

6. I doubt the houses listed as “Most Efficient” are actually most efficient. They just happen to not use as much electricity. The utility is confusing volume with efficiency. We make good use of what we have, we just use a lot of it too.

7. It doesn’t really cost me $1707 extra per year, because the comparison doesn’t include those neighbors’ gas bills. Plus, maybe I get $2,000 worth of enjoyment out of my extra electricity. So maybe it’s a good deal.

I know we are efficient because our ranking during the summer months is right in the middle – and we are using electric oven and electric dryer and electric water heater and we are being compared with people who are using propane or natural gas.

But once the heating season starts, we will be ranked highest – 100 out of 100!

And your suggestions are nice, but if we really are $1700 over what we should be, a mere $300 savings won’t cut it. Do you have any suggestions for the other $1400?

Maybe if their campaign is successful, everyone will end up below average! That is their goal, right? Like the opposite of Lake Wobegon.

I don’t watch much soccer, but I have seen enough youth games to know the stereotypical kindergarten-level soccer involves one clump of kids following/surrounding the ball. It makes for a bad soccer game – each player attacking the ball from his own angle, but all at the same time so it never goes anywhere.

Much better are the soccer games where each player has an assigned role and stays in that zone. Here’s a diagram in case you can’t picture it.

Since I’m not a soccer fan, why am I writing about this? Because it applies to work.

Bad coaches let the players clump around the ball.

Bad managers assign workers to clump around the critical issue.

“Ted, what are you working on?”
“The Barnum project”
“We have an urgent issue with the Bailey project and I need you to help Fred with that for the next month.”
“Who will do the Barnum work?”
“Don’t worry about that – it’s not as critical as Bailey.”
One month later, the Barnum project is behind schedule and the boss scrambles to find people who can make up for lost time on that one. Of course, he pulls people off their currently on-time projects, which will soon become problems. It doesn’t take long until all their customers are unhappy about the rushed work and poor planning going into their products.

In my office, workers are engineers. Our critical tasks don’t usually scale up well (i.e. more people does not mean quicker resolution). But some managers don’t realize that.

If your manager wonders why it’s bad to send everyone from fire to fire, ask him how he would coach a soccer team.

I took a few books on vacation this year. Some were for the kids to read and I wanted to read them first. I also brought Septimus Heap books 3 and 4, since I’ve read only 1 and 2. But I didn’t get to them. What I did read were these:

• Soup Ahoy
  One of the Soup series by Robert Newton Peck. This was my favorite of the series, and the first one I read. If I had known it would be my favorite, I would have read it last so that I could enjoy the others better.
• Soup
  The first of the Soup series by Robert Newton Peck. After I started reading this, I remembered parts of it and realized that I had read this back when I was about my son’s age. Still entertaining now though.
• Soup on Fire
  One of the Soup series by Robert Newton Peck. It was fine, but the plot was too similar to Soup Ahoy.
• A Squire’s Tale
  The first of the The Squire’s Tales series by Gerald Morris. I look forward to reading some of his The Knights’ Tales series next year, and then reading the rest of this series. I liked the characters he added, the extra magic, to the stories of the knights of Camelot. I recommend it for, say, 5th grade and up.
• White Fang
  The classic by Jack London. After reading newer books targeted for younger kids, I thought this one started out rather slowly. Page after page of descriptions of tundra. I wondered how tedious the book would be and if I would have the motivation to finish it on my vacation.

  It didn’t become a classic by being boring.

  The initial descriptions are there to set the stage. There is richness in the details. They help engage the reader, who must actually read the story and not just peruse it.

  I read it more quickly than I thought I would. Good book.

• A Series of Unfortunate Events – The Bad Beginning
  The first of the Lemony Snicket series. I thought I would read it to see if I wanted Alpha to read the series. I knew they were popular, so I started looking at it in the library. Alpha saw me holding it and mentioned that he was on book 3 of the series. So much for staying ahead of the curve. Apparently, they read the first two books in class last year (3rd grade).

  I checked the book out of the library anyway.

  I didn’t like it.

  Other than the mistreatment of children, which was correctly presented as something bad (think Oliver Twist), there was not much objectionable in this book. It was just not captivating. I think it seemed too gloomy or depressing, which Mr. Snicket did warn me about before I started reading. I just didn’t think it would be as bad as it was.

  Other books that I have tried, such as the Septimus Heap series or the Percy Jackson series or The Knights’ Tales series, have left me eager to read the subsequent books in the series. Lemony Snicket did not.

  If you’re wondering for a series to read and you’ve exhausted all other options, maybe try it. Alpha can read the rest of the series if he wants, but he’s on his own.

That was it for this summer – 6 books. Time to start planning for next year.

My high school class reunion was this past weekend.

I didn’t go, mainly because I wasn’t invited.

I happened to be talking to a classmate’s mom a couple of weeks before the event and that’s how I learned they were having the event.

We already had a busy weekend planned by then, so it wouldn’t have worked.

But I figured out why they couldn’t find me:

I’m not on Facebook.

Never mind that my parents have been in the same house for the last 43 years.

Never mind that my brother is an administrator at our high school and they contacted him about scheduling a tour of the new building.

Never mind that you can type my name into a search engine and get my contact information.

Since my name is not in Facebook, I don’t exist.

I hope I don’t sound bitter, because I’m not – I’m rather amused by it.

I suppose Facebook makes life easier for reunion organizers. But does it also make them lazier?

Of course, I know the various ways to contact me, so it’s easy to rattle them off. And they might not know the connections.

Still, it’s fun to speculate how, in the year 2013, someone can remain uncontactable.

I mean, they could have at least checked my Classmates.com account…

No, not someone who posts.

Rather, an informational/inspirational/motivational piece of paper. Although it’s not on paper. Unless you print it.

My two main hobbies these days are running and perusing real estate listings. I forget what caused me to combine the two, but I got to thinking about my waist size and urban sprawl. Here is my conclusion:

Fat cells are like subdivisions – when one is full, a new one grows nearby. But the old one never disappears.

Or, if you want to think of it the other way:

Subdivisions are like fat cells – when one is full, a new one grows nearby. But the old one never disappears.

Normally, I do my book review post in mid July, after we have gone on vacation. That’s because I don’t normally read full-length books until summer vacation – that’s when I make time for that.

Since we had a spring-break vacation this year, I got to read a couple books earlier in the year.

First book: “Legal Fables” by Ray O. Sage.

This book doesn’t quite qualify because it is not a novel. There is no story; rather, it is a collection of short stories. Each chapter tells how someone (humorously named) has or gets into legal trouble and concludes with a moral (usually that one should consult a lawyer in that situation).

The book was amusing and somewhat educational, especially if you want to know about wills and trusts.

Next book: “I Am Half-Sick of Shadows” (a Flavia de Luce mystery) by Alan Bradley.

If you are not familiar with Flavia de Luce, stop reading this blog, go to your library, and check out the whole series.

If you don’t want the whole series, get the first book (“The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie”). I liked all of them except for the second one (“The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag”).

“I Am Half-Sick of Shadows” was good. I recommend it.

Next book: “Speaking From Among the Bones” (a Flavia de Luce mystery) by Alan Bradley.

“Speaking From Among the Bones” was better than the previous book. It would have been my favorite of the whole series except for the ending. I think it’s not a spoiler to say the book ends, but the story doesn’t. In other words, the author may as well just put a giant “To Be Continued…” at the end of the last chapter of this book.

The mystery part of the story is concluded quite nicely and neatly, but the larger themes that run through the series are not concluded. In fact, they become more complicated. I assume it is being setup for a good conclusion in a later book (next book is scheduled for 2014). But it does leave a dissatisfied taste in one’s brain after finishing the book. Your alternative is to wait until the series is done before you start reading it.

Next book: “The Trials of Lance Eliot” by M.L. Brown.

I read this book last year (read my review of Lance Eliot), but I read the Kindle version. Now I finally have the paperback version.

Again, the main problem with this book is that it needs a sequel to resolve some questions. The series is supposed to be a trilogy, but the other two books are not done yet. So you can either order “The Trials of Lance Eliot” now, or wait until the trilogy is complete.

Last book: “Quitter” by Jon Acuff.

I wasn’t originally planning to read this book, but it was a gift so I didn’t want to be rude.

Why was I not going to read this book? Because I’m content. The types of people who want to read this book might call it complacency rather than contentment.

According to the book, I fall into the group of people who believe the “This job just funds my real life” myth. But it works. And I will probably be content until it doesn’t work.

I want to like the book, and I want to heartily recommend it to other people. But that’s because I have a connection with the author, not because of the book itself. The book was fine; I didn’t dislike the book. For people who are not content with where they are in life, this book should be a good help. I’m just not at a stage in my life where I appreciate the book as much as other people do. Sorry for the lackluster review, Jon.

Here I rank one’s chances of regret for various actions:

Always Regret

• reading urban dictionary

Usually Regret

• tattoos

Sometimes Regret

• pressing Send without thinking “how would this look in court?”

Never Regret

• opting for bacon

Here is something else on which to ruminate:
Must you gret something first before you can regret it?