CatalogChoice.org: reducing paper waste

From their website:
Catalog Choice is a free service that allows you to decide what gets in
your mailbox. Use it to reduce your mailbox clutter, while helping save
natural resources.

This is pretty cool! I just signed up today. I created a free account, listed our address and the names to which we receive snail mail. I then went through the rather extensive list of catalogs (using the search feature a time or two) and selected the various catalogs that the US Post Office delivers to our mailbox - and that we then deposit directly into the recycle bins. As Shirley and I were talking about it, we kept remembering more junk that comes to us. So now, ever so slowly over the coming months, the volume of junk mail that is delivered to us should diminish. The number of wasted trees will be reduced a little. A little less fuel will be wasted in the transport of the catalogs. And the companies who produce the catalogs will be wasting less money, since we don't buy from these catalogs anyway!

So lighten your load. Go sign up and reduce your junk mail.

Reid stops recess appointments

Harry Reid has surprised me. After so many long months of the Democrats pretty much doing nothing ...lots of talk followed by giving in to Bush over and over and over ...Reid has maneuvered to technically keep the Senate in session over the next couple of weeks, according to this Washington Post article.

So why does this matter? Because it prevents Bush from doing more recess appointments (remember John Bolton?). What this also means is that we can most likely expect Bush to leave more and more departments and agencies being run by 'acting' directors and people with similar titles who are able to avoid confirmation hearings.

Now, the question this does raise in my mind is why the Dems caved and allowed Mukasey to be confirmed. Feinstein, being her pseudo-Democrat self, wrote a piece explaining her vote for Mukasey. She stated that one of the reasons was to avoid recess appointments. Well gosh, so soon after that vote we see that Reid is able to prevent the recess appointments. What the hell is going on?

But at least this is a positive action from the Dems. It's about time.

Tankless water heater installed

Back in April of this year we had a solar hot water heater installed. It's 100% passive, and I love it. But if we have a day with no sun (or several guests in the house) there's not enough hot water. We'd considered that this might be the case, and so had factored in the cost of a tankless gas-fired water heater as a supplemental system when we first decided to get rid of the original hot water tank. Fortunately for us, the local gas company (TECO Peoples Gas) has a program that allows customers to purchase a tankless water heater - installed - for US$25/month for 5 years. So it's a total of $1,500 (a little high), but the monthly payment gets included in the regular gas bill. So it's painless. I called ExpertGasPlumbers and booked it.

Here's the inside of the garage where the old tank used to be. If you click on the image and view it enlarged, you'll see the comments pointing out the piping from the rooftop solar water heating system.

And here's outside where the tankless unit gets mounted. Because we're in a warmer climate, it works well to locate the heater outside, and there's no special venting needed. It does use a little electricity for the thermostat and the ignition (there's no pilot light).

Things don't look much different on the inside with the installation all done. There is a small thermostat control, and a little extra piping. I went out to check during the installation and noticed that the guys had originally routed the pipes in a manner that would have bypassed the solar heater completely. D'OH! So I showed where things needed to be connected and they were extremely nice about it and rerouted things as needed. Whew! That could have been a fiasco!

Things look quite different on the outside, of course. Our new Rinnai R70 unit is up and running. When I first turned on the hot water inside, the new unit fired up ...once the hot water from the solar unit had flowed down, the gas-fired unit detected the water temp and shut itself off, letting the solar-heated water just flow on through. Perfect :)

More bamboo removed - more to go

Oy! This bamboo takes a while to dig up! We're past the halfway point, but that is one bugger of a plant to remove. Today we made it a few feet into it and I broke our old shovel. The good news - I guess - is that I got to pop over to Lowes and buy one truly awesome shovel. Completely steel and made with a much more reasonable design. And that baby is my new friend. But after thinking we'd finish the job today, I'm now thinking that maybe - maybe - if we do a little each evening this week and several hours on the weekend, then we ought to be able to get that bad boy DONE by this time next week. ...and then it's on to planting whatever we decide to use for our new plant screen. I do believe it's time for a glass of wine :)

Semper Fi

Today is the birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Regardless of my opinions about the Commander in Chief, I have the utmost respect for those men and women who serve and have served in the Marines. I have worked with a number of men who had served in the Marines. Two of my nephews are Marines. Both have served in Iraq and one of them is preparing to return for his third tour.

So to Jake and Josh, and to Tom, Paul, Curtis, Duane ...and countless others ...many thanks for your service. You are truly appreciated.