Saved a bundle on my insurance

Florida insurance sucks. No two ways about it really. Before moving down here a few years ago, we'd read many times that the cost of living is lower in Florida compared to the Pacific Northwest from whence we came. Not true. WAGES are less, but cost of living is more ...and increasing. When we first moved into our house, we paid $800 for a year of homeowner insurance. Just over two years later, we received a notice this past April that our rate was increasing (again) and we would now be paying $2,986 per year.

Fortunately, someone at work mentioned that State Farm was again writing policies in Florida. The restriction was that the home has to be newer (my guess is to have been built to the newer building codes), and that the home has to be at least 500 feet from water (I think that was the scoop ...in any case, we meet both of those requirements, whether they are real or not). So I looked online and sent an email to our local State Farm rep -- who, it turns out, lives in our neighborhood.

Bottom line: we will save $181 per MONTH on our homeowner and auto insurance by switching to State Farm. I signed the papers today, and have contacted our other insurance carriers and the mortgage company.

We'd been paying Universal Insurance Company of North America $2,986 for a year of homeowner insurance, and had been paying Progressive $3,324 per year to insure our cars (Shirley's, Ben's, and mine ...all are 10 years or more old, so none has collision coverage). With State Farm, for slightly better coverage, we will be paying $1,723 per year for homeowner coverage, and $2,413 per year for auto insurance. That's an annual savings of $2,174!!! $181 per month. Wow. I knew something was messed up when we'd gotten notice from Universal earlier in the year about a huge rate increase. We are outside of all evacuation zones. We have metal storm panels to cover all windows and doors. We have a fire hydrant one house over, monitored fire and burglar alarm, newer home, no dogs, etc., etc. We are a good risk. Yet a huge (I think it was 30%) increase, when the news was touting the law changes that should reduce premiums.

It pays to shop around.

Solar water heat: I've had a few lukewarm showers

Our passive solar water heating system was installed on 23 April 2007 ...almost 2 months ago. If the weather stays sunny, the system works great. Morning showers are as hot as one would like. But now that the storm season is upon us, we are finding that if we have a full day of overcast weather, then the water doesn't get up as hot as we'd like.

On the morning after a sunny day, I have to have the shower faucet set to about half hot and half cold -- any more than that and it would be too hot. On the morning after a full day of clouds, even with the faucet turned all the way to hot, the shower is only warm.

Well, this was not unexpected. We had hoped that we could get by with just the passive system, no tank in the garage, and zero energy consumption aside from what the sun delivers for free. Now it's on to Plan B. Our plan all along was that if we discovered that we sometimes needed more hot water, then we would install a gas-fired, tankless water heater as a backup. So we'll start shopping for something like this Bosch unit. The cost is about $750 ...so even if have someone else install it (still deciding), after the federal tax credit, our net would be a cost of about $700 or less. We'll see. And the periodic lukewarm shower isn't really that bad anyway :)

East Hillsborough County Democrats meeting: Tues 12 June 2007

What: East Hillsborough County Democratic Club monthly meeting
When: Tuesday evening, 12 June 2007, from 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Where: Starting this month, meetings are in the private room at Giordano's Pizzeria and Restaurant (11310 Causeway Blvd., Brandon map)

There will be TWO guest speakers this month:

• Mark Biero - With years of experience as a Progressive voice on local radio, Mr. Biero will share his thoughts on the current state of affairs on radio and throw in some entertaining stories.
• Janee Murphy - Secretary of the Florida Democratic Party. She is a member of the Democratic National Committee and served as a Delegate to Democratic National Convention in 2004. Murphy is formerly the Chair of the Hillsborough Democratic Executive Committee. Ms Murphy will have an update on the presidential primary date and what the state party's position is on it so far.

See you there!

Spain was incredible

We just returned from 2 weeks in Spain -- 9 nights in Barcelona (with a day trip to Gerona and Figueres ...very cool!), and 4 nights in Madrid (with a day trip down to Toledo). Madrid is a larger city, but I think we did it right by devoting more time in Barcelona. There is so much of architectural interest in/near Barcelona, and Picasso and Dali museums nearby ...and of course there would be FC Barcelona! (the real reason we stayed some extra nights in Barcelona was to be able to attend a match ...and it was incredible)

Pictured here (click the thumbnail for full image) is the Sagrada Familia - designed by Antoni Gaudí, and in a perpetual state of construction :) ...A big part of our attraction to Barcelona is the influence that Gaudí had on the city's architecture.

So a few observations for now, and many pics and videos and info to be posted later:

• While octopus sushi is way too chewy, properly prepared octopus tapas is fantastic
• Garlic shrimp tapas and vino tinto cannot be beat
• It seems that simply ordering cerveza anywhere in Spain results in a glass of decent beer. No need to designate brand (although I did also have a pint of Guiness a couple of times :)
• The Metro in Barcelona and in Madrid is great. I rank Barcelona's a little better than Madrid in terms of ease of use. We used the Metro to go everywhere
• I know several folks from Ireland. They each have a different accent. None is as thick as that of the Irish gent with whom I was chatting at the FC Barcelona match. I had to tell him quite honestly, "I'm sorry, but I didn't understand a word of that". His buddy, from elsewhere in the UK, had to translate for us :)
• Cars in the city are much smaller than we see in the US (we've noticed that elsewhere in Europe as well). But we were surprised to note that as we got further out from the city (on the way to Gerona) the cars got larger, looking much more like the oversized vehicles in the US
• Voter frustration is not confined to the US. I was chatting one evening with a buddy from Barcelona who lamented about the dearth of real choices
• No matter how much we enjoy seeing other places and cultures, it's always good to get home to one's own bed :)

Cheers

Cable modem vs Verizon FIOS?

We're currently using a BrightHouse cable modem to connect to the Internet. The connection has been getting rather unreliable, and I'm considering switching to Verizon FIOS.  So I'm looking for any feedback anyone has about experiences pro or con with these services.

With our BrightHouse connection, I've swapped out the modem a couple of times (by schlepping it to the local BrightHouse office and exchanging it). There's no cost involved, but it's a hassle and should not be necessary. I've also changed coax cables a couple of times. What's odd to me is that our cable television feed seems to work almost 100% of the time (we typically will have some minor outages during the hurrican storm season). So I now (again) have a BrightHouse technician scheduled to come to the house and see if they can figure this out.

The fiber connection from Verizon is enticing. For US$50 a month, we can get 20 Mbps down/ 5 Mbps up ...which is about double what we currently have for throughput. I'm trying to verify with Verizon that the wireless router that they say I would have to use will allow me to disable SSID broadcast, use MAC address filtering, and use WPA encryption. The sales folks are quite friendly, but know very little of the technical details ...which is a whole 'nother issue that I'll choose to ignore at the moment :)

So... anyone have any feedback?

I'll continue researching and will post findings and whatever we decide to do. Cheers :)