What Are the Pros and Cons of Going Off the Grid?

People see big power companies ever increasing their costs. As energy cost go up for the long term, more people look for ways to use less energy to save money. People keep paying and paying the utility company and the bill gets higher and higher. With the cost of energy ever increasing to new highs, there are more people then ever looking into using alternative energy in their homes as a cost savings.

The Mother Earth News article dated June 19, 2009 What Are the Pros and Cons of Going Off the Grid? by Linda Pinkham talks about the overall scope of going off the grid. Pinkham discusses some of the basic equipment advantages and drawbacks but didn't go into the true depth of the issues of costs versus benefits.

On May 21, 2009, Pinkham also wrote What’s the Average Cost to Install a Solar-Electric System to Power Your Home? The average home has an incoming electrical line of 240 Volts that delivers 100 Amps. Using Ohms law where Volts X Amps = Watts, the average home is capable of using up to 24,000 Watts (24 kW) of power.  In Pinkham's article the installation and materials of a "10kW Gigantic" off grid system, less then half the average home's total capacity, would be over $100,000. He also lists a 5kW larger than average system costing $52,000.

When is it going to pay back?

Once a a good estimate of the cost for installation and materials is obtained, people want to know when it's going to pay off. Using the PVWatts Version 1 Calculator and, assuming a 7.9 ¢/kWh, from where I'm at in Minnesota a solar system installed would provide a cost savings of $406.22 worth of energy per year. Can that be right? With the $52,000 - 5kW larger than average system, it would take over 100 years to break even. 

What isn't discussed in those articles is the lifespan of the extra electrical equipment that is needed to be off grid. Deep Cycle Batteries used in these systems have a limited lifespan. The most popular Deep Cycle AGM would have an average life of only four to eight years (http://www.windsun.com/Batteries/Battery_FAQ.htm#Lifespan%20of%20Batteries).

I have heard people who are interested in going off the grid say that their energy costs were too high. Those who are interested in going off the grid should start slowly by decreasing their energy consumption while on the grid. I think that it's good there are people like Ed Begley, Jr. out there that have their sustainable homes just to help the environment. At the same time, to go off the grid thinking that one would actually save money just doesn't make sense.

The impact of the earthquake disaster has been felt worldwide and extends to the promotional product business.

By John A. Stefani

From time to time I receive quote request from customers for Flash Drives. Here is an e-mail from one of the suppliers and, I thought I would pass this along.

Dear John,

We all watched helplessly as the nation of Japan suffered unimaginable devastation from earthquakes and tsunamis last week. The impact of this natural disaster has been felt worldwide and extends to the promotional product business.

Japan manufactures 50% of the circuit boards used to make USB flash drives. With Japan unable to manufacture these necessary components of flash memory, China has reported a 30-50% increase in flash memory prices overnight along with immediate shortages. We are working diligently to determine how to minimize the impact to you and are committed to communicating additional information as it becomes available.

Thank you for your partnership, and we look forward to working through this challenge together.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Japan for a speedy recovery.

To help victims of the Disaster, please visit the American Red Cross.

Sincerely...

(Note: Some editing on the e-mail had been done to protect the confidentiality of the supplier.) 

WiFi-Powered Chargers

Rca Airnergy Charger Uses Signals to Juice Up Gadgets

How can a cloud get a job recruiters attention

Last week I applied for a customer service position with MAC at the Minneapolis International Airport. I could easily do all the job qualifications, but one.

After I had submitted the online application, I immediately called the person that was responsible for receiving the applications. I had asked her when they would they would complete the process of selecting the top candidates.

She was really nice on giving me an indication when I should call back. I told her that I had all the qualifications except one and she informed me that that specific qualification was going to be weighted more then all the other ten required qualifications.

After they had a chance to review all the applications, I called her back. She informed me that they had received over 260 applications and because I didn't have that one qualification I wasn't going to be considered for the position. Because they had such a large pool of applicants, having 10 out of the 11 requirements wasn't enough. WOW!!

Being that the information on online applications are digital, many get scanned by a computer program. This computer program is looking for key skill words or buzz words that the employer is wanting their new employee to have.

When scanning hundreds of application, if you don't have all the buzz words, YOUR OUT!!!

As a job seeker, I was told over and over again to customize each resume and cover letter to reflect the needs of the company for the position. Every time I did an online application, I looked over the job description and the company's website to eyeball what I thought were the most important words. I'm sure I missed a lot of the key words.

Wouldn't it be great if there was website or program that would scan companies webpages and job descriptions to find the most likely buzz words?

Get a free PDF creator that anyone can use

When I first got into my job search, I printed all the job descriptions I applied for. I did this so I could reference them later on when a hiring manager would contact me. This meant that I would have to keep the paper in folders and organized so I could quickly find them later.

Even if I didn't get the interview, I would still have to store all those paper copies of job descriptions. On top of that, it could be months before I could hear something about the next step of the job process.

Lately, I have been using PrimoPDF. In my job search it's been really useful. It is so nice not having to run to the printer and then file the job descriptions for later use. I just save them in my computer in a folder with my customized Resume and Cover Letter for that position.  

PrimoPDF is a free, high-quality PDF creation utility that enables printing to PDF from virtually any Windows application. PrimoPDF is the world's most widely-used free PDF creation tool, and is the #1 ranked "PDF Software" utility on Download.com.

PrimoPDF is the basic PDF writer of Nitro PDF Software.

Nitro PDF Software allows more control over the documents. With Nitro PDF one can create forms as well as highlight and edit PDF documents.  Click here to see the comparison
  
PrimoPDF acts just like a printer where instead of the file going to print it creates a PDF. Of course, I can always hard print the PDF document later with my printer. PrimoPDF is perfect for those who don't need to edit PDF files or those who are on a strict budget. One could always choose to upgrade to Nitro PDF later.

Minnesota Speed Traps Part 2 - Have you gotten a speeding ticket lately?

Last week I did a post on Rosemount Minnesota Speed Traps. I received comments about speeds traps through my Facebook page. The friend that commented on that said there is a site called Trapster. I looked into Trapster and it is a FREE service that allows users to share the location of police speed traps using mobile phones and other types of devices.  

I love free.

They brag over 3.8 million logged speed traps and around 4000 new traps posted daily. I looked through the Trapster website and it is mainly designed for these phones:

• iPhone
• BlackBerry
• Android (the TMobile G1 and others)
• Nokia N95, N96, N97, 5800, E71, and other Symbian s60 phones
• Palm WebOS phones such as Pre and Pixi
• Windows Mobile touch screen phones with 6.0, 6.1, or 6.5 OS and GPS
• Unlocked J2ME phones with GPS (for example the Sprint Samsung Instinct) 

I'm a techie type of guy--at the same time--I'm also frugal.  I don't have the most updated phone to use Trapster. I do, though, have the latest TomTom XL GPS. I found that I could download Trapster data and it can be inserted into a Garmin, TomTom, or other GPS Navigation Device.

What Trapster does for us GPS users is creates four POI (Points of Interest) for your GPS. These are:  

1. trapster-combo-camera-ahead
2. trapster-police-enforcement-point-ahead
3. trapster-red-light-camera-ahead
4. trapster-speed-camera-ahead

Once the .zip files are downloaded to a computer, one would just need to load all the files into the GPS.

Basically one needs to connect the GPS to the computer and go into the downloaded Trapster .zip file and copy and paste the files into the correct folder in the GPS using the instructions that Trapster provides on their website. Once the files are in the GPS then someone must activate the POIs and configure alerts on the TomTom. That's about four steps for each of the four POIs. These settings are important to do since they tell the GPS to speak out or warn you when you approach a Trapster POI.

One must remember to periodically go into the Trapster website (I'd say about once a week) and get the updates. This part is a bit of a pain. Perhaps they should have some software that would insert those updates into the correct folder automatically when the GPS is connected to the computer.

I've used it for a week in my GPS. Though I have yet to see a cop sitting at a Trapster speed trap, in the areas that I am familiar with normally having speed traps, the Trapster POI has been accurate.

Here is the link to Trapster:  http://www.trapster.com/

Fender Concert Light Bulb and Radio Shack

The indicator light bulb on my Fender Concert II Guitar Amp went out. I removed the red crystal and removed the bulb and the only thing that was on the stem of the bulb is T47 .8. After doing a quick search on google.com the best price I saw was 2 Fender T47 Replacement Bulbs for Fender Tube Amps for $5.69 and plus $2.95 shipping from the website that has the name of a aggressive women or vixen.

Looking for a deal, I proceeded to the Radio Shack website hoping to see if the local Radio Shack Store carried them. Seeing that their website didn't list anything else besides flashlight bubs, didn't discourage me from trying to get one at a local store.

I went to the Fender website and it said that Good Guys Inc Pro Audio in St Paul on Grand Ave was the closest place who sold their parts. I wasn't about to make a special trip there, so I figured that it would probably be a while before I'd get there. I then looked up the info for Schmidt's Music in Burnsville MN. Z suggest we go shopping for some groceries in Apple Valley. Since Radio Shack was in the same mall as the grocery store, I suggested we try to get the bulb at "the shack".

After the clerk and I compared the old bulb with about a dozen of the ones they had we finally found the exact one. They sold a pair for $2. WOW!

I had heard some rumors of Radio Shack:

RadioShack looking for a buyer, possibly Best Buy March 26, 2010

10 Brands That May Disappear in 2011  Thursday July 8, 2010

Forbes.com (January 24, 2010) states in an article, "Radio Shack announced that CEO Julian Day will retired as chairman and CEO effective May 16; he’ll be succeeded by CFO Jim Gooch, who becomes president of the company effective immediately, and will take the CEO slot once Day departs. The company named Daniel Feehan, now the presiding director and a board member since 2003, as non-executive chairman."

Z and I came home after our errands and I installed the bulb and it worked perfectly. Radio Shack offers tons of small electronic components, and I wouldn't like at all if they went out of business or totally abandon the geeky project customer base.

First going after Taco Bell next Kellogg's?

by John A Stefani






Beasley Allen has handled cases involving verdicts and settlements totaling more than $20 billion.

Beasley Allen currently holds U.S. records for largest verdicts/settlements in 4 categories: oil, pharmaceutical drug, environmental settlements and predatory lending. Their website states that they have a national reputation for being at the forefront of Consumer Litigation.

The critics say that Taco Bell's meat filling product would fall below the already generous USDA standard for it to qualify as meat and they say the present standard demands it consist of at least 40 percent meat.

According to the USDA Glossary in the "M" section:

Meat
The flesh of animals used as food including the dressed flesh of cattle, swine, sheep, or goats and other edible animals, except fish, poultry, and wild game animals.

Meat Base
A granular, paste-like product which is shelf-stable primarily because of its high salt content (30-40%).

1. Beef Base - 15% beef or 10.5% cooked beef.
2. Pork Base - 15% pork or 10.5% cooked pork.
3. Ham Base - 18% ham.

In the USDA Glossary in the "B" section, beef is states as being "Meat from full-grown cattle about two years old. “Baby beef” and “calf” are interchangeable terms used to describe young cattle weighing about 700 pounds that have been raised mainly on milk and grass."

Interviewed on KGET.com, Donna Fenton, Cheif Environmental Health Specialist for Kern County Environmental Health Department stated that, "Taco Bells saying its isolated oat products, wheat oats, soy lecithin, malodextrin, anti dusting agent, autolyzed yeast extract modified corn starch and sodium phosphate as well as beef and seasoning with the taco meat filling definition that may still be all allowed."

According to the St Paul Pioneer Press "Experts say similar ingredients are used in many processed foods sold in stores.'

I would really like to see the actual USDA statement with their standards of meat.

I had heard a rumor that once the lawsuit against Taco Bell resolved then, Beasley Allen is going after Kellogg's Keebler products for not having any Elfin Magic in their products.

How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

More Wasteful Government Spending in New Orleans

A January 16, 2011 NY Times article 5 Years After Katrina, Teacher Tills Soil of Lower 9th Ward stated that there is still much that can be done in New Orleans' lower 9th ward. According to the writer, Charles Wilson, "Five years after the levees broke in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Lower Ninth Ward remains largely a place where time has stood still. Lots where shotgun houses once stood are empty and overgrown with tall grasses. Gutted homes with smashed windows list to one side."

Wilson isn't the only one that had seen that more needs to be done. According to It's a tortoise's pace, but New Orleans Ninth Ward is changing one house at a time written by David Karas of the The Times, "While the Quarter, the center of tourism for New Orleans, has been completely restored and bears no reminders of Katrina, it is just the opposite in the residential areas within walking distance of the levees that were breeched."

Today I was reading the January 2011 issue of Travel South USA magazine and they highlighted:  Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond, a 6,700 square-foot interactive multimedia exhibition to opened on the ground floor of the Presbytere October 26th, 2010. It remembers the events of the Katrina, the Atlantic hurricane of 2005, and show cases the renewal of New Orleans.

It is a $7.5 million exhibit!!  That's $7,500,000. I think it's good to chronicle and commemorate the tragic events of that great hurricane at the same time that's way too much that was spent for this exhibit.

How many homes could have been build for $7.5 million?

Is your iTunes account being sold online

Your iTunes account could be being sold online all over China for prices as low as just a few bucks.

On December 19, 2010, I happened to get an email receipt saying that I had made some purchases through iTunes. The purchases were for $19 worth of games, songs and video. Someone was able to hack my account and use the gift card credit that I had remaining in the account. I thought that it was an isolated issue.

But no, I was wrong, dead wrong...

Beer is Filling Up Cups Through the Bottom! Got to See

Here is an interesting concept for Jaycee beer pouring events!!

Here are the Top Three Winning Posts of December 2010

Have a Happy New Year!

In the right hand column there is a listing of the top three blog posts of the week.

These winners are rated by you, my friends of this blog. 

They are rated by how many page views they received in December 2010. 

 And the winners are:

Where's the 'charity' in charitable gambling? I'll tell you where...

by John A Stefani

Where's the 'charity' in charitable gambling? | StarTribune.com

Response to the The StarTribune.com article by Jean Hoppensperger

Hoppensperger did a marginal job representing the current issues of charitable gaming in the state of Minnesota. Charitable gaming in past years had been a huge contributor to charities and they still make significant contributions. Just not as much. There was a time when most gaming managers of charitable gaming operations could budget a month’s revenues based on the revenue’s of the same month in the prior year. This is true no more. What should have been researched and explained better in Hoppensperger’s article is why?

Let Natural Talents Guide Your Career

Today, I went to a session called the Natural Talent and Genetic Skills test facilitated by Michael Monroe Kiefer M.S. Through his research, he discovered that the people who are most successful or “Peak Performers” in many different fields had similar characteristics. One characteristic they had was they all set goals. The second characteristic they had is that they also had a positive self image and saw themselves as being successful. The third characteristic of peak performers was that they used their natural talents and skills in their professions.

It was interesting how he compared the sports industry to businesses. Most businesses review their employees, and they look at the 25 or so different skills that the employee does on the job. In this review there would typically be three to four skills that the employee does really well and about three to four skills that the employee doesn’t do well. The rest of the skills the employee does are average. What most employers do is not spend much time with the items that the employee does really well or the average skills but spend the bulk of the time in the review and after the review working on getting the skills the employee is the worst in and improving them. Keep in mind that spending time and effort attempting to hone those skills employees are less adept at -- at best, it would become an average skill. Mr. Kiefer stated that companies that do this are going to end up with average employees.

In the sports realm, they treat things differently. Take a football player like Bret Farve. When Bret Farve was in high school he already had the aptitude to play football and be a quarterback. In college, he continued to learn more about his quarterbacking skills and further developed those skills. At that point, no coach would have told Bret, “Gee, you are really good at quarterbacking and I see that you are a poor kicker; we should send you to more kicker training.” NO! They gave him more quarterback training -- because a professional quarterback is very specialized.

The better thing to do is to give that employee more training in what he/she excels in so the employee can master them to the point of being an expert. This makes the employee more valuable. A manager of a group project looks for the best people to complete each task of the project to assure the project is done to perfection and on time. A business is like a huge project with the project manager at the top.

He states that everyone has natural talents and we should all look at developing our own natural talents. This does make sense to me. I believe that everyone is an expert on some field.

Here is an article that I found about his system:

Google Voice, Make Free VoIP Calls

We all have heard of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). The main web based service we all hear about is Skype. I had been toying with Skype for a few months as an additional way to call people and not burn cell phone minutes. Skype offers free Skype-to-Skype, video calls, instant messaging and screen sharing.  Then, to call land line phones and mobiles, and do SMS messaging they have a pay per minute or pay for month programs.

Their prices are very reasonable and I can see taking advantage of using Skype for international calls. When I tried it out in late August, with a Skype-to-Skype call to my brother-in-law, and I thought the quality was pretty good through my internet provider (IP).

Being frugal, the only thing that I really didn't like was the cost to line phones and mobiles, and to SMS messaging. Not that it was overly expensive but, I already have other long distance cell phone service that is included from my cell phone provider.  

What was introduced to me earlier this week was a free service from Google Voice. Google Voice is available as an internet-based application, through your Gmail or iGoogle account, easy to set up and has a simple and clear interface. There are some other great features for Google Voice.

Make Free VoIP Calls from Google Voice

For a overview see the video below

Are My Files Safe With Online Backup Services?

I use Carbonite to back up all my emails, photos, music and other irreplaceable content of my computer. It is easy to install, set up takes just one minute and it's completely automatic. As soon as you add or modify a file Carbonite automatically backs it up to their secure servers. You don't have to do anything!

Carbonite saved me a few times. I have Carbonite on two computers. On both computers the hard drive failed only a week apart and the hard drives had to be replaced. On another occasion my Outlook Data file on one of the computers got corrupted and I used Carbonite to restore just that data file.

It really works great and I know it's worth it!

And the best part is, it's only $54.95 per year - no matter how much stuff you need to backup. Check it out.

Try Carbonite Risk-Free today!

Now onto the article

- John


Are My Computer Files Safe With Online Backup Services Like Carbonite?

"A Day in the Life of an Elf" at Macy's Santaland, Macy's, Minneapolis, MN

This evening we drove to Minneapolis to see "A Day in the Life of an Elf" at Macy's Santaland. Anthony slept in the car all the way there. When he first got out of the car he seemed that he didn't want to be there. As we walked through, Anthony seemed to enjoy the scenery with awe and wonder. As a three year old he is quite shy out in public.

After we went through Macy's Santaland, we ate dinner in the food court. I had lemon chicken with fried rice and an egg roll from Leann Chin. It has been along time since I had enjoyed food from Leann Chin. Z had Pizza, Sharon had a salad and Anthony had Chicken strips. Z teased Anthony that she was going to steal a chicken strip from him. That made Anthony laugh.

After we ate, we had enough time to get up into the skyway to see to the Holidazzle Parade. It was a great location. We went to the same skyway location that we had last year. As we were driving back Anthony was talking quite a bit. He said that he loved everyone! He said EVERYONE was important!

We were going to go see the Holiday Train that stops in Cottage Grove tomorrow night but, the weather is predicted to get bad. They are estimating 7 to 8 inches of snow tonight falling after midnight and 6 to 8 inches tomorrow with winds expected to be from 15 to 25 MPH.  It would probably be better if we didn't go.


"A Day in the Life of an Elf" at Macy's Santaland, Macy's Minneapolis, Minneapolis, MN | Event | Vita.mn

Here is a LinkedIn tip I learned today

With in Linkedin:

In Settings, then Profile and Status Updates, mainly keep the option "No, do not notify anyone and do not include me in company updates" checked and then about once or every few days then go and check the "Yes, notify my connections and show significant profile updates on my company's profile" and it would clear things out.

This helps avoid those pesky "Bob Smith has an updated profile (Industry, Headline)" and  "Bob Smith is now connected to Jane Doe" posts more hidden on other people's network Activity pages. 

Charter Communications; A Satisfied Customer

Continuation of the issue on the post: Charter TV Issues. You tell me. Is it a bait and switch?

Here is the response I received from Eric the Social Media Communications Manager at Charter Communications: 

Good Morning John,

Thanks for taking the time to send me this information. I reviewed the account, and was able to get you those additional channels and reduce the account by $5 per month.

You were paying $60.90 (before taxes) for you Charter Internet service, Basic TV, and a Digital Box.

Breakdown:

·         Internet = $34.99

·         Basic TV = $19.99

·         Digital Converter = $5.00

·         Broadcast TV Service Charge = $.92

o   Total = $60.90

Because we no longer have a promotion for a free Digital Converter, which is what I think caused the initial error, I was able to reduce the Basic TV charge to $9.99 for 12 months, and then I added the Digital View which is an additional $5, net result is a $5 savings.

Breakdown:

·         Internet = $34.99

·         Basic TV = $9.99

·         Digital Converter = $5.00

·         Digital View = $5.00

·         Broadcast TV Service Charge = $.92

o   Total = $55.90

The monthly total is before taxes, but is does reflect a $5 savings for the next 12 months, so I hope this is an acceptable resolution for you. Please let me know if there is anything else we can help with.

Thanks, Eric

Eric Ketzer | Social Media Communications Manager |