Using Rainwater and Sewage for Power

While this summer Minnesota apparently had the worst drought since 1988 (Not that I noticed–it just meant I didn’t have to mow the grass as often), September and October have had three to four times the normal amount of rain. It has rained almost every day in October. We’re beyond raining cats and dogs.

So one night a few weeks ago I was lying awake in my bed listening to the rain splatter on my roof and pour out of my gutters. And an idea came to me–if we harness rivers and waterfalls and build dams to create hydroelectric power, why couldn’t we do the same and generate electricity from the rain that falls from the sky?

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Home Study Part 1

We had our first home study meeting for our adoption process yesterday, which is a bit misleading since it wasn’t at our home. The first meeting was at our agency’s office and the next meeting (which is next week) will be at our house.

Despite whatever misconceptions or fears you might have about the home study (I didn’t really have any–I was too busy trying to make sure we could actually get there on time and with Lexi in good hands), they’re all unfounded. We basically sat in a room and talked about ourselves for three hours. Talk about an ego boost.

79% of Books Sell Less Than 100 Copies

Some depressing stats for writers from Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail:

In 2004, 950,000 books out of 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen BookScan sold fewer than ninety-nine copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies. Only 25,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. The average book in America sells about 500 copies. In other words, about 98 percent of books are noncommercial, whether they were intended that way or not. (page 76)

Those are kind of sobering numbers for anyone who wants to write a book. On the bright side, if you can sell 100 copies or more of your book, you’re in the top 21% of the publishing industry. The bar for success if fairly low, if you look at it from that perspective.

Turned on the Heat

I broke down and turned on the heat today. I’m not sure why, but knowing when I turn the heat on each year is of interest to me.

I’m not sure how useful it is to compare since this is now looking at two different houses, but whatever. Each year’s weather patterns change as well, so it doesn’t mean that much. Last week it got so warm we turned on the AC and now the heat’s on.

Another heating oddity–our new house as a high efficiency furnace. The previous owner told us it’s more efficient to set the furnace at whatever temperature you want and leave it there. Turning it down at night wastes energy because it takes more energy for the furnace to heat the house back up than it does to simply maintain the temperature. It has something to do with the furnace kicking into a higher burn. Seems odd to me. I can understand it if you turn it from 72 down to 62 at night, but what if you do something more gradual, say 70 down to 66? It just seems unnatural that turning the heat up is using less energy (it also makes having not one but two fireplaces seem kind of pointless).

Update: I asked a furnace guy this question and he said that’s ridiculous. Turn it down at night and save some energy.

Blacklisted for Church Marketing Sucks

I’ve been blacklisted because of the word ‘sucks’ for the first time since starting work on Church Marketing Sucks more than three years ago. OK, so ‘blacklisted’ may be a bit harsh (but it makes for a good story). In reality one of my clients will no longer publish my work because of my involvement with Church Marketing Sucks, specifically because of the use of the word ‘sucks.’ You can decide if that warrants the word ‘blacklisted’ or not.

It wasn’t a personal thing and I don’t know enough details to take it personally. ‘Sucks’ is a controversial word (especially in conservative circles) so this wasn’t exactly a surprise. The bigger surprise might be that it took three years. (Check out my defense of the word ‘sucks’ if you agree I should be blacklisted.)

If anything, I’m bummed that I won’t have further opportunities to write for this client. You always hate to lose clients as a freelancer. And this one, well, sucks because I enjoyed the projects I had done for them. I was hoping to do more.

Oh well, that’s how it goes. Things may change in the future, so we’ll see what happens.

Madeleine L’Engle 1918-2007

Madeleine L'EngleThe author Madeleine L’Engle died last month at the age of 88. I must be living under a rock or reading the wrong blogs or something, because despite my love for her writing I had no idea she died. It’s kind of sad that I accidentally stumbled across the fact a month later.

I’ve also been mispronouncing her name. According the New York Times obituary it’s pronounced “LENG-el”–I’ve been saying it “LA-Engel.” Some fan I am.

Anyway, she’s best known for A Wrinkle in Time–which was rejected something like a million times (NYT says 26) and the resulting series, though my favorite work of hers is Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. It was required reading for a required freshman class and I hated it the first time. But I somehow was convinced to read it again and fell in love with it, underlining half of it. We own three copies because we’ve underlined and written in the margins of each one.

Interview with Christa Ann Banister

Around the World in 80 Dates: Confessions of a Serial Dater by Christa Ann BanisterSo apparently friends publishing novels is a trend. Another writer friend, Christa Banister, has a new novel coming out next week, Around the World in 80 Dates: Confessions of a Serial Dater. Christa was my editor when I wrote reviews for CCM magazine, then she joined the freelance world and now lives within a mile or two of me in St. Paul (and we have still not met face to face).

I think I had heard about her novel-publishing success but had forgotten about it. Then something referencing Christa and her novel came across my desk and I realized another friend was about to be a published author.

So I thought we better put Christa through the ten question grill:

1) Your first novel–wow. What’s it feel like to accomplish every aspiring writer’s dream? Has it always been your dream to write fiction?

To say it’s surreal is probably the biggest cliché in the book. But that’s exactly how it feels to me. Ever since I read my first Judy Blume book, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, back in elementary school, I thought making up characters and storylines would be the best job in the world. But of course, you can’t snap your fingers and get a book deal, so I feel extremely blessed that NavPress enjoyed my work and wanted to publish my book. In fact, when I received my final copies of Around the World in 80 Dates the other day, I still freaked out a little. I knew I’d done the work, but I still couldn’t believe I was holding my very own novel in my hands. It was such an amazing feeling.

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My Poor Gutted Laptop

Disassembeld PowerBook G4So there it is. My eviscerated laptop. Thanks to the incredible directions from iFixIt, I was able to disassemble my PowerBook G4 in hopes of replacing the dead hard drive.

Of course it didn’t go smoothly. Two screws were hopelessly stuck and all attempts to remove them left me with sore fingers and stripped screw heads. I ended up having to drill the two screws out, with very minimal damage sustained (can a laptop sustain minimal damage?). And now that I have it all apart I still can’t get the hard drive bracket off the hard drive. But iFixIt sells hard drive brackets, so I may not worry about that.

If all goes well I’ll have a new, slightly better hard drive for $120. Sure beats the $310 Apple would have charged. And sure beats the $1,099 for a new laptop (contrary to some reports, we didn’t just rush out and buy a new laptop within the hour). Though I still don’t have it back together and running smoothly yet, so don’t rule that out the brand new laptop. And I suppose with a three year old laptop getting a new one is going to come sooner rather than later. I’m just trying to forestall it a bit.

I feel a bit like Dr. Frankenstein. I’ll let you know how the reanimation goes.

Kids Need to Play Outside

“Recent research has shown that the UK is one of the worst places in the western world to be a child.” -Bob Reitemeier, chief executive of The Children’s Society

Ouch. The reason is because kids are losing opportunities to play, especially outside, and that loss can be detrimental to their health, according to some 300 experts.

It seems my wife was right. When she worked at a pre-school she always insisted the kids go outside every day (unless the weather was dangerous), much to the consternation of concerned parents who thought it was too cold or too hot or too whatever for their poor child. What their poor child really needed was to go outside more.

I wonder if the same could be true for adults?

Hey Lexi, want to go outside?