Off The Grid

I’m not one to get hyped up about birthdays. If I wake up on the green side of the grass, it’s a good day. But this year we did a few things. First, Saturday, Amanda and I went to the AppleStore and bought matching iPhone 3GSs. Contracts were up, I was sick of slow EDGE mobile data, looking for a little better camera, GPS, video was a cool plus, and I was completely out of storage on mine. I was always dumping music to fit something else. I went with the 32GB model so I hopefully won’t have that problem again for a while. I’m loading it up now with every app I hesitated on before. (Suggestions?)

Amanda was starting to wear out her Blackberry’s keyboard and wanted to be able to do more on her phone, like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter… all of which have much better apps on the iPhone. She seems quite enamored so far.

Sunday, it warmed up, so I was sure to get on the bike for over an hour at the Fells. I fear that this was the season’s last ride thanks to the darkness. Maybe I’ll catch a warmish weekend day too. Sad to see my fitness was all but lost on the trails. Sunday, we also walked Cole to the neighborhood playground.

Monday, I worked as usual, but cut out a little early so I could go for a family walk. We originally intended to hike a bit in the Fells, but time was short, so we walked down to the preserved land along the Mystic River with Greta and Cole. Greta go to play off-leash with a young cockerspaniel who was quite relaxed about Greta’s sometimes aggressive pretenses (she likes to act tough to strange dogs as part of her feeling-out process).

For dinner, I regressed to college cuisine. A staple of our diets at UConn was boneless buffalo wings from Wings over Storrs. We spent many a night challenging each other to eating the hottest buffalo wings I’ve ever encountered. It winds up this place is a chain who has set up franchises near colleges across the northeast, including Wings over Somerville that delivers to our area of Medford!

It was just as I remembered. We’re not talking health food here. Your portion sizes are literally measured in pounds at this place. But the sauces are good (24 choices!)and the chicken is hand battered and not frozen, so it’s not awful food either. So good.

We completed the night with Mad Men season finale, and the first half hour of Michael Pollan’s the Botany of Desire.

A License Required for your house? It's a flat out lie.

Received an email forward today about H.R. 2454, stating that,

Beginning 1 year after enactment of the Cap and Trade Act, you won’t be able to sell your home unless you retrofit it to comply with the energy and water efficiency standards of this Act. H.R. 2454, the “Cap & Trade” bill passed by the House of Representatives, if also passed by the Senate, will be the largest tax increase any of us has ever experienced.

What the email depends upon, of course, is that you’re too lazy to read the 932 page bill that passed the House on June 26, 2009, also known as ACES (American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009)

But you don’t need to read the whole bill if you don’t want. You can read the recap from it’s author, Rep Waxman. It states, unequivocally:

ACES imposes no requirements on homeowners. Nothing in ACES will impose new requirements on the owners of America’s existing buildings. Nothing in the bill would impede upon home sales. No one will be required to make improvements, but building owners who desire can obtain assistance to increase efficiency and save money on their energy bills.

I just thought I’d put this up on the interwebs so anyone who might be fact checking this dubious email could find an easy answer. But don’t take it from me, read the bill. I did. I found every claim in the email to be entirely bogus.

Think for yourselves, people.

A lot of people think government regulations are bad. Have a look at what China looks like without environment regs today: (via @jlbruno)

40 more disturbing photographs if you follow the link.