Russelldad's blog

The latest in a string of home projects is renovating Allison's Room.   I was motivated to get it done because he has a brown carpet in her room that was so old it was disintegrating and giving off a bad plastic smell.

So we decided pull up the floors, paint the walls and of course give the windows my father's Craftsman window frame treatment as seen in the bathroom and dining room.

As I started pulling up the floors I realized that this is the sort of activity I often tell my boys to stop doing.  So I called Alex into the room, handed him a crow bar and stood back...




Video of Alex Pulling up Subfloor I

He made short work of the floor.







I'm starting to understand why sons were so desired in places manual labor is a way of life. They really are helpful.






Video of Alex Explaining The Job


I ended up doing most of the vacuuming until Allison decided she wanted to try.  I've never seen anyone enjoy demolition cleanup like she does.







Conner was sick when we were tearing up the room, but he did help me paint a few days later. More on that in a future post.

More pictures of the destruction are in our Allison's Room Demolition flickr set.

We had a great season for leaf colors this year. And we didn't have to go far. These are a few pics from our backyard.













This is the view directly over the kids swing set.








Some more of this years pics are in our Fall Colors flickr set.

A few months ago, a raccoon started frequenting our back deck. It started when we didn't clear the table after dinner and he snuck in through a broken screen and helped us out.






Video of Raccoon on our Back Deck





Video of Raccoon on our Back Deck Table




So I repaired the screens and he stopped frequenting our dinner table.

And then I noticed that our bird feeder had fallen off its' hook and broken open. I didn't put 2 and 2 together at first. I actually thought the wind had blown it off the hook which is fairly ridiculous considering it survived every weather event last year including the ice storm of 2008.






The bird feeder before and after the ice storm

Then one night I saw the raccoon out our kitchen window, and boy do I wish I'd had a camera. He climbed up the tree, reached down and grabbed the bird feeder, lifted it up off the hook, looked up, made eye contact with me, smiled (yes that giant rodent smiled), and then he dropped the bird feeder 15 feet. It promptly burst open, he sauntered down the tree and proceeded to eat the bird seed.

For a few days I toyed with a  Wile E. Coyote-esque response... Something involving dynamite or a catapult. But then I started having visions of me, standing on my roof, pulling a stick out from under a boulder only to have it defy gravity, roll up my roof and smoosh me.

In the end I had to use a carabiner to attach the bird feeder to the tree.  It takes a little more effort to refill, but I didn't have to go to the hospital and it's saving us a fortune in bird seed.

On June 4th, 2009 I graduated from Harvard University with a Masters in software engineering for the field of information technology.

When I started, my naive assumption was that I'd learn little in the process of getting the degree, but it would be good for my resume.  Its' value on my resume remains to be tested, but the many things I learned in the process of getting this degree have been immensely useful.

There is simply no substitute for implementing a SQL parser in C to make you realize that C is the wrong language in which to author a SQL parser.

I distinctly remember a beautiful spring day when Alex and Christine were playing in our front yard and I was having trouble concentrating on that SQL parser code. The lure of fun was very strong much, but I had to get my homework done.  The house was new and we didn't have curtains yet, so I nailed a comforter to the window. There it stayed till I finished the database class. A full time job and a kid (now 3 kids) doesn't leave much time for school.

I lost most of that spring, but I got an A. And despite that rather ridiculous SQL Parser assignment, which was only made worse by the professor's parting comment that they "Probably wouldn't bother with it next year because it was a waste of time", there were loads of valuable lessons at Harvard. The work I did there helped shape the way I think about software and I'm surprised by how well the instincts I developed there serve me every day.


Literally Making Money On Education

I work for Cisco Systems which provided me a great tuition reimbursement program.

Cisco asks that I note the following -"Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not those of Cisco."

The way tuition reimbursement works, I pay the tuition up front, and as long as I get a good final grade, they cut me a check for the tuition after the class ends. While there were a few side costs such as the $100 printing and binding cost for my Masters Thesis, Cisco basically picked up the tab for my education with the exception of the interest I lost on having the initial tuition cost tied up.

The geek in me couldn't help but figure out how much my degree had cost.

The chart below tracks my out of pocket tuition costs as compared to an identical investment in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI). On July 23, 2009 my final reimbursement check arrived and it contained $328 more than if I had invested in the DJI. That money is already being put to use on Kiva.org.

When this all started my hope was to be able to say I went to Harvard for a few hundred bucks in lost interest opportunity. Unfortunately, the recent collapse of the stock market caused me to make money on the deal.  I'm not begrudging the gain of $328 bucks, but I'd trade it to get 40% of my 401k and the world economy back.  Hopefully the Kiva entrepreneurs put that money to good use.


Ceremony

I didn't attend the graduation ceremony, but I did make a trip into campus to pick up my diploma. It was my own personal graduation ceremony. That day the rain came off and on and it was refreshing to be walking around outside on a weekday.

I walked up the 7 flights of stairs to the Dean's office at 51 Brattle Street and a woman I believe was the Dean's secretary presented me with my diploma. She did it with a lot of flair; took it out of the envelope, read a bit, shook my hand and congratulated me.  It was quite a rush.

There was another piece of paper in there that said I made the Dean's list which came as a complete surprise. I was so busy trying to graduate I actually didn't pay much attention to my cumulative grades.

Afterward I stopped by the Coop and picked up a Harvard window sticker for my car, and a Harvard Key-chain medallion to hang on the now empty bottle of Tullamore Dew gifted to me by my grandmother for graduation. That wasn't my first or last bottle of Tullamore Dew, but it was the best whiskey I've ever tasted.

Saturday night Christine and I went out on a date.  She made reservations at a fancy restaurant in Boston and when we got there she surprised me with tickets to Star Wars in Concert!



The orchestra as it appeared from our seats.

Star Wars in Concert was two hours of live Star Wars music, action packed movie scenes, laser light shows and live commentary Anthony Daniels who does an amazing C3PO impression.  We had a blast!

Alex came up with the idea of having a Lego building contest. He invited a few friends over and each brought a unique creation. Alex assigned Christine and I to judge the entries and award ribbons to the winners.

Christine created these ribbons and my job was to come up with award titles that best matched each of the kids Lego creations.  My favorite award went to Conner.

This was on the doors step of one of the houses we visited last night.




It made me hungry and eager to know the circumference of that pumkin all at once.

I spend most of my day on the phone and in front of a computer. It can be a bit tedious interacting with the world through a phone, but every once in a while I get away from my desk and take a call from this window. Those calls always seem to end too quickly.

Today is Blog Action Day when thousands of bloggers unite to discuss a single issue. This year's topic is Climate Change. As I've recently stumbled across a surprisingly easy way to reduce my home's greenhouse gas emissions, I thought I would share.

One of the things I learned from My Ecological Footprint effort is that making meaningful changes in one's behavior isn't easy. That's why I was so skeptical and eventually pleasantly surprised when I came across the chance to switch our house's electricity generation over to 100% wind power.

For this to make sense, you have to know a little bit about where our electricity comes from. I used my son Conner's crayons to draw up this highly scientific illustration of how the system works.





Figure 1. Where Electricity Comes From

In most places the electric company purchases their electricity from producers who make the electricity using all different methods. Some producers burn coal, some burn garbage, some use hydro (water) power and some even use the wind to make electricity.  These producers sell the electricity to the electric company who put it all in a big metaphorical bucket. The electric company then run wires from their bucket to your house.

When your kid flips a light-switch in our house, electricity flows out of the electric company's bucket over the wires and through your lamps creating light. You then spend the rest of your life chasing your kids around the house telling them to turn off the lights and stop wasting electricity.


Most of the electricity used by MA electric companies comes from burning coal, which is very cheap since the US sits on top of massive deposits of coal. Unfortunately burning coal is:

1. Very messy 
   
2. A major contributor to climate change

Basically, every time I turn on a light in my house I'm evaporating some of the Earth's coal into the air which has the unfortunate side effect of causing climate change.


Unfortunate puns aside, a great alternative to burning coal is to harness the wind to produce electricity. This is becoming popular on farm land where there's lots of space, and the wind turbines can co-exist on the same land as the crops.  Maple Ridge Wind Farm in New York is one such wind electricity producer and they just happen to provide electricity to my electric company.

Perfect right? Why not move everyone to wind power immediately?

Well there's a catch.  Because large scale wind power generation hasn't had time to mature like coal based production, electricity from wind costs more than electricity from coal.  Electric companies, being in business to make a profit, are unlikely to choose a more expensive source of electricity to sell to us.

That's why I was so skeptical when I learned that NSTAR was offering the option to switch to 100% wind generated electricity generated by Maple Ridge Wind Farm.  So I started researching how it worked, and kept digging until I found the wind turbines supplying the wind power to NSTAR. My sources are listed below and my conclusion is that there's a legitimate product and business model here.







Figure 2. Maple Ridge Wind Turbines on Bing Maps

The way it works is pretty simple. When you sign up for NSTAR or National Grid's green option, they agree to purchase whatever electricity you use from Maple Ridge Wind Farm, and in return you agree to pay the extra 1.396 cents per kWh it costs NSTAR to get electricity from wind instead of coal.

For our family, switching to 100% wind generated electricity adds between $7 and $15 a month depending on weather or not my relatives are visiting. 








Some people who were really paying attention to the crayon diagram above may have noticed that there is no guarantee that the electrons that come into my house were the ones generated by the wind farm.

That argument goes something like "But it's not worth it because  you're almost definitely getting some coal based electrons from the electric company bucket!"

To that I say "Very perceptive of you, but it's totally worth it!" While Heisenberg's commitment issues keep me from determining where each electron comes from, it's safe to say that I'm getting some coal generated electrons out of their bucket. But that really isn't the point.

The point is that by choosing the 100% wind option I'm helping, in a very affordable way, to mature the wind industry and reduce my carbon and pollution footprint at the same time.


Imagine what would happen if everyone switched over to wind power.

Electric companies would be in a mad rush to meet the demand... More wind producers would pop up.

As countries like China and India ramped up their electricity production they would find that because of our $7 a month investment to switch, wind technology had matured and the costs of producing wind power had bottomed out.

All of a sudden it is now cheaper for them to generate power with renewable wind than to bother blowing the tops of mountains to find coal.

Less coal would get burned and fewer greenhouse gasses would get pumped into the sky...  The air would literally be sweeter to breath as the pollution from coal faded away.

That's a pretty good deal for $7 a month...



It was extremely easy to switch. Once I was satisfied that this was a great option for our family, I just went to the NSTAR Green sign-up website and typed in my account number and zip code and then pressed a button saying switch me to wind power.

A month later I was using 100% wind energy. How cool is that!?!

If you want to see what it would cost you to switch to wind power this spiffy gadget from NSTAR will tell you.





Figure 3. NSTAR's Green Calculator (scroll to bottom of linked page)



Seriously, a few clicks and our carbon footprint was dramatically reduced!  I still follow my kids around the house telling them to turn off the lights, because fate has decree that I am destine to relive the torment I put my mother through.

Still, it's great knowing that our lights aren't contributing to climate change. My favorite part is when I turn them on I know we're helping to grow a sustainable and renewable industry.

Tomorrow our government is voting on making substantial changes to our civil rights. If you already know the back story on the USA PATRIOT Act you should jump ahead to Jim Burrows post Fix the USA PATRIOT Act which describes what's going on and how you can influence the vote.  If not, I'll do my best to explain.


A little over a month after the attacks of 9.11.2001 our government passed the USA PATRIOT Act.  It was intended to give the government tools to fight the people who attacked us, but in our haste to make those tools available we did more harm than good.

In the 3 days between October 23^rd and 26^th of 2001 the 342 pages of the USA PATRIOT Act were introduced into the House of Representatives, passed through all committees, passed in the House and Senate and finally signed into law by President Bush. That is really fast by any standard.

Even though much of the content of the USA PATRIOT Act was controversial, there was no debate.  Fear ruled the day, which is understandable because the months after the attacks were a really scary time.

The one saving grace of the USA PATRIOT Act was its sunset clauses.  They made it such that many of the more controversial provisions would expire unless the government voted to re-authorize them.  It was a brilliant fail safe mechanism put in at the behest of Republican Representative Richard Army to keep our fear fueled legislation from becoming permanent.

I started paying attention years later in 2008. In my attempts to understand how our government was dealing with the PATRIOT Act I wrote a 3 part series called Figuring out FISA.

Part I - A Guy Named George

Part II - The Unitary Executive Strikes Back

Part III - The Pride of Rube Goldberg

I learned a lot about the history of privacy and the rights afforded by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights while researching and writing those posts. But when I wrote them, decisions had already been made, votes had been taken and I was writing about history.


Tomorrow at 10am EST our government is voting to keep or remove some of the nastier parts of the PATRIOT ACT.

Fix the USA PATRIOT Act is a great post by Jim Burrows explaining, in simple terms, where things stand and what you can influence the vote and the future of our civil liberties.  It's a quick read and the videos are really interesting. All told, if you take action to influence the vote, it will take about 17 minutes out of your day.

I'm investing that time and more because I feel that it's critical to the fabric of our country that we fix the mistakes we made in those fearful months of late 2001.

Please have a look at Jim's Fix the USA PATRIOT Act post and help us to Get FISA (and the PATRIOT Act) Right.