Christmas '07

Christmas 2007 marked the first Christmas for me in a warm climate, and I must admit it felt a little weird to be wearing shorts and a t-shirt on December 25. Inside our apartment, though, it looked as festive as ever, with a nicely decorated tree and a bunch of presents under it, along with stockings hung by the chimney with care.

Tracy's family took a long road trip down here from Seattle and spent most of the day with us. Unfortunately, Tracy was on call at the hospital overnight on Christmas Eve, and didn't get back until noon on Christmas Day with only a couple of hours of sleep from the night before. Even so, she powered through the day and made a very tasty ham for Christmas dinner. Much to my surprise, we ended up having twelve people total for dinner, as several of her friends from residency came by after their shifts. I've never seen so many people in our small apartment! After dinner, we ended the evening with a traditional showing of "Elf", followed by an early bedtime for most everyone. What a day!

Since Tracy and I were Secret Santa for my brother Devin, we waited for him to get back from his Christmas trip to Houston to celebrate with him this past Friday night. Three of us spent the evening opening up some of the remaining presents from my mom, and as well as presents for each other. It was a Christmas unlike any other for me, but it also happened to be one of my most relaxing Christmases in recent memory. Having Tracy around to help wrap gifts, and not having as much shipping to do as usual (as well as no travel) certainly freed up a lot more time.

Here are some pictures from this week. I'm hoping to add some more from other people's cameras as I receive them.

A new Little Brother

After nearly five years in the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program in Seattle, I decided to get involved with the local program here in San Diego. This week I got matched up with an 11 year-old boy from nearby La Mesa named Jonathan (or John, as he prefers). He lives at home with his mom and his older brother, who is also matched up with a Big Brother.

Yesterday was our first outing together, and it was very much a learning experience for me. After picking him up, we headed down to the Bahia Hotel near Mission Beach, where his Mom has a sailboat at the marina. We played around in the exercise room and video game room for a while before he showed me the boat (an older Catalina 27). Originally, I was planning to take him to Rubio's for some fish tacos for lunch, but he convinced me to go to both Rubio's (where we each had two tacos) AND Jack In The Box, where he proceeded to order a bacon cheeseburger combo with milkshake and curly fries. Though he didn't finish it, I was amazed at how much food he put down. In retrospect, I shouldn't have let him eat that much, but, being our first outing, I was trying to learn his limits before imposing my rules on him (Big Brothers aren't supposed to play the role of surrogate parent). Not surprisingly, he seemed a bit ill on the drive back to his house. I wanted to apologize to his mother, but she wasn't home upon our return.

After having a shy and quiet Little Brother in Seattle, John couldn't be more different. He seems to enjoy talking about everything, and isn't afraid to let me in on details of his personal life. He's very well-spoken, and enjoys playing both the piano and trumpet. He also jumped at the opportunity to run fast on the treadmill -- quite odd for a kid his age! I'm curious to see how this all plays out, since even though I've done this kind of thing before, it's like I'm going through it for the first time...

Interesting stats on monitor energy usage

The other day, Tracy sent me this interesting rant against websites that have white backgrounds (yes, that means you, Google). By this point -- thanks to my Kill-A-Watt -- I've become very skeptical of anyone who makes outrageous claims about energy usage.

Some cross-referencing brought me to this article, put out by the government, which conveniently forgets to mention that the rules are different between CRT monitors (the big fat ones) and LCD monitors.

Fortunately for me, I'm not the only one with a Kill-A-Watt. Someone else did a much more thorough analysis than I ever would, and essentially comes to the conclusion that the best course of action is to replace all CRT monitors with LCD monitors. Well, he doesn't exactly say that; he still makes misleading large-scale calculations based on the incorrect assumption that every monitor in this country is a CRT. But basically, if you're really interested in saving energy, replace your CRT monitor or TV with an LCD.

Apparently I have metrosexual nephews

Thanks to Tracy for this link. Anyone who knows my family should get a good chuckle out of this one.

We gave in

After a week of seasonably cool weather, we turned the heat on in our apartment. I was hoping we could go the whole year without it, but alas, reality set in.

Mythbusters at home

As we all know, environmentalism seems to be very much in vogue right now. Predictably, it has resulted in a spate of columns and news segments devoted to how to conserve energy. Far too often, the writer/commentator tries to convince the reader/listener that unplugging certain things from the wall will actually save you significant quantities of money/energy. I was skeptical. Fortunately, I had recently purchased this wonderful gadget to determine just how much energy was being drawn, in power-on, power-off, and standby modes. I decided to use it to test most everything plugged in in our apartment (aside from laundry machines and refrigerator). I've listed the data at the bottom of this post. Among my conclusions are:

- Contrary to what you might read, the following things consumed no power when they were powered off: hair dryer, toaster, laptop power cord (when not connected to computer), cell phone charger (without phone plugged in) and most lamps (only one exception)
- The most "short burst" power was consumed by the hair dryer on high (1530W), followed by the microwave (1300W) and toaster (950W). Among things that are left mostly "on", our floor lamp with dimmer consumed the most (140W) when turned all the way up.
- High-tech, modern stuff was surprisingly efficient. Our 26" LCD TV consumed only 71W (just more than a standard 60W bulb), Tracy's computer ranged from 30W-45W when it was doing work (14W when it wasn't), and mine (newer) was even less than that at 20W-27W.
- Most surprising fact: my printer consumed the same amount of energy (3W) regardless of whether it was powered on or off. Other items that consumed energy just by being plugged in (powered off) were my speaker system (2W off, 4W on), the DVD player (1W off, 7W on), and (surprisingly!) my desk lamp (1W off, 42W on)

Given these measurements, then, it is possible to say that the following are equivalent in energy consumption to running a 60W bulb for an hour:

- Running my laptop (no external monitor) for about 2 hours
- Running my laptop (with monitor) for about an hour
- Watching my TV for about 51 minutes
- Running the microwave for about 2 minutes and 40 seconds
- Running the hair dryer on high for about 2 minutes and 20 seconds
- Charging my phone for about 12 hours
- Reading in bed at night for 3.5 hours

On the whole, our home is very energy efficient anyway, with gas plus electricity only about $30-$35 per month (and I'm guessing the fridge, laundry and dishwasher use most of that). Based on the results of this study, I have unplugged my printer and speaker system and encouraged anyone willing to listen who is interested in conservation to buy a Kill-a-Watt! Here is raw data:

Item	Consumption (off)	Consumption (on)
Toaster	0	950
Microwave	2	1300
Radio	0-1	1-2
CD player (same appliance)	2-3	4
Tracy’s computer	0 (unconnected)8 (charging)	13 (standby) 30-45 (active use)
Floor lamp 1	0	49 (low – one 60W bulb) 84 (high – two 60W bulbs)
Floor lamp 2	0	50-140 (dimmer)
Speaker system	2	4
DVD Player	1	7
26” LCD TV	0-1	71
Piano Keyboard	0	10
Adam’s laptop	N/A	14 (standby) 20-27 (active use)
19” LCD Monitor	0	0-1 (standby) 33 (active use)
Phone Charger	0 (unconnected to phone)	5 (charging phone)
Desk Lamp	1	42
Printer	3	3
Bedside Lamp	0	17 (CFL bulb)
Clock Radio	N/A	0
Electric Toothbrush	0	0
Hair Dryer	0	418 (low) 1530 (high)
Router	0	5

Business in D.C.

This past week, I took my first business trip in a really long time (I think going to NJ in the summer of 2002 might've been my last business trip). My boss and I headed to Washington D.C. for a quarterly conference called CISRAT -- don't ask me what it stands for, although the "C" part is an acronym within the acronym. Only in the military, right? The reason for the conference, more or less, is to go over modernization and availability scheduling for the Navy's fleet of submarines. Fascinating stuff, I know, but this is what I am currently writing software to facilitate, and it does present some interesting and unique challenges (as well as a whole bunch of jargon!).

The trip itself was pretty cool, even though this was my third trip back to the east coast in just over three weeks. We flew out on Sunday morning, and got in later that night. Monday and Tuesday were at the conference, which wasn't too bad because I had my laptop with me and a network connection, which allowed me to multitask when things got over my head (as they inevitably did). Since my company wasn't really an active participant, it wasn't too stressful either. By Wednesday afternoon, we were boarding our return flight to San Diego, leaving the snowy east coast for some nice Southern Cal weather. It was actually my first time flying into San Diego during the day, a pleasant experience that takes you over the desert and Grand Canyon, right through downtown and into the airport. Lots of cool stuff to look at -- I highly recommend!

I now have a relative nearby

Three weeks ago, my brother, Devin, arrived in San Diego after deciding to leave Boston and start a new life out here. His plan was to spend a few weeks finding a job in L.A., and then start shortly after Thanksgiving. After a hectic few weeks of driving back and forth to the O.C. and L.A, plus a Thanksgiving trip back to Pennsylvania with me, he has left our fair city and moved up to Orange County, where he is gainfully employed at his job in Newport Beach. It was a pleasure having him as our guest, and it's also nice finally having a relative living within, oh, a few thousand miles of me -- it's been more than five years since I could say that. Brother Beavis, it's great to have you out here!