for the good time Jerry’s ramblings…

During our Christmas visit to Arizona, Katie and I pulled out all of Katie’s parents’ old slides and enjoyed an old school slideshow, including the circa 1970 Honewell slide projector, dog eared slides, and a lot of manual effort.

Katie, Min and Staci

I really want to digitize many of these slides, especially some of the early Katie photos. One possibly easy option would be to just ship them off and have the scans done by somebody else. I believe that would cost around $400 and given my interest in DIY projects, that wouldn’t be at all satisfying. So I looked into some other options.

1) Buy a scanner designed to do this

We already have a Canon LIDE 600 that supports scanning of negatives, but baffling to me is that it does not support slides. Other options are dedicated slide and film scanners, but I’m confident the quality of those would be poor for the money I want to spend.

2) Buy an attachment for my SLR

Opteka Slide Copier

I found this Opteka HD2 Slide Copier which seemed like an attractive option. But it is $50 and has no useful purpose beyond copying slides

3) Buy a macro extension kit for my SLR lenses.

Kenko Macro Extension Tube Set

I’ve been wanting macro extenders such as these Kenko macro extender tubes for quite some time just for general photography. Since they can serve the dual purpose of a slide copier, they are an attractive option.

Decision: macro extenders

The copy setup requires a little bit of equipment:

1. SLR camera
2. Macro extender tubes (I used 56mm total)
3. An old, broken enlarger (makes an awesome copy stand)
4. Slide light box

Homebrew Digital Slide Copier

For copying many slides, I’ll probably build a simple jig for framing exactly where the slide needs to be for proper cropping and focus. The net result isn’t bad! Check out that Coppertone tan!

Where the sun don't shine

My fascination with energy consumption is a long time coming, and I think I’m now arriving at a new level of need for information. OK, it’s not need, really. It’s intrigue. I’ve taken energy consumption measurements of most every household device that I own and I’ve even been tracking my monthly energy bills, year on year. I recently built a plot of energy consumption (from my electric bills) vs. average monthly temperature (from weather underground), covering the past two years. The plot says exactly what you would expect:

• Our bills are largely a function of the outside temperature, proving that our heat pumps dictate our bills.
• Our comfort zone, with neither heat or A/C running, is somewhere between 70′F-80′F. And it would seem we spend 3-4 months a year at the sweet spot in Portland, which ain’t too bad.
• The snowstorm of Jan’09 was a mighty cold one!
• Taking a 15-day vacation and lowering the heat (from 68′F – 60′F) can make an impressive dent in power savings (see Dec’09-Jan’10)

Monthly Energy versus Average Portland Temperature

This is pretty cool information but, to me, it only makes me want more detail. With no action on my part, I may be getting more detail in the very near future. PGE recently installed a new ‘SmartMeter’ on my house. Information is limited, but PGE claims “By 2010, customers with smart meters will be able to access detailed information about their power consumption”. I spent some time looking at SmartMeter solutions in other cities around the country, and I found at least a few that offered hourly energy logs on the energy company websites. Combine this with detailed temperature data from the weather underground or a home thermometer, and you’ve got a great map of daily energy consumption.

All that will be pretty cool, but it still isn’t enough to really understand where your energy is going.

• I can’t measure and differentiate high current devices like my heat pumps, dryer and microwave from low current devices such as my refrigerators or computers.
• I don’t have visibility into device duty cycles, for example, a refrigerator or tankless water heater
• I can’t realistically measure the power consumption of my lights with dimmer switches (by the way, Lutron has an interesting demo on how to estimate power with their switches)
• I don’t have visibility into seasonal usage models as most household energy readings are taken during a specific season.

The Front End

Now, I could accept this lack of visibility and just stop here. But for me, it just whets my appetite… what more information is lurking in the day to day or even second to second fluctuations within my home? Can I split the total energy readings into their constituent components? What about if I get a solar panel, can I measure the input energy?

At this point, I feel no other option than to nerd out on this and take it to its logical conclusion. What is that? Well, I have to say that I like the way Brainside Out has framed it.

Brainside's iPhone Energy App

Google’s making a presence, too, with their PowerMeter application. Right now, it looks like they are teaming up with some utilities (hopefully PGE soon!) as well as device manufacturers such as TED. The data is pushed to the Google servers and then summarized using simple plotting. See this excellent summary at Engadget of an integration of a TED system with Google’s power meter.

Whole House Data Collection

OK, enough dreaming of how cool my world could be. How am I going to actually get the data to supply these GUI options? I have read about The Energy Detective (aka TED) in the past, but I have hesitated in purchasing it because it seems to be only a partial solution. If I’m right about what content PGE will be deploying this year with the SmartMeter, the TED is almost obsolete. Specifically, TED only gives you whole house energy monitoring versus time (or, you could configure it to read a single breaker), so its value versus the SmartMeter is sample frequency, probably one second resolution versus 1 hour resolution. Thankfully, there is something better out there, the Brultech ECM-1240

According to the specs, it is a 7-channel power meter than can measure any number of circuit breakers. Furthermore, if you want to measure than more seven separate breakers / loads, you can chain multiple ECM-1240′s [still trying to figure out how many can be chained]. Connect them to your data collection server via ethernet, RS232, USB or wireless. Now that is sweet! I counted the breakers in my circuit panel, and at a total of 40 breakers, I don’t think I’ll be measuring every single one, but with careful selection of the breakers that I want more information on and then one channel connected to the total energy consumption, I should be able to get a very detailed set of data streaming into my server. And if you really want to geek out, you can connect natural gas meters, water meters, and solar power inverters into the Brultech channels and achieve whole house telemetry. All that for about $200 for the basic model. Just to see what you can do, check out this web site where a Brultech is currently online.

Brultech ECM 1240 Basic Setup

Luckily (?), my current 1963 Pushmatic electrical panel is a fire hazard and I have been told I need to replace it as soon as possible. With a little planning and a good contractor, that Brultech should be running live soon.

Device Specific Data Collection

There is still the matter of power telemetry for general household devices. While the per-breaker readings are useful, they don’t really distinguish between my Airport Express and my stereo, or my refrigerator and instant water heater. For those, I have been using the Kill-a-Watt, but I think it has run out its useful life for me. The Kill-a-Watt is great for instantaneous power, power factor, voltage, etc. readings. Its primary value to me is in measuring energy consumption over very long windows of time. Howevwer, it doesn’t give you any insight to duty cycles or personal usage models. For example, it averages a refrigerator’s on/off duty cycle into a single number and it filters out the natural bursts of my tankless water heater’s activity. The next logical step is the Watts-Up .net which has local logging capabilities, up to a total of about 1.4 days of 1Hz sampling of a single data point. If you really want to geek out, and I do, the device can sample up to 18 data points every second and stream them to your computer over ethernet for infinite recording capabilities. My plan:

My Home Energy Monitor Vision

The entire Watts Up setup is a little spendy ($235 for the Watts Up .net and ~$30 for a TRENDNET 802.11n access point as my wireless bridge), but I think I might just give myself an early birthday present. A cheaper and more DIY option may be the Tweet-a-Watt which allows you to convert your $20 Kill-a-Watt into a wireless device, enabling 0.5Hz energy sampling!

The Future

Unfortunately, I can’t be buying a Watts Up for every device in the house and rolling the numbers up into my real-time logging software. But don’t you think that this is where the future is going? Education is the first step to energy consumption reduction, and it is my opinion that for the U.S. to become energy savvy, we need this kind of telemetry on every household device. Powerline communication is easy and effective. It seems reasonable to me that, with some standards in place and government regulation, we could have all devices sending power meter readings to a home server for daily roll-ups of dollars spent on each device. Perhaps such a thing already exists. Had I seen the energy consumption of my basement refrigerator three years ago, for example, I would have gotten rid of it. But instead, I let it run for three years consuming three times the energy that a cheap Energy Star model would consume.

Information Society – Pure Energy

Note, first off, that the way I organize my MP3′s is that I only copy my favorite songs from an album. So, for example, if I had the “4 Non Blondes” CD, I would obviously only have in my library “What’s Up” and not the 10 other songs. My goal, then, is to make it such that the ipod, on total random, would deliver a hit every time. But the problem is that even if every song is a favorite, 7000+ favorites makes for listening that doesn’t always go well with my current mood.

Intrigued, I gave the itunes ‘genius’ feature a spin today, in theory, with smarts embedded to find great music that goes great together.

Meet Genius Mixes. This new feature searches your iTunes library, finds songs that go great together, and creates multiple mixes you’ll love. All automatically. These mixes are like channels programmed entirely with your music. You may discover songs you never knew you had — and rediscover forgotten favorites.

For your listening pleasure, here is a sampling of what iTunes conjured up under “Chamber Pop”:

Shannonwright – Hinterland
Danielson – Jersey Loverboy
The Decemberists – The Bachelor and the Bride
Andrew Bird – Plasticities
The Arcade Fire – Vampire, Forest Fire
Neutral Milk Hotel – Holland, 1945
She & Him – This Is Not A Test

I should qualify this post by saying that, although the mix was not exactly ‘perfect’ and a bit more varied than I had expected, it still was a bit of fun.

I was planning on posting my “Best of 2009″ lists for music, but kept on getting stalled by a daughter a lack of content. Musically, 2009 wasn’t a great year for me… there were only a few albums I really got excited about, and over half of them weren’t even released in 2009. Since the end of the year, I have been scouring the wealth of MP3 blogs out there, trying to see if there was some really great stuff that I missed, or if 2009 really just didn’t jive with me. I’m leaning towards the latter, although I’m still thinking there is some great music out there that I missed. And I have officially sacked my entire MP3 blogroll as it seems that my tastes and theirs are diverging. So, instead of producing an official “Best of 2009″, I thought I’d throw out a few artists that I had been meaning to mention here, but never got around to last year.

Local Natives – Gorilla Manor

This California band is keeping up with the trend of my favorite US bands releasing their albums on UK labels. What’s up with that?! I was too excited about this album to wait for the US release, so I ordered direct from Rough Trade UK. The album did not disappoint, and may even be my favorite from the year. It was also the last album I bought this year, so that could be a testament to my memory. In any case, enjoy…

Local Natives – Camera Talk
Local Natives – Airplanes
Local Natives – Stranger Things

White Denim – Fits

White Denim is still one of my favorite bands out there right now, producing consistently great math rock. One thing I don’t get, though – why is this Austin, TX band making releases in Europe first and following up with the US next? It seemed to be a trend for 2009 (see Local Natives). I haven’t seen them live, but from the albums, it seems like they would be a fantastic live act.

White Denim – El Hard Attack DCWYW
White Denim – Paint Yourself
White Denim – Say What You Want

The Shaky Hands – Lunglight

I love Portland, and I’m always impressed at the number of bands that I like are living almost in my back yard. The Shaky Hands is one of my favorites (other current favorite: The Joggers, who, incidentally appear primed to release a new album in 2010!). I accidentally stumbled on this release as I was surfing the web one day early in 2009. I think this was my first clue that the blogs I follow aren’t meeting my standards – this release should NOT have slipped by me in 2008! And, this just in, apparently they released another album this year on Kill Rock Stars… Argh!

The Shaky Hands – Air Better Come
The Shaky Hands – You’re The Light
The Shaky Hands – Wake the Breathing Light

Jack Peñate – Everything Is New

I really loved Jack Peñate’s first album. This one is similarly pop, although it has a darker feel to it than his first, and I like it equally. Katie thinks that it is reminiscient of some newer Cure albums. This was annoying to her, but I think it is a compliment .

Jack Peñate – Give Yourself Away
Jack Peñate – Let’s All Die
Jack Peñate – Tonight’s Today

The Units – History of the Units

Keeping up with the theme of “bands that I should have been into when I was four” (see The Nerves), I really got into this album this year. Truth is that I first heard “High Pressure Days” late last year and only got around to buying the album in the latter half of 2009. Interestingly, I received the album from a Portland address, and it turns out that the re-issue of this music came from a group of local DJ’s that had a music club of sorts where they introduced to each other old, obscure and interesting music. Out of that came this retrospective of a short-lived electronic punk band. At first, I was certain that this was some precurser to the Talking Heads, but alas it is not.

The Units – High Pressure Days
The Units – Warm Moving Bodies
The Units – Digital Stimulation

Wild Beasts – Two Dancers

I actually blogged about these guys before, but that was prior to my purchase of the new album. It lived up to my expectations and was easily on par with their first release (one of my favorite albums from last year).

Wild Beasts – All The King’s Men
Wild Beasts – This Is Our Lot
Wild Beasts – The Fun Powder Plot

Chet – Chelsea Silver, Please Come Home

I would like to call this band my “best new artist” of 2009, except that this is something like their 8th album, and if I had to name a favorite, Local Natives would probably win out. But we are talking about the best of my favorites, and this was a damn fine album. I look forward to checking out their back catalog.

Chet – Cautious Melody
Chet – The Night, The Night
Chet – Every Night a Supper Wine

Some people have normal hobbies like woodworking or gardening. I, on the other hand, am into signing up for things. I used to be into applying for BMG memberships to get the 12 CDs for the price of one as well as the bonus for signing up a ‘friend’ (hey, I think I make a good friend!). That is, until they ended the club this year. Also this year, as a result of the credit crunch, one of my other pastimes all but evaporated: credit card introductory offers. In 2008, I managed to rack up over $900 in cash and over 50,000 frequent flyer miles just by applying for credit cards, all from this blog. But come 2009, the offers dried up. In fact, the situation was so dire that American Express was paying some of their delinquent cardholders to close their accounts!. Well, it would seem that the gloomy days are over. I just received a the new Chase Freedom credit card with a $100 bonus after spending $500 in the first 3 months. Thanks, Chase! Don’t mind if I do .

I was discussing with some friends the $1500 Federal Energy Tax Credit, particularly regarding the fact that it has been extended through 2010. One question that was raised – does that mean we can apply it both in 2009 and 2010 for a total of $3000 of tax credits? The answer is ‘no’. Each household has a lifetime maximum of $1500 with the credit.

$1,500 is the maximum total amount that can be claimed for all products placed in service in 2009 & 2010 for most home improvements, EXCEPT for geothermal heat pumps, solar water heaters, solar panels, fuel cells, and small wind energy systems which are not subject to this cap, and are in effect through 2016

Oh well, so much for those plans to replace some windows next year. On the bright side, the credit allows for 30% of the total cost of installation for a new tankless water heater, up to $1500, and we will be able to max it out this year.

After watching on Craigslist for a while, I found a decent 20.6cf Kenmore energy star refrigerator. I’ve come to the conclusion that you pay a big premium for a bottom freezer model or refrigerator sizes greater than 21cf. I don’t think either of them deliver much in the way of energy savings and aesthetics are not our goal. We settled on this one because it was energy star rated, relatively new and in good shape, and the price was fantastic: $250. Compare that with $800 for a new model at Home Depot.

Subtract from that $30 from the Energy Trust who is paying us to recycle our old refrigerator! I scheduled a date for them to come by the house. With little effort, the two guys got it out of the house and started downhill towards the parking lot since that was the easiest way out. I started trying to help the guys, carefully helping them move the refrigerator down the steep hill, but it was clear that they were a little annoyed with my attempts to help. Finally, one of them asked me to get out of the way and he just laid the refrigerator on the ground (dolly on the bottom) and shoved it down the hill like it was a toboggan run. It slid several feet into the street, but no worries, this thing is just going to be scrapped. The guys told me that almost everything is recycled – the freon, metal, glass, and even the foam insulation. I’m curious how much money the Energy Trust makes on scrap vs. how much it costs to haul the appliances and the $30 incentive. Undoubtedly it is a losing venture, but how much?

The big question that should be on your mind: how does the new refrigerator perform in the energy department? The answer: it pays for itself within 2 years. I’m thoroughly pleased.

One constant source of annoyance to me when typing an email in outlook is when outlook irreversibly mangles the formatting of my message when I paste something from another email or document. To make the problem even more irritating is the fact that Outlook doesn’t give me the option to “paste special” and just insert unformatted text.

In order to work around this, I would usually paste the text first in gvim and then copy and paste from there.

I accidentally stumbled on a tool, puretext, to save that middle step for me, and I love it, shaving seconds off of each work day and minutes off my year with a simple windows start + V keystroke!

Thanks Steve Miller!

Among my favorite songs from last year was an old tune, “Hanging on the Telephone” from the band the Nerves. I had never heard of these guys before, I guess I just wasn’t that tuned in with the west coast pop/punk scene in 1978. It took me a while, but I finally purchased the 2008 album, “One Way Ticket” a few months ago, and it has been in heavy rotation since, easily my favorite album this year.

The Nerves – Hanging on the Telephone
The Nerves – Thing of the Past

I highly recommend it, and so does Paloma…:

…from where else but the 2009 PDX Adult Soapbox Derby.