Professional Independent Web Development
One week after Labour Day I’m getting back into non-summer mode with a regular routine and everything. I thought today would be a good day to look back on my summer travels. This summer I travelled to both the east and west coasts of Canada, and spent a few days in the rockies!
Photos are on my flickr page. In chronological order experience the maritimes then my trip to BC and Alberta.
Yesterday when I signed out of my Hotmail account I was thrilled to see an article about grammar called Bad grammar backlash: Facebook groups, CBC show focus on state of the language, and even more pleased to see that it talks a bit about misuse of apostrophes.
However, when I clicked on some of the links in the article to find out more information I was not taken to a relevant site. I was taken to a Windows Live search for the linked text! Sometimes this is appropriate, but if I’m reading an article that mentions the CBC, and it’s linked, I expect to be taken to the CBC‘s web site. The same goes for Facebook groups. If the name of a group is linked it should be linked to that group’s home page. If that is not possible then it either shouldn’t be linked or it should be linked to a page describing the Facebook group, not to a page of search results.
I know that they’re trying to promote the new Live Search, but there’s a right way and there’s a wrong way. Disappointing users when they click links in articles is the wrong way.
It’s been almost two months since I provided a garden update and several things have happened.
First, just before I went out west, (more on that another day), a groundhog or something got into the garden and started eating leaves. By the time I left a cucumber plant was missing most of its leaves, the carrots only had stems — no leaved, and most of the snow peas had been eaten. However by the time I got back ten days later most things had recovered. The peas, however, are no longer.
Since then I’ve been eating turnips, cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, (and more beans and more beans), and basil, (planted near the tomatoes after the radishes finished. It’s been a good harvest so far and it’s just getting started.
About the photos: The first is the groundhog, or whatever it is, that ate my garden. The second is the garden after being eaten, and the third is the garden the day before yesterday. Clicking each photo will bring you to that photo’s flickr page.
About two months ago I received my power bill, (here in Québec they only come every 2 months), and saw that in the previous 2 months, (April and May), we had used 1800 Kilowatt-hours of electricity. Since we are trying to reduce our costs around the home I resolved to try to reduce the bill as much as possible.
In order to reduce my electricity consumption I did a few things. First, all my room mates left for the summer, (one left at the end of April, halfway through the previous bill, and my girlfriend left in the middle of June, 2 weeks into the new bill). However, my sister was here for 2 1/2 weeks. By having fewer people in the house I knew that I would have a smaller bill, but I wanted to take it further. I changed the light bulbs in my office to compact fluorescent bulbs, (that light is on almost all day). Most other lights in the house that get a lot of use already have fluorescent bulbs. Also, I used only the low energy cycle on the dishwasher and I made an effort to turn off any lights that I wasn’t using.
I stopped short of changing all my bulbs to compact fluorescents for a few reasons. First, cost. Compact fluorescent bulbs are expensive and I didn’t want to buy a lot of them. Second, they take up to two or three minutes to achieve their full light output, and fluorescent bulbs wear out faster the more you turn them on and off so if I put them in rooms that I just pop into to get something the expensive bulbs will wear out faster and not give much light when I’m using them.
Finally, I went away twice during the last two months, so no lights or hot water were being used, and no laundry or dishes were being done.
Now, the results: my new bill arrived today and in the past 2 months we used only 1180 Kilowatt-hours. That’s a 620 kWh or 34 percent reduction in electrical consumption! I know that it’s a bit false because there were so few people here during that time, but it’s still a great reduction.
For the future we’re going to try to reduce electrical consumption further still, so even when we have everybody living here again we, (hopefully), won’t consume as much as we did last year. Our next step now is to reduce phantom loads as much as possible. Post another update in two months.
It’s been some time since I have written about my garden and quite a bit has changed. This isn’t a full update but more of a teaser. The radishes are finished, (I may plant more), and most of the plants are getting pretty big. I posted a few more images over at flickr, and will take some more soon.
P.S. I took a video of some squirrels playing the other day. Enjoy!