Category Archives: Days in My Life

I don’t just sit around and watch TV.

TV-B-Gone

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A practical joke that may do more good than harm.

I should start out by saying that I’m not a big fan of television. It is the pacifier of the masses. Got a bunch of people liable to complain about a long wait? Put on a TV with something mildly entertaining on it and they’ll sit quietly, hypnotized by the images on the screen. Even if the sound is off! That’s why we see televisions in so many places we’re required to wait, from airport gate areas to doctors’ waiting rooms to restaurants.

My Relationship with the Boob Tube

Keep in mind that I grew up with television. We had one in each bedroom and in the kitchen. We weren’t wealthy people — most of those televisions were black and white — but we were thoroughly hooked into TV. We watched the Today show every morning at breakfast before school and game shows at dinner. I clearly remember seeing first-run episodes of I Dream of Jeannie and Gilligan’s Island. (We weren’t allowed to watch Laugh In — that was for adults.) Every Saturday morning, we were glued to the family TV watching cartoons like Scooby Doo. I remember the birth of Sesame Street and other kids shows like Electric Company. I was introduced to Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood at a neighbor’s house.

I was fifteen when we moved from New Jersey to Long Island, NY, and I got my own room for the first time in my life. Although my sister got a TV almost right away, I didn’t. I got a stereo instead. I got tuned into rock — the real stuff that’s probably considered “classic” now. I clearly remember sitting in my bean bag chair — this was the 70s, you know — near my stereo reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy while a Connecticut-based rock station introduced me to Yes with a 45-minute commercial free segment of Yes music.

I didn’t need a television. With books and good music, I could cook up my own fantasy world right in my head.

I got my own television — a 12″ black and white — right after graduating from college and moving into my first apartment. I was 20.

I got my first color television — a 20-inch Sony — as a Christmas gift when I was in my 30s.

My husband and I now have a 36-inch JVC we bought about five years ago, just before flat screens caught on. At the time, it was the largest television you could buy that wasn’t a projection TV. We bought it to better see the letterbox movies we occasionally rented or watched on various movie channels.

To this day, I’d rather sit in a comfortable chair with a good book than watch the crap that’s on TV. Better yet, I’d rather go out and do something — fly, work in the garden, take a hike, ride a bike, go for a drive, or hang out with friends — than watch TV.

There are exceptions, of course. I really love Jon Stewart on The Daily Show: a dose of reality wrapped in a package of laughter. The Colbert Report is a bit over the top sometimes, but usually worth sitting through. Boston Legal is my favorite fictional show — outrageously funny while clearly making social statements about current events. Other than that, I like informative shows on the Discovery, Science, and History channels, as well as PBS. Shows that can teach me something interesting or make me think.

I watch all television via DVR. For those of you not familiar with the concept — my mom wasn’t — DVR stands for digital video recorder. (TiVo is a DVR device.) It’s build into our satellite TV box and makes it very easy to record the television shows you want to watch. Once recorded, the shows sit on a hard disk and can be easily accessed and watched any time you like — even if the DVR is recording something else. But best of all is the 30-second fast forward button, which makes it easy to skip the commercials.

My TV Problem

I do have a problem, however. If you put me in a room that has a television on and it’s within view, I will get sucked into it. It with grab and hold my attention, turning me into just another one of the TV watching zombies around me.

You know what I mean. You’ve been to restaurants or waiting areas where there’s a TV on. If you’re facing it, you’re watching it. It’s as simple as that.

How can you help it? All those pretty colors flashing about. News channel screen titles and scrolling news tickers grab your attention even with the sound off. You see the pictures, you read the text. Why are the police following that white Blazer? What’s with the yellow tape around that wooded area? Why are they taking that man away in handcuffs? Who’s the guy with [fill-in-the-blank famous celebrity]?

In my case, even if I don’t care about what’s on the screen, I’m still sucked into it. The only solution is to sit with my back to it. But then the person I’m with might be facing it and I can clearly see him or her being sucked in. This makes normal social interaction — like conversation — difficult. It’s as if your party of two or three has just been joined by an invited guest who is demanding the attention of the people in your party.

Think I’m kidding? Exaggerating? The next time you’re in a restaurant or airport gate lounge or other place with a TV on, watch the people around it. How many of them are staring at the image like zombies? How many of them are preferring the onscreen image to conversation with their companion(s)? I’m willing to bet it’s more than 50%.

The universal pacifier.

Enter TV-B-Gone®

I read about TV-B-Gone in Make magazine. It was presented there as a project, but for those of us not comfortable with a soldering iron and circuit board, it was also available for sale.

TV-B-Gone is a universal remote control with just one button: an On/Off button. With it, you can turn virtually any television off (or on).

According to Mitch Altman, inventor of TV-B-Gone:

You can use TV-B-Gone® to control access to television for philosophical or practical reasons, or simply to have fun!

Mr. Altman echos my sentiments about television on the Responsible TV Watching page of his Web site:

How much of the TV that you watch do you really like a lot? If you could choose whatever it is that you’d like to be doing right now, anything at all, what would it be? Was your answer, “Watch TV!”? Whatever your answer was, my wish for you is that you have time in your life to do it. Please make time in your life for what you really like. Better yet, please make time to do what you love. Wouldn’t that be great? Don’t know what you love? Try out a few things, see what happens.

Me, my life got so much better from watching TV less. As a result, I had enough time to invent TV-B-Gone®! My idea was to give others a similar chance – so I created a fun way to get the message out there that turning a TV on or off really is a choice. Anywhere, anytime. Please, go out there and choose.

If you do visit the Responsible TV Watching page, please be sure to check out the links at the bottom of the page. If you’re an avid TV watcher, they may open your eyes to many alternatives.

Anyway, when I read about TV-B-Gone, I had to have one. So I coughed up the $20 plus shipping and bought one.

TV-B-GoneIt looks like the keychain you might have with your car. You know, the kind with buttons to lock and unlock the door and open the trunk. There’s just one button on it and, when you press it once, a flashing red light inside that lets you know its working. Pressing the button twice activates it in stealth mode so the red light doesn’t flash.

You use it by pointing it at the TV and pressing the button. The TV-B-Gone then takes up to 69 seconds to run through all the codes commonly used by television manufacturers to toggle the power. When it gets to the code that activates the TV you’re pointing to, the power goes off (if it was on) or on (if it was off). Pretty simple, no?

Of course, there are some limitations. It won’t work with every television. You have to be line-of-sight with the TV’s remote control receptor thingie. There’s a distance limitation; closer is better. But overall, it’s an effective device for playing practical jokes.

TV-B-Gone in Action!

I took my TV-B-Gone with me on my recent trip to Florida. I wanted to test it out in a variety of settings.

I had no success with the televisions in the gate waiting areas at Houston Airport (IAH). I think it’s because I was too far away. In today’s paranoid world, I didn’t want to be obvious because I didn’t want TSA to come down on me for using a suspicious device. (Perhaps I’m more paranoid than they are?)

I did manage to turn off the TV in the waiting area just before I boarded the plane. It was interesting to see the faces of the people who had been watching it. They went from blank stares to confused stares. Nobody said a word.

A few days later, while having lunch with my parents at a St. Augustine restaurant, I got real satisfaction. We were seated at the counter of the rather small restaurant. There were four — count ’em! — televisions within sight of my seat. One was tuned to some sport channel that appeared to have some kind of log-cutting competition. Another was tuned to CNN. A third was tuned to something else — I couldn’t see it clearly because of the way my seat was angled. And the fourth, a small TV close to the first, was turned off.

I should mention here that no one was watching the two TVs closest to me (log-cutting and CNN). Well, no one other than us, trying to figure out why anyone would compete in a competition that used chainsaws to cut through logs.

I whipped out my TV-B-Gone. A moment later, CNN was turned off. I aimed it at the log-cutting competition. The TV next to it went on. It was apparently some kind of security monitor because it showed images from various locations around the restaurant. In trying again to turn off the log-cutting TV, I turned the security TV back off. That’s when I realized that I probably didn’t have a straight shot to the log-cutting TV.

We continued waiting for our lunch. They were taking their blessed time about it. In all fairness, they were kind of busy.

One of the guys who worked there noticed that the CNN TV was off. He picked up a remote and tried to turn it on. Wrong remote. He tried with another. The TV came back on.

I waited a few minutes and turned it off again.

We’d just gotten our food when the same guy came back and noticed the TV was off again. I clearly heard him say to himself, “What is it with this TV?” He went through the same sequence of trying to turn it on with the wrong remote and then turning it on with the right one. It was tough to keep a straight face. I was seated at the end of the counter and the guy was less than 4 feet from me.

I turned it off again just before we left.

Later, the same day, at Houston Airport, I happened to walk though an area of terminal E that used about 50 televisions to create a display of moving colored lights 15-20 feet over the walkway. How unbelievably wasteful! I activated my TV-B-Gone as I was walking and managed to shut off four of them at once. Later, when I had to walk though the same area because of a gate change, I killed another four on the other side.

Is This a Cruel Joke?

When I bragged in Twitter about turning off the 8 televisions at IAH, @Miraz sent me an @reply message:

Doesn’t turning off TVs annoy the folks watching them? I’d be pretty peeved.

Well, in the case of the 8 TVs with moving colors, I don’t think anyone missed them. They might still be off for all I know.

And my observation of the people in the gate area a few days before didn’t reveal any anger. I think it’s because they weren’t really watching what was on. They were looking at it. Sucked in because there was nothing more interesting (to them) to look at. Or because they have the same TV problem I have.

It’s actually interesting to watch the reactions. It proves, in a way, that they don’t need the television on in front of them. Maybe when the TV goes off, they’ll actually engage in conversation with the people they’re with. Wouldn’t that be special.

But I wouldn’t try my TV-B-Gone in a sports bar. You know the kind of place. They have a bunch of TVs showing whatever real sporting events are on. (I’m not talking about log-cutting here.) Guys are drinking beer and watching the game. They’re shouting at the TV about the plays and the calls. They’re absorbed in what’s going on in front of them.

Get caught turning off one of those TVs, and you’re likely to get a black eye.

And I wouldn’t turn off a TV displaying breaking news about something that really mattered. Or the TV in a doctor’s office if it were displaying content that was keeping kids quiet.

You have to be responsible with your practical jokes.

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The Simple Things in Life

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I have a great, ordinary day.

After spending yesterday being lazy and eating too much, I was determined to make the most of today. So I made rough plans to go for a hike at Red Mountain and then visit my favorite Thai restaurant in Flagstaff. I’d bring Jack the Dog and my good camera. I’d take my time and have a good time.

And that’s exactly what I did.

On the Road

I had a nice leisurely breakfast and spent a few hours reading something I’d written a long time ago. Reading my old fiction is always a bit depressing. I put so much of my time into it and now I realize how much rewriting it would do before I could ever consider publishing it. Both the content and writing style are immature. I wonder how many other writers look back at their old, unpublished work and feel the same way.

By 9:30 AM, I was ready to hit the road. I packed an orange and a bottle of water in a canvas bag, grabbed my camera bag and jacket, and loaded it all into the truck. I put Jack in back — I refuse to get dog hair all over the cloth seats in the cab — and closed the cap on him. Then I headed out.

I stopped to visit Matt and Elizabeth on my way out. They live full-time on the other side of the mesa. In fact, they’re the only people who live full-time on the mesa at all. They were in the middle of cleaning out one of their sheds, getting it ready to turn into a greenhouse. We chatted for a while as Jack wandered around their yard. I remembered that I didn’t have a leash for Jack and asked Matt for a piece of rope. I left with a 6-foot piece of nylon rope that I fashioned into a leash. Although there wouldn’t be many people where I planned to hike, there’s always one in the crowd ready to complain if your dog is off-leash.

We descended down the mesa and through the flatlands below. At route 64, I turned right, heading toward the Grand Canyon. There weren’t many people on the road, which kind of surprised me. It was, after all, Saturday morning. What better time to visit the big ditch?

Planes of Fame

At Valle, a small town at the intersection of routes 64 and 180, I made a brief stop at the Planes of Fame Air Museum. This remarkable aviation museum, which is based at Valle Airport, has an amazing collection of planes and aviation memorabilia. It’s impossible to miss, since General MacArthur’s Constellation is parked right out front. Oddly enough, it gets few visitors, despite the fact that thousands of people drive past each day on their way to or from the Canyon. I highly recommend it; it’s worth the stop for anyone interested in aviation — especially military aviation. And it the name of the place sounds familiar, it’s because it’s associated with the larger Planes of Fame museum in Chino, CA.

I was stopping in to hand over some brochures for Flying M Air. The museum’s lobby walls are lined with brochure racks for things to see and do all over Arizona and I like to keep my brochures there. At the same time, I usually pick up a batch of the museum’s brochures and put them in the racks at Wickenburg Airport. (It’s the least I can do!)

I had a nice chat with the two women there. They still had some of the brochures I’d mailed to them about six months ago. I asked them to put the brochures away until September 1. I told them I was closing down for the summer and there was no sense getting phone calls when I wasn’t ready to fly. They were completely understanding.

Walking Inside a Mountain

On leaving Planes of Fame, I headed southeast on route 180 toward Flagstaff. I’d planned to hike at Red Mountain, the remains of an ancient volcano that had collapsed in on itself thousands of years ago.

We’d discovered Red Mountain years ago, in 2003. While at Flagstaff’s excellent visitor center, we’d stumbled upon a free publication called 99 Things to Do in Northern Arizona. Number 26 was “Walk Inside a Mountain”:

Located 32 miles north of Flagstaff on U.S. 180, Red Mountain is one of the most intriguing sites in the Flagstaff area. The mountain is a volcanic cinder cone that rises 1,000 feet above the surrounding landscape. It is part of the San Francisco Volcanic Fields, a belt of volcanoes stretching through Flagstaff and on to the canyon of the Little Colorado River.

The northeast flank of the volcano is deeply sculpted, with a natural amphitheater in the center….The 2.5 mile round-trip hike is well worth it because you actually get to see what a cinder hill looks like on the inside.

This was enough to pique our interest, so we tracked down the trailhead and paid it a visit with Jack the Dog and a picnic lunch. I remembered it as an interesting yet easy hike — a good destination for another hike with Jack.

Today, I skipped the lunch and just brought along my Nikon D80 with two extra lenses in the fanny-pack style camera bag I bought for such hikes. I let Jack out of the truck and hung his makeshift leash around my neck. Another couple started the hike right after we did, but I let them pass us when I stopped to take a rest.

The trail to Red Mountain is an easy gravel pathway, partially eroded but plenty wide in most spots. It winds through typically high desert vegetation: grasses and pinon and juniper pines. Plenty of sun and shade. The path climbs gradually almost its entire length, offering occasionally glimpses of the cinder cone at its end, as well as the San Francisco Peaks and Mount Kendricks, beyond it, to the east.

The trail follows a dry stream bed into a canyon between two steep slopes of dark gray volcanic gravel. These slopes have been here a long time, as evidenced by the huge ponderosa pines growing out of them. They also give the trail a sort of claustrophobic feeling, especially with all the shade from tall trees all around.

The trail ends abruptly at a six-foot tall stone dam completely filled in with silt. A slightly tilted ladder with handrails leans against it. As Jack and I arrived, a group of 5 people were just making their way down. We waited.

One of the people asked, “How are you going to get the dog up there?”

“Oh, he’ll climb it,” I assured them.

“He’ll climb the ladder?”

“Sure.”

By this time, they’d all come down. They stood a few feet away, giving us an audience. I climbed up the ladder and Jack followed me, placing each foot carefully on a step as he climbed.

“It’s a circus dog!” someone called out.

Beyond the dam, we were inside the mountain. It was very different from what lay outside. Inside were mostly red rock formations very similar in appearance to the “hoodoos” at Bryce Canyon National Park hundreds of miles to the north. There were trees and hills and black rock. The force of erosion was quite evident. Jack and I explored the west side of the mountain’s insides and found ourselves winding through a series of narrow slot canyons. Of course, I had my crazy fisheye lens with me. I took a few shots with it, including this shot with Jack the dog. You can’t imagine how much red dust I got on the seat of my pants sliding off this observation point.

Here’s another weird shot with that fisheye lens. For this photo, I lay my flannel shirt, which I’d shed during the hike, on the dusty ground under a small pinon pine tree, facing up. Using the self timer, I snapped the shutter, then moved away quickly so as not to be in the photo. I love taking weird photos like this.

We explored inside the mountain for about 30 minutes. We were the only ones there. I’d forgotten to bring water with me and I knew Jack was thirsty. On the north-facing rocks, there was snow and I led the way to the base of a particularly snowy area, hoping that the snow was melting before it evaporated into the dry desert air. We found a small puddle and Jack had a good drink.

I took a few more shots, experimenting with various lenses and exposures and focal lengths. What I saw through the lens didn’t do the actual scene justice. It was beautiful and surreal.

We headed back to the dam and ladder. A pair of hikers stopped to pet Jack. When we got to the ladder, he carefully made his way back down. I wished I’d gone first and had taken a movie of it with my phone. I don’t think too many people would believe it, especially if they saw the ladder.

One of my favorite photos of Jack the Dog was taken the first time we visited Red Mountain. In it, he’s running towards us on the trail, with the San Francisco Peaks in the background. I decided to reconstruct the photo. When I got to the right spot, I called Jack back to me and snapped this photo. It wasn’t as pretty a day, but I think it’s a better photo.

We reached the truck, where Jack and I had a drink of water. Then I closed him up in the back of the truck and headed out of the parking lot. It was about 1 PM.

I should mention here that I have a photo of Red Mountain taken from the air. You can see it in the post titled “The Winslow Loop.”

The Drive to Flag

I continued southeast on route 180 toward Flagstaff. There was one spot I wanted to visit along the way — the very picturesque Chapel of the Dove. But when I neared it, I saw that its tiny parking lot was full of cars. I figured they must be doing some kind of memorial service and I didn’t want to intrude. So I kept driving. I’ll stop there another day when there’s no one around.

I did stop alongside the road to take this photo for Miraz. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the same spot a photo on one of her recent blog posts was taken. I’m off the ‘net right now, so I can’t check.

Along the way, Route 180 climbs to just over 8,000 feet above sea level. My redneck truck sure didn’t like the elevation. It drove terribly. Even cruise control couldn’t keep up the speed. I’m very glad my trip this summer won’t keep me in the mountains.

Thai Food and Errands

Boy, I sure wish I could remember the name of the Thai restaurant we’ve been eating at in Flagstaff when we’re there. It’s right downtown, across the street from Babbitt’s, with a connecting door to the Hotel Monte Vista. It has the best Pad Thai Noodles I’ve ever had and a really great “combination” soup with a clear broth, rice noodles, chicken, tofu, pork (?), and veggies.

That’s where I went for lunch. I parked the truck in front of the tattoo parlor on Route 66, tied one end of the makeshift leash to Jack’s collar, and walked the two blocks. I tied Jack to a signpost outside the door and went in. After washing my hands three times to get the dirt off them, I settled down for a nice lunch. I only finished half of what they put in front of me, so I took the rest to go. (I’m finishing up the soup now. Yum.)

Afterward, we walked over to the Flagstaff Visitor’s Center to drop off a bunch of Flying M Air brochures. The Visitor’s Center shares space with Amtrack in the original train station right downtown.

Back in the truck, we headed over to the HomeCo Ace Hardware on Butler Road. This is a great hardware store that I’ll take over Home Depot any day. (Having spent much of a summer in the Flagstaff Home Depot, I can assure you that I’m sick of it.) It’s a good-sized place with everything you need and enough floor staff to help you find whatever it is you’re looking for. The True Value Hardware Store in Williams is also very good, although not nearly as big.

Although I was tempted to hit the Barnes and Nobel Bookstore on Route 66, I talked myself out of it. Instead, we hopped right on I-40 and headed west.

I did make one more stop before returning to the mesa: Dairy Queen in downtown Williams. They make the best hot fudge sundae. Even a small one!

Why It Was a Great Day

Now this day may seem pretty ordinary to you. A bunch of errands, a hike, and lunch out. Big deal.

But I enjoyed the whole day immensely — perhaps more than I should have. And knowing that I enjoyed it so much made me enjoy it even more.

Perhaps one of the things that made it so enjoyable was my choice of listening material for the long drives. (I did, after all, drive well over 100 miles today.) I had my iPod plugged in via cassette tape adapter thingie and was listening to podcasts. I was alone, so I didn’t have to worry about missing what was being said because of conversation. The podcasts I listened to — Point of Inquiry — gave me something to really think about. I like getting thoughtful input.

Another thing that contributed to the good day might have been my complete lack of schedule. I had a list of things I wanted to do and plenty of time to do them all. I didn’t need to be someplace — or back at the mesa — at a specific time. So there was no stress, no rush. Very relaxing.

Now I’m back on the mesa, relaxing in our camping shed. Outside, the wind is absolutely howling — they forecast winds 25 to 35 mph with gust up to 50 mph. My windsock is stuck straight out as if starched. Occasionally, the building shakes. But its cosy and safe in here with music on the radio and sunlight coming in through the windows.

And I have leftover pad Thai noodles for dinner.

A Day on the Mesa

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A lazy day, with photos.

I spent the day at our place on Howard Mesa today. It was a lazy day. I read, ate (too much), napped, chatted on the phone, wrote and posted blog posts, and took a walk.

In the late afternoon, I noticed what I thought was a cow just outside the gate, alongside the road. Howard Mesa is open range land and the only way you can keep cows off your property is to fence them out. We’re one of only two lots on top of the mesa that’s completely fenced in. We did it primarily to keep the horses in, since open range cattle rarely come up here. But my friends had their yard destroyed by cattle one day, so I’m glad our place is fenced in — even though there isn’t much here for them to destroy. (Who wants cow poop all over the place anyway?)

I walked down to the road with Jack the Dog to check out the cow. And that’s when I realized it wasn’t a cow. It was a bull. How could I tell? Balls instead of udders.

It didn’t have any horns, so I think it may have been young. Of course, the horns could have been cut off. I think ranchers do that sometimes. It was very interested in us, but I kept my distance. I’ve been to rodeos and I’ve seen cowboys and rodeo clowns chased. I didn’t want to be a rodeo clown.

I took some pictures with my phone and sent them to TwitPic and my TumbleLog. But this photo, taken with my CoolPix, is much better, especially after a trip though Photoshop Elements for exposure correction and cropping.

Bull!

Later, I went for a walk, partially to walk off all the food I’d eaten. I find that I eat a lot when I’m up here — probably because there isn’t much else to do for distraction and I always bring along food I really like. Jack and I hit the road and took a right. I was hoping to see some other property owners, but I knew how unlikely that would be. There aren’t many places with less going on. I did see a truck drive by earlier today, but I don’t know where it went. I didn’t see it come back. I thought that there was a slight chance that I’d see where it went and possibly meet the people that were in it.

I didn’t. I didn’t see anyone. But what I did see was some neat textured dirt alongside the road. The ground gets like this in the spring, after numerous snowfalls and freezes have melted away. This stretches go on forever up here, with few tire tracks or animal tracks to disturb them. I like textures, so I took the picture.

Mud

I figure I walked about a mile round trip without seeing a soul. Even the bull was gone. It was so quiet, my ears hummed. All I could hear was the sound of the breeze in the pinon and juniper trees around me.

When I got back to the shed, I paused long enough to take a photo of Mount Kendricks (left) and the San Francisco Peaks (right) in the distance. The zoom on my CoolPix shortened up the distances — the snow-capped peaks are at least 50 miles from here but, as you can see, are clearly visible.

San Francisco Peaks

The sun’s getting low now and will set within the next 30 minutes or so. I’m looking forward to getting some shots of the moonrise. There are wisps of cirrus clouds in the sky, but I don’t think they’ll spoil my view. We’ll see.

Solar Power

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One solution for off-the-grid living in Arizona.

Our little off-the-grid vacation place has solar power. It’s an extremely simple system that consists of two 120-watt (I think) solar panels mounted on the roof and four deep cycle batteries in a little cabinet. The panels are attached to the batteries with a charger. Whenever there’s sun — which is just about every day in Arizona — the solar panels charge the batteries. All we do to maintain them is make sure there’s enough distilled water in the battery cells.

The building has both AC and DC power. That’s a weird thing that we decided on when we first set up the place. It’s a very small place with just one room, a loft, and a bathroom alcove. There are very few electrical appliances, and they’re split between AC and DC. On the AC side is an iHome clock radio (the kind you can put an iPod in), a 700-watt microwave, and a 600-watt single cup coffee maker. There are also outlets that can power a small ShopVac or laptop. Everything else is powered by DC power: 9 small light fixtures, the water pump, and a ceiling fan. (Do you know how hard it was to find a DC ceiling fan?) There are round DC power outlets everywhere there’s a standard AC power outlet. The fridge, stove, water heater, and furnace are all propane gas.

Theoretically, we can run the whole place on DC power with gas. On very short stays, we don’t even bother with the fridge. But since the batteries are hooked up to a 2000-watt AC inverter, we usually turn on the inverter so we can use those AC appliances and outlets when we want to. We have a little meter that plugs into a DC outlet to monitor the amount of juice in the batteries. At night, the power level gets low, but never too low to run lights or watch a movie on a laptop with power connected. And, in the morning, even before dawn, there’s always enough power to run my coffee maker.

It’s a great system. It cost about $2K for Mike to design and install and it meets all of our limited needs. I’m certain that if we built a house up here with more conveniences, a system just three or four times the size — perhaps supplemented with a small wind generator — would easily meet those needs. After all, it’s cool enough up here that air conditioning is not required in the summer — especially if the house had an energy efficient design that kept the hot air out. And if the sun isn’t shining, the wind is probably blowing.

Today, while relaxing with a book, the radio suddenly died. I checked the little DC meter and saw that we had plenty of juice — 15.4 volts, in fact. That’s the highest I’ve ever seen it. I went out to check the inverter and found lights blinking on it. Consulting the manual revealed that we had too much power for the inverter to use. The system is designed to shut down when available power exceeds 15 volts.

Oddly enough, to get the AC power to work, I had to come inside and turn on a bunch of lights and the ceiling fan and run the pump for a while. In other words, I had to throw away excess power. Once I got stored power down to 14.8 volts, I went outside and turned the inverter back on. Everything worked fine.

Keep in mind that this is a very small system and there’s no tracking on those solar panels. The panels are fixed to the roof, pointing southwest. (Imagine how much power we’d pull in if the panels were set up to track the sun?) It was about 2:30 PM when the problem occurred; it’s now almost two hours later and the sun is lower, so I don’t think the problem will reoccur.

My point is this: Arizona is a perfect environment for solar power, especially for small to moderate use. There’s no reason why solar can’t be set up to at least supplement power coming into an on-the-grid home. And for an off-the-grid home with modest needs, it seems to be a perfect solution.

So why aren’t more homes built with solar as part of the standard builder package?

On Product Registration Questionaires

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Answer these questions so we can sell your contact information to others.

About two weeks ago, I went on a little shopping spree at Best Buy. One of the things I walked away with was a Nikon CoolPix S550 compact digital camera. I needed it (yes, really) to replace the 2-1/2 year old Canon PowerShot I kept in my purse. The PowerShot had become unreliable (to say the least) and, although it has several features I really like, it had to go.

Yesterday, while weeding through the stack of paperwork that came with the CoolPix — including both a full-length manual and Quick Start guide in Spanish — I stumbled across the registration form. “Return this card to register your purchase and enter our $100,000 Give Away VI,” the yellow folded sheet proclaimed. So this morning, as I sipped my first cup of coffee, I began to fill out the form.

Where they get the idea of calling this a “card” is beyond me. It’s a sizable sheet of paper, folded in thirds, with registration form fields on one full side and a third of the other. There are 30 questions.

I began filling out the form with basic information like my name, address, and e-mail address. They’d need this information, I reasoned, to contact prize winners. I also provided basic product information, such as the date of purchase, model purchased, serial number, and place of purchase. Then I answered questions, via check boxes, about the features that influenced my purchase decision and the other similar products that I owned or planned to buy. This is all basic market research stuff.

Next they asked about my skill level as a photographer (I checked “advanced amateur”) and computer skills (“advanced”). But I paused when I reached question 15: “Would you be interested in a digital camera course?” I would, but I didn’t want Nikon trying to sell me one via annoying e-mails or mailings. Still, I checked Yes.

More marketing questions followed. Is the camera for business or personal use? What business am I in? What kind of computer do I use? What other brands did I consider?

Then came the big departure from questions about the camera. The questions started getting personal. How many people in my household? Ages? Genders? What is my occupation? My husband’s? What’s our household income? What level of education did I complete? What credit cards do I use? Do I own or rent my home? How many magazines do I subscribe to or buy at newsstands each month?

Finally, the list of things we might do — 64 of them! — with check boxes. You know the options: Shop by catalog/mail, donate to charitable causes, have a dog, have a cat, own a CD-ROM drive, tennis, sailing, power boating, foreign travel. The list goes on and on. This is basically a check list so they know who they can sell your information to.

And that’s what these registration forms are all about — a way to get you to voluntarily provide personal information so they can sell it to others, who will then bother you by stuffing your mailbox with dead trees (as Miraz would say) or filling your e-mail box with special offers and links to their Web sites.

To confirm this, there’s some fine print at the very bottom of the form. It looks like it’s in about 6-point type; I needed my cheaters to read it:

Thanks for taking the time to fill out this questionnaire. Your answers will be used for market research studies and reports. They will also allow you to receive important mailings and special offers from a number of fine companies whose products and services relate directly to the specific interests, hobbies, and other information indicated above. Through this selective program, you will be able to obtain more information about activities in which you are involved and less about those in which you are not. Please check here if, for some reason, you would prefer not to participate in this opportunity.

If I’d finished the questionnaire — which I did not — I’d check this “opt out” box. But would that really protect my information?

So I decided to save the 41¢ postage — you didn’t think they’d cover that cost, did you? — and just shred the damn questionnaire.