I’m not much of an NBA fan. Typically, I only tune in when it’s playoff time, and things on the hardwood get serious. This year has been different. About midway through the season, I happened to stumble across a game while flipping through the channels. OK, I admit, I am a Settler. I have cable. Not even TiVo. That aside, it was a game between the Golden State Warriors … and … [Read more...]
A Beautiful Sight Indeed
My father wasn't much of an outdoorsman. Instead of hunting, he liked to take long drives across my home state of South Dakota, passing many an I-90 billboard painted with images of pheasants, fish and white tailed deer. We’d crisscross our way back home taking country roads, and he’d point to fields of beans, corn, wheat and prairie grasses with repeated admiration, Isn't that the most beautiful … [Read more...]
America’s Electric Grid: Why Is Our Thinking in the Dark?
By Mike Hyland, Senior Vice President of Engineering Services, American Public Power Association I remember working in Washington, DC in the fall of 1999 as the U.S. was bracing for the “big one.” The end of the world. Armageddon. A scare known as Y2K. The electric industry was put under a microscope to ensure that the electric grid would survive the stroke of midnight on the evening of … [Read more...]
Jingle Well Spent
I am not one for wasting electricity. I turn off lights when I leave a room — even in my office at work. I unplug devices once they are charged. I keep my thermostat lower in the winter and higher in the summer, and I try to do laundry at non-peak hours. My husband is equally frugal when it comes to power consumption. I would like to say our kids are also good at power conservation, but hey, they … [Read more...]
Electricity: A Christmas Story
Imagine, if you will, you are a child in 1800. It is Christmas morning. You sit on the wood floor in your family’s simple home, a fire in the wood stove and the Christmas tree in a corner. The eve before, Dad had lit candles on the tree, each nestled in a shiny tin with a glowing reflection plate behind. It was beautiful. “The candles are like dancing angels,” Mom said. (Luckily, the tree had … [Read more...]
Rabbits, reliability, and a little roar!
I once tried to teach my young daughters about electricity by pointing at the steel structures outside our minivan windows. We were driving down the highway, and I said something like, “See that tall, grey thing out there that looks like a rabbit? Those cables the rabbit is holding carry electricity to our house and make our TV work so you can watch The Lion King.” Their bright, blue eyes … [Read more...]
My power bill realized
Last Saturday morning I woke up wondering why my electric bill I paid in June was so high. I think what got me started down that path of thinking was the loud buzzing of the alarm on my electric clock. I switched off the alarm and turned on the electric lamp on my bedside nightstand. I needed the light to find my iPhone, which was also on my nightstand and plugged into the wall outlet being … [Read more...]
Always there — alarm clocks, or not
I have a love/hate relationship with my alarm clock. I’m not really a morning person, and the terrible sound – that each day awakens me to a realization I’m not on a beach in Hawaii or driving a bright red convertible along the California coast – is a horrible thing! On the other hand, without opening my eyes or raising my head from the softest pillow in the world, I know I can roll over, push … [Read more...]
A Real Gut Check
I rang up my entry into the New Year in a way I never projected – in a hospital awaiting gallbladder surgery. Don’t worry, I’m OK, but as I was getting to the point that an operation could be performed, I lay in a hospital bed either reading a book or watching TV, or awaiting the next nurse’s visit to draw blood, take my temperature or blood pressure. Suddenly, a thought that intrigued me … [Read more...]
Beefy Electricity
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