April Summery

A week ago I was sitting in a barn in Califon, NJ learning the whats and wherefores about solar electricity. It was cold.

It's a barn, after all and although the building had solar panels on the roof and lights to read by, one still had to use a port-a-john for his business and rub his hands vigorously together for heat.

Today, on the verge of May, temperatures push past 90 for the third day straight. The phones at Runnemede Plumbing Heating Cooling & Electric ring nonstop. Lots of people are finding that their air conditioner doesn't work. Others want to schedule a maintenance visit before 'summer' arrives.

But a Nogginhaus has not a care. It already knew weeks ago that the air conditioner needed attention. So it scheduled the repair visit and had it fixed before the homeowner even realized that there was problem.

He went about his work and enjoyed life while his thinking house took care of itself.

Social Media on Steroids

The success of online networking sites is intriguing to me. Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo; I've joined them all and encouraged my friends and family to do the same.

But I think the process is clumsier than it needs to be.

Let's say you meet someone interesting at a business meeting. You have a good, spirited conversation and exchange business cards. When you get back from your trip, you decide to look your new friend up in Facebook. You send an invite.

Now maybe he'll remember you. Maybe he won't. Maybe he'll accept your invitation. Maybe not.

The fact that you stood together, had a conversation and exchanged business cards is all useful data. Maybe someday soon your networking sites will know instantly who you met, how you interacted and the likelyhood that you'll meet again in the future.

Perhaps you'll be able to simply logon to your Facebook account and you'll see that you are already 'Friends'

Pinball Inflation

The family spent the day at Arnold's Family Fun Center in Oaks, PA. My son, Hunter, turned 4 this week and he has been wanting to go gokart racing since last fall.

That reminds me; Full Tilt Racing provided a great day of gokart racing for our company (Runnemede Plumbing Heating Cooling & Electric) last fall.
Here's the video:




Anyhow, this post isn't about gokart racing. Rather, it is about pinball and inflation.

Huh? Well, at Arnold's, they have a section full of pinball machines new and old. I began by playing the newer machines and gradually made my way to the older ones.

I must say, I enjoyed the old ones the most. They were noticably old and from the 1960s or 1970s. I enjoyed them for a few reasons:

- The new machines were very complicated. There was so much going on; lots of lights, targets, tunnels, flippers, holes. All kinds of stuff. They were fun, but a bit overwhelming. On the other hand, the old machines were beautiful in their simplicity. Two flippers, not four or six. Very simple layouts so you actually knew what you were supposed to try to accomplish.

- The new machines had very elaborate sound systems as well. There was Baywatch, The Simpsons, The Sopranos - all with the requisite theme songs and sound effects. The old machines though, what a wonderful cacophony of clacks, pings and bells. Playing those old machines felt like playing an old instrument - you had an idea of what it should sound like, but were pleasantly amused once you started playing.

- Lastly, I couldn't help but notice the point inflation. It was nothing to score in the millions of points in the newer machines. But in the old machines, scores were only in the tens of thousands.

So just like the price of bread and milk and gas and virtually everything in the
1960s, the 'same thing' is much, much more costly today.

In 40 years will our kid's look back at 1,000,000 and wax nostalgic at what such a small sum could buy? Most definitely, if our government has anything to say about it.

Wethinks about chickens

Jeff and I have been talking a lot lately about chickens. We want chickens. Good, egg-laying chickens. Like a Rhode Island Red. Or maybe a White Leghorn.

We figure on getting four chickens. Four nice egg laying hens will do us good. Omletts, scrambled, poached, hard-boiled, over-easy, over-medium, over-hard, sunny-side-up, sliced egg sandwiches, egg salad, soufles, egg cremes.

Our wives think that we're crazy, that we'll never actually get around to buying our coveted fowl. We did a lot of research on coops. The Catawba Brougham is our favorite. We downloaded the plans and intend to build it ourselves (our wives chuckle when we tell them that too).

So when we tell others our plans for world domination beginning with a humble flock of yard-raised chickens, they usually have a few questions after their hearty belly laughs and snide comments. I will gladly address them here:

1. You can't keep chickens in your town, can you?
I read our town's rule book, and it specifically says you can't keep a specific list of farm animals one of which is NOT chickens!

2. Won't they make a lot of noise?
They're CHICKENS, not roosters! Besides, I'm sure they won't wake me up in the middle of the night like the stupid dog across the street! Chickens might be dumb, but at least they know to go to sleep when it's dark!

3. What will you do with all of the eggs?
Eat them. See deliciously long list above.

4. Won't they smell?
No more that the yard of the beast mentioned in item number 2. Pew.

5. What will you do when they're too old to lay eggs?
Eat them. Mmmmm; fried, roasted, fricassied, poached, baked, cordon blue, pot pies, caccatore, with cashew nuts, salad, monte carlo, croquettes...

6. Where will you keep them?
In their coop. The Catawba Brougham; what a fine piece of capon construction.

And lastly, my wife's favorite:
7. Who's going to feed them every day?
That's what we have kids for!

The Cure for Low Prices: Low Prices

Seems that we've been pretty lucky over the past 9 months or so regarding energy prices. Oil's been around $50 per barrel, natural gas was surprisingly inexpensive this winter. Heck, even the electric company sent a friendly flyer with this month's bill that they lowered the price per kilowatt hour.

But an old commodities traders used to say "the cure for low prices is low prices". Last summer, when energy prices were through the roof there was a lot of talk about drilling, searching, conserving and alternativising (my word). That talk has all but been silenced.

When prices fall it just doesn't make sense to keep drilling and searching for energy. It doesn't make as much sense to conserve. And it doesn't make as much sense to put money into an alternative energy source. The payback just isnt there.

But whoa to those who think that the energy prices we pay today are a good foundation to which to base an energy decision. Energy prices will be going up. If you had any doubt of that yesterday, be sure of it today. Geithner just printed up another trillion.

Snap Out Of It!

Last month the Innovation Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF)released its report showing the rankings of 40 countries regarding their capacity for innovation. In that report, the U.S. is shown as ranked #6 out of 40.

Ahead of the United States are: Singapore, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark and South Korea. All fair company I suppose.

But perhaps more disturbing are the little tidbits a bit further into the report. For example, when measuring the rate of change in innovation over the past decade, the U.S.A comes in dead last. 40th place. In other words, every other country (countries like China, Poland, Latvia, Malta and even Cyprus for heaven's sake) innovate at a faster clip than we do hear at the good ol' USA.

It seems that we've been telling ourselves that 'we're #1' for so long that we've come to believe that success will simply come naturally to us. Over the last 10 year's we patted each other on the back as we admired our cunning brilliance. "We think, they sweat." we said.

And all the while, our competitors are gaining on us while the politicians keep telling us that "we have the most dynamic economy in the world" and that "Americans work harder than any other people on the planet."

Do we really?

Revolt Against Big Baaa!!

I'll bet the Bush family own a sheep farm too! Planet haters!!