Addicted to Solar Panels

Late in 2006, we decided to install a photovoltaic system on our roof. At the time, I was working on alternative energy technology and was extremely impressed by the fact that you could install solar panels on your house and make your own electricity. But would it work on our house?

Two things were worrisome: we used an awful lot of electricity in our house and we have tall woods behind the house that cast shade on the roof during the winter months. But we decided that if we could put enough solar panels on the roof to make at least half of our electricity and if it wouldn't be unaffordable, we would do it. Thanks to state subsidy funding and generous tax credits, it turned out that it was affordable to install such a system; so we signed a contract to do it.

While we waited for the wheels of bureaucracy to slowly turn and for elusive solar panels to be procured, we examined the details of our electrical usage and found ways to reduce it significantly without changing the way we live. Those curlicue lightbulbs save a ton of energy and we put them everywhere. By the time we got the solar energy system installed, we had reduced our electrical usage by 35%. As a result, our new system ended up making not 50% but 80% of our electricity. How great!

On sunny days, our electric meter happily spins backwards, effectively banking the excess energy we make. At night, the meter runs forward and withdraws our accumulated energy. For most of the year, the deposits outweigh the withdrawals and the meter reads lower and lower. Only during the winter does our usage greatly overcome our ability to generate energy. But on an annual basis, we were only 20% short.

Well, three years came and went and that 80% has steadily held up. And then the little itch started. Can't we do better? We still had some room on the roof for more panels. All the other gear is already installed so upgrading the system wouldn't be very complicated. The federal tax credits have gotten even better than they were in 2006. So why fight it? We're addicted to solar panels.

So today, the same folks who installed our system in 2006 came to our house and installed nine more panels - all that could be accommodated by the inverters in our basement that convert the DC power from the solar panels into AC power that runs the house. If all goes well - and it surely will - from now on we will be making roughly 100% of our electricity for the year. Some years it will be a little less, some years a little more.

I don't know what anything we buy will cost six years from now or perhaps even six months from now, but I know that I won't be worrying about my electric bills. And that is pretty cool.

Up in the Air with an iPad

A cautionary tale from the road

I am in a plane outbound from Albany, New York, winging my way towards Washington, D.C., the first leg of a trip that will take me to New Orleans, where I plan to spend three hours at Louis Armstrong Airport and then turn around and head home. How did I get into this ridiculous situation?

For years I was a road warrior, commuting across the country on a regular basis for a job located thousands of miles from my home. I amassed frequent-flyer miles by the bushel and was treated as a big shot by United Airlines. Then those days came to an end and I once again became an ordinary mortal, forced to shell out hundreds of dollars extra for seats with enough legroom to accommodate my 6-foot-4-inch frame.

With a summer looming that will include a trip to California and a trip to Italy, my lowly airline status weighed heavily. However, with all those years of flying, I had accumulated some 997,541 miles on United, a paltry 2,459 miles short of a million. It turns out that once you reach the million-mile mark, you achieve elite status for life! Comfy seats, free upgrades, priority boarding... lots of goodies.

So here I am flying round-trip to New Orleans on the same day, which will put me 99 miles over the top. This itinerary was the closest, cheapest and fastest way to get enough miles. And it is also among the goofier things I have done.

So what does one do on a 14-hour trip to nowhere? In a stroke of fortuitous timing, three days ago I got an Apple iPad -- the cool new gadget that some believe will take over the world. Whether that is true remains to be seen, but it has taken over this trip. I come armed with an Oscar-winning movie in HD, a TV show I've wanted to see, two electronic books, a couple of electronic magazines, nearly 5,000 songs and, when I'm at the various airports, access to email and the web. So I have lots to do on my iPad, including writing this log.

So, with heavy rain rolling into the Albany area, I nervously waited in the terminal for my 10:12 am flight. I check my email, look at a few websites, and peer at an animated weather map looking for thunderstorms. If this flight is delayed by more than about twenty minutes, this whole plan will unravel. I won't be able to get to New Orleans soon enough to come back tonight. But, it looks like we are going to board. We follow a United employee in his full-body yellow rain suit out onto the tarmac and board the commuter jet. Somehow or other, at precisely 10:12 am, we were airborne. It is now 11:48, the iPad battery is at 95%, and I sit back to do some reading.

Well, that hour didn't take too long. Wheels down at 11:12. So now I'm at Dulles Airport and boo! No free WiFi here. It isn't worth six bucks for the 45 minutes that I will be here. I will wait for the free Internet access at New Orleans. Meanwhile, leg one of my journey is complete. I am 325 miles closer to my goal. It's 11:45, the battery is at 92%, and I am hungry.

I get on the way to New Orleans at 12:40. I decide that I am going to watch the first episode of FlashForward. Well, the show started out much like the book but diverges in an interesting way at the end of this episode, so maybe I'll see some more of these sometime. Meanwhile, it is 1:35, the battery is at 85%, and I am somewhere between Washington and New Orleans in the last row of a small, crowded Air Bus with a serious leaner in front of me. It doesn't get much better than this.

I look around me and realize that all these people are actually going to New Orleans (or other places in the vicinity, I suppose) and will quickly make their way out of the airport when they arrive. Not me. The airport is my only destination. I hope it's a nice one.

It's a little after 2:30, 5 hours into my 14-hour adventure. My battery is at 80% and we are starting our descent into New Orleans. It will be a pleasure to get out of this tiny space and sprawl in the terminal. But not yet, so back to listening to music and reading a science-fiction novella.

We landed at 2:57, quite early. My first activity was to eat some beignets hot out of the fryer and drowned in powdered sugar. OK. New Orleans is a good place. Even at the airport.

Next I tried to get on the Internet. No go. Kept getting a fatal error after connecting to the network. What's up with that? I wonder if I can reach Apple? I have plenty of time to try. I have 2 1/2 hours until my flight.

Well, well. It's now 4:45 and I've been on the phone with Apple. Alot. This is a new one for them and they are very anxious to see a resolution. It could be something weird with the airport WiFi here, or maybe my iPad has freaked out. I guess I won't know until I get home. I have the direct line to the head of the product team, so I'll find out eventually. In any event, I won't be using the Internet here. So I am off to explore the airport.

There are the usual gift shops, bookstores, gadget shops and fast food emporia here. I considered some of the $29.95 New Orleans Jazz t-shirts and some beignet mixes, but decided that I didn't really need any of them. After a while, I decided to take a look at the Departures screen in the terminal. Next to my flight was the word you don't want to see: delayed. I decided to go over to the United counter to find out what kind of delay we were talking about.

The adventure continues... I won't be getting home tonight. There is apparently bad weather in Chicago and that is where my plane back to DC originates. So it will be 2 1/2 hours late and I will miss my connection. I get to spend the night in Washington and since it is because of weather, I get to pay for it! And the reason I want million-mile status is so I can fly some more??? My 14-hour trip to nowhere has morphed into a 24-hour trip to nowhere. I really should have brought some chargers. Talking to Apple for an hour has seriously drained my cell phone battery and I will need to find a hotel for tonight. I wish the iPad Internet was working.

Things then took a turn for the better... somewhat better, anyway. Because my cell phone battery was dying, I went to the AirTunes store to try to get a cheap charger. No dice (50 bucks wasn't worth it), but the guy there charged my phone while we were gabbing. And he told me that the WiFi network at the airport was all screwed up today. He even showed me the same mysterious "fatal error 500" screen on a Sony PSP. So the iPad isn't broken or defective after all. Yay! I just am having miserable luck in the Big Easy. It's 6:45, the battery is at 68%, and I'm ready for dinner.

I had some gumbo, jambalaya and red beans and rice. I guess that does it for my New Orleans experience. Now I just want to get out of here. And so I sit at an amazingly empty gate waiting for my flight, which is supposed to leave in 45 minutes. At the moment, it's me and 4 other people. One of them has a MacBook and he too sees the Fatal Error Screen of Misery. Perhaps everyone else bailed out. Anyway, it's 8:15, my battery is at 65% and the Best Western Dulles Inn beckons 954 miles away. Back to reading my novella...

At 9:10, we took off from Louis Armstrong, ending a particularly pointless six hours spent talking to Apple Tech Service (who had nothing to do with my problems), and standing in line waiting to talk to United (who had everything to do with my problems). It would have been nice to make use of that $400,000 WiFi system the airport brags about but alas, it was not to be. I must say, however, that the beignets were quite excellent! Two hours to Washington and 61% still in the tank. Time to watch a movie.

I spend the remainder of the flight watching Hurt Locker. It's a riveting movie and I am disappointed when I have to shut down the iPad for landing with only half an hour to go. We land at 11:15 and I make my way to AirTrains, hotel shuttles and such.

And now it's 12:15 am and I am in my hotel room. They gave me a handicapped room -- fitting, given that my handicap is that I am an idiot. In any event, the flight went by quickly. I almost saw all of Hurt Locker but ran out of time. Still 48% battery, so I can watch it now. On the other hand, I have to get up at 6 to catch a shuttle back to the airport for my 8:15 flight. So what? I’m watching the movie. Gosh this is fun!

So it's now 7:30 am on Wednesday and I'm sitting at the gate for my final flight. Only 325 miles stand between me and home and success (of a sort). My scheme for an easy, relatively quick, and economical way to reach my mileage goal was defeated by weather in Chicago, a place that I never got anywhere near on my journey. Such is the lot of the frequent flyer. I had nearly forgotten.

I finished the movie last night (it was outstanding) and now I have only 33% of my battery remaining. Perhaps I will have enough juice for the rest of the trip.

After a delay caused by the late arrival of an obese, immobile passenger and her tiny dog (both of whom had to be loaded into the passenger compartment), my last flight left the ground at 8:50 am and I am less than an hour away from completing my ridiculous journey.

At 9:30, I land in Albany. When I walk into the terminal, the friendly United gate agent that I’ve seen for years -- and who high-fived me yesterday as I set off – took one look at me and said “It didn’t work, huh?” Ain’t it the truth, though.

But the whole purpose of this trip was to fly 2,500 miles. At that, I succeeded. Next time, I'm taking chargers; you never know what can happen up in the air.