Ali's Mom Visits

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Ali's mom came to visit this weekend. They got to spend a lot of time together working on decorating her house. We also hit a couple local restaurants — first-and-foremost was Don's Original (4900 Culver Rd.) as she always makes her way back there any chance she can. We also had an excellent meal at Pomodoro Grill and Wine Bar (1290 University Ave.) There's no surprise why they're still around after all these years.

I spent most of the weekend alternately trying to get things done and nursing a fever. I would have probably given them lots of time anyway (as it's been a long time since Ali's mom has been back in Rochester) but the fever just amplified the situation that much more. (And they did have a nice time, just the two of them.)

Abel Raises Cain at the Dryden

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I headed out to the Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) to see Abel Raises Cain, a documentary about Alan Abel by his daughter Jenny Abel.

Abel made a name for himself by being a professional hoaxer starting in 1959 when he founded "SINA": the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals — their "goal" was to clothe animals but the subversive edge was as a protest to media censorship. He waited for the media to catch on that it was a hoax but they didn't — as he points out, even the name of the group defies its own cause.

I was really inspired by his life and work. Although his overarching message is "don't believe everything you hear," I was transfixed by the manipulation of the news media. For if there's one secret the news media cannot bear to let the public know, it's that they are pretending to be expert authorities on everything they report on — journalism is supposedly this noble profession where hard-working reporters seek out the truth and report it for everyone to see.

The trouble with the truth is that you — yourself — need to do the work of fully understanding what it is you're trying to understand. For the most part, we take it on faith that cold water will freeze before hot water, the interstate highway system has straight sections that can be used as emergency airstrips, or that cell phones can cause a fire at a gas station. We take it on faith that the people reporting the news know what they're talking about — that they found experts and checked sources and did all that important stuff to ensure it's all true.

So I'm thrilled when someone like Abel can come around and show that the foundation for the faith in the news is false. Other people, though [also known as "people I tend to not get along with very well"] are deeply troubled by such exposure. They felt safe and assured that everything they were told was true. But when someone proves otherwise, it is they who make the world less safe by pointing it out.

Bob Spahn Talks About Climate Change and Bird Migration at Thursday Thinkers

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I went to The Rochester Public Library (115 South Ave.) to check out the Thursday Thinkers lecture: Bob Spahn was to talk about The Earlier Springs, Later Falls in terms of whether birds are extending their migratory stay in the north owing to a warming climate. He rephrased the question: "do we have bird record data to show changes in arrival dates indicating warming climates?" and to that he said no.

He examined the data from several regional ornithological groups' records of arrival dates of birds in New York State but found no statistically significant difference in dates over 25 years of records. At first I wasn't satisfied with his analysis, but as the lecture continued, I realized it was the data that was the culprit. He mentioned that when you set out to analyze data, you need to carefully specify how to collect the data so it's relevant and useful.

The idea behind the data collection in New York State was to determine the number of each species of bird. As such, there were also notes of the first recorded sightings of each species. Additionally, the state is divided into 5-mile-by-5-mile regions for analysis. The criteria for observation seems specific, but even as Spahn noted: he recorded data for one region for several years until someone else took over and there was a huge disparity between their reports.

An alternative question to ask is, "is there a correlation between bird arrival dates and climate temperature?" The answer is "probably not". Spahn said that it's believed that bird migration is dictated by light levels. According to the WikiPedia article on bird migration, the purpose of migration is believed to do with the longer days in northern climates in the summer (i.e. more hours of daylight than the tropics) providing more hours to feed their young. Thus, even if there were climate change, it would likely not be shown in bird migration.

The Death of Hope

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I started thinking about how it's the start of 2008 and what I can be hopeful for. And by "hope", I'm referring to a "belief that things will be better in the future". Not necessarily a specific time period, but I guess "in my lifetime" or "reasonably soon". Something like that.

I watched this video on YouTube called How It All Ends by a high-school science teacher named Greg. In it he outlines the response to the possibility of global warming in terms of risk-assessment. Either global warming is happening and caused by us, or it isn't, and either we do something about it or do nothing. His argument is that there are two positive outcomes: we do nothing and the threat of global warming was false, or we do something and it was true but we fix it. However, if we do something and global warming wasn't happening then — the worst case — is that we have a large economic hit; if we do nothing and global warming is happening, then — the worst case again — is that there are floods, droughts, and famines on a scale humanity has never seen. His bet, therefore, is to just take the economic hit and not worry about it.

But remember the last "catastrophic event" that was to happen?: the Y2K bug. And what happened? Nothing. And why? Because we took the economic hit of fixing everything we could find. And what did people believe? It was all a lie to start with.

So likewise with global warming, if I'm out there saying "travel less" and "use less energy" and that becomes forced upon people and then nothing bad happens, people will simply believe that global warming was a myth. They'll blame us "global warming freaks" for ruining their lives. And then if catastrophe does strike, they'll blame us "global warming freaks" for doing the wrong thing and not fixing everything for them. Therefore, my best bet is to quietly go off and figure out how to live in the catastrophic post-global-warming world without being seen. But that's not really hopeful at all — it's just surviving disaster.

The catalyst for this post, though, was in trying to do taxes. I wanted to get my taxes done early because I'm self-employed and need to hand over checks to the U.S. Government on a regular basis. If I don't estimate correctly, I get hit with a huge fine. But I can avoid it entirely if I file by January 31 and pay everything I owe. The only problem is that the forms I need from my bank and mortgage company won't arrive until after January 31, so it would be essentially illegal to file before January 31. So I've got my fingers crossed that I won't get in trouble.

I really wish taxes were simpler, but it's only me and other small business owners that even see it. I remember puzzling about how bad it really was in the 1990's — after all, the company I worked for handled all the hard stuff, and at the end of the year I'd fill out a few lines on a 1040EZ and get a check in the mail. Awesome! What's wrong with that system?

But worse is that I actually write a check to the government. If I don't, I'd go to prison which I don't want to do. I don't want the government to kill more people in Iraq, but my voice is not represented in the U.S. Government — I still have to pay taxes, though. [And here I thought that's why we fought that big war 230 some-odd years ago against England.] My big lament, though, is that I voluntarily sign the check to pay fund the war. If I were just a regular working person, I could claim that I don't get a choice — that taxes automatically come out of my paycheck.

And it's not like we're getting out of Iraq any time soon. It's a question of "how many Iraqis do we need to kill before they believe in freedom?" The real answer is, "we are the problem," but W. doesn't believe in being wrong. By the way, what ever happened to Osama bin Laden? We apparently failed to hang him, so I can only imagine he's planning another 9/11. I don't see any hope at all on that whole situation.

It used to be fashionable to help the poor — to ensure they have food, shelter, and water. Somewhere along the way "shelter" got eliminated, so it was just to feed the poor, but lately it's food stamps and welfare that are crippling the country. And water? Well if you can't afford to buy the clean stuff in the bottles you deserve what you get. What's next, air?

What about providing youth programs to keep kids off the street? Nah: just get more police to shoot them when they form gangs and start killing people. Health care? Hopeless. Public education? Hopeless.

The other day I was riding home from the Public Market — I took my bike with the trailer to get stuff — and I went to turn onto my street. I had to get into the left lane and I didn't see anyone behind me. As I turned into the turn-lane, someone tried passing me just at that moment and broke off the mirror on my bike. I was less than an inch away from getting knocked off the bike, and barely a foot away from being killed.

But did they stop? Hell no. I was just an obstacle in their way — a nuisance. Probably some worthless beggar who'd be better off dead than alive. I mean, can you believe that I thought I was permitted to ride on the street? That's for cars, moron!

And so goes the last shred of human decency: that nearly killing someone else is okay — in fact, it was my fault anyway for making them decide whether they needed to touch their brakes.

With that goes the last of hope.

Breakfast at the new Flour City Diner

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Ali and I headed out to breakfast at Flour City Diner (2500 East Ave., formerly at 35 Chestnut St.) which has moved from their Chestnut Street location to the corner of East Avenue and Penfield Road — the Renaissance Apartments building just off 490. I think it's technically now in Brighton but, like all things suburban around here, it's still named after the city it abandoned.

We've found breakfast at the old location to be hit-or-miss. Generally the food quality was good but frequently the service left a lot to be desired. The new location is more of the same, only farther away [from us, at least, which is all that really matters]. I had the Cowboy Benedict which was eggs Benedict with steak — a good combination although a bit short on Hollandaise sauce.

I asked about credit cards and was told by our server that they are now accepted (they didn't used to be) but that cash is encouraged. I debated whether to go one way or another — I don't tend to carry much cash around, relying instead on moving money through plastic. I decided that if I got my coffee cup filled 3 times I would pay with cash.

Now what ever happened to that? Coffee refills, that is. I've noticed that Mount Hope Diner (1511 Mt. Hope Ave.) is particularly good about it, but other area diners seem to think that two cups is all you need. Well no, ma'am: keep it coming. Ideally, servers should have a coffee pot holster and be at-the-ready at any given moment to "warm up" a cup.

So I did get my 3rd refill, albeit long after we were done and from a different server. I ended up paying cash, but more because our server was so dreadfully slow that I was afraid we'd be there for another half-hour. And, you know — call me old fashioned [again] — but is it really too much to ask to be addressed and to have eye-contact when being spoken to? Our server seemed to always be telling us things while walking away.

So, to be honest, it's not all that different from when they were downtown. There are more seats (but apparently the same number of glasses and ketchup containers). Definitely a better-than-average diner, but I'm not sure if it's worth the trip.

Brand Upon the Brain! at the Dryden

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I went to the Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) to see Brand Upon the Brain!. It was amazing. Afterward I told a guy I knew that I now needed to stare at a blank wall for 2 hours to understand what I just saw.

It opens with a straightforward premise: a man, Guy Maddin (the writer's alter-ego) is contacted by his dying mother to repaint his childhood home — a lighthouse and orphanage — so she can visit it again. But then it was a little odd in that it was essentially a silent film with narration that's divided into 12 chapters. It was also shot on a mix of 16mm and 8mm film then enlarged to the 35mm print we got to see. And it's in black-and-white except for a few splashes of color. And, although most shots run in linear time, some are punctuated with repetition, slow-motion, or brief flash-forward glimpses.

So Guy returns to fulfill his mother's wishes. However, he's overcome by memories and the film flashes back to recall his childhood. The grainy footage, editing techniques, sounds, and narration affect the romantic imprecision of memory: especially the uniquely childhood memories, formed out of imprecise opinions and blended seamlessly with fantasy. His father toils endlessly in the shop while his mother keeps watch on all the children from her lighthouse perch (and through the fanciful "Aerophone" communication device). Guy's childhood proto-sexuality is a mishmash of lust, solitude, and gender ambiguity.

In all, the effect is stupefying, like distilled nostalgia. The discolored, muted memory of living the first time through — of things that were intended to only be experienced for the first time, well, once. So to try and live the emotions again has this dirty, cold grayness — a harbinger to leave … or to paint a new coat on the past to make it go away. It's like our memories are scabs, begging to be picked at, yet punishing us for doing so … until they're ready.

So I left the movie with that feeling. Life in the past, death in the present. Remembering, forgetting. Smells you'd forgotten, the new scent of loss everywhere.

You know … too much beauty to take in all at once.

Is Electric Heat Cost-Effective?

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So I did the cost-of-gas analysis last week and now I got to wondering if the cost of natural gas was high enough to justify electric heat. I first heard about this from someone who was building a workshop. They were trying to figure out if they should bother to install a gas furnace or if electric heat would be cost-effective — so I got the bug in my head about the conversion between the heat energy in natural gas and that in electricity.

So here's the deal: like last week, we have the cost of gas heat (Cg) and the cost of electric heat (Ce) which, at the break-even point will be the same:

Cg = Ce

And what we want to end up with is a break-even point where the price of a unit of natural gas (Pg) is some constant multiplied by the price of a unit of electrical energy (Pe). This is where it gets a little funny because I'm just going to assume the efficiency of a gas furnace is 80% and that an electric heater is 95%. In other words, the total heat in a cubic-foot of natural gas has a certain amount of chemical energy that can be converted to heat, but a furnace is not perfectly efficient at recovering that heat as usable heat in your house (i.e. some necessarily needs to go up the chimney to get rid of the carbon dioxide). Electric heaters are much more efficient as the easiest thing you can do with electric current is to turn it into heat — it's more like 100% efficient, but I'll assume there's some cable losses in the house and maybe it has a fan that does non-heating work.

It also gets a little funny because when I talk about the total cost of heating, for purposes of determining the conversion factor between prices-per-unit, it doesn't matter how much heat — just that it's the same amount. So let's say it's 2000 Calories — like kilocalories or the Calories in terms of food. Trust me. It'll be a fun result.

So now what we've got is that the cost is the unit price * 2000 Calories:

2000 Calories * Pg = 2000 Calories * Pe

Obviously the 2000 Calorie factor cancels out — but I'll leave it there for a while.

Now let's turn to the electricity. We pay for electricity in kilowatt-hour blocks. If I go to Google, I see that 2000 Calories is 2.324 kilowatt-hours. If I factor in that 95% efficiency, I'll need 2.447 kilowatt-hours to make 2000 Calories of heat.

Now gas gets kind of weird [great, more weird, right?] because it's delivered in hundreds of cubic feet (ccf) but billed as therms (100,000 British Thermal Units or 100,000 BTUs). RG&E does the conversion on the bill: 1.0136 therm is 1 ccf. Again turning to Google, 2000 Calories is 0.0793 therms. If I factor in that 80% efficiency, I'll need 0.0991 therms to make 2000 Calories of heat.

So now what I have is:

0.0991 therms * Pg = 2.447 kilowatt-hours * Pe

And since Pg is in dollars/therm and Pe is in dollars/kilowatt-hour, it all works out to dollars-equals-dollars which is perfect.

Moving stuff around, that's:

Pg = 2.447 kilowatt-hours * Pe / 0.0991 therms
Pg = 24.69 kilowatt-hours/therm * Pe

In other words, if you take the price-per-kilowatt of electricity, and multiply it by 24.69, you get the price-per-therm of gas for the same amount of heat.

I had signed up for ConEdison Solutions GreenPower (which is all renewable wind and hydroelectric) so there's separate sections for how much electricity costs. On the last bill I used 363 kwh and paid ConEdison $36.12 and RG&E another $20.93 (-$19.38 in fixed charges for the privilege of being a customer), so that's a total of $37.67 in charges based on a per-kwh rate. Dividing the total by 363, I get an overall cost of $0.104/kwh.

Doing the conversion, if my gas cost is higher than 24.69 * $0.104 = $2.57/therm, then it's cheaper to run electric heat.

I used 157.1 therms of gas, but 3 therms are included for "free" in my $14.38 customer charge and $0.62 "bill issuance charge" — $15.00 total. I paid $209.20 for gas with all the surcharges and such, so removing the $15.00 fixed charge, that's $194.20. Dividing by the 154.1 therms used, that's $1.26/therm — just about half the cost of heating with electricity.

But hey, now you can do the math yourself with your own bill. If it's easier, you can round up the conversion to 25 — so the break-even point is when the cost of a therm of gas is 25 times the cost of a kilowatt-hour of electricity.

Oh yeah, but what about the fun with the 2000 Calorie number? That's about a day's worth of food, right? So if I ran on electricity, it would cost 2.447 kilowatt-hours * $0.104/kwh = $0.25, or if I ran on natural gas, that would be 0.0991 therms * $1.26/therm = $0.12.

John Mossey and Electric Organic at the Bug Jar

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I headed to The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) to check out the music — despite having the lingering tail of a cold. When I got there, Electric OrganicMySpace link was playing. At the time it was just one guy: he said something about having a band but I didn't catch the details. Anyway, he did some great singing with an acoustic guitar. He seemed quite proficient with it although he limited his style to something akin to down-tempo Neil Young (with a bit of Dylan thrown in as well.)

I didn't stay for all of John MosseyMySpace link's set. He played with a guy on electric piano doing acoustic rock. His guitar kind of sums it up for me: it had a wood front and a rounded, molded plastic back. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it — it produces decent, moderately warm harmony. Obviously, it doesn't have the rich sound of a well-seasoned wood guitar, but it gets the job done. Like, well John Mossey: he does just fine.

Dinner at Hogan's Hideaway

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Ali had made homemade venison stew for dinner but it had to wait until tomorrow because it wasn't ready yet. In lieu of homemade, we decided to get some dinner at Hogan's Hideaway (197 Park Ave.) Like a lot of restaurants around here, it's not so much that they're "perfect", but that they do certain things extremely well. Both of us got crocks of French onion soup — a phenomenal experience at Hogan's. I also had the grilled cheese on sourdough bread which rounded things out nicely. We had some wine as well and much of it is quite top-notch. Good grades all around!

Dinner at Flavors of Asia

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Ali and I met up with a couple friends at Flavors of Asia (831 S. Clinton Ave.) for dinner. The food there is great — it's been too long since getting take-out (i.e. back when Jan was living in Rochester some 2 years ago now). Afterward we had a nice night at home playing 1980's Trivial Pursuit and Yahtzee: one of Ali's favorites.