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Re: The Perfect Alternative to Gas Powered Vehicles (by Thomas Messier at 5/09 12:47 PM)
Re: Promoting Family Unity: Lowering Your Utility Bills! (by Fernando Lopez at 5/07 10:12 PM)
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09 May 2008
The Perfect Alternative to Gas Powered Vehicles
I'm sure by now we're all of the opinion that we have GOT to find an alternative to gas powered vehicles. I was musing on this very topic last weekend while sunning myself on the banks of the Guadalupe river, and came up with what I think is a GENIUS idea (though my wife whole heartedly disagrees for some reason):

A giant wind up car.

We know how the little wind up cars work...wind up a spring, then utilize the potential energy as the spring uncoils. Well, why not make one that's big enough to seat two or four people? Of course, we'd have to engineer the "perfect" spring, perhaps a pair of them to work in tandem. I'm thinking some elongated, layered, torsion type spring, working similar to those airplanes that use a rubber band that gets twisted. And we'd need some really good gear ratio math in place to get the most bang for our potential energy. And here's the cool part: each passenger is fitted with a set of pedals, so when the spring gets to say, 50% or less of its total wind-up, the passengers and driver start pedaling to wind it back up again (from its center, or opposite end) and the car just keeps rolling along.

Now tell me that isn't PERFECT! It isn't like you'd have to pedal yourself around, just pedal on occasion to keep the spring wound up. and with good gear ratios on the pedals (and even a shifter so you could choose how hard or easy to make the pedaling), it shouldn't take a lot of leg work to keep things going.

Whadayathink???? NO pollution, NO high tech, NO noise, EASY maintenance (like a bike!)...sheesh, what's not to love? Let's make this thing happen. Any high torque spring engineers out there in whose brain I have spawned the beginnings of a blueprint???

:0)
Posted by dougboude at 11:56 AM | PRINT THIS POST! | Link | 1 comment



07 May 2008
Promoting Family Unity: Lowering Your Utility Bills!
Okay, I just have to boast a little bit about the great success my family and I had this past month with our energy conservation, evidence being our electric bill. Grand total for the month of April: $96.

For context's sake, here's the scenario:

We live in a two story, 2500 sq foot home that is half brick. It is situated east-west, so our back porch area sees the sun all day long (thus making the southern most rooms warmer). Currently, there is a minimum of five warm bodies occupying the house and using the resources at any given time, this number expanding up to ten and twelve bodies every other weekend or so when my kiddos stay with me (My wife and three of my step children live with me full time, I have seven kids and she has one more who comes over periodically as well). As you can imagine, in a typical scenario like this every light in the house would be on, the tv would be blaring, the fridge left open, water running and toilets flushing constantly...moderately managed chaos. Ah, but in our house it doesn't quite go that way. Here are some of the things my wife and I did to achieve such a monumentally tiny electric bill...

First, we both became electricity nazis, in more ways than one. Not only are we tenacious about making sure no electrical appliance is ever in use unnecessarily, we're also expert brainwashers and masters of persuasion (or coercion, whichever you prefer ;)  ). So now, even with as many kids as we have running around, it is indeed a rare occurrence for ANY of them to leave an empty room with the light on, or a radio playing when they are finished with it, or even the computer monitor on after they're done updating their Myspace. In addition to making sure that the rules of the house are keenly observed, I also installed the alternative fluorescent light bulbs throughout the house. Fact is, they may NEVER actually pay for themselves, but for some reason it gives me peace of mind knowing that for every hour of light a person uses, I'm only using up one fifth of the electricity to do so.

I think the most effective thing we did, however, was when I took on the addition role of AC/Heat nazi. Living in south Texas, we are blessed with some fairly moderate weather for a good portion of the year between winter and summer. So, I made myself king of the thermostat and when people complained of being cold, I did the most OFF THE WALL THING: I told them to put some more clothes on or grab a blanket. When they got too hot I made yet another unique suggestion: take off some clothes and put yourself under the ceiling fan or go outside. When taking off more clothes wasn't an option (we don't subscribe to the nudist philosophy), I went out and bought everybody their own personal floor fan. Here's my logic: You as an individual are either hot, cold, or just right when it comes to the ambient temperature surrounding your current location. So where is the logic in spending the electricity to drop an entire house three degrees when you will only ever be occupying one spot in that house at any given time? All you really NEED is for the place you happen to be in to be comfortable for you, temperature-wise. So, put yourself in front of your fan. It's at least 10 degrees cooler in the low breeze of a floor fan, and perfectly comfortable. So, by taking this approach we've managed to only use our AC probably three times so far this year, and each time only for a couple of hours (when even I said, "DANG, it's HOT in here!").

Let's see...besides that, I think the only other thing we actively do to conserve is to also be fridge nazis (figure out what you want in there BEFORE you open the door, then get it and close it as fast as you can!).

So, the consistent, collective effort of a family to help bring their bills down to manageable amounts DOES pay off! It also helps lend cohesiveness and a sense of teamwork to the family unit, and you can't get too much of that stuff, eh?
Posted by dougboude at 3:20 PM | PRINT THIS POST! | Link | 1 comment