Originally published at . You can comment here or there.

Considering my physical situation, I was a fool to go to Worldcon, and couldn’t get to Windy, and it looks as if Capricon will likewise be Not A Good Idea To Attend.  Not happy about this, but trying to not overstress any further, and being conservative on what my body can do right now.  I see ( Read more... )

Just finishing up on my getting ready stuff for the trip to - oh, wait, I haven't really discussed that, have I ( Read more... )

Over the last couple of months, I’ve noticed (1) a huge hike in my electric bill, (2) a huge jump in email and mail offering better rates for power than ComEd, the local (expensive) utility, and (3) a huge number of storms and heat waves - leading to power outages from damage or lack of power available from the grid to your house. So what do you do ( Read more... )

Back when I was young - we’ll say when I was 10, 1967 - gasoline generally cost about $0.32 per gallon.  Gas Wars would occasionally come up where there’d be a thrash over what sort of extras (glasses with a fill-up, etc.) would pull the business in - and sometimes, it was brute-force-drop-the-price.  I can remember seeing an occasional drop to say ( Read more... )

See http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/

I know that the Administrator was down these in the last couple of days, and that there’s a huge gearing up on this issue.

As per LonOtter’s comments elsewhere.  The recent set of bad storms in the Chicago area did a lot of damage in regard to tree breakage; my boss called up on Friday - she was working at home and said that her internet / phone was out, and there was roof damage on her new roof.  So I tried to help her with info on checking the cable line into the ( Read more... )

Due to the demand for coal dropping due to the worldwide recession,  Ukrainian coal mines are shutting down or not paying their workers, with a large glut of unsold coal.

After the Russian company Gazprom decided to play politics with its natural gas supply to the rest of Europe, the Europeans have been connecting up with other suppliers and ( Read more... )

No, it’s not because of the demand, it’s because hedge funds and market speculators who drove it to $4-5 a gallon gas are going back into the market because they think that commodity is going to make money again.

Sundance: What’s your idea this time?
Butch: Bolivia.
Sundance: What’s Bolivia?
Butch: Bolivia. That’s a country, stupid! In Central or South America, one or the other.
Sundance: Why don’t we just go to Mexico instead?
Butch: ‘Cause all they got in Mexico is swine flu and there’s too much of that here. Look, if we’d been in business during the ( Read more... )

• The whole energy-efficient mortgage stuff is done and in the hands of the lenders.   I expect to hear from them early next week.  Some last minute changes had to be done with the proposal because at the last, certain things didn’t have enough bang-for-the-buck and had to replaced with others.  The fallout: storm/screen doors for the front door and ( Read more... )