Blog Action Day: Water (Toilets!)

Warning people! We're talking about toilets here!
I have an old house (1923) which only has one bathroom and in this old bathroom there is an old toilet. This toilet lived a good life and served many families very well, but it was starting to leak and show its age. Time for a new toilet.

I called a few local plumbers to see what they suggested and how much it would cost. I could get a new toilet for as little as $200 installed, but that would be a generic, very low quality model. I could choose a higher quality model, of course. I could go to Home Depot and buy whatever toilet I wanted and (the internet assured me) install it myself. Because of the age of the bathroom and toilet and because I wanted someone else to be responsible if anything went wrong, I definitely wanted a professional to do all the dirty work. And I knew it was going to have to be a low flow. *cue dramatic music*

Low Flow. In the '90s this term came to represent the evils of government-mandated conservation. I'm sure it set the environmental and water conservation movements back at least a decade: The early low flow toilets were awful; you usually had to flush a couple of times at least before the bowl would clear, which completely negates the water savings. It was embarrassing and frustrating. There was even an episode of King of the Hill about the horror of low flow toilets. I understand they've been improved, but it emphasized that I needed to do some more research. I have only the one toilet in the house, and it's very important that it work efficiently and comfortably. 

SIDE NOTE: For some strange reason, it seemed like every plumber I called was pushing toilets with "elongated" bowls and "comfort height". I discovered this is the kind of toilet I have encountered in many public washrooms that is so tall I feel like Goldilocks on papa bear's chair. No thank you. Now, these plumbers don't know I'm only 5'2", but why would they all be universally pushing toilets for very tall people? But I digress....

In my current Googling, and many years previously, I kept coming across these toilets called "Dual Flush". Apparently they're very popular in parts of Europe and the UK, and they're de rigueur in Australia. They were invented in Australia in the '80s. They use two buttons on the top of the toilet instead of a lever. One button releases .8 gallons for liquid waste and the other button gives you 1.6 liters for -ahem- bigger messes. Rather than one static amount of water that's enough to dispose of solid waste even when you only need the amount required to remove liquid waste, you are given a lesser-amount choice, thereby saving water!

I mentioned this to a couple of the plumbers and they all said the same thing: "Oh! But they're SO MUCH more expensive! That's gonna cost a bundle!"
WRONG AGAIN, plumbers! (Did they think I wanted one imported from Sydney?? We have them here, too!)
The average price I was quoted for a good quality toilet, including installation was around $550. I was able to find a cheap dual flush toilet at Home Depot for somewhere around $250. I called the one plumber I had decided upon and gave him these numbers. He said he needed to do some research himself, and he'd call me back. When he called me back, he told me that the toilet I found was of very poor quality... *mm hmm*
BUT
He liked this new-fangled dual flush idea and his supplier found him a quality dual flush for only a little more than the toilet he originally recommended to me (that one with "comfort height" that would leave my feet dangling and the "elongated" bowl that makes me feel like I'm balancing on two parallel poles). In the end he said he'd install the one I wanted: the Gerber dual flush, standard height, round bowl toilet for the original price he quoted me for the bad toilet. Success! And hopefully he will pass on this new information to other clients. Spread the word!

Epilogue: I have a great dual flush toilet that has lowered my water bill by about $20 a month! You don't have to spend a mint or compromise your standards to make the switch to energy- or water-efficient appliances.

P.S. - If you're not in the market for a whole new toilet, you can buy conversion kits for around $30! Try here. (I have never tested a conversion kit, nor do I know anyone who has, so caveat emptor.)

Change.org|Start Petition

Netbook RIP 27 Nov 2009 - 12 Feb 2010

Apparently my netbook reads this blog. And wasn't too happy about me going on and on about my new DROID phone. On Friday the 12th, as I was carrying it to find a better WiFi signal it HURLED itself out of my arms and onto the hard wooden corner of a chair.
It was touch-and-go for a while; he was displaying nothing but a terrible error message. Then one day, he never woke up. He wasn't even three months old!! :_(

I called the company and (predictably) dropping isn't covered (it took 45 minutes to find that out, not counting the 3 times their phone tree HUNG UP ON ME!) though they were perfectly willing to fix him... for $398!! (Not including postage.) I only paid $170 (after-Thanksgiving sale). I did find out that I can have him fixed for "free" by buying the Accidental Coverage plan for $119. Which is less than buying a new one, so I guess that's what I'll have to do.

Despite my excitement over my new phone, it really isn't a replacement for a netbook or notebook. As I'm finding out in spades.

*sigh*

P.S. - I downloaded the full manual (not included) for the netbook and took him all apart to see if I could locate a(n easily fixable) problem... no dice. Not a scratch, not a bump, not a solder out of place. So it's a bloody mystery.

DROID Phone Is MAGIC!

I really don't know what I'm doing with this blog. But since nobody reads it (except spambots) I guess that's OK.


I just got the new DROID phone and I have to say: I have never been so impressed with a gadget in all my 32 years. This is the coolest thing I own. It's the bloody future!! Could you even imagine 10, 15, 20 years ago that a tiny mobile phone could do almost anything like what the most basic cell phones can do today? 


This phone has the most impressive, clear, bright, high-res screen I have ever seen. It makes me want to watch movies on my phone, even though I have a nice big HDTV. It really has to be seen to be believed. 


I've downloaded possibly hundreds of apps (I haven't kept all of them, but most) without spending any money, since there are so many free apps. I love Google's system of open source for the apps, and the fact that they don't reject any; the people will sort out the bad apps via the ratings. So far I've only had an actual problem with one app (others I uninstalled just because I didn't need or really want it) and the developers were really responsive and are working to fix the problem. How great is that?!


Some reviews I've read complained about the physical keyboard, mostly saying it was poorly laid out or unresponsive. I guess if you're typing on it extensively, or texting quite a lot, that would be a problem, but I don't have any problems with it. I think it's a lot better than the on-screen keyboard on my old Omnia (which I loved). And the on-screen (Android) keyboard is really quite impressively responsive and accurate. 
Other complaints were that there is no physical end button for when you want to end a call, and that's true BUT: This phone is so clever! It knows when the phone is against your face and it turns the screen off, then detects when you take it away from your face and it instantly brings the screen back with a giant red end button. So I don't see the problem. The Droid phone really is good at detecting light levels and position with regards to the screen backlight. And even the backlit physical keyboard. It knows when I turn the hall light off while still typing! HA!


From this post you may have gathered that this is kinda my first foray into the world of new and advanced devices. I've been in the tech industry for 15-or-so years, but I've never really had the money to buy all the latest gadgets for myself. I typically only get to play with them for a while when I set them up for my clients. But this year (fiscal) I've bought a brand new super-fast, top-of-the-line computer (desktop), a cute, little netbook (which hasn't even been turned on since I got this amazing phone), and this amazing phone. I feel so up to date! 


I can't even think of anything else to say about this phone, only because every little bitty thing about it just blows my mind. 
Oh. 
I will say that haters might be right about the weak battery life. But for my uses I'm rarely far from a charger, either the car charger, the dock (GENIUS!!), the computer cable, or the simple wall charger. Also, it seems that every time I check what, specifically, is eating up battery life, it almost always says that the display is taking up about 70-75%. But the display is so gorgeous, it's worth it. I could probably save a bit of battery life by manually adjusting the backlight, but it does such a good job of adjusting on its own (with looks, not performance, as the focus) that I'll just stay near a charger. And at least this phone doesn't yell at me when it's fully charged like the Omnia did. I can keep this plugged in or docked all night, all day, whatever, and it's perfectly OK with that.


And my very, very favourite feature of this incredible phone: I don't have to sit there and wait a full minute for the screen to time out just so I can put it back in my bag without my lipstick deciding to call Antarctica. The Omnia's touch screen could be touched by anything, and until the screen went dark objects in my purse would bump against the screen and start activating things. It was highly annoying. Now, not only does the screen not care about being felt up by my wallet, but I can turn the screen off with a simple button-push, without turning the whole phone off. BRILLIANT!!

You know you live in a small town when a building on fire passes as the social event of the season.

My mum and I were watching the local (Seattle) news when a report came in ("Breaking News!") that a building in downtown *where I live* was on fire. They had no other information except the address and said they were sending a van down, but it takes 2.5 hours to get from there to here, so we knew it would be a while for any update. We had to run to the grocery store which is very close to the fire's location, so we thought we'd just take a peek while we were there. Apparently, so did everyone else in the town.
Seriously, at 7PM-ish on a Tuesday night there was a traffic jam in *this town*. There hasn't been a traffic jam here in 100 years.
I got the groceries we needed, then discarded any pretences and drove closer to get a good look. There were so many cars and pedestrians (people were taking their children closer so they could see) that we had to drive around for a while. We parked at the library and walked down the street to find half the town standing around behind the police tape, filming with their phones and cameras, chatting, and generally having a time as good as you can have when there's a building on fire and it's bloody cold outside.

I will say (in case you're judging harshly) the building was a furniture store's warehouse; no one lived there, no one was inside at the time, and there are no adjoining buildings that would be in danger. Also, the building was very old and rickety, and could probably benefit from burning down. They have good insurance and other locations and the business itself will be fine.

We saw quite a few people that we hadn't seen in a while and chatted with them and with strangers. The coffee and ice cream shops down the block were probably busier than they've been since they opened. I noted as we walked toward the crowd that this seemed to be a bigger turnout than any of the summer events and fairs that we had here a few months ago.
To give some perspective; in Seattle (in Greenwood) there was a 3-alarm fire (the one here was called a "multiple-alarm", whatever that means) that was covered fairly heavily by the local news stations and even then, I only saw people related to the businesses in attendance. They have better things to do in the city.

I wish we did.

It's Blog Action Day!

This year's topic for Blog Action Day is Climate Change.

Personally, I can certainly attest to the CHANGES in the climate! This summer, in particular, was absolutely unbearable. If I'd been able to drive I would have tried to get to one of those cooling centres they have for pensioners. What I did instead was confiscate my mother's boyfriend's window-mounted air conditioning unit, put it in my library (which is the coolest room in my house) and moved in. I lived in the library for 4 months.

One thing that intrigued and angered me: I read in The Morning News' newsletter, the part with "What does this map represent?" It's (obviously, since I linked to the file from the article) a map of participation in the Kyoto Protocol. Green means ratified, yellow (I don't see any on the latest map) means ratification pending, grey means undecided, and RED means REFUSED TO RATIFY.
Notice the only ones who are red? The USA! (and Puerto Rico, which is part of the US.) This is disgraceful.
The Kyoto Protocol is basically a promise to cut emissions. The US is the largest producer of emissions and we won't even promise to try!? We're the ONLY ONES. This is not a place where standing alone is a statement against some great evil, or a Lone Ranger stand that says we can do it better on our own (... and wasn't that a major problem with the previous administration's stance on international relations?). Asinine.

On a positive note: Our own Mayor Greg Nickels (Seattle) started a campaign to get other mayors of cities around the country to ignore the fact that the upper-government wouldn't ratify it, and pledge to cut emissions in their cities on their own. It's been very successful (after a quick check on Wikipedia, even more successful than I knew before!).
Anyway, I don't know nearly enough about the Kyoto Protocol issue, but I intend to read up.

There are so many other issues related to climate change, not least the simple change in lingo to "climate change" from the less-descriptive and often-misleading "global warming" (just ask all the arseholes who say "Where's this "global warming" [with finger quotes] they've been promising *snicker*?" on a cold day).

For my part, I have gathered every appropriately-sized bag we had lying around the house, folded them, and put them in a slightly larger bag, and put that in the trunk of the car. Then I added a line --DON'T FORGET BAGS AND COUPONS-- to the top of my printable grocery list. The few times I forget my bags (or I've done a great big shop and used them all), I either say "No bag, please." and put the purchases in my handbag, or I buy another reusable bag wherever I am (I have actually had to use plastic bags, but only rarely). I must have at least 20 bags now, and I've spent a grand total of $3.98 for them: Two $1 each, huge, pretty bags from Ikea, one 99¢ pink breast cancer bag from Top Foods, and a 99¢ bag from Trader Joe's (though that doesn't count the souvenir bag I bought while travelling for $26-ish that I have conscripted to use as a grocery bag, since it wasn't purchased with that in mind) and the rest were free, mostly with-purchase from supermarkets. So you don't have to spend a ton of money on reusable grocery bags, and you don't have to only use bags that are meant to be reusable grocery bags.

Other small steps:

• My family is trying to get away from unnecessary use of kitchen paper towels. 
• We've started buying natural vegetable cellulose sponges (available at Trader Joe's, for instance) instead of the "normal" ones in the supermarket because the natural ones are biodegradable and even compostable! I promise they work just the same. 
• I've also put small recycle bins in all the rooms, including the bathroom (all those tissue rolls), right next to the regular garbage cans, to make recycling easier and convenient. 
• I'm thinking about buying gerbils again. Yes, this is related. :) Gerbils, while tons of fun to watch and play with, are mad about chewing. They will take care of all of your paper towel and bathroom tissue rolls, as well as any other cardboard, Kleenex, scraps of paper, sensitive documents you want shredded, etc. Really, they will go through it all. And they're SO cute.
• I planted a garden, but it's all gone to seed. *FAIL*
• I have made a plan that instead of turning the heat up when I'm cold, or even getting a blanket, I'm going to hop on my exercise bike! It warms me up, it's good for me, and I'll be damned if I don't start losing some bloody weight!!
• I seriously think twice before buying anything that comes in a glass bottle/jar. We have recycling picked up with the garbage, but NOT GLASS. Supposedly it breaks in transit and clogs the sorting machine, or something, but still... We have to gather all the (heavy, sticky) glass and haul it to one of the glass recycling bins around town. Inconvenient.
• That's all I can think of at the moment, and I'm sure this post is long enough as it is. :)

Happy Blog Action Day,

Gem

P.S. - Back in the affluent '90s, when everything was disposable, we had bought a pallet of toilet tissue (or so it seemed) and gave our 4 gerbils a full roll in each tank (they were in two big cages connected by tubes). The next day we came in to find the tanks FULL to the brim of white fluff, and no gerbils in sight! They had chewed it all into smaller bits, then dug tunnels like ant farms! You could see them in their little tunnels, scurrying about. Hilarious!

B&N finally gave me the answer I was looking for.

"Thank you for your inquiry.

Barnes and Noble returns all expired and unsold magazines to the vendor."

So there we have it. That wasn't so bloody hard, was it?? I noted that this email was from someone other than the idiot I was emailing before, so hopefully it's just that one idiot, and not the whole company.

Now on to other companies... namely, the original: Staples.

Staples apparently doesn't have a universal corporate policy. They just let each store handle the expired magazines as they will, which usually means just throwing them in the locked Dumpster. I'm going to start with my local Staples, where I used to work. I hope they've changed their practices since I was there, but we'll see.

Not that anyone's reading this, but posts will continue to be sporadic, since I'm busy in real life. I'll be here on 15th October, though... it's Blog Action Day.

Toodleoo.