Solar tubes

After much researching we had 2 solar tubes installed - one in the main room between the front room and the dining room, and the other in T's bathroom - it has window. What a difference they make even on an overcast day like today.

Here's a brief write up from a website "A tube, tubular, sun tunnel skylight is a product that transfers natural sunlight into usable light that lightens up dark rooms. The technology used to accomplish this is a super reflective light pipe and precisely engineered diffusers. Velux Sun Tunnels and Natural Light Energy Systems Tubular Skylights efficiently provide pure natural light while effectively minimizing heat gain and heat loss since it is a sealed system. Sun tube tubular skylights eliminate dark rooms."

"There are many benefits of living in rooms illuminated with natural light. Get rid of those winter and dark room blahs for good! Plants and people thrive in rooms lit with the sun's natural light."

It's hard to believe we don't have to flip a switch to get this much light.

Street slurrying

You know you live in a mild weather area when.....their idea of repaving is to slurry seal the roads to protect the roadways! Our town is going gangbusters these past couple of weeks with road closures and trucks like this one slurry sealing many of the local roads. I don't know how many they will be doing but the RFP on line indicated they have a budget of about $165,000 to do whatever roads they are bidding out. The slurry seal reminds me of the sealer we used to put on our driveway in CT every couple of years to try to protect it from the elements. This stuff seems to dry a lot quicker as cars were traveling on it pretty soon after they spread it.

Fun things and some frustrations

The week really flew by. On Sunday the Family Care Network, a non-profit that provides service to families and foster children held a fund raiser at the Pavilion in our neighborhood. Three of my friends and I volunteered to help with the set up for the 300 plus guests who came. This entailed setting up the tables for the diners and the various auction items. The event was called the Taste of the Central Coast and there were many restaurants and wineries from around the area who were here to present their food and wines. I hear the event was a great success bringing in almost as much as in past years. The economy is really hitting these non-profits here just like back east. We were so speedy with the set ups that we finished way before what was scheduled and the four of us had a leisurely lunch at the Grill before heading home.

Then there are the various telephone company interactions that I dealt with since I last wrote. First my cellphone died and yes it died about 4 months ago. The last time I had 1 to 2 weeks left on my warranty. They replaced the phone and gave me an additional 3 months warranty. The replacements are usually refurbished phones so you guessed it, 1 month after this warranty runs out so does the phone! I went to Verizon and got a new phone with android system. The battery in the new phone was running down quickly so I went on line to check out the manual. Phones no longer come with manuals! They say they are trying to save trees. The on line manual was over 300 pages long. I looked up ways to conserve battery juice and must have hit one too many buttons as I killed the market place where you can get the apps. I checked out the manual again but this time it was no help. I went back to the store and those techs really know their phones. Bada bing it was all set!

Then came the AT&T saga. A couple of months ago AT&T accidentally cut off our service when a new neighbor was moving in and gave them our address instead of theirs. AT&T had to terminate our old account and start another and in the process they changed the plans we were on, of course. Ever since I have been trying to get them to give us back our plan of free local and a couple of hundred minutes of long distance. After another 1 1/2 hours on the phone with them I'm hoping that maybe they fixed it. Fingers crossed.

Then on Wednesday the sink/faucet sprang a leak. The good news is that the original faucet was a pretty expensive one but the bad news is that the part that needed to be replaced costs over $60. We are having the kitchen redone in a couple of months so it made more sense to buy an inexpensive faucet to hold us until then. Even that one cost $40! I figure we can donate it to the Habitat for Humanity parts program in a couple of months. Even kept the box :)

Wednesday we had the pleasure of attending a wonderful "parlor concert" at a neighbor's house. The performers were Inga Sweringen, a local musician and Elio Villafranca, a jazz pianist from Cuba. Awesome performance. Here are links to their websites.

http://www.ingaswearingen.com/

http://www.eliovillafranca.net/

Happenings in the 'hood

It's been an interesting past couple of days.
Friday a 34 year old man shot and killed his mother in SLO. It turns out the woman lived in our neighborhood. Apparently this same young man was caught on camera backing into and breaking one of the cameras at the neighborhood gates just a few days ago.

On Sunday I volunteered with 3 of my girlfriends at the annual Taste of the Central Coast which is a fund raiser for an organization called the Family Care Network. It provides services to foster children and other children and families. Our group helped with the set up. The event takes place at our neighborhood Pavilion so it was very convenient.

This morning my neighbor called to say her mother-in-law passed away after suffering with progressive dementia and lately congestive heart failure. She ask if I would teach the morning spin and cardio classes and find a substitute to teach the pilates class.

Planned obsolescence

Last night around 9 I turned on my cellphone to check my messages one more time for the evening and nothing and I mean nothing happened. I tried taking out and putting back the battery. There was a flicker of life as it tried to connect to Blackberry thingys but then nothing. I tried charging it - nothing. I pushed every possible button - nothing. Today I went to the Verizon store and guess what - they got nothing too. I had to replace this phone (fortunately under warranty) back in May. That phone came with a 3 month warranty - so we're now in September and that makes it 4 months! Aargh! So I need a new phone. When discussing types of phones it's very difficult to get a straight answer because you know the sales clerks are all working on commission and of course they're interesting in selling you what they will make more money on than what will be the best phone for you. The Blackberry which was in their words such a great phone 2 years ago is no longer the fair haired child and it's all about android phones. I have to admit my Blackberry has been less than satisfactory and it's 3G capability was SO slow that I barely used the feature.

Long story short, I ended up buying a 4G LG Revolution android equipped phone. It's charging at the moment before I start playing around with it. I know how to do the basics of making and getting phone calls and texts but the rest awaits!

Signs of the economy turning

Over the past few weeks I've noticed an uptick in consumer spending. Mind you this is purely observational.

* We went to the outlet mall near us a couple of weeks ago and the place was packed and most people had brimming shopping bags. Mind you, many of the people were speaking in foreign languages but hey, they're spending money!

* Then as I walk my various routes daily, I've noticed an ever increasing number of cars with the tell-tale new vehicle paper dealer plate on the cars. Not all the cars are brand new but there are certainly a fair number and some of them are the higher priced models

* There is a realtor in our area who tracks the houses for sale, sold and in escrow. For the first time since we've been here we only have 5 houses for sale in our neighborhood, 5 more are in escrow and 10 have sold recently! The prices are pretty significantly lower than when we bought here a little over 3 1/2 years ago but a couple of houses sold for more than what they were purchased for in the last few years. Now that's got to be a good sign. Also 3 of the more recent sales were sold before the realtor's sign was put up and there were multiple offers. Now that is sounding hopeful.

I Madonnari in San Luis Obispo

Over the weekend SLO held an I Madonnari Festival. Taken after the Italian sidewalk artist festivals of yore when artists came into the big Italian cities to help with the big projects and were let free to create their art on the city sidewalks. Unfortunately SLO had some unusual and unexpected rain overnight between Saturday and Sunday and it washed some of the drawings away. But there were still many chalk drawings including a whole section reserved for children. Artists squares were sponsored by an organization or paid for by the artists and chalk was available for purchase. There were free 2x2 foot squares for children to draw in with the purchase of the chalk.