Forced Patience

The alarm on my car uses the horn for the alert. When it goes off, the horn honks in one second intervals with less than a second between each honk. Last week the horn in my car went off, but it was constant. I had to go out to the car and hit the center of the steering wheel to get it to turn off. It happened about 3 other times bringing people from all over the neighborhood wondering what idiot was sitting in his car laying on the horn.

Well, now my horn doesn’t work.

I never realized how impatient a driver I am and how much I used my horn. Yesterday, for example, I’m sitting at an intersection in the left turn lane. With two cars ahead of me, we get the green arrow. The first car goes. The second car just sits there.

And waits.

And waits.

I instinctively slam my palm to the horn. It’s like taking a huge swing with a bat and missing the ball. I felt so helpless. In spite of already knowing his track record for seeing lights, I tried flashing my brights at him. It probably didn’t help that it was early afternoon, either. After what felt to be about 7 hours, he finally went.

I take a one-lane road to the Brandcenter each day. The speed limit is 45, but it seems that everyone on the road thinks it’s only 30. Everyday while passing the speed limit signs I honk and point at the sign hoping that the slow driver in front of me tries to see what I’m pointing at. Imagine how frustrating it has been to have to slow down to 30 miles an hour and just live with it.

Although I’ve repeatedly considered buying an air-horn to ride shotgun while I drive, I don’t think I will. I do miss my horn, this has been a great way for me to learn patience in a way that keeps my childish frustrations inside a moving car where nobody can hear them.

Elephant Self-Portrait

I know that this elephant was trained to do this, but it’s still pretty freakin’ impressive:

I’m glad Hillary Clinton’s not my mom.

I love politics. In fact, if it weren’t for politicians, I’d probably be in politics. Politicians are so focused on getting and keep their job that they rarely ever do their job. I don’t have anything specifically against Hillary Clinton. If by some chance she does come out ahead of Obama, I will probably vote for her over John McCain (sadly for McCain, for the shear fact that I disagree with him about the Iraq War). However, there are a few reasons why I voted for Baroccoli Obama:

1. I think Bill Clinton was a pretty good president. And even though I would have no problem with another Clinton-like president, I don’t want another Clinton. Keep in mind that I was born just a couple of weeks before Reagan was sworn in. Since I was barely 8 when he left office, all I’ve really ever known is Bush-Clinton-Bush. I’m ready for a change.
2. It seems like George W. Bush has been in a constant competition to prove that he is a better president than his father was (as if the bar was set very high). This has resulted in a number of ego-boosting actions that were/are not in for the good of the country. Imagine how much more Hillary Clinton, the first female president and the wife of a former president, would feel an internal drive to prove that she is a better president than, not only her husband, but ever other president in history. I’m not presuming that she is that kind of person, because I’ve never met her. I do think it is a legitimate concern.
3. Clinton uses an absolutely ridiculous argument that she won some key battleground states that are expected to decide the general election. Can you imagine how ridiculous a quarterback would sound if he told everyone how his team would go undefeated because they beat their own defense during a couple of scrimmages? Maybe somebody should tell Hillary that she was playing against the same team. It seems pretty presumptuous to think that just because she beat the other Democrat she was running against that all of those Democrats that voted for her are going to jump to McCain’s ship if her name isn’t on the ballot. She specifically points to Latinos. Even with McCain’s history on immigration, the Republicans are probably still going to try to use it as a talking point this election to try and win back congress. When that happens, every Latino that goes to vote is definitely going to vote Democrat no matter who’s name is on the ballot.
4. Ugly pant suits.
5. Vader-like hair.

But honestly, until Diebold releases their code it doesn’t really matter who runs against the Republican’ts.

Poorly Thought Out Ideas For Alternative Energy

Before you read on, keep in the mind difference between ignorance and innocence. When a child thinks babies come from mom’s bellybutton, they are innocent. People would say “Oh, that’s so cute,” not “What a moron. That’s gotta be the dumbest 4-year-old I’ve ever met.” I claim innocence on this post because I know nothing about physics, chemistry, math, or any similar subject that should probably be capitalized.

I would never claim to have even a basic understanding of any form of engineering, I just barely earned C-s in every college science class I ever took. However, I was thinking about two problems that our environment faces and how they could work together. I imagine that one of two things could happen with this post: 1) Some engineer writes me an email telling me how incredibly stupid I am and how my idea is a total joke. 2) I would be known as the Great Salvation of Mankind and they’d make movies about me. More likely though, would be a third option of nobody ever reading my post. Or maybe there is a fourth outcome: this is exactly what they’ve been doing for the last 90 years.

I’m not exactly sure how water desalination works, but I imagine that it would be possible to boil sea water and catch the steam. Assuming this works, we move to the next step. Coal-powered factories burn coal to create heat that moves turbines. Many coal plants are located closer to the source of the coal to save on transportation costs. If the power plant is on the ocean (or the Great Salt Lake I suppose), than you could combine the desalination process with the burning of coal to create energy.

One possible way to do this is the same way a 90% efficient furnace works. Instead of burning the natural gas and then pushing the exhaust out the flue, the flue first passes back through the heat exchanger to use the heat of the flue to heat air. Then the not so hot exhaust is expelled out into the atmosphere.

If there is a problem boiling the water in the original heat exchanger where the coal is moving the turbines, then use the hot exhaust to boil the water.

Here’s another one that I’m sure defies the lay of physics: You could make the tips of wind turbine fins magnetic. Have opposing magnets that help get the turbine moving and keep it moving during weak wind.

I’ve got one of those flashlights that you shake and it charges the battery. It basically just has a piece of metal bouncing back and forth crossing a bundle of copper wires. It seems like you could create something similar that would work off of vibrations (instead of a back-and-forth motion). These devices could be placed under interstates. By my calculations (all of which are made-up) rush hour traffic in each major city would create enough electricity to basically cancel the greenhouse emissions created by the cars involved in rush hour.

Or maybe they could install those devices in hybrid cars to help charge the battery.