Brotherly Love

Today is my brothers birthday, he is younger than I am so I won't tell you how old he is as that tells you my age! I love my brother and always have, sure we have had moments of real horror, fist fights, disagreements, bloody noses and the like but hey we're brothers and that's what brothers do. Even from a young age I always knew that my brother and I were friends, we shared secret jokes, understood to look out for each other in front of our parents, we knew that what happened to one could happen to the other. We remained close through University and often spent time together just hanging out(we devised a game of dorm room basketball which was crazy) but it was in spending time over a beer that we really began to form our friendship. We respect each other, we often now strongly disagree, often vehemently especially on politics and religion but there is always a strong feeling of respect between us and as long as there is a beer involved debates never get out of hand. That may seem odd but it has always been a rule with us that discussions over beer are only ever that and never personal and it works for us. I always enjoy seeing my brother and spending time with him and as we both get older I look forward to many more hours of heated debates. Happy birthday little brother

Darius and the Lions Den

I know, I know, it’s Daniel and the Lion’s den! However let’s consider the place of King Darius in the story. King Darius in the bible story finds himself trapped by his own foolish despotic deity and forced to throw his most trusted servant into a lion’s den as decreed by his own hand. So rather than change his written law he is forced to save face and destroy a man he clearly does not want to lose. The story of course is made even more dramatic by his inability to sleep and then his rushing to the den to see the outcome of the night’s carnage. Upon the revelation that God has intervened and Daniel is still alive, King Darius, praises the God of Daniel and decrees that his people “must fear and respect the God of Daniel”. This decree of respect and fear also happens to King Nebuchadnezzar with the three boys whom God saves from the fiery furnace after they refused to bow before his golden statue. I always try and look for other meanings to the truly wonderful moments revealed to us in reading the bible. When people in authority make ill informed and rash decisions that they refuse to back down over for losing face, it often ends up horribly back firing on them. When making a decision that seems autocratic, dictatorial, dare I say despotic, stop and think of the Persian Kings who saw themselves as Gods, the Egyptian Kings who saw themselves as Gods and remember Daniel. Sometimes losing face makes you a better and more respected King. If you refuse, one day an Alexander the Great is going to come along and prove you are well and truly human.

water, water everywhere....

Its so wet today, everywhere is wet, rain jackets, umbrellas people running, its just wet. Everywhere is green, the grass looks happy , the trees look happy, the flowers bloom with extra vigor. As this city spends most of the next few months baking in high heat and high humidity it is important to reflect upon the rain and see what good it brings. I for one enjoy watching the rain, I quite enjoy running in it(not so much Cycling) and believe it or not my dog really likes to play in it. Our area needs the rain, devours the rain, looks forward to the rain, oh and just an aside it actually brings a cost saving as this morning I turned off the sprinklers and saved myself some money. Sure, I am going to have to fix the yard from the debris that comes from the vacant lot next door but hey the grass is starting to look really good and maybe this year I can sit back and relax in my yard then spending hours on my yard.

good things come to those who work at it

last night my training finally got to me! At around mile 12 on the bike I felt drained, beyond tired much more like worn out. Saturday I am doing a brick with a new training partner and although I have no fear of competition, I really don't want to let myself down. So, at mile 12 I sipped my sugary mixture from the bike bottle and sucked it up and finished the last 5 miles not strong but with ...hmm lets say gusto! It really goes beyond the feeling of pride but more like a true sense of accomplishment and with a little rest now I will be ready fopr Saturday. This is often the case with everything we set ourselves to do, sometimes tasks wear us out and it is at this point that we have a choice, give up or keep going.

good things come to those that work at it.

can data control costs

Can data control costs?
A 60 watt light bulb uses 43200 kW-hr a month (60x720=43200). The average cost of a kW-hr is $0.10 so the cost per month is $4.30 or $51.60 a year. This is of course assuming that you leave a light bulb on constantly for 12 months. Now that is very unlikely but what about a TV, computer, alarm clock, video games, internet connection, answer phone etc etc. The likelihood is that most of us have a significant amount of appliances in the home that are either on or on standby.
With a little bit of research you can identify what in your household is on and how much it is costing you over the course of a given year. You can take this information and enter it into a simple spread sheet and with even rudimentary analysis you can work out how much you would save each year by simply turning off the appliances in your home.
If this is a little too geeky or “friends of the earth” for you try this instead, take all of the receipts you have in a given month from your local supermarket and enter that information into a spread sheet. Now try shopping on different days or at the start of a week rather than the end of a week. Pick some staple groceries such as bread and milk (beer) and enter the prices in the spread sheet as well. At the end of the month you will amazed at what rudimentary analysis will show up.
This is data, and analysis of data will show you costs, for example you will find that supermarkets have higher prices on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday than they do on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, firstly because perishables are stocked for the weekend so reduced during the week but secondly and more importantly because we like to shop for groceries at the weekend. Prices are also higher at the start of a month than the end of a month due to the same reasons. Now, admittedly we may only be talking about a few cents but they all add up.
This is a tremendous amount of work and tedious computer hours but what if you could buy a piece of software that did the work for you. What if you entered the variables or requested the software to look at certain items in a given month? What if that software looked at your local supermarkets in a 15 mile radius and worked out who had the cheapest milk and bread or beer? What if the software gave you information each day on what to turn off in your house to save money that night or gave you information that instead of shopping on Friday you should shop on Monday? What if the data that the software gathered and analyzed told you that you could save $50 a week, would you use it?
Turning data into actionable knowledge controls costs.

gettng started

its a late, dark and wet Monday evening in Savannah GA and almost time to head home. It makes me think that although days may look gloomy they don't have to seem gloomy, we hae so much to enjoy in lif, so much to look forward to and so much to be thankful for, so why be gloomy? Watch the rain and listen to the thunder and be glad, as so many poets, songwriters have told us, there's sunshine after a storm!