Change the World Wednesday – 22nd May

The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, ‘Go!’ -a leader says, ‘Let’s go!’. – E. M. Kelly

— Daniel (@QuotePlayground) May 22, 2013

You could of course extrapolate that to “Go green!” and Let’s go green!” and then it has a lot of meaning for the whole process of CTWW. The people who participate in CTWW challenges are leaders. The ‘goers’ are the politicians. The leaders get things done, the politicians wait for things to be done.

So, stealing Small’s thunder for a bit; let’s get more things done!

My torre serving more as a liquor cabinet

Moving along…

My torre arrived and is installed; as predicted it came wrapped in plastic and had some thin polystyrene pieces protecting the layers. The main package was cardboard, so the pollutant waste was less than I had thought.

On Thursday, I bought a new coffee table. I won’t bore you here with the whole story, should you feel the need to be bored click on the link for the full saga; I can assure you that the first half of that post is less than boring, you may be shocked or indeed it may pique your interest.

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Having got this far… I need more coffee.

BRB

Out of yesterday’s coffee for a quick fix; have to brew some more.

Oh, so you’re just going to have to sit there and wait.

If you think I am going to write something of interest before the coffee is ready, then you’re wrong; with a capital WR!

I don’t care, it’s just the way things are.

If you try to get anything tangible from me at this point, you are wasting your time and placing your life in danger.

And, don’t start with that “you’re addicted to coffee routine” again… I am NOT!

The crisis has been averted, coffee is ready, resume your places everybody, the post can continue.

*as if nothing untoward happened*

Yesterday, I bought one of those economic lightbulb thingies. Basically, it was in a fit of pique because my last incandescent burned out in less than two months. I also gave a fleeting thought to economising.

It wasn’t one of those squiggly ones, they are terrible; everytime I see one, I want to reach for another bottle of wine.

Gone is the soft warm glow of my 60w incandescent. Instead, this post is being brought to you by the harsh white glare of austerity; I feel like a Greek… maybe I could get an EU bailout, they seems to be all the fashion.

Click on the banner for the full post

This week’s CTWW.

Level 1 (The Green Novice) – This week, for at least one full day, disconnect from the Internet except as needed for work (this includes hand-held devices).

 

OR …
Level 2 (The Advanced Greenie) – Disconnect from the Internet, except for work, for the entire week.

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There are more Levels, but in the need to economise, you’ll have to click on the banner to see them, that is should you feel the need to seek a higher plane than us lowly beings down here.

A blathering wreck

This one is terrible. In 24 hours I would be a blathering wreck without even considering the consequences of a whole wekk. (Typo left to show how nervous I am) I would feel like Oklahoma, devastated. I don’t want to look like Hilary Clinton!

Seriously, my PC is 24/7, even when I am sleeping my PC is working. How else am I going to pirate English textbooks like a responsible teacher? Of course, I can do without the movies and music, but my pursuit of perfecting the English language is my greatest virtue… in fact, it is my only virtue.

I am going to have to claim ‘work’, not because of the overnight downloads, but because of my blogs. I drink coffee, I am a serious blogger. Many of you may/may not be aware that I have eight blogs and they take a lot of work to maintain my target of a daily post on them all; as it is I don’t always achieve my tally.

Probably more important is the high possibility of a systems failure if I switch the PC off; sometimes it restarts good, but other times I have a bitch of a job. You see my PC is a girl and suffers from PMT = PC mental tantrums.

Not Lixo, but you get the idea

I do, however, switch off the monitor physically overnight because Lixo can’t sleep; he sits up all night in my chair trying to catch the status bars on the downloads as the creep across the screen.

Then he spends all day sleeping on my clean shirts. He says he is ironing them, but I don’t believe it, because an iron doesn’t leave cat hairs over the black one.

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Some of this post has been serious, some parts not so serious. That’s what happens when you overcaffeinate.

Change the World Wednesday – 30th Nov

This last week, I failed a bit and then I won.

Breakfast wouldn't be breakfast without marmalade

Saturday morning I decided that I should have that traditional British stalwart, marmalade, on toast to go with my coffee.I love marmalade and it’s so rare to find it in Brazil, and when you do, it’s expensive.

Now, I was blogging at the time. Lesson learned long ago, blogging and cooking aren’t good bed companions. But, I’m a man, do I learn? LOL not on your life.

Slabs of Charcoal

The result was that I had two slabs of charcoal. Now, I thought, what can I use two slabs of charcoal for. Surprisingly, I didn’t have any immediate use for two fresh slabs of charcoal, and in hindsight, I couldn’t ever remembered having needed two slabs of charcoal before.

But then I didn’t waste them. On to the compost heap. Now most people would throw them in the trash, that would be a waste. Read my Monday Moan if you want a story on compost and my free tomatoes.

The week didn’t end there. Sunday I made a fresh thermos of coffee, wonderful black Brazilian coffee. I am usually pretty good at making coffee; the recipe is simple and hard to fail.

I failed!

I had made crap coffee, I’ve done it before, rarely, but even a chef can manage occasionally. Sometimes I really surpass myself. I don’t know what I did, probably miscounted the spoonfuls of coffee, four instead of five. But did I throw it out? No way, throw away a whole days coffee ration just because it’s crap. I drank it…  all.

Even if I had done this in the restaurant, it wouldn’t have been suitable for diners, the staff would have got it. Waste not, want not. Oh, they would have bitched, but I would simply remind them that it was free, if they want good coffee go out front and pay for it.

This week’s Change the World Wednesday challenge:

Energy Challenge, Part 2: Throughout the month of December, please take another reading and report back on your efforts. We’d like to know what worked, what didn’t, and any lessons learned. This will be an information sharing challenge and hopefully we’ll discover more effective ways to minimize our energy consumption.

Well, I did this one, just out of interest’s sake, I was able to do it over three months because the power bill arrived the day of the challenge and I started with the reading of the previous power bill.

My type of power metre

Jul/Aug:    17002     132kw

Aug/Sep:   17128    126kw

Sep/Oct:     17267    139kw

Oct/Nov:    17395    128kw

So my power consumption is pretty stable, the reason for the increase in the Sep/Oct reading was that I had fewer lessons, so the computer was on for more time, also the months with 130+ I had the kids to stay more than one weekend, so there was more TV and more fridge openings.

So lessons learnt:

Don’t have kids! They’re expensive.

 

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Change the World Wednesday – 14th Sep

I loved Blogger, but never again!

This week’s CTWW has caused a headache for Small Footprints. Her Blogger auto save failed and she lost the anticipated post. I feel for her; the number of times Blogger did that to me, posts, comments, etc that had been written lost and rewritten to never be the same. Most frustrating. I must admit that since I have changed recently to WordPress (2+ months) nothing of this nature has happened. I was really reluctant to make the change, and I didn’t do it willingly. I ranted ad nauseum about WP being unfriendly, and yet here I am now extolling its virtues. SF, I’m sorry that you lost your post, I know how hard you work at them and the effort involved.

On with the game…

This week’s Change the World Wednesday is for me.

It is a point that I have been agonising over for more than a year.

Check that your refrigerator is level … the door should automatically swing shut instead of staying open. Check the seal on the door … try closing it on a piece of paper. If you can pull the paper out easily, it’s time to replace the gaskets. Check the back of your refrigerator to be sure that it’s clean … vacuum coils if you have them to ensure that the compressor runs efficiently. How full is your refrigerator? Be sure that it isn’t too full … allow room for cool air to circulate which will keep everything at the right temperature.

Yes, the fridge!

Pretty much like my fridge

My first fridge after my enforced move was a donated run-down cranky thing that defrosted on Rio’s hot days. It is now the cupboards in my yard. I replaced it with one that I bought from a neighbour, it was cheap, made ice and kept the beer cold (it also had some food in it); at the time that was mostly what I was concerned about. It needs to be defrosted about every two weeks, it is not efficient, the seals are bad, the door swings closed on an intermittent basis often needing an exasperating  prod angry shove (with associated vocabulary) once I have reached the stove and realised it didn’t shut. I know that it uses more power than any other appliance in the house (and God knows, I have few).

It would be true to say that my fridge is my nemesis.

(I think we are about the have a power cut – there have been two serious dips in the light and the isolating transformer is performing like crazy…) I am not relying on auto-save I am saving the draft as I write each sentence.

I have a number of things that exceed a new fridge on my list of priorities. I still need a mattress; I have been using a thin camp mattress on my bed for three years. I yearn for the comfort of a real bed. But once these other items are resolved, a new fridge is definitely on the list.

If I time my purchase of a fridge with sales, I should be able to find one for R$799/899 (that’s about $500 on today’s exchange, but that is going down with the current economic climate, the Real R$ is getting stronger which means that prices for appliances will increase). We are now in spring and summer is the target for the new fridge, even if it means sacrificing the mattress.

Dreams

So a perfect challenge for me, perhaps it is the jolt that I needed to change my priorities, because of course a new fridge would should lower my power usage and result in smaller power bills.

I would love my fridge to look like this this summer, but then we all have dreams…

I might even find some space for food.

(Lights are still flickering… but I have managed.)