Monthly Archives: February 2017

ELECTRICITY VAMPIRE MONITOR.

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Energy vampires are electrical devices that consume electricity when they are turned off. Everyone has them. Your home is using electricity 24 hours a day, whether you are home or away. Most energy vampires use electricity to receive a signal, like from a remote controller; or they have a clock, timer, and sensor inside them that is always running. I think that a lot of people would unplug the infrequently used gadgets in their homes if they knew just how much it was costing them to leave them plugged in. Some small electrical devices use a surprisingly large amount of electricity when they are turned off. For example, an Xbox One consumes over 100 watts of electricity an hour while it is turned off. That is because it is always in standby mode, which means that it is using electricity so it can receive a signal from a remote controller. It can cost you $50 a year to keep an Xbox One or Playstation plugged in, even if its just gathering dust and nobody ever uses it. Larger energy vampires can burn up a lot more than $50 a year. Some plasma TVs consume over $150 in electricity per year while they are turned off. There are also a lot of small electrical gadgets that you might not think of as energy vampires at all, but that actually are. For example, many coffee makers use electricity while they are turned off. If you have a coffee maker that is programmable or that has a clock in it, it is using electricity while it is turned off. Even if you never make coffee at home, a programmable coffee maker will cost you about $15 a year in wasted electricity just because you left it plugged in. Many other small appliances that you might not think of energy vampires actually do use electricity while they are turned off, including toasters, blenders, hair dryers, and electric toothbrushes.

Kill-A-Watt Monitor. If you would like to know just how much electricity your household gadgets and appliances are using while they turned off as well as on, I have a Kill-A-Watt electricity monitor that you can borrow. This monitor is very easy to use. It was designed at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab.  The Kill-A-Watt monitor shows you just how much every electrical device in your home costs you by the day, month, and year. You might be surprised by just how much some infrequently used electrical gadgets cost you. The Berkeley Lab estimates that between 5% and 10% of all the electricity consumed by average the U.S. home is used by energy vampires. The Department of Energy estimates that energy vampires cost American consumers $20 billion a year.

HAVE YOU SEEN MY EMOTIONAL SUPPORT MONGOOSE?

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Take a look at the “Have you seen my mongoose?” poster below. It says that this mongoose is a registered ’emotional support animal’ with the city of San Francisco, but what sort of disability do you suppose this person has? Perhaps it is a fear of cobras. All landlords in the United States are required by the federal government to allow tenants to keep emotional support animals in their apartments. Landlords cannot refuse to allow a tenant to keep an emotional support, comfort, or therapy animal, no matter what the animal is. Personally, I think this policy is madness. Some tenants now have in their apartments – and against the landlord’s and the neighbor’s wishes – emotional support pigs, kangaroos (Yes – kangaroos!), horses, monkeys, pit bulls, mountain lions, alligators, venomous lizards, and tarantulas. I think that sooner or later, someone is going to be killed by one of these animals! Its just a matter of time. I have wondered what I would do or could do if a tenant of mine told me that he had a 200 pound ‘therapy python’ in his apartment. I’m not sure that I could do anything. I am not even sure that I could legally warn the other tenants or neighbors about just an obviously dangerous snake. Simply warning the neighbors might be considered discrimination. As I said, I think this policy is madness. Any in case you were wondering, Yes, it is legal in California to keep a 200 pound python in your home. In fact, there is a store here in Berkeley that sells them.

Airplane Luggage.

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I never check luggage on airplanes. ​If I can’t get everything into one carry-on bag (and I almost always can) I ship everything else ahead by FedEx Ground. What I pay FedEx is usually less than what most airlines charge these days for a checked suitcase. Also, I don’t have to shlep my stuff around the airport, there is also much less chance that my luggage will be lost, stolen, or damaged in transit. Plus, I can leave the airport as soon as I get off my plane. I don’t have to wait at the luggage carousel for my luggage.

Checked bags. If you do check luggage on an airplane, don’t just put a luggage ID tag on the outside of your bag. Airport conveyor belts and luggage boarding ramps rip luggage tags off bags all the time. Tape a card with your name, address, and phone number on the inside of your suitcase as well. An airline can’t return a lost bag if they don’t know who the bag belongs to. If you are traveling with valuable items in your checked bag, take photos of the contents of the bag with your cell phone in case your bag is lost or some of the contents are stolen. It is also a good idea to open your bag in the baggage claim area and make sure everything is there. If you discover that items are missing after you get home, it is unlikely you will get reimbursed for your loss.

Expensive Luggage. Never check expensive luggage on an airplane. Professional luggage thieves can value luggage more accurately than luggage salesmen. They can easily tell the difference between a genuine $5,000 Louis Vuitton suitcase and a $100 knockoff. A professional luggage thief knows that a $5,000 suitcase is far more likely to have expensive jewelry or electronics inside than a $100 counterfeit bag. I once saw a $13,000 Louis Vuitton suitcase in a store window at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. A few hours later, the suitcase was gone. Somebody bought it. Traveling with luggage like that is just asking for trouble.

Drugs. If you are traveling with pain pills or any other possibly addictive drugs, put a copy of your prescription order or a letter from your doctor explaining why you take this drug in your bag with the pills. It could avoid an embarrassing situation or lengthy travel delay. You may have a perfectly valid medical reason for traveling with a bottle of opiates in your suitcase, but a drug sniffing dog in the airport baggage room has no way of knowing that when he zeroes in on your suitcase and starts barking. This happens all the time.

Distinctive markings. Make your checked luggage distinctive. The single biggest cause of lost luggage is that somebody accidentally picked another passenger’s bag that looked like theirs. Put something colorful on your bag that won’t fall off or get easily ripped off.