The Roma tomatoes looked great in the grocery story, the Greek olives were inexpensive, and I had a little bit of old French bread and Parmigiano-Reggiano. The beer was optional but it does make cooking more fun.

I opened the door and found a fawn lying just a couple feet from the door. I took a couple of pictures. The fawn left when more people came out the door.

One of my alma maters, University of Houston (Bauer), tied Miami University and four other universities for 59^th place. Congratulations to all of the schools who made the list. Although the degree did not result in higher pay, I enjoyed my studies at the University of Houston and still enjoy studying business trends.

Miami University Farmer School of Business highest-ranked part-time MBA program in Southwest Ohio, according to U.S. News & World Report rankings for “Best Graduate Schools.”

Miami University on U.S. News part-time MBA ranking – Business Courier

Two months ago I wrote in Follow up on Green Technology that pays for itself that by my calculations the extra insulation I put in the ceiling resulted in a 10.2% drop in kilowatt hours and a $29.78 drop in the total bill. Earlier this month I looked at the January electric bill and said I was disappointed when I found only $7 of savings. I just received this months bill and this month’s bill is $115 lower than last year and I found an error in last month’s savings calculation. Last month’s savings attributable to insulation is now $34 and this month’s savings is $58. My favorite metric, the ratio of Average KWH per day over the Average Heating Degree Day is now solidly under 4. Here is my updated graph using some forecast data for 2012

Charles Murray has a new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. The Powerline blog had a nice bit about the book and a link to the quiz. I was curious so I took the quiz. Here are my results.

How Thick Is Your Bubble? Guest Score » 13 out of 20  (65% )  Result  On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 13 and 16. In other words, you don’t even have a bubble. Quiz School Take this quiz & get your score

After church my mother-in-law asked me to come over to her house and look at the electrical panel. Yesterday she had some people working around the panel and they nearly got killed. They said the electrical panel was a safety hazard and that she should get some lawyers to sue the electrical company that put in it.

Although I am not an electrician I am an electrical engineer with some practical experience around electrical panels. When I got there the cover was off the panel. That is always a bad sign. So I asked my mother-in-law to tell me the story. Yesterday the cable guy installed new cable and telephone service. First he ran the cable came into the garage next to the electrical panel. Next he installed a device similar to the cable modem on the wall for the telephone service. When he plugged the device into the outlet next to the panel, he caused a breaker to trip. This is where the story gets real funky. The cable guy removes the electrical panel cover. I have no idea why he removed the panel cover but he does something in the panel and then has problems putting the cover back on. I am guessing he was having problems with one of the screws used to attach the cover to the panel not lining up with hole. So he pulls out his drill and sets about enlarging the hole on a live electrical panel. By definition anyone pointing a drill at a live electrical panel is an idiot looking for trouble and that is what he found. The drill went through the hole in the panel and into the 200 amp main feed to the house. A small explosion occurred, part of the drill bit is vaporized, and he is blown backwards. He is lucky. If the panel was not grounded, he would be dead now. Hopefully he knows the difference between electricians and cable guys. Cable guys do not work on electrical panels.

I think the appropriate response by Judge Walker to Proposition 8 should have been to place an injunction on issuing any new marriage licenses in California and to stop enforcement of laws requiring marriage licenses. If moral reasons are not valid reasons for regulating marriage, we are left with a regulation that is an anachronism from the past. I have been married 27 years. I know where my driving license is. I hang my college degrees on the wall. I do not have a clue where my marriage license is. If I was not required to get a marriage license when I got married, I would not have gotten it. Marriage licenses are vanity plates. The judge had the opportunity to step back from the present and future controversies by declaring marriage regulations null and void. If California wants to continue to get the tax revenue from marriage licenses, legislators will figure out how to get the various parties to play well together. Which ever way this ruling goes in the upper courts, the bond between church and state on regulating marriage is defunct.

Cross posted on the article, Requiem For An Ideal, at doczero.org.