POWER: GORE MANSION USES 20X AVERAGE HOUSEHOLD; CONSUMPTION INCREASE AFTER 'TRUTH'
Mon Feb 26 2007 17:16:14 ET

Nashville Electric Service/Gore House

2006

High 22619 kWh Aug – Sept
Low 12541 kWh Jan - Feb
Average: 18,414 kWh per month

2005

High 20532 Sept - October
Low 12955 Feb - March
Average: 16,200 kWh per month

Bill amounts

2006 – $895.60 (low) $1738.52 (high) $1359 (average)
2005 – $853.91 (low) $1461 (high)

Nashville Gas Company

Main House
2006 – $990(high) $170 (low) $536 (average)
2005 – $1080 (high) $200 (low) $640 (average)

Guest House/Pool House

2006 – $820 (high) $70 (low) $544 (average)
2005 – $1025 (high) $25 (low) $525 (average)

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization, issued a press release late Monday:

Last night, Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, but the Tennessee Center for Policy Research has found that Gore deserves a gold statue for hypocrisy.

Gore’s mansion, [20-room, eight-bathroom] located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).

In his documentary, the former Vice President calls on Americans to conserve energy by reducing electricity consumption at home.

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average.

Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359.

Since the release of An Inconvenient Truth, Gore’s energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006.

Gore’s extravagant energy use does not stop at his electric bill. Natural gas bills for Gore’s mansion and guest house averaged $1,080 per month last year.

“As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk to walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use,” said Tennessee Center for Policy Research President Drew Johnson.

In total, Gore paid nearly $30,000 in combined electricity and natural gas bills for his Nashville estate in 2006.

For Further Information, Contact:
Nicole Williams, (615) 383-6431
editor@tennesseepolicy.org

New Golf Game

I ordered a new pair of golf gloves and shoes the other day so watch out. I'll be ready when we all play next time. BTW.....we are not playing with Griffin and Marvin again. The last time me and Jesse played with them I felt like a POS golfer. I suck at golf anyway but I felt I hit like a girl when playing with those guys. They are hitting it like 250 every time and there goes my ball....barely breaking the 100 yd barrier. "Wow!.....Nice one Ryan. You really nailed that one. You will probably hit again and not even reach their first shot."

I'm pumped for it to warm up so we can start playing again.

Fallout

So, the worst day on wall street since 9/11 knocked me up for, oh some where in the neighborhood of $1200-$1400. Guess I'm eating cheap in Vegas.

I guess the moral of the story is, hide your money under your bed. Or give it to a stripper.

Surprise Party

Stacy pulled a good surprise party for my 25th birthday party last Friday. I asked her early in the week if she felt like going out and it seemed like she wasn't up for it since it was Friday and she's always tired on Fridays.

So I thought we could celebrate my bday on Saturday instead and meet up with everyone then. Stacy and I went out to Montgomery Inn Boathouse after work on Friday. Yummmmmmm...I'm not a big ribs person so I got the filet mignon. After eating, I was thinking we could pick up some liquor and wine from Party Source. Stacy agreed only b/c we finished dinner at 8:00 and were not meeting up with everyone for the surprise until 8:30 so the Party Source would give her time to stall.

We left Party Source and Stacy told me that Emily and her friends were up at Gameworks and wondered if we wanted to join them. I was thinking in my head "No" but being nice and all I said "Yes." Well, I thought "It wouldn't be too bad if some of my buddies came out." So I call Jesse...no answer. Call Jesse again....and it disconnects (which I found out later he answered the phone on accident) but didn't notice anything. Call Marvin.....no answer. At this point I'm pissed, it's my birthday and I'm going out with all women. That doesn't actually sound that bad when I put it like that but anyways. I get into Gameworks and there drinking is Jesse, Marvin, Elizabeth, Kevin Bivens, Brad Deaton and Greg. By the time the night ended, we actually had a decent sized crew up there. It was definitely an awesome surprise and alot of drinking involved.

Marvin and Jesse got me a t-shirt of my boy Jeff Gordon......nice gift. I was actually looking for one of them. I almost forgot. People accumlated tickets for me over the entire night and I was able to buy something at the end. Jesse had been trying to get a Mario stuffed animal from one of those game machines all night and had spent a decent chunk of change. I felt bad so I bought a Luigi as the gift. I give that punk the gift and he's like "This isn't Mario!" and sits it down on the table......LOL! Great stuff.

The Mariokart is Dead

It's official. The Saturn (aka Mariokart because it's so small and I'm so big) has broken down for the final time. Damn thing has another hole in the engine, which my dad replaced not too long ago. I've got a loaner for the time-being, my parents' Honda Passport. I've gotta go car shopping now, though I have no idea what I want. Actually, I want a Ford Mustang, but I should probably get a Honda or Volkswagen. I don't have any money saved up though, so that blows. Doh well.

Conspiracy Theory

Marvin believes there is a conspiracy taking place in the Fantasy Nascar league. He doesn't like the fact that you can see everyone's active drivers after the qualifying starts. He thinks you shouldn't be able to see other team's drivers until after the race starts. I kind of agree with this, but not to the point of a conspiracy. He believes there were several suspicious moves (TJ, Ryan) at the last moment. I don't know for sure, but I suspect there may be a declaration of shananigans in the near future.

Gus

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27588555@N00/

Pictures of my dog.

Stats

www.tjwilkinson.com/mrl.xls

Again!?

Damien Nash a Broncos backup running back and special teams guy collapsed and died after a charity basketball game. There's not going to be anyone left come the start of the season.

Up North

It's midnight, and we just got back about an hour ago from her folk's cottage up north. We were supposed to stay for the weekend, but I guess there's a big winter storm coming so we tried to beat it home. Well, after we got back and unloaded the car, I went out to go fill my car up so I don't have to mess with it and it was snowing then, so we made it just in time.

While we were up there today though I got to do some ice fishing and some snow shoeing. Didn't catch a damn thing, but got to sit on a bucket for a couple hours. Her dad has a shanty thing that has a cover and is black so it attracts the heat from the sun. It was probably teens outside, but felt damn warm in that thing. While sitting on the lake - the ice was ~16-18" thick - you can hear the ice popping and cracking and sometimes it sounds like gun shots. Apparently it happens as the ice grows because it puts more pressure on itself, but it's pretty freaky sitting out on it and hearing it crack all around you and then seeing the cracks running around the top of the lake.

For snow shoeing we drove over to another lake nearby and walked around on it. It was fun, but not really enough snow. The dog tried to pull every damn stick out of the frozen lake. He's dumb.

Celebrity Look-alike? Maybe I am

Ryan and I were leaving work the other day and we ran into some of the Indian guys on the NewPage project. One of the guys said, "You look like Saddam. I saw you earlier today and I thought, 'Isn't that guy dead?'" I think I saw some of the other Indian guys nodding their heads in agreement. It caught me totally off guard. What do you say to that? I didn't say much and just kept walking. Ryan thinks he must have confused Saddam with Osama because Bin Laden has a beard and Saddam only had a mustache. So that kind of makes sense. Then last night I was watching Glenn Beck, and he put up a picture of Iranian President Ahmadinejad. I think that must have been who he was talking about. I think if I had to pick an evil Middle Eastern terrorist guy that I look most like, then I would pick this guy. So either he was confused, or I really look like Saddam through the eyes of Indians.

One funny note here: When I was thinner and had the military hair cut, my college buddies said I looked like Timothy McVeigh. So I guess I can't win. No matter what I do, I'm still gonna look like some other asshole. Doh well.

How to Handle Irritating Seatmates

Check out this link that Baxter sent me. Scroll down to "How to Handle Irritating Seatmates". Dirka dirka jihad Mohammed.

http://boortz.com/nuze/200701/01312007.html

Countdown to Prison/Vegas

What happened Friday Night?

Well....let's just say the Friday night drive home was interesting. Friday started with a Community Meeting (oh what fun!) then a 3-5pm happy hour (beer and wine included). Then we strolled over to Dana's place and played some poker and drank some Supermans. I think I drank the Supermans a little too fast b/c by 9pm I was well off (aka drunk) and ready to go home.

I drove home and ended up at the Burger King off Fields Ertel exit. Why I stopped at BK....I have no idea but a nice juicy burger sounded really good. I looked in my wallet and my 5/3 credit card was gone. Luckily I had money but I was still worried as to where my credit card happened to be. So I thought in my head...."Where could you be?" I went to the ATM by Jesse's place before poker so I drove back down there thinking I would be able to find it.......Goood ONE! With no avail, I ended my search and started back to home. But before I could make it home I started to get real tired. Like I was a bear and ready for hibernation. So I pulled off the road on some side street and took a little nappy. It happened to be a 2 hour nap. I woke up around 12:30 and drove home. I woke up the next morning and looked in my car. There was lettuce all over my seat and a half eaten BK burger. Your guess is as good as mine on that one.

Wrecked

3 of my 4 drivers wrecked in the race. But it was a hell of a race! Did Chambers ever show up to watch it? Man, I'm pumped to go to the race in June!

Ice Storm

Here are pics from the ice storm that we got:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryan_otto_chambers

Drag?

I've never been one to watch drag racing, but this chick could change my mind ...

Don't try to buy beer in Chicago

I'm in Chicago for training - well, out in the suburbs anyway. I'm in the Residence Inn, so I've got a fridge. I went out to grab some fat tire to stock that fridge and it took an hour to get beer and get back here. Yeah. An hour. And, I didn't even get fat tire. I could only find them in 22ozers for $4 a bottle. In that hour, I found 1 gas station, it didn't sell beer. And I finally found a grocery which did sell beer. The moral of the story is, don't try to find beer in Chicago. Just go to a bar. It's faster.

Talladega Nights

I finally saw this tonight. I'm down in Circleville and watched it with my parents and brother. Some really funny parts, some parts that were kinda dumb ... shake and bake got on my nerves a bit, but it's got me pumped for nascar season!

The General

I stumbled across something great while shopping at Kroger last week. I found General Tso's flavor packets. It says you need chicken, flour, and oil. Basically you batter the chicken and then deep fry it in the oil on your stove. Then add the flavor packet, and you've got yourself a feel good heart attack. I love the General! I'll have to try it out and let you guys know how it is.

The Great Chili Cookoff Disaster

The annual Delivery Center chili cookoff was last week. I decided to cook, so I used my mom's recipe with a little Big Country touch (aka minced garlic and diced jalapenos). I had to double the recipe this year because the last time I cooked I barely had enough. And I was told there would be twenty four judges. I couldn't fit it all in the crockpot, so I had a small tupperware container too. I somehow managed to carry both and my laptop all the way up from the garage. I got to the door to badge in, and set the crockpot and container down to get my badge out. Well my dumbass set it down with the crockpot on top (which is how i was carrying it), and I look away for a split second. In that split second, I watched the crockpot tip over and spill all over the floor. The entire crockpot of chili all over the floor in the atrium. It was then that I realized the chili cookoff was over for me. I felt bad for the poor guy who came up to clean it. Apparently he didn't know the enormity of the spill because he came with one single cloth. He saw the mess and said, "Oh boy. I'll be back." At least I had enough in my tupperware for my lunch. Better luck next year. Btw - here are the "winners":

1st Place - Tammy Macke (I heard she didn't make the chicken chili this year; I guess it was real chili)
2nd Place - Brad Deaton
Most Intense - John Feldhaus (I don't understand how this is an award. It basically means it was too hot to eat. Btw - his first batch he poured an entire bottle of Dave's Insanity sauce in before he realized you should only use a drop or two. He couldn't even finish a spoon full so he had to make a new batch.)

#1 Busch

I won the first Busch race of my career in the Nascar 07 game last night - tore it up, lead the whole race. But the short tracks I do pretty well, I just ram whoever gets in the way. I think I'm actually higher in the Busch standings than the truck standings for this season.

By the way, the Busch series name is being sold for either this season or next. NASCAR is charging $30M a year for it. Maybe ACN should get in on that. I heard the leading candidates are Walmart, Subway, Dunkin Donuts, Allstate, and some others. None have quite the ring as the Busch series. But Dunkin Donuts wouldn't be terrible. The Walmart series sounds terrible.

Harangatang

If the Reds are going to do nothing in the offseason, at least they wrapped up Harang with a new contract.

Reds Best Player

Fantasy Nascar

Our fantasy nascar virginity will be stripped of us this year. Let's get it started. The Wonder Boy is here to stay and all I can say is "Bow down!"

Superbowl Weekend

I'm oncall again this week but I had to make a post. Can I say that work sucks? Well, I did. Weekend was great. Superbowl party = drinking + drinking + more drinking. Also, smoking outside in the freezing cold with wind. Gotta love it. We went to Fantasy football friend's house. My buddy's dad's house is sweet. His basement has a full size bar and a 109 inch TV. The TV was amazing. It was a good night. We (Marvin, Liz (Marv's girlfriend), Jesse, Stacy and I) ended the night playing some pool at Snooker's.

Snow Blowin'

It's a high of 5 today and currently 3 degrees. We had a blizzard yesterday. I guess the Michigan winter is here. I don't know if y'all have any snow down there, but we have about a foot on the ground. Yesterday there were 50 car pile ups on the highways, and parts of the highways closed. I came over to Julia's yesterday morning and followed a truck most of the way, but at times, the wind would whip up and blow snow across the road and the thing would just disappear and I couldn't see a damn thing. Today I went out and ran the snow blower on her drive way. The snow is really fine almost like powdered sugar and the blower threw it up in the air and the wind blew it right back into my face and snow hitting your face at 5 degrees is COLD!

13 days

13 Days till the Daytona 500 - who're your drivers for the season? Here is a list of drivers and how many points they finished behind the winner (Jimmie Johnson) last year - the lower the number the closer they were - #5 Kyle Busch was 448 behind and in the top 10 at the end of the year. If you click on a driver you get the sponsor and car type.

Elevator Farts

I was in Dayton at the NewPage client site. I got on the elevator after lunch along with another lady. She was probably in her late 40s or early 50s. She's on one side, I'm on the other. Suddenly, I hear a fart. Now, some people would say, "How do you know it was a fart...it could have been her shoes rubbing against the floor," but I know what I heard. I am kind of a sick and twisted person in that I like farts. I think they're funny. And I fart quite often. So, I think I would know one when I hear one. So she rips one and then acts like nothing happened. I try to keep a straight face but I start grinning because I'm thinking about it so much. I almost said something like "Good one" or "That's disgusting," but I didn't.

I personally think the elevator is one of the more fun places to fart. But only when you're by yourself. It's such a confined area and people cram into those things. There is nothing better than dropping an SBD and getting out knowing that the next person is going to have to suffer through it. It's a good day when I can ruin the day for other random people.

To Shake or Not to Shake

I was in Dayton for a meeting with the client earlier this week. This guy was doing some knowledge transfer for a 3rd party user administration tool. During the meeting, I had to cough. Well, you're supposed to cover your mouth when you cough so as not to disperse your germs through the air...you know the stuff they teach you when you're a little kid and now you do without thinking about it. I had to cough, so I coughed on my right hand. I'm right-handed, so i think that makes perfect sense. But then I started thinking about it. I knew that I would probably have to shake this guy's hand after the meeting. The meeting ends, and sure enough he reaches out to shake my hand. I didn't know what to do. Do you refuse and tell him that you coughed and you don't want to offend him but you don't want to give him germs, etc., etc., etc. That seems like alot of effort. The other option is to shake his hand and hope that he wasn't baiting you because he saw you cough earlier and he can't believe that you would go ahead with the shake. It's quite the dilemma. So, I shook his hand and prayed that he didn't see the cough beforehand. If I see him again and I get the evil eye, I'll know I was busted.

Tastes like Cheeseburgers

I'm not exactly sure what night this was because it seems like we leave TJ alot of drunken messages lately. Anyway, one night at Animations Ryan decided to call TJ and leave a message (because we all know he isn't going to answer). It probably was pretty late at night. Ryan starts yelling into the phone about how TJ was probably...I'm trying to think of an appropriate way to say this...let's just say doing Julia a favor. Then he passes the phone to me and I said "mmm...tastes like cheeseburgers". I have no idea where this came from. But it got me thinking. What if "that" did taste like cheeseburgers. That would be kind of cool but kind of gross at the same time. I don't think I would eat cheeseburgers anymore.

Basis Ninja No More

My Basis Ninja membership was revoked last Wednesday when I committed an error of disastrous proportions. I was trying to resolve an issue with our TMS system because transports were not getting exported to our QA system. I decided to remove and then add the QA system from the transport domain. In order to do so, I have to log on to client 000 of the QA system. Well, the problem was I didn't have a login to that client and I couldn't get in with SAP* or DDIC. So, I thought I would be smart by deleting the SAP* user from the database and logging in with password 'pass'. The only problem was I didn't know the exact command to delete the SAP* user. And I was working from home on the VPN, so I couldn't google the command which is what I normally do. I start guessing the syntax but nothing is working. Then, I type 'delete from sapr3.usr02' and hit enter, hoping that would give me a clue as to what values it was looking for after. Well, the command completed successfully. I didn't think it did anything or wasn't paying enough attention so I ran a couple of other delete commands after this. That effectively committed the delete command that I ran earlier. All of a sudden I have about fifteen AIM boxes popping up with people asking if something was wrong with QA. It was then that it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was on the phone with Baxter. I had this sick feeling in my stomach. I said, "You're going to kill me." Then I told him what happened. To make a longer story less long, the restore didn't work that night, so we've been recreating users as they request them. That was my first big Basis blunder, but I'm sure it won't be my last. If it was Production instead of QA, it might have been my last.

Three Legged Cat

I adopted another cat the other day. Mainly I felt bad for Rudi because I'm gone most of the day and when I get home I don't feel like doing much but laying on the couch. So Rudi would pace around meowing wanting me to play with her. I couldn't take it anymore. So, I went to Petsmart and low and behold there was a three legged cat. I decided if I was going to get another cat, why not a handicapped one. That could be kind of funny. She seems like a good cat and has no problems getting around. One bad thing though is she still acts like a kitten. When she is on my lap and I'm petting her, she starts sucking on my shirt like she's trying to get milk. It's pretty weird. At first I tried to stop her, but she really gets latched on there. So now, I just make sure to wear two shirts and let her go to town. Hopefully she'll finally figure out that she's not going to get any milk to come out.