What are Vampire Electronics? Do I own any?

Vampire Electronics?

Ok, the topic of saving electricity either for the purpose of saving money or saving the environment or both is getting more popular. I just read in TIME magazine about this new term called Vampire Electronics. They are electronics you have in your home that still suck down electricity and energy while they are not in use. Things that are in this category according to the blurb were coffee makers and cell phone chargers. I would also think that computers in sleep mode (better than being on though) DVD players, external hard drives, radios and your kitchen appliances would fit in this category too since they all have led lights, clocks or some kind of process running in the bakground at all times. Some of these things are necesities (you can’t unplug the fridge when you leave to go to work) but others are not. Unplugging the toaster, coffee maker, cell phone charger and dvd player when not in use can add up to $2-$5 bucks savings in a month by my best guess. If you have many of them (and a lot of electronics in general) you may save a lot more if you just shut down completley and unplug them.

Holiday Time off

It’s only the end of October but yet the holidays are in full swing. I had to submit my vacation days off today because they are first come first served and many people want the same days off every year and then there is no one in the office when a client needs something in an emergency. So I will be working some of the time between Christmas and New Years this year. One day I will get back to that blissful place where I can take 2 whole weeks off like when you are a kid on Christmas vacation. But it’s not likley that it will be any time soon. We get less vacation as a country than the averages in Europe, but far more than the factory workers in China. Consider us in economic purgatory for the time being.

Chicago Marathon Halted Due to Warm Hot Weather

This is odd. Yes it is hot today in Chicago, but I never have seen the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon get canceled or stopped due to weather concerns. I guess they figure that no one was anticipating this kind of hot humid weather when they trained for it over the past 6 months. Currently my thermometer shows 86 degrees farenheight, but it was supposed to get up to 90 degrees today too. They did get a winner and finisher in the marathon before it was halted at the 3 hour mark half way through. Kenyan Patrick Ivuti won the marathon by one 500th of a second with the last final stretch being neck and neck sprint the whole way. There were 36,000 runners participating in the Chicago Marathon today and I am sure none of them were thrilled with the hot humid weather that we got during the race.  One runner was reported to have died, a man who was 35 and from Michigan.  It is unseasonably warm for this time of year. I have not had an October I can remember where I have had to run my air conditioning like this before. I am not sure if it is global warming? or something else happening, but it is really hot.