Doing nothing

UPDATES

-The Wichita water test is going much slower than I expected. The pan of water finally evaporated off and I'm afraid the results are inconclusive. There is a lot of particulate stuff (including dried blades of grass) that I think got into the water when it was out in my car and the landscaping people mowed the lawn.

I think I'm going to try this again but put some kind of cover over the pan to prevent stuff like this from getting into the water. The tricky part is that the cover will still need to allow water vapor to get out. Saran wrap with a bunch of small holes in it?

-Scooter riding is still going great. Getting 80+ mpg and enjoying the rides.

-Katie and I are looking into getting a scanner so that we can electronicazationify some of our paper documents. I found out that the IRS does accept electronic versions of tax documents; this could save us a ton of filing cabinet space. We could do the same with much of the paper documentation we are hanging onto right now. As to when we are getting said scanner, well, it could be a while. We'll let you know.

-My latest exploration topic: nuclear breeder reactors. Pretty interesting stuff. In ways that I don't fully understand, it is possible to reprocess a large percentage of most nuclear waste to both reclaim/recreate some of the fuel and produce a by-product with a half-life of a century or so (vs 20,000 years). From what it sounds like, the process can be made to generate more fuel than you put in. (Don't ask me how, I don't understand the details yet.) The US has outlawed such reactors in an attempt to prevent nuclear proliferation but there are rumblings that if nuclear energy takes off in the US, such a ban might be lifted.

Why might the US embrace nuclear power after several decades of shunning it? Zero carbon emissions. In fact, more than a few environmentalists are getting on-board the nuclear bandwagon because it is so much "cleaner" than coal/natural gas power plants.

-Lastly, Katie and I got some neat folding bookcases to replace the particle-board deathtraps we've had. Literally our old ones were falling apart (and may have done so on top of us). We'll see how these new ones hold up. They fold up in a way that is kind of hard to explain in writing but, hopefully, this will make moving easier.