I hate it when my aerator's congested

I was trying to do the dishes last night and I noticed that my water pressure had been in a decline over the last couple of weeks. The I remembered that I hadn't disassembled and cleaned my aerator in a couple of months. Well, once I had the thing taken apart, it was pretty clear that my congested aerator was the root of my water pressure problem. I live in a house that's nearly 100 years old and the plumbing and most of the plumbing fixtures are original to the house. This is a mixed blessing at the best of times, but when it comes to maintenance I'm rarely grateful that I live in what is by Florida standards, an ancient building.

Metal pipes shed corrosion and mineral deposits and it doesn't matter how old they are. Although as my experience shows; the older the pipes, the more voluminous the material shed. Those deposits can't hurt you and I'd rather have the extra iron in my diet than the alternative to a metal pipe, PVC.

Most faucets, and kitchen faucets in particular, have an aerator on the end of them. This aerator performs two primary and one secondary function. It's primary job is to add air to a stream of water and this does two things. Aerated water won't splash as much when the stream hits something and aerated water has a greater volume. That greater volume means that even though you're using less water to wash dishes in the sink, it's not noticeable.

All aerators have a screen in them, and that screen is what gets clogged with the shed material from your pipes. All aerators need to be flushed out from time to time and if you have never performed this little bit of maintenance, you'll be amazed at the improvement in your faucet's performance.

First, wrap some tape around the end of your kitchen faucet to protect the finish. Then get a pair of channel lock pliers and unscrew the aerator. Remember: righty tighty, lefty loosey. Once it's unscrewed, turn on your tap and hold the aerator upside down in the stream of water. What you're doing is back flushing the screen in the aerator and all of the captured mineral deposits ought to become dislodged and rinsed away after a minute or so.

Then reassemble your aerator and reattach it to the end of your faucet. Tighten everything back up, remove the tape and you're done. Easy as pie.

Some things I think I think

About a hundred years ago, I wrote opinions columns for a newspaper. When I had a lot of unrelated things I wanted to write about and none of them could fill a whole column, I would write what the newspaper biz calls a Bullet column and what editors call a Bullshit column. Now that I don't have any editors to contend with I am free to do bullet columns with impunity. And now too that I have the awesome power of the Internet at my fingertips, I can write a magic bullet column that jumps all over the ether. I love technology. Sometimes.

• This guy has some t-shirts to sell that make me laugh hysterically


• This same guy has a great blog


• These napkins are a mess


• I can't stand mindless "motivation" propaganda and neither can these people


• Here's another beautiful Etsy.com store


• Florida's in the news for something good for a change


• Somebody at the Wall Street Journal must read my blog --Hah!


• Recycling actual buildings is the height of cool


• The most important show on TV that isn't AMC's brilliant Mad Men returns on Wednesday


• Interesting, interesting

Best use of a garbage bag in a starring role...

This has to be the most creative use of not only a couple of garbage bags but also of a New York subway grate I've ever seen. Check this out:

This "Air Bear" is the work of Joshua Allen Harris, a New York-based video artist turned garbage bag and subway exhaust artist. Here is an interview conducted by New York Magazine with Harris and it shows some more of his work. He's a tough one to track down, that Joshua Allen Harris, because I can't find out a word about him from my usual sources...

Turn out that light!

The thieves at Progress Energy are building a new nuclear power plant in Levy County, Florida. Hurray and it's about time the US started building nuclear plants again.

Before you start huffing and puffing about radioactivity, I'd recommend that you read up on exactly what radiation is. "Radioactive" has been turned into an irrationally, emotionally laden term with nearly the same attendant hysteria as has the word "chemical." It kills me. A lot of people hear the word radioactive and see a mushroom cloud yet ignore the sun blasting away overhead and think nothing of getting into an airplane. Similarly, chemicals in consumer products are somehow always a bad thing; but newsflash, water is a chemical.

OK, now that I have that off my chest, back to the thieves at Progress Energy and their much-needed nuclear plant. Progress Energy estimated that the new plant in Levy County will cost 17 billion dollars to build. Yes, that's billion with a "B." Staggering cost, yes but where it gets interesting is that due to a two-year-old Florida law, utilities are allowed to pre-bill their customers for infrastructure improvements. When these costs started to trickle out to the public last winter, Progress Energy estimated that it would start charging a $9 a month surcharge in January '09 (on top of their recent rate increases) to pay for the new plant years before anyone starts shoveling dirt. Now, citing "confidentiality agreements" in their quest to find a builder, Progress Energy has declined to put a number on that surcharge as they seek permission to charge it from the Public Service Commission. They are asking for a blank check and they just might get it. Argh!

My beloved St. Pete Times has been on this like a hawk and bravo for the St. Pete Times! Call the Public Service Commission and your state legislators. This is a bad idea brought about by typically bad legislation. One party rule is a terrible, terrible thing.

Before I start hollering any more about this blatant thievery and getting my blood pressure up even higher, there is a way you can offset whatever January's construction surcharge ends up being. Swapping out incandescent light bulbs for less-energy-hogging compact fluorescent bulbs is an easy one. You can also lower the temperature on your water heater, set your thermostat a degree or two higher and on and on. But what about the things I do that I'd always been told used less electricity? I leave my AC on 24 hours a day and just raise the thermostat to 80 degrees when I leave in the morning. I've always been told that doing that is more energy efficient than turning it off when I leave. Well, it turns out that that little pearl of conventional wisdom is wrong.

The kids at Treehugger ran a piece yesterday on energy savings and it tackled such efficiency conundra as the turn-off-the-AC or not question and others that vex people like me. Treehugger's entry included a link to a website called Mr. Electricity.

Mr. Electricity is the brainchild of an efficiency fanatic named Michael Bluejay and readers of this blog would do well to spend some time poking around on his site. The man anticipates and answers almost any question you might have and presents everything in an entertaining and engaging style. He explains everything from how to read a manufacturer's labels to how to read your own electric meter. Once everything's explained, he'll show you how to apply it to how your bottom line. Seriously, check this out and save some money.

The New York Times always makes me laugh

Judith Warner has a really amusing piece on the Times' website today describing the angst of an SUV owner in a time of four-dollars-and-change for a gallon gasoline. Warner writes a blog called Domestic Disturbances. It's always a good read.

The tale could be called: I Can No Longer Afford to Drive My Car.

The vehicle in question is a Land Rover. (2004 Land Rover. Vinyl interior. 33,000 miles. No sun roof. If you’re interested.)

It is a big black behemoth that stands more than six feet tall, weighs 6,724 pounds and gets, according to E.P.A. calculations, 11 miles to the gallon in the city, assuming you don’t go uphill, stop at stop signs or run the air conditioning. If you do any of these things, the gas mileage, according to my calculations, falls by about half.

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/futility-vehicle/