It's "nickers", not "short pants."

Goodness. You make it sound like I've fallen off the face of the earth. Between work and having the kids and juggling my savage night life, it's been busy.

(Savage night life. Now that my picture is posted, the world can see why Ryan passes on the world's greatest lap dance and I consider a slamming night out a Stargate Atlantis marathon, a six pack of Miller High Life and a frozen pizza.)

Here's my post and text and everything you've wanted. And it's exactly what you don't want to talk about. ENERGY.

Let's pretend I'm still in my house. (sniff) My budgeted monthly power bill was $215. That eased the summer spike over the course of an inexpensive winter (gas heat and all) but my annual bill was $2580, or $2600 for easy math. I lived in a modest 1500 sq. ft home with decent appliances.

The April bill for my apartment power (electric everything, no gas) was $135. The May bill was $140. My first full month here was June, $155. It was during June Mississippi Power notified all its customers of a price hike. My July bill? $268. Before I moved here I figured my average power was going to be in the $150 range. Now I'm assuming that on an annual basis I have to plan on the $225 guess. So in my crappy 900 sq. ft. apartment, my annual bill is $2700. (God help my ex-wife. I have no idea what her power bill is about to become.) Baddboy told me his power bill in July was $385. His home is considerably bigger than my former dwelling, but still. Damn.

So, remember that we're pretending I'm living in my home? I mentioned the apartment to show everyone the price hike. If you look at that bill and realize it's an increase of 178%, it doesn't take Einstein to realize that my former budget is about to be blown wide open. To the tune of an annual bill of $4725.

Combine a 100 KW wind generator ($10,000 installed, $8,000 if I'm Bob Villa) to a 200 KW solar array (two 4x8 panels, $15,000 installed) and my power usage is covered to the tune of 90%. Which means, over the course of a year with prices frozen (yeah right, but we're pretending) I'm saving $4252.50 a year. The $25000 price tag is paid in full in 5 years nine months.

Someone please tell me how this is bad. Remember the numbers I pitched last time? $25 billion a year for eight years for nuclear power plants. Where does that money go? Who does that help, like right now? Is that $25 billion going into the economy, sparking economic growth? No. But give a middle class homeowner an extra five grand each year every year for now on and wow, watch the economy soar. And the beauty of it? YOU'RE NOT GIVING THE HOMEOWNER ANYTHING! It's not welfare, or a tax credit, or a stimulus. It's money you were ALREADY going to spend. And at $25 billion annually you're doing this to ONE MILLION home owners per year! Not even factoring domestic production of wind generators and solar arrays, $5 BILLION is saved by middle class home owners in energy bills! $5 BILLION homeowners are going to fork right back into the economy. And that number just goes up the worse the energy situation gets.

I admit, it's New Deal. But this is not some crack pot Democratic plan that Al Gore yanked from some low water flow composting toilet. This is:

1) Good for National Security. Reduces strain on the national power grid by diversifying power generation and reducing strain on power generating nodes.

2) Good for the Economy. NO one can say $5 billion in discretionary income is bad for anything.

3) Good for the Environment. Talk about an inconvenient truth. Name a Democrat that thought anything like this up. Then accuse him of stealing my idea because he did.

So, does this remove the thought of solar powered airplanes once and for all? No space aged Star Trek technology here. All people need to do is pass the appropriations and start the programs rolling.

And give me my props.