It's always nice when you find something that you didn't know you had lost.  And it's nice when you realize you have something that you didn't know you had.  That happened yesterday when I realized I had misidentified an old picture that I had gotten a few years ago.

William McKinley Billings was an interesting man.  He was born in 1848 and married Mary E. Byrd in 1868.  Tthey lived in Lomax, south of Traphill in Wilkes Co.  They had nine children together before she died in 1892.  Three years later William remarried, and his second wife's name was Mary E. Bauguess.  I've always thought it strange -- or at least ironic -- that both of his wives were named Mary E., with the "E." likely standing for Elizabeth for both of them.

William died in 1919 and his second wife outlived him by nearly 20 years.  I have two pictures of William McKinley's second wife, but for some reason I always assumed it was Mary E. Byrd.  Now I realize that she is actually Mary E. Bauguess, my great-great-grandfather's sister.  When I compare her picture to pictures of her brothers, I see a resemblance.  Now, if I could just find pictures of the other four siblings, I'd have the whole family!  I'll keep looking.

Ten years ago I had plenty of time on my hands.  I was trying to decide what to do with all this free time when the phone rang.  As luck would have it, it was my good friend Garrison Keillor.  After a brief chat of him asking me for story ideas for his next installment of The News On Lake Wobegon, I told him about my situation.  He said, "Well, why don't you produce your own show?"  I hadn't thought of that, so I asked him what kind of show.  He said I should do a variety show similar to what he does on the radio.  That sounded like a good idea.

Two days later, I call my good friend in the movie business, Frank Oz.  I told him that I wanted to produce a variety show, and I asked if he could help me out.  He thought for a minute and said he did in fact know of someone who could help.  He would have someone call me in a few days.  "Well, who is it?", I asked.  He said only that this performer was short in stature, but big on personality.  Great!

The next day the phone rang, and I immediately recognized a familiar voice.  "Hi ho, Jason," he greeted me.  "This is Kermit THE Frog, and I hear you want to make a movie."  I was astonished that I was talking to this talented and world-renowned celebrity!  We pitched a few ideas at each other, and eventually we had an idea for a short movie -- a sort of variety show starring some of Kermit's popular friends.

And so, here it is.  Produced in 2001 on a shoestring budget, and making its national debut ten years later -- and in honor of the Muppets latest movie just released in theaters -- here is My Mini Muppet Movie.

View it on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfFtTyACbOs.

The world is facing a serious crisis.  The government doesn't have a solution, and as it turns out, evidence suggests that the government is actually responsible for creating this terrible dilemma facing each and every one of us -- especially all the little children.

Of course I'm talking about the impending shortage of helium, element #2 in the Periodic Table.  The gas that gives flight to balloons of all shapes and sizes is expected to run out in 25 years.  Why now?  Apparently, during the Cold War, the US stockpiled huge amounts of helium to be used for rockets and missiles aimed at the Soviet Union and other bad guys.  This storage facility continued to grow until it held over half the world's supply.  Then, in 1996 Congress decided we shouldn't be in the helium storage business any longer and that we should sell all our helium at any cost.  The goal was to sell exactly 5% every year until it was all gone in 2015. 

This caused a surplus in the helium market and prices plunged to the point that helium was so cheap that no one tried to recycle it, contain it, or use it sparingly.  Party balloons became so cheap that they were being used to move entire houses.  Oh, how vain!

Today, as the Federal helium reserve north of Amarillo, TX, is nearly empty, the world's helium supply is nearly gone.  Why can't we just get more of it?  As it turns out, helium is obtained as a bi-product of natural gas extraction.  It is formed over millions and billions of years as rock decays.  Once we've used up all we have, I suppose we'll have to wait another billion years for another rock to decay.  I hope somebody's got a deck of cards, because we're going to be waiting for a long long time.

Lots of important stuff uses helium like MRI scanners, blimps, rockets, and other scientific gadgets.  In another 25 years, Snoopy won't be able to fly over Sunday Night Football games any more.  He'll just have to buy a ticket like everyone else.  His days of privilege are nearly over, and he'll soon be just like the rest of us:  stuck on the ground and surrounded by only nitrogen, oxygen, 1% argon, and 0.03% other assorted gases and dust particles.

Who is this man? 

His face and his message greet us every time we stop at a NC gas pump.  But this isn't simply a logo or a cartoon character.  This is a real person who's somewhere out there, on the streets, along the highways protecting us.  I wonder if he won the Highway Patrol lottery to become the face of the gas pump.  Or, maybe he was the loser who drew the short straw and had to become the face of the gas pump.

Either way, he looks pretty tough, and I'm sure he has discouraged at least a few low-lifes who had considered doing the 'pump and run'.  Then again, are there any gas stations out there that still allow you to pump before paying?  I'm sure there's a few, but the new process of paying first has made him less relevant than he once was.

Maybe he's not even a real officer.  Maybe he's a model who is posing as an officer.  Or, as Jon Lovitz would say, "He's an Ac-Tor!"  You know who would have made a great spokesman for the 'Fill Up and Pay Up' campaign?  Mr. T.  I can see him saying, "I pity the fool who doesn't pay for his gas."  Or, how about Foghorn Leghorn:  "I say, ya gotta pay for your gas or, or pay the consequences, son."  Betty White would make a good ambassador because she's convincing at just about anything she does.  Under a picture of her smiling face, the caption would simply read, "Pay".

If you ever do meet this guy, please don't be tempted to treat him like a celebrity.  And whatever you do, don't ask for his autograph!  He just might give it to you, in the form of an invitation to come visit him at work.

I was in the third grade when I realized I was special.  I couldn't believe that I had overlooked this fact for so many years -- all nine of them!  It was in the middle of class, but when I made this discovery I had to fight the urge to raise my hand and tell the teacher and all my classmates.  But I didn't.  I kept it to myself for a few minutes, and made sure I hadn't made a mistake.  I double checked my spelling to make sure I hadn't somehow switched the letters.  Nope.  The data was in, and it was official:  I was special.

It came to me while looking at a calendar that listed the months of the year.  And that's it.  It was just staring me in the face.  The first six months of the year were nothing -- they were useless to me.  The magic began with the month of July:

J uly
A ugust
S eptember
O ctober
N ovember
D ecember

The first letter of each month spelled my name!  Wow!  How amazing is that!   Sure, there were other kids who were named after months like April, May, and June, but it took six consecutive months to make my name!

But it was the month of December that put me over the top.  You see, the name "Jason" was as common in my class as "Jeeves" is for butlers.  It was a dime a dozen.  In fact, a whopping 10% of our class was named Jason.  I shared this alphabetic peculiarity with 4 or 5 others.  What made me extra special was that I was the only Jason whose last name started with a "D".  And in a class full of Jasons, of course I always signed my assignments as "Jason D.".  For centuries, my name had been plastered on calendars in every school, church, office building, and checkbook.  And now that I knew this fact, I was determined that it would be a secret no more.

Eventually, I got up and showed the teacher what I had discovered.  She said something like, "Oh, that's nice."  So much for being special.  Ever since, all my attempts to use this fact to gain fame and fortune have failed.  I'm just like everybody else:  my name and a dollar will get me a Bojangles iced tea.

This is a sad day.  The final space shuttle flight launched today, but that's nothing to be disappointed about.  The shuttle marks 30 proud years -- out of a total of 50 years -- of manned space flight following the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions.  The sad part is that we have no manned program on the horizon to carry us forward. 

Nothing captures the excitement, enthusiasm, and imagination of the nation collectively as much as the idea of sending a person into space.  While politicians cite the cost of these programs, it's easy to forget the health benefits of giving the entire country something to rally behind.  The pioneering effort that NASA exhibited a few decades ago could only help boost the nation's morale which in turn might just help the economy.  I saw a statistic today that said the recent bank bailout exceeded the entire 50 year budget of NASA!  Imagine the places we could go if only the dedication and leadership existed to do it.

Hopefully America's return to manned space flight -- and the day will come -- will take us to new places we've never been.  Mars is always a popular option; and Jupiter's moon Europa is another good possibility.  Lately there's been talk about landing an unmanned craft on a comet, but that doesn't exactly give me goosebumps.  We need to start by returning to the moon for the first time since 1972, just to refresh our memory on how to land on something.  After that, it's time to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

For the past 365 days I've logged the daily high and low temperatures and plotted it against my daily energy consumption.  After much anticipation, the results are in:  it costs more to run the heat pump or air conditioner than it does to NOT run the heat pump or air conditioner.  If you're satisfied with that conclusion, you can stop reading.  If you want to know the details, read on.

Below is a graph with 365 data points representing my energy consumption and the daily average temperature.  I define the "average temperature" as the midpoint between the high and the low for the day.


While the "average temperature" is not a perfect measure of how hot or cold is was over the course of a day, it's a fairly predictable indicator of how much energy I'll use for the day.  I'll consume the least amount of energy on a day when the average temperature is about 61 degrees (for example when the low is 50 degrees and the high is 72 degrees).  On that day I would expect to use about 9 kwH, and a cost of about $0.10/kwH, that would cost me 90 cents. 

On the hottest day in the summer I would likely use over 40 kwH for a daily cost of $4.00.  On the other end of the curve, on the coldest winter day, I could use 70 kwH, costing $7.00.  I'm surprised at how both sides of the curve have the same slope.  I would have expected either cooling or heating to have a better efficiency than the other, but they're nearly the same.  The only reason that winter costs are more than summer costs is because it often gets 35 degrees colder than ideal, while it rarely gets warmer than 20 degrees above ideal.

Now I'll draw some conclusions.  My total energy consumption for the year was 9,010 kwH, or an average of 25 kwH/day.  In the best weather conditions (i.e. when I don't run the heat pump or air conditioner), I still consume 9 kwH/day.  Therefore, it's safe to deduce that 16 kwH (or, 64%) of my annual energy use is to heat or cool the house.  Everything else that uses electricity -- TV, lights, computer, refrigerator, dishwasher, water heater,  door bell -- accounts for only 36%. 

I've never had a day where I used less than 7 kwH, even when I was out of town.  Therefore, items such as TV, lights, and computer account for about 2 kwH (or, 8%) of my usage.  Therefore, about 7 kwH (or, 27%) of my energy usage is for things that run all the time such as the refrigerator and water heater.

At 64% of my usage, the biggest opportunity I have for cutting energy costs is a more efficient HVAC system.  That could mean anything from installing an 18 SEER system for thousands of dollars to planting a shade tree to keep the sun off the house in the summer.  For now I'll do nothing except continue to document my usage.

If anyone has actually made it this far, I'll present two more graphs.  One shows the correlation between my daily energy usage and the high temperature, and the other to the low temperature.  The daily high temperature is a slightly better predictor of energy usage.  It tracks more closely than the daily low temperature.





Or, you can always use these images as a pixelated version of a Rorschach Test.

Driving home from work today, I was listening to NPR on the radio like I normally do that time of day.  (It's really quite informative, and often entertaining.  Those SNL parodies don't represent most of what they broadcast.)  Anyway, they were introducing a story about the surplus of chicken legs in the marketplace (who knew?), when they played a clip from Tyson Chicken spokesman Craig Bacon.  Yep, that's right:  Mr. Bacon works at Tyson Chicken.  If he'd fly to Bologna and buy some pepperoni, he'd be a walkin' talkin' Meat Lovers Pizza!

In a related story, -- and by "related", I mean an equally useless thought about food --  I've been noticing the expiration date on food in my refrigerator.  No, I'm not talking about the actual dates that I discovered because that would be embarassing!  I'm talking about the phrase "Use By Date".  To me, that sounds needlessly ambiguous.  It's as if you might have several "uses" for that container of potato salad.  I don't.  I only have one use and that is to EAT it!  I think they should change it to "Eat By Date".  Yep, there's no ambiguity there. 

Do eggs ever go bad?  My carton of eggs has a "Sell By Date".  Well, the grocery store "sold" it to me last week.  Does that mean I can wait to eat it until next year?  I wouldn't think so, but what about next month?  This "Sell By Date" seems useless.  What does it matter if it sits in my refrigerator or the one at the grocery store?  What really matters is the date that I eat it.  And speaking of eggs, I wonder how Mr. Bacon likes his cooked.  Here's a picture of Mr. Bacon from his LinkedIn page.

Today when I got home and checked the mail, I found that a distant cousin had sent me an amazing picture of a distant uncle.  Thomas Irwin (1818-1894) was the brother of my gggg-grandfather William Irwin.  (I wrote about finding a picture of William Irwin back in January.)  The Irwins lived in Alleghany Co, west of Sparta.

This picture of Thomas Irwin and his wife Lucinda Caudill may be the oldest picture I've ever seen of one of my ancestors.  They were married in 1854 when he was 36 and she was 21.  I believe this tin type photo may have been taken sometime between 1854 and 1861 when the Civil War started.  In 1864, Thomas enlisted in the Senior Reserves and was likely stationed in Salisbury at the prison guarding Yankee prisoners.

Thomas and Lucinda had 7 children including a son Wiley P. Irwin, who himself had a son named Walter Monroe Irwin (1895-1952) who was an important figure in the community.  Walter (shown at the right) spent several years teaching at various schools, co-owned the Irwin Brothers Barber Shop on Main Street in Sparta, and served as a policeman for two years in the early 1930s.  In 1934 he was elected sheriff of Alleghany Co, serving until 1938.  In 1939 he became a Deputy US Marshall stationed in Wilkesboro. 

I like to think that my great-grandfather on another side of my family helped get him elected sheriff in 1934.  A year earlier in 1933, Walter M. Irwin helped lead in the capture of Ransom Brooks and the "worst criminal gang in Alleghany".  If it hadn't been for the criminal ways of my great-grandfather, maybe Walter Irwin wouldn't have gained the notoriety he needed to get elected.

Walter Irwin has several Irwin descendants in the Elkin area.

The word amalgamation is a strange word.  It's one of those words you hear occasionally, but you might not be exactly sure what it means.  As it turns out, it means combining multiple items into one form.  But an idiom amalgamation is the combining of multiple expressions.  On the other hand, an idiot amalgamation is the combining of multiple expressions incorrectly.  For instance, take this sentence:

Changing a light bulb is as easy as falling off a log.  Once you learn how to do it, you never forget how.

That reminds me of a story about a prospector in the Old West.  I believe it took place in the Nebraska territory in the 1850s.  The man's name was Ned Phoenix, and he was originally from Buffalo, NY.  No one ever described Ned as an intelligent man.  You might say he was slow as a snail or dumb as a dodo.  After all, what would a prospector be doing in Nebraska?  All the gold was in California!

Ned was generally a quiet man, sometimes as quiet as a mouse.  You'd rarely find him monkeying around.  In fact, back when he was only knee-high to a grasshopper, his boyhood friends would be having a whale of a good time.  But Ned would stay clammed up and would hardly even speak.  He had an older sister who acted like a mother hen and herded him along to school, church, and to work in the fields.

But that was nothing compared to his older brother Robin who was mean as a snake and treated him like a pack mule.  Robin would get little Ned out of bed before the rooster crowed, and by nightfall he would be dog tired from a full day's work.

That early childhood experience made Ned a determined man.  He could be as stubborn as a mule when he set his mind to something, and that's what brought him to Nebraska.  Since prospectors in California were being shuttled in like a herd of cattle and their numbers were multiplying like rabbits, Ned decided to do something different.  After fishing around for an answer, he decided he'd head north -- as the crow flies -- to Nebraska where he would have miles of countryside all to himself.

However, Ned wasn't having much luck.  One day he was floundering about in a small creek when he saw something shiny.  He picked it up and yelled, "Gold!"  But after further examination, his heart sank when he realized it wasn't so.  If someone had been near enough to hear him, they'd say he had cried wolf.  On another day, poor Ned stumbled while overturning a rock, and he cried like a stuck pig when he fell into the water.  As he stood up, his clothes were soaked, and he looked like a drowned rat.

A few months later, Ned's luck took a permanent turn for the better when he stuck his shovel in the ground and an oil geyser suddenly erupted before him.  Ned was so happy that he started dancing like a cat on a hot tin roof.  One might think he had ants in his pants.  From that day on, Ned would be sitting in hog heaven, proud as a peacock, wealthier than he had ever dreamed. 

This goes to show that even a blind squirrel catches the early bird's worm every once in a while.