Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Skittles

As one friend put it, "There was an unarmed teenager, and a man with a gun; the unarmed teenager died."

As facts and fictions continue to emerge in the explosive Trayvon Martin case, I have felt the powerful vacuum and a bluster of hot air that results from a thousand snap judgements. There was a tragedy. We all want answers. Hoodies, concealed carry laws, gated communities, self-defense, suspensions, black codes, skittles...


While watering my garden, the hopeful buds that survived last night's freeze, I saw the empty bag, torn and caught in the fence. I went inside to grab my camera, and came out. Two young boys skulked down the sidewalk, sought by two men, on the phone with the police.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Free stuff!

I've always had trouble accepting free things. Most fundamentally it is a pride issue. But here's a few free things that you can get without any one ever knowing.
First Energy is offering a number of incentive programs, two of which I recently took advantage of. If you go to www.energysavePA.com you can fill out a home energy survey and they will send you a box of high efficiency light bulbs and a very nice power saving power-strip. I would guess the value of what they send you is over $50. The survey took about 5 minutes and now I can begin replacing all of the hot and in-efficient light bulbs in our old house.
The second incentive is that they will pick up your old refrigerator and pay you $50 for it. The idea is that they are getting an older and less efficient refrigerator off the grid. Since scrap prices for fridges are around $20, they are undercutting the market! I've got my pickup scheduled, which means I won't have to be the one to carry the fridge down my front stairs, out the front door, down the porch stairs and the sidewalk stairs and then all the way back to the alley, where admittedly, a scrapper would grab it in 30 minutes or less. You can sign up for the fridge pick up at the same web address, www.energysavePA.com