Temperature Anyone?

The beginning and the end of the five-pane insert story came together at a table today. We, my friend Dave, his son, John and I were at table with other family and friends today at a lunch after the funeral of a mutual friend. My friendship with Dave goes back 36 years ago when he and his two young sons lived in the flat upstairs. The friend we buried Chas was a boyhood friend of Dave’s that I had met at Dave’s second wedding about 30 years ago. At the time we were living in Madison, had two young boys ourselves and I was unemployed. Dave’s boyhood friend, Chas, a person known for his joking and laughter was present. He was selling some new direct mail product and suggested that I give it a try. I never thought of myself as a salesperson but had nothing to loose. I was good at it and at years latter ended up owning my own business and having Chas work for me. This business was profitable and made it possible in 1995, after selling it, for me to have enough money in savings to work in areas of ministry that I really wanted to be in. Over the years I have kept in contact with Dave and at our last gathering of Dave, Chas, another friend and I, Dave had suggested a way to insulate the ceiling of my sunroom. Last summer when John, his son, moved from Madison to Milwaukee I offered him the job. He looked at the sunroom and said what I really needed is to better insulate the windows. It came up with the idea, with consultation with his dad, Dave, of building these affordable insets for each window that made my room into one with five-pane windows. His idea let me to put two sheets of clear plastic the storms on the small windows on my first floor, thus converting them into from two pane windows to four pane windows. Today at the funeral lunch Dave gave me a whole bunch of inexpensive temperature gauges so I can measure the temperature everywhere in the sunroom and thus figure easily the energy savings of the five-pane window inserts. So this is the short story of how choices of friends and jobs made many years ago led me to this place today with this small but significant addition to this way of Growing Renewable Affordable Food GRAF. There is more to the story but that is enough background before I focus on this new low-tech energy savings.

As I mentioned the friend we buried today was noted for his sense of humor. It was with him right up to the end. A few days before he died I called him asking if I could visit. He was on a breathing machine taking in 100% oxygen and hardly could talk. He did ask me if I would be coming alone. I said that maybe I would. He than said that I should bring my lovely wife with me commenting “You know you can be somewhat boring.” I have been planning on doing some jokes on the front page of my web site, www.nonviolentworm.org . I have a spot for it but after today I am motivated to do it. To laugh at life is a healthy choice, like growing power, we can make.

With the funeral and all I did not have much chance to work on anything else today. I did put back the two small window storms in my office that we had put clear plastic on the outside and inside of the storm. Although the temperature outside has dropped significantly since the time I put back the storms the temperature in the office room has risen. The choice of Dave, Chas and John as friends were good choices and resulted in the temperature rising.

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