Bitter Irony

An excerpt from today's Juneau Empire (online):

Electricity bills likely to increase by 500 percent following avalanche
Story last updated at 4/16/2008 - 4:02 pm

Juneau’s electricity rates are likely to quintuple as the result of an avalanche early this morning that cut all hydroelectric power to the area, according to an Alaska Electric Light & Power spokeswoman.
Juneau is now running on diesel generators at Auke Bay and Lemon Creek, said Gayle Wood, director of consumer affairs.
One transmission tower is down and four damaged on the Snettisham line, which connects hydroelectric power from the Snettisham lakes to the service area.
Outages were limited to the Thane area this morning because the power load transferred to the diesel generators that were already running.
Wood said it would be two to three weeks before workers could safely begin repairing the line, and that hydro power wouldn’t be restored for at least three months.
For more, see Thursday’s Empire.

We’re having a wet spring.  This is really not too unusual for us because every spring is a wet spring, although it is somewhat unusual that the sun hasn’t been out at least a little.  This is, after all, the “dry season” for us.

We are also enjoying (if that’s the word) an earlier spring than last year.  The snow is melting, the creeks are flowing, and the blueberry bushes are emerging from their winter slumber.  When it hasn’t been raining, and even when it is, we’ve been out in the yard with the big clippers, electric chain saw, rake, and shovel, clearing dead trees and clipping low branches, raking sticks and twigs out of the moss, clearing out creek drainages, and generally having fun on our one acre park and preserve.

We often feel like our yard is a park.  It has many of the things that parks offer: forests and meadows, creeks and ponds, plants and animals, paths and trails, birds and mosquitoes.  We’re even going to have a playground!

The rockwork I [Michael] put in last year survived the winter without incident, which doesn’t really surprise me but does give me a little more confidence in planning the stone arch bridges I want to put in.  We’re also going to expand the trail system by running a strip of rock and gravel along the east side of West creek (for the sake of simplicity we refer to our two creeks as East creek and West creek).  Both of our creeks have some marshy stretches but West creek is the worst, and the most logical place (we’ve concluded) for a trail is right along the marsh, hence the plans for more rockwork.

Apart from expansion of the West creek trail, we’re really reticent about putting in too many improved trails on the property.  In some cases, like the marshes along the creeks and on a couple of steeper climbs, an improved trail makes sense to ease our passage and avoid damage to the terrain.  Everywhere else, it makes little sense to put in trails because the forest floor is mostly open, the moss is fairly tolerant with light foot traffic, and an unaltered landscape looks really nice.  Even now, we can wander pretty much at will almost everywhere in the yard.

The kids are fairly good about staying close by us when we’re out, so much so that we’re planning to take down the chain link fence that separates the back lawn (if a mostly level patch of moss can be called a lawn) from the rest of the yard.  The benefit is that the kids will have a larger area to wander in (the rule is “stay where I can see you”), but there’s a drawback too: the bears will have easier access to the back deck.

Becky and Michael are both doing really well.  They’re both talking more and more, and more fluently.  They talk to each other.  They talk to us.  Last night Michael had a nice talk with his mom on the phone.  I believe they are approaching parity in their verbal abilities, which I’ve been anticipating for several months, but Michael is only starting to sort out colors, shapes, letters, and numbers, and Becky has already learned a lot of this.

When Becky turns six she’ll get re-evaluated for autism.  I’m under the impression that she will lose the autism classification then, which will make a difference on what degree of assistance she’ll get from outside services.  She qualified for the preschool program because of her autistic side, and we also get weekly visits from a speech pathologist, but preschool is winding down for her and she probably won’t need the speech therapy in another year, so if she doesn’t qualify in the future I think she’ll still do just fine.

We’re still contemplating plans for the summer.  Seattle is out.  Chances are we won’t drive south at all, contenting ourselves with the drive up to Fairbanks, Wasilla, and other points north.  We haven’t ruled having one or two of us fly to Illinois though, but the airlines aren’t advertising any specials that fly on the dates we’re looking at so it’s too early to tell what may happen.

And today is the third Wednesday of the month.  Time for my monthly newspaper column.

I don’t chastise my children for leaving lights on in our house. They’re much too young to understand about energy use and conservation, and probably won’t come to appreciate these points for several years. But there’s another reason why I allow the lights to stay on. They heat the house.

Much of what passes for energy conservation is wrong-headed in a place like Juneau. The reason is simple: a watt is a watt, no matter how it’s used.

Electricity produces heat. To be precise, one watt of electricity produces approximately 3.414 Btu’s of heat per hour. This is apparently true regardless of how that watt is used. A thousand-watt electric resistance heater produces 3414 Btu’s of heat. A thirteen-watt compact florescent bulb produces just over 44 Btu’s. An 800-watt refrigerator throws off 2731 Btu’s.

Honest, well-intentioned people tell us to turn off lights and unused appliances to conserve electricity. What these people fail to tell us is that, in a climate where buildings require heat all through the year, there is no such thing as an unused watt. Every watt consumed indoors adds heat.

For every light or appliance that is not in use within a heated building, the heating system has to make up the difference. There is no net energy savings, merely a redistribution of how that heat is produced.

Our current home was built just before the oil embargo in the early seventies, an era when nobody gave much thought toward energy usage. There was no insulation under the floors when we moved in, no wrapping on the pipes for the baseboard heaters, and only two inches of fiberglass in the walls. Our home was, and is, an energy hog.

But our home is not quite the hog it used to be. When our oil-fired boiler quit working last spring we removed the entire heating system, pipes and all, and put in electric heat. We sealed all the holes in the floor –dozens of them – and installed insulation under the floors. We also installed a woodstove insert after realizing that the open fireplace drew more hot air out of the house than it radiated back in.

By comparing our power bills now versus a year ago, I’ve determined that we’ve cut our home energy requirements by about twenty-five percent. This doesn’t include the woodstove insert, the additional use of which cuts our winter electric usage substantially.

In truth, the time and effort involved in cutting, storing, and otherwise handling wood doesn’t save as much money as I could earn in most paying jobs, not yet anyway. Having said that, we have a lot of trees on our property, we have to do something with the wood that does come down, and I like the exercise. There’s also nothing quite like a warm fire to cozy up to when I’m chilled.

Between the insulation upgrades and the woodstove insert, our electric bill this winter was half of what we paid for oil and electricity the year before. We stayed just as warm too, even warmer when the insert was in use.

We’re planning several more upgrades. We’ll insulate the exterior walls. The cathedral ceiling above our living room will get extra insulation. Several of our windows will get swapped out with newer, more efficient models. We are also contemplating a geothermal heating system. All of these jobs will be huge, and expensive.

These upgrades will all reduce our energy requirements. The savings in our power bill will add up over time, and the improvements will add to the value of our house. Consider the alternative: if we don’t pay to reduce our energy requirements, we’ll continue to pay for the extra energy our home requires.

The cost of oil heat now exceeds the cost of heating with electricity, even after accounting for the surcharges imposed by AEL&P this winter. Since the price of oil is unlikely to go down, the home heating equation is likely to continue favoring electricity as long as Juneau continues getting the majority of its power through hydroelectric generation.

These little lights of mine, I’m gonna let ‘em shine. My kids like it that way. So do I. It keeps things bright and cheery, at no additional cost.

Wedding Update

M.J. just called to let us know that Dorothy's wedding is still on for June 21st, however, the venue has been moved from Seattle to Fairbanks!  We are just beginning to figure out the impact of this on the rest of the summer plans we were making.

Michael's monthly column was published in the Empire this morning:

At Home With the Kids

By Michael Wittig

 

Suggested headline:  Getting ready for Kindergarten

 

Our little girl will be going to Kindergarten next year. For most parents this is a significant event in their family’s history. In our household it is even more momentous: two years ago our daughter was diagnosed as autistic.

 

One year ago Kindergarten still seemed a virtually unachievable goal. Our daughter barely spoke even then, and she used a mumbled speech portrayed mostly by single words and a few carefully selected phrases. She looked at our faces only rarely, a common enough trait in autistic children, but very frustrating from the standpoint of trying to teach or interact in any meaningful way.

 

When the topic of Kindergarten came up in preschool conferences as recently as last autumn the conversation did not last long. At that time, we noted a steady increase in abilities and aptitudes, but we were months away from having to make a decision and our daughter was still performing far below Kindergarten level.

 

The Kindergarten decision came this month. Oddly enough, our daughter made the decision for us through a few of her actions on the very day of her latest parent teacher conference.

 

For months I have been feeding my daughter a script almost every time she wanted something, a sentence that reads like: “May I have some ____ (fill in the blank) please?” Until recently I always had to prompt her through at least some of the sentence, but on conference day she surprised me.

 

I was playing the piano in our living room that morning when I heard my daughter’s whining cry for milk coming from the kitchen. I called out to her, saying she would have to come and tell me what she wanted before I’d get it for her. Without another whimper she came into the living room and in a very polite voice asked: “Daddy, may I have some milk please?”

 

In the last few weeks it has become apparent that our daughter also knows the alphabet and numbers, not only recognizing them in print but also capable of drawing them. She demonstrated the connection between letters and words recently, pointing at a stop sign and saying, “Stop! S.T.O.P.” Getting into the car on the way to school she looked at the button on her car seat, then said, “P.U.S.H. Daddy, what’s that spell?”

 

At the school conference I offered an accounting of my daughter’s new skills. I also learned that she was doing new things at school, even offering up imaginative play compelling enough to entice her schoolmates to join in the fun. When the preschool teacher mentioned Kindergarten this time around we all agreed that she would be ready.

 

In the early days of my daughter’s autism there was a fear in my heart. The fear was that my children might need more time to get ready for the big wide world than we could give them, that my wife and I would either be caring and providing for our adult children well into our twilight years, or worse yet, that we might not live long enough to see our children safely through to independence.

 

As older parents, my wife and I keep a steady gaze on the window of time between our children’s coming into their own and the end of our working life. When our children were conceived we felt the window was narrow but acceptable. When autism reared its head it seemed that the window had slammed shut.

 

But daylight is showing through that window now. Our kids are growing and learning. The autistic toddler I knew has forgotten her aversion to looking at faces. She talks, and she asks questions.

 

Our little girl is going to Kindergarten. She’s going to enter it at the same time as her peers. It even appears that she’ll be on an academic par with her classmates at the starting gate.

 

There will be challenges ahead, and I am certain there will be more dark days and uncertainty in store for our daughter, just like there are for the rest of us. Life is seemingly difficult enough without complications like autism, but at least we know something of what she’s up against, and we can help her get through it.

 

Spring Break
Now Playing: Becky singing "Go, Diego, Go" over and over

It's hard to believe it's spring break already.  I (Sheryl) haven't stashed the the poinsettia in the garage, the Christmas wreath still hanging on the front door, the paper cutout snowflakes on the windows, nor the twinkle lights that adorn the beams in the living room that have provided a significant source of light this winter.  

Daylight savings time went into effect last weekend; I'm now going to and coming home from work in the daylight!  Yahoo!  Iditarod is practically over, the snow is melting, and Michael said he saw the first skunk cabbage peeking out of the snow near the McNugget intersection the other day, seed catalogues fill my mailbox. The vernal equinox is this week, followed quickly by a full moon and Easter (probably one of the earliest in years).

And following spring break, the last 43 days of the school year pass like a runaway freight train.  Next thing you know, the four of us will be boarding the ferry on another multi-month journey to and through the Lower 48. We are planning on driving down to the Seattle area for Dorothy's wedding around summer solstice.  I think Michael is hoping that Michael's 95-year old grandpa will travel from Illinois to Washington with Bob and Kathy in their motor home or we will drive to Illinois after the wedding to visit with him.  We are hoping to visit with my brother, David, and his family, either in Ohio, or up in Wasilla (since it's just an extra 1.5 day drive from Illinois or Haines Junction, respectively).  David and his family are planning on being in Alaska this summer anyway, and my dad is trying to arrange a bit of a family reunion in Cordova, where we all lived in the early 60's.  

 The kids are doing well.  We had Becky's parent-teacher conference yesterday and collectively decided to move her on to kindergarten next fall.  Her preschool teacher will be moving to kindergarten with her, co-teaching with the autism specialist-special education teacher in a new reverse mainstream class in my building.  She will spend a good part of her day in that class, especially initially, but will join her regular classroom for part of the day.  It seems like a good placement.

Both kids are talking more and more; Michael and I both noted that our road trip will be different this summer, with four voices instead of two.  Becky and Michael play together well most of the time, with the exception of their tendency to hit, kick, push, poke and otherwise get physical with their sibling. Michael's most heartfelt recent complaint: Becky so mean!"  But they do chatter back and forth as Michael is approaching Becky's current oral language developmental level.

It was nice to take the day off.  Usually if I don't get going on laundry first thing Saturday morning, I'm regretting it by Sunday night, and definatly all week long as everyone's favorite clothes aren't available for wearing.  But, whoop-dee-doo!, I've got the whole week off, so we took the kids to the 4-H pony rides fundraiser,  a trip to the Scottish restaurant (codeword for McDonalds), and the whole family out for a romping around the yard until we got cold and came in for hot chocolate. 

Michael has another monthly column coming out this Wednesday, so I always brace myself for whatever his last minute writing inspiration might be (cameras sixty feet up in trees, trips to the emergency room, etc.).  Check back for that Wednesday.

Third Wednesday of the Month

It's almost like I can look ahead on the calendar and see when my articles will show up in the paper (which, of course, I can).  Because of the formatting they used, I'll skip scanning it this month.

At Home with the Kids
By Michael Wittig

REACH reaches out to help families in need

My son turned three last week. To help him celebrate, I baked and decorated some car-shaped cupcakes and took them to his TLC group at REACH, where he shared them with eight other toddlers.

TLC stands for Two’s Learning Class, part of the Infant Learning Program, one of many services available at REACH. And, as the name of the class implies, the birthday boy was making his final official appearance with the group.

I have been a regular visitor at REACH since our daughter was born. At first I attended a weekly infant playgroup that borrowed the REACH playroom. When our daughter was about fifteen months old I started taking her to TLC, and after our son was born I brought him along.

In addition to attending TLC, we started receiving regular home visits from speech and occupational therapists that continued until our daughter was three. When our son also exhibited a language delay, he began the same program as his sister.

It could be argued that a one hour visit once a week can’t make much difference in the life of a child, but in addition to the help our children received directly, there was also the insight and training these visits provided to me and my wife. Quite often we were able to apply what we learned during the visits, and the responses from both of our children were invariably positive.

In an era when governments are looking to trim expenses anywhere they can, we were a little surprised to discover a government-funded program so well suited to the needs of our children. We were even more surprised to learn that we qualified for the program.

The reason we were able to get our children into these programs is because household income is not the criteria used to determine eligibility. The services of the Infant Learning Program were as accessible to my children as they are to any child under the age of three.

These services have meant a great deal to our family. The evaluations of our children’s development allowed us to gauge their progress, placing their abilities in context with typical child development. They also showed us where our children were challenged.

To say that my children have benefited through REACH would be an understatement, especially in the case of my daughter. A lot of research on autism has shown that early intervention is one of the best therapies, yet under current guidelines TEFRA Medicaid requires that the medical evaluation for autism be performed after the child’s third birthday. For this reason, most doctors do not evaluate children for autism before the age of three.

The support we received from REACH bridged the gap between our recognition of a problem and the official autism diagnosis, after which TEFRA stepped in to cover the treatment expenses that many insurance plans (including ours) do not cover. Without the services of REACH, the assistance our daughter needed and received would have come much later.

Like most people in Juneau we live a modest lifestyle, pay our bills, and manage to set aside a little money for a few of life’s luxuries. If necessary, we could have paid for the services we received for our children, although in doing so we would have severely compromised our modest lifestyle, to say nothing of the luxuries we would have to do without.

Because of REACH we didn’t have to choose a life of Spartan deprivation to afford services. We’ve kept our home, kept up with the bills, and we’re still able to put a little aside.

When my daughter turned three she left TLC and REACH. By then, she was enrolled in the integrated preschool with the Juneau School District. She’s doing very well there.

My son won’t be joining his sister in preschool this year. While it is true that he had a significant language delay a year ago – the reason he qualified for services through REACH – that delay diminished with time. Before his third birthday, he had literally talked his way out of preschool.

My birthday boy enjoyed his last day with TLC. The other parents, all mothers, marveled at my intricately decorated cupcakes. The kids just liked eating them.

Much has happened since our last blog entry.  Virtually none of the happenings are worth blogging about, however, so I [Michael] haven't been.

There was, for instance, the really cold weather we endured until last week.  For over a month the temperature never got above freezing, and one particularly cold morning dipped to fifteen below zero Fahrenheit.  But our  electric heaters all did what they were supposed to, and the woodstove worked well too; in fact, our electric bill last month was lower than the month before despite the colder weather, probably because I rarely let the fire in the stove go out. Ironically, we're using the heaters much more now that the temperatures are above freezing than we did when it was colder: we're low on wood and saving the rest for cold snaps and power failures.

Our frozen water pipe almost wasn't news, and really isn't.  Of course, the pipe didn't freeze intil the temperatures warmed to ten above, and the only pipe that did freeze was the cold water line to the kitchen sink.  Luckily we caught it early, opened the cabinet doors, and applied some heat (a torch) to the portion of pipe coming out of the wall, and the water came back in a matter of minutes.  Our best guess is that the crawl space under the house never dipped below about 34 degrees.

The was also the visit from Grandpa Hall.  He came the week before Michael's birthday, and was going to stay through that weekend, but snowy weather threatened to close down the airport when he originally planned to leave, and for fear of getting stranded he flew out early.

My history class is going well enough.  I'm able to keep up with the reading, partly because I already know about much of the history we're plodding through.  I turned in the first of three papers on Monday.  The classroom lectures/discussions are interesting too, although I sometimes get the feeling that the discussions are more between the instructor and I than a class-wide discussion.  Can I help it if I enjoy history? 

It seems like there were some other things I was going to put in here, but I can't think of them at the moment.  Moments when I can blog have become fewer as time goes on, mostly because the kids don't usually let me have much free (by my measure) time.