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Since my sister moved to Arizona for graduate school and having visited a few times, I have noticed a few things about the state. First of all, it is darn hot down there. Secondly, nobody uses solar power on their homes. Here is why the state should use more solar panels to generate electricity.

I currently live in Vancouver, WA. Although it was 90 degrees today, this is not always the case for us year round. I am guessing we have rain or cloudy days 200 days a year, but don’t quote me on that. A few reasons why I could see a home owner in these parts not even considering solar panels as an upgrade to their home could include:

• Attractiveness – with the decent amounts of rain, any additions to the roof line of a house would standout with angular roofs
• Current Technology – although the effectiveness of panels is improving, the ROI does not seem as though it would be very beneficial in an area with so many cloudy days. I do understand that solar panels do work while under clouds; they are just less efficient.

The same could be argued for most of the Northern states. But what about the South and Southwest? I will focus on the Southwest.

California has the California Solar Initiative, a $2.8 billion program to build more power for the state using solar. New Mexico also has solar plans since it is basically the proving ground for much of the research happening in the country (possibly the world). Which leaves Arizona.

Arizona has about 700 sunny days a year with negative 2 clouds in the sky. Most of the houses also have flat roofs. They are so flat (and strong) most of the houses store the air conditioners on the roof and many have patios and the like on the roof which means they are strong enough to hold the weight. This also means one could blanket most or all of ones roof with panels and nobody would even be able to see them. Attractiveness issue handled.

Now mister and misses home owner could by asking: why should I invest in installing this system when I can only get about 60% efficiency? (Note: I am not sure how accurate 60% efficiency actually is, but I am fairly curtain the number is close enough for arguments sake.)

• First off, I read in Business 2.0 – although I cannot find the article at this time – adding solar panels to ones house has an equal amount of return (amount invested to amount returned) as a kitchen upgrade, the most profitable room in the house.
• Secondly, as demand for panels increases so goes research and in turn the fun of more efficiency. Yep that’s right, economics will make it better for everybody with this fun move.
• Third, their electric bill will go down, probably significantly.
• Fourth, you can sell what you don’t use back to the utility company. More on this later.

Those utility companies are required to produce enough power for its residence by law. If it is not able to it could either purchase the leftover from the neighboring superpowers of California and New Mexico, build new power plants, or purchase the extra from its own residence. It should be easily argued the second of these options is going to be the most expensive for the utility company and thus should not be considered. I have heard that in the past utility companies used to purchase power back from it residence for pennies. Let’s say 10 to 1. Now this government entity is only getting away with this because it is just that a government entity.

Now Arizona should play fair. By slightly undercutting their price and the price of the neighboring states, they could give its residence incentive to make this investment as well as profit off doing basically nothing. Now if they just bought from the neighbors they would just have the latter of those options.

If Arizona was aggressive enough with such a program it could start selling its excess power to its neighbors and neighbor’s neighbors which means higher profits and inevitably lower prices for all states involved. Savings from home owners would give them greater buying power. It could even be argued that a program similar to California’s would spur economic growth and investment – similar to a tax cut, John Maynard Keynes’ theories, or Reganomics. This could also cause enough solar panel research that maybe even us in Southwest Washington could benefit from the new technology.

It would seem like everybody would win in time. What do you all think?

When I was in school, I got in the habit of doing my work in coffee shops for a few reasons: they are less distracting than freshmen talking in the library or movies at home, there is coffee to keep me awake, the movement of people coming in and out is just relaxing enough and awakening enough to keep me focused, and baristas are hot.

Well today I decided I needed to fill my withdrawals and go to a coffee shop. I normally go to a Starbucks on a ‘But What You Own’ strategy. I see Starbucks as an amazing company with amazing growth potential. This is why a few months ago, I purchased some shares in the coffee jugarnaut. Lately they have been pretty flat, but I feel this will change as they are trying to get to 40,000 location worldwide. This may seem like it would be pretty easy since they have three stores on every corner, but the truth is that there are less than 14,000 locations currently. Now it costs quite a bit to open so many stores, so I expect the price to stay flat for a few more months. But with markets like India, China, and Eastern Europe starting to be tapped, I see growth.

Now I am not really a fan of their coffee. The beans seem burnt and the chocolate tastes like powder, but when you own part of the coffee, you make sacrifices. So, am I at a Starbucks right now assisting in the powers that be? No. Starbucks does not have free Internet access, and I am too cheap to pay for that.

I am currently at Pharmacy Coffee on 21st and Glison in NW Portland. Since it is 75 degrees today, I got a iced mocha. Now the barista – who is gorgeous by the way – warned me that there were four shots in this mocha, but I thought it would be fine. So, I sit here getting partially drunk from the huge amounts of caffeine, and now I have to pee (or spit) every 20 minutes. It is quite a feeling.

About a month ago I was going through a phase where I did not have a ton going on in my life. Since moving to Vancouver, I no longer have those random drop ins from friends that I did when I was in the college house in North Portland.

This last week (or so) has been a bit of a change from that.

I went to two, count ‘em two, baseball games and drank more beer and watched more honeys than actually watching the game. Both caused some entertaining hangovers. I had to power through the first one since I had a ton due at work the next day. The second on the other hand made my liver hurt.

Last weekend, I went to Sun River, OR with Tom and Jason and a few others. This time I migrated from Miller Lite to drinking my weight in PBR. For three days, I did not drink water but instead just drank really watered down beer. I would like to get a shout out to my home state of Wisconsin for crafting such genuinely, water rich beer.

This bring me to last night. It was Poker Night May 07 and more peeps attended this time around (although some were late). It ended up being Matt, James, Jeff, Jason, and myself playing this time. CheeChee and Kelly were supposed to play too but showed up three hours late. We posted their blinds for them just in case, but since they were the ultra-small stacks by that point, they opted out of paying the buy ins. The entire game lasted about three hours again, but this time there was not an hour of head to head. The hand of the night came late in the game. Jeff, James, Matt, and I had relatively even stacks after Jason got out early missing his flush draw. With King Four, Jeff went all in before the Flop. Being to his left, I immediately called with my Pocket Tens. James called too with King Jack, and Matt folded. Earlier I said the stacks were basically even but to more exact, I had about double Jeff’s stack as the Big Stack at the table. With Jeff all in, it was up to James and I to finish the betting. The Flop brought Jack Ten Seven. So, James Paired his Jacks, and I had a Set of Tens. James raised 300 to the Side Pot, so I went all in which he called. A King came on the Turn which was exciting for everybody especially me. Even if a second King came up on the River, I would still have to pot with a Full Boat. It was a Seven instead so I still landed the Boat. Matt and I passed the Blinds back and forth for 15 minutes until I finally called his tenth all in pre-flop in a row.

After the game we decided to see if the rumors of bar across being a strip club were true. It turns out they were just that, rumors. But there are four pool tables and Karaoke.

This brings me to today. I am enjoying my three day weekend today. Tomorrow I think I will go to the beach since my parents are their. Monday I am going to help Jason move more of his things to his new condo in SE Portland. Then I might sit on my porch and pick on my old guitar.

Looking back, I think I have been hungover on Friday for the past 6 or 7 weeks straight. And today is absolutely no exception. As I sit here trying not to throw up, I am actually pondering whether or not to ride my bike to work – which I usually do except today I am hungover. Six Miller Lites and the strongest Jack and Coke I have ever had will do that to you.

It seems that I drink more and do more exciting things on Thursdays than any other day of the week. Kinda weird if you ask me. I guess I have the Beavers to thank for my stomach wanting to turn inside out.

All I want to do right now is go back to bed (or go on a date) and sleep it off until 8, but noooo, I have to go to bloody work and stare at nothing for eight hours.

Ok, that is enough blabbing about nothing. Have a great weekend folks and if anybody wants to go drinking give me a call.

Full Title: The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
ISBN: 0-06-055566-1
Get it cheap.

Summary: This book starts out with some history of investing. Not so much, ‘in 1842 the first investor was born’ kind of history, but rather some general principles which every investor should know and use regardless of their goals. This includes investing versus speculation and diversifying ones portfolio. The meat of the information comes in the second half of the book where Graham explains how to whittle the thousands of securities out there into a dozen or a few hundred. From this point, he explains how to take this list of good companies and break them down into a dozen or so great companies. He then spends a few chapters explaining how to break it down into just a handful which are to be successful over the next 10 to 20 years. With this advice, Graham says anybody can invest and be successful at it.

What I thought:

By far the best book on investing ever written.
– Warren Buffet

It says that quote right on the cover, and if an investment book is good enough for the Oracle of Omaha to see his passion and become the best investor in the world, it is good enough for me.

This book actually filled the gap I was looking for in an investment book. When I was in school I learned how to read all those fancy money statements some people like to call financials. What I did not learn is how to take the thousands of companies out there and bring the number to something a bit more manageable and then compare the smaller list to find an investment which will let me retire in 20 years. This is a must read for anybody who wants to be in control of his or her finances and does not want to be stuck in the game of just waiting for the 401k to make them wealthy.