It's good to know that the big Q has still got it.

I get bored on vacation by myself, especially on the evenings. If there's stuff I actually want to do, I'll go do it, but guided tours are definitely helpful. And I've gotten more into the beach lazy thing as I've gotten older and lazier. Today, however, is just an extra day from the wedding festivities (my options were fly out today at 8am, or tomorrow at a civillized hour, so I picked tomorrow. Or, pay $500 instead of using frequent flier miles).

But I rallied! Left brenda's to get food and it is so nice out (sunny but not humid, breezy) that I decided rather than wait for the bus, I'd walk downtown. And here I am! Now to decide what to do, because going indoors seems silly.

OK, it seems wacky to me that the average cost of residential solar panels in the US is $30K, given how most houses I saw in Turkey and Greece had a system on the roof with a solar panel and a water heating container, and I saw them for sale outside of hardware stores. [link] There's got to be a way for us to get that stuff over here.

My last solo vacation was a while back, but it involved renting a car and driving in a circle around Arizona centred on Tucson. It was marvellous.

Actually, the drive over to Cali involved a lot of sightseeing too. It's nice knowing you can just pull over and look at whatever, or switch up your route (within reason--I was late getting to Allyson's, oops).

I'm taking two solo vacations this year, one next week and one in September.

Weird.

I researched a solar water heater here in NS, Jesse and I think it cost around 4K for a small one. Less that 30K but still pretty expensive.

Happy birthday, Hec!

We researched the feasibility of solar water heating for our building, and even with every possible tax rebate & credit available to us it would have cost over $40k to install. We calculated that it would pay for itself in energy savings in about 47 years...

[eta: The problem we encountered is that commercial solar water heaters are designed for much bigger buildings, but the residential ones just aren't powerful enough for 12 units. We're exactly the wrong size to benefit from economies of scale.]

Allyson, how about printing out this story and leaving it on her desk anonymously?

I just came from the local solar shop and prices have come way way down from the last time I looked. Like, with the power company rebates and federal tax credits and everything I could get into a grid tie system for about $7,000. Admittedly my power usage is lower than the average household, but still.

And also, what you were seeing sounds like solar hot water, which is also cheaper than solar power, and is available here.

I don't think I've done full vacations by myself. I've done solo trips, but with social destinations, like going to a concert with internet people or whatnot. Even then, it's not so much that I'm lazy, but that I dither. Like it takes me two hours to figure out where I want to eat, and then a half hour to figure out how to get there, and then I go, and it's too late and the restaurant is closed or something.