The Lair of the Emerald Serpent

Exactly 5 years and 5 days after the serpent’s solar panels were connected to the grid they clocked up the magic 6,000 kilowatts. It’s a pissy little 1kw system on a west facing roof so that is a reasonably good performance
These days it would cost less than half of the $5,000 it was back then but it would be a veritable nightmare sorting out the kosher from the crap. And the serpent would not be getting 47 cents for every unit sold back to the grid. These days in spite of being cheap as chips, solar panels are only worth the bother for big users.

Those panels were just one out of a hundred things on a certain ‘to do’ list started back in May 2007. Every now and again I indulge in such bouts of wishful thinking. A relic from the ancient days of 5 year plans from your local socialist utopia or maybe just a bit of wishful thinking

Sometimes you make a 5 year plan and forget all about it. Then years later those bits of paper with all that wishful thinking just turn up out of nowhere long after the initial enthusiasm has worn off. But the spooky thing is that a bunch of things have been ticked off. So somewhere deep in the recesses of the dark cobwebbed corners of the mind it has been remembered after all
So for that reason alone it is worth indulging in such list making and wishful thinking. After all even a 50% fail rate probably results in more stuff getting done than if the list never existed

So with this in mind started the first list of 101 things in 1000 days way back in May 2007. Managed to complete 48 of the 101 things on the list and another 18 were still in progress but the most significant thing turned out to be how the list alerted the serpent to possible opportunities that would have remained otherwise unnoticed. The very wishful ‘Earn 20% of income from other than work sources’ item was almost in the same league as “Win the lottery”
But the fact it was there made all the difference. When such an opportunity did indeed present itself, it was time to give it a second look rather than dismiss it outright. This one decision directly influenced other items on the second incarnation of the 101 things in 1000 days list

That one finished last week. It was pretty much abandoned after a bunch of Howlers from a certain toad last year but even before then was looking most miserable indeed
The final score ended up being a very sad and pathetic 17 ticks on the list for things completed and 18 items in progress. That left a ridiculous 75 items not even touched
But one of these 17 completed items was probably worth at least 20 of the completely and totally failed 75. Had aimed for paying $40,000 off the Lair but had managed to add an extra $16,000 to that and got rid of the whole thing entirely. A large part of achieving this goal was directly related to devoting all that non work derived income from the 2007-2010 list to increasing the house payments.

And now that the frumpy and ever so ancient serpent is still not gainfully employed, this single item along with the solar panels from the previous list have proved most useful and significant indeed.

There will be a new list but a bit less ambitious. It will be two years long instead of nearly three and will include only 5 things. But the big difference is that while each of these five big ticket items can be expanded to ten steps each to make a total of 50, unlike the old lists they are all part of a bigger picture rather than just a random collection of interesting or useful things to do

The hottest summer on record in this bit of Oz has well and truly nuked the serpent’s garden and the next six months will be devoted to tree planting and other devious means to keep that evil yellow blob in the sky from sizzling the soil next summer.

In an attempt to be organized recently bought two bright shiny expanding folders. The bright lime green one is for packets of seeds sorted by month and season and the lurid pink one for bits and bobs, scraps of paper and articles that don’t really fit anywhere else.
But while 18 brown pockets might be all right for seeds, it is not so useful for other stuff. Had already considered clearing out the contents of an old folder and assigning it to this new purpose. But like so many other good intentions this one ended up in the too hard basket. That was until tonight.

( Bills and things )