AN ECONOMIC JUSTIFICATION FOR THE LEGALIZATION OF RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA USE IN THE USA

Just a quick down and dirty economic justification to legalize marijuana in the U.S.

First:  The U.S. currently incarcerates roughly 600,000 people for the possession of marijuana and it costs roughly $30,000.00 per year per individual to keep them in prison. That equates to $18 million dollars of tax payer money, in my opinion, wasted annually.

Second: Say marijuana is legalized and is taxed by the Federal government at a rate of 3% on every ounce sold.  Google tells me that an ounce of marijuana costs $70.  So, that would mean $2.10 would be collected for every ounce sold.  I don't know how much is sold annually, but let's say 1 million ounces are sold.  That equates to $21 million dollars in potential tax revenue.

So, if we legalize marijuana, we save $18 million and collect $21 million for an annual win-fall of $39 million.

It just makes financial sense to legalize marijuana.  ¶ 12:40 PM

  Ok folks, it's time for another one of my sagas. This time it's about my roof. I had had a leak in the roof back in the Spring. I thought I repaired it, but after the 8 days of straight rain we had at the end of the summer, it leaked again. The rest of the roof is fine, but this one section had gone bad. My wife and I are hoping to add to the house in a few years, so I didn't want to put on a whole new roof just yet. So, I hired this guy to just do the back side of the roof over the TV room. I had gotten three quotes from contractors, but this guy was the only one that would do just one section. The others all wanted to do the whole roof or nothing. I had called another guy to get a quote from him, but he never got back to me and with winter starting up, I wanted to get the roof fixed.

So, after giving the guy I hired a check for half the cost and not hearing from him for two weeks, I called him last Thursday on my way into work to see when he would be starting and to see about having an attic fan put in that section of the roof. To my surprise, he tells me that he has a crew on their way out to my house. I was a little upset because I had asked him to call me first and also because I would have liked to get a copy of his insurance. Anyway, I wanted to get the work done so, we talked about the fan, settled on a price and he tells me the guys should be done by 3:PM or so. When I get home at 4:15, I find no truck but two guys are still working. So, I go around back to see how they're doing. I find one working on the roof and one picking up the yard from the stuff they tore off. I ask how they're making out and after listening to them tell me why it's taken so long I go towards my back door to go inside my house. That's when I noticed the new cover on my patio table (one week old) is all marked up from falling roof shingles and there's a hole in the cover. Then I notice the shed door is open. I turn around to check things out and realize that the guys are using my shovels, my brooms and my trash cans to clean up the yard from their mess. I wouldn't mind them using my tools if they had asked but they didn't ask. So, I phone the owner and explain the situation. He tells me to take $50 off the job...but he doesn't say it very nicely. Ok fine. So, there I am standing in my kitchen when BOOM, BANG, BOOM, BOOM, THUD...the cleaner upper guy falls off my roof, the ladder hits the back of my house, the guy grabs hold of the gutter, tearing it partially off the house and falling on my patio, but first landing on and braking one of my brooms. I rush out...both of my sons are freaking out...and I ask if the guy is ok. He's moaning and groaning and appears pretty banged up...but luckily for he and I, he's not dead. I ask what happened and find out that one of the feet was broken off the ladder so, they're using it upside down, which isn’t a good idea on a concrete patio. Well, the ladder kicked out and that's why he fell. I ask if I should call their boss, John; they say no. I go inside and call the boss. John is evidently in the bathroom or something because his wife answers his cell phone. I explain the situation and the wife tells me that she'll have John call the guys. I said no to that because I want them to finish the roof before it's too dark out and ask to have John call me. Well, in a few minutes John calls one of the guys, who basically down plays the whole scene and says there's no real damage and he can "bend the gutter" back to where it was. I say "NO", whereby he hands me the phone and I get into an argument with John about the issue. He says he won't replace the gutter. I tell him that's what it's going to take to make things better and then I rip into him about sending a crew out without the proper tools and tell him that we're all lucky the guys not dead. After listening to John curse and tell me I'm "Jewing him down" and "nickel and diming him", he takes off $200 for the gutter, $20 for the broom and $50 for the table cover. At this point, I'm so pissed off I'm wishing the guy was at my house so I could hit. I don't like being cursed at..I curse, I just don't direct it at people...I hate antisemitic statements...I'm not jewish, I just don't like things like that...and I'm not a nickel and diming kind of person.

That's when I tell him that when the guy comes back tomorrow to finish, that's when I give him the check for the remainder of the job. I hear "WHAT!?!?!?" on the phone. That's when I explain that the guy hadn't finished and if it weren't for the fact that I let him borrow my spot light and an extension cord so he could see what he's doing, he wouldn't have gotten as much as he had done. I then tell him that I have to be at a meeting at 10 in the morning and can only stay at my house until 9. The roof guy says he'll be there, done and gone well before 9.

Cut to the next day. I wait until 9 and no guy. I leave and as I'm pulling out of the driveway, I call John and get his voice mail. I leave him a message stating that I'm leaving and am hopeful the job will be completed by the time I get home and if the job is done correctly, I'll send him a check...that last part probably made the top of his head blow off. Off I go to my meeting. It's not until my way back at around 2:PM that I get a call from John, who is apologizing and states he has fired the two guys that botched my job and he will be sending two of his best guys out Saturday morning (the next day).

Sometime around noon, the new guys finish up my house and the job is done. I got a call from John around 3:PM apologizing again and asking me if the job was finished off ok. I didn't want to get into the fact the I still had a lot of cleaning up to do and just said yes. Miracle of miracles, he didn't ask me to think about his company "John's All State Roofing and Construction" for any future work...I wonder why.

Remember the name. So, how's that for a story? I just hope the roof holds up over the winter.

DH  ¶ 12:35 PM

  I normally don't write letters to newspapers or other media sources, but recently I felt compelled to write my local rag to voice my opinion of the locat Utilities Authority. To all who may read this and are in my neck of the woods here it is. For all of you from parts unknown, you'll have to bare with me.

I'm getting a bit fed up with the BTMUA, for those who care that's acronym for the Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority. I'm hopeful I'm not the only one to remember this but in the not too distant past, a certain Mayor Scarpelli opposed the construction of the new reservoir because he felt it was not in the best interest of the taxpayers of Brick to have to pay the cost of constructing the reservoir. At that time, the BTMUA responded with a statement that the cost would not be borne by the Brick Taxpayers; because it was already accounted for in their previous budgets and they had the money. I want to point out that I'm not a voting Democrat and actually lean more towards the Republican ideology, but it was our Democrat Mayor who voiced his lone opposition. Now, here we are years later with a new reservoir and the BTMUA has announced that they have to raise our rates to pay for the reservoir. Then to really make matters worse, the BTMUA had the nerve to (1) initially restrict access to the walkway surrounding the reservoir, (2) they built a reservoir with fishing platforms but don't intend on stocking the reservoir and (3) they ring the facility with lights from my accounts remain lit most of the night. It was only after a myriad of complaints were voiced that they increased the times when the walkway can be accessed. Furthermore, as a person with bad knees and who prefers bicycling to walking, the further restrictions placed on use of the "walkway" still sticks me like a knife, but I digress, back to the BTMUA: There are continuing stories in every local and regional newspaper reporting on the nepotism and likely corruption. I may sound a bit cynical, but I haven't seen a government or pseudo-government agency yet that didn't practice some sort of nepotism and people are always eluding to corruption. So, I don't understand why everyone is surprise. I take those things for granted. What I don't take for granted are stupid decisions. In the October 6th edition of the Brick Township Bulletin there is a story entitled "Brick will sell water to Howell". This issue has been going on for quite a while, but until recently it remained undecided due to several reasons. The conclusion to sell water to the Parkway Water Company seemed like a good business decision to me (thinking there would be a profit in it), so I did not think to oppose it. But now, unless it is incorrect, the article reports that the Parkway customers will be paying 95% of what the residents of Brick pay, with an explanation that our fees are more because we have to pay the cost of billing, office maintenance, and infrastructure improvements. This just about made my head blow up. In my opinion, the BTMUA should not be spending a minute of time negotiating with any other municipality or water company for the sale of water unless that sale is going to directly offset the cost (read: "lower the rates") to the taxpayers of Brick Township. If this is what my water/sewer bill is paying for (people spending time negotiating arrangements that isn't going to save me money) then I say do away with the BTMUA, absorb the operations and administration into the Township (proposed by Councilperson Kathy Russell; a Democrats) and keep the water for when we (the residents of Brick Township) need it.

So, like I said, if you're from my neck of the woods (like gigglechick), this all makes sense, but if you're from Crox's neck (see my links to other blogs), you won't give a hoot.

I'm hoping I'll have time to post more of my gripes.

Best wishes all.  ¶ 6:03 PM

  OK, I'm going to get on my soap box again about oil and other things. It has to do with environmentally friendly energy sources, the U.S. economy and the middle-east crisis. Many believe, as do I, that the war in Iraq is about oil. But, I would also say that it's more exactly about our nation's unquenchable thirst for energy that has us embroiled in this war. I also don't believe any of the hog wash that we're fighting this war to "free the Iraqi people".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting we slow our progress as a nation and learn to live a simpler less energy dependant life, but this is how I see it. If it were not for the oil that is found beneath the middle east (fifty percent of known crude-oil reserves lie buried beneath the sands of the Middle East) we wouldn't be there. Iraq and Kuwait possess oil reserves of nearly 200 billion barrels between them. If providing freedom and/or eliminating weapons were the key factors, there are many other places on God's green Earth that could use our attention, but none of them are given anywhere near the attention they deserve because these countries have no natural resource that our country and our citizens desire and our corporations can exploit.

I don't mean to sound like a communist or an anti-capitalist, but I just don't see the point in the loss of life due to the war and loss of jobs due to our misguided use of oil as a energy source. American citizens must realize that we are all contributing to the continuation of the armed conflict every time we use energy that is generated from a foreign source of petroleum.

At this point, many would and are saying "Then let's look at increasing domestic sources of petroleum" (i.e. exploration in the Alaskan Wilderness). I say no to that and this brings me to environmentally friendly energy sources. The same way all of us are contributing to the continuation of the armed conflict every time we use energy that is generated from a foreign source of petroleum, we are all contributing to the degradation of the planet's atmosphere and our planet's ability to sustain us by using any source of fossil fuel. What many people don't realize is that our action won't actually destroy the earth, they will only make it uninhabitable by humans...life will go on just without us.

So, this is where I want to talk about Ethanol. Many say Ethanol has already been tried in other countries and it failed. But, I would like to point out that it failed when it had to compete against petroleum as an energy source. What if our nation converted completely to Ethanol? What would the value of petroleum be? Do you think OPEC could demand $50 per barrel? I doubt it. As the number one consumers of petroleum and damn near everything else on the planet, we the U.S. could call the shots. We could even possibly produce enough Ethanol to out compete petroleum in other markets and petroleum would go the way of whale oil.

No longer would it be necessary to station tens of thousands of our citizen soldiers in the Middle East, in particular the Islamic holy land (this fact, if I can be allowed to digress a little, further exacerbates the situation because it is in violation of Islamic Law to have non believers or Infidels in their holy land, even when the soldiers are not in direct combat. Thus, our presence infuriates the fundamental Muslims, which leads them to considering ways of attacking our citizens), no longer would we be reliant upon a foreign source of energy and no longer would we, the number one consumers, be polluting our atmosphere with carbon from a fossil fuel.

Before I review the environmental impacts, let me jump to the U.S. economy. Let's again explore what would have to happen if the U.S. converted from petroleum to Ethanol for energy production. We would, of course, need more Ethanol generation facilities. That would result in a boom of jobs in construction, operations and administration. We would also need to revamp our delivery infrastructure (Ethanol doesn't "like" some of the rubber and plastic products found in gasoline delivery systems). So, again more jobs. Now wait a minute! Isn't Ethanol produced from grain? And isn't grain grown by farmers? And aren't many U.S. farms going bankrupt? Can you say "more American farmers making a good living"? Furthermore, the American farm industry receives billions of dollars in subsidies each year. What if we eliminate the need for farm subsidies and instead put the farmers to work growing a needed commodity like grain to produce Ethanol? Can you say "billions of tax dollars in tax relief or in the short term, divert the money to develop sustainable, non-petroleum energy"? for more on farm subsidies go to: http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1340).

But, what about my home you say? My house is heated by natural gas, which is derived from petroleum. I can't switch to Ethanol for that, can I? I'm not a chemist of physicist, but natural gas predominantly consists of methane. I would suggest that we can burn Ethane (Ethanol Gas) just as easily as Methane. I welcome a more knowledgeable mind to respond.

Let's talk about our environment again. Others would say Ethanol doesn't solve the greenhouse gas issue (caused by the release of carbon dioxide as a byproduct of combustion). As a matter of fact, some people go as far as to say it will make it worse. This stems from the molecular structure of Ethanol as compared to petroleum. The Methane molecule is pretty simple; it consists of one atom of Carbon and four atoms of Hydrogen (CH4), whereas the Ethanol molecule consists of two Carbon atoms, six Hydrogen atoms and one atom of Oxygen. So, I've read some people postulate the combustion of Ethanol would release two Carbon atoms for every one released by burning Methane. But, the key here is the source of the carbon dioxide. Ethanol is a renewable resource and not a fossil fuel. Meaning it works with nature's Carbon Cycle. The only time Carbon Dioxide becomes a problem in the atmosphere is when we dump more Carbon in than is supposed to be there. This happens with the use of fossil fuels. As "fossils", petroleum products are sources of carbon that are supposed to be locked up deep beneath the planet 's surface, not released into our atmosphere. By using a renewable energy source we're not in conflict with the carbon cycle (unless consumption outweighs production, meaning we burn more than we grow).

Some have argued that farmers burn diesel fuel to power their tractors to grow the grain to produce Ethanol. In addition, there are some energy needs that could not be met with the use of Ethanol. I give you Thermal Depolymerization (a.k.a Thermal Conversion) and/or bio-diesel. As seemingly perfected by Changing World Technologies, this Thermal Depolymerization converts waste materials to an oil that can be burned as fuel. This not only provides a method to solve an energy need, it also lessons the need to dispose of wastes in our nation's ever dwindling landfill space. Currently, my understanding is CWT is processing animal carcasses and the like into clean oil, but the technology is supposedly also capable of converting almost any waste material into oil. I would propose that the process could also be used on restaurant wastes. Again we, the U.S. citizen, spend more money on eating out than any other nation. As a consequence, the restaurant industry generates a mountain of waste material that is typically non-recyclable, but which contains a high percentage of biodegradable and plastic materials. It seems to me a good fit. Now again, to make this a viable energy producing solution there would need to be more plants constructed, meaning more jobs in construction, operations and administration.

Now a little about bio-deisel; this product is derived from waste oil taken from restaurants. There are some limitations to it's use, like you can't start your engine with it, but once it's started a diesel engine can burn it just as easy as petroleum. A limitation yes, but it can certainly reduce our demand for petroleum.

Some people are pushing the use of Hydrogen Fuel Cells? This technology looks to be a winner, right? It converts a fuel containing Hydrogen to energy at nearly 50% efficiency as compared to combustion of petroleum which is below 20% efficient. The problem here is that most of the current research into developing fuel cells relies on petroleum, or more exactly natural gas, as there source of hydrogen. The cure here is again Ethanol. As I pointed out earlier, Ethanol has six hydrogen atoms, five of which are available for energy conversion in a fuel cell.

Another interesting option for fuel cells has been developed in Japan, where they've come up with a "home fuel cell". This little gem, although it currently relies on natural gas, can not only supply a home with most of its electricity, but it can also help to solve another problem in America: our aging electrical power grid. With generation of a good portion of its energy demand locally, each home would reduce the demand on our aging power grid. Combine this with solar panels and a home owner could theoretically eliminate its demand on the public system altogether. For more on home fuel cells go to:http://web-japan.org/trends/science/sci030723.html.

I apologize for how fragmented this is. There is much more I could write, but instead let me finish with this: Let's take back our freedom, our economy, and our peace of mind. Let's change our source of energy, save our country and save our planet's ability to sustain humanity. I hope we all agree.  ¶ 3:56 PM

  Hi Everyone! I haven't griped in a while. It's not that I don't have something to gripe about, it's just there hasn't been time to write it down. I just handed in my notice of resignation on Friday, so this is my last week at Greyhawk.

This job at Greyhawk has been great and the people are fantastic, but when you have to move on, you have to move on. The problem was Greyhawk's prime client for this office and its major bread-and-butter, the NJ School's Construction Corporation (NJSCC), is under investigation for mismanagement of funds by the NJ Investigator General. As a result many projects have been put on hold and many were cancelled outright. My boss has been ensuring me that all will be fine and that my job isn't in jeopardy, but I can't hang my hat on that. As luck has it, a company that I had interviewed with two years ago and one that had offered me a job at the same time Greyhawk did, called me up and asked me if I was happy where I was and if I'd be interested in talking to them again. So, one thing led to another and I'm starting in a couple of weeks. In addition, the company is more diversified, whereas Greyhawk managed only school construction.

So, my gripe today is Greed and the people who can't control it. I would propose that we're all subject to the feelings of greed, but most of us have learned that it's something that can really bite you in the ass. People have to learn how to control themselves. Because if they don't they end up ruining a good, if not great, situation for not only themselves but for everyone involved. Take for instance the situation I'm dealing with here. The SCC was alloted $8.6 Billion dollars to build new schools, where approx. $6 billion was allotted for the most needy schools and the remaining for the more affluent schools. There are a known number of school districts and a known number of dollars in the fund, but instead of trying something as simple as simple division and apportioning an equal amount to each district, the boneheads running the program just went off and spent money on a first-come-first-serve system. In addition, there has been resports of performance bonuses being awarded to government employees, which is a no-no, and people being hired where there shouldn't even be a job. So, just two years into the program they have burned through $6 billion and have only built a 1/4 of the schools they need to.

Now, we're not talking about some high pressure, high stress jobs here. So, instead of people realizing that and putting in an honest day's work and managing the process correctly, we're looking at people being laid off and others, like me, having to change jobs in order to ensure my family is provided for.

Well, I don't feel like I'm writing that well this morning. So, I'm going sign off now. I'll have more to write later about my weekend. Enjoy your day.

DH  ¶ 9:26 AM

  My gripe today: The President of the United States. Of course, it's not the office of the President. There have been some fine Presidents in the past. But, I have to be honest, I don't like John Kerry and I don't like GW either. I think they're both crooks. I would like to see John McCain as President. I think he's an honest and honorable person who would do credit to the office. With GW, it's all this behind the scenes stuff, like the Haliburton contract, the connections to between the Bush family and the Saudi Royal Family, their connection with the bin Laden family (maybe that doesn't matter, because Osama's family doesn't like him either), his arrest for cocaine possession and his daddy getting him off...I guess it's more his family and not him. Maybe he's just caught up in the political machine, but you really can't tell these days. Even with all our new methods of instant information, no one can tell if what is said is true or not. Then I come John Kerry. I'll tell you this, between the two, I'd rather kick back and have a beer with GW over Kerry anytime. I think Kerry's a bullshit artist who'll say anything to make whatever audience he's speaking to happy. Like when he says: "I share your values." What the hell doesn't that say? Who's values? He doesn't know what my values are. No one ever asked me what they are, so how could he know. I say this to Mr. Kerry; why don't you tell us what YOUR values are and I'LL make the decision on whether I share YOUR values. He's a dipshit, who obsiously thinks that no one is listening to his rhetoric. I'll get off my soapbox now. Maybe I'll vote for Nader or do a write-in vote for McCain.

  ¶ 11:28 AM

  Well, I've been busy so, there hasn't been much time for blogging my gripes. Mostly, things have been revolving around work, but every so often my personal life rears ups its nasty face and provides me with a sanity challenge. For instance; this was my weekend (please bear with how the story jumps around):

We had been planning to go away for a long weekend in the Pocono Mountains. For those of you in the Western U.S. or Central Europe, I apologize for my lose reference to the Poconos as mountains. Anyway, I had scheduled some time off and had made arrangements with my parents to meet and get keys and so on for their place in the mountains. Well, I got home around 5:30 Friday evening and was greeted by my wife, Gina, who informed me she had to take her Mom to the hospital. Her Mom had pains in her chest, arms and neck. She had an angioplasty procedure performed some months ago and based on the pain it seemed the procedure had failed. Well, this normally would have been taken in stride except for the fact that her Mom was supposed to go see the Dr. on Wednesday, but she procrastinated until Friday evening. So, being that Dr's here don't work anymore than they have to, they sent her to the hospital. There go our plans to go away...I know I'm a selfish bastard. Anyway, Gina was in the hospital until 2:30AM Saturday morning trying to get here Mom admitted. The Dr's told both Gina and her Mom that she has pneumonia (remember this part). So, she gets admitted and Gina comes home just as happy as you can imagine.

Jump to Saturday; I spend the day fixing a few things (like a sprinker head that was leaking) and spackling and sanding our bedroom, which I'm renovating. I finish around 4:30 and Gina is putting Johnny (my youngest son) in for a tub before she gets herself cleaned up to go to the hospital. That's when she tells me that there's no hot water. I go downstairs and adjust the thermostat on the hot water heater, which I had turned down on Friday night after almost scalding myself doing dishes. So, I turn it up and nothing happens. I check things out and find the breaker has turned off the power. I look things over and turn on the breaker again. All seems well, but in about a minute the breaker goes off. I figure it's the thermostat since first the temp went up, then is went off. But, by now it's 5:30 and any store that sells things to fix a hot water heater is closed. That's when I remember (being the pack rat that I am) I took the thermostat and heating elements off the old hot water heater when we had this new one installed six years ago...yes, the one I'm repairing now is only six years old. Well, I check out the thermostat and they seem to be different. So, I figure I'll go to the hardware store or Lowe's or Home Depot on Sunday morning, since it’s still too late in the day to do anything. I try to get cleaned up...remember I was spackling and sanding most of the day and am covered with stuff. Gina gets the kids fed early because she has to go back to the hospital and I head for the fridge to get a cold brew. The evening went basically uneventful, except my clean up of the kitchen which was reminiscent of early pioneer days when water was boiled on the stove for cleaning.

Jump to Sunday morning, I finish breakfast and head down to the hardware store. The thermostats they sell look just like the one I took off the old unit. So, I go home and switch thermostats, which takes about 20 minutes. I turn on the power and the hot water heater starts working...YAHOO...then CLICK, the breaker turns off. So, now I'm pretty sure it's the heating elements...my hot water heater is electric. So, I go back to the hardware store and find out there's about six different size elements that "could" work and per the guy: "I'd better make sure I have the right one". So, I buy this special wrench to take out the heating elements and go home. I want to point out to everyone that on this particular Sunday, my part of the world is experiencing torrential rain. So much so that I get soaking wet just running to and from my truck and some of the roads in the area are impassable. After partially draining the tank...I couldn't wait anymore, because the hardware store doesn’t stay open all day on Sunday...I remove the element, which results in about 2 gallons of water to spill out on the floor. I clean up the mess and drive back to the hardware store and buy two heating elements. I get home and tried...did you see I wrote "tried"...to install one of the heating elements. They don't fit. I come to find that my hot water heater takes special elements with some f-cked up thread on them, which no store that's open on Sunday carries. So, in the hopes of squeezing a few drops of hot water out of what I have, I take the elements out to my workshop in the garage and with the use of my grinder, my Dremel, and some Muriatic Acid I clean up the old elements. I notice the lower element has a hole in it. So, I get out a torch and solder it. This process takes about an hour and a half. I then go back into the house and install the elements back into the hot water heater. I turn the water back on and find the top element is leaking. I turn off the water and I THOUGHT I let the pressure out of the tank...I got a little bit distracted by my oldest son, Michael, who is trying to help me. Anyway, I start unscrewing the top element and BOOM, the unit comes blowing out with about 15 gallons of water under 60 lbs of pressure. I had water on the ceiling, walls, on the TV, all over the floor, etc., etc. My little soldier, Michael, helps me clean it up. Thankfully Gina had gone to her Mom's house to take a shower and Johnny was sleeping. We got it cleaned up and I reinstalled the element in the tank. I turn on the water and get the tank filled and turn on the power. As of 5:PM on Sunday, I have hot water...at least temporarily.

That night, Gina is late getting back from the hospital. She calls around 10:30 to say she had to wait 2 hours for the Dr. who was making his rounds. The Dr. knew she was waiting but didn't stop to see her until the end of his rounds. Anyway, the Dr. says that they've scheduled a new catheterization for her Mom. When Gina asks about the pneumonia (I told you to remember the pneumonia), the Dr. knows nothing about it. It's not even on her chart. Gina is livid and doesn't know what to do. I tell her to take her Mom someone else. Where? I don't know, but maybe somewhere where they don't use a catheter to fix pneumonia.

Jump to Monday morning. I make about a half dozen calls. No one carries the heating elements for my hot water heater. Lucky me. I finally get through to the manufacturer. They sell them direct for $40 a piece plus shipping.

So, there's my saga. OH, one thing else, as we're cleaning up the mess, Michael says to me: "You know Dad, this has got to be the worst day ever." I couldn't agree more, but at least I had a hot shower and a cold brew.

  ¶ 9:00 AM