The First Facility Management Blog

From Australia to California and across Europe, there are proposals that will eventually ban the incandescent lamp. Furthermore, recently enacted energy legislation in the United States will phase out certain types of incandescent lamps.

For FacilityBlog Contributor Poor Richard’s opinion on this issue, see his post, Congressional Priorities? from 3/4/08.

While the IALD strongly supports the development and use of technologies, methods, and appropriate regulation to minimize the energy use of lighting systems, the group believes “incandescent bans” must be carefully conceived or they are likely to be ineffective.

There are several points connected to the phasing out of incandescent lamps that should be addressed:
• Where established and enforced, existing energy codes have already effectively banned inefficient incandescent lamps from new commercial installations.

• There is presently no lighting technology that can replace certain types and uses of incandescent lamps. There are still drawbacks such as poor color, bad dimming performance, and high cost, that make replacement technologies ineffective in some applications. A grace period is needed to allow the development of light sources that can replace incandescent in all applications.

• Energy efficient replacement light sources must be adapted to suit the existing electrical infrastructure. Those with simple and clear cut applications must be made available as soon as proven, but there will be cases in which an efficient source is not ready for a particular use. When products cannot achieve appropriate goals, continuance of incandescent technology specific to those situations should be permitted.

• The complete environmental impact and life cycle carbon footprint of each replacement technology must be understood. Incandescent lamps should not be banned until their replacements are proven to be an overall environmental improvement.

• Replacement lamps must be cost effective. Because replacement light sources are often more expensive than incandescent sources, conversion cost is a concern. Subsidies may be needed to help low income consumers.

• Phasing out of inefficient light sources is one step in reducing lighting energy use. The most efficient electric light source is the one that is turned off. Effective use of daylight and aggressive use of lighting control technologies will be needed to significantly reduce lighting energy use.

• The IALD supports all efforts to reduce electric lighting’s negative environmental impacts through careful design, daylighting integration, lighting controls, and more efficient sources. The organization urges consideration of the full ramifications of proposed regulations and possibly the continued use of some specific types of incandescent lamps until truly better alternatives are available.

If you work for Microsoft and are reading this blog to identify dissidents - I hope you’ll listen to the plight of this long term customer - I’m not happy!

I’m reminded of a timeless quote from a Sex Pistols interview from the late 1970s:

“You have to destroy in order to create.

Destruction for its own sake is dull, boring…”

Sex Pistols photo found on Wikipedia

The changes to Word and Excel are beyond dull and boring - they’re maddening. Our familiarity with these important programs has been destroyed - rendered useless - and it’s sapping my productivity! As though busy professionals have nothing better to do than searching for functions and clicking on tabs to find menu options that we’ve used for over 10 years. WHY?!?!

Full disclosure: I’ve NEVER owned (or even used) a Mac and I don’t have an iPod or an iPhone, lest you think I’m some sort of deranged Apple apologist. In fact, I am a HUGE fan of MS Outlook and the Windows platform (well, at least until Vista) — I consider MS Outlook to be an incredible and wonderful productivity tool.

Look Mr. Gates, I know you’re busy lecturing people to give away more of their hard earned money to assuage the guilt you associate with your incredible wealth — but that is a subject for another day. I would like to offer a compromise: How about offering a “classic menu” option in these 2 programs? If that is already available - I haven’t found it but I’ll apologize in advance for this rant if someone can tell me how to get it!

Poor Richard

This story contrasts a FacilityBlog Weird Wednesday post about a fast food chain in China that was losing business because of its smoke free policy. In Minnesota, bar owners are going to great lengths to undermine the state’s new cigarette ban.

According to a 3/8/08 article from Ed Pilkington of The Guardian:

More than 100 bars across the state have started holding “theater nights” in which patrons are encouraged to dress up in period costume and project their voices, playbills are pinned on the walls, and bar paraphernalia makes up the props.

The bars are seeking to bypass a smoking ban introduced last October by exploiting a loophole that allows cigarettes to be puffed in theatrical productions.

The creative idea was the brainchild of Mark Benjamin, a lawyer who feels the policy infringes on the rights of citizens. (How do you like that, Poor Richard?)

Pilkington continues,

Bars have taken to calling their theater nights “Before the Ban”, which allows them to claim that their customers are in character playing themselves before the October injunction came down. Black cloth is draped over entrances, with notices saying “Stage Entrance”. And ashtrays are piled up under the label “Props”. Other bars hand out badges to anyone who donates a dollar saying “Act Now!”

Officials in the state are warning makeshift “theaters” that they are still breaking the law, an act that could cost as much as $10,000 and result in the loss of the bar’s operating license.

Fair Warning: If you’re offended by salty language, you might wish to skip this blog entry!

The following narrative is from an actual security incident report submitted by an FM colleague. The facts are real and the quotes were not embellished. Individual names and organizational references have been edited for obvious reasons.

Security acronyms:

R/O = reporting officer
S/O = security officer
S/M = security manager
Ms. X = a parking lot menace with a very foul mouth

R/O was patrolling the parking lot and observed subject vehicle speeding down the driveway in front of the entrance area. R/O spoke with the very same driver (later identified as Ms. X) during a previous occasion on XXXXX for the same type of incident (incident report #XXXXX).

R/O requested security backup at location for assistance. S/O arrived and spoke with Ms. X about her speeding. Ms. X was argumentative with S/O, and then began to close driver’s door. S/O put his hand on the door and stated that this situation needed to be resolved. Ms. X then became belligerent and combative by pushing S/O’s hand and said, “Don’t put your fucking hands on my truck.”

S/O walked back to the rear of the vehicle and recovered the license plate number. Ms. X quickly exited her vehicle and confronted S/O. Ms. X said “Get away from my fucking truck” as she approached S/O.

R/O instructed Ms. X to step away from S/O. Ms. X turned and pointed her finger at R/O and said “You need to fucking stay out of this.” Ms. X then re-entered the vehicle through the driver’s door.

S/M and another backup officer then arrived on scene and were informed of the situation. Ms. X then pointed her finger at S/M and said “Who the fuck are you running up here?” S/M identified himself as the security manager. The subject stated “Yeah? Well, you need to take your happy ass back inside.”

S/O then asked Ms. X for the name of her employer. Ms. X stated she works for XXXXXXX. S/O thanked Ms. X for the information and ended the dialogue. All parties departed without further incident.

NO FURTHER INFORMATION

Of all the challenges facing the United States, aren’t you glad your elected legislators are spending their time protecting us from ourselves and banning certain types of light bulbs?

In case you missed the news, you soon won’t be able to buy replacement bulbs for MANY lighting fixtures in our homes, schools, restaurants and workplaces. While arguing that compact fluorescent lights (cfl) use less energy than conventional incandescent bulbs, the fact that cfls contain mercury (an element unwelcome in most facilities, landfills and water streams) is almost never mentioned. Perhaps that would simply be another “inconvenient truth” that we will ignore until the avalanche of unintended consequences begins.

I suppose we’ll have to wait and see if cfls become the next cottage industry for the personal injury attorneys when class action lawsuits are flying over broken cfl bulbs and mercury contaminated carpeting, food and pre-school cribs.

The attached article from Wall Street Journal more fully summarizes the “illumination” of our self-deluded but “bright” congressional leadership.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110011070&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage

By the way, if you don’t like the idea of the government selecting your lighting — don’t forget that in the 90s we fiddled as Uncle Sam mandated less efficient, less serviceable refrigerants (the ban on equipment using CFCs) and your favorite 12 flush “low-flow-frequa-plunge” toilets!

What’s next? I’m glad you asked!

With baseball season just around the corner, the new windmill chase / congressional distraction seems to be in full swing just in time for “spring training”. In case you haven’t heard: The most important challenge facing Congress right now is the use of steroids in baseball. Attached is another WSJ article with the details.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006475

Don’t worry. Pretty soon we won’t have to think or do anything for ourselves and we’ll all be “safe”….and easily enslaved.

I don’t know who said it first but there is a great saying for times like these: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.”

Poor Richard

From robberies and horse thieves in the days of the wild west to modern day bank robberies and home invasions - what has history taught us about the ONLY way to stop “bad guys” with guns?

If you answered - “Good guys with guns!” - give yourself a gold star for the day!

Even law enforcement professionals will admit (off the record, of course) that they can’t be everywhere all the time. When law abiding citizens are packing heat, criminals face much more risk in their chosen “career”.

Attached is a link to a news story about West Virginia lawmakers considering firearm and hunting safety training for teens. The state hopes it will boost interest in hunting (and licensing revenues) but hopefully it will also help prepare a new generation to defend innocent lives and private property.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080201141120.x8hzrof7&show_article=1

Do your facilities prohibit law abiding citizens from carrying concealed weapons? Have you considered sponsoring a National Rifle Association firearm safety course at your facility?

http://www.nrahq.org/education/index.asp

Remember - “gun control” is best defined as the ability to consistently hit the target!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

It might be an “inconvenient truth” for global warming hysteria preachers like Al Gore but it’s perfect timing for the primaries! Today the Associated Press is reporting that the National Weather Service recorded 44.5″ of December snow in New Hampshire — the most snow they’ve received (in December) in over 100 years! The prior record of 43″ was set in 1876.

See the attached link to WCAX TV for the official story: http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=7560925&nav=menu183_17_14

But don’t expect to see this as a feature story in the “big media”. Odds are this will be treated sort of like the super-quiet 2007 and 2006 hurricane seasons that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Did you notice? If you manage facilities in Florida or other states along the Gulf or Atlantic coasts (and handle property insurance invoices), the silence was probably deafening.

Perhaps natural climate cycles (that began even prior to the first SUV) are shifting once again and a degree of sanity & objectivity will return to climatology & meteorology. Perhaps in 10 years we’ll look back and laugh at the Nobel nincompoops that validated a theory that can’t be tested or proven. Maybe John Q. Public will finally appreciate the complicated physical, chemical and biological variables in Earth’s atmosphere and the limits of our current knowledge.

This might be a real stretch — especially considering abundant evidence of scientific ignorance — but perhaps we can once again consider climatology & meteorology as sciences (i.e. hypothesis derived from investigation, facts & the scientific method) instead of religion (i.e. acceptance based on tenets of faith). If you live in New Hampshire, send Pastor Al Gore a photo of your facility — beautifully draped in white — and a bill for the palm trees you planted based on his sermons.

If you disagree, please share your thoughts! A respectful e-joust / debate may convince one of us we’re wrong!

Poor Richard