Find out more http://www.earthday.net/earthday2010

I just received the blueprints for my solar power system which means, the design of my PV system is complete! In the end, the roof allows for 17 panels on my southern roof over my garage which are the bread and butter of the system, especially during the winter months when the sun is lower and in the southern sky, combined with 37 panels on my eastern roof which provide for true sun-up to sun-down solar generation!

The 54 Evergreen 205 watt panels will generate 11,070 watts of power at peak generation or basically exceeding my power consumption during daylight hours to where I will not be purchasing any power from APS if the sun is shining. Thanks to the design, I will be pushing excess power onto the grid where APS will be giving me a credit for every kilowatt that I supply to them that they can in return sell back to other users under their green energy program, so in the end everyone wins!

Now we move to the permitting phase, followed by the install phase early next year, if the timeline holds, this system will be up and running by March 2010 and I’ll be living off the grid, goodbye 500 dollar electric bills!

Till the next update and as always, follow the progress on the SOLAR page link above.

I have to start by saying it sucked not being there with Michelle but she was literally right next door working an event at the baseball stadium so she was there in spirit.

Anyway, Ringling runs 3 tours simultaneously (Red, White & Blue Tour) and this year was a rehab year so the tours have blended. For instance the lion act in Zing Zang Zoom (the show we saw today) is the same as the one from the last tour that was here last summer.

The show was overall good, not great, there were some really cool elements but for the most part I found this tour to be a little disoriented and not as tight as previous shows.It is billed as a ‘New Tour’ on their website but it bordered on bush league at times.

Right from the start the show opened with a a mis-queue, the Chinese acrobat troupe (Qi Qi Har Acrobats) started their aerial show for about 2 minutes, it  was cut off mid stream for the elephant show, then the aerial show came back on right after. It was as if someone forgot when they were supposed to go on. I’m sure that most of the audience didn’t know there was a mistake but being from show production background with all the stage shows that I did in all the clubs I worked, it was obvious to me. I just didn’t expect this from this caliber show.

The dog show seemed competitive, there are actually 2 different shows both going on at the same time. The Hans Klose dog show and the Olate Family shows are very similar and very distracting since they both go on at the exact same time and within 20 feet of each other. I was expecting dogs from one side to go to the other but when that didn’t happen I realized they are actually 2 different acts and neither wants to give the other courtesy to let the other showcase.

The highwire act (the Lopez Family) was a little dry, nothing major that you haven’t seen a million times before. With the extreme ways people push these shows today, this was a very 1970’s act, more filler than anything.

The human cannons were again, very 70’s but cool, Hagan just about jumped from the chair and thought it was cool. If we would have been circus celebs we would have missed most of the warm up because the airbags would have been in our way.

The closer in the show was the Wheel of Death and the Fernandez Brothers. This was the only time in the show that I actually thought there would be blood! These guys were totally out of control and messed up more than once, in fact several times, they don’t work with a net and don’t have an airbag under their wheels so any mistake could be costly if it happened at the right part of the wheel spin and I’m happy to report it almost happened 2 different times. I’m more happy to report that nobody fell.

Overall Zing Zang Zoom is an ok show, a throwback to the Ringling Bros Circus of the past, not a lot of glitz and extreme elements but entertaining none the less.