Archive for Susan Hauser

World Domination Summit

July 18, 2014 blog, events 2 comments
WDS Ambassadors

WDS Ambassadors

It’s been a week since I donned my orange T-shirt and joined the ranks of the World Domination Summit Ambassadors. I was a volunteer at this annual conference, whose aim since 2011 has been to help remarkable people lead unconventional lives. The founder is a determined young man named Chris Guillebeau, a Portlander who has written several books and visited every country on earth. That’s just for starters.

I began to have a sense of what WDS’s mission was on the night when all the Ambassadors gathered to meet Chris and the other leaders. My first impression was that the group was highly organized with very few loose threads. And I felt even more comfortable as the message to us was repeated: We empower you. As volunteers we weren’t at the tail end of a chain of command; we were helping to make things happen and to serve the needs of attendees.

We were all given the privilege of attending any of the academies, which were pre- or post-conference workshops. Given my love of language, Bennie Lewis’s Language Lab seemed right up my alley. That was on Thursday morning, well before Friday morning’s Great Namaste in Pioneer Courthouse Square, registration and the kick-off party.

On Saturday, after the Ambassadors greeted attendees and offered assistance in any way needed,

The Schnitz

The Schnitz

we were able to creep into the Schnitz and listen to the presentations. Same thing on Sunday, so our intake of messages was sometimes disjointed. But from bits and pieces from the 11 presentations, I got a much clearer idea of what World Domination is all about.

To a person, the message delivered was: Follow your passion. Find a way. If one way doesn’t work, find another way. And if you satisfy your own burning passion, while at the same time giving other people something that will enhance their lives, you are already a success.

I think I was most proud to be associated with WDS at the very end, when Chris explained the method behind the madness of asking attendees to slip into a tent on registration day and record a brief video

WDS

WDS

of themselves imagining that they were speaking to their present selves from the year 2020. Chris’s foundation reviewed all the videos and selected four people to receive funding and assistance in realizing their noble dreams of building community, sharing experience and knowledge. As each person learned that he or she was being thus honored, I felt chills.

And it took me back to that evening when 60 volunteer Ambassadors met to learn our duties. “We empower you,” we were told repeatedly. And after the World Domination Summit the message has sunk in. I am empowered. I can realize my dreams.

Shedding some light on light bulbs

April 18, 2014 consumer, shopping No comments
light bulbs

Here’s something I wrote for Living on the Cheap, the main site of the network to which my website, Portland Living on the Cheap, belongs. 

It’s time to shed some light on light bulbs. Now that the incandescent light bulb – you know, the kind Thomas Edison patented way back in 1880 – is going the way of the gramophone and the Tin Lizzy, consumers are nervous about leaving the light bulb comfort zone. How will we ever manage without that little filament sizzling inside the fragile glass or the reassuring warmth emanating from the burning bulb?

Well, that’s just the thing. Those old-fashioned bulbs produced so much heat that some folks had to keep them switched off on sultry summer nights. Besides that, the filaments fizzled after only a few months. And that’s only if the thin glass hadn’t broken first.

But finally technology has advanced so that we can toss the incandescent light bulb into the dustbin of history and now reap the benefits of cool and durable bulbs that will save us boocoo bucks in the long run.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that now we have to figure out what kind of light bulb is the best replacement for the incandescent bulb, which most major manufacturers won’t even make any more because of their relative inefficiency. (Some are instead making halogen incandescent bulbs, which are basically the same lights but with halogen gas pumped inside the bulbs, which makes them 28% more efficient.)

As one of my girlfriends lamented when she was faced with the task of replacing a bulb, “OMG, it practically requires an electrical engineering degree to buy a light bulb anymore!”

Let’s break it down to make light bulb shopping less stressful. First of all, we are basically now faced with two options: CFL or LED. It’s not even necessary to know what the letters stand for, but if you really want to impress your light bulb-challenged friends, CFL stands for compact fluorescent light, while LED means light emitting diode. Got that?

Now for the differences in the two. CFL bulbs are the ones with a little spiral tube, like a fluorescent light that’s been shrunk down and wrapped around a pencil. They are far more efficient than incandescent bulbs and are fairly cheap. The only drawback is that they contain a small amount of mercury. And as any fish will tell you, even small amounts of mercury aren’t exactly manna from heaven for the environment. In fact, consumers who use CFL bulbs should accept the added responsibility of keeping spent bulbs out of the landfill and using free CFL recycling services, such as those at Home Depot and Lowe’s. And one more thing: CFLs don’t do well in the cold, so don’t use one as your porch light.

LED lights, on the other hand, don’t have any real drawbacks. That is, until you look at the price tag. The good news is that as the technology continues to improve, the price just keeps dropping. Whereas the price of a single bulb formerly would have had you choosing between that and a sumptuous dinner at a fancy restaurant, now you can find LED light bulbs for less than $5 apiece. A recent check at Lowe’s website found a $4.98 bulb; Home Depot had one for $4.97 and IKEA beat them all with $4.49.

Still, that’s a steep price if you’re used to spending mere pennies for cheap light bulbs. But bear this in mind: incandescent light bulbs will last no more than nine months, if even that long. CFLs last about nine years. As for LEDs, they’ll be with you for the long haul. Average life expectancy of these amazing lights is a whopping 25 years. As for savings, the yearly energy cost for a CFL bulb is $1.69 and $1.14 for LEDs. In comparison, the annual cost for one incandescent bulb is $7.23.

Okay, now that we know the two basic types to choose from, we have another hurdle. Standards for measuring light have changed. CFL and LED lights are sold as either warm or cool. As a general rule, cool light is good for task lighting, and warm light is best for accent or small area lighting.

Also, nobody’s talking about watts anymore. Now we’re talking lumens.  So here’s a handy guide for translating watts into lumens, which measures the amount of light perceived by the human eye.

60 Watt = 800 lumens; 75 watt = 1100 lumens; 100 watt = 1600 lumens

One final bit of advice: be sure to look for certifications on the packaging, including FCC, Energy Star and UL. That way, your fancy new light bulbs won’t retire before you do.

Farewell, Thomas Vaughan

March 14, 2014 personalities No comments

Thomas Vaughan caricature

Thomas Vaughan caricature

Yesterday I attended the memorial service for Tom Vaughan, who was the director of the Oregon Historical Society for 35 years. The service was held just across the street from OHS, at the First Congregational Church. Vaughan died December 6, at the age of 89.

The guest list was a regular Who’s Who of powerful Oregonians, including Governor John Kitzhaber. They had rubbed shoulders regularly with Vaughan, who made sure that Oregon’s history was everyone’s business. One of the speakers was Jack Ohman, former editorial cartoonist at The Oregonian and now at the Sacramento Bee. A caricature he made of his friend Vaughan before Ohman departed for California was on display in the lobby of the Oregon Historical Society. The voice bubble had Vaughan saying, “I am a man of few words.” And then a second bubble: “. . . Let me elaborate.”

Kerry Tymchuk, OHS Director, at memorial

Kerry Tymchuk, OHS Director, speaking at memorial

Vaughan was famous for his conversation skills and his very deep and very slow voice. He was definitely a card-carrying member of the S.T.O.A., the association invented in an old Bob & Ray comedy routine, the Slow Talkers of America. I interviewed him many years ago for a column I did for The Oregonian’s short-lived Kids’ Page. I hope a lot of kids did read the interview. He really brought the Lewis & Clark Expedition alive, talking about the fact that most of the members of the Corps of Discovery were mere boys having the greatest adventure of their lives.

Later, after Vaughan retired from OHS and was succeeded by a man who was, to put it succinctly, a poor fit, I wrote a cover story for the Northwest Magazine about the state of trauma that prevailed at the Oregon Historical Society after Vaughan’s long tenure came to a close. He was a true gentleman in that, although I’m sure he had strong feelings about the shortcomings of his successor, he declined to be interviewed for my article.

It’s hard to imagine a man who is a better symbol of the spirit of Oregon, unless it is Dr. John McLoughlin, who is known as the Father of Oregon. I say, let there be two Fathers of Oregon!

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