[ocrenter]

[quote=CA renter]Yes, I think those of us who are funding everything at SDG&E are moving to solar in a rather spectacular fashion. As you’ve said, going solar for those of us who are regular Tier 4 users is one of the easiest decisions we’ll ever have to make in life. SDG&E is going to try to make up for these losses by dropping the 4-tiered system and charging everyone a higher price for the lowest tier and for daytime usage when everyone is using their air conditioners. The solar industry has been trying to fight it, but it looks like SDG&E has won on this front.

You are so lucky to have $150/month bills!!![/quote]

We are very happy with room temp around high 70’s, that might explain the difference. Downstairs almost never reach 80. On a hot day upstairs can hit 84 by later afternoon, then AC comes on to bring temp down to 79. That likely explains why we rarely turn on the AC. If we have the AC on to bring room temp down to 71, I can definitely see the bill double.

[ocrenter]

[quote=CA renter]

Navydoc, do you have a deep/diving pool? That can really keep it cold, too. I’ve had a pool for most of my life, but our current pool is very shallow and I’m always surprised by how fast it heats up (and cools down!). We’re getting a solar cover this year to keep the water in because the water seems to evaporate much faster than any of the other pools we’ve had, and because it really does help to heat the water up a bit and, most importantly, it keeps it warmer through the night.

Glad to hear we’re not the only ones with such high electricity bills. The bills in our current house were higher than our other house (the one we were renting around the corner) even when this house was empty. It has to be the (very old) pool pumps — two of them because our pool vac has to use a dedicated pump and it would cost a fortune to convert to another type of vacuum system. We’ve been told that it would be more difficult to get the newer variable-speed pumps because of the system configuration; still have to do some more research on it, though. Add to that the A/C that we like to keep at 71 degrees, and getting solar is a no-brainer. We once had a $750 bill for one month!!!! 🙁 As crazy as this may sound, we’re getting an 11KW+ system in an attempt to completely eliminate our bills. SDG&E is moving to a two-tiered system (and then to a TOU system), so solar customers won’t be able to lower their bills by as much as they can with the current 4-tiered system.[/quote]

very good point about the depth of the pool. it could be a difference between a 12000 gallon pool vs a 30000 gallon pool. that temperature difference can be huge.

I also heard about SDGE moving to two-tiered and TOU as well. over the last month or two I have casually spoke with a number of folks working in the solar industry, and they all say the same thing, that pass $300/month, moving to solar is an absolute no-brainer. And that’s exactly what has been happening. Essentially SDGE has lost almost all of its very best cash cows all to solar. We are only looking at $150 average per month at this point, otherwise we would be all over solar as well.

[ocrenter]

[quote=Navydoc]That’s making me want to buy a solar heating system for the pool. My pool builder said they were a waste of money, but your numbers would suggest otehrwise. Our pool was nice yesterday, but was only 77. Out of curiosity, is your pool dark? Mine is light and it seems the dark pools are warmer. Not sorry I went with the light bottom, I love the way the pool looks.[/quote]

LG is right, the ocean breeze overnight does a very good job cooling down the water. Plus SB simply does not get that hot. I can count with my fingers the number of days the AC is actually needed for the entire year.

The pool cover/solar blanket is the way to go. If you are good about keeping the pool covered all the time except when you use the pool, you may not even need the solar heating for the pool. It’ll cut down your water bill too as it reduces evaporation.

[ocrenter]

[quote=CA renter]

[quote=ocrenter]NPR had a segment in 2012 where an experiement was done in a struggling school district. They gave bonuses to all of the teachers at the beginning of the year, if the teachers do not meet certain academic criteria, the bonuses would have to be returned. This is compared to teachers that were promised bonuses if the same acadmeic criteria was met. The result showed if the bonuses had to be returned, the students ended up doing much better.

http://www.npr.org/2012/09/19/161370443/do-scores-go-up-when-teachers-return-bonuses

So the question is would unions actually say yes to something like this???[/quote]

[/quote]

To say the least, Michelle Rhee’s time in DC was controversial. Needless to say, you have some strong feelings about the lady.

Did you at least get a chance to look at the NPR piece on performance based bonuses that need to be returned if certain goals are not met?

Obviously we are all eager to see positive changes with the schools. So please don’t minimize the problem (by saying bad teachers are rare and far-between). I didn’t bring up anything controversial. Just a simple research that showed an effective tool at improving academic performance.

As a die-hard union supporter, is that something the union would say yes to?

[ocrenter]

[quote=CA renter]

While I agree that there are some teachers like this, they are very few and far between. There are far, far fewer bad employees in teaching than there are in the private sector, based on my experience in both situations. Trust me, there are far easier ways for these people to make money. Teaching is one of the toughest jobs out there.

As for my suggestions to fix this? I do support a base salary plus merit pay that is based on a variety of inputs: academic improvement of the same group of students over time,* administrator evaluations, and peer teacher evaluations.

*Difficult to measure improvement over time in some circumstances, usually in urban schools, where you can see student turnover rates of 50% or more over a school year. These are often the very students who don’t often have support at home and are often handicapped by a lower IQ and/or well below-average work habits. You cannot compare the results of a class like this with the results of a class in an upper or upper-middle-class neighborhood where the kids (usually with higher IQs) come from intact families and stable home environments with lots of support from well-educated, highly intelligent parents. There is just no comparison.[/quote]

We must be REALLY REALLY unlucky to have encountered 2 of these type of VERY RARE teachers in my daughter’s 5 years of schooling starting in kindergarden.

NPR had a segment in 2012 where an experiement was done in a struggling school district. They gave bonuses to all of the teachers at the beginning of the year, if the teachers do not meet certain academic criteria, the bonuses would have to be returned. This is compared to teachers that were promised bonuses if the same acadmeic criteria was met. The result showed if the bonuses had to be returned, the students ended up doing much better.

http://www.npr.org/2012/09/19/161370443/do-scores-go-up-when-teachers-return-bonuses

So the question is would unions actually say yes to something like this???

[ocrenter]

CAR, I’m sure you would agree there are bad teachers out there that do not care, who would just check “profection” straight down the report card, essentially just clock in and clock out.

We do not seem to have an effective system in place in dealing with this group of apathetic teachers.

Before we spend any more money to improve compensation, do you have any recommendations to remedy the above that would not get push back from the union?

[ocrenter]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=scaredyclassic]The urge to exercise power over others is a naturally corrupting instinct.[/quote]

“All power tends to corrupt, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.”

– Lord Acton[/quote]

This is why ALL Chinese dynasties over the last 5000 years have an average life expectancy of 300 years.

In the beginning, the leader of the rebellion still have the people in his heart. With subsequent generations, the people become less and less of a concern, especially since power comes from the heaven, not fom the people. As time goes on, the corruption also becomes worse and worse. With corruption you end up with mismanagement, with mismanagement, you end up wth famine. This triggers a new rebellion, a new royal family, and the cycle continues.

America is heading to 300 pretty soon. I would hope the expiration date for a democracy would be longer, but I can certainly see elements of corruption and the concentration of power within the few (aka the Ivy League circle, the NRA, Big Pharma, Big Food…)

[ocrenter]

flu, glad you had an awesome experience.

we had an equally awesome experience with them recently as well.

we went to Sears Outlet over at Linda Vista based on seeing an open box 42″ built in Kitchenaid for $5400 (retail at $9000) online. Turns out they did not have it. But the salesperson took down my number and promised to keep an eye out for the next open box item.

She called me within a week and said they just got another open box item in. We were able to purchase it and had it delivered over the weekend.

We have been looking at used built in 42″ frig all over craigslist and ebay, and the prices are all around $5000ish. So to get a brand new open box item for $5400 is just absolutely crazy.

(we contacted Fleet Installation System for delivery and install, their price was about $250 cheaper).

[ocrenter]

[quote=flu]Well I’m personally glad it seems more people are beginning to see the bigger problem… You know things are really starting to get weird when joec, AN, FLU, ocrenter start having the same viewpoint….

I’m more concerned that our wacked politicians are simply deferring the issue, post election….You know, counting on the fact that with this “deferred”, they can try a run at it again after elections… making the big assumption/gamble that asians won’t turn out to vote out these jerks out of office……Which you can interpret to be the most insulting thing, thinking they can try to kick around this issue again…

Afterall, they aren’t “killing” it… Hernandez simply mentioned it would be back for reconsideration in 2016…

In other words, we have work to do to make sure it can’t possibly come up again in the state senate….I think this is where it’s time to throw money at the problem and time and resources…. And make sure it’s DOA…

Really happy silicon valley is just as stirred up about this… because that’s where I think possibly we can get a lot of traction from some heavyweights.[/quote]

dude, after this thing, for ALL Califonia elections I’m voting Republican ONLY. The CA Democratic party has lost my vote.

[ocrenter]

[quote=FlyerInHi]
Long statement full of false equivalences.

Graduation rates don’t matter as much as total number of graduates.

If you don’t let a student enter school, then that student is not promising to begin with.[/quote]

You can’t be more wrong with the above statement.

First, students are STILL going to enter school. The question here is you want students meant for lower tier UC to go to higher tier UC. While promoting students meant for CSU to lower tier UC. And bump up CC students into CSU.

So let’s take 100 Hispanic students. And you create mismatch for all 100 of them, which lead to a 40% dropout rate, which means 60 of them go on and be productive citizens while 40 of them are dropouts no better than high school grads. That is better than making sure ALL 100 Hispanic students ALL getting into the RIGHT school evironment for them, which lead to 85 of them going on and be productive and only 15 dropping out?

What are you smoking Brian???

[ocrenter]

[quote=deadzone]
It is common sense that a state university should strive to have a demographic at least partially in line with the state demographic. The entire purpose of a public school is to provide a service by educating state residents. Ther eis no law that says they have to admit only kids with the highest SAT scores.
[/quote]

I would agree it would be nice, just like communism as a “concept” is nice, but doesn’t really work in the real world.

please remember SCA5 and any other affirmative action plans backfire and end up hurting the disadvantaged minority student.

In UC Berkeley, after passage of prop 209, Hispanic graduation rate went from 60% to 85%.

So again, why would you create an artificial mismatch that would guarantee a promising Hispanic student’s eventual drop out??????

Why would you support a policy that would do that?

Why do you hate Hispanics students so much? Why would you want to create more Hispanic drop outs? Why do you want to keep them down?

Or are you just like Pol Pot, who would massacre millions of Cambodians in the name of progress for the Cambodian people.

[ocrenter]

[quote=flu]

Bump…..Hey, my kid actually got a letter back from Assemblyman Maienschein… Pretty cool…I’ll wait until my kid opens it….[/quote]

nice.

let’s hope it isn’t his form letter.

if not, please post.

[ocrenter]

[quote=kcal09][quote=ocrenter]We dropped by Marston and found the homes essentially squeezed into tiny lots on the non-powerline side, and the side with decent lot size had the powerlines. Making the whole development highly undesirable.

MR and HOA are probably about the same, but you’ll have a gated community with the Lakes. So resale wise the Lakes will likely hold up better.[/quote]

I agree with ocrenter as well. I feel that Marston is way overpriced for the location and lot size. I’m not sure if Scripps Ranch or Poway would work for you locationwise. But there are nice homes there without the Mello Roos.[/quote]

I don’t know if OP has ever been to Standard Pacific’s Ballasario development in Stonebridge. It may not be right for OP’s commutes and needs, but they should see for themselves what $1.2 million should get them. And they’ll realize how overpriced Marston truly is.

[ocrenter]

[quote=earlyretirement][quote=ocrenter]We dropped by Marston and found the homes essentially squeezed into tiny lots on the non-powerline side, and the side with decent lot size had the powerlines. Making the whole development highly undesirable.

MR and HOA are probably about the same, but you’ll have a gated community with the Lakes. So resale wise the Lakes will likely hold up better.[/quote]

As usual, ocrenter is spot on target. I always agree with his advice and it’s not any different here.

ocrenter – I should really thank you again as you were the one that got me turned on to Santaluz which is the area we ended up buying 3 years ago and LOVING![/quote]

you are way too kind, ER!

ER brought up Santaluz. I think it is quite instructive here. I would put Santaluz, Crosby, and the Lakes within the same league. Del Sur is very nice, but it is just not in the same league of homes. So the question is should you be paying the same price for homes in a community that is considered next level down. And would future buyers be willing to pay the same premium for your Del Sur home as they would for homes within Santaluz/Crosby/the Lakes?

[ocrenter]

We dropped by Marston and found the homes essentially squeezed into tiny lots on the non-powerline side, and the side with decent lot size had the powerlines. Making the whole development highly undesirable.

MR and HOA are probably about the same, but you’ll have a gated community with the Lakes. So resale wise the Lakes will likely hold up better.

[Author]

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