The Great debate Water conservation: The Dishwasher vs. washing dishes by hand

At my work we have what they call the bulletin board email list where people usually post things for sell or free stuff.  They also post looking for stamps or cell phone charging cords, really there is no limit to what is posted on this email list.  So today I get to work and start going through my emails and find this long email chain regarding the Dishwasher Vs. washing by hand and how much water is used.  I found it interesting and thought I would share it.

Hello all,

I thought this was a timely fact to consider in saving water this year given the low amount of rainfall and the importance of conserving water.

Believe it or not, you save a huge amount of water by using the dishwasher vs. washing dishes by hand....

Dishwashers use as little as five gallons of water for the entire dishwasher load.  On the other hand, says the American Water Works Association, when you wash dishes by hand, the average person uses 20 gallons of water.

https://www.recyclebank.com/live-green/dishwasher-vs-washing-by-hand/

First response.

A dishwasher uses electricity while handwashing does not. I wonder how much electricity it uses and whether that costs more than a few gallons of water.

Response from the first person who posted the information.

Apparently, using the dishwasher saves, time, energy, soap and electricity.  People use huge amounts of soap when hand washing dishes compared with a small amount in a dishwasher.  In addition, one uses more electricity from the water heater while running the water.  Moreover, we are in a drought and if millions of people consider the difference between 5 and 20 gallons of water plus energy and soap savings, it really makes sense.  Additionally, many people hand wash dishes 2 times per day; vs. the dishwasher once per day.  Therefore, each household could be saving 40 gallons of water per day and time and energy = smart idea!

http://1greengeneration.elementsintime.com/?p=314

Response from the first guy again.

I found the answer:

A typical Dishwasher uses 1,201 watts per cycle or around 363 kilowatts per year.

Tap water costs around 2 cents per gallon (40 cents to wash your dishes in a sink vs. 10 cents to wash in a dishwasher.

If a dishwasher at 1,201 watts runs for 30 minutes, the electricity (at 12 cents per kilowatt hour) = 1201 * .5 (half an hour) / 1000 (convert from KW to W) * .12 = .09 for electricity.

So handwashing will cost 40 cents and using your dishwasher will cost 19 cents.

Now we have another person responding.

But what if you use paper plates ?

Now more get involved in the controversy.

Haha. Great troll Steve. ..

 All I can say is that I wash my hands of this whole dishwasher vs. washing dishes controversy.

 And the last to respond.

Landfill issue unless recycling, look at all the Styrofoam cups that are used here. Finger foods is the way to go.

 This all took place in an hour.  I just found it to be so funny that they were debating this and the funny ways some responded to each posting.  Oh what would we do for fun if we didn't have our bulletin board postings!!

Fall in California

For those of you that don't think we have seasons in California I just thought I would post a few pictures to show that we do have leaves that change colors here in California.

Thanksgiving Week

My parents came to visit me for Thanksgiving.  We spent most of the time shopping at several stores and went out for our Thanksgiving dinner at Sheepherders Inn.  They had a great Thanksgiving meal and it was great to enjoy a good meal without all the hassle of cooking it.  Down side to going out is that you don't have any leftovers for later.


My mother is in charge the the family history center in Kanab an decorates for Christmas every year.  Last year when I went out to visit them at the end of October I spent the week I was there doing crafts for the family history center and the ornaments my mother hands out to the people who work at the center.  Last year we made pot people and a little pot village, as well as reindeer ornaments.  This year we went with a snowman theme and here are some pictures of the snowmen we made.

Team Building Event at Work

Okay, so at my work they have these things they call team building events.  More so with the home office than with my office and my department but this time we actually got to participate.  Usually as in years past the departments would have a team building even like go see a baseball game together.  Which I never understood how that builds the team but I guess it's just getting together outside of work and establishing a stronger bond with each other.  My department has said we are going to do a team building event in the past but it never happens.  Usually because we can't decide on what we want to do as a group.  This year my whole department got to participate.  Usually because we are a 24/7 shop the off shift workers don't usually get to join in because they are working or have sleeping from working all night, or even have to work that night and need to sleep.  However this year because the VP wanted everyone to participate they called on some people from the home office to cover our department and systems so we could go. They decided to have a luncheon on the Delta King (that's a paddle wheel boat in the Sacramento river that doesn't move) and then a scavenger hunt in old town Sacramento.

The lunch was good I had a really good piece of beef, with steamed veggies.  After lunch we were to divide into teams for the scavenger hunt.  They wanted to mix up everyone so that you were on a team with people you don't usually have much contact with.  So we did the school yard number off system... 1, 2, 3, 4 etc to establish who was on what team.  As fate would have it my team was made up of the VP (Joe), the Manager of operations (Matt), a senior Administrator for our systems/network (Mitch), and two system Administrators (myself and a coworker in my department named Scott).  Now as you know those in upper management spend a lot more time in meetings and not so much time actually doing things.  Well that was the group I was in a more lets get together and discuss the matter and figure out how to go about doing it.  The problem was the team to finish the scavenger hunt fist got a prize (extra drink tickets not something I cared about) and as everyone knows that  is a major motivator for most drinkers.  Oh funny side note regarding that is there are 2 Mormons that work in our building and we both ended up on the same team.

So we got are instructions headed out of the boat to find the clues for the hunt.  Scott my coworker says I'll get the 5th one and meet you back here and takes off running.  Well the rest of our team is still coming out of the boat and when they get up to me we start walking into town.  I am afraid we will lose Scott and wish I had his cell number so I can call him to let him know where we went.  I watch other groups take off running and split up to get the clues as well and my group just starts walking.  So as we are walking down the street I am watching for Scott so we don't lose him but the leader of our group ( I use that term loosely because he was just the one walking in the front) wasn't really walking toward anywhere specific.  I was trying to walk, read the clues and keep an eye out for Scott all that the same time.  When I saw Scott he couldn't find us so I whistled for him and all the guys in my group said "Did you do that?" and I said yes because I needed to get Scott's attention which I did.  Scott caught up to us and we proceeded down the street to head for another clue location.  When we got to the next street we discovered we had gone the wrong way but there was a clue at that corner too so we got that one.  Mitch and Scott both said they would run and get the two of the others and send us in the other direction to get the 3 clues that were together 2 blocks away.  Well the remaining mangers i.e. Joe and Matt just stood there talking and I said we need to get moving and I took off down the street.  Had I waited for one of them to decide to move we would have stood there a lot longer.  So I lead the way with Joe and Matt walking behind me talking.  I found the next 2 answers and we met up with Scott at the 3rd one.  The store was closed for the next 30 minutes and we didn't know how we were going to get the last clue answered.  We looked through the windows trying to figure out what item the clue was asking for, well Scott not being a person who can sit still long went into the Railroad museum and asked a guy inside there if he knew the answer.  Since the questions are put out by the merchants of old town he did know and told Scott where to look.  Once we had all the answers I thought we were suppose to return to the Delta King and meet up in the bar area as we were instructed but the document we were working off of said to go to one of the stores called Trailmix.net so that is where the group headed.  It was in fact where we were suppose to go.  We handed in our list and found we had one wrong.  We rechecked that one by Scott running back over to the Delta King to count the flag poles and returned with the right answer.  We asked if we were the first and she said yes.  Our group was excited to be first, and after she rechecked our answers we had them all right.  We wondered around the store for a while waiting for another group to show up but none did.  I couldn't figure out why it was taking them so long to finish so we headed over to the Delta King to wait.  We found everyone was over there and about 20 minutes later Denise (The VP's wife and judge of the game) come over.  Everyone at the boat said they thought we were suppose to just return to the boat and meet at the bar after all the answers were gathered. (as did I) Since the instructions were unclear Denise gave the first prize to another team for being first.  (they didn't run around they just pulled out their Iphones and googled the questions)  There were only 2 teams that had all the questions right. (which I told Patrick they had the flag pole question wrong but didn't explain why I knew but he didn't change it) so we also got prizes for having all the correct answers.  All in all it was a fun day and the food was really good.  It cost me $10 to park even with the validation card of $5 off.  I hung out with Cindy, and Scott for a while after everyone else left.  Scott had another drink ticket, Cindy didn't want to leave him at the bar alone so we sat around and talked.  We used to be on the same shift together and get along pretty well so it was fun just sitting there talking.
For my first team building experience it was good but I didn't think it built much team bonding if you ask me.  I would have to say that we all pretty much stuck with who we already knew and didn't really build many bonds with anyone new.

Do you want Egg on that?

There is a local bagel shop I like to go to and get what they call a eggwich and every time I place my order for an eggwich with ham and cheese they always ask me EGG, ham and cheese?  I always say yes, but I wonder has anyone ever ordered an eggwich and requested not to have the egg on it?  Wouldn't that just be a bagel with ham and cheese? and why would you order an eggwich if you don't want the egg?  Them asking me about the egg on the bagel is like asking when you ordered a hamburger if you wanted the hamburger meat on the burger.  Does anyone else find this question to be strange or is it just me?