It's just a thumbprint and it's not private at all! everyone leaves their thumbprints everywhere. It's not personal. If your concerned of privacy issues of thumbprints, how bout being concern about facial features as well.... we might as well walk around with a paper bag on our heads.
Thanks Linsey for doing such a good job researching the pellet stoves. We have had one now for 7 years. I absolutely love it. I've heard the talk at work in the past of high gas bills for heating the home. I picked up some information for these people and told them to check into it. I also told them how much it was costing me to heat my home. They couldn't believe it. I'm so thankful that someone came up with this idea!
Try it if you can, you'll love it!
I too can't stand alarm clocks - and since I'm a freelance writer/consultant, I typically don't have to use one (except occasionally for travel and early appointments), and I've noticed that the quality of my sleep suffers when I do because I keep waking up every hour or so in anticipation of the alarm.
That said, it's probably not practical for everyone to do away with their alarm clocks - even if you go to bed early and get a good nights sleep, it's nice to have that assurance you'll wake up on time.
I totally agree - online research has saved me from more than one potentially bad purchase (I tend to avoid anything that has tons of bad reviews - if that many people disliked it enough to go online and post their experiences, chances are it is not worth the risk).
It's a human-curated product review that features the top three products in each category (and they have lots of categories covering everything from premium denim to mp3 players). Yes, the products tend to be from the higher end of the price/luxury spectrum, but at least you'll know that they are worth it.
And to Guest #1, I'm glad you liked the product. I did notice that some of the reviewers did. But enough people -- on Epinions and elsewhere -- mentioned having to clean the parts every single day that I knew I didn't want it.
Your article caught my attention because we use the Grind & Brew every morning at my house! We had one for a long time and when it needed replacing we went out of our way to buy the same machine! It is not that complicated to assemble and I think that people might be being a little bit dramatic. I have no idea what they are talking about when they say that there are 7 different parts that all have to be perfectly in position... that's just wrong.
It is true, though, that you have to wash a couple parts between uses, but we just throw those in the dishwasher or rinse them out. No big deal.
It's VERY convenient to be able to just put your coffee beans in at night and then set it to grind & brew in the morning before you wake up!
Craigslist often has free wood from people clearing dead trees from their property. If you have a chainsaw your opportunities triple. Six months later you have seasoned firewood!
My husband and I both grew up with wood heat, too. This year, we are burning pellets, as picking up an insert for the oh-so-ancient and dangerous fireplace at the lake house was the only way we could think of to have safe heat this winter, and still be able to easily pop out the apparatus and put it to use in the new place when we build. It's working out well, and we have finally settled on a small propane heater for electrical outage back-up heat. One thing that was cool for us was that with the purchase of the stove this summer, they were giving away a full winter's supply of pellets for free if you purchased it at a certain time. So we basically recooped a large portion of the cost of the stove for this year. While we still have wood in the shed, it's more for the outdoor fireplace now due to the conversion of the heat source inside.
I am so with you on the cleaner burning thing. These pellets hardly produce any ash or smoke at all, compared to my growing up days of dealing with the wood furnace. Although sadly, as you said, nothing really compares to the way wood heat feels . . .
So... Let's say your home is north and west of your office, meaning you have to go south and east to get to work. If you're headed south on Main Drag One and you need to turn east (left) onto Main Drag Two, you'd be better off to go one block further south, then turn west, north, and east (right, right, right, stopping at intersections & waiting for the traffic to clear for each turn) instead of making one left turn?
Does that really add up? It sure is counterintuitive. Or am I missing something here?
@Philip: Well, I guess I *could* dump a career that I find challenging and fulfilling and enjoy very much and seek something else to do with my life on the sole basis that I use an alarm clock to wake up in the morning... :) I mean, your point is well taken, and I've certainly had jobs in the past where I could hardly drag myself out of bed in the morning, but that's not the case now.
If you have a hard time getting up in the morning or you are fatigued during the day, then by all means, think about whether you are sleep deprived. Do you need to go to bed earlier and/or get up later? Do you not sleep well due to stress or your sleep environment? Do you have an undiagnosed sleep disorder, like sleep apnea? I think these are all important issues.
But if you do not have difficulty getting up when your alarm goes off in the morning, and you have enough energy for your daily activities, and you fall asleep easily when you lay down for bed at night, I think it's rather silly to diagnose yourself with sleep deprivation.
I certainly have no quibble with the notion that most people don't get the sleep they need. I've known for a long time that I need more sleep than most people (or at least more than most people *get*) and I have certainly felt the social pressure, especially on young people and those with time-intensive schoolwork or jobs and families, to stay up late and get up early to do all the work and family and leisure activities we need and want to do.
And I agree that in general being able to get up when you want to get up is without an alarm clock a good indicator that you are getting the sleep you need (setting aside my own experience of being able to *get up* easily but paying the consequences later in the day.)
I guess I just disagree with *pathologizing* the need for an alarm clock.
(p.s. Thanks for the link to the article on segmented sleep. I've always been fascinated by the practice of polyphasic sleeping—I wish I had the sort of work schedule that would permit me to try it.)
That's an interesting suggestion to accumulate a postive balance on the credit card.
My big beef with this is that as long as your hard earned cash is sitting as a positive balance on your card, you aren't earning anything with it. At least if it is in your bank account (or even better a high-interest savings account), your money is working for you (even if it's a tiny bit of interest....it's better than nothing).
However, if learning to use credit responsibly is a challenge, or if it is a first credit card for a teenager for example, prepaying cards is a good way to teach spending discipline.
It could be worse. Imagine lying in your hospital bed with no disability insurance and learning you won't be able to return to work for 18 months. Or having a mid life creisis with NO money for anything.
First, I've also had those times where I woke up but didn't feel like getting up and ended up dozing for hours. However, I've found that almost never happens when I'm doing work that I have a passion for. When I'm working on some project that I care deeply about, I sleep well and then wake up wanting to jump out of bed and get to work. When I don't have something that excites me enough to get me out of bed in the morning, I get just the results you describe.
Go with whatever works best for you, but I'd humbly suggest that finding work that you have a passion for is a better--more effective and healthier--solution than an alarm clock.
Second, to some extent what you're describing is normal for humans, especially during long, dark nights. It's well documented that, in the days before electric lights, people would sleep for several hours, then awaken for a time. Without good light, there was not be much to be done with this time, but records suggest that there was a period of (often only partial) wakefulness, followed by another period of sleep.
Hear hear. I could not agree more with what you have written. Just a few short years ago, I would not have thought to comment on this article, but since suffering through a period (2-3 years) of chronic sleep deprivation coupled with severe sleep deprivation periodically, I have changed my tune. I ended up with chronic health problems that *scared* me into making changes. I wasn't choosing not to sleep, but as a full-time student who was also working full-time, I felt I had no choice. But when it became an obvious question of my health, I realized that change was necessary. Sadly, I think it takes this kind of scare for most people to realize the danger and commit to change. And in a "go-go-go" competitive society in which so many people claim to only need 6 or 7 hours of sleep it can make one feel lazy or not as good if one needs 8+ hours of sleep.
One final note: The scariest thing is that I believe my body is permanently different and more susceptible to illness now. Even though that was over a year ago I feel that it aged me beyond my years. In hindsight, I realize it was never worth it. The silver lining is that I have learned a truly valuable lesson.
Due to a 1 month postal delay, almost missed the $2500 annual payment for our 15 year old long term care policy...
How the company would love to cancel us now after taking about $33,000 and now having no liability...
There's an answer to avoid this... On request, the insurance company must send reminder to two other appointed parties upon reaching the policy due date, and before the 1 month grace period runs out.
Could be very important (especially for older folks) in the case of mislaying the bill, or because of medical reasons, not being able to mmake the payment.
Sooo, important not just for the policy holder, but for potential caregivers.
A close second, is the fender bender auto accident... when you know it's going to take a few months of aggravation before you get your "no-longer-perfect" car back.
I have tried different methods to eliminate my alarm clock, but I seem to function much better with it.
o Sleeping in as long as I like, going to bed when I'm sleepy: After sleeping through my usual time to get up, I drift toward consciousness and think, half awake, "I should get up," but don't actually wake up enough to do so, and then fall back into a poor quality sleep with long, confused dreams, over and over again, until sometime between 11:00 or 1:00. I'm sleepy again in the evening around midnight. A week or so of doing this puts me into a very unwholesome headspace, where I feel worthless and unable to accomplish anything, partly because I'm in a bad psychological state, and partly because I'm only awake for 11-13 hours a day, so how can I actually get very much done? Not to mention that this schedule is totally untenable when I have a fixed schedule due to work.
o Getting up as soon as I first wake up, going to bed when I am sleepy: I attempted a one-month testdrive of this system, which I read about on some blog, somewhere. After a couple of weeks, even though I took a 20-minute afternoon nap (which quickly became necessary, as I was utterly nonfunctional around 3 in the afternoon), and going to bed when I felt sleepy (so that I was sleeping 10 hours, some nights), I was getting progressively more and more tired and cranky, so I terminated the experiment. I have no idea why I naturally wake up sometime between 5:30-6:30 every morning, but it turns out that I'm much better off if I roll over and go back to sleep until my alarm goes off.
What seems to work best for me, getting up a the same time every day and exercising, and reading for a half hour before bedtime and going to sleep at about the same time every night, early enough to get 8 1/2 or 9 hours of sleep. Yes, I need the alarm clock to wake me up, but I'm alert and reasonably energetic throughout the day and evening.
First of all, to get the free car, you need to live in a MAJOR metropolitan area. Then, you need to be driving around a lot - day and night, for maximum visibility. And, when you park it, you need to be in a high visibility area. Don't even think of putting it in your garage.
I absolutely agree with this article, but in reality it's impractical to implement. I am in high school and I -have- to get up at 6AM every morning--my father drives me to school, and he has to arrive at work at a certain time. Even if I switched schools--which is also impractical--I'd still have to rise that early; all high schools open at pretty much the same time. Coupled with homework and extracurriculars, it's difficult even to get 8 hours of sleep (6-7 is the average for me).
I, too, see a huge variation in the amount of sleep I need, depending on the season.
Left to my own, I generally wake up when it gets light out. So, this time of year, I'm generally sleeping until 7:30. In the summer, though, I wake up at 5:30 pretty routinely, and may get up before 5:00 for a few days in late June. Basically, in the summer I need 7-7.5 hours of sleep, while in the winter I seem to need 9-9.5.
I wouldn't know that, though, if I woke up to an alarm 5 days a week. I'd just know that I was miserable all winter but pretty much okay all summer.
I confess, I am a deprived sleeper. I typically stay up too late getting kids settled in bed and then farting around on the computer when I should be sleeping! One of my New Year's resolutions is to get more rest, even if it means going to bed when the kids do and then getting up early to write for my blog.
The theory is an excellent one and makes good sense. In reality, however, given all of the obligations and commitments many of us have, setting the alarm a few times a year isn't practical. I've been in the working world for 25 years, 12 of which I spent waking up at 4:30 AM, and am clearly a 'chronic' user of my alarm clock. I set it a few feet from my bed so that I have to stand up to turn it off.
In the summer I can wake up earlier with my own body clock and sleep later because my body's getting the sunlight. The days are longer, the nights are shorter so my body sleeps less.
I need more sleep in the winter than I do in the summer, right now when it's dark when I need to wake up, dark when I get back home, all I want is to hit snooze and get more sleep.
The natural seasons play a big part in how much sleep I need and to prevent my body going into hibernation during winter I need to get as much natural light as possible (going outside for lunch, non-cigarette breaks) during the day as well as getting a few extra hours a night.
It's just a thumbprint and it's not private at all! everyone leaves their thumbprints everywhere. It's not personal. If your concerned of privacy issues of thumbprints, how bout being concern about facial features as well.... we might as well walk around with a paper bag on our heads.
I really appreciated this post. I wanted my readers to see this also so I've provided a link to it from one of my recent posts.
http://northstarthinktank.typepad.com/northstar_thinktank/2007/12/a-less...
Keep up the good work!
Thanks Linsey for doing such a good job researching the pellet stoves. We have had one now for 7 years. I absolutely love it. I've heard the talk at work in the past of high gas bills for heating the home. I picked up some information for these people and told them to check into it. I also told them how much it was costing me to heat my home. They couldn't believe it. I'm so thankful that someone came up with this idea!
Try it if you can, you'll love it!
I too can't stand alarm clocks - and since I'm a freelance writer/consultant, I typically don't have to use one (except occasionally for travel and early appointments), and I've noticed that the quality of my sleep suffers when I do because I keep waking up every hour or so in anticipation of the alarm.
That said, it's probably not practical for everyone to do away with their alarm clocks - even if you go to bed early and get a good nights sleep, it's nice to have that assurance you'll wake up on time.
I totally agree - online research has saved me from more than one potentially bad purchase (I tend to avoid anything that has tons of bad reviews - if that many people disliked it enough to go online and post their experiences, chances are it is not worth the risk).
Here's one more site you might find helpful - http://3luxe.com.
It's a human-curated product review that features the top three products in each category (and they have lots of categories covering everything from premium denim to mp3 players). Yes, the products tend to be from the higher end of the price/luxury spectrum, but at least you'll know that they are worth it.
Link is fixed now.
And to Guest #1, I'm glad you liked the product. I did notice that some of the reviewers did. But enough people -- on Epinions and elsewhere -- mentioned having to clean the parts every single day that I knew I didn't want it.
FYI, the link to the "amusing review" is taking me to a generic "Welcome to CNET reviews" page. I don't see a review on that particular page.
Your article caught my attention because we use the Grind & Brew every morning at my house! We had one for a long time and when it needed replacing we went out of our way to buy the same machine! It is not that complicated to assemble and I think that people might be being a little bit dramatic. I have no idea what they are talking about when they say that there are 7 different parts that all have to be perfectly in position... that's just wrong.
It is true, though, that you have to wash a couple parts between uses, but we just throw those in the dishwasher or rinse them out. No big deal.
It's VERY convenient to be able to just put your coffee beans in at night and then set it to grind & brew in the morning before you wake up!
Craigslist often has free wood from people clearing dead trees from their property. If you have a chainsaw your opportunities triple. Six months later you have seasoned firewood!
My husband and I both grew up with wood heat, too. This year, we are burning pellets, as picking up an insert for the oh-so-ancient and dangerous fireplace at the lake house was the only way we could think of to have safe heat this winter, and still be able to easily pop out the apparatus and put it to use in the new place when we build. It's working out well, and we have finally settled on a small propane heater for electrical outage back-up heat. One thing that was cool for us was that with the purchase of the stove this summer, they were giving away a full winter's supply of pellets for free if you purchased it at a certain time. So we basically recooped a large portion of the cost of the stove for this year. While we still have wood in the shed, it's more for the outdoor fireplace now due to the conversion of the heat source inside.
I am so with you on the cleaner burning thing. These pellets hardly produce any ash or smoke at all, compared to my growing up days of dealing with the wood furnace. Although sadly, as you said, nothing really compares to the way wood heat feels . . .
So... Let's say your home is north and west of your office, meaning you have to go south and east to get to work. If you're headed south on Main Drag One and you need to turn east (left) onto Main Drag Two, you'd be better off to go one block further south, then turn west, north, and east (right, right, right, stopping at intersections & waiting for the traffic to clear for each turn) instead of making one left turn?
Does that really add up? It sure is counterintuitive. Or am I missing something here?
@Philip: Well, I guess I *could* dump a career that I find challenging and fulfilling and enjoy very much and seek something else to do with my life on the sole basis that I use an alarm clock to wake up in the morning... :) I mean, your point is well taken, and I've certainly had jobs in the past where I could hardly drag myself out of bed in the morning, but that's not the case now.
If you have a hard time getting up in the morning or you are fatigued during the day, then by all means, think about whether you are sleep deprived. Do you need to go to bed earlier and/or get up later? Do you not sleep well due to stress or your sleep environment? Do you have an undiagnosed sleep disorder, like sleep apnea? I think these are all important issues.
But if you do not have difficulty getting up when your alarm goes off in the morning, and you have enough energy for your daily activities, and you fall asleep easily when you lay down for bed at night, I think it's rather silly to diagnose yourself with sleep deprivation.
I certainly have no quibble with the notion that most people don't get the sleep they need. I've known for a long time that I need more sleep than most people (or at least more than most people *get*) and I have certainly felt the social pressure, especially on young people and those with time-intensive schoolwork or jobs and families, to stay up late and get up early to do all the work and family and leisure activities we need and want to do.
And I agree that in general being able to get up when you want to get up is without an alarm clock a good indicator that you are getting the sleep you need (setting aside my own experience of being able to *get up* easily but paying the consequences later in the day.)
I guess I just disagree with *pathologizing* the need for an alarm clock.
(p.s. Thanks for the link to the article on segmented sleep. I've always been fascinated by the practice of polyphasic sleeping—I wish I had the sort of work schedule that would permit me to try it.)
That's an interesting suggestion to accumulate a postive balance on the credit card.
My big beef with this is that as long as your hard earned cash is sitting as a positive balance on your card, you aren't earning anything with it. At least if it is in your bank account (or even better a high-interest savings account), your money is working for you (even if it's a tiny bit of interest....it's better than nothing).
However, if learning to use credit responsibly is a challenge, or if it is a first credit card for a teenager for example, prepaying cards is a good way to teach spending discipline.
Thanks for the comment!
It could be worse. Imagine lying in your hospital bed with no disability insurance and learning you won't be able to return to work for 18 months. Or having a mid life creisis with NO money for anything.
@Britt:
I have two thoughts that may be relevant.
First, I've also had those times where I woke up but didn't feel like getting up and ended up dozing for hours. However, I've found that almost never happens when I'm doing work that I have a passion for. When I'm working on some project that I care deeply about, I sleep well and then wake up wanting to jump out of bed and get to work. When I don't have something that excites me enough to get me out of bed in the morning, I get just the results you describe.
Go with whatever works best for you, but I'd humbly suggest that finding work that you have a passion for is a better--more effective and healthier--solution than an alarm clock.
Second, to some extent what you're describing is normal for humans, especially during long, dark nights. It's well documented that, in the days before electric lights, people would sleep for several hours, then awaken for a time. Without good light, there was not be much to be done with this time, but records suggest that there was a period of (often only partial) wakefulness, followed by another period of sleep.
There's a bit more information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep
Hear hear. I could not agree more with what you have written. Just a few short years ago, I would not have thought to comment on this article, but since suffering through a period (2-3 years) of chronic sleep deprivation coupled with severe sleep deprivation periodically, I have changed my tune. I ended up with chronic health problems that *scared* me into making changes. I wasn't choosing not to sleep, but as a full-time student who was also working full-time, I felt I had no choice. But when it became an obvious question of my health, I realized that change was necessary. Sadly, I think it takes this kind of scare for most people to realize the danger and commit to change. And in a "go-go-go" competitive society in which so many people claim to only need 6 or 7 hours of sleep it can make one feel lazy or not as good if one needs 8+ hours of sleep.
One final note: The scariest thing is that I believe my body is permanently different and more susceptible to illness now. Even though that was over a year ago I feel that it aged me beyond my years. In hindsight, I realize it was never worth it. The silver lining is that I have learned a truly valuable lesson.
P.S. Always enjoy reading you on wisebread :)
Due to a 1 month postal delay, almost missed the $2500 annual payment for our 15 year old long term care policy...
How the company would love to cancel us now after taking about $33,000 and now having no liability...
There's an answer to avoid this... On request, the insurance company must send reminder to two other appointed parties upon reaching the policy due date, and before the 1 month grace period runs out.
Could be very important (especially for older folks) in the case of mislaying the bill, or because of medical reasons, not being able to mmake the payment.
Sooo, important not just for the policy holder, but for potential caregivers.
A close second, is the fender bender auto accident... when you know it's going to take a few months of aggravation before you get your "no-longer-perfect" car back.
my opinion only
I have tried different methods to eliminate my alarm clock, but I seem to function much better with it.
o Sleeping in as long as I like, going to bed when I'm sleepy: After sleeping through my usual time to get up, I drift toward consciousness and think, half awake, "I should get up," but don't actually wake up enough to do so, and then fall back into a poor quality sleep with long, confused dreams, over and over again, until sometime between 11:00 or 1:00. I'm sleepy again in the evening around midnight. A week or so of doing this puts me into a very unwholesome headspace, where I feel worthless and unable to accomplish anything, partly because I'm in a bad psychological state, and partly because I'm only awake for 11-13 hours a day, so how can I actually get very much done? Not to mention that this schedule is totally untenable when I have a fixed schedule due to work.
o Getting up as soon as I first wake up, going to bed when I am sleepy: I attempted a one-month testdrive of this system, which I read about on some blog, somewhere. After a couple of weeks, even though I took a 20-minute afternoon nap (which quickly became necessary, as I was utterly nonfunctional around 3 in the afternoon), and going to bed when I felt sleepy (so that I was sleeping 10 hours, some nights), I was getting progressively more and more tired and cranky, so I terminated the experiment. I have no idea why I naturally wake up sometime between 5:30-6:30 every morning, but it turns out that I'm much better off if I roll over and go back to sleep until my alarm goes off.
What seems to work best for me, getting up a the same time every day and exercising, and reading for a half hour before bedtime and going to sleep at about the same time every night, early enough to get 8 1/2 or 9 hours of sleep. Yes, I need the alarm clock to wake me up, but I'm alert and reasonably energetic throughout the day and evening.
First of all, to get the free car, you need to live in a MAJOR metropolitan area. Then, you need to be driving around a lot - day and night, for maximum visibility. And, when you park it, you need to be in a high visibility area. Don't even think of putting it in your garage.
I absolutely agree with this article, but in reality it's impractical to implement. I am in high school and I -have- to get up at 6AM every morning--my father drives me to school, and he has to arrive at work at a certain time. Even if I switched schools--which is also impractical--I'd still have to rise that early; all high schools open at pretty much the same time. Coupled with homework and extracurriculars, it's difficult even to get 8 hours of sleep (6-7 is the average for me).
I, too, see a huge variation in the amount of sleep I need, depending on the season.
Left to my own, I generally wake up when it gets light out. So, this time of year, I'm generally sleeping until 7:30. In the summer, though, I wake up at 5:30 pretty routinely, and may get up before 5:00 for a few days in late June. Basically, in the summer I need 7-7.5 hours of sleep, while in the winter I seem to need 9-9.5.
I wouldn't know that, though, if I woke up to an alarm 5 days a week. I'd just know that I was miserable all winter but pretty much okay all summer.
I confess, I am a deprived sleeper. I typically stay up too late getting kids settled in bed and then farting around on the computer when I should be sleeping! One of my New Year's resolutions is to get more rest, even if it means going to bed when the kids do and then getting up early to write for my blog.
Philip,
The theory is an excellent one and makes good sense. In reality, however, given all of the obligations and commitments many of us have, setting the alarm a few times a year isn't practical. I've been in the working world for 25 years, 12 of which I spent waking up at 4:30 AM, and am clearly a 'chronic' user of my alarm clock. I set it a few feet from my bed so that I have to stand up to turn it off.
In the summer I can wake up earlier with my own body clock and sleep later because my body's getting the sunlight. The days are longer, the nights are shorter so my body sleeps less.
I need more sleep in the winter than I do in the summer, right now when it's dark when I need to wake up, dark when I get back home, all I want is to hit snooze and get more sleep.
The natural seasons play a big part in how much sleep I need and to prevent my body going into hibernation during winter I need to get as much natural light as possible (going outside for lunch, non-cigarette breaks) during the day as well as getting a few extra hours a night.
GRILLED pb&j??? I'm going to try that right NOW