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The story of our summer vacation starts a few months before our summer vacation, because that is when I bought the plane tickets.

We had been planning on going to Colorado for our vacation, but that depended on our ability to fly out there for a decent price. I had been watching the fares go up and down and up again, but they eventually got down to something reasonable.

I informed Some Wife that it was time to buy plane tickets, and she had a brilliant scheme. It so happened that the nearby grocery store chain which also includes gas stations (Kroger, in case you’re wondering) was having a promotion for 4-times the fuel points for any gift cards. And they have Delta gift cards. So if we bought a bunch of gift cards, then turn around and use them to buy what we were going to buy anyway, that’s free money in the form of a discount at the fuel pump.

My target price was under $300 per ticket, and there are 6 of us. I didn’t want to cut it too close and leave some money on the gift cards, since we fly once every few years, so we aimed to buy $1500-worth of gift cards.

I wanted to buy quickly, before the price changed again, so that evening we went to the store and bought all the Delta gift cards they had, which was I think 8 of the $100 cards. That was not quite enough, so the next morning Some Wife went to another location and bought their cards. They had some $250 cards, so she didn’t have to buy as many there – 2 of the $100 and 2 of the $250.

I’m surprised we didn’t get flagged by some fraud system, either at the grocery store or credit card company, because in my understanding gift cards are one of the main ways scams and laundering happen. But no one stopped us, so we ended up with $1500 over 12 Delta gift cards, so that night after putting the kids to bed (about 9pm), I got ready to use the cards.

Here is how that went.

When checking the flight costs, I had been watching the dates we wanted – a Saturday to Saturday. The price is still good on those dates, so I select it and then am presented with an array of flight options. I am dismayed to see that the only flight that was the price I wanted was leaving about midnight. I am not about to sign the whole family up to being awake the whole night, as some get grumpy about their sleep.

I normally would have checked with other airlines at this point, but we are locked into Delta. So I have to find a plan B.

It takes a few iterations with the fare calendar, because they don’t let you filter your results by “reasonable time of day” for the flight, but I eventually find one that is Wednesday to Tuesday, a few days ahead of our original schedule. I confirm with Some Wife that the new dates are good, and then I start booking those tickets. Select the flight, make sure there’s room on the plane (some of the other options that are a good price have only 2 or 3 seats left), select 6 tickets, enter all the info for each passenger, get the total, so far so good, and go to the payment page.

This is where the plan kicks in. I grab the first gift card off the pile, scratch off the thing that hides the PIN, and enter the information. Good, $100 off. Next one. I enter its information, and am presented with an error message.

Uh-oh.

I try another card, same problem. It’s March in Michigan, and after sunset, so it is cold. But I am sweating.

I start looking around the FAQs and Help Center and forums and anything else that can give me info about how to use Delta gift cards. I get one definite answer (limit 5 gift cards per transaction) and one suggestion (enter the gift card info at the gift card page of the website, not on the payment page).

The limit of 5 gift cards per transaction is not good news. I cancel the purchase of my 6 tickets, hoping that the system really did release them so A) the flight would be just as open and B) the price wouldn’t increase due to a seemingly suddenly popular flight.

This time, I start in a way that seems backwards. I enter the first card’s info in the part of the website for redeeming gift cards. I half expect that it will tell me I already used that one, but I’m glad to see it takes it, and the next, and the next. I’m doing 4 gift cars per transaction to even them out.

I get the 4 gift cards entered, and I have the expected credit, so I move on to applying that to a flight. I find the same flight for the same price, and I book 2 tickets – Some Wife and the youngest child, don’t want both parents on one flight in case I can’t get the kids on the same flight. There’s about a $50 shortfall, which is good as I don’t want anything left on the gift cards. I put that on the credit card, and the booking is completed.

One pair of tickets down, two to go. My sweating has subsided, but I realize I should have opened and scratched off all the gift cards before starting the purchasing process.

Next 4 cards, same flight, me and Gamma. The older two kids are 16 and 18 so they can handle being on a separate flight if need be.

Final 4 cards, and Alpha and Beta get on the same flight too.

At this point, it is midnight. Three hours just to buy some airplane tickets. But I got everyone on the same flight and for the right price, so it was okay.

The plan did work – we got 6000 fuel points, which meant $1 off per gallon for our next 6 fill-ups. At about 15 gallons per fill-up, that’s $90 total we saved by going through the hassle.

To Be Continued…

This is a guide for how to play the game Guillotine. I normally like to link to the official game website, but in this case I could not find a publisher that admits to owning the game, so the best I could do is the rules.

It is a simple game, really. A smidgen of strategy, but more luck of the cards, so you can just play the game. But it is still fun.

Summer is in full swing in Michigan, which for me means two things: black raspberries and fireflies.

First: Black Raspberries

The black raspberries that I associate with summer are the wild type. I don’t know that I’ve had a cultivated variety of black raspberry. But the kind that grow like weeds around here are what I grew up with.

The only problem with them is that they’re small and it takes a lot of picking to get not much of a serving.

But it is the taste of summer.

And second: Fireflies

The fireflies that I associate with summer are the wild type. I don’t know that I’ve seen a tamed variety of firefly. But the kind that grow around here are what I grew up with.

Even though they’re not tame, they don’t really care about people, so you can easily catch them.

But after a couple of seconds, they realize need to be flying again so they take off.

And here are some shots of fireflies in action. I couldn’t persuade my iPhone to keep the shutter open longer, so I had to click whenever I saw a firefly start to glow. Look for the brighter streaks in each photo, streaks because fireflies like to move upwards while they’re glowing.

Both good things, but it seems that the peak of black raspberry and firefly season is also the peak of mosquito season.

With all the hubbub around the falling cost of solar power, I thought I’d look into it. Since there are hidden cost structures for those places that will install systems and rent it to you or no upfront cost but it gets incorporated into you electric bill or whatever other sleight-of-finances they think up, I’m doing this investigation on parts purchase alone.

And this is for the system I would want – full battery so it will work when the grid is down (yes, there are solar power setups that stop working when the grid is down, check that before signing up), no connection to the grid (avoids billing and meter issues, plus simpler and safer), and enough to power the fridge and freezer so we don’t lose any food (not trying to power the whole house).

Load Requirements
We have 3 different fridge/freezer appliances, and I added up the draw on each and the result was 600 watts.

Assuming each might run for about 8 hours a day: 600 watts * 8 hours = 4800 Wh, or 4.8kWh per day.

That’s the draw requirements, now on to solar panel sizing.

Panel Sizing
I need 4800 Wh per day. We don’t have the sunniest location, so I’m being generous by saying I expect 6 hours of sun a day. That’s to keep cost down, not for a decent buffer of solar power. This is going to be a minimally-sized system.

4800 Wh / 6 hours of sun = 800 watts. So I need solar panels that will output 800 watts.

That’s the panel requirements, now on to battery sizing.

Battery Sizing
There’s a balance between battery voltage and inverter availability and there are a few different ways to go here.

In general, 12-volt batteries are cheapest and easiest to obtain. And 12-volt power inverters are cheapest and easiest to obtain.

But 12-volt systems aren’t good for higher power output. They’re fine for a camping fridge or charging phones, but not for houses. You could do it, but you’d have some thick cables to handle the current.

In general, 48-volt inverters are good for houses. But 48-volt batteries are not cheap nor plentiful. You could make a 48-volt battery out of four 12-volt batteries, but then you have to worry about keeping them all balanced. If one battery gets low or goes bad, then it’ll take the others down too.

For my plans, I’m choosing the middle ground – a 24-volt system. It can handle higher loads with moderately-sized cables, and for battery balancing you need to manage pairs of batteries, not quads of batteries.

So I have 4800 kWh per day, and a 24-volt battery system (note: pick solar panels that can make a 24-volt output), so I need to size my batteries. 4800 kWh / 24 volts = 200 amp-hours per day of usage.

If I were to get 200 amp-hours worth of batteries, I could start with a full charge and go one day without sunlight before my fridge would stop working.

But the thing about batteries is that they don’t like being run all the way down. In general, you want double the battery capacity of your expected daily load. And if you want extra days of power (to survive longer with more cloudy days), you would keep adding capacity.

In my case, I’m going for typical use and not having to ride out a multi-day weather event. So 200 Ah * 2 = 400 Ah. I need to buy 400 Ah-worth of batteries.

Other Items
And I also need a power inverter good for at least 600 watts continuous.

One more thing: I need a charge controller. That goes between the solar panels and the batteries, to make sure batteries are managed well and not overcharged. Bad things happen if the batteries are full, the fridge doesn’t need to run so there’s no load, and it’s sunny so the panels keep pouring electrical charge into the batteries.

Prices
Here’s what I got for prices for those components:

• Inverter: $220
• Charge controller: $175
• Solar panels: $600
• Batteries: $1440
• Total: $2435

That was solar system cost, now on to payback rate.

Conclusion
Around here, electricity is about 10 cents/kWh. And this particular load is 4.8 kWh, so that is $0.48 per day that I’m trying to avoid with this system. That works out to $175 per year.

With a system cost of $2435 / $175 per year, that gives me 13.9 years to start coming out ahead with my system.

In general, the panels and inverter and stuff should last that long, except for the batteries. Which, of course, are the most expensive part of the system. The AGM lead-acid batteries I picked for their cheaper entry price will last about 7 years.

So before the 13.9 year payback period is up, I would have to spend $1440 again for another set of batteries, which bumps the payback period up, and then before that period is up, the second set of batteries would expire, requiring a third set, and then once more before we actually get to a point where the system has paid for itself before the batteries expire.

So really, the total cost is $2435 + ($1440 * 3) = $6755. And that’s a 38.6 year payback period. And then the batteries expire shortly after that anyway and you don’t get to turn much of a profit.

If I do ever setup solar power for my house, I will have to do it without a big battery bank.