For people interested in the history or collecting mechanical clocks and watches, there is no better source of information than printed books on the subject. Just as mechanical clocks have become a relic of the past, so have the many books written as historical reference guides also diminished in availability. Over the years I’ve collected […]
Kevin Knauss
Posts by Kevin Knauss not related to health insurance or other categories, usually editorials, travel essays, food, pictures and maps.
Will the California drought create a residential water market?
With Governor Brown’s declarations of a drought emergency in 2014 and subsequent State Water Resources Control Board’s (SWRCB) decisions that some water districts must conserve up 36% of their consumption over the baseline 2013 year, many homeowners are wondering how they can conserve enough water without killing their entire landscaping. While some homeowners have voluntarily […]
How much do health insurance agents earn?
2020 was the year I was hoping to replace my 2002 CRV with 285,000 miles on it for new hybrid car. I don’t feel particularly optimistic about any significant revenue gains in 2020. While I picked up some new clients for 2020, I also lost just as many who have decided that health insurance is just too expensive.
Proposed Tahoe -Truckee River to San Francisco water tunnel
Sometimes the craziest ideas actually become reality. In 1870 one man proposed tunneling underneath the Sierra Nevada mountain range to ship Tahoe lake water to San Francisco. While that may seem like an audacious scheme today, similar projects were already underway in the 19th century and parts of the tunnel project under the Sierras have […]
Brief history of engineered transportation tunnels
Tunnel Engineering – A Museum Treatment by Robert M. Vogel is a brief history of engineered transportation tunnels published in 1964. The booklet was part of series that accompanied scaled model displays illustrating the advances in tunneling primarily in the 19th century. The short thirty-six page bulletin focuses on how modern engineering design evolved as […]
American River images before Folsom Lake
Even before Folsom Lake Dam was built and the reservoir filled, the north fork of the American River was supplying water to communities, farms and ranches in south Placer and northeast Sacramento counties. I recently found aerial photography from 1952 showing a free flowing north and south fork of the American River. Finally, I can […]
Strategically selecting colleges to increase admission potential
Perhaps one of the greatest triumphs for my son as a senior in high school was getting admitted into all five colleges he applied to. The improbability of going five for five was magnified when I learned that so many of his peers were routinely rejected for their first college choice along with their back […]
Are you a producer?
It wasn’t until I transitioned into a career of insurance sales that I heard the term producer applied to people. Insurance companies label the agents who sell their insurance products as producers, as in producing sales. Previously, I only thought that milk cows were producers. In the insurance game you are either producing sales or […]
Birdsall Dam, Knickerbocker waterfalls hike at Auburn State Park
Even in the midst of losing my water, grabbing onto poison oak bushes to maintain my balance, and enduring intermittent leg cramps, stumbling down to see the foundation of the historic Birdsall dam and Knickerbocker waterfalls still wasn’t the worst hike I’d taken. My mistake was thinking that I was smarter and stronger than the […]
Killing grass with wrapping paper and mulch
In the winter of 2015 the time had come for me to make my front yard grass disappear. After researching various labor intensive methods of removing turf, I finally settled on smothering the grass with wrapping paper and shredded cedar mulch. While this isn’t a full proof method, killing the grass in place is […]