DISQUS

Wasn't it Gus Grissom's capsule that sank after the hatch blew prematurely? I thought his was the only one that sank... and that Carpenter's flight was just off course and it took time to locate him.

Not that it really matters.

There are four reasons to pay for a TV satalite...
1) Red Sox
2) Dirty Jobs
3) Mythbusters
4) How It's Made
no... five reasons
5) Star Trek

When the 765 kv line was built down through up-state NY (the big dark blue line in NY) there was a lot of griping about the acreage required. Farmers and farming was disrupted. One hardly notices that line today, but at the time it seemed big. Undeniably the footprint under them is big.

I wonder if there is any synergy in land requirements possible between rail lines and power lines. Both like direct routes, moderate terrain, and a big buffer zone. But I suppose probably no one wants to "live" under the lines, and no one wants to share, and no one wants a de-railment to topple a tower. But it sure would be nice to be able to get to Montreal on the train!

Never mind. Need to get to about 200 kwh/month the energy costs are about equal to the delivery costs. We go now from a high of about 600+ / month in the winter, to a current low of about 425. Gotta lose the kids and see what that does.

I just pulled out a bill... and damm.... I am not so happy.

What I consider the fixed charges are the delivery services which consists of the fixed customer charge, and then random distribution charges like transmission, stranded costs, and system benefits and taxes. Those all show up in the Delivery Service Detail of the bill. $8.93 fixed charge, and about $0.05 KWH charges.

Then in the Suplier services is the pure energy charge.... at $0.09 / kwh

One slower inspection the Delivery Services were essentially $34 and the Energy is $43. Suffice it to say those numbers look the same to me at a quick glance. (Yes, I manage the money in the family.)

Perhaps if it rains later, or the black flies get too thick I will try to plot where the Services and energy do cross. It expect it willl be just downwards of 400 KWH / month. Shedding kids and their computers should make it simple.

The... micro... power generation of solar panels on houses in California makes perfect sense for southern California. The... mini... power generation idea makes perfect sense for a place like... Maine with many micro climates. The real point is we (here in the US) are becoming more open to a multi-pronged approach to generating power. Traditionally we seem to gravitate to a one-solution approach to a problem.

Last month I hit a goal of having my variable electrical costs go below my fixed costs. While that was good, it pointed out how cheap actual electricity is, and how expensive the infrastructure is. (Never end a sentence with "is" but, there it is.)

Distributed power generation. Like distributed processing that led to the rise of PCs. Seems to make sense. Why not one or two wind turbines in likely spots as well? How much is too much power to flow into the existing grid from one spot?

Well said.

This one says it all.

1) The Seniors decided to not play this spring because of the prior two years on the bench.

2) The lesson to be learned from their not trying out for the team is that they did not have any desire to play in that program. (Nor did other players of other years who have left baseball in prior years.)

3) They absolutely support the current players and hope they do well.

Lastly,
No communication from any coaches or administrators begs the question... Who bothers to search out online comments to articles read in the morning before work? Is the greater BG administration even aware of the furor over the disrespect shown their students?

I thought the Lempster wind farm was going to have an "open house" sometime maybe this spring. But I haven't heard anything lately... maybe people who are interested just walk in anyway. Or maybe they are waiting until the winery about 1/2 mile away is open too!

I planned to turn things off, but didn't set the alarm to remind me. Who pays attention at 8:30 on a Saturday night!

What would make more sense to me, because it would be more do-able, would be to declare an evening / night to turn off and unplug. Designate from... 6pm on as a time to go as electricity free as possible. Easier than waiting for 8:30 in my tiny mind.

Wonder how much electricity would be saved over the course of a night? The outside lights, the vampire lights, the random stuff. Particularly the outside lights. Interesting to know. And might take the measure of vampire lights.

And then there is the Sonata battery which too has made great leaps in safety, recharge time, and life, and is, I think, on the market.

So many widgets worth investigating. So many gadgets which might actually make a difference. So little time.

I am surprised timing hot water heaters doesn't matter. It must be very... climate dependant. In our cottage we went to turning on and off the heater for a while and felt it mattered, but that was in the colder north, with an uninsulated heater. (Amazing what insulation does! We insulated ours last winter... HUGE difference.)

Then when cottage replacement was needed we went to instant hot water, perfect for cottage demands, but probably too pricey.

What about timing the series hot water heaters? Surely both don't need to be running at... 2pm... much less 2am.

One twist on the electric meter... this was in upstate New York... and in a town. It certainly makes a difference in the electric company (Niagra-Mohawk's predecessor?) but it might too be simpler in a town to do it universally.

We are talking the '70s when things were more... stupid... so the concept of simple switches was more acceptable. Might have been how it worked.

And yes, phone calls still can be priced by the time depending on the plan you choose. It took me years to get my parents off such a plan in hopes they wouldn't hang up in mid-sentence to save a nickle.

Marginally related but... visiting my parents in Maine last weekend we got on the subject of smart meters and pricing by the hour of the day. It surprised me but they said they used to be billed that way, 30 years ago. They don't remember anything fancy, just that their bills reflected evening usage versus daytime usage. And no, I don't think they were remembering their phone bill. And yes, it did change their usage patterns. Mom said that is why she always ran the dryer at night (until the late 70 energy issues when she switched to the clothesline and never went back.)

Who ever does sign him should make his pay all contingent on his production. He can hit, but will he hit? The Red Sox know he only plays if he wants to. Joe Torres probably is smart enough to know he had the best of Manny playing for him, and had the luck of managing against the worst of Manny. Would you risk the bad Manny on your bench of young players who remember the good Manny.

Funny, I never thought that enjoying, appreciating, and thinking animals were cute precluded me from enjoying dinner. Fact is, I think I appreciate my bacon more because I have known a few pigs and understand both their intelligence, humor, and their relentless appetite which included a pet lamb, decorative ducks, and the compost heap. And oh, piglets are so very cute.

So we cannot have time-of-day pricing until we go out and replace ALL our electrical devices? What will come first, the smart grid or the smart appliance?

Make time-of-day pricing an option and you would see a huge market for timing devices to go between old devices and the all, and a huge incentive to finally upgrade the old Energy Star refridg. that uses pennies a day right now.

To say $10-15/month is not important is crazy. That buys a lot of timers. And let us not forget the other reason to do it... to save energy consumption reduces the need for another power plant, and ultimately that reduces global warming. Remeber, that is the ultimate bottom line for those of us who intend to live more than another decade.

We see the same... green grass... in the midst of winter. Wouldn't it be a great site for a greenhouse?

I did an Easy book of KenKen that I received for Christmas. It worked. Wierd, but it worked. Simple arithmatic, but because it needed to always be correct, and remembered, perhaps not for everyone.

There is another puzzle type... where you put numbers in sequence. Quite fun (more fun for the arithmatically challenged) but I cannot remember its' name.

Try the "Mensa Absolutely Nasty Sodoku" books by Frank Longo. And do start at level 1. It took me about a year to do 200 puzzles. And it freed me from the addiction.

Great! I have to calm my parents for another 4-5 months telling them not to worry. And this stupid bill passed by a huge margin.

I think PSNH needs to start a pilot program in a small town where they can coherently monitor results. Where the town has a cross section of interested people... people of varied professions and working habits. Possibly a town where people in the pilot program would be willing to work with PSNH to defray the startup costs of the project in return for a payback over time.

PSNH told us (when we lost power) that we were on a circut of 700 customers. They could pick a circut (or two or three) and convert the one circut to see what happened. I'd love to be in on that test.

It would be interesting to see some local hill-top towns, who have town land on the tops of hills, get a conversation started.

Still very intrigueing is the town in Mass. (Hull?) who has a wind turbine on town land and everyone in town gets a break on electricity in return for the varience. Apparently that changed the NIMBY opinion instantly.

"Playing up" does raise interesting questions. Playing both JV and Freshmen means some other freshman cannot play because the roster slot is gone. Playing JV before mentally or physically ready for the bigger game. Don't know about basketball, but it is certainly true in other sports. And anyone who picks up high school kids can tell a freshman boy... they are tiny! Playing a JV ready Freshman on both JV and the Freshman team might be seen as stacking the Freshman team in lieu of player development... which truely is the point of a Freshman team. And then, inevitably, the freshmen who are ready to play up tend, often, but not always, to be coaches' kids.