Category: Commentary

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Electrical Storm = Bad Juju

Tonight around 11pm EST, lightning struck… Quite literally, just outside the house.   The TV, DVR, DVD, VCR, all went blank…  Surprisingly we still had electric, which rarely is the case out here in the sticks when we have a bad enough storm.

I ran into the office to check the computers, everything was still up and good.   The cable modem wasn’t happy though.   No blinky lights.   I’ve been here before too.  So I rebooted it.  Amazingly, the power light and the cable light lit up.   But no PC or data light.   I figured the cable network was probably zapped.  Again, not unusual.

Back into the living room to check things there and to verify that the cable was dorked up.   All of the entertainment stuff was plugged into a surge protector, but it was dead, no juice.   I ran down stairs and found a circuit breaker popped…  I’m thinking this is a good thing.

Back upstairs all of our entertainment devices have power, even the TV, but the TV is non-responsive.   You can turn it on with the remote, but that’s it.  No picture, no changing inputs, nada…   Of course this would be our 42” plasma pride and joy…   Our Black Friday special two years ago for $999.  Coincidentally the same amount as our home owners deductible.   Oh goody.

So back in the office to deal with the Internet situation.   The cable modem appears happy on the cable side, but no link for the PC connection.   I swap out the router hoping that it’s not toast.  Nope, nothing I plug into the modem is seen by the modem.   This isn’t good.

30 minutes of troubleshooting with TimeWarner on the phone they finally give in and offer a service call to replace it.   Today is the 9th, and it’s only been the 9th for 30 minutes.  The earliest they can service me is the 15th.   Isn’t that special?   I explain that isn’t good enough for $50/month internet that’s already somewhat flakey.  I offer to come pick up a modem and be compensated for my time to drive there, stand in line and drive home.   They just laughed but did offer to credit me for the lack of service.

I think I’m just about done with TimeWarner, but I don’t think CBell is going to be any better.

Here’s hoping they’ll actually have one when I get there tomorrow.

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The new car…

So here’s the break down.  We are a family of 7 with 3 drivers now.  Each one of us drives a fair amount, and with gas prices heading north of $4 a gallon we had to do something.

Vehicle Average MPG Mileage $ Status
2000 Ford Excursion 11 130,000 Paid For
1999 Chrysler Cirrus 24 138,000 Paid For
1993 Ford Club Wagon 14 132,000 Paid For

 

Before anyone complains about the Excursion, let’s do a little math.

We have a family of (7), one in a car seat.  To go anywhere as a family you need something this size.  In fact your options are somewhat limited.

Taking two cars that get 25mpg each, nets you 12.5 mpg in the end so there’s no savings.   It’s worth the premium to take one vehicle.

Since everything is paid for, every time we look at new vehicles and do the math…  The cost/payment on something new that would hold us or almost hold us would buy a lot of gas and a lot of repairs.  (We also have to pull a horse trailer and other stuff from time to time).

In any event, having Michael commute to Kings Island for work and down to UC for the summer for his college class and eventually to CCM at 12-14MPG didn’t have me very excited.   The van does have advantages; it’s paid for, is fairly reliable, and is pretty safe as well.

We’ve been keeping our eye out for a good deal on something and finally landed it last week.

2CO

Vehicle Average MPG Mileage $ Status
1998 Ford Escort ZX2 30 88,000 Paid For

 

We now have a 1998 Ford Escort ZX2…  Yeah, the sport model.  It was literally driven by a little old lady to work each day and church on Sunday.  It’s 10 years old and only has 88,000 miles.    (OK, so Melody isn’t that old).

It’s in really good shape for it’s age.  It’s got 10 years worth of scratches and dings but overall was a great buy for us.  With estimated mileage at 30MPG it will pay for itself in 10,000 miles vs driving the van.  So that’s all good.  It is by far the highest MPG car we own, as well as the lowest overall mileage. 

It’s a stick though, and Michael didn’t know how to drive a stick.  We worked with him this weekend and while he did well, we’re not sure he’s ready to take this to the hills of Clifton just yet.  Perhaps next week.

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Losing Weight, for real.

OK, it’s time.   I’ve slowly grown over the past 20 years to a weight that I’m no longer comfortable with.  3 weeks ago I weighed myself and it wasn’t pretty.  I’m wearing 38-40 inch pants…  Which is 12-14 inches large then when we got married.  (Yes my Tux had a 26 inch waist). 

It’s not that bad, I can still walk, even jog, but it’s just bothering me.  I also don’t fit into a good portion of my clothes.  I’ll need to be in a suit for a wedding in a couple months and I really don’t want to buy another suit.  I have a couple good ones.  I just need to fit them.

So it started.   ‘The diet’, although it’s more of a lifestyle change than a diet.

About 2 years ago we joined the YMCA near us in an attempt to ‘work out more’ and eat better, etc, etc.   About 3 weeks of that netted exactly 0 lbs of weight loss.  I did feel a little better though, but just wasn’t convenient.  Needless to say it didn’t last long.

So I was a bit skeptical when Claudine decided to take over my menu.  I didn’t eat large proportions to begin with.  My caloric intake, at least from my perspective, wasn’t all that high.   But what I wasn’t doing was eating all the time.

I often skipped breakfast.  Well actually I never ate breakfast, apparently a pot of coffee is not equal to breakfast, and I often skipped lunch.   When I did eat lunch it wasn’t healthy about 70% of the time.  Then came dinner, which because of our lifestyle with 5 kids and someone always doing something means we generally eat late.  Like 8-9pm.  Of course I’d like to snack a lot too when watching TV and playing PS3.

Well no more.

I’m eating breakfast everyday.  Cheerio’s no less, and Claudine has been packing my lunch.  Has it always been tasty?  Uh No, but it hasn’t been that bad either.

So with a decent breakfast, if that’s what Cheerios is, and a reasonable lunch and snacking throughout the day on somewhat healthy stuff (a banana here, an orange there, a reasonable portion of pretzels, etc.) followed up with a reasonable dinner.  (mostly salad, and some decent meat and a good portion of veggies).   It’s working.

It didn’t work right away, in fact the first two weeks saw a lb gained, but then like magic over night 3-4 lbs have vanished.  This is good.

I think the rule of thumb is for every 10lbs lost it will feel like a 5 horse power gain on my motorcycle.  Given my goal of 30-40 lbs that’s a 15-20 hp gain.   (I might even get better gas mileage as well).

So that will be huge.  🙂

I’ll keep track of what’s happening.  I do feel better, although I still have a cold that’s lingering and starting to piss-me-off enough that I might actually go to the Dr.

But so far, all is good.

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When we left earth…

OK, so I’m a ‘real life’ extreme documentary junkie.  Yes, I enjoyed Axe Men, watched the entire series, I also enjoy Ice Road Truckers and The Deadliest Catch, though the latter is somewhat redundant.

I’ve been looking forward to When We Left Earth, the NASA Missions since it was announced.  For some reason or another Time Warner has upgraded our HD DVR and I can’t find Discovery in HD, so that’s aggravating me somewhat.

I watched the first couple shows yesterday and late into last night in complete awe of the work those men accomplished in the lat 60’s

They got shit done (sorry, there’s no other way to say that).  I would give anything to be able to go back in time and be a fly on the wall during their management meetings.  Something between now and then has left us.  Corporations today can’t get it done with the same fervor that they did back then.  I’m sure it wasn’t all fun and games, but they got it done.  Nobody, including NASA could pull of the the things they did back then, today.  It’s not possible with modern management techniques, rules, guidelines and red tape.

I would also like to state for the record that anyone that thinks we didn’t go to the moon is an idiot. 

I so wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up.  I was a toddler during the space race, and I’m looking forward to rest of the series.

In fact I’m probably going to buy the DVD, it’s that cool to me and I’m not a DVD junkie.  I don’t own that many.

If you haven’t watched it, I would encourage you to do so.

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Stop NASCAR for fuel consumption? – Give me a break.

On the way home yesterday there was a, well for lack of a better word, a Yahoo on the radio who’s part of some protest group called Stop NASCAR.

I can’t find their web site, so it obviously has a large following.  <- That’s sarcasm if you didn’t detect that.

While there may be plenty of good reasons to protest or picket NASCAR, Tony Stewart probably being one of them :), fuel consumption isn’t one.

The idiot’s premise was that we, as a country needed to step up and reduce fuel usage.  That NASCAR alone wastes fuel, and when 150,000 people go to a race, they also waste fuel going to watch it.

Yet he was opposed to banning any other activity, like baseball, basket ball, or any other sport which also attracts a boat load of people from all around.

So if the fuel consumption of the fans attending NASCAR is roughly the same as say any other professional sport, then the only other waste you have left is the fuel they burn during the race.

Google answers claims that the average NASCAR car gets about 4 to 6 miles a gallon, which considering the horsepower they generate, seems pretty good to me.

But for the sake of argument, let’s assume the low of 4 MPG.

A typical race is 500 miles, plus a few miles for parade laps, perhaps some caution laps that might not count, or a green/white checker finish.  So for fun let’s extend that to 520 miles per event per car.

Fuel usage for one car would be approximately 130 gallons.

NASCAR starts 43 cars per event, so that puts fuel consumption at: 5,590 Gallons of fuel.   Now of course there is practice and qualifying, so let’s double that figure as fuel consumption for a typical NASCAR Weekend. 

Let’s just say it’s 11,000 Gallons.

Google Answers also claims (per British Airways) that a typical BA 747 burns approximately 3378 Gallons of fuel per hour.   So a 3 hour flight would use 10,134 gallons.   (Close enough for my comparison).

So if we’re going to boycott NASCAR, I expect this clown to stay away form airports too.

Here are someone else’s calculations.  They quote 8000 gallons per race.

He also complained that NASCAR doesn’t care about fuel economy.

That is also very untrue.  Fuel economy often wins races.  I suspect nearly 1/3rd of the races come down to fuel economy, and it’s not always the fastest car that wins, but the one who can get to the end without taking more fuel that does.

I can’t speak for NASCAR but they do care about fuel economy.

That’s akin to saying McDonalds is anti-chicken because they serve eggs for breakfast.

The reality is, NASCAR, and racing in general is directly responsible for many of the fuel efficiency, power, and safety improvements in your every day car.  It is the testing bed for a number of technologies.

So if this clown is really concerned with fuel wastes, there are plenty of other places to start.  He fully admits that stopping NASCAR would be a miniscule drop in the bucket.  His reason for pushing forward?  “You have to start somewhere, and it sends a message”.

I’ve got a message for him…