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WEEK 29 2014

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Saturday 19 July 2014
Saturday - Not much to say. Just a bit of mild housework in the morning, dishes and such.


 I did swing by HD and pick up the little fluorescent replacement bulbs for the office, a four pack of 60w bulbs for $8. They are rated at 60W equivalent output, and pull 13W. Two light up the room nicely, about the same intensity and color as the old incandescent lights (even with the frosted light cover), but putting out about 100W less heat.

The fridge is still on the Kill-a-Watt meter. It's been coolish for the high desert, so I'm letting it run a little longer to get a better average usage.

T says I can go to SCE and get an hour-by-hour record of my energy usage, which would be interesting.


Lunch with friends at the local Thai place, then home again.

I finally watched Star Trek:Into Darkness in the evening since it is now streaming. Eh, kind of a mess of a movie...  I'd really like to see Ender's Game and the 2nd Hobbit movie, The Desolation of Smaug, but I can wait until they're free. I do have Gravity on a borrowed BluRay, so I need to watch it and return it.

Friday 18 July 2014
Friday - Did a bit of yard work in the front rose bed this morning. I've been averting my eyes for a while, but it was getting pretty overgrown. I also need to apply some grass killer - I've grass coming up through two layers of weed block! Usually around the bases of shrubs and sprinklers. And maybe I can use the wetvac to get up some of the little debris and leaves.

The nice part about river rock cover is that it's fairly easy to shift - you can move 25SF onto a tarp, pull up the old weed block fabric and put down new, and have the rock back in place in a couple of hours. Not that I've actually done that.

I have another 100SF in the back yard to cover in river rock, that planter project from earlier in the year, but this time I'm going to get it from a landscape place rather than HD or Lowes 1/2CF bags. I should be able to get 2" coverage for $50 or so, depending on what rock I choose. I really want to raise the new planter by one more layer of blocks, but maybe I'll just use bricks as capstones. I already have the brick, I'd just need to mortar or glue it down on top. The planter will be mostly rock, just a few plants for color and show.

I did see a note on the last water bill that they are offering a minuscule amount of cash to stop watering a lawn, about $1/SF. Which wouldn't even pay for xeriscaping. On the other hand, it would at least offset some of the cost, and I might be able to use a lot less water.


I picked a few peppers off the bushes in the back yard. I just don't know what to do with them? Chile Relleno?


S and I got together at lunch and sent in the California LLC paperwork to the state. Another few weeks for them to process that, then on to Dun&Bradstreet, then (finally) Apple.

Thursday 17 July 2014

Thursday - Not much to say. Warm, but not incredibly hot. It's supposed to get past a hundred next week, but was fairly mild today.

I replaced the two 60W incandescents with a single 150W equivalent (40W actual draw) bulb. It's way too bright for that small office. The frosted glass cover isn't on - the bulb is too big, but I think it'd still be too bright with the cover on. I'll stop by HD and get a couple of small 60W equivalent bulbs and see how they look. The goal is to reduce the heat generation in the office. I've been turning on the a/c early because it's still the warmest room in the house, and it's the one I spend most of the day in.

Speaking of power: I put the refrigerator on the Kill-A-Watt meter, and am going to peek at the power usage after a couple of days. I suspect it's the single biggest power consumption item - I noticed that it was drawing 22W at idle (a fan?). It probably uses about 1000W when the compressor is running. Depending on the duty cycle it's probably burning 5KWH a day. Which it's depositing inside my house. Which I then run an a/c to cool. Since the a/c motor is inside the a/c housing I'm having to cool it as well, 300W.

Truthfully, my power bill is only about $50 a month, it just isn't cost effective to do much to reduce it.

Example: Some people put insulating foam around their fridges (it looks a bit tacky). If we assume the fridge is responsible for half my power usage, then it's $25 a month. If I can double it's efficiency I save a grand total of $12.50 a month. I think a 1.5" foam panel is about $40, and it would take two at a minimum, so it would then take me about eight months to break even.

Wednesday 16 July 2014

Wednesday - Working away on the app again. Kind of slow going at the moment, I have to say. Oh well.

S said she forgot to include a form in our application to the state for the name, but the information in it was essentially duplicated in all the other cruft we had to send, and they cashed the check, so we're probably OK.

I took the time to hang another white board in the office upstairs. Apparently the studs in the wall are on 18" centers for that wall. WTH? I used two hangers, but seeing as the thing is suspended above the MacBook and 27" monitor maybe I'll add another...

C stopped by in the afternoon, and gave me a nice iced Berry Blast Yogurt. Yay! She said they'd confirmed the $5k better price for the new car down in Simi Valley and were going to go buy it later in the week. The people in the AV just won't deal - I've seen that before!

Tuesday 15 July June 2014
Tuesday - This would be Dad's 90th. Hard to believe it's been six of his birthdays with him gone already. I think about him, and Mom, every day.

dad


My friend C stopped by with a bunch of bagels from Panera Bread in the morning. Pretty tasty stuff. Then the kids got put on farm duty, picking tomatoes and peppers. I'd asked S about when to pick the peppers that were appearing, she said 'any time', apparently you don't need to wait until they are red.


I let each of the kittens out for a bit, seeing how much of that indoor palm they'd eaten has made it clear that they need some roughage. Suzy pretty much still sticks to the patio, but Jimmy is much braver and is willing to explore (and occasionally munches down some grass). Both are fascinated by all the "lunches with wings" flying by overhead...


I didn't get much done on the app, not feeling very well in the afternoon actually. Went to bed early.

Monday 14 July 2014
Monday - Went by S's place, said "hi" to R, then we went to the 99 cent store for some grocery shopping - I think I bought more than she did. Then she gave me a quick haircut - I'd actually failed to get one before going to the coast and it was pretty shaggy by now (on the sides, but not, alas, the top).

Then she talked me into signing up for a digital media course at the local JC this fall. I felt unusually resistant, I hate dealing with the state busybodies: they are insistent on asking the most intrusive and annoying questions. Plus, it's mucho $$. S says it will help network with like minded entrepreneurs, but I have my doubts.


The humidity yesterday was terrible. In the afternoon I used the little casement a/c unit that I bought this week last year on Craigslist and that Tim transported up to Ventura for me. I blogged here about doing the installation in the downstairs east window, just before the 4th of July vacation. It kept things comfortable in the family room in the late afternoon/early evening until the temperature cooled down.

I put the little portable mechanical unit in the office upstairs. Just a temporary install, with cardboard over the gap, to keep it comfortable enough to work. It's not particularly noisy, but after a while it gets to you, even through noise canceling headphones. I much prefer a nice draft through the room from the downstairs swamp cooler, but the humidity is supposed to continue for the next several days, though the clouds will actually start a cooling trend. It will only be 95F and 75% humidity tomorrow, yay.



Here is an update for the the table I created this week last year to reflect this years beach residence.

Looking at old pictures I can further see that I returned to Lancaster after the beach vacations in 2001 and 2007.
I took a look and my oldest email account (yahoo and still extant!) only dates back to the year 2000. Bummer. I think I backed up my NASA unix email once, but I have no idea where that is. Probably long gone. I still have dozens of boxes of old cruft in the garage, I suppose I could, if I was that interested, dig through them, but I think not. My home email was on Hughes, a local provider, but I think I canceled that in about 2002 or so. I don't recall backing that up.

Year4thAfter
2000Cayucos & MartinezMartinez
2001LancasterLancaster
2002MartinezLancaster
2003BeachfrontMartinez
2004BeachfrontLancaster
2005BeachfrontMartinez
2006MartinezLancaster
2007BeachfrontLancaster
2008YosemiteMartinez
2009Troll HouseLancaster
2010Ocean Ave.Lancaster
2011Ocean Ave.Martinez
2012Ocean Ave.Martinez
2013Ocean Ave.Lancaster
2014Cass St.Lancaster

This week last year I also bought a new thermostat for the dryer, which I then proceeded to lose, so I guess I need to order another? It was several dollars as I recall, perhaps I should wait and see it it turns up in a year or two...

Sunday 13 July  2014
Sunday - Enjoying a relaxing day, just lazing about, apart from some minor chores. It was hot outside, and even inside, and it'd been a busy week.

It was very hot out. Depending on what you want to believe, it was 102F, 106F, or 112F - the last being my back porch thermometer which always reads high. I turned on the 'good' swamp cooler, then eventually turned it to high, then finally switched on an additional second swamp cooler, on low - and that kept the house at about 77F in the coolest part, the family room. At least until mid-afternoon.

One amusing thing was letting the kittens, young cats really, out for a bit in the back yard. They were a bit apprehensive, but knew that they wanted to taste avian flesh, and mostly hung out directly beneath the bird feeders, amidst the loose seed. The birds saw them, obviously, and stayed the hell away.




Picture of the Week
Cayucos beach, pelican rocks, 2014. 
Photo Notes: The "pelican rocks" in Cayucos, 2014.

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