Individual No. 64

Good Morning.

I hope you had a good a weekend and that you had fun in the snow and ice that we got on Sunday.

On Saturday I went skiing out at Partridge Run and on Sunday I went skiing in the snow storm from my apartment in Delmar to the library and the Four Corners. More on the Outblog.

You can see some pictures of the Four Corners in the storm on Sunday over at Four Corners Photo Series. It was very cold taking those pictures as the sleet came down, but also quite pretty. They will be featured on the blogs throughout the week.

I kind of wish the snow storm came during the week. The snow kind of kept me from going any place more exciting then Partridge Run on Saturday and staying more around home on Sunday.

At the library I got this interesting DVD from PBS' American Experience on FDR. His background is fascinating, and I look forward to seeing more of it. Watching it and also listening to several Podcasts, I rode my excerise bike for about an hour and got some good excerise as I stayed back and didn't go to far.

I also got this George Strait two-CD 50 hits set from the library, and promptly copied it onto my computer. Lots of good music for listening on that. I enjoyed it a lot.

Finally, I got most of my Christmas cards sent out, although I will continue to be sending out a few ones that I still have to look up addresses up. It's good to be done with that, and I look forward to Christmas next weekend.

Have a good start to your week.

--Thanks for visiting,
Cowboy.

Good Morning.

A bit cloudier out today and it looks like they have a snow emergency in the city. A little light snow it seems.

It looks like the Hudson River is now starting to freeze over for the winter. That's part of the season, and it's good to see it. It also looks like we will have snow for Christmas, which is always an enjoyable thing that is becoming more rare as our climate changes.

Last night was Boy Scouts. They had there holiday party, it was fun. Thursday is the work holiday and in the evening the Albany County Young Democrats Holiday Party. That should be fun.

I'm still thinking about going to New Hampshire this weekend for John Edwards. I need to talk to some other people to see if we can do a carpool—a lot of people may be out doing holiday stuff this weekend.

Monday is Christmas Eve. The weather looks good then, I hope to go up to Thatcher Park for some pictures and skiing. On Christmas I'm going skiing up at Partridge Run, possibly bringing the dog along. Also, be home at my parents house for Christmas Dinner and Christmas Eve Brunch.

So that's my plans as it currently stands.

Got My First Electric & Gas Bill.

This is exciting! For the first 12 days of the month based on how the billing period goes. I'm quite happy with my results, particularly as it relates to electricity consumption.

I used an average of 1.9Kwh a day or about 21Kwh for the first 12 days. That equals about 79.1 watts an hour averaged over the day. I'm impressed by that—most of that energy probably keeps the refrigerator cold and the hot water heater hot. I turn off the hot water heater when I'm out of the house for more then a day like I was other week.

That's one tenth the amount of electricity used by the typical New York Home! Understandably, I'm one person, but that's still pretty impressive.

My electric power consumers estimated:

• Two Alarm Clocks: These are always plugged in and one draws 7 watts and the other 5 watts except when I'm gone for the weekend, then they are unplugged.
• Electric Heat Upstairs: I will occasionally turn this on to quickly warm up my bedroom when I'm very cold, but never more then 5-10 minutes. They draw 3,500 watts together. It has a switch to turn it off completely.
• Electric Water Heater: It has two elements, each rated at 1,500 watts (one keeps the reservoir warm when it gets cold the other is for high demand like showering). It's relatively compact and fast, and I only use a little water washing/showering, so it runs only maybe a half hour during the day from what I can hear of it switching on. When I'm gone for the weekend, I shut off the breaker.
• Microwave: It draws 800 watts in use about 5 minutes a day, plus about 5 watts to keep the clock running.
• Stove/Oven: It draws between 1000-3000 watts when on, although I only cook on it occasionally. It draws about 5-10 watts when off to run the clock on it.
• Refigerator: I'm guessing around 750-1000 watts when the compressor is on, I've not had a chance to read the specks on it. Right now, it runs relatively light, with the ambient temperature in the kitchen being kept at 50 °F.
• My Laptop Charger/Cellphone Charger/Camera Charger: It's turned on about 3 or so hours a evening from a switched power strip, when I'm home and using my laptop. At night and durning the day it's switched off—don't need to be overcharging things or feeding these chargers in their vampire function. The laptop charger uses between 60 watts and 90 watts and the cellphone charger is 25 watts.
• Televison / Stereo: Ain't got one except my laptop with unpowered speakers.
• Lighting: All fixtures have compact florescent bulbs, including the hall fixture and stove light, varying from 3 watts in the hall to 13 watts in most places to a 15 watt desk lamp to 23 watts in the overhead lamp in my bedroom. When I'm not in a room, the lights are switched OFF. The bedroom lamp is on the longest each night—maybe 1-5 hours a-day depending how long I'm home. I do leave my porch light (13 watt CFL) on when I'm going out in the evening, but it's not on for more then 2 or 3 hours most nights.

My electric bill for the first 12 days in the apartment was $8.96. It will be slightly lower hopefully for the second half of the month as one fixture downstairs previously had a dimmer and a 75 watt bulb replaced with a 13-watt CFL, along with the 40-watt hall bulb was replaced with a 3-watt (!) CFL.

The gas bill for heating was much higher, costing me $41.57 for the 12 days. It was 32 therms the 12 days for an average of 2.9 therms of natural gas a day. A therm is the amount of gas used to heat 100,000 BTU. I keep my main heat at 50 °F, although one day I accidentally knocked it up to 60 °F where it stayed unbeknown to me for about 12 hours.

Things are well insulated in my apartment from my exploring the crawl space, and there are no obvious leaks around windows from my investigation, although I noticed that door sometimes leaks a little air (despite being fairly new and having a good looking seal) and the bathroom exhaust does also leak some cold in on windy days.

The good news is my utility bill in the summer will very cheap when it's warm enough that the natural gas heat never has to come on at all. Assuming electric use stays the same, my monthly bill will be around $25.11 month in summer. I figure less hot water heating with electric will balanced out by the refrigerator having to work harder.

I just signed up for paying an additional 1.3¢ a Kwh for wind energy/small-hydro energy today from Community Energy. That will increase my bill about 2.6¢ a day or 81¢ a month, but I think it's worth it to be paying for clean and renewable energy, and encouraging more wind projects. I probably could have gone 100% wind, but I think it's important to also be investing in small-hydro.

I'm now enrolled in automatic withdrawal for my electric/gas bill, along with my phone bill. I get my bills online, and then all I have to make sure is that I have enough money in my checking account to ensure they get paid in a timely fashion. My rent is also electronically paid through the bank's program. So I save lots of paper.

It also means now I can go to the Town and prove my residency, and get my official Town of Bethlehem sticker that allows me to go to the Rupert Road Transfer Station to take my recyclables and trash. Of course, I now just need to generate enough trash and recyclables to make it worth my effort. Recycables are free, trash is $1 a 30 gallon bag.

Maybe sometime in February I'll have enough trash to make it worth it to take a bag to the transfer station. *Grin*