This title has absolutely nothing to do with the picture, and come to think of it, it’s quite perverse in that nature. Just plain wrong.

Anyway, the whole purpose of the title tonight is to illustrate how retarded this obsession of treating ED has become. I was calmly watching the 10PM news tonight when I was inundated with what was quite possibly the single most retarded commercial for Viagra — ever. A group of guys are in this band of sorts, singing ‘Viva Viagra’?!?!

Sorry advertising guru, but that’s not even a relatively clever idea, let alone good idea for a commercial. Elvis I’m sure is rolling around in his grave (or pacing about furiously in his mansion at Graceland if you’re in to that whole ‘Elvis lives’ theory). I quite frankly felt appalled at the fact this garbage was broadcast to me.

Ah well, I’ll discontinue that rant to focus on something worthwhile of spending my time writing about…

I forgot to mention in last night’s post that I did some calculations related to our power usage in the last two months or so. Namely related to the fact that once May rolls around, it’s air conditioner season here. So I was looking at usage and approximating how much our power bill changes during the late spring and summer months. Obviously I don’t have data for July and August yet, but May and June were interesting months.

We really only had one good and hot week in May (that I recall off hand), so we didn’t have to run the air conditioner that much during the time. The total cost of operation (estimated) in May was less than $10 for the month.

We used it off and on during the month of June as necessary. Total estimated cost of operation was on the order of $17.50 for the month. Not bad, considering that we were never afraid to have it running in the effort to remain comfortable and we pay an extra $0.01 per kilowatt-hour during June, July, and August..

The month of July and likely August as well will be higher than that, but it shouldn’t be that bad. I write this off on three accounts. One is that if the weather permits (outside air temperature doesn’t get much higher than 82 or so for an extended period of time, depending upon the humidity factor), we shut it all down and open up the windows. This activity is usually trend-based, so in other words (short of opening up things for the night as an example) this sort of thing only generally takes place when the weather pattern holds like that for a day or two. A good example was the week I took off from work to deal with various things around here. That week was warm (it got up into the mid-80’s most of the week), but the dewpoint was quite low. It made the mid-afternoon high temperature easy to bear for a few hours. So the house stayed open to the outside most of that week.

Number two is the fact that we don’t have the thermostat set at 70 degrees all the time. There are days when the magic number of 78 is a bit on the high order, but on days like today (see below for more info on that), a house at 78 is a significant improvement over 95.

Finally, number three is the programmable thermostat factor. That is an amazing tool in keeping things comfortable and relatively automated. I don’t operate the thermostat like they suggest (for cooling), though. The house pretty much stays at 78 throughout the day. This is mostly because especially on the hot afternoons when the power company cycles (due to our voluntary participation) the air conditioner in fifteen minute intervals, the whole system has to work longer and harder to catch up. So if I had it set to return to 78 from 82 or something at 4pm and they were cycling the compressor, it would take several hours longer for that to happen because the thermal exchange cycle is broken. However, it has no problem keeping a temperature once it’s been reached when it’s being cycled, so that backs up the reasoning.

Given the fact that Beth’s at home most of the time during the summer, it also doesn’t make sense to adjust the temperature higher than 78 during the day. So it gets left there. Instead, what I do is have the program set to bring the temperature down (in increments) throughout the night from 78 during the day and evening hours to 77 at 10PM, 76 at 2:30AM, and 75 at 7:30AM (held until 9AM, at which point the temperature setpoint is back at 78 until the next 10PM). This seems a bit counter-intuitive, but it’s done for a reason. Since the thermostat is on the main level and we sleep upstairs, it is warmer there during the night. Especially when we cannot open up the house overnight, it tends to get a little stuffy and warm upstairs without some air movement.

The moral of the story is that if we kept the thermostat set at 78 throughout the night, it would probably run until midnight or so, then maybe once or twice through the night until 10AM when the house starts to warm up again. In the meantime, it’s stuffy and warm upstairs. The incremental (one-degree) changes that I’ve programmed in help to keep air circulating (and keep pumping colder air upstairs) periodically throughout the night, without freezing out the main level in the morning.

So far it’s worked well (as well as can be expected). In any case, I would highly recommend the small premium to be paid for the programmable thermostat — they’re wonderful pieces of equipment. There are many skeptics out there, and I’ll admit that there are instances where they’re not appropriate, but once you find your own ‘groove’ with them, you’ll never want to live without it. That goes for both the heating and cooling seasons.

So enough of that. It’s been damn hot outside today. The air temperature reached a high somewhere between 95 and 100 today. It was incredible. Just being outside made one sweat. You didn’t have to do anything. I need to move my remote sensor for my little wireless thermometer so it doesn’t get into the mid-afternoon sun, but that bad boy read a high temperature of 113.5 at 4:55 this afternoon. And that’s about what it felt like, honestly. It was good and uncomfortable.

I spent some quality time around 5PM picking sweet corn from a neighbor’s patch, which we later had for supper. It was amazing stuff — it’s so nice to have that first taste. In many ways it’s like asparagus. It’s really nice to have when it’s in season, but by the time the season’s over, you’ve had the fill for another year. 🙂 Being out in the field picking corn wasn’t too bad in the heat, though. The corn is for the most part tall enough to provide some amount of shade…so it was worse husking what we were going to eat tonight than it was picking it.

I also managed to get the grill gas cylinder (20LB) filled on my way home from work today. Not the greatest idea at 4PM, but until I went to pick corn, I was intending to grill something tonight. Regardless, the cylinder has been filled now and should be good to go for another nine months or so. Just over $15 for a season of grilling. Not bad.

Speaking of leaving early, due to the heat we had a power issue at work today. Actually the entire town was out for some time. It was good and frustrating for about 20 minutes. After power was restored, it pretty much killed my trust in having a steady stream of electricity for the remainder of the afternoon, so I decided to call it an early day after rebooting the server once I was convinced the power wouldn’t be interrupted for too long (so the UPS would not run out of power) after that. Besides, it was a good excuse to leave for the day…

Anyway, it’s supposed to be pretty warm for the next few days…so my activities are likely to be somewhat quelled during that time. I spent some time this evening working on more web redesign ideas. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a layout in mind. I just need to work on the color scheme and go from there. It’s progressing…I guess I can say that. 🙂

So that’s about all I’ve got for tonight. Until next time…stay cool!

“I never miss a chance to have sex or appear on television.”
– Gore Vidal

–MZ