Thanks!

That particular image was shot at 3200 ISO, f4, 20".

No worries on the sunburn... My fault! Was totally prepared for everything but that... Ya'd think I'd learn by now. :/

That is a lot of stars out there. Cool photo. Unless you are the A team, plans seldom seem to come together as envisioned. Had you slathered up with sunblock you would have been in the shade all day.

morning all. In the shade and in need of a rain coat. Great picture by the way.

So far that was worth signing up for. Signed up for electric companies free energy audit. Sent out a couple of guys to see how new my hvac and water heater were. Checked the insulation in the attic. Gave me 10 free 60 watt LED bulbs and two of those power strips that turn on/off based on one plug in. So if I turn off the TV is also turns off my cable box and stereo. Didn't tell them I was already using one for that.

Said electric company would be contacting me based on what I would qualify for help with like windows, insulation, HVAC, etc.

Back in the olden days....

I kept some sunblock in my camera bag. Of course the bag was fricking huge and a real pain to haul around. I am often just astonished what I can do with my iPhone that I could not have done with thousands of dollars worth of Hasselblad gear. I had a Superwide that was a neat little thing. I remember when Tony Lapine came to talk at our War Bonnet Tech session he was admiring it. Tony is the guy that designed the 924 and the 928. We walked around in the parking lot and he shot some pictures with it. I think still have those negatives up in my attic.

I need to dig them all out and send them to the PCA historian to be cataloged and filed properly.

Having a power strip like that on my sat dish would drive me nuts. If power is lost it takes 15 min to let the box set it self back up.

Just don't let my SIL near any photos you might want to keep.

Then have the power strip key off the set top box so it turns everything else ie., TV/Stereo off.

My problem is I have Cable box, AppleTV, Mac Mini, that are all sources for the TV which uses a Stereo for surround sound.
Since the AppleTV and Mac Mini take a while to boot, so I just let them go to sleep.

Think my best solution is to have the TV and Stereo powered off the cable set top. So it will turn them off, instead of sleep like they do now.

My TIVO system is always on. It has a internal cable card but an external and separate "tuning adapter" that is supplied by the cable company. That tuning adapter is a POS. I have to replace it about every 9 months. It is free to replace but just frustrating to mess with. I have all of that on a UPS battery backup. If the power goes off or blinks it keeps running. I think it has about one hour of run time before it shuts down. Most power outages are brief. The cable modem, router and switch are on the batter backup as well. It keeps the wi-fi up and running! :cool:

To fire up the Tivo and the tuning adapter takes a few minutes. The tuning adapter sometimes takes 10 or 15 minutes. When it does I know it is dying and time for a replacement.

I can see why they said to key the strip off of the TV.
My Sony Bravia goes to only 0.2 watts in sleep mode.
The cable box goes from 18watts on to 14watts asleep. But like your box it takes a couple of minutes for it to boot back up again.
My Sony Receiver drops to 0.3 watts in sleep mode.
Apple TV uses less than 2 watts and drops to 0.15 asleep
Mac mini, 20watt active, 15 idle, 1.5 asleep

off to go play CAd jockey soon. I hate drawing while others watch.

Interesting, this week they hired 3 people back that were laid off.

Sounds like a county job. One does the work while others watch.

When the founder of the company I work for was still alive he made a point of randomly walking up and just watching each employee doing their job. If you weren't doing it like he wanted he would jump in and politely get you to do it like he wanted bestowing the benefits of why he like doing it that way. Of you could convince him you were actually doing it a better way he was all for it. And If he liked what you were doing after several minutes of standing there in silence he would comment, "You are doing a great job, you can do that for me any time." And walk off. He would keep an eye on people that he had helped and catch them doing it right so he could complement them. He didn't do it very often and rare more than a couple of time per employee.

When he was doing this employees were fiercely loyal and had the attitude that they worked for HIM not THEM. If they didn't like something they blamed the specific manager that caused it. But will still go out of their way to get whatever job done the best they could in the situation.

When my brother took over managing the company I noticed the general attitudes of employees changing. They started referring to the problems and things done wrong by management as THEM instead of the specific manager and didn't have that fierce loyalty and personal association with the company. If something didn't seem right they didn't do anything extra to try to get the job done. I told my brother about it and he said that kind of stuff was a waste of time.

It really didn't take very much of the founder's time, yet it made a major difference in people, the pride they had in their job and quality and production the put out.

He sounds like a pretty good employer, Richard. Little things like that make working at a company feel like you mean something to the owners.


Wow, I misjudged the weed whacking job!

He apparently does the ditches of the neighbors on either side of them, too. I got it done but was a dirty, sweaty mess after.

Bought a new carpet cleaner on the way home.

Tonight we are using the FIL's truck and trailer to deliver the cycle to wife's boss's home.

He's not going to come get it and ride it home?

Is he a poser or something?

My MIL texted me a photo that she wants me to print a couple of 4x6 inch prints. I can do that but our printer is 5 feet wide. We have some 36 inch wide paper I can use but it still is wasting a lot of paper. Then I get to mail them to her.

I asked which Walgreen's store there in Enid that she prefers. I can email the photo to them and they charge 20 CENTS per print. If she gets 100 they are 9 cents each. Just dirt cheap. I know she does not want 100 but 20 cents per print is just silly cheap.

And she can pick them up at the local right away instead of waiting on mail.

Wayne, is the carpet cleaner related to the weed whacking?

Alrighty! The bike was delivered without incident.

He's only a poser for now because he hasn't even got his cycle endorsement yet. He has to take a written test and then a road test to get it. He's a good guy with a great wife and 2 daughters. He is directly from Mexico where the company is based.

Brent--the carpet cleaner is because our 15 year old one finally broke to the point that I couldn't fix it with duct tape anymore.

Had a bissell I only used about a year when it dumped a half gallon of water in the middle of the floor. I gave it to Good Will.

Well, got emailed my energy audit.

My recommended improvements were..
Air Tightness, savings $19 per year.
Attic insulation, savings $19 per year.
Duct System, savings $52 per year. (my ducts are in-slab except for returns in attic and he didn't even look at them).

All the guy did was read the dates installed off my furnace and water heater, NOT the energy usage and ratings stuck to them. And glanced in the attic to guess the average thickness of the insulation. That is all he looked at!

The most surprising thing was $464 a year for my gas water heater. My highest energy costing item! More than my heating and cooling added together! My gas bill last month was $38. That's for the water heater and the pilot light on the heater. That's only $456 for 12 months. Where did they get $464 for just the water heater?

Audit lists my highest savings to replace 16 year old HVAC with a heat pump and save $252 a year. Don't remember what the rating was but when installed it was the most efficient at the time and I got a tax write off for it's efficiency for 2 years. Audit says heater should be about 1/3 my energy usage. They list it a 15%?

Says every degree higher in summer and every degree lower in winter saves 2% on the energy bill. 2% is pretty significant for $180.
Says the ideal temp for summer is 78°F.

Audit says the power strip for my TV/Stereo/CableBox will save $25 a year, but it only calculates to $11 if the cable box and stereo were NEVER turned on. The second power strip was supposed to be for my computer. Said it would save $8 a year. My Calculations is $1 a year over sleep mode for an entire year of never using the computer.

Seems like a lot of made up numbers to me. Both in where the usage is going and what anything I do is going to save me. Makes me want to look into a meter that connects up to my breaker box and gives more accurate detailed info on where every electron goes.

Anyway, signed up for the summer peak load plan. From June thru Sept electricity is $0.05/kWh except from 2pm to 7pm it is $0.19/kWh. The rest of the year it is the normal rate $0.8. Their evaluation of my usage over the past year claims it will save me $156 per year even without their Peak Alert Thermostat. The peak alert thermostat is supposed to receive high usage alerts only during very high load periods sometime during the 2pm to 7pm higher rate time and not turn on your A/C. Says the alert times are not every day or for the entire 5 hours. Their thermostat is supposed to run the A/C for an hour before the 2pm higher cost period so it will not warm up too much during the off time. Says you can override it if you get uncomfortable. It comes with a guarantee that if for the first year is does not save me the $152 they will credit my bill with the difference.

My next door neighbor also works from home and says he is on the peak plan with the thermostat and doesn't notice any difference. His electric bill was quite a bit lower than mine. His HVAC is 5 years newer than mine. Don't know how much difference that makes.