Stijn!!

[GH85Carrera]

Yep, she did, and still does. She has never expressed much interest in photography. She prefers to use her iPad more than her iPhone to take photos of her flowers.

We pretty much agreed to let me take care of all computer or electronics issues, and all the photography. She takes care of the insurance and retirement planning.

[RKDinOKC]

GFM, Good Freakin Morning. If you didn't know it is hot out, and it is not even August yet.

Found over the last few days that I can no longer hardly do anything any more. And my Nephew and nieces kids can only push the lawn mower around.

[GH85Carrera]

Yea, they are predicting heat index of 110 to 115. A good day to stay inside!

[RKDinOKC]

Just because it's hot the electric company is bumping up my cost to $042 /kWh from 2pm to 7pm. It is $0.05 /kWh the rest of the time.

[GH85Carrera]

Yea, but think how cheap your natural gas bill is now!

I just average all my bills. My electric bill is the total cost for the year, divided by 12. My gas bill is the same way.

[flipper35]

Our electric is high. Went through with the meter. Each computer costs about $6 per month. I need to check the freezer. We have one bought at a yard sale for $25. Was pretty new but they didn't like it because the door didn't work right. Got it home and put the door on right side up. It has a lot of frost and is old and might be part of the issue.

[GH85Carrera]

Our electricity is cheap overall. When I run my garage AC unit it cost right at a buck per hour. So for the cost of a six pack, I can be comfortable. No brainer, I am doing that. The heater is about 50 cents per hour in the winter.

With my wife's hobbies of the koi pond, and the African Ciclids in the indoor aquarium, there are pumps running all the time. The koi pond has the pump, and a UV light that run 24/7/356. The indoor aquarium has two pumps, and the lights are on during the hours we are up.

My computer is likely a power hog, and I really should find out how much juice it uses. With 7 case fans, 5 spinning hard drives, two video cards and each card has two fans, and i9 CPU and 256 Gig of RAM, it has to suck some juice just loafing along. When it is cranking it goes into higher power use no doubt. When I am not using it, I just put it to sleep. That still uses some power, just a lot less.

[flipper35]

Sitting idle they draw very little. I bet under load you are 700-900w max. The fans and drive are probably puling 35w under full load. Your CPU is probably a 110w or 125w unit? The video cards though!

[GH85Carrera]

The power supply is a 850 watt power supply. So it can suck up some power. The main cooling fans have a manual speed control. Normally I run it at minimum. Only under heavy load do I crank them up to BLOW hard.

It is reminding me I need to open the case and blow out some dust.

[RKDinOKC]

Because I do the smart thermostation the average thing doesn't work too well. They just do the average of the current month plus the last 12 dividend by 12.

Since the electricity drops from $0.10 kWh to $0.04 kWh exceot for the 5 hours from 2pm to 7pm, then it can be .05, .10, .21, or .42 depending on how high they expect the usage to be. i typically use 20 kWh per day, but the high usage days it can go to 60 kWh. Not all of that is at the high rate. My thermostat pre-cools 4 degrees at noon and raises 4 degrees above the set point at 2pm to 7pm. My electric bills in the summer with high temps is usually about the same as winter. My gas bill was $38. all i use it for is heating water, laundry, showers, dishwasher.

[flipper35]

We have no gas bill. OK, we do have propane for the gas range, but that gets filled every several years.

[GH85Carrera]

We also have natural gas heat, stove top and water heater. It runs just over 40 bucks per month when averaged for the year and they do the figuring on that, and just deduct the payment automatically.

The water bill is higher than that, about double the gas bill in the summer. Of course the "water" bill is also for sewage, and trash pickup. My wife waters the flowerbed with the city water. The yard is watered with my well water. In this heat, the Bermuda gas is really loving it, and I can hear it growing after the fertilizer some idiot put down.

[RKDinOKC]

Oh yeah, gas heats up the hvac during the winter. And there is the propane tank I trade for a full one a couple of times a year on the Smoker Roaster Grill.

That ribeye I smoker grilled for lunch today was really good. Used some charcoal briquettes smashed up with a hammer and added to the smoker chips compartment.

Did it a little different this time. Used to just salt and pepper and chuck it on the grill on high. Flip it once, remove and let set for 2 minutes then chow down. Thought that was good. This time salt and peppered it way more then let it set on the counter for an hour. Started the grill on high and let the charcoal get smokin. Put the 1-1/2in steak on to char each side, then turned the heat way down and finish cooking to make criss cross grill marks on each side. Then let it set a couple of minutes. Wow, just wow. It was juicier and had more flavor. Thought it would be medium instead of mediam rare. But instead the char was about 1/4in thick with the center still medium rare. Was impressed with the smoker roaster grill before. Only mistake was cooking the whole ribeye instead of just half. Am still too stuffed for dinner.

I let Pepper out, put the chips in the smoker compartment and light the SRG on high. Then I go back in a get everything ready to take out to the grill. Pepper barks at the back door to let me know the grill has heated up and started smoking. Guess that makes her a Grill is smokin and ready to cook on Alert dog.

She barks when someone comes to the front door, usually before they get the chance to ring the doorbell, but no longer tries to get out.

[GH85Carrera]

I called my brother today to wish him happy birthday. He is 2.5 years older than I am. As kids I always heard, you can't go on the really super fun roller coaster (or whatever) because you are too young, but your brother gets to go. So now, it is fun to remind him of how OLD he is.

His wife is my age, and she recently fell, and broke two ribs. She just had steroid injections in her knees. My brother is suffering with back pains. Ah the "golden years" can suck it.

[GH85Carrera]

Since it is the 4th of July holiday I am watching the F1 practices. 200+ days since the last F1 race.

[GH85Carrera]

I was planning on mowing this morning. It rained just under an inch last night, so the grass is a bit swampy. One more day of growing and now I get to mow tomorrow.

[RKDinOKC]

Wow, Apple really screwed the pooch with MacOS 10.15.

Turned the system boot drive into two drives in the name of security and the new file system does not share files reliably. Thought it had been fixed and upgraded my mail server. It would not even back up to an external drive. Apple support could not get file sharing or backing up to an external drive to work either.

Took me almost 24 hours to downgrade to the last reliable MacOS 10.14 and that was with 10.14 backups! Because of the security of the new OS just could not get that boot drive to erase that extra boot partition. It would not format over the secured partition. Calling Apple support did not help either and I know an upper tier iPhone support tech.

Need to pick up another Mac mini I can keep to format, setup, and run if something like this happens againl Hate to spend too much on it since Apple announced they were moving to their own chips in the next two years.

[GH85Carrera]

So Apple is getting away from Intel chips again? Apple has always wanted to live in their universe, and have a velvet collar on their clients. 100% control of hardware and software. They certainly have done some things right, but some thing are so messed up it makes me wonder how they can stay in business. I still say the worst piece of software ever foisted on the world is iTunes. It is just garbage.

I did get my yard mowed, more like bailing hay. It had gone ape wild with the summer heat. Bermuda grass loves HOT weather more than anything. As since the idiot the fertilized it and waters it regularly made me mow it, it was deep. It sure looks better now.

[Porsche-poor]

Moring all. Got a few days off and very little sleep. Up early to move some stuff to storage and up late with all the fireworks. Quite a few stimulus checks went up in smoke around here I bet.

[GH85Carrera]

I really don't understand blowing up my money, to give it to some Chinese company.

As a kid fireworks were fun, and I blew up a lot of stuff, but fireworks were just dirt cheap, and I could mow a few yards to buy (as a kid) more firecrackers than I could blow up in a weekend.

Now I see the prices of fireworks, and it is shocking. I could afford to buy fireworks, but I prefer to tip my waiter or waitress a big tip. I much prefer to support a local worker at a local restaurant than spend my money on Chineesium fireworks. That is just me.