I should hook it to a power strip rather then unpluging it all of the time.
See in my extreme mental illness, I discovered a few years back with my Kill-a-Watt meter that my microwave uses more electricity sitting idle then actually cooking food. While I use it maybe two times a month, as I don’t eat processed or most packaged food, the thing is the microwave uses 70 watt hours a day just to display to clock or 2.5 kWh a month or 30 kWh a year. That’s a lot of electricity for a clock I never look at.
It turns out microwaves often use a tap off the flyback transformer to run the clock, and that’s a wildly inefficient way to power a clock. But America is a very effluent nation, so we don’t normally notice such waste unless you are severely mentally ill. Then it’s like a dripping faucet to see all this money flowing out of your pocket like a leaky faucet.
I’ve been doing this for about 5 or 6 years now. The energy saved is equal to about my monthly electricity consumption, but I don’t have a lot of devices I power besides a hot water heater, reifgerator, stove, and a cellphone. I don’t own a television and the last time I had my computer at home was probably last winter.
Was it worth it, considering the cost replacing the broken plug from the worn-out power cord from being plugged in and out constantly? Probably yes with current power rates – 150 kWh at a quarter per kilowatt works out to be $37.50 and the plug was $6.32 at Wally’s World.
Columbia County and Western Dutchess County are fascinating places and have been as such for a long time. They are home to some of the Hudson Valley’s best farm lands but also some of wealthiest residents outside of city, brought up there by the scenic Taconic Parkway which has beckoned the wealthy north with scenic views and cheaper, beautiful land ever since it was constructed in the 1920s through the 1960s.
There is some real money in the hills there, just beyond the pungent apple and dairy country in the flatlands above the river. Hamlets with boutique stores with their hand painted signs and custom desserts, lunches and brews. Small businesses, but catering to the yuppie and wealthy up from the city. Not the crowd who wants cheap but function and shops at Wally World but seeks style and appeal to their senses.
It’s kind of a werid place. Both rural and charming but also much of the values of urbane and chic. While there are some run down houses and even trailer parks, much of the land is stylish rural houses and even farms that have been styled to bring in the tourist shopper, rather then working the land primarily. It’s kind of a werid feeling compared to what you might find in more deep rural regions, such as Northern Pennsylvania or some place like Chenango and Madison County NY, where the focus is in on working the land more than making something truly beautiful.
I often consider many of my views to be conservative. I want the government to be out of my life as much as possible, to stop levying taxes and fees on me, to provide services without moralizing them. I believe in self-reliance, I don’t need or want the government to hold my hands during the scary moments.
Yet, I hate how conservatives often embrace the crown and the state, makes military and police something to respect and celebrate. Yes government work is a job and yes there is dangers but many jobs in the private sector are quite dangerous and hard to. I don’t think our country is special or government is wonderful – maybe a necessary evil but hardly something worth celebrating! America is fine and necessary but it’s not wonderful.
Going to be a warm one for early October. Dry too, which is not great for my eyes or for burning shit. Got to watch out for those Chinese Uncles that everywheres these days. Apparently they don’t understand what it means to be living in Trump’s world. Thinking of heading down to Columbia and Dutchess Counties today.But first listening to some Country Joe and Fish and packing my day pack and bike, enjoying that ever sweet smell of the corn silage. No getting stoned with the dry eye.
I need to fire up Red and get him off the lawn, 🛻where he has sat since last Saturday when they re-sealed the driveway. Probably killing the grass. I should have moved him mid-week but I was busy all the different things going on and I was riding bike to work all week so no need to fire him up. 🚲 It wasn’t a bad night down at the Town Park after work, still wasn’t super dark until around 7 PM. I rode home without eye protection, though it did kind of dry out my eyes.
I was going to go out to Schoharie today and do an overnight, 🔥 but with the fire risk and burn ban making people give you stink eyes when you even mention having a campfire or smoking pot in the wilderness, and the whole common sense thing, I think it be better to instead do day trip today and maybe just ride out to Five Rivers tomorrow and hike maybe at one of the other preserves before going out to see the folks on Sunday. I soaked more kidney beans overnight for cooking this morning but I’ll wait until I get home this evening or maybe tomorrow morning.
I think instead I’ll head out to Columbia and Dutchess County. 🍁 🚶 Thinking maybe the Beebe Hill Fire tower, then head down one town to Hillsdale, park and spend the balance of the day riding the Harlem Valley Rail Trail. 🚲 I’ve been thinking of riding and exploring the Harlem Valley Rail Trail for some time now. Then maybe check out the Greenport Conservation Area before dark, then take US 9W back north. I doubt those homesteaders off US 9W with all the goats and hogs that get into a tizzy with the town about the smell that always used to have a burn barrel going won’t be having a fire today, even if they burned far far the ban in 2009. 🔥 I kind of like their homestead, too bad so much of what they’re doing with their land is illegal in New York. 🚜 Fucking whining liberals.
I am a little worried about my eyes getting excessively dry from riding but I can wear my sunglasses 😎 which should help, and some of the dry eye is caused by looking at my phone 📱 and other devices, which apparently discourage blinking. I guess if they get too dry, put in more eye drops and stop riding. 🚲 I need to grease up the chain and crank as it’s creaking again, but I can do that out on the trail. ⚙️ I always carry grease, tools, and an air pump with me at all times.
I need to get to Walmart and evaluate what my options are for dry eye treatment going forward – preservative free solution is probably the best and most soothing, and while I do a mostly full vial at work and one unopened one in office, I do see it being used up quickly and it’s rather expensive. Plus I don’t want to get addicted to artificial tears 😭 which is always a risk. There is other supplies I need at Walmart too like more eggs, cornmeal and I’m sure other things I can’t think of immediately. 🛒 Well maybe when the day comes to an end, as darkness is earlier and earlier this evening.
I say I’m recovering quickly from my eye surgery 👁️ but the dry eye issues keep popping up even though they seem to have gotten better especially as I keep my eyes wet. But it’s about finding the right balance of keeping your eyes wet, while not spending too much on solution or becoming dependent on it. Wetness helps the nerves and cornea grow back together quickly and strengthens my vision. It’s actually so sharp both in the day and night. But it still doesn’t seem great at times with the irratation. 🌃 I do think the LASIK place really undersold the dry eye risk, though in the majority of cases the nerves grow back and you do recover eventually.
Still thinking Columbus Day Weekend I’ll head north for a week, 🍂 I just want it to be a little wetter and less dusty. Between the road dust, the campfire smoke, the dry eyes caused by the marijuana and the fire risk, I really want rain. 🌧️ Right now, smoking pot with dry eyes just sounds painful. 😭 Plus I get tired of the Chinese Uncles, mostly on the internet or elsewhere being like OMG! you terrible had a small campfire 🔥 after dark when you can see embers during the burn ban, you awful person even if it’s legal if not recommended. Or even worse, running into one of them in the wilderness. 🌲🌲 And people complain that I make too much noise blasting holes in shit with my shotgun. 🔫 The culture of Chinese Uncles is not just ruining the internet, the Democratic Party, and the world more generally.
Two weeks of household trash mixed with motor oil and light fluid and wood went up into smoke. I remarked how black and pungent the smoke truly was.
At one level I get why they banned burn barrels and rednecks burning their garbage. Some things are pretty noxious to burn, full of carcenogenic chemicals. Still much burns down to little more than water vapor and carbon dioxide. I get the stench but life has pungent smells especially in rural areas where food and fiber are raised and processed, but the liberals are so obnoxious.
While the seasonal burn ban really only impacts brush pile burning and not small campfires for warming and cooking food, it’s been dry so one needs to be extra careful like I was a few weeks ago up at Rennselaerville State Forest and in the Green Mountains National Forest – the later now completely banning campfires outside of developed campgrounds. Hopefully soon we will get rain.
It wasn’t a fait accompli that I was going to take my week off to go to the Adirondacks starting this evening. But I sort of wanted to do this week before all the colors were gone midweek with the expected and much needed rain coming. Yet, I was so busy with work and everything else, plus I have a lot of events I would otherwise miss next week. And that rain would have impacted my mid week when I planned to be at Horseshoe Lake. And dumped me up at the St Regis Canoe Area during the busy Columbus Day Weekend where solitude might be hard to come by.
If fire danger meant no fires all week up in the wilderness that would mean many long cold nights in the wilderness next to the heater. Plus all the accumulated trash from a week camping. I’m sorry, not having a fire in the woods ain’t real camping regardless of what you say. I hate separating out all the otherwise burnable packaging and cleaning it for recycling.
Some day when I own my own land, I will continue to burn whatever paper and plastic I can, but in ways superior to a stinky smoldering burn barrel. Something that can easily consume multiple feed sacks of packaging garbage, that is the packaging of things that I can’t produce or reuse on my own land. Have lots of garbage cans so I can avoid burning in the driest of weather but also have the satisfaction of knowing every wrapper I toss ends up in the mound on the outskirts of town.
I know eventually it will rain again, and I’ll be able to spend nights again in the wilderness with fires. And in the meantime I can dramatically cut back on my trash output by once again washing out containers and separating them for the urban single stream recycling either in my parents or neighbors bin, or taking it to the transfer station. And even if I don’t get out camping this weekend or having a fire this weekend, it’s not the end of the world, other day trips end other adventures can be planned. I’ve been craving to explore the Harlem Valley Trail for some time now.
