Salsa Patch

 Well, now that I have nothing to do, seems I will turning my attention to starting the garden. Every year I have started seeds and then I get too busy with work and end up killing all of them.  This year I have been (impatiently) waiting and have got the start on them. Have my makeshift heated mat made from rope lights and a thermostat and my 6500K LED lights going.  Have about 80 tomato plants, 20 peppers and mess of Watermelon. 

Let's go spring !!!

Power not so smart pricing

 And a quick note, I promoted power smart pricing before I logged off of here, my suggestion now it get the hell out now.  Natural gas prices have spiked and you getting SCREWED no matter what day it is.

Let's go Brandon. 

Updating

 Looks like I need some serious updating to the page.  Hang in there, it's a work in progress!!

I'm back !!

 

Power Smart Pricing - 1 Year

Powersmart Pricing - Month 7

 

It's almost Month 8 but I'll post 7 first.                  

Current billing period: 9/6/2012 to 10/5/2012

 

Standard (BGS) bill: $116.29
PSP bill: $87.45
Savings: $28.84
Electric Supply Savings %: 46.95%*

Year to Date:

Total # of Bills on PSP: 7
Total Savings: $289.12
Total Electric Supply Savings %: 41.97%*  

 

7 month average cost per KW: $0.0304

 



Powersmartpricing.Month 5

Well it has been 4 months since I've posted anything and have a few minutes now so I'll share some info.

I just received my 5th bill now on power smart pricing and I am impressed.  My last bill showed that my normal bill I would have received would have been $252.70.  With PSP my bill was $206.51 that is a savings of $46.28 or 32%.  My total 5 months on PSP has been $204.69 and a whooping 40% savings to date. For the second hottest summer on record this is still impressive.


Now to explain how PSP works is that you pay what Ameren pays for power on a hour by hour basis. Ameren is still the delivery agent for electricity and they will still charge you about a penny per KWH used.  The normal setup for Ameren is that you pay close to 6 cents a hour and a penny for delivery chgs for a total of around 7 cents a KWH.  With PSP you still pay the penny delivery but have a hourly chg that fluctuates from day to day depending on various conditions.  When I first signed up, electric was running around 3 cent a KWH and I thought this is the ticket.  On the flip side of this, I about soiled my undies when during the hottest part of the summer we have had the hourly rate climbed to just over 19 cents per KWH. If you plan your usage right tho this will have little effect on your bill.

Honestly I have a LOT of power hungry appliances that I use and have adjusted their usage based on energy saving.  I will skip over the simple stuff of CFL bulbs & LED nightlights and stuff and hit the big ones.

Air Conditioner:  The program I have used works pretty well.  First off you need a programmable thermostat.  Starting at about 10 pm, I have the AC drop the temp to about 71 degrees.  At noon the temp jumps to 78.  At 6pm it drops back to 76, then 10 pm back to 72.  The program here runs the AC when power is cheaper after 10 pm till noon then sets back when power is highest from noon till 10pm.  You pretty much pre-chill the house down and then back off after noon. Yes your AC might run during the afternoon but not as much. My SEER rating on my AC unit is a 13 BTW.

Swimming Pool: I used to run the pool pump from 10 am till 6 pm.  I have solar heating panels and need to circulate the water thru these when the sun is shining, so had to come up with better solution for this.  What I did was buy a smaller pump that only draws 2 amps to circulate water during the sunshine hours and started running the pool pump from 10 pm till 10 am, both on timers. The other advantage of this is that sunlight will dissipate your chlorine and if you run the unit at night, it will be more effective. The pump and the salt generator draw around 15 amps.

Ice Machine:  I have 2 ice machines that I do not run together.  The smaller is a 80 lb a day unit, uses about 8 amps and I use it during the cooler months, the other is a 400 lb a day, uses 15 amps and I use it when it is hot out. ( don't like warm beer at the pool )  I run these off of a single timer that kicks on at about 10 pm and shuts off around 8 am.

Tangent time.

 I find it funny that the City of Quincy needs to hire a consultant to explain how you can save money on electricity.  Either you have already switched, did the research, or don't care what you pay for power.  If you don't care what is the city gonna make you do? Force everyone to listen to the consultant?  If you need information and are serious about saving money, you can go to http://pluginillinois.org/ and research the information for yourself. Want information on Powersmart pricing? Go to http://www.powersmartpricing.org/.  Want hourly prices for PSP on your smart phone? Go to http://www.powerstoplight.com/.  Here's one the gives you todays prices and tomorrows too.  http://www.androidpit.com/en/android/market/apps/app/com.powerprice/PowerPrice
. 

The simple formula I used was currently Ameren charges you 7 cents a KWH - 24-7-365. 

The brokers that sell electric will give you a flat rate minus the delivery chg which you need to add a penny to and get the correct amount. This too will be 24-7-365.

PSP is the hourly rate and you need to add the penny to this also.  I use 6 cents a KWH as my standard of "break even" point.  Above this and I'm losing money and below this I am saving money.

I am not a power guru or even a licenced electrician but if want to email me any questions I would be more than happy to help you out if I can.

Powersmartpricing.Month 1

Current billing period: 3/8/2012 to 4/9/2012

Standard (BGS) bill: $97.26

PSP bill: $67.18

Savings: $30.08

Electric Supply Savings %: 51.08%*

Saved $30 on my first bill !!!

Act on Energy - 2-2012

I got the January Act on Energy and see that I am not doing too well on the electric for saving energy.

Yes my electric has went down better than the 99% last month but I can account for this.

My 12 month rolling average on electric is smaller due to January dropping off. My gas is still below the most "most efficient neighbors" because I insulated my house better and it is warmer this year.

Although I would like to keep enrolled in this program, I have found another that may help WHEN I use energy. It called the Powersmart program from Ameren. I have enrolled and will be adjusting my power usage on a time usage.

Let you know how this works and the adjustments I make as it goes along.

Turbo Taxing

I love tax time.

Bullsh*t! I hate it. The only thing i DO like about it is that they are quickly going to the e-file. That make things so much faster and your refund goes directly into your bank.

At least I thought.

Watched on TV where Turbo Tax would allow you to file your taxes for free. My first thought was for free? Nothing today is free. So I learned, see later. I had bought Turbo Tax once before and got sucked into all the hype of "We'll get you the biggest refund". So after shelling out $30 (some years ago) took it home loaded the software and started up the program. I had already did my taxes my way and knew what I would get back. It went through the W-2's, Fed taxes, la la la and all that. Got to the end and let the program compute my refund. Amazing. The same amount that I had came up with but now I've wasted $30 on this POS software program that didn't do squat. Never again I thought. So I thought.

Flash ahead to today. The dear wifey says "why not use Turbo Tax they advertise it's free?".......Pause for my thinking.....Came up with, WTH I'll give it a try. Again, I had already done the math and figured out what we would get back doing it my way but thought I'd give it another try. Not gonna cost me anything right? Right? It's Free! Went to their web site and entered my log in and passwords and started off. The free version only applys to Federal tax returns, state filing costs $27. Illinois lets you file for free, why the charge? My first red flag was that right after I signed up, they were offering me the paid version, Just in case I was feeling guilty about them doing this for free. Next flag came up while entering my W-2. After entering my employers fed ID, TT alerted me that they "found" my W2 and if I signed up for the paid version, they would enter that information for me. Think not. For $39 I can enter a LOT of data myself. Went through the whole nine yards again about donations, deductions and all that. Next flag came when it asked for your state info. Was a little hesitant but entered it anyway thinking I would print it out and e-file it myself. Not paying for something I can do for free right? That's what I thought.

After checking, re-checking and more questions, here comes my refund total. WOW. Imaging that. Me and turbo tax have the same number ........again. Now I'm not bragging here, I am NO tax wizard but I can follow instructions. If there are no deductions, doesn't pay to buy software no matter how much hype you hear.

So I finally got to the end, after several more attempts to maybe see if I was generous enough to fork over some cash to pay for this Free service, and there it was. At the end, when your just ready to e-file, you have two choices. First is to file by mail or e-file federal for free. Second choice is to pay $27 dollars and e-file state or Pay now and file state later. Hummmmm. So since they have done your state, they think you should pay for it either way. I say BS. Backtracked into the program and found where you can delete your state tax information. After that, went to the end and tried again and waa-laa. It's now free and only federal but Illinois e-file is so simple once you have the federal done. Or I thought.

So TT files my federal tax return........ electronically.....within seconds.....over a secure internet connection. Great. Why not print a copy for my files and for help on my IL tax return. Uh Huh.

Hit the print button and waited FOREVER. I mean like I was smoking some ribs and turkey outside and left to pull the ribs off. Cleaned up the mess, covered the ribs and put them out to cool and came back to the computer and huh. Still not printed. So I opened a new window and started on my IL e-file. Went thru the whole form, filed and printed a copy for myself before going back to TT, and still not printing.

Let's just say I printed out the email confermation I recieved from TT, I have no copy of the tax form I filed and I will NOT be paying for tax software again !

Act on Energy

So. I get my monthly/yearly energy usage from Ameren/Act on Energy and have been on a slow burn since I got it.

My Electric usage says that I use 99% MORE last year than my 100 neighbors. My Natural gas is 14% BELOW last year than my 100 neighbors.

Now, What burns my ass is that I'm pretty sure they didn't compare on equal grounds. From previous posts, ya all know I have a pool AND use solar heat to heat it, AND have installed a salt water generator to cut down on chemical use. I also have a 80 lbs per day Ice maker and just acquired a 400 lbs per day Ice maker that I use during the summer. I use almost all the energy saving ideas that I know of and yet I use 99% more electric?

Now a little quick background about all this. I have been involved with the Act on Energy Business program at my work since the day I learned about it. It is a very good program and has loads of opportunities for businesses to purchase energy saving equipment/services with rebate incentives to reduce their electric/gas bill. I have not kept track of the grand total but know it is over $50 k that I've done with the program. And yes you might say I'm addicted to saving energy. I traded my H2 Hummer for a Prius.

I didn't have a problem with the natural gas. My house is heated with NG central heating and also have a NG water heater that I just replaced in June. I have replaced the aluminum siding on the house and installed R-14 insulation and R-7 siding boards under the vinyl siding. I know that my house is insulated better than my neighbors.

Well. After the holiday season has wound down ( lack of posting ) I went back and tried to figure why my electric is soo high. Come to find out if you don't update account info, it basically take generic information and assumes all house are more less the same. One example is that they take your square footage of the county tax info. If you have a basement, it's not included. You need to change it. It also has a option for if you own a pool ( bonus ). Also states that after you make any changes it might take up to one billing cycle for changes to take effect.

We'll see next month !

Care Free Summer

Haven't posted in a while because of the great pool season we had this year and enjoyed a flawless season of pool upkeep. After year 2 of the Compupool chlorine generator, I can honestly say that this is the best setup for a pool.

The only problem I had this year is that the pool clouded up on a Wednesday. The reason was that the mechanical timer that turns the pool pump and the generator on had the "ON" lever fall off. Fixed the problem, hit the super chlorinate button and things were fine 24 hrs later.

Since it was a very dry summer, I frequently added water to the pool and never had to add salt this year either.

If you have a pool this is something to seriously look at!

Inflation

Cost of driving the Prius has went form .09 cents a mile to a dime !


Unfortunately the Avalanche went from .31 to .41 per mile.


Program is call Fuel Log for your android phone.

See it here.

Rhinophyma: Day Fourteen

3/22 Last Dr. Appointment today, doing fine. Keep Moist, NO SUN.

Parking Problems

Something about Menards parking lot brings out the worst in parking. Took these pics on a recent trip out there.

And no I didn't walk around the lot, this was from my truck to the door.

If yours is pictured, sorry.

Rhinophyma: Day Five

Swelling around my eyes has gone.

Have to keep it covered and lubed up with Aquaphor.

Have had no pain since day after procedure but itching of new skin growing back does drive one nuts.

Rhinophyma: Day One

Ouch !

Procedure went quite smooth. Little pain before starting while numbing fluid being shot in but didn't feel much after that. Yag laser is a little noisy,sounded little like a large rubber band being snapped at a rate of once a second.

Only problem was afterwards had a little problem with bleeding. Seems like it took forever for the bleeding to stop. First picture is of me night after the laser procedure. My right eye is swelled up a little and the packing is on it's way to being full.

Second picture is about 20 hrs afterwards and had to change bandage because it was weeping pretty bad overnight. Took this as the wife was changing the packing and nose is covered in Vaseline. Both eyes have pretty much swelled up now. Not much pain at all and weeping has went way down.

Rhinophyma

Definition of Rhinophyma

A manifestation of severe acne rosacea resulting in significant enlargement of the nose and occurring primarily in men. It is caused by hypertrophy of the sebaceous glands and surrounding connective tissue. The nose is reddened and marked with numerous telangiectasias.

Numerous web sites will tell you that this is the final stages of Rosacea. I had no previous symptoms of rosacea. Had a small bump show up on my nose about 7 yrs ago. Ignored it and it turned into this wart shaped looking thing. After trying several ointments and oral medications with no luck, I was referred to a Surgeon in STL for yag laser removal of it.

This is a picture day before it was getting zapped off.

Disclaimer:

This was not posted to gross anyone out, I am posting it because there is very limited information out on the web about this. Just trying to share my experiences with this and maybe give the next person some better information.

Guy Earthquake Swarm

Guy (AR ) Earthquake swarm.

Funny how the intensity of the quakes seems to be increasing.

This is the money you could be saving....

.....driving a prius.

Make all the jokes you want but I don't enjoy feeding the Arabs.

Current gas cost per mile in Prius is $.06

Current gas cost per mile in Avalanche $.25

Over 9430 miles, I have saved $1886 in fuel costs.

Sweet !

.