…for a great float/camp trip for the next few days!
Energy Efficiency
We’ll thank Maya and Morgan Moody for the idea, but it was suggested last year at Josh and Sharon’s wedding that we consider getting a single-room air conditioning unit for our upstairs bedroom. As many of you know, we live on the second and third floor of a brick building in Soulard, and one problem with living on the third floor of a brick building is that it gets hot up there and stays hot, even past dark. Having our central A/C maintain a comfortable temperature on that third floor (when the thermostat is on the second floor, mind you…) means that it’s running almost constantly, along with fans, etc. in the bed room to make sure I can sleep.
Well, we received a “personal energy report” from AmerenUE yesterday in the mail, telling us how much power we’d used over the last few years living here. As the graph above indicates, in the warm months of June, July, August and September (average temperatures ranging from 71 F to 81 F…but we’re talking about 100 F days in there, too…), we decreased our average energy use by a few hundred kWh. In our monthly billing statements, this translated to a savings of $101.33 over July – September.
We bought the single-room A/C unit in late-June 2008. We spent a little less than $100 on the A/C unit.
I think we made our money back. 🙂
Not a bad day afterall….
…even after the trek to Chesterfield yesterday! So, for lunch my coworkers took me to Michael’s in Maplewood where I had an awesome gyro samdwich! Everyone else also enjoyed their meals, and Angel LOVED real tatziki instead of the stuff that comes from a plastic container from Shop n Save.
Then, for dinner Andy and I went to Canyon Cafe at Plaza Fronetnac, where I had this lovely “2 drink limit” maragrita, that I swear was pink the last time i had it, but oh well….
Stay Tuned
For some new changes and hopefully more frequent posts!
More new toys…
So, you may remember awhile back when we picked up an Acer Aspire One netbook to replace Brooke’s current laptop. Well, that thing didn’t work very well…it couldn’t play an MP3 without skipping, couldn’t stream audio or video from websites, and just seemed overly slow overall. We returned it to Wal-Mart a few days after giving it a try, vowing to look into other options. Well, we later tried a few other netbooks that other people had, or at other stores, and decided that the one we had purchased earlier was just a lemon and it was worth getting something else.
Well, this time, we got a Dell Inspiron Mini 10. This one has nearly all the same features as the Aspire, but it has a 10″ screen (and a better keyboard, I think). This one is way better and does nearly everything it should. I’m not sure it streams video at full-screen mode perfectly yet, but it certainly does it better than the Aspire we tried earlier. Brooke took a picture of it with our new camera for your enjoyment.
Speaking of “new camera,” we picked up one of those, too. 🙂
We bought a new point-and-shoot last year to replace Brooke’s old one, but we still haven’t been happy with it for certain applications. My Dad is something of a photography aficionado, and Brooke took a photography class back in high school, so we’ve both been exposed to the wonders of SLR photography. It’s something we’ve both wanted for awhile, but they haven’t been that reasonably priced until recently.
This little bad boy is a Nikon D60 dSLR (we already had the cat…not anything new there…). We bought it as a bundle from Sam’s Club, so it came with a pretty decent lens that had VR (or “vibration reduction”) built-in (as Nikon, like Canon, builds that into the lens, not into the camera body). It’s a 10 MP camera and has all kinds of bells and whistles that I can’t begin to understand…but it seems to take decent pictures…
Brooke’s planning on re-doing her blog more along the lines of what The Pioneer Woman does (her most recent idol…), doing something involving photos taken on a daily basis, and sometimes taking pictures of her various food-based creations. We’ll see if it happens or not. 🙂
My Top 10
So, in preparation for the greatest day of my life, I’ve been watching all 10 previous films in order. I just finished “Insurrection” last night, so “Nemesis” is the only one left (and will probably have to wait until this weekend before I can get to it).
I’m not sure I’ve ever actually ranked them in my order of preference, so here goes:
1). Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
2). Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
3). Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
4). Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
5). Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
6). Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
7). Star Trek Generations (1994)
8). Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
9). Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
10). Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
As you can see, they definitely follow with the “even numbered films are better than odd numbered films” rule of Star Trek movies. Really, “First Contact” and “IV” should probably be tied, as they’re pretty close together, but “First Contact” really is a great movie in its own right. “VI” is one I’ve always liked, especially after watching the “making of” featurette and realizing it was almost entirely based on the Cold War (I was 9 when it came out…didn’t quite catch the symbolism…), but mainly because it was SO MUCH BETTER than the movie that preceded it.
Anyway, that’s my list. Just figured I should put it out there… 😛
A typical Monday night…
As we were watching “House” Monday night, we got to wondering:
If being “disinhibited” (or “uninhibited,” for that matter) is redundant…
…is “inhibited” dundant?
Trip down to Hot Springs
That’s a picture from I-55 in northern Arkansas. Terrible place. Seriously. Their Department of Transportation has got to be the most inept in the nation. See the clear skies?! It snowed the DAY BEFORE and there was ice all over the place. It took us over an hour to go 15-20 miles toward Memphis.
There are more pics…feel free to check those out, of course…
Either way, that was on the way down to Hot Springs, AR. Brooke decided she wanted to go on a little trip, just to get away for a little bit. It’s a relatively easy drive (minus the aforementioned DOT from Arkansas), and a place neither of us had ever been to.
Anyway, it was a pretty good trip! Brooke made reservations at Hilltop Manor, a bed-and-breakfast right by the national park. The weather was pretty awesome, for the most part, so we spent Monday walking around the town, went up to the top of the mountain and went up in the observation tower, then walked along Bath House Row (and toured an old bath house maintained by the National Park Service), and otherwise chilled for the rest of the day in front of a fire place, reading and gaming (on the DS, of course :-)).
The trip back was less eventful than the one down, so that was a big plus. In any event, I’m glad to be back and catch up on all the TV shows we didn’t get to last week. And, maybe even get some science done tomorrow…
Another Mardi Gras down…
Mardi Gras went off without a hitch, for the most part… I’ve put up some pictures on Picasa of the event, for those that are interested.
In summary, Kristen, Jake, Sarah, Ben and I went down to the parade and saw some pretty neat floats…and LOTS of people (shown above). The weather was in the 30s F, but since the sun was out, it actually felt pretty good out there! We ended up having a little less than 40 people come by our place after the parade was done…Brooke’s jambalaya didn’t last long! Most people were gone by 4:00, allowing me to fall asleep by 6:00, then wake up again to finish “Monk” and “Psych” with the wife later.
Overall, it was a good day! Lots of clean-up had to be done on Sunday after church, but oh well…it’s only once a year… 🙂
My V-Day
Here’s how my day went:
Best. Valentine’s. Day. Ever.
🙂