How Do You Feel Today? v4

[Menolly]

Rabbit!
Rabbit!!
Rabbit!!!

[sgt.null]

Julie's son, his pregnant wife and his 14 year old daughter from a previous relationship are moving back here from Vegas.

We are putting them in an apartment until we can sell this house and buy a bigger place. We are looking for a 3 bed/ 3 bath at least. They would move in with us for a good while. I'm willing to go a few years until they can buy their own house.

I'm running my department for my major. The head warden said that to the assistant warden. I make my schedule. Working whatever overtime I want. I work all holidays (12 a year) and that is overtime and comped holiday time. Twenty two years in. Some three until I can retire. But if this is stable in three years. Maybe I go longer.

I'm working most weeks six days a week. Twenty hours overtime a week. I love the workload. I solve our shortage problems. I juggle everything.

[peter]

Don't know what age you are, but Sheesh, that's a heavy work load Sarge! Still - you seem to be thriving under it so more power to your elbow!

Me - I'm cruising towards retirement (if it ever happens) and doing much less than I used to. I could indeed work at the same rate as you when I was younger, but I never derived the satisfaction that you seem to have achieved from it.

My problem now is that the effects of not taking physical care of myself while working have come around to bite my ass. The farmers used to say that I'd pay the price for all of the knocking about I gave myself when handling large stock etc, and boy were they correct. Needless to say, I was too pig headed to listen to them, and threw myself into situations where I was over straining myself and giving little thought to the future.

The upshot is that I'm ten years older physically than I should be, and am crocked up like a broken-backed nag.

Still - no good to complain. You pays your money and you takes your choice!

[sgt.null]

54 years old. Got about 2 years left until I can retire.

But if they keep letting me earn...

[Avatar]

Sheesh, what a month...and no sign of it letting up soon. Hope all y'all are as well as can be.

--A

[Iolanthe]

No wonder we talk about the weather so much here in the UK. Lincolnshire has been one of the driest and hottest places in England for the last month or so. The highest temperature ever felt in the UK was recorded about 20 miles from where I live - it was 105 degrees in Lincoln that day. Now we have had some rain. Unfortunately there was some flooding, but mercifully we were not affected. We are now comfortably in the mid 70s. I hope everyone is safe wherever you are.

[peter]

Not sure our temperature in the South West got quite that high Iolanthe, but it was pretty gruelling nevertheless. Not so bad during the day but nighttime temps well up into the eighties was too much for me. Nights of tossing and turning and panting with the heat!

Still, it's broken now and we're back to the good old grimy summer days we are more used to. We will be complaining about these as well in short order no doubt.

[SoulBiter]

Most of the US tends to have AC so when its that hot at night, we just turn the AC down. Funny what you can get used to though. When I grew up we didn't have AC and had to run fans in the windows to get a cross breeze. Fast forward 45 years and I keep my house at 70F at night in the summer.

[Fist and Faith]

Yeah, we just had fans, too.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Most of the US tends to have AC so when its that hot at night, we just turn the AC down. Funny what you can get used to though. When I grew up we didn't have AC and had to run fans in the windows to get a cross breeze. Fast forward 45 years and I keep my house at 70F at night in the summer.

My family was big on the "using a fan(s) to get a cross-breeze!

Soooo... ABOUT most of the US tending to have AC:
This past summer, I traveled back home to Arkansas. The temperatures were in the 90's and 100's F. (or effectively that, when you account for "feels like." or something.) Everyone there relies on AC, it seems.

But me... I had recently heard an online friend tell a story how... awhile back, when he and his unit returned from Afghanistan, the plane lands, they get out, and.. like... everyone is shivering violently from the cold temperatures, teeth chattering, etc. What was the temperature?
55 degrees F.

But... apparently the body acclimates in about 2 or 3 weeks? So when I was in Arkansas, I decided not to rely on AC... if I could help it. I don't turn AC on in the car, I go outside and walk a ton. So here I am, pretty comfortable with 90+ degree days.
LITERALLY everyone else around me relies on AC though; they see me & worry for me when this crazy lady "who must be boiling up" is tutoring on the laptop, outdoors, under a shady awning / sun-umbrella.

[Iolanthe]

We don't have AC, some shops do though. I suppose I could go and stand by the fridges in Sainsburys to keep cool. I do have a medium sized fan at home that I can point towards me, and believe me I did have it on the day it reached 105!

[peter]

I find humidity to be more problematic than actual temperature. These hot and heavy days where the air is 'wet' in your lungs.

But getting back to the actual heat, I have a limited liking for AC. There is something 'electrical' about the feel of it - though don't get me wrong, to walk into an air conditioned environment out of the heat of the day can be lovely. But I like my temperatures like my politics - middle of the road!

[Avatar]

AC in residential properties here is not common. It's not exactly rare[]/i], but far fewer people have it than not.

We just, y'know, live with the heat. (Can't wait for spring to be properly sprung...it's not exactly freezing anymore, but it's not really warm yet either.) (Especially in my flat, which is damn cold. )

--A

[peter]

Looks like we are going to be just living with the cold (or not) this winter too Av! I'm working out how best to stay warm against a fuel price rise that looks like hitting three or four hundred percent before its over. Thinking thermal clothing and the best heating foods and heating only one room in the house. Sad way to finish after a life's work, but hey - I grew up in houses like this. We survive.

[Avatar]

Honestly I'm a bit hazy on how the whole energy cap thing you have works? (I've seen the 80% increase etc. but...does it represent a max annual cost or what?)

(And yes, fair enough, at least in sub-tropical climes winter heating is not much of an issue...I mean, it feels cold, but when I say "cold" I'm thinking along the lines of around 0C min and 13C max, give or take a couple degrees.

Of course, also in my opinion heat is easier to deal with than cold.

--A

[SoulBiter]

If you live in a dry area (desert) then you could always use a "Swamp cooler". We had those as a kid when we lived in New Mexico. You could mist some water on the evaporator and it would automatically start cooling things down. Not as good as AC but much less costly to run. Only really works in dry climates because it needs the evaporation effect.

[peter]

Honestly I'm a bit hazy on how the whole energy cap thing you have works? (I've seen the 80% increase etc. but...does it represent a max annual cost or what?)

(And yes, fair enough, at least in sub-tropical climes winter heating is not much of an issue...I mean, it feels cold, but when I say "cold" I'm thinking along the lines of around 0C min and 13C max, give or take a couple degrees.

Of course, also in my opinion heat is easier to deal with than cold.

--A

No, it's a unit cost cap Av. There is no upper max on bill size, which is calculated on consumption. Poses a real problem for low income families or those with disabilities that demand utilisation of equipment with high energy consumption.

How the cap is calculated is very complicated, but it is being reviewed on a three-monthly basis now - and is forecast to go up to over six thousand pounds a year (that's the annual cost of energy in the average UK household) over the course of the next couple of revisions. That's up by over six hundred percent in less than a year. It's going to blitz many families back into the stone age.

[SoulBiter]

Holy crap. That's about $425 USD per month. I live in large house with a basement, main level, upper level, and my bill isn't that high.

[peter]

No kidding SoulBiter, we are in deep crap. It's starting to get home to people that even in full time work on greater than minimum wage, they still are not going to be able to meet their costs (because remember, everything else is increasing in price at a rapid rate as well - not just energy) without recourse to their credit cards. When they run out of credit or savings - and half of all households have less than fifteen hundred dollars put aside - then the house of cards collapses.

Our Government blew it big time.

[Avatar]

Damn. I use a comparatively high amount of electricity (for a 2-bedroom flat) and I'm still below the equivalent of 100 pounds (or dollars for that matter) a month. And that's after several years of (what we consider usurious) increases...

(Of course, thanks to the state of our power generation infrastructure, we've also had power cuts on somewhere around 100 days this year, so...swings and roundabouts...of course, the utility company says if we paid more, we'd be better able to afford infrastructure improvements too...)

--A