Useless Conversation

[Sky]

The boss finally called the snow day at 6 am this morning  Literally everything else announced by 11 last night to get on the news crawler. I was pretty sure she was going to open anyway. Nice surprise, but it would've been nicer to know last night so I could've stayed up. Snow accum doesn't look bad, but the sleet/ice sounded nasty.

Plans are to sit around gaming by the nice crackling toasty fire.

[ghost]

It gets below 30 degrees in South Texas and we start having rolling blackouts.   

[MuffinMan]

Is the energy requirement of everyone running their furnaces here much more than everyone's A/C in the summer?

[ghost]

Is the energy requirement of everyone running their furnaces here much more than everyone's A/C in the summer?

One would think.  Power off now for thirty minutes. 

[Nebu]

Is the energy requirement of everyone running their furnaces here much more than everyone's A/C in the summer?

Tough call.  You can turn down AC at night while heating is the opposite.  I've also found that the South, in comparison to where I grew up in Minnesota, does a terrible job of properly insulating.  This leads me to believe that cooling is much less expensive than heating. 

[Salamok]

It gets below 30 degrees in South Texas and we start having rolling blackouts.   

In Austin and most of the people in town have gas heat, yet we still have rolling blackouts.  Not exactly sure what this means:

According to a statement released by ERCOT Wednesday morning:  "(The outages will) compensate for a generation shortage due to numerous plant trips that occurred because of the extreme weather."

Maybe our rolling blackouts are occurring so they can shift the power to areas that are having issues...

[Yegolev]

Ice?

[Bunk]

They mentioned during the Dallas Stars /  Canucks game, that they had put toques on sale at the Dallas Arena for that game. They also mentioned that the temparture in Dallas was exactly the same as the temperature in St. Paul Minnesota. 

[Minvaren]

Is the energy requirement of everyone running their furnaces here much more than everyone's A/C in the summer?

One would think.  Power off now for thirty minutes. 

Down to 100 minutes between 30-minute blackouts in Houston.  Deciding which servers to kill to let the server room UPS stay up, as it's not fully charging between outages.

And my electric heat takes noticeably more juice than my A/C during the summer.  I think it's about 33% more for the same runtime.

[Mrbloodworth]

Know what gets my goat? The writer of the lesson not paying attention to the work he is doing, and constantly making little changes (AKA Reordering entire pages   ) and removing keystone diagrams you have already converted to an interactive flash page (Complete with interaction, definitions and supporting images for 56 nodes on the diagram that he had no hand in researching. Times three diagrams  ). Meanwhile constantly giving e-mail tone that you, are in fact the lazy one. All during full production to live of power point and web page versions.

FML.

[Salamok]

Debating if I should crank the gas heat up and heat the entire house to 80 or just keep it at 66 and continue using my space heater, managing a consistent temp in a 2 story home with an open stairwell sucks!  No blackouts here yet, I'm thinking it wont happen in my hood.

[Oban]

Have you thought about closing or blocking some of the vents to push the heat in to cooler areas?

[MuffinMan]

In Austin and most of the people in town have gas heat, yet we still have rolling blackouts.  Not exactly sure what this means:

Hmm when I moved here to Austin I asked about the heat and they said most people have electric instead of gas. 

I've also found that the South, in comparison to where I grew up in Minnesota, does a terrible job of properly insulating.  This leads me to believe that cooling is much less expensive than heating. 

When I got into work today a co-worker was asking me about how to prevent freezing pipes and such since I am from Michigan. I told him fuck if I know, we never had to worry about anything like that. If it got too cold we just climbed inside of our tauntaun.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Well, couldn't have gone into work if I wanted to, since Lake County IL is under a civil emergency and is basically shut down.  Not that I was planning in even trying.  The only reason the street at the end of my driveway is clear is because the husband used the snowblower on it.  The village hasn't been down to plow once since the storm started (not that I really expected them to, mind, I live on a short dead-end street).  We seem to have missed all the icy parts of the storm, thank the forty little gods.

[Chimpy]

Well, couldn't have gone into work if I wanted to, since Lake County IL is under a civil emergency and is basically shut down.  Not that I was planning in even trying.  The only reason the street at the end of my driveway is clear is because the husband used the snowblower on it.  The village hasn't been down to plow once since the storm started (not that I really expected them to, mind, I live on a short dead-end street).  We seem to have missed all the icy parts of the storm, thank the forty little gods.

Champaign was just south of the Snow-only band pretty much all day yesterday.

We got 8 inches of snow abouts, but it has a nice feature: 3 inches from the top is a 1/2" layer of sleet, 4 inches below that another layer of sleet, then an inch of snow under that.

God I need to start going to the Gym. I am totally exhausted after shoveling the 20' of sidewalk and the entrance to my driveway as I need to go to Menard's (if they are open).

[Merusk]

North part of town is completely paralyzed and shut down.  However, Downtown and south (where I am) got nothing more than some rain that didn't ice-over.  It's weird.

Debating if I should crank the gas heat up and heat the entire house to 80 or just keep it at 66 and continue using my space heater, managing a consistent temp in a 2 story home with an open stairwell sucks!  No blackouts here yet, I'm thinking it wont happen in my hood.

I'd go with continuing to use the space heater if the room you're in has a door.  If it's an open area, just tick it up to 68 or so while still using the space heater for the room/ area you're in.  Think of the total volume you'd actually be trying to heat that extra 14 degrees.  You're talking a lot of extra money for places you're not sitting.  So long as the core temp of your walls with plumbing are above 32, no need to blow the cash heating the empty space.

Is the energy requirement of everyone running their furnaces here much more than everyone's A/C in the summer?

Well, if it's 115 outside and they're cooling to 80ish, that's only a 35 degree temp. difference, up to 45 if they're going to 70.    It's 20 degrees in Dallas right now and if they're trying to hit 70 that's a 50 degree difference.. so yes, they're using more power.  Double plus bonus in that their attics, while insulated, probably aren't going to be anything above R30, IF the builder was even going for Energy Star.  Local requirements are likely even less than that.. meaning that in addition to using more energy to heat, they're losing more of it since the heat's blowing up out of the attic, while cooling will stay where it's at since most houses in Texas are slab-on-grade.

That's all before you get into questions like;  do they have an actual furnace or a heat pump, and what are the efficiencies of both compared to the efficiency of the cooling unit?

[Minvaren]

Couple that with the fact that most houses in Texas are built for summers (reflect solar radiation) as opposed to winters (retain heat), so there's some more inefficiency there.

Last outage cycle was only 15 minutes, wonder what they're going to do next time...

[Sky]

Neighbor finally got his shitty snowblower out for the first time in two years (rather than make his wife shovel). Then he proceeded to throw all the loose blacktop from the driveway he's too cheap to replace all over my lawn. My fiancee wants to buy him out of his house but he wants about 30% too much for the place, and that's before you consider what a cheap bastard he is (a slumlord) and all the work he's done without permits using the cheapest shit available.

Also, about gas heat: you're still running your house fan to move it, so it's not electricity-free. My wood stove saves me a lot of electricity, too.

[FatuousTwat]

When I got into work today a co-worker was asking me about how to prevent freezing pipes and such since I am from Michigan.

Turn the taps on just enough so that a trickle of water is running.

[MuffinMan]

Yea that's all that I did. I forgot to close the vent in my upstairs room and bathroom last night so I woke up sweating balls this morning. The bathroom door was shut too so my toothpaste was like hot lava.

[rattran]

I got my mostly busticated snowblower to work enough to clear the driveway, but the street is 3' deep all the way to corner. I don't think even my vaunted FJ can make it through it.

[ghost]

It sounds like there are some issues with the cold directly related to the power plants, i.e. some plants are down, not necessarily strain on the grid.  So i think it's an ice issue. 

[Minvaren]

Article on the Houston Chronicle website indicated that two coal plants had to shut down to repair burst pipes...

And ERCOT is saying the rolling blackouts are done for today, woohoo!

[MuffinMan]

And ERCOT is saying the rolling blackouts are done for today, woohoo!

Wish we would have had some of those rolling blackouts here at work. 

[ghost]

Wow.  Hugh Jackman eats 6000 calories a day for the filming of Wolverine.   

[Fraeg]

Have a co-worker friend teaching at the University of Cairo.  I sent him an email a few days ago asking him if everything was ok.  Got this response today:

No worries. Just hanging out in the 'burbs watching the revolution unfold. Some communication problems, minor food shortages, and army security but all is well.

Take care

I have to admit that I feel a bit letdown by how mundane his reply was.  I am happy he is ok, but I expected a bit more color to his response.



Here in Albuquerque, it is butt ass cold, but the roads are all clear.  However about 75% of the office are all *working at home* which is a total crock in my book. Today would be considered a wonderful sunny winter day back in Maine.

[ghost]

Well, you have to remember that Cairo is fucking huge.  The number of people involved in the protest is a very small percentage of that.  I'm personally happy that it hasn't gotten that out of hand. 

[Nerf]

Roads in the Dallas area are still proper fucked - we braved it a bit earlier to go grab some food at Denny's and stop by Lowes to grab some stuff I needed and it's pretty crazy out.  There is at least 1" of ice *everywhere*, but some of the roads have a nice dry tiretrack path in each lane.  If you have to change lanes you're climbing up onto 1-2" of ice to do it, and the tracks will randomly stop and you'll be driving on a solid sheet of ice.

University of Dallas has been closed since Tuesday - they didn't officially announce the first day's closure until 5am the day of, but today and tomorrow's notice both went out by 5-6pm.  It's not forecasted to go above 32*F until Saturday, and they are saying it's going to snow tomorrow night.  Everything should be melted off by Saturday afternoon, as it'll be in the 50s all weekend.

A whole lot of shit is just shut down - there is hardly anyone on the roads and quite a few stores aren't bothering to open.  Lowes decided to close at least 2 hours early today.  All of the parking lots are solid sheets of ice, as are all of the streets that aren't considered main thoroughfares.  I didn't risk getting on the highway, but it looked pretty fucking dicey.  We were on the bridge over the George Bush Turnpike and it appeared to have a nice coat of ice on it, as did the Dallas North Tollway from the access road.

Only one power outage in Plano tho, sometime before noon.  Haven't had any since.  Anyone flying in early for the superbowl is in for a massive clusterfuck.

[Murgos]

Have a co-worker friend teaching at the University of Cairo.  I sent him an email a few days ago asking him if everything was ok.  Got this response today:

No worries. Just hanging out in the 'burbs watching the revolution unfold. Some communication problems, minor food shortages, and army security but all is well.

Take care

Yeah, my friends at the American University in Cairo are fine, heard from them once the internet curfew lifted.  Unfortunately their funding has been pulled by the parent U and they have to return without their research finished.

Now, Lufthansa on the other hand are a bunch of shit bags.  What do you mean I can't cancel my tickets without paying $500 in fees?  They are killing each other in the streets!

[Sky]

I got my mostly busticated snowblower to work enough to clear the driveway, but the street is 3' deep all the way to corner. I don't think even my vaunted FJ can make it through it.

It's kind of funny with everyone freaking about the storm that didn't really hit us here: a week or two ago it dumped about two feet over the course of a day and night. My FJ left a nice plow trail down the road and it was so cold I had snow underneath it for a week. I could stand to get some better tires for it, though.

I have to admit that I feel a bit letdown by how mundane his reply was. 

Some Egyptians are like that though. Don't know enough of them to know if it's a cultural thing. Once coming home from a show in our van down the 101, tripping on LSD, our Egyptian friend was driving. About halfway home, he turned to the passenger and said "Hey man. I'm freaking out here. You need to drive." in a relaxed, calm voice. Then got up and came into the back of the van. One of the more casual people I've ever met (unfortunately deported because a bong was found in his dorm room, yay USA).

[ghost]

You could have probably just put it on cruise control, depending upon the area of the country. 

[HaemishM]

That winter weather in Dallas? Thanks, that's coming here. Though we probably won't get it nearly as bad, but the weather man forecast a high of 33 at noon today. It doesn't matter where I go, nobody's heater seems to be able to keep me at a comfortable temp. Taking the dogs out has been a goddamn nightmare for my skinny ass. I'm wrapped up like Nanook of the North and I still can't get warm. The building management at my office won't let us use space heaters, so I'm contemplating lighting my feet on fire to get them warm. And despite all the cold, we probably won't get a goddamn lick of snow but will likely get freezing rain.

[Sky]

You could have probably just put it on cruise control, depending upon the area of the country. 

The 101 runs through the middle of LA.

[ghost]

Should have been fine, then.   

[Nerf]

That winter weather in Dallas? Thanks, that's coming here. Though we probably won't get it nearly as bad, but the weather man forecast a high of 33 at noon today. It doesn't matter where I go, nobody's heater seems to be able to keep me at a comfortable temp. Taking the dogs out has been a goddamn nightmare for my skinny ass. I'm wrapped up like Nanook of the North and I still can't get warm. The building management at my office won't let us use space heaters, so I'm contemplating lighting my feet on fire to get them warm. And despite all the cold, we probably won't get a goddamn lick of snow but will likely get freezing rain.

http://www.ems.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3800629

Academy probably has something similar, or possibly wal-mart in the sporting goods section.  Anywhere else that sells hunting stuff will have these.