The President's speech and press conference; air conditioning and electricity

I listened to President Obama's speech and press conference today, and liked what I heard. I'm sure that somebody will try to talk about it at the store tonight, but I have a new rule: "No Politics at Work."

Ah, work. I couldn't get to sleep this afternoon. I lay in bed for hours, almost asleep but not quite. A little bit before 8 I got up and made some coffee. If I fell asleep that late, I would have a hard time waking up and I can't be late for work again. It has happened a few times in the last month and I don't like it. Neither do my co-workers.

My 9:15 PM alarm just went off. I'm up! I already took a shower earlier in the day and laid out my clothes for tonight.

And I turned on the A/C again. Last time, I had it on for less than 12 hours. The house just wasn't warm enough to make it run; as much as I wanted the house to dry out, I also didn't want to have to wear layers of clothes indoors when I could wear shorts outside.

Early this evening, maybe 6 or 7 o'clock, the bed felt damp and the air was humid. There was no breeze, so the open windows weren't helping much. I checked my weather station and it was 76.6℉ indoors. I didn't notice what the humidity was, but at least it was warm enough to let the A/C run for a while. I turned on the breakers, set it at 70℉ and laid back down. Eventually I did get back up, as I mentioned above, but the house feels much more comfortable now.  I nudged the thermostat back up to 72℉ and I'll leave it on for a while. Even the sugar in the spice cupboard is getting damp.

Since I have everything unnecessary shut off at the breaker box, last month I only used 196 KWh of electricity (by my own readings) for an average of 6.3 KWh/day. The peak reading occurred on July 4th, when I had been up all night (at least one light on at all times, computer plugged in) and I had done a lot of laundry, using 24 KWh. There were seven (7) days when my usage was 3 KWh or less.

Dang. I'm real tired now. Gotta send Rocko out to do his business so I can leave in half an hour.