I changed almost all my bulbs to CFL’s in my apartment. After all, there is no need to waste electricity and it can save you a few bucks on the light bill. There were 3-pack sets of Sylvania 15-watt CFL’s on sale at K-Mart for ten dollars each. That’s a very decent price, so I bought two sets. I was able to change every bulb except for my ceiling fan because it uses one of those itty-bitty bulbs - so I’ll be picking up one of those mini bulbs later.
Strangely enough, a 15-watt CFL shines more light than a standard 60-watt incandescent bulb. (I bet you didn’t know they were called that, did ya? Read my blog and you learn stuff. Who’da thunk it?) Hopefully they’ll last a while.
Tip: If you want to use CFL’s that most resemble standard bulb light, get the ones that have a 2700 Kelvin temperature, which is “warm white”. Anything above 2700 has a different color, from yellow-ish (3500) to stark white (4100) to really stark white (6400). It doesn’t matter what the wattage is; Pay attention to the Kelvin temp.
Funkin’ Go-nuts
I stopped to get a coffee at a local Dunkin’ Donuts on Busch Boulevard. They still have one of those old-old signs that shows both the old and the current DD logo, so I snapped a pic of it (as you can see here). The coffee I ordered tastes okay.. nothing great.. just okay. DD coffee just isn’t what it used to be. I got one more or less thinking it would taste great seeing that I haven’t had coffee from there in a long time. I was wrong.
Today I will be going with Pop over to the local Pontiac dealership to check out the Solstice; a cool little two-seater roadster. Will I buy one? Maybe. More on that in a moment.
I currently own a 2005 GMC Canyon SLE extended cab. The truck is great and it has served me very well, but the fact of the matter is that I have no need for a 4×4 truck here in Florida. When I lived in Connecticut I loved it because I specifically bought it for winter driving. But now the truck seems like a fish out of water here. Add to that I’ve been getting the bug to get a car with some sun and fun to it, so.. why not try to get a small car that fits the bill?
Small note before continuing: A huge advantage of Florida living is that you can drive basically anything. Other than hurricanes, the only “major” weather you worry about is rain. So if you want to have a rear-drive convertible as your primary car, it’s okay. You could never have that type of car as your primary wheels in New England because there’d be four months (on average) out of the year you couldn’t drive it. Rear-drive convertible + New England = Bad idea.
The two cars I’m eyeing right now are the Mazda Miata and the Pontiac Solstice.
I like both cars but I’m leaning towards the Solstice because it has a fresher look to it. Just seems to have more character to it.
Price-wise the Solstice is probably more affordable because I already own a GM product. I would get an “owner loyalty” discount if I stayed with GM. The only trouble is that I owe quite a bit on the Canyon still, so I’m not putting my hopes up too high.
I’m just hoping the Pontiac dealer I go to today actually has one. Hopefully they will. I look forward to test driving one (even if it turns out I can’t afford it just yet).
- - - update - - -
Today’s excursions to the car dealerships today were as expected. The end of the story in case you don’t want to read the rest: No I am not getting a new car - and to be honest I’m not disappointed about it at all because it was a long shot at best.
I test drove a Scion tC and I liked it - but the figures didn’t work out whatsoever even with the low price tag. The reason I tried out the tC is because the car has a ton of features packed into it (including a standard dual pane panoramic sunroof and standard A/C) and it looks fairly decent. But as I said, even with the low tag the numbers didn’t work out in my favor.
At the Pontiac dealership I went to there were absolutely no Solstice’s in stock at all. Evidently they’re selling very well. This is all well and good anyway because when I talked price with them they wanted way more than the car was worth due to its popularity.
No thanks. I can wait.
(Note to anyone looking for a new GTO: There are plenty to go around. These cars are not selling, so if you can afford the tag you should be able to get a great deal on one.)
Because of the sticker-shock I encountered at both Toyota and Pontiac I’m not even going to bother with the Miata.
So… being that the Canyon and I will be together for a while, I will be adding some stuff (once the warranty runs out) to my truck which will cost far less than a new car. Over time I will be adding a sunroof, a bedliner, some new tires and replacement speakers for the radio (two of them are semi-blown).
I actually did add one accessory today; New valve stem caps. Cost: $3.16 after tax. ;-)
A girl called me up today (hi Holly) and we chatted on the phone for a bit. Of course, being that I’m in Inverness today (as I am a lot lately), my Verizon signal sucks. My called dropped twice.
However, according to Verizon’s coverage map, it’s not supposed to…
See the whole area in yellow? The lighter yellow is digital coverage. The mid-hue yellow is “extended” digital coverage. The really dark yellow (lower right) is “extended” analog. The red star is where I am.
Note I put “WRONG” in there. This is why:
I only get 1 bar signal strength. Yep. Just one. This entire region is supposed to be digital’ed out with coverage all around - but it is barely adequate. The signal is weak, crappy and drops calls constantly when in Inverness (area code 34453).
Back in Tampa I get a full five bars easily anywhere around there. However, just shy of sixty miles north in Inverness, almost nuttin’.
Very frustrating.
Verizon, please throw up another tower in Inverness. It’s desperately needed.
I suppose I’m kind of on a mission to see how little electricity I can use in a given month. All the light bulbs in my apartment are now 10-watt fluorescent instead of incandescent which should help out. Only one kitchen light is 15-watt fluorescent.
I read an article by “Mr. Electricity” (his self-given title) who somehow manages to only use 160kWh (kilowatt hours) a month. How he does this I have no idea. The current use for my latest bill is 344kWh, more than double his usage — and I live in a tiny apartment.
My thought is that it must be the air conditioner that’s spiking the usage. This is August in Florida, after all. Maybe in September when the weather cools down a bit I’ll see some savings.
In addition to the fluorescent lights I’m also making a habit of turning things off when I leave. Ceiling fan, any lights, power strip that connects laptop computer, synth and DSL modem - off. The only things left on (as in plugged in) are the fridge and microwave. The A/C has to stay on in “auto cool” mode and run every so often because if doesn’t, the apartment turns into a sauna - literally.
This month’s electric bill was $48.46 with tax and everything included for 344kWh. Last month is was $55.02. My goal for this month is to stay under $48.00 which I think is reasonable. If I remember to turn off the stuff off every time I leave, I should be able to hit that mark. :-)
One final note: It’s kind of funny.. When I was living in Connecticut, the most expensive months for electricity were during the winter season. Here in Florida, it’s the exact opposite. The summer season is the most expensive.
I was recently invited to a MySpace group for my graduating class of ‘93 from KHS. Cool beans. It’s unfortunate that I only was there two years from ‘91 to ‘93 (my first two were at a different high school before I transferred). Had I been at KHS the full four years I probably would have gotten to know more people. Ah well. Such is life.
I think I still have my ‘93 tassels somewhere. I’ll have to go dig those out. By now they must be yellowed with age (they are thirteen years old, after all). My yearbook is back at Pop’s place I believe. I hope it is. Would be a shame to lose it.
—
A friend sent me a call from Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson. It was very cute of her to do that and I liked it. Unfortunately I turned into a moron and completely forgot to tell her “thank you” for doing that, because it was in fact a very nice thing to do, and I did appreciate it.
I have the sneaking suspicion she’ll be taking me on a date to see Snakes on a Plane. And hey, why not. It would be a fun night out.
—
If the stars line up just right, I may be heading up to Ohio in a month to assist Brent Simon record his full length album. I got to chat with him on the phone the other night, tossed some ideas around and it may be something workable.
Brent fans have been bugging him for months (literally) asking him when the new release is going to show up, so I’ve been called upon to assist. And I’m more than happy to if the scheduling works out.
Title of this entry is an advertising phrase Busch Gardens is currently using to promote the “nightlife” at that park. One can only hope that someday soon a nice girl will whisk me away there for a day or two. ;-)
Anyway..
The scene: Tampa Florida. One o’clock in the morning. 74° F and awesome. Drive with the windows down and no A/C because it’s just about room temperature outside. Rock on.
Driving around Tampa after midnight is basically like driving just about anywhere else; The roads are clear. What would take you half an hour to get anywhere during the day takes only minutes. I find an interesting sense of peace and power when driving around in the wee hours of the night, as if the roads were cleared just for me. :-)
Reason for my outing: Had to buy new sneakers. My old ones are wrecked. Some people are able to make sneakers last years. I can only get four to six months out of them at best.
Given the opportunity I always do my shopping after midnight. Where do I go? Wal-Mart, of course. It’s the only department store open twenty-four hours a day just about everywhere. Where else can you buy shoes at one o’clock in the morning?
I (truly) love to shop after midnight because the Wal-Mart is basically empty. There’s almost never a line at the checkout, no screaming kids, the aisles are clear and the noise level is almost nil. Very relaxing. Furthermore the employees that work 3rd shift hours are a whole lot nicer.
I also picked up Shrek 2 (been wanting to get that for a while). Only cost about fourteen bucks. Good deal.
My words of wisdom for today: Being nocturnal does have its advantages. :-)
I’m sick of hearing about Ted Stevens and that whole series of tubes thing. Yes, it’s funny. Yes, it’s sad Mr. Stevens is a moron when it comes to understanding how the internet works.
But it’s not funny when people keep talking about it ten million billion times on the internet.
It will not be soon enough when this whole Ted Stevens thing just goes away.. forever. No, I’m not defending the guy, I’m just sick of hearing about it.
—
I have an ancient Yahoo! Mail account so I decided to fire it up with YPOPs which allows use in Mozilla Thunderbird (or any other e-mail client for that matter). Since that mail account gets slammed with spam just about, oh, every two minutes or so (literally) I figured it was a good opportunity to try out Thunderbird’s adaptive junk mail filter. It’s working out fairly well so far. True to its claim it does “learn” what is spam and what isn’t.
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The eBay sales of Pop’s camera stuff went well. With the exception of one, all sold above expectations. It was almost enough to purchase two new Olympus digital cameras. When those cams are bought we’ll only be about twenty-five bucks in the red. Not bad for two new cams. :-)
I was using the MySpace instant messenger for a little while but I noticed that they started putting ADVERTISEMENTS in it.
Can you say “uninstalled”? :-)
Hopefully once the protocol is figured out for that messenger it can be ported over as a plugin in Trillian. That would be very nice because I use that software all the time.
Apologies to anyone who was contacting me using that messenger. You’ll have to contact me by Yahoo, AIM or ICQ or e-mail.
Tomorrow (if Circuit City has it) I will be picking up an Olympus SP-320 digital camera. It is time to retire the old D-535 and go with something better.
Initially I was going to stick with Olympus because I really like the interface on the LCD screen, but on closer inspection there really isn’t anything else out there that packs as much features for the price (for what I intend to use it for).
Here are some things I’m looking forward to with the new SP-320:
Manual Focus
The majority of digital cameras out there are in a perpetual “nanny mode” that you can’t turn off - and this includes the focus. Everything is automatic. You can’t manually adjust focus for anything. The 320 has a manual focus option.
My first real test of this will be shooting the moon, as in the moon that orbits Earth. I have never been able to get a decent shot of the moon with the 535 because of the nanny mode.
Large LCD
The 535 has a small-ish screen. One point eight inches I believe. The 320 has a 2.5″ screen. Much larger.
“Raw” mode
All JPEG images from most digital cameras are compressed. With the 320 you have the option of fully uncompressed photos. No compression = higher image quality.
Digital stabilization
This is best explained by hypothetical situation. Say you’re a passenger in a car traveling on a bumpy cobblestone road. You see something and snap a photo of it. The photo comes out terrible because all the shaking from the car puts everything out of focus. With the stabilization, your photo will stay in focus.
Where this works for me is when zooming in very tight on a subject. The tighter you zoom, the more difficult it is to keep a steady shot. Stabilization is supposed to take care of this.
Better macro mode
The 320 touts that you can get to within two centimeters of a subject and it will still have outstanding detail. I’m looking forward to trying that out.
Selective and Spot AF
My 535 is an “all or nothing” type of auto focus. The 320 has an AF mode that’s selectable. What this should mean is that a little rectangle or box should appear on the LCD screen and allow me to select the exact spot I want focus to concentrate on.
—
There are tons of other features, but hopefully this cam will allow me to get the shots that I simply couldn’t get with the 535, such as the aforementioned moon, “streaking” tail lights from cars (on purpose), close-up shots and so on.
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1.21 jigowatts.. Great SCOTT!
Today I will be going with Pop over to the local Pontiac dealership to check out the 
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