Edna Wilson's Okie Breakfast

Really bad pixs by ron thomas


Edna brought a lot of full tummies to the Hill today. In the few years we have lived here we had not seen anything of the magnitude of this feast. 54 people were served and sent on their way with a cornacopia breakfast. That included ham, chicken fried steak, fruit, sauteed onions, cowboy potatoes, biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, redeye gravy and probably more than you can think of... Edna had a crew of at least ten in the kitchen. She had about the same amount cleaning up and setting up yesterday. It was a lot of work but it also was a heck of a good time. Edna thought up the menu and was the driving force behind this effort. She is already thinking ahead to what else we might do in the future.

The ladies were pretty upset with the tripping circuit breakers in the kitchen but given the extra large volume of electrical fryers and cookers in addition to the microwave ovens... this was completely understandable. Lessons learned will see us using outlets on both sides of the clubhouse during a large event such as this. One thing we did notice is there are a number of outlets with internal weak springs and they should be replaced as they are adding to the problem and do not cost much to fix.

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Safety Warning from Milt..

an email from Milt Sadusky...

For you pellet stove users, don't rely on automatic operation. A friend left his on auto, took a plane ride, came back a few days later, and black soot was hanging from all the contiguous ceilings. Clothing, furniture and drapes and bedding suffered.

Milt

A tribute to local celebrity... JoJo Bunny

Sent in by email from Jim Dodds...

CLICK HERE

Thinking about the biggest winter electrical expense...

ron thomas

Forced air heating. Having been to air conditioning school and certified by Carrier as a refrigeration technician. Some insight into heating was also studied. That was a small part of my job in a previous life. Learning about refigeration is also learning about heating and the physics involved with it.

Getting our minds around this problem of heating may well be the biggest positive thing we can do to reduce our electric bill.

The forced air in these homes runs under the floors and comes up in vents in the floor with the idea you close the vents you don't use to conserve heat. An older repairman once told me that under the floor duct work was about the worst thing you could have. He seemed to think it had more chance of leaking than through the attic duct work. We do suspect that closing the vents to rooms you don't want to heat has its problems. The blower is configured to blow the maximum amount of air through the ducts so as you close off a floor vent you actually increase the back pressure on the fan motor causing it to work harder and use more electricity. Then too we all have only one thermostat that tracks only the air around it not the air all over the house. So the house will be hotter in some rooms and colder in others. Depending on where your thermostat is you may have to run hotter in order to heat rooms more distant from the thermostat... To make things more difficult heat rises to the highest point of the home because it is lighter than heavier cold air. This means the heater has to run even longer to heat up the area closer to the floor where we live.

So our forced air heating has these problems:

• Duct work that may leak under the house and waste heat. Especially from back pressure.
  
• Duct work that may spread dust and mold through out the home.
• One thermostat for the entire house.
• Rising heat to the ceiling of the home.

You might consider .. The question do you really need to heat the entire house in the winter? You could probably make the case that if you had company coming then yeah maybe so. Most of the time though it's your wife and you or in some cases those that live alone have only have one person. Where do you spend the most time? Maybe you might consider just heating those spaces you need with a local heater? A ceiling fan in that same area would cause a convection effect that would circulate the hot air down from those vaulted ceilings causing the air to mix better and less heating to be needed. A local heater would need to have a thermostat and it may be a good deal to have one in the ceiling fan also. One heater mentioned below even can be controlled with what looks like a channel changer.

Here are some ideas we have seen folks implementing around the park... We aren't to sure how they have worked out but being pioneers and being the first in the neighborhood to try new solutions perhaps they will comment on what they have discovered.

Wood pellet stoves... We have seen Bob Abbott has installed one in his garage. Dan and Sue Wilson have one installed also. Wayne and Liz Hill have one that has given them some problems. Jim Rose has purchased one and it will be installed in June. I have seen other smoke stacks in the neighborhood and wonder if there are others willing to share what it costs to buy and operate one and what kind of maintenance and drawbacks they have found. What are the positive aspects of these stoves?

Simulated Electric fire place with thermostat and fan .... When we first moved here I saw one of these at Sam Wilcox's home. I thought it was the coolest thing and copied its layout to build a faux fire place for my daughter. But thinking about it now I think there may be merit in this heater. Not only is it very realistic and the fire looks as real as any you have ever seen but it is a heater with a blower and can be operated by a remote controller. It can also be thermostatically controlled and works off any wall outlet...Just plug it in and go. It doesn't need to be vented either. You can even take it with you if you move.

We are fishing for men or women...

ron thomas

Every so often I cast a call for writers... here on the website. I present my case and tell how ez it is and then I wait hopefully like Charlie Brown running up to the football to give it a kick while Lucy holds it for him.... Of course Lucy pulls the ball just as he kicks and Charlie lands on is back.


The website has one writer... me. and every so often Cleda Hampton. It is a strain to come up with something new every day but I have created a habit and seem to be able to do it ok. It's just that I know some of you could write but you don't. It would be so much more interesting if you did. Some day someone will have to take this over. It makes sense that if you would like to write here you will have to make a start sometime. Why not now? I notice that many of the strips with our website address (URL) have been taken from the bulletin board. The statistics that we watch show between 60 and a 100 page loads a day. So we know we are being read.



So, here is the deal... This is supposed to be a team blog. Team members join and are given access to the writing portion of this website. They write when and about whatever they like subject to the three rules that as team editor I referee...

• Make the Golden rule your guide for what you write.
• No political articles of a Republican vs Democrat, right vs left nature. Here we all are just Americans.
• No religious prosteletizing.

If those rules don't upset you and you would like to write just drop me an email at
teckron@hotmail.com and I will get you all set up. Don't worry about not being able to understand how to do it... I'll walk you through it... It's very easy, I promise.

NEW! COMPUTER CLUB...

RON THOMAS

We are launching a new club here at LVH. It will be the first ever meeting of the LVH Computer club. Tuesday, April12, at 1pm.


The rules.. aren't any yet. We are thinking it will be an informal place to come and talk computer and learn from one another. Spin offs could be group gaming and networking. We don't know where we are going but we do know we are going to have fun. We know that there are 4 people who essentially said why don't we give this a try? So, to those 4 here 'tis. What ya gonna do now?

This is not meant to be a man thing... all genders are welcome. This is not an elitist club.... rank beginer through accomplished guru are all welcome.. The more the merrier. The main start-up problem will be if we can con someone into bringing do-nuts and Larry to set out extra coffee.


See you there RT.

OKIE BREAKFAST HELP....

RON THOMAS

As Edna Wilson's " Okie Breakfast" comes to the hill this Saturday at 9am promptly...We find ourselves in need of a hand setting up for this most anticipated event.


Should you find yourself with a spare hour we could use your help this Friday setting up tables and chairs and getting all the things ready for Saturday morning. The more hands ... the more fun it will be ... come and help. This is an excellent way to get to know people and help out with what just may be the premiere breakfast of the year... We have EZ jobs and phsyical ones too. So all hands are welcome.... See you at the clubhouse at 3pm on Friday.

Today while waiting for the seminar to start..

ron thomas

I was asked the same question by a couple of people. So, thinking more folks might want to know the same here is what they asked..


"I went to web page to read something someone told me about but it wasn't there. Is something wrong with my computer?"


NOPE... The way the web page works is the latest article is posted to the top of the top of the page. You scan down to find earlier articles. After one week a post falls off the webpage and is archived. On the left side of the page you know is where all the links to various places are. There is a link near the bottom to the ARCHIVES. Every article that has ever been written on the website is stored there for you to look at when you want. However, you may find it difficult to wade through all that so right below the ARCHIVE LINK is an archive search box. If there is a word that you know appeared in the article you're looking for then type it into the box and click "Search". Our Search engine will then search the archives and return all the articles ever written on the site about that word(s) . In this case, the person should type the word.. click it and the articles about it will show up.

Freezers and Refrigerators..

ron thomas


Your freezer and refrigerator come under the heading of inefficient users of power because of the motors that drive their compressors. Remember that motor driven electrical devices are about 60% efficient with the 40% being lost to heat? Yet, modern day refigeration devices have improved their efficiency through better insulation of the box.

If we were to color the air inside the refrigerator or freezer so that we could see it when we opened the door we would see the air inside rapidly fall to the floor of the kitchen only to be replaced with warm air from the kitchen. Cold air is heavy and would fall out... warm air is lighter and rushes in to fill the void. You can see as soon as you close the door the refrigerator or freezer is going to turn on to bring the temperature of the new air down to where you have set its thermostat.


The more times we open our unit the more it will run and the more it will cost. Because the refrig/freezer is well insulated it will stay off longer if we don't open it. So if we change our behavior to know what it is we are after and try to keep it closed as much as possible we will realize a savings.


All that said, if you are thinking of buying a new freezer which would you think would be more efficient a chest freezer or an upright? If you answered a chest freezer you are correct. If you remember our above example about coloring the air and watching it slide to the floor when we opened the door of our upright refrig/freezer because cold air is heavier than warm air? Think now about opening the lid of the chest freezer. The cold air stays in the box because it is heavier. Therefore, this type of freezer is more efficient.

Since the insulation in modern freezers and refrigerators is more efficient than those of older days I am planning to experiment with placing a timer on them to cause them to stay off during the sleeping hours of the night and rely on that insulation to keep them within temperature parameters. The starting and stopping of the compressor motors on these units is pretty expensive....

Recapping, change your habits on how you get in your refrigerator or freezer as little as possible. Chest freezers run less than uprights. A timer to keep your unit off during sleeping hours may help but needs more experimentation.

A side note... if your units run all the time.. something is wrong. The gaskets are leaking or the unit is old and not cooling well do to a loss of freeon. Usually the cheaper course of action in this case is to buy a new one.. pay attention to its Energy Rating sticker if you do.

Next Winter be prepared for higher electric bills...

ron thomas


The newspaper has been full of stories of late about the sale of the Columbia River generating facilities which provide power to the Northwest. They are currently in receivership from the Enron debacle. Several attempts are being made to buy them by different organizations but thus far none have succeeded.


From following this story we think it is not unreasonable to assume that our electric rates will continue to rise steeply. There probably isn't much we can do about it as individuals but cut our consumption of electricity and hope that less use translates enough savings to offset the higher costs. We have our strength in that we are retired and have time as an ally. A younger family has work, school and family concerns which means they will end up paying the higher price.


So we are hoping to provoke a discussion of ideas that we can all undertake in the next few months to cut our consumption and reduce our power bills. Having been an Electircian for 40 years I've put my thinking cap on and will put some ideas out there for you to think about. For your part we would like to hear ideas that you have... Maybe you don't understand how stuff works but you could have an idea that someone else can flesh out the how to do it. So all ideas are welcome.

First let me point out what power consumption means... Used power is measured in watts. So the more watts you use the more you will pay. What we need to do then is cut our usage of watts. There are two kinds of watts usage. One kind is very inefficient and the other is pretty efficient. The inefficient kind wastes about 40% of the watts it uses in radiated heat. For the homeowner that translates to any device that you use that is run by an electric motor. Such as, a clothes dryer, refrigerator,hand tools, washing machine, dishwasher, freezer, forced air heating, table saws, fans and the like. The less you can restrict their use the more you will cut down on your bill. After all they are wasting 40% of what they use.

The more efficient users of power are those things that generate light and heat. But be wary here because efficent does not translate into savings. For instance which is more cost effective a 40watt light bulb or a 60 watt light bulb? If you said a 40 watt bulb you are correct. But here is a trick that you probably don't know... The brightness, the amount of light a bulb emits is not measured in watts!!! That means in some circumstances a 40 watt bulb will actually provide more light than a 60 watt bulb!!! Here is your first cost cutting opportunity! Go to Wal-Mart and look at the different ratings of the light bulbs and see the difference for yourself.... Here's what to look for.... The brighteness of a light is measured in LUMENS. The more lumens the brighter the light. For instance an incandescent light bulb of 40 watts will have fewer lumens than a fluorescent one of the same size. This will allow you to pick a smaller power(wattage) consuming bulb to get the same amount of light you now have. Cha-Ching.

Next ... We discuss water heaters and freezers..

It was a dark day on the hill...

ron thomas

Rain and wind chased the Easter Bunny away from LVH and the egg hiding did not happen.... Or so we thought. That Bunny is one determined rabbit. I don't know how he found out about the pigeon hole mailboxs in the clubhouse but there were eggs chucked into every one of them. Looks like he did a good job this year despite the weather. Looked to me like he even left them for folks who signed up not to get them. I guess he figured out the crows wouldn't be able to come into the clubhouse and snatch them. What a generous bunny.