Where’s Lancpudin?

[Digger]

Our power bill is typically $200 a month and with a the push to close down coal powered supply and with nothing viable to replace it, we are heading for steep rises in the future. I’ve read that Australia already has some of the most expensive electricity in thew world. I’m trying to insulate us from that and to be stand alone in blackouts which I also forsee with ageing power plants and fewer of them. The Tesla battery will give us 13.1 kW of stored power for evenings or for blackout situations and will automatically manage the system, storing when it needs to and feeding back to the grid when we don’t need the power. By the end of the week we will be drawing a lot of our power from our own resources and when the battery is installed we should be drawing most of our needs from our own resources. Hopefully a good proportion of the cost will come back when we sell the property, the dearer the power the better the return. I’m speculating and spending a lot of money here but all the signs indicate that it’s necessary.

We’re just lucky we have good sunlight much of the year.

 

[Lancpudn]

Our power bill is typically $200 a month and with a the push to close down coal powered supply and with nothing viable to replace it, we are heading for steep rises in the future. I’ve read that Australia already has some of the most expensive electricity in thew world. I’m trying to insulate us from that and to be stand alone in blackouts which I also forsee with ageing power plants and fewer of them. The Tesla battery will give us 13.1 kW of stored power for evenings or for blackout situations and will automatically manage the system, storing when it needs to and feeding back to the grid when we don’t need the power. By the end of the week we will be drawing a lot of our power from our own resources and when the battery is installed we should be drawing most of our needs from our own resources. Hopefully a good proportion of the cost will come back when we sell the property, the dearer the power the better the return. I’m speculating and spending a lot of money here but all the signs indicate that it’s necessary.

We’re just lucky we have good sunlight much of the year.

It would be fantastic to produce & store use your own electricity from sunshine especially an EV powered by sunshine

I'm still on the lookout every week for 'Green Grants' for PVC systems, The only thing that's against us is the age of the roof, It's over 100 years old, the tiles are the old clay rosemary tiles 10"x5"x 1/2 inch thick.

I managed to get my haircut / beard trimmed etc yesterday at the hairdressers in the local ASDA supermarket by a beautiful young Polish lady for the princely sum of £12.

Off to the hospital later this morning for an appointment with the DVT consultant about my swollen left leg.

 

[Digger]

Good luck with your leg mate, hope you get some relief.

Looking at the pathetic amount of interest we are getting from our investment account, we should get a lot better return from savings on electricity for this investment in solar power.

The electrician returned yesterday and completed the installation except for final connection to the outside power board. He hopes it will be dry enough to complete the hook up tomorrow afternoon but in honesty there isn’t enough sunshine to power anything right at the moment.

I’m heading up later to vacuum and reorganise my shed after moving everything to make room for the new equipment.

 

[soulman969]

Man what a week. My seasonal mood swing has finally kicked in along with my COVID long haul brain fog making working with any kind of reasonable efficiency difficult at best.

Working on my own I could always find ways around it but now that I', "on the clock" each day no can do. It's sink or swim time when all I'm really able to do is keep afloat as best I can.

I doesn't help much when I end up with long involved issues I can't fix for someone. One customer today needed a phone case that had been discontinued for a phone that had also been discontinued and we had no substitute at all to offer her under warranty. She kept me on the phone for nearly an hour trying to work us for a gift card so she could buy it from Amazon or I should upgrade her case to the one for the 2022 model phone she doesn't have and won't fit her phone and she wanted that for free. I can't do either but she won't take no for answer.

If she's not a lawyer she'd sure as hall make a good one because she was cross examining every reason I gave her for why we could not do what she asked. I even offered to sell her the case for the new 2022 model phone for 50% off ($20) but she wanted it for free. What's even more ridiculous is that if I had been able to replace her case under warranty the shipping costs would have been $10 for an obsolete case for an obsolete discontinued phone so all we were dealing with was a $10 difference. The cost of a fancy Latte at Starbucks,

There is one personality type I cannot tolerate and that's the "don't confuse me with facts my mind is made" up. That was my ex and that was also my customer. If I'd told her to "Go to Hell" she probably would've asked for directions, a free road map, and money for gas and food too.

 

[Lancpudn]

Man what a week. My seasonal mood swing has finally kicked in along with my COVID long haul brain fog making working with any kind of reasonable efficiency difficult at best.

Working on my own I could always find ways around it but now that I', "on the clock" each day no can do. It's sink or swim time when all I'm really able to do is keep afloat as best I can.

I doesn't help much when I end up with long involved issues I can't fix for someone. One customer today needed a phone case that had been discontinued for a phone that had also been discontinued and we had no substitute at all to offer her under warranty. She kept me on the phone for nearly an hour trying to work us for a gift card so she could buy it from Amazon or I should upgrade her case to the one for the 2022 model phone she doesn't have and won't fit her phone and she wanted that for free. I can't do either but she won't take no for answer.

If she's not a lawyer she'd sure as hall make a good one because she was cross examining every reason I gave her for why we could not do what she asked. I even offered to sell her the case for the new 2022 model phone for 50% off ($20) but she wanted it for free. What's even more ridiculous is that if I had been able to replace her case under warranty the shipping costs would have been $10 for an obsolete case for an obsolete discontinued phone so all we were dealing with was a $10 difference. The cost of a fancy Latte at Starbucks,

There is one personality type I cannot tolerate and that's the "don't confuse me with facts my mind is made" up. That was my ex and that was also my customer. If I'd told her to "Go to Hell" she probably would've asked for directions, a free road map, and money for gas and food too.

WoW! Some people just want the whole shaboodle for nothing, that must have been a hard call to deal with.

 

[Lancpudn]

Good luck with your leg mate, hope you get some relief.

Looking at the pathetic amount of interest we are getting from our investment account, we should get a lot better return from savings on electricity for this investment in solar power.

The electrician returned yesterday and completed the installation except for final connection to the outside power board. He hopes it will be dry enough to complete the hook up tomorrow afternoon but in honesty there isn’t enough sunshine to power anything right at the moment.

I’m heading up later to vacuum and reorganise my shed after moving everything to make room for the new equipment.

I've been on those apixaban blood thinners for six months now & the consultant says I need to stay on them for the foreseeable future whilst my left calf is still swollen.

Exciting times there mate, It'll be good to get all that gear in place & set up before the Summer hits & it starts producing all that electricity.
Most of narrowboats of the canal systems around the country all have their roofs covered with solar panels. It's really taken off to generate your own power.

Not much on today except to take Mam to her Docs appointment. It's our daughters birthday today, 49 years young, where the heck has all that time gone!

 

[Digger]

It’s been wet all week up until earler this morning.
I was about out of firewood so carted a load over to the house and spent time picking up light stuff for kindling. Then I went back to repairing the gravel in the carport that was dug up earlier in the week. That involved carting gravel over on a shovel and raking it out. Next I took a battery chainsaw up to the top boundary and cut up a large section of tree that had fallen and was blocking the track and made a number of trips dragging the branches some 80 metres to where it will be eventually burned.
That was the straw that broke the Camel’s back and I came in low on sugar and aching like heck! Gael arrived back from town bearing my “gourmet” lunch a Four’N Twenty meat pie and a couple of potato cakes! Health food par excellence! Bit of a nap in the recliner and now I’m ready to start again...Grin~

Weather looks OK for the next few days...back into it!

 

[soulman969]

WoW! Some people just want the whole shaboodle for nothing, that must have been a hard call to deal with.

Worst yet. The ironic thing is when at long last I said I really needed to wrap our call up she came all unglued and said I was implying she was being a pain in the ass. Despite the fact that she was being a HUGE pain in the ass it's not something I would ever admit to someone.

Then she tried to blame it on me for giving her "wordy" answers when each time I gave her a response she refused to accept my answer and kept cross examining me. Talk about a complete and total lack of self-awareness. If she's by chance married I feel very sorry for her hubby.

EDIT: But it truly does all come out in the wash when today a lady I helped out told me ours was the best call with a CSR she had ever had in her life. She asked where she could sing my praises to my manager but after thanking her I had to demure. We really have no system for doing that. Our calls are rated and graded internally but seldom ones as long as this one was. And that's OK with me. I'm not into any real kind of grandstanding in front of my peers either. If you accept 100% praise you also have to accept 100% scorn even when it's undeserved. I'm good with knowing that this lady truly believed that. It's good elixir.

 

[soulman969]

I've been on those apixaban blood thinners for six months now & the consultant says I need to stay on them for the foreseeable future whilst my left calf is still swollen.

Exciting times there mate, It'll be good to get all that gear in place & set up before the Summer hits & it starts producing all that electricity.
Most of narrowboats of the canal systems around the country all have their roofs covered with solar panels. It's really taken off to generate your own power.

Not much on today except to take Mam to her Docs appointment. It's our daughters birthday today, 49 years young, where the heck has all that time gone!

Seems as though some of the symptoms you're experiencing aren't all that different than mine although I can report that elevating my leg and feet while I'm on my computer has helped some but not completely.

 

[Lancpudn]

Worst yet. The ironic thing is when at long last I said I really needed to wrap our call up she came all unglued and said I was implying she was being a pain in the ass. Despite the fact that she was being a HUGE pain in the ass it's not something I would ever admit to someone.

Then she tried to blame it on me for giving her "wordy" answers when each time I gave her a response she refused to accept my answer and kept cross examining me. Talk about a complete and total lack of self-awareness. If she's by chance married I feel very sorry for her hubby.

EDIT: But it truly does all come out in the wash when today a lady I helped out told me ours was the best call with a CSR she had ever had in her life. She asked where she could sing my praises to my manager but after thanking her I had to demure. We really have no system for doing that. Our calls are rated and graded internally but seldom ones as long as this one was. And that's OK with me. I'm not into any real kind of grandstanding in front of my peers either. If you accept 100% praise you also have to accept 100% scorn even when it's undeserved. I'm good with knowing that this lady truly believed that. It's good elixir.

It must have felt good to get away from entitled people like her. Top job with the other lady.

Took Mam to her Docs appointment & whilst waiting for her new meds in the pharmacy the lady said have you had your flu injection, I said no not yet she said we can do you now in the walk-in part of the pharmacy so I got that done, Got my letter to get the (C) booster jab so I'll be making an appointment for that this morning.

Off shortly to take our other cat who we couldn't catch the other week to the vets for his annual jab & claws trimmed.

 

[soulman969]

It must have felt good to get away from entitled people like her. Top job with the other lady.

I was Ian and truth be told I have many calls that end that way or close to it with customers complimenting the way I can handle even some of the tougher deals where something got screwed up on either end and I get it fixed for them before our call ever ends. It's a smart move for OtterBox to give us enough leeway to do what we feel is best for the customer always within reason. But some people are unreasonable.

On the bass forum I post in one of our members posted this sequence of five Twitter or TikTok videos of a woman from my old neck of the woods in Wisconsin complaining about not being able to get the candles she wanted from Bath and Body Works and she was another of those Queens of Entitlement. She was bitching about having to drive from one town to the next only to find they had misinformed her about their inventory. They had what she wanted just not in the size she wanted and they were just f'ing candles.

I had to shake my head and explain to the guys who don't live around there that what she was talking about was roughly a 10-15 minute drive from two cities in NE Wisconsin that are connected to one another. It wasn't like she had to drive 25 miles or more to do it. More like 5-6 miles at most and in much lighter traffic than she would have faced where I've lived around here or certainly in Denver. Spoiled *****.

 

[Lancpudn]

Looks like another day of driving trains is on the cards with this wet weather, Grounds too sodden to do anything anyway.

I'm o tempted to get the new version of TSW, The graphics in this new TSW3 are stunning but the base option costs £30 & will put my gaming PC on the minimum specs required to run it , They do say if TSW2 ran OK on your PC then TSW3 will run OK.
It's just the wrong time of year to be spending money with Winter approaching & the ridiculous high energy bills that come with it, Electricity & natural gas prices went up again today 1st October

I'll keep playing my TSW2 until next Spring when TSW3 will be discounted

I was on freight trains around Liverpool yesterday set in the year 1958.

 

[Raiyn]

Came back to the house last night with the furballs. Everything is up and running fine, we just need to find the right filler for the multitude of screw holes we put in the house before we remove all the plywood. Water and bug resistance while being drillable if needed.
<<<Knocks on all the wood.

 

[soulman969]

What a fun looking game Ian. The graphics are quite real looking.

Sorry to hear about how costly energy prices have become there and all over Europe. I suppose it bodes well for US natural gas producers but for my part the faster the world can develop far less costly renewable energy sources the better. The energy moguls and oligarchs basically have put a gun to our heads.

Over here they are the ones who are backing and funding all of the GOP craziness we're experiencing. They have their golden egg laying goose and they don't want anything to endanger that or the monstrous profits they rake in. In reality they're the head of the snake that needs to be removed in order to get the US back to normality again.

 

[Lancpudn]

I

What a fun looking game Ian. The graphics are quite real looking.

Sorry to hear about how costly energy prices have become there and all over Europe. I suppose it bodes well for US natural gas producers but for my part the faster the world can develop far less costly renewable energy sources the better. The energy moguls and oligarchs basically have put a gun to our heads.

Over here they are the ones who are backing and funding all of the GOP craziness we're experiencing. They have their golden egg laying goose and they don't want anything to endanger that or the monstrous profits they rake in. In reality they're the head of the snake that needs to be removed in order to get the US back to normality again.

Yes electricity & natural gas prices are now beyond some households, The UK has record energy debt with almost one in four households struggling with these sky high bills & we've not got into the colder months yet.

I was on carpet shampooing duties yesterday & the mucky dirty water that came out of the living room & hall carpet was embarrassing & we dont normally wear shoes in the house

 

[Digger]

Living in the middle of a bloody big paddock things get mucky here too and I change out of boots and into slippers myself when I come inside. Bell tracks mess in too sometimes, but can’t find slippers her size~

It’s going to be dry today so perhaps I should mow, well if the water from the last rain has stopped running through the paddock that is. Waiting a couple more days would be best but rain is coming again and the grass is so long it will be slow drying out.

Haircut this arvo followed by friends dropping in after that. I’ll drop a bag of kindling in to Roz as I go past.

I bought a few more veggies seedlings and more raspberries and would like to plant them today but perhaps I’d better mow while I can?

 

[Lancpudn]

Yesterday afternoon was quite nice weather wise so I got the mower out to cut the back lawns, I gathered the hosepipe up & put it on a garden chair at the side of the lawn, Bloomin' thing only slid off the chair as I was passing with the mower & chopped it up in half a dozen places Had to order a new 30 metre one off the bay as most garden retailers have their stock out until next Spring

It's the BIG SHOP day today, Missus said It was either that or take a load of stuff/clothes we don't use any more down to the charity shop in town.

 

[Digger]

You can’t just go and buy as many garden hoses as you like at any time of year? I suppose really cold weather in winter would change that perspective somewhat. Bad luck about the hose mate.

I mowed yesterday also and kept sliding into muddy areas and needing to “swim” the mower out each time (X 3). Almost needed the tractor and chains! Things are just so wet around the place. I was mowing a pretty rough patch when I ran over a small buried stump and lifted it into the blades. It was as hard as heck and the noise was unbelievable! In the end it wouldn’t come out easily and I had to drive over it. That John Deere is one tough mower with all the hard stuff I put it through! There’s just so much debris in and on the ground after a bush fire goes through and you can pick up until the cows come home but never seem to get it all.

I come in after 2 hours feeling like I’ve been somebodies punching bag!

Place looks nice though!

I have a free day today so planting new veggies, herbs and some raspberry canes is on my agenda.

 

[Lancpudn]

You can’t just go and buy as many garden hoses as you like at any time of year? I suppose really cold weather in winter would change that perspective somewhat. Bad luck about the hose mate.

I mowed yesterday also and kept sliding into muddy areas and needing to “swim” the mower out each time (X 3). Almost needed the tractor and chains! Things are just so wet around the place. I was mowing a pretty rough patch when I ran over a small buried stump and lifted it into the blades. It was as hard as heck and the noise was unbelievable! In the end it wouldn’t come out easily and I had to drive over it. That John Deere is one tough mower with all the hard stuff I put it through! There’s just so much debris in and on the ground after a bush fire goes through and you can pick up until the cows come home but never seem to get it all.

I come in after 2 hours feeling like I’ve been somebodies punching bag!

Place looks nice though!

I have a free day today so planting new veggies, herbs and some raspberry canes is on my agenda.

You could get hosepipe or pretty much anything else garden wise at the big superstores but the smaller local places like B&M (latter day woolworths) are more seasonal with their stuff.

Great pic of the John Deere, that's a proper piece o kit for mowing. Your place is looking good mate.
I've been tasked with getting more stuff out from the shed/garage to take to the charity shop
I thought I'd got out of that chore with doing the big shop yesterday.

 

[Digger]

Not looking that good then Ian as there was carbon everywhere, like in the pic on the verandah as it was only a couple of months after the fire. Crikey the place was a mess! Glad to have that behind us as we head for the 3 year anniversary. It’s all good now however!

That mower is incredible in how it stays together given the state if the property since then. Very happy with it!

Off to see Dr.Kath this morning hoping to hear the results of 2 lots of pathology, the first a chest X-Ray and the second a Colonoscopy looking at my oesophogus. Hoping to get some direction from that.