Energy crisis

I was astonished to receive our electric bill and find out that it was $199.21 this month! That's the highest it's ever been. Keep in mind our (total electric) apartment is only 840 square feet. Nonetheless, this is really the kick in the butt we needed.

I finally decided to take to heart all the energy saving strategies I've been seeing in magazines, and they're really commonsense, too. We are making sure to close the blinds and curtains whenever we leave the house. We are unplugging appliances when not in use and particularly at night as we commonly leave the computer on 24/7. The only exceptions to the appliance rule are the washer, dryer, frig, oven, microwave, and alarm clocks because those are in very hard to reach places. Maybe one day we can get one of those handy devices that allows you to cut the flow of electricity to all outlets with the push of a single button. We are also in the process of switching our incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent. I heard today that fluorescent bulbs use 75% less energy and last 10 times longer than standard incandescent bulbs. That was on HGTV though, so it may not be perfectly accurate. As for the air conditioning, maybe we should just start praying for sub-90-degree temperatures. The average daily temperature for this electric bill was 92! I predict next month will average 98 or higher. I hope all this makes a difference! I'll let you know in a month how much we save.

Matt had his first big project and test in his first master's class today. He said it went very well. He also got to solo a student in formation today, the first of that kind, I think. We got a very nice bottle of single barrel Jack Daniel's for that. For those of you not in the pilot world, when a student solos in a jet, it is customary for that student to purchase an expensive bottle of liquor for his instructor pilot. Perhaps this is meant to persuade the grading?