working out for Disney

[Sans Souci]

Hello-

I felt like just lifting weights today, no jumping or anything like that. So I did a 50 min leg workout. I might go out for a walk if the rain stops. It stops and starts.

We're under an excessive heat watch starting tomorrow until Tuesday. Yesterday, they forecast 102 for a high on Tuesday, but they've since downgraded it to 99, as if it makes a difference. I am concerned about the power grid holding out. It's been getting hammered a lot. I try to keep the AC on 80 in the day. It is comfortable for me, since we have celling fans in all rooms, but I need it much cooler to sleep. My husband works with people who use Amtrak to get to and from work and he said there have been delays and cancellations because heat causes the rails to expand.

Callie has been gone since Tuesday. I hope she's somewhere she can keep cool. When she was here, I was able to help her manage the heat. I hope she has another family who's doing the same during this heatwave.

 

[Songbird76]

Aw. congrats to A. Is that power point a final project for him?

Does your son like to wear track pants a lot, too I ask because my son lives in them in the winter because it causes sensory issues for him. In the summer, he buys shorts that are a size too big and they hang off of his hips. He will not go out to eat with us unless he can wear his track pants. lol

No, that's the power point his teacher made. He put up pictures of things that have to do with each student and everyone had to guess whose it was. This was A's. He ALWAYS wears sweatpants/shorts, he plays chess, he's half American, etc.

 

[Songbird76]

Greetings from Füssen!

 

[HouCuseChickie]

What a relief that your power is back on. I hope it stays on for you. I can only imagine how good it must have felt sleeping on your own bed, in your own air conditioned house. I would have rolled around and done snow angels in bed. lol

I read an article at AccuWeather where a man who owns a nursing home said his residents had been without power and some of them rely on oxygen. He was angry and wondering why the nursing home wasn't prioritized. Then, of course, with generators, you run the risk of CO poisoning if you're not ventilating your house properly.

Aaaaand it’s off again. I had a feeling this would happen with so many out around us. The question now is how long. It could be an hour or two or it could be days/weeks. There’s a ridiculous map in use that shows most of our area color coded that a restoration date is still to be determined. The evening edition of that map gave us no color coding. It’s just a mess.

We keep talking about generators. There’s no great solution. I could bore everyone with the pros and cons of different sizes and types, but safety issues aside, it would be a while for us to break even on something that would be a good standby.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Greetings from Füssen!
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Absolutely beautiful!!! That’s on my list of unfinished business from our one visit to Germany. Enjoy!

 

[Songbird76]

Linderhof palace and Füssen area

 

[Sans Souci]

Aaaaand it’s off again. I had a feeling this would happen with so many out around us. The question now is how long. It could be an hour or two or it could be days/weeks. There’s a ridiculous map in use that shows most of our area color coded that a restoration date is still to be determined. The evening edition of that map gave us no color coding. It’s just a mess.

We keep talking about generators. There’s no great solution. I could bore everyone with the pros and cons of different sizes and types, but safety issues aside, it would be a while for us to break even on something that would be a good standby.

Oh, no. How frustrating for you. I am sorry for you guys. What is taking so long? Is this it normally this long to get power restored?

I know the Generacs are insanely expensive. We very briefly looked at getting one years ago and, like you, it would have taken many years to break even. We ended up buying a plain old generator that we've only had to use once since moving here. I see some people have Generacs in my neighborhood. I would only buy it if someone had severe medical issues and needed power for medical equipment. I have to wonder if Generacs are meant for weeks-long power outages.

 

[Sans Souci]

Linderhof palace and Füssen areaView attachment 800078View attachment 800079View attachment 800080View attachment 800081View attachment 800082View attachment 800083View attachment 800084View attachment 800085View attachment 800086View attachment 800087

How scenic. What a lovely place for a stroll. This reminds me of Longwood Gardens in PA. Although this looks more grand than Longwood Gardens.

 

[Sans Souci]

Good morning-

I did a 50 min kettle bell this AM. I am going out for a walk in a bit. There's an excessive heat watch, but it's still early yet. I'll just bring water and turn back if I am not feeling right.

My son made chicken korma last night. He actually started it on Saturday, by marinating the chicken. It smelled delicious while he was cooking it and it was delicious. My house still smells like Indian food, that is the only downside to making Indian food from scratch. It's too humid to open the windows. Don't get me wrong, I love Indian food, but this is a major reason why I either eat it at a restaurant or I get carry outs--the same thing with pan frying fish. He made a blancmange, too. I haven't had any of it yet. He likes to put rose water in it and I can't stand eating anything floral.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Oh, no. How frustrating for you. I am sorry for you guys. What is taking so long? Is this it normally this long to get power restored?

I know the Generacs are insanely expensive. We very briefly looked at getting one years ago and, like you, it would have taken many years to break even. We ended up buying a plain old generator that we've only had to use once since moving here. I see some people have Generacs in my neighborhood. I would only buy it if someone had severe medical issues and needed power for medical equipment. I have to wonder if Generacs are meant for weeks-long power outages.

In our area, it's the tree damage and overall tree cover. While lines are buried between homes, the supply lines are hidden in those beautiful forested areas with the trails. It's really hard to get equipment in there. That storm back in May that started our storm headaches this year caused some of our friends to be without power for the better part of a week due to similar issues. What strikes me as odd is that people are saying that it wasn't this bad during Hurricane Alicia or Hurricane Ike. Alicia had 115 MPH winds at landfall and Ike had 110. I didn't live in Texas for Alicia, so I have no perspective. For Ike, I lived on the other side of town in an area with minimal damage...fed by lines from an area with catastrophic damage. We were out for over 3 weeks with Ike.

We've priced them as well and couldn't pull the trigger because it seemed like we'd have to have a lot of outages just to break even. While my one neighbor's seems to run flawlessly, I've seen a lot of people in my community group upset because theirs have failed. Some were the ones that didn't pay to maintain it, and that's on them. It's like $200-300 a year to take care of it. Others did everything right and still had them fail. Some of those failures were brand new models installed after the May storm. It's not exactly giving me a lot of confidence in their product. We've discussed a standalone model with fuel options, since some of those are big enough to power an entire home. You just have to work with your electrician to have your breaker box upgraded to have it plug into your whole home. That being said, I see what people are spending daily on fuel to keep these things running. The gas models are in the $75-90 a day range. Propane is more complicated since you have to get into tank rentals in addition to the cost of propane. Natural gas is cheaper and more in line with what you'd be paying on a Generac type system, but people are still saying it's averaging $45-50 a day. The excessive use is also forcing people into oil and filter changes every couple of days as well as other maintenance alerts. The oil change products are becoming scarce to DIY, so some automotive shops are sending out guys to come to you... but it's around $100+ per visit. Some are also saying that you really need two since even Generacs need breaks. So, imagine the cost of doubling up the generator power because none of these "solutions" is really capable fo handling long term 24/7 use.

There's also some other stuff I hadn't considered. If you're doing the standalone generator set up, you need a way to protect it while still keeping it a safe distance from your home. I've seen some people share their commercial grade coverings and enclosures, which aren't cheap. A friend's husband made their own from thermal insulation boards, soundproofing tiles as well as some vents and an exhaust fan. Obviously, he's pretty handy! He also added a door to padlock it, since generator theft is becoming increasingly common.

For the cost and reliability issues, it got David discussing the idea of going fully solar...especially since one of the generators I saw that we both liked is solar powered. Still, I see the number of people's roofs and AC units taking out by trees and I can't help but feel like we'd get something big like this and just have it wiped out by a tree. That may be the PTSD talking. Still, I can't help but wonder how many nights in a hotel/motel room with a kitchen/kitchenette would it take to break even. Add in the annual maintenance and hyper maintenance in this sort of situation, and it could be at least a couple hundred nights of cheap hotel stays before we come out on top.

 

[King Capybara 77]

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Good morning!

Yesterday was a bit of an unconventional workout. After traipsing all over the area on Saturday with K to buy various things for college (hey, I got in some really good power walking in Walmart and Target), we jumped in with David yesterday to help with the debris. We spent about 4 hours. He sawed while Sam and I carried limbs, branches, and logs from the backyard to the curb. I had noticed that the people whose tree fell into our yard cut up everything until about 3-4' before the fence line. In other words, they left us with about 90% of the treetop. There's still a lot of big trunk and limb pieces in our yard...connected to their yard and the other neighbor's yard, but at least it's no longer a forest out there. We're afraid to keep cutting because if it shifts the wrong way, it could create more damage. In any event, I haven't sweat and worked that hard in a long time. I can kind of feel it in my back and legs, but not too bad.

Beyond that, I'm really ticked off at the neighbor to my right. The home is owned by an older woman but occupied by her granddaughter. In the early days of us living here, the girl was dating a guy who would blast his car stereo to the point of shaking our house...at all hours! We called the police multiple times. She's been dating a new guy for the last couple of years and things were pretty quiet until they started taking on dogs. They now have three and they are LOUD! Her new guy also smokes a lot of weed. I don't really care if you smoke it, but I can't go out into my yard without the possibility of a contact high on most days. In any event, grandma came by yesterday and decided to confront Kendall about storm related stuff. 1. She was furious that branches from our trees fell into their yard and insisted that we move them into our debris pile, noting that it's not the first time branches of ours fell in her yard. They're trees! Huge trees! Branches and limbs fall where the wind takes them. Hence our May situation with the other neighbor's limb! 2. Over 85% of our debris has been from other people's trees. I have never heard such absurd pettiness since moving into this town. It's practically a given that someone else's tree debris may impact your property. What's funny...if they old witch weren't such a petty beast, they could have added our branches to their debris pile and possibly gotten the attention of yesterday's debris truck. The truck stopped at our house but bypassed their dainty little piles since they insisted on separating out our branches. 3. She has spoken to David several times in the past and we were home. Why on earth would you unleash your bitter nastiness on a 17 year old? She's old enough to know that it's totally inappropriate to take her gripes to a kid. It should have been addressed with us. Especially since she wants us to cut down a branch that she insists is dead and I have no idea what the hag is referring to. If there is any more ugliness with this, I will not hesitate to call the cops the next time the dogs bark for hours in the middle of the night or the guy starts stinking up the place. Sorry for the rant, but I'm so ticked off. This is such a difficult time and some people just have to be disgusting.

Our CA trip may also be changing. K has decided she doesn't want to go. I'm reluctant to leave her home, especially with power going in and out and the neighbor being a witch, but it would save a significant amount of money, it would afford her time to get things done before college, and it would mean Voodoo could stay home. Voo likes boarding, but after the storm, she may enjoy the peace and comfort of her house. I'm really torn.

 

[Songbird76]

Herrenchiemsee palace

 

[Lilofan]

In our area, it's the tree damage and overall tree cover. While lines are buried between homes, the supply lines are hidden in those beautiful forested areas with the trails. It's really hard to get equipment in there. That storm back in May that started our storm headaches this year caused some of our friends to be without power for the better part of a week due to similar issues. What strikes me as odd is that people are saying that it wasn't this bad during Hurricane Alicia or Hurricane Ike. Alicia had 115 MPH winds at landfall and Ike had 110. I didn't live in Texas for Alicia, so I have no perspective. For Ike, I lived on the other side of town in an area with minimal damage...fed by lines from an area with catastrophic damage. We were out for over 3 weeks with Ike.

We've priced them as well and couldn't pull the trigger because it seemed like we'd have to have a lot of outages just to break even. While my one neighbor's seems to run flawlessly, I've seen a lot of people in my community group upset because theirs have failed. Some were the ones that didn't pay to maintain it, and that's on them. It's like $200-300 a year to take care of it. Others did everything right and still had them fail. Some of those failures were brand new models installed after the May storm. It's not exactly giving me a lot of confidence in their product. We've discussed a standalone model with fuel options, since some of those are big enough to power an entire home. You just have to work with your electrician to have your breaker box upgraded to have it plug into your whole home. That being said, I see what people are spending daily on fuel to keep these things running. The gas models are in the $75-90 a day range. Propane is more complicated since you have to get into tank rentals in addition to the cost of propane. Natural gas is cheaper and more in line with what you'd be paying on a Generac type system, but people are still saying it's averaging $45-50 a day. The excessive use is also forcing people into oil and filter changes every couple of days as well as other maintenance alerts. The oil change products are becoming scarce to DIY, so some automotive shops are sending out guys to come to you... but it's around $100+ per visit. Some are also saying that you really need two since even Generacs need breaks. So, imagine the cost of doubling up the generator power because none of these "solutions" is really capable fo handling long term 24/7 use.

There's also some other stuff I hadn't considered. If you're doing the standalone generator set up, you need a way to protect it while still keeping it a safe distance from your home. I've seen some people share their commercial grade coverings and enclosures, which aren't cheap. A friend's husband made their own from thermal insulation boards, soundproofing tiles as well as some vents and an exhaust fan. Obviously, he's pretty handy! He also added a door to padlock it, since generator theft is becoming increasingly common.

For the cost and reliability issues, it got David discussing the idea of going fully solar...especially since one of the generators I saw that we both liked is solar powered. Still, I see the number of people's roofs and AC units taking out by trees and I can't help but feel like we'd get something big like this and just have it wiped out by a tree. That may be the PTSD talking. Still, I can't help but wonder how many nights in a hotel/motel room with a kitchen/kitchenette would it take to break even. Add in the annual maintenance and hyper maintenance in this sort of situation, and it could be at least a couple hundred nights of cheap hotel stays before we come out on top.

Whole house Generacs in my area are not covered/protected in any way. As long as a huge tree is not near it one should be OK. Regular maintenance is essential and not going overboard turning on many items in the home while unit is running for hours and or days one will be fine. If the snowstorm coves the unit it is important to clear snow off of top and sides of unit so vents are clear while unit is operating. The neighbors know we have one so at times they ask if they can put some items in our fridge which is fine. We are very happy with service after the sale/installation with same company. My family member up North has a unique request from their service company when snowfall hits and unit must be serviced. The company requires a pathway in the grass and walkway must be shoveled and cleared of snow for tech to go to Generac. This was when they got hit with 20 inches of snow.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Whole house Generacs in my area are not covered/protected in any way. As long as a huge tree is not near it one should be OK. Regular maintenance is essential and not going overboard turning on many items in the home while unit is running for hours and or days one will be fine. If the snowstorm coves the unit it is important to clear snow off of top and sides of unit so vents are clear while unit is operating. The neighbors know we have one so at times they ask if they can put some items in our fridge which is fine. We are very happy with service after the sale/installation with same company. My family member up North has a unique request from their service company when snowfall hits and unit must be serviced. The company requires a pathway in the grass and walkway must be shoveled and cleared of snow for tech to go to Generac. This was when they got hit with 20 inches of snow.

The ones I've seen installed here are usually protected in some way...at least that's how it appears in the photos and some of the quotes we saw. It could be debris related. Snow issues are a rarity here, but heat and humidity may be a factor in reliability. I know my neighbor's has worked for him like a charm (I believe his is one of the Protector series models), but I've just seen so many people over the last week who have followed the service requirements to a T that have had full system failures. Some issues may be overload and overuse scenarios, but others just sound like product failure since the units worked properly during pre-storm testing. It is what it is. At the end of the day, I can't see us going this route. We're more likely to break even on fully converting to solar before we would on a whole home generator solution.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Herrenchiemsee palace
View attachment 800410View attachment 800411View attachment 800412

Loving all of the pictures. So pretty! Thank you for sharing!!!

 

[Lilofan]

The ones I've seen installed here are usually protected in some way...at least that's how it appears in the photos and some of the quotes we saw. It could be debris related. Snow issues are a rarity here, but heat and humidity may be a factor in reliability. I know my neighbor's has worked for him like a charm (I believe his is one of the Protector series models), but I've just seen so many people over the last week who have followed the service requirements to a T that have had full system failures. Some issues may be overload and overuse scenarios, but others just sound like product failure since the units worked properly during pre-storm testing. It is what it is. At the end of the day, I can't see us going this route. We're more likely to break even on fully converting to solar before we would on a whole home generator solution.

Ours came with 10 year warranty. So at least we are good if anything goes big time wrong we've got the warranty. Whole house generac is the way to go for us, family and some friends that invested in one.

 

[Songbird76]

Today was up and down. A wasn't feeling well and wanted to stay at the hotel. I suspect it was more that he just wanted a break than that he actually didn't feel well, but whatever. So instead of going to the fortress, we decided to go to the open air museum because that's what he was least interested in. It was sooooooo boring. I didn't take any pictures with my phone, but I didn't take many with the camera either. It was basically just a bunch of old Austrian houses. They look like every other one that still cover the countryside. You don't have to pay 12 euros to see them. The only difference is that these were built in the 1600s,1700s, 1800's, and deconstructed and then moved to the museum and reconstructed. So they looked old and rickety. But every one of them looked exactly same and was basically set up the same way.

We were expecting more like the open air museum in Arnhem in the Netherlands where it shows how a building would have looked in it's prime in 1600, and then again how it would have changed over years or whatever, and then also the professions. Like there is a laundry place with the actual machines they used in like 1800 and they have people in period clothing washing the clothes, demonstrating how the machines worked and letting kids try it. And they have an actual Smith demonstrating how they made horseshoes. They have a creamery showing how they make cheese. A brewery showing how they made beer. And they have windmills, etc, they have houses decorated in the popular styles of the 60's, 70s, and 80s. They have a hospital from back in the 50s with all the signs about different diseases... There are so many things to do and see. There are people everywhere to answer questions and the shops have actual period things like delft blue tiles, or penny candy, etc. You can buy things from 200 years ago. This was just house after house with the same things. We gave up and left. We went to Hellbrunn Palace to see the Trick fountains and the sound of music gazebo instead.

 

[Sans Souci]

Good morning!

Yesterday was a bit of an unconventional workout. After traipsing all over the area on Saturday with K to buy various things for college (hey, I got in some really good power walking in Walmart and Target), we jumped in with David yesterday to help with the debris. We spent about 4 hours. He sawed while Sam and I carried limbs, branches, and logs from the backyard to the curb. I had noticed that the people whose tree fell into our yard cut up everything until about 3-4' before the fence line. In other words, they left us with about 90% of the treetop. There's still a lot of big trunk and limb pieces in our yard...connected to their yard and the other neighbor's yard, but at least it's no longer a forest out there. We're afraid to keep cutting because if it shifts the wrong way, it could create more damage. In any event, I haven't sweat and worked that hard in a long time. I can kind of feel it in my back and legs, but not too bad.

Beyond that, I'm really ticked off at the neighbor to my right. The home is owned by an older woman but occupied by her granddaughter. In the early days of us living here, the girl was dating a guy who would blast his car stereo to the point of shaking our house...at all hours! We called the police multiple times. She's been dating a new guy for the last couple of years and things were pretty quiet until they started taking on dogs. They now have three and they are LOUD! Her new guy also smokes a lot of weed. I don't really care if you smoke it, but I can't go out into my yard without the possibility of a contact high on most days. In any event, grandma came by yesterday and decided to confront Kendall about storm related stuff. 1. She was furious that branches from our trees fell into their yard and insisted that we move them into our debris pile, noting that it's not the first time branches of ours fell in her yard. They're trees! Huge trees! Branches and limbs fall where the wind takes them. Hence our May situation with the other neighbor's limb! 2. Over 85% of our debris has been from other people's trees. I have never heard such absurd pettiness since moving into this town. It's practically a given that someone else's tree debris may impact your property. What's funny...if they old witch weren't such a petty beast, they could have added our branches to their debris pile and possibly gotten the attention of yesterday's debris truck. The truck stopped at our house but bypassed their dainty little piles since they insisted on separating out our branches. 3. She has spoken to David several times in the past and we were home. Why on earth would you unleash your bitter nastiness on a 17 year old? She's old enough to know that it's totally inappropriate to take her gripes to a kid. It should have been addressed with us. Especially since she wants us to cut down a branch that she insists is dead and I have no idea what the hag is referring to. If there is any more ugliness with this, I will not hesitate to call the cops the next time the dogs bark for hours in the middle of the night or the guy starts stinking up the place. Sorry for the rant, but I'm so ticked off. This is such a difficult time and some people just have to be disgusting.

Our CA trip may also be changing. K has decided she doesn't want to go. I'm reluctant to leave her home, especially with power going in and out and the neighbor being a witch, but it would save a significant amount of money, it would afford her time to get things done before college, and it would mean Voodoo could stay home. Voo likes boarding, but after the storm, she may enjoy the peace and comfort of her house. I'm really torn.

The yard cleanup definitely sounds like quite a workout. It must have been awful in the heat.

Does your neighbor talk like that to you or your husband? I was wondering if she felt "safe" screeching at a 17 year old, because she thought she wouldn't get push back from her? She sounds awful. I'd be grateful she doesn't live in that house, because you'd probably have to deal with her stank attitude a lot more frequently. I don't blame you for discontinuing your leniency on calling the cops. I don't like the smell of weed, either. I know people who love it, but it smells like skunk spray to me. A few years ago, my husband and I went to a Caribbean Festival in Philly. It was fun, good music and tasty food, but it should have been called "Cannabis Fest." I was worried about my husband being able to drive home.

 

[Sans Souci]

Hello-

I did another kettlebell workout and I stupidly went for a walk. I was brutal. This was the most uncomfortable walk I have ever taken. Heat usually doesn't bother me. I had to turn around and come home. I was walking slower than usual and my heart rate was high for how slowly I was walking. I felt a bit nauseous, too. I figured my heart rate was up because my body was working hard to keep cool. I was worried about heat exhaustion. It's not worth it. I came home, drank lots of ice water, showered and rested on my bed for a half hour. I feel so much better.