Clark's Spot

Last year, we borrowed my father-in-law’s second grill. We put it to use and ended up grilling more than 60 times during the year. This year, we set out to grill out at least 72 times.

The only dry part of the Memorial Weekend cook-out was the grill lighting.

This summer has been particularly moist. It’s been cloudy and wet – half the days in July had rain. But my wife and I have done a good job sneaking in meals at the grill. It’s been a few more lunches than expected (and even breakfast one time). Our big Memorial Day bash was drenched – the out-of-town guests still said they had fun. We’ve dodged rain drops to grill and to pick and choose the days and meals we cook outside.

Earlier today, we grilled out for the 60th time this year. We’ve done the classics – burgers and hot dogs, steak, and chicken. We’ve grilled brats, salmon, tilapia, and pork chops. We’ve even grilled bacon and sausage (but not the famous explosion). And we’ve grilled countless vegetables as sides to almost all of these meals.

Summer is winding down. Fall weather is great – but it isn’t always the best for grilling. Grad classes start a little more than a week from now. That will bring shifts in our work and responsibilities. My wife and I have a busy few months planned – organizing and combining books and movies, scanning photographs, wrestling with boxes of files from one of the community groups I’m involved with. There’s also a handful of weekend trips – weddings and orchard visits among them – scheduled.

Here’s looking forward to at least a dozen more times over the grill.

During a road trip this past Friday, I grabbed a magazine from the unread pile to catch up on some reading. Turns out my Outside subscription has expired. (I’ll get a renewal/resubscribe in after getting my next check – or I’ll go back to reading it online.) And it turns out I was way behind on my reading. The issue I grabbed was September 2008, which was great – it had an article that coincided nicely with the Hot, Flat, and Crowded book that I had read.

The article is the written exchange of two of the magazine’s editors in a competition to track their energy use. I had downloaded my electric bill about a month earlier, and I decided to join in the comparison a year late (and without the technological gadget). Without the special software, I would only be able to estimate my daily use. That’s still good enough for me to begin to understand how much power my wife and I use compared to other households.

First, I checked out PPL’s website, which lets consumers access special tools to understand their electricity use. I downloaded the account history and looked at the kilowatts used. Big increases in the winter months and valleys in the summer. Our rented half-double has no insulation (we’ve bugged the landlord about it to no avail – and without much opportunity to look for other options). That means the heating unit uses plenty of electricity trying to keep the old house warm during the cold winters. We topped out at 693 kilowatts in February 2008 – before we began dialing the thermostat way down during the day. Our best full month was July 2007 when we used 336 kilowatts.

An easy spreadsheet formula gave me the number of days in each billing period. From there, it was easy to track the average kilowatts per day. The Outside article (if you didn’t follow the link) says the average American household uses 30.25 kWh per day. The most we used was 23.1 kilowatts in February 2008, and our best month was 10.5 kilowatts in July 2007. The two competing editors fell between about 8 and 18 kilowatts. I have some work to stay in their league. My median was 14.86 kWh, and the mean was 15.28 kWh. There aren’t big fluctuations in our energy use except for a few key months when it really spikes.

Average daily electricity use

I wondered what the trend was from year to year. I took a few minutes to reconfigure the chart to map out the monthly use over the course of 2007, 2008, and 2009 – and I checked the mean for each of the 12 months. So far in 2009, we’ve been below the monthly average every month except for January.

I’ve actually followed the average pretty closely for most of this year. August heat and air conditioners have driven up our electricity in the past – that’s something we haven’t done this year with a cooler summer. Look like the windows are staying open this year, and I’m looking for ideas on how to winterize.

Mr. Peanut and I in healthier times

I’ve been off work for the past few days taking care of a sick cat. Great that I have a week of vacation for this. The cat recently had surgery to repair/reconfigure the surgical procedure he had done in August. The cat is leading the family in surgical procedures in the past year…

So from my spot on the kitchen floor, I’ve spent a lot of time working on the spring newsletter for the Lackawanna Historical Society and getting some grad school work done.

I’ve also been working on a series of posts about social networking – something that I get to do at work each day. I’ve used my time off work thinking about a few social network questions that I posed to myself about a month ago:

• what’s hype and what’s real?
• what’s here to stay and what’s a fad?
• where should we put our online efforts?
• what’s talked up just so people can waste their time on it?

Of course, I’ve found some time to spend on the popular networks as well. One of the best things about Facebook and Twitter is all of the favorite quotes everyone will post. Best one I’ve seen this week?

“Everyone wants to change the world. No one thinks of changing themselves.”
-Henri Nouen

This past weekend, my wife and I went to a hockey game in Wilkes-Barre. The “Baby Penguins” are celebrating their 10th year. In baseball terms, the team is the AAA affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Fans pack the 10-year-old Wachovia Arena at Casey Plaza. The arena has about 8,000 seats to hold rabid hockey fans. And the fans love the hockey – or at least the action.

Two players threw down their gloves 5 seconds into the game. The crowd went wild. The hockey really hadn’t begun, but the fighting had started. Binghamton and Wilkes-Barre. Really? This isn’t the Browns and Steelers or Cowboys and Redskins. This isn’t the Red Sox and Yankees or Ohio State and Michigan. This is Binghamton and Wilkes-Barre. Not your Grade A rivalry. But don’t tell that to the folks of Luzerne County.

As for the game, Binghamton won 2-1. The fans were disappointed, and I don’t blame them. Binghamton’s players sure appeared to knock off the net intentionally several times. The refs missed the Penguins’ lone goal. The review booth had to go back and give credit for the goal at the next stoppage.

It was nice time – just like the other three times watching a Penguins game. I was a bit more impressed with the Capitals game that I saw in 2000. But this is a much more intimate arena. This is one of two major teams in the area. Well, major as in major points of pride. They’re minor league teams. The fans love the fact that they have a local hockey team. They’re proud, and the team isn’t a cellar dweller.

One other random note from the night. It really isn’t a sporting event if there isn’t some form of a race between sausages, pop bottles, or some other goofy thing on behalf of a section or row. We weren’t paying much attention and were surprised to see that our row was represented by Diet Pepsi in the race. We weren’t too enthusiastic and were surprised to watch our pop bottle win. Now I have a gift certificate for some soda fountain drink for the next time I go back. Unless I frame it first.