Quick Weather Update
My watch, the one I’m wearing the most these days? Older model Apple i-Watch. I just use it to track exercise and the handy timer for tea bags, meditations, miles walked, that sort of thing. Not wedded to it, but I like it fine. Some weeks back, I tried to get a screenshot, showed the weather, “Psychotic-Ex” weather, 37 to 73 in a single day.
Previously, I’ve run the the old joke, “Mother Nature: you cannot have four seasons in one week.” With the very Texas retort? “Hold my beer.”
Then, too, I play with Shakespeare quotes, my favorite, “This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.” (King Lear, &c.)
Looks like a second round of snow-apocalypse weather again.
Quick Weather Update
Temperature plummeted, and as I’ve noted before, this is not all that rare, we see this kind of weather, every decade or so? Or, how weather might affect history?
For me, and the problem was, still is, the power grid. Largely dependent upon fossil fuels, notably natural gas, the plants froze up. I’ve fished a number of the reservoirs, mostly, really, just cooling ponds for power plants. I wonder if Austin is missing the old Holly Street Power Plant? Sorry, nothing to do with anything.
The question, it’s simple enough, the question is who profits?
Follow the money.
The last time I had a plumber at this house, he told me it never gets cold enough to freeze the pipes. One buddy’s house, the whole subdivision he’s in? Frozen then burst pipes, right down the row. Whole cul-de-sac, and he’s picking up bonus points because he can repair frozen, burst plumbing.
Yeah, doubt that’s the person who profits. Fossil fuels are going to make a bundle off the free-market price of heat, be my wager. Follow the money.
Quick Weather Update
Our power shut off, flickered on, and then went dark for good Sunday night, really, Monday morning. Just after midnight. Seems like the water froze then, too.
Spent more than two days with no water and no electricity, which also means, no internet access. Phone was charged up, and tablets worked, plus I have spare power packs for all of them: watch, phone, tablet. Most of them were fully charged. I survived. Power came on, briefly, but the temperature never got above freezing. Most of the garden is dead, as it should be, and the cuttings growing in glass on the windowsill are next summer’s generation.
But sporadic power, limited internet, and posting via a phone? Not something I want to continue. The upside, I was ready, prepared, as it were. Week before, went to the big box warehouse and bought cases of water, pounds of coffee, and trail mix in bulk. All good. Stocked up and ready.
The single flaw in my planning, my emergency preparedness? No way to make hot coffee. Got to work on that one.
Quick Weather Update
The weather was starting to warm, and I suspect I’ll be in shorts next week, working in the garden, mostly clipping back dead plants, waiting to see what grows back in a few months.
The question about the rolling outages, think about 48 hours with no water, no electricity, and that translates to no heat and no indoor plumbing.
Basically three, four days with no running water and no electricity. My good buddy next door decamped for some friend’s house who had power and water. I just stuck it out, reading books and staying under the covers. Three bait buckets of snow make for one toilet flush, not that anyone needs to know.
Two points: I’m too old for this crap, and follow the money. Who benefits1?
- Who/what corporate entity benefits from the failure of the Texas power grid? Just asking, I don’t know — yet. ↩
