yesterday's report

I forgot to report on my progress yesterday before shutting down the computer for the night. Not really much to report, only 366 words written and one new figure. However, I spent a fair chunk of time working on trying to solve the problem of my path calculations not having worked for this sample hitherto. I *think* I may have it working now, but when I was up to the final step in the process clovis_t insisted that it was time to do our daily yoga so that he could get to sleep since he has class this morning early. Since there have been many times that I was the one to insist that he stop what he was doing so that I could do yoga and go to bed, I agreed. Besides, I was getting somewhat tired myself. Now to go finish that final step and see if it all worked. If it did, I'll have more words to write for this sample, if not...

yesterday's report

I forgot to report on my progress yesterday before shutting down the computer for the night. Not really much to report, only 366 words written and one new figure. However, I spent a fair chunk of time working on trying to solve the problem of my path calculations not having worked for this sample hitherto. I *think* I may have it working now, but when I was up to the final step in the process clovis_t insisted that it was time to do our daily yoga so that he could get to sleep since he has class this morning early. Since there have been many times that I was the one to insist that he stop what he was doing so that I could do yoga and go to bed, I agreed. Besides, I was getting somewhat tired myself. Now to go finish that final step and see if it all worked. If it did, I'll have more words to write for this sample, if not...

Ouch! That electric bill is unreasonably painful

We received our electric bill today. They do things a bit weird here in Australia; rather than billing you once a month, they send out the electric bill once a quarter, so it has time to really build up to an impressive total before they ask you to pay it. (To be fair, for a substantial fee, we *could* switch to a "pay as you go" plan, wherin we paid for the electricity before it was used, and then we'd need to pay more before the money ran out, or they'd turn off the power till we did pay, so there are options, but we haven't chosen to avail ourselves of them.)

The down side of getting the bill all at once is that I actually *notice* when it goes up. Today's bill covered a 91 day period (25 April to 24 July), during which we used 3269 kWh of "residential light and power", and 1616 kWh of "hot water".

Comparing this bill with the same period from last winter, where the period was only 87 days, but we used 3522 kWh of "residential light and power" and 1743 kWh of "hot water".

Now, to my mind if we use less energy for a larger period of time, the bill should be substantially lower, yes? Indeed, the bill helpfully tells us that our average daily usage this time was only 53.7 kWh/day but for the same period of time last year it was 60.5 kWh/day.

Why, then, is this bill fully $108.62 *higher* than last year's bill??? Does it *really* cost them that much more to provide the electricity now than then? And just how fast does it go up? Last year, the full 87 days were charged at one set of rates (in a somewhat complicated system with different fees for "Energy Step 1", "Energy Step 2", and "Energy Step 3" each having their own rate, and taking up a different amount of the total kWh for each category (light and power vs hot water). But this year they charged us one set of rates for 67 days, and then a higher set of rates for 24 days, which tells me that they raised their rates right in the middle of a billing cycle.

The good news is that not only are we using less power this year than last year, but the giant hot-water heater that the house comes with is only a minor portion of the fees. Last year the "hot water" portion of the bill was only 24.7% of the total, and this year it is 23.5% of the total, so while the bill may be up, it isn't because some of us enjoy our hot showers.


(note: I've already paid the bill--knowing that it was coming, I've been setting aside a bit each pay check so that I'd have it available, my complaint isn't that I can't afford it,just that it is so much higher than I think it should be, or perhaps that should be that the cost of electric is rising at a faster rate than I find reasonable.)

Ouch! That electric bill is unreasonably painful

We received our electric bill today. They do things a bit weird here in Australia; rather than billing you once a month, they send out the electric bill once a quarter, so it has time to really build up to an impressive total before they ask you to pay it. (To be fair, for a substantial fee, we *could* switch to a "pay as you go" plan, wherin we paid for the electricity before it was used, and then we'd need to pay more before the money ran out, or they'd turn off the power till we did pay, so there are options, but we haven't chosen to avail ourselves of them.)

The down side of getting the bill all at once is that I actually *notice* when it goes up. Today's bill covered a 91 day period (25 April to 24 July), during which we used 3269 kWh of "residential light and power", and 1616 kWh of "hot water".

Comparing this bill with the same period from last winter, where the period was only 87 days, but we used 3522 kWh of "residential light and power" and 1743 kWh of "hot water".

Now, to my mind if we use less energy for a larger period of time, the bill should be substantially lower, yes? Indeed, the bill helpfully tells us that our average daily usage this time was only 53.7 kWh/day but for the same period of time last year it was 60.5 kWh/day.

Why, then, is this bill fully $108.62 *higher* than last year's bill??? Does it *really* cost them that much more to provide the electricity now than then? And just how fast does it go up? Last year, the full 87 days were charged at one set of rates (in a somewhat complicated system with different fees for "Energy Step 1", "Energy Step 2", and "Energy Step 3" each having their own rate, and taking up a different amount of the total kWh for each category (light and power vs hot water). But this year they charged us one set of rates for 67 days, and then a higher set of rates for 24 days, which tells me that they raised their rates right in the middle of a billing cycle.

The good news is that not only are we using less power this year than last year, but the giant hot-water heater that the house comes with is only a minor portion of the fees. Last year the "hot water" portion of the bill was only 24.7% of the total, and this year it is 23.5% of the total, so while the bill may be up, it isn't because some of us enjoy our hot showers.


(note: I've already paid the bill--knowing that it was coming, I've been setting aside a bit each pay check so that I'd have it available, my complaint isn't that I can't afford it,just that it is so much higher than I think it should be, or perhaps that should be that the cost of electric is rising at a faster rate than I find reasonable.)

another day slips by

This morning I finished up the calculations I'd worked on yesterday, and wrote up the results. Had I managed to do it yesterday as I'd hoped to, it would have pushed yesterday's total words written easily over 500, but I didn't.

Then I went into Uni in the afternoon and backed up files onto the departmental computer (which is also regularly backed up), spent some time looking at thin sections in the microscope (ones which I don't have lovely 5MB photos of), and attended the farewell party for a delightful lady who has been here as a visiting student from Terhan--she's doing her PhD there, but we have some facilities they don't, so she spent six months here using our stuff and doing some collaboration with some of our researchers.

Since then I've gone for a couple of walks (Yay! Walks! One with clovis_t and one with baronsnorri), paid the electric bill, and added a curtain between the living rooms so that we are heating an even smaller area (Related concepts? Probably). And suddenly it is time for yoga and bed, and I've never gotten back to work on writing! How days do slip by so quickly.

So my total for the day is only 441 words and 3 figures/tables referenced. That drops my average words per day since I started reporting them here to only 640. My advisor thinks that it should be 750. Granted, I think he may have been thinking 5 days/week, not seven, but still, I really need to get on it tomorrow. Hopefully a good night's sleep will see me energized and ready to work. I don't have any scheduled interruptions for tomorrow like I did with today's trip to town, so that should help...

another day slips by

This morning I finished up the calculations I'd worked on yesterday, and wrote up the results. Had I managed to do it yesterday as I'd hoped to, it would have pushed yesterday's total words written easily over 500, but I didn't.

Then I went into Uni in the afternoon and backed up files onto the departmental computer (which is also regularly backed up), spent some time looking at thin sections in the microscope (ones which I don't have lovely 5MB photos of), and attended the farewell party for a delightful lady who has been here as a visiting student from Terhan--she's doing her PhD there, but we have some facilities they don't, so she spent six months here using our stuff and doing some collaboration with some of our researchers.

Since then I've gone for a couple of walks (Yay! Walks! One with clovis_t and one with baronsnorri), paid the electric bill, and added a curtain between the living rooms so that we are heating an even smaller area (Related concepts? Probably). And suddenly it is time for yoga and bed, and I've never gotten back to work on writing! How days do slip by so quickly.

So my total for the day is only 441 words and 3 figures/tables referenced. That drops my average words per day since I started reporting them here to only 640. My advisor thinks that it should be 750. Granted, I think he may have been thinking 5 days/week, not seven, but still, I really need to get on it tomorrow. Hopefully a good night's sleep will see me energized and ready to work. I don't have any scheduled interruptions for tomorrow like I did with today's trip to town, so that should help...