Life Stories: June 2008 Archives
Just visited some family in Springfield for a few days and discovered Lambert's Cafe. My new favorite restaurant, bar none. They actually throw food to you. It's all you can eat, and the food is great. Best of all, however, is that when they drop the food on your table it's actually too hot to eat, every time. Made me realize that most restaurants serve luke-warm food that has been sitting on a counter for several minutes before you see it.
Either there hasn't been much to blog about recently, or my brain has been too stressed to find anything. Everything in my life feels crazy right now... not all in a bad way, but argh. Maybe I take on too much, I don't know. I definitely have a "if you want something done right, do it yourself" mentality and it's hard for me to leave responsibilities to other people when I think I can do it better. I'm not sure though what I could cut out:
1. Work. Gotta pay the bills. I'm not working overtime or anything, but work is stressful and very busy.
2. Church. I'm the director of my Sunday School class of 40 young married couples. This isn't a huge amount of work, but it can be draining at times. Fortunately there are a ton of spiritual leaders in our class.
3. Family. Jessica is pregnant! Yay! Very exciting, but the pregnancy is taking a real toll on her and therefore indirectly on me.
4. Hobbies. What hobbies? I play Travian (sign up there to get me bonus gold) but that's mostly a stress relief. Mostly anyway! A 24/7 game can get a little stressful at times.... But I've got to do something fun sometimes.
5. Side projects. My partners and I are getting very close to launching a new website we've been working on for almost a year. Can't quit now.
Anyway, woe is me, right? It's just life, I know, and I'm tremendously blessed to have the life I do. My complaints ring so hollow in even my own ears.
I need a 150 Ohm 10 Watt power resistor, and I can't find anyplace around me that sells electronic components. This is when I miss Fry's the most.
Update:
Awesome!
2220 Welsch Industrial Court * St. Louis, MO 63146
A relay on the control board of my home furnace buzzes when the furnace blower is on. (The blower is also used for the A/C.) The buzzing started recently, but is fairly loud. I assume the buzzing means that the relay is going bad and that I'll need to replace the control board. Can anyone tell me if it's safe to continue operating the blower until I can get the part I need to fix it?
The two most common guidelines I've seen for thermostat placement is: don't put it on an outer wall, do put it in a central part of the area to be regulated. The first is certainly a good idea, but the second leaves out a lot of important considerations.
Whoever built my house put the upstairs thermostat in a central location... in the upstairs hallway at the top of the stairs. This is a terrible location, because:
- people are only rarely in the hallway
- there are no vents in the hallway
- cold air flows down the stairs to the bottom floor
- hot air flows up the stairs from the bottom floor
When the bedroom doors are closed at night it's virtually impossible to keep the rooms at a comfortable temperature. They get too cold in the winter, because the thermostat is warmed by air from downstairs and the bedrooms are cooled by their outer walls. In the summer, the A/C just runs continuously because none of the cold air reaches the thermostat, and what little gets into the hallway just flows down the stairs.
Two weeks ago I spent a day investigating what it would take to relocate the thermostat, but the difficulty is prohibitive. The thermostat wires come up from the basement, through the ground floor walls, to the second floor. Ugh. I was hoping they came down from the attic, but no such luck.
So, yesterday I ordered a Venstar Wireless thermostat sender and receiver set. Theoretically I'll install the receiver at the existing thermostat location and put the sender in my bedroom. The sender has a thermometer on it, and will tell the receiver when my room is the right temperature. The set cost $210 with shipping, but if it keeps my A/C from running all night I'm sure it will save me money over the course of the summer.
Anyone have any experience with these? I couldn't find many reviews, and it didn't seem like wireless thermostats in general are very widely used.
