Comments on: Just A Note

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 15:44:12 +0000

Yeah, the voltage is not well regulated on this section of the grid. If I didn’t have a regulated power supply and battery backup I would lose all sorts of electronic stuff. I bought all of the filtering and protection equipment for the San Diego grid which was just as bad.

It sounds like you were connected to a bad transformer, Gulf Power should have found if they were interested. With their new meters they wouldn’t even have to come out to see what was going on at any house.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 14:34:48 +0000

Well you live a lot closer to the generating plant than I do

welllllll . . . I moved about 5 blocks away from my ivan location – a location in which I lost computers and light bulbs constantly – when I moved to the place I live in now, so I’m thinking that’s not quite the issue here. 😈

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 14 Oct 2017 02:10:11 +0000

During the evacuation for Hurricane Opal I spent almost 24 hours on the road with Koshka howling in the cab of a Toyota pickup, the 1988 compact version, getting from Fort Walton to Huntsville, Alabama. Traffic was jammed up so people were getting out of cars to walk their dogs, or dump their bladders and jogging to get back in. Trying to get both Excise and Property into the car would have required a quick stop for bandages and blood.

Hell, that crap is illegal even in Florida except for an emergency temporary fix.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 17:00:05 +0000

BTW, on the two cats in a Honda Civic thing, I moved two cats across the country (from North Carolina to Arizona) in a Ford Aspire, much smaller than a Honda Civic. So it can be done, it just isn’t pleasant :).

By: Badtux

Badtux — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 16:58:06 +0000

The drought had nothing to do with the poles snapping in the wind. The fact that they were 50 years old and overdue for replacement 30 years ago probably had more to do with that. Some of the poles out there, I swear that the wires are holding the pole up, not the other way around. Some of the poles out there have sleeper poles strapped to them to keep them from falling over. Some of the poles have frickin’ *boards* strapped to them to keep them from falling over. It’s pathetic third-world BS.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 16:33:57 +0000

I assume the poles dried out because of the drought and snapped in the wind. We used to have that problem, but now they are having to dig deeper holes and use longer poles because of the increase in rainfall. In the heavy rains the saturated ground allows the poles to move, so the wind can push them over. This is why our pine trees get blown over – shallow root system.

Not even SDG&E was as bad as PG&E, although I saw service entrances in the older section of San Diego that used 8-guage from the transformer.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 07:07:54 +0000

Kryten, the word from local newspapers is that decrepit PG&E power poles falling over in high winds sparked the fires, there were multiple calls to local fire departments about fallen power poles sparking immediately prior to the outbreak of the fires. PG&E stands for “Pray Gamble & Explode” — aside from being the principal power company in the area they’re also our gas company, best known for blowing up an entire neighborhood by diverting maintenance money to corporate profit. They’ve been fined multiple times for doing that on the power pole maintenance budget too, but it never seems to change their behavior. I suppose jail time would, but jail is for little people, not for top executives of PG&E, all of whom have looted the homeowners of California for enough money to become millionaires.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 01:27:38 +0000

Well you live a lot closer to the generating plant than I do, and these sorts of outages are normally caused by arching at the local substation because of the rain. My power was restored by guys from a New Jersey power company after Ivan. These sorts of outages are common during strong thunderstorms.

By: hipparchia

hipparchia — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 23:26:18 +0000

I didn’t lose any electricity at all this time around. not even a blip to set off the clocks on the various appliances.

but then I was without power for 2 weeks after ivan and 4 or 5 days after dennis, so obviously I was overdue for a break on the electricity front. 😉

By: Bryan

Bryan — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 16:33:50 +0000

There are over a dozen people confirmed dead and over 100 missing with thousands of of structures destroyed. No one has any idea how much livestock or pets were killed by the rapidly advancing fires. It is similar to Black Saturday, but every disaster is unique, caused aby a particular set of circumstances. Of course the Federal government seems to be only marginally aware of the situation because the people who are supposed to be in charge of ofd such events still haven’t been hired by the Toddler-in Chief who is saving money by not hiring people to direct firefighting operations so he can fly to his golf resorts every weekend and his cabinet members can take private jets.

We need to start a Go-Fund-Me page that goes to veterans’ organizations if the Toddler-in-Chief takes the Minneapolis Multiphase Personality Test and the Miller Analogy Test and publishes the results.

I noticed that Tony Abbott flushed his future hopes for party leadership down the loo at the climate conference – climate change has been beneficial?! Sounds like he’s looking for a job at a coal or oil company.