Another week, another trip to Minneapolis. It is unusual to be traveling there to escape the heat! The high there for Thursday is predicted to be 66 degrees, while the high here in Portland the same day is currently 108 degrees (with a low of 69). Of course I am flying back Wednesday night, so I’m not really escaping anything. 😉
It wouldn’t be a good Sunday if I didn’t have at least one piece of interesting data to share. My wife claims that when she mentions these graphs to her friends they seem to think I am weird. I think they are just jealous.
Today I have graphs of my power usage (electricity) from early 1996 to today. The right side of the first chart has 4 lines, one for each meter at my current place plus a summation of those meters.
The third graphs shows the effect of the solar system I installed late last summer. I am still on the rising side of the solar output this summer, and it would be cool if I was able to get to 50% of my total power usage via solar. Power pushed back to the grid is also much higher in the summer months as the peak power output during the day is so high.
The fourth graph shows the average cost/kWh I actually paid over time, and compared to inflation. We have some of the cheapest power in the nation, but that price is still outpacing inflation a bit.
It is also interesting that my total power usage so far has been 588 MWh, while the energy equivalent of my total natural gas usage was a surprisingly close 544 MHw. That natural gas however was only $20k, while this electricity was almost $60k.
I did not realize there were this many power generation dams driven by the Columbia river. Nearly half (44%) of the US hydropower comes from these. (picture taken from a NYT article)
Glad to see it passed. 😉
When I took the car to DEQ 2 years ago, the HC was 12, CO 0%, and CO+CO2 14.5%. The difference in CO is negligible, but the difference in HC+CO is a result of the idle AFR being a tad richer now. (~14.2 vs 14.7 before) and the idle timing being a tad lower (I’m using timing idle control). Easy to adjust, but the idle is a bit smoother at 14.2.
Anyone else at Bruno Mars? I’m in suite 12.
It’s Friday, so time for some more data! Today’s topic is car insurance. I have totaled up all of my car insurance bills since 1995.
A few observations – Insurance has gone up in the last two years quite a bit, but over the 20 year period it is pretty stable. Part of that stability is the falling prices with driver ago. (me getting old). I change insurance companies two times in those 20 years, first from State Farm to Allstate, then to Country. The large jump in premium in mid 2001 was the result of the only substantial claim when my now ex-wife hit a car on 26, with a total claim of about $10,000. That causes a significant jump in all cars, and a second jump in the WRX later as a result of the car classification changing. A change to Country insurance brought everything back in order.
The drop in 2011-2012 is the result of getting married, which seems to make a significant difference. Rates have creeped up the last 3 years, especially in Oregon, as the result of more claims and significant increases in health care claim costs. It doesn’t help that the GTR is one of the most expensive cars to insure on average.
I have used far less in claims then I paid in, as it should be in an insurance system. Overall average price per car per month is 33% less than the state average, so pretty good overall.
While I was in Bend last week I took a quick shot with my camera up at Lyra, and was surprised that with only a 5 second or so exposure you can see the ring nebula. (the very small bluish ring in the center of this picture). I really need to get a much larger lense, but I’m impressed with the built in star tracking in the camera ( A Pentax K3II).
I am usually posting pictures of cars or electronics.. and sometimes utility bills. Tonight I decided to do a little rifle cleaning.
I don’t generally have favorites, but in this case I think these three rifles are the three I like the best. The Sako TRG-22 in .308, the Accuracy International Arctic Warfare in . 308, and the Sako TRG-42 in .338 Lapua Magnum.
I have always like the feel of the Sako action, and the stock design seems to fit like a glove. Those Finns seem to have figured out a few things. The AIAW is similar in many ways, and is no doubt just as accurate (And British) Nightforce scopes on the first two, and a Viper PST FFP on the third. (Note the Viper PST FFP is an inexpensive scope compared to the NFs, but it performs very well)
All three are pretty easy 1/2MOA or better with off the shelf ammo, no doubt limited by me. (And yes, there are some data elements in those three target pictures)
There is the age old debate about caliber, and certainly some of the modern 6mm based rounds have fantastic ballistics. .308 might be behind the curve on that, although .338LM is something to contend with. Consider that at 2000 yards (over a mile) the .338LM delivers more energy than a .357 Magnum at point blank range.
So… time for the next utility history plots! Water! Since we live in Portland, water isn’t exactly a scarce resource. Most of our power comes from it, and we get an ample supply 9 cloudy months of the year.
However paying for water is an interesting exercise. As with my previous graphs, this data encapsulates all of the water I have paid for since 1996. There is one empty spot in the chart where I lived in the country and had well water.
A couple of interesting things of note: I used 1.511 million gallons of water in this 20 year period. That is a tad over 3 full size olympic swimming pools. In that period I paid almost $15,000 for the privilege.
In looking closely at the bills, the actual amount of water had very little impact on the cost. In most cases the fixed cost of sewer and stormwater management , bike lanes, and political kickbacks was more that the variable cost of the water itself. I had one bill for $218 to cover 374 gallons of water, while at the same time another bill for $238 for 30,000 gallons of water!
Over the entire history water was a tad less than 1 cent per gallon, but in the last 5 years that price has risen to almost 1.5 cents per gallon.
All in all, water is still pretty cheap.
I call this a table of fun and relaxation.