I read recently that Terry Bradshaw has short term memory issues because of the hits he took over the years. Since reading that I've been paying closer attention to his work as a sports commentator on Fox. I don't know if there's a connection but he uses notes as he talks, for example, at halftime about the game. Maybe the other guys do too, and are just more discreet about it.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) is his party's leader in the Senate and was the first guest on Meet the Press yesterday morning. GRRRR. He clearly had his talking point ("We need the President to lead") and gave one or another variation of that line no matter what he was asked. I almost wanted the host, David Gregory, to ask him a question about the weather just to see if he'd give his same prepared pitch.
I recorded the second half, the roundtable, and watched it this morning. The Republicans should get Carly Fiorina out front. She's articulate, clear spoken, and has a grasp of the numbers. She's good.
The NHL has reached a tentative agreement and pro hockey should resume soon. They lost a total of 510 games this season. If they get things cranked up before the end of January their season will only last eight months.
I went rucking this morning.
I want more exercise than I'm getting at my afternoon gym workout. Normally that would come through a morning bike ride but the dr. says I can't be on the bike until March, after a three month break. Enter: rucking. It comes from the word rucksack, an old term for a backpack. I have a nice student-style backpack that Josh and Aubri game me for Christmas a few years ago that I use as a carry-on when I fly. I got a 60 lb. bag of sand from Home Depot, put 40 lbs of it (double bagged) in the backpack and went for a brisk one mile walk.
Next time I'll try wearing the backpack.
No, I did wear it and was surprised how much effort it took. By the time I got back I was glad to be back. That's exercise! And when I took off the backpack I felt...40 lbs. lighter!
I miss radiators. Not the car kind, the house kind.
In our last house in MI we had the original century-old cast iron radiators as the source of heat throughout the house. The boiler in the basement was gas fired instead of the original coal fired boiler, but everything else was the same, including the asbestos wrapped pipes coming out of the boiler. True to the period the first floor radiators were fancier with a design cast into them, while the second floor had very plain radiators. The third floor had modern baseboard radiators that had been added about 20 years before we bought the house because that slightly smaller 1,000 square foot level was originally unheated.
I'm not sure why America abandoned radiator heat for forced air. Nobody who has had the former prefers the latter. Because it was 62 degrees in our house when I got up this morning I turned on the heat for about 15 minutes. The hot air blows on me from a vent right over my recliner and I quickly felt too warm, so I turned it off. COLD! And besides being uneven it's noisy. And dusty.
Radiators are silent. At least they should be. If you get air in the system they make noise but the solution is to open the bleeder valve at each radiator to fix that. Unless you go over and touch a radiator you can't tell if the heat is on or off. And it's even heat, with no blast of hot air. The radiators get hot and dissipate that heat into the surrounding room without the blast of hot air from a furnace. The bulky radiators heat up and cool off gradually so there aren't any rapid fluctuations in room temp, and there's no dust blowing around.
Radiators are friendly. They don't barge into your world and blast you, they just quietly go about their work of keeping you cozy. Yes, if you come into a cold house and want it warmer you're going to have to wait longer for the boiler to heat the water, circulate it to the radiators, and for the radiators to dissipate that heat into the room, but once that happens it's like being cuddled.
Plus, it makes a great place to put your socks at night so they're nice and warm in the morning. You can't do that with forced air heat!
3 comments:
You can heat shoes and socks on forced-air heating vents. Building a small box with PVC pipe extending upwards on which you place wet boots/shoes or sox and place over 50% of the vent. Works for me down at the compound (got the idea from a boot warmer product at Cabela's)
Unless your heat vents are up at the top of the wall, right next to the ceiling. Slab foundations mean HVAC ducts in chases up there.
You could still build a contraption and make it work!
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