February 2007 Archives

My wife is out on the town tonight. With Asher, of course, since we haven't tried feeding him mommy milk from any dispenser other than the source yet and that makes her pretty much a necessity for him -- wherever she goes, he goes.

But I've got the older four, and that makes for a fun night. We ate supper and then I read to the kids for about half-an-hour before we started our 45 minutes (or thereabouts) of going-to-bed activities. Bedtime is 8:00 sharp -- hey you! Yeah, you in the back there, you know who you are! Stop snickering! Okay, so it's not all that sharp. But it's pretty sharp. Pretty darned sharp if you ask me.

So anyway, it's been about an hour since I finally tucked the last little nipper into bed (and *that* was an adventure, let me tell you -- well, no I won't, it won't be interesting to you, so never mind) and now I'm out of things to do. I've read everything interesting to me on ESPN.com (that was about 2 articles -- is it baseball season yet?), done the first part of my prepping for a small group we're hosting and I'm leading here on Friday, cleaned up the kitchen, caught up on everyone else's blogs on my blogroll. . .and now I'm out of things to do. I'm ready for bed, at 9:15 (well, it was 9:15 when I decided to blog). I think I'm officially pathetic.

One comic episode worthy of note from tonight's family time:
Background: a gentlemen of Reformed-type theological leanings who shall remain unnamed recently told me that the words to "Jesus Love the Little Children" should really be "Jesus Loves the Elected Children." I thought it was cute, so I slipped it in while singing it with my kids one night (we sing it often during our family time) and of course, they noticed. But I figure there's no permanent damage done (not that I disagree with the theology, let the reader understand) after my oldest son asked me: "How come we didn't sing it 'Jesus Loves the Electric Children' tonight?"

Good night!

It's been a while since I posted a rant. How about a nice rant? Okay, here goes.

AmerenIP (our local electric and natural gas monopoly) -- whom I have affectionately nicknamed Ameren Intermittent Power due to the half-dozen outages (one of which was 4 days long at my house when the outside temperature was 100F, and another of which lasted 24+ hours when the outside temperature was 15F) we have experienced in our 1.5 years here in our current home -- as I was saying, the good people at AmerenIP pushed a rate hike through at the beginning of this year. They advertised that most customers would see an increase of only a dollar a day -- that's $30 a month, and over $350 per year, if you want to look at things that way.

Well, for most people, including yours truly, that seems like a lot of extra money to be paying for a service which has been, shall we way, less than stellar of late. Especially since the outages were due in large part to AmerenIP's dereliction of duty in failing to keep trees trimmed around their lines. Yeah, they were bad storms -- but they wouldn't have been nearly so damaging if the lines were kept properly clear.

Did I mention that the people of Illinois already pay higher rates than anyone else in the Midwest? It's not like Ameren is hurting -- they made a healthy profit last year despite the costs of cleaning up after two major storms -- but a monopoly is what a monopoly is.

Here's where I get really mad. Along with my past two bills -- the higher ones -- I have received a flier for a wonderful program that AmerenIP has set up to help people pay for the "minimal" increases that they have inflicted upon us. How does it work? Well, the gist of it is that AmerenIP will limit the increase of your bill to 14%, and treat the difference between that and what you really owe under the new plan as a low-interest loan, the payments on which can be delayed until a later date -- with interest, of course.

I don't know how to solve the problem of efficiently delivering power to consumers without guvmint intervention. I do know that there aren't any power companies who are operating in the red. And I do know that it rankles me not to have any option other than paying AmerenIP whatever it wants to charge me. I suppose there would come a point where they could charge enough that it would make economic sense for me to invest in alternative energy sources -- solar, or corn cob stoves, or some other such technology that I could have installed and have my house retrofitted for at great personal expense -- but until then, I'll just say that it seems unjust.

I know that I don't have any right to get upset about rate increases. The good libertarian inside me (I keep him locked up in a deep dark room most of the time) understands that it is Ameren's right to charge me what it deems necessary. *Sigh*

Would it be so bad to expect better service for the higher prices I'm paying? But there's the rub -- no guarantees have been made, just vague promises. Bah!

(The bad sociocommunofascist in me is shuffling back to his own special prison now).

So maybe you have this dream. You know the one I'm talking about. The one where you're swimming/bathing/showering in a stream of some sort of confection (say, a syrup, for instance -- like chocolate, or pancake). And you wake up, and you wonder what it would be like in real life.

Let me tell you, it's not all that great. It's sticky, and slippery, and when you take off your sticky clothing you lose body hair. I know that some readers undoubtedly think that less body hair is better, but when you're me you don't think that way. I got a maple-flavored syrup shower today and I didn't like it one bit. Of course, it didn't help that it was an accident.

At least it wasn't a result of a mistake on my part. I just happened to the person who was stupid enough to say, "Hey, let's try that again (but turn the pump speed down this time) and I'll see if I can get a pressure reading!" Obviously, next time I will send someone else over to the pressure gauge to figure out what the pressure is. Or not. I've never been accused of being common sensical.

My maintenance supervisor has taken to calling me Sugar Daddy because it seems like every time we run maple-flavored syrup I manage to get some on me one way or another. I love my job. Most days. Even when I'm running away from a flange that is spraying maple-flavored syrup all over me. Maybe even especially then. . .

I am somewhat ashamed to say that I am, in fact, watching the Super Bowl tonight. I'm just not strong enough yet to resist the lure of big time sporting events. That, and there wasn't much else going on.

So I just saw a beer commercial in which a couple picks up a vagrant who has "brand x" beer as well as an axe. Then they pick up a man who is wearing a mask and carrying a chainsaw who is also carrying "brand x" beer. All I can think of is, "Yes, indeed, beer makes people do really stupid things." The irony, intended or not, is splendid.