Sunday, March 16, 2008

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Easter bunny is coming to town


You guys better be good.

Have you seen the Easter bunny hopping around?

I think I saw him at Yorktown?

The Watt Spot


Just found out today ComEd is increasing the cost of electricity this summer by 2.5%, if I remember correctly. A few weeks ago I signed us up for real time pricing from ComEd. They finally came out yesterday to change our meter. So now instead of being charged a flat rate for our electricity like everyone else, we'll be charged less if we use it in the off hours and more if we use it during the high demand hours. I guess they can email you the cost of electricity for the next day or so - so you can plan accordingly. More info at www.wattspot.com

I already switched most of our lightbulbs to the CFL type. Only have to change one wall dimmer switch to a regular on/off switch - the dimmable cfl bulbs are too expensive for me. Hopefully, this will save us some money this year.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Hello AT&T Goodbye Comcast!

Finally fed up with the cost of our Comcast internet, I finally decided to switch to AT&T. We were paying about $61/mo for cable internet with comcast. It was worth it back then because we were so fed up with dialup! But after paying that for years, it's time for something new and cheaper. I hooked up the DSL modem today and no problems. I can't believe they charge you $200 for a tech to set it up. It was very easy. As for the speed, really didn't notice any difference with uploading pictures. Haven't tried uploading video yet, however. I think I signed up for the express or pro DSL, can't remember which. As well, no problems using 3 or 4 browsers at the same time.

We've had the phone switched over for the last week now. At first, there was a lot of static, but after I added the DSL/phone filters to the phone jacks(which came with our dsl modem), the problem is pretty much gone. Thank goodness. Who needs 12 calling features like 3-way calling, call forwarding, call you in the car, call you in the shower.... We only need three: call waiting, caller ID, and call waiting caller ID, which we got with AT&T.

I have yet to receive the first bill, but according to my calculations looks like we should save around $40-45 a month. I'm just glad I didn't sacrifice internet speed with dsl. This has been the first day using it and so far, so good.

Now I have to call Comcast probably sometime next week to cancel our broadband - it's so expensive.

Last major snowfall February 2008

The last snowfall was last month and most of the snow has melted. What's left over should be gone by the weekend since it is suppose to be in the 40's the next few days. I still haven't been able to visit a frozen pond or lake to take pictures of ice - looking for interesting bubbles trapped underneath. Anyway, these are some of the pics during that last snowfall last month:



crab apples

The park

My stomach hurts, can't I stay home???
My stomach hurts

The greenhouse

crystal

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Magic trick

Ramen noodle magic trick: