George Rebane
Here on Hind Tit Road our power went out on 27 March for the second time and has been out since. I scheduled an immediate delivery with Amerigas when it first went out on 21 March and was promised delivery during the next two days – nothing. Numerous calls to their call center allowed me to talk to a bunch of east Asians who had been taught carefully to lie to their customers – all the way up from the supervisors to their ‘Dispute Resolution Center’, and all of them were expert at bullshitting their customers. The entire company appears to be fashioned on ignoring customer fulfillment needs, and responds only to internal convenience. Finally, yesterday as heavy snow again began falling, a marginally competent Amerigas driver shows up with our propane delivery. He goes on to make difficult the simple job of pulling up next to the tanks and filling them. But now we have several more 24/7 days of running our faithful 24KW Generac. Time order more tomorrow, and install another 500gal capacity when the snows stop.
Meanwhile, PG&E makes spam calls to their customers claiming to inform on latest estimates of power restoration while saying nothing of the sort – we have been totally in the dark, figuratively and literally, as to when a semblance of normalcy will return. Rumor has it may be tomorrow. This what passes for meritorious and competent service in today’s big corporation America.
[6mar23 update] Central control of everything by teams of experts. The Pacific Legal Foundation has released the documentary video ‘Trust Us’ that takes America through the history of bureaucratic control during the administrations Teddy Roosevelt all the way to the present day. It makes clear that FDR did nothing to shorten the Great Depression – he lengthened it and made it more severe – and that LBJ’s Great Society spawned a scourge that is still with us and has worsened all of our lives.
There is nothing in this telling that will be understandable to today’s progressives, especially of the woke-bent. These people are terminally ignorant willing believers, ready to hand their fates, fortunes, and futures to the administrative state run by faceless technicians claiming expertise of which they have none. But then again, there’s the off chance that watching the video …
[8mar23 update] Power finally came back on today at 1530. It went out at 2350 on 23 February, and the Generac has been running 24/7 ever since, consuming 2-2.5gal/hr from a 500 gal tank that was topped with 186 gal refill in the interval. Turns out the break came from one of our old oaks falling across the power line on our neighbor’s property on the other side of the fence that separates us – of course it took out a section of the fence. Several other trees also came down in our forest. Time to buck them and stack them by the splitter ready for another season or two of firewood. It ain’t cheap.
Not too dissimilar situation here in Rochester, NY. Our power provider, Rochester Gas and Electric, has been in an unflattering light recently due to unimaginably high gas and electric bills. Many reasons not the least of which was panic over covid and the unwillingness of the provider to go beyond estimating bills and not billing people for months at a time. And a lack of customer service reps meant hours long wait times to connect with anyone there.
Posted by: Randy | 06 March 2023 at 02:59 AM
Well, one thing about robocalls is that they're going to get a lot better what with AI and all. Still no information, but more soothing to the ear. 'Steve' in India or the Philippines will likely lose his gig in the stadium-sized call center. Bummer that they can't keep people more up to date on where/what they are fixing, the knowledge gives an illusion of control, but maybe it's just a stack of papers on some local supervisors desk.
A couple of things will fight quality (maybe more). Cost reduction and feature creep. People would rather have products that did more than did it reliably and they're unwilling to pay for better MTBF or disasters. You can certainly argue that the more rural counties with bad weather could stand to pay more for power in exchange for actually getting it more often.
Posted by: scenes | 06 March 2023 at 10:23 AM
quick question George.
In the real world, about how much propane does your generator use? Any online calculation I've seen is based on loading up the system and naturally they're near-idling most of the time.
Dunno why those things don't come with a downstream battery they keep full, cycle on and off. The battery could handle peak loads, the generator the average load.
Posted by: scenes | 06 March 2023 at 10:33 AM
Stolen from Gregory and moved over to Scattershots. Can’t add a word to it….but I will.
“George, good to hear from you!
Am guessing you meant to write February, not March. Dialysis is rough.
Posted by: Gregory | 05 March 2023 at 09:34 PM”
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Hear, hear. Miss you a lot, good doc. Man, having the family called to meet and give you Last Rites at the hospital, then…wait….cancel, then get ready for last rights again, gather the family and those who can get to the hospital tonight….then home. What a toll on your loved ones. So, any news directly from the potted plant himself is joyous news to my ears.
To play my broken record again and again, I have never liked the waiting room. One door shuts behind you, yet the other door does not open. “How’s the good doc Rebane doing, Dr.?”
There was a call to dispatch a few days ago about a gentleman that needed to get to the hospital for dialysis every two days. Whether that was you or not, I realized if the Rescue Squad did extract the gentleman, how would be get back home? What really was needed was someone, some Angle, to do what was necessary to hike or methodically slowly plow in, cut up the trees down and drag them to the side of the road, and slowly keep at it (maybe an addition truck one with big a wench to work with the small CAT or rigged up plow on a pickup….working in tandem so the gentleman’s wife, family, neighbors, or friends could drive him to get his dialysis and then drive him home. A cleared driveway-road was the real temp solution.
I wish you well, Dr. Rebane, especially since I myself have been a potted plant since a few days after Thanksgiving and it’s now March. I have gone from 22 hours a day sleeping in bed wiped out and zero energy to after a couple months to being up 6 hours a day, to now being up (awake) about half the time. I still can’t go outside for a short 20 second stroll….if I do, I pay. This is the longest I have ever gone without being in the sun (besides a depressing late Oct-March stint in Portland many moons ago) in my entire life. As an outdoor kind of guy unable to step outside save for an emergency supply run, I too feel like a totally dependent potted plant. It’s been good to have my ego taken down a few pegs. Mr. Independent is now dependent.
But enough about me? How are you doing, Dr. Rebane sir? Ok, enough of that and back to it’s all about me.!!!! :)
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As Heard on Paul Harvey before his daily
the sign off, “This is Paul Harvey, Good Day”.
Q: What did the caterpillar say to the tractor?
A: Not so close, John Deere.
If we couldn’t laugh, we would all be raging American Psychos. (Get it, caterpillar as in Caterpillar..get it, get it? Tandem plows. Do you get it, Wally? That was most weak, but the best I could muster this fine morning.
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Under the topic of none of us are perfect, we are but humans with feet of clay.
Never let a crisis go to waste. The thought of walking out to my little 250 gal rented (65 bucks/year propane tank and getting gobsmacked in the face with 7% on the gauge would have thrown me into another dimension. Like the image of Wile E Coyote being electrocuted kind of dimension. I know, I walked out there on freezing ass day a Mega Snowstorm of the Century ago and was shocked….shocked I tell ya…that my gauge was on 9%. Raced to the water heater and put it on vacation mode and hit the breaker to the whole house heater (propane for heat, AC for cooling) and sat there freezing my ass off…waiting. I picked the wrong day to discover that checking the tank levels is kinda important.
It was the day of beginning of that last long blackout storm when Bobbie Cross was shaking his fist at the heavens and screaming about “Fifty Dollars a Day!!” to heat his abode using packed in propane bottles. The propane trucks couldn’t even make it office to pick up propane the snow was so deep and there were so many trees down the area up there looked like a war zone. Mercy! 50 bucks a day to heat the greenies all green mean machine carbon neutral planet friendly virtual signaling abode.
Our gracious host Dr. Rebane calmly and matter-of-factory relied he was spending 50 clams a day to run his propane generator.
Walt was still alive and we mused that all those lib holes that were boasting and boasting before that they never lost power with their 20k Tesla Powerwalls after a one or two day outage suddenly never boasted here again. :)
It took some time for the propane trucks themselves to dig out and get to their propane big tank stashes with their offices were out of power and worker unable to make it in….and quite the bad timing to call for a delivery. 9% at the start of Snowmageddon. Slothfullness.
So, because of the misfortune our one beloved regulars here (who shall remain anonymous), I walked out a other day and was pleasantly surprised that my little tank was at 65%. :).
And to be The Butthead of The Day again, I have never lost power this year. Or seen an 1/16 inch of snow.
If it is any consolidation, I do not feel Cartman’s pain. Neither KKKeachie’s. :). Nor Bobbie’s nor Kenny Jonesy’s not Bill W. okes.
Posted by: Bill Tozer | 06 March 2023 at 11:06 AM
moi: "In the real world, about how much propane does your generator use? "
No need. I looked up the price of propane and the fuel consumption at different loads for Generacs.
Posted by: scenes | 06 March 2023 at 03:50 PM
Mr Toes, so very sorry to hear of your recent kinship with potted plants! Keep moving!
Here's an inspirational quote:
"The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive."
-- Thomas Sowell
Posted by: Gregory | 06 March 2023 at 03:58 PM
The Rebane’s of Hind Tit Road have power back on!!!!
re: update, March 8, 2023
That Dr. Rebane is one wood spitting animal, I tell ya. Firewood: Nevada County’s only Renewal Resource. It’s organic too
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Gregory @ March 6, 2023
That you for the well wishes. I have prepared myself to the unenviable possibility that I may never run the weed eater again. Or finish some rock projects. Let the next owner to it. Sad, but not the worse thing that I could face. Just the idea of paying someone to do yard work seems, at first glance, rather wimpy. Oh well. :)
Posted by: Bill Tozer | 09 March 2023 at 06:27 PM
The truth that capitalism has fed more people and raised people out of hunger is a problem for those that want you to eat bugs. Shit even bill gates says the notion that not having a kid or not eating meat actually helps is a fallacy. LOL
Anti-capitalism meme comparing fast food chicken sandwiches backfires massively
The fried chicken sandwich wars have satisfied millions of Americans
"These champagne socialists really show how out of touch they are with asinine memes like these. #Theleftcantmeme," Jacob Airey, a conservative activist, tweeted.
The Libertarian Party of California also weighed in. "Imagine telling anyone who lived under communism how hard your life is because you have 12 chicken sandwich options," they tweeted.
"How many chicken sandwich options did the Ukrainians have during the Holodomor?" Daily Caller editor Grayson Quay queried.
Editor in chief of Arc Digital Berny Belvedere tweeted, "Leftists posting capitalism's Ws."
AOC: CAPITALISM IS NOT A ‘REDEEMABLE SYSTEM FOR US’
"DELICIOUS FOOD WIDELY AVAILABLE[.] Capitalism blamed," Jim Treacher, a popular conservative writer, tweeted.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/anti-capitalism-meme-comparing-fast-food-chicken-sandwiches-backfires-massively
;)
Posted by: Don Bessee | 09 March 2023 at 08:08 PM
I recall photos of Ukrainian vendors during the Holodomor with human body parts being sold for food. Yumm!
Posted by: Gregory | 09 March 2023 at 08:29 PM
I'm fuzzy on the details after 31 years, but I think i paid $600 for my 500 gallon tank. If only all my purchases were as prescient.
Posted by: Gregory | 09 March 2023 at 10:20 PM