Wire we even trying?

If there's one thing that gives me a Not-Quite-Third-World-but-Possibly-Second feel, it's do-it-yourself public utility repair.

So, what have we here? We have a house that was just sold and is undergoing some reconstruction by various men in unmarked trucks and vans. The chain-link fence runs all around the property but for the gate at the driveway. And the big wire from the utility poles seems to have been dangling uncomfortably low. So, the boys took some 2x6s and made their own booster poles on either side of the gate.

I do applaud the desire to get things moving and not wait around for the bland bureaucracy of the power company to answer the call -- a call that would be appropriate, with the wire about seven feet above the pavement, but not one that would trigger an emergency response. 

I applaud also their use of wood instead of metal for the wire supports. (Although note the lampshade on the ground in the top photo -- they used a trashed lamp to secure the ersatz pole by tying it to the metal fence with the lamp's electrical cord, which is just a wee bit suspect.)

However, monkeying around with utility wires is not only dangerous on its own, it's also dangerous because if you black out the whole block, people are going to be angry. Which is why it's always best to leave it to the pros. 

The Third-World-or-Maybe-Second feel springs from the thought that the people doing this come from someplace where you never expect authority to answer a call within months, and if they do, they will require palms to be greased. Meanwhile, these guys got a house to demo and clear out and new walls to put up and paint, and they don't have time for this crap. They have to be able to get the trucks in and out today. 

They also might not have expected any response from a call to the utility company, because it would have gotten ignored back home. 

"I see no problem here."

Well, I went ahead and put in a call yesterday. You know me -- safety first. Unless it has to do with my own acrobatics -- walking down some stairs, crossing the ice, you know. Then it’s Safety? What’s that?

I will let you know how long it takes for the saggy wire to get fixed. I hope it's before the first ice storm of the winter. I'm sure the power company employees would much rather fix it now than fix it then. 

Boss battle.

You know, every month is like a level in a classic video game. Your little character goes along with his little bundle of tricks, looking to earn points and powerups along the way. As he goes, he must overcome obstacles (work) and combat enemies (bills). Some of the enemies will be mere nuisances, like the water bill, and some will be more serious, like the utility bill at the height of winter or summer. You can get past those, but you have to be careful. You don't want to use up all your power on the little guys, because you know at the end of the level (the month), you have the boss battle waiting. 

Repeat twelve times, and that's the game for the year. If, like a lot of us. December is the month in which you spend the most, consider that the endgame boss battle. Yeah, it's lame to have the same boss to fight every month, and technically those Christmas bills on the credit card will come due in January, but do you want to enjoy a nice metaphor or get into an argument? 

The level/month analogy does make sense, in that a mortgage or rent payment comes at the end of the month and is traditionally the highest monthly bill most of us face. I say traditionally because some people really have a problem with credit card debt, some people are getting murdered by the IRS, some people have teenagers and a phone bill that is mindboggling, and so on. But the roof over your head is supposed to cost 25 to 30% of what you bring home, and if it's more than that, well, welcome to 2023. 

Now, having defended my metaphor, I'll tear it down.

🎮Videogames are fun. People like them because they're challenging. No one likes a bill that's challenging. 

🎮A gamer playing a level that's easy calls it boring. No one calls a month of lighter-than-average bills boring. 

🎮Rich people have accountants pay their bills for them. While the strange phenomenon of watching other people play videogames is indeed a thing, no one pays someone to play Call of Duty because he just can't be bothered to do it himself. 

On the other hand, if paying bills has become too easy -- say, we got a better job -- we take steps to bring the challenge back to it. We buy a house, or a bigger house, or get married, or have a child, or redecorate, or renovate, or buy a boat, or take up cocaine, and next thing you know, paying bills becomes a challenge all over again. I swear, human beings will tolerate almost anything rather than face boredom.

Mailed it in.

In case you feel like you're wasting time with whatever you're doing, let me just remind you of something:

The US Postal Service has its own podcast.

These days, every organization has to have its own pricey Web site, podcast, video introduction, YouTube channel, and LinkedIn page. Some never get much farther than all that. The part where they actually do something useful, benefit society, and/or make money? Forgot in all the excitement.

It's weird to see that the post office has a podcast. What is the post office's rep? Slow, late to adopt tech, humorless, a dinosaur, at worst just a benefits program that happens to deliver the mail, as General Motors became a benefits program that happens to make cars. The post office doesn't even have a lot of fun stamps anymore. The last time a stamp issue was a big deal was the Young Elvis vs. Fat Elvis vote in 1992.

I was looking for the tracking tools on the USPS site when I came across the link for the podcast, available on Apple Podcasts on on the Simplecast site. So, okay, what the hell do they talk about on a podcast by the post office? What could possibly interest you and me, going about our business and not much thinking about mail? I mentioned to my wife that the post office has a podcast and she said, "I can't imagine a duller one."

I downloaded episode 32, new this past Tuesday, in which Bill Gicker, USPS director of Stamp Services, talks about the 2023 stamp program. Other episodes deal with topics like postal history, delivery preparations for the holidays, the origin of the zip code, and why mail-in voting is totally safe, you bet, no cheating here. Each one is just around half an hour. 

Well, it actually was fairly interesting. Got some standard jukey intro music, and then the host introduces the guest, and they talk about post office things. I learned some info bits from the episode I heard -- like, new stamp designs are chosen three years before they are issued, a citizen's group is included in the voting, and the post office is at least as obsessed with diversity as any other American organization. I don't think I heard the name of a straight white person mentioned among the upcoming 2023 issues except Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (The current rule says someone must be deceased for three years before being eligible to be enstampified.) Peanuts stamps do very well, according to Gicker, as does the Black Heritage series. The host is fine and all, but I'm not much into postal things, so I don't know that I'd download another episode. Maybe some of the American history-tied episodes. (They did not mention that once again! the price of a first-class stamp is going up, this Monday the 22nd, to 63 cents.)

I'm sure there's an audience for this stuff -- even though interest in philately has declined, it has not gone away entirely. It might be of interest to employees; the post office currently has more than 516,000 full-timers on staff (about the population size of Atlanta, Georgia), and no doubt millions of former and aspiring employees in the wings. And the beauty of the podcast environment, like that of the blog (cough, cough), is that don't need to put up big bucks to design, write, and produce the thing. Why, sometimes one idiot with an obsession (ahem) is all it takes. So the USPS may not be spending much, but they got a PR program out of it. 

I guess it seems odd because -- why do it all? We know the post office loses money every year, and the odds of it being able to become a money-making enterprise are about as good as the odds of it being able to lay off redundant workers -- roughly 0%. Most of us treat it like a utility, so it's like if the local water company had a podcast. It could be interesting -- clean water available on demand is a great luxury in the history of the world -- but why do it at all? 

If you're the kind of person who likes checking out the odd spots in podcast world, check it out and let me know what you think. It's hard to find stats on podcast listeners or subscribers, but Mailin' It does have a 3.6-star (out of 5) rating from 182 reviewers, so someone must be enjoying it. But it just seems like another way that modern organizations spend time, effort, and resources to tell people how great they are instead of actually being great. (See also: the Academy Awards.)

Vote Socialism, Freeze in the Dark.

Got a little message from our utility company the other day, the people whom we rely on for our gas heat and stove and water heater and electricity. 

All the years I've lived here, through times of pricey fuel and reasonable fuel, I've never seen a message like this. So let's ask: Can you explain the high prices in more detail? 

The rising cost of natural gas supplies has increased customers’ natural gas and electric winter bills for Orange & Rockland (O&R) and the rest of New York State’s electric and gas utility companies.

The cost of natural gas has been driven upward as:

Demand for the commodity has risen,

Exports have increased, and

Supply is limited. 

These and other factors have caused a decline in the amount of natural gas in storage in the United States.

So, I looked to the Web to ask, Why could exports have been increased? Why is supply so limited? And the first hundred hits were all of the Don't Blame Us CYA variety of government data spewers and their flunkies in the press, along with environmental groups that are dancing in the cold for the high price of natural gas and petroleum. So I checked some of the sites of people actually in the business of natural gas production and sales, like Shell. I was surprised but not shocked to see that China is the world's largest importer of liquefied natural gas, which means that once again China's activity is helping ruin things for the rest of us. The United States leads the world in LNG exports, but it seems like we could use some of that stuff closer to home right now. I'd rather we had more fuel of our own and less cheap crap available in Walmart.

Then there's the problem of Europe getting its gas cut off by Russia because of the sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine. "Europe demand for LNG sets off global competition for supplies," says the International Energy Agency, and that "Russia’s continued curtailment of natural gas flows to Europe has pushed international prices to painful new highs". Gee, didn't someone give Russia a kind of backhand green light to invade Ukraine? I seem to recall something like that.

Of course, European leaders who have been bragging about dropping nuclear energy and going to solar and wind while really running everything on Russian natural gas are in for a colder winter than we are. How much does woodfire contribute to global warming? 

So long, Black Forest; nice knowin' ya. 

Speaking of which, New York closed its Indian Point nuclear power plant last year -- seems like we could have used some of that nice, clean, cheap nuclear-generated electricity this winter. Thanks, Governor Cuomo! Another win for you!

 

We could have been drilling for more natural gas, I suppose, but we're not supposed to do that anymore. Some folks like to say, "We can't drill our way to lower gas prices." And yet we're told that our high prices now are due to low supply. Gosh, doesn't that mean... help me out here... that if we made more supply by drilling... gas would cost... could it be?... LESS? Man, math is hard.

So, since O&R can't get more fuel, its only answer for us is "managing usage." In other words, freeze in the dark. 

Some of the tips they give are fine, and worth doing even when fuel is inexpensive. Get your heating system inspected and cleaned? Sounds great. But it's not free. It's another expenditure when homeowners are being stretched by inflation, but maybe it would pay for itself in fuel savings. Maybe. Also: tighten up insulation, switch to LED lights, use smart thermostats, and so on. That stuff is free, right? 

You ever get the feeling that the world is being run by the stupidest, most vile people imaginable? Some are just stupid; some are just vile; most are a happy combination of both. Vote them out before we aren't allowed to do it anymore.