Posted: January-08-2010 at 12:17pm | IP Logged	Tweet

Home made chili and cornbread.

BIG pot full of chili.....

We also have some boiled cabbage left from last night which I plan to get out of the fridge and heat up shortly. Love it with cornbread! I have been out clearing the driveway....yet again.... and just came in a couple of minutes ago. Need something hot to eat.   HA HA

Posted: January-10-2010 at 3:57pm | IP Logged	Tweet

Hey WOOWOO.... just an update....  No beef stew this evening after all.  HA HA  Turns out that is maybe on the menu for tomorrow evening. We are having pizza and salad this evening.

Below is a photo which I took this evening just a short time before sundown. We were already in the shadows of sunset here at the house, but the sun was still shining on the highest part of Beartown Mountain. This is the view out my home office window, looking east at the peak. (Yep, I took the picture through the window from inside.... so the quality isn't quite up to Shawn's standards.... HA HA) Temperature here when I made the picture was 18. It has dropped to 14 now....

Posted: January-10-2010 at 5:19pm | IP Logged	Tweet

Well... WeatherBug is saying that the low for our area tonight will be 12 degrees.

It is down to 9 degrees already up here at our house.......

Probably gonna have to get a home improvement loan to pay the next power bill.... We just got our most recent one Friday. It went through the period ending before this really cold spell hit us.... It went through January 2nd. This most recent bill was 250% of our previous month's bill! It was more than double our bill for the same period of last year!  I plan to call tomorrow and try to get a better understanding of all the add-on's and surcharges and "usage fees", etc. It used to be fairly simple when they just charged a fee per kilowatt hour. Now there is the "Generation Services" fee, plus the Fuel Factor Adjustment per KWH, plus OATT Transmission Services, plus Retail Transmission Services, plus plain old Transmission Services, plus Distribution Services, plus Environmental Recovery Surcharge, plus Virginia Electric Consumption Tax, plus the local Utility Tax.....

I gotta find out what the heck all the transmission services are... and then that "distribution service" charge is about the same as the Fuel Factor Adjustment, which is almost as much as the "Generation Service". At any rate, this danged power bill is more than our house payment was. Luckily we paid the mortgage off a few years ago.

Heck, maybe instead of a home improvement loan, I may have to look into one of those reverse mortgage deals to afford the dadgum power bill.

Posted: January-10-2010 at 5:39pm | IP Logged	Tweet

...and, yeah.... before anyone who may be a big AEP/APPCO supporter says "Read the back of the bill dummy"....   HA HA  I want to say, "Did that".

I still want some human with the power company to actually take the time to explain to me why I pay separate fees for each line the electricity passes through, and why each one seems to have some Federal or State or County tax or tariff attached to that.

And, why in the heck to we actually pay them to read the meter?

I'm sure that it would be really well received if I started charging my customers an additional fee for calculating the amount of their bill for my services, and then add on another fee for giving them a bill, and then add on another fee for processing their payment.  LOL

Posted: January-10-2010 at 6:25pm | IP Logged	Tweet

Yep RW... and when the January temperature gets up to 47, we should see Al Gore resurface.....   LOL

By the way..... the temperature is a cool 6 degrees here presently.

Posted: January-10-2010 at 6:41pm | IP Logged	Tweet

Al "Global Warming" Gore!!! HA HA HA

I hate people know he's from the state of Tennessee. He was maybe born in Carthage, but he spent a LOT of his time growing up in Washington, D.C., with his politician father.

Posted: January-10-2010 at 7:09pm | IP Logged	Tweet

Beartown Mountain in Rosedale..... uh-huh.....

Well, Rosedale does have a post office. We don't. So, I suppose they use that as a locator. But, Rosedale's Post Office only has two parking spaces.... Handicapped and Mail Carrier.   Seriously....  HA HA

They should have said "near" Rosedale. We are about three miles from Rosedale.

Posted: January-10-2010 at 7:17pm | IP Logged	Tweet

Watch the 11 o'clock WCYB TV 5 news and see if they don't show that photo again, and say it was sent it by so-and-so who took the photo of Beartown Mountain in Rosedale, Va.

I've heard of Rosedale before, but to actually say I've ever been through Rosedale ... I don't reckon I have. But I do happen to know the mayor of beautiful Elk Garden. HA HA HA

Posted: January-10-2010 at 7:43pm | IP Logged	Tweet

HA HA... Now you gotta know I was just kidding about Rosedale. It's a really nice place just three miles up the road from us on 19. we are on US Rt 80 in Elk Garden. 

Beartown Mountain is actually fairly danged big.... and the second highest point in the Commonwealth of Virginia. You can see it from a LOT of places... including Rosedale. LOL

Thing is... you can't really get a good image of Beartown Mountain from Rosedale..... You can't even get a good image of the mountain from my house, as you could tell from the photo I posted. From Rosedale, you are not at the right perspective to get a decent photo. From my house, you are too close. The best photo can be made from just outside Lebanon... or between Lebanon and Elk Garden, because you can see the westward slopes and the northern side and the highest peak. The view of Beartown from downtown Lebanon (about 8 miles from us), or from the Lebanon bypass, is spectacular.

And RW, I would guarantee that you have indeed been through Rosedale. If you have ever driven up US19 from Lebanon toward Bluefield, you passed through Rosedale. There is a stop light. I bet you even stopped in Rosedale. Most do.

And, you also know the mayor of Rosedale. That would be one of my best buddies, Jeff Woodward. We often discuss our mayoral duties in our late night phone conversations.

Posted: January-10-2010 at 9:48pm | IP Logged	Tweet

Two mayors participating here on RacersLounge? Hey guys, discussin' mayoral duties late night, is that not a violation of the Sunshine Law? HA HA HA