I broke one of the Commandments today: “Thou shalt not wear pants before Halloween, or the first snow, whichever comes first.”
Just where this Commandment falls on the list I can’t recall. I know it didn’t make the top 10.
Socks are a no-no too, at least indoors. Outdoors it’s: “Thou shalt not show thy gnarly, pale-ass, old-white-guy feet in public unless there is a beach or a pool nearby.”
In my defense, I will say only that this morning’s temperature was just above freezing and it was either pants and socks or fire up the furnace for the first time this fall.
I chose to save the planet. You’re welcome.
Mad Blog Media 
We did likewise. Also got our first electric stove to replace a gas one. So much winning.
Well done, sir; well done indeed. Let me know how you like it. Herself is lobbying for electric, half for planet-saving, half for ease of cleanup.
That’s why we got one, plus cleaner indoor air. It’s a glass top which doesn’t like cast iron due to scratching. So, I switched to carbon steel skillets from Lodge. Saved the cast iron skillets, including one old Wagner Ware I’ve had for 50 years, bread pans, and dutch oven for oven use. Definitely a learning curve on heat control, but we have managed. The oven is regular and convection with steam cleaning feature. The cooktop cleanup is a breeze.
Riding the motorcycle (60 mpg) rather than the car (35 mpg) in sub-fifties weather from Fanta Sea to BombTowne and back requires long pants and heavy socks. So be it.
Sometimes the motorcycle bug hits me hard. Find it hard to believe that a 500cc bike is now considered for beginners. Anyway, I spent enough on guitars to buy a nice motorcycle. Ain’t it grand to have choices and disposable income? Many folks in this world have neither.
A good bike riding and wine drinking friend of mine at the U of Hawaii, a meteorology professor, once joked “when we had legs, we couldn’t afford nice bicycles. Now that we can afford nice bicycles, we don’t have legs.” Certain amount of truth to that.
The traditional BMW with the cylinders hanging out the sides was always on the bucket list when I had money for lesser steeds. Figured I might as well ride one for a few years until I realize it is about to kill me. Talked to Maynard Hershon (who wrote for a living about bikes and motorcycles) a couple years ago and he already had downsized to a medium bike (which as you say, used to be a superbike class– an 800 cc).
As my wife said, we worked all our lives for this money. Might as well spend some of it on ourselves in our creaky years.
O, indeed, Paddy me lad. Well said.
I’m trying to buy less stuff lately. But I’m probably gonna have to replace the Main Mac here directly — the 15-inch 2014 MacBook Pro is showing its age even more than I am.
The redesigned Mini looks pretty interesting, but I’ll wait until the whiz kidz weigh in with its value-to-price ratio.
I’ve been using glass top electric for 25 years now.
It’s much easier to cook slow on a good electric than on a crappy gas stove (I’ve never had a good gas stove, if there is such a thing). Electric burner size makes it easy to align heat source and pot size.
I didn’t use my cast iron pans for the first couple of years i had the electric. Then said F that. No problems.
And the glass top is a joy to keep clean. Razor scraper works great. Gritty cleaners not needed.
We went from a so-so glasstop electric in Bibleburg to a so-so gas cooktop here. Only one big burner, two mediums, and two smalls, so anything involving largish pots and/or pans sees me moving items from burner to burner for searing, boiling and/or simmering.
Mildly annoying. But then many things are.
Here the cooking is a belt and suspenders affair. We have been using the electric air fryer for more and more cooking/baking and laying off the gas stove. Also got an electric Weber grill for outside to stop the propane tank carousel . With our solar panels, using the gas stove seems doltish but when staying at VRBO’s we’ve not loved any of the electric versions so far. Looking to replace a somewhat newish Crockpot (fekking heavy!) that seems to ignore its low temp setting and proceed to HOT. Anyone have suggestions for a good size slow cooker? We do like the ability to clean crusted sauces and soups from ceramic pot versus metal. BTW…there have been a couple of times when we’ve been doing long simmers on the gas stove when cooking down our home garden veges for stews or soup and the flame went out thereby filling the kitchen with deadly gas. That’s why the slow cooker is so important.
I figure that when something gives up the ghost, it is time to upgrade to something more energy efficient and that works better; the electric stoves have come a long way. We had an older electric stove in Los Alamos when we first moved from Paradise and I hated it and replaced it with a gas range. The house we bought in Fanta Se came with a nice gas range. Works well so we just put a new fume hood over it.
I don’t like simply tossing something that works and figuring out the energy cost of someone building a new gizmo from scratch when the existing stuff works fine. Run to failure. For all I know, I might be the first thing to run to failure.
Friend of mine at work had a perfectly good gas powered Impreza that got 40 mpg on the road. Ran great with 200k on the odometer. She went out and bought an electric car, as she works full time with a 70 mile R/T commute, so that made sense and she passed the Impreza along to a neighbor who needed an affordable set of wheels. We are both retired and don’t drive too much, so it would be virtue signalling and probably increase our carbon footprint to buy one of those new battery cars, because someone overseas builds all that stuff with fossil power; my Impreza also gets 40 mpg on the highway and the bike even more (and it also goes vroom-vroom, which is the point).
I have the sinking feeling that if we were to switch from gas cooktop to electric it would be throwing the door open to a complete kitchen remodel.
Some neighbors have been enjoying this process for the past few months and the screams and cursing scare the cat.
I can hear that already: “Honey, as long as we are doing the stove, what about those cabinets? And the sink? And refinishing the floor?”
O, yuss, we have had that conversation. And it’s true, the kitchen is dated and in need of an upgrade.
But I’m old and look like Death eating a cracker too. Yet I still function, kinda, sorta. And so does the kitchen.
The other day I was compelled to say with conviction: “This is my kitchen. MY kitchen. You make the moneys. I make the meals.” I felt like a union printer ringing the bell on some newsroom type who wandered off the reservation.
We’re rocking a seriously old Crock-Pot, Herb old chef. The owner’s manual is dated 2009.
I see the Wirecutter people favor a Hamilton Beach 6-quart, same model they’ve recommended since 2013.
Y’figger these things are like bicycles? Same Chinese factory, different decals?
A while back there was an article in Adventure Cycling about the carbon budget of a new bicycle. Most was due to the power sources in those Chinese factories being coal-burners, coupled with the cost of lugging the bikes halfway across the world.
Good news is if you actually use the thing as transportation, you rapidy put the carbon budget into the black again. But not if the bike spends each of its trips sitting on a car rack on the way to the ride.