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It's now Thursday morning, and ONCOR, the largest power company in the state, tweeted that it is discontinuing power blackouts related to this week's winter storm.

We were again blessed yesterday to have an entire day without a power outage, but I (at least) continued to take as many opportunities as I could recognize to charge batteries and wash dishes and basically get stuff done hopefully in advance of an outage.

At the same time, I was also trying to be careful to conserve — turning off extra lights and so on — partly motivated by my guilt in running the dishwasher.

It seems to me that power demand would typically increase in the evenings, because the temparatures fall, and heating one's home (with an electric furnace) seems a major power draw (I once read that any appliance used for changing temperature — think furnaces, refrigerators — is always a huge energy consumer); in a normal world, homes are mostly dormant during the day, with a relatively stable and standard power draw: refrigerators, furnace at a lower setting because people are gone. But in the evenings, people are returning home, turning on lights, making dinner, adjusting the thermostat to a more comfortable temparature; TVs are coming on, et cetera. Our current reality is probably somewhat different, because many people are stuck at home during the day either as a function of COVID-19, the winter weather, or (likely) both.

Temparatures have been gradually getting warmer — we reached the mid-20s yesterday and we're there again today. Not warm enough to melt snow, but also not -2°F. We're supposed to start really warming up tomorrow, and the news broadcasts have been warning us all to watch for pipes to burst.

I consider myself lucky we didn't lose power through the night. Actually, I consider myself extremely lucky that power stayed up through the day yesterday, too.

What the local NBC station has dubbed "phase 2" of our winter nightmare rolled in last night — that is, the second wave of snow and sleet and ice expected to strike the area. Until yesterday, DFW was expected to be in a band of snow and sleet; it looks like we've only received some light snow, which is expected to stop in the next couple of hours.

Yesterday we also picked up an additional occupant. A pipe or series of pipes burst in the ceiling of Laurel's friend's apartment, so Laurel quickly evacuated her to our home. I'm doing my very best to remain calm and to stay away from her; she has a well-documented track record of histrionics, and the less time I spend in her company, the better off I am. She destroys my inner peace. We expect she'll be with us through the day today and perhaps overnight and into tomorrow. I expect I'll be going relatively heavy on the Kentucky mouthwash.

As mentioned yesterday, the local school district has canceled classes for the remainder of the week, owing to the present state of the power grid. I too am out of "school" for the day — I work remotely for an out-of-state concern, and weather there has also become nasty.

"Rolling blackouts," they said. "15 to 30 minutes," they said.

Here's what wasn't said until later on: multiple electricity-producing nodes on the grid failed — the wind turbines were failing because they were icing up, but no explanation was offered for the failure of the conventional gas/coal nodes. All of these failures reduced the total capacity of the Texas grid (by the way, Texas is the only state in the union to have its own power grid; the other two grids basically handle power for the west and east halves of the United States, less Texas.) That capacity, as of Sunday night, was instantly and collossally exceeded by record-breaking demand, resulting in direction to power companies to kill as much demand as needed to match available supply.

It's like this: let's say available supply for the Texas power grid is 1.21 jigawatts. Multiple power companies (and I do mean multiple: Texas' power is deregulated, sorta like when AT&T got busted up in the mid-80s. Power companies here are like the "baby bells" were then) supply some percentage of state electricity consumers with power from the grid. So in situations where demand exceeds supply, ERCOT — whose job it is to protect the grid — can direct power companies to bring demand down to match supply. So if demand is 4.8 jigawatts statewide, ERCOT tells the power companies to drop the excess demand. Commonly, "drop the excess demand" means killing enough power to their subscribers to meet the ERCOT mandate.

On Sunday (2/14) and Monday (2/15), "drop the excess demand" happened for about 7 hours each day.

Weather forecasters indicate another round of snow and sleet are headed our way tonight, with ice predicted for a huge swath of Texas to the south east of DFW. I am very concerned that we'll have problems with wind turbines icing up again. Hopefully the conventional nodes won't fail again, but yesterday, 3 million were without power; I'm afraid of that happening again.

In fact, this morning when my alarm went off, I was very happy to hear our HVAC system running, and wasted no time in getting coffee made. It's not like they sound a siren or send some notification to mobile phones when they're about to drop power. (Actually, I just sent a note to the city asking if they would consider making power companies do exactly that.)

Yesterday, they dropped our power at about 2:45 PM. I'd read the power companies' intention was to have rolling blackouts of 15 to 30 minutes. I kept waiting for the power to come back. We built a fire in the fireplace, and at dinnertime, we prepared tacos using our grill.

Not pictured above: all of us wearing hats and coats, using the candlelight to fix our meals. Also not pictured above is the giant tree branch we dragged into the garage to try to break apart (we couldn't). Pictured, though, is the braided wooden hamster furniture that "took one for the team" a short while later.

The local school district closed through Wednesday, in advance of the arrival of a second winter storm tonight, and the expectation of more power outages disrupting even online learning at home.

When I awoke in the 8:00 hour, I found my phone had been receiving alerts since somewhere in the 3 o'clock hour.

A week of extremely low temps (for the area) and occasional freezing rain — punctuated by a pile-up of over 130 cars on US Highway 35 in the Dallas/Fort Worth area resulting in six deaths — is about to culminate in an estimated 4 to 8 inches of snow tonight into tomorrow.

Laurel placed an instacart order Friday night. When the shopper was filling the order yesterday, he sent her images of bare shelves. There's a lot of our order that went unfilled simply because shoppers cleaned them out in advance.

I took a photo out our front door at 9 AM. We appeared to have received about 1/4" of precip by then. Later, at 11 AM, we seem to have received some additional snowfall, but not enough to make 1/2" yet.

The big show is supposed to happen sometime this afternoon, I think. The current temp (11:50 AM) is 17°, with a wind chill of 1°. WTAF

UPDATE: I measured 2.5" of snow on the ground as of 6 PM this evening, and 3.5" at 8 PM. And the weather alerts are piling up: it's now believed we'll receive an additional 6 between this evening and Monday, I think; wind chills may reach -20°F. All we can do about it now is just brew some coffee and brace for impact.

"I was steamed at a co-worker. I had driven an hour into the office for a meeting, and saw that he canceled it when I was but one exit away from the office. So I didn't bother going in — I just kept going on the access road for the US-75 Central Expressway and turned around under the next overpass.

The flow of traffic on the access road is about 50 MPH. I turned on a surface street, and headed home. I wasn't paying attention to my speed and was pulled over by an unmarked police car.

I remember thinking, "Are those lights for me?" to be safe, I slowed and pulled to the lane on my right. He followed me... so there was my answer."

I got this ticket a year ago today. And lately, with all that's been happening about BLM and associated police brutality, I think about my experience and the officer who ticketed me a LOT lately.

I need to hear he's doing well. I need to hear he's safe, and he's okay.

I need these things because I remember him so. Hell, he even extended his hand and he thanked me for taking responsibility for the ticket I earned. Believe me, I don't love that I earned the ticket — I was really hoping he'd let me slide — nor the ensuing months of making sure I don't screw up again. I'm focused on the man.

When I last wrote about this in mid-August, I was fretting about how quickly time had passed since May.

Last night, we got into the pool sometime in the 7 PM hour and I didn't stay in long. I got out because I felt chilly, and actually made myself a cup of coffee to enjoy.

I LIVE ON THE SUN AND I MADE COFFEE AT LIKE 7:30.

Also, I previously wrote, "By this time next month, my wife may not even be going into the pool any longer." Last night, she stayed in — "fortified," she said, with alcohol and entertaining a guest.

When we moved here over a year ago, everybody told me we'd be closing the pool in September. And I scoffed at the notion at the time. Well, today, when a 95° feels cool, I think it's fair to say my evening swims will be limited... I could probably still enjoy a dip during the day, though.

Actually, that sounds pretty good!

I saw a post this morning that sorta broke my heart: a friend I've known for years posted a photo of her home, boarded up.

I went ahead and offered her and her husband a place to stay should they end up this far west.

You know, we hear about these awful things that happen in our world, and I find it takes the involvement of family, friends or acquaintances to make them really real for us.

I rode out a few hurricanes in my time in the service, but in that time I lived in a home on a base or was a renter somewhere out on the economy. I wasn't a homeowner. In 1992 I was stationed at a post in Central America. I had a friend who transferred to my duty station because his station was destroyed by a particularly nasty hurricane that struck South Florida. I believe his property was pretty much at "ground zero" for Hurricane Andrew. He lost everything. I've never known what that is like, and I certainly hope I never will — and I hope to pay it forward by offering what I can to people I know are in need.

I probably won't hear from my friend about this again. Hopefully she felt at least a little relief knowing that I was ready to offer what I could.

Technically I guess, It's still summer. We're in Mid-August. Until this month, summer has been pretty comfortable. "Pool season," as noted in my previous post, was very kind to us — the bugs weren't nearly as bad, and we were in the pool with guests and margaritas in hand by 4:30 every day. And yes, you can become very tanned spending a couple of hours in a pool that late in the day.

But I was genuinely shocked to realize yesterday that we're more than half way through August — and September is when things really cool down. I... I'm not ready to give up the pool and the margaritas. It's as though yesterday's realization slapped my sunglasses off, and the margarita fell onto the deck. By this time next month, my wife may not even be going into the pool any longer — it's held its temparature fairly steadily at about 93° for the past few weeks, but all bets are off starting next month.

How did thi— WHO LET THIS HAPPEN? Sure, Kiddo started school again this past week. That shouldn't have anything to do with how I finish my work for the day, right? Amirite??

Oh, I'm sure we'll still have some time for swimming, kiddo and I — we're not as sensitive about the temparature as mommy is. But when I think of September and October, I think of cool-downs and rains. And that's...

...that's not margaritas and sunshine.

I was steamed at a co-worker. I had driven an hour into the office for a meeting, and saw that he canceled it when I was but one exit away from the office. So I didn't bother going in — I just kept going on the access road for the US-75 Central Expressway and turned around under the next overpass.

The flow of traffic on the access road is about 50 MPH. I turned on a surface street, and headed home. I wasn't paying attention to my speed and was pulled over by an unmarked police car.

I remember thinking, "Are those lights for me?" to be safe, I slowed and pulled to the lane on my right. He followed me... so there was my answer.

The Ticket

All in all, a pleasant transaction. He was a normal guy, just doing his job. I didn't fight anything. I didn't know how fast I was actually going, because my mind had been on the inconvenience of the meeting that didn't happen, and the time I wasted when I could have been getting stuff done -- my deadline is already tight enough as it is.

I took responsibility, of course. It was dumb not to. 99% of the time, I'm pretty good about staying at a reasonable speed (relative to the limit) — I live in a city where the entire main road is a speed trap. I see officers out there all the time with their radar guns. But this a different city (where traffic seems to move fast except for school zones), and this was the one time I had completely brain farted, and I had to own up to it.

I had almost everything going for me to get off with a warning: I've got veterans plates, I'd never had a speeding ticket ever, and... I'm driving a BUICK, for goodness' sakes... not a car with big balls under the hood. Given my gender, this was the abaout the best I could do.

Nope. It wasn't to be.

The officer explained that he had to ticket me — I wasn't even close to the speed limit in that area. I had still been in Central Expressway mode, fuming over the waste of time. He apologized a few times for "having to be my first (officer to write me a ticket)."

The Aftermath

Our transaction completed, I phoned my wife to let her know. She was elated.

ELATED.

Elated because it was proof to her that I'm capable of making mistakes. I mean, she was overjoyed. She still is, and I earned the ticket a few days ago. I mean, she beams like she could not be more proud of me.

I admit that I'm a pretty buttoned down kinda guy. I'm pretty risk-averse, and she knows it. I don't do stupid shit. And I've gotten on her for speeding on the highway in the past — mostly because she frightens me when she drives that fast (92 MPH in essentially a mini-van).

So maybe earning that ticket was something she needed — confirmation I'm not infallible, perhaps? Do I typically present or infer a very high standard of behavior? An unreachable standard of behavior?? Did the ticket gave her license to relax? I'm inferring a lot here... but her response was pretty jarring — it's really made me question how she views me, and whether she's been living by some standard I didn't understand I had set.

Technically I guess, It's summer. We're in Mid-June. Spring just sort of seemed to happen overnight. Temps went from the mid-40's in winter to "pool season," which kiddo felt started in mid-to-late May, but we sane adults felt really started closer to the start of June.

Since that point, I've been in that pool nearly every day. I started by joining kiddo in the water after school for a couple of hours, and, for the most part, continued to get in at about the same time every day; sometimes on the weekends we'll get in earlier. At this point, I'm tan enough that one can very plainly see where my wedding band and wrist watch belong. Days I don't take a dip are few and sad.

I find that I'm enjoying keeping the pool tidy. And it say it that way for a reason: We have a guy who comes and cleans it, checks the water, checks the equipment. I do a very small subset of that: I use the robot to "vaccuum" crap off of the basin — partly because I can't tell what's just leaves and what might have eight legs — and to keep the "thimble" clear.

The "thimble" is an inch-long wire mesh basket that rests inside of the hose connecting the main pool return to the cleaning robot. It catches small bits of debris that are collected in the skimmers (and are too small to get caught in the baskets), flow away from the pool into the pump, go through all the converter junk, and get returned back to the pool. Cleaning the "thimble" is a lot like picking a metal nose, but doing it is important because debri blocking that filter restricts the flow of water into the pool cleaner robot. Seeing the pool cleaner standing still is a great indication the "thimble" is full of stuff.

Anyway, my point is that I want the pool to look perfect for my wife and for guests. We've had two instances this year where storms or high winds have blown a lot onto the surface, and clearing it is a bit of a pain: the cottony blooms of a nearby Mimosa tree often end up in the water. These blooms appear grey in the "thimble," having partipated in the salt-to- chlorine process. A really unusual deposit happened a couple of weeks ago after a severe storm blew through the area: winged ants. They were only in the pool -— they weren't flying in the air or on the house or even the patio. Just the pool. It took about a week to get them all out.

We bought some new equipment this year, based on lessons learned from last year. First and foremost, inflatables are crap. Buy longer-lasting foam stuff instead. Secondly, I think we figured out Laurel's minimum temparature requirement: 30°C, or 86°F. Learned that because we bought a very easy-to-read thermometer to replace the tiny one affixed to the now-retired salt tablet dispenser.

Storms came through yesterday, filling the pool quickly and dropping both the air and water temps. When I checked yesterday afternoon, the water temp was about 79°. It's going to take a few days at least for the water temp to climb again to the ideal. But, if it's sunny and warm, I'll probably be in the pool anyway!

This post could be filed under "Things I Wish We Had Known When We Bought the House."

We've found a number of things about Texas life just sort of "happens." The weather cooled from the summer into what is now generally low 60's, which makes things like lawn maintenance easier. Not that the grass is growing — once the temps hit about 45 degrees, grass drops into neutral for the winter.

But OMG the leaves.

OMG The Leaves

We have a lovely oak tree at the front of our house. After a storm came through one night, our front lawn was BURIED under oak leaves. Oak leaves and acorns.

I'd hired a company to come take care of our lawn every couple of weeks, but I think they must have stopped for the season by the time that storm came through.

So I've been steadily working my way through getting those leaves up over the past few days. And let me tell you — those leaves are everywhere. They're all in the flower beds, they're all over the front lawn — you'd think somebody I'd made mad just drove a truck up against the house and dumped it all. I mean, these can't all be from our tree — but the tree in the yard to our south isn't an oak, and the tree in the yard to our north isn't either.

So, next year, I'll make sure I hire a company that will maintain the lawn through December.

At the rate I'm going, I'll be sucking up these leaves through the end of the year. It might just be smarter to hire a company to come out and finish this job — including getting the leaves out of the flower beds. That's my number one concern — I don't want to have material collecting there that rodents can make a home out of.