actually woke up at 1:30 a.m. remembering to move the weather command unit to higher ground in hopes of catching Uncle Sam’s radio signal with the time.
Actually, my mind is racing trying to keep up with everything going on these days. Too much work. Too much work. Too much work. It gives a whole new meaning to this busy as a bumblebee thing.
Given how fast life is these days I was happy to receive my welcome letter today from Nell Wright over at Slow Food USA, which I recently joined. I’m not complaining, mind you, but I did find it interesting that it took about a week for the email to get here.
I joined Slow Food USA in hopes of learning more about the foods I eat, but also in the hopes of finding others around these parts interested in the idea of good, wholesome food, carefully and lovingly prepared and enjoyed.
See, even after about nine years here in rural Calvert County I’m not all that widely networked with my neighbors. I travel too much and I work from a home office. Unless someone comes pounding on my door with a package delivery or I run across them regularly on my errands, I don’t really get the chance to meet many people here. My local network consists mostly of the folks at the nursery (who mostly know me for my love of mulch) the wine guy (who mostly knows me for my love of wine) and the nice people at our little post office (who mostly know me for the impressive quantity of mail order catalogs that I receive).
I also haven’t run across too many people on those errands that share my interests, particularly in slow foods. I mean, I am one of those throwbacks who actually cooks dinner every night so we can sit down for a family dinner. It usually takes one to two hours for the preparation and cooking. I also am making my own cheese and have pretty much given up buying store-bought bread in lieu of making it myself, although that’s usually in the bread machine. (Note to self: Ask the Slow Foods people “How slow is slow?”) How do you find people these days who share an interest in cooking with good ingredients, particularly when you live in the middle of nowhere?
I don’t know about where you live, but out here it’s appalling what I see people tossing into their grocery basket. I see families with kids, God bless ‘em, with little more than frozen pizzas, ramen noodles and sugary cereals piled up in their grocery cart. And I can’t help but notice the correlation between the nightmares in folks’ shopping carts and their, well, shall we say their impressive girth?
And some purchases just don’t make sense given that you can accomplish the same thing at home with a minimum of effort. Don’t these people KNOW you can make tea yourself with boiling water and some cheap teabags? You don’t NEED someone in Arizona (or pretending they’re in Arizona) to boil it up, sugar it up and bottle it up. You can even just stick those bags in a bottle of water in the sun and—VOILA—sun tea!
I just want to holler sometimes.
Clearly, the stress of work is getting to me that I’m worried about Arizona Tea here at 2 a.m.
Gotta get a life here soon…
Robin
Fourteen AA batteries and two AAA batteries later, the new Honeywell Professional Weather Station (Model TE923W) is now operational.
I can now tell you that the current temperature outdoors is 63 degrees and the humidity is 51%. Here in my office, it’s a comfortable 70 degrees with 45% humidity. The air is still (no wind), but there will be a half moon tonight. Since it’s almost evening, there are no UVs to worry about. But if there WERE indeed nasty UVs to worry about a little smiley face with sunglasses would appear on the command unit display to warn me of the dire consequences of going outside unprotected. I could even program it to go off as an alarm if the sun were to get out of control.
I have absolutely no idea what the barometric pressure is doing.
Last night at dinner my husband told me that he thought when the barometric pressure was going down it was a bad thing. When it was going up it was a good thing.
“You don’t want it to go down,” he explained without a smile on his face.
I told him I thought he was mixing up the barometric pressure gauge with another interesting gauge he’s familiar with and that perhaps there were too many Viagra and Cialis commercials on Sunday television football these days.
But back to the weather…
Someday I will write a long treatise on the importance of barometric pressure and how to tell whether it’s good or bad when it goes up or down.
One more thing about the weather station command unit. It will not tell me the correct time.
See, everything works fairly well, from what I can tell, but the time. I can figure out rain gauges (which I located outdoors, thank you very much), thermo hygrometer sensors and anemometers, but I can’t figure out how to set the time.
You would THINK that setting the time would be fairly simple, especially since it’s an ATOMIC CLOCK and it’s supposed to set itself at least every 24 hours through some sort of government-sponsored radio signal.
Nope. Not here. Not this atomic clock.
Frankly, I’m really hosed off about it too, especially considering the big fat checks I have had to write to Uncle Sam the past four years. You would THINK he could at least give me the time of day. Harumph.
But back to the weather…
As soon as I have about four or five hours, I will figure out how to set the time.
I do have a couple of other observations about the installation and instructions that I would like to pass along, just in case you decide you want your own Honeywell Professional Weather Station.
- One of the most important instructions is that you must insert all the batteries into all the monitors before putting the batteries into the main unit. They really weren’t kidding about this, so don’t even try inserting those batteries unless you want to waste 20 minutes trying to figure out why your rain gauge isn’t working. You’ll feel stupid when you read the instructions when they say don’t do that.
- The instructions also tell you that the wind meter should be installed away from buildings, trees and other obstructions about 33 FEET off the ground. Okay. Two things about this: 1) WHY must it be located 33 feet off the ground? 2) Never mind about #1. I’m not locating the thing 33 feet off the ground. You would need a 33 foot pole to accomplish this away from buildings or trees. Frankly, I’m much more concerned about how fast the wind is here where I’m standing with my little dogs in the garden so that I can complain about it to no end here on Bumblebee Blog. End of story. The wind gauge is 4 feet off the ground. Consider this fair warning if I report the wind speed and you want to know if it is measured through some meteorologically approved method. It’s not.
My final word about this whole weather business is to concede that I have joined the ranks of the weather geeks–or at least I will as soon as I figure out whether the barometric pressure is anything I can compare accurately to activities regulated by Viagra and Cialis.
I really apologize to Layanee at Ledge and Gardens for my wisecracks about people who document the weather. I even endorse Carol at May Dreams Gardens getting a weather radio so she knows if a tornado is going to plow down her house.
The temperature outside is now 61 degrees and the humidity is 57%. Winds are from the south at 1 mile per hour. The barometric pressure is no doubt doing something interesting, although I have no idea what that might be.
Your weather reporter in these parts,
–Robin (Bumblebee)
P.S.
If you are a dog lover, you really must see my little Papillon, Sarah. I cannot tell you how many times she makes these cuteness-perfect poses during the course of a day. I just want scoop her up and smother her with kisses.
Robin
It’s the weather station that’s professional, not the installation.
And it seems that those fine folks from Honeywell didn’t expect much in the way of professionalism–or brains–when it comes to setting up their professional weather station either.
Among the helpful installation tips are these:
In case your eyes are like mine, here’s what it says:
"Remote UV sensor, anemometer and rain gauge must be placed outdoors to measure weather elements…If you intend to measure outdoor temperature and humidity, place the remote sensor outdoors."
Now…lemme see if I got this right. If I want that doohickey to tell me how much rain we’re gittin’, I put the thingy outside. Same goes for that thermometer thingamajiggy if I want to know how hot it is outside. They won’t work right if I perch them here on the kitchen countertop.
Really, it’s Friday afternoon and I’m working on the weather station instead of my reports. But that’s only because it’s going to rain and I want to know how much rain we’ll be getting.
Must remember…rain gauge goes outside.
Off to buy a bazillion AA batternies now…
–Robin (Bumblebee)
Comment posting is now at the top of the entry, under the headline. Comments are welcomed and appreciated. I read them all and respond to questions. You can post securely and have the option of posting your URL and email address or not. Email addresses are not shown and are not available to visitors.
Click here to bookmark using any of more than a dozen bookmarking tools:
Robin
