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05/09/2008: "The cost of Avalanches..."

Well, Aaron and I have made some changes at our house which is why I haven't been posting as much recently. For one thing, with a 500% increase in our electric bills (and the bills of all of the businesses in Juneau) and the state unwilling to help out, everyone here has had to make some serious lifestyle changes.

In order to pay our increased electric bills over the summer, we've had to give up cable TV and high-speed internet (we're keeping both the TV and computer mostly off during the evening) and since I don't blog from work, that has limited my options somewhat.

We are also trying to get rid of our storage unit (another bill we suddenly can't afford) so we've been making trips there and identifying a bunch of stuff we can sell at our upcoming garage sell. We're also having to sell the Opportunity, Aaron's 22" Catalina sailboat as we can't afford the slip fees.

:(

Anyway, some good that has come from all of this, we are actually *doing* a lot more stuff, as we used to spend too much time watching TV (me) and surfing the web (him). However, there are a lot of cold, dark homes here in Juneau, as everyone hunkers down and tries to get through the next 3+ months on back-up diesel generators.

We bought an indoor clothesline (you can't dry anything outside as it's always rainy) and we've switched to low-flow shower heads, bought an insulation blanket for the hot water heater, and all of our lights are compact florescent.

I *do* hope to spend more time painting, possibly out-doors as it's too dark at our place to paint inside.