Remember, a glass full of ice cubes works better than air conditioning.
No it doesn't, at least not when it is 95 with 90% humidity.
You didn't even have time to try it.
I had plenty of time to try it. Since the heat wave started, I've been spending 99% of my time in air conditioned places.
And really, 95 with 90% humidity? Cry me a river.
I have tried putting a metal roof on a pig barn on a day when the temperature reached 110. I drank gallons of ice water and never felt better until I got back into the AC. I didn't complain that much because the pigs were getting the worst part of the deal.
I have stayed mostly in air-conditioned places for the past two days, going out only to watch the game yesterday. Today I have to return a book for a friend that has to be taken to a library very far from the subway and I am grumbling about it. I might even miss Germany beating Spain.
First of all, hard labor excluded. Then you'll overheat, yes.
More importantly, ice water is not the same as a cup of ice. Ice water goes in your stomach. Ice is held against your tongue, and cools your blood immediately. Ice is much more effective for cooling you off, (while ice water is more effective for keeping you hydrated, of course.)
I used to occasionally draft off semis, until I had my first experience with an exploding truck tire.
Speaking of tin roofs, anyone have any opinions on metal roofs? We're debating getting one. Apparently they're way more expensive and noisy, but way more durable and reflect enough heat that they're good, energy-wise. Anyone know better?
I wasn't really drafting off them, since 35 runs N-S. So I was generally to their left or right, ie hanging out right in their blind spot for miles.
Do you also chew the ice? Hurty!
I do like to chew ice, but then it's less effective as a heat cure. Best to suck on it.
I love to crunch that restaurant ice that you get occasionally that's already semi-slushy, mini cubes. That's the best.
Crying a glacier might be more effective.
11: I thought tin roofs were cheaper than a regular wood/shingle roof. Of course, you are probably not talking of the same kind of roof as we put on a pig barn.
My mom used to be addicted to crunching ice. She did it all day, every day, at home, in the car, in restaurants, walking around. Crunch crunch crunch. It made me insane. She gave it up at some point in the past few years and it makes me so happy.
You can still improve your mileage hanging off their sides: those things displace a lot of air. It had never occurred to me to use them for shade, though.when I was driving a car without air conditioning I would hang my arm out of the window and inflate my shirt.
My mom still loves to crunch ice. She knows which fast food places have the best ice. (I believe she likes the kind h-g describes in 14.) Not that she would exactly choose her restaurant by the ice, but if someone suggests driving through restaurant X, she might add, "And they have great ice!"
It had never occurred to me to use them for shade, though.
Probably just as well. Running right beside a trailer makes me very nervous.
I thought tin roofs were cheaper than a regular wood/shingle roof.
From what I've read, for houses the roofs aren't really tin anymore. You can get a copper roof for super expensive, apparently, though. But generally the price seems to be 3-4x the cost for a metal roof.
I am at home translating this morning, so I am putting off showering until closer to the time I'm going to leave the house later, because why shower if I'm just going to get all sweaty again sitting here? But something about this post reminded me that putting on deodorant might still be a good idea.
21: I'm fairly certain the 'tin roofs' have been made of steel since well before I was born. I haven't seen a copper roof that was less than 100 years old, excepting a few public buildings. I wasn't even aware it was an option for a house. Given that copper has gotten so expensive they barely use it for plumbing, I'm guessing a copper roof would be very expensive indeed.
Sure would suck if someone scalped your house for your copper roof.
I think that's what happened to the Parthenon.
4: And really, 95 with 90% humidity? Cry me a river.
95 with 90% humidity would correspond to a dewpoint above 90 which would be close to the world record. It rarely reaches the mid-80s in the US, for places like New Orleans it can hang around up in the high-70s routinely in the summer (very oppressive). Mid-Texas will be usually not get above the low to mid-70s. In fact this particular heat wave on the east coast has had relatively low dewpoints. Nearly 100 right now in Washington/Baltimore/Philadelphia, but the humidity is about 35% -- dewpoints in the low to mid 60s. Still freaking hot, of course.
In my personal comfort scale (a large, solidly-built individual) it starts going bad not too far above 60, last week with it getting down to the mid to high 40s was heaven. The dewpoint also pretty much puts a floor on how cool it gets at night, as the radiational cooling can almost never overcome the relatively high released heat of condensation from the formation of dew and/or fog.
Mid-Texas will be usually not get above the low to mid-70s.
I grew up in North Florida. It was pretty relentlessly swampy.
That was supposed to be "Thank you, Mr. Meteorology."
I don't mind a few days of staggeringly hot weather, especially now that I have an air conditioner. I have no idea how I survived the summers without it, though I recall taking ice-water baths when I was afraid my heart would stop. Living on the top floor with a pitch roof sucks. (In other news, I am moving! Yay!)
28: Yes, it is very similar to New Orleans there.
29: Your welcome, at least you put a twist on the usual fatuous 90/90 construction.
Looks like the dewpoint is not above 70 anywhere in the US right now. Are you sure you know how to compute it, Mr. Miagitorology?
I am moving! Yay!
Good, being stationary too long can lead to a number of adverse health effects.
Meanwhile it's perfectly pleasant down here in the tropics.
33: The dark green areas surrounded by the "70" contour are all above 70, Map Reader Lady.
33: You sure you know how to read that map, heebie?
33: The map does illustrate the current somewhat unusual pattern (50s in apo-land this time of year--not at all common).
38: Yes, so we can all agree that Moby Hick was *wrong*. When it was above 90 in Pittsburgh yesterday, the humidity was ~40%.
40: Yes, but it was still muggy and sticky.
Indeed, but I find I get the best relief from it via the ample opportunities for obnoxious pedantry that it provides.
Most important personal discovery of the last 24 hours: Our cheapest-they-had-at-Home-Depot AC makes cold air pretty well, but is not able to circulate it around the entire bedroom. My side of the bed is in the triangle of the room that stayed really hot. So it's the middle of the night, and I'm crying in frustration because I'm so hot and can't sleep, and I'm fretting about how we spent $100 on something that doesn't even work. And Sifu says, What are you talking about, it's freezing in here!
So from now on it's window unit + small fan on the floor. Man, I know that central AC is a terrible energy suck, but when it works well, you don't notice it. Whereas having at least one sorta noisy appliance going at top speed in every room of the apartment makes me feel like we're using SO much electricity.
Because sarcasm and sincerity are pretty much the same.
However, we're forecast to beat the record high temperature of 100 for this date (1977).
This heat wave is reminding us that air-conditioning the bedroom (a converted attic half-story) doesn't work very well when there's no door to keep the cold air from flowing down the stairs.
It also led to us deciding to escape the house for a day by going to the mall, which offends my urban-pedestrian sensibilities, but possibly that's a fundamental problem with heat waves.
Currently 99.2, but only 27% humidity.
49.1: Get some of those plastic strip curtain things, like the grocery stores sometimes have over the dairy case.
The ice cubes will just go down the stairs.
Oddly, it is 63 with 63% humidity at the moment. Only expected to get up to 88.
escape the house for a day by going to the mall
I did this too! And I guess I could take my work to the library if I really needed to get away. But it's better today.
The ice cubes will just go down the stairs.
That's why the cup is crucial.
Oh, you have the kind of cups with a bottom. Elitist.
There's no doorframe, either; the stairwell goes up into the middle of the room, and it's flanked by bookshelves (about 4' high). We have a heavy quilt draped across the end to block some of the airflow, but it's annoying to move out of the way when we actually want to exit the room, and the fan we have for circulation is probably moving a bunch of the cold air above it anyway.
You're just going to have to sleep on the stairs, then.
50: Yeah, kind of interesting (although the absolute highest temps are usually accompanied by low humidity). the lowest humidity I found in your area was Washington, North Carolina at only 18%.
The Post-Gazette adds, "And put bras and panties in the freezer overnight." That suggestion comes from an article without a by-line so nobody can tell who is the frozen genital perv.
The Post-Gazette also recommends putting a sleeping person's hand in warm water. Maybe they'll wet the bed!
No AC at the house here on vacation island, but we're about 250 feet from the ocean, and it never gets above ~80 here anyway. Good thing, because electricity here is something like $0.25/kWh, at least until they build those damn windmills.
It's a scorching 72 degrees old-fashioned here, with 68% humidity.
62: If you ask me, Heloise and her hints have gotten just a bit off track.
muggy and sticky
A stick with a blackjack?
at least until they build those damn windmills.
I've realized that tilting at windmills doesn't work, so now I pester zone boards and get people excited about dead birds.
Living in a studio in NYC during a hot summer with no air conditioning was the worst experience of heat I've ever had. I got like two hours of sleep a night. I'm not sure why I didn't just get an airconditioning unit -- even if I'd had to mug an innocent grandmother to get the money it would have been totally worth it and I probably wouldn't have felt guilty. I've been in hotter places, of course, but they were better set up for the heat.
It's been a moderately cool summer here -- about 62 right now with a nice fog layer. Later in the day, the fog will burn off and it will be a beautiful, clear day in the mid-70s. Many places I've lived in LA have no air conditioning and non-working heat, and it's been totally fine (a small space heater in winter is necessary). Of course, the traffic sucks.
non-working heat
That's the working title for my Beverly Hills Cop sequel. Axel F. is unemployed because of the bad economy.
What about a green roof, Heebie? That'd be awesome.
$.25 per kWh doesn't sound so terrible - it's only 5c more than mainland rates.
What's a green roof? Cue jokes about a roof painted green. But, no, really?
The copper turns green by oxidation.
The hottest places I've been are Grenada [late May/early June], and Turkey [late July], where it was f'cking HOT -- well over 100 deg old-fashioned. I could cope with it for a week or so, but I don't know how people could live in it.
The hottest place I've been is inside of a grain bin. Fortunately, I didn't have to stay long.
LA actually exists mostly as traffic, with occasional pockets of buildings.
a moderately cool summer here -- about 62 right now
Sigh. I wish I could live in paradise.
You live in that heat by getting used to it. It isn't so bad. After a while, you start shivering when it drops into the seventies. The thing that makes it not-work is going in and out of air conditioning. Heat + fans is fine. Multiple abrupt thirty degree swings in one day means you never get comfortable in the heat.
You live in that heat by getting used to it.
Also by not minding if your clothes get sweaty. I find it stressful if I'm in work clothes and need to stay unsweaty looking.
Ideally you adjust to the heat by changing to a siesta culture that has wonderful civilized naps and comes alive in the soft warm nights.
and comes alive in the soft warm nights
Hard when it's in the upper 80s at 9pm.
83: Upper 80s is beautiful weather! Not for sleeping, mind you, but for being out and about.
Hard when it's in the upper 80s at 9pm.
Try a cup of ice cubes!
Upper eighties is perfect. Wander out at midnight and everyone is out on their lawns, talking in circles. Makes the air all velvety, and the city nice and soft. Love it.
I have a huge sunny apartment with tons of windows (most of them facing west) on the top floor of a building. My apartment is HOT, and I have a high tolerance for heat. In order to get comfortable enough to sleep last night I followed these steps:
Wore a wet t-shirt to bed;
Wet a sheet and then put it in the freezer for an hour;
Put a hot-water bottle filled with ice-cold water at my feet;
Wet my hair.
It worked surprisingly well. These are the tricks you pick up when living in Cairo during one of their heat waves.
Anything above 75 (I think I've remembered the formula right) is an affront to civilised society.
I could actually use some more of the heat in san francisco. We spend much of the summer weekends driving out of the fog.
Dagger aleph! Good to see you!
Hi dagger aleph. It's 100 degrees F in Alexandria (Virgina, not Egypt) with 31 percent humidity. A couple of friends came by and said "..but it's a dry heat...."
do you think humidity will affect whether or not I can fry eggs on things? I kind of want to do an experiment where I put eggs on surfaces (a blue car, a black car, the street, the sidewalk) and see if it is actually hot enough to fry them.
I'm not sure I actually have the stamina to be outside long enough to do this experiment, though. "The humidity would mess it up" would be a nice excuse.
It's too hot for you guys to be giving me warm fuzzy feelings.
I wish I could live in paradise.
Eh, I know a guy who knows a guy.
I don't know what they were doing, but I was gently fanning you and feeding you peeled grapes, d.a..
95: I have no idea, but stay away from my car.
99: Okay. What color's your car?
Green, like the roof which has gone unexplained.
I think she meant a roof that has dirt and grass and things growing on it. "Green", not green.
see if it is actually hot enough to fry them
The Times is ahead of you on the important stories of the day.
107: I have a neighbor with a green gutter.
do you think humidity will affect whether or not I can fry eggs on things?
I tried this last summer when it got up to 107 degrees for a couple of days—left one in a pan on the driveway in full sun. Not even close to hot enough, as it turned out.
It's supposed to be in the upper 90s here today, and I'm debating whether or not to park my butt somewhere with AC and watch fútbol.
108- no, no, they're frying eggs in frying pans on things. I would just put the egg directly on the surface. Totally different experiment.
Their background research seems to indicate that it wouldn't work anyway. Guess I'll work on my stupid dissertation instead. Thanks a lot, NYT.
You could probably melt cheese on some nachos.
113: E. Messily, Moby just gave you permission to try this on his car!
That's nacho car! That's nacho car!
Dewpoint/relative humidity calculator. A pretty nice overview of humidity and the weather form USA Today of all places.
Yesterday for a moment, in the shade, New York felt like Texas and I was not at all unhappy about this. Except then we had a bunch of lights go out apparently only in the building (what's that, a beige-out?) and I got all neurotic about the subway and took an endless bus ride home. I would say more, but I must stoop to pick up this here five dollar bill.
117:I always thought dewpoint was more complicated, adding baro pressure and wind to temperature and humidity.
We are unusually cool here in Dallas. Mid-80s to 90 as compared to the normal 95.
Dewpoint is mid-70s, and we get scattered thundershowers every afternoon. My glasses fog in the morning outside.
I was just talking about the subject of the OP with my neighbor, the Xtian punk. She was reminiscing about a friend of hers from Mississippi who would always complain "I hate the North! It's too hot up here." The conceit being that we all didn't air-condition every interior space like they do in the South. So, yeah. Guilty as charged. Also, people in the North seem to have much more varied standards about what constitutes proper air conditioning than in the South.
Also to the OP: There used to be a tiny graffito on the I-35W overpass over East Lake Street here in MPLS that was just a little box with the word "Texas" and an arrow pointing south. Always seemed so weird and exotic to think that you could just drive up to 36th Street, get on the onramp, and a day later be in Texas! On the same road! Contiguously!
Even a pretty shitty solar cooker wood fry an egg pretty well though, as long as you had sunlight.
Also, people in the North seem to have much more varied standards about what constitutes proper air conditioning than in the South.
A friend of mine just returned from Libya and was in Virginia over the weekend for a wedding with temperatures in the upper 90s. I made some remark about how she must be totally used to the heat, and she remarked that it's much worse here because people don't turn the AC down to a low enough temperature. Asked what temp she'd prefer it to be set at, she said without hesitation: 62°, like they do in Libya.
62°!
Natilo, is the Sport a shitty solar oven? Because I've been wavering between that one and the Sun Oven.
A solar oven is $170. Yikes. Maybe Amazon has them cheaper.
The sun ovens on Amazon are nearly 300. But you can make your own, with enough time, inclination and handiness.
There used to be a tiny graffito on the I-35W overpass over East Lake Street here in MPLS that was just a little box with the word "Texas" and an arrow pointing south. Always seemed so weird and exotic to think that you could just drive up to 36th Street, get on the onramp, and a day later be in Texas! On the same road! Contiguously!
Sort of like the highway mileage sign in Sacramento that gives the distance to Ocean City, MD. What's up with that?
124: No, sorry, should have made it clear that the link was just purely MPLS boosterism, and not a commentary on the shittiness or non-shittiness of those ovens. They look pretty neat to me.
But yeah, it's really not hard to build one.
Green roofs are basically an update on traditional sod roofs (which I know about because I read the Little House on the Prairie books).
The idea looks fabulous, though I can only imagine the clusterfck that would be getting one approved by the local homeowner's association, if you have one of those things.
local homeowner's association, if you have one of those things
Boy howdy, does Texas ever have some nasty ones.
95 degrees, 20 percent humidity. Feels fabulous. And I was just heading for the register with juice for popsicles when the power went out at the store and they stopped letting people in.
132. A lawyer friend of mine says that HOA defense pays his overhead. The homeowner is usually morally right but legally wrong. You signed the contract, dumbass. That's what you get for trying to not live next to the "wrong" people.
128.2 -- Eastern terminus of US 50.
82F at 5:30 pm, humidity 17%. Tonight's low: 51.
PSA In event of heat wave remove the big chunks of baking chocolate from the cabinet and place in fridge.
The heat index is an alternative measure. Was over 100 in just two places today - just east of DC and central TX, though NY passed 95.
Dagger aleph! How nice to see you.
I like the suggestions in 88. Last night I sat on the edge of the bathtub and ran cold water over my feet right before bed, and that definitely helped.
Is this the whining thread?
This was funny: Witt said last night in the other thread, "it's still -- at 9:15 p.m. -- 91 degrees. I am going back and forth to the outside assiduously watering what may be weeds. (I did not do the plantings, and it's too dark to see.)"
I did the same thing last night, silently apologizing to both my (out of town) housemate and to the flowers with: Yeah, I know you guys might not make it, sorry I didn't water you yesterday, but here's some water now, and some more water, and some more, but good lord do you have clouds of bugs all over you, hope I'm more or less getting your roots here. Try not to die.
Also: I hope everyone is aware that when you write checks in this kind of heat, the handwriting might not be quite as elegant as it otherwise obviously is.
In event of heat wave remove the big chunks of baking chocolate from the cabinet and place in fridge place on the car seat of the biggest local asshole.
Is this the gardening thread? Because I have five pumpkin plants in a single pot that is probably half a pony keg in size. And another pot the same size with two pepper plants and a pumpkin plant. The plants are getting big and I have giant pumpkin blooms and little pepper ones, but I'm starting to wonder if this could possibly work. Should I thin the plants? Fertilize the soil? Something?
140- The nachos were tasty; now Moby's angling for dessert!
Forget the heat, EARTHQUAKE!!!
I have ginger bread cookies because a four year old can make a persuasive case for turning on the oven regardless of how hot it is.
Because I have five pumpkin plants in a single pot that is probably half a pony keg in size. [...] Should I thin the plants?
I don't know what a pony keg is, but 5 pumpkin plants in a single pot, unless it's a very huge pot, is probably crowding. Thin. I'd also put the pepper plants in a separate pot. Peppers grow UP, pumpkins grow across (pumpkins, like other squashes, wind up turning into ripening fruits lying on the ground).
Actually, it may be too late to repot the peppers (they have deepish root systems), in which case, rip out the pumpkin plant that's in there with them. That's preferable.
I don't have an awful lot of experience with squashes, I should say.
All the free neighborhood pools in DC are open extra hours because of the heat. Normally 1 to 8 on weekdays, but today and tomorrow 11 to too dark to see. If they would let me eat in the pool (standing there, with a floating tray or something) I would probably never leave.
(I'm assuming from the fact that you're posting blog comments about it that it wasn't, like, a big one.)
147. I actually reported there first, Witt. Then Unfogged. Misplaced priorities, or something.
Also I am extremely jealous of 135. And homesick. And sunburnt, I think.
Excellent. Hope you are okay, et cetera.
146 The NYT says that locals without AC should go to public places that have it, specifically citing public libraries as a good choice. My local branch: We are closed due to the heat, sorry for the inconvenience.
145: A pony keg is a half-sized keg, so this is about half of that, maybe four gallons. I put the pumpkin in the pot with the peppers thinking they would stay out of each others way but the pumpkin is clearly trying to use the peppers as a trellis.
151. 5.4 epicenter middle of nowhere, CA (south of Palm Springs, sort of near Temecula) Nothing fell, but it got everyone's attention.
I'm fearful that I brought on the earthquake with my upthread SoCal weather boasting. At least it wasn't a very big earthquake.
I'm fearful that I brought on the earthquake with my upthread SoCal weather boasting.
What sort of sacrifice do you require, oh Great Shaker of the Earth Through Weather Boasting? Fresh out of virgins, at the moment.
urning on the oven regardless of how hot it is.
Uncomfortable heat sometimes encourages me to bake things. I think my mind subconsciously thinks "It's baking hot in here!" and starts thinking "mmmm... baking..." There is then a brief contest between the thought of tasty food, and the combined forces of common sense and laziness.
the pumpkin is clearly trying to use the peppers as a trellis.
And you had to ask what you should do? If you want to have any peppers, the pumpkin has to go. Silly.
that restaurant ice that you get occasionally that's already semi-slushy, mini cubes.
We have this ice at work. When I first started a cow-orker said enthusiastically, "My favorite perk here is free ice!" I thought he was kind of a weirdo, but he had a point: it's good ice all right.
158: I pretended I was a teacher and a high school dance and just pulled them apart.
When I first started a cow-orker said enthusiastically, "My favorite perk here is free ice!"
You talk with your Naengmyeon?
Two weeks after a tornado went through my mom's town in VT, they had a 5.0 quake, both highly unusual events up there. I told her that if it starts raining frogs or Caspian Lake turns to blood, she should probably get the hell out.
Holy crap, that is one nasty Home-owners association. Thank fucking god we don't have one in our neighborhood. In fact, in our neighborhood we could get away with a green roof, and I think people would just think we were odd. But we have sloped roofs, which seems difficult to get up there and take care of things.
The story in 132 is unbelievable. And: "Lawyers for the HOA say that while Clauer's case is regrettable, it was his and his wife's fault for not paying their dues in a timely manner." I'm normally not terribly opposed to lawyers sticking up for their clients, but those lawyers are monsters. (And I did think "lawyers", plural, was odd. Did they say it in unison?)
||
My mom just sent me this email. Subject "um, the good news is..."
Jim's alive! And not burnt up or anything! Well, maybe a little hair was singed off, and possibly his hat will never be the same. The balloon, however, needs a little repair. A little contre-temps during landing led to a certain crispiness around the bottom edge of it- but not until they were on the ground and "safe." So, no worries. The frizzled hair sloughed off during his shower, saving money on a needed haircut, and he has lots of hats....
My family is sometimes a little hard to believe in.
|>
157: For me, it's soup. What, it's a thousand degrees and muggy as fuck? I'm making soup. Mmm, soup.
E. Messily, Jim is someone else in the family, not the cousin (? I think?) who was in the hospital? I'm sorry if I've missed any followups about the latter family member.
137: [Heat Index] Was over 100 in just two places today - just east of DC and central TX, though NY passed 95.
Actually if you look at the climate records for the day at New York stations and Philly, they all nudged just over 100 as well in Heat Index (when the dewpoint is ~57) the Heat Index = Temperature. The smoothing algorithm for the contours of the map probably obfuscated that (the map is also an hour-by-hour one rather than maximum for the day).
that restaurant ice that you get occasionally that's already semi-slushy, mini cubes.
I love that kind of ice.
We have one of those ice machines at work, but you can't eat it since it's in a chemistry lab.
Can't eat the ice, that is. Can't eat the machine either.
So there's a tragic ending to 170, right? What is it? Lemme guess, somebody ate the ice but it turned out it was made of flourine. And ironically, they were terrific about brushing their teeth.
154: hey, Anza-Borrego's beautiful country. And will noöne think of the meth labs?
I love that kind of ice.
Looks like we might be needing a lot of it:
http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2010/05/odds-of-cooking-grandkids.html Unless we move to Antarctica.
(Excuse the bare url. My attempts at hyperlinking have not turned out well.)
167- pretty much everyone in my family is named James. The cousin was Jamie, and he is more or less fine now, although no one has any very reassuring answers. The burned ballooning man is Jim, my stepfather, who I assume is also fine or my mom wouldn't have been so jaunty about the whole thing.
There are three other Jims and a James, and as far as I know they're all fine. So are all the Bens, Roberts and Williams.
I read the story in 132, and I think: There just has to be more to the story. Either this was actually a plot by a member of the HOA board to buy the property cheaply and flip it, and they purposely obnoxiously failed to notify the homeowner that foreclosure was looming, or there is major untreated mental illness on the part of the wife, or something.
The combination of missing major payments like that, plus apparently not having any sense of how serious it was going to get (impending foreclosure?!), plus not being able to stop the runaway train by rounding up your friends and relatives to chip in for a "rent party" or something -- I dunno. Sounds absolutely awful, and horrifying for the family, but clearly there's something beyond just "Texas has gratuituously nasty laws and plenty of people willing to take full advantage of them."
or there is major untreated mental illness on the part of the wife
Dislike. Strongly dislike.
I mean, the article suggests that they missed two payments.
173: And ironically, they were terrific about brushing their teeth.
And were admired for the purity of their precious bodily fluids.
I only hate those crazy wackjobs who miss more than one of their monthly HOA payments.
178: ? I wasn't meaning it as a criticism; major mental illness is hard enough to deal with when you DO get proper treatment, and having your spouse in a war zone has to be one of the world's biggest stressors. I was just trying to figure out what could cause a person to not have the resources to respond to such a (massively unfair and) grave situation.
I'm leaning toward malice aforethought, myself. You would think any sane HOA would *want* to keep steady membership, and not be evicting people over two months of missed payments. Not to mention the publicity from kicking a war vet out of his house while he was serving overseas.
175: The actual paper [PDF] is available through Sherwood's website. (I'm glad climate folks mostly seem to appreciate the virtues of putting their papers on the web, even if they haven't adopted the arxiv as much as I would like....)
What in the linked article would lead you to conclude that mental illness was involved? She missed two payments, presumably got some notice that she didn't understand, and then their house got foreclosed upon. I mean, maybe she is mentally ill -- maybe she has three legs! -- but the implication that anyone who could take such a course of action is clearly suffering from mental illness is . . . odd.
According to this, the entire process in Texas takes under three months, and requires three notices to the homeowner. (Not that I know anything about Texas foreclosure laws; it's the first result from Google). It's pretty easy to see how someone could fall into that situation -- like, you miss two not-very-large payments, get three confusing letters, put it off for a little bit, and then your house is sold.
Actually a local TV report does include this: Last year, Capt. Clauer went on active duty for training and then combat in Iraq. In his absence, his wife May became depressed, stopped opening mail, and missed paying her bills.
I still have a hard time categorizing that as a "major untreated mental illness."
I know Witt's heart is in the right place, but I don't like the implication that this kind of tragedy is the fault of mental illness, rather than just a quite predatory set of laws. Actually, if you read the linked article, what seems to be driving the system is fees for the HOA lawyers.
I think Witt was more indicating that mental illness can provide the weakness that give predatory laws an opening.
185:
I love the scientific/ironic understatement:
Considering the impacts of heat stress that occur already, this would certainly be unpleasant and costly if not debilitating.
"Fault" seems like not the right word. As I said above, I was just trying to figure out what could cause a person to not have the resources to respond to such a (massively unfair and) grave situation.
Stipulated: It's massively unfair. (I.e., Texas has crazy laws.)
I dunno; I was just trying to imagine my way in to how such a situation could have come about, and that was the most plausible situation I could come up with. Maybe it's because I often *am* the person who gets called upon to epxlain the "confusing letters," but I really don't know people who -- absent some major life event -- would ignore something of this magnitude. If my insurance company or my bank or someone else with potential control over my living space tries to communicate with me, I tend to assume catastrophe. Maybe I'm an outlier.
I really don't know people who -- absent some major life event -- would ignore something of this magnitude. If my insurance company or my bank or someone else with potential control over my living space tries to communicate with me, I tend to assume catastrophe. Maybe I'm an outlier.
I'd say this is pretty outlier-ish. Lots of people ignore lots of things until the consequences are obvious and irreversible. Doesn't make it wise, of course, but its certainly humanly understandable.
Maybe it's because I often *am* the person who gets called upon to epxlain the "confusing letters,"
Tell me of thing thing you humans call "the collision damage waiver."
The typo makes it seem even more alien.
I'd assume there was just no warning that foreclosure was imminent.
192: I ignore all of my DirectLoans statements (I'm supposed to be in the deferment period). This quite recently bit me in the ass, as I didn't realize that I had boldly declared that I would be graduating in 2010. They took me at my word and promptly started sending bills, which I missed, because, well, as I said, I rarely open those things. Woo, incompetence for the win! Definitely not a grown up, for all my love of grocery shopping.
This probably won't bite me in the ass (unless it goes zombie), but I've been ignoring the mouse that died in the basement this February. I got rid of the one that died in the garage a couple of weeks ago, but that was simpler as it died in a plastic bucket. The other one died in the air ducts and I can't just throw the ducts in the trash.
It's important to keep track of things.
Now I'm uncomfortably wondering what I've overlooked that is going to come back and bite me for such hubris....
I think Witt's suggestion that the wife may have been suffering major untreated mental illness was reasonable. According to this :
His wife, Mae Clauer, was under stress, too. She was alone and taking care of her family in a $300,000 home her parents had given her as a gift.
"When Michael went to Iraq, I went into a very bad depression," she said.
The mail piled up unopened and Mrs. Clauer missed $800 in payments to her HOA. Then she missed the letters saying the association planned to foreclose.
"I ignored a lot of our bills," she said.
Even after the HOA foreclosed and sold the home at auction, Mrs. Clauer didn't open the letters that said she had six months to get the home back, and that time lapsed, too
If the wife wasn't crazy she was pretty irresponsible.
Going back a bit, the Kyoto Box solar oven isn't hard to make and should cook rice or beans in a Berkeley-or-warmer environment. (The polished steel version, which is pricey, bakes bread.)
I just checked my loans from last year: still not due. However, I'm wondering when the interest gets capitalized, as I'd like to pay it before then if I can. (This is old-system Sallie Mae, not new system direct loans, which I just found out I can apply for today, now that they've figured out the new process for my school.)
198: And the videographer was Jewish when he started filming.
Meanwhile. I'm so tired of being always coldish, except for after I've been walking for at least 15 minutes. I did spend one summer where it was hot and humid and I had no air conditioning and I didn't sleep great but it was ok. I'm sleeping horribly this summer with just about every night in the 50s.
Further to 204: Maybe falling in the water doesn't work for baptism without the words or anything.
199: I'm betting it will be overdue library books.
The woman was seriously depressed and thus seriously mentally ill and shut down for way way way too long and then got zapped by the HOA. The mentally ill behave irresponsibly and get zapped by predatory types. (The whole not-in-my-neighborhood thing in Texas has gotten way out of hand.)
None of which has anything to do with you, Witt.
West of DC of IH 66: being from Texas I'd say it was pretty warm today but just not that hot, not that dry 105-110 frying pan hot (too humid). Just hot and sweaty today. But I have central A?C. OTOH, the A/C broke down here last week and I've lived with broken A/C in Texas during a hot week and it's worse in Texas, really. Promise. It could be worse than this by a long shot. One way or the other though, in Texas or Virginia or Maryland or NY, if you have no A/C then your life sucks in the hot weather.
m, i didn't break a sweat today
|| So my university wants me to fill out a pdf form and e-mail it for my loan request. However, they've failed to enable the form to accept enough digits in the blank for "loan amount" for the amount I'd like to request. Nice work. |>
209: God, I hate PDF forms. The one I have to fill out to be reimbursed for travel expenses has all these big expansive fields for me to type in where I was going and why. But then it deletes whatever I wrote if I fill up more than a quarter of the line.
The whole not-in-my-neighborhood thing in Texas has gotten way out of hand.
|| Continuing my abuse of the pause/play symbols: just non-break up break up with your non-boyfriend boyfriend already. Your arguments about the state of your non relationship relationship are getting tiring, and at this point they appear to be the entire substance of your non-relationship. |>
I'm sleeping horribly this summer with just about every night in the 50s.
This sounds like perfection to me. I feel so guilty turning on the A/C every night before I go to bed but otherwise, I just can't sleep. I tried, for a whole summer, I really did.* I was miserable. I've otherwise acclimatized fairly well, and I can get away with no A/C during the day (though I don't, because I'm bad) if I have to, but I can't seem to shake this part of my coastal upbringing.
*But that apartment also had no cross ventilation and seemed to be warmed all the time by hot water pipes under the floor, so maybe I'd do better in a place with decent ventilation and a really good fan.
78 and escape the house for a day by going to the mall, which offends my urban-pedestrian sensibilities:
In LA heat waves(*), cars have better A/C than homes, so people would go cruising.
(*) Maybe true in fog, rain, or snow, too, not that it matters.
MessyLee, just saw your comments about Jim. I'll see if he wants to drink some beer downtown tomorrow night. (It's Thursday, so they have a band in the park, and a kayak competition at the wave . . .)
More moderate extremely bad news:
http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2010/03/us-in-high-emissions-scenario.html
The whole not-in-my-neighborhood thing in Texas has gotten way out of hand.
The whole not-in-my-neighborhood thing in Texas The South has gotten way way way out of hand.
I concur.
m, pdf forms indeed do suck
This sounds like perfection to me
I should amend my previous comment. I don't generally have a problem with nights in the 50s if the place warms up a bit during the day. When the fog burns off the sun warms the indoors enough that it's basically fine in the apartment even if it still isn't that warm outside. And if it does warm up too - east bay (Berkeley, Oakland version) style* - it's great. But when it's foggy all day, this place just doesn't warm much. It only takes one night to lose all the accumulated warmth of a nicer day. Also, a real bed would help.
*And this is, in fact, my preferred weather pattern. Possibly because it's what I grew up with. I really like warm evenings, but you can't have everything.
Also, a real bed doll would help.
A heated model.
220: You could just fill it with warm water.
That might have been funny had it been directed at the right comment number.
Nothing keeps you cooler than a real doll filled with ice cubes.
It's Catmull. I'm going whether Jim's up to it or not.
222: Better yet, one you store in a walk-in freezer.
(Also, weirdly, I find that I comment excessively here when I'm at my most productive.)
222: Due to friction issues, the corpora cavernosa penis is under the conditions of operation less efficient as a heat exchanger than one might imagine.
On the HOA sub-thread, the article says that many states have laws similar to those in Texas, so it might not be just a Texas issue. I've never paid the homer tax been a homeowner and don't have experience with HOAs, but if I can generalize massively and unfairly from a position of ignorance - and it would be irresponsible not to - I've had the impression that many of them were created basically to take the place of the old, outlawed covenants, frequently race-based, that were used to keep people out of certain areas altogether.
So it's not surprising that the missed payments bar would be set very low, as the whole point was to make it possible to get rid of whomever you didn't want in the first place. Especially considering that there was a good chance that the people targeted were probably just becoming able to make their payments consistently - the newly socially and geographically mobile. It would be interesting to know what kind of discrimination discretion has been used in enforcing these laws over the years.
Of course, once those laws were on the books, nothing prevented them from being used in other ways, like flipping a house or for lawyers' fees or whatever. I don't know; I just made up that story right now.
I hate summer as much as i hate republicans, but i don't know what everyone has been complaining about. Once its over about 72 it just becomes a mess of sticky, dirty, flush oppression. the only improvement is finally every else shuts the fuck up about how 'nice' summer is.
i include the james shearer who commented in this thread in my hate.
for anyone curious like am about teh effectiveness of ICE to reduce heat, heres a start on the calculations.
freezer temp =~260k.
body temp=~310k.
kilocalorie is change in 1kg of water one degree.
so delta 260->310 is 50 kalories.
enthalpy of fusion for h2o is 80 kalories/kgram
so 130 kalories/kgram
one ice cube= ~1oz.
1oz=28gram
28*130=3540; 3.54 kalories
for a 50 kalories/hour sitting on your ass, to lose all your heat via ice would require about 15 ice cubes.
PLAUSIBLE
Some poets named Frost think the world will end in fire.
177: There could indeed be more to the story. For example, there's already one instance of plainly fraudulent behaviour there - selling the house to a straw buyer for bugger all, presumably in the expectation of a kickback - and where you find one fraud you usually find more. I suspect the letters in question were never sent, or if sent in the sense that they neatly filed a copy, never delivered; I really can't imagine that someone who would come up with this scheme would be particularly honest in any other direction.
231
... I suspect the letters in question were never sent, or if sent in the sense that they neatly filed a copy, never delivered; ...
See here .
In their lawsuit, the Clauers conceded that the homeowners association sent them four letters between October 2007 and April 2008 notifying them of their delinquent dues. But May Clauer was suffering such "severe depression and anxiety" over her husband's deployment that she didn't read the letters, according to the Clauers' complaint.
However, I'm wondering when the interest gets capitalized, as I'd like to pay it before then if I can.
What is the point of paying it? (Genuine question.)
To elaborate: my wife's loans are also about to enter repayment, and they send her lots of strongly worded letters warning of the pending capitalization of the interest, and encouraging her to pay it. But--what's the point? It's just an additional amount that's added to your loan, right? (It's not added at any sort of penalty rate, or anything, as far as I can tell.) If I wanted to use a chunk of cash to pay off a chunk of the loans, I would do so. I'm not really sure why paying off the interest before it's capitalized is any different.
I've come to the view that anyone who lends money or sends bills should be regarded as simply evil. Every piece of mail must be viewed as an attempt to defraud. This view was reinforced just two days ago when I got a collections notice for over $20,000, with 30 days to pay before they take legal action. The name on the letter was a common variant of my first name, and the last name identical to mine. A phone call to the collections agency (four tries to get to talk to a human being, natch) revealed that they had just looked up everyone in the country with my last name and all variants of my first name, and sent everyone a collections notice.
I have no doubt that for small amounts a fair number of people would have just sent in the payment. I also have no doubt that this is part of the collections agency business plan.
Regarding the HOA story that started this subthread: I really want to know the names of the HOA officers involved. I want them publicly shamed. That should be done for everyone and anyone who works for one of these companies and engages in this sort of behavior. This isn't about corporations, it's about the individuals who decide on the policies and chose when to enforce them. Corporations have no shame, but most people do, and it's people who set the agenda.
I would never voluntarily put myself at the mercy of a HOA, because I am quite sure I would hate those fuckers from Day One, and start putting up a clothesline just to fuck with them. I also suspect that they are not sufficiently enlightened to appreciate my color schemes and blasting music. So that is not a good set-up for me. In fact, I can barely handle my new, more rigorous community garden managers, who write emails to remind people about meetings and community work hours for missing meetings. I'm debating running for manager again, on a platform of sloth and ruin and no nagging emails. I'd have said that very little could get me to manage that garden again, but it turns out that the right very little can annoy me into doing it.
Witt, you should also count me as someone you previously thought was a responsible adult, but who tosses paper mail into a pile that gets opened once every few months. Your habits are admirable, but not a good guide to what lots of people do.
Come to think of it, that HOA story as described is so overwhelmingly one-sided and exploitative I wonder if it might approach unconscionability (which I know has a very high bar).
Making someone legally responsible for whatever gets shoved into their mailbox is a bit tiresome.
Witt, you should also count me as someone you previously thought was a responsible adult, but who tosses paper mail into a pile that gets opened once every few months.
I open things that look potentially important, but most of it goes in the heap. But then, 99% of my mail is credit card applications.
I'm debating running for manager again, on a platform of sloth...
I'm calling PETA.
Yeah, I consider all commercial mail (which is virtually all of my mail) an imposition on me. And The Man gets to say that I have constructive knowledge of the contents of all those interchangeable envelopes? Fuck that.
I'd be thrilled if paper mail only came three days a week. With no circulars.
I did do a project of calling people and making them take me off their rolls, which reduced mail considerably.
(The thing I should say explicitly is that on-line bill pay has saved any claims I have of being a fiscally responsible person.)
But, having lived with HOAs at various times before (much calmer ones than in the article), they do solve a very real problem if they are run plausibly. Basically, denser building is greener and it is hard to get denser without sharing things like driveways, green space, walls (i.e. attached units), parking, and whatnot. To share those things, you either need a landlord or an HOA. But, sloth, not the kind that hangs in trees, is a good basis for an HOA.
Moby, your 'reasonable other side' and 'two ways of looking at it' and 'helpful-if-thoughtfully-done middle ground' is wasted on me. All I hear is 'blah blah blah Ginger'.
232: How would you go about proving non-receipt of a letter?
Put yourself in not so much their shoes (you are a libertarian, North American subtype, and there are some things it just isn't worth asking) as their attorney's shoes.
Tactically, you're on a hiding to nothing trying to prove a negative, and you have to pick your battles. It is unlikely that your client regularly had all their incoming mail stamped, filed, and notarized, after all. They admit they didn't read at least some fraction of incoming mail, so the other side can always claim that the letter was sent and fell in that group of messages.
Now, if they sent it by registered mail, they could produce the signed counterfoil to prove receipt. Its absence would in that case be evidence of nonreceipt. Frankly, if I was serving notice for something that might involve foreclosure proceedings, I think I'd spend the couple of quid to go special delivery...unless I was being deliberately dishonest.
My impression of HOAs mostly comes from newish (say, post-1990) developments. In those cases the creation of the HOAs mostly seem to be an attempt by the local government to shed any municipal responsibilities for the new homes. Now, there is something to be said for the newer communities paying their own way, as it were, but outsourcing such a swath of government operations to an entity without government limitations seems like a very bad way to do things. This is not to say that local government can't be corrupt, but the HOA setup is vastly riper for corruption and has fewer checks on it.
Contra 242, the HOA-centric developments I've seen have mostly been single-family homes on quarter-acre lots, nothing shared besides the road and sewer and the like - the things that are normally municipal functions.
I don't expect reasonable behavior from someone who stands on sloths.
245.2: Those make no sense at all. But, then I wouldn't live on a quarter acre lot. I either want a city-sized small yard or I want something more than five acres. In between, you've just made a shitload of work for yourself without enough room for anything cool.
234: Because if you pay it before the period ends, it doesn't get capitalized. So if the interest is, say, $1000 on a $15000 loan, if you pay it before capitalization, you then make the rest of your payments based on a $15000 loan. If you don't, then you end up with payments on a $16000 loan. Unless you pay off the loan all at once, the difference comes in the interest you pay during re-payment - interest on $16000 principal is going to be more than interest on $15000 principal.
the difference comes in the interest you pay during re-payment - interest on $16000 principal is going to be more than interest on $15000 principal
This doesn't seem like it would be relevant, since you're losing the interest that you would have earned on the chunk of cash you used to repay the interest prior to its being capitalized. I suppose it could be a factor if the interest rate on your student loans was higher than the interest rate you'd otherwise earn on your savings, but that's not generally going to be the case.
I have to go to work, so I can't look it up right now, but there's a chart on the loan documentation showing that it costs more to pay off a loan with capitalized interest than one without. I don't know how savings affects things, as I currently have none.
I don't know how savings affects things, as I currently have none.
What do you plan to use to pay off the interest?
I suppose it could be a factor if the interest rate on your student loans was higher than the interest rate you'd otherwise earn on your savings, but that's not generally going to be the case.
What kind of interest are you earning on your savings these days? I wouldn't count on positive arbitrage. Obviously any higher-rate debt should be paid off before considering reducing student-loan debt. Beyond that, it's really a matter of the reasonableness of the subsidized interest rate in light of one's need for cash today and expected earning power in the future (i.e., one's discount rate).
I have to go to work, so I can't look it up right now, but there's a chart on the loan documentation showing that it costs more to pay off a loan with capitalized interest than one without. I don't know how savings affects things, as I currently have none.
I assume that chart is in nominal dollars. If you don't have any savings, I wouldn't rush to pay this down.
What kind of interest are you earning on your savings these days?
Not much, but isn't the relevant question what sort of interest I'm expecting to earn on average over the next 30 years? Because the student loans are fixed at 1.9%, I believe. (Or maybe 2.2%--I can't remember right now. Something relatively low.) I'm not really counting on positive arbitrage, but I'd be somewhat surprised if I couldn't at least come close to matching that. In which case, we return to my original question: is there any advantage to paying it off before it capitalizes? My understanding is still: no.
I'd guess the reason is more emotional than fiscal: paying it off before a penalty kicks in feels like you've got your ducks in a row.
I'd guess the reason is more emotional than fiscal: paying it off before a penalty kicks in feels like you've got your ducks in a row.
Well this I get, except (and this was my primary point) it's not really a "penalty", is it? Although that's certainly the way they sell it in the paperwork--so much so that I had to read closely to make sure there wasn't some real penalty that I was overlooking.
(Or maybe 2.2%--I can't remember right now. Something relatively low.)
I don't think you need to keep "relatively" in as a qualifier. 2.2% interest, especially tax-deductible, is a low rate relative to pretty much anything. Sure, you won't get that on a cd, but you will at some point during the life of that loan.
Still here for a minute (but now late for work). It depends on the loan terms, partly: currently, the interest rate on Stafford loans 6.8%. I don't have any savings earning 6.8% or close to it. I'm not actually near the repayment period, though.
Huh, yeah. I hadn't realized they'd shot up so much (since interest rates have otherwise fallen in the intervening years). Pay it off if you can, I guess. Although: a loan with tax-deductible interest at 6.8%, repayable over 30 years, is still likely to be some of the least expensive money you'll ever have offered to you. So: if you anticipate borrowing in the future (or have other current higher-interest debts), you'd probably be better not paying it off, and just pocketing that money to reduce any other borrowing you might ultimately need. I.e., lowering a future car loan by $1,000 might be better than using that $1,000 now to avoid capitalized interest on your student loans.
IIRC, and I may not, you only get the really low student loan rates by consolidating and refinancing. At least, that's how we got ours to be really low.
IIRC, and I may not, you only get the really low student loan rates by consolidating and refinancing. At least, that's how we got ours to be really low.
Yes.
Our home-shopping included an explicit ban on required and/or intrusive HOA's with lots of rules about things because you know what? Fuck that noise. I am the very worst - detached house, central air that we keep at 74 when we're home - and I love it and nobody down the street is going to force me to be otherwise as long as I'm within the lines of the law.
Our last neighborhood had an HOA but a neighbor told us when we moved in that it was an excuse for the husbands (this was an extremely heteronormative neighborhood of ancient and retired doctors) to go drink together.
Did you know that benadryl can keep you from sweating, so you should avoid it in heat or be extra careful about being in AC. A lot of our clients take it, and along with antipsychotics and cogentin, it can keep the body from cooling down. Heat stroke is a pretty serious risk.
244
Now, if they sent it by registered mail, they could produce the signed counterfoil to prove receipt. Its absence would in that case be evidence of nonreceipt. Frankly, if I was serving notice for something that might involve foreclosure proceedings, I think I'd spend the couple of quid to go special delivery...unless I was being deliberately dishonest.
The notices were sent by certified mail . The most likely reason they admit receiving the notices is they did receive the notices.
265: In which case they deserve to have their paid-for house auctioned off?