Call it intuitive, but....

Well... I called it. Our 500 drops of rain has awoken FPL and it has now decided that we are not paying enough. So, it is going to raise our rates so that we can continue to enjoy their high quality services, not to mention upgrade the nuclear plants to produce more power which, while it may be fine for keeping the air clean, will still continue to produce radio-active waste.

Lovely... just fucking lovely!

FPL wants to boost electric rates by at least $1 billion a year

The company submitted a proposal Wednesday to the Florida Public Service Commission to increase base power rates by $1 billion in 2010 and $1.25 billion in 2011.

— Full Story

'Tis the Season for FPL Ranting

We here in South Florida have a little less than 11 weeks to prepare for hurricane season. Last year, there was a storm two weeks before the season officially began.

I have just started making lists and I was hoping that Florida Power and Light (FPL) would also be working at making our fragile electric grid a little stronger. We lucked out last year with no strong storms, however, even after all the time since Hurricane Wilma passed, I still have 3 to 4 outages a week. Some weeks, it goes out every day. Some of my friends, along with me, have lost some appliances due to power surges.

Our bills have doubled and it has been promised that electricity cost will rise even more in the near future and most of us are just stuck with a company that doesn't care about its customers, I guess because there is no competition.

I just cannot accept the excuse that the reason power went off in 3 counties in the last 24 hours is because it rained. That is not an excuse. That is a cop-out.

Thousands still without power after South Florida rain storms

Electricity has been restored to about half the 24,000 Florida Power & Light customers left in the dark after heavy overnight rains doused Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, causing dozens of traffic accidents that snarled the morning commute.

About 11,200 utility customers are still affected.

As of noon, those still affected were 4,000 customers in Miami-Dade County, 3,200 in Broward and 4,000 in Palm Beach County, FPL said.

"It's a shifting number," said utility spokeswoman Sarah Marmion. "It's been going up and down all night long. We anticipate there will be outages throughout the day. But we have ample crews ready to go."

Among the reason for the outages are brittle branches that broke free during the storm and struck power lines. At least one transformer also malfunctioned somewhere in Broward, Marmion said.

The number of outages, Marmion said, is small when considering FPL serves more than 2.2 million customers in the tri-county area.

"We haven't had a storm in a long time," she said. "These are relatively common numbers."

— Full Story

Slow Cooking

Cousin Vicki gave me a wonderful gift for Christmas. A slow cooker. I had one in Virginia, given to me by my dear friend Ben, but somehow, it was in one of the two missing boxes when I moved down here. I have really missed it.

I've made several wonderful soups, using veggies from my winter garden, and last night was no exception. Using my deformed carrot, which I think will be the only one this year due to planting them too close to another veggie that has covered the carrots and stunted their growth, a large scallion, two small pok choi, a small kohlrabi and a few turnip and basil leaves, created a wonderful Chicken soup. I also used some packaged dry-bean vegetable soup with dehydrated mushrooms, both yellow and green split peas, lima beans and barley. This dry soup also has pasta in the shape of letters (which I call Shirley Temple noodles).

I cooked this soup at first on high for 6 hours, but was not satisfied with it, so, I cooked it overnight on low for another 10 hours. It is fabulous and I've been eating on it all day.

Due to size restraints in this damn side-by-side refrigerator that I HATE WITH A PASSION, I'm just going to keep it on warm. Don't have room for it.

I continue to enjoy my garden, including some very sweet strawberries, and garden fresh salad.