Tuesday, August 08, 2006

A Chilly Night's Sleep

Last night I slept like a rock. Like a Mesozoic-era rock that is completely oblivious to modern life's frenzy and turmoil. Last night, we turned the air conditioning up.

I was very excited when we bought and Keith installed a programmable thermostat. Reduce your energy bills by 30%! the package proclaims. And I was ready to. Not that our energy bills are outrageous--we've only been in the house a month! But I wanted to do my part from the beginning to use less energy. Leave a smaller environmental footprint--maybe a moderate size 6.5, instead of my clompy 9.5s.

But I was surprised to find out that, according to the preprogrammed settings, the temperature is set to dip around the time we get home from work and then raise again when we go to bed.

I like to be cold when I sleep. Or rather, I can't stand being hot. I'm not saying that it needs to be cold enough for me to have on a sheet, comforter, and blanket. I don't even care about the sheet. I just need to not be oozing sweat, which is what has been occurring every night since we got the programmable thermostat.

I want to help save the environment, I really do. I want to be friends. But when we overrode the hellfire setting last night and settled in-between cool sheets in a comfortable room, it felt fantastic. I'm willing to sacrifice many things for a better earth. But I'm just not sure if a good night's sleep for entire duration of summer is one of them.

2 comments:

Amy said...

Not related to sleeping in an igloo, but instead hearkening back to an earlier topic ....

I saw this while skiving. It's pretty basic, but it may prove useful.

Improve Your Amazon.com Picks

Rate items you like. Sure, it feels good to trash a book you hated, but telling Amazon what you enjoyed will generate better recommendations – and the more, the better. On hold with the cable company? Rate a few items. On a conference call? Rate a few more.

Remove bum purchases like the Princess Diaries DVD you bought for your niece last Christmas. Under your personal store tab, select Improve Your Recommendations. Uncheck the Use to Make Recommendations box for items that don’t reflect your tastes.

Squash bad leads. Amazon doesn’t know it’s on the wrong track unless you speak up. Click Not Interested and it’ll stop insisting you’ll love the latest Dave Matthews CD.

Add any item you want to your Wish List and Shopping List, even if you aren’t ready to buy it – at least Amazon will know your preferences.

Dig deep into the recommendations and you might find better ideas. When browsing DVDs, for example, filter down to sub-categories like Animation or Cult Movies for more pics in your favorite genre.

M. Lubbers said...

Um, yeah. I'm worried that I'm a little tempted by that. Surely there's something better I could be doing, right? Do I really have that much free time?

And yet, I'd really like to stop seeing herbal remedies and wedding advice appear on my list. Excuse me, I'm going to go check out my gold box now ...