Of ribs and watts

First off, we had sparring this evening. I sparred a different guy. Maybe 25 years old, *way* stronger than me, but gratifyingly he was in poor cardeo condition. 60 seconds into our 90 second rounds, he was dropping his hands and gasping. I was still jumping around. I was also faster than him. Very early on, I fired a right jab between his hands, and landed a shot on his nose. I had not intended to do this. I thought I was setting up for something else … but what the hell. It worked.

Problem, he was pissed about this. I mentioned “stronger,” right? I also believe that I’ve mentioned my instructor’s advice to “not be such a wuss, take a body shot to land a head shot.” This guy has an immense straight right punch. He landed it on exactly the same spot on my ribs, like, four times in a row. Now, I’m bruised. Ouchie. As we have a habit of telling each other in situations like this: “It’s not ballet.”

My strategy for the final couple of rounds was to concentrate on blocking for the first 60 seconds, and give him hell when he tired out. Not very fair, but it worked. I’ll take what I can get.

On to the Kill-a-watt: It arrived today. You plug it in-line between socket and appliance, and it gives you instantaneous power draw in amps, volts, watts, or whatever. Coupled with my electric bill and an approximate duty-cycle of the appliance, I can tell what it costs to have a certain device plugged in for a month. Woot.

My laptop:
50 watts. Assume constant draw, and it’s always plugged in (both lies, I’m computing a ceiling here). 720 hours in a month * 0.05 kilowatts = 36 kwH per month. This month, electricity cost me 14 cents per kwH. About $5 to keep my laptop running all the time. Not so bad … until I consider that 50 watts is a mean lightbulb value. Okay, okay, depression era grandparents. I hear you. $5 / month = $60 / year. A few lights left on all the time could add up to an extra car payment.

The space heater
I had read that these things are hogs, but now I know the truth. Damn. It has three settings:
Low: 600 watts. 432 kwH / month = $60 /month
Med: 900 watts. $90 / month
High: $141 / month.

It has a thermostat so the duty cycle is far from 100%, but shi-it. Even $60 a month seems high to keep the bathroom warm so my footsies don’t get cold in the morning before getting in the shower. $140 / month is well into the “make an extra payment on the mortgage” range over the course of a year.

The microwave
When not running, it draws something close to 0 watts.
When on “high”, it draws 1300 watts.
I run it on high for two minutes to heat cold water to tea-steeping temperature.
Heating a tea-cup of water to near boiling is trivial in terms of my electric bill.