This, That, and the Other

For her 5 Things prompt this week, Dr. Tanya pointed out that “after the pandemic and during the current geopolitical situation, inflation is on an upward spiral.” So she’s asking us to list five things we’re glad we bought.

I am glad I bought…

1. An electric car — Last August my wife and I decided to trade in our gasoline-powered car for an EV (electric vehicle). It’s not a plug-in hybrid, but a fully electric car. With the price of a gallon of gas approaching $7.00 where we live in Northern California, I couldn’t be happier about that decision.

2. A Level 2 electric car home charging station — Charging an electric car using a standard 120 volt, 20 amp household outlet is excruciatingly slow. It would take 65 hours to fully charge my electric vehicle. But using a 240 volt, 40 amp outlet takes only five hours to fully charge the car. No brainer, right? If you’re interested, you can read about my Level 2 charger here.

3. ebikes — We live in a very hilly area in the East Bay suburbs of San Francisco. As senior citizens, my wife and I didn’t get in a whole lot of bicycle riding because of that hilly terrain. Our Trek bikes were essentially collecting dust in our garage. So we decided to sell our traditional bicycles and replace them with ebikes. Now we can use the electric pedal assist feature and, when needed for an extra boost, the throttle, so that we can easily manage the steepest of hills, yet still get some great exercise and a good workout.

4. Hearing aids — I was a little reluctant about getting hearing aids. First, I heard a lot of people express dissatisfaction or frustration with them. Second, needing to wear hearing aids made me feel old. (I am old, but I don’t feel old). But as I wrote here, in early April I took the plunge. And it was a good decision. It’s been almost two months and I can hear a whole lot better now than I could two months ago.

5. A whole house natural gas generator — Here in Northern California we are experiencing a severe drought, and with our long, hot, dry summers, our area is prone to wildfires and to rolling electrical blackouts and/or unplanned power outages. So we decided to install a whole-house natural gas generator. In the two years since we installed it, it has automatically engaged each time the electricity went out, which has occurred around a half a dozen times. As a result, the food in our refrigerator didn’t spoil, the lights in our house at night stayed on, and on those 100°+ days, our air conditioning kept running.