I’m not much into the “cat blogging” phenomenon, but I couldn’t help but pass along this fascinating piece of cat behavior.
I turn my furnace off at night, and during cold snaps like this one the inside temperature will often drop below 50 degrees, so my cat has taken to spending much of his morning patiently sitting in front of the air vent in my office, just soaking in the heat. Of course, I rarely set the thermostat above 60, so the cat’s forced hot air paradise only lasts so long. And when it does stop, he places his paws on the wall above the vent and gently kneads it, as if trying to coax out a little more warmth.
Kinda cute. And a little pathetic.
Goldy;
While I appreciate your efforts to help the ecology (and your personal expenses) by keeping the thermostate down, I think you may be over-doing it a bit.
Don’t turn your thermostate completely off at night. The furnace has to work harder in the morning to heat the house back up. The house will gradually lose heat all night, and the house itself (floors, walls, etc.) become colder. When you turn it back on in the morning, the furnace has to work a lot harder to bring it back up to temperature.
So turn it down, some, sure. But not so much. The goal is to keep a moderately “cool” temperature, without a lot of fluctuations up and down.
rhp–
Good advice….Re-heating your house uses almost as much heat as if you turn it down to around 60 & maintain it.
You’ve been freezing yer ass off and yer kats ass off to save a tiny bit of $$.
Typical AlGorbasm MicroDot head.
You need to start research things Goldy, not just rely on ecological feeling gland for bad information.
It is pathetic..almost as pathetic as begging for contributions.
A cat blog post needs pictures.
Dang, if Cynical and I are in agreement, I must be doing something wrong. Let me re-think this…. ;)
By the way, it’s snowing here in Bellevue again (14:00 PM Friday afternoon, or 22:00 GMT). I was hoping for some decent rain.
Well, we’re still talking about less than a 10-degree difference between daytime and overnight temperature… my house is about 59 degrees right now, and I’m comfortable in a fleece shirt and fisherman gloves.
Oh, as for my house – we have natural gas forced-air heat. We live in a tri-level, which kind of makes it difficult to keep everyone happy. The thermostat is on the middle level (living room, dining room and kitchen), and we generally keep it around 68 degrees, which turns out to be about 5 degrees colder on the bottom floor (i.e., 63 degrees in our “family room”), and 5 degrees warmer on the top level (73 degrees in our bedrooms).
The thermostat is programmed to drop 2 degrees at nightime and while we are away at work, and go up again shortly before we arise or return home from work.
I’m looking at adding a hot-water radiant heating system to the floor of the bottom level. I’m thinking that might make that level more comfortable in the winter. Such systems are very common in Japan and Korea, and have been for years. If the floor is warm, then you don’t have to heat the air. In my house the air just shoots up to the top level anyway – on the bottom floor the heat is never felt much below knee-level, even though we have added a gas fireplace and ceiling fan to try to even it out a bit.
Our dogs are quite happy as it is. Our big dog loves the snow – she runs outside and flops down and wiggles in it, taking a “snow bath”. Then she runs up the hill and sits for hours, surveying “her domain” (the neighborhood) and saying hello to everyone (and every dog) that walks by.
To some of the commenters, it’s a myth that it takes more energy to heat a room up again than it takes to maintain a constant temp. I don’t know the exact numbers but automatic systems to adjust the temp are one of the first things they suggest for energy savings. There’s a link below on it and I’ve also seen similar things mentioned on EnergyStar and HowThingsWork though I don’t remember the exact link.
http://www.clarkpublicutilitie.....7/07_12_16
Gloves in the house?
Like you said…
8 – Marvin Stamn at HA.org after Nov 4.
Utterly pathetic to the core.
The topic is cute cat behavior. Anything else is OFF TOPIC and should be deleted — with a TERSE warning!
I have a great story about two kittens and a cat door. I don’t have time to tell you the whole story, but in the end the kittens discovered that the three legged cat didn’t just walk through the glass door, but only in the spot where the cat door was!
Don’t worry, I don’t expect better from you.
Boogity @ 10: I used to think that cats were cute. Kittens are still cute. But my comments below are guaranteed to enrage cat owners everywhere.
Cats are essentially self-centered parasites. They aren’t “owned” by humans, they consent to live with a human family as long as there isn’t a better offer elsewhere. They believe they are entitled to be supported by humans, and that our only reward is the joy we feel from pleasuring them with frequent petting. If a cat didn’t have fur, we wouldn’t think much of them, and we certainly wouldn’t let them in the house. You can kind of train a cat to do what they are naturally inclined to do anyway, but forget about training a cat to do anything they really don’t want to do.
Dogs, on the other hand, are quite willing and happy to work for a living, if given the opportunity and training. They are willing to sacrifice their own lives to protect their family from harm, long after the cat has gone running for cover at the first sign of danger. All a dog really desires is to truly “belong” to the family, and to recieve the love and respect of their family members in return, with an ocassional pat on the head, or possibly a belly-rub.
re 13: My dogs aren’t much good at catching mice. The cats are.
I don’t demand fealty from them for perfoming this service.
@12 I could care less what you “expect”.
No worries on my part mate! LOL.
14: Actually, my dogs catch mice too, and rats and snakes and possums and anything else that comes into the yard and is too slow to outrun them. They haven’t caught a squirrel or a cat yet.
Okay, cat stories:
My mother loved cats. One day in a thunderstorm she found a little white kitten with blue eyes cowering under her car in a parking lot, trembling with each flash of lightening and boom of thunder. She had oil and greese from the car’s underside all over her, so my Mom named her “Cindy” (short for Cinderella).
Turned out the cat was deaf as a doornail. The vet said this was common in white cats with blue eyes.
One day I came home from college for a visit. My mom asked me to go into the woods across the street and fetch Cindy, since it was time for her to come in. I go into the woods, and start calling for her – “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty”. Then I stop, realizing how dumb it is to be calling a deaf cat. Then I wondered how in the world you find a cat hiding in the woods, if it doesn’t want to be found.
Fortunately, the cat came out from hiding after a few minutes, and I was able to bring her home.
Dogs have owners, cats have staff…
Winston Churchill once remarked that the ideal pet was a pig. Dogs look up to you, cats look down on you – pigs treat you as equals. Might be a slight Kosher prolem for some, however.
Kitty and I have lived in a 3,200 sqf house for nearly two years – just the two of us. She has been a constant, loyal, and very dependable companion. She does her business outside, keeps me company late at night, and generally has been as good a friend as anyone could want.
When I move in less than a month, my youngest daughter, who actually owns Kitty and is a Phi Beta Kappa French and political science double major at the UW, will have to decide whether Kitty stays with me, goes with her, or goes with her mother.
The only anxiety I have about closing on the house and making the big move to Oly is doing what’s in Kitty’s best interest.
She’s sitting on the window ledge in my office right now, staring out at the new snow, intently keeping watch over the house by night.
Goldy, your creature-comfort philosophies are well known – the HA Happy Hoolihovel sounds positively Dickensian. Wouldn’t Ebenezer Scrooge spring for an extra lump of coal? Or are you he?
I’ll bet yours is a home that’s perfect for entertaining guests, eh what? Always ready to acoomodate visitors in the most comfortable manner possible. Warm, gracious, and inviting…uh huh…yeah, right.
Tasteful decor? State-of-the-art kitchen with stainless appliances and granite countertops? Fresh, bright, and lovely…uh boy…yep.
You could move up in the world – there’s room at Nickelsville. But is a Pepto-Bismol colored tent your cup of tea?
The Piper
It’s a democrat cat for just wanting to lay
there on their ass and wish for free heat.
It’s all so simple.
mark @ 19
I don’t believe in eugenics, but I sure hope your genes have not been passed on. I can’t imagine how many generations of idiots produced you.
@20…PL…
I passed on mine…several pair that were too small to St. Vinnie’s…
The Piper
Piper,
I’m not so afraid of your ensuing generations. I’ll go out on a limb–and I hope you don’t lose any sleep over the prospect–but, I’m guessing you’ll have some (gasp!) liberal grandchildren. We don’t get to write their scripts, man.
You don’t ever set your thermostat above 60? What a kook!
This is an excellent example of how free markets should work. My home is a comfortable 73 degrees. The cat is curled up in front of the fireplace and seems to be quite content.
Goldy, freezing your ass off is part of the price you pay for being stoopid and not very productive.
And just for the record, I really appreciate you moonbats reducing your demand for gas so it doesn’t cost me quite so much to fill up my SUV.
@2 I can hardly wait until the oil and gas run out and your ass is freezing in a fucking shack in Montana.
5, 6 As any rabbit can tell you, once you dig below the frost line, the temperature down here underground is 54 degrees year-round. If you’re born with a built-in fur coat, you’re good to go!
@9 I’d say laughable more than anything else.
They laughed at Al Gore, but as today’s dropping gas prices show, they never would have paid $4.50 a gallon if Congress had enacted Gore’s 50-cent gas tax to discourage people from commuting to work in SUVs. What did the stupid Republicans do? Gave people tax credits for buying Hummers, that’s what they did. What are those Hummers worth now, hmmmm? Do the idiots who bought them have to pay someone to take them off their hands?
@24 “My home is a comfortable 73 degrees.”
In view of the fact you have an unpaid obligation to Goldy of $100, I think he should garnishee your heat! If you can afford to keep your trailer heated to 73 degrees, you can afford to pay Goldy! Pay your gambling debt, welsher!
Maybe somebody can splain this to me. During the two weeks of snow, I saw helluva lot more hummers and other SUVs than I did you pious pricks driving your Priuses.
Why is that?
I sure liked being able to come and go as I pleased.
@30 – GM, Ford and Chrysler have you to thank for being stupid enough to cater to people like you and thus making them go bankrupt.
What YLB said…cat blogging is all about the pics.
#30
I am still waiting to be able to purchase a hybrid car with four wheel electric drive that I can plug into my house to charge the batteries or also run in the event of ‘No Power’ to keep my furnace running. It has never made sense to me to have a 120 HP motor five feet from my furnace that I can’t use in the event of a power outage.
@20 If you could borrow my brain for twenty seconds you would be so embarrassed of yours
you probably would kill yourself!
War On Xmas Dep’t
A Florida woman complained to the federal Equal Opportunity Employment Commission that she was fired from her job for greeting callers with ‘Merry Christmas’ but the employer, a vacation rental company, denies that and says she was fired for other reasons.
(Source: Newsweek)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I don’t know who’s telling the truth, but I’m tellin’ ya it sucks to get fired right before Christmas. But hey, if the boss tells you to say “Happy Holidays” and you say “Merry Christmas,” he can fire your insubordinate ass! That’s how the fucking system works — it’s totally stacked against workers. But if this asshole isn’t my boss, he can’t make me say “Happy Holidays,” so I defend Christmas by not working! Why should I put up with such crap for a shitty $10.50-an-hour job with no benefits? If I don’t work, bosses can’t use me to push Christmas around, can they? MERRY CHRISTMAS, trolls!
@34 He wouldn’t last 20 seconds. His head would explode in 5.
Rabbit @ 36
Can you imagine mark’s “brain” in your head? Even in a small, furry animal, I can’t imagine that brain could even propel the physiological basics of eating, shitting, and sleeping. Nonetheless, mark feels he is entitled to have political opinions. Yikes.
I’m pretty confident that my 20 lb. male orange tabby (Kramer) can kick the shit out of your cat! He’s one tough hombre…..
@39 I can kick the shit out of your 20 lb. tabby, and my father can kick the shit out of his father, and my uncle can kick the shit out of his uncle …
Goldy, you need to operate on the Roger Rabbit plan. If you count the cost of the thermostat being on all night for one night is doesn’t look like a lot of money. Using that theory, you can piss money away like there’s no tomorrow on lots of small expenses.
I’m impressed you actually have a working furnace.
5. Goldy spews:
We have a wood stove and a boiler with hot-water, radiant heat in the floors.
It’s 70 degrees in here most of the time and 65 at night.
Goldy is in a fleece shirt with gloves on…I’m sittin’ here in my tighty-whiteys!
Goldy, hopefully you are taking plenty of Echinecea and Zinc to help fight of the inevitable cold & flu coming your way.
Goldy will save $50 on heat and spend $200 fighting of a cold & flu.
Seems like Goldy is……stupid (Again).
Just like driving on those bald tires and tying up traffic across the Mercer Island Bridge when one of them went flat.
Sheesh.
25. Roger Rabbit spews:
We have 10 cords of firewood (most split & some rounds). We have enough Ponderosa Pines standing dead to heat our house for 50 years Rog.
Why would you wish harm to a nice guy like me Rog? I’m blessed to have great health. Went out snowshoeing this AM for over 2 hours…covered 6+ miles. Am going out X-Country skiing with my neighbors in about 15 minutes.
I’m sorry you have that awful lung disease Rog and cannot have the quality of life you desire in your “Golden Years”. I truly wish things were better for you….but you have to deal with the hand your dealt.
What did the rabbit do wrong to cause his lung disease?
Smoke? Government employee? Sucking on hummer exhaust pipes? Digging his burrow too close to the road?
Marvin you loser
I got my lung disease sucking on Goat Anuses, ok.
Now you know the ugly truth. I’m addicted to unwashed goat anuses.
Which explains why steve is so effing obsessed with goat sex.
Has steve ever gone a day without mention goat sex?