Home Battery Rewards Program

I called John at RevoluSun about the Home Battery Rewards Program that I mentioned a couple of days ago. It turns out John now works for another solar company but he talked to me anyway; he is very good at customer service. He told me how the program worked & that our system would be monitored to see if there was a benefit for us to be in the program. If not, it would not cost us anything to be unenrolled. I then called RevoluSun, they assigned our account to a new guy, who was not at all helpful except to say he would have someone call me back tomorrow to discuss it more; he took 15 minutes to tell me way less than John did in 6 minutes. Auē! I'm glad I talked to John 1st! Right now this program is experimental & will run for 5 years with the option for HELCO & Swell Energy to renew the program after that first 5 year period.

I also went to the Swell Energy site to see what they had to say about the Home Battery Rewards Program. Right now they are working with a different company on Hawaiʻi Island than who I went through for my installation but I was still able to sign up to get information so I did. The solar panels I have there produce a lot more electricity than I need so it would be great to get it back in to the grid so it can benefit others.

I started out the morning watching Dr. Ronesh Sinha's video, How Poor Metabolic Health Allows Covid-19 to Hijack Our System. Since 88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy you might want to consider watching this video of Dr. Ron being interviewed by podcaster Dhru Purohit. The most important things I learned from this video is how COVID-19 affects the beta cells that produce insulin in your body during illness, as well as after illness, and what types of things I can do to increase my metabolic health. This 1 hour 15 minute video was recorded in August 2020, prior to the Delta variant becoming the dominant virus in the US.

 

The Samsung Health app that I have been using to track my walking, can also track my heart rate as well as stress level. The stress level tracker also records heart rate & blood oxygen level at the same time so it is the tracker that I will be adding to my Samsung Health dashboard. After listening to Dr. Ron's interview above, I think I will start tracking my stress, heart rate, & blood oxygen level on a daily or nearly daily basis so I can create a baseline & use that to see how well I am improving my metabolic health. 

I made another lau ʻuala proothie. I blended it a little longer than I did yesterday, it had a much better mouthfeel today.

I am impressed by my Anker Soundcore LifeQ30 noise cancelling headphones! Since the video was long (& it was a video of a podcast so I would not be missing any visuals) I decided to use the headphones & connect them to my laptop. I was able to walk to the kitchen, which is about 50 feet & 1 wall away, with the same clarity & volume as sitting at my laptop! For other people this may not be impressive but this is my 1st experience with wireless headphones so I am easily impressed right now!

It's being charged in this photo.

I checked my last series of tests against Dr. Ron's Metabolic 6-pack outlined in his book, The South Asian Health Solution. Here's how I am currently doing; it looks like I really need to work on my abdominal fat & triglycerides and I need a little more work on my A1c. My systolic blood pressure is within my normal fluctuation. I wonder if I can request a test for hs-CRP? 

Goal #1. Reduce waist circumference to less than 35 inches in men & 31 inches in women. 👎 I am at 35 inches.

Goal #2. Reduce triglyceride level to less than 100 mg/dL. 👎 I am at 169 mg/dL. (06/14/21; Kaiser's goal is <199 mg/dL 👍)

Goal #3.  Raise HDL cholesterol level to above 40 mg/dL for men & 50 mg/dL for women. 👍 I am at 64 mg/dL. (06/14/21)

Goal #4. Reduce systolic BP (top number) to 120 mmHg or below & diastolic BP (bottom number) to 80 mmHg or below. 👎/👍 I am at 122/65 mmHg. (06/18/21)

Goal #5. Decrease fasting blood glucose to below 100 mg/dL & HbA1c to less than 5.7%. 👎 For HbA1c I am at 5.8%. (06/14/21; Kaiser does not regularly do a fasting blood glucose test)

Goal #6. Get hs-CRP below 1.0 mg/dL. I have never been tested for this.

 

For lunch I had a corn tortilla quesadilla. The Food for Life sprouted corn tortilla that I am using has 13g carbs each with 1g fiber for 12g net carbs. 

(Photo by Food for Life)

Mom had 3 Terminix contracts to handle termites and other "pests"; I started another for "Exclusion" to keep rats out of the attic. (I had originally thought the "Pest Control" contract was for rats.) The 3 contracts Mom started were for "Pest Control" which is ants, roaches, centipedes, & other creepy crawlies, "Termite Bait Stations" for subterranean termites, and "Drywood Termites" for said termites. I had to renew one of them today (for Pest Control) so I decided to get all the information on the other contracts in order to get them changed out of Mom & Dad's names at the end of the term they are paid for. When it's time for the change I basically just need to provide a phone number & email address since the house & contracts will be the same family name. 

For dinner I had the Red Thai Curry Chicken with Eggplant along with shirataki noodles. In the beginning it was fine, but it slowly got hotter, by the end it was too hot for me. I ended up giving it to DT.

Shirataki noodles.

There are 2 screenshots of the Aix weather app; one from about 1 a.m. & the other from about 5 hours later; I noticed that they had changed & wanted to see which was more accurate. The earlier forecast for Honolulu was for rain through the mid-afternoon, then a break until after dark. The later forecast was for rain throughout the day & getting heavier after dark. You would think the later forecast would be more accurate because there is more real time data, but it wasn't.  

Kaimukī looking northerly at 12:51 a.m.; this downpour woke me up.

Kaimukī looking southeasterly at 7:08 a.m.

Kaimukī looking westerly at 9:01 a.m.; where's the rain?

Honomū looking northerly at 9:01 a.m.; looks even sunnier than Kaimukī.

Marysville looking northerly at 9:02 a.m. HST; only looks like a very light drizzle.

It drizzled very briefly just before dinner. Luna was not amused. Even though she did not get wet, she was miffed.

It doesn't take much to annoy Luna.

Kaimukī looking southeasterly at 4:59 p.m.; a very light drizzle.

The surf forecast for today was for swells slightly above average for south facing shores, with some small surf long north facing shores. I am switching from the Chun's Reef live web cam to a live cam at Laniakea Beach; the surf there seems to more consistently match what the forecast says we should be seeing. (However, I can't seem to get the caption button to work; the 1st surf photo is Laniakea at 9:10 a.m.)

Hilo Bay (E) at 9:05 a.m.

Waikīkī (S) at 9:05 a.m.

Waikoloa (W) at 9:06 a.m.

There were 423 new cases of COVID-19 reported today, bringing the total known cases up to 72,775. There were no new deaths so the number of fatalities remains at 660; currently there are 8887 cases considered active. 

    

Hauʻoli lā Hānau e Norm, Catherine, & Maria!