Category: Outdoor

Surviving A Fresno Summer With A Swamp Cooler

The Fresnan
Swmap-Cooler-Swampy-1024x908 Surviving A Fresno Summer With A Swamp Cooler

My AC unit went out this Summer. The first string of hot days revealed that the compressor in my 25-year-old beast died. It was not going to be worth it to replace it.

I need a new air conditioner. But it’s not always that simple. I can’t always jam out of Fresno.

Paying for things like a ‘crane fee’ and taking on a loan, was not something we are into this Summer. Beer Slushies at Tioga? Sure. $15,000 central air units? No.

So, we are going to have to get through a Fresno Summer without traditional air. With only a swamp cooler. Ol Swampy (pictured above). Pray for us.

Never thought I would be glad to have a swamp cooler as a backup

We are lucky to have Swampy. The previous owners had both units hooked into the vents. Use the Swamp when things are in the 80s, switch to the Central AC when things start getting ripe.

Those with evaporative cooler experience know, when the triple digits hit, swamp sucks.

Luckily, Fresno does have a good base condition that swamp coolers like: dry heat.

Joke about it all ya damn want but dry heat is hella better than humid heat, for many reasons. One of them is you can tweak your cooler for max coolness:

The best tip from that video? Starting the cooler early!

Blowing swamp when it was already warm was my biggest mistake. It is too much of a struggle for Ole Swampy to cool things down once the house is warm. Starting the cooler at 8 am as opposed to 2 pm makes a big difference.

Yeah, you have the cooler running all day and that can be an expense. But it’s still much cheaper than running an old AC unit.

The frozen bottles and soaking the pads make a small difference but not really worth it for me since my unit is up on the roof.

But what about at night?

Right? Sleeping in a hot room is the worst. I want it cold enough to need a blanket. Being warm during the day is one thing. Trying to sleep when it’s super hot feels like trying to sleep on top of Blackstone asphalt.

That’s why I broke down and bought one of these bad boys for the room:

Portable-Air-Conditioner-1024x1024 Surviving A Fresno Summer With A Swamp Cooler

If you love ‘hotel style’ AC, this is something to look into. It won’t work for the house, but it will keep one bedroom cool and it’s damn nice.

Go turn your swamper on now!

Keeping the cooler in good order and turning it on in the morning, that’s all ya really need to know. Ad the room unit and everything is chill.

Of course… I have not been through August yet. Check back later. In the meantime, I’m feeling like heading Downtown for a Beer Slush:

I Am Voting Yes On Measure P For The Fresno I Deserve!

The Fresnan 5 Comments

Measure-P-Fresno-1024x768 I Am Voting Yes On Measure P For The Fresno I Deserve!

Sometimes Fresno has to figure things out its own damn self.

That’s what Measure P is. Fresnans having to go around the Mayor and the City Council and get something done for Fresno when nobody else will.

Fresno is horribly behind the rest of the country when it comes to green space. At times we are the worst. The damn worst. Like, no other city in the County is worse, worse.

For a little numbers perspective on how bad we are:

Sactown spends so much more it isn’t even comparable and Bakersfield doubles us! Really!? BAKERSFIELD?! … Bakersfield?   Fucking Bakersfield.

Aren’t we better than Bakersfield at, well, everything?! I guess not.

No on P People are just scared.

Having a completely funded Police and Fire force and occasionally filling in a pothole is all they care about. Apparently, that is all a city is good for.

The Mayor and all those that oppose Measure P do not trust me, don’t trust you. They think you can’t do two things. They think, if you vote yes on P, there is no way you have enough fire in your belly to vote yes for something else. That something else being more taxes to bolster Fire or Police.

If we really need to, we can vote yes for all the things. It’s fine. Please stop selling Fresnans short.

Best thing is, I don’t have to do anything but mark YES!

I won’t have to plan any of this. Won’t have to dig a hole or grade a field. Just fill in the box next to yes.

You might say I won’t even have to pay for it because there is no way in hell I am going to notice a 3/8 cent sales tax.

What does it matter that my table’s bill at Pismo’s is $141.85 instead of $141.03! I don’t know if that is the right math. I stopped fancy math learning around Freshman year at Bullard.

But that is pretty close to what it would look like, you get the point. It’s not going to be noticeable and it will do a lot of good for our city.

If nothing else. If you never vote. Vote for this!

On Tuesday. Walk in. Mark “Yes” on P. Get sticker. Walk out.

Then one day expect to find a trail or park where there wasn’t one before and you didn’t have to do a damn thing.

If we don’t vote yes for this now, Fresno will be stuck with the same amount of Parks. The same amount of sub-standard existing Parks. It will be that way for a long time.

You KNOW that our Council will not do anything on its own. You KNOW our current Mayor won’t do anything. You KNOW it will be more of the same.

We can not have “more of the same”!

Please let’s go around city leaders and get this done for Fresno our own damn selves! Vote “YES!” on P!

Summer Sweat 2018: The Fresno Thing To Do This Weekend

The Fresnan

img_8698 Summer Sweat 2018: The Fresno Thing To Do This Weekend

It’s time for Summer Sweat again!

My favorite music-related event of the year (well, since FUSE Fest is tucked away hiding in a Downtown basement somewhere).

I love Fresno events that fucking own that they are a Fresno event! That’s right, an outdoor event, during the hottest time of the year. Call it Summer Sweat. Bring the damn sweat!

SUMMER SWEAT DETAILS

TIOGA SEQUOIA STAGE

TEZZY RADIO STAGE

I will check in on this in between sets on the Tioga Stage and getting Fulton Street IPAs. But I would be lying if I told you I knew what the hell was going on there.

DJ Burns will be there. I sure hope it’s my friend Doug from 3rd Grade whom we all still call “Burns” and he has secretly been DJ-ing for years. Probably not.

OTHER THINGS TOO

There will be food and vendors of various sorts, check the flyer above for the list. All I need to know is there will be food and I’m cool. I am here for the music and beer.

I’ll try to update this post when I know the set times and if there are any special beer releases Tioga has up its sleeve.

Oh wait, here are the set times:

img_8771-1 Summer Sweat 2018: The Fresno Thing To Do This Weekend

I am definitely centering things around Pinkeye’s set with an eye on Macondo’s.

The thing I like about Summer Sweat above all the other music related events and festivals in Fresno is that it doesn’t get uncomfortably packed with Fresbros or anybody else, it’s about the music, it’s approachable, there is the good beer. Enough said.

See ya out there, sweating and breathing heavy.

 

Fresno Is An Outdoor Retailer Trade Show City, Just Like Denver and Portland!

The Fresnan 2 Comments

Bears-Ears-Buttes-Tim-Peterson-1920x1080 Fresno Is An Outdoor Retailer Trade Show City, Just Like Denver and Portland!
Bears Ears Buttes by Tim Peterson
There is a grand opportunity for the city of Fresno right now. A chance for Fresno to get a major trade show and to build a reputation for being an “outdoor city”.

Salt Lake City just lost the Outdoor Retailer trade show. This is a trade show for businesses like REI, Patagonia, North Face… hell, basically every retailer that does anything in outdoor retail. It’s sorta the everything in the industry.

What San Diego Comi-Con is for nerddom, this is for outdoor nerds.

The OR show has always been held in Utah. Since the 90s. But they are looking for a new city to move to by 2019 because Utah has been naughty.

Utah’s Governor, and other Republican peeps in Utah, lobbied President Trump to roll back the Bears Ears National Monument, a 1.35-million-acre conservation area in Southern Utah that Native Americans and other people who like Earth, have held sacred for years. Trump listened and rolled it on back.

Fuck off, Earth! Cattle and mines are more important.

So the Outdoor Retailers, people that were warning Utah not to do this, said they are packing up their back…packs and looking for a new city to dump all that trade show money into. The show dumps 32 million into SLC every year.

Denver and Portland (OR) are leading contenders at the moment. I say we make sure Fresno is in that mix too because Fresno is an outdoor city. Maybe we don’t act like it enough, maybe we don’t even know it, but we are.

We totally qualify to have the Outdoor Retailer trade show. Fresno is within a morning drive to all outdoor activities. ALL THE ACTIVITIES! So we got that as a qualification.

But do we have the kind of convention space to handle this?:

Hell, I think so.

Oh but wait, does Fresno have enough hotel rooms (or Air BnBs) to handle this? I don’t know, that is for city officials to figure out – I don’t create and maintain the trails, I just walk through and comment on them.

So I hope there is enough time for Fresno to get consideration. I don’t think anybody is threating to roll back National Park status for Yosemite, Kings Canyon or Sequoia anytime soon. *knock on wood*

Let’s do it! Let’s blaze a trail to Fresno for Outdoor Retailer!
Photo: Bears Ears, Utah | Credit: Tim Peterson