Wesley's Tool-Box

An ice rink is generally resurfaced by driving a "Zamboni (ice resurfacer)" around. When I heard that the ice track was going to be resurfaced before the start of the 4th heat of the Men's Skeleton event, I wondered if a similar machine existed that went around the track. But it seems that the technology has not progressed that far yet - a group of men with hot air blower and brooms were sweeping and smoothing the track from the start to the finish. It was the one interesting moment in the otherwise uneventful 45-minute break before the final run that would determine the medalists.


Starting at 11:15AM, the top 20 racers participated in their 4th heat in the ascending rank order. Korea's Kim Jisoo was lined up to be the 15th to run, while the already-dominant Yun Sungbin would race the last. As the racers went past the finish line one by one, the excitement grew. With the cheering crowd, Kim Jisoo put up a respectable performance and held onto his relative position. And on the final race of the event Yun Sungbin amazed everyone with a flawless, untouchable run. He was ahead of the 2nd place by a total of 1.63 seconds, which was massive considering Martins Dukurs lost out on a medal by a mere 0.11 seconds.

The whole place went wild, and we were elated to be witnessing such a historical event up close. It was the first time an Asian athlete won medal a sledding event in Olympics. Who would have thought that the colour of that medal would be gold, and that it would be won in such a dominant manner?

The smart meter I installed last month is running nicely, but using it to measure a precise power consumption of an individual appliance is cumbersome as you need to have everything else stable. So it was time for me to invest in a plug-in type electricity monitor. After some comparing, the one from by the company that made the smart meter was deemed most practical. Named SJPM-C16, it cost me about US$18.50 (KRW 22,400) after discounts.

The goal of this sort of electricity monitor is not just about informing you of electricity usage, but also getting you some ideas on how to make savings from such info. Considering this, I liked the way it was packaged. It was pretty compact and minimal, with hardly any waste of space or materials.


Even the manual is a neatly-folded single sheet of paper that lists everything that you need to know when using the product. This includes the fact that South Korea has a bizarre 6-tier exponential residential pricing for the retail electricity, and that this monitor fully accounts for this when calculating the costs. You can also configure for other pricing schemes and the tier prices themselves are also adjustable, making it useful even if there are future changes.

Now armed with this capable tool, I set out to check the power consumption of every appliances and devices scattered throughout the house.