Good morning!!!!

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Youngest boy and oldest girl are at the International Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. It's a really big deal. Last year, over 800,000 attended over 9 days.

Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta

Some pretty neat "special shape" balloons there.

They plan on coming back tomorrow evening.

In the mean time, middle daughter has been wanting to make home made caramel apples. So we bought green apples, and all the ingredients to make the caramel from scratch.

BEF, hope your pain subsides. Sorry about you not being able to be a big part of the pig roast. Maybe you could sneak by for a taste??? Better than frozen burritos.

Thomas, too much time on your hands. I'll bet the wifey's honey do list is long.

Oh Snap! (a saying around here with the hip crowd). Eric, we try to trim our post oaks of lower branches up to maybe 4 meters up. We are losing many to insects and drought.

Ron, I'm with you on the caffeine. I have to really moderate it. I rarely drink iced tea anymore. It used to be my "go to" drink.

Don, I'd love to go to the garage sale....but those ruthless card sharks would probably trample me.

 

[sodamo]

67°F and .03 inches rain

Participating in a local/ state/national emergency radio exercise today. Told them I wouldn’t do the all day thing but will jump in this morning and possibly later.

Friend coming over to borrow my box blade. Good it gets some use. I probably haven’t used it 20 hours in lay 15 years, just never happy with the results.

Need to relook area of tractorshed for generator use. Had originally planned to put propane generator in basic area of removal of the big generator. Wife has suggested maybe we move the military diesel as well for better use of space. Tempting.

Prayers for all
Be safe
Have a great day

 

[jbrumberg]

RNG- I was dealing with "walking pneumonia" for about 4 months before the "911," and would on occasion use a sick day to "catch my breath." My Program Director used to joke- "How can I work you to death when you keep getting sick?" He must have felt poorly about the "joke," he donated a lot of his personal sick time to me later. I have been following your solarization project, and your plan with all the system backups makes sense to this electricity challenged poster. I am so happy that I had to do little to no "brain" work for or paperwork for our solar system's purchase, installation, and finally hooking into the grid. All I had to do was sign various agreements and a couple of checks. Wifey and I are happy with our decision to go the route that we did. I hope that you can find a solar knowledgeable and competent electrician soon.

I still start moving around ~5:00AM. I am usually awake far earlier waiting to 都tart moving.

"... I have to really moderate it. I rarely drink iced tea anymore. It used to be my "go to" drink."- Kyle I gave up all diet/caffeinated drinks years ago. I am down to 2 cups/day (before 11AM) of coffee most days? I miss my unsweetened iced tea. Those candied apples look awesome good. I could see my dental work embedded in one of those apples.

David- Thanks for sharing another of your many projects.

Dump run complete and Brogen was delivered to the gulag as 都entenced w/o incident. Then he tried to break in. Of the 13 dogs that have been in our pack he is the only member to love going to the gulag. My 電etailed Tundra is now a fading memory.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

I think you remember more than you give yourself credit for, Kyle. My primary motivation for going solar isn't to save money, but to ensure there's a stable source of electricity when it's most needed. Especially now, when the electric utility is shutting off the juice at precisely the same time everyone is most vulnerable to wildfire. I intend to still have a grid connection, but I think of it as more of a battery bank since the solar panels will very likely offset most if not all of my electricity use. I'll have about 1000 amp hours of battery bank, enough to keep the power from even flickering when the utility engages one of their Public Safety Power Shutoffs. The inverters I'm using do more than just convert DC to AC, they also act as a transfer switch, and will automatically and almost instantaneously switch to batteries if the grid goes down, and then start the propane powered 22kW Cummins generator when the AGM batteries drop to about 20% depth of discharge. I'll always have access to the internet because the home network and computers won't be shut down with the grid, and that's important because that's how I've been learning about new fire starts and how fast and far a fire is spreading. Reliable electricity also ensures I'll always have a supply of pressurized water if/when there's another wildfire, the fire truck being the suspenders that go with the generator's belt. In the wet season, I'll also be able to use the batteries and generator to avoid utility electric use during cloudy days when the solar panel output falls off. That'll be handy because PG&E forces customers with solar power systems into a time of day rate structure that charges more for each kilowatt hour during times of peak demand. I'm on a tiered structure now, but I only pay more if consumption goes over certain levels as the days tick by during the monthly billing period. It used to be that any power produced by the solar panels that customers didn't use was purchased by the utility for something like ten cents per kilowatt hour. Over the years, though, the rate has dropped to more like three cents, so it literally doesn't pay to install more solar panels than will be needed to offset your actual use. That means break even to when the cost of the solar power installation will be offset by the lower or missing electric utility bills is stretched farther into the future, and by adding both batteries and a generator, that date goes out even farther. But none of that matters if the house burns down, and since it's very likely I'll be declined when the homeowner's insurance is supposed to renew next year, I'm focused on mitigating the hazard more than saving money. Make sense?

Yes, makes sense. And sounds very costly. Big sigh. Can you get tax rebates for the solar panels still? I just am guessing that after the installation, the batteries will be the costliest part of long term use. The thought of using compressed air as a source of power for your sprinkler came to me. If you had a scuba tank, with regulator that you could configure into a big holding tank of water that could pressure it up to just enough to run your mist system. Low pressure high volume being the goal.

 

[jbrumberg]

Inverters are expensive and have ~ a 15 year lifespan if I remember correctly.

 

[txdon]

Don, I'd love to go to the garage sale....but those ruthless card sharks would probably trample me.

I was too slow every thing I wanted sold at 8:01, I did pass up a few things I was thinking about but you can't do that they were gone second time around also.
Waiting for 8AM to open.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

I was too slow every thing I wanted sold at 8:01, I did pass up a few things I was thinking about but you can't do that they were gone second time around also.View attachment 623736

holy shnikeys! what a crowd.

So, my page was slow to load and I'm looking at the bottom where it shows what it's waiting for....I see the usual ads, but I see it waiting on facebook.com multiple times. Is FB watching what we do here???

 

[txdon]

holy shnikeys! what a crowd.

So, my page was slow to load and I'm looking at the bottom where it shows what it's waiting for....I see the usual ads, but I see it waiting on facebook.com multiple times. Is FB watching what we do here???

I don't do Facebook, must be on your side.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Yes, makes sense. And sounds very costly. Big sigh. Can you get tax rebates for the solar panels still? I just am guessing that after the installation, the batteries will be the costliest part of long term use. The thought of using compressed air as a source of power for your sprinkler came to me. If you had a scuba tank, with regulator that you could configure into a big holding tank of water that could pressure it up to just enough to run your mist system. Low pressure high volume being the goal.

California cancelled all state subsidies for solar power a couple of years ago, and this is the last year before the Feds start scaling back their offerings. So I'd really like to have something up and running before New Years!

The tank on my big compressor is something like 40 gallons, but even that size wouldn't be enough to pressurize the water for long, assuming I could even find a tank large enough to hold a good amount of water and compressed air, too. Unless I found it surplus, it would also cost an arm and a leg. I am looking into parking a good size tank at the top of the hill, which will give me maybe 100' of head and something like 40 psi that is not dependent on any sort of outside energy except gravity. That's tied into the grading that'll take place with the shop build, and is on hold until the solar power system is in. I can only do so much at one time. I'm also trying to stick with tried-and-true technology, so no swoopy space age batteries, no string inverters, nothing that hasn't been on the market for more than a few years made by companies with good reputations and staying power. Most of the solar components will be from Schneider Electric, but the panels will be from a Chinese company nobody's ever heard of. That's because the Chinese drove most of the American producers into bankruptcy with their unfair trade practices.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

So, my page was slow to load and I'm looking at the bottom where it shows what it's waiting for....I see the usual ads, but I see it waiting on facebook.com multiple times. Is FB watching what we do here???

I used to have a status bar when I used Google Chrome, but I don't see one in the desktop version of Safari. Using Chrome was too much like the fox watching the hen house.

I use the AdBlock Pro browser plugin and don't see any ads. I like it that way.

Are you sure you don't have some sort of Facebook plugin installed in your browser? That would explain what you're seeing. I don't trust Facebook enough to enable any of their apps, which especially includes those that enable logins to outside sites using a Facebook username/password. It takes some pawing through the Facebook preferences to disable those features, which Facebook inappropriately enables by default.