Sweatin' the pipes

The other morning I awoke to a growling stomach and thoughts of fry bread. As my brain wandered through semi-lucid thoughts I remembered that Carl had passes around some photos from the installation at Jim and Selma's. 

I'm hungry right now and in similar semi-lucid fashion just remembered to post them.

Final-ly!

We are screaming through finals and have wrapped up classes. Just finished my last written exam, I have a paper to turn in, and tomorrow I have to take a hands on tools, circuits, and conduit exam. 

The neighbor kids were waiting for the bus when I left this morning, which is common. Each day they stare in disbelief as I load up on the bike, wearing a screaming-yellow-glow-in-the-dark jacket and head off to school with backpack strapped onto the rack. (I am not sure if they stare because of fashion issues or just looking at the local oddity that rides a bike in oil-and-gas town.)

THis morning, one of the girls says, "Dude - Don't you get cold riding your bike every day?" It's below freezing out in the morning, and sometimes all day lately.
When you are my age, if a teen does not call you "Sir" or "Old Guy" or some other pejorative term, it's a compliment. It was a good omen to start the day, so I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Then the girl next to her holds her hand up to shield it from me, but speaks loud enough for me to hear, and says to her friend, "What's up with his jacket?! Ugggg-Ly." 

Balance is restored.

Wind Turbine R&D Update

Our local mad scientist has come up with an innovative wind turbine. It is still in development, and until he hits production, I can't divulge specifics on power generation or output characteristics, but I can tell you that it looks really cool, and moves aggressively in a strong breeze. It swims like a dolphin in the air and what nimby neighbor could object to dolphins?

(Nimby = not in my backyard, those that will complain about any change including that its too sunny today because pollution levels are lower than normal, etc.)

Photos copyright TMunson.MD.PhD.etc.

Ute Mountain

Ute Mountain. 4 Corners Area. The San Juan Basin. 

Land. Space. Desert. Mountains. Snow.

 

Troughing

I am so concerned for the execs that have run the car companies into the ground that I thought maybe I could my little part to help out. I mean, what can I do, other than giving them my tax dollars for executive bonuses that surely must be based on performance, right, I mean these guys are capitalists, right?

Anyhow, my concern is so large that I have coined a new use for the word "troughing". They should not have to explain how exhausting it must be to fly in your private jet to Washington to deal with some piss-ant politicians. I mean the job of a politician is to hand out money at the trough, not to question these giants of industry.

Here's the new use, much better than a descriptive term for a conveyor belt. 

"I was so tired after a week of troughing in DC, that I took the jet to my favorite spa in Nice. After a day there, I had a luncheon meeting (9 courses) in LA. Off I go in the jet. Whew, then I have to be back in Detroit to yell at my assistant. How long can it take someone to put a powerpoint slide together to impress some politicians with My Vision? Next week I go back to DC for more troughing. I put in so many hours at the trough. Running this company takes a lot of troughing time." 

How's that? Think of it as my gift to the auto execs. May they use it in good health and at new jobs where they are paid for performance. There's the door.

New Roof Please

In order to learn how to install solar panels on a roof, you need to get on a roof and practice. Since the program is growing, and since it is a small state school, if you want a second practice roof, you build it yourself. Tom got some students together to build a new roof. We'll put it on the ground in our yard, so it is easy to get up and down, and the potential fall off it is less severe. 

Since Tom is an engineer, he has a complex set of plans, and some scheme to "flip the roof" after a few years of service, once too many holes have been punched in it by different groups of students and multiple sets of panels. Before getting started I verified that any "flip the roof" occurrence would happen well after I'm gone. ("Flip the roof" sounds too much like "Drop the roof" for me!)

Install on the Rez

Carl and Tom rallied the troops (RE students) to head out to the Navajo Reservation to do a one day major upgrade to Jim and Selma's off grid systems. They don't pay The Man for their electricity, they make their own. 

Jim has several separate systems that have grown over time. Friday we installed a solar thermal hot water system. This simple low maintenance system should provide all the heat needed for their hot water supply. The panel gets hauled onto the roof. Water is heated in the panel during daylight hours by the sun, and that water is sent to their hot water tank where it used as the heat source instead of gas or oil. If the sun doesn't produce enough heat then the heater can be assisted by gas or oil.

We also reconfigured some solar PV arays, added some new panels to the main house system, and upgraded the major components, inverter, charge controller, etc. We rewired the battery bank to push higher voltage for the new components. 

They've got a beautiful spot, they live independently on Selma's family land (Selma's 85 year old mother lives in a hogan on the property, but she was off to sheep camp for the week so we didn't get to meet her.) 

Selma cooked us mutton stew and Navajo fry bread for lunch! I stopped at 4 gigantic delicious wonderful pieces of fry bread, just moments before I would have exploded. The others, though they have youth on their side, couldn't rally past 2 single pieces. Mutton stew with dumplings. Bring it on!!

If you cook Navajo fry bread and mutton stew, I'll be there! 

Rule 1: Let the owner cut the holes in the roof.

Tom and Carl, the RE Gurus try to rein in the group.