December 13, 2006
This morning found me two hours before light working on what is coming for this website. Preparation, tools, 72 hour kits, how we will create a new way of living and being without being sure what the changes are that come, which means how do we learn to love the unexpected happening and how do we teach ourselves the essential skill of landing on our emotional feet no matter what crisis befalls? Crisis by nature are not easily planned for, and all the kits and books and snares and water purification techniques are useless if you are not where you need to be when whatever you think is coming, comes. The essential you is the only common denominator. You will be somewhere when things abruptly change and you, and I must embrace the changes that are coming and be nimble, emotionally, physically, and financially. We will be exploring all that as I divide this website into three parts over the next few days.
But like all good plans today required me to be nimble as computers crashed and I needed more power. That brings us to today's few pictures!

I was greeted with chkdsk being unhappy with my harddrive on my main work laptop - 45 minutes later I was up and backing up but needed to just leave the computer up and running. This being December, that would use a substantial part of the amp-hours

I sawed the board, painted it black, let it dry in the solar oven for 10 minutes, then mounted the charge controller (top) and the inverter (red) below.

Oh my, lunch already. In the flavor of George and Tioga I decided to show you my lunch. Diet pepsi, baggette with smoked Black Forest ham, mayo, and curry. The Moulin Rouge cup without the handle is my favorite morning coffee cup! Waitress forgot to clear from the moring lunch crowd at Casa de blanca!

The Power is on! The website update tonight was brought to you by the power and the inverter mounted in the back of the truck. It is so cool to put things together that work and do something important for you. Feels Good!

Left - the complete board is screwed in place, all the wires run to the solar panel and to the battery - all meeting at the inverter which will supply the 120V that the satellite controller, Modem and my wireless router require to let me connect to you and the world from anywhere with 100 feet of the trailer. But it didn't go like that which is why the two green fuses above rated a picture. In taking off and putting on the wires three times I managed to reverse the positive and negative from the battery and spark and smoke and the inverter no longer inverted or did anything. Oh dash, on donner and blitzen, fuck you Edison and Tesla and all the gods of electricity, and especially fuck me for not moving slower and more carefully. Sun was out, power was present at the panel but there was no way to get it back to the trailer where it was needed. So... More power tools - I spun out the 8 screws holding the inverter together and pushed it out the red case to the left - oh please, oh please, let there be fuses, let them be blown, oh please. There were two 30 amp fuses. both blown. Sigh, almost like an orgasm. And I had two fuses! In they went, back together it went and voila!!!! Power to the satellite. Backups were completed drives saved, businesses rescued, fair damsels lay undismayed. All because I had MORE ELECTRICTY.