Friday, March 9, 2007 7:19 AM
In the Wake, check it out. I just downloaded her pdf and I'm reading it. Another person, another groups' response to the dying of this empire and the struggle to create a new civilization. Her focus is on the survival of the community rather than an individual. I'm off to the mountain before it gets hot.

Thursday, March 8, 2007 7:24 PM
It was a hot day and a productive day. I had two letters from readers, one first from Paula and then from Vickie, of Kent and Vickie, (miss muffin to me), both saying the same thing, and like my mother told me, if two people tell you the same thing, you ought to listen. Paula's point was that pain pays forward and if survived allows the appreciation of real joy. Life is a serious of payments, which if you survive, allow you entry to greater appreciation and joy of everyday. Vickie's letter put forth the non refundable nature of today.

We all paid to get here today. You paid in the past for what you survived and created, endured, loved, hated, but you paid. And today, today you paid for today with an entire day of your life. Scratch one off. You don't get this one back, no do-over. So I hope that you leaned back and strapped it on and gave it a ride, because today is nearly gone. If you instead pissed it away moaning about your life and how fucking STUCK you are, or endured it with that chiseled stoic grit that your cardiologist should warn you about (don't have one - you will), well fuck you! AND tomorrow is a new day, payment due again, but you have CHOICE, create a voice, create a new world, love someone, tell someone you already love that you still do, pet the dog, and scratch the cat, say hello to the monkey and howl at the moon. I personally was stellar today. I created new planets and stars, I washed my clothes in a bucket, I road my moto-bike and saw the momma lion's prints at the petroglyph site. I wrote emails, I got FREE muffins, I was skinnier than yesterday, and damn, shocking but true, I found, upon reflection, I was better looking than yesterday.

Too facetious, too sappy? Hardy har har - what's this asshole going on about Wilson? Too right angled for a cutting edge thinking machine like you? You don't need to hear such drivel. You'll think yourself out of your unhappiness or that job that you hate? IT IS ALL about SOLVING. Give you a problem, you'll solve it. Someone, a scientist no doubt, will solve peak oil, and global warming is just Al Gore still whining about the Supremes (get over it Al), and all your problems just need you to find a bit more free time to solve them and THEN you WILL BE HAPPY. Oh YEA -How's that been working for you? How old are you?

Only you can change the world because you create it through your expectation, experience, and reaction to it every day. Join the revolution chickies, forget who fucked you in the past, and think about those you do love, have loved and will love (and will hopefully fuck - but in the good way). We have a world to build and we are all flabby souls of a gone awry civilization (loosely used and meant). Don't try harder, try EASIER, idle time is the goal, creation of idle time. Don't think HARDER, love EASIER!

But as Paula alluded and Vickie confirmed today, I'm paying for this time to write you with a non refundable piece my life, and you are paying for the time to read this with yours. Try life on tomorrow, throw your arm around the shoulder of your new day and treat it like your friend instead of like an uphill climb. I need you in shape for what we all need to create. See if life fits and if not tailor it in your image. I personally find it tight in the crotch, but that's just me on a warm, horny night in the desert. Night chickies.

Thursday, March 8, 2007 7:40 AM

Where to put the three Harbor Freight 15W panels? Days of consideration of that moving shadow of the dish above drives me insane. Which way with the truck be pointing the next time, what time of year?	The first step is to see the dish down and figure out what the real estate on the top of the canopy looks like - what is available. Then I give up on trying to control the shadow problem. Compromise, compromise, compromise. I'm going hiking.
I tried to put one of the panels along the edge closest to me but it touched the edge of the dish. So I laid them all as ducks in a row. The next step is drilling the holes for the wires to go through the roof and then installing the four brackets on each panel. The brackets came with stainless steel screws and self tapping screws for the edge of the panels. 3 bracket sets were $36. I know, I could have made them from scrap. I'm ashamed.	The big work is drilling holes for the wires and then mounting all the brackets to the very thin frames around these chinese piece of shit panels. But the do make electricity so we love them. Here they are all installed, and each wire set piercing the roof sealed above and below to stop them from wiggling in the holes. Water proofing of the holes is a minor concern. The canopy leaks from the rear door anyway.
Free power from the sun. LIke sex, it is better when it is free. Note: no doves or baby doves were injured or upset during this installation and in fact they learned all about solar energy during the install. Mostly the babies buzz their wings in complete surprise - hey baby I got wings!	Left: I brought all three of the wires from the HF panels to this point on the rear left of the canopy. The lead that is red and black is from the old panel that TJ and I installed on the canopy two years ago. The grey wires are the HF panel wires. I had this little block kicking around in my junk which made it easy to bring the wires together. Below that is my 400 watt noisy inverter - noisy because of the fan is noisy. It has to stay outside the trailer as punishment, but it works great. (I even took it apart three years ago and put a ball bearing fan in there, and it's still too noisy for my sensitive nature). So today the three batteries from my welding set will go on the floor below (until the welding cart is finished) and be charged from the 3 HF panels and the one old 1970's panel from Arco. Should dissimilar panels be combined - NO! Should different sized batteries be combined, NO! Does it work, YES. Does it charge, YES. It is like Rick's tag line, the difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is. The reason this works in a solar setup is that the batteries are charged every day, not just once in a while. They only have to store for a very short time - overnight. You can get away with different ages, voltages, mis matched resistance and old panels with no capacitors built in if only you keep the power applied often.

I'm continuing reading 1491 by Mann, looking for useful information for a new culture. An odd piece jumped out at me. One group the Mexicas destroyed their own codices which were a pretty accurate history of their rise from a slave town to one of three dominant cultures in their region. The rulers did that in order to rewrite their own history. Their new creation story and mandate required them to capture others for human sacrifice. The interesting part to me is that it took less than a generation for the people to believe the new creation story. Those that remembered the old were told that it was lies and the new creation story was correct. Are we that easy-thinking (Russian phrase)? Is this something we can expect of our near future, or are we engaged in rewriting our part in our energy history even now. I'm thinking of that Oscar's comment that a reader sent me that Gore's movie was said to be unrelentingly morose, and the presenter as an aside blamed our global warming on the Chinese. Hah! We are by far the fattest pigs at the trough and if we can spin that, well the Mexicas had nothing on us.
Night chiclets.

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