Solar Ripoff

Moved the last of my "stuff" out of view this morning then took a nice long shower (4 minutes, 4 gallons). Checked my list and added some items, hit the GrubShack then on to Alpine. Picked up parts to enhance the GrubShack electrical systems. Also got some plumbing parts for the gas water pump to be ready for the next rainfall then ordered more materials for the greenhouse including lumber to build a large tabletop jig for welding up the 11 roof trusses I need to build. Swung by Bennett's house to check out his jungle of a garden (actually, I believe Yvette and Lydia are in charge of the garden) - quite a change from the photo I took for the May 1 blog entry.

FIELD LAB CONSUMER ALERT!:

Amazing "Solar Generator"Is Like Having A Secret Power Plant Hidden In Your Home! A number of friends have asked me about this site on the internet... http://www.mysolarbackup.com/ Been thinking I should write about it here for some time and now that I know someone who actually shelled out money for this piece of crap, I reckon it's time I said my piece. First of all - just the look of the web site and the video of doom and gloom should be a dead giveaway. The old adage "if it sounds too good to be true..." is a giant red flag especially for the alternative energy market. They truthfully claim that the unit will power all sorts of appliances but fail to mention that it will only be able to power ONE OR TWO of them for only a couple of hours before the unit will need at least one full day of sunlight to recharge. Of course a radio will be able to run a long time but a refrigerator/freezer will only get a short lease on extended run time. It's up to you to do the math on what and for how long a 60Ah battery can power something through an 1800 watt inverter. One guess....it ain't much and it ain't long. MySolarBackup sells their system for $1597.00 with FREE SHIPPING!...marked down from the retail price of $2097.00. I surfed the web for about 5 minutes and found all the components for this system from just two different retailers for under $1000. On a scale of 1 to 5....I give this product a generous 2 only because a complete moron might find this usefull in a pinch....but because of the web sales pitch, I give it a ZERO! Bottom line - don't waste your money.

Pay Phone

hmmmmm...I've been thinking about it for awhile now and reckoned I'd troll the blog and see if anyone knows of an old phone booth that can be had. For some reason, I seem to want to add one to my overall plan. I'm only interested in a full booth with folding doors, light and fan. Anyone out there in Texas got one sitting in their garage? I've looked on Ebay and some commercial sites but know I can build one from scratch for less that their asking prices.

Just barely got more clearing done on the north side today. As usual...just too darn hot out there. Gave my friend Pat a hand extracting an old propane fridge from his travel trailer in exchange for getting it to experiment with. That 2 hours of sweaty labor was the highlight of the day and now I got more parts to play with down the road.

Guzzled down some after hours iced tea at the GrubShack and met up with Rusty http://ideasandopinions-rusty.blogspot.com/ to give him a Field Lab tour. Hope to make it up to his "mansion in the making" by the end of the week. The day done now - just working on a shopping list for an Alpine run tomorrow. Wish I had range feed on the list but the longhorns have all headed back NW of me. A lone bull (I think it was Sergio) strolled by the other day and I joked with friends that I stuck a note on his horn to give to Benita.

shufflin' stuff

Decided to tackle the mess on the north side of my complex. It's all about curb appeal. As construction progresses, I have to start thinking about the landscaping. Took 5 hours to consolidate and conceal the debris. Not quite done but made a huge dent in it today before I started getting dizzy from the heat and could smell my skin burning.

Camped indoors for a couple of hours then took a siesta. Woke up at 4:30 - sponged off the dried sweat and headed down for 241 night at the Starlight. Ran into 6 friends there and sucked up the cheeseburger and a couple of margaritas. Had a chance to finally meet my new best friend Dr. Doug on the porch....a bearded brother I have seen in the Ghost Town just about every time I've been down there. The two best beards in Texas. http://www.drdougs.com/

Salamander Sunday

Took the day as it came - just as planned. Did 3 loads of laundry and had breakfast at the Motor Inn Cafe. Brought the wet rags home and hung them on the clothes line. Works faster than a 2 dollar laundromat dryer.
Did very little outside today other than moving my shade rig out of the way. Found this little salamander under the cover. Spent most of the rest of the day literally chilling out inside with Pepino.

Research project of the day was a solar oven pizza....had to bump it in the propane grill to brown the crust and cheese.

Benita's last calf...

Just over a year ago I took these pictures of my first sighting of Benita. She and her calf were both terribly skinny and covered with flies. A week after I took these photos, I never saw the calf again and reckon it died. That's when I decided to befriend Benita. Anyway...after she ate yesterday morning she headed NW and kept going when usually she would stop and graze and the end of my driveway. Not sure if or when I will see her again, but she is in much better shape now than when I first met her last year.

Did a split shift today during the cool parts of the morning and late afternoon and mixed up a total of 19 bags of concrete to finish off the east and north entrances. Think I will take tomorrow off.

Impulse Buy

A couple of days after I brought home the new amplified speakers for my computer - I had a hankerin' to test them out by finding a YouTube video of a live performance of Hotel California by the Eagles. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea0CDieb4yM My favorite song sounded splendid blasting out of the HP laptop. The trumpet intro really grabbed me. I played coronet in Jr. high band way back in another life in Indiana. I tried a trumpet a couple of times and really liked it better. My good ol' nickle silver Signet coronet that I had since I was 13, burned up in the house fire I had in upstate NY. Anyway...after seeing the video, I decided I would really like to start practicing with a trumpet. Within 5 minutes of seeing the video, I ordered a trumpet from http://www.kkmusicstore.com/ Hmmmmmm....amazing how efficient the internet has become - enabling just such a spur of the moment purchase. It just arrived today and I love it but tooting it well is gonna take some getting used to. Hopefully (with a lot of practice) I can do a YouTube video soon(ish) of me playing the intro that spurred the purchase.

Got out early again this morning and filled the second layer of rebar voids on the west and south entrance. 10 bags of concrete. I'm starting to like this early day work schedule now. Nice to accomplish what may be the only outdoor labor of the day by 11AM. Sponged off the sweat and hit "you know where" for lunch. Good group there today so lingered longer than planned. Came home and popped a loaf of bread into the solar oven for some super nice folks camped out on their newly purchased property west of me.

I headed back down to Study Butte for some laundry way late in the day. Luckily, I came across the new folks on my way out and passed off the still warm freshly baked Field Lab Loaf to them. Got all the way down south and the laundry was CLOSED....problems with their water system. Came home with my dirty duds and finished off the day shuffling my rebar off to the side of my driveway. The new ability to fully furl my solar panels for late day sun is giving my batteries quite a nice bump.

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