Monday, June 22, 2009

Tony'n'Gini

Spent the morning catching up on emails. Quite a few have been rolling in and I like to answer all of them. Lots of great messages in support of the Field Lab project. Thanks! Great 10 day forecast ahead.

Hooked up with Ryan to take a trip up to Tony and Gini's place around noon. They had some electrical issues with their RV and I suggested Ryan to them. The kid had all the right answers and tricked out the system without hesitation. He even did a little service on the generator engine. For all south county residents....he really knows his stuff and can fix'r'rig just about anything...and in a timely fashion - not on Terlingua time.
We spent about 4 hours up there which included an excellent grilled steak meal. Nice day for me as I was able to help 3 people just by association. On the way home we stopped by Chuck's to pick up my generator. To the readers of Texas Monthly: I find that at this point in the development of the Field Lab - I finally need a generator - for my welder. Seems one must be a little less green in order to become more green. Kind of like - you gotta spend money to make money.

Ended the day by staging 60 cinder blocks. Took about an hour of late day to shuttle them into ready position. I came across 6 scorpions as I was stacking them into the bed of my truck. Sorry to disrupt their life in the pallet stacked cinder block high rise condo.

HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO CHUCK AND AUNT KATHY!!

8 comments:

Old Wise One said...

John, that forecast looks just like the one we have here in Dallas for the next 10 days. Has Benita wondered off, or has she not been looking her best to make the photo spread. Keep up the good work.

John Wells said...

Benita usually comes in for breakfast and hangs out for a couple of hours, then is off to graze...she just hasn't struck a good pose for me lately.

Bob from Athens said...

The only good scorpion is a dead scorpion. At least that is what my son says after he found one in his boxers one morning just as he was about to put them on.

Grant Wagner said...

Concrete and Metal work are just things which require far to much energy to truely be considered "Green." Concrete is a mix that needs to be heated to over 1500 degrees before it's usable, at the expense of a lot of natural gas. Metal work isn't much better.

I guess the best you can do is just some old fashoned black smithing. (big hint at future projects) Atleast any good wood burn is "Carbon Neutral" Still, the only true answer is to avoid both. Is that even really possible?

Bob O said...

This raises some interesting questions for me. Take concrete, for example: is it better to have

a. Have one person build a structure out of concrete block and mix in a short period of time, and figure in the total energy cost from the creation of the concrete and block to the end of the exercise;

or

b. Have 100-200 stonemasons and day laborers work for several months on quarrying stone, transporting it, and then setting it over a period of months, end to end measurements of energy usage.

Same question towards one guy with a welder versus a team of blacksmiths (who may be burning coal...).

Interesting.

czardastx said...

Well, that answers a fleeting question I had just recently. I didn't recall any blogs with scorpions and wondered if you had run across any in your day to day excursions.

It's wonderful that you got to help 3 people today. The kindness will be returned to you one day.

In regards to being less green to be more green. Hey, you're not hooking up to power lines, you're doing better at being green then most of us.

And, even though I don't know them personally...

Happy 1 year anniversary Chuck and Aunt Cathy. I hope you have many, many more!f

Now, off to have a cold beer, can't celebrate an anniversary without raising a toast.

Paul - Georgetown, TX

Ben in Texas said...

About your generator,, could you convert it to Propane? we used to run a lot of cars, trucks and what not on converted propane out in Brewster county. At that time it was simple to run down across the border and refill the tanks cheaper and it is a pretty simple task to siphon propane from your large tank into your small one for the generator.

MsBelinda said...

From what I have read about Ryan he is a smart young man, glad to see you are hooking him up with your friends and potential customers thru your blog. If I had a daughter I would definitively want her to meet Ryan.

Even though I don't have the pleasure of knowing them personally I feel as though I know them from reading about them in your blog. Happy one year anniversary to Chuck and Aunt Kathy!!!