Ugly Betty

Caught a nice moon set this morning and the start of the day was just about the only highlight. Only managed to cut lots of 6" pieces of rebar for the upcoming wedding of Mr. & Mrs. Truss Half. Took some solar panels over to Betty's to keep her batteries healthy while she is on vacation. On the way home I stopped at the GrubShack to repair her sign that got damaged in the last storm.

Fortunately for us all, the GrubShack is still open for business thanks to substitute chef Michael Heidebrecht, Sgt. USMC (Ret'd), aka - Ugly Betty. He might look a little mean but he's a hell of a cook, a real friendly guy, and he loves his mother.

inched ahead

Woke up at 6AM this morning thinking "if I don't do it....it won't get done". Finished welding up the second half of truss 1 and blocked out the two halves to marry them. After the last big wind storm, I feel pretty good about building monster trusses for my greenhouse roof system.

Met UPS up at the GrubShack at 11:30 to get my latest deliveries (new inverter, charge controller, and shade cloth). Jerry from UPS is sooooo good that if I park my truck by the highway - he will pull over and stop if he has something for me. I don't know which I love more - doppler radar or UPS tracking. Gone are the days when you would fill out your info on a match book cover and mail it away...waiting endlessly for a reply or merch.

Since the shade cloth arrived, I reckoned I should put a piece up. I ordered Aluminet from Farmtek - cuts 80% of the light and reflects the heat away. Bent some nails, did some grinding, and welded 4 "tabs" to tie off the first piece of shade. Being able to weld strong parts to the shipping containers reminds me of my days at Chris Callis Studio in NYC when we had a big steel wall set up for backgrounds.

Farming the Sun

Another day of nil progress at the Field Lab but good news for the Big Bend region....my sources tell me that a huge solar farm is slated to begin construction next year near Marfa. While I was still in upstate NY, I read a number of articles back in '06 about a company called Stirling Energy Systems. During a road trip west in February of '07, I stopped by their offices in Scottsdale AZ but they weren't interested in visitors. Was hoping to get permission to see their test facility at the Sandia National Laboratories outside of Albuquerque - no dice. Anyway....seems the technology is ready to go now and out of the bag. Finally, an alternative energy development that sounds too good to be true but actually works and is going mainstream. http://alpineavalanche.com/articles/2009/06/29/front/front01.txt

build you own solar panel scam

Back in NY, I used to sit on my front porch every now and then and just sit and watch the grass grow - well today, I sat on my front porch and watched my road dry out. Since I wasn't getting anything done for the Field Lab, I thought I would delve in to my latest favorite alternative energy scam.

For months now I keep seeing these ads pop up on the web (yet another reason why I don't have ads on this blog). BUILD YOUR OWN SOLAR PANELS FOR UNDER $200 USING PARTS FROM THE HARDWARE STORE REDUCE YOU POWER NEEDS BY 80% THE POWER COMPANY WILL PAY YOU! BULLSHIT!! I thought I would list them all but I found today that there are just way too many on the web now...so here is the short list and MHO about them.

One of my favorite bullshit sites (and one of many just like it) is http://www.make-solar-panel-home-now.com/goinggreen/ They appear to review and recommend the top three choices in this category - including my other favorite http://www.earth4energy.com/ In fact....if you do a search for "build your own solar panel scam", you come up with mostly sites like these or "testimonials" of folks saying it is not a scam. The masterminds behind this snake oil have loaded the search engines with run-a-rounds to avoid being found out. There are even some YouTube videos of folks showing off their "home made" systems - and if you look closely, their "home made" panels have manufacturers labels on the back. Some of the sites even claim that you can get free batteries....just remember - you get what you pay for.

DON'T BE STUPID AN BUY IN TO THIS CRAP! And by the way, if you somehow manage to build 2KW of solar and wire it up yourself to spin your meter backwards (with or without the permission of your local utility)...you will not reduce your utility bill by 80%, it will cost you far more than $200, you will not be able to get all the parts from your local hardware store, and if something shorts out and burns your house down....guess what the insurance company is going to say?

wipe your feet you silly cow...

Ended up getting a nice steady rain last night that amounted to .60". Benita came in this morning with a load of clay all over her feet...suddenly it occurred to me that perhaps I should make use of my generator to fire up my vacuum cleaner and suck up a years worth of dust inside. All my horizontal surfaces had been taken over once again so I spent the day putting away what needed to be kept and filing the rest away for a trip to the landfill. Couldn't help but think that some of the microns of dust that made it through the Hepa filter in the vacuum, came from my last clean up of my house in NY before I made the move here.

Please view, rate, and comment on this YouTube video about Pete the Moose in Vermont. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lhh72L1Xz8 Benita is in love and would appreciate it if you would call Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont at 802.828.3333 to persuade him to let Pete live.

David Lawrence is my hero...

Got an email today titled "Vermont doppelganger"....Seems a Vermont man has raised a young moose after it had been attacked by dogs. Something about a bearded man befriending a big beast really touches my heart for some reason. Now of course the authorities want to step in. http://www.timesargus.com/article/20090731/NEWS02/907310356/1003/NEWS02

No progress at the Field Lab except a little more clean up. A good part of the afternoon involved a group of neighbors answering the call and getting GrubShack Betty situated with a more appropriate trailer to haul her TriKing to Looziana for her August vacation. I don't think this rig would have made it.

the mess