Wood and coal cooking stoves

Taken from emails to my relatives

Wood and coal cooking stoves

First blush report...good.

What I like (I watched the videos on the thing) is that I can burn coal if I choose. The Hemlocks has a nice coal seam about a quarter of a mile from here, so we already have a source of fuel.

Now I think it takes a oval to circle converter for the flue, and that is another $50 to $70. Also I think it would be smart to get it with the 7 gallon warm water attachment put on at the factory.

Also, I think it requires a 7” flue, and I already have an 8” flue, so that is OK, but I do have to figure out how to connect the two together.

 

Second blush report

1) Water reservoirs (from a wood cooking stove) need someway to get the hot water out other than a dipper or lifting 7 gallons of warm or hot water. The fancier wood cook stoves have spigots to empty the hot water into some other container. I had already planned on using an enormous turkey fryer aluminum bucket we already have for heating water on the existing wood stoves, or a new wood cook stove, like for baths and cooking and washing purposes. Plus the Hemlocks has two large (like 36 cup) coffee boilers. Presently I also use this large container when I defrost the old time freezer in the pantry (three or four times a year).

2) Most wood cooking wood stoves have a good room and house warming capability due to the fire box, which is good in the winter and not so good in the summer. The Hemlocks already has two thermocouple powered fans to help in that regards.

3) The Hemlocks already has two Coleman Camp Ovens (which I have used) and one Dutch Oven (made in Tennessee by the way), which I have also used. They make bread, too.

4) A better place to locate any wood cooking stove might be in the rec room, which was the original kitchen when the caretakers moved into the cottage after their own cabin burned down in the winter of 68/69. In this case, the home school room might better be in the room Charlotte has stayed in during earlier visits. We could shift furniture to make that happen.

5) The present wood stove insert in the fireplace in the main house should remain as is. It was locally built in Muddy Pond, TN by a Mennonite fellow. The EPA has since shut it down, I hear. Otherwise I should check to see if he builds wood cooking stoves.

6) There are presently two sets of already installed wood stove floor insulation and stove pipe chimneys (8”) in the second cottage.

7) The Hemlocks also already has a Zoom Versa high tech cooking stove, which works pretty good, but should be used outside since there is a traditional carbon monoxide problem when using it. There is already a better two stove version with an exhaust being made (La Mera Mera), but that is probably 6 to 12 months away. Mexico gets first dibs, I guess, even though Putnam County is also pretty primitive, too.

8) As long as the springs run good clean water, which they have for over a century that I know of, then we have plenty of water to heat.

9) Right now the wood stove chimneys are around 18” from the wall (and new within the last five years), which is insulated, but might need more, depending on the new cooking wood stove specifications, should the Hemlocks get one. The present distance has worked pretty well for the existing primitive wood stoves, also.

10) The second cottage has fiberglass insulation in the ceiling, put in decades ago. Keep in mind that cottage has 12 foot ceilings which is the old fashioned way to keep cooler during the warm season. The main house has 10 foot ceilings, and most modern houses have 8 foot ceilings. The house in Franklin had 14 foot ceilings, by the way.

11) Morale is a big deal. Hence being able to bake some kind of bread is a good expectation for many, even if we have to use acorn flour, and lord knows , we have plenty of local acorns and all the tools to make flour from it. I even made “coffee” from the local acorns, and it was pretty good, albeit caffeine free, I think. And a warm bath is also a good expectation that most Marines are not used to.

12) If the Hemlocks pulls one of the primitive wood stoves out to be replaced by a wood cooking stove, then there are some obvious places to deploy it. It won’t go to waste.

13) Also keep in mind any new cooking wood stove should be both wood and coal capable. The Hemlocks has a nifty coal seam about a quarter mile away, and it even heated an old time still many decades ago.

Of course Plan A is still to use TVA public electric power, which is also pretty good.

 

Third blush report

I am evolving back from a wood cooking stove to just a wood stove. Both make heat with the wood we cut and split and dry.

Fortunately, I can remember how hot it was in the Hemlocks main house kitchen with a wood cooking stove in the summer. It’s use was hot and miserable during the summer. Obviously, the heat is a big deal in the winter, but most Family visits then were in the summer. John Colton may have his memories, too, and I solicit them.

So what follows is just a third blush report, and any thoughts you may have are always of interest to me; plus they may affect you and your Family.

There are already three wood stoves installed at the Hemlocks, one locally Mennonite made wood stove insert in the main house, and two primitive wood stoves in the second cottage. The present primitive stoves usually take up to two get-up and restock the fire times during the night, though with some “tuning” , we might get that down to like one night restocking.

Baked goods are a big deal, like a morale booster, to boot. Plan B is to use the heat from the existing stoves to cook food and warm things otherwise, besides heating the room in the cool and cold seasons.

The Hemlocks already has one Dutch oven, and two Coleman fold out camping ovens, with temp gauges.

I prefer dual use as an objective, like whether things turn to crap or the status quo just goes on, whatever I get should do both. Presently one can cook and heat on all three wood stoves if one has to. Obviously, someone does have to collect, cut, split, and deliver the wood for use.

The Hemlocks does have a nice coal seam within a quarter mile, so dual use (like wood or coal) is of interest to me.

Whether the Hemlocks gets a wood cooking stove or just a wood stove, a better type stove that can burn for up to 12 hours unattended is of interest to me. Said another way, it is both more convenient, and also probably better for morale.

Whatever the Hemlocks may get, I expect to replace one primitive wood stove, which will be used elsewhere, like the barn or the Cliff Field shed.

Home school considerations are important to the Hemlocks if things turn to crap. Like students should be warm, including warmly dressed. Now even we can live like people in New England, and wear long johns when need be.

The present water turbine electric plant “tuning” is going pretty good, so far (like powering my 7.2 cu ft freezer to extend shelf life of foods and seeds). Now the Hemlocks does have a 3/16” water nozzle due in for me to install in the next few days. The present nozzle is 1/8”, and an earlier 1/4” nozzle drained the pond too much in this summer drought time. Bottom line, thank goodness for TVA power for the flexibility for me to “tune” things.

The testing for solar backup to the water plant is also going OK.

The Fallacy of Redistribution

The Fallacy of Redistribution

By Thomas Sowell - September 20, 2012

The recently discovered tape on which Barack Obama said back in 1998 that he believes in redistribution is not really news. He said the same thing to Joe the Plumber four years ago. But the surfacing of this tape may serve a useful purpose if it gets people to thinking about what the consequences of redistribution are.

Those who talk glibly about redistribution often act as if people are just inert objects that can be placed here and there, like pieces on a chess board, to carry out some grand design. But if human beings have their own responses to government policies, then we cannot blithely assume that government policies will have the effect intended.

The history of the 20th century is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty. The communist nations were a classic example, but by no means the only example.

In theory, confiscating the wealth of the more successful people ought to make the rest of the society more prosperous. But when the Soviet Union confiscated the wealth of successful farmers, food became scarce. As many people died of starvation under Stalin in the 1930s as died in Hitler's Holocaust in the 1940s.

How can that be? It is not complicated. You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth -- and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated. Farmers in the Soviet Union cut back on how much time and effort they invested in growing their crops, when they realized that the government was going to take a big part of the harvest. They slaughtered and ate young farm animals that they would normally keep tending and feeding while raising them to maturity.

People in industry are not inert objects either. Moreover, unlike farmers, industrialists are not tied to the land in a particular country.

Russian aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky could take his expertise to America and produce his planes and helicopters thousands of miles away from his native land. Financiers are even less tied down, especially today, when vast sums of money can be dispatched electronically to any part of the world.

If confiscatory policies can produce counterproductive repercussions in a dictatorship, they are even harder to carry out in a democracy. A dictatorship can suddenly swoop down and grab whatever it wants. But a democracy must first have public discussions and debates. Those who are targeted for confiscation can see the handwriting on the wall, and act accordingly.

Among the most valuable assets in any nation are the knowledge, skills and productive experience that economists call "human capital." When successful people with much human capital leave the country, either voluntarily or because of hostile governments or hostile mobs whipped up by demagogues exploiting envy, lasting damage can be done to the economy they leave behind.

Fidel Castro's confiscatory policies drove successful Cubans to flee to Florida, often leaving much of their physical wealth behind. But poverty-stricken refugees rose to prosperity again in Florida, while the wealth they left behind in Cuba did not prevent the people there from being poverty stricken under Castro. The lasting wealth the refugees took with them was their human capital.

We have all heard the old saying that giving a man a fish feeds him only for a day, while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime. Redistributionists give him a fish and leave him dependent on the government for more fish in the future.

If the redistributionists were serious, what they would want to distribute is the ability to fish, or to be productive in other ways. Knowledge is one of the few things that can be distributed to people without reducing the amount held by others.

That would better serve the interests of the poor, but it would not serve the interests of politicians who want to exercise power, and to get the votes of people who are dependent on them.

Barack Obama can endlessly proclaim his slogan of "Forward," but what he is proposing is going backwards to policies that have failed repeatedly in countries around the world.

Yet, to many people who cannot be bothered to stop and think, redistribution sounds good.

Copyright 2012, Creators Syndicate Inc.

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September 18, 2012, 12:00 pm

For a Student Veteran, Graduation Is the Next Mission

By THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF

It was the fall of 2011, and I was the quintessential fresh-out-of-the-fleet 23-year-old Marine. I was preparing for Georgetown University’s New Student Orientation, my first official re-entry into academia and a day of assemblies and awkward greetings with a bunch of kids who would have been barely teenagers when I was spending my first weeks in Afghanistan.
I found out Matt had died at 10 a.m. that first day of orientation. I was devastated. Matt was my best friend and one of the most outstanding Marines I had ever served with.

Courtesy of Thomas Gibbons-Neff The author in Afghanistan.

 

I made my way to the bar on campus and ordered two shots of whiskey. One for me and one for Matt. I drank that entire morning, and as I drank I found myself staring at the new students outside the window bouncing on their way to school and despising them. A mere pane of glass separated me from those students, but yet I felt as if I wasn’t human, that I was from some bygone era, and that I had no place among them.
I had become what so many Americans think veterans are like: the lone guy with military backpack, the thousand-yard stare, the student veteran who keeps to himself and glares at the innocence all around him.
This was my first experience as a student veteran. Attending those orientation assemblies obliterated on Jack Daniel’s and wallowing in the memories of a dead friend.
To be honest, I don’t really know why I went to those assemblies. But at the time I equated my attendance to duty. I had to go. I wasn’t going to let another death stop my life. I had attended too many funerals and too many memorial services, and had watched too many of my friends tear themselves apart in guilt. I had been there too many times and I knew that on that first day of school there was only one way to go, and that was forward. I knew that stereotype lay lurking, waiting for me to fall into its grasp.
But I didn’t let it take me. I went to the second day of assemblies bleary-eyed and depressed, and I stuck my right hand out and shook those kids’ hands and found a way to tell them about Matt. I’m sure they weren’t expecting a story about the greatest man they had never met, but they got it anyway. Matt’s story is my story, and in many ways all of our stories. I saw it as my duty to succeed, to succeed for Matt, for Josh, for Brandon and for all of those who never came home. So I put my head down, raised my hand in class and got on the dean’s list at Georgetown University.
I know this all sounds melodramatic, but aren’t most articles about student veterans these days tinged with despair? I feel like it’s all I see: the blurbs about the misunderstood tattooed guys in the back of the class struggling to fit in. Struggling to relate to their younger classmates.
Is it tough? Yes. It is impossible? Absolutely not. I think my colleagues expect too little of themselves when they return to campus, just as I did that first day in that bar. Too often I hear stories about how ignorant some eighteen year old is. Of course they are. They’re eighteen. If they’re just learning how to do their own laundry they probably have no clue where Helmand Province is.
That’s why it’s our duty to explain to them the best way we know how. No one likes to articulate loss and pain, but we live in a society defended by an all-volunteer military, a military that after a decade of conflict can barely relate to the people we swore to defend.
That’s why we have to do it. We have to bridge the gap.
It won’t be done in Congress or on CNN. It’ll be done in the back of the classroom where you’ll sit down and explain to some kid what it’s like to shoulder a ruck and what it’s like to march for miles, and you’ll tell him how it felt when you wrote home to your girlfriend every night as friendly artillery thudded through the dawn, and you’ll explain how Afghanistan looks on the other side of that television screen.
So, I ask you, my generation of fellow veterans, to be outgoing. I know, it sounds tough, and it is, but these kids we go to school with are going to be the future leaders of our country along side us, and we’re going to have to work with them, not against. We can’t sit in the back of the class forever while they commit our children to future conflicts.
Represent yourselves well, and with pride. Don’t show disdain for our fellow millennials who thankfully haven’t had to experience the horrors that we chose to experience.
Our grandfathers came home from Europe and the Pacific and built highways, raised families and defined our country as we know it today.
Now, I ask that we do the same.

---

Thomas Gibbons-Neff, a native of Boston, is president of Georgetown University’s Student Veterans Association and a former Marine. He served on active duty with the First Battalion, Sixth Marines, from 2007 to 2011 as a rifleman and participated in two deployments to Helmand Province in Afghanistan.

Another food story

      Well, we all like to eat, and feed our Families, to boot.

            Now today, I am making some French Onion soup, local style, including frozen chopped green peppers to add some color to the brew.

            Now that method includes onions from the local grocery, advertised as sweet onions from the USA west coast, but that is not the case, at least to me. While my eyes did not tear, my pallet suggested this was still too spicy for me, like it burned not to my satisfaction.

            So I added some Greek spices since most humans do like spices. And later I may add some shredded swiss cheese to mimic the basic French Onion soup.

            Last, or also yes, I do remember sitting across from the local town tailor in Unchon, Korea; and he like garlic stuff too, or so I thought. In his case, dipping garlic cloves with chop sticks in Kimchi sauce was very popular, though I paid for it later, since I did match him.

Hoping for the best, planning for the worst

       Now the title is an old time expression that may apply today. But, and also, the dilemma is seldom as easy as black or white, but usually is the grey area in between. Hence you own judgment and circumstances where you live is key. After all, the world is a big place.

            So as I plan in the USA I imagine three near term options, or things that might happen. One is that Obama is voted in, and depends on his hired minions to help him. Two is that he is voted out, but declares some version of Marshall Law (like King for life), and we have a civil war. Three is that his opponent wins, and inherits a bag of worms from Obama and his minions.  There is an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal just on the financial stuff, and I provide a link for those interested, and then make up your own mind:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303561504577497442109193610.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

            Now all is not doom and gloom, but planning ahead will be to my and your advantage, I hope. By the way, where I live we are having a good soaking rain for about two days, which portends good things for my springs later as the water filters down through the earth, and in this rural area to boot, though I 40 and the local town of Monterey are nearby, like within walking distance.

            The tipping point, to me, and in my way of thinking, is if and when people quit loaning us money, and we have to live on our own taxes, which are considerable by the way.  Until then, if it even ever comes to pass, we probably will just muddle through and band-aid things.  In both guesses, I think I will be an unhappy camper for at least five years.

            After all, I suspect the dinosaurs resisted their demise as best and as long as they could, and so will we I suspect.

            Last, there is good news, at least to me.  There will probably be a new national party that does well in the 2020 elections, maybe earlier. This party will be some kind of combination of today's Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Until then the effort is more of a movement, kind of like the hippies in most people's experience, than some organized national effort.  And the sunspot cycle will be more to our human advantage for weather and food growing, worldwide.  And even if a mother nature event happens, or some kind of regional wars (that may go nuclear with all the attendant down range impacts) break out, all that should be sorted out in the next half decade. Even where I live and count tree rings in very old dead trees, the Krakatoa volcano (today's Indonesia) in 1883 also affected the growing season here in east Tennessee, like reduced it.

            It's the next five years that won't be fun, in my guess. And I am a crummy farmer, but better get better at it, I suspect. Or die cold and hungry. Bummer.

            And in hopeful fairness, during WWII, we Americans grew around a third of our vegetables in our home gardens. Most of the farm output went to our soldiers overseas.  Well, if they could do it, I figure I can, too.

It's only what I think

       The idea is about past and future USA actions in places where we are not welcome, most popularly these days in much of the Arab world, but really it could be many more places and groups, and they vary by time. Yep even we have enemies who usually select us.

            Now what I think is a voting issue to me.  This idea includes disagreeing with much of what has gone on in the last two or three decades. And my thoughts are sincere, at least to me.

            No wonder I am not a politician, nor do I even aspire to such offices.  And I think I know how not to over-intellectualize an issue, to include realizing the difference between the short term and long term.

            In a nutshell, I think we should withdraw from places where we are not welcome. Murder of Americans is an obvious example of not being welcome. Generally, it is usually a vicious minority that acts against Americans, but if the majority won't stand up and take care of the vicious minority, then let's withdraw until such time as things get better for Americans, like not be murdered.

            Now if that allows for this minority to form a bastion for such events as the 9/11/01 attacks in the USA to take place, then that is time for us to attack, like we did in Afghanistan. And in my mind we did it smart, like with CIA types with suitcases full of cash to buy off people, and Special Forces types to give the effort a military edge (and being ruthless if necessary when applying the military option).

            Remember, at least I think I remember correctly, that the worlds' longest lasting empire was not Rome (around 600 years), but Byzantium ( around 1,000 years).  Now Byzantium did it smart, like with a blend of Western ideas (often military options) and Eastern ideas (often slyness and money options).  By the way, often the money option is often thriftier than the military option.

            Now just how we allowed the missions in Afghanistan and Iraq to morph into nation building is another whole story and history. In other words, it did not have to happen that way.

            And I recognize that peoples have long memories. Just look at the Civil War in the USA. So leaving a place may be for a long time, depending on where, of course. And how the majority acts also is a big factor, and will vary a lot, I suspect.

            But if we are not welcome, let's get out quickly (like with 6 months or so) and let that nation do its own nation building, or succumb to other forces.

            Lord knows we have enough nation building options and needs in the USA, and I even would direct my charity in that direction, rather than some foreign country. And even I can be flexible, like the Marshall Plan made sense at the time as I read.  But even that was a voter issue, in the end, and also as I read.

            So, that is just what my line of thought thinking is today, and has been quite a while, like decades.  My thoughts are not just some knee jerk reaction to recent events in many of the Arab countries.

            And it is voter issue, to me.

Aren't we humans dirty!

       I just finished doing some medium level cleaning around my kitchen and bathrooms. And I was embarrassed by what I found.

            Now being age 64, I blamed it on mother nature and a bachelor pad idea, even used as a fall back a senior excuse (in my mind). Yet I was still grossed out, in spite of my excuses.

            Now nobody gets sick in this dog infested house, so that is good enough for me these days. Yet I was still grossed out.

            Now I think I do keep up with all the doggie Golden Retriever shedding hair OK (there's a lot where I live, and there are two of them). Nothing great, but still OK, like cleaning all that up daily is enough to satisfy me.

            By the way, I am still impressed with my once a month cleaning crew in that they use a broom and dust pan, vice a vacuum cleaner; and use vinegar and water to mop the all wood floors (1905 style).

            Now I was both embarrassed and  disgusted in the end (mostly since the cleaning crew is only once a month), though, and am reporting the same today. I suspect I might also have failed a basic health and sanitation inspection back in my time, American military style. Now that idea bothers me, a lot.

            So I have more cleaning work  (really sanitation) to do.

            And, like all humans, I do want to live in a healthy home.

            So do any visitors, I think. Like why bring your Family to my home if you think your Family will get sick from the visit.

            And in the end, perhaps this place is cleaner (like healthier) than where many others live, in spite of my report. Who knows. Perceptions are a big deal, as well as hope, and denial.

            Yep we humans are dirty, too, kind of like our pets, I suspect.

Nepotism sucks

      Now to me, nepotism is all too often the children of successful politicians rising to their occasion in their own right.

            Now their performance record is pretty poor, at least to me. Said another way, just because Mom or Dad was pretty good does not necessarily translate to their kids doing a good job, too. Of course the idea is that the people benefit.

            And we all do want our children to have a happy life, but now it seems, again to me, this idea is also affecting my life in ways I do not like.

            Nepotism adversity seems to be a universal human instinct, too, kinda like one should not marry their sibling, or even a first cousin.

            Last, even I have practical examples that apply in both China, and the USA.

            Yep, the idea is pretty universal, at least human wise.

Memo for the record

       This memo is to myself, mostly as a reminder of about what the present electrical setup at the Hemlocks is.  The intent is reporting what we have if the public electricity goes down. Plus, how I imagine using my present solar backup is also memo for the record recorded. Remember, the primary backup system is a water turbine powered system, and it is doing OK after six months or so. We are still in the tune up stage for that setup. The present summer drought has aggravated things, too. Now I am setting up the solar back up to that, and again, this is what the memo for the record is about.

            And, again, the Hemlocks primary electricity source today comes from TVA, and they still do pretty good, in my humble opinion.

            The backup setup basically uses a 100W mono-crystalline single solar panel connected to two deep cycle batteries using an MRRP type solar controller.  This setup basically (and hopefully) best charges the batteries even during poor solar days, like cloudy and rainy, plus using indirect sunlight.  The initial intent is to power the 7.2 cu.ft. freezer (to extend the shelf life of the food we eat), and the rechargers for the eneloop rechargeable AA and AAA batteries.  Now the layout for how to physically do this is up for grabs (like where to locate all this stuff), since we are just in the initial setup and test stage. Right now, most of all this is on the front porch.

             For example, do I move the freezer into another room closer to the inverter (to be hooked up), or just use a long extension cord (with its own inherent electrical losses) to keep the freezer in the kitchen, and see what happens. That is what testing is all about. There are no books on this subject.

            On a good day, can the solar panel do enough to help power the freezer, even during  the night time when all runs off of hooked up battery power, or even during the day when hopefully it makes enough electrical power to run the freezer when it is on, and recharge the batteries in the interim when the freezer is off?  By the way, when the freezer is on (it's not on all the time), it draws around 92 to 102 watts, so it is close in this test.

            And of course all the freezer waste heat goes into the house, so I do get some warmth out of it all.

            And I did have to use public electricity to use my grinder to fit my 4 AWG wires to the fancy MRRP solar controller and battery stuff. God bless TVA.

            Last, I personally think about use it or lose it. So if I can get all to work together (primary and backups), which I think I can, I can both use it, and even save some money in the meantime.  After all, there are two ways to get better off financially speaking. One is to cut expenses, and the other obvious one is to increase income.           
          

Addendum to the memo for the record

            The "load" will be the inverter clamps placed on the battery terminals.

            The solar controller load connections will not be used in the initial setup.

            The backup inverter (DC to AC) has its own on/off switch.  Also it should be able to power the eneloop battery recharger, and the freezer.

            The initial intent is to hook up a surge protector strip to the inverter, and then plug in the eneloop battery recharger, and the 7.2 cu.ft. freezer, both to the strip, which has its own on/off switch. The intent of the freezer is to use it to extend the shelf life of the food in it. It will be totally full.

            The initial plan is to use the battery recharger periodically during daylight hours, so one will have to unplug this charger from the strip in most cases, most often the nighttime.

            Right now I have two deep cycle 12V batteries in parallel to power things during the night. One is brand new (like will last until around 2020), and the other probably has two or three years of life on it (like will last until around 2014 or later, hopefully).

            Security will probably use a lot of this rechargeable battery stuff.

            Remember, this is a backup to my backup. That's how important electricity is to me, and the security use of it.

            If I can't keep the freezer working, then I will use the already available plastic storage tubs to keep the mice out, though shelf life will be reduced.

 

Learning a new language

       In my case it is about a solar panel powered backup to my primary water powered electric plant.

            And I have already been through the process of reducing my intents if it comes to that.

            I live at 36 degrees north latitude in east Tennessee, which means this is not that good a solar place. Plus there are a lot of tall forest trees, and the sun does move during the day, which makes chasing the sun difficult when it also includes moving heavy batteries (and the cables and losses would be too long in the chasing scenario). I have chosen not to do so. After all indirect light makes electricity, too, in my back up scheme.

            As always these days, there is no book on the subject, and one usually just does their best, hooks it all up (including the intended loads), and sees what happens. Yep, I've got various gear from different companies.

            And I have gotten to an age where I actually read the directions.  What's the old joke...if all else fails, read the directions.

            And lord knows, this industry has its own language for me to learn about, interpret if you will, since knowing what I am doing, or at least trying to do, does help. I don't want to do harm to myself from ignorance, after all.

            Last, the new terms I have had to learn are like saying PV (photovoltaic) vice solar panel.  And then there are at least three kinds of solar panels these days, all with different efficiencies, generally around 16%. Plus one usually needs a solar controller (like MRRP or PWM), and on and on.

            Like the title to this post says, I am having to learn a new language, and it is not a fun experience. But, and in fairness, I want to do it as well as I can, mostly to save money, but also just to be efficient. Thank goodness I went to an engineering school.

            And all this just for a backup. Now I will write it all up for my relatives, just to help their transition, if this backup situation even comes to pass.

            Let it rain.

Are they lying, or just plain ignorant?

      I am referring to the present candidates for the various offices, to including incumbents running for re-election in the new world USA.

            As to the title question, I will never know the answer to my question. Who knows what "lurks in the minds of men"? But I do think I imagaine the consequences  of the actions some of these people may take. And I don't like the worse parts of it since it will adversely affect me and my Family, and also because it did not have to happen.

            Another thought is the now oft used term "this is the truth", which now days when I hear it I am turned off by it, especially since I often know another "truth", like my  own "truth".  Perhaps our language and culture has changed to where humans expressing their opinion think that is also their "truth".  In other words, they may not be lying, but are just plain stupid, and speaking sincerely.

            If that is the case, then the dumbing down of our population (often spoken about) has consequences. Said another way, ignorance usually breeds ignorant decisions and speech. For example, I have a daughter (now in her high 30's and a mother) who in high school took a class on pet care. That used to be a home subject for those who have pets (she did), and I always wonder what time and subject was given up to have the time to teach this accredited course? Of course I'll never really know.

            So to me, the elections for school boards where we all live is just as important as the national federal elections for like President of the USA.

            And last, if you buy this idea, theory if you will, then things will only get worse in the next few decades, like thousands and millions around the world may die, as more and more poorly educated people come into their time, and either vote, or even elect leaders; and whose decisions and teachings will affect our and their future Americans lives, including their and our Familes.

           After all, the idea of successful democracy and universal sufferage does require an educated populace for a best outcome. Even a republican form of government is benefited by an elected educated people to be successful, like benefit the people.

Questions

Patricia McCarthy

How on earth is it possible that, after nearly four years of a manifestly dismal, failed presidency, Barack Obama has any support at all, beyond the ten percent of the population who do not know that America has a president? How can a single sentient person on the planet claim that he has been a good leader, a good steward of the economy, a good strategist on foreign policy, a unifier of the American people, a jobs creator?
He has in fact been the worst president since Jimmy Carter and has seen to it that we have surpassed Carter's misery index scores. Obama has further ruined a fragile economy, an economy shaken by a Democrat-engineered housing scandal, a bomb begun under Carter, made catastrophically worse under Clinton, and detonated under Bush. He has thoroughly and completely bungled our foreign policy by embracing the so-called Arab Spring, effectively handing over a large swath of the middle east to the Muslim Brotherhood, putting Israel in the gravest danger since 1973.
By withdrawing prematurely from Iraq, he frittered away victory to the Sunni/Shia civil war of the day and he has so badly mishandled Afghanistan that Afghanis are killing our troops on a daily basis with impunity.
And yet the audiences at the Democratic National Convention, scaled down as it was, clapped like trained seals at every phrase of every speaker, no matter how tired, clichéd or bizarre those phrases were. They gazed fawningly, sometimes tearfully, at these shrieking, desperate characters, like the contemptible Sandra Fluke, the crazed Jennifer Granholm and the always pretentious John Kerry, as though they actually had something of value to say. Half of them booed God and Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, denying the very roots of our Judeo-Christian heritage. Who are these people?
Most citizen Democrats have to be embarrassed by the messages and behavior at the DNC. The Democrats in Congress surely are, with a few exceptions: Pelosi, Reid, Wasserman-Schultz and their ilk. They just will not admit it. They pretend that he should be reelected. They go through the motions of actually supporting a man they know is thoroughly incompetent and has done terrible damage to the nation. He is on record, thanks to that live microphone, planning for even more damage if reelected; becoming Putin's lapdog.
Why do intelligent people, in the face of certain disaster, cling so wretchedly to a failed ideologue and a discredited ideology? How is it possible that there is a single American Jew who can cast a vote for this anti-Israel president? Obama has made his antipathy for Israel abundantly clear over and over again. Having reduced women to nothing beyond reproductive systems, how can any woman in this country cast a vote for Obama? Because he demands that abortion be free and available up to the moment of natural birth (and after if necessary) and taxpayer-funded contraception for all women, regardless of need? Because he has imposed a bill, Obamacare, that will take all choice about our own medical care completely out of our hands? These women are their own worst enemies.
What has happened to the American spirit of open-mindedness, to our the ability to think critically about what is best for ourselves and the country? When did it become impossible to change one's mind upon the realization one has cast a misguided vote? When did at least half of us become the type who dig in our heels like a stubborn child demanding our way? Have those tenured radicals who control our universities and our media been so effective that Americans can no longer make informed decisions? 'Tis a mystery.
Or have the American people perhaps realized that, in the words of Clint Eastwood, "President Obama is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/09/questions.html#ixzz25xV9PlHc

Hedging my bets

      First the pro. By pro I mean getting things ahead of time.  Now I could be just a worry wart, but then I am also thinking of things like "hard times", inflation (yep I've been through it in the past and it wasn't a fun time), or the government just seizing my assets and even putting me in jail if I object. Heck we could even have a civil war after having watched some of the last two national USA political conventions.

            And inflation, at its practical level, means spending more for the same things in the near future, without your income going up. Said another way, my and your quality of life would decline in a noticeable way.

            And of course, I can use some of these assets for barter whether things work out for the best, or the worst. After all, I can't eat paper money or gold.

            Now the con in hedging my bets. Mostly I mean postponing getting things as unnecessary if things remain mostly the same, like why even get it if public electricity still runs reliably?  Another example is how much solar back up do I want for my water turbine electric plant, which is my primary source of alternative electricity.

            And can I even defend what I even have in some kind of worst case scenario? In this case, perhaps the hordes, desperate as they may be, may strip me and my Family and friends blind, and we all then go down to death.

            And of course there are the psychological factors.  Like am I now crazy, paranoid beyond normal, or just delusional and becoming too status quo oriented?  Well, I think about these things, too. Heck, I even monitor solar weather in fear of some kind of the 1859 Carrington Event happening again.

            And last, I think we USA people have been dumbing down (by education) our people who are often now voters and leaders and news reporters.  So I worry that they may make dumb decisions (or provide poor reports), which can be as simple as maintaining all the wonderful infrastructure things we have today (think road and bridge maintenance as an example), up to making circumstances as best they can given whatever circumstances they are presented or just reporting the facts, vice propoganda. Often the more ignorant tend to react vice act, too, which is a bad situation.

            So I've decided, right now these days, to hedge my bets, and try muddle through as best I can, and hope for the best. And of course, share my thoughts through this blog.

Morale is a big deal

            I recently ordered some more beef and chicken broth to make myself feel better about helping those who may help defend our compound in all hours, including the wee hours, and have an expectation of them eventually being warm and hydrated with broth or better when they return. Heck it might even be just taking their pack off and resting and cooling off in the warm season.

            In all cases, morale is a big deal, at least to me.

            What drove my thinking was my experience. Believe or not, the coldest I have been, in my mind, was laying on frozen ground in Virginia for an hour and a half around 0230 and it was 17 F outside, and this was just training in setting in a "L" shaped ambush.  And another buddy shared a story of trying to be macho by chewing tobacco, falling in a Virginia creek full of ice, swallowing his tobacco, and then barfing it all up to add to his misery. And I have been to Korea, too, in the winter, and that was pretty cold, too.

            So morale is a big deal, and any expectation of future enhanced quality of life to those out in the "bush" is a big deal.

            Like the old ad said, nobody is gonna promise you a rose garden.

            But said another way, if you can enhance the morale of others around you, no matter where you live and what the circumstances, that is a big deal.

Weather...forecasting, planning, and wishing

            Call this post "snake oil" if you would like.

            As for me I still think the global warming going on these days is more sun caused than human caused.  Now that may change in the next 20 years, but not right now, in my opinion.

            In my humble opinion, we humans still are not as big a deal as many may think or wish, and the sunspot cycles are good indicators.  The Danish studies going back many decades and my own studies going back to my GaTech days are the reasons why I think this way.

            The tip point will be more dependent on third world quality of life and their energy demand issues; and the more humans on earth, the more pronounced will be the effects.  I still remember a lecture in thermodynamics in the 1960's that speculated the effect on the earth of having two suns worth of energy raining down on the earth every day. Sun one was the sun, and sun two was all the energy  that comes from all the humans on the earth going about their ways. For example, more humans may mean growing more animals to eat, and that has impacts, too.

            Or look at night satellite photos of the earth, and you will see many bright spots in the middle of nowhere. These are often just gas burn off areas from oil production. Even in Saudi Arabia, I could feel the heat from them as far as one kilometer away (about 2/3 of a mile), so we are dumping a lot of energy into our atmosphere already. Now a lot of that gas energy could be collected and used, but not right now. And in fairness, a lot of it is poisonous to humans, like H2S gas.

            Now I even have a first cousin lawyer type who I think well of, to include he is both smart and well-educated. Well he just got back from a vacation in coastal Maine, and there the local lobster harvests are up, as well as the local ocean temperatures. He reported to me the locals all think it is do to human caused global warming.  Well I was not impressed by his report, though he was, I think.

            So this is my weather planning I am employing using my own judgment.  I think I am in for hard times up till around 2018 or so.  By that I mean the sunspot cycle suggests this. And by hard times I mean reduced growing seasons, reduced water tables, reduced rain, and more expensive food if you buy it. Then we will increasingly get more rain up to around 2023, and the problems that brings.

            Many of these problems are good problems to have.  All is not doom and gloom, especially if you plan ahead.

            And I wish the old status quo would go on forever, but I doubt that will happen.

            And the lobster bounty in Maine will end too, sometime. Remember, at one time hundreds of years ago, lobsters (and many fish) were considered a trash type seafood product, and often even used for fertilizer on farms along the Atlantic seaboard area.

            Yep, there is a lot going on these days, weather speaking. Sounds normal, to me. Nobody says life is going  to be easy.

Voting with my pocket book

Just to report I question why I should spend my money on the truly enjoyable entertainers in movies and music who express their own political opinions that I may disagree with. After all, they have their opinions, but so do I.

So I have decided to vote with my pocket book, and let it all sort out.

Now I do have problems with this idea, like if a movie has more than one entertainer in it, and one is more politically appealing, then I do have to sort it out.

That is a good kind of problem, to me.

Why can't entertainers these days just keep to entertaining?

First the good news

      I finally have hope that somehow we humans will muddle through the present difficult times. The hope is mostly an amalgamation of all the recent events in the last month.

            Hence my strategy of trying to make most of my purchases "dual use" may pay off, especially if inflation kicks in pretty bad. Yep, I might have to drink powdered milk, but heck, I've already done that growing up in Hawaii for a few years.

            Now that "hope" is just that, and nothing more.

            And the events that may be adverse to me have already been set in place. In other words, many things are already on auto-pilot. Said even another way, we humans are still probably in for a tough few years, but again the "hope" is for an outcome better than a return to the Dark Ages and feudalism. Only time will tell.

            Now the bad news.  Some people think the time for political talk is still open. I don't think so. Hence people like me plan otherwise. And thousands, maybe millions, of humans alive today will probably now die in the next few years. What a shame if this even comes to pass. Heck, I might be one of them. But do you want to live forever, anyway?

Entitlement Reform

http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/08/29/entitlement_reforms