Brian's Morning Newsletter March 18th 2008
Good Morning
I can't see this morning whether the banking system collapse is cascading or temporarily impeded by more imaginary money infusion from the equally bankrupt government. Why is that Brian? Isn't everything serene and in perfect order in Mr. Rodgers' neighborhood this morning? Well almost everything is perfect. Something is up with the Internet this morning. I quickly checked all the gear from our network to the mountaintop relay and all our gear is functioning as it should. This is always a relief, but I feel for the guys at Desertgate Internet where I work who need to figure out these problems with all the new equipment they are adding to their Wireless Internet system there in Las Vegas. Day or night rain nor snow when the Internet has a hiccup people start calling them. I am glad its not my responsibility to keep it running. Anyway, I won't call to ask them as I'm sure plenty of users have already. Instead I will build a newsletter off line and copy it to a flash drive and haul it to town. Which reminds me it is about time to back up the BMN mailing list anyway.

Howling wind day before yesterday kept knocking out the electricity. I was trying to watch a DVD. Every time the juice quit I had to go through five menus to get back to where I was. So I went out to the work truck and snagged an extension cord with the intention of plugging the entertainment system into one of our battery backups. First, I whipped out my new handy dandy Kill-A-Watt meter and checked if the battery backup could handle the power needed to run the entertainment system.

Like most of the gadgets around here the battery backup system (UPS) has been modified from the original. At some point the battery gave out and I soldered cables in place where the old battery was. These cables extend out of the box as it were and have battery clamps on the ends. For a long time I had a deep cycle marine battery hooked up. This will greatly extend the length of time the UPS will run devices after a power outage. However the electronics inside the UPS are still limited to the original power consumption, in this case, it was a 600 watt UPS. This means the devices must not consume more than 600 watts and less would be better. Last time I tested the 35" television with the Kill-A- Watt meter it read 90 watts with a blue screen. I didn't really believe it then so I tested it again, and this time I plugged a surge strip with everything connected: 119 watts. Cool. There was enough juice left over to plug Nell's night breathing machine in as well.

Weird how our priorities concerning electrical devices change with the times. Sure keeping the refrigerator cold is up there, but for now we are only looking at solutions for these short intermittent outages. Probably what we should be concerning ourselves with is what will happen in the future. Will the utilities be able to keep up with population growth? Will future generations be subjected to energy rationing? For this type of scenario a different type of power system would be needed. Let's say the power will be shut down in rolling blackouts for a day or two at a time. Wouldn't it be wise to prepare for this type of power loss? This being the case we would need a good battery back up system capable of running the bare necessities in our home. One thing that James Kunstler's book, "World Made By Hand" made clear is rural homes which rely on well water pumped with 220 volts AC were useless with no electricity.

Getting the water from our wells is very important. As we will attest to because our water froze somewhere out in the field this Winter, modern lifestyles rely heavily on running water. It is my intention to build an alternative energy system for this house that augments the grid power. Even if the utility company electricity charges batteries when the power is on it would be better than nothing. Once we have the batteries in place we can add photovoltaic arrays and wind turbines to for recharging the system. Why not use the grid if it is here, even if it should become unpredictable?

Okay, I see the Internet is back, thank you Desertgate. I need to get going to work. Quickly, I sent Nell in using the VW Rabbit, clunker that it is. I drove the little diesel Rabbit yesterday and was totally impressed with its performance. We are out of biodiesel, except for the pickle jar we have sitting in the front yard to let us know if it is too cold to use biodiesel. Well we don't need it because it hasn't clouded up in a month so I poured it in the tank of the white Rabbit totaling less than a gallon. This showed up on the Rabbit's fuel gauge as a ¼ tank full, it was on reserve. These cars are new to us so we don't know what the fuel gauge readings mean yet. Anyway I drove to Rociada about 15 miles to do a quick service call at Chacon Belts and Buckles and then back to the ranch with a stop at Sapello to mail back our Netflix movies. Around 25 to 30 miles there, then I had lunch here and drove the Rabbit to a second service call on the dirt road halfway to Las Vegas airport. When I was done there I drove on into Vegas on the dirt road. I spent the rest of the day running errands in town and made it back home at 6:00PM. The little Rabbit fuel gauge read reserve again! It had used one gallon of biodiesel to drive somewhere in the vicinity of fifty miles! Saaweeeeet.