My Daily Impact, November 1-7 2011

This is the 33rd posting to this blog.

Well it has been a busy week. There have been good things happening, and a couple of bad events as well. November 1st was a day of mixed weather. There was some sun, some wind, and some clouds. The clouds really make for low power production because my solar panels produce much more electricity than the wind generator.

The main event of the day was taking the e-scooter over to Target to get some dog food. I got almost there when I heard a clicking sound coming from the front wheel. The front tire found a roofing nail. The tires of my various two-wheeled vehicles seem to find a lot of junk on the side of the road. It is the side of the road that is really the problem; it is full of sharp crap! Well, after inspecting the tire at Target, I determined that it would probably make it home OK if I left the nail in the tire. I went inside, and bought Astro some food.

When I got back to the scooter with the 44 pound bag of Dog Chow, the scooter tire still had plenty of air, and was not hissing at all. That lasted about half way home, and the tire went flat. A flat tire on a scooter or motorcycle is no fun. The bike feels like it is riding on ice mixed with mud; it gets really squirley. I walked the scooter to a parking lot for a condominium, and parked it. I had to stash the dog food, or carry it the mile plus home. I decided to knock on a door to see if some kind soul would help me.

The first door I knocked on was answered with a gracious " come on in ". The man continued with " Hello, I am Bill Traenor ". Bill is a very friendly, older gentleman, and he agreed to let me store the dog food in his condo while I walked home to get the truck. Meeting him completely negated any bad feelings I had about the flat tire. I feel honored to have met him, and talked with him.

The scooter, the ramp, and the 44 pounds of dog food made it home.

Wednesday, November 2nd was a nice enough day; it was windy and not quite as cloudy. I washed my sheets, and dried them on the line. They dried quickly with the strong breeze and the sunshine. I was also able to get my latest mad scientist project ready for the installation on Thursday.

Thursday, November 3rd was the big day on the roof. My friend Dean cam by, and after breakfast at Ikea, we got to work. I had procured two sliding glass doors a while back, and now it was time to put one to use. I also had purchased some 4" plastic hose a while back, and the two would meet for my big project. The idea is to heat the black hose inside of a wood box with the sun that shines through the sliding glass door on top. Installation went very well, and the box gets really hot when the sun shines on it.

There is one problem. If you look at the picture, you may be able to tell that the hose runs back and forth across the box in one continuous circuit. This makes plenty of heat, but that 60 feet plus of 4" hose is very restrictive to any air being pushed through it. The fan can only manage a slight current through the pipes, and the warm air blows out with the speed of an exhale. OOPS! I have a plan for fixing this, and I will report on the results when they are available. Sometimes a mad scientist has to go back to the drawing board.

The rest of the week went well enough, and grid power use was a mere 8 KWh, with one of those going into the truck. The van sat still in its parking spot in my carport, and the Honda got quite a bit of use. I approximate that there was about 22 pounds of CO2 produced from the week's riding.

Progress Energy probably read my meter today, and there should be a nice result for the month's power use. The total should be 70 KWh total, and this would be my second lowest usage for a month since April. I will update that on the next posting.