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Call the Police video contest
Ok. After building a greenscreen in my basement, enlisting my kids as actors, digging deeper into Final Cut Express, Toon Boom Studio and a few other applications I noticed that I still would need some “authentic” footage to put together a video about UFOs. Luckily there is youtube which is full of obscure (and not…
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Improvising with LEGOs
My wife actually got me a set of LEGO Mindstorms for my birthday. I am done buying guitars. For those who don’t know what Mindstorms are: These are LEGO Technic (not the blocks but the parts that let you build all sorts of vehicles, airplanes, cranes, robots – probably guitars if you push it). The…
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Solar Power bucket of salt (part 7)
(continued from part 6) After all the good vibes coming out of our solar installation I really need to reinforce something I knew long before I decided to spend almost $15,000. You can’t really predict the weather so we can only estimate our yearly average power production. Right now, in mid-February, on a cloudless day…
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Solar Power (part 6)
(continued from part 5) We’re still waiting for some insurance details to be cleared up. But at least finally the people from SCI-REMC, our electric utility, were here to do an inspection and a test run of the system. A nice, warm day (for January) enabled Alex and me to swing the mount to its…
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Solar Power (part 5)
(continued from part 4) Alright, so I’ve been a bit busy. Two weeks ago Alex came over with his friend Ken to put up the mounting brackets for the PV panels. For that they set up the scaffolding. Here the panels are neatly laid out in our front yard. $1200 a piece! I sure hope…
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Solar Power (part 4)
(continued from part 3) As a we are waiting to go operational I have some time to ponder the pros and cons of my $15,000 investment, alternative energies in general and solar in particular. Despite my feeling of doing something good for the environment and (maybe) for our bottom line I know that this technology…
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Solar Power (part 3)
(continued from part 2) Together Alex and I started digging in my front yard in early October while our supplies were on their way. There was to be a big 3×3 feet hole, almost seven feet deep. This was where our steel post was going. The main hole soon got too narrow for two people…
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Solar Power (part 2)
(continued from part 1) Alex, my solar assessor – his company is Solar Systems of Indiana – came over one cold winter day early 2008 with his Solar Pathfinder and a device called a Kill-A-Watt. The Solar Pathfinder is used to determine the best place on your property for a solar installation and how much…
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Solar Power (part 1)
In the last year or so the term ‘alternative power’ has really come to the forefront again. High fuel prices, talk about peak oil and dirty coal. Good thing, too, because we need to talk about it. Especially during 2008 I kept getting emails from countless action groups and organizations such as the Sierra Club…
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Same old garbage…
(The following was written in March 2008 when the US primaries were in full swing, gasoline was around $4. It still expresses some of my deepest concerns.) When I shop at groceries around town, I always bring my basket and a few empty paper bags. Have been doing this for years. Still the bagger (bagging…