Notes from the farm: updates about daily life out in the woods and off the grid. This has been a hot summer with a number of dry spells. Thankfully the rains have been just frequent enough to keep things green around the farm. Likewise, the nights have generally been cool enough to be comfortable. Only a few nights has it stayed above 80. The past two nights have been even better, quickly dipping into the 60s and getting all the way down
One of the beautiful things about Android devices is that they are so configurable. Case in point, adjusting the color balance on my phone. My Motorola Photon has a nice resolution screen (256 PPI) but I never found it comfortable to my eyes 🙁 Today I had my Photon setting next to my iPod touch and found that on the Photon screen whites were too white. It really looked less appealing and caused more eyestrain than the otherwise antiquated iPod touch screen.
This morning I performed a couple simple maintenance tasks for our off-the-grid solar system: Washing the solar panels This is actually optional maintenance, as you don’t have to wash your panels. However, keeping solar panels clean and free of dust etc. can appreciably boost your power output. After washing the panels (it has been pretty dry and dusty lately) I had about 10% more electricity being generated. Woot! Adding distilled water to the batteries Flooded lead acid* batteries periodically require distilled
Samantha and I are planning our new home, with the help of our good friend and architect John Odom. Along those lines today I came across a pretty crazy bathroom idea: An exhilarating bathroom experience awaits you.http://www.discountbathroomvanities.com/blog/?p=1441Discount Bathroom Vanities Blog » Read more! Idon’t think we will be doing anything quite so crazy in our houseplan, but it is pretty darn cool 🙂 PS this bathroom actually reminds me of some of the insane bathrooms in old Colorado mining buildings,
We were having lunch at Red Robin and the power went out. Checking on how wide spread it is… To be updated.. UPDATE: Much of south Glenstone affected, with traffic lights being out as well. Police on hand to direct traffic.Businesses without generators were either having to close or accept payments via cash or manual credit card processing. To be updated… UPDATE: Called City Utilities and as of 5-5:15PM electricity has been restored. I asked the reason for the outage,
Here is a photo I took of the “Supermoon” tonight: Camera: Nikon D7000 Lens: Nikkor 28-300mm It was a very beautiful moon! I rate it 5/5 stars 😉
Here is yet another good reason not to drink and drive: Battlefield was also totally blocked off as power crews worked to repair the damage…
We have HughesNet satellite internet and the ‘download bank’ has been a feature since we signed up last month. Apparently HughesNet is doing a wider rollout now, as this is the email I received from them today: Dear HughesNet Member, We’re rolling out a brand-new feature—the Download Bank―enabling you to save any unused portion of your Download Allowance. As part of a system-wide network of upgrades that started last summer, this latest enhancement lets you do more online. What is the