08:47 – I’ll mail the taxes today and this hassle will be over for one more year. I just wish I didn’t have to write checks with five numbers before the decimal point.
Barbara said last night that she wanted to look at Sparta, NC first as a potential relocation site rather than visit Dobson, NC. That’s fine with me. Dobson is a bit closer to Winston-Salem than I’d like, and it’s also only a couple miles from I-77. There are also chicken factories near Dobson that produce tens of millions of birds a year. Of course, there are also huge chicken factories in the Sparta area.
After I get the taxes off, I’ll be working on kit stuff. Our inventory on a lot of bottled chemicals is very low, so I need to make up new batches of a couple of dozen of them. I make up the ones that we use in the largest volume in batches of 8 to 12 liters at a time, assuming they’re stable. I make up others that we use in smaller volumes or that are less stable once mixed in batches of 1 or 2 liters at a time. Once mixed, they all need to be filtered and then bottled in kit-size containers.
I’m working on a bunch of different sections in the prepping book. Right now, I’m working on the section on providing minimal electric power in a long-term grid-down situation. Essentially, that means being able to recharge enough AA/AAA NiMH cells to keep stuff like flashlights/lanterns, and radios, as well as ebook readers, tablets, and other small electronic gear running. The easiest and cheapest way to do that is with a small solar installation charging lead-acid storage batteries. All you need to do that is one or more solar panels and a $12 to $30 PWM charge controller, and in a pinch you can get by without the charge controller. In a formal solar installation, you’d use deep-cycle batteries to store the charge, but in an emergency you can use ordinary vehicle batteries, which would be readily available in large numbers. Vehicle batteries are optimized for providing very high current for very short times, which means they don’t last nearly as long if you use them in low-draw/long-time environments, but that’s a minor issue.
15:02 – I just joined Kindle Unlimited for the free 30-day trial. Someone asked, so here’s the deal: when you’re looking at the book’s page you see the Buy icon with the usual drop-down list, which in my case includes three physical Kindles, the Kindle-reader app, and the option to download the file for transfer via USB. If you click on the Read for Free with Kindle Unlimited option, you can still pick the download for transfer via USB option, but it doesn’t actually work.Instead, the usual next screen comes up and asks you to pick the device to transfer the file to, which in my case is set to default to my own Kindle.
So I now have ten books queued up for delivery by Wi-Fi to my Kindle. The problem with that, as I’ve mentioned before, is that my Kindle frequently crashes when I let it access Wi-Fi. Sometimes, the crash is so bad that I end up having to do a hard reset, deleting all of the books from the Kindle. Fortunately, Amazon allows you to manage your KU titles, and one of the options on that page is to transfer the book by USB. So I downloaded all ten of the titles to my hard drive, dropped them into Calibre to strip the DRM, and then transferred them by USB to my Kindle. They all work fine, but seven of the ten aren’t worth reading. I hate to be harsh but my reading time is too limited as it is, and I don’t have time to read books that are mediocre or worse.
Four of those seven are by Steven Konkoly, whose The Jakarta Pandemic was an excellent PA novel, particularly for a first-time author. The four in question are all non-fiction prepping books he’s written with a co-author with whom I’m not familiar, but as it turns out they appear to be one actual book. The first in the series is listed as 246 pages, with the second, third, and forth volumes roughly 60 or 70 pages each. Unfortunately, unless I’m missing something, those latter volumes appear to be simple chunks of the full book. The whole work might be of some use to a complete newbie prepper, but there’s very little specific information there. For example, in discussing firearms, Konkoly makes no specific recommendations other than to say that one married couple of his acquaintance intended to wait things out on their boat. Konkoly recommended either a pump-action shotgun or a .308 rifle (unspecified as to brand or action). The wife was concerned about her ability to handle either, so Konkoly fired the .308 with her close at hand. It was too loud for her, so she ended up with the shotgun. I read maybe 20 pages of the full volume and found only more of the same. No specific recommendations anywhere to be found. So those four titles are going back immediately to free up slots for me to download more. (With KU, you’re limited to having 10 titles “checked out” at a time. If you want to get an eleventh title, you have to “return” one of the ten you have out.) I did a quick scan on the remaining six titles, and three of them are garbage. The other three I’ll have to check further to see if I want to devote the time to actually read them. The good news is that there are thousands of cozy mysteries available under KU, including many series that Barbara may be interested in.
There are two small solar applications I’m wondering about. One is a very small solar panel to recharge devices like my cell phone. The other would be to recharge a larger battery to power a sump pump.
The first is pretty trivial and inexpensive. A sump pump pulls a lot of power, so you’d need some serious panels and battery bank and a high wattage inverter. If the pump runs frequently, you’re talking some serious money.
forgive me to dissent with a specialist, but, wood gas genset is low tech (very) and cheaper, also uses anything available, the only drawback is noise. WW2 was a major event in Europe similar as you are prepping.
As aggregate you could use as rotary power for saw mill.
Yes, I actually ran a small-scale wood-gas generator in the 70’s, just to figure out how to do it. It worked fine with scrap wood, deadfall branches, etc.
I don’t mention it because during normal times few people are going to be willing to have a wood-gas generator in their backyards (or attached to their trucks, for that matter…) Barbara would pitch a fit if I even mentioned it.
What noise?
I was thinking of installing one of the pumps designed to run from a battery as a backup pump. Although the reviews of those pumps are leading me to think I need to make other plans.
@Dave B,
How much water do you get in your sump and how much capacity does it have? IE how often do you need to empty it?
Aren’t most sumps basically seepage?
Are you overthinking it? Would hand bailing or a hand pump (like a bilge pump) work?
Seems totally doable if it is one gallon a week….
nick
Seems like a bilge pump that you use for a boat would work OK. Those are designed to operate on 12 volts, many have a float switch, move quite a bit of water and run a long time on a single battery charge. I have emptied several hundred gallons from one of my older boats when I left the drain plug out. It was beached at time so it did not sink but there was a lot of water that had to be removed using just the bilge pump.
People worry about a power-tool for tilling-up a garden patch. It isn’t really necessary. Look up “broad-fork”. One of these can do an excellent job of working-up a garden. Bob, it may even make a suitable gift for you to give to Barbara, in view of her gardening avocation, and unless she’s still carrying that .357 Magnum.
As for a producer-gas set-up, ideal uses (other than transport) are to power an old-fashioned buzz-saw for taking lumber and firewood, and a sawmill for producing sawn and dressed lumber. It leverages your energy investment in terms of producing a lot of embodied energy from the energy used, and all your waste-wood, bark, trimmings, loppings, sawdust, shavings and offcuts can be used for powering the producer-gas plant.
Another use of energy, one that makes an enormous difference to quality-of-life, is to provide refrigeration. The difference between SOME refrigeration and NO refrigeration is enormous. It is well worth the effort to get a little bar-fridge or dorm-fridge size of machine in a little multi-fuel set-up such as is used in travel-trailers, which can be run on 12VDC, 110VAC, and propane. With a little jiggery-pokery you can also run it off a kerosene wick or focused sunlight. It will provide just enough refrigeration to keep butter, cheese, meat or vegetables for a few days; and freeze a few blocks of ice. This is WAY better than not being able to keep stuff good and keep it cool at all.
An alternative refrigerator is a small 12VDC one the size and appearance of an ice-chest, designed to use in a vehicle and run off its 12VDC system, often termed a “picnic fridge”, a cheap 12VDC photovoltaic panel, a 12DC battery, a second one run at below-freezing, and Robert is your proverbial Uncle.
Yep. It used to be *my* .357 Magnum, but when I first convinced her to start going to the range I had her try a bunch of different pistols, including my .45 and my .44. She wasn’t comfortable with either of those, but she really liked the .357 Ruger even with heavy loads, so I gave it to her. I’d never use a .36 for defense, but it’s more important that she’s comfortable with the pistol that what I think of the caliber (although I’d have drawn the line at anything smaller).
Ah! The VA system at work.
An Air Force veteran says he was repeatedly put on hold by the Veterans Suicide Hotline, as he was forced to listen to machine recordings and get re-directed as he sat there “desperately needing someone to talk to” on Saturday night.
The following comments are also kinda instructive.
I’ve got at least two vets in my group who are admittedly suicidal and can’t bear being alone; another couple who can’t bear NOT being alone. It seems to be touch-and-go every week with them; I dunno if one or another is coming back from week to week. And all but two of them are ‘Nam vets, out for over forty years now. The other two had their fun capers in the Sandbox, the Suck, the Balkans, etc. We’ve also heard the stories of lackadaisical and negligent service via the various VA offices and phone numbers.
Quite frankly, if it wasn’t for the group and these guys coming in every week and/or getting other treatment like the CPT I’ve started, I wouldn’t give much for their chances of not ending up in those daily stats of 22-23 vet suicides a day.
I can remember having those kinds of thoughts back in 1995 when my first marriage had disintegrated in NJ and I’d moved back to MA and was living with one of my brothers in a spare bedroom, along with his wife and infant daughter. I worked the midnight shift in the EDS data center and would be driving up America’s Technology Highway (Route 128) at 11 PM in the dead of winter and looking out over a bleak, frigid industrial park wasteland and hoping I’d skid on the ice and tumble over the guard rail and explode in a big ol’ fireball.
A good chunk of that was just me feeling sorry for my worthless self, and I got over it after a while, but some guys don’t; esp. if they’re still having wild-ass nightmares most nights, the hyper-vigilance/paranoia thing, and being kinda outta control sometimes.
Good to know the billions we spend on our endless stupid wars keep going for that and not helping poor bastards coming back from them. As somebody in the comments said, they love ya when you’re still warm and can carry a rifle and subject to their UCMJ; but once you’re out, you’re at best an annoyance and at worst, now the enemy.
Word, Mr. OFD. I tried to find out my Priority Group (again) from the VA. After getting bounced around, I got an email “I had to call this number to start to find out.” I was doing it just for grins since I’m in the bottom, but Geez, I can’t find out through my account. Worthless online system. The ‘puter system is probably the IRS left overs.
I should get on that, too; find out what my PG is offhand. It’s liable to change in the next few months, anyway.
You should be able to get set up via your local VA office (in-person) with an account online that you can check for stuff like that and do all kinds of things, like order prescription refills, see your medical records, ask questions, etc., etc. I got all that info a year ago but I haven’t really availed myself of it since, when I just logged in from home to make sure I could do it. I’m down at the actual VA offices/clinic up here twice a week anyway so haven’t found a need to do anything online.
But if I was a vet living way out in the sticks, say in the Dakotas or Nevada, the online thing would be pretty handy. If it works.
I note that they seem to be using Winblows 7 laptops in their offices that are pretty much captive to the VA’s proprietary EMR systems and internet activity is pretty limited. Oh, and they just got those Win7 machines during this past year. I imagine the high rollers at the top of the bureaucracy have the latest stuff and do whatever they want on the net. Like check on their stock and bond accounts, country club membership renewal status, scheduled maintenance for their Beemers, and making sure the pool gets cleaned out next week. And the four-star restaurant reservations.
While they’re dining on Filet Mignon, one or two more sorry muthas off themselves somewhere.
BTW, if you are paying that much, did you get nailed for being under withheld?
I grew up with sumps, one dry and one that required a pump. Of course, the dry one and didn’t require any attention. But the wet one had a pump that ran quite frequently, and the basement could flood if the power went out for more than about two hours. This was my parents house at the time, and my suggestion was to cut a small groove in the basement floor to a nearby drain which went to the municipal sewage system. Of course, this was contrary to the codes, but it would work in emergencies and keep the basement from flooding. By the way, the water table was such that the natural water level in the basement would be about 3 feet above the floor.
They chose not to do that as they had a tractor and simply put a small alternator on the power take off to run in emergencies in case of a power outage. Turns out there were frequent power outages, but I think only one over a period of years was enough duration to need the generator to run the sump pump.
Anyhow, consider natural ways to drain the sump. Sometimes digging a trench to a low spot if you live in hilly country, or sometimes as I said the the run over to the drain. This drain run could be positioned near the upper level of the sump so that normally the sump pump would pump out the sump, but if the power ever failed and the water level went up enough, then the run over to the drain would take care of any potential flooding.
@Lynn, I am sometimes way underwithheld, and the penalties and interest are surprisingly cheap, way less than I can get by keeping the money until filing. YMMV, and use caution.
And, married lesbians pay too much income tax:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/04/12/same-sex-marriage-dual-earning-couples-marriage-penalties-joint-filing-taxes-column/25474745/
Just about any dual income marriage has been paying the marriage penalty for years.
Barbara said last night that she wanted to look at Sparta, NC first as a potential relocation site rather than visit Dobson, NC.
Stay away from Asheville, as there are rumors the current president may retire there.
WTF, when nice real estate is still available and cheaper in Kenya and Indonesia???
since you have gas, you have a motor running, and/or alternator, moving parts, noise, yes they are bulky, but, plenty of no frills (hey a word I learned here) energy
I prefer to think of the “marriage penalty” as just a consequeence of the PROGRESSIVE income tax.