CBS News | Sunny Days For Solar Panels | November 10, 2005?22:00:03
This seems like a good thing that will become more and more popular in the future. Hey, it alleviates the load on the grid and if you have a battery bank as part of the system it would also provide power if the grid went down. Thinking about what happened after Wilma I think this type of system would have been better than a generator. We had clear cool days right after the storm with lots of sunshine. A system with solar panels would have been able to power at least some of the critical circuits in the house.
As I understand it most of the US production of solar electric generating panels is going to Spain and other countries. The US is making most of the solar panels but we are shipping them to other countries who, being much smarter than us, are using them to generate electricity to free themselves from their dependency on petroleum. When are we going to wise up and start implementing alternate energy generating technologies like this? Does it make sense for us to be making the panels and selling them to other countries?
Friday, November 11, 2005
Wunder Blog : Weather Underground
Wunder Blog : Weather Underground
No, no. Tell me it isn't so. There is an area in the tropics that is looking like a storm trying to form. This will be the season to remember. Or at least I hope it will be rather than an example of what future storm seasons will be like.
I took all of our storm shutters down yesterday. The town has picked up all of the debris such as fence sections and posts that blew down. Most of the landscaping in the neighborhood seems relatively intact but the trees and shrubs still are bare since all of their leaves got blown away. I still have some blown down fence sections piled up on one side of my front yard. I piled them there since they look like they can be used again. All of them belong to the fence on the side of my yard. The tall 8 foot high fence in the back got broken up too badly to be used again. We have no privacy on the back of our house now and it is strange to be looking at our neighbors whom we have not seen for years. I must admit that was intentional since they were very unfriendly when we moved in. The biggest reason for the fence was to wall them off so we would not have to interact with them. The old man is pretty friendly but the old lady is a quite hostile. When the fence guys were here the first time we put the fence up she was following them along every step of the way giving them a hard time. That was a few years ago. She has aged a lot since then and seems to be a bit mellower. At least one time she waved and smiled. Scared me to death when she did that. So sad.
No, no. Tell me it isn't so. There is an area in the tropics that is looking like a storm trying to form. This will be the season to remember. Or at least I hope it will be rather than an example of what future storm seasons will be like.
I took all of our storm shutters down yesterday. The town has picked up all of the debris such as fence sections and posts that blew down. Most of the landscaping in the neighborhood seems relatively intact but the trees and shrubs still are bare since all of their leaves got blown away. I still have some blown down fence sections piled up on one side of my front yard. I piled them there since they look like they can be used again. All of them belong to the fence on the side of my yard. The tall 8 foot high fence in the back got broken up too badly to be used again. We have no privacy on the back of our house now and it is strange to be looking at our neighbors whom we have not seen for years. I must admit that was intentional since they were very unfriendly when we moved in. The biggest reason for the fence was to wall them off so we would not have to interact with them. The old man is pretty friendly but the old lady is a quite hostile. When the fence guys were here the first time we put the fence up she was following them along every step of the way giving them a hard time. That was a few years ago. She has aged a lot since then and seems to be a bit mellower. At least one time she waved and smiled. Scared me to death when she did that. So sad.
CBS News | Seniors Who Blog Defy Stereotypes | November 10, 2005?14:30:06
CBS News | Seniors Who Blog Defy Stereotypes | November 10, 2005?14:30:06
Makes sense to me. Use those brain cells folks. Start a blog and share your experiences and thoughts. If nothing else it is great fun to look back on what you wrote a few years ago. I guess I must fall into the category of a senior who defies stereotypes.
Makes sense to me. Use those brain cells folks. Start a blog and share your experiences and thoughts. If nothing else it is great fun to look back on what you wrote a few years ago. I guess I must fall into the category of a senior who defies stereotypes.
Wednesday, November 9, 2005
Wunder Blog : Weather Underground
Jeff Masters reports that the tropics are quieting down. Good news for those of us down here in hurricane alley. I used Dr. Master's weather blog on Wunderground.com through the entire hurricane season. He provides insights and details not found on the regular weather reports. I can highly recommend his blog for those who want a little more than the usual TV weather reports offer. Check out the photos on this particular blog.
Tuesday, November 8, 2005
Google Adsense
Musings has gone commercial. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the blog you will see some small ads from Google. I mainly wanted to see how the ads work and to learn how to implement them on a site. I don't think they are terribly intrusive. It should be interesting to see if any revenue is generated. This site has a fairly low number of hits so I doubt it will make me enough money to pay for my hosting service. It will be an interesting experiment anyway.
Return to Wilmaland
Wilmaland. Yep, we are back home again. Actually home is West Palm Beach. We drove the Mothership here today from Dunedin RV Resort. We left at 10 am and got here about 3 pm. Just as we were leaving this morning we got a call from the FEMA rep and arranged to meet him here this afternoon. He was waiting for us when we pulled up. What timing. He asked a few questions and took our information. We reported no damage to our house but described to him why we evacuated to Tampa. No power, no phone pretty much sums it up. So, we are now in the system and can be expecting some more forms I think.
Friday, November 4, 2005
Remote Storm Reports
We are still in Dunedin in the Mothership. I had some observations about the impact of Wilma that I posted over on our flight simulator scenery web site. Since many of the reports were by our users I don't feel I have the rights to post them again here but you can go to the discussion thread by clicking here and read them yourself. One of our users has a real knack for reporting.
My interface with FEMA was a kind of surreal experience. You can read my post over on the Freeflow site but basically all I was looking for was some reimbursement for relocation expense. We moved the Mothership up here to Dunedin since the power was off in our neighborhood for nine or ten days. I figured I would apply to FEMA just to get some compensation. I will not repeat what I posted over at the Freeflow site but the bottom line is that I got a big packet of stuff in the mail at home that related mostly to small business assistance loans. My neighbor and good friend called me on the phone to tell me that. Nothing in it that seemed to relate to expenses incurred for moving or for buying a generator. I called FEMA again and they told me to just attach all of my receipts to a note with my FEMA registration number and they would be reviewed for payment. What? I started thinking about what it would be like if I were poor and lived in New Orleans or even in South Florida. I would have no power, no phone, no computer and would be just waiting for someone to help. Ok, so maybe I could get to a phone and apply to FEMA. Then I would get a big packet of forms in the mail relating to small business loans? What if my mailbox and house had been destroyed? There has to be a better way. Got to my Freeflow site here and read some of the observations of our users over there. Very interesting.
We are planning on returning the Mothership to her base next Tuesday. Power has been restored in our neighborhood but the infrastructure down there has been hit hard. It will be months or years before things get back to normal. Years? Hurricane season starts up again in 8 months or less. Hmmm. Think, about that and the fact that all of the experts predict that we are moving into ten or twenty years of much more active hurricane seasons than we have been in for the last twenty or thirty years.
My interface with FEMA was a kind of surreal experience. You can read my post over on the Freeflow site but basically all I was looking for was some reimbursement for relocation expense. We moved the Mothership up here to Dunedin since the power was off in our neighborhood for nine or ten days. I figured I would apply to FEMA just to get some compensation. I will not repeat what I posted over at the Freeflow site but the bottom line is that I got a big packet of stuff in the mail at home that related mostly to small business assistance loans. My neighbor and good friend called me on the phone to tell me that. Nothing in it that seemed to relate to expenses incurred for moving or for buying a generator. I called FEMA again and they told me to just attach all of my receipts to a note with my FEMA registration number and they would be reviewed for payment. What? I started thinking about what it would be like if I were poor and lived in New Orleans or even in South Florida. I would have no power, no phone, no computer and would be just waiting for someone to help. Ok, so maybe I could get to a phone and apply to FEMA. Then I would get a big packet of forms in the mail relating to small business loans? What if my mailbox and house had been destroyed? There has to be a better way. Got to my Freeflow site here and read some of the observations of our users over there. Very interesting.
We are planning on returning the Mothership to her base next Tuesday. Power has been restored in our neighborhood but the infrastructure down there has been hit hard. It will be months or years before things get back to normal. Years? Hurricane season starts up again in 8 months or less. Hmmm. Think, about that and the fact that all of the experts predict that we are moving into ten or twenty years of much more active hurricane seasons than we have been in for the last twenty or thirty years.
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