more power!!

MORE POWER!!
As time has passed, my wisdom and greatness grow. Hell, a few weeks ago I had over two thousand readers one day. It must have been a link from elsewhere because the reader numbers quickly stumbled back down to 1200. But considering that my “floor” used to be 900 that is still a growth. Who would have thought that giving away a free product would have seen an increase in use even as the economy crashes? I had a nemesis minion write asking why I wasn’t adding links to my article. Because when I did I had one of those three line squiggly links. But it reminded me it was something I wanted to do and it could increase my revenue ( fancy business talk for getting paid for all my effort ). So when Google sent me an email offering a tool to add Amazon links it was already in my mind. Creekmore, thank you very much. Sometimes a simple question reminds me of a must-do. Just don’t expect a commission. Damn it man, you’re already kicking my butt here. From now on expect gratuitous additions of products I can link so you’ll be enticed into impulse buys and I can switch Amazon commissions over to partial cash and one day after child support be able to live off my writing. Hey, I’ll only need a few hundred a month and then I’ll post twice a day seven days a week and write fiction and as soon as I become self employed the whole economy will take a huge steaming turd and we will all die. So, buy such books as “The Road” to get yourselves ready for such an event. Remember, the point at which we crash is when my child support ends or I can become self employed ( the Gods in their mischievous moods will see great humor in pulling the brass ring away just as I reach it ). But with your support I will be writing more until the end.
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The comments section took an ugly turn with racial BS, but at least the offender removed the comments on his own, sparing me any kind of extra work needing to moderate. If you want to be ignorant and confuse skin color with Bison Worthiness, do so on your own time. Tribal differences are what separate us, skin color is only one and one of the least important ( I’d rather have a black Christian in a foxhole with me than a white Muslim- although we’ll gloss over the whole religious separation problem for now ). But the comments section also touched on off grid power requirements. At first, I thought it would be cheaper to buy extra power generation than more energy efficient tools. That was in Carson City on grid as I crunched the numbers on paper. Once off grid and using solar panels, even in an area blessed with quite a bit of sunshine, I realized that my worse case power projections were way off. You don’t need twice the needed juice in panels, you need more like five to seven times. All summer long you might get by on using a lot more electricity, but come the rainy season that number will fall down big time. For best performance, you need seven times the solar capacity that you use. I have seventy watts of panels. I don’t want to use more than 70 watts total in one day. If I get six days of clouds and one day of sun then in seven hours I will recharge the batteries totally ( yes, you see a loss in production and inverter use, these are just general guidelines ). I use six hours of lights a night, at five watts an hour ( a few hours with two lights on at six watts, a few with one 3 watt light on, I average it to five watts an hour ). I watch two hours of TV, a thirteen watt flat screen LCD seven inch portable model. I’m only using fifty some watts of power a day, under my self imposed limit. I watch my movies during the day so I don’t drop the battery level down. The same with using the inverter for my hair clippers to keep my mop beautiful. The same with my netbook computer.
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Why would I need more power? A hair dryer? A power tool? A microwave? What do people think they need in the way of electrical use? If propane doesn’t run it, do you really need more than a few simple electrical appliances? If you want a supplement to propane, use a solar cooker and a thermos for partial cooking. Invest in the power sipping appliances. A netbook computer uses thirty watts, a notebook uses 60. AnLCD TV uses under twenty watts ( small size, obviously ), a regular size uses 60. LED 12v white bulbs use three watts, a florescent bulb 15. I don’t have figures for such things as a wireless Internet connection, but when/if I ever get one it will mean extra solar panels in the same seven to one ratio I use now. I guess since I started with no electrical use other than a single light bulb anything else I’ve gotten is a luxury. I can’t conceive of needing so many panels, where so much juice can possibly go. Living frugally is not only about doing things smarter, it is about doing without. And usually with no loss of luxury after a period of adjustment. Add your comments, how much juice do you gulp off grid?
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