Big Red Update

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Making progress.

1) Power restored to truck cap, replaced shitty aluminum covered copper ground wire with pure copper wire, carefully crimped and sealed with heat shrink. My hope is that this will stop or retard corrosion where the connector is located.

2) Switch to provide solar power to the starting battery and main vehicle system is installed and working. Now if I’m parked somewhere sunny I can open and shut doors, roll down and up windows, use the radio, or even just top off the starting battery without ever turning the engine on. Due to the inductive spike problem I’m not going to bother with led indicators for now, I might revisit eventually.

3) Repaired a loose but not yet broken wire on one of the lights in the truck cap.

4) Pried off clip from the broken truck window support, I am going to replace that tomorrow.

July 4, 2018 10:18 am Update

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Inductive spikes can be a bitch if you don’t plan for them. My pretty little led indicator I built built is no more after only a few times switching off the relay. I guess there is a reason why induction rhythms with destruction.

No to air conditioning

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As the temperature pushes one ninty plus degrees in my bedroom, I’m still content with my decision not to have air conditioning. I know that these days you can buy a window air conditioner for under $200 and it’s unlikely to increase my utility bill more than $20 a month – it’s not a technology I believe in.

Sure my truck has air conditioning and that works modestly well, but I don’t think I would necessarily use it if not for the noise reduction and fuel savings it provides. I do like the nice cold of the city buses and my office but I also ride them in the day time in the city where the air is stagnant.

I live without air conditioning by avoiding being home during the daytime. That means Monday through Friday being at work, while spending the weekends in the wilderness, traveling, camping and visiting state park pools and swimming holes in the back country. I don’t get home from work until around six, when the worse of the heat usually has broken. I usually have a quick sandwich or a light fare then walk down to the park, or if it’s really hot, the air conditioned library. Then I will sit out back with a cold drink until around around eleven and usually by then most of the heat has broken.

I think it’s better to spend money on traveling to the wilderness, camping and swimming in ice cold mountain streams, having a nice evening out back and in the park fishing or reading then paying for the artificial cool! I have a fairly big box fan I use on stuffy nights like this in my bedroom and I’ll have some ice cream or juice before bed, but I figure it’s just better to get used to the heat and enjoy summer.

Eventually I’m thinking of moving to a warmer climate to avoid the snow, ice and road salt. That means even hotter summers. I need to learn to adapt to the heat as I don’t believe in air conditioning and it can be expensive and difficult to do in an office grid cabin – although with ample insulation and sufficient storage it’s definitely possible. The more practice I get in embracing the heat today, the less trouble I’ll have tomorrow.

Farm Life

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A few years back on the beach I overheard a conversation between a couple about farming. The wife had a romantic notion of owning a farm, which the husband quickly responded back noting that people who farm for a living their whole life resolves around the farm, making sure animals get fed, crops get maintained and harvested, necessary jobs get done. Farmers even when they do take vacations rarely get far from home often traveling back to take care of their livestock.

Being watched as the sun set

On the other hand, farmers own a lot of land and are control and management of their land. Maybe they don’t get to go on vacation or travel as much, but they live a life where escape doesn’t have to be such a big part of their life. They have land they can hunt, they serve as their own boss, they can ride four wheelers, burn trash and have bonfires. They can see the progress they’ve made each day, see directly the impacts of their quality of work. It’s a hard life, but one of such fortune for the two percent.

July 3, 2018 Evening

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Good evening! Sunny and kind of hot with temperatures around 94 degrees in Albany. ⛅ There is a west-northwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 70 degrees. Muggers rejoice! 😓The heat index is 93. The skies will clear around 4 pm. Honestly, I’m content with the heat because their is a breeze and lots of blue skies. Then again, I’m thinking about moving to a warmer climate eventually so to avoid the snow and road salt, and heat just seems like a better alternative life.

Just a rather ordinary day at work today — a flurry of memos, a flurry of phone calls.📞 At least it’s air conditioned there unlike my apartment. I guess it’s been hot all week long, but I didn’t notice because I was up north in the potholers, where the temperature never got above the low 80s, and any heat melted away with the frigid water in the East Canada Creek.🚣 I hope to get to the Potholers and Lily Lake for a paddle later in the month or maybe mid-August, especially when the lilies are out on the lake. 🌻Late summer is nice, and it’s coming quickly, especially with me having the last week of July into August off for summer early vacation in the Finger Lakes.

Bus is running a bit early, so they are laying over at the park and ride. 🚌But I should be home right about the normal time, it’s just there is zero traffic before the holiday. 🎇

The sun will set at 8:36 pm with dusk around 9:10 pm, which is 13 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly clear skies and 86 degrees. The dew point will be 70 degrees. The heat index around sunset will be 93. ⛱ There will be a west breeze at 5 mph.

I have to go over to a Save the Pine Bush founders house to tape record an interview them about the history of the Pine Bush tonight. 🌲Should be a very interesting evening. It’s nice to get out of such a hot evening although otherwise I probably would have gone fishing this evening in the Hudson River 🎣and picked up some groceries thereafter. Then by the time I get home I might have a beer or two outback although not with my truck cap as the lights aren’t working due to the ground wire corroded away. 💫

Tonight will be partly cloudy ☁, with a low of 71 degrees at 4am. 10 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 70 at 6pm. West wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening. In 2017, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 56 degrees. The record low of 44 occurred back in 1971.

Tonight will have a Waning Gibbous Moon 🌖 with 71% illuminated with the moon rising at 11:56 pm. The moon will set at 11:22 am. The Last Quarter Moon is on Thursday night with partly cloudy skies. The Buck Moon 🌝 is on Thursday, July 26th. The sun will rise at 5:22 am with the first light at 4:47 am, which is 35 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 8 hours and 46 minutes of darkness, an increase of 50 seconds over last night.

Independence Day will be mostly sunny and hot 🌞, with a high of 93 degrees at 3pm. 11 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 69 at 5pm. Heat index values as high as 97. Light and variable wind. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies. The high last year was 82 degrees. The record high of 104 was set in 1911.

While I gave several things I need to do Independence Day before it gets too hot, I’m considering backcountry camping at a local state forest ⛺ to escape the heat for a night. Just a tent, small frying pan, some water and a few things just camping not too far back in the local wilderness.

I am running late to work this morning as I was having a problem with my toilet — the tank gasket was sticking while I was showering and I did notice until I got out of shower, and had to fiddle with it, which made it act up more with the odd water pressure until it worked again.🚿 I think the gasket stuck because I hadn’t flushed the toilet in five days, while I was up in the Adirondacks doing my business in a bucket or an out house. I much rather let the stuff rot in wilderness, rather then go to the sewage treatment plant and then to the landfill.

I am starting to think the gasket is leaking a bit at times, I may call the landlord if it continues to be a problem, but I want to pick up some more first before I call him. Not audibly or visibly leaking but I have my suspicions as the gasket is multiple decades old and sometimes sticks, requiring tapping the handle, as happened this morning. If I notice it’s leaky, there is a valve to shut off the water right behind the toilet. 🚽I always let him know about leaks, because he’s always asking as he claims his water bills are high. I am always a bit hesitant to call the landlord, just so he doesn’t see how much wear and tear there has been to the apartment over the past ten and a half years I’ve rented it. If I notice problems over the 4th of July holiday, I’ll turn off the water valve, pick things up, get the rest of the camping gear put away.

Last night I slept in my truck at my parents house with the fan on, although for some reason I lost power in my truck in the morning right when I was getting up — apparently the ground line came disconnected with the frame again. Corrosion once again ate the wire. ⚡I thought the issue was road salt doing this last winter, but no, I think it’s more of an issue of electrical current causing the dissimliar metal to corrode and maybe to a certain extent frame vibration. he wire is a soft braided copper-coated aluminum connected to a brass fitting connected to the steel frame. I have one more wire connector but I’m not sure if it will fit, I may have to order another one. :idea:I wish I could shrink wrap the connector, but I won’t do that because I don’t want a open flame to shrink wrap it with the wire running so close to the gas tank. Maybe I need to replace ground wire with pure aluminum wire, although at 8 gauge it’s going to be hard to get copper wire that is flexible enough to make the necessary turns. I see that Auto Zone has eight guage wire and the terminal ends, so I might just entirely replace the wire and connectors and protect it with heat shrink. I have an idea on how to do that safely. Also tomorrow I want to hook up the double throw switch so I can charge the starting battery off of the solar panel. Thursday I want to replace the gas piston for the truck cap, assuming it arrives in the mail while I’m home for the holiday.

A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, sunny, with a high near 80. Maximum dew point of 53 at 8pm. Sunday, sunny, with a high near 84. Maximum dew point of 57 at 8pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 82 degrees.

I may head out to Schoharie County for the weekend, but first I want to get the broken piston replaced on the truck cap and power back there again. ⛺ As I was noting yesterday it could be a nice trip involving pool swimming and fishing in the power reservoir, camping and getting fresh fruit at the farmers market.

In four weeks on July 31 the sun will be setting at 8:16 pm,🌄 which is 20 minutes and 15 seconds earlier then today. In 2017 on that day, we had patches of fog, mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 87 and 56 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 82 and 62 degrees. The record high of 98 degrees was set back in 1917.

Looking ahead, Labor Day 👨‍🏭 is in 2 months, More Night then Day 🌌 is in 12 weeks, Last Sunset After 7 PM 🌆 is in 3 months, Election Day 2018 🗳 is in 18 weeks, Average Night Below Freezing 🌌 is in 19 weeks, Christmas 🎅 is in 25 weeks, New Years Day 2019 🎉 is in 26 weeks, 36th Birthday 🎉 is in 30 weeks and Election Day 2020 🗳 is in 28 months.