Even more classic solar powered stuff

Heh.... Food for thought: The heat people have been, well, surviving on, for each of the last 80 winters is the direct result of using about a million years worth of dead trees each per year, per person. This isn't. It's local, organic, 100% renewable, and extremely heavy.

These are some pictures even the Amish would enjoy.


-40.

Solar Powered Stuff

I have some links to a couple solar projects. The first is water that is disinfected using only sunlight. It sounds pretty cool for lightweight camping trips and survival situations, or in the case of the website, third world countries. It's more of a technique and principles than anything.

The second is a solar charger that Outside magazine gave high regards for (not sure if they are paid to do that or not) so I figured it is worth a look by someone who knows a bit, enter 40oz.

Random Bits

Late update (and I just downloaded a bunch of pix) We were able to have snoop-a-loop to sit still long enough on st pats day for a picture with his Green Hat. Woof.

I hope you all had a good Vernal Equinox weekend., and Happy Easter to those who celebrate the holiday. In all, it was a fine weekend to get outside, enjoy the sun and fresh air, cleanup the yard, go mtbiking with some dogs, and see family. The CTLPs dropped Maggie off for sleepover weekend with Snoop-A-Loop, and Mrs 40's family came over Saturday night for a belated house warming party. First time some of them had been out here. Sunday my family came over, including an appearence from Kaptain and Mrs Krunch (40's Sister). Kaptain is considering finally joining us for a FARTAB, schedule dependant.

While hanging around on the porch, he had the brilliant idea of moving the bow target down to the far end of the yard and shoot off the deck. Have I said recently how much I love living in the BeerMuda triangle? No way could you get away with this sh*t in any McMansion Land up north.

Check it out, after a few practice shots tonight i got one in the bullseye, with enough @ss to put the arrow almost clear though. From the deck I thought I missed and lost another arrow. The red 'V' in the middle of the yellow is the 'nock'(is that the right term?) of the arrow.

Anyhow, this is the view of the target from the deck, around 35 yards. Yeeeeee Haww!

Speaking of shooting stuff, while typing this a fishercat just went by in the woods. It screamed bloody murder a couple times. I tried getting a video of it, but when I went out it moved out to the woods.

If you've never heard a Fisher, it sounds like a pissed off banshee being f*cked by a demon on fire... It makes the hair stand straight up on the back of your neck and grown men say "WHAT THE F WAS THAT?!?!?!"

Just the sound alone makes you wish you had something more ballsy than a tennis ball slingshot sitting on the counter to scare it away. (Which works pretty well btw)

That means we need to use a leash on snoopy at night until one of the neighbors gets rid of it... yes, the neighbors say a fisher will 'take down a dog'... I don't believe it, but they swear its true and shoot fishers on sight. Yay 2nd Amendment!
-40.

More toilet talk

After reading GUDGs excellent response to the BucketGirl post, I was curious about how all these composting toilets were supposed to help the environment.

Considering that the state DEM etc keeps strict control over the disposal of poo in the ground, surely someone, either the entire ISDS 'industry', or BucketGirl and her Hippy friends, were on the wrong track. I Googled.

I found this book: The Humanure Handbook

This is the same book BucketGirl was selling in the toilet booth at the NESEA booth, here it is FREE online! I'm going to check it out and let you know if I find any gems in here. I'd like someone who knows what they're talking about to check it out too... GUDG or Kaptain Krunch... I'm looking in your direction.

In other news, save these dates:

April 8th, 7pm- Bob Chew, founder of SolarWrights, will be giving resentation on Solar and Wind for Homeowners at the Audubon Society of RI. $5/Members, $8/Non-members.

April 21 (I think?) Beermuda Triangle Financial Town Meeting. Come vote down stupid spending. Like borrowing millions to pave all the roads in the neighborhood.

May 30-31: FARTAB: Volume 5. Check out the last few years worth of pix:

Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4 Post 1
Volume 4 Post 2

Bucket Girl.

Last week flattires and I had the opportunity to attend
theNESEA Building Energy Expo in Boston.  After
struggling to make the bus and train schedules work
given our geographic location and complicated schedules,
we gave up and took Flattires Fat Ride. This
amazing machine in incredibly fast and comfortable..
beats the hell out of a RIPTA bus...
and soon to be Veggie Powered!

Anyhow, the show has changed a bit over the years, from
a hippy-dippy/grassroots showcase to a blend of the same
hippys but with some major brands showing up to hawk
their wares. This year there was a much larger contingent
of evacuated tube solar thermal collectors and ground
source heat pumps.

I was interested in solar thermal panels for both solar
domestic hot water (dhw) or for heat addition to the
Garn wood boiler heat storage tank. I quickly realized
that a dollar is better spent on efficiency first, then
wood fired equipment, then solar thermal, then PV or wind last.

While we were wandering around the show we came across a
couple different'interesting' technologies to be sure.
One in particular was the composting toilet displays.
For those unfamiliar, these are giant dumpster-like
devices that sit in your basement to receive your.. um...
wastes and end up turning them into compost... for your
garden.  Now, I'm all for help saving the
enviroment and all, but I don't see how recycling my sh*t
will do that.

So, we asked the young intern standing gleefully
next to the display.

Here's my interpretation of the conversation:
FlatTires: "Hi!, So.... um... what is this
thing?"

B-Girl: "Its a composting toilet. 
You make your....um... deposits up there, and
after 2 years you take out fresh 'compost' out
there. It helps remove valuable nitrogen from
the waste stream and puts them back into the
local ecosystem."

40oz: "Err... does the building code even
allow these things?"

B-Girl: "Yes! Mass building code allows them,
here's the excerpt"

(Hands 40oz a laminated brochure)

FlatTires: "So, you can just run a standard
4" pvc pipe to this thing?"

(pointing to the dumpster sized plastic tank)

B-Girl: "Nope you need to place the commode
directly over the receptacle, wiht a 12" pipe
connecting them"

FlatTires: " Hrmmmm.. Interesting. So, heres the
real question: Do you have one of these in your house?" 

B-Girl: "Well, actually I don't, I use a bucket!!!"

(40oz and FlatTires exchange amused and bewildered expressions)

40oz: "So.. you live on a boat or something?"

B-Girl: "Nope, I do alot of, um, travelling in my
egetable oil powered pickup truck, and take a
bucket with me. I go about a week with it, then empty
it in a friends composting toilet when my travelling
schedule allows."

FlatTires: (Speechless)

40oz: (Speechless) 

At this point, the wheels are spinning in my head...
let's see, in the lucrative market of composting
toilets the interns live in the truck, and use a bucket for
a sh*tter.

After that Flat Tires asked a couple more questions,
but I had a hard time keeping a straight face let
alone pay attention.  Don't know how FlatTires managed it. 
Note to self: Never play poker with FlatTires.

Obviously BucketGirl was very passionate about living
minimally. I have tons of respect for anyone that dedicated
to just about any 'cause', no matter how little
I understood it. Yeah...even I would probably draw the
line at a composting toilet. Maybe the civil engineers in
the crowd will comment and explain why my septic system
doesn't put nitogen back into my soil???

Anyhow.. even if i ever did get that nutty
about soil conservation, I'll just take a sh*t
on the compost pile!

Parris Brook Whitewater!

During big rain storms the placid (and small) stream out behind the CTLP Ranch becomes a raging torrent of Class I rapids. Beautiful to behold, scary to attempt to tame. Hopefully the sarcasm made it through- it is not a big deal at all, but it is a blast to float down with the paddle over your head screaming, "Wheeeeee!" as Mrs. CTLP has so perfected.

Today after visiting the trifecta of town meeting places (the dump, Blueberry Hill for coffee and the fire station) and after stopping by Flat Tires to work on a fun-time hack job project (which unfortunately was stimied by the evil supply company not sending all the parts for assembly needed for the 'complete' unit as was purchased) I made it home to check on the stream. The water was high enough in the morning to kayak, and even though it was barely spitting out in the afternoon I was expecting it to be higher.

No such luck- instead it had retreated a little bit from the high water mark. But it was still just enough water to play in. So I gave 40oz a call in an attempt to pry him away from his garage cleaning duty to come over and shoot the rapids. I think it went something like this:

CTLP: Dude- the stream is high enough to boat. You wanna come over and give it a shot?

40: Uhhh... well... It is cold out and I kinda just started on the garage and Snoopy has been crated a lot today. I don't know if-

CTLP (interrupting) I have beer. And a flask. And kayaks. Why don't you blow off being productive and screw around?

40: You had me at 'beer'...

So it began. We donned our cold water gear (wetsuits were more than enough warmth), positioned the iBucket, beers and kayaks and started off.

The first attempt was rather... Unsuccessful... To be fair, 40 was making his first traverse on the stream and in my whitewater kayak (gift from my brother) which is REALLY small (tight fit for either of us) and touchy to steer. When he got slightly hung up on a rock I giggled then proceeded to t-bone his craft effectively pushing him off the rock and replacing his boat with my own. My spray skirt caved and I immediately swamped. Not quite what I was aiming for, but the bumper boat action was cool... If I could load video of that (or any other run) I would treat you to such wonderment. Perhaps I can figure that out later...

I was able to console myself in taking pictures of 40 clowning around while being totally oblivious of his inability to properly secure a life jacket:

It was a pretty fantastic Lyndie, though, and that contributed to my enjoyment...

After laughing and letting him in on the reason for my amusement, I took another picture- this time with proper, safe, lifejacket buckling:

The next few passes were great- we made our way down to the pond with Maggie running and splashing along the whole way. Then back up stream against the current where we took out and finished the stock of adult beverages we carted down for the trip.

The carnage

40 was unhappy with the fit of his gloves, and it took our combined power to free his hands. Once released he seemed quite pleased with the fact that his gloves had formed his favorite pose on their own:

We made a final pass before heading inside to warm up by the stove.

I am already looking forward to heading out again tomorrow as it is pouring out again. Seems like the peak always happens overnight, but I am guessing that if the rain keeps up it will still be a bunch of fun in the am.

Anyone up for it? Give me a shout if so...

Missed out on the fun...

I was bummed to miss the ski/snowboard trip. Sounds like it was a great time and even though I would have hated the imbibing and wintertime activities part- I guess I would have had the company and car ride to pick me up! Instead of all the fun time coldness, Mrs. CTLP and I had to settle for sitting on the beach and scuba diving in Grand Cayman. Really cold there- the water temperature actually dipped BELOW 80 degrees one day! Can you believe it???


Horrible view from the patio


In the caves


Open water ahead


This tarpon is probably a good 40"+


Happy to not have been on this boat


Come on, kids- we're going through the castle again!


No life on the wall at all...

Jeebus Loves Kids and SSRADAB

This weekend a selection of Pandapas folk took a trip up to Sunday River, Maine, for SSRADAB(Ski/Snowboard Sunday River and drink alotta beverages).

The high point was snowboarding on fresh powder for the first time. Like.. alot of the stuff. OMFG.. It was fantastic. I highly recommend it. That, and staying slopeside, Faaaaantastic.

Sleepy introduced me to Gin n Juice, not the song, the beverage. It worked pretty well to ease the tired and sore muscles after a long day on the slopes while waiting for kickass lasagna, guacamole, etc.

Both before and after dinner we headed down to the hot tub. I love outdoor hot tubs, even though I couldn't shake the idea of all those btus being wasted keeping all that water steamy hot when it was about 20F outside and windy. The full ibucket and hot tub company helped me forget however.

We fell asleep pretty early, we were all pooped from riding all day.

The fire alarm went off at 12:30am...my head was pounding from the noise and Gin n Juice while we all stumbled down stairs to wait for the firetrucks. Wow... it was just like college. Stupid college kids burnt some popcorn and got everyone up in the middle of the night.

Sunday would have been a rough day snowboarding, I was pretty sore from the day before. But, the lifts were closed because of the wind. Sucked. I was goign to try skiing with BBW.

Spring is right around the corner. We have temps in the 50s back in the BeerMuda triangle, this weekend is the start of daylight savings time. Whooo Hooo! Fartab will be here in no time!

Random pix:

View from our window


BBW and FlatTires (Yet to Be Monikered...) sisterOne of the rooms of the hotel. You can just smell the funk: