The City Mouse in the Country

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Maybe it's time I got serious about solar

When my wife and I bought this house nearly 6 years ago, we made some upgrades. We put on a metal roof, replacing the original shingles, replaced the floor in the kitchen, both bathrooms and the downstairs den. We ended up upgrading the pellet stove (twice!) and added some insulation; one of the jobs I want to do in the coming year is to insulate the garage, mostly to keep the freezers we have in the garage from becoming damaged. It's only in various home improvement shows that the work to improve your home is done all at once and somehow in 1 hour. For most of us its an ongoing never ending project. One of the important improvements that I've been wanting to make but have kept putting off for various reasons has been solar panels. Now, I'm thinking that it may be time to least do something. The main reason we have been putting off this improvement was cost and how long it would actually take us to pay off the panels. I'm 60 years old now...

On Marches, Strikes and being a keyboard warrior.

This is not the America I grew up in. It occurs to me that those days are long gone, and that I am probably looking back on those days with rose colored glasses as well. However there was a time in America when, if two parties disagreed, they could hammer out some sort of compromise. Where opposing viewpoints were respected. Where, if a heated argument did break out the chance of violence was very low. I miss that America. Recently I was threatened with physical violence for something that I posted online. I ignored the comment, I didn't bother to respond to it. Not because I feared the person - I've no idea who they were, etc. - but because I am a pacifist. To respond to violence with more violence makes little sense to me. Plus, it's been my experience that such people are paper tigers. The anger that is felt however, by both the right and the left is very real. I can no...

Buyer's Remorse - Part 2

What you see is the front end of my previous car. I spoke about buying it just a little over three years ago in an article that I called Buyer's Remorse . At the time I lamented having to buy a car in short period of time, due to an engine blowing up, and not being happy overall with my choices. At the time I was hoping to move into a hybrid or even an electric car. I was not happy with the results as I felt that I got pushed into buying a used Toyota for cash. The other reason I was not happy was because the research I was doing into hybrid and electric cars was not showing much promise at that time. Electric cars simply did not have the infostructure needed to make buying one worth while. Three years ago charging stations were few and far between and I am happy to report that several gas stations near me now include several electric car charging ports in addition to the traditional gas pumps. I take that as a positive. My current j...

This Inevitable Ruin. Is there hope in the darkness?

I consider myself a smart and well read man, so up until recently I was surprised that I had never heart the the the concept of "This Inevitable Ruin" before. It's an idea or concept that downfall and destruction is unavoidable. That chaos is an unchangeable outcome no matter what actions we take. That what ever victory we obtain will have a high psychological and moral price, and may be short lived. As my own family, friends, and readers face an unknown future on so many fronts I wonder if such "Inevitable Ruin" awaits us? If it awaits our country or even our world? I am not a nihilist but the concept has been ringing in my ears lately as we seem to careen from one crisis - be it personal, economic, local, state wide, natural or global. This article has started and stopped many times, yet I can't seem to get it right. I even played around with an AI program to see if it would help focus my thoughts, it did n...

Acting in our best interest.

** The majority of this column was written nearly two years ago, however for a lot of reasons, has been updated and ready for publication now.** Recently a friend of mine and I were talking about some changes in our area. We have had three solar farms built recently and there is talk about a wind farm. She brought up how wind turbines are responsible for killing birds. That's a known fact that everyone can agree to, however exactly how many birds and what to do about the bird strikes is up for debate. This conversation tells us a bit about the type of people we want to be. We are going to have to make trade offs in the future and we need to determine what those tradeoffs will be. Wind turbine's are constructed in a location that meets certain criteria to meet it's full effectiveness. What happens if location X is also the breeding ground of a nearly extinct bird? Can they still breed if the tower, or solar panel or geothermal ...

Unplanned and Unprepared. Life Happened.

It's been a bit. When I started this blog I was in a stable place and a stable condition. I thought that I was done with moves and surprises. I would have been perfectly happy to just work for another five or ten years till I retired. If I'm being completely honest with you but since moving back to Western PA just about six years ago, things have been odd at best and difficult at worst. I've questioned why we moved but for better or for worse, this is home. Then I lost Facebook and that was one of the drivers, if not the main driver that drove people to this site. Then my job situation changed drastically. At first it was fine but it was clear that the company really didn't have a spot for me, and as they transitioned from "work from home" to "return to the office" it became hard for me to justify a commute of over 100 miles each way. The jobs that I worked after that were temporary in...