Janice profusely praises him for being such a good provider of sustenance. She tells him she’ll put it in the freezer and make mouse stew tomorrow. I’m not too sure how well he understands her but the promises seem to placate him. Yeah, yeah I know it has more to do with the tone of voice than the words.

Mouse stew. Hmmm! How many mice would it take to make a big ol’ pot of mouse stew? If there aren’t enough mice are gophers a good substitute? What are the right veggies? Do parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme work well in mouse stew or are they reserved for song lyrics? What about oregano, basil and cilantro? Big or small chunks of potato? Throw a bay leaf in to simmer? How about onion and garlic? Easy on the salt? Quandary upon quandary!

Time for a Google recipe search? Uh no – not me. I’m so not ready to find out if some take seriously what I joke about. Then again I can only hope if everything goes to crap I will still be able to get online and find survival sites with just those types of recipes.

That’s not to say such recipes would be of much use anyway. Consider the life to which we are accustomed. Consider the life to which our cats are accustomed. Imagine what would happen if all has gone south and we’re scrounging to feed ourselves. Cats will be PO’d at their people ‘cuz they won’t be getting fed as they are accustomed but at least they can still hunt mice. They would no longer be grateful to us and we’d see far fewer rewards. So there we’d be, mouse stew recipes and the cat eating the mice rather than bringing them in to express gratitude.

Maintaining an inventory of what’s in the freezer is not one of my things but I’m reasonably confident there is no package of frozen mice all ready to be thawed and thrown into the stew pot. But if I’m asked if I think there’s enough salt in the stew I’ll need to know the origin of the flesh being cooked. Yep, I can be a bit squeamish that way.

North Dakota this time of year has positive aspects. Haskel likes his indoor cold weather comfort and spends much less time hunting. Bet there’s a better chance of having the winning Power Ball ticket than Haskel staying curled up in his favorite living room easy chair until temperatures consistently climb into the 60′s during the day.

Even though I’m not one of those “go green – save the earth” types, this link pretty much explains what motivated me to explore building a first solar panel. Based upon what was learned depending on solar panels for our electric needs would be economically impractical.

Next time you’re looking at one of those “google ads” implying you can get free electricity by building a $200 solar panel to power your house and sell electricity back to the electric company keep the following in mind: Some things you can believe while some should be taken with a grain of salt, others with a block and still others with the entire salt mine. Just as there is no free lunch there likewise is no free electricity.

From what I’ve seen “going green” is about getting the green from my pocket more than exercising conscientious stewardship over the environment. The last electric bill I saw represented 33 days during the last part of November and first part of December 2009. Some of the coldest weather of the year was during that time and we use electric heat. Per day average was 77.5 KWH. Some days exceeded that and others were less but for the sake of this let’s stick with 77.5 KWH/day. A solar array with 23 panels, each producing 144 watts 24 hours/day would yield 79.488 KWH/day. Of course that would require sunlight around the clock so let’s figure winter time 5 hours light per day at 144 watts/hr and we’ll need 108 panels to get 77.76 KWH/day. Of course that is assuming sufficient light for panels to produce the full 144 watts 5 hours each day. Nice concept but not necessarily realistic. Figuring each panel costs about $250 to build 108 panels comes to $27000.

Solar panels sometimes function 20 years or longer. Commercial panels often carry a 10 year guarantee. Assuming 10 years with $27000 initial cost would come to $225/month just for the panels. Every year beyond that would be bonus bucks. Then again we need to add costs for array structure(s) to mount panels, battery bank(s) that probably won’t last 10 years, charge controller(s), power inverter(s) and various and sundry wires and connectors, not to mention efficiency losses. Then there is personal time and effort researching, designing, building and organizing everything. Yep, it all adds up.

Economics may not be the reason for building a solar electric system but there are a couple good reasons that encourage me to keep building. Aside from temporary outages due to storms, floods, earthquakes and other natural causes let us not discount the possibilities of terrorist actions, governmental intrusion or even total economic collapse. No, I’m not predicting anything but don’t discount the possibilities. In all of these circumstances I prefer to have a source of electricity that requires no commercially produced fuel. Gasoline, diesel, LP and natural gas could be too expensive or difficult (perhaps even impossible) to obtain.

Because sitting in the dark wishing I had prepared sounds highly undesirable, the next phase begins.



Whew! It felt good to get that off my chest. So I conclude this short rant with a quote from the first hour of the “Rush Limbaugh Show” 8-5-2009:

“A community organizer cannot complain when communities organize.”

That pretty much says it.

The heart surgeon explained it is called “Positional Vertigo” which could correct itself, need therapy or may be permanent no matter what I did. Lucky me, it corrected itself a few months later. Then it came back perhaps a year after that.

“Positional Vertigo” was punched into a google search and after looking over a number of links I found http://tinyurl.com/nxj2sh which seemed almost too simple. But hey, it didn’t look as though anything explained could possibly be dangerous. So I tried it. Yes, it worked for me. It is now a year and a half or there abouts later and a couple days ago it started happening again. This morning I revisited the video and did it all over again. Same result, problem solved. Will it or has it worked for others? You got me, I simply do not know.

Now the disclaimer(s): a highly qualified physician diagnosed my condition, I did not diagnose it using online searches. Please consult your physician and arrive at the correct course for yourself with your physician’s advice and recommendations.

Yesterday, (Saturday July 11) the afternoon was spent in a canoe with my brother. When we left to find the lake it was sunny and felt generally pretty nice until we got moving at highway speeds. Then it was time to roll windows up most of the way. We took light windbreakers with us in the canoe but really didn’t need them by that time of afternoon. Weather data for yesterday was never checked but I’ll venture a guess it was in the low eighties. Sun was plentiful and my face and nearly bald topside will probably be peeling in a few days, thanks Lasix (aka Furosemide).

Today, (Sunday July 12) was devoted to recovering from visiting my brother. Yeah, we’re guilty of consuming a few more beers than normal along with burning both ends of the candle as well. But I managed to get out for a late afternoon motorcycle ride. By the time I had three miles behind me I was kind of wishing for a windbreaker and thought to myself the air has a feel of impending fall to it. Yep, this is really much to early for that sensation. Another ride this evening felt the same except I donned my Cordura riding jacket which made it more comfortable.

This brings me to the “political” part of this rant. When I lived in the Minneapolis area I listened to Joe Soucheray, an afternoon talk show personality. He hosted a program which came to be referred to as “Garage Logic” (a google search should produce bunches of results). One point frequently observed about all types of political stuff is that we are often expected to believe what we are told by legislators and others rather than what we see. I’m sincerely believing the “Global Warming” issue has come to that. Think I’ll opt for believing my observations versus believing what the Washington crowd expects me to believe.

The button in the scroll bar (gotta be a tech name for it) is usually tiny meaning you will regret not taking that speed reading course. Along the way there will be claims, testimonials and promises no end and with luck it will take less time than reading the ebook being hyped if you buy it. And if you don’t buy you may have a page appear offering an even better price. Why not offer the better price in the first place? To me that better price offer is an indication the seller really isn’t making that $27,213.64/day and desperately needs this sale and many others just to pay the Google pay per click expenses. Maybe I’m just odd but that “let me make you a better deal” page will most likely remove all chance of me buying only because of the pop up (call it a browser page, call it a window, whatever, it’s a pop up) even though the pop up blocker is enabled. It tees me off and chances of a sale go right out the window.

So the big burning question for me is: how many of these supposed big money, auto pilot programs ever make anyone real money? I mean seriously, do they? Nope, I ain’t doing the research, I’m into ranting about things not doing fact checking. My own experiences tell me chances are good that 99.9875994% (that’s an arbitrary number)of these programs will be of little financial benefit for you regardless of testimonial claims or how closely you follow the step by step instructions.

Who is willing to hand over their program for me to set up and follow for 90 days to prove it will work? Honest, I’ll pay for it in 90 days if it’s working. If not I won’t pay for it and you don’t have to worry, if it ain’t working I ain’t gonna keep using it. I know, since you don’t know me and have no reason to trust me you want me to pay first and then ask for my money back if not satisfied. Well hey, I don’t know you and have no reason to trust you or believe you will return my money if I’m not satisfied. Sounds like a Mexican standoff (no ethnic offense intended). So who will step up to the plate?