For my northern California friends…
With wildfire season warming up, here’s a tip… Rather than spend big bucks on air filters that will take up lots of space in your closet most of the year, get MERV 13 or better air filters for your furnace. Putting those filters on a fan also works very well. 2 years running we spent $20 on furnace filters instead of $300+ for dedicated filters and they kept our home feeling like a refuge from the wildfire smoke. I’ve written more tips over the past few years on my blog.
Your local hardware store likely has filters for you. Last year, a neighbor here on Nextdoor suggested I get furnace filters from filterbuy.com and they worked out very well :-)
If you own an electric hybrid car, consider getting a $40 400 watt inverter and extension cords so you can power devices in your house with your car in case of blackout. You can plug into your cigarette lighter and get about 180 watts. Or find the 12v battery terminals and get a lot more. Investing in a $40 inverter probably won’t power your house’s fridge but could help a lot! And it’s a good, easy, productive, first step, that will get you thinking about what you -need- to power in a blackout. Especially seeing as a home generator costs $2-10k+.
Here’s a video of someone who is running their whole house from a Prius, an inverter and transfer switch. Think of a Prius as a 1000 watt generator.
– $1,000 transfer switch, professionally installed
– $300 1000 watt sine wave inverter
– $200 power cabling
– Prius
Wonder and joy!
(this montage is from way back in 2018)
Cistus Victor Reiter in our backyard. Picked out by Abigail at Annie’s Annuals. :-)
ISO good music for our 6-year-old. Recently our family has been loving Jim Gill on Spotify. In the recent past we’ve loved Tom Chapin, Laurie Berkner, the A Year With Frog and Toad soundtrack, and the indomitable Raffi.
In the past 2 days, I’ve gotten some 40 spam calls and 10 spam texts about getting medical care. I’m thankful that my phone is filtering most of it out but… yow, is this going to be the new normal?
I visited The Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz last weekend, some 35 years after my first visit! Instead of my parents taking me, I took my wife and daughter. It was both hugely nostalgic and and a lot of fun! Our guide, Chris was awesome!
The hat smells of… I can think of no better description: hot asphalt. I wrote to the company who responded “Yes, there will be a slight oily smell and feel to the hat. This will fade over time with exposure to sunlight and the elements of nature.” It is horrible, like wearing a tiny bit of a skunk on your head. I’ll stop noticing the smell for a while and then turn my head and think, “What the hell, why do I smell asphalt?!”
Every time I touch the hat, my hands get oily. It’s like the “oil” in “oilskin” was cheap lubricating oil.
Well, after a month… 1 week of full-time wear, 1 week sitting outside in the sun and rain, 2 weeks sitting out, it still smells of asphalt and makes my hands oily.
Don’t buy this hat.
Just leaving this here for the 35 AH AGM lead-acid battery I use for my CPAP.
AGM Charge State
12.9 100%
12.3 75%
11.7 25%
10.5 0%
————————————————–
And here is the charging info for a flooded lead-acid battery
Charger voltage
Bulk 14.4v
Absorb 13.6v
Float 13.2v
Flooded lead-acid battery charge state
12.6-12.7 full
12.1 half
11.6 20%
10.5 flat
