New generator news to follow:

The Generac Eco Gen 15 KW generator is completely connected now. It took a month, and I was working almost 24/7. I sat and watched it sit there, laughing at me. It's so nice to have it finally hooked up and properly programed.

So now our new Eco Gen will turn on if the battery bank gets low, if a big load is applied or if the state of charge (SOC) falls below 60%. This should make it easier to travel and live a nice life that's more free of worry. I did it all myself. Insert proper pat on the back now.

I just cancelled a meeting that would have involved a lot of people that treat me like an equal and as if they like me. That's not a common occurrence in my home warehouse. My customers needed me due to a big storm storm. And the weather was shitty for a 250 mile drive. I've learned that putting ones self at risk for a meeting is really a bad way to approach life. Mostly I miss getting to hang with my friends. I don't have many close friends, and I find this group particularly wonderful. They recognize that I'm not the "norm" and love me anyway.

I dislike being torn, I'm quite certain they'll forgive me.

I'm hoping the over time slows down soon. I'd love to just chill. Retirement is less than 5 years off and there's a lot to do so it's hard to turn down the opportunity for extra funds but I want to make sure I don't ignore my family in the process.

Balancing acts. It's all balancing acts.

Signs

I have never been in a relationship that I just didn't know the person I was involved with. My mind is reeling right now. I keep asking myself what the signs were that I could have seen. Why would a person I loved just go off the deep end so completely. What will I do different in the future? What could I have done differently? How can I be sure my next friend or lover isn't completely nuts? I guess there is no way to screen out the secretly seething angry person. No way to back away slowly when somebody doesn't show you their true self. It truly does break my heart to look back knowing I gave them a good chunk of it. What can ya do? Just get busy living I guess. Moving on. 

Losing a friend.

This past weekend, I lost a friend.  Not to death but distrust.  He's been going through a lot lately.  He's hurting and angry.  He turned his anger on me.  I didn't do anything wrong.  When he showed his anger, I tried to assuage it with the truth of the situation as I saw it.  I apologized for hurting him unintentionally.  I begged him to believe and understand me.  I threw myself at his feet.  I drove 3 and a half hours to go see him and try to make things right.  On the trip, I broke my new car.  I took my only free day to see him. 

What I received in return was more anger.  He screamed an inch from my face.  He grabbed me by the shoulders and threw me out of his way.  He threatened to take me to the police or to file a complaint.  I begged him to give me five minutes, but he told me that he didn't owe me five minutes.  The whole confrontation took minutes.  At the end, I said, you're on your own.

As I process this situation, I have to recognize that I didn't know this man as I thought I did.  I didn't know that he could be so closed off.  I didn't know that loving him didn't entitle me to five minutes of his time.  He said before, "Come by ANYTIME" but it was a lie, just like everything else.  He wanted complete control of the situation.  He refused to share any of the responsibility. I would be shocked if I ever heard from him again, since he is so right.

When I am with somebody, as friends or lovers, I have a responsibility to them.  To love them, and to hear them, but I should get the same in return.  I get to make mistakes.  EVEN IF I DON'T PERCEIVE THAT I MADE A MISTAKE.  I should get to fumble through life and figure things out.  Ask for forgiveness and understand what I did wrong. 

And I am OVER people who are unwilling to admit when they are wrong.  I am OVER IT.  What is it with people who are so damn pig headed that they can't apologize or communicate.  TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT.  I would LOVE to be a mind reader, but I'm not.  I never promised NOT to love people.  I never promised not to communicate with people. As a complete aside,  I never promised not to love SEX with the people I love.

Solar System

I think I might finally be getting a handle on the battery bank saga.

Our original bank boiled dry after 2.5 years and I figured that the answer would be to essentially double the battery capacity. It's really kinda funny how wrong that can be. :D

Our new battery bank is huge and fancy and less than 2 years old. And going down hill fast.

It's supposed to last at least 7 years. SO I know, from past experience, that it must be the loose nut putting it together that's causing the problem. I ordered the original system from wholesalesolar.com and they bailed on me when I was trying to figure out what I'd done wrong the first time. I discovered that one does not run an equalization charge on maintaince free batteries, and you have to reset the defaults on your system to avoid that.

Lesson learned.

Bank 2 was bought from a solar "guru" in Durango. He was helpful and good to deal with. Unfortunately, I didn't know the right questions to ask so as to garner the right answers.

I was researching today and stumbled upon the user forums at Northern Arizona Wind and Sun. I enrolled and listed out the difficulties I was having. As of this evening I think I have a workable solution and a means to bring it about. It appears that I have oversized the battery bank for the given generation from solar panels that I have. The answer is to add 3 panels and upgrade the charge controller to handle the loads. In the interim I'll run the generator in the mornings and let the bank run absorb charge most of the day. That should bring it back up quite a bit. Also I now have a better plan and understanding for how much absorption time to run. along with a decent equalization schedule.

It's quite nice chatting with folks who just want to help. Now I just have to have someone hit a pole on  a Sunday so I can afford the upgrades.......

Day one.

Today has been a quite pleasant day. We chilled out, internetted in bed for a bit, prepped the house for company that's coming in late tomorrow, I even installed a timer on our well pump to help preserve our batteries through the really cold months. Today started out filled with snow and cold, moved into some lovely sunshine and now there are soft clouds drifting across the mountains just to the west. I have to work tomorrow but it should be pretty calm, Crys* is off till Monday. The deck has dried off nicely on the south side, but the north side is still frozen and chilly looking. We've been sipping some nice fancy booze today. Started out with some of the Pyrat Cask 1623 that Crys* gave me for Christmas and followed that with some Stranahan's Mt. Bierstadt Snowflake limited edition whiskey. We'll finish with a sipper of some Hyland Park 18 year in front of the TV tonight.

It's a rough life, but we try to manage.

So we bit the bullet and got a new car. It's my first new car in 20 years and Crys' first new car ever. :D It's a Nissan Versa. It's about the least expensive new car you can get but we wanted a new one since retirement isn't that far off and we'd like to do a bit of traveling. We got it at Economy Nissan in Durango. They were straight forward to deal with and never tried to game us.

So now we have a new car. It's odd after so many years of driving old junkers. :D We'll put the 1988 Honda wagon on the block and keep driving the 1990 Honda. The '90 is in really good shape and is pretty darned reliable, plus it gets about 40 MPG (like the new car) so it makes no sense to part with that fine auto.

This spring we've planned a nice long trip up through Canada to Maine, then down through Maryland and back through Oklahoma to see our wide spread family.

But for now we're just celebrating.

Bonus day

Today was supposed to be a work day. A nice fat double time work day. I was headed up the 75 mile drive to Salida, CO to build powerlines at 6 AM. At 6:30 the foreman from up there, Clint, called to let me know that because of the snow we couldn't work on the highway due to CDOT restrictions on the job.

My response was, "Oh? I have to turn around, get 2 hours of double-time for nothing and go crawl back into bed with a hottie?" His reply was that he was feeling the same thing :D. We spent 10 hours beating poles into the colichi the day before. That's spelled wrong but it's what we call the combo of dirt and big donies (rocks) you gotta backhoe through to set poles. I'm sure some of my co-workers are all bummed about it. Why am I not?

I'm 54 years old and I've been doing powerline work since I was 18. I've been through a goodly bit of difficulties in my life and when the world grants me a "bonus day" like today? I smile, thank my goodness, and enjoy it for all it's worth. At this age? I feel good, my mind works as well as it ever did, and I'm settled into a happy home with a delightful partner and even pets that bring me joy. As they say, no one ever wished they'd worked more when on their death-bed. I'm (hopefully) no where near my death bed for some time to come, so this is the time to enjoy the life and love I've got.

We've spent the day decorating for the holiday, attempting to make ice cream in a new appliance (dubious success) and chilling out at home. At the moment we're sampling a sugar maple porter beer that we made not long ago. The wood stove is going merrily, we even have a couple windows open just a bit to keep it temperate. The big outside winter projects are done, family is coming for the holiday and life is good.

Hope yours is too.