StrandedonEarth

Gripe # 1 : Last spring, I realized I had made a mistake while attempting to winterize our RV the previous fall. As in, where did all this water come from, pooled underneath the... hot water heater compartment?!? Oh for........ !!! Needless to say, the tank had frozen and split. Given that a replacement unit (widely available) cost around $1K, we did without since we didn't camp much last year. But this year, since we just refinanced our abode to do a kitchen reno, I figured we could replace the water heater. But 'lo and behold, everywhere I look online is out of stock, with no idea when it'll be available. Even the used RV part stockpile on Craigslist that I was meaning to check out has vanished. So yeah. Maybe I'll check out one of those portable camping on-demand propane water heaters. A lot cheaper too.... And hey, at least now I have new, fully and independently solar-charged batteries in the thing. Now I just need to sanitize the water tank and a bit more tinkering then we're good to go camp off-grid... with the bears Gripes # 2, 3, 4, etc: Did I mention the kitchen reno? Yaaaaa.... Up until now, things were going well, considering all we were doing was ordering stuff and signing stuff and paying for stuff. But now that we actually want our stuff, well.... Isn't it an unwritten rule that no reno can go smoothly? Our new fridge was supposed to be delivered today, but we never heard any confirmation on that. Following up today with the appliance store, we find out that they've suffered a cyberattack and all their systems are suspended until further notice while they try to bring the systems back up. So, stuck waiting for them. Ah well, good thing we're not in a real hurry or anything. So, my wife starts talking to our kitchen designer about it. It seems there are some delays getting stuff from suppliers, surprise, surprise. Oh, and by the way, she just got "let go" from the cabinet place today effective yesterday, which was a stat holiday. So we're not really her problem anymore anyways, but she'll do what she can to see that it gets done. :facepalm: Nonetheless, talking to the cabinet shop was reassuring; our kitchen was already being built, and our tentative (never really finalized) install date was only slipping by two weeks. My wife, bless her, has this trait where she can't rest (or let me rest) if she thinks something needs to be done. This is generally a good thing, since stuff gets done in a timely fashion, although it can be annoying sometimes (good thing she doesn't read these forums). Sometimes it bites her in the SAS, since she couldn't wait to get the upper cabinets down so she could start painting. So those came down yesterday, she bought paint today, and... Oops, waiting for stuff.... At least we have the pile of vinyl flooring sitting in a corner, waiting for me to put it down after I tear up this cheap faux hardwood stuff And the real work hasn't even begun yet...

Nah, that should make it green and looking like a giant Kerbal catching the booster Call it “The Jeb Tower,” or simply, “Jeb”

Over the past few months I’ve slowly gathered what I need to take our travel trailer off-grid. Since we always glamped, we didn’t worry about the mismatched batteries that were in it when we bought it, but I knew they lost most of their charge fairly quickly when sitting in our unpowered storage slot. So the first order of business was to buy a solar panel to keep batteries topped up, period. I lucked out and was able to find a dmg/return item on Amazon, a 100W panel with 20A MPPT charge controller for less than half price of the new item. While I wasn’t really looking to buy at the time, I had to scoop that. It arrived with mint condition inner packaging, slight damage to the outer box. One piece of the puzzle down. Then I found some 6v GC2 batteries on sale at Crappy Canadian Tire, while at the same time having a just-received insurance rebate cheque in hand, for an amount that would just cover the batteries. Ka-Ching! Finally, once our cash flow improved, I was able to order all the other little odds and ends to put it all together, and those Nautilus batteries are now sucking back half an amp on this rainy day after feasting on four amps the other sunny evening when I first hooked up the PV in a sub-optimal position. Soon it’ll be fully charged for the first time. I know I won’t get a full charge in one day with only 100W, but it’s a start and I can add another 100W to that controller. In other news, our credit card is melting after buying the flooring and other stuff for our about-to-be-renovated kitchen. Immediately paid off, of course.

Well, I suppose if nothing else it means that they shouldn't have to completely refill it. Just a splash in the tanks (Half full? Quarter?) and away you go.

That’s Crazy Eddie talk.

New solar array locked and loaded! They need to make those rollable PV arrays into awnings for RVs... I’d buy one! (Assuming the cost is reasonable....)

Yeah, sorry...

About the only thing opposing politicians can agree on is agreeing to disagree

For when you just need room for four more kerbals stuck into a stack somewhere. An integral part of my 23-seat Space Camp Bus

Last week I noticed Shaw (cable) trucks working around the 'hood. Then Saturday, apparently they started pushing updates, judging by the messages interrupting the TV (as reported by my wife; I was at work). Even before that, my wife was complaining about the 'net being off and on and off again all day, as I noticed when I left for work at omghundred . Nothing I did when I got home fixed it. Sunday, same BS. If I reset the Bluecurve router/modem supplied by Shaw, it works for a few minutes, then cuts out. Then the teenager reports something weird: the internet is working through the third-party wifi extender that he insists on using although I think it's useless. But yet connecting directly to the router, the network says there's no internet connection. Huh wha? So, eliminate the variables. reset the router again, and while that's rebooting, unplug the extender and hide it. Poof! Wifi has been working just fine here now ever since, nice and fast. And no, I don't care to experiment with it to find out if I can make them play nice.

This morning while driving west on my way to work I saw the most brilliant fireball I have ever seen, heading north across my path, This one was a bright white with a blue-ish tinge, travelling fairly slowly. I'd say the its trail was about as long as my forearm (if I held my arm out and bent my elbow 90o so my forearm is in front of my eyes; not including the hand), and it took 2-3 seconds to burn out. It was so slow I thought it may have been space junk, but I didn't see it break up, but who knows... And of course, it was on a the extremely rare day that I take the truck to work, which doesn't have a dashcam, so I wasn't able to capture it. My regular commutermobile has a cheap dashcam, but the night performance is poor. The one previous fireball I did catch with it was just a moving dot instead of the bright green streak I saw, But this time it was in the pre-dawn light, and was so bright I'm sure it would have shown up much better (probably wishful thinking, I know...). But it wouldn't have mattered. It was a perfect Catch-22. The only reason I took the truck was to try and fill the cavern that lurks under the fuel fill port, since I had a fuel discount reward lined up (oooooh, aaaaa, 7 cents a liter for up to 100 liters. In a 125L tank with the Bingo light on. At 135.9c/L after the discount) and then go to Costco (gas there wasn't as cheap! didn't have enough gas to get there after work anyways). So, that stop to gas the truck made me run a few minutes later, while I wouldn't have had to gas up the car this morning. If I was running a few minutes earlier by not stopping for gas, I would have been where the highway tucks up against a mountainside and I wouldn't have seen it at all! Sometimes I wonder if I need to join Parentheses Anonymous...

Needs a lightning bolt for ignition?

“Running out of Toes,” more like ran out of luck. Live and learn...

“ Nope, this electron is dirty, it came from that coal plant, it can go charge a Leaf... Oooh, this one’s breezy, and that one’s shiny.... Oh hey, a wet one! Now what do I do with this green glowey one?”

The Pork is strong with this one... Oh geez, that just brings up more.... SLS: “The Pork is strong in my family. My predecessor had it, my ULA cousins had it....

And a very high-fidelity version of the Trajectories mod

If all they had to work with was CO2, then yes, but if you want LOX, no need to I was thinking more along the lines of as long as they’re separating the 20% oxygen, they could separate the 400ppm of CO2 too, and stockpile it for future use or storage/sequestration

Hmm, but as long as they're separating the oxygen, it can't be that much harder to stash the CO2 for future use while they're at it, can it?

It does seem wasteful, but if all the landings are in one place, such as the speculative Shackleton ISRU base, then hopefully it wont be too difficult to arrange to have specific disposal zones crasher stages and drop tanks for future lunar colonists to recover and recycle whatever they can. Future career option for Lunatics: cratercomber! Sorry, no wrecked Star Destroyers to salvage (yet ).

C6 (ok, C6-5) was one of my favourite rocket engines... for losing rockets.... Seriously though, I’m surprised I haven’t heard of these guys. Nice to see a Canadian entry in the smallsat launcher race. Hope they make it.