1978 Ultimate Stealth Hat.

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13th birthday

I’m not sure if I’m sick, or have a pinched nerve, or what, but it feels like my back has a sunburn. I guess it almost has to be a pinched nerve. It’s the worst version of this I’ve ever had though. Maybe because it’s already 75 degrees in here. I don’t know why the room is so fucking hot. Shit, it’s 76 now. What the hell? The heater isn’t even running. Is there a goddamn volcano forming under the house? Even the damn rag I brought in here an hour ago is bone dry. Seriously what the fuck? I guess we’re gonna just go from winter directly to summer now? I’m gonna have to get the fan back in here, but they’re talking snow tomorrow. I swear, this is some bullshit. Is that thunder?! Mother fucker! Is it going to be thundersnow? FUCK THAT.
I just looked. It’s raining up in this shithole. We’re supposed to have record setting winds tomorrow and tonight too. No climate change… Yeah, this is the start of it. Total ruinous weather all the time. Snow, rain, heat, all in the span of 3 days? Need to start living underground where this shit can’t get me. It’s 77 degrees in here now. Is the fucking sun coming to consume us? It’s WINTER! I’m bloody annoyed. The fucking power is going to go out and then I won’t even be able to sleep. I’m gonna find me a damn generator I can run on my own. Or some kind of crazy huge backup battery. I’m sick of being at the mercy of the winds.
I don’t know shit about wiring though… Oh, the first hit has using it for a Cpap right on the features. $130… that’s a lot. Then again it would solve a lot of problems if I just got it. Wouldn’t have to worry about sleeping when the power goes out at least. You can charge it with a solar panel somehow. None of these companies are brands I’m familiar with. These gas powered things are no good if you can’t get to gas. I guess if you kept a supply around that would be okay. There’s always the stuff for the lawn mower. Diesel would be safer, but it freezes. That’s my understanding anyway… I wonder if they make them. I’m sure they do. I’m gonna have to pay my taxes soon. I guess I should wait and see how that goes. Not well, I expect.

26 Comments

I only had one girlfriend who referred to her sweater puppies as ‘The Girls’.

Global Climate Change is all Trump’s fault — the Media said so.

The Media will blame anyone if it gets the ratings they desire.

Maybe my view is-
the reporters have such a bad reputation, because…we can’t count on the reporters, to do good reporting on the reporters? O.o

Well the thing is what few “Reporters” ie those who report information in a clear and coherent way are independents in some way be they bloggers or community papers not owned by one of the big conglomerates.

And that’s how you can’t go back to this town later in the game

Peasants have the memory and attention span of highly caffeinated sugared toddlers when it comes to most happenings. Now do something truly memorable like burn down the INN during a brawl and come crawling out of the ashes at the end would stick in their minds for quite some time – not to mention it would be something a BARD would immortalize in song/

I remember seeing a late night infomercial about an emergency generator. Difference with this one was that it hooked up to your household natural gas line for fuel. No idea of the cost, but probably pretty high. Looked to be a permanent installation, like a smaller version of what hospitals use.

Generac has a whole line of them. Starting from seven kilowatt generators and going all the way to 25, if I remember right. Be prepared to drop literal thousands, though. Even the cheapest Generac is like $1800, and that’s before hiring the electrician that will–and I mean that in dead-ass capital letters WILL–be required to hook the thing up.

Remember, infomercials only tell you one side of the story. Always get a second opinion from your good folks in Internet land.

Then talk to your local fire department who WILL give you all the real dirt on these systems because they have to deal with them when things turn plaid.

The small “solar generators” are nothing but battery packs. Charging them with solar takes forever and you need the panels. You can get a small 900w inverter style gas generator for under $200. For less maintenance and easier operation, you can step up to a propane generator. The 20lb cylinders are easy to find and store for long times (think gas grill). The next step would be nat gas, but your talking $1K’s. I’ve got both the gas generator and battery pack for simple quite operation.

Something never mentions in the media – because vested interests squash it fast – is that small engines can and do run on any type of fuel. You just need a small-engine mechanic who knows their stuff to do the conversion. It is like those buses running on propane or natural gas instead of gasoline – its just a kit with changes to ignition timing and fuel-air mixing ratios plus new injectors. That is it. The thousands more to run on natural gas is a nationwide scam thanks to a monopolistic distribution and marketing system.

If you live somewhere cold, trying to use diesel powered generators can be a problem. In colder climes, gasoline is easier to use but more hazardous to store.

Like most fuels, diesel is a mix of hydrocarbons, and the components have different freezing points. For Number 2 diesel, as the ambient temperatures drop toward 0°C (32 F), it begins to cloud, due to the paraffin in the fuel solidifying. As the temperatures drop below 0°C, the molecules combine into solids, large enough to be stopped by the filter. This is known as the gel point, and generally occurs about -9.5 degrees C (15 degrees F ) below the cloud point.

This wax then forms a coating on the filter which results in a loss of engine power. The same thing happens on starting an engine when the temperature is below freezing. The filter becomes almost instantly coated with wax – usually, enough fuel gets through to allow the engine to idle, but not attain operating RPM. The fuel hasn’t completely frozen, but it’s going to either impair generator function or clog things up such that it doesn’t run at all. There are two common ways to overcome this: one is a diesel additive, the other is a fuel heater.

In Alaska and other colder climates, diesel fueled lorries are running regularly at -46°C (-51 F) or lower, so as you see, it depends on additives and heating. But to freeze – as in turning solid – you would need laboratory conditions; nature cannot go cold enough to freeze to a low enough temperature.
———-
Freezing of Gasoline: Like diesel, (Petrol) Fuels (like gasoline) are really a cocktail of hydrocarbons: thicker, oil-like stuff at room temperature with some thinner ones, and also aromatics that are gaseous at room temperature. The mixture is slanted towards a much higher amount of the lighter, thinner hydrocarbons compared to diesel and stays free-flowing down to much lower temperatures compared to diesel.

So, by freezing, is the question asking when it turns solid? The heavier hydrocarbons will start to solidify sooner than the aromatics but even the heavy ones can remain dissolved into the lighter hydrocarbons that make up the bulk of the fuel.

The flash point of gasoline is about -72°C (-97F), meaning that it will still burn at 72 degrees below zero. Most labs won’t even have the ability to chill a sample down that far to find out! Even the -72°C mark is going to vary, based on the additives in the sample.

Of course, if there is any water mixed in with the fuel, THAT can still freeze at around 0°C, but that may depend on if there are any alcohols mixed with the sample. Methyl alcohol is a common additive you can buy to help keep water in your gas tank from freezing at low temperatures; the methyl alcohol (aka methanol) helps the water dissolve into the oil, somewhat like soaps can help dissolve oils into water.

… of course generators powered by something like propane or natural gas can operate at even LOWER temperatures since they pretty much are already gasses at ambient temperature and pressure; not gonna freeze or thicken at the temperatures we have here on earth.

Another thing to consider – – – we usually size generators to power just the essentials, not the whole house. You pick the things that HAVE to be running and then size appropriately. You may want to keep your fridge running so food doesn’t spoil, some power to run a hot plate to cook stuff, and enough for a lamp or two. Forget trying to get hot water – that’s usually a luxury. Likewise whole-house heating and cooling; in an emergency, you just need a space heater or cooling unit for the room you will be in. In your case you would want to be able to power the CPAP too, but that’s not a very big power draw. As far as “wiring” is concerned, you just need to be able to run a couple of extension cords safely from the generator. If the number of cords exceeds two, you are over doing it.

… and remember not to run a generator indoors (even inside a garage). People do that and die from carbon monoxide poisoning on an all too regular frequency.

You’ve probably seen on the internet where people have hacked ups to car batteries. If you use a AGM battery (absorbed Glass Mat) I think it is, it isn’t supposed to outgas hydrogen when charging-therefore less likely to become an H bomb. Then remove or otherwise disable the little evil beeper/buzzer, and the UPS should run your computer and CPAP for a while if it’s a big enough unit. You would want the battery fully charged when you connected it, so the UPS would typically only be required to provide a maintenance charge. If you can keep game consoles alive, and drawing tablets, this is probably well within your abilities. Just do a little research. Wish you the best, and yeah, this wind is a bitch.

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