Strolling Amok

Pops goes on tour.

Archive for the tag “Weather”

06 May 2013

Solar Test Coming Up

Originally posted 1/23/2013

Along with unusually warm weather (highs in the upper 70s) for the next couple of days here in Quartzsite AZ, the skies are expected to be pretty well overcast until next Wednesday. Rain may come Friday and again Monday.

That means I won’t be running the desktop computer much, since it’s the heaviest draw on the office battery pack. The CPAP battery won’t care much, because that device pulls so little power anyway. What will be interesting to see (in a nerdy kind of way) is how the house batteries fare. The house batteries, two ordinary ol’ flooded marine-type “deep cycle” hybrids, are the least robust cells in the place, and power interior lights, water pump, and ignitions for the propane refrigerator and the water heater. I’ll be wanting to measure their voltage as time goes on in order to see what their limit for this kind of prolonged cloudy weather is.

The water pump started acting up yesterday, running nonstop as if it were trying to keep up with an open faucet or a bad pipe leak. It started running on its own for no reason, and kept going, so I turned it off at its main switch. I’m glad I was home, since it could take the house batteries down fairly quickly. After awhile, I turned it back on and Read more…

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06 May 2013

This is Winter?

Originally posted 1/10/2013

Having arrived here from the upper Midwest, I can’t exactly whimper about winter here in Quartzsite AZ. But in its own way, it is notable. We’re heading for a short week of nightly lows just below freezing, with highs in the 50s. That’s not particularly good from a camping standpoint. There’s kind of a point of no return on low temperatures. Lows of 40 or more are a non-issue. I light a kerosene lamp overnight to serve as a nightlight and to slightly take the edge off the cold when I awaken. It’s usually 50 or more inside the camper then, and edges upward well after sunrise.

Nightlight? Yes. I’m more at ease with a nightlight, ever since the days when I would travel on business and wake up in the middle of the night in pitch-black darkness, with no clue as to where I was or where the bathroom might be. I found that disconcerting, enough so that I began to pack a nightlight so I could wake up at least having bought a vowel. Because of moonlight here, it  Read more…

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06 May 2013

Mailing Addresses

IMGP3994wtrmkd

Originally posted 12/29/2012

Not that you need to – or should – send me anything, but I’ve added a page (shown just above this) called “Mailing Addresses”. I’m having some more adventures in receiving stuff I’ve ordered from online retailers, and I now know pretty much what shipment methods work with what addresses. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that I intimately know what doesn‘t work. The problem’s core is that Quartzsite doesn’t have street mail delivery, which can even affect UPS shipments. The page isn’t that fascinating, so don’t bother reading it if you aren’t going to be mailing me big checks or gold bars anytime soon. Naturally, I will try to keep that page updated commensurate with where I am located over time.

What prompted that new page? I ordered three items, two of which (so far) have bounced here in Quartzsite. I really hate to buy stuff like this, but when it will cover a need, it’s gotta be done. The first is a specialized  Read more…

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05 May 2013

Weird Rain

My camera is aimed out the driver's side office window. Other than a couple of puddles, a suddenly-clean vehicle and 57% humidity, there's no trace of the rain.

My camera is aimed out the driver’s side office window. Other than a couple of puddles, a suddenly-clean vehicle and 57% humidity, there’s no trace of the rain.

Originally Posted 12/14/2012

A surprise to me, it did rain for hours last night. The ground doesn’t absorb much water at all, so the area where I am was crisscrossed with small rivers of water going every which way. About midnight, I could hear the tap, tap, tap of a water drip and got up to try to trace its destination. I wound up removing a bench seat at the dinette, where the fresh water tank resides, and thankfully found that the tapping was water dripping on the plastic lid of its inlet outside the trailer. Whew!

The weather for the next couple of days is expected to mix between sun and clouds with a chance of rain, so I’ll be monitoring my power usage to make sure the solar panels are able to keep up with things. It was a good thing that I went ahead and added those panel straps, since at one point, the wind speed was commendably high. Wind will remain significant for the rest of today.

Now that the panels are tied down, I can appreciate how unobtrusively they work. A newer camper across the way has a couple of solar panels on the roof of his trailer, but still apparently needs to run a generator each morning as soon as he gets up. Good thing I’m not parked close. The other thing I appreciate about this setup is that, during high wind storms, I’m used to having the power flicker or cut out for a few seconds, wreaking havoc with computers, printers, and other electronic gizmos that don’t do well with the sudden loss. So, I sometimes shut them down as a precaution. No need, here. Except for a near-direct hit at the trailer by lightning, the lack of being on the power grid means constant power no matter what. No precautions needed. I was able to enjoy watching The Grinch Who Stole Christmas with impunity. Impunity, I say!

 

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05 May 2013

Batten the Hatches!

Look! Clouds! Real Clouds!

Look! Clouds! Real Clouds!

Originally posted 12/13/2012

Well, not really, but it will become real weather. It’s supposed to rain around 4PM today, but the main interest for me is the wind. It’s listed as 15MPH now, with 25MPH around 3PM. That’s notable only because the weather sites consistently underrate wind speed here by 10-15MPH. It’s a pretty stout South wind now, which is a direct blow onto the driver’s side of the camper where the solar panels are mounted (at about a 30-degree angle downward), so I’ll be observing their behavior as the day progresses. At least it prompts me to adjust project priorities and come up with a decent strap-down system in a timely way – not so much for here, but for the real winds that come up during Midwest storms.

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05 May 2013

Equipment Mods Completed

Originally posted 12/9/2012

Note to self: One milestone has been reached. All electrical work related to the solar system is done, not needing to be played with any further. I’ve installed heavy 12GA wiring with a big-ass 40A fuse directly from the four-battery office pack to the 300W DC->AC inverter, per Samlex’s instructions, and I can operate just about any combination of gizmos in the office without having to wonder how high connector temperatures are, because there aren’t any. Realistically, I don’t think I’ll actually use more than 200 watts at most, on media projects. My usual usage hovers around 120-145W. I patched over the TV/DVD to the same pack too, since it seems to have such abundant capacity.

What’s abundant? In practice, this lets me (in sunny Arizona anyway) use the office computer all day if I need to, watch a couple of DVDs that evening on the 28″ TV, then put in more computer time until 11PM if I have a project going, which I often do. Then rinse and repeat the next day. The pack will still reach a completed recharge by early or mid-afternoon, day after day. Of course, that’s harder on me than it is on the office pack, so I go for my Official Health Walk, read, fix meals, meditate on what the heck I got myself into, and examine the peeling wallpaper that still needs to be removed, or survey all the crap that still needs to find a permanent hidey-hole somewhere. (I’m still looking for my tiny harmonica that I got in the ’70s. It’s here somewhere. It sounds great. I’ve just never been able to get anything resembling actual music out of it.) Oh dear – now I no longer have an excuse for procrastinating on cleaning this rat’s nest up. Look for photos of the trailer’s interior when I’m in a position to be less embarrassed about it.

Finally, just so you will no longer be jealous, we’re now in the official Cold December mode of weather down Read more…

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04 May 2013

Filth By Any Other Name

Originally posted 11/17/2012

Shortly before I resigned from my labors at what is one of the best-stocked hardware stores around, I went on several shopping sprees in order to modify and repair the travel trailer I planned to reside in. One of those sprees involved selecting a vacuum cleaner. I felt that it would come in handy periodically, whenever the trailer was hooked up to shore power. My past experiences with 12-volt and battery-powered vacs and sweepers have been disappointing, so I wanted a very compact 120-volt AC vac.

In my hurried visits to the Internet, I’d read many complaints about dust when RVing. Considering that I’d be packin’ a record turntable and an iMac with a pretty small cooling air inlet, and considering that the front half of the camper is carpeted (a counter-productive idea if ever there was one, along with velour-like seat fabric), I wanted to be able to at least periodically make a token effort at cleaning the place out. A friend and fellow employee at the store was and is a highly-experienced seasonal camper with a fifth-wheel. I told him about my intended quest against dust with a vac having a  Read more…

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04 May 2013

Morning View

Originally posted 11/13/2012

I imagine the temps are starting to get pretty crispy wherever you are these days. Here in the desert outside Quartzsite AZ, it hit a low of 38 last night. By 5AM, the trailer interior was 50 degrees which isn’t awful, but I fired up the Buddy heater on low to break the chill by the time I got up for the day. Then I went back to sleep.

IMGP3901wtrmkd

When I woke up, the photo above represents exactly what greets my opening eyes most mornings here. Admittedly, my mind often gets too busy with the day’s “to-do” or “how-to” list, and I get up at 5 or 6 when it’s still only starlight out there. The hills to the west of me look featureless and drab just before sunrise, but the sun’s rays then begin to slowly crawl down them at a pace you can actually watch, and they come into their beauty. With a clear sky, sunset seems to occur so quickly that it’s like throwing a switch. The black outline of the hills against the dimly glowing sky is striking, as you may have noticed in an earlier post.

In those few moments (so far) when I’m not distracted by malfunctioning devices or equipment, or what needs to happen and how, the desert seems to transform itself from something to contend with into something that exudes a little peace – if one can tolerate not being busily preoccupied for a moment. It doesn’t calm you if you’re wound too tight. It just kind of stays available for awhile in its current form, if you’re ready to receive it and let it soak in.

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