2024 Blackout
Tags:Cats
We had a heck of a storm pop up out of nowhere and it generated a tornado that really kicked in my city’s teeth. At last count, the city says there’s been at over 400 power poles take down and about 80,000 people lost power, myself included. This was the first time that this had happened since we bought a generator with the money that Trump sent out during the covid lockdown. It’s a “dual fuel” generator and can take either gasoline (without ethanol!) or propane. The ethanol free stuff is getting harder and harder to find and I had three tanks of propane ready for the job, and what a job it did! I was very happy with how easy the setup was and how quickly it all came together, thought I opted to just carry it out instead of installing the wheel kit we had somewhere in the garage. I ran it for most of the day Friday, let it rest over night (because only bad neighbors run their generators at night), then ran it for another 6 or 7 hours Saturday. All and all I think I used about 2/3 of a single tank, which bodes well for future situations where I need to power a deep freezer, fridge, a single LED room light, and a whole charging setup for my phone as a hotspot, my laptop, and my kindle.
I got lucky this time because the tornado didn’t hit my house directly and the wind we did get didn’t bring down any of the pine trees that I’ve been worried about and plan on taking down once I have another day job. It was also in the 60’s after the sun went down, so I didn’t have to sleep through a stifling situation like the last time we went through a prolonged power outage.
I did some deck destruction and pressure washing
Tags:Architecture
No pictures of the final products because I’m lazy, but here’s what I was up to over the last couple weeks. I did the demo on the deck and washed the entire exterior of the house. I’ll put down the new boards for the deck when I have a job again or hit the lottery!
The world’s largest direct carbon capture plant just went online
Tags:Climate Change, Science!, Technology
“CAPES: RISING TIDES” Review
Tags:Awesome Things, book covers, Book Reviews, Books
This is the first in a new series set in the same universe as the “Wearing The Cape” series that I blew through all ten of in about a month. Luckily for my wallet, they’re all on Kindle Unlimited, so there’s an amazingly cheap barrier to entry to this story. There’s no real need to read the other books in the series to enjoy this one, but they’re so good I’d still recommend reading them either before or after this one. The author Marion Harmon has mentioned that his goal was to write a story that didn’t have the usual tropes of superheroes with dead parents or girlfriends being the sole motivators and for the most part he’s accomplished that goal, there’s a fair bit of damsel in distress parts in the final chapter or two, but they work out well enough that it’s less of a crutch and more of a story element that works out.
The main character here, eyerollingly named Killjoy, has the same basic power set as the jumpers from the Jumper movie and book series and Harmon explores the different types of Jumpers in this universe and how Killjoy’s specific implementation of the power set is augmented by some in-universe familiar character types that all make sense.
If you’re a fan of superhero stories, this is good one to read, and if you want to read something from the best writers in the genre, this is where you should start. Or with “Wearing The Cape”, both are fantastic first entries.
Roger Corman Dies: ‘The Little Shop Of Horrors’ Director & Independent Filmmaker Was 98
Tags:RIP
Space Tags:rip
Roger Corman, the independent filmmaker known as the “King of the Bs,” has died at the age of 98.
