Tired but Felt Like Typing

Hey there crew...

The day started off with a medical call for a guy who had a piece of piping fall and puncture his arm. Ouch! Luckily he toughed it out and was one of our better patients. It's always nice to get patients who know how to control themselves even when they're truly wounded or sick. My hat is off to these kinds of people. They actually make it so we can concentrate on getting the job done more efficiently and faster. I'm not saying I don't like other types of patients (well, minus the one's who should just pick themselves up and take care of the minor issue they're dealing with rather than waste an emergency vehicle). There are just people who handle themselves better when things happen.

So...time is coming for me to move to a new station. It is exciting, but change is NOT my deal. I'm one of those types that likes to get into a nice rhythm and just ride it out like that. Yes, some change here and there is fun and cool, but major changes like the one that is coming stress me out. I'm not sure why. It also seems that the older I get, the less I like change. I guess that is just another sign of aging, but it's just strange how I used to "do things" and never thought much about it. Now, I pause, ponder, worry, think, drag out, and generally try my best not to deal with things. What the heck??

On the other side, if I find something of interest, I dive in so deeply that I tend to lose track of other things around me. My current "obsession" is solar power . I love the idea of it. The technology is decent, but quite inefficient at this time. Panels are only about 15-18% efficient at transferring the power of the sun. You lose more going through the wires and systems. If you're going "off-grid", you get into batteries. What a jumble of information there is in that. Those too are inefficient. You send the "juice" into the battery, fighting the resistance and other chemical bonds, then just when you think you're good to go, the battery "sulfates" on you and it's life is cut short. My new way of thinking about batteries is that they are like friends. You need to nurture them or they'll leave you. A fully charged (appropriately) battery is a happy battery. Do NOT leave them to sit and discharge. If you let a battery get past it's 50% level, you have now just decreased the life and output of the battery forever. Of course I have to point out that these are the "deep cycle" types of batteries (AGM, marine, gel). I've found so much information about each piece of the solar puzzle that I'm still a bit overwhelmed. It's exciting for sure but it is not something you just say one day, "I'm going to be a solar expert" and never put in some time studying and playing with all the pieces.

Time to get moving on my other projects for the day. My mind is tired but always wanting to get things done. I hope everyone is having a great start to your weekend! Keep it real and always shoot for your dreams. The good stuff is always worth the extra effort.