Far too long since last update.

Written by Daniel A. Bergamini

Sunday, 25 June 2006

*Warning - Long post.* Oh boy it’s been a long time since a serious update, October it appears. We’ve been very busy, extremely busy. The job has been very good, lots of stuff going on as usual. Life is a lot more laid back up here and that takes… …some getting used to. I’m slowly learning it doesn’t make much sense to try and rush or hurry. I still pass in passing zones but that’s just because I can’t stand being behind someone who can’t make it up a hill and maintain anything near the speed limit. Living off-grid has been challenging, but comfortable. We never sized the system for full-time living, we designed it to charge all week long off solar, and drain the batteries over a weekend. Based on our experience, it would have worked fantastic doing that. I killed the old gasoline powered generator Elaina’s parents gave us before moving out of Rhode Island. It appears it started using oil, who knew? I guess you’re supposed to check it more frequently, but I got lazy after the first bunch of times checking it and it never used oil between changes. We bought a Generac Guardian 12kw auto-start “standby” class LP generator. It has been running every few days, more when it’s rainy, less when it’s sunny. It’s really not designed for the frequency of use, but hopefully that will change soon. We bought a 130’ Rohn/Radian 25G tower off eBay this week, we’ll probably "only" go up about 100’ if my nerves can handle it. The plan is to put a 900 watt Aeromag Lakota (pics) turbine up on it, with any luck we will have enough wind to keep it spinning. We’re hoping to have her flying this summer. My Uncle Jack was supposed to come over last weekend, but had a scheduling conflict. This worked out pretty well actually because my dad was throwing a party for my Uncle Vic and we were going to miss it. Everything worked out in the end, we got the excavation done on my birthday, and it turned out fantastic. Tele Atlas is turning out to be a great place to work. Things have been a little tight recently, so Elaina picked up a part time gig over at Dartmouth Hitchcock hospital. There has been a pretty steady stream of bonuses since I started, which helps a lot. We had some unusually high expenses the first half of this year, vet bills, car repairs (Subaru turned 60k), we payed taxes because we sold so much stock last year instead of getting the expected refund. The Suburban was making us nervous, so we sold it and bought a used 2000 Dodge Dakota Quad Cab off Brian. It’s a great truck and should last us quite some time. We were able to swap the tires we bought for the Suburban on there which really helped stabilize the truck on the dirt roads. Speaking of Brian, he's doing well with his campground. It's called Camperama Campground and it's over in Townshend, VT. So if you're planing on camping in that area give him a call and tell him we sent you. We put the Somerville 3 family on the market, it was just time. Pam and Kyle are moving out in September, which we hope makes it more marketable. Our real estate agent, Mike Cohen at Century21 is amazing. It’s not sold yet, but he’s putting in enough effort to get it done.

Last Updated ( Sunday, 25 June 2006 )