09:33 – I’m busy building and shipping kits. As of yesterday, our 2013 YTD sales exceeded those for January through November of 2012. We should pass total 2013 sales later this month, leaving us September through December–four of the busiest months of the year–to go. Our original goal was to have 2013 sales double those of 2012, and it looks like that should happen.
13:42 – Here’s an interesting column by AEP about what’s happening in solar. Solar power to trump shale, helped by US military
Regarding the Hyperloop: I’m sure that Musk is too smart to ever build one. He must realize that the federal government will protect us by refusing to let him run it as a private enterprise monopoly:
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130814/DA85CP3O2.html
Consequently, he has only two alternatives going forward:
1. Build one and turn it over to the government transportation entity, Amtrak (your tax dollars at work), or
2. Build two Hyperloops and then sell one off to Richard Branson to operate as a competitor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Branson
Here’s an interesting column by AEP about what’s happening in solar. Solar power to trump shale, helped by US military
The cost is in the batteries. My son would go through a dozen AA batteries a day when he was in the field in Iraq. Night vision monocular goggle, infrared laser on his M-4, infrared repeaters on his uniform for IFF, field radio, etc … Putting solar panels in the rucksack is a no brainer if they issue rechargeable batteries that work (my experience with small rechargeable batteries is not good).
Here in the deep south where A/C is king, the daytime (noon to 8 pm) usage of power is 2X over the nighttime (midnight to 8 am) usage of power. Solar power is total winner. But my HOA will not let me put up panels on top of my garage.
Actually, the better thing to do is shift power usage from daytime to nighttime. Air Conditioning systems that make ice at nighttime and use that ice for cooling during the day are a natural:
http://www.ice-energy.com/ice-bear-energy-storage-system
You can also store electric heat in bricks at night for heating in cold places:
http://www.steffes.com/off-peak-heating/ets.html
There is no inflation! It is all in your mind. Fed’s Bullard: Inflation low for now, but could be excessive in the future:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100908107
I am thinking about building another office / warehouse on my commercial property. I must admit that I am worried about the commercial interest rates. Right now, the rate would be 7% and my monthly payment would be $2,500 on a 15 year term. If the rate goes to 14%, my payment goes to $3,700/month. If the rate goes to 21%, my payment goes to $5,100/month. Commercial loans have variable terms and follow the national interest rates monthly.
Interest rates are at historic lows, but that will not last. The only direction is up. Even my close friends are upset that their CD’s pay them virtually nothing compared to the Carter era. The pressure is mounting for increases.
I worked for a place in downtown Boston that participated in a chilled water project that generated ice during the night and used that to provide chilled water to several adjacent buildings 24/7. Utter financial failure. Our building housed all the equipment. Seems like a no-brainer, but businesses would rather depreciate their own cooling towers than pay for chilled water. I was not close enough to the project financial numbers to learn why, but tax depreciation benefits probably figured in.
“…Here in the deep south…”
Nomenclature. Now I admit we’re a little foggy up here in Nova Anglia, but I always thought of the deep south as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. Maybe Louisiana and the Florida panhandle. I considered the whole state of Texas to be “out West” and I’d been there for weeks and months at a time in east Texas (San Antonio area) back in the early ’70’s. Everybody wore cowboy boots and hats and they served fried rabbit in the chow halls on the bases. And chicken-fried steak, which sucked; overcooked frisbees with a creamy gravy on it, usually too salty. Don’t feel bad; they can’t cook burgers or steaks in Quebec, either.
70 here today in the Bay, alternating hours of sunshine and blue skies with hours of torrential downpours. Picked a bunch of tomatoes and cucumbers. Made chicken salad and a ham-and-potato casserole with onions and cheeses. Finished first half of Season Five of “Breaking Bad” so I can get more ideas for a home biz, since the morons in this area keep getting busted with their one-pot cooking methods. Watched “The Longest Day” which could have been cut considerably, made in 1962 with all the big stars of that era. Gotta admit: “Saving Private Ryan” was bettuh. Tonight it might be “A Bridge Too Far” or my annual viewing of “Barry Lyndon.” Also reading Stalin biographies; and reminded once again what a close thing it was that the Bolsheviks managed to not only take control of Russia but hang on like they did, in the face of Whites, Cossacks, Poles, and their own people. Also that 3/4 of the Red Army officers were former Tsarist army officers.
Mrs. OFD suffering a bit from the high altitude in Casper, Wyoming this week, i.e. Out West, where they all wear cowboy boots and hats. Next week, the Deep South, in Alabama for ten days straight. And lots of gigs coming up through December, which is unusual, actually the first time ever for this outfit; business is BOOMING. She’s gonna be gone at least two or three weeks out of every month from now on. OFD will have to hold the fort up here by himself, mostly. Scary.
I always thought of the deep south as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.
As a native North Carolinian who lived in Texas for 14 years, I found that Texans are often pretty much alone in considering their state part of the South. It’s certainly ‘southern’ in many ways – I’ll readily concede that point – but I don’t know any Southerner IN Texas from OUTside Texas who considers it ‘the South.’
I’d guess those in other areas of the country would vary widely in their assessment of what’s included in South and Deep South. Even to me, I don’t consider the northern parts of OFD’s 3 states as Deep South – in my mind, Deep South has always equaled South South. YMMV…
Hmm. I consider “South” to be the states that joined the Confederacy.
I considered the whole state of Texas to be “out West” and I’d been there for weeks and months at a time in east Texas (San Antonio area) back in the early ’70′s.
There are two Texas’s, East Texas and West Texas. I-45 from Galveston to Dallas is the split line. The Houston Metropolitan area is in East Texas (even though I am 20 miles west of I-45). Remember, Texas is 773 miles wide!
East Texas is part of the Deep South to me, especially Galveston. You go down to Galveston and life just slows down there by a factor of four or so. West Texas is on their own!
BTW, San Antonio is definitely West Texas.
Watched “The Longest Day” which could have been cut considerably,
Sacrilege! Hang him high!
Found out last year that my wife’s 90 year old uncle was part of Patton’s million man army and was in the Battle of the Bulge. He said it sucked real bad as he was in supply and all of a sudden people were shooting at him. He landed at Omaha beach 30 days after D-Day. None too soon for him.
If you can, I highly advise going to France and seeing Omaha, Utah and Gold beaches. Very sobering. Excellent museums. And a big, really big graveyard.
Google: Gmail users have no expectation of privacy
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57598496/google-gmail-users-have-no-expectation-of-privacy/
Yup. Still gonna use it.
On the subject of southern and western geography, I defer, of course, to the folks who live there now or have lived there. So I guess my AF time at them bases around San Antonio was “out West” after all.
Yup, the whole Bulge/Ardennes campaign really sucked; I recently finished “The Guns At Last Light,” the third in Rick Atkinson’s WWII historical trilogy. Highly recommended. I saw “The Battle of the Bulge” flick when I was still in high school, too, and a more recent movie set in that area and time is “A Midnight Clear,” also recommended.
On the email thing; I’m gradually switching over to a service based in Europe for that; already have internet connections through there, and running Tor in a Linux vm on a Windows 8 host with encryption. Mainly for the exercise and the learning thereof; I expect if the bad guys, i.e., the State and its minions, want to spy on me, they’re either already doing it anyway or will be able to despite my efforts, but I’d at least like to make it harder for the buggers.
“There are two Texas’s, East Texas and West Texas..”
Out in the West Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican girl…….
How I remember the 80th Law of Thermodynamics.
40 years ago the promoters, prognosticators, proponents and propagandists for solar energy programs predicted: “Well,..it is not economically feasible today,…but when crude oil reaches $80 per barrel,……”
I’m waiting………….
Personal note: They subsequently used your tax dollars to build a demonstration solar plant at Dagget, CA many years ago. It was one of mirror reflectors to solar absorption panels to boil water for a conventional steam cycle with a steam turbine driving an electrical generator. It was yours truly who performed the steam cycle thermodynamic analysis prior to the build. Outside of that, I owe all my knowledge to AlGore. lol
OFD: As a native of the Florida panhandle, (a/k/a Lower Alabama) I’ll assure you that we are very much part of the South. South Florida is much more of the North, with a leavening of Cuba and Haiti. And Central Florida (the famed I-4 Corridor) is more or less the State of Disney World together with a truly astounding number of older retirees.
How I remember the 80th Law of Thermodynamics.
40 years ago the promoters, prognosticators, proponents and propagandists for solar energy programs predicted: “Well,..it is not economically feasible today,…but when crude oil reaches $80 per barrel,……”
It has graduated to the 200th Law of Thermodynamics …
@pcb_duffer; Yeah, I was pretty sure that was the case with the Panhandle; never got to visit; only been to Florida twice and once it was Orlando and once with first wife to Sanibel Island. No desire to ever go back again; too damn hot. That goes double for Texas; I served my time there long ago. I’m staying right up here, thankee kindly.
Oh yeah, now I know where they got the story about solar energy feasibility being right around the corner, in the near future.
They grabbed it from the babble of the bible beaters! It’s just a rephrasing of the story of the second coming. Never as soon as tomorrow, but always within the lifetime of the younger generation. Just a little bit longer…….
Well, it looks like retroactive birth control in Egypt. I wish them success.
Which also reminds me, the kidnapping and murder resolution up in Idaho the other day looks like instantaneous capital punishment to me.
Should have been applied to the case of workplace violence three years ago at Ft. Hood.
Bummer, we got a new two foot long gator in the front pond today. We had two adult whistling ducks with four ducklings in there that they have been shepherding around for several weeks now. The adult ducks are now gone and there are three ducklings abandoned on the shoreline. I cannot imagine that the gator ate both of the adult ducks.
If gators eat turtles—which they do—surely ducks are more tasty. Definitely not as tough to eat.
I’m telling ya, the flying car is just around the corner. Just read this:
http://whatsnext.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/09/is-this-finally-our-flying-car/
“they’re closer than ever to giving us a flying car”
“the long-awaited promise of “The Jetsons” may soon become reality”
“scheduled to hit the market in 2015”
Just around the corner I tell ya!
And don’t even get me started on the guys who are running their cars on water for fuel. You just have to be REAL careful about doing that. The government doesn’t want anybody to know about it or use it. People have died mysteriously all over the world, who drove their cars on water. Really. I read it on the Internet. And in car magazines when I was a kid.
Good to see that this scumbag has been killed:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-15/rudd-says-rogue-afghan-soldier-killed/4889014
St Al Gore has sent another sunny day for us down in the antipodes. In celebration I’ll have a glass of my drug of choice: hydrogen hydroxide.
@Lynn: If you’re building something, surely you could get the interest rates of a mortgage? I see fixed rates are running between 4% and 5% in your area. If you cannot get a mortgage as a business, you could always build the building privately and then lease it to your business.
Yeah, inflation is gonna be a bitch when the government can no longer cover it up. All the more reason to get a fixed-rate load if at all possible.
But my HOA will not let me put up panels on top of my garage.
Check the law. The feds have, over time, put into place various preemptions of HOA restrictions. I know that they can’t prohibit you from putting up a satellite TV dish, though they can require it be not visible from the street if possible. There might be such a preemption for solar systems.
If you’re building something, surely you could get the interest rates of a mortgage?
Commercial real estate is riskier than home mortgages and therefore requires higher rates.
@Lynn: If you’re building something, surely you could get the interest rates of a mortgage? I see fixed rates are running between 4% and 5% in your area. If you cannot get a mortgage as a business, you could always build the building privately and then lease it to your business.
I do have a commercial mortgage on my place (9 acres with 9,544 ft2 of three buildings already) on a 15 year term locked to 5.7% for seven years (five more years). Then the rate floats. I own this place privately and lease the 5,344 ft2 office building to my business. I lease the 3,750 ft2 warehouse to a landscaper. And I use the 450 ft2 building as storage.
I have thought about refinancing to a SBA loan with a fixed rate but am not sure that I want to pay the 3% fee.
In celebration I’ll have a glass of my drug of choice: hydrogen hydroxide.
I prefer dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO). It just tastes better when chilled.
Hey, the duck adults showed up late last night so they were not eaten by the gator. And the gator is three feet long. I got a good look at him this morning from about 10 feet away while he was eating a foot long catfish.
No gators here in the Lake; largest animals are the northern pike and the muskie, not counting Champ, the plesiosaur. And lots and lots of ducks, geese, ospreys, gulls, herons, hawks, eagles, etc., etc.
Minor invasion of very small frogs in the back yahd and porch last week.
HOAs have only a little power to stop solar installations in Texas. See:
http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=TX33R
and
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/metro/20130518-flower-mound-mans-fight-over-solar-panels-prompts-review-of-regulations.ece
Of course, getting them POed will have them checking your yard daily for “violations”.
My former HOA stopped one of my neighbors from putting on one of those new solar shingle roofs last year. I personally had no problem with doing this but was not asked as usual.
http://www.dowpowerhouse.com/
I have yet to see a solar panel in any of my HOA neighborhoods. You might install one (or 20) and then fight them in court. If you lose, it is very expensive as they use $400/hr lawyers plus “fine” you. $100K judgements are not that unusual for these kind of tossups.
Lynn, stupid question: but what have the HOAs got against solar cells? Installed on a roof, they really aren’t unsightly. Do they have a real argument, or is this just a case of petty tyrants enjoying their moment of power?