Very seldom do ...
Very seldom do I have the feeling of being overwhelmed but that is the exact feeling I’ve had for the better part of the last month. Right now I am attempting, (for the third time) to get a Dash posted since 9/12/20 which was my third anniversary of blogging on this block chain.
As I’m writing this I’m listening to the replay of the Lyle Lovett & Dwight Yoakam live stream from last Friday night because I was too busy to even listen that night.
I haven’t talked with Lyle since they did that show but I hope it was successful for them. Musicians have really been hit hard with cancellations of events because of COVID so be sure to support your favorite musician if you know they are doing an internet live event.
My anniversary on ...
My anniversary on here did pass like I said on the 12th and I so much wanted to get something posted that day. It has been an eventful three years for me to say the least. There are way too many people to thank individually for the support, friendship and most importantly the encouragement by name for fear of leaving someone out. Ya’ll know who you are though and I’ll play it safe with a blanket “thank you”.
I’ve been running the last month on an average of 5 to 6 hours sleep a night.
Just when I think I’ve caught up I get hit with more drawings. At one point I had over twenty drawings in the backlog and I finally cleared the backlog Sunday night. The last two months have been record months for the drawing side business I started at the end of ’18.
On the home ...
On the home front Daisy has gone back to work at the church and things are starting to get back to normal as far as church stuff goes. She was pretty lucky as the church kept all the employees paid throughout this entire COVID shutdown, even the part time workers like her.
Just before all this COVID stuff hit we had decided to buy some land down in southwest Texas and that had to be put on the back burner until we could see how things were going to pan out.
Around the middle of August we resumed are search and thought we could take a few days off and go down to the Big Bend area to get a feel for the area. It has been 30 years or more since I’ve been down there but the kids have never been there and they want to see it firsthand.
There is a ...
There is a valley between the national park and the state park that isn’t owned by the government and that valley really appeals to me. We like the fact that to the east is over 800,000 acres of national park and to the west is another 250,000 of state park land. Its rugged land and it would be off grid living so it would be a real change from what we are used too.
We hope that we can get a trip scheduled really soon as property doesn’t stay on the market very long down there if it is accessible land. It would have to be a really screaming deal for me to buy sight unseen and even then I would have a hard time pulling the trigger on it without having a general idea of the roads / access to it.
There have been a couple 20 acre tracts side by side that we were interested in but to feel comfortable in the deal we would have needed to buy them both because they were long and narrow tracts that took into the mountains at the east end the property.
Poker has been...
Poker has been non existent for me this last few weeks and I see that the site has been temporarily void of any tournaments for about the same amount of time.
I still haven’t seen my last cash out request come through yet either from there. Hopefully it will get back on track because without it my chances of continuing contests and the Saturday Hive giveaways is pretty much at risk of ending. The majority of my funding for those two things is derived from my poker earnings.
Needless to say...
Needless to say I haven’t had time to research anything of interest to share with ya’ll but I did see that an appeals court ruled that the DOJ / NSA program of spying on US citizens is illegal. Thank you my friend, @ericvancewalton , for sharing that link to the news story when it broke.
There is a good reason that we need whistle blowers who are willing to speak up like Eric Snowden. We have no idea just how badly we are having our rights trampled every day. How ironic is it that Eric Snowden is a “fugitive from justice” of the United States which operates the DOJ & NSA in a illegal manner? Old tRump needs to grant Snowden a “free pass”, let him pass go, collect $200 and have another free spin at life.
I've been under...
I’ve been under a rock for so long I haven’t had time to see what caused the drop in HIVE but the $0.17 US for HIVE wasn’t a pleasant surprise I can tell you that. Now somebody please give the “Cliff Notes” on that situation if you would.
I’ll be damned; while I’ve been writing this I just got two regular drawings in to do. I am going to shut this down and throw it to ya’ll to see that I’m still alive. I shall return again.
Until next time,
Sult
Good to see that you are still kicking. I like the sound of living in a valley in South Texas. It might be a welcome change from what the family is used to. I told my sons when we moved to Central America that it would be an adventure of a lifetime. It certainly has been an adventure and a steep learning curve but if I am honest, I probably wouldn't change the experience...
Hey Ceci great to see you here. For the better part of a dozen years at my last job I would fly over those mountains and valleys a couple times a year heading to southern California on business and would always imagine settling there one day. The thought of getting away from the big cities and the craziness is very appealing. This covid shutdown is just more confirmation that we need to start looking for an exit out of current existence.
Your move to Central America had to be quite the adventure and it is good to know that despite the current situation you wouldn't have changed it up. Take care and be safe, as always you are in our family prayers each day.
Sult
Well, sir. I'm really glad to hear from you! I'm glad it wasn't a hurricane that washed you away!
You know what my old man said: "Busy is good unless you are a fireman or an undertaker."
Your property in the Big Bend sounds great to me. My friend Erv's place (27 acres) backed up against a State Park in Wisconsin. The acreage was cool but you could walk two miles on two track road before you hit pavement. Sam loved it!
Well Tom I'm glad to have been able to scribble out a few words just to let people know I hadn't succumbed to COVID.
We haven't acquired the property yet but we are actively searching again, the wife and girls are leading that search and they send their findings to me to look over. So many of the tracts have been narrow in width and very long which doesn't suit our fancy so to say. More square is to our liking but we'll continue the search.
The kids are anxious to make a trip to the area and Shorty is especially excited about having large parks on either side of the valley. She has been telling me facts about the area that I didn't even know or had known and forgotten.
A place like Erv's sounds ideal too. Correct me if I'm wrong, put you have access to quite a bit of open land around you as well there in Yuma?
Got to run, back to work. Thanks for all the support.
Sult
Arizona is somewhere around 80% public owned :) With a few notable restrictions it is all most all available for public use. About 18% of that is tribal and MAY be restricted.
There is an area up by Flagstaff that has some serious nice private property that borders public land. Munds Peak would be a good place for a snowbird residence...
Good to hear from you my friend. Those extremely busy times can be so taxing, testing, and disorienting. Sometimes, after you get through it all, you wonder how in the world you managed to juggle everything.
Very exciting about the opportunity to buy some land! It sounds like a perfect area. I'm very intrigued by off-the-grid living and think it would offer some great peace of mind to have that option if our society further devolves. The renewable energy tech is now to the point where it's feasible. That area should be the opportune spot for solar and wind energy options.
I think Hive has suffered its recent drop for a few reasons but mainly because of Bitcoin dominance. Alt season is looking like it's been paused. The drop in engagement here is very concerning but that tends to always happen when the earning potential is down.
Hang in there, try to focus on that light at the end of the tunnel!
The solar technology is vastly improved in the last few years and it will become even better very shortly with a new battery design that is going to be announced very shortly. In fact watch for Tesla to make an announcement any day now as they are deep into it, it was recently patented by a group that is out of Portugal and Texas. The man who created the lithium ion battery is a professor at the University of Texas and he is heading up this new battery. Rumored to have 1,000 times the capacity of a similar size lithium ion battery and longer range capabilities in vehicles. That is the reason Telsa has started construction on a new truck plant in south east Austin, Texas. They said it was because of Covid and taxes in California but the truth will come out very soon.
The best thing about this new battery besides the performance and charging (very fast) is that it doesn't contain any high cost materials. The Achilles heel for electric vehicles thus far has been the size and cost of the batteries and unlike the lithium ion battery this battery has no chance of sparking a fire or blowing up. It will be the catalyst to making electric vehicles main stream in my estimation.
I've been studying building with aircrete and dome style homes for several years so we have plans already drawn of how we want to build it. The main concern is water but solar wells are viable and I rep a line of pumps that started back long ago, 1866, and we have these pumps. The company is the one the started the windmill type pumps and some are still in use today. The cost to drill the wells is pretty expensive as the average depth in that area is 3,000 to 3,500 feet. The well could be more expensive than the property if we only buy 10 acres or less.
Have to run now, thanks for all the support and hopefully i can get back to reading your new book soon.
Sult
I'm very excited for Elon's battery announcement. I've heard rumors about it here and there but I never know what's real and what's hype. I remember hearing something about a nano-diamond battery technology, that would greatly increase range. That's all going to be great for Texas (and the world).
The aircrete is an interesting material. I'm considering building something like that on St. Thomas. A dome home seems like it would be much more hurricane-proof than a square structure.
You're welcome! I'm looking forward to hearing more about your off-the-grid project progress!
Take care, man.
Dome homes are very hurricane resistant as they don't catch any wind; it is all deflected around it and over it. Would be an excellent choice for island an island dwelling.
Aircrete is really amazing to and has been in use in Europe for years. We are so behind here in the US when it comes to building technology it isn't even funny. It doesn't transfer heat from outside to inside. I've seen demonstrations with with a blow torch and infrared thermometer that showed the temperature on one side that had been heated to over 400F and the opposite side was 80 degrees, the piece was only 5" thick. Talk about having a wall that is both structurally sound and insulating all in one unit is huge and permanent. California should require houses be built with in those fire areas they have out there.
Take care
Sult
They're intriguing! I could envision a modular design with passageways connecting a few of the domes. I had no idea the Aircrete product was used in Europe but it doesn't surprise me they're that far ahead. We have so many barriers here in the States to new, innovative products like that. I need to look more into it. I wonder how tough it would be to get shipped to the Caribbean? Did you see Tesla's battery announcement yesterday?
Sorry for the late reply, the light at the other end of the tunnel was a freight train loaded with 38 more drawings. I finally finished the last one an hour ago. September was a record month for my extra "income".
The dome home we have drawn up has a main dome (40') for the kitchen, pantry, living room , laundry and half bath. Then there are 6 other 24' domes for the bedrooms and game room. Each "off shoot" dome has its own bathroom but we may scale that back to a shared bath for a couple sets of two domes and one for the master bedroom dome bath and one for the game room dome.
The aircrete is a "mix on site" so I'm sure you wouldn't have any problems no matter where you were building as long as the permitting allows its use. There are prefabricated houses that can be bought and constructed that look like any other house you would see but the domes are pretty much built on site as one monolithic structure for each dome and connector hallways that tie them together.
There are a bunch of folks on YouTube that show the aircrete methods and I've been watching them for a few years now. You can purchase inflatable domes to use as the form work and then reuse it again. So with our plan we need both a 40' & 24' inflatable form. I would use that 40' one to build a shop as well as the main dome home.
I didn't see the Tesla battery announcement but I did see that Telsa's stock didn't react very well to the news as it fell off the next couple of days. From what I did hear I think that Tesla might not being showing all their "cards" right now if you know what I mean. The battery description I heard reported didn't quite match up to the patent that the group I told you about based in Texas. The competition is fierce right now in battery development and a new IPO is in the works for a different company that has contracts with Toyota to supply a new battery design. I can't recall the name of the company for sure but I believe it to be QuantumScape or something very similar to that name.
Got to run. Take care.
Sult
I bet you're glad that's over! Now you can relax. The aircrete process sounds fascinating, I'll have to catch some of those vids on YouTube. It seems like there wouldn't be any impediment to building one on St. Thomas.
Yeah, battery day was a bit of a let down to the general public/shareholders but those who understand the technical side of what they announced seem excited about it. I was hearing about a completely new battery chemistry (non Lithium Ion, something like sodium or nano diamond) but they just announced a different way to build lithium ion batteries to make them more efficient. A 500 mile range EV is still pretty darned good, no matter what. Tesla also has a sub $25k car in the works that will be taking a huge market share away from the other car companies. I'll check out QuantumScape. It's only a matter of time before they get these batteries to the point they'll last weeks.
Take care and try to get some R & R!
Eric