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Santa Cruz Blur TRc demo ride

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I’ve been happily riding my old Santa Cruz Superlight since I got it way back in 2001.  I’ve never been too interested in keeping up with all the yearly new bike tech and I get pretty bored with all the bike talk at many ride meetups.  (nerp derp berp)  I just like to ride on da trails!  So I had yet to try tubeless or Propedal or dropper seats or any new geometries and shocks.  I didn’t even get around to disc brakes until like 2010 – and I had to get new hubs and wheels to do it.  However, somehow the most recent batch of talk about new bikes among friends and other riders finally got me to go try a demo of something a little more… modern.

With a little bit of research, the Santa Cruz Blur TR Carbon caught my interest and I even managed to find an XL available for demo — not the easiest size to find anywhere!  This is their recent “Trail” version of the Blur introduced last year as something between the Blur XC and Blur LT.  Here’s a great video explanation of why Santa Cruz made this bike.  So I took it out on some very familiar trails in Wilder Ranch yesterday….

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Not a Happy Bat

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This little guy was not having a good day.  Presumably one of my cats caught him last night.  I saw his tiny dark form on the porch last night when I let Pan and Hera in, but I assumed it was the remains of another mouse for me to clean up later.

I was surprised in the morning to discover it was a little bat and that he was still alive — squirming occasionally on his back.  I got some cardboard to turn him over and he shrieked a bit but still laid there.  He clearly wasn’t feeling too great.  Rather than let Pan and Hera mess with him,  I decided to carry him into the front yard.  He squealed a bit and started hissing and showing his teeth.  That explains why Pan gave his little form such a wide berth coming in last night — I thought it odd at the time.

 

Anyway, I carried him into the front yard where the cats couldn’t get him, but of course there are plenty of birds….  And yeah, just an hour or so later I saw several large birds around where I had left him and went over to find him curled up, no longer moving and… covered in ants.  Yeah, wasn’t a good day for the bat.

My Newest Solar Milestone: $1000

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I just got my latest net metering statement from PG&E and I’m happy to see that I’ve just crossed the $1000 mark as of July 6th — as in PG&E now owes me over $1000 for the excess electricity my system has generated over the six months so far (January through June).  Woot!

That’s after all my household consumption, including charging my electric car (Nissan LEAF), running my well pump and water treatment system, etc.  What it doesn’t yet include though is heating the house since my heat pump was installed after the cold months had past.  So I don’t yet know how much heating my home will dig into my solar production surplus come fall and winter.  (I also don’t have a regular daily commute right now so I don’t have as much of a need to recharge my car right now.)

Update (8/15): Looks like my excess production for July added another $400 to that total.  More woot!

However, the fine print here is that this number is just used to compute the net “true-up” amount for the whole year at retail energy prices.  If I end up with excess production for the year, PG&E will only be paying me at the much lower wholesale rate… yeah, not quite so much woot. ;-)

Another cool thing to see though is how well these SunPower panels perform in overcast conditions.  It’s still overcast just before noon today in Santa Cruz and yet they’re pumping out 2760W right now.  (Compared to 7000W on a sunny day at noon, or a peak of 7900W about 2 pm, even with dirty panels.)  Sweet!

Slippery Slope

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I half-woke this morning to the noise of a crash.  Or perhaps I dreamt it?  I listened for more but there was nothing.  Had I heard anything?  Pan was in the room.  Hera wasn’t.  Maybe knocked something over.  Perhaps I’ll find out later?  Back to snooze.

Much later, and after browsing the web and answering some email, I finally get up and make my way downstairs with Pan running ahead of me expectantly.  First thing he wants everyday is to go outside.  I go to open the porch door and… a very perturbed Hera comes rushing up to the door from outside and gives me an earful.

And I’m thinking… what the heck??  How did you get out?  How long have you… hey… I don’t suppose that noise…

And then I have a hunch.  So I go upstairs and take a look at my solar panels and sure enough, there’s the evidence. Kinda funny to see, actually:

You see, I have a pet door in an upstairs window that let’s Pan and Hera get out to a patio off of my bedroom.  And I’ve got several planters out there with grasses, herbs, catnip and nepeta — all kitty goodies.  They do have to brave the various hawks and birds of prey, but they’re pretty good size cats and it seems worth the risk to let them enjoy free access.

So it would seem that Hera decided to try walking on one of the panels this morning and slipped or perhaps was even startled by the shadow of a hawk overhead.  (In fact, one such shadow passed over while I was up there to take a picture.)  She then must have scrambled to hang on, crashed into the metal gutter (the noise I heard) and yet still tumbled off the side and down to the ground.  A pretty good fall for a big fifteen pound cat particularly since the ground is much lower on that side of the house.  Well, Hera was a little annoyed for not being able to get back in the house all morning but no apparent injuries.

Next day thoughts: It is odd how there are simple paw prints at the top of the panel, scrambling smears at the bottom and nothing in between.  Did something try to pick her up?  Maybe, but she didn’t have any qualms about going out again later that night and she doesn’t seem to have any wounds from talons.  A mystery remains.

Aliens!! Hiding in the Sun!

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I found the alien spacecraft hiding in front of the sun today!!  It’s still there now as of 5 pm June 5th, slowly moving across the face.  Alert the media!

Strangely, neither Pan or Hera seemed particularly concerned about this news, but at least Hera seemed to be paying attention.

 

(Okay, yes, for the benefit of finding this later, it’s a transit of Venus.)

Home Theater Rebuild with the JVC DLA-RS55

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It’s that time again: upgrade time! I’ve moved to a new home in Santa Cruz and I now have the wall space to do a super widescreen (2.4 by 1) in a Constant Image Height (CIH) setup and do it big: 12 feet wide by 5 feet tall!  Sweet!  And I’ll give 3D a try too with the JVC DLA-RS55.  (My last “home theater rebuild” was going high definition back in 2007 in the loft of my condo in San Jose.)

So here’s a photo journal of the building out of my home theater in my new home in Santa Cruz, starting with the the “before” and “after” shots:

(before)

(after)

The house is laid out with a kitchen and a large living room area on one end and a second living room area at the other end and a dining area and entry way in-between….

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