David's profileDavePhotosBlogListsMore  |  Tools Help |
|
6/27/2007 Homemade Solar LlightsI made these solar light containers this week, except for the Tiki Torch. A price to pay for alternative fuelsSeveral States are prosecuting users of biodiesel (or waste vegetable oil) for evasion of state road use taxes. The laws were written before the alternative fuel movement took shape, so need to be changed. The prosecutors should be fired. I have no idea what these States would do if you drove an electric or solar car. So, check your local laws and don't get in trouble. Raised BedsMy dad and I built this raised-bed garden last year on a slab of concrete that could not be removed. Tomatoes are the best bang for the buck in a small urban space like this because of the huge difference in taste between store bought and home grown, and of course the cost, which tops $4 per pound for heirloom. I ordered seeds for 10 varieties of heirlooms, including .... We are just waiting for them to turn ripe. Three Days of Peace & MusicLast year, my friends and I went out to the went to the desert for a party and took these photos of each other at night with timed-exposure and a flashlight. 6/26/2007 Señor WencesI came across this Wikipedia article on Señor Wences while looking for a tilde for Señor Dogs' (Winston) name. I'm not sure I ever actually saw the act (although I will make a point to soon on youttube) I feel like I have from listening to my Dad do the act. Here is a clip. Señor Wences (April 17, 1896 – April 20, 1999) was a prominent 20th century ventriloquist whose popularity grew with his frequent appearances on CBS's Ed Sullivan Show. He was born Wenceslao Moreno in Salamanca, Spain, and was a matador before finding fame as a ventriloquist. Señor Wences was known for his speed, skill, and grace as a ventriloquist. His stable of characters included "Johnny," a childlike face drawn on Wences's hand, which he would place atop an otherwise headless doll, and with whom Wences conversed while switching his voices between Johnny's falsetto and his own voice at amazing speed. Wences would create Johnny's face on stage to open his act, placing his thumb next to, and in front of, his bent first finger; the first finger would be the upper lip, and the thumb the lower lip. He would use lipstick to draw the lips onto the respective fingers, and then draw eyes onto the upper part of the first finger, finishing the effect with a tiny long-haired wig on top of the entire hand. Flexing the thumb would move the "lips." Another popular Wences character was the gruff-voiced "Pedro," a disembodied head in a box. Wences was forced to suddenly invent the character when his regular, full-sized dummy was destroyed during a train accident en route to a performance. Pedro would either 'speak' from within the closed box, or speak with moving lips--simply growling, "s'awright"--when Wences opened the box's front panel with his free hand. A large part of Wences' comedy lay in the well-timed, high-speed exchange of words between himself and his two creations, and in the difference in their voice pitches. Wences usually built to a big finish that combined ventriloquism with graceful juggling and plate-spinning. As Wences performed his routines, Pedro and Johnny mercilessly heckled him with flawless comedic timing. Cast of dogsI thought I might write about the dogs, since they are the reason we are all here isn't it after all, the muse and the comic relief? Winston (aka Stone, Mr. Señor Dogs...). English Bulldogs fought bulls, which defines their physique and attitude. W is a rescue. I'm his third owner. He was very bad when I first got him. He is still bad sometimes. I developed rules to avoid interaction with most other dogs and the occasional human who sets him off. If he ever gets near a dog he wants to fight, which has happened about four times I can think of, he is initially aggressive, but then suddenly goes into convulsions, and becomes parallelized for about 20 minutes. Mac Carter, the director of the short film entitled Dave, has seen it and will vouch for me. At home, when he is calm, he is very funny. Pheobe Pugs were lap dogs in royal Chinese courts 3,000 years ago. They would alert the royalty to the approach of anyone, serve as court jesters, and keep the royal lap warm. Pheobe is obsessed with satisfying all three urges, only not all at the same time. I got Phoebe at the insistence of a girlfriend that my pug Lucy needed a companion. Lucy (Lucy Dog). Lucy was my first rescue dog, albeit a rescue indirectly from my sister. She had a special intelligence. Mercedes-Benz 300DMost people I know who use waste vegetable oil as fuel drive 1978 to 1985 Mercedes-Benz 300Ds. They are extraordinary cars. Here are some highlights:
Being PresentI do not know the reason for "being present" yoga. What do people think
about when they are not being present? If they are anything like me,
its thinking about what you can change, trying not to worry about what
you can't. Some people use their minds like a computers, musicians for
example. I had a musician friend in college who used her mind like I
would use an iPod. If she wanted to access a song, she could stream it
to her consciousness and enjoy it. The same with spelling, if you
asked her to spell a word, she said the word would pop up in her mind's
eye. I could never do anything like that. But, I digress. I don't have a photographic memory, so I've always been interested in photography. I think you have to be present to do photography. I worked in as a photographer in college, but stopped taking pictures until the last year. The answer to the question I posed, about why to be present, is that if you look back to a time when you spent a lot of time in your head, I bet you won't remember much about that time. You get more memories by being present, and memories are all we really own. GraceIts very hard for me to be graceful. Instead, I'll try to avoid the opposite of grace, which I take to be force, not in the "Let the Force be with you" sense, and more like "but I used a little too much force". I spent some time forcing the issue, so now, I'm trying to do the opposite. 6/24/2007 Solar lightsThis week I made these solar lights by hacking an inexpensive (about $4 per light) solar light and pairing it with decorative glass. I'm going to put translucent paper in them tomorrow I hope. Sometimes, I turn off all the lights and just enjoy the solars. My mom and I like the solars because it give us the sense of living off the grid. 6/19/2007 ChemistryThis is a outline of the chemical process I use to make biodiesel. Detailed explanations written by other people are linked in the Biodiesel Resources section. Also, I knew nothing about chemistry before I started doing this. I still don't know much. First some definitions. Straight vegetable oil (SVO) is any vegetable oil used to make biodiesel. A sub category of SVO is waste vegetable oil (WVO), the stuff restaurants use for frying then discard. I only use WVO because its has much less of a CO2 footprint than virgin SVO. Otherwise, WVO is used as in fertilizer or dog food. It will eventually decompose or compost on its own. I'm simply speeding up that process. The CO2 footprint remains virtually the same whether it composts by itself or I burn it in my car, so I'm getting a free ride. Most biodiesel you can buy at the pump is made with virgin SVO, so while I'm trilled its conveniently available, because new users can use biodiesel and avoid petro-diesel while they set up a processor. There are issues with using virgin SVO as a fuel, but eventually biodiesel will be made from algae which can double in size every fou4r hours and sucks up CO2. SVO is thicker than petro-diesel, the fuel diesel engines were designed for, so using SVO for prolonged periods can harm an engine. Diesel engines can take a lot of abuse because they are built stronger than gasoline engines, but they are not indestructible. Some people convert their cars to use SVO, using specialized fuel heaters to thin it out. I chemically thin it out instead, using these two chemicals:
Methanol is by far the most expensive chemical I use. I pay about $3.50 per gallon, but methanol is only 20% of the volume of the finished fuel, bringing the final cost of biodiesel down to less than a dollar per gallon. I make batches of 40 gallons of oil and 8 gallons of methanol. There are several kinds of Lye. I use Potassium hydroxide (KOH) mostly because thats what I was told to do. It costs about a dollar per pound, but I use very little of it, so the cost is negligible. The amount of KOH I use depends on how damaged the oil is. There is a test, called titration, that measures the damage and tells me how much KOH to use. Next, I follow these steps:
6/18/2007 EquipmentI use four 55 gallon drums that I got for $2 each from a fruit processor to make biodiesel from waste vegetable oil. I cut off the tops
and drilled three holes in each (in, out and drain) to turn the drums
into inexpensive tanks. You can use metal drums if you don't want to
use plastic. Each tank is for a different task:
The tanks' tasks in more detail: Collection Tank: oil I get from restaurants settles in the collection tank. When it contains 40 gallons, I'm ready to make a batch. It has to settle for a few days before I pump it to the... Processor: I heat the oil to 130 degrees, add eight gallons methanol and some lye. I recirculates the oil for about three hours. When it settles, I have 40 gallons of biodiesel and eight gallons of byproducts (glycerin and a little soap). I drain off the glycerin then pump the biodiesel to the... Wash Tank: Oil and water don't mix, but if you spray a fine mist of water on top of the biodiesel, It slowly makes its way through, pulling out excess methanol, glycerin and soap. Once the biodiesel is washed, it goes to the... Dry Tank: It will dry by itself in the summer, or I can use a fan to speed up drying. Once its dry, it gets filtered and goes into the car. |
|
|
