Eric Hanson

Jay, I feel the need to comment here as well.

I am a proud American.  I was born on the Fourth of July.  I teach American History.  I am steeped in America.  

But with all that said, I earnestly, dearly want our neighbor-to-the-north to be a sovereign, independent, strong and stable Canada.  Personally I have no desire (in fact I find the idea repulsive) to add Canada (or any part of it) to the United States.  There is nothing to gain and so much to lose.

Canada and the United States share decades of good, friendly relations.  We also share a 6000+ mile (almost 10,000 km) border—and it is an unguarded border.  That’s the longest border that any two nations share and the longest unguarded border by far.  This really says something about how both nations have flourished without having to stage armies to defend their own borders—that they essentially trust each other.

Sure, any two neighbors will have their differences, but these are so minor compared other neighboring countries.  Our two countries have worked together, shared history together.  Both countries were allies in WWI, WWII and are both NATO allies.  Both countries gain so much from the existing close relations, and any talk about adding, annexation or whatever only breeds resentment.  And it would ruin the relationship.

Jay, to you and all Canadian Permies, I just want you and everyone to know that I share your sentiments.  I want to keep being your neighbor, I appreciate Canadian friendliness (Americans could sometimes learn something).  And I completely respect your nation’s sovereignty.


Go Canada!

Eric

Hi Timothy,

Sorry to hear about your insomnia.  I too suffer from it, with my longest stretch of sleeplessness lasting a full 14 days!  I can comment a little bit about practice, but not really about any drug/pharmaceutical/chemical/supplement/etc., even if is totally natural.

I had to go to a couple of different doctors to get my insomnia under control.  What eventually did it was working on my morning wake-up routine and focusing less on my nighttime routine.  At one point it seemed like nothing could sedate me enough to actually put me to sleep.  What my current (I think brilliant) sleep doctor did was get me properly woken up in the morning, every morning at the same time every day—no sleeping in!  That combined with my nighttime routine eventually restructured my sleeping schedule so that I had a normal wakeful part of the day and a normal “shutting down” part of the day.  My practice was to reinforce both of these parts every day.  It didn’t happen immediately, but over time my sleep radically improved and now I sleep mostly normally.

As others have mentioned, I am not thrilled with melatonin.  I tried it for some time hoping it would work, but all it did was make me groggy but unable to sleep.  And in the morning, I woke up and stayed groggy for hours.  Also, as has already been mentioned, too much melatonin can downregulate in your brain.  And if that weren’t enough, too much, even in the amounts available over the counter can have some undesirable side effects that are not mentioned anywhere on the packaging.  If you are curious about those, I can go further.

In the end, I don’t know or even care what sedates you (makes you tired and want to go to sleep), but whatever you use, remember the importance of maintaining your sleep structure—getting to sleep is only one part, waking up is just as important.

I know that some of this might sound a little vague, but if you have any questions or need clarification, just ask.

Good luck,

Eric

Agreed John.

Perhaps the context here are people who derive their (sometimes considerable) income mostly from making YouTube and TikTok videos.

Just a thought,

Eric

Six inches on top of about an inch of sleet & freezing rain.

Thanks Carla.

The tree was a Dutch elm resistant elm tree.  It’s parentage was call the “Princeton” strain as it came from a row of elm trees in Princeton, NJ that had survived the blight and still grows there today.

And like you, I am also a tree hugger.  I don’t even like trimming a limb.  We planted the tree about 15 years ago when it was only about 1 foot tall.  It certainly grew abundantly and was a beautiful shade tree for our front yard.  I deliberately planted it to cast some morning shade on our house but still preserve a good view outside.  So I guess we will start over again.

So again Carla,  Thanks

I am planning on moving my garden beds and I was wondering where I was going to find the source for all the wood chips.  Well, I now have LOTS of future wood chips laying in my front yard from a tree felled by ice.  So I guess I will be cleaning up from storm damage and making wood chips.

Eric

Anne,

I was not in Texas, but I certainly remember that storm well as we got hit with it too.  In our case, we got about seven inches of snow and the temperature was chilly (below freezing but above 0).  Personally I had a good time clearing the road and a few driveways, but I bet that you had it worse in Texas.

I am afraid that the tree in the pictures will have to be cut back to the ground.  There is a split in the trunk that goes all the way to the ground.  We might start over with some type of hardwood.  It’s no fun when a favorite tree that took 15 years to grow dies in one night.  

Thanks for the well-wish Anne,

Eric

I really liked this tree, but the ice storm from last Sunday was the end of it.  There was a lot of destruction, but with the ice in sun, at least the destruction looked pretty.

Eric

I used to really love this tree.

It was a blight resistant Elm tree that was becoming a really beautiful shade tree.  We heard several crashes of branches last night and when I checked in the morning it was pretty much what I was afraid would happen.

I guess we will go looking for another tree to plant.

Eric

I don’t know why I didn’t see this thread long ago and what I am about to say might fall into the day-late-dollar-short category.

Has anyone here, including the OP, considered *Building* a battery?  By this I mean acquiring individual battery cells (LiFePo4 being the most common, but other chemistries are available), adding a BMS and wiring them together inside some housing.

I have been involved in building a battery box based on LiFePo4 battery cells for about a year.  I would have had my project finished long ago, but sourcing a supply of my specific sized and dimension battery took some time.

The relevant point here is that if a custom BMS is installed, then the upper and lower charge limits can be adjusted and therefore still take advantage of solar panels working at low and especially high output.

There is definitely a skill set required to build one of these devices, but jumping in and building it helps develop that skill set.  My current project is based on 105 AH cells housed in an ammo box.  Now that I have the batteries I hope to accelerate my project.

My conclusion statement is that LiFePo4 batteries might still be the appropriate chemistry, but it will require building in an appropriate Battery Monitor.  If you are looking for pointers, I can certainly point you towards some possible solutions.

Eric