Off-Grid Solar Power Budget

When you live off grid budgeting takes on several meanings. There is of course the usual money budget which under normal grid attached circumstances is the all important American control mechanism. As long as you can pay for your power and water there is nothing limiting your consumption. You will always stay warm and be able to flush that toilet. But in the off grid world your power, water and heat budgets become the governing factor in day to day life. These finite resources must be carefully measured. Miscalculation and waste can leave you freezing in the dark unable to even find the toilet.

I measure my stored power in amp hours which is the way deep cycle batteries are rated. Let's say I have 6 deep cycle batteries each with a capacity of 270 amp hours. That would give me a pool of around 1600 amp hours to draw from when the battery array is fully charged. Remember true battery capacity can only be figured by a trained voodoo priest with a good thermometer.

Deep cycle batteries can be drained to down to 30%, this is not recommended but can be done in an emergency situation. It is nice to only draw down to 70% giving me around 480 amps to play with. Now here is the important part, whatever you pull out you must replace. If you drain 480 amps off the array each day 480 amps need to be put back either through wind, generators or solar.

I have 6 130 watt solar panels each delivering 7.38 amps back into the battery array for each hour of sunshine. (I know the numbers don't work out but that's the way it is with solar) So with my solar array I can realistically put 40 amps back into the battery array per hour of good sunshine. I base my budget on 6 hours of good sunshine per day. A sunny day will replace 240 amps back into the battery array.

The governing number for me is 240 amps. (I am battery heavy) I still don't want to draw down the full 240 amps. Being paranoid like I am I only use 120 amps per day.

In theory I have 1120 amps to use if I drain the batteries to 30%. This gives me a little over 9 days of reserve if for some reason I can not recharge the batteries. Additionally if I only use 120 amps and am replacing 240 the batteries will recharge in just a few days.

Now what does all this mean, how much power do I have. Can I run my blender and make my Pina colada smoothies? Will my 50 inch plasma TV still be able to baby sit the kids 8 hours a day? Can the SubZero keep my champagne and caviar chilled?

So now that we know how much power we have available the next step is to determine how many DC amps each AC device draws. Remember that when I am talking batteries I am referring to 12 volt DC, just like your truck.

Here is the formula:

AC Watts / 12 x 1.1 = DC Amps (Amps are measured in hours) (1.1 is inverter inefficiency)

60 Watt light bulb / 12 x 1.1 = 5.5 DC Amps per hour of use

Now multiply the DC Amps by how many hours you plan on using the device

5.5 DC Amps x 8 hours = 44 Amps daily

As you can see my one 60 Watt incandescent light bulb has already used up 1/3 of my daily available power. This is why you do not use incandescent lighting in an off-grid project. I use low wattage florescent bulbs. The bulbs I use are 11 watts but mimic a 40 watt bulb, I have several through the cabin. I figure 3 lights running 8 hours each. (this is high number of hours by the way)

33 AC Watts / 12 x 1.1 x 8 hours = 24.2 Amps daily

You could reduce the daily amps for lighting even more if you used LED bulbs. I would suggest a warm temperature LED bulb. The first bulbs that came out were a cold temperatures bright white light and I really hated them. Our eyes are used to the warmer incandescent quality lights and I prefer them.

Here is the tricky part. You can not just go by the rated input wattage listed on the device. My laptop for instance has a 95 watt power adapter. That is a power hog and I would not invite it into my house. The reality is that those numbers are the highest wattage produced not necessarily what will be used.

I use a Kill-A-Watt meter to determine the actual power consumption of any device. This little box plugs into the wall and you plug the thing being measured into the Kill-A-Watt. Here is the actual power consumption of my laptop.

Charging 60 Watt
General Use 22 Watt
Watching DVD 31 Watt
Asleep Lid Open 11 Watt
Lid Closed 1 Watt

So for me the most efficient way to work is to plug the laptop in keeping it fully charged and when I am not actively using the thing close the lid. Worst would be to sit on the deck running the laptop batteries down then plugging it every few hours.

Here are some of the other devices and roughly how long each day I will be using them.

Microwave 650 Watt/10 minutes
Coffee Maker 600-650 Watt/10 minutes
Ryobi Battery Charger 30-40 Watt/2 hours
Phone Charger 1 Watt/2 hours
XM Radio 5 Watt/8 hours
12 volt Water Pump 5 DC Amps/30 minutes

In the off-grid world a careful budgeting and understanding of your power, water and heat usage is critical if you are looking for a relative comfortable life. It is critical to know your needs and more importantly what you are willing to give up before moving down the off-grid road. You just can't use extra and pay a little more at the end of the month your reserve is fixed.

If you found this useful let me know and I will do the same thing for heat and water.

Pick up a Kill-A-Watt meter and find out just how much power you really need. Even if you are not planning a move off-grid it is important to understand your power usage.

Yearly Budget Thing

I was going to use this post to talk about my $100 a month budget but apparently I have won the Swiss Lottery and with 1.8 million euros coming my way don't need to worry about it. But since I have to wait until the spring arrives and the ground thaws to get to my financial institution and it's complex routing information we might as well discuss the now unnecessary budget.

Like most survival minded people I have amassed a fairly substantial amount of food and critical supplies over the past 8 years. There are the staples of various beans, canned meats and flour plus vitamin and other medical supplies. I keep adequate cash on-hand and have the required silver and gold buried in my secure bank. The land and house are paid for and being off-grid utilities are already in place with the exception of a few nonessential niceties such as internet and cell phone access.

I have two vehicles, a large gas sucking beast of a truck used only when absolutely necessary and a tiny orange ford fiesta that gets about 33 miles to the gallon. The tank on the fiesta holds ten gallons so I should get roughly 330 miles out of every tank. The nearest town with facilities is about 10 miles away so I should get 16 trips per full tank. Let's say I run to town once every week, the one tank of gas should last 4 months. I can get around for 4 months on $20.

Most of my food is already in place with the exception of fresh fruits, veggies and meat. Food stores should hold me until greenhouse/garden start producing and I can get some chickens. I make my own beer 5 gallons at a time and have enough brewing supplies to get through the first year. If I could start making my own whiskey I'd be set for life.

Rough Monthly Budget (will adjust as necessary)

$35 Food (this includes coffee)
$20 Gas (a little high but includes ATV, chainsaw, tiller plus some for truck)
$25 Dogs (cheap treats and a bag of food each month)
$20 Booze (monthly bottle of Ancient Age whiskey)
$30 Entertainment (trip to the hot springs or exploring the mountains)

$130 Total Monthly Expenses

Fixed Yearly Costs (already paid for 2009)

$300 Internet (split with neighbor)
$300 Phone (local provider)
$360 Car Insurance (one year both vehicles)
$100 Land Tax (actually 86)
$100 Car Tags (can vary)
$300 Propane (can vary)
$120 Ring MD (on call medical help plus they can write prescriptions)
$240 Beer Brewing (not great tasting but will do)

$1820 Total $152/month

Everything on the fixed yearly cost list and the entertainment fund can be eliminated if necessary but would rather not.

Adding the two areas together I need to make $282 monthly (round up to $300) to live this year and put back enough for next. At this point I am bring in about half that amount from some web projects each month but hopefully can kick it up to around $300. I of course have extra funds to draw from in the event of an emergency. This budget is of course rough and will change as I move forward.

Hate to wait in doctors office - I do too. Join RingMD service for 24x7 access to personal physician for treatment and prescriptions. *** I love this service and have used it several time over the past few months. I am old enough to know what is wrong with me, just call the doctor, tell them what the problem is and they phone the prescription into Walmart or whatever pharmacy you choose. Easy cheap and no half day doctor visits.

Auto Industry Collapse

I normally do not post videos on this site but here is a great one on the collapse of the auto industry. One point, I don't believe that a bailout is the answer unless the Big 3 guarantee that all money would be used for retooling the manufacturing facilities for next generation transportation and that all jobs created and supplies purchased are American. Otherwise our taxes will be used to update Mexican plants and pad the GM executive bonuses. Unless jobs are created here in this country the money is wasted, the Big 3 can only survive if Americans start buying again and we will only buy again if secure jobs are created.



Another point to make is that if the part makers go under spare parts will become difficult to acquire. That $5 fuel filter is minor until it clogs and you cannot replace it. Due to rising scrap metal prices there are very few junkyards left. We rely on the inexpensive replacement parts to keep our junk cars on the road. Without those parts every parked car becomes a gold mine for thieves looking to cash in on black market parts.

Bear Ridge Project Update

The Bear Ridge Project is my journey to move from a consumer driven life style to a self sustaining off grid existence.

I will be moving to Bear Ridge permanently on January 1st 2009. The original plan was to be at the cabin full time by June 1st. Obviously this did not happen. Money and time were not on my side but things are now happening as planned and the cabin and I are nearly ready. To be honest I could have moved in June but life would have been terrible rough.

I didn't have the proper heat or power in place or any protected growing facilities for indoor crops. The power system was weak and the foundation unstable. I now have a big wood stove for primary heating of the house and water and have standardized on propane for backup. I decided on an Eccotemp L10 on demand water heater and a Mr Heater Big Buddy unit for backup heat. Both work great at my altitude and have no problem staying lit. The stove and backup generator also run on propane.

The power system has grown from the small portable two battery unit with a 230 Amp/hour capacity to a much larger array sized at 1600 Amp/hours. They are charged by six 130 watt solar panels which replaced the small 45 watt 3 panel array. A small 3500 watt propane generator is used for backup. I may still add a couple more 130 watt panels before the first.

The big sun room will be finished this weekend and the greenhouse portion of the project hopefully done next. A shed with large south side greenhouse will be built in December weather permitting doubling the growing space. I plan on starting my winter tomatoes around the first of December so they can be moved to their final home after the first. The goal is to be able to survive and thrive on around $100 per month. So the produce is very important.

January is not the ideal month to move but hey you have to get through it anyway might as well start off with the worst. I am very excited and will keep you informed.

Go Vote

I will not tell you how to vote but here are a few thoughts on the subject

I don't give the dog a treat when he pees on the carpet

I don't keep employees that completely ignore directions I give them

I don't take my truck back to a mechanic that didn't fix the problem

Neither candidate will take your guns. That is campaign fear mongering. The Supreme Court ruled just this year that every citizen has the right to keep firearms. Neither the President nor Congress can change that only a Constitutional Amendment...and that won't happen. So don't base your vote on that issue.

Now go vote

Mossberg 500 Tactical

I didn't need it, I just wanted it...and is that so wrong?

With the recent weirdness down at the land I decided to get a home defense weapon with a little more lead in it's ass than my .22 pistol and rifle. Last Thursday I picked up a 12 gauge Mossberg 500 Tactical shotgun. The great thing about this gun is the ease of use and maneuverability. Oh, plus it kills real good.

In my opinion a 12 gauge shotgun is the best defensive weapon around. At 2 a.m. I do not have the mental agility to effectively bring a rifle or handgun to bare on a target. Just can't do it. So I needed an early morning weapon that is forgiving on accuracy and intimidating as hell. You just point the shotgun in the general direction of what needs killed and pull the trigger. Plus with the six round capacity if you miss with the first shot you try again.

The short barrel and retractable stock on the Mossberg 500 Tactical shotgun allows me to maneuver around in the dark house without getting hung up on my crap. A long shotgun is cheaper and kills just as well but I consider it dangerous in small living quarters. I don't know which would be scarier. An intruder breaking in and rushing me or me trying to bring a long barreled shotgun to bare on him with out sufficient coffee.

At any rate I figure that most intruders would be confronted before they entered the house. If the security lights and barking dogs don't persuade them to leave then nothing says move along better than the sound of a shell being chambered.

Strange Events

No, I am not going to be speaking about alien abductions. Yes, there were unexplained disappearances and mysterious lights in the sky but it was most certainly not an alien abduction. Indeed, the San Luis Valley does have a problem with missing persons, secret bases, unworldly creatures and strange flying craft but this is not about alien abductions. That being said...

I arrived at the cabin around 6 pm on Thursday October 2nd. I had planned to spend several days down there working on the sun room and fixing some foundation issues. This was also a bug out simulation...I was worried about the possible declaration of martial law if the bail out did not pass. So I scheduled off a few days to wait it out.

Within a few minutes of arriving my closest neighbor Mary dropped by to inform me that Hank, our neighbor down the road who is also building a cabin, was missing and had not been seen since around 9 that morning. I could see Hank's van sitting in front of his place. Hank is a gentleman in his upper 70's who had suffered a recent stroke and has heart problems. It was our opinion that he probably suffered another stroke, wandered off and passed out in the sage brush or nearby woods.

I got the power going at the house, put the dogs up and headed over to join a small group of neighbors and family friends searching the immediate area for Hank. It was about 6:30 pm at this time. We all wandered through the sage and around the house looking. It got dark and sometime between 7:30 and 8:00 pm two sheriff's deputies came out I think they had their lights on. They joined in the search, looked through the van and ask us when we had last seen him.

The deputies asked about our other neighbor who lived a little further up the road. It dawned on us that Bob was not around. The deputies ran up to Bob's place sometime between 8:30 and 9:00 pm to see if he knew anything. Bob was also missing so everyone assumed that the two had gone off to look at the Aspens turning or something. The deputies said that if Hank had not shown up by Friday morning they would bring in a search and rescue team.

So Friday comes and still no Hank. The deputies showed back up around noon followed by the search and rescue (SAR) team. The SAR team brought ATV's, horses and may people going through the brush on foot. The searched for several hours and finished up around 4:30 pm. I drove over to speak with the deputies about 5 pm assuming that they had found him. When I got over there they were bagging the contents of the van.

They told me that Hank would show up and that this kind of thing was common. It was strange that they were bagging stuff from the van. The deputies stayed by the van until dark when another car showed up to relieve them. I looked through the binoculars and noticed that they had taped off the van and house with yellow tape. Very odd if they were sure Hank was coming back.

Around 1:30 am on Saturday I heard an engine revving jumped up and looked out the window. The deputies were driving up along the ridge behind Hanks house through the sage with all the searchlights on, one deputy driving the other out walking next to their cruiser. They were searching for someone. After 30 minutes or so they left, 10 minutes later I heard someone yelling couldn't make out what they were saying. I guess the deputies were waiting just down the road because they came roaring back in with spot lights on looking again. Unnerving.

Saturday morning brought a different SAR team which did an arm linked search of the surrounding area...they found nothing. Saturday evening Mary and I met with a deputy to find out if we needed to worry about our safety. We wanted to know if there was a killer running lose...he would not answer. I slept with my pistol under the pillow and rifle next to the bed that night.

On Sunday they brought in a dog team and several "specialist" searchers, not sure what their specialty was but they were strange. No hits, nothing. Hanks extended family had started to arrive and were wandering the hills surrounding the area. Through the night there where many cars and people showing up over at Hanks. My guess is that as family members showed up in town the first thing they wanted to do was go searching. So the evening was filled with flashlights and people yelling.

Hank had left the house on that Thursday morning wearing a gray hooded sweat shirt and faded jeans. Unfortunately his wardrobe choice matches the sage brush that covers the ground out here. He could be lying five feet from you in the bushes and you wouldn't notice him.

No one was searching for Bob although there were several stories circulating about his whereabouts. He had posted a comment on his blog from home on Thursday night at 7:30 pm, about the time the deputies drove by, regarding a camera he purchased. The camera was to be delivered Monday and he was excited. By 9 pm when the deputies stopped by he had vanished. The final story given by his mother was that he had decided to leave everything and go live with his ex-wife in Texas. Bob self-built a wonderful off grid cabin, had a horse and other livestock but gave all that up on a whim to go live with an ex-wife.

Hank's family was allowed to take his van back to town on Monday. I visited with one of his nephews Monday afternoon. He told me they suspected foul play. He thought that "someone" forced Hank into a vehicle, took him somewhere and killed him. There was no blood or signs of a struggle at the site and strangers just don't happen down these rural roads.

It has been almost a month now. Hank and Bob are both still missing without a trace. In the week before they went missing a body was found burning in a barrel placed in the middle of the road one county over and another body was found laying across a country road on the south face of Mt Blanca in the northern part of this county. Violence is everywhere, moving out of a city will not remove you from it's presence.

Hank and Bob both went missing on the same day, it could be a coincidence or foul play the question hangs and we may never know.

...of course it is possible that they were both abducted by aliens!

The names of the neighbors have been changed to protect the families privacy.

Sunroom

Over the past few weekends I have been working on the large sunroom that runs along the south side of the cabin. The southern exposure is sheltered from the wind by hills and trees but still gets excellent direct sunlight. It can be forty degrees out and you will get hot working along that side of the house in shorts and a teeshirt. The plan is to utilize this natural heat gain to grow plants and provide daytime heating for the cabin.

The south wall is 36 feet long, the big sunroom only occupies 16 feet of that, it is 8 feet wide. The other 20 feet of wall space will be dedicated to a greenhouse made of polycarbonate panels it will be 20 by 8 feet.

For the sunroom I picked up four 6 x 5 foot insulated windows at Lowes for $21 bucks apiece (listed for $489 each). They had been returned and were in a holding bin at the end of one of the isles on clearance. I grabbed them up right there. The glass is slightly tinted so they will be traded out for the four 6 x 5 foot picture windows in the front room, they have no tinting. I also found a 5 foot wide sliding glass door for the sunroom at the Habitat for Humanities ReStore (great place).

The outcome is a wonderful hot house wrapped in glass, warm and bright. I will also be taking out about 8 foot of wall between the sunroom and the cabin. That will allow the daylight warmth to flood the house. A large sliding "barn door" is rolled into place at night. Black 55 gallon drums filled with water and placed in the sun will act as heatsinks radiating heat back into the room at night.

The greenhouse should be great for growing lettuce, cabbage, radishes and other cool weather plants. Plus it gives the dogs a nice place to play that isn't freezing. The hot sunroom should be great for growing tomatoes, peppers and beans.

I will get some pictures up as soon as I finish up.

Farmers Almanac 2009

Everyone needs to pick up an The Old Farmer's Almanac 2009. Their forecasting is fairly accurate and it make a great replacement for the 10 pm weather report. Here is the Bear Ridge weather overview for the next year.

Winter will be much colder and drier than normal, on average, with snowfall above normal in the north and below normal in the south. The coldest temperatures will occur in late December; early, mid-, and late January; and early February. The snowiest periods will be in mid-November, early and mid-December, mid- and late January, and late February.

April and May will be cooler than normal, with slightly above-normal precipitation.

Summer will be cooler than normal, with slightly above-normal rainfall. The hottest periods will be in mid- and late June and early and mid- to late July.

September and October will be warmer and drier than normal.

The first couple of years I started going down to the cabin the winter was very cold but had little snow, relatively pleasant. The past few years has seen massive snowfall and cold temperatures. The cold does not bother me but three feet of snow on the ground makes life miserable.

New Wood Stove

For the past couple of months I have been looking for the perfect wood stove to replace my small existing one. The new stove needed to have a large firebox, good damper control and burn through the night on one load. I picked up this gently used vintage 1977 wood stove over the weekend for $100 off of CraigsList.

The firebricks are all intact and the stove only has superficial rust which comes right off with a wire brush. The door seal needs replaced but that shouldn't be a problem.

The stunning iron work aside this beauty has a big firebox (24" wide, 22" tall 20" deep), a finely controlled damper which opens automatically if the temperature gets to low, a large front loading door and a thermo siphon water heater built into the back. The water heater is a great plus.

I plan on putting the new stoves back against the bathroom wall. I already keep a 30 gallon metal tank in the bathroom for water and heat that 30 gallons when I want to shower. With the thermo siphon the water in the tank will heat through the night and be ready for a morning shower. A great plus.

The stove vents from the back. I will be installing black stove pipe with a damper from the wood stove to the ceiling. Then attach the stove pipe it to a ceiling support box and continue on up with triple walled chimney pipe. Currently I run chimney pipe all the way down to the stove. This is very safe but I am losing a great deal of heat that would be provided by the thin walled black stove pipe.

Down the road if I decided that this wood stove is not efficient enough and uses to much wood I am only out a $100.

It's Trickle Down Bitches

Average person says...so what, the market is really down I am not worried my 401k is safe...you need to invest over the long term. My broker said the markets may fluctuate but always increases in value in the end.

Please remember these are the same people who said your salary would always increase over time...these are the same people who said home values only go up...these are the same people who lobbied congress for bankruptcy reform and massive bailouts so they would not lose their wealth when these promised dreams did not materialize.

Ronald Regan...may god condemn his demon soul...gave us four things. This ridiculous caricature of a swaggering hyper masculine presidential candidate who needs only guns, not brains to run the ranch. The moral majority, nuf said. The end of the cold war. And fourthly, trickle down economics.

I will just jump in real quick and say that the cold war ended and the USSR broke apart cause the Soviet Union went broke...sound familiar?

Trickle down economics basically means that you give the elite the money and it will eventually trickle down to the workers through house cleaning, limo driving and drug money. This has been our economic model from it's onset with the great Regan Revolution to our latest emanation of the $700 billions dollar bailout.

Trickle down economics does not work and unfortunately the downslope is also trickle down. The people at the top of the trickle will be effected first by economic problems and take appropriate action...$700 billion bailout...the bottom 90% are left to fend for themselves once the down flow hits their pocketbook. It takes a while for the raging flood to reach your house...but once it is there it takes everything. So don't sit there waiting for the water...move to higher ground now.

Remember happiness is holding hands with your loved one while waiting for the food bank to open. Yea gee ok, remember this and you'll do fine in Fascist America.

Stop the apocalypse, I'm out of whiskey!!!

When the historians write of this period, the Great Decline, they will credit insatiable greed and unchecked corruption as the destroyer of the most technologically advanced and bountifully blessed society in world history.

I bugged out on Thursday assuming the passage of the fake bailout bill, the elite have once again secured their future at the expense of the workers. Paulson knew the markets were set to implode so the bill had to pass Friday at the latest, he also knew it would do nothing to stop the Great Decline.

I am happily sitting in my offgrid solar powered cabin working on my sun room and thinking of all the little niceties that will no longer be available...like Dingo Bones and Charmin Care WITH Lotion.

There will be no recovery, the golden age is over. The pundits spin the Great Decline as a cycle downturn...everything will return to normal after the credit market stabilizes and people start borrowing and buying again. This will not happen...That created the problem. The future holds a massive population die off and the establishment of regional economic systems. Globalism is dead.

Buy some chickens and plant a winter garden.

Take Care Everyone
BigBear

Foreign Policy Debate

Foreign policy debates are irrelevant.

The only foreign policy issue that the next president will need to deal with is which county to ask for gas to get our troops home. We are a broke nation that has exhausted our welcome throughout the world. We are no longer a superpower...we can no longer act like one. The United States is broke neither presidential candidate should be acting like we still have influence. Shit, the Pakistanis are shooting at our troops. We are done.

They need to end this multi-trillion dollar war that has lined the pockets of the military industrial complex and bring our troops home. These wars have broken not only the financial back of this nation but stripped us of any moral authority we might have had. Let Russia police the world we can no longer afford it. They have a balanced economy and can act with some degree of restraint when it comes to gluttony and greed. Maybe the Russians are better stewards of the worlds fate
than the United States.

Get off the foreign policy...how you gonna help us Americans. We can no longer dictate how the rest of the world behaves. Our greed destroyed our ability to govern the world.

Just a note...I listened to the debate did not watch. McCain started slurring his words and sounding slightly crazy about half way through the exchange. Not saying crazy things just his tone was odd. Anyone else notice this. Maybe he is tired Obama didn't waver...agree or disagree with him his tone did not waver. McCain had this strange false teeth whistle going try listening and not watching. Very different experience.

The Great Decline

This $700 billion dollar bailout will remove bad debt from the global banks investment sheets. It will help the global banks with liquidity. It will allow them to return to business as usual. It will allow them to start reinvesting...IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

This $700 billion dollar bailout will not fix the housing crisis...so no new housing loans. It will not bring jobs to the country...American's will not be buying. It will not decrease inflation...in fact it will increase inflation. It will not reduce the price of oil...in fact crude prices will increase greatly.

All this $700 billion dollar bailout does is protects the elite's investments. Without jobs and a fix to the housing crisis the American economy is still on exactly the same course. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THIS BILL TO HELP THE AMERICAN WORKERS.

Your housing values will continue to decline. Your 401k will continue to be plundered. Your standard of living will continue to decrease. All the bad things Bush dredged up in this "speech" last night will still happen.

This $700 billion dollar bailout was not designed to help the workers. It is there to unburden the elite and allow them to continue raping the workers of the world. If this was about helping the people congress would have forced the administration to allow bankruptcy judges to reevaluate mortgage contracts and helped those homeowners swindled by inflated property assessments.

Property values will never return to their fraudulent high point set a couple of years ago. There are no jobs coming into this country. Without high paying jobs property values will not increase, common sense. If this bill passes the government becomes your landlord, debt holder and slave master. You are completely under it's thumb, or rather under the thumb of the North American Union. After we have dropped to third world status and every penny is stripped The United States of America will be reborn, muted and stunted, as the North American Union embracing our brothers to the North and South.

America is in the Great Decline, a decline planned and driven by globalization and the greed of the elite. It is over.

Three Essential Survival Tools

Here are three items that should be in everyone's bug out bag.

BOLT CUTTERS - Ahead of the mob, you left just in time. At the first sign of trouble you grabbed your bug out bag, some water and loaded the family into the 4x4 to head out. It's dark, the roads are icy and some bad over steering landed the jeep on its side in a ditch. The winds are fierce and temperatures are quickly dropping. You spot a nearby highway maintenance shed...they should have heat. Pulling the bolt cutters from your BOB you open a gap in the chain link fence and cut the padlock from the sliding doors. You get the family inside and safe. The next morning you right the jeep and continue to your retreat.

SLIM JIM - The fire is racing up the canyon, it's time to go. The pets, family and as many survival supplies that will fit are loaded into the truck. You jump in the cab and turn the engine over, nothing not even a click. Frantic you realize that the lights had been left on...the battery is dead. You see the neighbor's car abandoned in front of their house, they bugged out yesterday. It would have a charged battery. You grab your slim jim from the bug out bag. Being a good neighbor you gently pop the lock rather than busting the window. You open the hood then run the battery back to your truck. Later as you drive down the road you make a mental note to replace the battery...if the cars not melted into the ground.

LOCK PICK KIT - The neighbors left for the shelter several days back, no heat. You were smart enough to install a wood stove and put back plenty of food so the family should be OK. Unfortunately your kid is sick and needs something to bring down a fever. You stocked everything but forgot tylenol and ibuprofen. Grabbing your trusty lock pick kit you move door to door entering abandoned home from the back yard until you find a fully stocked med kit. You grab the meds, lock up the house and head home. Problem solved, kid feeling better.

Bail Yourself Out - I Won't

Does anybody still trust anything that comes out of George Bush's mouth. This evil administration is simply trying to secure wealth for the elite while locking the working classes into slavery for the next century. I don't expect anyone to bail me out of bad business decisions...it would be nice but I understand the risks involved and accept them. How dare this administration bail out the rich on the back of the workers we are broke as it is. There should be rioting in the streets. Any member on congress who supports this jump into fascism must be removed from office. The investment bankers made trillions off these financial schemes, let them fix their own problems.

NO COMPROMISE...NO DEAL

Everyone needs to prepare at this point. If this passes I feel that the citizens of this country have no moral obligation to support any company involved in this hijacking of capitalist principals. Stop paying your credit card bills, walk away from your mortgage. As I see it we have already paid them! NO MORE

If They Don't Listen - Bring Them Down

Massive resistance from working Americans and the continued sell off on Wall Street this morning may doom the Bush Administrations fascist agenda. Apparently the people of this country don't really like the idea of bailing out the elite on the backs of the working class. The question being asked is simple, why doesn't the American Government just give that trillion plus bailout to the American homeowners who could then pay their mortgages thus saving the system. But there would be no scam in that.

Remember most of these big investment firms and globalist banks are in large part owned by foreign investors who may not agree with the principals of democracy or capitalism...they just like making money on the backs of the workers. China and the Saudi royal family come to mind.

We are paying off the foreign elite, taking on the bad debt and still being asked to pay our bills on time. American taxpayers are being forced to pay three times over for bad corporate business decisions.

Here is my suggestion.

If the government moves forward with this obscene abuse of power and nationalizes the debt of these mismanaged companies we call for a general strike. Not a walk off the job strike...a walk away from your bills strike. If every American would stop paying their credit card bills for one month it would break the system and the government would sit up and pay attention to the will of the people...not the will of their corporate overseers. If the government still does not listen we don't pay for a second month and continue until they clean up their act and start working for the People of America.

The Achilles Heel of a government ran by greed is the greed itself. At this point voting is irrelevant both parties are fully bought. The people have the power to correct this gross imbalance and drive corrupt corporate interests out of government. Just stop paying the corporations.

These companies are sending our jobs overseas and wreaking our economy with our governments consent! Corporations lobby congress for legislative favors using lobbyists that we pay for. We enable a system actively working against our best interests. The global elite hold power because we feed their agenda, we pay for them to corrupt our government process, all we need to do is stop giving them money. Without money they loose power and go away.

This is the United States of America and our government works for the citizens of this country not global corporations. Don't boycott, Don't walk off the job, just stop paying your bills. Americans have been working backwards, we cannot vote out legislative members who take corporate handouts...they all take handouts. We can break the corporations that give handouts. If we could take down a Bank of America in a month the corporate money would leave Washington forever. This is the Peoples Nuclear Option!

I am not saying that you should stop paying all your bills. Credit card bills would give you the most bang for the buck, they are directly attached to the banking industry who is asking for this criminal bailout.

Think about it!

State Enforced Slavery

This is a dark day for every American Citizen dreaming of home ownership. Senator Charles Schumer has introduced legislation on the Senate floor today that will effectively turn any homeowner with a mortgage into an indentured slave to the government/banking complex.

The New York senator will propose offering banks a lifeline if they renegotiate mortgages for those people close to losing their homes.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Charles Schumer plans to offer a broad economic proposal for the government to offer a financial lifeline to those banks that are willing to renegotiate mortgages for those on the brink of losing their homes.

The New York Democrat is an outspoken advocate for the financial industry, since so many of those workers are in his home state. Aides said the senator plans to outline his plan on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon.

Under Schumer's model, the government would give capital infusions or loans to banks in return for an equity stake, similar to the deal struck with insurance giant American International Group (AIG, Fortune 500) earlier this week.

In return, the banks would lift objections to legislation allowing loan modification for homeowners in bankruptcy. Currently, a person in bankruptcy cannot renegotiate the terms of their mortgage, unlike other kinds of debt.

Schumer's plan is an alternative to another proposal in Congress to create a federal agency to buy up bank debt, shifting potential losses onto U.S. taxpayers. It would be similar to the Resolution Trust Corp., which lawmakers established during the 1980's savings and loan crisis.

After the first few thousand defaults under the new plan the Government/Banking partnership will enact legislation mirroring the Guaranteed Student Loan Program. Student loans can never be defaulted on. It eliminates bankruptcy protection. The homeowner under this model is stuck in their overvalued home and unless they can sell will never be able to get out from under the debt. The Government will pursue you relentlessly garnishing wages and freezing assets. You literally become a debt slave to the state, locked into your home and forced to work whatever job they throw at you.

This has been the plan all along folks, long before they nationalized Freddie and Fannie. Dump the house, buy a trailer and plant your own beans...before you are forced to plant for someone else.

Question About Banking Crisis

Today the Fed and central banks around the world pumped 180 billion dollars into the banking system to increase liquidity. I understand that this move lets the banks continue cashing your paychecks but how does this fix the underlying problem with the banking industry which is associated with defaults on overvalued assets.

If I am not mistaken (I could easily be) the problem with the banks is that they bought those pooled mortgages that have now lost most of their value. If you loan someone $100,000 you should have that much in collateral, right. So if they bought these $100,000 loans and the value of the collateral dropped to $50,000 they have lost $50,000 if the home owner defaults. Not to mention all the profit they were counting on from the pool. Quite frankly if my home's value dropped from $100,000 to $50,000 I would be handing the keys happily over to the bank, which apparently is the problem.

If the banks would not have overvalued the homes in the first place to increase their profit this would not be an issue. This is a common sense versus greed situation. I am a taxpayer who was smart enough to realize that a house that was worth $100,000 two years ago simply is not worth $500,000 today, again common sense, and stayed out of the obviously rigged housing market. I am angered that I will be paying to bail out the greedy bankers who made massive profits while perpetuating this fraud. Let them fail...I don't get bailed out when my greed overtakes my common sense.

But back to the point. How does injecting cash into the system help the banks. They are still holding lethal amounts of bad debt. Unless the housing market does a massive rebound into fraud territory again this bad debt still exists and will only get worse. Thus the problem cannot be solved without letting the greedy money handlers fail, which again I have no problem with. Or have the government use working class taxes and print more money to assume the responsibility for all the overvalued debt and bail out the elite bastards who got us into this mess. I really do have a problem with that.

Three other points.

First - Home values don't magically increase just cause the banker says it's so. A rise in home values must be associated with a tangible catalyst of some sort that increases demand. These can include a major industry locating nearby increasing the working pool or possibly a military base housing some number of returning troops. Look at the flip side. When a major manufacturing facility closes in a city home values plummet. See the rust belt as an example. If home values are rising without an associated increase in salaries or number of jobs something is wrong.

Second - This is just the beginning, the big "stable" players, Citi and Bank of America, will see their problems start when consumers run out of money and start defaulting in bulk on those high risk credit cards those banks like to issue.

Third - Funny how the government is willing to nationalize any corrupt industry to protect the profits of the elite, but ask them to nationalize the health care system, a move that would vastly help the working classes, and they scream Socialism.

Winter Warmth WoodStove

Winter is now here, last night the temperature dropped down into the mid 30'. It was overcast with low cloud cover and I seriously thought it was going to snow. The trees started changing several weeks back and I have seen a huge number black squirrels running around. This summer was very cold with just a handful of days in the 90's and pretty sure we didn't break 100 once. It is going to be a very cold, very dark winter. I hate winter.

With fuel oil, natural gas and propane at records highs we will all need to look for various ways to cut back on our heating costs. The concept is simple, turn the thermostat down to fifty five, put on a big sweater and grit you teeth. Now this is good in theory but the reality is a cold and miserable existence during the black winter months. This fifty five degree nonsense works fine in the middle of the night burrowed under about five layers of blankets, but during the day I want to be able to move around the house without seeing my breath.

I want to comfortably wear shorts. I want to sweat while eating my oatmeal. I want the decadent pleasure of opening a window to cool the house down. When there is several feet of snow outside and the wind is blowing fifty miles an hour there is no greater cure for the blues than basking in the artificial radiance of a ninety degree living room while watching Resident Evil Apocalypse.

Unfortunately the small wood stove that currently sits in the cabin is grossly inadequate for heating a large moderately insulated somewhat holey self built cabin. It's gets a good fire but cannot be dampered down at night and needs loading every hour and 45 minutes...exactly...I set my alarm clock. Plus the design allows most of the heat to go up the flu.

So since I will be permanently moving down in January (yes, I had to move the date back again...need more money. I will write about that later) a very cold month, I really would like to have a big, hot wood stove. But how do I go about getting one?

There are two options when purchasing a wood stove. Easy and elegant or hard and dirty. As always I picked hard and dirty but it is a personal choice.

Now the Easy and Elegant method is nice. You simply go to a web site and pick out a stove you like. They deliver and unload it to your fine and clean garage then someone else comes along and installs the massive thing with the proper fittings, pipe and cutting equipment. No fuss, no muss...the problem is that this is somewhat expensive...between two and three thousand to start then up and up and up. But it may be worth it.

The hard and dirty method is considerably cheaper, and I mean considerably. You find a wood stove, this means Craigs List, yard sales and junk yards. The big old stoves are good for a hundred years. It will run between one and six hundred for the stove. It needs to be a massive old thing. You don't want cute and you don't want small...even if you have a relatively little place to heat. The stove needs to burn through the night and produce much more heat than the space requires. Trust me, burns through the night and a lot of heat.

You then load, move, unload and install this massive thing. WOOD STOVES ARE VERY VERY HEAVY. Get the clearance correct, if you don't know then use three feet from any flammable surface. You can use metal and brick to reduce the clearance but do some research. Most of these beasts heat best when placed in the middle of the house. Remember don't think cute, think heat.

Next comes the stove and chimney pipe. You run black single walled stove pipe from the stove top to the pass through on the ceiling. This pass through is a special square box that protects the house from the considerable heat of the stove pipe. From there up you use chimney pipe. This is that double or triple walled stuff specifically designed to not melt quickly during a chimney fire.

For the house fire paranoid another option is to run chimney pipe all the way up from the wood stove. You will lose a considerable amount of heat radiated from the stove pipe but you will feel more secure.

It is critical that you use the proper pipe in the proper place. You will burn your house down if you don't.

FLASHBACK

When I put my stove in I asked my local HomeDepot associate where to get double walled chimney pipe for a wood stove. He pointed at some silver pipe and said this will work. I asked him if it was chimney pipe to use with a wood stove he assured me the stuff would work. I asked him a second time and got the same response. So I bought the stuff and installed it. Unfortunately this was doubled pipe designed for natural gas heating systems.

I hacked a hole in the roof with a semi sharp bread knife (not recommended) and put the pipe through. After a couple of burnings the pipe started to melt down in the middle of the night. Smoke filled the place I got the dogs and Ryan out then stuck the nozzle to the fire extinguisher in the stove and emptied it. The next day we pulled the stack and found out that the inner pipe had melted and blocked the chimney. I was literally seconds from the pipe burning through and catching the house on fire. A double walled chimney pipe is rated at 2200 degrees the little gas pipe was rated at 700 degrees. So don't be stupid...use the correct pipe. The chimney pipe is expensive but necessary.

After I installed the correct chimney the wood stove has been wonderful...not a great heater but very nice.

The picture above is a Fisher Wood Stove, can't place the model (Mama, Papa or Baby) but it is what I am looking for. Today I found a big old Schrader stove about twenty miles from here for a hundred bucks with stove pipe but didn't get there quick enough.

Stay Warm