All is very dark and very soggy damp with just the quiet tinkle of flowing water to disturb the night.

Who knows what I'll find in the morning...

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I`m glad when february is over.
Probably i will not see much of march i guess.
Have a surgeryx on my heart valve on 5th.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Oh poo. Not a good thing having any surgery on your heart. Hope all goes well.

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We had rain overnight but today is looking great. Blue skies, puffy clouds, and modest winds. 54f and mud everywhere. We did have a storm come in overnight. I need to drain the covers on my boats and it looks like one of scuppers plugged up. My sailboat's cockpit is holding water. It would make a nice hot tub is I ran the engine for an hour or so.

Winning on a Tuesday morning in the highlands after Thor stomped around here yesterday.

Best of luck with your op Mike.

Anyhow I better put the kettle on.

Cheers.

Good luck Mike for a smooth operation and good recovery!


Meanwhile elsewhere... I'm back in the remoteness and food desert...

And I'm pleasantly surprised by some positive improvements. Still a way to go yet but better than what I feared I might find for my stint over here.

Will have to see what progress can be made.

And I'll be dibbing into my healthy supplies sooner this time round rather than suffer an excess of fish and chips!


The weather has turned dry but chilly grey. There are still big puddles lying all around...

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Good luck Mike.

My plan to go solar is getting praise elsewhere, that and add 3 circuits, a 240v circuit(2 bonded 120's) for the car and two 20 amp 120v circuits for the panels.

Eight 220w bifacial solar panels to make 1090Kwh of electricity, 2 1400w micro inverters(DC to AC), and to charge my car and to reduce my natural gas consumption to zero...

Rain you say? Well this isn't Spain, nor is there a plane nearby, but the last storm dumped 2.75" here and no flooding happened, puddles yes and some snow on the local mountain...

And of course the Brightline West HST(High Speed Train) won't be stopping in this area, greedy land owners jacked up the price from $75,000 to about $350,000 on a 22 acre parcel thinking they'll stop here, the train said NO, just Las Vegas NV, Apple Valley CA, and Cucamonga CA, BW HSR has the entire i15 fwy median leased for about 50 years.

I live in an actual desert where food is 13 miles away.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

I was able to keep my fast fill IBC from overflowing yesterday by draining it as it rained, just, but there's still 950L in there now up from 550L and I may have to do a drain action on it again this afternoon (1mm of rain equals 100L in the tank) and my slow fill job went from 600L to 800L after 12mm of rain.

At least I have the plants in 1 potato stack finally starting dying off now while the other 2 are still flowering and as for my pumpkins I think that some near on doubled in size over the last 2 days with quite a few behemoths in the 2 patches (that are now 1) that will give Big Bertha a run for her title.

Though I must say that I'm still quite surprised by how just much water those capsicums go through as I still had to top up their wicking tubs after that rain and their fruit is only the size of peas ATM.

Anyhow it's time for my last coffee of the morning while I decide what to do today while doing nothing as I'm still paying for last week's taming of my jungle, I'm almost at the stage of fishing my walking stick back out again, if I remember where I stashed it.

Cheers.

Someone ought to love this...

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

So... Day #1 in the food desert in the land of the Minions...

... And... I'm already exhausted.

The weather was cool but fine and a bright grey so, that should have been good for progress. And yet...

We had a slow start and missed the 1pm deadline. That then kicked into Plan B which worked well, but then totally blew out the next deadline... And then the weather turned a very chill cold.

We also suffered a driver bringing the world to a stop whilst he discovered that he didn't know how to unload some machinery that he was delivering... Pathetic ignorant dumb... Totally stupid. Not my problem other than the world was brought to a halt. He'd parked across the only access route for an awful lot of people...

Sometime later, thankfully, he was out of the way for my passing that way...

Some notable notes:

• Cold feet on a cold concrete slab floor are distractingly uncomfortable...
  
  
• Difficult access in poor light makes for an unnecessarily difficult job...
  
  
• Securely reliable locking connectors are a godsend, but upside-down connectors are a pain in the neck!
  
  
• Clear communication is key...
  
  
• And bad vibrations can make for some very obscure happenings to debug and fix...
  

All good fun?

And I'm already hungry for good food!

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

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Finding T rated tires in 185/55R15 and 195/55R15 is so far proving very hard,
so far I've only been able to find H rated tires in my size tires and T rated from ebay for $483.94 and $485.88, @ Walmart and Tirerack and $470.92 on ebay...
Amounts do not include mounting which is $18 and $25 a tire respectively for Kumho Solus TA31...
Both are stock tire sizes for my car, the wider tires are under the 474lb battery, in 2014's that is 560lbs.

Good news:
eBay has T rated tires and all 4 are from the same seller "OnlineTires.com", tire mounting is not included, but can be added, tire mounting can be done in Barstow CA.

Bad news:
The tires are Achilles and Goodyear, tire mounting is not included, but can be added.

And forget about the stock brand as that has been discontinued... :(

I can as soon as a heap check gets here buy a new 8 gallon point of use electric water heater for $135.44 and then hopefully combined with my own check get proper rubber on my car and get rid of the V rated sport junk.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Posting after a long and boring day of trying to recover from whatever it was I did to myself and I'm already sick of the smell of Dencorub as well. :-(

Anyhow I've got a line of pain pills ready to see if I can get in a decent sleep in tonight.

Cheers.

I hope you feel better soon.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Ditto, pain is an old friend here, I take 3 aspirin 500mg w/32mg caffeine and 3 acetaminophen 650mg pills, otherwise I can't sleep or walk or get up from a seated position.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Why T?
The suggested tire rating is a floor if the manufacturer suggests T-rated tires that is the lowest rating you should put on the car. You usually pay more for higher-rated tires but if they cost less go for it. I use V-rated tires on my Volt. There is no way that car can go 149 mph and maintain it. I might get up to 110 but I like the extra performance and safety margin. If T will cost you more than a U or H, then go with the higher-rated tire.

Consider going to Tirerack.com and entering your vehicle. It will give you suggestions. They generally have the best price and will ship to an installer near you.

I totally agree with Carlos.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

V rated tires hurt EV battery range cause the V/H rated tires are Too STICKY, EV's like mine have two batteries, the 12v and the bigger one(18.4Kw) see pic, location under rear seat and trunk,
stock tires on my car are T rated, but then most including my own are not allowed to go past 90 mph.

$5,029.80 Delivered, of course I don't know the state of charge, just that it came from a Spark EV with about 47,000 miles on the odometer.
Stock tire sizes on my car? 185/55R15 and 195/55R15 both T Rated Bridgestone EP150 tires(Discontinued)...

Bridgestone Ecopia EP150 tires.

I don't have need for a range reducing tire, as they're meant for ICE autos, not for BEV's...

Note: I have tried Tire Rack and Walmart and America's Tire, they suggest SPORT V rated tires, read the link I provided for real EV info, not ICE info.
Since when is an EV a Sports Car??? I drive a 140hp 2015 Chevy Spark 2LT EV, not a sports car...

The Pilot Sport-shod e-Golf managed an impressive 1.0g on a skidpad, compared to 0.77g for the stock and wheel-and-tire setup. But while the stock e-Golf has an EPA-rated 125-mile range, observed range dipped below 100 miles with the stickier rubber.

It's not just tires. The wheel design can have a significant role in boosting efficiency. Car and Driver found last year that just using Tesla's aero wheel covers on a Model 3 improved its efficiency by more than 3%—or about 10 miles of range.

That confirmed what Green Car Reports has noted before in a tire swap on a Chevrolet Bolt EV—and a corresponding range drop of roughly 10% with the higher-performance rubber.

Tall, skinny tires used to be the trend for green cars, but more recently low-rolling resistance tread patterns and new compounds have helped reconcile some of the conflicting priorities.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Winning on a Hump Day morning with the sun now shining brightly as the kettle gets ready to boil.

Cheers.

I'm looking forward to my next trip across Switzerland and Germany in a car that requires (Y) rated tyres, which will be driven to its limits by a couple of friends when we arrive a our destination. My job is to get them there and back as fast as is legal.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?