Autumn, can we just call it Windmill season?

I've been at it at approximately 3/4 throttle with the gang at Pika over the past couple weeks. Last weekend was spent entirely at Common Ground Fair. Most of that time was hanging out at the Pika booth and talking with people who want one of our sexy wind turbines (I hope google catches onto that phrase and this blog comes up in search results for "sexy wind turbines", maybe I'll over use it in this post just to give us a fighting chance). I was pleasantly surprised to speak with some very informed customers on Saturday. Of course there were a few folks who didn't know how energy works but they were fairly few and far between. One point of discontent was that we had the wind turbine braked because in order to run we need an inverter and our inverter outputs "split phase 240V" which is what is at the entrance to your house.... however we only had a 120V extension cord. Most people understood why this was an issue but there was one man who simply did not understand that and was convinced that we were giving him some sort of BS. Next year we'll bring a transformer.

In the off times I hung out with Blandrea Jarrett (not actually bland at all) and her associated compadres. I have to say that after staying there all weekend, you really don't get the common ground experience until you camp there. The "volunteer" campground is the loosest run hassle free camping experience. I showed up too late to "get a permit" so I just pitched my tent anyways and no one bothered us the entire weekend, turns out that is what all of our neighbors did too. I just got a sweet new tent so I was excited to try it out, it worked great and despite wind, rain and uneven ground it kept me and my stuff bone dry. We did some contra dancing saturday night and witnessed a man playing guitar on hallucinogenics on Friday. Yup that's Common Ground.

That's right kids, it's a double rainbow over a wind turbine. Can you get anymore Common Ground than that!?!?! 

I didn't get to see much of the fair really but I did see a sweet booth with a bunch of bonsai trees. I nearly bought one because ever since visiting the national National Arboretum, I have thought they are awesome. There was some guy there who seemed to know everything about them too, unfortunately he was engaged in a Bonsai geek conversation when I was there and I didn't get to pick his brain. Overall a good time. On the way home my car started skipping, I put some "drygas" (moisture remover) in the tank and it ran fine the rest of the way home (more on this later).

Taking down our booth @ Common Ground

This past week we've been going great guns at work and installed two wind turbines and a bunch of solar stuff too. The two sites each have a turbine and 3kW of PV installed (or nearly installed at the time of this writing). We're not technically installers but we have been working with electricians and installers of other wind turbines to train them on our equipment. We had an out of state installer come up and walk through our manual during one of the installs with us. One of the sites has a sweet fiberglass monopole tower that comes in sections that slide over each other and glue together. The whole rig goes up with a winch so it doesn't require a crane, it's pretty sweet. We all take turns winching the towers up, not only is it a workout but it feels pretty BAMF to be part of the tower raising. 

I'll eventually get a picture of the monopole installed, I hope. My phone died part way through the install. 

In other news the Subaru is down with a clogged catalytic converter. After racking my brain to figure out why my car was loosing power, I decided to just play the uninformed idiot and drive it until it became obvious. After a painful 5 miles from my house to Josh's place (my car squealing and riding the struggle bus the whole way) I parked it and looked underneath. My catalytic converter was straight up about to be on fire. It was bright bright orange all over  and did NOT look pleased at all. A few months ago I had my friend scan the OBD2 port on the car with his fancy scan tool. The code read "efficiency of emissions tank 2 low", being an elitist cheapskate fuck I said "Oh it's probably just some sensor." Now I think that is probably directly related to the recent failure. Screw you hindsight, screw you! Also there really isn't much of a way around the expense of replacing one of these because the catalyst inside the part makes them $$$. Additionally it would be very difficult to replace with one person and no lift. 

So, this weekend I've been tooling around on my motorcycle which discouraged me from driving around at night much. It's kind of unsafe to ride when it is too dark, even though it is pretty awesome feeling to ride down the road surrounded by darkness with only a small headlight leading you home. 

I'm taking tomorrow off to spend the day with my pops at Fryeburg Fair for woodsmans day! It's where all the "big name" lumberjacks (is that even a thing?) come to participate in events like the springboard chop, two-man saw, underhand chop and various other lumberjack things. My dad and grandfather used to go fairly regularly but I could never make it because school. Should be a wicked good Maineahbubguy time!