Keeping Occupied

Notre Dame finished the season with the usual fall from ahead in the last minute of play. Charlie Weis is ready to move on. I was impressed, however, with his decision to intentionally allow the Stanford Heisman candidate running back run in for the winning score. He was unstoppable anyway and ND needed the one minute left for a chance at an Ave Maria. Charlie always seemed collected on the sidelines if not a bit image-challenged. I hope ND doesn't end up with an emotional wreck like the coach for Stanford. His players looked more mature than he did.

Finished my contribution to the Christmas Tree - 100 lights. I have never seen a more lush tree - it has shoots that layer out below the branches that look like an alligator's open jaw.

I also finished too fast a great story, The Glass Castle, an autobiography by Jeanette Walls. I saw bits and pieces of myself and people I know in the story.

The solar panel and the cover for the camper propane bottles found each other like magnets. Turning the cover on end makes a perfectly balanced stand for mounting the panel at the ideal 66 degrees needed at Wyoming's latitude in Autumn for perpendicular sun rays. The solar panel frame fits so perfectly into the notches and top it looks like they were made for each other. I harvested six hours of sunlight Saturday and that along with Friday's five hours was enough to fully recharge my batteries after being drawn down 50% (~50 amps). So I would say one 80-amp panel is adequate to keep up with 25 amps overnight usage, such as, running the 6.5-amp furnace blower motor for four hours. My findings are openly available for peer-review unlike the "global warmongers" http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjAxYzA3NmI0N2Y1MDVhYzdmM2JkZGIyMjE5ZWU2OTI=