On Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:56:17 -0800, Bruce in alaska
wrote:

In article ,
z wrote:

Actually some new people bought the old foster place down the road from
me a few miles and I got the trust fund impression. We were talking
about home power at a BBQ and they were telling me how they had big plans
for putting in wind power etc.

For one thing the spot they bought is terrible for wind power but that
didn't seem to bother them. Like me they'd need to send the power at
least 3/4 a mile to get any wind. And I was reminding them of 140 MPH
winds we get from time to time and how to make a tower/turbine that can
withstand that. And they've got no road or access to the only place on
their property to do wind, and its on steep hill with timber .. its a big
****ing job in anycase.

No problem they were like 'well we can get these wind turbines for only
30,000 so we're thinking about putting two in to see how they go.

Oh.. right. OK then if you want to spend unlimited amounts of money on
it than I guess it can be made to work. The thing they COULD do on that
place is hydro so I was talking with them about that. The guy was
convinced he wanted to use an archemedes screw with a concrete shoot of
some kind with some home made rare earth magnets he had to generate
power. We were all pretty drunk by that time so I'm going to have to
talk with them more seriously at some point.

But the 30k turbines cracked me up. Yeah I could buy a russian nuclear
sub and put it in the creek and run off the power plant in that thing too
if I had a bazzillion dollars to spend on it.

So I think thats what got me in the trust fund mood -- I get so tired of
people telling me 'just buy a bunch of solar panels' and the like

It's all relative. Somebody asked me once why I didn't just pave the 6
miles of road leading to my place. Either he thought that paving was
cheap, or that somebody driving a 10 year old car is secretly made of
money. :-) Still, we might as well be Rockefellers compared to some
folks who don't know if their retirement check or whatever will
stretch to the end of the month.

Sorry about that I'm sure you understand

-z

Yep, Flatlanders for sure... You can pick them out of any crowd,
anywhere... First Clue.... More Money, than Brains..... Second Clue,
They use all the Buzzwords, alright,

It doesn't necessarily take long, but I'm careful about categorizing
people until I get to know them. That comes partly from meeting some
seemingly non-technical types who proved to be way smart already, or
could pick up new and/or difficult stuff quickly. I can also think of
a couple who weren't normally hands-on types, but were brilliant at
managing others, and had the proven success to show for it. If one is
really good at his trade, or better yet at lots of trades, then they
can get paid handsomely by those really smart and successful people to
do the dirty work. Which is exactly what I'd do if I was smart enough
to be able to afford it.

BUT never have had any Grease under
their Manicured Fingernails..... Nice bunch of folks, but don't ever do
"Business " with them.....

I'd never rate people one way or another by their fingernails. I wear
gloves as much as possible, and only get grease stuck under my nails
when it's unavoidable. Conversely, I know quite a few whose inability
to keep their nails, or anything else they wear or own clean, is
indicative of their generally sloppy approach to every task or
subject. I saw a perfect example of that just the other day. If dirty
nails were a useful barometer of anything good, that guy would be the
second coming. Instead, he was an outstanding menace to himself and
any others or equipment within his reach. The obvious question was how
the hell he'd managed to live so long, and the answer from someone who
knows him was that he'd come close to killing himself (again) only a
couple months ago.

Wayne