Where You Are Photos

Awesome - thanks for the insight, Beach!

In NZ you can hike “Te Araroa”, a chain of connected walks / trails from the very northern tip of the North Island to the very southern tip of the South Island.

It takes about 3 months if you do it in one go I think - but we’ve done a number of the trails already separately so I am thinking of getting a big map of NZ on my garage wall, mark the trails already done and over time start connecting the lines. Would be kind of cool to say you’ve walked / ran through your whole country/ even if it isn’t in one go.

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Same with the Pacific Crest trail. Reading the accounts of people who have done it is pretty amazing.

Estimates range anywhere from $2.00 to $4.00 dollars a mile for the trip. That definitely would add up fast on a 2650 mile hike.

Wheels

Went “Up North” to northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan for a business trip. Had some free time, aka boondoggle.

Petoskey, Michigan

Boyne City, Michigan

Walloon Lake, Michigan

Pizza

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Used to visit Petoskey as a kid with my parents during summer vacations in Mackinaw.

Friends of mine hiked three months from Zurich to Vienna few years back. Definitely an experience you carry with you for the rest of your life.

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One of them ugly, cold, wet, miserable nights. All aboard…

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Got to be an electrician again today!

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We should start calling you “The Martian”!

(Um…because in the movie he had to work a lot with solar panels…maybe not).

This site was rated* at 25 kW. I don’t remember what the panels at the HAB had for total rated capacity - I’ll have to dive back into the book.

*it’s also 10 years old, and it gets pretty hot here, both of which affect efficiency and total output.

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And the caption reads, “Dad, do I really have to wear these?”

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…how did y’all get down to field level??

So what goes on underneath those solar panels?

The layout is six rows of modules, with each row making up a string of six modules. So, wires in conduit going to the combiner boxes for each string, and individual grounds to each panel and module. Because the site is on the same property as NC State’s football and basketball arenas, the whole area is fenced off with barbed wire, because students do the dumbest things, and ~400 VDC hurts.

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When a team is 2-8, any win is a rush the field victory… :joy:

No…just kidding. It was Academic All Stars night, we got free tickets for our son being semi-smart (he got all of his redeeming genetics from his mother). At the end of the game they let all the families down on the field for a half hour. Fun night with a nice win for the Tar Heels…

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First ice this fall a couple of days ago

After sunset

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I resemble that remark. :slightly_smiling_face:

That snow is definitely getting closer. Not long now…

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