New Book

Well, somehow three months have slipped by since my last post. I've been hitting it hard this winter, trying to finish up a project. And here's the result:

+Wayne Keith's new book Have Wood Will Travel is finally done! We've printed, autographed, and mailed out nearly 300 copies. I have a stack of orders here to ship out as well, and more are pouring in. We'll probably need another small print run before Argos. +MOTHER EARTH NEWS is planning to review the book and even carry it in their bookstore. Exciting!

In order to autograph all the pre-ordered books, we had them shipped to Alabama. Reshipping them to me would have been fairly expensive. So I drove the old truck down (on gasoline) and we squeezed in a gasifier repair visit along with the book mailing. Wayne and Lisa Keith are very gracious hosts, and made me feel right at home. The weather was cold and wet most of the week, but we made do.

After a week long visit, I made the trip home on woodgas power! It was 400 miles this time (we've moved to Frankfort now). However old trucks are not exactly reliable, no matter what fuel makes them go. Woke up to a flat tire the morning I wanted to leave. Backing it up towards the compressor, it came off the rim. Got that fixed, and started down the driveway. Then the battery died. Made it onto the freeway, and everything was running great. Then I had the alternator go out about 30 miles from Wayne's place, requiring a rescue mission in his woodgas V10. Trip to the parts store and $80 later, I was back in the drivers seat, and waved goodbye to Wayne and Tally. At about 2 pm I finally started on my 8 hour trip home.

And later on the way, I got pulled over - not for speeding, but for a burned out brake light. The officer was quite friendly and interested in the gasifier (as he handed me a citation for $30).

Now home safe and sound, I'm trying frantically to get caught up from the pile of orders and other work that has piled up in my absence. I was able to check in fairly well from the road, but many things are best left for the "big computer" at home. I was very happy with the Chromebook's performance on the road. I kept up with all my emails and site administration, reviewed photos on an SD card, moved videos from my new flip camera to a portable drive, made video calls back to the family, and uploaded to Youtube. Pretty normal laptop stuff. The Chromebook never flinched. However I do wish there was an option to have it "always on" during uploads or USB charging. It falls asleep pretty quick, even with a Google Hangout running.

All in all, my February has been busy and exciting. I'm hoping March will slow down a bit, but then April will pick right up again and by then my attention will be on the Argos meetup. I've got a list of things to fix up on the old truck before I go. We'll see how much I can get done this spring!

Christmas Update

Just a quick note to say Merry Christmas to both my blog readers. I feel a little bad that I haven't posted in a long time. But I'm sure you prefer decent posts once every long while to a steady stream of tiny updates. And it's so much faster for me....

So what's new? Lots of things. We sold our Suburban, and got a 1995 Honda Accord station wagon to replace it. We are big fans of the 1st gen Odyssey minivan and so the Accord is a natural fit.

The woodgas truck has been down for some time, I had an air leakage problem that melted one of the grate hanging chains. Until I have time to repair it, I've been lighting it once a week. This keeps it from rusting internally. It's not a hard fix, I just have had zero time to spend on it. Likewise the Metro engine is still not rebuilt, and so on. It will happen as soon as I get some bigger projects finished.

Drive On Wood has grown steadily, and we've seen half a dozen trucks finished, with several others on the brink. Our meetup in Indiana should be much more lively this year.

I've taken part time work at the Wernick Method. I've been helping out now and again for a while now, but it's nice to get paid and see some steady work from it.

The woodgas plans book is really really close. We've been working on the second 90% for some time now. I wanted to be done by the end of the year, but so much else is happening right now that the true chances of finishing are slim to none. But it should be done soon after that, IF we keep it going at this rate.

Oh yes, I did buy a new toy. I bought a Samsung Chromebook for $250 from Newegg.

I was a little torn between that and a Nexus 7, but in the end it was the right choice. The Chromebook lets you get real work done if needed, but at the same time is as portable as a large tablet. It's super zippy, fairly light, runs silently, reboots almost instantly, and runs very advanced web apps that begin to replicate desktop functions. If you really need the desktop, you can easily remote in using Chrome's remote desktop app. I've edited video in Adobe Premiere Pro, by remoting in from the Chromebook on the living room couch. Fun stuff! This runs very smoothly for me, between the Chromebook and a Windows 8 machine.

So, any downsides to Chrome? You do need a wireless signal. My room is built from concrete blocks. So if I want to use the Chromebook I usually take it into the main part of the house. Once I find a way to connect to a Connectify Hotspot on my main PC, I will be completely satisfied. Plug in drives get pretty bare bones support, but that's really outside the use-case for this machine. It's for internet, nothing else.

I also bought Wayne a Chromebook, and he's thrilled. The same machine that can satisfy a Google nut like me is also perfect for a computer novice, someone who just needs it to work and not break. This concept has sold a lot of Apple devices. Now it applies to the much cheaper Chromebook, and I suspect that many of them will go for this purpose. Heck, Wayne even joined a Google Hangout! Not even possible from his old setup. It was the familiar story of a glacially slow PC, barely 5 years old. How many of those users are ready for a cheap upgrade for simple tasks? I know at least one who is very happy now. And if his Chromebook is physically intact after 5 years, it will be at least as fast if not much faster than it is now.


[Note to my loyal blog readers who noticed the template change. Yes it is intentional and yes, I reverted back to the old-style blogger template. The newer "dynamic" template is just too buggy, often fails to load properly and isn't very customizable. So until I build a full up Drupal blog, this will have to do.]



Well that's all for today. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Update from Frankfort

It's been too long since I updated this. It used to be a regular item on the schedule but I have many projects now tugging at my sleeve, using up nearly all my computer and non-computer time. But here I am with an update.

• We moved! After two long years of waiting the house finally sold and we have moved into town. Frankfort is a great town, is affluent for its size, not big like Lexington or Louisville but within a close drive of both. A half hour drive used to put us into Campbellsville, a town of 9,000 with mostly just a Walmart. Now that same drive puts us in Lexington - 436,000 people. The house is in a nice older neighborhood, solid construction that you never see any more. We did have to update all the original 1949 wiring to modern specs. There's a small detached garage with a room over, both have become my domain. In return I have taken on several vehicle maintenance projects (more on that in a bit).
• The truck is running great! I have about 2000 miles on it so far, and a big chunk of that was a trip to the gasifier meetup in Indiana. Read all about that on the Mother Earth blog and on the Drive On Wood forum. I have lots of things planned for it, it's really not even finished yet. Really a testament to Wayne's wonderful design that I can take a 90% finished truck and drive it thousands of miles with no trouble.
• Speaking of Drive On Wood, we are seeing a great deal of interest in the site and in Wayne's plans. Folks have been steadily signing up and many have started projects - even before the book is ready! This is possible due to the extensive video tutorials we have posted. As soon as the book goes out we should see a flood of new projects started.
• We may have a small garden this year. Matthew has taken an interest in tilling up a plot behind the house and planting some tomatoes. There's several community gardens established in Frankfort. The concepts of local food and organic produce are well understood. 

Vehicle projects:

• My poor old Metro is out of service, I took it on a trip to NC and neglected to fill the oil. I didn't know until I heard a clacking coming down a mountain pass. Oil starvation. The oil light was apparently not working. I had done some dashboard wiring which probably messed it up. So that engine is shot and I will be rebuilding a junkyard engine to go into it.
• The Honda Odyssey is due for a timing belt change. I have never done it on this vehicle since it is a very infrequent repair and in "the old days" we always had it serviced at the shop. Given the expense and that I have gained some skills and experience since then, I am pretty sure I can handle it myself. So wish me luck.
• The truck itself needs an overhaul. There's a slight rattle evident which is not pinging. I am leery of the timing chain going out or wearing a hole in the cover, so I will be changing that and the water pump together. Plus new plugs and wires etc. At the same time I need to reroute some woodgas plumbing under the hood.
• The Suburban has outlived its usefulness to us. We have found it quite useful in many unexpected situations, but at this point it's just an extra vehicle - right now a much needed one with the Metro is out of service. But soon enough I will be fixing all the little problems and getting it ready for sale. On the list: it leaks power steering fluid pretty bad, the brakes need changing and bleeding, and the drivers seat mount is broken, giving a rocking chair effect which will not impress buyers.

Next month I will be returning to the KSU research farm for a demonstration of the woodgas truck. They are having their Third Thursday event, this one will be their 15th anniversary. It'll be more impressive to show people now that it actually powers the engine and not just a flare in the parking lot. I have an entier presentation showing how woodgas works and documenting my trip to see Wayne.

Oh, and if you're curious to see all the details of this gasification stuff, please check out all the free info available on the Drive On Wood website. It's all there. You could spend six months absorbing all that material - I know because I did.  And if you're really interested in building a system, we have all the info you need to get started building. Alright, enough of the shameless plug. Just go check it out! http://driveonwood.com