This year, I've made a huge move to another town, knowing no one, all by myself, with the goal of changing my life. I left a huge metropolitan area for a small town; a steady paycheck for part-time chump change. Friends and family were left behind, and only the unknown lay before me. At 45 years young, it has been both exciting and scary. I wanted to Powerdown, but what have I done besides using one Q-tip instead of two? How different are things really?<\/p>\n
I blew into town last May 2006, a full seven months ago. Within one month, while parked in a local campground just outside of town, I had an apartment and a job, albeit part-time, for the fall. I spent the summer camping and learning about prospecting in the Klamath and Siskiyou mountain wilderness.<\/p>\n
I learned how to make fires and cook in one pan. I learned how to exist without a daily shower, and use a Solar Shower to wash the dishes and myself. And I learned that finding gold by digging in the dirt does not payoff immediately, beyond, of course, the exhilerating joy of being in beautiful forest locales. I learned that if you are at a stream named Cougar Creek, there's a good reason why it has that name, and you should always carry a walking stick that can double as a weapon, just in case.<\/p>\n
By the fall, I was teaching two math classes at the local university and walking to work. I could walk to the laundromat, the food store, and the little downtown where I started kung-fu at a small fitness studio. My paycheck wasn't much, but it would pay the basic bills until I got into something else.<\/p>\n
As far as burning gasoline, I was way down.<\/p>\n
So how many gallons of gas did you save, you ask?<\/p>\n
Well, in Los Angeles, I used to drive 84 miles per day to get to work and back. Five days a week, that's 420 miles per week. At about 20 miles per gallon, that's 21 gallons of gas burned each week.<\/p>\n
At 20 pounds of CO2 per gallon<\/a> of gasoline, that's 420 pounds of CO2 each week!<\/p>\n So not only did I save 21 gallons of gasoline a week, I save 420 pounds of CO2 from the atmosphere! Now that's what I call political change.<\/p>\n I'm far off of my goals in energy use, but those CO2 savings alone was worth radically altering my environment and uprooting my entire life!<\/p>\n Well, I can't act like much of a hero anymore, cause I've lost that job now, and I'll be pushing off outta here in the spring. Before I settle again, this time at a coastal town, I'll probably be driving to the east coast to visit family and save some rent, stopping off at a few locations to drop off resumes and introduce myself for hire.<\/p>\n Is that carbon trading?<\/p>\n Ok, I'm half-steppin, forgive me, Lord!<\/p>\n But I'm gonna do better. I've got a few months more in this apartment, and I'm going to make the most of it.<\/p>\n When I went on this journey seven months ago, I had a solar power system on the roof of my van and it worked incredibly well. I not only had full power for lights, computer, and radio every night, at the campground, I set up an electronic music tent where I and a few fellow campers jammed on synthesizors, with drum machine, computer, and watched DVDs and videos.<\/p>\n Sounds like hardly camping, huh? Well, let me say that jamming electronics in the out of doors, inside a big screened tent, is My Kind of Camping!<\/p>\n When I got into my apartment, I ran an extension cord from the battery in the van through my window and ran my household items off of the solar power.<\/p>\n Well, the system worked like a charm, that is until I spent the entire day digging in the stream, not realizing that I'd left the van all shut-up tight in the sun, where the outside temperature went up to 105 degrees.<\/p>\n I fried the charge controller, and perhaps the battery. I needed repair or replacement. I've got to get that system going again before I take off.<\/p>\n I've also realized that finding a job sometimes means creating a job. Lots of research ahead, lots of work, but lots of opportunity as well.<\/p>\n All in all, I'm a better person than I was last year. I've drastically cut down on gasoline consumption and that makes a better world for everybody. I've got lots of ideas on projects, and it only remains to get busy actually producing.<\/p>\n Wish me luck!<\/p>\n I may be a doom and gloomer, but I'm sincere in wishing all of you a Happy New Year 2007!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This year, I've made a huge move to another town, knowing no one, all by myself, with the goal of changing my life. I left a huge metropolitan area for a small town; a steady paycheck for part-time chump change. Friends and family were left behind, and only the unknown lay before me. At 45 … Continue reading \"Back home after holiday visits, and, reflection…..\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[23,25,24],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robin","tag-co2","tag-offgrid","tag-solar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.useriscontent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.useriscontent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.useriscontent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.useriscontent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.useriscontent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.useriscontent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.useriscontent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.useriscontent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.useriscontent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}