Enlightened in Many Ways

Repost ffrom 8/27/2016:

"Supreme Awareness (Chiti, Brahmin, Self, Supreme Auspiciousness) is most often explained using the metaphor of 'light.' Light, and by comparison 'consciousness,' is illuminating, brilliant, bright, shining, luminous, allows us to see, provides visions, can be enlightened, shows the Way. Understanding is a function of seeing, looking, and insight. Light is associated with life, growth, energy, and warmth. Consciousness can be clear, focused, split up, diffused, shadowy, opaque, and magnified. Numerous religions have considered the sun to be a divine being, or their gods and goddesses to give off light, energy, warmth, and to light the way for us. Evil beings keep us in darkness, steal the light away, burn us up or freeze us, or are the Prince of Darkness."
- Mike Garofalo


Sunshine Power. Compiled by Mike Garofalo.


"Sunlight bestows a whopping 12.2 trillion watt-hours per square mile per year. The solar energy hitting the earth per year exceeds the total energy in all forms consumed by humanity per year by a factor of over 20,000 times."
- How Much Solar Energy Hits the Earth? From EcoWorld: Nature and Technology in Harmony.


"At first a small line of inconceivable splendor emerged on the horizon, which, quickly expanding, the sun appeared in all of his glory, unveiling the whole face of nature, vivifying every color of the landscape, and sprinkling the dewy earth with glittering light."
- Ann Reacliffe


The Ancient Four Elements  Fire (Sun), Earth (Soil), Air, Water

I've Grown a Little Taller

A repost from August 2016:

"Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees."
-  Karle Wilson

"I like to walk about amidst the beautiful things that adorn the world."
-  George Santayana

"I was never less alone than when by myself."
-  Edward Gibbon

"The walking stick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are employed otherwise that in useful effort, and it therefore has utility as an evidence of leisure."
-  Thorstein Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class

"... the brisk exercise imparts elasticity to the muscles, fresh and healthy blood circulates through the brain, the mind works well, the eye is clear, the step is firm, and the day's exertion always make the evening's repose thoroughly enjoyable."
-  Dr. David Livingstone


Currently, I am reading the following three books:

Solar Electricity Handbook: 2016 Edition: A Simple, Practical Guide to Solar Energy - Designing and Installing Solar PV Systems.  Greenstream Publishing, 2016, Kindle Edition.  307 pages.  VSCL. 

Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.  By Al Gore.  Rodale Books, 2009.  416 pages.  ISBN: 978-1594867347.  VSCL.  

Bohemian Manifesto: A Field Guide to Living on the Edge  By Laren Stover.  New York, Bulfinch Press, 2004.  271 pages.  ISBN: 9780821228906.  A lighthearted and free flowing discussion of the five variations of Bohemians (Nouveau, Gypsy, Beat, Zen and Dandy) and of Bohemian philosophy generally.  VSCL. 

Walking - Quotations, Sayings, Poems, Lore

Solitude - Quotations  

Traveling, Camping and Hiking in Oregon

Pleasure, Satisfaction, Desire - Quotations

Renewable Energy Options



Nearly every Sunday morning, at daybreak, I walk four miles along a quiet paved country lane.  The photograph below, taken by Karen, was on a nice Spring day.  

Nuclear Disaster

I am interested in solar power.  

I just finished reading:

Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster.  By David Lochbaum, Edwin Lyman, Susan Q. Stranahan, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.  New York, the New Press, copyright 2014 by the Union of Concerned Scientists.  Notes and references, index, 309 pages.  ISBN: 9781595589088.  

"On March 11, 2011, an earthquake large enough to shift the Earth's axis by several inches sent a massive tsunami speeding toward the Japanese coast and the aging and vulnerable Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactors.  The world watched in horror as the reactor's safety systems failed and explosions turned concrete and steel buildings into rubble.  In just a few hours a terrible natural disaster triggered a technological catastrophe - a triple meltdown that became the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl."

This book rigorously documents the tragic and unrecoverable losses from nuclear power plant failures due to flooding and electrical power disruption.  

Over 20,000 people died from the tsunami.  The earthquake was 9 level jolting for over 3 minutes.  

This book also covers the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania.  It draws out insider information about the nuclear power industry, regulatory controls, safety, vulnerability, planning, consumer demand, geography, technology, governmental management and oversight, scientific concerns and experts.  

Explosive!!!  

Catching the Sun

The United States needs to intensify its implementation of solar energy electrical power production as have Germany and China.  The near future is obvious!

I will begin studying renewable energy topics during in the next eight months.  

Solar Energy - Wikipedia


Catching the Sun.  Documentary film, 73 Minutes, 2015.  
Filmmaker: Shalini Kantayya.  Wikipedia article. 

Weekend Chores

Karen and I replaced the pump in our field well today.  We had tried to fix the old pump setup twice before in the last three months but were unsuccessful. 

The pump is a SHURflo, 9300 series, $700.  The pump runs off 24 volt direct current, 120 watts, 4.0 maximum amps.  It will pump water up from a depth of 250 feet at full power.  We use a solar panel to provide the electricity for this pump.  

Our well is 126 feet deep.  The water level in the well is at 46 feet.  I keep the pump at about 90 feet.  
This pump, running on solar power, will deliver 1.4285 gallons per minute outflow.  This steady flow of water will add about 1,027 gallons of water each 12 sunny hour day into our small ponds. 
The water we pump up is used to fill our two ponds and for drip irrigation on trees and shrubs all around our property.  

Check out some of my previous blog posts for some information about the history of this well.  

We also worked on our front yard.  Mowing the lawn.  Pruning and weeding.  Improving the rock borders.  Setting some pavers in place.  Setting in some new drip irrigation lines.  The small yard looks very nice now.  

Yesterday, I attend a workshop in Sacramento from 9-6 pm.  It was the Group Exercise Instructor Certification course from the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America.  The instructor, Jessica De'Haven, provided a very engaging and highly informative workshop, and was an impressive athlete.  I got lots of exercise and I am a little tired and a bit sore today.  The typical attendees at these workshops are nearly all young, slender and fit women.  I'm a rarity at these events: 66 years old, a man, and a very BIG man.  It was an enjoyable experience!  Fitness instructors, like myself, have to keep various certifications current to stay employed in this industry.  Hopefully, I passed the battery of written and practical tests at this workshop.  

Karen works 30 hours a week as an instructional aide in an special education classroom run by the Tehama County Department of Education.  I work 24 hours a week as a technology and media services supervisor and grants coordinator for the Corning Union Elementary School District.  We have both worked at these jobs for the last 13 years.  Consequently, like most folks, weekends keep us quite busy with chores. 

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
-  Thomas A. Edison

"Man was not made to rust out in idleness.  A degree of exercise is as necessary for the preservation of health, both of body and mind, as his daily food.  And what exercise is more fitting, or more appropriate of one who is in the decline of life, than that of superintending a well-ordered garden?   What more enlivens the sinking mind?   What is more conducive to a long life?"
-  Joseph Breck

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
-  Thomas Jefferson 

Work:  Quotes, Sayings, Poems, Wisdom