Today's Google Earth theme was alternative energy. I was poking around Mojave, CA trying to find Scaled Composites when I remembered that there are a ton of wind turbines around there. I had seen them on the SpaceShipOne documentary, and I think Mythbusters went out to Mojave for something as well. Anyway, if you know they are there it's hard to miss. The resolution is high enough that you can see the shadows of the blades. I also found that nearby is a spot where the power company laid out a bunch of spare blades. It's pretty cool.
I looked up some solar plants next. I found a good sized PV array outside Prescott, AZ, but it wasn't too exciting to look at. I wanted something like the solar plants in SimCity 4 that I love using. It turns out that the US only had one of those - as a test facility - and it's not running anymore. I guess I'd assumed than all you needed was 3,000 wealthy residents...In addition, the site is in a low-resolution area, so I can't even get a good look at it. Oh well.
I spent the day waiting for my DSL hardware to arrive. UPS came by yesterday between 2 and 3, but today they didn't show up until a quarter after five! I hate UPS. The hardware was pretty easy to set up except the phone company had forgotten to send me a letter with important user name and password info, so I had to call tech support and make them tell me.
Things have been going well since then. I'm on my own DSL now, so I don't have to worry about dialup, or the neighbor's DSL going down, or being kicked off the neighbor's DSL, or having problems because the neighbor's DSL isn't secure. One less thing to worry about and I'm happier for it.
The temperature has been a bit nicer recently, though the other grads are still bitching. I'm getting pretty far on sorting through the gigs of music I got from the guys. One of my favorite finds is a punk cover of 'The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything' - it amuses me, especially since it reminds me of PJ.
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