The Education of Axel Heyst

Where are you and where are you going?
AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

### Midweek Checkin ###. These updates have been part of my MMG, I've just done them in our Signal group. I'm going to start posting mine here.

Context: My current ERE focus is on getting my system stitched together in such a way that I maximize (optimize?) time spent under intrinsic motivation/stoke. I don't have any singular 'project', rather the level of focus is in how to tie it all together. That said, some current projects or areas of focus are:
  • .Getting my physical infrastructure here at Ft Dirtbag tightened up. Heating systems, some door flashing, seismic retrofits, an outdoor shower, etc. I've been making steady progress on this.
  • .Getting a system for income generation set up now that I'm back in one place.
  • .Dialing in a daily routine that strikes the right balance between structure and openness, direction and wander-time.
Okay, so my check-in for the past week or so is:

I recorded a podcast episode with a forumite. I'm editing it now, should be ready to drop by early next week. The conversation was really fun, and I'm really excited to publish it. I'm also excited to record more episodes with forumites and ERE-adjacent people. I've decided to make my podcast conversation-only, to cut down on the writing intensity of it and, honestly, I suspect my monologues were better suited to other formats.

I shifted my morning writing time from nonfiction to fiction. I have two fiction projects I'm working on. I'll say more about those later. For the moment, blogging and writing here just gets done whenever I feel like it, outside of my formal structure. I almost never miss a morning writing session.

...but I haven't nailed consistency with studying yet. I study less than half of days. I'm considering moving it to the morning, just after my writing session. The earlier in the day I plan on doing things, the less likely I am to let something else come up.

I signed up for the PCT next year. Not the whole thing. I selected a trailhead just before the Sierras, with an end point in Canada. I doubt I'll actually walk all the way to Canada. Walking for 2-3 months sounds about right, so my real target might be Bend, OR, where I have friends and could from there get over to see @mooretrees.

I've had some anxiety around my two PV projects. The issue was that I was giving too much of my time to the neighborhood handyman gig, because I thought it was just temporary. Turns out, the neighbor has infinite projects. So I renegotiated that to 3 days/wk, 9 hours a week, which works out to 1.25xCoL. Having that structure and expectation managed completely deflated my stress, and I've gotten back into the swing of the PV projects. About to order $15,000 worth of panels and batteries and solar charge controllers. I'm stoked to break into the 5kW Club...

I built a tiny radiant floor. heh.

Thinking about ERE2.0 self-authoring around a central theme of 'solarpunk polymath'.

Next week I'm going up north to swap bikes with a forumite, hang out with my builder/occultist bestie, help another friend with some house projects and learn how to brew b33r. I may or may not ride the new-to-me bike back home. Anyone in the Bay want to meet up next week? Let me know!

Life is good.

eta: Oh, the Nate Hagens podcast with Schmachtenberger #4 blew my mind a bit the other day. Connected some stuff that I hadn't connected before (aka the 'unit' of humanity that responds to selection pressures is no longer genomic, but involves the holon of social/group coordination + the group's tech stack + their 'superstructure' which I think means something like shared paradigm, with the consequence that humanity gained the unique ability to destroy biosphere and thus has a responsibility/imperative to figure out how not to).

shaz
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by shaz »

Thanks for posting your mid-week checkin here. I always enjoy your updates and often benefit from the good ideas in them. I'm glad things seem to be working out well for you.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

A PSA about jargon in my journal:
AxelHeyst wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:18 pm
There are many posts and topics that I don't engage with because I don't think I'm smart/informed enough to contribute at. I've gone wikipedia-article-deep on SD, so I get lost quickly. I know only the rudiments of MTBI. Heck, pages of my own journal have been hijacked by SD/etc arcana that I totally checked out of because I can't make heads or tails of. I had stuff I wanted to post (in my own journal!) but I just waited until the nerds were done. It didn't feel great.

i wanted to clarify something here. I wrote the above to demonstrate that I had some idea (empathy) of what it felt like to feel jargoned out of a thread. The nuanced thing is that I don't want it to not happen in my journal. So let me be really clear:

if anyone wants to post a response in my journal, and they want to go deep with any framework they think is relevant, and use lots of technical terms, go for it, even if I get lost. I'll study up and come back to it later if it's over my head. I'll be interested to see how it fit with whatever the topic was. My mild unenjoyable feelings related to not being able to follow the Convo are 'my shit', and are well balanced by feeling absolutely chuffed that Smart People are saying Smart Things in my little foyer of the forum.

If something is going on in my journal that I don't like, I'll letcha know. Otherwise, feel free to put your boots up on the table.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

###Midweek Checkin ###
I'm on a train back home from the Bay, where I swapped my bike with @mF It was great to see him IRL even if only briefly, and I feel like we're both stoked on the trade. I rode the bike from the Sunset to the metro, a few miles. Haven't been on a bike since... 2019? God. It feels good. I'm really psyched to start riding around the desert.
--
Spending is a bit over my TTM5K target, due to some materials for the studio and this trip. I spent $600, or $7,200 annualized. No poor decisions or lack of planning, the money was all well enough spent. Finding good sources of salvage building materials will be a fruitful direction for attention, and sorting out a good zone of accumulation for it.
--
My routine was off for the past week due to family and holidays. I'll be picking it back up for December, which should be a mellower month.

---

I'm thinking about what it means to have goals/desires and to take the necessary steps to move in that direction, and how impossible it is to control exactly what happens. You can not desire any change, keep doing what you're doing, and basically not change. Fine.

You can have a specific goal for what you want, and take steps to make it happen, and then *something* will for sure happen. If you have a rigid idea of what you want, you might not like what happens. If you take the perspective that you are applying a charge of activation energy and a direction to the entity that is "me", and the universe/reality is such a wild thing that for sure something is going to happen but it might be a bit of a surprise... Then you're setting yourself up to be able to experience a wide range of outcomes as delightful, even if they're not quite what you wanted originally and might require more iterations to get to a place you want to settle in for a bit.

Something in there is also the perspective that events change who you are, so the process of fulfilling desires necessarily modifies the entity that originally desired the thing and who knows what that guy'll be in to once you arrive at that place.

---

Tis the season to think about generosity and surplus in relation to frugality. I'm at a place where I'm just about getting my personal systems humming along nicely. Thing is, I have basic or, ah, rustic standards. There are few skills in my web that I feel good about applying towards generosity / gifts / etc to other people. My coffee makes me happy, for a simple example, but my methods are basic and it's not up to normal consumer standards of consistency etc.

It feels like I still have a fair amount of system maturation to work through before my skills are at a level and I have surplus here and there to feel like I'm capable of generosity at the level I want.

The main surplus I have is time and handyness. I went over to a buddy's house and helped him install holiday lights on a sketchy eave. I'm assiduously helpful with whatever my parents are up to, eg helping with scaffolding and installing stuff on the roof. Etc. That's all great, I'm just looking forward to getting some other skills up to a level I feel proud enough to share the wealth. Actually decent roasted coffee. Decent woodworking projects. Some meals that aren't acceptable only "considering a dude made it". Beer and wine that tastes good would be excellent as well.

Still cranking on some infrastructure fundamentals like making sure my studio doesn't leak, my toes don't get frostbite, I'm generating sufficient income, and my studio won't collapse in the next quake. First things first.
Last edited by AxelHeyst on Thu Dec 01, 2022 1:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mathiverse
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mathiverse »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:20 pm
...

Thing is, I have basic or, ah, rustic standards. There are few skills in my web that I feel good about applying towards generosity / gifts / etc to other people. My coffee makes me happy, for a simple example, but my methods are basic and it's not up to normal consumer standards of consistency etc.

It feels like I still have a fair amount of system maturation to work through before my skills are at a level and I have surplus here and there to feel like I'm capable of generosity at the level I want.

...
I totally relate to this. It's not a focus of mine at the moment, however I eventually want to build up more skills to the level that it's very appreciated when I am generous with them. I'd love to be able to make things that people want as gifts.

I have had some success cooking my best dishes for potlucks. Although they weren't spectacular, it was me and a bunch of other amateurs cooking so it fit in well with what was on offer. Also chipping in time to organize things like my family's holiday dinner was appreciated since I have the most time of my siblings.

One other thing that has worked really well for me is offering tutoring for my knowledge worker skills like programming, math, etc. Unfortunately, that type of thing can't be given for Christmas/birthday/holiday most of the time since it's not really the type of gift most people want on those occasions and the offer has to be timely anyway. Throughout the year, I jump on opportunities to tutor friends and family who are interested in what I know.

mooretrees
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mooretrees »

I was thinking about your future hope for having more to offer folks as gifts. I think some even more simple ideas can rock certain peoples worlds. Working parents, if they’re not overly pretentious about food, would love a simple meal brought over to them. Or stuff you already do but more specific, like offer to help on some area of their life that you have the ability to help with. I don’t think that sort of thing happens enough nowadays. Also, most people don’t really know what “good” coffee is, so I bet that some folks would be tickled to get homemade coffee from you.
I was hoping to have honey from my hives to give out, but unfortunately I had to leave it for the bees. So, things don’t always work out….

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

mooretrees wrote:
Wed Nov 30, 2022 8:14 pm
Also, most people don’t really know what “good” coffee is, so I bet that some folks would be tickled to get homemade coffee from you.
Ironically, my dad has developed a taste for what I consider to be objectively bad coffee, or at least worse than mine, so he didn't like my coffee gift last year because it actually tastes better than the stuff he drinks. He's an odd one. My brothers... I'm not sure if they actually liked my coffee or if they were being nice. Hard to tell with them.

But I like your point, that it's a bit narrow to think just in terms of what specific physical gifts I can 'make' for people. In one sense, that's just a straight swap of the consumerist pattern - same pattern (physical objects), different method (make it instead of buy it). There is a whole host of other ways of showing up and being generous. I also really like @mathiverse's idea of tutoring. I could probably spread value by teaching people some basic spreadsheeting to organize their lives better...

DXGF joked that I was her CNO - her chief nerd officer, because I'd help her business efforts with spreadsheeting and the like. She'd tell her friends and they'd ask where they could find one.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Your digital art is really impressive. We've moved away from physical gifts, but DW made some personalized bookmarks last year with watercolors that were really well received. She also did a watercolor of an old family photo for my parents. If you have access to a physical printer, something as simple as homemade bookmarks might be nice. You could also explore other personalized, digitized art.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

That's a really good idea WRC, thanks. I had almost successfully forgotten that I used to do digital art, and there you had to go and remind me... .

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mountainFrugal
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:20 pm
I'm on a train back home from the Bay, where I swapped my bike with @mF It was great to see him IRL even if only briefly, and I feel like we're both stoked on the trade. I rode the bike from the Sunset to the metro, a few miles. Haven't been on a bike since... 2019? God. It feels good. I'm really psyched to start riding around the desert.
LEGS OF OAK! Let it begin!

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Happy Day of Infamy.

My energy levels have continued to be consistently high - not manic, but within spitting distance. I've had maybe an afternoon here, a morning there, where my energy was low or off, which is an unprecedented level of energy/PMA (positive mental attitude) consistency for me. I attribute it to:
  • Tweaking some things in my diet. Removed regular wheat, substituted in rye wheat (that I mill here), being better about eating veggies.
  • Got back on consistent intermittent fasting (I eat around 11a, last meal around 7p, only two meals).
  • Better hydration due to finding my old Bulleit bottle, which for some reason is enough to 2-3x how much I drink (of water).
  • Having a solid general idea of what it is I want to be spending my time on, and spending time on that stuff instead of stuff I don't want to spend time on.
  • Writing consistently first thing in the morning, which makes me feel like the day is at least a partial win even if I faff off the whole rest of the day.
  • Getting back to a workout routine.
Getting back on workout routine. When I got back from Europe, it was warm here. I immediately got into a consistent workout routine. Thing is, I did it on the back deck of Serenity where I have a hangboard and plenty of space on the deck. My routine dropped when it got cold and dark.

This past week, I got rid of some more stuff in my studio and reorganized the rest so it freed up floor space. I then put eyebolts in the ceiling and hung my gymnastic rings. My yoga mat sits nearby. I now a) have the space and the equipment all set up to do my routine no matter the time of day or weather, and b) it's right in my face so it's impossible to forget.

Also, I started rucking when I walk to my neighbors for my handyman gig. It's only 1.5 miles one way, not much of a real workout. So I put all my climbing gear (80m rope, double rack, etc, about 50-60lbs of stuff) in a big duffel bag with shoulder straps. It now feels like a decent workout. I think I really like rucking. I've had problems with running inflaming, um, a surgery I had, and laying me low for a few days. So far so good with rucking.

--

Anecdote: quality time with dad. Saturday was a good day. I felt like making some shelving brackets and shelves for the studio. I spent most of the day in the shop making them. My dad was in there too, working on doors. We didn't talk much, just did our own thing in the same space, except to communicate about turning the generator on to run the table saw or whatnot. It was really nice. When we had our family checkin on Sunday, he mentioned how enjoyable that was for him. We're both similarly temperamented and it means a lot to him (also me) to be able to spend time like that together. He's 79. Days like Saturday are one of the reasons I'm here.

(It also felt great to get those shelves up. Now, 95% of my books are out of boxes and on shelves where I can find them, for the first time since 2009. The shelves are from extra flooring from Serenity, the brackets are just spare 1x material.)

--

The forum kerfuffle over ERE2 consumed a lot of my attention over the past two weeks. I was annoyed by how much time/energy I was spending on it until I realized how many insights I was having about myself, other people, ERE2, ERE1, etc. Now I'm grateful for it. Made me think of the first chapter of Antifragile (because that's as far as I've read so far) where he defines antifragile systems as systems that grow stronger/improve from disorder/chaos/crisis. I think that's what's happened for me over the past two weeks - hopefully for the forum as a whole as well, but I suppose that's difficult to quantify. We certainly got some stuff aired out that appears to have been pent up. Better that it's in the daylight, I think.

--

I went for a brief ride on the new bike. It did better in the soft steep stuff around here than I thought it would. I'm really psyched to get some longer trips in. The next one is likely just a ride in to town and back. I started perusing local bikepacking routes. The Caldera 500 looks epic. Definitely on The List. I can ride up the Aqueduct to it and see some of my Bishop friends.

--

I've been thinking about self-authoring. The practice of taking self-knowledge, adding in imagination and visualization, and applying the skill and practice of making that vision happen. I've done a lot of very specific authoring work, like writing "I'm X years old, and I live here, and I have these things, and I spend my days doing A and B". I've been thinking about less specific, subtler but perhaps more powerful methods.

The problem with what I have done a lot of, is what I specifically want right now in this moment is maybe kind of stupid. When I was 20, my idea of what I'd want when I was 35 was literally immature. It's a damn good thing my 20yo's vision for my 35yo self didn't work out. ~

It's like doing a reverse fishbone diagram except projecting it into the future. I mean, part of my WL5-6 path was discovering that when I said I 'wanted' to mountain bike or to be able to hit 30ft gaps or 12ft drops, what I meant is that I wanted thrills, risk, physical challenge, comradery, etc. I learned to emphasize the pattern, not the detail, and that enabled my mind/WoG to be in a mode where it was attuned to and accepting of specific serendipitous opportunities to fulfill my desires for risk, thrills, comradery, physical challenge, etc. Better ones than I could have imagined.

So. I'm muddling my way through towards a process where I'm able to more consistently and intentionally call in the sorts of things I desire, without letting the limits of my imagination and current experience narrow/occlude the things I pursue or even notice in my environment.

Another related well-known trap of desire is to manifest desire itself. I mean, instead of asking the universe to fulfill your desires, you ask the universe to fulfill your desire to long for whatever it is you want. Hey, immediate results, but still an oops. Very common.

Existential Kink and the various tools in that book are part of my process (the Deepest Fear Inventory in particular is money). I'm working with the concept of solve (as in solvent) and coagula - dissolve/break down, and build up/create. The basic EK meditation is a solve tool to dissolve stuck, repressed desires. The DFI can be both a solve and a coagula practice, I think. Still feeling very much at the foot of the Scurve on this stuff.

--

I'm in the fiction writing MMG. It's awesome. A firehose of writing craft and encouragement and interesting people.

guitarplayer
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by guitarplayer »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:23 am
substituted in rye wheat (that I mill here)
You can also eat rye berries as they are, cook them like any grain. Less hassle and take longer for the body to digest them + more chance something will remain for the helpers in your intestines.

If you are very lucky, you might even find some with husks still on, these are a treasure.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Oh nice, thanks I'll give that a go tomorrow.

I'd been making rye pancakes for firstmeal, which are pretty tasty but I'm due to switch it up.
.5c rye flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, sunflower seeds, oil, an egg, water. I eat them with honey and peanut butter on top. Delicious.

ertyu
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by ertyu »

Is there a book you'd recommend to familiarize myself w self-authoring / some of the exercises involved?

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

@ertyu I feel like one probably exists but I don't know what it is. I've accreted self-authoring techniques and perspectives over a bunch of years from a bunch of sources that I couldn't remember all of. I only recently picked up the term self-authoring, which I think is due to Jordan Peterson having a course or something with that name? I'm not familiar with his thing.

It' relevant that I've kept a personal journal since I was 12. Every once in a while, I'll think to ask myself in my journal 'wait, what is it I actually want?', and then I'll write out some ideas for what I want, where I want my life to go, where I DON'T want my life to go, etc. Often these inquiries are triggered by decisions or life events.
>Wait, do I actually want to seriously date this person? What kind of person do I want to date? Do I want to date? If I start seriously dating this person, what will my life look like in one, five, ten years? Am I cool with that?
>Wait, do I actually want to live in this city? How long do I want to live here? Where do I really want to live after I don't live here any more?
>Oh, shit. My friend's sister just died on a mountain via objective hazard (meaning she didn't make a mistakes, just wrong place wrong time). She was my age. I could die on a mountain next time I go out. Am I cool with how I'm spending my days? Sounds like she lived her life in a very full, rich, accepting way. Am I doing that? Am I behaving like the kind of person I want to be? Whoa, what kind of person do I want to be? What kind of person am I, actually?

Rod Stryker's The Four Desires has a number of self-authoring techniques, and a framework. I got a lot out of that book.

I took some self-authoring techniques from the 4-Hr Workweek, and also from his podcats. If you search Tim Ferriss year end review, you'll probably find them.

Many of my practices are cobbled/taken from various internet writers year-end review practices, that's a good search term to find stuff.

A major practice I took from a guest on the Ferriss podcast (I'm pretty sure), he said he and his wife do an annual 'off-site' retreat. They're executives so that's the language they use. They go to a cabin somewhere with no internet and they spend a weekend journaling, talking about their lives, thinking up things they could do for the next year, etc. I took that idea and drove into the desert for three nights with no books (the point was to intake no information, only let myself output thoughts) and just my journal. It was boring AF but the insights that came out of that fed me for a year and helped me course correct some trajectories in my life.

I draft an annual 'manifesto' based on the advice of a girlfriend. It's a yearly look-back and reflection, a exegesis on my values and understanding of the world, and a look-forward to the next year and rest of my life and what it is I want out of it.

I make a list of 'wild, out-there, totally batshit stuff I could do this year' as a way of pushing the boundary of what's on the table, so I don't get mentally stuck in a rut. That's classic Ferriss. Pair that with Altucher's ten ideas a day. https://jamesaltucher.com/blog/the-ulti ... a-machine/

Probably a lot of my self-authoring attitudes/perspectives came from the 'be someone women would want to date' level of advice for dating. Let me explain that. I had abysmal talking-to-girls skills in my early 20s. So I read all the books and blogs on how to talk to girls, including the really terrible ones. The advice (that isn't borderline unethical) ultimately boils down to "Become the kind of man that the kind of woman you want to date wants to be with". (Personal authenticity is baked into that advice. No one wants to date fake-ass inauthentic people.) Mark Manson's old relationship stuff (e.g. his book Models) is a solid place to start there, if one wants to start in that genre).

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

### Midweek Checkin ###
My cup runneth over. The main generator went out and my parents asked me to have a go at fixing it. A neighbor asked me to help figure out their computer issues. My PV projects haven't gone away, and the studio still isn't seismically braced yet. It appears that at least two of Serenity's batteries are kaput, although I'm not sure if the cells are dead or if there's an issue with the SCC settings not taking them to full charge. Also, it's cold round here. My 14w footwarmer isn't enough to keep me warm when it's literally below freezing inside the studio, so I've retreated back into Serenity in the mornings. Serenity is cozy like a cave, but I miss watching the day break over the Sierras, especially now that they're dusted with snow.

I hit a point of overwhelm with all the plates I'm spinning last week, lowered my head, and started plowing through projects. I took a look at the generator, confirmed that there's spark (and in the process confirmed that I'm an idiot by cranking it while holding the plug in my hand, not grounded), confirmed that I ought to get a wiring harness to disconnect the stepper motor before I can do a compression test, said "well fuck that" and began attacking the well PV system instead.

There's a question of priority there that has no clear answer. There's the 10kW propane generator at the house, that we run to top off the batteries if it's been cloudy or if we need to run the table saw. Then there's the small gasoline generator that normally runs the well. The well is a quarter mile away from the main house. Once the PV system is up and running, the small generator won't be needed to pump the well, and it can be kept at the main house to back up the propane generator.

So, I could either focus on fixing the propane generator, and then go back to the PV system, or I could focus on the PV system, and then polish off the generator issue at my leisure. It's unclear if the generator is going to be a quick fix or a long drawn-out thing. I'm a week or two away from finishing the PV system. Always hard to say for sure with these things. For now, I've thrown myself at the well PV and am putting the generator off till later. Yesterday I got the roof back on the shed (a windstorm ripped it off a few years ago) and today I aim to finish the flashing, seal up the holes, and ideally get the first piece of unistrut up.

The neighbor's solar panels came last Friday, and his batteries ought to come this Friday. Two thousand pounds of absorbed glass mat batteries. Once they're in I'll get them connected first, then design and install a ground-mount rack for the panels. I guess I'll finish his system in mid January. I freaked out last week because I found an error in my load calc. Not an error of understanding, just failing to multiply a number by two. By two!! With a sick feeling in my stomach I dove into analysis to see how bad the issue was. Turns out, I was arguably too aggressive with my load calcs... by about a factor of two. My two errors canceled each other out. The relief of not having fucked my neighbor over was huge, but I still feel like a dumbass. Engineering is humbling. Maybe I'll just stick to digging holes in the ground.

For the studio, I go back and forth on how I'm going to deal with heating it. I like the idea of a solar thermal something or other. When it's cold out, I like the idea of making a propane bottle woodstove.

Regarding my ailling batteries, if they are indeed on their downward slope, I'm inclined to take the opportunity to have an almost battery-less system. Meaning, when the sun's out, I have power, and when night falls, I can't run any significant loads beyond my twinkle lights. I might just see how long I'm okay with that mode of operation, with an eye towards de-electrifying my lifestyle. If that doesn't pan out, I'll start googling around for hobbyists doing weird things with wrecked Tesla batteries or building their own Nickel something or others.

I'm not even thinking about Christmas, or gifts, or anything. I ran out of coffee this morning because I've been to busy to roast, and so I stole some of my Dad's burnt schlock and maybe the caffeine withdrawal headache would have been better. Bleghck. I'll roast today.

I'm psyched to see my friends, forumites, again soon.

Crusader
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Crusader »

Axel, I want to make an effort to read your journal from now on, but I am a bit confused as to what your living arrangement is. You live at the same plot of land with your parents, but you DON'T live in the same house as them? You live in some kind of RV, if I recall correctly.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Welcome to Ft. Dirtbag:
Image

On the right is Serenity, my cargo trailer conversion. It is where I sleep and cook, and it is where my solar panels, batteries, inverter, etc. are. It is 5.5' x 12' long.

On the left is the the Studio, 8'x16'. It's a work in progress. It's where I do computer stuff, and where I keep my books, and everything else. Also I work out in there when it's cold outside. I aspire to make it beautiful and cozy inside, with a reading chair and a stove for winter, and shading and cross-breezes for summer, with a patio off the north. After that, my next project is to build a bathhouse. I envision maybe a bottle-wall hut with solar shower and compost toilet. At the moment my toilet is just out behind a bush, which is fantastic 97% of the time. The other 3% of the time it's snowing, windy, and the coyotes are howling. The view from the throne is worth it, though.

The main house is 200m behind the camera. That's where my parents live. We broke ground on it when I was 13. I dug the foundation trench with a car axle and jackhammer, and framed and sheathed most of it, with my dad and my brother. We left for college by the time it got to doing things like wiring and plumbing, so I missed most of that part of the construction. We're on 70acres, about 20 something hectares.

Living in the same house as my parents would be... challenging. I wouldn't attempt it. That 200m between us makes this possible. We have a family check-in, dinner, and Catan night on Sundays, and pizza and a movie night on Wednesdays. Otherwise we do our own thing.

mooretrees
Posts: 762
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2019 1:21 pm

Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mooretrees »

DH and I want to help do stuff at your place when we visit soon, maybe the propane bottle stove would a fun one? Think about it…..

We’re excited to see you and your set up in person.

AxelHeyst
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Joined: Thu Jan 09, 2020 4:55 pm
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

I came up with a perfect project for us I think. Twenty years ago, my grandfather put in two telephone poles to get our phone line up and over the arroyo. My brother and I dug the 1/4 mile long trench that summer. The land line is defunct as we're on VoIP now. Those poles are free game, abandoned in place salvage.

One of my future projects is to build a covered patio off the North side of my studio, for the hot months. Those poles ought to be perfect for that. Our mission: dig up those poles, recover the wire and cabling for future projects, and drop the poles in place to support the patio roof.

I'm excited to see you guys too! Been... A little over a year. Whoa. Feels longer.

(I'm still waffling about putting a stove in. I'm currently back to "solar thermal heat only!" The world needs to get better at not burning stuff for heat, and in this climate I've no real excuse for not going direct-solar.)

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