For Gear Heads.

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By Erik Dolson

When I bought the 25 year old boat, I was completely ignorant of electrical systems and the boat had three battery monitors: One in the charger /inverter (charges the main or “house batteries when connected to “shore” power, or takes direct current from the batteries and turns it into alternating current for appliances), one in the master switch panel, and a small round monitor labeled “Balmar” that only retired Balmar Inc. techs remembered and for which Balmar has no information anywhere. I asume it was sourced from another OEM.

None of the three ever agreed with either of the other two as to … Read more… →

Foolish fuel funsters

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by Erik Dolson

Well, that happened a lot sooner than I thought it would. Pickup drivers blocking access to charging stations for electric vehicles.

Fighting the future is natural, I suppose, and no one wants to be a dinosaur (did they really become diesel fuel belching from those truck exhausts?) either.

Now, I’m not going to suggest this ill-considered “protest” is the result of efforts by Marathon Oil or Koch Industries or the American Petroleum Institute to delay the electrification of transportation. That would be baseless and irresponsible. Maybe they used Facebook.

Industries in … Read more… →

Farther but faster, of course less travelled

By | | Out My Writer's Window, Uncategorized
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by Erik Dolson

This evening I plotted two courses from Friday Harbor to Victoria, B.C. I’ll take the longer one tomorrow, the last day of 2018, and maybe get there sooner.

The route around the southern tip of San Juan Island is 26.2 miles. The route around the north end of the island is 30 miles. All things being … Read more… →

You’ve been selected for … !

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by Erik Dolson

Marriott Hotels has selected me for a special, low cost vacation. Windham Hotels wants me to view a resort property and tell all my friends (both of you)  how great it was. Credit Card Services is giving me a low, 6 percent interest rate on my Visa and Mastercard balances. To top it off, someone is going to give me better health insurance at NO ADDITIONAL COST!

All that by noon today. By bedtime, especially around the dinner hour,  I imagine I’ll have received another four or five spam calls. Up until now I would … Read more… →

Oil men put Santa in chains

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By Erik Dolson

Merry Christmas.

It’s that time to turn away from the scourge of Trump and look for kinder, gentler souls. Recent news gives us many candidates, but we’ve heard enough about foreigners with names like Putin or Erdoğan or Assad.

Fortunately, we can focus much closer to home on Gary R. Heminger, Chairman and CEO of Marathon Oil, and the Koch brothers, David and Charles,

These oligarchs are or soon will be responsible for killing thousands of innocent people around the world, many right here in the U.S. These three, especially, are … Read more… →

Humor

By | | Out My Writer's Window, Outer Limits
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By Erik Dolson

Humor is how we communicate our intelligence.

Humor depends on something being out of context, that does not fit into “its” pattern.

Only a Brain that knows the pattern can tell when something does not fit.

Explaining a joke is not funny. Explaining “why”  fits the something into another pattern. Those of similar brains who see similar patterns just “get it.”

Pieces out of context are not always funny. Chaos can be terrifying. Clowns.

Do animals laugh?

Of course, when someone does something out of context that they see as … Read more… →

Patterns

By | | Out My Writer's Window, Outer Limits, Second star to the right
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By Erik Dolson

There are patterns in the Universe.

The Brain is a pattern-recognition organ.

Universe rewarded genes that produced Brain.

Because Universe has patterns, Universe has Brain. A universe with no patterns, no physics, no gravity, no stars, of Entropy and alone, could have no Brain. A universe without brains could have no patterns. If Brain, then patterns. If patterns, then Brain.

But our Universe has physics. Intelligence is inevitable.

We are not the apex. We are not the only brains.

Humanity occupies a point so small as to be nearly invisible, … Read more… →

Lost in Spaaaaaace

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By Erik Dolson

NASA Chief Jim Bridenstine said that Elon Musk smoking pot on a podcast was “not appropriate,” that it “did not inspire confidence,” and may have prompted a safety review of both Musk’s SpaceX and Boeings United Launch Alliance.

The companies are vying to ferry astronauts into space.

Here’s an alternate point of view, just for discussion. Maybe the NASA chief has it backwards.

2:50 a.m.

By | | Fiction
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by Erik Dolson

Told myself when I stepped foot on the boat last night that I was NOT (all caps, plus italics) going to work on the fireplace. There’s a list of projects from finger tip to elbow and the damn fireplace was NOT (all caps, plus italics) on it.

Sleep comes and goes. I could identify a half dozen reasons on any one night why I’m lying there awake at 2:50 in … Read more… →