Be Prepared! 2017 and Power Sockets For the Poor

Welcome to 2017! If you have not noticed, the politics of the season has taken its toll on Global Wahrman, as it has on the world at large. I am a wreck. Its hard to maintain a cynical and despairing view of the future when you think things really *are* going to hell in a handbasket (whatever that may mean).

I wish I could promise that there would be less politics, or less despair, going forward into 2017 but I dont want to make promises I can not keep. But if there is one thing we learn from the double tragedy of Carrie and Debbie Fisher, it is to make good use of the time we have, while we still can. Thats Carpet Diem to you Latin scholars, or “Seize the Carpet”.

Now on to our information content for the day.

We are starting a new series of posts on where you can find available power sockets to charge your consumer electronics devices when the power company (which is merely a cutout for the local and federal government, by the way) turns off your power for the sin of not having any money. No mon, no fun, as whores are alleged to say. So the Boy Scouts say (and I presume the Girl Scouts as well) “Be Prepared!”.

First, infrastructure, then public locations where it seems you can get a charge.

1. Infrastructure.

First, I recommend buying one of those mini power strip like things so that you can use one socket and yet charge 3 or 4 devices. Remember, you are going to share with your fellow homeless and disenfranchised, there is no need to hog both sockets (or whatever is available). Second, there are these devices that screw in where a lightbulb is and turns it into a combination lightbulb socket and power socket. It costs about $3.00 at your local hardware store. I have not used mine yet, but its nice to have. Third, I have bought a lovely $15.00 extended USB battery that extends the life of my Smartphone battery by about 2X and is enough to get me through a heavy night of texting and email. Fourth, I have created a nice little bag that contains my laptop and all the above paraphenalia. I know where it is. When the power goes out, I know where to find it. Its all ready to go.

Now, where to go?

2. Locations

Although I am going to specify places in beautiful, peaceful Escondido, California, these are intended to be placeholders for your own search.

First, my local public library is all set up for people like me and their electronics devices. They have WIFI and plentiful sockets. They are open six days a week, roughly 10AM - 6PM and Sunday, 11 AM to - 5PM. Its a good choice if you happen to fit their schedule.

Second, the local Starbucks is an excellent fallback position. The one here at Mission and Center City Parkway is open from 4AM to 10 PM 7 days a week. Not so bad. You need to expect to buy something, coffee or ice tea, for example, and nurse it while you are there charging. They have excellent WIFI.  No sleeping! 

Third, there used to be power sockets outside stores and buildings but I guess they are gone with the wind. But if you watch your local homeless people, they will point you in the right direction. I just met this elderly woman shivering outside my CVS at Felicita and Center City Parkway who had found two sockets and was charging away.  As you face the front door, it is on the right, around the corner, behind the video renting machine.

What a nice person. What a shame she must also be a bad person, because only a bad person could be poor in America.

Working From My Smartphone Part 4 (Infrastructure without Power)

This is a continuation of Working From my Smartphone Part 3.

3:36 pm Monday 9/19/2016

One additional note, there should probably be a second cooler/ice chest so that the food can be better organized. Also, one should have a half dozen or so plastic/whatever containers with watertight lid for such things as potato salad, soups, etc that need to be cooled and should not be allowed to tip over and spill over everything.  There are in general not many shelves in most ice chests.

10:00 PM Sunday 9/18/2016

This post reviews some issues in the general area of "strategies for sustainability".  Obviously no one wants to "fall of the edge" and be a burden to one's friends.  So there are various approaches to avoid this, but it is difficult to discuss for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that each subtopic is itself complicated. All I can do is to bring up a few issues that are simple enough to post here and discuss some progress and potential partial solutions.

An example of a "small problem" is preparing for and managing being off the power grid. Two examples of larger problems that are not so tractable are (a) making enough income to be self supporting and (b) understanding exactly where the power is going and what it costs given that the price fluctuates wildly day to day and possibly hour to hour.

On the topic of managing being without power, this recent situation demonstrated that we had actually prepared to some extent.  I want to review here what worked and what could be better.

The following worked fairly well.  Battery powered lighting was adequate. Smartphone provided excellent communications and at a reasonable price ($40/month) given that I get email, voice telephony, texting, Facebook and mobile web browsing.  I was able to recharge the phone locally by using the car battery accessory port. The local library provides excellent access to the internet with real keyboards and screens a few minute drive from here for zero cost and in a pleasant environment. It is available basically during business hours 7 days a week.  For two dollars worth of ice (two 10 lb ice bricks), I have been able to keep cool that subset of food that requires a cool temperature, and one can easily eat without cooking if one wants to (at least for a while).

We also got lucky in that when the power is turned off, the gas is not, although I doubt this happens because the energy company is being generous. But the end result is that as long as your water is on, one can have hot water for showers.

Things that can be improved for modest cost include (a) more portable lighting, possibly with solar recharge, (b) longer smartphone life with an external battery which itself may be charged with a portable solar device, (c) an emergency radio of some sort for additional communications and entertainment, (d) possibly a camp stove to heat food and boil water, and (e) possibly a bicycle to be able to get to the local library without having a car.

I have reviewed the camp stoves, and the low cost option is the Coleman 2 burner Triton for $40.00 and the much better Camp Chef 2 burner Everest for approximately $100.00.

In compliance with our government's efforts to destroy employment in this country and impoverish Americans, both stoves are made in China, and may even, according to one source, actually be made in one factory over there.  Apparently this is one of the reasons that the Camp Chef stove is available for $30 less from a Chinese company, they just stole the design and made additional copies at that same Chinese factory.  Now that is the kind of ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit that our Government can support!

But the unexpected benefit of not having power was the increased necessity to get out of the house and out into the community.  I miss that already.