Solar Panels Are Silent

Going camping with The Engineer isn't the same as going camping with other (as in “normal”) people. The Engineer doesn't have generators to re-charge the camper's batteries, he has a solar panel. 

What? You can't see it?  Good.  It's camo.  Follow the yellow extension cord...

There are distinct advantages to camping this way.  Generally, campgrounds have posted hours for when you're allowed to fire up your diesel-powered loud as all get-out stinky generators so that you can watch your satellite TV, use your microwave, and probably other luxuries requiring electricity which are the activities I go camping to get away from. I really don't understand these people who fire up theirs at the minute they're allowed in order to microwave their breakfast.

Full, bright, free, QUIET sunlight re-charging our batteries

Maybe I'm a snob because we camped in tents for years, just the two of us, then with babies, who became toddlers who became small children. We didn't get our camper until the boys were 5 and 8. I'd already done the potty chair, high chair, porta-crib years, in a tent. I think I earned my camper fair and square.

I've been referring to our “rig”, so I finally took some pictures.

The camper is a 1968 Forrester, and 

The Beast is a former Department of Corrections vehicle. If you look closely at the door, you can see the outline of what used to be the identifying sticker. 

It seats 12, and still has a whole station wagon of cargo room behind the third bench. (We threw the firewood back there.) It's nice when you can separate your children by a whole bench ;-) though it's not as necessary now that they are teens. They behave reasonably well most of the time, I'm happy to say.

So how does the solar panel thing work? It has an extension cord so you can place it in maximum sun, and that connects to the solar charge circuit, which connects to the battery bank. For this trip, The Engineer even had time to install a special volt meter with a read-out. He's been very “are we there yet?” with that particular device, asking whoever happens to be able to see it at the time to report the voltage. We've teased him of course. “Hasn't changed in the last THIRTY 

SECONDS!”

OYT sure enjoyed this particular trip. He saved up a LOT of money to buy this RC truck.

The terrain right at our campsite 

couldn't have been better for “off-roading.” He even took the truck on the hike, and found a “river” to cross. (Don't try this at home kids because this one was protected by 7 man hours of waterproofing by The Engineer and son.)

I don't know how many more camping trips The Transporter is going to be willing to go on. He's jonesing for his XBOX 360, and to chat online with his friends while killing mythical monsters. A solar panel may be quiet and get the job done for us, but it won't do my CPAP and his gaming. Guess who won?

~Tina

P.S The RC part of this post was written by OYT.

P.P.S After reading this post, The Engineer would like me to add that the solar panel could CERTAINLY do both.  Not that we'd let The Transporter bring his XBOX...

Summer Homework?

Do you think teachers should assign summer homework? I'm talking about a list of tasks which, for OYT, going into 8^th grade, are the following:

- 2 book reports

- a short story

- a 20 page math packet

- 2 current event reports

-a science packet of undetermined length since we can't find it

-posting opinions on various topics to several school sponsored forums

I do understand the teachers' perspective – I WAS a teacher. Keep the kids brains alive during the summer. Review skills. Keep them in shape. However, the way this is being done is not fair to all the students.

OYT's school is the only one in the district which does this, but not all students get assigned this list – only those on the Silver Team. This means half the students in one school, in an entire district, are the only ones doing these tasks.

Now let's think about the population trying to complete these tasks. Not all of them have mothers who used to be teachers who nag until it gets done. Some are motherless. Some have mothers who work, some have mothers who have no idea that there IS summer homework.

So the students show up to school, some with it done, some not. More time is given to complete the tasks, so the summer homework really could have been saved until school started since this is what a LOT of the students are doing, some on purpose, some by default, some because of the reasons we discussed above. Meanwhile, these onerous tasks have been hanging over the head of kids who just want to be kids.

They want to ride their bikes to the pool and chlorine burn themselves, come home so tired they almost fall asleep eating dinner, and then do it all over again the same day. They want to run around the yard and bash each other with foam and rubber weapons. They want to go crawdad fishing, drive their RC cars, play their video games when it's too hot outside, and JUST BE CAREFREE KIDS. Old-fashioned, seemingly endless, glorious summer vacation. What are we gonna do today, Ferb?

But no. They have work to do, and are reminded that more responsibilities soon await. High school is almost here, then college, then LIFE. Let them be kids for the summer. Their brains will catch up. 

What do you think?  Do your kids have summer homework?  Did you have it as a kid?  What should be done?  Talk to me.