What’s Next?
Jan 6th, 2008 by Don Ray
Yesterday there was an hour or so outage of water. This morning the electricity went out. The electricity company came and did what ever they needed to do to one of the transformers about an hour and 15 minutes after the were called.
It reminded me of a couple things. First, it is important to have a cell phone that is charged and with ample time on the account. Second, if I call the electric company during a problem like this and if they ask for a call back number, I need to give them the cell number. Since I have a three phone system that requires electricity for the main unit, I doesn’t work if there is no electricity. Maybe I need to put it on a UPS.
Another thing is that I need to put my second PC on a UPS as well. I was in the middle of a system build when the power went out. I do have that system on a good surge suppressor, so no real harm was done, except for a loss of time.
Showers can’t be taken during this time because all shower heads are electric. Coffee had to be made by heating water on the gas stove and using instant coffee instead of the electric coffeemaker.
The good thing is it caused me to start a new book. I keep telling myself that I am going to start spending more time reading and less time on the PC. I guess this was the start. The first couple of chapters have been good enough to make me want to continue. This post is a short break from reading and after I get my system build restarted again, I will go back to the book.
This also reminded me that I need to remember to buy some more candles in case this happens at night.
Well, I lost water yesterday and electricity today. What’s next?
Next is coming very warm greetings from Finland
Can you tel me, if I would like to load Ubuntu to my old PC, how I could do it, that it is not going in Wndows?
I have Ubuntu in Cd.
I have not tried yet.
Hi Leena. I bet warm greetings is all you can find in Finland right now.
Related to your question, you have two choices. If you want to retain Windows and have enough space on the hard drive, then you could install a dual boot system. With that, at boot time, you could choose to run Windows or UBUNTU.
I run that way on one PC and keep Windows as a backup in case I might need to run a Windows only application.
If it is an old Windows system and you don’t care about retaining it, then UBUNTU will format the hard drive and install itself on the entire drive.
UBUNTU does a pretty good job of recognizing all of the PC components. I am currently trying out a new Linux system called Linux Mint. It is a derivative of UBUNTU, but in my opinion, it has done a better job of user interface. When I have more time with it, I will write up my experiences.
I have been playing with several different Linux systems, and while they are all built off similar base modules, they each have their followers. At present, UBUNTU is hard to beat, but the jury is still out on Linux Mint.
If you have a real old PC, you may want to consider XUBUNTU which is setup to be more efficient and may speed up things.
Good luck.
Leena,
I’ll be happy to help too. Just click on my name to go to my blog and post a comment to one of my Ubuntu posts.
Thank you for your information!
Actually I have two old PC and one laptop. I have got then from my son and son-in-law.
So I can try and try and try . . .
but could I upload this Mint from somewhere or is it free any more?
I think, I will make a big clutter in every machine, but because they are extras it is not so dangerous
I will be back, you can be sure !
Sense these are extra PCs, I am sure you can get Linux installed. Tuxi has helped me on some difficult areas and there is a tremendous amount of help on the Internet. The UBUNTP support is pretty good thru the chat areas.
Linux Mint is free by downloading at http://linuxmint.com/
Let us know if you run into problems.
Hi
Here are two suggestions. We have used the electric “suicide showers” and they have several problems. Obviously, without electricity they don’t work. Additionally, electricity is relatively expensive. We now have an on demand propane water heater, and it is absolutely great. The government apparently subsidizes the small (20 pound) gas bottles, and when empty you just take the empty bottle to a nearby tienda and exchange it for a full one. Cost: $5.35. With luxurious showers and hot water at every tap in the house, one bottle lasts about two months.
As to water, we have few outages and they generally last only an hour or two. Still, we plan to put in a reserve tank. How big depends on where you live and the frequency/duration of outages. Five hundred gallons should be quite adequate for us. We hope to put it at the highest elevation possible, to avoid the need for an electric pump; sometimes but not often, electric and water outages occur simultaneously. Five hundred gallons should be more than adequate for us, for our worker’s family, and for our animals (nine horses, five dogs, three cats and a bunch of chickens and ducks) for a couple of days. We lived on our sailboat for many years, and 150 gallons of fresh water was more or less adequate for a month. So 500 gallons for a few days seems the height of luxury.
Dan
Hi Dan,
I have used the on demand gas hot water heaters in Boquete. They require a reasonable amount of pressure to ignite. I had a pump because I didn’t think the gravity fed method would provide enough pressure.
Hi again, Don Ray
Our water pressure is not constant, but there is an adjustment on the water heater and it seems quite happy with the minimum water pressure we get when the water is on, as it is 98% of the time. It takes a bit of patience, but the adjustment can be done.
Not only that, but we haven’t been electrocuted yet. I remember one time when we had a suicide shower in a rental house, and there was a short circuit in the suicide shower wiring. It was scary.
Dan
Dan
We have this problem all the time when we are in the Wisconsin Northwoods. A squirrel will bite through a line, an elk will knock something down, a strong wind will disrupt service, etc. We rely on Coleman lamps, and have one in just about every room. They supply a lot of light! We use a camp shower bag that you fill with water, put in the sun to heat, and then hang and use the nozzle for showering. Very useful and efficient. Of course, you have to fill it up to begin with. I have also seen a nifty portable propane camp shower (at Cabela’s, for example).
We just bought a generator to use up North, too.
Hi Laurel,
It is also good to have enough water to flush toilets.
Don,
I’d also get a water tank if I were yo.. I bot one about a month ago and filled it right up with about 100 gallons of water. Our friend was tiling the bathroom, so I hooked up a garden hose to the new tank and we took really quick cold showers just b4 the sun went down. Did this for about 5 days before the shower was ready. Hot water is a definite plus for gringos. The locals here don’t seem to care and shower straight up..no hot water!
I think probably every infrastructure down here is burdened at this point. I had a modern electric service installed and we have more juice than 3 locals’ houses. We try to conserve just the same and are high enough in elevation that no A/C is required..
TTYL
KK
About flushing– we can always visit the little house out back, variously called Uncle Dudley or The Little House on the Prairie. Rustic but useful.
A little tougher in the city. You might get to know more about your neighbor than you want to.
Hi Don… Okay, you people are starting to scare me…suicide shower heads??? Just reading the few subject blogs that I have so far, I have learned more in the last hour than all the weeks Dan & I have spent reading up on Panama via web sites. Wish there was a book out on the “real” issues and aspects that we need to know before making our move. At least now I won’t get garage sale all the camping gear…lol
Hi J&D, The so called “suicide shower heads” are nothing to worry about. If you don’t want them you can use a different method of heeating your water. If you build your own home you can plumb for both hot and cold water.