Tesla PowerWall

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I recently had two TeslaPowerwalls installed to serve as backup for our home. My PowerWalls are powered by my solar panels which I also expanded since installing in 2015 (I added 8 panels to my home). I am now offsetting 50% of my power utilization a year (even with my Tesla Model 3 which consumes about 20% of my total energy each year.

I want to get this out of the way and say I don’t need PowerWalls. We loose power in our home about once a year due to trees falling or lightning usually in the summer or fall when the trees still have leaves and we get heavy rain. I have considered getting a generator over the past few years and went so far as to have generator hookups installed on my electric panels but just could not get myself to purchase a gas generator. To do so would have meant.

  • Storing gas and keeping it fresh

  • Dealing with maintenance and up-keep

  • Finding a place for a massive generator

  • Wheeling it out and starting it every time we needed it

But my procrastination and annoyance bought me enough time for the day when I pulled the trigger and got them.

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Traveling for 7 weeks - what I found useful

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I know it’s been a while as my posting schedule was essentially shut down this summer. I hope to get back to a twice a month publishing schedule.

A week ago I returned to work after taking the last 8 weeks off as part of my Microsoft sabbatical and traveling for most of it with my family. We visited 12 countries and 17 cities and planning for this trip was an 18 month project which included a lot of detailed planning on what to bring!

I learned a lot about how to optimize for travel packing and below are some of the details about what products I found useful.

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Secrid Wallet

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A few weeks ago I picked up a new wallet. It seemed to hit on all the things I was interested in.

  • Minimalist
  • Holds 6-8 cards
  • No RFID protection for 1-2 cards (for my Microsoft RFID badge or hotel room key) 
  • Quick access to daily use credit card and driver license  (two things I don’t seem to need at all when paying anywhere but the US as I use Apple Pay)
  • Space for a few bills of cash

Now that I am in Europe I am seeing these wallets sold in many stores.  They are made by Secrid a Danish company. The wallets come in many styes which you can read about on their web site.

I picked up the Slimwallet In Matte Black.

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ROAV sunglasses

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On a recent vacation I discovered these ROAV sunglasses. They are sweet. Made of stainless steel, polarized and they fold up into something the size of 4 credit cards stacked together. 

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Pictured hear are the Echo in black which I now own and have been using for the past few weeks

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There are a number of styles and sizes. I fit the large to medium size head and recommend you look at some of the photos to be sure.​

The reason I love these sunglasses is that I can wear them out to dinner and then fold them up and place them in my pocket and not have to fuss with a sunglasses case or even possibly loose them.​

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I keep these in my bag and carry them with me at all times now so that I always have a pair of sunglasses. 

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USB-C Charger Roundup

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USB-C is here and I’ve been trying to purge all my USB stuff to get down to just USB-C chargers. The benefits are USB-C chargers can support a much higher (and faster) range of chargers meaning you spend less time charging. I have also managed to find adapters that let me charge my different kind of devices using USB-C like my surface minimizing what I have to travel with.

I own all these charges so you don’t have to. There are many I also have I didn’t bother noting since I think these below are the best for you.

In a follow-up post I will detail how I use my Peak Tech Pouch and the Magpul Daka pouches to organize all this stuff for me and the family.

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