A moonbeam heater

The music comes from the neighbors out back. Yes, it is that loud.

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As I’ve mentioned numerous times, we have three hot-water sources here at the Hacienda: solar, gas and on-demand. What catches my attention most is the solar. I’ve spoken to a number of people with solar panels, and everyone says they work great.

And they do … if the sun has been shining. In the early morning, it’s useless, so for people who bounce out of bed to take a steamy shower before heading to work, a solar heater will disappoint.

In the afternoon and early evening, however, it’s hot enough to boil eggs or cook live crawfish to serve with ketchup.

What I want sitting on my roof beside my solar panel is another heater, a fourth, which has yet to be invented, that works on lunar power. Yes, I want a moonbeam heater.

“Green” energy has a way to go before rising to the reliability of old-school sources like natural gas and coal. Remember last winter when Texas came close to having its entire energy grid collapse during a prolonged, hard freeze? That was because Texas switched to “green” energy in a big way, which was a huge error.

“Green” is a great backup, but not as a sole source. At least, not yet. And as Texas went green in one direction, it shut down old-school sources simultaneously.

When we want hot water in the morning, it’s a simple matter of flipping a switch from the solar to the on-demand. And we still have the old-style gas heater sitting out there too with its pilot off. We have options. Texas stupidly had too few options.

Don’t put aging hippies in charge of energy.

I climbed to the roof yesterday to shoot these brief videos. In the middle of the top one, you see the roof of the sex motel next door. That orange room is the laundry. There are several industrial-sized washers in there but not a single dryer.

They dry stuff on those metal racks, which are new. Until recently, blankets, etc., were simply spread flat on the roof to dry.

In the bottom video, I was shooting over the glass top of the upstairs veranda, three-fourths of which is covered by shade cloth.

It was a very lovely day.

The hippie power grid

Remember when much of Texas froze in the dark for days last winter because its power grid wasn’t up to the task? The Energy State! The fault lay with the state’s over-reliance on renewable energy sources, which failed miserably.

It was widely reported back then that the problem was renewable energy, but the explanation was not as informative and succinct as this brief video from PragerU. Enjoy and learn, amigos.

How far we’ve fallen

THE MORE THIS Kung Flu hysteria drags on, the nuttier it shows itself to be.

But the lunacy has roots far from China.

Western Civilization started coming unraveled a few decades back. It began with the Hippie phenomenon in the 1960s, but it really kicked into gear with the birth of political correctness in the 1980s and its ensuing growth rate which looks a lot like pancreatic cancer’s.

I blame Karl Marx. And ignorance.

It’s difficult to see light between PC and leftism because they are so closely connected. It’s like trying to see light between Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen. Or between Michael Moore and a double-patty cheeseburger with curly fries.

Those of us of advanced age are fortunate. We’re probably going to check out before the entire shebang falls on our heads. And the Visigoths storm the gates. That is my hope.

The silent type

I AM NOT a Baby Boomer, and thank the Goddess for that. It is the generation of the flower children, the hippies, the generation that is destroying Western Civilization.

The politically correct nonsense in which we swim today was created by Baby Boomers, and picked up and honed by ensuing generations to the detriment of us all.

I was born two years too early to shoulder any of the blame. I am a late-stage member of the Silent Generation. It fits me well. Here at the Hacienda, for example, 95 percent of the words come from my child bride. But that’s a woman thing. They talk a lot.

Before us Silents was the appropriately named Greatest Generation. We won’t see their kind again anytime soon, and we can thank the hippie Boomers for that.

All three of my wives — one current, two former — are Baby Boomers. Two were early stage and the last, my child bride, is late stage, but being Mexican she exhibits few Boomer characteristics. It’s why she’s a keeper.

This generational naming is a Caucasian thing, anyway, a result of self-absorption, which is a Boomer trait. But Millennials perfected self-absorption, which is why they are also called the Me, Me, Me Generation, or so said Time Magazine.

The Silent Generation. I like the tranquil sound of it. More people these days should follow our lead into silence. Now I’m going to shut up.