Some big fire south of Silverton. A giant cloud rose up over the town like a tan thunderhead or a nuclear mushroom. The forested hills were thick with the smoke and bathed in weird reddish sunlight, and tiny charred blades of grass and lichen filaments rained down from the stratosphere. When I stopped to squint upward, a wasp flew to me, crawled into my hair, and died.
5 Responses to Silver Falls, Oregon
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Maybe you’re also taking some photos –in addition to your excellent blog?
I’d love to, but I have no way to recharge my camera without my gizmo circuit!
Mr. Bangs, I have a solution for you usb charger woes, if you’re looking to just up and buy something that will work.
http://www.amazon.com/Supernova-Plug-Dynamo-powered-charger/dp/B004N9BHZG
Made by a really good german company.
Amazon has them, also one of the main bikeshop supplies QBP carries them and you can call ahead and get them through any shop on your way south.
The company is Supernova, the product is called “The Plug” It just replaces your topcap on your stem, and hooks up to the dynamo hub. You’d have to do a bit of on the spot wiring, but it’d be a solution.
I hope things are improving for you.
Thanks for the link! I have to say it seems ludicrously expensive for what it is, but if that’s what it takes to restore my dream of energy security in the third world, it might be justified. I just wish I knew what the hell’s wrong with my own thing! The volts and amps measured spot on every time in Seattle. Anything you plug into it while riding says it’s charging – but you can ride like that for ten hours if you like, and the battery meter will never uptick at all, and then in the case of my phone the device might act like it’s been permanently fried and refuse to charge properly ever again. :/ You’d think this all means the gizmo circuit must be outputting insane voltage spikes… except it would have to be going through the mintyboost, which works perfectly when I use it independently. And it has three big fat supercapacitors on it. Enh. Hopefully I can borrow a multimeter tomorrow here in Brookings.
Messed about with it some today, with help from an electrical engineer neighbor of my uncle, but we couldn’t find any problems with a multimeter. I guess the current theory is that it all works, but it may need several days of riding to fully charge the 6AH battery. …And as for when I skipped the battery and it fried my phone, maybe I had plugged it in backwards? Maybe it was a hilly day and the constant on/off was wigging it out? I guess I’ll try to make it work again on my way south from here, and get The Plug shipped to San Diego if necessary.