dalesql

I learned today that the American Folk Festival in Bangor, Maine is ending. The festival this past august was the last one. I have volunteered on the festival since it started as the National Folk Festival. My sadness that I won't be able to go back up and see all my friends again next summer is huge.

I worked as the festival lighting and electrical services the whole time. Taking the waterfront site from hazardous waste site and abandoned railroad yard to the very nice park and event site that it is today.

I am wondering what is going to happen with all the electrical gear that the festival has accumulated over the years. Tent lighting equipment, power distribution, and hundreds of pounds of extension cords.

Sadness.

Home safe from Maine. When I left Bangor about noontime on tuesday, I called my parents, and found that they were still without power. having lost power there sunday. So I bought a generator up in Bangor, figuring that generators down in mass would be unobtanium. got home about an hour before sunset. Spent an hour unpacking and assembling the generator, and trying to get it to run properly.
(It would start up fine, but when I turned the choke back to normal setting it would run down and stop. At half choke, it would run, but was surging and backfiring. So i gave that up to read the manuals. The best that the manuals suggested was that the gas was stale, as the gas we used was the jug we bought at the beginning of the summer to run the lawnmower. there was no phone number for tech support, just a web site. )
I was gonna try putting in some high test gas in the morning, but my sacrifice to Murphy worked, and the power was restored at home early the next morning.

I think I'm gonna see if I can convert this generator to operate on propane. Propane doesn't go stale, and i don't have to screw around with draining the gas and all that hassle after every time I use it.

I hope everyone else is recovering from Irene's visit.