Hello readers,
I'm working on my second week here, and I think the spanish is getting a little easier... I've had to talk to people about the project I'm working on, and that required a long engineering vocabulary... but a couple days with my dictionary and I'm getting better. I also found someone who will come to my house to give me lessons, so that will help too.
The project I'm working on is the hybrid photovoltaic/water still. It uses a solar panel with parabolic concentrators to increase the energy output, and the cells are cooled with water which is then evaporated and condensed, removing any salt. Like I mentioned earlier, solar powered water stills exist, but they are often not cost competitive with other methods of desalination. Rural areas often have problems with both access to electricity and clean water. Solar cells can recieve concentrated light and thus have a higher output, but once they get too hot their efficiency drops. In cooling them with water, the system can produce more energy with less solar cells (the most expensive part of the system) and also produce clean water. This has the potential of lowering costs and making the combined system more economical.
In other news, I tried to make it a point to stay in the Clean Plate Club (CPC) for the whole summer, but unfortunately not even two weeks in and I'm out. My host mom served eggs with hot dogs in them (more hot dogs than eggs...) and for those that know me, you know that hot dogs take the #2 spot of worst things to put in my mouth, next to tequila. I tried, but only made it through half of them... I was hoping that the american bastardization of tubed meat that is the hot dog wouldn't have made it to Nicaragua, but I was wrong.
This weekend Ashley is here!! I'm very excited, and this weekend we're planning a trip to somewhere in Nicaragua, but unfortunately the entire country was swallowed this morning by a monster of a tropical storm and it has been raining nonstop since late last night. It's supposed to keep goign through the whole weekend...
Also, I lost the memory card for my camera... I left it in an internet cafe and by the time I came back it was gone. I have a second one, but the one I lost was also a USB drive, and the other one is not, so I have no way of posting pictures for the rest of the summer. You'll all have to wait until I get home I guess.
And finally, the bus I took home from my last installation trip had a big TV up front hooked up to a DVD player, and the driver played old American music videos the whole way home. On that trip, all of the 60-70 people on the bus got Rick Rolled, video and all (complete with Jared jumping off a chain link fence), and I'm probably the only one that knew it. For those of you who aren't familliar with rick roll, feel free to wikipedia it.
That's all folks, until next time,
Vince
P.S. Dear Michael Scott fans (you know who you are): that slip was on purpose... I'm always trying to please my visitors, and you're welcome.
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2 comments:
hi! it's me! i finally signed into google and got the stuff to post a comment, i hope this works. if it don't, i'll try to e-mail you normal. glad to hear all's well, except for the loss of the usb and pics. bummer! you can still take pics, right? the ones you posted are cool. the owl is cool! does it hoot? anyway, funny about the tube meat. cool stuff about the solar panels. didn't know that the efficiency would drop when they get too hot.
anyway, just wanted to say hi, and glad all is well, tell ashley i said hi, hope the rain stops, stay well, all say hi, love you lots, the mom
ok, i think i finally got this working! woo hoo! what a pain to get it going. no wonder i didn't do it before.