Freedom in a Can: Adventures with Hamlet

A year is 365 1/4 rotations of the Earth, making one solar lap and returning to the same relative position to the sun.   Early civilizations around the world had this figured out, centuries before the Gregorian Calendar of 1582 .  Many of the impressively elaborate buildings from 850-1250 CE at  Chaco Culture National Historical Park had astrological designs integrated into their walls, so that on certain days of the year light shown through to illuminate a given spot.   On a larger scale, this deliberate and relentless pull of gravity, billions of years stuck on repeat and billions yet to go, makes one year feel relatively insignificant.  What difference does a year make?  And why did we choose to start it on January 1st, at this point in our spaceship's elliptical path? Each year we're drawn to reflect upon these last 365 1/4 days.  Because, while this arbitrary set of localized astrological phenomena is actually quite small, we humans g...

After listening to a former university colleague loudly complain about the state of affairs at our institution for far too long, I finally asked, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”  He replied, “Complain for 16 more years and then retire, of course!”  Perhaps you’ve heard a similar line echoing around your employer’s break room, perhaps you’ve uttered something like it yourself?  Perhaps it’s time to take your show on the road, as it were? Since we hit the road in 2012, we’ve gotten a ton of questions about working from the road, and powering our lives with solar.  While we love to travel, we hate the idea (and expense) of staying in RV parks with electrical service just to do our work.  Solar has literally saved us tens of thousands of dollars and freed us to be and work anywhere we want.  We are currently sitting in a national wildlife refuge in central New Mexico, surrounded by tens of thousands of birds coming to roost for the winter! If you’ve ...