by Ron Foster
“I started to get some sugar but Charles said you had plenty which worked out for the best.” Monica added
“I did get some corn meal, I debated on some canning jars but they were expensive. I got a bag of hard candy, carnation instant breakfast, there wasn’t any peanut butter left on the shelves but they had that Nutella stuff, I guess because most folks are not familiar with it. Anyway, I wouldn’t suggest you go down there, most everything is gone and folks are getting bitchy.” Monica advised and suggested they just bring the whole pan of BBq meat down to Dennis’s and separate it there and get some more ice for the coolers from him.
With everyone in agreement they loaded up in Dennis’s GMC and headed to his house.
I Got Friends In Few Places
“Hey Mom, I am back and we got company.” Dennis announced as he unlocked and opened the front door.
His Mom, Mary had already been told that Charles and Monica were basically great neighbors and if she envisioned a old biker and his girlfriend that was the way they would look when Dennis brought them over.
His mom greeted them warmly and began to happily chatter at Monica, glad to have another woman to talk to as Charles and Dennis brought the meat in and began pulling out plates and silverware for a meal.
“Dennis, are you going to cook up some baked beans or something to go with that?” Mary said briefly separating herself from her conversation Monica.
“Yea Mom, We are going to go outside and fire up the stovetec first. We will be back in a bit.” Dennis told her as he guided Charles towards the back door and what was serving as his outdoor kitchen.
“Women are such a joy to behold when they first meet another, they somehow have a 100 things to talk about graciously as they send non spoken signals to each other” Dennis told Charles as they went to the back deck Charles had helped him build last summer.
“That’s a fact!” Charles said grinning while watching Dennis point to a couple of cases of hot beer he hadn’t stored in his prep shed yet.
“A barbecue is one of those unwritten rules or restrictions about drinking a beer before 5 that both sexes have agreed upon to sometimes make excuses for.” Dennis chuckled.
Dennis wished he knew why the weather had been steadily overcast or rainy for days after the great grid calamity occurred. The effect of a nuke blown in the atmosphere might have caused some of this bad weather but he had no idea if it did or not. His problem now was that a lot of his batteries were not fully charged before the grid went down and even hooking up all his solar panels wasn’t going to change that until he had a few days of good sunny weather. Luckily he had a backup to his backups. In his preps he had a PRACTICAL PREPPERS™ CRANK-A-WATT™ generator. Crank-a-Watt™ is touted to be the World's only portable "Human Powered Generator" for any emergency or survival situation.
He liked its portability and was always figuring out new ways too use its versatility. It so it was quite useful to Charge cell phones, lap top computers, rechargeable flashlights, tv's, ham radios, Ipads, boat batteries, power drills, walkie-talkies etc.
It had built in 400 watt inverter so he could run small appliances like a blender, a mixer, electric can opener, food processor etc.
Dennis favorite use for it was to Charge rechargeable batteries with a rechargeable battery charger hooked to it.
“ Hey Charles you remember when you sat out on this deck and played organ grinder with that crank up radio of mine?” Dennis said remembering when they were partying and drinking a few beers and had the batteries on the radio run down. Dennis had had a blast comically cranking the radio to the music while it was playing to keep the charge up.
“Yea man that was sure a fun day we had. Have You run your radio batteries down again?” Charles asked.
“Not yet, I still have some rechargeable AA batteries for back up but I need to charge the batteries in that second set of hand held communication radios that I am lending you and Monica.” Dennis said as he got his rocket stove fired up.
“How are you planning on doing that as overcast as it is? You got enough power in your battery bank?’ Charles asked.
“Not and continue to run that ice maker, I got something way cool to do the job with though. Hang on a second.” Dennis said and walked over to his prep shed and unlocked his door and retrieved his CRANK-A-WATT™.
“Wow! Let me check that out. No isn’t that the neatest thing. So you just crank it huh?” Charles said trying the easy turn handle and studying the interface.
“Cool, it has a inverter and what’s this a lawn tractor battery?” Dennis asked figuring out the little marvel.
“Yea it’s a lawn mower battery, no need to purchase expensive deep cycle batteries with this. The engineers who designed it have specified the Interstate Brand (or equal), lead acid tractor-lawn-utility battery. Although they are not considered deep cycle batteries, they are very robust and good quality products. They operate in an excellent temperature range and are typically 145 cold cranking amps @ 12 volts, which is quite suitable for my Crank-a-Watt(TM) generator.” Dennis stated while watching Charles heft it to test its weight.
“Dang! This thing is a lot lighter than I would of imagined” Charles said putting it back down on the table.
“The Crank-A-Watt™ was designed to be portable, it weighs around 14 pounds so you can pick it up and go. It is also designed to sit on the edge of a table or counter around waist or chest high. This makes it easier to crank the handle. We could carry it down to your house or Tommy’s and charge up your cell phones etc. no problem. By the way are you getting any signal on your phones?” Dennis inquired stopping what he was doing so he could better assess the world’s current state of affairs.
“Monica got through earlier so they have some cell towers still functioning, no internet though. How about you? You getting any signal?” Charles asked still inspecting the Crank-A-Watt.
“I have one of those cheap cell phones that can’t get a signal back in these woods most days and my internet was satellite so the sun probably cooked it. I wonder if DSL is working in the cities. It might be seeing its on phone lines.’ Dennis said speculating.
“Then you got to run your computer and your router etc.” Charles began.
“Hey my Lap top works and that crank a watt can recharge the battery in it.” Dennis said grinning.
“Neat, I will ask Monica if she knows anyone in town running DSL and maybe we can go try it out. I know you are dying to talk to your prepper buddies on the internet.” Charles commented.
“That would almost be too good to be true, but if the internet is running I know a ton of preppers that have alternative energy methods to get on it.” Dennis said itching to try it.
“Hell you can be a one man internet and phone charging café with that thing, or would you wear the charger out if you used it too much?” Charles asked.
“Oh I doubt it would hurt it any because it's made with permanent magnets, the manufacturer includes a lifetime warranty on this generator. It will work just as well 100 years from now as it does today. Permanent magnets are made from Rare Earth Minerals that never wear out.” Dennis said proudly of his technologically advanced unit.
“I assume you can crank it while your running something off the battery is that right? I mean that would extend the charge in the battery and give you more working time right.”? Dennis asked pondering possibilities.
“Smart question, actually the key to using the Crank-A-Watt™ is to always try to keep the battery or batteries topped off. It has a gauge you can watch and also the ac inverter supplied with the unit will sound an alarm when the battery is too low to operate efficiently. Cranking while using it will help keep the battery from getting too low. Basically you can look at it this way. Here is a list of tests they performed with a small battery and a big 12v battery. You can do both but for now we look at the small one. The test showed that a 13 w energy saver light bulb in lamp: without cranking on full battery (tester was on 12.8v Full charge and went down to 11.8v) li
ght stayed on for (7 HOURS 2 min).” Dennis said before he told Dennis he was going to check on the ladies before he put the baked beans on to heat up and for him to watch the fire in the Stovetec while he was gone.
Dennis went in the backdoor and headed for the living room and kitchen. Monica and his mom were happily chatting recipes back and forth as they arranged the kitchen cabinets and filled boxes with pre designed meals they were agreeing on.
“Looks like you two are making lots of progress in here.” Dennis said as he entered the room.
“Yes, we unloaded the cabinets and wiped them out and are sorting out weekly meal boxes as we go. Sort of one can of corn in our box, one in Monica’s and one in the cabinet. Then we do the same thing with green beans and spam etc. After we separate a couple weeks worth for each of us we will put whatever’s left in the bottom cabinet. “Mary said.
“Yea we have been doing it one for me and one for you and one for the pantry.” Monica said in a sing song voice smiling.
“That sounds like a plan. We have a bit more than I thought or are these boxes ones you haven’t gone through yet?” Dennis asked.
“ No those are weekly boxes, we figured we may as well do it all and see where we stand. Monica is doing the inventory and weird one of the kind things like a box hamburger helper or whatever is being set to the side as community day meals or something. How are you all doing?” Mary asked.
“Well that’s why I came in, Charles and I got side tracked for a minute playing with my crank-a-watt and I had an idea about all that meat. If you don’t mind I need to look at that FoodSaver vacuum sealer for a minute.” Dennis said waiting for them to exit the small kitchen which all though had full size appliance it always reminded him of a ships galley in size.
“Let’s see here” Dennis thought as he picked up the FoodSaver and looked at the manufacturer’s specification plate. Damn! Nobody ever lists watts on things, ok it says 1 .1 amps so that times 120 volts gives me about 120 watts. Cool I thought it would pull a lot more power than that. Crank-A-Watt time!” Dennis thought with a small smile.
“Ladies I have a suggestion, let’s just eat some sandwiches for breakfast instead of a big meal. I just thought of a few projects that need doing and if we glut ourselves we are not going to want to do much more than nap. Charles and I have some technology tweaking to do, but we can use that FoodSaver to vacuum seal up that meat so it lasts longer. I am also going to freeze some of it today believe it or not.” Dennis said grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“How are you going to do that?” Monica and his mother began, before both of them waved him off before they got a long diatribe about Dennis’s latest prepper alternative energy scheme. They knew he would get whatever it was he was so impressed with himself about done and they just soon be spared the details at the moment.
“You want me to fix you and Charles a sandwich or you coming in?”” Mary asked.
“I will see what Charles wants to do and then be back. Charles knows a bit more about electricity than I do and I might need his help.” Dennis said heading for the backdoor.
Dennis went outside and saw Charles getting himself another hot beer and told him to get him one too. Monica would probably be pissed off that they got to have a few beverages while she was stuck inside with his mom but she would probably sneak out later.
“Damn, this beer could be iced down if he wasn’t worried about his mom nagging at him.” Dennis thought and then dismissed the idea. It was to early in the new living arrangements to show his penchant for a good party no matter what. Besides, there was no chance he was going to let himself or Charles get snozzled today.
“ Hey Charles,I got a great idea I need some help with.” Dennis said sitting down on his old tractor seat stool.
“What’s that buddy?” Charles said taking his seat on a deck bench.
“Look that Crank-A-Watt™ can run on a bicycle and get better RPM. I need you to put my bike on a stand I haven’t assembled yet while I tweak on a few ideas here. The ladies said we could just do sandwiches for breakfast if that’s ok with you and we don’t have to dink with the rocket stove for side dishes unless you really hungry.” Dennis advised while trying to picture in his mind how to get the full use out of his alternative energy gizmos.
“That’s fine by me Dennis, to be honest with you; I have been sampling that meat I cooked off and on so long now I am still pretty full. By the way, a lot of that meat has to go back on the smoker. I never tried to make beef jerky and cut it too thick and was sort of waiting on you to give your 2 cents on timing and methods.” Charles said looking laid back and without a care with a beer in his hand.
Dennis didn’t blame him; he had probably been out there since 4 this morning trying to maintain perfect heat with firewood on his smoker grill.
“Well I have the bike and the stand in the mechanical shed; I will go get it in a minute. You can put that together while we BS and have a beer and I can try to make sense of what wattage I need for what to start my projects.” Dennis declared very excitedly.
“What are you looking like the Kool Aid pitcher man for? You up to something, spill it!” Charles said looking at the huge engraved smile Dennis was wearing.
“New house rules, they are not terrible but practical..” Dennis said eying the “what is he up to now” look from Charles hearing the nasty word “rules”.
“Look, I have gizmos and batteries to charge out the wazzo around here. New rule is if you come to my house and partake of my off grid advantages you got to take a turn on the crank-a-watt if solar is not functioning or I need it.” Dennis declared in a “simple as pie fashion eying Charles for compliance.
“That sounds fair, what is it you are planning on running and how much labor are you asking for?” Charles said hoping Dennis didn’t have visions of him and Monica running on a treadmill or a hamster wheel.
“Not a whole lot. You or anyone else that comes over should get them some exercise and ride the bike while we B.S. Everyone take a turn or leave a little energy for those that cant spend the physical exertion is appreciated if you are enjoying my lights and fans and hospitality etc. “ Dennis said reasonably.
‘I am game, don’t get me wrong. I will crank or pedal that booger for days but I also understand wattage and human power is not as compatible in efficiency as I would like so I want to know what kind of devices you are talking about powering.” Charles asked wondering what luxuries Dennis had come up with to run they all could agree on.
Yes he thought it was pretty cool that “the Crank-A-Watt™ could run a electric can opener but if you were supposed to be trying to be “sipping juice” as Dennis tried to profess why would you? I mean get the manual one out and expend less energy for the same result?” Charles questioned himself.
“I have a master coup in mind we will talk about here shortly, but let us just look at what keeps my old mom happy. She is fixated on that blood pressure cuff of hers, it runs off a battery and she has a heart condition we all are aware of. She rode her exercise bike or walked to improve her heart before this crap hit right? So now she could do the same but it’s to power that battery. Ok, today for example, I might get her to ride the bike to help store food if we use a vacuum sealer, ride the bike for her cell phone as a charger which I haven’t tried yet, its one of those large text old folks non technical emergency phones. The Crank-A-Watt will run a mixer, your old lady don’t know how to make cake icing from scratch and mine does for all that weird flour you recently got. Ok. How about this? I need to talk about all that stale bread you got lucky with. I was going to suggest to you we have a bread tearing and mushing party by hand, nut you know what? We haven’t thought it through far enough. You got what? Maybe a few hundred loaves, I havent seen your stores yet.
One 80 plus year old lady with a electric knife and a Crank-A-Watt™ to power it can out work the shit out of three of us to cut up that bread in cubes to make whiskey or stuffing. Every Christmas and Thanksgiving we get two pounds of bread to make the
world’s best dressing to go with our turkey dinner, it’s a family tradition. I come in the kitchen and see a big stock pot of trimmed and cubed bread I know its time to volunteer to cut the onions and celery. She leaves the bread in that big pot for a couple days and just circulates with a big spoon so it gets uniformly stale before the cook magic and tasting happens.” Dennis stated just getting geared up on all the use he had for his device.
