Now I'll be honest with you, boys and girls. I had only the most vague of thoughts on the topic of alternate energy. Basically, I just sort of wondered what I would do for power if it went off and stayed off for any length of time. That was it. I had gone no further...

Now, if you know me, you know that I love gadgets. You also know that I love money. Consequently, I put a good deal of time and effort into getting more of the former without giving up much of the latter. This is where the Harbor Freight parking lot sales come into the conversation. You see, I'm a regular at those. Now I know some of you are shaking your heads and muttering about how you won't even touch it if it doesn't say "snap-on" in there somewhere, but you have to understand, I'm cheap.

At yesterday's sale, they had one of these:

Solar Panel Kit

It was a return, and the note on the box said "LED doesn't work". I asked the guy if he knew anymore about it, but he basically just confirmed that where normally the LED works, this particular one doesn't. He was very polite about it. So by virtue of the regular sale discount, parking lot sale discount, returned item discount, and probably harmonic convergence, the final price was $75. Like any good DIYer, I thought "I bet I can fix it". In this case I was right! Hey, don't act so surprised... Oh OK, act surprised. Heck, I was.

So now I have a solar project. I'll put the details here. Maybe we can learn together.

Check back later, if you want....