My Solar Life - So Far

Over the past couple of years, I've been working on adding a solar system to my 2006 Toyota Sienna minivan.

My 2006 Sienna has roof rails that are 42.25" apart, so I was able to find four HQST 100-Watt solar panels that fit between the rails with room enough to attach them to aluminum angles that I attached to the rails using worm-screw clamps placed over protective ABS sheets.

Video of Four 100-Watt Solar Panels Installed Between 2006 Sienna Roof Rails

Park and Zoo Photography

Last Saturday I drove 13 miles to Balboa Park and the San Diego Zoo. It's a great place to walk and take photos, but I try to avoid the crowds. I usually park as close to the zoo entrance as possible, so I try to get there before 8:00 AM because they let people into the "Standing Around Area" at 8:30 AM. I don't really know why I feel the strong need to park so close. Maybe it's because I usually only stay about 90 minutes per visit and I like the idea that I'm helping later arrivals by opening up a parking space that's close to the entrance when I leave. The parking lot fills up quickly, but realistically, it's only an extra 100 to 200 feet of walking even if you arrive much later. HOWEVER, if you get there after noon, then there might be 300 to 400 feet or more of walking to get through the parking lot to the entrance. I guess that's not very much walking though. The waiting in the long lines just to get inside would be the horror show that I try to avoid at all costs. Sometimes different schools bus their students in at the same time on the same day and suddenly there will be hundreds of students waiting to get inside. They usually let the larger groups in at the alternate entrance, but when hundreds of kids gather in a small area, it appears intimidating and congested.

The Botanical Building is being completely refurbished, remodeled, rebuilt. It's a huge project and I can only imagine the rains over the past several months have not helped the progress much, but finally there has been a couple of weeks of dry weather. I usually take a short walk through this Eastern section of Balboa Park when I visit the zoo and I arrive at least 30 minutes or so before the zoo begins letting people into the "Standing Around Area", where everyone gets to wait until the large Macaws are traditionally released at 9:00 AM.

I LOVE THE LIONS! They don't really move around very much, and personally I feel that their enclosure is way too small. They do receive a lot of enrichment, with hidden food tidbits and other things that challenge them mentally and physically. I do wish their enclosure was more realistic, like how their environment is in the wild - their natural habitat. I know they're extremely fast and powerful, and they often run down their prey with huge bursts of energy. The lions are located on the far side of the zoo, and the Polar Bears are also on that side, across the incredibly picturesque bridge that spans the zoo's main canyon.

Many of the enclosures are surrounded with stranded, crossed wires, creating a flexible fence that prevents many types of autofocus cameras from focusing correctly on the animals inside. I've found that it's best to get as close as possible to this fence and zoom in as much as possible onto the animal in order for the animals to come into focus and the fence cables to fade.

Here is another example of the zooming-through-the-fence effect.

While zooming in even more can further eliminate the signs of the fence in the resulting image, the subject may become too close...