I have spent most of 2021 focused on learning the skills needed to make equilibrium reality. The primary focus is on machining. In fact, I have entirely changed my career, from Information Technology (IT) to machining. It began with the manual machining class I took in February, which I wrote about in March 5 update. That turned into me pursuing a one-year certificate in CNC Machinist Technology, which I received in August 2021. CNC machining is not exactly the goal here, but I was able to go through the program for free, and I figured that any sort of machinist training would be helpful to me. I got lucky, because I learned heat treating (i.e. of tool steel) and sand casting as well.
For my final project at school, I took the opportunity to cast the stator of the Di Pietro motor. The stator is the largest part of the motor, and it houses many of the other parts. In contrast to a rotor, which rotates, a stator remains still. The Di Pietro motor is the machine necessary to equilibrium which I am most familiar with. I intend to begin work on the rest of the motor as soon as I both obtain the necessary aluminum stock and also complete a thorough plan for machining it (note: "stock" is the material that will be worked on). Of course, other factors may affect when I begin this project.
Jobs
For my career change, I began by taking a job as a CNC machine operator at a local shop. I worked on third shift, which ended just half an hour before class began. This meant that, four days a week, from April through August, I was awake from 9:30PM to at least 1:30PM. I held this job for 5.5 months, and almost all of it was simultaneous to my time at school. To top it off, from April through mid-June, I also took a class in auto mechanics. The result is that I slept rather little, averaging about three hours per day during the workweek.
I now maintain a different machine shop, where I clean the machines and performing minor repairs and adjustments. A great benefit of this job is that I am allowed to work on my own projects after hours, as long as I provide my own stock.
Makerspace
Prior to taking on my current job, the only shop where I could work on my own projects was the Rochester Makerspace. This place is not very close to home, the result being that I have travelled to it for the weekend many times. If you do not have your own shop to work in, I recommend joining the closest Makerspace to you, even if you can go only once per month. If you live near a major American city (or European, from what I hear), you stand a decent chance of finding a Makerspace. You become a member of the Makerspace by paying a monthly membership fee, which you can expect to be around $50/month. Some Makerspaces support hot metalworking processes, such as welding. The Rochester Makerspace cannot allow welding because the floors are wooden. However, it does have a woodworking shop, electronics benches, 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC wood routers, a stained glass station, sewing machines, art supplies, and of course the manual machine shop. Another benefit of the Makerspace is that there are classes in each one of these disciplines. The classes are complementary with membership. Classes encourage members to learn all of the disciplines that the Makerspace has to offer, and not merely the one or two which caused them to join. This enables the creation of projects which require multiple disciplines, such as wooden furniture with metal hardware, and wooden fixtures which can be used in the machine shop. An additional benefit of a Makerspace is that it allows you to meet the other members and see their projects. The advantage this gives you over working in your own shop is that the other members can help you if needed. Plus, some Makerspaces are open to members 24 hours a day, seven days per week. Overall, I have found my Makerspace membership to be well worth the investment.
Posting
Anyway, on top of all this, I continued running trail races at least once per month from April through November. The result was that I stayed quite busy from April through the end of August, and this is the main reason why I posted very little during this time.
Since switching to a day job, I've had to take some time to organize all of the notes and other information I have accumulated over the course of the year. This information is always growing, primarily because I am still in contact with Brian Harner (I will call him "Arian," pronounced, "Uh-rian."). Arian and I have exchanged nearly 800 e-mails since we met in August 2020, and his e-mails alone comprise almost 350,000 words. He has not restored his cellphone service, so we have not had a voice conversation since November 2020. Indeed, not much has changed with his situation since the start of this year. His primary task in that time has been to talk to me, as well as to his father and neighbor, and to research relevant technology via the Internet. While this may not sound like much, not only does he lack the resources to do much else, but he also has given me a tremendous amount of information during this time. I now must catch up on sharing it with everyone else.
Another reason for my delay in posting has been deliberation over what I should post. I am in much the same situation that I was two years ago, when I was thinking about how to approach posting to my website. The result was that I began with an article titled, Sharing the Thought Process. I would find it ideal to continue with sharing my journey transparently, but there are aspects of my life which, though they consume much of my attention, might not be worth sharing. I have been conflicted over this, though it does not seem worth the amount of time I have spent delaying. Technical information is the most important to share, since it will teach everyone how to build self-sufficient communities which can achieve equilibrium with the natural environment. However, this information alone is very unlikely to win hearts and minds. At the very least, I believe I need to share both the external and internal aspects of my journey, in order to add to a bigger picture of what is being worked toward, how, and why. While the ultimate goal is impersonal, there is unavoidably a personal journey on the way to this goal.
Book
I have written an outline for the book I announced in the March update. As it stands, there are two main parts of the book. The first covers the technological, environmental, societal, and psychological aspects of the problems faced by humanity. Those problems can be summed up with the question, "To be, or not to be?" The second part of the book covers the technical applications required to solve the problems. This includes the Di Pietro engine, the nitinol engine paired with the cavitation water heater, divine energy technology such as the holy grail, and a shift away from large-scale to small-scale fuel sources. This means exchanging the electric grid and the crude oil economy for multiple, locally-produced means such as ethanol (especially the cellulosic variety), hydrogen, steam, compressed air, pyrolyzed crude oil products, waste oil, and more. I am uncertain whether I will discuss less blatant matters, such as the internal changes required to achieve equilibrium.
Overall, I am quite fortunate to be in the position that I am. I have a mission to secure life on Earth for the foreseeable future, and I have received help from many people along the way, most of all Arian. However, this position comes with great responsibility, and at times I feel immense pressure as well as a sense that I fall short of what is required for success. One reassurance I can provide is that this sense often seems to be incorrect, at least in the relatively short-term. Whether it will turn out to be ultimately incorrect will not be clear until "the end," whatever that ending turns out to be.
Thus ends the synopsis of what has occurred from March 2021 through November 2021. Part of my intention with this post is to reassure you that the mission to achieve equilibrium on Earth, as outlined by Arian Harner, is still in motion: it just has not been terribly public for the last six months.