slim's journal

This is where I write about the experience, not the equipment. The guides and reviews on this site are me at work — precise, thorough, focused on helping you make the right call. The journal is me on the porch, talking.

If you're new here, start at the beginning.

• what texas taught the rest of us Winter Storm Uri nearly killed the Texas grid. 246 people died. The lesson: the grid is a single point of failure, and single points of failure fail.
• the grid is not getting better DOE outage data since 2013 tells a clear story. The numbers keep going up. Nobody's fixing it. Here's why.
• why i left the grid The power went out on a Tuesday. It came back on Friday. By Saturday I was looking at land.
• my first generator was a mistake I bought a 3500-watt portable off Amazon while panicking. It taught me $4,000 worth of lessons.
• the first winter off grid What worked. What nearly went wrong. The night the propane ran low.
• what my wife thinks about all this She thought I was overreacting. Then the ice storm hit. Now she's the one checking the fuel level.
• what going off grid actually costs I've spent about $28,000 over three years. My neighbor spent $0 and lost a freezer full of meat twice.