Tough January: About three weeks with almost no sun. Learning in uncharted territory.

January 31, 2024 by Joshua
in Leadership, Nature, Relationships

Check the calendar below. I count three days mostly sunny in the past 23 days. Everything else has been mostly cloudy to full on rain or snow. I’m still going up every day that isn’t raining. Many days not getting any power.

I missed my first meeting today for not being able to plug in, but it worked out okay, I think for my explaining my situation. It was a first meeting, so I hope I didn’t make a bad first impression, but the other person values sustainability, leadership, and sustainability leadership. I keep finding how on the other side of each attempt to live more sustainably I find community.

After I realized I missed our appointment, I wrote

I appreciate the note [where he wrote how he admired my work] and apologize for missing our call this afternoon. Unfortunately, it happened for the reason you mentioned for my first time.

I hope you don’t mind my sharing too much: We’ve had one day of sunshine in the past two weeks so couldn’t charge anything. I haven’t been able to use my laptop for a few days. This is my longest stretch with this little sunshine since I disconnected from the grid in May 2022, so I’m in uncharted territory and I apologize to have caught you in it. I’ve handled a week without sun before, but not this long. As if nature is teasing me, each day for the past or or five, the forecast predicted some sun the next day, but it hasn’t happened. On days when it doesn’t rain, I still carry my portable solar equipment to the roof in case I can get some power, but in the past several days, I’ve gotten zero.

I’m on an NYU computer now in a shared office for adjuncts. I hope you were able to use the time I missed and it won’t hurt our first impression too much if I reschedule once I can power my computer.

Again, sorry for missing the call and look forward to talking soon.

He responded:

No worries. That’s the most appropriate excuse ever in my book!

Hope you get some rays and can re-book. I look forward to talking to such a unique individual. No rush.

January’s weather

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