Congrats to Brandon, Kudos to John, and Hiatus

Panorama photo of EV's on display at the 1st annual Electric Vehicle Conversion Convention held in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, Sept 21-25

This is a belated and sadly abbreviated celebration of Brandon Hollinger's win of the EVCCON and our friend John Yecker's attendance of the entire event with his 93 Ranger.  (He did respectably in the drag race and had his truck written up at Gas2.org)!  John sent me a bunch of pictures and I really wanted to interview him about the experience before it all got too old -- but most of October has gone by and the time has come to regretfully give up on that even though it sounds like the Best Time in the World.)

Tee hee this is the photo that accompanied the 8/17 announcement of the EVCCON at Autobloggreen and it is worth the read

There were other features I really wanted to share, too.  I wanted to follow up and get photos of those practically-new Dodge Colts EV twins for sale in Ohio and Florida.  I wanted to post my own interview with the guy who drives his electric Saturn Vue to the best local coffee shop for miles around, Rojo's Roastery in Lambertville, most weekends -- stupidly I never managed to connect with him in person myself, though back in April I did hook him up with the reporter from the Newtown Patch who did that nice write-up. 

Maybe I will still get the chance to meet Dr. Oppenheimer -- Rojo's is just a jaunt down the river in the electric Miata and there may be some fine fall weekends left on which to give it a try.  Maybe I will eventually find the time to finish the post I've been working on that (with Jack Rickard's help, thanks dude) connects the grassroots EV-building effort I've been privileged to be a part of for the last 5 years to the 99% movement and throws in a little basic Marx to boot ... it was going to be an Olympic-class relevancy event!  But for now, external events dictate that I take a hiatus from Bucks County Renewables and minimize posting on this blog.

Alert readers will have noticed that I haven't been promoting that 10/22 mini-workshop that I was talking about earlier in the summer; alas! my association with the Green Jobs Academy has been formally concluded and I declined their offer of an instructor contract for that mini-workshop in September.  I also made the decision that promoting EV's has to be shelved for the moment in favor of nurturing my growing little Montessori school in Frenchtown NJ, which happens to be my actual paid job at the moment.   

I have truly loved presenting talks & mini-workshops and overseeing three full-fledged hands-on conversions over the last 5 years.  I've talked to hundreds of people, formed ongoing friendships with some of them, had a blast, learned a lot (not just about electric vehicles but about founding a non-profit, making slide-shows & presentations, handling budgets & spreadsheets, fundraising, writing grants, administration, leadership, delegation, and building an effective team).  I am drawing on every one of those skills in my professional life and I am so grateful for all the training I got doing this for fun for all these years!  I'm sorry to have to lay it down now and I hope to find the time on occasion to post to the blog.

For all the warmth and acceptance and amazing support of the members of the EEVC and the many other EV drivers and advocates I've met, for the wonderful students in our hands-on workshops who safely and joyfully worked together to build the e-Van and our Red Hot little Miata, and for the many cherished collaborators I've had the pleasure of working with and learning from -- I am truly thankful. 

J.