My Adventures with a Freeman

[longdog]

Some years ago I experimented with growing on a very small scale and I rapidly came to the conclusion that it's not even close to being economically viable unless you are stealing the electricity needed, which I had no intention of doing.

In the end I just took cuttings and transplanted them outdoors as small bushes which produced one small harvest of lethally strong produce and that was all.

As I've never been a regular user and supply wansn't a problem for my meagre needs I never bothered after that.

[Burnaby49]

A couple of solar panels ought to have made up the difference. I wonder whether BC Hydro would report "This guy got planning permission to install solar panels, but his usage hasn't dropped" in the same way they'd report "This other guy had suddenly starting using 10 times the usual amount of electricity." I guess what a grower really needs to do if they can't/won't fiddle their meter and don't want their leccy usage tipping anyone off is to set up their grow in commercial or industrial premises where the building's ostensible use would provide a good cover story for their high usage - some business which already uses so much energy that an extra few dozen units wouldn't even register as a rounding error.

Actually you're not far from the truth with that part at the end. I've read of operations in the states that have used industrial warhouses or old, fairly small factory buildings as grow-ops because the elecricity was reasonable within the normal use of the cover operation of a legitimate business.

And no, BC Hydro wouldn't start doing investigative work on operations that had solar to determine maximum useage. I doubt that they are happy about reporting customers. They don't report voluntarily, they are required to report. But as currently set up it takes little effort on their part. I believe they have a computer program that kicks out billings that exceed some parameter. I assume the excess usage that triggers a report is quite large, as you said;

Though doing the maths, that adds up to around 44K units a year, which is about 10 times the typical usage of a domestic customer, so yeah, that probably would be noticed.

So the triggering the parameter would be a large multiple, say five times, assumed normal use. Otherwise they'd be reporting every house in Vancouver that made excess use of air conditioning.

I doubt you solar idea is feasible. The amount of solar panels required to meet even a small grow-op's needs would overwhelm a normal residential property and probably trigger inquiries. Also probably prohibitively expensive. Then there's the issue of a constant supply rather than the variable supply of solar.

[sue858]

Just a quick post today. Ash’s Filing System.

Another one of the little jobs Ash gave me was to scan and organise all his paperwork. He had kept paper copies of pretty much every single bill, traffic ticket, bank statement etc he’d received over the previous few years. He decided it was time to go paperless by scanning all these documents and organising the resultant files in a somewhat coherent manner, and I was given this task.

As far as I remember, Ash was hoping to spot some discrepancies; if only he could find a typo in the Leccy Company’s Final Demand Notice, they’d have to give him free electric for life! It was also so he could organise his responses. Ash had some template response letters, which at one point I was responsible for filling out and sending off as necessary. You’d almost follow a sort of flowchart. Is the letter from: A Bank? Go to A. A Utility Company? Go to B. A Debt Collector? Go to C. A Bailiff? Go to D. The Council? Go to E. Then: “What type of letter is this?” General bill? Go to A. Final Notice? Go to B.

So my job was to follow the flowchart, choose the appropriate template letter and fill in the blanks as necessary (dates, names, etc). Then post the letter off. There was a surprising amount of order to Ash’s nuttery. Considering it was all nonsense, there was a lot of importance placed upon sending the right letter at the right time to the right people. One must never send a letter intended for parking tickets to bailiffs, for example.

[wserra]

There was a surprising amount of order to Ash’s nuttery.

Arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

[letissier14]

I have yet to see any fmotl who is supposed to be as organised as this Ash guy

[grixit]

Only a proper recitation of the spell will bind the demon, but any approximation will summon it. Ash's meticulous procedures were intended to keep him from being devoured like all the other wizards.

[Tevildo]

I have yet to see any fmotl who is supposed to be as organised as this Ash guy

To spell it out a little more explicitly - Sue, you have really reached the limits of plausibility with your last posting. I've never met a real person who is as perfect a collection of stereotypes as "Ash" seems to be. I think the time has come for you to either state that this is a work of fiction (based, I don't doubt, on your real experiences) or give us some corroboration.

[sue858]

So Ash is implausible because he seems like the 'perfect collection of Freeman stereotypes', but he's also simultaneously implausible because he's too organised, and therefore doesn't fit the stereotype of the chronically disorganised freeman?

I don't want to doxx Ash, but I could PM ONE of you disbelievers his address (as of my last contact with him). If you check the address on Google Maps Streetview, you can see what I called his "Sporty yellow thing" - the car he got caught speeding in. There is also a second, less conspicuous car parked on his driveway. I was going to get around to telling this story another time, but before Ash started his grow properly - that is, before he acquired seeds, polystyrene-type grow trays (don't know their proper name), a watering system and so on - he took on board my advice that his petrol-powered midlife crisis stuck out like a sore thumb. So he travelled up north (a couple of hours drive each way, IRRC), to buy a secondhand 'normal' car. This car was the one he used whenever he was going to get up to any illicit activities, for example when we went to the grow shop to buy equipment, that was the car we went in, so as to avoid attracting attention unnecessarily.

You won't find him on the electoral roll or anything, because he believed that signing up to the electoral roll was giving your consent to something something now you're bound by statute law. Since he (and for a short time, myself) was the only one living there, you won't find anyone registered on the electoral roll for that address - at least not for 2012-2014. You can see if you can find any Freemanish public documents - bailiff warrants, whatever. I don't know what else I can offer by way of corroboration. So you decide among yourselves who I should PM the address to, and I'll oblige. On the understanding, of course, that whoever I send the PM to will do their detective work and report back only a 'yay' or a 'nay', NOT go posting private info into the public forum. Unless anyone else has a better idea?

[longdog]

I have yet to see any fmotl who is supposed to be as organised as this Ash guy

To spell it out a little more explicitly - Sue, you have really reached the limits of plausibility with your last posting. I've never met a real person who is as perfect a collection of stereotypes as "Ash" seems to be. I think the time has come for you to either state that this is a work of fiction (based, I don't doubt, on your real experiences) or give us some corroboration.

I see nothing even vaguely incredible about a footler following an if X then Y else Z system in an attempt to get out of paying bills, debts or fines. It's pretty much what they do. Every eventuality has its own series of letters which have to be formatted just so and be sent strictly in order according to a strict schedule otherwise the magic doesn't work.

[He Who Knows]

letissier wrote:
I have yet to see any fmotl who is supposed to be as organised as this Ash guy

FMOTL Peter McDowell is easily as organised as this Ash guy.

[wserra]

I have yet to see any fmotl who is supposed to be as organised as this Ash guy

Sue, you have really reached the limits of plausibility with your last posting.

How many sovs have the people who wrote those posts met, so as to have a basis for comparison? I have only met two - I was legal advisor to one, he would never accept a BAR member as a lawyer - but I have followed them for over twenty years, here and elsewhere. I don't find what sue858 writes implausible. Her description of "Ash" may place him towards the organized side of the bell curve depicting sov organization, but that's not a reason to question her veracity.

[Dr. Caligari]

Her description of "Ash" may place him towards the organized side of the bell curve depicting sov organization, but that's not a reason to question her veracity.

I see no reason at all to question Sue's veracity. I hope she keeps posting and ignores the nay-sayers.

[mufc1959]

I deal with lots of them at work - in the Legal Dept of a major retail bank where I am the acknowledged FOTL expert, largely thanks to you guys. I don't tend to find the FOTL I deal with particularly organised. They'll send in template documents/prom notes/WeRe cheques, etc that I patiently explain are worthless bits of paper, then they'll go back on whatever forum told them to use it, say "it didn't work". Then they'll find another lot of magic words somewhere else, and try that. But I've not noticed any particular trend of logical thinking, strategy or planning. Rather it's just clutching at the next straw that comes within their grasp.

[grixit]

So you decide among yourselves who I should PM the address to, and I'll oblige.

wserra is both a real lawyer and the moderator of this part of the board, as well as an admin of the whole board. He would seem to be the appropriate choice.

[He Who Knows]

sue858 wrote: ↑
Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:23 pm
So you decide among yourselves who I should PM the address to, and I'll oblige.
grixit wrote:
wserra is both a real lawyer and the moderator of this part of the board, as well as an admin of the whole board. He would seem to be the appropriate choice.

For this UK page and subject I think we should have a British contributor who has so far shown no indication as to which side of the argument he falls. Hercule Parrot is the most obvious candidate, if he's willing.

[letissier14]

I'm sorry but I'm going to call this whole thread just bullshit.

"You wont find Ash on any electoral roll or anything else despite him being a landlord and running his IT consultancy and also registering his car and paying insurance and tax" blah blah blah. .... yeah ok

Total waste of time

[wserra]

Total waste of time

Then don't read it.

[wserra]

I could PM ONE of you disbelievers

As far as the board is concerned, you're under no obligation to do this. If you want to for your own reasons, I suggest ArthurWankspittle. Arthur is the only member who is both a mod and British.

Arthur?

[letissier14]

Total waste of time

Then don't read it.

You are missing the point. On more than one occasion on this forum I have been told off for posting something that I couldn't factually confirm at the time of posting, and have also seen many times on other people's posts where the poster has been told that this forum only deals in facts.

So I find it a tad strange that you allow a post which has no hard facts attached to it, to be allowed to continue and commented on.

One of the reasons I have stopped posting information on here so much is because of the double standards like this whole thread.

[wserra]

You are missing the point. On more than one occasion on this forum I have been told off for posting something that I couldn't factually confirm at the time of posting

Obvious difference: you were posting about someone else (Crawford?), while sue is posting about herself. She wishes to remain anonymous, and posting the details could well identify her.

One of the reasons I have stopped posting information on here so much

Not to mention the times you swore you were leaving.