Webbing Continued

Webbing Continued

I’ve been slowly pecking away at this topic throughout the week and haven’t had a chance to blog much.  My coaching season for the fall came to a close this week and much of my time was devoted to helping with tennis practices for Regional.  I’m looking forward to a chance to catch up and hopefully, just once, I can work ahead.  

FYI – did you know there’s an extension toolbar to post to your blog using MS Word?  I used it for my Wiggling post where I posted my inquiry questions.  I noticed the font was small, I use a 10 pt font in Word.  For this post I’m going to use 12 and see if it posts any better (larger).

The biggest stumbling blocks with any research project in my opinion are the information gathering steps.  As I’ve continued to gather and piece together information I’m intrigued at how much information there truly is out there.  Like my previous post the internet seems so vast and deep yet so confusing and vague.  I liken it to this huge beast that if tamed can work tremendously in your favor however if used improperly the beast can be a huge unmovable wall or mountain.  

I guess you could say I began to shift or change or deviate from the questions I started with.  The more I read and looked at online I started to categorize informational into three different fronts: governmental information, commercial information, and grass roots information.  For the grass roots information I’ve sought out information from non-profit groups and enthusiasts.  For commercial information I’ve sought out info from wind farmers and businesses that sell the actual hardware for turbines.  The government organizations will provide me the legal big picture to wind power in the U.S.  

For my inquiry into the commercial aspect I wanted to focus on both small and large commercial operations.  I spent some time exploring the world’s largest producer of wind turbines, Vesta Wind Systems.  I watched video interviews with their CEO, very interesting!  Newly appointed he’s proved financially savvy and a good marketer of their products.  Their site had lots of cool information and some really good pictures, one of which I snagged for my laptop’s desktop wallpaper, see this link.  

It seemed every time I felt I had a grip on my project I would read something else from one of my sources and discover I had so much more to learn.  A good example of this was the Vesta site.  I learned that the new term for these machines is “wind turbine” not the traditional “wind mill”.  While the premise or purpose is the generate power we’re not milling anything rather turning gears for the purpose of making electricity.