Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

I was up on the farm finalizing some new tenants and a new building. I specifically made some time to hike the forest. I definitely have a real regret of not doing exactly that more often. Woods are magical. There is such order in the absolute randomness of nature. I also managed to get some nice sunrise pics from 17,000 Feet. One is over Susquehanna, PA. The other as we are about to cross the Hudson River.

As part of my recent Maine trip we decided to explore a little out on Vinalhaven (Vinyl Haven) Island. There is a ferry that runs out there. I was pleasantly surprised that it isn't totally about tourism out there. I daydreamed about buying a waterfront property and doing fishing and lobstering. The properties I found were somewhat affordable and essentially turn-key fishing bases. I also had to stop and take a couple fan-boy pics of some antique rolling stock. They must get snow up in Maine. I didn't see any in September.

I flew up to Maine to see my sister and cousins for a few days. As part of the trip we went up Mount Washington in NH. We went up on the Cogged Railway. It's A unique old vehicle system that only uses a large cog underneath the engine hooked into a ladder type of rack on the tracks all the way to the top. The modern engine uses a 600HP John Deere driving a hydraulic pump which in turn drives several hydraulic motors turning the large cog. Mt Washington is known for the extreme cold and highest wind in the world. Yes, the world. That was not the case when we went up. The winds were 3 MPH and the temp was 62 degrees. the highest ever temp ever recorded was 72 degrees and a 3 MPH wind is generally unheard of. So, the weather was quite kind for us.

I have been too busy to post much lately.There has been a lot of activities at home, at work and inside my head. A couple of new pics of Grace and Jewel. The license plate on I-75 in rush hour made perfect sense to me. Actually it may have been too obvious. I took care of a couple small projects that were bugging me. I recovered and made stands for my Peavey speakers used my vintage McIntosh setup. The speaker stands made a huge acoustic difference. I think I will shorten them by 3 inches, however. That will get the tweeters at exactly ear level. I was pleased when one of my YouTube guys did a special bit on my macs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyPLAUEekPw (advance to 8:22 in the video). I recommisoned my exercise bicycle electrical generator. I am powering my work laptop computer, but I was dissatified on the setup and I am piecing together a much better power supply. Powering the monitors is probably too much for my pedal power. I will see how things go over the longe...

The triplets appeared when I was on a call with my colleagues in Japan. I had to pause, standup, click and send them a pic. It was good to see they are growing and all appear to be healthy. It will be good to get back to Japan after many many years away.

I had to chuckle and hassle the guys at work as they were doing some landscaping and trimming around the office. They actually used a 40 ton off-road articulated dump truck for hauling brush. They also used a 40,000 pound bucket loader in lieu of a skid steer. They were using the tools they had available. A campsite i enjoyed recently on the banks of Lake Allatoona.