Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

It has been quiet. With the Covid thing, working from home, no travel, and Angie putting in long hours, it has been exceptionally quiet. We will do something special for Angies Birthday next week.

I have to get up to NY. I am moving some property lines on my farm. I have plans for a second house on the property.

The cats continue to be a source of amusement.

I had done a lot of work to the bobcat. Afterwards I couldnt get full power out of it. It was quite frustrating. It was a good case of sticking with it over time, not giving up. It was multiple issues. But the nasty one was that I unknowingly attached an electric fuel pump up to a ignition "resistor wire" feed designed for the original points-type ignition. The ford engine didn't use a ballast resistor. They used a stupid resistor wire, undetectable in most cases. The fuel pump wasn't getting full voltage except during start. The pump ran too slow during run fast/hard operation request. It's fixed now. And yes, I am the only one I know in my suburban Atlanta neighborhood that has a skid steer.

We are staying low but we did start to book travel for next April. Norway. Airfare prices are great.

Gracie has decided that she doesnt like we spending all day talking into the "box-screen thing".

The remnants of Hurricane Zeta hit us pretty good. This time it was wind, not rain with Delta a few weeks back. A lot of trees down; we were without power for a couple of days. I had the generator hooked up powering the entire house once I convinced myself the power wasn't coming back on for awhile. The generator did well and I think it may be the first time I truely needed the generator (in this case it kept the food frozen).

It felt good that I was prepared and we enjoyed the family time.

Here is a video I just found that shows the derailment story in Duluth from back in June. A real high energy railfan was there. This is the train I like to visit and have filmed with my drone. It's a marvel. It is wildly cool this guy caught the train as it derailed although he was about 1/2 mile away from where the cars flew from the track. The next video is the first minutes at the scene of the derailment.

It's definately fall in Georgia. We have been doing the yard word, leaves, etc. We took the boat out of the water for some repairs and upgrades.

We are definately getting restless to travel, we are starting to book flights.

The remnants of Hurricane delta spent some time with us last night. 4 inches of rain and a very high lake level. The boat is on top of the lower dock. My irrigation pump is under water.

We are enjoying Fall in Duluth GA. The leaves have just started to fall. I will be taking the boat out of teh water soon. I have some improvements to make. New batteries, better lighting, better main power distribution and more. It seems like I just put new batteries in the boat, but it was 6 or 7 years ago. They were not treated very kindly either.

Gracie has her own style of relaxing. This is not an action shot. She was lying there like this.

There was a great quote from Clement Mok --"The Music is not in the Piano". This is a very appropriate quote in the early days of Information Design. Perhaps in the age of artificial intellegnce and machine learning the corollary should be: " "The music is not in the piano, but it is definately in the synthesizer".

I have been sorting through music, pictures, etc. Actually in the effort I infected one of my computers with a boot block virus from a very old floppy. I found some irony in my effort to organize I corrupted the archive. Dark forces for sure. Ever present.

In my Brother's collection I found this Anita Baker tune that really spoke to me. I think this piece was underrated and for some reason has not received the respect it truely deserves. I suggest listening on your best equipment. I was using my Soundcraftman Power Four-17 Amp with the Hafler Series 945 preamp. The Macintosh setup doesn't like this tune as much.

My sister has been in GA. We went camping in the Georgia Mountains.

I am doing some refocusing. I have been taking long walks in the early morning before sun up. I like to watch and feel the rumble of trains as the +100 car double stacked container hot-shots fly by in the dark. They are modern miracles in plain sight. There are many.

I am rectifying the mengerie of multi-state licences on my fleet of 5 cars (Georgia, Maine, California). It is pretty funny talking to the insurance companies. "And what is the main purpose of your vehicle?" Since we are working from home the main purpose is to get groceries and catfood once a week. Yes, we need five cars for that. We just do. The grocery store is about a mile away. Yes we can walk. Sometimes we do.

The rain has continued into early fall. It has been a wet year here in Georgia. The bugs love it. The lake level raised 16 inches during some storms recently. It pushed the boat on the dock and left it there.

My Brother James passed away at 61 years old. He was definitely the Socrates in my life. He never wrote, but was the most literate person I knew.

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/hartfordcourant/obituary.aspx?n=james-v-dowdell&pid=196694815

"Talent does not matter. Your talent will ruin you if you don't have skills" --Will Smith

What talent? What skills? Those are the questions for all of us. Will you answer correctly? Will you have people around you to help answser the questions objectively, helpfully?