Back South Again with More Projects

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A lot of driving. I have forgotten how much driving is involved when on the farm. Everything is far. But I also had to drive up and back twice to Syracuse to pickup/drop off Angie at the airport and a business meeting for Wisdomino in Albany. Yeah it was a lot of driving for me. All and all it was about 4000 miles in three weeks. Early in the morning I decided to check out some auctions (dangerous). I ended up being high bidder on a 2015 New Holland Boomer 33 ( "hours unknown, does not run, may have problems, no key, no battery" ) from the State of Tennessee. I figured I could swing by Nashville and pick it up on the way to Georgia. And indeed I did. It was only a couple of hours extra, maybe 4. But, it was more efficient than going to Georgia and then back and forth to Nashville. Nashville is about 4 hours from Duluth. So I was looking at a 4 hour savings. After I go through it and getting if working I will tow it up to the farm in NY. I wasn't prepared for a trac...

I am working mostly on computers again this weekend. I am moving all the files into their appropriate storage areas. I have a quite a bit more to do. I am stuck with a 10 Mbps NIC in the machine I am typing on now (Pentium 233 we threw together). Simultaneous Internet access and file transfers can take quite a while. The progress box on the other machine here says 98 minutes.... uh oh, something is weird.

I am setting the new "work box" up to easily accept strange hard drives. It is a dual boot machine with linux and windoze. I will be adding a 5-1/4 in floppy drive to the complement of I/O. It has both MFM and IDE controllers. I am skipping all SCSI and CDROMs for now. Other future projects will be to figure out how to get the data of the C64 disks so we can run those games we had so much family fun with in a 6500 emulator that must be out there.

I sent out a bunch of RFQs for my new truck and dump trailer. It will be interesting to see what I get back. I did it by paper and mail. The option to submit RFQs is available on the web but that kinda defeats the purpose since I suspect there is a bidding arrangement via the web. Everyone knows who has the goods, and there are rules of engagement. I suspect a paper based is not there yet... too much data entry.

I am going out of town for three days to ride along with dealer technicians so I can further empathize with their work (and what I put the department through). This is not mandatory for me. The snow on the ground is the crustiest snow I have ever seen. We have been alternating between rain, freezing rain, and snow for the last few days. The llamas don't like it one bit. It is warm though. It has been over freezing in their llama house so I have not been running the heater.

Hopefully, I can get the EPROM burned for my 2 meter GE radio project tomorrow. I want to get some data links set up. With my satelite internet connection and all the batteries, generators, and inverters I have I will be able to be in touch without any power, cable tv, phone, gas, water or any other physical infrastructure. My tractor and jeep would fit the bill ok if the road went away as well. (I think I just jinxed myself)

I have been reading short stories lately which has been a great deal of fun. It is great to kick back a little. My finance class starts on the 24th.

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