Machinery Infatuation

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I bought my first NEW piece of farm machinery. I am not sure if this is a failure or a success, but it is different. I picked up a NEW Rotary Cutter (bush hog, brush hog, mower, etc) from a dealer. It cost me almost as much as the tractor did with its bits of hardware and options. It seems to work well on the CNH Boomer 33. I planned on getting up to NY in the next couple of days, but Gracie has been sick.. she has been up and down. The steroid treatment and a change in diet seem to be helping at this point. Besides hauling the tractor and mower up to NY I have numerous events planned over the next month. I will be in Charlotte for a conference as well as Tucson Arizona and of course other events and activities. I started installing radio equipment in the Humvee. It now has a telescoping 30 foot antenna, a 24 volt to 12 volt converter, a removable SDR radio and some other stuff to be sure. I'd like to get it to the Stone Mountain Hamfest -- thats what i am shooting for. I thr...
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Back in the USA --- Repatriating from Antarctica

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I am in LA. I missed my connection. I did manage to get the red-eye out tonight. So it looks like I get to spend another night on a plane. I slept last night. I probably got 4 or 5 hours of sleep. I caught up with a fellow ice person last night for the flight. We were recounting the experience. Our experiences and impressions were very similar. He was saying that he can't describe a lot of it. He went on to say that even looking at his photos, they didn't tell what he was experiencing. We agreed about how strange it was meeting the winter-overs we were taking over for when we got there in October. "They had that weird stare and they talked ok and everything, but there was no emotional content to what they were saying". There is a zombie like quality to some people who spend a lot of time on the ice.

After a couple of weeks at pole he was medivaced to McMurdo for altitude sickness (there were quite a few this year). It got better and went back to pole. This guy is a body builder and you wouldn't expect anything to bring that guy down.

This is a picture I took day-before-yesterday of some fata-morgana. Fata-morgana is Antarctican for mirage. This is looking across about 40 miles of sea-ice. The temperature inversion causes this really cool elongations and inversions. I have seen small mountains upside down. It is pretty freaky when you are walking into work and you see these things.

I have taken and saved about 35 GB of photos and videos. I have not sorted through many of them myself. It will take quite a while.

6-13-26 -- I cried when I was in LA. Not sure exactly why, but I did. It was mostly sadness, not joy. There was a void.

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