Summer brings new friends

-
Image
Summer is here. I have the AC on occasionally, except for the zoom room, which the AC is on all the time I am in there. Since we had so much rain awhile back, the mosquitos are unbearable. I called for air support from a pest killer company. June brings new fawns in this area. We have two new ones in the back yard, learning about the world. There was a nice Pitts Special that showed up at the EAA 690 breakfast this past week. I picked up another traffic control device. I will add an appropriate relay and sell to someone with a man-cave or bar. Wisdomino is certainly keeping me busy. I am a professional networker now. A lot to juggle.
Post a Comment
-

Here is an interview with Anne Aghion the documentary filmmaker I met in Antarctica. I very much expect to be in her Antarctica documentary. She says she has just started to edit. My beard was frosted real nice one day and they got a nice shot of it close up. I very much suspect it will not end up on the cutting room floor. We shall see. There are other shots as well. http://www.ecorazzi.com/?p=1757 I already know I cannot watch another Antarctica documentary the same. The United States Antarctica Program (USAP) is quite small so knowing folks in the film or credits is pretty much inevitable.

Being away in Antarctica actually helped me miss most of the winter as strange as it sounds. It is tough to get up in the dark, go shovel, plow, dig and otherwise move the snow out of the way. And after that you get the treat of moving your vehicle through it all to get to work or wherever you are going. Upstate NY is a tough place to live. The summers make up for it around here. The lack of hustle and bustle while being close to metropolis's is also worthwhile.

I will be getting up in the air soon. I just got off the phone with my instructor. So I have a private-pilot mentor, an instructor, books, and other informational resources. That sets the stage pretty good.

I started working out again and I over did it. I am quite sore. It will take a while to get back where I was and better.

These pics are from around the farm in tha last couple of days. I am slowly sorting and looking through my Antarctica pictures and videos. I will be posting some videos to be sure.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
Image
Today I am supposed to leave the pole at 11:30 AM. Delays and flight changes are common. It is all part of the deal. They announce to the whole station when a plane takes off from McMurdo, when it gets to the last checkpoint and when it lands. So it is pretty easy to be there when you need to get on. All the LC-130s (hercs) unload and load hot at Pole. They do not shut the engines off. I have to say it is the first time I got off a running airplane. It is windy and there are a lot of fumes with those 4 big turboprops. I still have a lot to do when I get back to McMurdo. The first thing is to take a shower. Showers are restricted to 2 minutes twice a week at pole. At McMurdo I can take as long as I want, but conservation is encouraged. In the deep field camps showers are basically impossible. It is so dry it really doesn't become a real problem. I got this picture yesterday on my way out to the RF building. It is a piece of the C-130 that crashed here in the 1970s. They are di...
Read more

The first real (small) garden on the Berkshire NY Farm

-
Image
The garden looks nice and we are taking zucchini out of it today. I am looking at windmills. I recently obtained a bunch of 180 VDC motors that I think may be just the ticket. I am looking at propellers now. They are not that much money these days, made of plastic. They appear to be durable. I am looking at ones about 7 foot in diameter. I read an interesting article on testing your windmill on the front of a car. Seems like a natural job for the jeep.
Read more

Solon NY Water Mill

-
Image
I went and looked at the Solon Pond Mill. I was mistaken last time when I was up there in 2000. It was Summer and everything was overgrown. The mill is about an 1/8 mile from the building I thought might have been the mill. The mill is in rough shape. But everything is still there. I couldn't get underneath to see if the turbine was in good shape. I had heard that it was buried in muck. I suspect it is there, but probably in rough shape as well. It is a combination grist and saw mill, and could be restored to do exactly that. I am going to pass. I was thinking it would make a great homesite however. There is 3.9 acres (a lot for a mill) and you could build a nice house that looked period and work on getting an awesome water powered workshop out back. There is a planner, and it looks like a jig saw and I bet a few other pieces of woodworking equipment in there. All the shafting looks good. It is fun to think about the coolness of starting with logs and making furniture all out in th...
Read more
-
Image
Easter is here. The weather is perfect for an Easter day. I have been working (for regular work) this weekend. There is so much to do. I had a birthday a few days back. It was relaxed. I have been better at relaxing. I did have time to build a Pedestrian Horn for the leaf. Supposedly, a few EVS such as Opel's Ampera have these pedestrian horns. The leaf did not, but mine does now. I used a small piezo buzzer, a push button, a small fuse and a couple hours of my life. There is a small accessory battery in the leaf so there was no rocket science trying to find a decent 12VDC power supply. The leaf is so quiet sometimes folks don't hear you behind them when they are walking. The regular horn is too loud when you sneak up behind a pedestrian. It is nice to have a quieter, friendly noise maker for this need. I felt good that I accomplished this small project without a single trip to the store for parts, tools or anything. I had it all in "my inventory stuff".
Read more
-
Image
I lived thru a Sunday. I spent a lot of time in the library. We watched the debut of "Emperors of the Ice" last night as part the science lecture. The producers/lecturers gave a talk as well. The documentary will be seen this coming year in the US. It is a National Geographic Special. It is pretty interesting to see a film like this one. It is all staged around McMurdo. To my eyes it isn't that exotic anymore. Don't get me wrong. I find it exciting and all that. However, it is like seeing a documentary about your family Thanksgiving day dinner. It is familiar. I have a very busy day today. I actually got quadruple booked today with work and training. That has to get worked out this morning. Here's me in the ham shack. I have a bit of work to do for the shack but we are going to be using 14.243 MHz USB. I will be using the station callsign KC4USV. Schedules are forthcoming.
Read more