This is the online journal of Charles Dowdell. www.theguysatwork.com charlesdowdell at gmail.com
Saturday, July 28, 2007
We are off to Chautaqua lake a for a few days. I am fishing for walleyes.
The rabbits and birds really enjoy not having Tioga the cat around. We don't hear all the danger shrills from the birds and the bunnies are pretty much coming to the back door. I haven't really looked at cats yet. I am thinking a Maine Coon cat or two this time. We know we want a big cat.
I have gotten serious about losing the 10 pounds I put on in Antarctica. Food is always on my mind. I am running the 5k running race next Thursday for the corporate challenge. Every pound I don't have to carry with me helps. I will run it about 25 minutes.
The Subaru has been in the shop. It blew a head gasket and it is getting a new catalytic convertor, brakes, tires, and I am sure a few other things by the time it passes inspection.
I have had a couple of great flying lessons. My last lesson was the usual mix of good and bad, pride and shame, and other elements of learning. The exciting part was on one of my takeoff rolls a deer ran out in front of me! I was going about 30 or 40 MPH. I am really proud of how I handled it. I killed the throttle, got on the brakes, braked evenly and straight. Then turned around to try again without the deer part. My instructor was very surprised. It had never happened to him before. We both (and others at the airport) have a new story to tell.
Tioga is gone. He was in and out of a coma. He did wake up and knew we were there and he purred and purred even though he was so sick. Then he slipped into his coma and we put him to sleep. I looked at hundreds of different cats before picking him. We have no inside pets now. I am not sure how long we are going to be catless. I miss having them around already.
Well, we have made the decision to put Tioga down. He was a great cat. We will be going to the Vet in a little while so we can be there and bring his body back to be buried next to Resses, Fawna, Junior, and Rosey.
I have a lot of photos of Tioga. He was such a great cat. RIP Tioga.
Well, today started off a little different. Tioga the cat was involved in freak accident. I was in the barn and he came in and while I was in the other room I heard the step ladder fall. I suspected the cat's involvement and went to see if he was hurt. He was hurt, bad. We took him to the vet and he is still there. He seems to have taken quite a bump to the head and broke his jaw. We will decide whether or not to put him down tomorrow. It is not looking good. He has been a great cat. He has caught voles, mice, rats, weasels, rats, rabbits and he even killed a rooster. He is the first pet I picked out and named.
The pic with the scar is when he had surgery a couple of years back
A lot is happening. It is Summer and I guess a lot always happens with the longer days and warm temperatures. The barn and fence are looking better and better. We have the gates made, painted and hung. We also got the front of the barn painted. That made a big difference. I will be working on the loft door and it will be pretty much done. I am using a remote low voltage switching arrangement for the light on the barn. That will properly control the light from inside the house over a 25-pair phone cable that I ran underground when I had a ditch dug for the main power service entrance. I buried every king of wire I had in a separate 2 in conduit when I had the ditch dug. It will feel good to actually start to use that function that we planned on a couple of years ago.
I had a flight lesson tonight. I seem to be retaining information and my lessons well. There is a lot to a landing. Greene (4N7) is a great place to learn since it is difficult. You lose sight of the runway right away since it is in a valley. Finding it again can be difficult when you are learning. I feel better and better about my flares on landing. I felt great about one of my takeoffs. It was perfect by my toughest critic, me. I wish I could take pictures when I am learning but I am kind of busy. The sight of the runway lining-up turning on final is really quite a view, knowing everything is aligned and seeing the future unfold.
We finally had out night-blooming Sirius bloom. After years of waiting it when between these two photos in about an hour. That was kind of neat. We have at least two more blossoms ready to go now. It is fun to watch.
On my way home tonight I thought I was coming up on some wild turkeys (as I did about 5 miles before) but when I got closer they didn't scamper. They stood there. As I got close I could see they were free-ranging peafowl. Free range birds of all types in my neighborhood can be found.
It is Independence day once again. I am monkeying around with stuff here on the farm. The gates are coming along and I managed to fix a bunch of stuff. It is raining on and off.
The llamas got out a week or so ago. It really startled the neighbor to look up from the sink and see Professor looking in the window. The llamas, I guess, were just bored.
Here is a picture of my Recirculating Infusion Mash System (Rims) I built a number of years ago. It was quite an innovative device for all grain brewing of beer. I designed the electronics and the compact system. It is now out of my house. I have too may hobbies. I want to concentrate on a few such as the dozen or so I have left.
This picture shows Calisto (the white one), Professor, and Artemis chilling on the scene yesterday. Artemis is in the dirt spa. This is where the llamas take turns rolling around in the dust and enjoying their dirt.
I have been mostly doing farm related work. Work on the barn and gates and such. It all takes time. The tractor lost its clutch slave cylinder so I'm rebuilding that, hopefully will have the parts Tuesday. Pete Nystrom is headed down for Tuesday as well for the day. That will be fun.
I gave a presentation about Antarctica last Wednesday at the Greene Library. People really seemed to like it.
Here is a great slide show in today Chicago Tribune. It has picture and voices of friends of mine. I can easily recognize where each of the photos was taken, as well as who the people are and their voices.
