Upper Peninsula Michigan and Auction Win Outcomes

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I was up in Wisconsin and the UP (upper peninsula) in Michigan. It was a lot of driving after launching/landing in Appleton WI. I got an item off the bucket list by driving across the "Mighty Mac". Altough it was built in the late '50s. It is still the longest suspension span in the Northern hemisphere. It is a crazy long bridge with a crazy long suspension span. It was good to see the bridge in context of the seemingly endless forests of Northern Wisconsin and Michigan. The culture in the two haves of Michigan are noticibly different as you might expect. Great time meeting with folks both in WI and MI. The tractor I won in auction, seems to have paid off. This time I beat the odds. It was a really good deal. I have the "no-key, non-running, may have hydraulic problems, unknown hours" -auction win, running well with minimal cost and time. I have some more tweaks, maintenance and minor fixes but the major risks are gone.
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Man o' man getting on the internet has really been working againist me lately. I got the new tv (great). I got the dish for "Cable" tv, and I had my new internet dish installed (Wild Blue). The Wild blue worked for exactly 2 days and quit. I am trying to get it fixed. Hopefully today the guy will be out. I am currently using a WIFI connection down in Binghamton. We can receive 7 hi def stations locally, about 12 analog signals and then we have the dish and the internet connected to the TV via VGA. I am working out the details of how to hook all this stuff up including the subwoofer I installed in the coffee table.

I have been taking a lot of photos lately, stopping the truck on the way to work or whatever. It is worth it. Of course ;-) at this sitting I have almost none of my new pics with me.

I am working on getting my electric car drive train working. I built a test stand and a programming interface for the controller. I bid on a geo tracker with a bad engine on ebay, but I let it go. There will be others. The idea of 4 wheel drive makes sense. I am working on getting a range of 60 miles on the battery power. One of the really nice features about the controller I plan on using is the regenerative charging of the batteries. I will have a pot hooked to the accelerator as well as to the brake pedal. I am using one set of batteries for testing/development and another for the car probably. Fun stuff, pure playtime.

I have been communicating with the guys on the ice as the season starts up and they are trying to get the equipment working. I insist on them sending me photos when they email me or I won't comunicate with them :-) I miss some of the aspects of the work environment.

Of the pics I do have with me at the moment I have Bonnie's jack o'lantern and a view on my ride to work Monday.

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