Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

I went to scrap yard and generally worked like crazy Monday, my day off. The machines used at the scrap yard almost make the whole trip worthwhile. Many of them are like some weird dinosaur hydraulic beasts. The video is of a giant hydraulic lobster. The scrap yard was incredibly busy. The cash payouts get really big, scary big, when you see thousands of $$ people put in their pockets. I got $266 for some farm junk I chainsawed out of the woods since the trees had grown up thru it.

I got some antibiotics for my cold. I am feeling so much better. I didn't even realize how bad I was feeling. I am taking a three day weekend. I will be going to the scrap yard, geting parts for power equipment and mowing. I had some guy show up to buy the 4 wheeler he bought off me on ebay. It was easy for me to empathize with his 4 hour drive each way. He got lost in my neighborhood. I live so far off the beaten path GPS doesn't even work. The mapping is wrong around here. The llamas really kicked back yesterday. They were just sunning themselves groving on the scene. Friday I had a flying lesson and my instructor and I agree that I have made great progress. I have turned a corner. There was a fly-in to Greene as well. So after my lesson we went over to the restaurant and talked aviation. I realized at that point of how nice a place it is to live around here. The word perfect came to mind.

I snapped this pic during my lunch walk in Greene NY. Tonight I get my new glasses. It has already been 2 years since I was preping to go to Antarctica. Eyeglasses sure are a rip off and a racket. Even the so called "insurance" related to eyeglasses is a scam. It is more of a protection scam for some providers than insurance.

Well the big fun this weekend was that we got the CAT D6 Dozer running! After 30 years of not being run it now runs. When the diesel finally kicked it did not disappoint in the slightest. The thing belched a big black cloud of black smoke and the cooling fan emptied the radiator of 30 years worth of bugs parts and mouse nests all over us. The neighbor came over pretty much in disbelief. In thinking about it, he had only ever lived across the street, it appears, and he was maybe 40 years old. That machine had been a familiar static fixture for almost his whole life. Something simple like getting that big old engine running is truly a lot of fun and was satisfying. I don't have a video of the engine rebirth. It took more hands than two people have to work the controls required to get the thing started. Now it is a bit more work to get it to move. It appears the brakes and possibly other parts are stuck.

The Relay for Life went pretty much as planned. However, I got a sore throat and a nasty cough over the last few days. I wasn't going to sleep out in fear it might get me more sick. My friend DJ did the keynote speech for the event. She did a great job. There wasn't many dry eyes. I have been incredibly busy the last couple of weeks. I have been combining a lot of things and planning my evenings for the whole week pretty much minute by minute. I was a bit annoyed that my trip between the home center (after my flying lesson) to the chainsaw place (closes at 8PM) that I got into a traffic jam. When I drove buy I took this pic of the reason I was in a traffic jam. I decided that I can be annoyed a little bit compared to these folks.

I am participating in the Chenango County Relay for Life event this coming Friday night. It is a fund rasier for Cancer research facilitated by the American Cancer Society (ACS). I will be up most of the night Friday Night up in Norwich taking turns walking around a track growing awareness and raising money with my Team. Donations can be made at: http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RelayForLifeEasternDivision?pg=team&fr_id=9561&team_id=298915

There has been some tech news (several instances of the topic creted from Google) out that made me feel a bit glib. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory This is what I posted in 2000. http://www.theguysatwork.com/blogs/2000/08/ya-know-as-student-of-information.htm

The Werner Herzog movie of Antarctica has been announced. I like the tag line: "Off the map, things get strange. Werner was quite a guy. His life story was quite humbling for me. We had a personal screening (and world premiere) of his movie "Rescue Dawn" when we were on the ice. http://encountersfilm.com/page.cfm?load=times He was filming when I was on the ice. We had a lot of fun with his right hand man Peter. I think he was from the Eastern Block and lived now in Belgium. There is a possibility there is a shot of me in the film. I am not featured though for sure. It will be interesting to see it. The folks I worked with and the scenery of Antarctica comes back pretty easy. I looked at one of his pictures on the web site and I could feel the dry-cold and hear the loud crunching of the ice/snow beneath my feet over the ever present and pervasive silence.

This is fascinating. A microwave beam that can place audio messages in your head. I told you about all this and no one listened. Ha. I have you all exposed now. It is soooo obvious. Come on really. http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/07/the-microwave-s.html

I went and got the mower. That was a lot of driving. My mom liked it too, until I suggested she ride on it from Rochester to Berkshire. The mower is awesome. The yard was done in no time at all. There is no comparison to the consumer grade mowers and this thing. There is no comparison at all. The mower goes as slow as you need to around stuff and faster than you can handle when the need arises.

It looks like I have to drive to Michigan. I did my homework. I have to go pick up my new lawn mower. It is a 2004 ExMark Commercial Lazer Z--60 inch deck with a 27 HP Kohler. It is rated at 4 acres per hour. It will do my front yard in 15 minutes! These things cost $10,000 new. I paid significantly less. What did we do before eBay.