Road Trip

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I am back from my most recent roadtrip. I loaded up the Tesla and started letting the hands-off Full Self Drive (FSD) supervised take me to points North. First stopping in a campground in Tennesee and up to Pittsburgh for the CIDM Convex Conference (which was the best conference in years). There was a celebration of the 20 years of DITA XML. I was an earlier adopter. My presentation went well and I semi-stealth launched wisdomino. I demo'd some extra cool software we developed and will be selling in weeks to come. It's truely game changing. Of course, there will be much more than that to come. After that it was on to Franklin, PA. to meet with some colleagues in the mining division and onto the farm stopping in Olean NY for the night. I am pretty sure it was the first time I had driven across the entire Allegany National Forest. I ended up driving through the very dark forest expanse during a night time thunderstorm. Although I normally trust the Tesla FSD on the Interstat...
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I have finally got around to blogging. The bakery is coming along. The plumbing is done and the electric needs to get finished. The heat-hood for over the ovens goes in Monday. The project is a little behind, but not too bad.

I got in a battle with the folks that sold me the water heater for my solar system. They sold me the wrong unit, one without a heat exchanger. That of course wouldn't do me any good. So, I bellied up several hundred more dollars, disconnected and returned the non-exchanger model. I pick up the new one, get it home and wouldn't you know it. It was damaged in shipment. So I am waiting on a new one. Man, this has been a while getting the system done. The end is in site however. Just some insulation, wiring, and a few fittings and it will be ready for testing. I have been using so little fuel oil for water-heat now. I will be down to almost nothing with this system.

I got 1600 lbs of coal. That will last me the rest of the winter. The furnace has yet to come on this winter except for testing. I still have to move a bit of firewood around too.

Amy the cat had a nice Christmas. I was reflecting on how much I enjoyed Christmas in Antarctica. It was pleasant without all the hype and over the top stuff we live with in the US.

Interestingly we had a strange occurrence on Christmas eve at about Midnight. The dog started barking a lot down in the basement and carrying on. In looking out the window, someone was parked down at the end of the driveway and after a couple of minutes they drove away. Out here we don't get a lot of traffic especially late at night. It was pretty upsetting. What did this person want? I was thinking, where is the shot gun and feeling a bit trespassed. After a day or so thinking about it I started to feel a bit ashamed. The only plausible reason they stopped was to admire and perhaps photograph the bucolic scene. The snow covered ground, smoke coming from the chimney and one tasteful string of lights on the wreath on the red and white trimmed barn. I sometimes forget these things.

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Anonymous said…
Look at the pheasant hanging around the turkeys. That's pretty funny!

GM
4:15 PM
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Road Trip

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I am back from my most recent roadtrip. I loaded up the Tesla and started letting the hands-off Full Self Drive (FSD) supervised take me to points North. First stopping in a campground in Tennesee and up to Pittsburgh for the CIDM Convex Conference (which was the best conference in years). There was a celebration of the 20 years of DITA XML. I was an earlier adopter. My presentation went well and I semi-stealth launched wisdomino. I demo'd some extra cool software we developed and will be selling in weeks to come. It's truely game changing. Of course, there will be much more than that to come. After that it was on to Franklin, PA. to meet with some colleagues in the mining division and onto the farm stopping in Olean NY for the night. I am pretty sure it was the first time I had driven across the entire Allegany National Forest. I ended up driving through the very dark forest expanse during a night time thunderstorm. Although I normally trust the Tesla FSD on the Interstat...
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