The PBS NOVA program tonight was about Antarctica. It was strange watching it. All the shots brought back feelings, everything from the thin blue glove liners and "Big Red" (the parkas). The very familiar helicopters 08H and 36J were stories in themselves to me. I saw several of my friends and it seems like I had met just about everyone who was interviewed. A fair amount of the shooting was done when I was there it appeared. It was interesting to get whisked about by camera edits rather than geography, a shot of Mt Erebus and then in the same sequence you are at WAIS Divide or some place out in the Taylor Valley. For the viewer it was all one place, Antarctica. It was nice and made me homesick in a way.
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I am headed back to Atlanta after being in NY for the holidays. I am delayed in the SYR airport for at least a few hours because of weather in Atlanta. I have not had many delays traveling, really. Maybe I just don't notice them as much any more. The trees were frosted on some of the hilltops around Dryden NY. It makes things look cold.
I am in NY recharging my batteries (cellphones, laptops, camera). It was 3 degrees F the other morning. That is a big difference from summertime in South America last week. My strategy for not getting sick seems to work. I take vitimins, get as much sleep as possible (not enough for sure). I also wash my hands like a surgeon at every opportunity. DJ and I went for some short hikes walking very slowly. It was nice. We went to Taughannock Falls near Ithaca. http://www.nyfalls.com/taughannock-rock-fall.html I went into the bakery first-thing with DJ since my Internet is down at the house and I have quite a bit of work to do before the end of the year. The cause of the outage of my terrestrial broadband is because of a bad antenna at the provider's tower site. I hope they can climb and get it fixed soon.
I am Sao Paulo Brazil concluding this trip to South America. I worked my way up from Buenos Aires, Porto Allege and now Sao Paulo. There have been a whole bunch of cities in between. The weather has been nice. The temps through this trip have ranged from 90F down to about 70F (in the rain). I can't count how many formal meetings I had until I go through my notes and certainly the number of informal meetings is almost incalculable. I like Brazil and I liked Argentina more than I expected. The Brazilian people are friendly, hard working, enterprising and the women are very good looking as a whole. All and all I think the people here are very positive by nature. A good example is that when a shop owner told us not to park in front of his store it was with a sincere smile, not a snarl. And there was little or no animosity from the driver. We got caught in Sao Paulo traffic a couple of times. Most nights we made it to the dinner by 11:00 PM. In one case, I needed to remind myself t
I am in Porto Alegre Brazil for one night tonight, two work days and one night in the Porto Alegre area. It was a 1.5 hour flight between Buenos Aires and Porto Alegre (over Uruguay). A few more days and I will be in NY and DJ and I will be figuring out where we can go hiking. It looks like I will break 100,000 miles of air travel in a six month period. I am glad it isn't over-the-road like truckers have to endure. My job is not about traveling. It is about progress in the area of service information for one of the world's largest (and certainly the most intrepid) agricultual equipment companies in the world. I have to travel and meet with folks to strenghten the daily email and telephone conversations as well as make mutual assessments in these efforts. It is absolutely normal for me to make phone calls on my cell to Europe before I am fully awake from South America, to be thinking years ahead with our project schedules, and communicating in the evenings. It is all for the e
I woke up the other night somewhere over Bolivia. This week is a very busy travel week. I am in Buenos Aires for a few days before flying up to Porto Allegre Brazil and then on to Mogi Das Cruzes Brazil. This my first visit to Argentina. It is summer in the Southern hemisphere and the temps are near 90F. The city is great for shopping and walking. I have been doing some significant urban hiking. I visited the San Telmo area yesterday, and the old port and shoppping districts today. There is definately some political tension in the city. I am sure it is calmer than in the past, but there is still some tension. I like this place. It is hard to believe I was hiking in Northern Georgia just last weekend. Busy. Next weekend I will be in Nueva York. Maybe we can hike some of the Fingerlakes Trail.
Here is an interesting one. http://nysdocslookup.docs.state.ny.us/GCA00P00/WIQ3/WINQ130 http://books.google.com/books?id=oHkA15BCY9MC&pg=PA509&lpg=PA509&dq=robert+j+lewis+raymond+corp&source=bl&ots=66o6dkChtm&sig=Wj-jDaUqZ6qiIdBtn5uCltfaehg&hl=en&ei=9RMCTaLKKMP7lweT8Y3SCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false It appears Bob Lewis the former chief engineer (key person for technical liability responsibility) at The Raymond Corporation (A division of Toyota) just got out of Prison after serving 2 years. He was convicted of Producing Child Porn, or something like that. He retired after he got arrested. Now that he is out he can come back and visit, maybe consult. Good for them both. Truth is stranger than fiction.
It looks like I will have to go to a country other than the USA to look through wikileaks. What side of the "iron curtain" do we really live on these days? Although currently you can still get there via http://wikileaks.nl/ but for how long? Access is problem enough; additionally, there will be significant hurdles in getting to site data. Our country is being run by gangsters.
The weeks are flying by. I am trying to get some stuff done by year end. Yes, it is yet another year gone. I planned a great hike yesterday. You might ask, "How do you get to the Southern start of the Appalachian Trail (AT)?" The answer is obvious. You cannot get there by car boat or airplane. You get to the start of the AT by foot. I had a great hike. After 5 miles I ran across a "hike-in" only lodge. They offered me some hot drinks and soup. Since it rained all day (my fire building opportunities were dampened) it was a welcome treat. The woods and the trails were fantastic. I will be back to this particular trail area when the views are not obscured by clouds. I hiked about 13 miles. My altimeter watch indicated that I climbed over 1700 feet. I spent about 8 hours on the trail. I slept pretty well (after the 50 min drive back to Duluth) except for my sore feet. This is the kind of stuff I truly enjoy experiencing. The movers delivered my stuff from NY. Now,
I went up to Helen Georgia about an hour away from Duluth. I visited a working water driven grist mill. They had a single turbine operational. I had to leave shortly after I arrived; I became very jealous of the owners. Then I hiked about 5 miles. At about 2.5 miles there was a very nice secluded waterfall at Raven Cliffs. I am planning my next trip up there in a few weeks.
Wow. That week was fast! I hired a personal trainer. I am having a metabolic study done Saturday so I can find my fat burning band. It is all pretty interesting. The workout I get with the personal trainer is pretty much amazing. It really makes that much of a difference. I learn a lot and my muscles are getting taught new things. I ordered a new keyboard for my other laptop off ebay. The N and B keys aren't working. That is the computer with all the pics on it so I will have to mess around to get a pic posted here. I haven't been taking many pics in the last few days. I guess it all seems pretty routine around here now. The traffic can get really bad. You have to plan. I spent 1/2 an hour the other day going about 6 miles and that was normal for that stretch that time of day. Crazy. I am starting to get used to the really nice weather. The fall is really nice here. 50 degrees leaving for work and 70s during the day with clear sunny skys. Atlanta suits me well for a big cit
Another week has gone by. I cancelled my November trip to Europe. The only real travel I have planned for this month is NY and Wichita Kansas. In December I will be getting down to Argentina and Brazil. I have about 4 cities to get to in South America. I joined a really fancy fitness club. It is probably more of a resort than a fitness club. Let's see how that goes. The answer on how I got though the broken key incident is: I went into a store and bought some super glue and I glued the key together. The glue worked perfectly on retrieving the broken bit of key. The torque on the key was handled by the shank. This morning I went out to LZU for a EAA pancake breakfast and hanger fly. I wasn't disappointed. I also looked at the plane that I might buy fractional ownership.
I flew down to Jacksonville FL yesterday to visit my Mom. It was good and convenient to fly commercial down there for the day. Of course I get upgraded to first class since I travel for work so much. I overslept this morning and missed church. After I buy a plane it will take me 2.5 hours. On this commercial flight, after security and getting to the airports (both ends), taxi time, walking to the ground transportation was about 4 hours, even though it was only 45 minutes in the air. I am not saying that general aviation is more efficient. You start thinking like that and you have forgotten about risks. Do what you do to be safe. Stay home, don't get in the shower. Think. I am studying aviation communications. It is definitely my weakest spot. Back when I was flying around Greene NY the radio wasn't nearly as important as here in the Atlanta area. It is a matter of confidence in the new domain. I hold the highest level Amateur Radio license from the FCC (Amateur Extra), I h
DJ and I climbed Stone Mountain today. Stone Mountain is an "impordent" part of Atlanta life. In any culture high places often have spiritual significance. No different in the modern-day growth-region of Central/Northern Georgia. It is an interesting walk. Stone mountain is a largely monolithic mass of granite. I had become familiar with the obvious out-crop just like the skyline of downtown Atlanta. I see it from the cockpit of my C-172 as well as the very-top overpass of "Spaghetti Junction". The walk gets steeper as you get nearer to the top. My altimeter watch indicated that we scaled a 70 story building, albeit in nature. I saw no one turn back. That also seems to be part of the culture. People as everywhere around here are openly conversive with strangers. It is a regular walk for exercisers and urbanites that need to do something different. It is close to Duluth and Atlanta. It took about 30 minutes by car to get there from Duluth. We spent about 2 hours on t
OK. Scenario: You are doing regular stuff. You know, shopping and what-not. You get in the car, reach in your pocket to get going at the plaza after a store-stop and realize the car key has broken in your pocket. What would you do? I will tell you what I did in a future post. I can tell you that the event was barely noticeable in any delays or errand stops and subsequent efforts. DJ is in Atlanta for a week. Life is good. I am planning trips to the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Brazil, Argentina and Kansas. Work is going great. It feels good to be effective and part of a winning executive team. My bosses are great. I am getting a bit more urban. Although I am looking forward to spending some time back on the farm. I picked up DJ at the airport using mass transit. The MARTA Train is obvious and good. ATL is huge, but when you step back, very special. The fall weather here in Duluth is fantastic.
It took about 28 hours to get back from central Finland. I got to my apartment about Midnight (7 am Finland Time). I am a bit tired today. I did work out this morning. There hasn't been much of an opportunity lately being in Europe for the last two weeks. I went out to the airport to study using the instruction DVDs for the glass cockpit aircraft. Of course there was lots going on. I took a tour of "Aluminum Overcast" the B-17. I also got a ride in a Robinson R44 Helicopter. A nap is next on my agenda.
In the following picture you will see a very interesting phenomena. The plane is above the clouds with the sun behind. You can see a shadow of the plane, but the more significant thing is the perihelia around the shadow. It was the day for that image. I had several opportunities for pics and I took a little film as well. You can see two distinct rings in the pic. The plane has a relatively sharp edge and the diffraction caused by the plane produces a nice series of rainbows projected on the clouds, I think. Very nice.
In about 10 hours I am headed back to Duluth. I had a great meal last night of Rain deer and Blue cheese ice cream. It is absolutely true. In the last two weeks I have been in the following cities in the following order (listed without countries) for specific reasons: Duluth--Atlanta--Roissy--Beauvais--Roissy--Birmingham--Kennilworth--Stoneleigh--Kennilworth--Stoneleigh--Banbury--Stoneleigh--Kennilworth--Knowle--Kennilworth --Cosford--Birmingham--Kennilworth--Birmingham--Roissy--Vannta--Tikkakosken--Jyvaskyla--Linnavuori--Tampere--Jyvaskyla--Suolahti--Jyvaskyla--Suolahti--Jyvaskyla--Tikkakosken--Vannta--Roissy--Atlanta--Duluth That makes 36 significant destinations in 12 days or 3 cities per day. The shortest travel time between any of these was about 20 minutes by car, the longest about 8 hours in the air. There were a whole lot of meetings and discussions. Finland is nice. It is getting dark here about 5:30 pm. In the middle of winter they get about 4 hours of daylight in Jyv
Work is starting to ramp down here in Finland. I have a couple more meetings tomorrow then Friday morning I am headed back to the US. I am tired. I am smarter. I have been influential. It was snowing in Finland. It made me very homesick. The thing that looks like a bear is actually a very high-tech bear anger-management simulator. These days there are simulators for everything. The high-tech folks in Finland who have brought us saunas, cellular phones, and countless other modern devices have also brought us the use of these simulators. Next time I get to try the techniques on a real bear. The other pic is something I hope you think is off the beaten path. These World Dryer people aren't kidding.