Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

It has been cold and crappy here in Duluth. It got down to 30 degrees F last night and cloudy. I seem to have forgotten how much the weather can affect your mood, maybe when I was in NY I blocked it out of my mind. Even though it is the middle of winter we still have planted flowers here. It is good to remember to look at them. Since I spend a lot of my time in South it only seems appropriate that I go on a Skiing trip up North somewhere. It is in the works. I am trying to catch up on house work and related chores over the holidays. I am going through everything deciding to keep or save and what to do with "stuff". It can be difficult to decide what to do with stuff. Sometimes it seems you are being disrespectful or something. I have also been spending my down-time catching up on "Vice Guide to Travel" and David Choe's "Thumbs Up" Episodes on YouTube. Very entertaining. Life without fear or filters. I have an interesting mix of travel lined up for t...

I am back from my hiking and camping trip on the Appalachian trail in North Georgia. I went solo. They call it hiking, but it is really mountain climbing. When you are on the AT and you see a mountain ahead, you can be pretty sure you will be hiking to the summit. One of the benefits of winter hiking is that you can see the mountains more clearly since the canopy is not obscuring them as much. The area has lots of black bears. I have to admit I thought a little of them. Although, I certainly did not get preoccupied with the thoughts of bears. I slept long and hard. I awoke about 3:00 AM by a large tree falling in the forest. I guess I was supposed to be there to hear it fall. I am sure no other human heard it. It was rainy, and cold about half the time, but absolutely manageable. I did some night hiking as well. At some points, the fog was so thick I had a hard time seeing the trail. It was a little bit extreme and a very good way to spend Christmas.

I am somebody. I am the 985,632,518 viewer of Gangham Style on Youtube. Consider me an early adopter as the video is sure to be the first to hit a billion views. There will be 14,367,482 after me before Christmas. It is trending at least 3 million hits a day.

I went to a presentation a couple of Saturdays ago by a ex navy pilot who had hundreds of combat missions in Vietnam. He had lots of photos he took from a hand held camera in the cockpit, very dramatic and never really seen before. The pilots started taking their own pics seriously to confirm damage and for intelligence since it was better than what they got otherwise. The end of the presentation focused on pilot friends who were killed, their pictures, stories and descriptions of their personalities. It was quite moving. I am in LaGuardia airport in NYC at the moment. It was a quick trip up to NY. 4 days in NY, 2 upstate and 2 in NYC. I drove the truck up, slept in the truck when I got tired. The most interesting thing was about sleeping in the truck was realizing how much more comfortable it was sleeping in my truck in the cold temps than it is sleeping in an airline seat on an overseas flight. I slept hard in the parking lot of a car wash with temps below freezing, weird.

I Have been meeting a lot of new people lately, more than usual. I am never disappointed. Humans are very very diverse. They are inherently interesting. They are a great area of exploration. I am headed to NY both Upstate and NYC. I found someone to share the ride with to Virginia. That will make the trip shorter. My Christmas camping/hiking trip is coming together, So far an orthodontist is going to join me with the winter camping.

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Howard Thurman

My kayak trip was awesome! So what happens when three restless boys want to do something exciting in Atlanta over the Thanksgiving holiday? Shoot the Hooch. Traverse the Chattahoochee river in grand style. We did it in a combination of couchsurfer, thrillseeker, and urban explorer (mostly Couchsurfer). We met for the first time last week. The participants, one from France (a recent MBA grad from Georgia Tech), one from California (a 20 something Mechanical Engineer) and me. We put in at the Buford Dam at Lake Lanier. We put in illegally since the park was closed. (I mean who would want to use a park on a holiday?) We parked illegally at both ends of the run (not sure of the reasons, but an accumulation of a $50 parking ticket). And, we camped illegally for two nights. So, let's add some danger with two beginner kayakers, and very fast water. It is very dangerous, at least one person has died in the Chattahoochee in the last year from swift water. The risks were fully assessed. This...

I went flying on the spur of the moment today. I flew to Athens GA. The home of the Georgia Bulldawgs and the Band B-52s. Just missed a hawk by about 5 feet. They were looking for me today at several points. One of the prices you have to pay for calm winds. They are beautiful birds, just stay out of my way. I like you too. My propeller will not play with you the way you want. The kayaks on my truck is a good portend of impending adventure. I will be back in a few days. Adventure is everywhere. I am getting much better at finding safe adventure. I had my first fire in my new house. I have about a face cord of wood. I used 11 face cords in NY and a lot of coal each year. Here I am using some wood and some gas.

The best advice anyone can ever give (when it is delivered in an even productive tone): "Do what you need to do." --Charles Dowdell

Nothing happened this week, absolutely nothing. It was amazing.

I just stumbled on this film (Stellar Axis link below) about an art project that I was involved with in Antarctica on the Solstice 2006. http://blog.theguysatwork.com/2006_12_17_archive.html It was a moving experience watching the video for me. It really took me back there for an hour. Lita Albuquerque and I connected at some level when we met. I was one of the 51 volunteers at the end in the spiral. We rode out from McMurdo on "Ivan the Terrabus", (the only time I rode in Ivan). It probably took an hour to drive there out on the shelf. My memory of the participation was one of peace. When we started walking away from the center we were all quiet and the walking got a little awkward since all the stepping turned the ice shelf into irregular masses of granular snow and the hard bits of wind hardened shelf. At the end we all lied down and outstretched our arms. After a bit we started yelling "woos and woo-hoos" and such. There was laughter and good feelings. Stellar ...

The weather has been perfect in Atlanta in the wake of hurricane Sandy. There was no damage on the farm. Bad weather is pretty much normal there. The floods over the last two years will be hard to top in the area near Binghamton, NY. I went flying Saturday. It was quite nice. It was almost ideal conditions. I cant help but take pictures of car wrecks around Atlanta. There is a lot of them. A lot of cars, a lot of wrecks. I was planning on climbing Brasstown Bald (highest elevation in GA) today by myself, but I decided I should probably work on the house instead. The pic of the airport is my home airport KLZU. I snapped this pic being 5 miles out, 3000 ft and cleared for a straight-in approach for Runway 25.