Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

I am back in Duluth from La Jolla California. I am working on my 3 by 5 card for the weekend. I didn't get the house I was bidding on. The pic is from downtown La Jolla where all the nice restaurants are. I had a few really good meals. I really like west coast oysters. My colleagues and I gave a presentation to about 135 people. It was fun and I was proud I got them all to laugh.

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." -- Henry David Thoreau, Author, Philosopher I was in Detroit yesterday. Today I am in Atlanta. Tomorrow I will be in California. You see a photo of an escalator. I see a memorable experience. I was halfway coming down this escalator getting stuff out of my pocket and ...SCHreech... the escalator comes to a sudden and violent stop. Broke. Stopped. It was weird. It was a good lesson for me that these things happen. Me and another guy started laughing and I started saying "Help, I am stuck on the escalator!" It was pretty funny.

The falls are nice indeed. I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt who said, (when she first saw Foz de Iguazu was) "Poor Niagara". Indeed, Iquazu is a much better experience than Niagara Falls. It was a weird weekend. One of interesting things was that I made my first arrangements (including hotels) for the visit the Friday I arrived. ----Everything worked out exactly the way it was supposed to. I got to see some pretty fancy chickens.

It is good to be back home in Brazil after spending time in Paraguay. The traffic jam was bad over the border bridge. I decided to hike. Worked like a charm. I made better time and got some exercise. On top of all that it was cheaper.

It is Saturday. I am in Foz de Iquazu on the Brazil/Paraguay/Argentina border. I took a hard hat tour of one of the largest hydro plants in the world. There are a few left for me to visit worldwide. There are of course some interesting aspects of this power plant. There are 20 turbines, half are 60 Hz (Brazilian) the other half are 50 Hz (Paraguayan). Since Brazil buys most of the juice they have to convert the 50Hz to 60Hz in a converter 8 km away from the power plant. I wonder how efficient that is. Even if it is 98 percent that is a significant cost at those wholesale levels. Also, the area surrounding the dam is called Itaipu Binational area. The treaty area was specifically created for the powerplant. Now the area is becoming an area of intercountry cooperation for Latin America and they are building a university in the binational area. Clearly, beside the technology and engineering there is considerable political acheivement to be considered here just as at the Moses plant in Nia

I tried to do a solo cross country today. But, the weather degraded unexpectedly and I ran into a low ceiling. I ended up going into a cloud. That got my attention pretty good. I diverted to a nearby airport, landed, did a bit of a read on the situation, and got my confidence back. I figured I would try it again at a lower altitude. When I was about 20 miles out from my destination the weather at the destination called for "Clear to 1200" (not enough). I decided to do a 180 and go back to LZU. Clouds can be very difficult to see when you are ascending into a haze. The density of the haze is especially difficult to distinguish when you are looking up. I still got some hours and some practical experience in "aeronautical decision making" (ADM) and used some good judgement (GJ) which is the opposite of poor judgement (PJ). I still had time to take the self portrait. It is a special place alone in a plane. I got to try out my new iPad app that has charts with an overlai

This has been a long stretch in Duluth GA, 4 weeks, it will be 5 weeks before I leave for South America this weekend. I am looking for houses again/still. It is a bit overwhelming. But, I am closer to zeroing in on exactly what I want and what makes sense. Here are two pics about one of the most talked about characteristics in the Atlanta area, traffic. The new roundabout is really a revolution near downtown Duluth. It is very anti-Atlanta thinking. Roundabouts or what we used to call "traffic circles" years ago are a great way to keep traffic moving. The car in the pic is somewhat typical. You see Georgia plates with a Dorschel dealer sticker from Rochester NY and a SUNY Geneseo, NY license plate frame. NY State isn't bad, really even in the winter (well that is a stretch some days), but bring your own job. Atlanta is nice. There is a lot to do. You can get anything here and you are close to the country if not in it.