Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

I never get sick of taking pics from the air. This pic is over Suwanee, GA at 3100 feet above the ground (AGL). I reminded myself that I need to take an aerial pic of my house and my neighborhood. I will get to it this week or next. The other pic is from my Gazebo this evening after I got back from flying. I have been corresponding with previous owners of the property. They did some great design work.

"You must master your time rather than becoming a slave to the constant flow of events and demands on your time. And you must organize your life to achieve balance, harmony, and inner peace." -- Brian Tracy "Whenever God wants to send you a gift he wraps it up in a problem. The bigger the problem, the bigger the gift”. --Norman Vincent Peale

I was in Fargo, North Dakota yesterday. I got a bit of the VIP treatment and had a photo-op air-seeding with one of the largest and most powerful tractors on earth. The articulated machine drives just like my old Holder Tractor. However, the clutch and gearshift are quite a bit easier to use on the Challenger.

I am a bit overwhelmed with work and getting my new house in order. There is only one of me. I do like my current position quite a bit. It is way better than The Raymond Corporation. I am just back from a day trip in Wisconsin. Now that I have the initial salvo of plumbing and electrical work done, I am concentrating on cleaning and organizing. I had some colleagues from Kansas over the other night. That was nice. I expect to do more of that type of entertaining here. Kicking back in the gazebo down by the lake with a Brazilian beer (absolutely not available in the USA) was a great experience. There is electricity in the gazebo and on the dock, but I have to figure out what I need to do to get the lights and what-not working.

Well, I have almost all the plumbing work done as well as almost all of the electrical work done. I found a bit more of the wiring was ripped out of the house by the foreclosees than I figured. It worked out to be about 50 dollars more in materials (nothing compared to the costs of copper today). On the other side, I discovered the electric is all in for the spa. Not that I have the spa yet. I am certainly gaining on the house. I have my vintage McIntosh audio equipment hooked up to the computer for some really fine tunes and I am adding to the suite of audio equipment. A few more pieces to have it perfect, at least for now. My geese neighbors got in my way this morning on my drive out of my neighborhood. My place is pretty well fenced for geese. I don't need those turd machines making more work for me. I went for an especially nice flight today. Descending over Lake Lanier I couldn't help but think about my boating experiences on lake Ontario and what a step-change I have expe...

I was right. This past week was a blur. I want to slow things down. I am moved into my new house. There was a lot to do of course, I got my appliances and the Internet today. I had to settle for a 35 Mbps Internet connection with a 8ms latency. What a difference from the farm. On the farm I had to spend a fortune each month for a 2 Mbps connection with a 900ms latency. We went flying this past weekend and went to a "Brazilians in Atlanta" meetup party. Fun stuff! I have two trips booked, one to Wisconsin and an another to North Dakota. I will be going for a significant trip to Europe and another to South America in the next couple of months. It is important to remember the danger of traffic in the Atlanta area. It really is dangerous.