I rebuilt a wood stove I had in storage. The only textual items on the stove is "Made in West Germany". After puzzling about how to repair the broken leg (everything from welding with tungston rod to fabricating a splice), I found a similar replacement foot. It was similar, so I ended up buying two in order to make it look and set right. It was a fun "little" project. It cost me about $150 in materials and probably took me about 8 hours. I am looking forward to getting it fired up at some point. Since it is going back into storage I am wrapping it up with as much rust inhibitor as I can. I bought some VCI paper for the effort.
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I am planning meetings in England and Finland.
I continue to figure things out. One of the items "I seem to have regressed on" is that when I was a small child I was exposed to Brazilian music. I remember (clear as day) "Brasil 66" when it was popular. My Grandfather read to me as a child in Latin. Spanish missed the mark.
Brazilian Portuguese speaks to me. It is pretty weird as I am get more advertising in Portuguese on the web as part of my normal experiences. I have finished my Portuguese 101. I start 102 shortly.
I snapped the pic of the geese through the windshield of the plane at the departure threshold of Runway 31 in Winder, Georgia. I am waiting to take off. Looks like I am about 17th for departure!
I had the hardest test of my life (so far) this past week. My "checkride" reached deep. I appreciate the growth it induced. There were a lot of "yes sirs" from me. I did really well in the debrief. He was really working me hard during the ride. My FAA Pilot examiner looked like (and felt) just like Bob Hoover. The best sound bites lingering in my ears are "Don't stall it!" and "C'mon now!" on awkward, but normal training maneuvers. These maneuvers are not what we do with passengers, we do them as practice in the event of less than normal operations.
I am a pilot. I continue to study. I am working on my ratings.
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John McKinney said…
I met Bob Hoover and Chuck Yeager together at Oshkosh back in the mid 70s. Unfortunately, I was too young to understand the significance of that honor. I'll never forget Bob's performances in his yellow P51 and green & white Shrike Commander.
I went and looked at the Solon Pond Mill. I was mistaken last time when I was up there in 2000. It was Summer and everything was overgrown. The mill is about an 1/8 mile from the building I thought might have been the mill. The mill is in rough shape. But everything is still there. I couldn't get underneath to see if the turbine was in good shape. I had heard that it was buried in muck. I suspect it is there, but probably in rough shape as well. It is a combination grist and saw mill, and could be restored to do exactly that. I am going to pass. I was thinking it would make a great homesite however. There is 3.9 acres (a lot for a mill) and you could build a nice house that looked period and work on getting an awesome water powered workshop out back. There is a planner, and it looks like a jig saw and I bet a few other pieces of woodworking equipment in there. All the shafting looks good. It is fun to think about the coolness of starting with logs and making furniture all out in th...
I am flying this morning. We are getting off the beaten trail. We are going to Mt Heine on White Island and Williams Cliff on the side of Mt. Erebus. We are trying to determine if we have a found a better radio location at these two points. We are taking GPS, maps, a 900 Meg radio and ice axes. It will make the network simpler if I can prove these spots will work. Cravasses are common near Williams Cliff so we are on high-guard about where we will set the helo down. We may not set down at all. Cravasses are really problematic down here. They are hundreds of feet deep and they are very often covered with snow. Sometimes the snow may be 6 or 10 feet thick and may support equipment for a while. Then one day the equipment breaks through. Ice radar is normally used for traverses.
Iceland was a real hoot. It is a mecca for off-road, drone-toting, adventure seekers. There is a surprise around every mountain or glacier. There is considerable variety to the landscapes and near limitless long vistas for reflections. I will go back again. Here is a multi-million dollar view of Iceland. Here are few stills from the drone. I flew both in the rain and in winds over 40 mph. This is just a small sample.
Well the big fun this weekend was that we got the CAT D6 Dozer running! After 30 years of not being run it now runs. When the diesel finally kicked it did not disappoint in the slightest. The thing belched a big black cloud of black smoke and the cooling fan emptied the radiator of 30 years worth of bugs parts and mouse nests all over us. The neighbor came over pretty much in disbelief. In thinking about it, he had only ever lived across the street, it appears, and he was maybe 40 years old. That machine had been a familiar static fixture for almost his whole life. Something simple like getting that big old engine running is truly a lot of fun and was satisfying. I don't have a video of the engine rebirth. It took more hands than two people have to work the controls required to get the thing started. Now it is a bit more work to get it to move. It appears the brakes and possibly other parts are stuck.
I get a kick out of hearing the term "Deep South" in 2026. It is a crazy incredibly outdated label. I think maybe I should start saying the "Deep Northeast". I am a Yankee. My family came over on the Mayflower and moved to Upstate NY via Connecticut. Terms used in the revolutionary and Civil war days are generally inappropriate. My family is all but totally out of NY State now. I find the term "deep south" to be of the same thinking that the movie "Heidi" is what contemporary Europe is like. Watching the fireworks in Rochester, NY from the back yard of a house in the city made it look like a real war zone. It is a long drive between Berkshire, NY and Duluth, GA. Most of the 35K miles on the truck were spent in between. I drove the truck about 3k miles in 2-1/2 weeks. It was great to spend time on the farm. It was good to make some progress on needed repairs and improvements. I also felt good about making some new friends up there. I will be...
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