Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

"Ingenuity - plus courage, plus work - equals miracles." -- Bob Richards, Olympic Gold Medalist

I was in Baltimore for my Cousin's wedding this weekend. I decided to high-tail it out of town while planes were still flying in and out of BWI. I had a good time and it was a great excuse to go to see family. My sister and I went to visit Edgar Allan Poe's grave as well.

Fall in the Atlanta area is very nice. Clear crisp days in the 60s and 70s. Today is a perfect day for flying, but I have a cold that has been messing up my sinuses. So no flying. The last thing I need is to have a dizzy spell when I am in the plane. We went on a hike yesterday in one of the many confederate army memorial parks in the region. This time it was at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

I am back home in Duluth. I spent the last week making my way to central Finland and back again. It is time to spend time on the house and catching up. I finally plugged in the TV. I haven't missed it since I moved. We had some productive meetings in England and Finland. We had time for a few laughs as well. It is always enlightening when I travel and spend time with folks from other cultures. One of my colleagues from England just got back from Kiev. He brought back an informative brochure about an exciting tour opportunity of the Chernobyl power plant. Let's call it "Atomic Disaster Tourism" for now. I had to admit that I would like to go on the tour. I think "Cramo" is a good brand name for temporary offices. My domestic flight in Finland was on an ATR-72 combo-freighter. There were 5 other passengers. There were 4 in the air crew and 4 on the ground. Jyvaskyla Finland has DIY security. I like Finland. They seem so normal until you get to know them. Let&

The fact is, reality is complicated, and not amenable to the "one large idea" model of problem solving. The only way that problems get solved in real life is with a lot of hard work on getting the details right. Not by some over-arching ideology that somehow magically makes things work. --Linus Torvalds

Images from this week. ---The Decatur Marta Station in Atlanta. I went to an Aviation Safety seminar there (in Decatur) this past week one evening. ---I had a new porch slab poured this week. The porch pillars are back in place now. ---Saturday I went to a steam-power meet in Rhode Island. It was good to see live steam. They also had some nice old radio equipment. Steam power and radios. They are a great combination.