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Showing posts from July, 2019

Machinery Infatuation

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I bought my first NEW piece of farm machinery. I am not sure if this is a failure or a success, but it is different. I picked up a NEW Rotary Cutter (bush hog, brush hog, mower, etc) from a dealer. It cost me almost as much as the tractor did with its bits of hardware and options. It seems to work well on the CNH Boomer 33. I planned on getting up to NY in the next couple of days, but Gracie has been sick.. she has been up and down. The steroid treatment and a change in diet seem to be helping at this point. Besides hauling the tractor and mower up to NY I have numerous events planned over the next month. I will be in Charlotte for a conference as well as Tucson Arizona and of course other events and activities. I started installing radio equipment in the Humvee. It now has a telescoping 30 foot antenna, a 24 volt to 12 volt converter, a removable SDR radio and some other stuff to be sure. I'd like to get it to the Stone Mountain Hamfest -- thats what i am shooting for. I thr...
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A friend of mine in Brazil sent me some pics from Paraty Brazil. That's not trash in the water. Its colorful tropical fish. Very cool. I keep a Hawaiian Shirt inside my office door at work. You never know when you might need it.
The weather this week in SoCal has been pretty much as it has been for months, 75 Degrees F and 50% RH. The rest of the US is having a heat wave. I remember the first "man-on-the-moon" as we called it. I was 8 years old. Some of the memories I have was that it took soooo long for each phase of the mission. The decompression of the LEM after they landed seemed like eternity. I complained and my OLDER sister said something like "You don't want the astronauts to open the door early and get sucked out of the lunar module"... followed by the typical "DUH." I remember the video simulations (not real video) of the events when there was not video available (lots). I remember the actual video as well with "live from moon" I think it was blinking. It was analog B&W. It absolutely sucked compared to today, but it seemed a lot better than what I am seeing on youtube today. Maybe because my Dad probably put fresh vacuum tubes in the TV just before the...
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The penthouse is more difficult to furnish than initially figured. But we are working on it. I went to the Orange County (California) fair. It is close-by. We will be back this season in the next couple of weeks. The ionizing radiation levels have been slightly lower today than normal in Costa Mesa, CA. I had some vivid dreams this past week. I miss my friend Pete. He really was amazing. We are trying to tally his patents. His goal was 100. Beside the measurement using patents (post Polaroid-Kodak patent lawsuit~4.5 million) there was so much more.
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We decided to hang out in SoCal over the 4th Holiday. We also moved into a new apartment, a penthouse. It is a bit better and a bit cheaper. We felt the first earthquake. The chair I was sitting it started rocking and then the curtains. We went outside as a precaution. No one else did. We didn't even feel the larger quake here in Orange County. We will rebuild. ;-) I took this picture of the "homeless" just inside the border of Santa Ana. Notice neither one of the folks has shoes on. They are also not near a bus stop. It reminded me of what I have seen in India. Everyday Rolls, Ferraries, McClearens, travel this road. I would have liked to get the dichotomy in the same pic. The story goes that CA has great tax incentive programs for funding rehab facilities, actually houses with some sort of basic credential. So folks come from all over the country. When they mess up in these facilities they get kicked out. They used to kick them out in parks, now they are kicking them ou...