Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

Past destinations in the last few years on Chrismas day have been: Maui, Hawaii (we rented a plane) --- Lima Peru (Fanciest Hotel in Peru) --- Haloong Bay Vietnam (on a boat, kayak, etc) --- Panama City Panama (Trump Hotel) --- Granada, Nicaragua (the shores of Lake Nicaragua) This year we spent Christmas in an exotic place,--Home. We have traveled mostly on Christmas day since there are good prices and we enjoy it. But we always have a quiet time whereever we are. At home this year a shot of the backyard and some Tennessee stacking boulders for a small retaining wall I am building this winter, 3788 pounds. The rock yard guy commented on the Christmas gift.

Happiness is a new heating pad of my very own.

Angie and I went to Savannah GA for her Birthday. First time staying in a Hotel since the pandemic started. There have been changes, but if you think restaurants are creepy wait until you are in a hotel. We had a great time. At an advertised 4 hours each way. It was mostly a road trip. Atlanta folks make their trips to the coast. It's a bit like folks from SoCal going to Las Vegas. But there are several equidistant "coasts" for the lost city of Atlanta. It was a good ride and a great honor to let my brother's car speak. We had several people comment about the car at stops and thumbs-up on the highway. The Cayman S is really sweet when you decide that the folks hanging around at 80 or 90 need a bit of a show. The strokey flat-six pulls strong, smooth and quite swiftly from 100 MPH. Coming from this guy taking Asian minivans up over 120 MPH in Germany, the Cayman is a great car for the autobahn, no doubt. The mid-engine and chassis design totally decouples the drivetr...

It has been quiet. With the Covid thing, working from home, no travel, and Angie putting in long hours, it has been exceptionally quiet. We will do something special for Angies Birthday next week. I have to get up to NY. I am moving some property lines on my farm. I have plans for a second house on the property. The cats continue to be a source of amusement. I had done a lot of work to the bobcat. Afterwards I couldnt get full power out of it. It was quite frustrating. It was a good case of sticking with it over time, not giving up. It was multiple issues. But the nasty one was that I unknowingly attached an electric fuel pump up to a ignition "resistor wire" feed designed for the original points-type ignition. The ford engine didn't use a ballast resistor. They used a stupid resistor wire, undetectable in most cases. The fuel pump wasn't getting full voltage except during start. The pump ran too slow during run fast/hard operation request. It's fixed now. And...

We are staying low but we did start to book travel for next April. Norway. Airfare prices are great. Gracie has decided that she doesnt like we spending all day talking into the "box-screen thing".

The remnants of Hurricane Zeta hit us pretty good. This time it was wind, not rain with Delta a few weeks back. A lot of trees down; we were without power for a couple of days. I had the generator hooked up powering the entire house once I convinced myself the power wasn't coming back on for awhile. The generator did well and I think it may be the first time I truely needed the generator (in this case it kept the food frozen). It felt good that I was prepared and we enjoyed the family time. Here is a video I just found that shows the derailment story in Duluth from back in June. A real high energy railfan was there. This is the train I like to visit and have filmed with my drone. It's a marvel. It is wildly cool this guy caught the train as it derailed although he was about 1/2 mile away from where the cars flew from the track. The next video is the first minutes at the scene of the derailment.

It's definately fall in Georgia. We have been doing the yard word, leaves, etc. We took the boat out of the water for some repairs and upgrades. We are definately getting restless to travel, we are starting to book flights.

The remnants of Hurricane delta spent some time with us last night. 4 inches of rain and a very high lake level. The boat is on top of the lower dock. My irrigation pump is under water.

We are enjoying Fall in Duluth GA. The leaves have just started to fall. I will be taking the boat out of teh water soon. I have some improvements to make. New batteries, better lighting, better main power distribution and more. It seems like I just put new batteries in the boat, but it was 6 or 7 years ago. They were not treated very kindly either. Gracie has her own style of relaxing. This is not an action shot. She was lying there like this.

There was a great quote from Clement Mok --"The Music is not in the Piano". This is a very appropriate quote in the early days of Information Design. Perhaps in the age of artificial intellegnce and machine learning the corollary should be: " "The music is not in the piano, but it is definately in the synthesizer".

I have been sorting through music, pictures, etc. Actually in the effort I infected one of my computers with a boot block virus from a very old floppy. I found some irony in my effort to organize I corrupted the archive. Dark forces for sure. Ever present. In my Brother's collection I found this Anita Baker tune that really spoke to me. I think this piece was underrated and for some reason has not received the respect it truely deserves. I suggest listening on your best equipment. I was using my Soundcraftman Power Four-17 Amp with the Hafler Series 945 preamp. The Macintosh setup doesn't like this tune as much.

My sister has been in GA. We went camping in the Georgia Mountains.

I am doing some refocusing. I have been taking long walks in the early morning before sun up. I like to watch and feel the rumble of trains as the +100 car double stacked container hot-shots fly by in the dark. They are modern miracles in plain sight. There are many. I am rectifying the mengerie of multi-state licences on my fleet of 5 cars (Georgia, Maine, California). It is pretty funny talking to the insurance companies. "And what is the main purpose of your vehicle?" Since we are working from home the main purpose is to get groceries and catfood once a week. Yes, we need five cars for that. We just do. The grocery store is about a mile away. Yes we can walk. Sometimes we do. The rain has continued into early fall. It has been a wet year here in Georgia. The bugs love it. The lake level raised 16 inches during some storms recently. It pushed the boat on the dock and left it there.

My Brother James passed away at 61 years old. He was definitely the Socrates in my life. He never wrote, but was the most literate person I knew. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/hartfordcourant/obituary.aspx?n=james-v-dowdell&pid=196694815

"Talent does not matter. Your talent will ruin you if you don't have skills" --Will Smith What talent? What skills? Those are the questions for all of us. Will you answer correctly? Will you have people around you to help answser the questions objectively, helpfully?

Things are going good. I am moving my projects along, slow but sure. Summer has finally hit In Georgia. I almost gave myself heat stroke today in the attic chasing "remuddled" wiring. The pandemic has taken some toll. We miss traveling and plan on starting that up this fall. A few pics from around the house.

We got a new internet provider. Its pretty fast. It took me quite awhile to get the fridge, irrigation System, TVs, and ALL the other devices moved over. Networking problems are a huge time vampire to me. Its not like I feel like I am done with network configurations. It is a matter of getting the basics working and moving on.

Summer finally started in Duluth. It is late this year. It was a hundred degrees with humidity nearly that high. We did a little canoeing and went to see some friends. I fixed up my office Zoom Room a little bit. I have more plans for the office Zoom Room . The irrigation system that brings water from the lake is working well. The lake water is so rich with nutrients. Fish west and Fish east are together. They didn't even know about each other. Fish west has a totally new battery. I took advantage of the California battery replacement rebate. Unlike a lot of EVs, the Nissan leaf battery (although expensive) is fairly easy to replace. You can tell the cars apart by color. Fish West (California) is "Starship pearl white". Fish East (Georgia) is "Toilet white".

I definitely have too many projects open. I am trying to focus on completing some so I can get back to the mundane ones of fixing tools and such. I made a rig to tow my canoe. The self-impossed rule is that I have to use stuff I already own, no trips to the store. It was good to get the MIG welder some use. Rev A worked fine. A few tweaks here are there and we will ride bikes (and canoe) over to the other neighborhood lake.

We are back from our trip up-north. The farm is good. We drove 2200 miles in 4.5 days. The trailer was loaded the whole time.