Road Trip

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I am back from my most recent roadtrip. I loaded up the Tesla and started letting the hands-off Full Self Drive (FSD) supervised take me to points North. First stopping in a campground in Tennesee and up to Pittsburgh for the CIDM Convex Conference (which was the best conference in years). There was a celebration of the 20 years of DITA XML. I was an earlier adopter. My presentation went well and I semi-stealth launched wisdomino. I demo'd some extra cool software we developed and will be selling in weeks to come. It's truely game changing. Of course, there will be much more than that to come. After that it was on to Franklin, PA. to meet with some colleagues in the mining division and onto the farm stopping in Olean NY for the night. I am pretty sure it was the first time I had driven across the entire Allegany National Forest. I ended up driving through the very dark forest expanse during a night time thunderstorm. Although I normally trust the Tesla FSD on the Interstat...
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Fall in Georgia -- rethinking buying an old defender--Honda lawn mower engine with stuck valve

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Fall is definately upon us in North Georgia. We have been burning leaves and brush. There is an unlimited supply in the jungle here.. every year.

I have been doing more with the cooking hobby lately. I made a nice beef roast on the charcoal weber grill... and I got to use my new commercial slicer. The slicer was definately an indulgence, but a better indulgence than the mid 90s defender I was looking to buy. It was a police vehicle in Ghana, West Africa. I am glad I got talked out of it. I have too many projects already. The guest bath is almost done. I think I have been saying that for at least 6 months.

It looks like we are going to be in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade again in NYC. We will be banner carriers again. We said we weren't going to do it again, but here we go planning some cool vacation travel beforehand.

I put some old gas in the lawn mower by mistake. It ran, but it caused the intake valve to stick open. That ruined the Saturday afternoon time budget. But it is repaired and I got to use some tools I haven't used in a while.

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