Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

I haven't been to a hamfest in probably 10 years. They are still happening. They certainly are not as big as they were back in the 80s and 90s. But they still happen. An ever-reducing fraction of the expereince is still advancing state of the art communications technologies. Otherwise, they are celebrations in the antique, classic and nostalgic. It's fun to have conversations with folks that understand the specifics of eosteric radio and electronics technology. I saw one product that I wrote the manual for many years ago (The MDS new "P" Model). Angie decided to help out. We left the house incredibly early with the truck that was loaded up the night before. How early was it you might ask? Well, we went to Waffle House for Breakfast on the way to set up and the waitress told us to have a nice night when we left. I sold a few items, and I couldn't help but buy a few things. (Military Antenna base for the Humvee, a vintage Marantz receiver and few other odds an

The weather is great-- cool, low humidity, dry. It is easy to get used to. I found an original air-box for the Honda on Ebay. I needed a few other parts to put the car air intake back to factory original. Things always cost more and take more time. But it was a mini-project and it is done. This is a pic of our cat jewel. It was great to get a pic that makes her hetrochromic eyes stand out. She is a beautiful cat for sure. Rare and beautiful. At work we had our 2024 Demo Days where we invite customers through their respective dealers to try out many different types of equipment. There were many Excavators, Dozers, Dump trucks, Wheel loaders and even some forestry equipment. It is a annual event and it is fun/busy for employees. As part of the event we were lucky to get one of the current year's Williams Formula 1 cars on display for a couple days. It was very cool showing up for work in the morning and seeing it in the lobby. I have never been so close to F1 car during its act

This past week I was in Milwaukee Wisconsin for a Global meeting. It was my first time spending anytime in the city of Milwaukee. It was good. Lots of bars, coffee houses similar in old factory buildings. We make some large mining equipment in Milwaukee. The size is staggering. The shovel in the pic is NOT the largest rope-shovel we make. I had fun with this pic of Gracie. I doctored it up a bit. I decided pile out my collection of boarding passes from the last 15 years. It is certainly not all of them and there are a few randow receipts besides airlines in there but it is most airline boarding passes. I just noticed today that they dont have the year listed, just Month and Day. I am sure with forenscis we could figure it out, but it was easy to remember what year it was I took the particualr flight. Also, the printing is low quality ment to be no permanet many are fading some are totally blank. The information has totally disappeared. It is the high speed hign reliability thermal

Waiting and reacting to requests/emergencies and attention getters is not the way. I am refocusing on what needs to get done from my agenda not yours. Sorry, but I know this is a better technique for my personal productivity. Darryl Hudec's home built plane made the cover of Sport Aviation magazine this month. It is a beauty for sure. He flew it in for breakfast this weekend. We had Major Latessa Meader speak at the aviation breakfast this weekend regarding the C-130 aircraft. She is very accomplished in the aircraft. The aircraft is definately worthy of accolades. I had the opportunity to add my experiences with the LC-130 in Antarctica. Some of the traffic I get to expereince a couple times a week is still mind boggling to me. I tried to take a picture of the humanity that lines up on I-75 and often pokes along at 1/10 of the speed limit. You can't see all the lanes in the pic, but it is at least 9. the Tesla FSD helps. I get to watch scenery more. It helps having an

The storm has passed as they do. In my location we were lucky. Although we were on the projected center path just a few hours ahead of the actual path, the storm path went to the east and we were largely spared. Yes, the electric went out, we had flooding, and trees down. But we missed the worst of it here in Gwinnett County Georgia. Of course, we are concerned about all the others who were not as lucky. My lake (Canary Lake) overflow sluice at maximum. Any higher and we would be looking at dam erosion. It was close. The overall level of the lake went about three feet over our normal maintained level. Most of my dock is underwater. No major damage and the water is receeding at the moment.

It is before the storm, Hurricane Helena. Its raining now as it has been for a day or so. The storm gets here in about 10 hours. They are calling for 60-80 MPH winds in Atlanta! I have done my due diligence. I have gas for the generator, all the cars are charged and fueled. I have the chainsaw at the ready. I ran the truck last night to be sure. I am glad I insisted that we install hurricane straps to the rafters of the house when I was having the soffit/roof work done last year. My shitty contractor kept saying "you dont need them". I hope we don't need them. Most of the older homes around here don't have them. A hurricane strap is a metal bracket that ties the rafter/truss to the wall. Otherwise they are just toe-nailed and gravity holds the roof on. Once the wind gets under the roof gravity is no match for the wind and the whole roof structure blows away. This will be bad.

We went to see John McEuen live at our local music venue about a mile from the house. John was a founding member of the Nitty Grity Dirt Band. It was great to hear the music and stories and to be there and experience. Their biggest hit was Mr. Bojangles. But there was a interesting smattering of stringed instruments in strange places over the years in different genres and cultures.

I flew up to the farm in NY. I rented a Kia EV6 Electric car. It was ok. Better than my 2013 Nissan Leaf, but not as nice as my 2024 Tesla Model Y. It had pretty good range and comfort that comes along with an all electric vehicle. They didn't include a mobile chanrger, but did include a useless adapter that plugs into the charge port and allows household electic items to run directly from the battery, crazy. I had to pay 64 cents a kW at the NY sanctioned changing stations. That is 10 times the regular rate for electricity. Totally expected for a NY government franchise that is well known for corruption. https://evolveny.nypa.gov/ . Nevertheless, I felt proud that I could easilty drive a rear wheel drive electric car on my new driveway up to the planned yurt site. I met up with two very old friends (Jeff Kuebel and John Kucharski) that I met in first grade in Irondequoit, NY at Oakview school. Needless to say, that was a long time ago. We remembered some very funny stories of m

Relief. Summer seems to be on the way out which means perfect weather here in Duluth Georgia. Gracie the cat being friendly on her "Fun boards". I attached a number of pine boards (fun boards) on the walls in the porch (cat room) afew years ago. She is starting to use them more. I would have thought that a cat would love them. They are up high, great visibility, exclusive use for cats... but the cat makes the final decision. My 2017 Chevy Service Truck just turned over 30k Miles. So I drive it less than 5k a year and most of those miles are on trips, most to the farm in NY and back. Here is a pic of me showing me with a portion of my shop. (It doesn't show my electronics bench or the racks and racks of stuff.) The bench is clean and that was the reason for the pic. It's a very rare situation. I bought a NEW piece of McIntosh audio gear to complement the vintage Mac components. The McIntosh MB25 is a Bluetooth transceiver that allows modern integrations with the vi

Over breakfast today, Angie and I worked out a list of the different airlines we have flown on (that we remember). Some of these airlines are old and long out of buiness, bought-out or done the commercial shuffle. And some are/were very small regional airlines in distant lands. In no order: Malaysia Airlines United American Korean Air Emirates Air Asia MEA (Middle East Airlines) Delta USAIR Copa Aeroflot Ural Airlines UTAir Air Berlin Germanwings Lufthansa Swiss Air Alitalia Iberia PAN AM Alaska Airlines Hawaian Hainan Airlines Air China Norwegian Asiana IcelandAir LAN Argentina Airlines LATAM TAM OceanAir / Avianca Brasil Allegiant Air Avianca Turkish Airlines Buta Airways Azerbaijan Airlines Peoples Express Georgian Air ANA (All Nippon Airlines) JAL (Japan Airlines) Vladivostok Air FinnAir Jet Blue CP Air (Canadian Pacific Air) Dalian Airlines Philippine Airlines A

I took a short business trip to Chattanooga. Actually the Tesla robot car did most of the trip. The artitulated dump truck is sometimes called a lizard truck because the middle bends as you drive and steer. I did some camping as well. I am taking Japanese lessons. The location is show in the pics. 10 weeks of training. Of course, success is mostly about studying. One of my nice deer friends I see almost everyday in the backyard right outside my zoom room. There are a couple of fawns I have been enjoying watching them grow. I saw a nice butterfly just as I had a moment of grief and resentment towards another individual. "Find the butterflies".

I heard some popular traveller YouTube guy bragging about how they had driven a car in over 20 countries. Hmmm. I had to count my overseas driving expereinces. It looks like I have driven a car in over 40 different countries. And that doesn't include Antarctica and a few other places that are overseas territories, not countries (like Gibralter, US Virgin Islands, etc). The most stressful driving expereinces I have had were in Brussels Belgium (the pic is from Brussels), and Upstate NY in a blizzard.