Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

I heard someone the other day bragging about how they have 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.

We made another trip to the farm. This time we drove the Tesla. We stayed in a campground halfway and charged the car there. Other than that, 4 stops at superchargers does it. Its a long drive. It is 15 hours or so. I have learned to break the trip up. The supercharger stops are surprisingly fast. The car soaks up a huge amount of electrons ins a very short amouunt of time. Stopping every three hours is normal. Food, Pee and stretching and the far is filed back up ready to go. Amazing. With the Full self drive I have to admit it is fun. The Tesla is my first luxury car.

We went on an overnight to a cool spot on the Tenn-Tom waterway in Mississippi. They don't see Teslas out that way, and I had to answer a number of questions and got some comments on how cool the car is. Camping with the Model Y is surprisingly quite nice. We have a custom memory foam/self-inflating mattress. The camping mode provides air conditioning all night with lots of fresh air and no bugs. Quite pleasant actually. The glass roof on the Tesla helps too. You still get a feeling of being outdoors. Staying in a campground is also very practical since we get AC (it was over 100F and we were at 68F in the car), but we also add about 150 miles to the battery overnight via a 50 amp 220 connection. I don't push the battery hard, never deep-drain and never charge to max capacity. Myself being from the deep-North, trips inside and across the US are interesting and filled with new visuals. Mississppi is at the bottom of most lists as far as US states, but it definately reminds

I had a special and unexpected expereince at work this past week at about 7:30 AM. I glanced out my office window and saw what I thought was a medium size dog. With a closer look it turned out to be a bobcat. Yes, I work in the heavy equipment business, but this was a animal type bobcat not the earthmoving bobcat. I feel privileged to get such a close view of the animal as it walked around and generally checked things out. It was clearly not sick. No rabies, just curious. It also says something nice about the wilderness around my office.

I was on the farm for a couple days. It has been a while for sure. I love the nature. It is perfect without any of my effort. The hayfields look great. The bass pond is great. The woods are great. The new beaver pond appears to be as big as it is going to get. I will be back there in July. I am making plans and funding them.

The Humvee had its first mission in my ownership. It is running well enough to drive it considerable distances with confidence. I wouldn't trust it for a parade yet, but a static display at church on Sunday and Monday was well received. There was also a rare opportunity to capture the entire fleet in one picture (one vehicle is being baby sat as the owner is out of the county).

I stayed on a huge house boat overnight this past week on Lake Alatoona. It was different and fun.

I am amazed at what I see on the road sometimes. I spotted this one in Emerson, GA. It is two tow dollies hitched together (loaded with strapped cargo) pulled with a strapped-on bumper hitch on a rear-end damaged vehicle. It isn't quite a factory setup. I am sure.

Last week I had a number of late meetings for work. My current commute is 50 miles each way and I do it twice a week. The Tesla has been very helpful. It is cheaper to run, it drives itself (yes, I use Full Self Drive (FSD)-Supervised). But also this past week, since I had to make the trip more times with less reason to go home, I decided to rent a campsite at a Bartow County campsite. I would sleep in the Tesla Model Y. It all adds up. The need to be local in Bartow County, a beautiful and quiet lakeside retreat, an SUV with air mattress, specialized HVAC (Tesla "Camping Mode") and electric hook-up to charge the car, and the amenities of a shower, toilets and all the basic domestic requirements. I like my sleep. It went well.

I noticed that often I don't post about things that have been important/changing to me. It's a bit like forgetting to take a picture when something crazy happens, even when the camera is in your hand. Journalists are trained to take the picture first then worry about everything else. I felt I did a better job taking pics in uncomfortable situations when I was in Africa. I was yelled at, threatened, scorned, and vastly outnumbered. It was uncomfortable. But, I did what I needed to do to get the result I wanted. (Video would have better in capturing some of the adversity I created.) Aeroventures is my flying club with about 150 members and about a million dollars in assets. There has been some incredible tension with the board of directors for over a year. I joined the board in that period because of the tension. I figured it would be a skill developer. “Calm seas never made a good sailor.”--Franklin D Roosevelt It was indeed a skill developer. Eventually, there was legal a

Some mornings the birds are so loud it really sets a mood. It is a good mood that should be allowed to saturate. Here is a list of some of the birds I have heard and/or seen between 2014 and 2024. Great Blue Heron Yellow Crowned Night Heron Baltimore Oriole Eastern Bluebird Eastern Screech Owl Veery Red Shouldered Hawk Red Bellied Woodpecker Common Nighthawk Gray Catbird Worm-Eating Warbler Wood Thrush Fish Crow Great Crested Flycatcher Swainson's Thrush American Crow House Finch Belted Kingfisher Carolina Chickadee Pine Warbler House Wren White Throated Sparrow Brown Headed Cowbird Carolina Wren White Breasted Nuthatch Mourning Dove Ruby Throated Hummingbird Eastern Towhee Blue Jay Northern Cardinal Pileated Woodpecker Chickadee Eastern Catbird American Robin Downy Woodpecker Song Sparrow Brown Thrasher Green Heron American Goldfinch Chipping Sparrow Kingfisher Canada Goose Mallard Duck Mocking Bird White Crowned Sparrow Black-hea

We took the new Tesla Model Y up to Tugaloo State park on the border of Georgia and South Carolina. I bought non-OEM cross bars for the canoe. The install was a bit tricky since the mounting is in exact places under the roof glass. The test was successful since I was driving up to 80 mph with 50 mph winds. No issues whatsoever. I did put a line from the bow down to the truck for some additional piece of mind. We did some canoeing, but not as much as hoped due to strong currents in the Tugaloo river. Cooking and eating out in the woods always makes food taste better.

I remember the first "Earth Day" in 1970. I remember it well. I was in third-grade at Oakview Neighborhood School in West Irondequit, NY. We had energized school lessons regarding care for the environment and there was a common thread in our cultural changes that we all need to care more about nature and ourselves. There was almost no opposing dialog. We had seen large fish kills, weird colored skys, and bodies of water we wouldn't even think about swimning in, including Lake Ontario. This was almost 10 years before the awakening of " love canal " in nearby Nigagra Falls NY. Generally, in 1970 the dialog was about polution and what we can do to reduce polution. Polution consisted of many things, trash along the highways, untreated sewage and industrial dumping and runoffs. Don't forget about sound polution, also part of the polution spectrum. We were also significantly concerned about needlessly cutting of trees and wasting paper. Since 1970 we have made g

I have almost two weeks at my new job and they are trusting me with some expensive product :-). I got to operate an excavator and a large off-road dump truck. It was a fun bit of training and since I work out of a training center, quite convienient. That is me in the cab.

I am always interested in new experiences. Well, most new experiences if they are not obviously dreadful. I have a new commute to my new job. Google maps says its an hour. In practice it is longer (in my straight-up following lord and master maps of Google) due to car wrecks, and general bullshit. I don't have to be in the office everyday, but a long commute is new to me. I am evaluating it. I am listening to audio books which is a great use of time that I otherwise probably wouldn't be doing. I dont have any pictures, I am too busy watching the road ahead for flashes of brake lights and nutso drivers.

I was successful getting to all 8 countries I planned. South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, Eswatini (Swaziland), Lesotho, and Namibia. The trip was 14 days with 13 flight segments. The shortest flight was 15 minutes in an ultralight and the longest flight 16+ hours. I rented a 4x4 in Lesotho and another in Namibia. Among many other things in my travels, I walked across the Victoria Falls bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe and took an ultralight aircraft ride over the same bridge and falls. Namib Desert from the air. Look for my 4x4. Skeleton Coast Heart of Namid desert near uranium mine Maputo, Mozambique-- City Hall and Samora Machel statue Maseru, Lesotho-- I was delayed at the airport leaving Lethoto by about three hours. I had to find a nother hotel in Namibia since I wasn't going to drive after dark. The delay was caused by the Airport being shut down because of an expired battery in the airport fire truck. We had to wait to get a n