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Showing posts from March 16, 2025

Worst Weather in the World

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I flew up to Maine to see my sister and cousins for a few days. As part of the trip we went up Mount Washington in NH. We went up on the Cogged Railway. It's A unique old vehicle system that only uses a large cog underneath the engine hooked into a ladder type of rack on the tracks all the way to the top. The modern engine uses a 600HP John Deere driving a hydraulic pump which in turn drives several hydraulic motors turning the large cog. Mt Washington is known for the extreme cold and highest wind in the world. Yes, the world. That was not the case when we went up. The winds were 3 MPH and the temp was 62 degrees. the highest ever temp ever recorded was 72 degrees and a 3 MPH wind is generally unheard of. So, the weather was quite kind for us.

Busy and Busier

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It has been busy and somewhat stressful. I am reflecting on the comparatively relative low stress of traveling alone in Southern Africa last year at about this time. I mean in Africa, I only had to worry about getting in car accidents (maybe running someone over), missing flights, getting robbed or attacked. All of these possibilities in a very unfamiliar land. Now interestingly, I seem to have more stress -- over what? It is probably a very good example of good stress versus bad stress. Good stress comes from calculated self-directed challenge. Bad stress comes from captivity and what we feel we "should" be doing. "Should" indicates there are external forces we are beholden to --without our own devices or agency. In April, I am speaking at CIDM Convex in San Jose CA. https://convex.infomanagementcenter.com/ . I also learned I am speaking at LavaCon in October https://www.lavacon.org/ . There were 150 speakers considered and only 40 selected. It will be my first t...