Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

Angie and I took the sports car to one of the many parks in Gwinnett county to walk. We saw signs for "free food / Comida". Being that I am always up for a snack, I decided to see if I could get some. Sure enough, they are handing out Breakfast and Lunch kits. We got a "lunch" and ate it in the park. I was pleased that there was no political literature in the bag only the normal commercial stuff for the products and the company that assesmbled the kits. It was a weird expereince. I have no idea of who these meals were intended for. I entered the Humvee in the Duluth car show. That was fun. It actually won second place in the "pickup" category. Car shows are like that.. somewhat self-congratulating. We signed up for drone home delivery. Although it is very unlikely we will ever use it. This squirrel was particularly tenacious on the feeder. I am sure the birds saw it as a spectacle. The bobcat came in quite handy this week, both for some str...

Summer is here. I have the AC on occasionally, except for the zoom room, which the AC is on all the time I am in there. Since we had so much rain awhile back, the mosquitos are unbearable. I called for air support from a pest killer company. June brings new fawns in this area. We have two new ones in the back yard, learning about the world. There was a nice Pitts Special that showed up at the EAA 690 breakfast this past week. I picked up another traffic control device. I will add an appropriate relay and sell to someone with a man-cave or bar. Wisdomino is certainly keeping me busy. I am a professional networker now. A lot to juggle.

I went to Elliot Brack's funeral yesterday. He was a friend. And he was quite a character. He was one of the first people I met outside of work when I moved to Georgia. He was sort of a variation of the main character of Tom Wolfe's "A Man In Full". I used to say that Elliott and I had a 50-50 relationship. He told me what to do and I did it. His 50% was telling me. My 50% was doing it. He was a fixture at my church and involved me in all sorts of things. Including organization of our "Civic Breakfast" where we invited leaders from the community for information and opinions of the community. It goes on and on. There were 260 people attending his funeral. He will be missed. https://www.crowellbrothers.com/obituaries/Elliott-Earl-Brack?obId=48440319

We have had a dry spring weather-wise this year. But now Mother Nature is making up for it. There was flooding on what we call "The Connector" in Atlanta. The connector is both I 75 and I 85 running through downtown. Needless to say it is a very large artery. The forecast looks like it will be rain for about 10 days. Here is a rare picture with at least a piece of each car in the current fleet. It is too many vehicles. It takes too much attention for all the care and feeding. The Humvee goes on display today. Maybe an interested party will buy. Jewel the Turkish Angora enjoying nature

Yes, it is election day in Georgia. We have Early voting but today is the official voting day. From what I saw at the poles and the lines at the early-voting polls, turnout has been very high. I like to put the flag out on Election Day. Gracie doesn't care.

MARTA is the mass transit train system in Atlanta. They just upgraded the ticketing system. It was totally free for about 6 weeks, no ticket kiosks, or need for tickets, just walk through the turnstiles ... crazy stupid. I have sworn off using Marta several times and I still find myself back on it... We have been ridiculed, and been made very uncomfortable and worried about our safety a number of times. But it continues to be the best option getting to and from the ATL airport. I take the train from Doraville to the Airport. The entire length of the Gold Line. The city (I guess) is trying to get MARTA a bit more orderly before the FIFA events in Atlanta this year. They have a lot of work to do. Although I saw a few more security/MARTA Police and quasi security foilks, the same crazy bullshit is still happening. It is home to people who want to stay cool or get warm during the operaing hours. It's not a place to be... its a place to travel. The unmedicated mentally ill folks se...

I am continuing with the soft launch of wisdomino (wis-do-mino). My partners and I are consulting in the Technical Information space. We have some really cool, gamechanging apps we are testing, sharing and getting feedback. I attended a Association of Equipment Manufacturers meeting in Milwaukee. Very good event.

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...

It seems like the last couple weeks is about broken stuff. Angie was rear ended on her way to work. The car is broken. The refrigerator also decided to croak. Trying to catch up, gain back lost ground. We have a new car, very similar to the rudely smashed up car. I had it shipped from Texas. Also have a new a new fridge and backup freezer and fridge. Spring is very sprung. The pollen seems worse that usual this year. In Atlanta we complain about the traffic and the pollen, neither one is really as bad as we say.

We are back from a quick vacation. I managed to score three (actually several more) bucket list items in 4 days. 1.) Long Snowmobile Trip. 2.) Yellowstone Park and 3.) Wyoming. I reached my 50th State --Wyoming! And we took a 90 mile snowmobile trip in Yellowstone National Park. We went to the "Craters of the Moon--National Monument and Preserve" in Idaho and also stopped at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) where I got to see (with my own eyes) the very cool nuclear powered twin turbojet engine. It was a successful experiment in the 1950s and 1960s. https://whatisnuclear.com/safety-minutes/htre-3-meltdown.html Of course, I had my Radiacode scintillation detector with me and yes, the apparatus is "Hot". The screenshot of the readings from my three walk-arounds the artifact. I swear you could smell the radiation. There was a very un-natural burnt smell something reminiscent of burned bakelite. Although, I am quite certain the emitted radition was not the source...