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Summer Starting to End on the Farm

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It has been good spending time on the farm. I really had forgotten how quiet and dark it is here. It can actually be a bit unnerving. The leaf doodle bug was put to work in the forest. However, it looks like the car will be going back on the road. We can say it failed field trials,but that would only be partially true. The better utility value at this point is more suited to getting a teenager back and forth from high school. The mycological aspects of the farm did not disappoint. The pics of these shrooms are not photoshopped. The coal stove (very heavy) is loaded on the truck. It will be rebuilt in Georgia if I can save it. Coal stoves are increasingly out of production. When they are gone they are gone. The small wood stove is now in its place. The pic of the red sky in morning was indeed a warning of weather. We had strong storms and tornados in Upstate NY. Although I was travelling much that day in the area, I missed the worst of it.
Jim McQueen sent me this vintage footage digitized from an old 8 mm film. He says that his brother Scott is in the clip and that the clip is a > Bathtub Race held in Berkshire in the 1970s.
Tioga County NY It is official. I am now a member of the Tioga County NY planning board. The Berkshire town board took a vote and voted me in as the Town's appointment to the county board. You never know where things are going. This will be different and fun.
I have committed my weekend almost entirely to computers. I bought a new one. I bought a dell 8400 3.2 GHz with a gig a ram and and 160 g HD. I decided as part of this effort I would review my computer situation and get as many of them working as possible and networked. It all takes time, especially for me cause I don't call tech support much and I enjoy figuring stuff out. I have 4 computers working at this writing which is 4 more than at the beginning of the weekend. This exercise has been a great time for me to reflect on the computers in my personal life. I remember the feeling when I bought my SX 64 that I worked on today. I bought it from COMB for about $650. It must have been 1985. I was elated at the power and enjoyed having the gadget tremendously. Then I got my first PC. I pieced together parts starting with a 40 meg drive that was flakey from work. I scrounged other components over time and I bought a case from Jamco and pieced together parts and software fo...
It has been a pretty strange week in a lot of ways. Not in anyway that I can put my finger on specifically, but strange nevertheless. I skidded a few trees out of the woods for firewood Saturday. I got some pretty nice ashwood. My little articulated Holder C500 tractor is awesome for getting in and out of the forest. The articulation really helps get around trees. I got the logs from down in a revine, so the tractor was put to the test. I didn't get stuck, but I did need to disconnect the logs and attach them again from another angle a couple of times. I used the 4-wheel dif lock a few times too. The wood split up nice with an axe and I put the cord wood up for use this winter. We have been burning quite a bit of wood since it hasn't been that cold. I have a ton of coal out in the barn. My main computer has given me fits. I spent about 6 hours on Sunday trying to get it back. I think the CD ROM drive or adapter failed which won't allow me to do a reinstall off the s...
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Weeki Wachee Springs Well, we are back from Florida. We had a good time. We stayed in my brother's antique airstream trailer. You don't have to worry about EMP inside here. (note the secure URL site for the military definition) My Brother lives on a small farm in Brooksville FL and my Sister lives in Jacksonville. Bonnie's Cousins live in Fort Myers. We visited all of them. It was fun and different. I have to say at some points I went a little mental in the traffic jams. Brooksville is the home to the world famous Weeki Wachee Mermaids. There are several nature springs in the area. These are multi-million gallon types-of-springs making crystal clear water and a major tourist attraction. We did not go to the tourist attractions. It is nice to have friends and family that are not easily distracted by tourist attractions. However, we did do some paddling about in the areas of the springs. There are canals that have been dug that connect to the natural spring canal...
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The Rooster We have a rooster! Cousins Liz and Ken brought over a rooster for our chicks. So far things seem ok. The rooster wasn't crowing and he was lonely at my cousin's place. Our three hens are somewhat apprehensive at this point. Tomorrow we are off to Florida for the week. Click pic for video
MSN Search today this is a beta and it is poo-pooed by the media. it is disruptive innovation. poo-poo Tonight I am listening to Cree indian music and poetry and I moved into cool jazz (stan getz). I remembered something about how Bonnie and I ended up here in Berkshire. I saw, what I know now as disruptive innovation, the telecomunications explosion. I remember some great lectures of some great thinkers at SU school of information studies. I remember working hands-on with the extreme details in digital telecommunications in the early 1980s with early TI circuits (span line) and later on with Wireless, Ethernet, SS7, E1, J1. I remember living in Columbus Ohio with the Qube system of interactive media when I was in school out there. I remember at the same time one of my classmates interviewed as one of the first VJs for the then totally unknown MTV. This was long before the internet and I remember how the SU thinkers had referenced Qube long before a commercial Internet...