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Well I got my truck back. It had been in the shop for two weeks. I made the serious mistake of taking the truck to Botnick Chevrolet in Binghamton, NY. I suspected the injection pump went bad. Chevrolet, as part of a class action suit increased the warranty on the injection pump. I thought it was increased to 150k miles. It was only increased to 120k miles. I have 132k miles on my truck. I asked Brian if it was under warranty. He originally said yes. So every day I would call Brian from the (place primary color here) team in service and everyday he told me tommorrow, except for Friday when he said Monday. The original quote for the repair was $2100. So I told them I would take it to a diesel shop where I could get it done for $1800. They decided to fix it for $1800, 'cause they would have had to put it back together. I think that is quite a bit of flexibility in price. They have quite a gravy train. So yesterday I give Brian a call at 12:00 and leave a voice mail indicating th...
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Small farms Bonnie and I went to a wedding yesterday. That was nice. It was in a small church in Virgil, NY (in between places). James and Georgie got married. Now they have 7 kids between them. I think there are five girls and two boys. The oldest is younger than 10. Everybody has to have a hobby. I had a good time. We are working on the yard again today. I am working mostly with stone. They are plentiful and mostly in the way. I found a great use for old roof shingles. I put them under the stones in the washes I am constructing. It looks great and should keep the weeds out for quite a while. The shingles are also plentiful and inexpensive. There is no shortage of work. I had to get out of the sun for a while. The basement is cool. I am tinkering with some technology projects. You can see the bluebird sticking her head out of the house. There is quite a bit of activity in the bluebird house. It probably was not the best time to build the stone ring around the well head. The tr...
I thought of a quote at work at lunch today. Maybe I will write a speech around it. "Trustworthy is not something you are. It is something you do."
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Memorial Day again. That was a fast cycle. We went to Bonnie's sister's place on Chatautqua lake for Saturday and Sunday. We took eggs and had a big duck and chicken egg breakfast. Side by side comparisons of scrambled eggs showed the duck eggs to have a lighter flavor (surprise) and a somewhat creamier texture. They all tasted great. I went fishing but I didn't catch anything. I did manage to wear out my fish reel. It cranks really hard and sounds like it has some loose parts. I think I relubed this reel about 12 years ago. I can't remember though; it is old. I bet it is from the 70's. It's time for a new one. I think I am going to get a new rod too. I'll get a new ultralight rod and reel. I had a crappy ultralight years ago. I threw it away after the the drag stuck for the third time, loosing a fish. This time I will get a decent (not the best) one. We did landscaping and gardening on Monday. I bet we are the only ones in the neighborhood with a couple o...
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hamvention I am back from Dayton. It was 9 hours driving each way. The fuel mileage was a lot worse with the camper on the truck too. We have to expect that. I purchased a radiation detector, nicads, button cells, monitor, a generator for the exercise bike, connectors, tape, IC sockets, and an A/B box. I probably got a few other things too. All of which are part of existing projects! I started no new projects. The place is quite a draw. It is very large indeed. It is approximately 3 times the size of the Rochester hamfest. We met up with hams from around the country.
Hams in space The link is cool. Launch a weather balloon with some cool inexpensive radio stuff to 52,000 feet. A man just can't sit around. If he could sit around he might not find the need to do stuff like lofting electronics into space. I am off to Dayton this week. The hamvention is the Mecca for hams. They say you need to get there once in your life. I have never been. I think maybe 20,000 hams attend each year. It is a big deal. I have a short list of stuff that interests me. You never know what you may find. But, you can be sure you'll find a whole bunch of nerds interested in computers and radios. I have the camper on the truck.
Falafel My class is over! I passed. It looks like I got B-. That was a life changing event for me. I learned about myself more than I may have learned about the class material. It was challenging. I may not go back to school. Seattle was good. The conference sessions were good. It was great to see our manual out there in front of Microsoft, IBM and Cisco Systems. People were impressed. The big thing at the conference is DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture). There is a lot of hype about DITA and we are contemplating using DITA as our DTD or a derivitive. IBM is strongly backing the freely available DTD. That always makes me suspicious. I went out to dinner with some sales guys and had a good time. One night I went out for Egyptian food. That was great. I need to make falafel at home. Pete is coming down to borrow my bobcat for a week. I need to work on my truck this weekend. It needs brakes bad. I will start catching up on all the work around here that has not been getting...