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Road Trip

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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...
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http://www.catfastferry.com/the_ship/ Bonnie and I went to Toronto Friday night on the fast ferry. We stayed at the Westin Harbour where on Saturday the World Championship of Public Speaking took place. We came home on the ferry Saturday night. By the time we got to Berkshire it was actually Sunday morning. The ferry was neat. It was clean, fast, smooth and fun. We went business class. We had fun chating and making friends on the way over. They serve food in business class and the leather couches are pretty comfy. I slept on the way back. We didn't have passports with us. It turns out that to travel between Canada and the US you just plain need a passport with you these days. We weren't sure if they were going to let us into Canada. The one little movie of the stern wake of the cat while under way got corrupted. Maybe I need a new camera. Grr. The Toastmasters World Championship of Public Speaking was worthwhile. The top ten competed and the winner was named, Lance...
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I haven't had the available time to blog. It doesn't mean I am not interested. It is not always a priority. This past weekend I spent mostly tuck pointing the south side of my barn. The wall is 80 feet by 10 feet That is 711 concrete blocks, approximately 2844 linear feet of mortar joint. Although not all the joints are being reworked it takes quite a bit of time grinding the joints out with a diamond wheel in the mini grinder, cleaning and getting new mortar in there. I was thinking that I could by accident take too much mortar out and have the wall fall me. It would be almost a certain death as a hundred or so blocks fall on me. I started being more careful on doing a smaller section at a time after having the visual pop in my head. I need to be skidding trees out of the woods. We need firewood. Although we heat with coal a lot, wood is good for fall and spring evenings and it is used to get coal burning. Coal is hard to get going and getting it stated takes some atten...
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I thought of a few simple crimes agaist humanity. Going to get your hair cut at 12:00 noon when you are retired. Having a handicap sticker on your car and parking in a regular spot. "That is my place."
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GlideStone News I haven't found the time to blog lately. It is summer. Check out the blog link above from friend Todd Sheehan. We shall call this a cross blog or "crog." He has chronicled his hand gliding adventures. This guy is a nut. When we worked together he was building racing RC planes (electric). He was cutting the wings from foam then covering with fiberglass epoxy. Then he got into RC helicopters, first electric then gas. I took yesterday off and worked on the south side of my barn. I have to decide whether to fix the drainage right or move on. I have two foundation cracks I am digging under to pour concrete below the crack to stabilize. Bonnie and I really want to live in a finished house and property.
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http://www.songstowearpantsto.com/ Not much else to say on this one.
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http://www.heartsandminds.org/quotes/quotes.htm I read something very inspirational a while back. It said, "Read something inspirational everyday." Trite but right. The nice thing about inspirational reading is that it is such an open genre. It really is not a genre at all. "Inspirational" cannot be classified in a hierarchy, but only in a faceted classification scheme. Inspirational to one person is not inspirational to another. The material must "fit" and resonate to inspire. Technical writings can inspire as well as spirtual writings. It depends on the mission and context of the reader. It is Saturday morning and I am working on the list. It is cool in the house as the windows were all open last night. I am drinking my weekend coffee.
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These pics are from a llama walk a couple of weeks back. We have been eating a fair amount of our own food lately. We get eggs from the chickens (about 4 a day). We still have some pork in the freezer. Now we are getting lettuce, zuchini and green peppers from the garden. Bonnie has been picking a lot of berries too. We have had several awesome fruit salads with our own blueberries and raspberries. The stuff we grow and raise at home tastes so much better, even lettuce. I went to a few auctions this weekend. I probably spent too much, but I had a good time. I also have some regrets on a couple of items I did not bid on. I ended up with: Three antique seltzer bottles Some junk, I mean real junk mixed in with some good stuff (cheaper than a dumpster) A pressure washer that uses compressed air and a water hose (works ok) A kerosene lantern I very nice soup tureen that Bonnie does not like. (I am going to have to move it on ebay) I am probably forgeting something. My fathe...
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