Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

After Germany, Switzerland and Netherlands for work I took a few days vacation. Fate would have it that the setting was in the Middle East. I flew through Doha, Qatar to Dubai, UAE. Dubai in many senses is the most extreme city in the world. The unparallelled vision and speculation of investment, business, tourism, multi-culturism and infra-structure is making (and has made) Dubai a window of the World's future. From the world's tallest building, indoor snow-skiing facility, outrageous architecture, huge man-made islands, and the world's best hotels are sure to keep Dubai as a target of attention for quite awhile. It is clearly a place of best, biggest, fastest and most outrageous. It is not a city looking backwards, but one of moving forward at astonishing speed. Swimming in the Persian Gulf was a treat. It is the saltiest place I have ever swam. The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world and really dwarfs all other tall buildings at 828 Meters (2707 feet). The...

I have been in Germany for a week or so. I have had many productive meetings in many different cities in Bavaria. The weekend I am in Bamberg. Monday I will be in the Netherlands.

Things are great! We had a lot of rain in Atlanta. It felt like a monsoon or something. It was relentless for days and days. I had a very old friend show up in Atlanta for a conference. I don't think we have seen each other in 13 years. We had some outrageous laughs over a Peruvian meal. Peruvian cuisine is unique; if you haven't had it before check it out. I have some interesting travel coming up, as well as some intense business challenges, as usual. This was a quick snapshot of my bird feeder. I will be taking hi res photos soon. The variety of birds is astonishing. We had a community work day on the clubhouse and surrounding areas. We did it in the rain.

The weather has been spectacular in Atlanta. Even this weekend we had spring showers and they were pleasant. I am working on getting the irrigation system going. Since I am on a lake I can pump water from the lake for lawn irrigation. I remember from last year the houses on the lake had greener yards than the surrounding homes. I have the 2 HP pump apart trying to figure out the plumbing and how to install it. It now looks like I need to get a new impeller assembly. The computer blew a power supply yesterday, I got a new one in this morning. Unfortunately, I had to modify the chassis for the new supply, but it works well. In looking it up, I discovered I bought the computer in 2004. I really have to get something newer and faster. Although, since I bought something good in 2004 it has not really shown its age. I probably just pushed the inevitable purchase off awhile longer. Some pilot friends and I went shooting the other night. I think there were more females at the shooting range th...

Last week was busy and fast, and action packed. I had my Birthday at my Dad's last weekend in MA, attended and spoke at a conference in RI and then took a few days off vacationing in NYC, NY, PA and NJ. I also spent an hour or so in downtown Greenwich CT. It was many States, Cities and Towns. Great fun! Angie and I visited a number of interesting places, including the site of the original Woodstock concert in 1969, various casinos (no gambling at all) and Centralia, PA. Centralia, PA was worth the effort getting to. The whole city of Centralia was demolished because of an underground coal fire that has been burning underneath for 50 years. It is coal's equivalent of Chernobyl. Although the gentleman I interviewed (a native of Centralia) says the the $42 million USD buyout of the residents of Centralia was just a means to access the huge coal vein through the surface someday. During our visit, there were a bunch of different 4 wheeler- type vehicles gathered. It was very reminis...

I am in Rhode Island at a conference, well it was a conference. The conference has been shut down for security sweep certainly related to the bombing in Boston. I was told to go to my room. Feels a lot like house arrest to me. I am not sure I like all this.