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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.
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In France for an annual global meeting at Chantilly Chateau after our meeting.
Some of the earliest mentor advice I ever received was "Easy on the controls!!" Picture this- you are watching a friend of yours (maybe 12 years old) learning how to use a piece of machinery, (enjoying Man's natural lust for "Amplifier"), a tractor or a truck. He jerks the thing and the hydraulic lines strain and all the components look/sound/act stressed, maybe to the point of failure. The owner is of course very concerned with stress and potential damage. The shout comes... "Easy on the controls!" Why would we not use this comparison on our everyday life experiences? The skill in this understanding is something the pilot is constantly trying to perfect. The plane gives everything back, just like in life. We all control. The baby, the child, the adolescent, the teenager, the parent, the pilot, the executive. It is not about the control, it is about how the control --controls us. I managed to get some flying in this past weekend. I could have done bett...

Chillin' - Travlin' - Studyin' and McIntosh 2105

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This past week has been nice. I have been in Duluth; no extreme travels this week. It has been very pleasant chillin' out around home taking care of the mundane things. I am not sure why, but the mundane has been pleasant. We have a new organist at church this week. Just as I might guess, he is from Rochester NY. I meet a lot of people everywhere from Rochester. Several of my colleagues both in Duluth and Kansas are from Upstate NY. One of them from Webster/Ontario. I finally got my McIntosh 2105 Power Amp back from the shop. They did a great job at Audio Classics. As I suspected, there was a lot more wrong with it than "just" the smoke that got out. Somehow they managed to put the smoke back in there and got it all tested and up to spec. It sounds great and really drives my Peavey PV115 Speakers. Certainly, the Peaveys are not the most efficient, but they can take really deal with what the amp gives'em. The UPS guy felt better about the 102 pound package after we tal...
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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...
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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.
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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.