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LavaCon 2026 and the future.

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LavaCon is a conference now going on 25 years. Its always fun at conferences where folks collaborate on what the future holds. This year I drove to Charlotte NC from Duluth GA to attend. I used the Tesla in Full Self Drive. I went park-to-park without touching the wheel for over 200 miles. It's crazy. I don't think most people understand how well it works. Lots of nay-sayers still, but it really does work. Be on guard, but enjoy. I spent some of my time "driving" while conversing with Grok as part of my daydreaming. I was discussing with Grok an idea I have of building a West system (cold molded) old style barrel-back runabout maybe 20 feet long- all varnished Mahogony. Of course this boat would have an exotic 12-cylinder engine under a transparent engine hatch between the twin cockpits. We discussed the designs, available actual study plans and pre-lofted design documents for the hull. We also discussed the best engine (perhaps a BMW N73) coupled with a Velvet Dri...
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We are back from the Farm in NY. We had some business up that way so we decided to drive up, picking up a load of hardwood flooring along the way. The new truck made the drive enjoyable. We flew commercial back to ATL. We will be back up there soon.
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We are back from vacation. I met Angie in Istanbul after business in Budapest and we started our adventure. We toured Istanbul: Azerbaijan: Armenia: Georgia: Sochi, Russia and around the Black Sea. We swam in the Black and Caspian Seas and saw many of the highlights in the Southern Caucuses. We had at least 11 flights on following airlines: LOT, Delta, Azerbaijan Air, Georgia Air, Aeroflot, Turkish Airlines, Utair, Buta, and Ural Airlines. In Turkey we watched the election results coming in naming Erdogan as President, again. We happened to be in Baku Azerbaijan on "Military Day". The timing made it pretty easy to get some nice pics as the Mi8/17 helicopters and MiG 29s (or are they SU 27s) along with KA27 helos that flew by our hotel room on the 26th floor of the Flame Hotel. It isn't everyday you find burning gas coming straight out of the ground. Yes, it is very hot. You can only stand there few dozen seconds. We got to fly on a Sukhoi Superjet 100 for a first. It is ...