Chazd's (Charles Dowdell's) News Burps

The storm has passed as they do. In my location we were lucky. Although we were on the projected center path just a few hours ahead of the actual path, the storm path went to the east and we were largely spared. Yes, the electric went out, we had flooding, and trees down. But we missed the worst of it here in Gwinnett County Georgia. Of course, we are concerned about all the others who were not as lucky. My lake (Canary Lake) overflow sluice at maximum. Any higher and we would be looking at dam erosion. It was close. The overall level of the lake went about three feet over our normal maintained level. Most of my dock is underwater. No major damage and the water is receeding at the moment.

It is before the storm, Hurricane Helena. Its raining now as it has been for a day or so. The storm gets here in about 10 hours. They are calling for 60-80 MPH winds in Atlanta! I have done my due diligence. I have gas for the generator, all the cars are charged and fueled. I have the chainsaw at the ready. I ran the truck last night to be sure. I am glad I insisted that we install hurricane straps to the rafters of the house when I was having the soffit/roof work done last year. My shitty contractor kept saying "you dont need them". I hope we don't need them. Most of the older homes around here don't have them. A hurricane strap is a metal bracket that ties the rafter/truss to the wall. Otherwise they are just toe-nailed and gravity holds the roof on. Once the wind gets under the roof gravity is no match for the wind and the whole roof structure blows away. This will be bad.

We went to see John McEuen live at our local music venue about a mile from the house. John was a founding member of the Nitty Grity Dirt Band. It was great to hear the music and stories and to be there and experience. Their biggest hit was Mr. Bojangles. But there was a interesting smattering of stringed instruments in strange places over the years in different genres and cultures.

I flew up to the farm in NY. I rented a Kia EV6 Electric car. It was ok. Better than my 2013 Nissan Leaf, but not as nice as my 2024 Tesla Model Y. It had pretty good range and comfort that comes along with an all electric vehicle. They didn't include a mobile chanrger, but did include a useless adapter that plugs into the charge port and allows household electic items to run directly from the battery, crazy. I had to pay 64 cents a kW at the NY sanctioned changing stations. That is 10 times the regular rate for electricity. Totally expected for a NY government franchise that is well known for corruption. https://evolveny.nypa.gov/ . Nevertheless, I felt proud that I could easilty drive a rear wheel drive electric car on my new driveway up to the planned yurt site. I met up with two very old friends (Jeff Kuebel and John Kucharski) that I met in first grade in Irondequoit, NY at Oakview school. Needless to say, that was a long time ago. We remembered some very funny stories of m...

Relief. Summer seems to be on the way out which means perfect weather here in Duluth Georgia. Gracie the cat being friendly on her "Fun boards". I attached a number of pine boards (fun boards) on the walls in the porch (cat room) afew years ago. She is starting to use them more. I would have thought that a cat would love them. They are up high, great visibility, exclusive use for cats... but the cat makes the final decision. My 2017 Chevy Service Truck just turned over 30k Miles. So I drive it less than 5k a year and most of those miles are on trips, most to the farm in NY and back. Here is a pic of me showing me with a portion of my shop. (It doesn't show my electronics bench or the racks and racks of stuff.) The bench is clean and that was the reason for the pic. It's a very rare situation. I bought a NEW piece of McIntosh audio gear to complement the vintage Mac components. The McIntosh MB25 is a Bluetooth transceiver that allows modern integrations with the vi...

Over breakfast today, Angie and I worked out a list of the different airlines we have flown on (that we remember). Some of these airlines are old and long out of buiness, bought-out or done the commercial shuffle. And some are/were very small regional airlines in distant lands. In no order: Malaysia Airlines United American Korean Air Emirates Air Asia MEA (Middle East Airlines) Delta USAIR Copa Aeroflot Ural Airlines UTAir Air Berlin Germanwings Lufthansa Swiss Air Alitalia Iberia PAN AM Alaska Airlines Hawaian Hainan Airlines Air China Norwegian Asiana IcelandAir LAN Argentina Airlines LATAM TAM OceanAir / Avianca Brasil Allegiant Air Avianca Turkish Airlines Buta Airways Azerbaijan Airlines Peoples Express Georgian Air ANA (All Nippon Airlines) JAL (Japan Airlines) Vladivostok Air FinnAir Jet Blue CP Air (Canadian Pacific Air) Dalian Airlines Philippine Airlines A...

I took a short business trip to Chattanooga. Actually the Tesla robot car did most of the trip. The artitulated dump truck is sometimes called a lizard truck because the middle bends as you drive and steer. I did some camping as well. I am taking Japanese lessons. The location is show in the pics. 10 weeks of training. Of course, success is mostly about studying. One of my nice deer friends I see almost everyday in the backyard right outside my zoom room. There are a couple of fawns I have been enjoying watching them grow. I saw a nice butterfly just as I had a moment of grief and resentment towards another individual. "Find the butterflies".