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January 2009:
Last spring, before the dandelions exploded all over the place, both of the kids bought houses. Brian sold his house in Montour Falls quickly and at a tidy profit, and bought a house in Horseheads, just north of Elmira. Danielle and Andy bought a house on the southside of Elmira. All three of these transactions closed on the same day... a busy one, and considering the suspense involving the sale of Brian's house downtown, less than relaxing.
It is interesting that Brian's house is a very typical 1950s house in a very typical 1950s sub-development, and Danni's house is a very typical 1920s house on a very typical 1920s street. It was nice having both of them living within a mile, but they are still within a half hour.
Andy is a jack- of- all- trades musician. He repairs and plays a number of instruments and has been in several bands, presently a country and western one. He also built and operates a recording studio. Michelle and Brian are expecting a daughter in May.
Mom moved up here to a "retirement community" in Horseheads two years ago. She is still doing just fine. Below is a picture of her in Danielle's living room just after "moving day".
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Below is a photo showing how lucky I am. Most every year Donna accompanies me to Memphis for my annual recurrent training. The only thing that she asks in return is that we stop for rocks where we see an interesting spot. (This isn't the only picture I have of her stashing trophies in the trunk or picking at stuff along the roadside!).
We had just spent an hour or so stepping among stones in a West Virginia river, picking up interesting things, in this case it was mostly debris from a factory which had been some distance upstream in years gone by. We always enjoy the trip, and spend as much time as possible on the secondary roads.
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Finally a picture of me. I took it last July when a box of resin sprung a leak just behind me on the morning flight down from Rochester. The airplane has an oxygen system primarily for this sort of situation where something spills or leaks, etc. In this case there turned out to be no particular hazard, but I didn't know what the smell was, other than it didn't seem healthy.
I sort of like the picture because of its "layers"... At first glance it looks like something on an alien spaceship, but then the details of the bald head start to show, as well as the eyes behind the plastic. Finally there is the broad fish- eye panorama of the instrument panel and bright blue sky reflected in the face shield.
In the past, I have posted pictures of the cabin that I built in the woods at the back of our property. For the past two summers we have been renting it out on weekends: people seem to enjoy the peace and quiet, and we are just tickled that we can make a bit of money while making other people happy! Pictures of it are at springsretreat.com
And finally, last year I sold the humble sack of sticks that was my airplane and became involved with biodiesel; the two events not entirely a mutual coincidence. I had owned and flown the plane 450 hours over a ten year span with no insurance, and spent just pennies on maintenance. I went lots of places and met lots of nice people. I had a lot of fun and I have a lot of great memories. The bottom line was that I was starting to feel that each flight was like a spin at russian roulette... how long could such luck last?
Filling the void, I tinkered up a biodiesel cooker, and over the last year I have turned about a thousand gallons of waste vegetable oil into biofuel. I use it in my 1983 Mercedes and on these winter days I heat my workshop with it. More pictures and story are at GreenAlchemy.us
That's all for now... Send me your news and pictures anytime!