David Gessel
Snow Storm
Carolyn and Vera and Zolly and I went skiing in Tahoe; they stayed at Donner Peak and I spent the day running up and down Granite Chief at Squaw, the only part of the mountain no being blasted by enough wind to blow you backwards uphill. The snow got pretty heavy at times and it was very pretty.
Unfortunately the day before at (ahem) Boreal (ahem) I fell going pretty fast down their “black diamond” slope and bent my thumb back on the ice. The colors had faded by today and it is starting to move again.
I really want to make a “sports” personal GPS, something with an indestructible over the jacket/on the wrist/on the handlebar wireless display and a remote back mountable patch antenna on some kind of shoulder strap and a data recorder with heart rate monitor. My GPS showed a max speed of 40.6 mph, but it can’t really get the fast parts because I’m bent over then and it is hard to mount it where it can see the sky.
Town Car
Totally randomly Hertz gave me a Lincoln Town Car instead of the Taurus I rented. Why? I do not know, but as I was wearing a long black coat and leather gloves for the weather, everyone assumed I was Carolyn’s driver. The car is really set up for a driver – the back has more room than the front, the door release button locks and unlocks on the back doors and there are no cup holders. And the engine sounds like Bender wheezing in that episode where Farnsworth made him human…
Cold Saw
I got a cold saw (a Brobo Super 300) from a very cool artist. It’s a beautiful old machine, but slightly funkified by years of service. I rebuilt the vice system which was a bit sticky after too many years of water-based coolant. It cuts wonderfully now and the vice is easily adjusted, but eventually I’ll have to cut a new keyway in the vice clamp…
Freeze That Poop.
Wasn’t this a movie? Why could anyone think this is a good idea? Could it really make life all that much easier to freeze dog shit before you pick it up? Is the idea that, once the poop is frozen, that you don’t need a plastic bag for it? You can just pocket the frozen turd and go about your day, as long as it isn’t too hot out? Or is this for people who’s dogs have eaten too much cheese? Or is the idea that you’d freeze the poop and leave it – a frosty poo is more visible and at least for an hour or so while it thaws. This might warrant a test with the LN2 I have at home…
Kensington is excellent
I really love my Kensington 120 Watt Universal Power Adapter. It runs all my computers and charges just about anything everywhere in the world and on planes and in cars too. Work assigned me a new Lenovo T60 which has a wacky new power plug. I couldn’t find one for sale on-line, wrote Kensington, and a few days later had my N29 – even before the laptop arrived.
My grade school
Where I learned to play soccer ride a tricycle and climb
Most of the playground equipment that was there when I was kid is gone now (I graduated in 1979 and started school there in 1969). But a few things I remember from the old days: the geodesic dome, the goal I used to play soccer in, and the little cement track I rode my tricycle on when I was 3.
Philadelphia Pricing
Philadelphia’s paper is the most explicit I’ve ever seen. Prices range from $90-$100 for a 30 minute blowjob or handjob (I’d think the former a better deal) or $150 for sex. Looks like a mid-day bargain is available for $125 for sex. Oh the innocent days of backpage are long gone.
Global Services
I finally seem to have made it to the highest known rung of UAL’s frequent flier program – the semi-secret Global Services rung. It is so semi-secret that I have no idea what it really means as of yet except that I should get first crack at upgrades and am allowed to board the plane while the cleaning crews are still on if I’d like. So far it also seems to come with first dibs on extra nuts and dinner choices.
Unfortunately UAL isn’t flying much of anywhere out of OAK any more – they just cancelled the OAK-ORD flights as well as the OAK-IAD flights leaving only OAK-DEN and OAK-LAX. That bites. OAK is infinitely easier than SFO.
Blacksmith
Over the holidays I visited the blacksmith I was apprenticed to as a child (roughly 1978-1986, though we couldn’t quite figure out the exact years). This is the welder I learned to TIG weld on and the smaller anvil was what I learned to forge steel against.
Greg Leavitt was a great inspiration to me and set me on the path of making things from an early age. It was also a great lesson in the value of hard work swinging a hammer all day in front of a coal forge. In August. In Philadelphia. 100% humidity, 95 degrees outside, 120-140 in front of the forge. Black boogers.
I have my own anvil and TIG now. Just because you can’t ever really get the coal dust out of your nose.
