Podcasts about Quonset

Cáel's second vacation with Aya and friends.Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.Loving your enemy is easy. You know precisely where the two of you standJust in case anyone cares, I do not hate China or the Chinese People. As a Global Power, the PRC is fair game as a great antagonist. Not only do they have, as of 2015, the world's largest economy, largest population and a truly global Diaspora, they also have a rather totalitarian governance system that enables them to devote scary levels of resources to any endeavor they set their minds to.I usually paint all governments to be entities capable of great good (rarely achieved) and great evil (because it makes such enticing fiction). In my stories, it often falls to the people within those institutions to make judgment calls on what is the right thing to do. In my final analysis, there are no 'Evil' governments, just evil people who use the system to get what they want(Right where we left off)"Aya," I spoke to her when she'd finished up by giving Mu a strong dose of a pain killer, "Now go back to the galley and find the nice medic-lady there. She has a bottle filled with some of those kick-ass sedatives. Inject everyone else but me, you, Zhen here and Mu, Mu's had enough drugs for one day.""Okay," she popped up. She turned fearlessly to face her former tormentors and jailors."I had them all swear an oath to Ishara to not kill, harm, or restrain you in any manner, so have fun hunting them down. You've got about thirty minutes.""Is Dot with us right now?" she gave me a bone-tired smile. I nodded. "This is going to be fun," she shouted and off she went.'I'll be by her side', Dot whispered to me. She rose forth from the seat within me and followed Aya out into Seven Pillars Hell. Technically, I believed it was the Diyu of the Fiendish Child. Those malicious bastards suffered every accident, misfortune, and nearly-impossible odds malfunction in the process of being subdued by a 9 year old Amazon.Four of them died in the process of trying to kill her, when stopping her became obviously impossible. Two had their guns blow up when they tried to shoot her, dismembering their hands and wrists. One guy was strangled in his emergency oxygen supply mask. The last guy lunged forward, slipped on a cup and broke his neck when his head was caught in a folded armrest.Twenty-eight nerve wracking minutes later."All done," she gave me an exhausted yet triumphant chirp. "Should I strap Mr. Mu into a chair? He's passed out.""Zhen, buckle your brother into a chair and hurry back. I'll hold us steady until you get back."Remember, I had only the use of my left hand. My right had to stay on the dagger to keep things powered up."Buckle-up after you've gotten Duan Mu secured, Aya. That's his proper name.""I know that. I was trying to keep them irritated so they would act irrationally. You taught me that," Aya bathed me in her sinister ways and means.Finally, it was down to me and Zhen. "Do you think we will succeed, Cáel Wakko Ishara?" "I'm giving it my best shot." "The little girl was right," Zhen groaned. "She told us we'd regret not killing you in New York when we had the chance. I thought she was being an annoying spoiled brat. I was wrong." Pause. "I know you have no reason to answer me truthfully, but when we, the rest of us, die, could you make sure my brother's body is returned to my father so that he can join our ancestors in the family grave?" "Why do you think I would lie to you now that we are alone?" That was a loaded question. I did the majority of my lying when I was alone with a woman. "I, will you give me your Oath, in your Goddess's name?" "Nope. My Goddess has pretty much been exhausted by your boys trying to break their vows to me and Aya. I'll tell you what I will do, " "What?" "Show me your tits and I'll promise to do my best." "What? You want to see me naked?" she grew indignant. "No!" It was her being a vaginal virgin (I knew the type ~ good oral technique and bed play, but no 'go-uppy' the cunt, or ass) and me not being Han Chinese, therefore being a 'Stinky Barbarian'. "Listen, I've never flown a commercial jet before and neither have you. Odds are we are both going to be dead in the next ten minutes. After all the hell you have put me through, can you at least give me some fucking inspiration. No one will ever know. Besides, imagining the perfect swell of your breast and the smooth tautness of your stomach, well, you are so damn perfect it is distracting!" I protested against the World's grand injustice (me not being Han and thus not worthy of seeing her goodies). "Do you really think we are all about to die?" she studied me. "I'm doing my best, but, yes, I believe we are," I stared deep into her dark brown orbs.'You are despicable,' Ishara chortled. 'I promise you, plant your seed and she will bear you a son.' "Very well, hold onto the controls," she said as she released her joystick. She rolled up her padded (high-tech body-weave) shirt carefully. I was a past master of looking while pretending not too look. Still, "Can I look yet?" I hesitantly questioned. Sure, we were about to slam an Airbus-350 into the Pacific Ocean, or a concrete runway, no lights, in a cyclone, but she was 'working it'. For all she knew, this striptease would be her last living memory. "No." A few seconds passed. "Now?" "No." Oh, her top was just cresting her highly aroused nipples, she had tiny, erect nipples. The smallest I had ever seen, but long, almost like tiny awls. Finally she'd played it out as long as possible. "Okay." "No, wait," I begged. "Let me make sure everything is stable. I want to look at you for as long as I can. This will probably be the last happy moment of my life, so I want to make the most of it." That made her happy. I puttered around for five seconds, then pivoted around to take in her full, topless view. I didn't say anything for the longest time. "Aren't you done yet," she grumbled. "We are about to crash." "Oh, sorry," I turned away. She rolled her top down quickly and we returned to trying to keep the people we loved most in life alive. I sensed as sense of disappointment in her nonetheless."Perfect," I whispered. She caught it. "What did you say? Is something wrong?" she worried, studying her crippled command console for any errors she might have missed. "I said 'perfect'. I knew it, your body is perfect," I confessed. Pause. "Oh, " "Now I have something to live for," I declared. "I will never let you see me naked again. This was a one-time thing!" "That's two things I have to live for then," I countered. "Bringing us in alive and seeing me naked once more?" she had to be sure. "I was going to say 'seeing you naked again' and 'living', but I can see that your priorities make more sense," I conceded. "Ah, you are right, that I am right." Pause. "Good luck." "On seeing you naked again, or surviving our landing." "Let's start out by landing the plane. "And then, Duan Zhen?" "We will see, Cáel Ishara."{9 pm, Tuesday, August 16th ~ 23 Days to go}{aka 2 am Wednesday, Aug. 17th ~ 22 Days to go (Havenstone time)}(The following is in Mandarin until I note otherwise)"What are you doing?" I struggled to keep the panic from my voice."Killing all these alarms," Zhen responded. She was grinding her teeth in frustration and fear. "There is nothing we can do to fix those problems.""My, right rudder, its barely responding," I grunted. This was fly-by-wire, not typical manual control, so my concern was entirely mental, not wanting to miss our turn south into the sole runaway on Johnston Atoll. With the steady degradation of the plane's electronics, we wouldn't make the 360 for another pass.Landing from the southern end of the runway would put the cyclone force winds behind us. There would be no way for the plane's two inexperienced pilots to make that miraculous landing happen. No, we had to approach form the north, into the winds and allow nature to slow us down."On it, I'm good," she confirmed that her co-pilot's systems were still doing their job. "Tell me when we are making our final approach." Zhen, my Seven Pillars of Heaven co-pilot (and designated assassin), couldn't see where we were going. Our avionics had perished earlier in this disaster.Goddess Dot Ishara was communicating with Goddess SzélAnya who was frolicking in this maelstrom; the Draconic Storm Divinity was in her element. Dot was 'in' her element as well ~ her last living mortal descendent (me), if you didn't count all those unborn offspring I'd been contributing to in the past few weeks.'Are you thinking about me, Wakko?' she whispered into my mind. I was Wakko Ishara. I was supposed to be Yakko, but that hadn't worked out. As the 'main girl' in the relationship between me, the leader of her Amazon House, and Yakko Ishara ~ my first Ishara ancestor ~ she earned the slot of Dot (see Warner Bros.) Ishara.One of her earliest gifts to me was to make my mind inviolate to ALL supernatural penetration which was the reason she was bothering to ask about my thoughts and intentions.'Yes,' I thought back. 'I'm worried you are expending too much energy on my behalf, Dot.''Opposed to leaving you alone with SzélAnya? I don't trust her around you. She'd make a little Dragon-offspring/avatar with you if I'm not careful.''If you aren't careful? Don't I get a say in all of this?''No. Trust me, she's clingy and you are more active than a whole temple of Babylon's whores. Her mortal avatar would further bond your two legends together and your Legend is already the prop, placed with House Ishara.' Translation: My Goddess was clingy. After all, she'd meant to say my legend was her 'property'."Flaps!" Zhen yelled at me. "Check your flaps. Mine keep shorting out.""On it," I replied. I'd 'zoned out', so she'd screamed at me to get my attention back on task. Altitude, 1200 meters, which meant flaps at, fuck if I knew."What do I set them, Oh Shit!" I realized I'd forgotten something horribly imperiling."What?" Zhen shot me a furious look."Fuel! We've got to start dumping the fuel!" I screamed."Why?""Fireball, Zhen. If we hit hard, this bitch will barbeque us," I spit the words. "Don't you watch any airplane crash movies?" I added."The Airbus 350 has plenty of, safeguards,""You mean like all the other ones that have failed us in the past half hour?""Opening main tanks #1 and #2," she grumbled. "If we are struck by another lightning bolt we could blow up in mid-air.""Won't happen," I feebly jested. "The Storm Goddess loves me.""Does she love my brother and I?""Nah. She wants you and everyone else on this plane dead, but she's humoring me right now.""Flaps," she reminded me. "Why would she care about you?""Having no other useful skills, I am a truly remarkable lover."Zhen spared me a blistering look."You have seized this aircraft from my brother, me and forty of our best Special Operations Strike Warriors. That does not qualify you as 'unskilled'," she lambasted me."Oh no? You should see a 'real' Amazon in action," I teased her. "I'm just an intern who hasn't yet completed his 84 day trial period." I also worked the flaps."Too much," she snapped. "If we drop below 400 kilometers per hour, these winds will slam us into the Pacific."I was adjusting the flaps appropriately as we began our final roll to the left when a cloud-to-cloud bolt of electricity coursed through our craft. We didn't blow up."Thank you, SzélAnya," I whispered."What?" Zhen worried. Fucking up now would be the end of us all.'Your gratitude is overdue, Cáel,' SzélAnya slipped her murmur into the crashing thunder and another lash of raw, natural fury. 'We will talk later.'"I thought you said she loves you.""Umm, did I forget to mention I told her I was going out for pizza and never called her back?""That makes no sense," Zhen glared at me briefly. I was gifted with a visual of our plane in perspective to the runway. Yay, five meter waves were smashing into the atoll. I adjusted our yaw to the right."We are three kilometers out," I advised her."Flaps, spoilers," I went over my limited Alal-knowledge. This stuff worked on a piston driven commercial liner and it was the only flight data I had."Landing gear," Zhen responded. She had to throttle up a little because all that drag was cutting into our speed.'You are being blown too far to the east,' SzélAnya advised. I did the best I could."What are you doing?" Zhen was starting to sweat."Responding to divine intervention.""I, I see it!" Zhen's panic turned to exultation as she could finally make out the pale concrete runway surrounded by the angry sea.Too disasters hit us simultaneously."The left landing gear is not fully deployed," Zhen cautioned me."We are coming in too fast anyway," I dryly noted. The Goddess had brought me in on target, but she knew nothing about aircraft aeronautics.The Airbus came down too hard, too fast and our left landing gear snapped on impact. Sarrat Irkalli's parting gift was decay. Every design weak point gave in. The front fuselage broke apart, my hand on the dagger slipped and the power died. The front 25% of the plane spun off to the west while the remainder shot down the runway and off the southern end of the island.Sadly we went off into the lagoon between the western side and the barrier reef. In a delayed bit of good fortune, our careening section went head to head against a massive storm surge."Go!" I screamed at Zhen.She snatched up her Jian that she had used to pin the undead necromancer Tsu. I was right behind her, though I did stop to retrieve Sarrat Irkalli's dagger and pluck the two bone reliquaries from his neck before following Zhen's tight, athletic buns out of the cockpit and toward Aya. My diminutive better half was still in her seatbelt and clutching the medical bag to her chest.(English) "Cáel, I think we are sinking," she noted with a twinge of concern and more courage than I felt like utilizing. As Zhen was rescuing her brother the enormity of my mistake sunk in. All the Seven Pillars people were unconscious thus unable to save themselves from drowning. Aya's survival came first. I'd worried about my 'would-be executioners' later.I swept up Aya so fast it took me a second to realize she was poking me. She had retrieved the trinkets Felix had given Mu, our phone cards, my Dot-treats and my Amazon blade. I quickly strapped the blade to my arm. The water was rushing in through the severed back section.I turned to see Zhen struggling with her brother. Her look said it all. She expected them both to die. She wouldn't abandon him to save herself and the waves were too rough to make it with him."Get as far as you can," I shouted to her over the typhoon strength winds. "I'll come back for you."Her face expressed how little faith she put in my promise. Zhen had no choice left to her. I cut off two lengths of seat-belt to give Aya a harness to wrap over my shoulder and opposite underarm. I used the second piece to create her harness I linked with my own. {Back to English as the primary language}"He'll come back for you," Aya tried to assure Zhen while I worked."Aya, take a deep breath then expel it," I advised. The second she did I dove into the water. I had never attempted to swim in water this nasty, but I had been dumped into a white water rapids before. That was the best I had.Somehow in the madness, I pointed myself in the right direction. Once more, the storm came to my rescue. Two monster waves picked us up and pushed us toward the edge of the runway.'Go to the north end of the island,' Ishara told me. There is a building there that will shelter you, and Cáel, I must leave now. Don't do it.''I can't not try,' I replied. 'Can you help Aya?' I gave one last appeal. No reply. I twisted southward to locate the next monster wave. My precious cargo pressed tightly to my upper torso, I flipped over so that my feet were facing toward the onrushing runway. I'm not as dumb as I look, or sound.I bent my knees in the same way they instruct you when you go cliff diving. Up we went. I pulled Aya and I as deep into the water as possible, up, up, crest and then down-down-down. My bare right foot hit something jagged and sharp. I'd worry about bleeding later. The momentum of that contact tried to tilt me head-first, but I resisted.My left foot slapped down on a hard, smooth, granular surface, the sea wall. Now I swam backwards with my free arm while I raced to get my right foot back under me. My body ended up surging forward, yet I was in control of my movements once more. I rolled with the impact, taking the brunt to my left shoulder while shielding Aya with my right. Three rolls and I was on my feet again."Aya!" I beseeched my companion."That was fun," she yelled back over the hurricane force winds. "Let's try to do this next year," the rest was lost. I kept staggering forward in about a foot of water that the storm had flooded over the land. I looked behind me.The next wave was unfriendly. The one behind that one appeared to be a lot like what I imagined a Berlin Wall-sized tombstone would look like. I ran. I survived the first wave then gave Aya a cautionary squeeze. I felt her tiny lungs inflate, soak up the salt-water spray and oxygen then flush the air back out.A few more steps then we plunged back sideways into the monster current ~ the wave had already crashed."What did you say?" I shook Aya as we surfaced once more."Next year, much later next year," she grinned up at me."Aya, do you think you can,""Yes. Go find them. You gave her your word," she hugged me."Stay on the runway, head north, Dot says there is a building up there that is still intact. Aya, take this," I handed her the pistol and a spare mag."Do you promise you won't let me die today?" she shouted over the winds. I had to think about that. Aya rammed the pistol and magazine into her medical bag's side pocket. Oaths had their own power and maybe, just maybe, Dot Ishara would help me honor this one."I swear to you, I will not let you die today," I yelled back."Then go and hurry," she hugged me as I cut her loose. "She needs you more than I do. Go!" With that, we separated. Aya slugged forward a few steps, was staggered by another wave then turned and gave me her 'thumbs up'.I turned to the south and the blinding winds and terrible surf. I had to try. Alal kicked in. Jumbo commercial airliners = no help. Shipwrecks = he'd survived a few. I mapped out in my mind the waves, winds and their direction relative to the plane. I could still make out its half-submerged shape.The edge of the runway had a U-shaped seawall which created a peak that channeled the waves. I couldn't see the structure itself due to the high tide, but I could locate the wall by watching the waves break. If I could get to the outside of the eastern peak, I would have an easier time going about this rescue. Also, if Zhen wasn't brought in by the same waves that saved Aya and I, she would be driven to the northwest, parallel to the island.I could intercept them. I'd effective killed everyone else. Maybe, I dove in.'Don't!'“Too late, SzélAnya,” I vaulted off the semi-submerged sea wall, then let the undertow pull me along the broken coral rocks the Navy had put there when they expanded the airfield in the 1960's.I kept my hands on the rocks, rock climbing in reverse. The waves passing overhead tried to pluck me up and return me to the land. I moved as rapidly as I could, until my muscles ached from the water's chill and oxygen starvation. My lungs were on fire. I let the next wave pull me up.Fortune favors the foolish should be my new motto. I broke the surface just after another large wave passed by. I kept my breathing short and steady, despite my burning hunger for air. Gulping air would only earn me a mouthful of salt water. I took the reprieve in the storm's efforts to drown me.The 'foolish' was waiting for me four meters away, slightly behind me and to the East. Zhen was being dragged past the atoll. I kept one eye on her progress and the other on the waves. A monster rolled up, I dove under and thus resurfaced less than two meters away. Zhen had Mu in a classic rescue swim position. He was still likely to suffocate in this downpour.The look in her eyes was, pure confliction. I cut through the last bit of ocean to be at her side. My first action was to point to the next tidal beast heading for us.(Mandarin) "I've got him. Dive beneath the wave," I hollered. Had she resisted, all three of us would have been screwed. She didn't.I took another deep breathe then sort of freaked her out. I clamped my mouth over Mu's and expelled my air into his lungs. My right arm snaked under his left with my hand grabbing the back of his head. I shoved his head tightly against my face, pressing his nose shut, then dove. Zhen was right behind me.After that, we had our routine down. Zhen took Mu every fourth wave. Breathing for both him and me was tough. I'd take him back for the fifth and slowly we made ourselves to the eastern shore. I hit first, fell flat on my face but kept a hold on Mu. I temporarily lost sight of Zhen. One life at a time.I lugged Mu up, staggered his unconscious and my exhausted forms a few feet and then was toppled by yet another wall of water. This time, when I returned to a standing position, I check Mu's breathing. He would make it. I few more steps, another wave. I kept my footing that time. Another, Zhen came careening our way from the North. The waves had swept her passed us.Zhen immediately looped her arm under Mu's right arm. That allowed her, me and our shared burden to slog another meter inland, then the next wave caught up with us. Zhen fell; I stumbled, but righted myself and thus kept Mu from being washed away. Zhen rolled a few feet forward, rebounded up, only to be shoved away when a gust of wind hit us.On her next attempt, she rejoined us. From that point onward, we were far enough away from the land's end so that we were slogging through standing water and could resist the waves that impacted us.(Mandarin) "You came back," she shouted.There were all kinds of romantic, chivalric and very true responses to that. I chose a half-lie. (Mandarin) "I really wanted to see your tits one more time," I yelled. The looks she gave me was priceless. She was convinced I was a lunatic ~ no doubt about it.While she puzzled out her reaction/retort, we chanced upon a Quonset hut. In its lee, we caught a break from the worst of the wind. We also picked up a little Epona who had made the same logical choice (to get out of the wind) as we had. My heart leapt for joy. She was grinning like an impish hellion as she tried to tell me something.I leaned down until her lips were touching my ear."I forgot to pack my swimsuit," she chortled."It's probably sitting at home along with my surfboard," I kissed her on the forehead. "How about we get inside, somewhere?" Aya nodded.(Mandarin) "Let's go," I roared. Zhen nodded briefly. We turned Mu around so we would be dragging him with his back to the winds. The journey to the structure SzélAnya had pointed me at (the J O C building) took over an hour and a half to cover the two kilometers. Along the way, Aya discovered her inner Peter Pan.That was the childish fiction I was going to use to explain what she did when I regaled this episode to her Mother, assuming we made it back. In common parlance, a gust of wind that must have been about 150 kilometers per hour picked her up and off she went. Hell, I'd honored my oath to Zhen. I dropped Mu and raced after my own personal good luck fairy.A freak micro-burst, shot Aya up so high I lost track of her in the rain.'Please'.I saw my tiny human javelin plummeting to earth several meters away. Aya had refused to mitigate her fate by releasing the medical bag. I jumped, caught her and took another hard spill to the ground, Aya on top of me. She said something to me.I made it back to my knees, clutching a standing Aya firmly to my chest."I said 'I've had enough fun for today," she sputtered. "Can we go inside now?"'You now owe me a life, I go,''Thank you'. If she heard me, she didn't acknowledge it. The storm didn't relent its assault, that was for sure.I couldn't risk losing Aya again. I had placed Zhen and Mu on solid ground so she returned to being my top priority. I slogged my way through the typhoon, cyclone, 'what have you', only to find a solid steel door between Aya and safety. I felt volcanic fury building up inside me. Then I remembered I still had a few firearms,The QCW spoke and the door popped opened. I raced around the first interior corner, deposited Aya, ran back to the door, reverse course, raced back to Aya, kissed her cheek then ran back out into the blinding rain and battering winds. Zhen was right where I'd left her. She had relied on me coming back, damn her.(The J S O C Building)Five minutes later, I had the Seven Pillars twins inside and the door wedged shut. We were all temporarily safe. Here and there small puddles of water had formed from leaks above, but otherwise the structure was solid, sound and safe. Zhen and Mu were on the opposite side of the room. After she tended to her brother, she looked my way.I took the medical bag from a wide-eyed and happy Aya."We are down to two of them," she shivered. "Perhaps you should ask her to surrender now, while they still can?" I snorted then chuckled."Do you really think the proud scions of Duan will bow before the Amazons?" I asked her. Aya fatigued mind worked that question over."No, you are right. I don't think they are smart enough to know when they are beat. Cáel, they called me 'Chǒul u de cuüw ', or something like that," Aya kept her eyes on Zhen. "What does that mean?" It took me a second to piece that together. You can tell a great deal about people if you catch them talking about you behind your backs, or when they think you can't understand what they are saying."Ugly Bug," I translated. Aya snorted."That was rude. We can call her 'L s la ninda'," she proclaimed loud enough for Zhen to hear, "and we can call him Amar."I had to applaud her choice of names for our would-be killers.See, L s la ninda roughly translated from Amazon to English as 'cupcake'. Amar was Amazon for 'calf' which was a play on his Mandarin name, 'Mu'."Dumu?" I indicated her. Aya's eyes sparkled. Duma was the diminutive for 'daughter'."Atta," she murmured back. That was 'respectful Father'; a title no Amazon girl had addressed a man with in, well maybe, ever. The term was largely religious and only used in the terms of female divinities referring to divine paternals."Take the gun," I withdrew the QSW-06 from the medical bag. "I'm going to take a look at Mu."I wasn't a surgeon, most of my medical skills were self-taught (I get hurt a great deal), I was personally acquainted with pain and I wasn't easily grossed out. Alal's past granted me beaucoup knowledge to fill in the gaps. Mu was going to be okay.His problems were the bullet hole, blood loss, our mutual damp condition and his complete exhaustion. Zhen knelt close by as I cut open his pants. The bullet was still in him. I was guessing the round had cracked his femur, not broken it. I cleaned out the wound with minimal disturbance to Mu's sleep. The antiseptic came next, followed by the wrapping and finally a syringe of general antibiotic.(Mandarin) "Let's find something to dress ourselves in and then we all need to get out of these wet clothes. If we don't shed these clothes soon, we'll get a chill we don't need," I advised.(Mandarin) "How bad is it?" she asked. She meant her brother's condition.(Mandarin) "He'll be okay. Feel free to try and kill me when you wish. He doesn't need me anymore." That, pretty much confirmed for her what she suspected, I was a lunatic.(Mandarin) "Well, okay. Thank you. I will not kill the child; I have given you my word."(Mandarin) "Are you talking about 'Ugly Bug'?"(Mandarin) "Oh. I thought she didn't know our language either," she blushed then frowned. "She never revealed she understood our words."(Mandarin) "She doesn't. Aya has a phenomenal memory. All Amazons are taught from a very young age to develop a strong eye for detail. This includes remembering words spoken around them, even if they don't know their meaning."That silenced her. The medical kit gifted us with five glow sticks.The women paired up to search the first, second, third and fourth floors; I didn't trust Zhen to find something useful and report it to me. I knew women. She wouldn't kill Aya tonight and Aya would keep her

The ubiquitious, but seldom noticed, Quonset hut Today a look at a common but oft-overlooked maritime structure - the Quonset hut. First designed and built for the US Navy in 1941, they were styled after a WWI version called the Nissen hut. Once used in military installations during WWII, the Navy sold them surplus to the public after the war, and the rest, as they say, is history. And we'll hear what is probably the quintessential artistic work regarding this unusual style of building: Fisher Poet Jon Campbell's reading of his hilarious poem, "Quonset Hut," in which he refers to the Quonset hut as being a testament to Rhode Island's "indigenous school of meatloaf architecture."

Episode: 1278 The Quonset hut: a design with remarkable staying power.  Today, we build an instant house.

A surplus of military Quonset huts after World War II provided a unique solution to a housing shortage in Minnesota and across the country. Steph Quinn joins host Eric Roper to discuss these temporary neighborhoods. LINKS: How Quonset huts helped solve the post-WWII housing crisis in the Twin Cities

Jann, Caitlin & Sarah cover various topics including the attempted assassination of former President Trump, the Paris Olympics, and personal experiences in Paris, touching on the sewage issue in the Seine River and the beauty and origins of places like Versailles and Machu Picchu. The conversation highlights the importance of preserving historical monuments and the awe-inspiring nature of ancient civilizations. They also talk Kate Middleton at Wimbleton and...Jann's athletic upbringing. Somehow, the conversation shifts to pickle ball in a quonset. The hosts also pay tribute to several pop culture figures who recently passed including Shelley Duvall, Richard Simmons, Shannon Doherty, and Dr. Ruth Westheimer. This week's episode is brought to you by the home and auto insurance brand Canadians trust most, Intact Insurance. Leave us a voicenote for our upcoming 'Ask Us Anything' episode at www.jannardenpod.com where you can also find out more information about our guests and transcripts. Subscribe to our Patreon: https://patreon.com/JannArdenPod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Buitrago, Brandon Fifield and The Mayor go full gear mode with CEO/Owner of Alaska Gear Company   Don't get caught-up in the dust, The break-up shake-up, substance inservice days @ school, 10 kids on the roster, implant from Massachusetts, packing the family & 8 kids to Alaska, Robinson 44 Helicopters, recycling Alaskan old business, buildings &  bringing back the Quonset hut, re-designing the bunny boot, removing the valve, R&D, going into production and retail, The arctic oven stoves, Wood vs. Propane & Drip, cots, pulk bags & pulk sleds, freight sleds, Alaska Bush Wheels, Super cub shocks, Rodger Bore, Short final fab, epic shock tests, appreciating & proud the team & the people   Visit our Website - www.alaskawildproject.com Follow on Instagram - www.instagram.com/alaskawildproject Watch on YouTube - www.youtube.com/@alaskawildproject Support on Patreon - www.patreon.com/alaskawildproject

TSHE takes on office lunch etiquette as Bobby, Ann and Hillary tackle shared refrigerators, microwaves and more. It's an episode you'll love unless you leave your oatmeal dish soaking in the break room sink all day. Plus, the Branson of Bargain Hunting™ digs one heck of a rabbit hole, as proven by not one but two of our listeners. It's a Quonset hut!Connect with the show! This is your show, too. Feel free to drop us a line, send us a voice memo, or fax us a butt to let us know what you think. Facebook group: This Show Has Everything Feedback form: throwyourphone.com Email: tsheshow@gmail.com 

On today's show, redevelopment in Fayetteville could mean the loss of the distinct Quonset Huts near downtown. Plus, the life and career of a pioneering financial journalist. Also, the home-grown television series, "The Mystery League," brings mystery-solving kids to rural Arkansas.

Episode one hundred and sixty-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “The Weight" by the Band, the Basement Tapes, and the continuing controversy over Dylan going electric. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode available, on "S.F. Sorrow is Born" by the Pretty Things. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Also, a one-time request here -- Shawn Taylor, who runs the Facebook group for the podcast and is an old and dear friend of mine, has stage-three lung cancer. I will be hugely grateful to anyone who donates to the GoFundMe for her treatment. Errata At one point I say "when Robertson and Helm travelled to the Brill Building". I meant "when Hawkins and Helm". This is fixed in the transcript but not the recording. Resources There are three Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Bob Dylan and the Band excerpted, and Mixcloud won't allow more than four songs by the same artist in any mix, I've had to post the songs not in quite the same order in which they appear in the podcast. But the mixes are here — one, two, three. I've used these books for all the episodes involving Dylan: Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald, which is recommended, as all Wald's books are. Bob Dylan: All The Songs by Phillipe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon is a song-by-song look at every song Dylan ever wrote, as is Revolution in the Air, by Clinton Heylin. Heylin also wrote the most comprehensive and accurate biography of Dylan, Behind the Shades. I've also used Robert Shelton's No Direction Home, which is less accurate, but which is written by someone who knew Dylan. Chronicles Volume 1 by Bob Dylan is a partial, highly inaccurate, but thoroughly readable autobiography. Information on Tiny Tim comes from Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life of Tiny Tim by Justin Martell. Information on John Cage comes from The Roaring Silence by David Revill Information on Woodstock comes from Small Town Talk by Barney Hoskyns. For material on the Basement Tapes, I've used Million Dollar Bash by Sid Griffin. And for the Band, I've used This Wheel's on Fire by Levon Helm with Stephen Davis, Testimony by Robbie Robertson, The Band by Craig Harris and Levon by Sandra B Tooze. I've also referred to the documentaries No Direction Home and Once Were Brothers. The complete Basement Tapes can be found on this multi-disc box set, while this double-CD version has the best material from the sessions. All the surviving live recordings by Dylan and the Hawks from 1966 are on this box set. There are various deluxe versions of Music From Big Pink, but still the best way to get the original album is in this twofer CD with the Band's second album. Transcript Just a brief note before I start – literally while I was in the middle of recording this episode, it was announced that Robbie Robertson had died today, aged eighty. Obviously I've not had time to alter the rest of the episode – half of which had already been edited – with that in mind, though I don't believe I say anything disrespectful to his memory. My condolences to those who loved him – he was a huge talent and will be missed. There are people in the world who question the function of criticism. Those people argue that criticism is in many ways parasitic. If critics knew what they were talking about, so the argument goes, they would create themselves, rather than talk about other people's creation. It's a variant of the "those who can't, teach" cliche. And to an extent it's true. Certainly in the world of rock music, which we're talking about in this podcast, most critics are quite staggeringly ignorant of the things they're talking about. Most criticism is ephemeral, published in newspapers, magazines, blogs and podcasts, and forgotten as soon as it has been consumed -- and consumed is the word . But sometimes, just sometimes, a critic will have an effect on the world that is at least as important as that of any of the artists they criticise. One such critic was John Ruskin. Ruskin was one of the preeminent critics of visual art in the Victorian era, particularly specialising in painting and architecture, and he passionately advocated for a form of art that would be truthful, plain, and honest. To Ruskin's mind, many artists of the past, and of his time, drew and painted, not what they saw with their own eyes, but what other people expected them to paint. They replaced true observation of nature with the regurgitation of ever-more-mannered and formalised cliches. His attacks on many great artists were, in essence, the same critiques that are currently brought against AI art apps -- they're just recycling and plagiarising what other people had already done, not seeing with their own eyes and creating from their own vision. Ruskin was an artist himself, but never received much acclaim for his own work. Rather, he advocated for the works of others, like Turner and the pre-Raphaelite school -- the latter of whom were influenced by Ruskin, even as he admired them for seeing with their own vision rather than just repeating influences from others. But those weren't the only people Ruskin influenced. Because any critical project, properly understood, becomes about more than just the art -- as if art is just anything. Ruskin, for example, studied geology, because if you're going to talk about how people should paint landscapes and what those landscapes look like, you need to understand what landscapes really do look like, which means understanding their formation. He understood that art of the kind he wanted could only be produced by certain types of people, and so society had to be organised in a way to produce such people. Some types of societal organisation lead to some kinds of thinking and creation, and to properly, honestly, understand one branch of human thought means at least to attempt to understand all of them. Opinions about art have moral consequences, and morality has political and economic consequences. The inevitable endpoint of any theory of art is, ultimately, a theory of society. And Ruskin had a theory of society, and social organisation. Ruskin's views are too complex to summarise here, but they were a kind of anarcho-primitivist collectivism. He believed that wealth was evil, and that the classical liberal economics of people like Mill was fundamentally anti-human, that the division of labour alienated people from their work. In Ruskin's ideal world, people would gather in communities no bigger than villages, and work as craftspeople, working with nature rather than trying to bend nature to their will. They would be collectives, with none richer or poorer than any other, and working the land without modern technology. in the first half of the twentieth century, in particular, Ruskin's influence was *everywhere*. His writings on art inspired the Impressionist movement, but his political and economic ideas were the most influential, right across the political spectrum. Ruskin's ideas were closest to Christian socialism, and he did indeed inspire many socialist parties -- most of the founders of Britain's Labour Party were admirers of Ruskin and influenced by his ideas, particularly his opposition to the free market. But he inspired many other people -- Gandhi talked about the profound influence that Ruskin had on him, saying in his autobiography that he got three lessons from Ruskin's Unto This Last: "That 1) the good of the individual is contained in the good of all. 2) a lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's in as much as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work. 3) a life of labour, i.e., the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living. The first of these I knew. The second I had dimly realized. The third had never occurred to me. Unto This Last made it clear as daylight for me that the second and third were contained in the first. I arose with the dawn, ready to reduce these principles to practice" Gandhi translated and paraphrased Unto this Last into Gujurati and called the resulting book Sarvodaya (meaning "uplifting all" or "the welfare of all") which he later took as the name of his own political philosophy. But Ruskin also had a more pernicious influence -- it was said in 1930s Germany that he and his friend Thomas Carlyle were "the first National Socialists" -- there's no evidence I know of that Hitler ever read Ruskin, but a *lot* of Nazi rhetoric is implicit in Ruskin's writing, particularly in his opposition to progress (he even opposed the bicycle as being too much inhuman interference with nature), just as much as more admirable philosophies, and he was so widely read in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that there's barely a political movement anywhere that didn't bear his fingerprints. But of course, our focus here is on music. And Ruskin had an influence on that, too. We've talked in several episodes, most recently the one on the Velvet Underground, about John Cage's piece 4'33. What I didn't mention in any of the discussions of that piece -- because I was saving it for here -- is that that piece was premiered at a small concert hall in upstate New York. The hall, the Maverick Concert Hall, was owned and run by the Maverick arts and crafts collective -- a collective that were so called because they were the *second* Ruskinite arts colony in the area, having split off from the Byrdcliffe colony after a dispute between its three founders, all of whom were disciples of Ruskin, and all of whom disagreed violently about how to implement Ruskin's ideas of pacifist all-for-one and one-for-all community. These arts colonies, and others that grew up around them like the Arts Students League were the thriving centre of a Bohemian community -- close enough to New York that you could get there if you needed to, far enough away that you could live out your pastoral fantasies, and artists of all types flocked there -- Pete Seeger met his wife there, and his father-in-law had been one of the stonemasons who helped build the Maverick concert hall. Dozens of artists in all sorts of areas, from Aaron Copland to Edward G Robinson, spent time in these communities, as did Cage. Of course, while these arts and crafts communities had a reputation for Bohemianism and artistic extremism, even radical utopian artists have their limits, and legend has it that the premiere of 4'33 was met with horror and derision, and eventually led to one artist in the audience standing up and calling on the residents of the town around which these artistic colonies had agglomerated: “Good people of Woodstock, let's drive these people out of town.” [Excerpt: The Band, "The Weight"] Ronnie Hawkins was almost born to make music. We heard back in the episode on "Suzie Q" in 2019 about his family and their ties to music. Ronnie's uncle Del was, according to most of the sources on the family, a member of the Sons of the Pioneers -- though as I point out in that episode, his name isn't on any of the official lists of group members, but he might well have performed with them at some point in the early years of the group. And he was definitely a country music bass player, even if he *wasn't* in the most popular country and western group of the thirties and forties. And Del had had two sons, Jerry, who made some minor rockabilly records: [Excerpt: Jerry Hawkins, "Swing, Daddy, Swing"] And Del junior, who as we heard in the "Susie Q" episode became known as Dale Hawkins and made one of the most important rock records of the fifties: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, "Susie Q"] Ronnie Hawkins was around the same age as his cousins, and was in awe of his country-music star uncle. Hawkins later remembered that after his uncle moved to Califormia to become a star “He'd come home for a week or two, driving a brand new Cadillac and wearing brand new clothes and I knew that's what I wanted to be." Though he also remembered “He spent every penny he made on whiskey, and he was divorced because he was running around with all sorts of women. His wife left Arkansas and went to Louisiana.” Hawkins knew that he wanted to be a music star like his uncle, and he started performing at local fairs and other events from the age of eleven, including one performance where he substituted for Hank Williams -- Williams was so drunk that day he couldn't perform, and so his backing band asked volunteers from the audience to get up and sing with them, and Hawkins sang Burl Ives and minstrel-show songs with the band. He said later “Even back then I knew that every important white cat—Al Jolson, Stephen Foster—they all did it by copying blacks. Even Hank Williams learned all the stuff he had from those black cats in Alabama. Elvis Presley copied black music; that's all that Elvis did.” As well as being a performer from an early age, though, Hawkins was also an entrepreneur with an eye for how to make money. From the age of fourteen he started running liquor -- not moonshine, he would always point out, but something far safer. He lived only a few miles from the border between Missouri and Arkansas, and alcohol and tobacco were about half the price in Missouri that they were in Arkansas, so he'd drive across the border, load up on whisky and cigarettes, and drive back and sell them at a profit, which he then used to buy shares in several nightclubs, which he and his bands would perform in in later years. Like every man of his generation, Hawkins had to do six months in the Army, and it was there that he joined his first ever full-time band, the Blackhawks -- so called because his name was Hawkins, and the rest of the group were Black, though Hawkins was white. They got together when the other four members were performing at a club in the area where Hawkins was stationed, and he was so impressed with their music that he jumped on stage and started singing with them. He said later “It sounded like something between the blues and rockabilly. It sort of leaned in both directions at the same time, me being a hayseed and those guys playing a lot funkier." As he put it "I wanted to sound like Bobby ‘Blue' Bland but it came out sounding like Ernest Tubb.” Word got around about the Blackhawks, both that they were a great-sounding rock and roll band and that they were an integrated band at a time when that was extremely unpopular in the southern states, and when Hawkins was discharged from the Army he got a call from Sam Phillips at Sun Records. According to Hawkins a group of the regular Sun session musicians were planning on forming a band, and he was asked to front the band for a hundred dollars a week, but by the time he got there the band had fallen apart. This doesn't precisely line up with anything else I know about Sun, though it perhaps makes sense if Hawkins was being asked to front the band who had variously backed Billy Lee Riley and Jerry Lee Lewis after one of Riley's occasional threats to leave the label. More likely though, he told everyone he knew that he had a deal with Sun but Phillips was unimpressed with the demos he cut there, and Hawkins made up the story to stop himself losing face. One of the session players for Sun, though, Luke Paulman, who played in Conway Twitty's band among others, *was* impressed with Hawkins though, and suggested that they form a band together with Paulman's bass player brother George and piano-playing cousin Pop Jones. The Paulman brothers and Jones also came from Arkansas, but they specifically came from Helena, Arkansas, the town from which King Biscuit Time was broadcast. King Biscuit Time was the most important blues radio show in the US at that time -- a short lunchtime programme which featured live performances from a house band which varied over the years, but which in the 1940s had been led by Sonny Boy Williamson II, and featured Robert Jr. Lockwood, Robert Johnson's stepson, on guiitar: [Excerpt: Sonny Boy Williamson II "Eyesight to the Blind (King Biscuit Time)"] The band also included a drummer, "Peck" Curtis, and that drummer was the biggest inspiration for a young white man from the town named Levon Helm. Helm had first been inspired to make music after seeing Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys play live when Helm was eight, and he had soon taken up first the harmonica, then the guitar, then the drums, becoming excellent at all of them. Even as a child he knew that he didn't want to be a farmer like his family, and that music was, as he put it, "the only way to get off that stinking tractor  and out of that one hundred and five degree heat.” Sonny Boy Williamson and the King Biscuit Boys would perform in the open air in Marvell, Arkansas, where Helm was growing up, on Saturdays, and Helm watched them regularly as a small child, and became particularly interested in the drumming. “As good as the band sounded,” he said later “it seemed that [Peck] was definitely having the most fun. I locked into the drums at that point. Later, I heard Jack Nance, Conway Twitty's drummer, and all the great drummers in Memphis—Jimmy Van Eaton, Al Jackson, and Willie Hall—the Chicago boys (Fred Belew and Clifton James) and the people at Sun Records and Vee-Jay, but most of my style was based on Peck and Sonny Boy—the Delta blues style with the shuffle. Through the years, I've quickened the pace to a more rock-and-roll meter and time frame, but it still bases itself back to Peck, Sonny Boy Williamson, and the King Biscuit Boys.” Helm had played with another band that George Paulman had played in, and he was invited to join the fledgling band Hawkins was putting together, called for the moment the Sun Records Quartet. The group played some of the clubs Hawkins had business connections in, but they had other plans -- Conway Twitty had recently played Toronto, and had told Luke Paulman about how desperate the Canadians were for American rock and roll music. Twitty's agent Harold Kudlets booked the group in to a Toronto club, Le Coq D'Or, and soon the group were alternating between residencies in clubs in the Deep South, where they were just another rockabilly band, albeit one of the better ones, and in Canada, where they became the most popular band in Ontario, and became the nucleus of an entire musical scene -- the same scene from which, a few years later, people like Neil Young would emerge. George Paulman didn't remain long in the group -- he was apparently getting drunk, and also he was a double-bass player, at a time when the electric bass was becoming the in thing. And this is the best place to mention this, but there are several discrepancies in the various accounts of which band members were in Hawkins' band at which times, and who played on what session. They all *broadly* follow the same lines, but none of them are fully reconcilable with each other, and nobody was paying enough attention to lineup shifts in a bar band between 1957 and 1964 to be absolutely certain who was right. I've tried to reconcile the various accounts as far as possible and make a coherent narrative, but some of the details of what follows may be wrong, though the broad strokes are correct. For much of their first period in Ontario, the group had no bass player at all, relying on Jones' piano to fill in the bass parts, and on their first recording, a version of "Bo Diddley", they actually got the club's manager to play bass with them: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins, "Hey Bo Diddley"] That is claimed to be the first rock and roll record made in Canada, though as everyone who has listened to this podcast knows, there's no first anything. It wasn't released as by the Sun Records Quartet though -- the band had presumably realised that that name would make them much less attractive to other labels, and so by this point the Sun Records Quartet had become Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks. "Hey Bo Diddley" was released on a small Canadian label and didn't have any success, but the group carried on performing live, travelling back down to Arkansas for a while and getting a new bass player, Lefty Evans, who had been playing in the same pool of musicians as them, having been another Sun session player who had been in Conway Twitty's band, and had written Twitty's "Why Can't I Get Through to You": [Excerpt: Conway Twitty, "Why Can't I Get Through to You"] The band were now popular enough in Canada that they were starting to get heard of in America, and through Kudlets they got a contract with Joe Glaser, a Mafia-connected booking agent who booked them into gigs on the Jersey Shore. As Helm said “Ronnie Hawkins had molded us into the wildest, fiercest, speed-driven bar band in America," and the group were apparently getting larger audiences in New Jersey than Sammy Davis Jr was, even though they hadn't released any records in the US. Or at least, they hadn't released any records in their own name in the US. There's a record on End Records by Rockin' Ronald and the Rebels which is very strongly rumoured to have been the Hawks under another name, though Hawkins always denied that. Have a listen for yourself and see what you think: [Excerpt: Rockin' Ronald and the Rebels, "Kansas City"] End Records, the label that was on, was one of the many record labels set up by George Goldner and distributed by Morris Levy, and when the group did release a record in their home country under their own name, it was on Levy's Roulette Records. An audition for Levy had been set up by Glaser's booking company, and Levy decided that given that Elvis was in the Army, there was a vacancy to be filled and Ronnie Hawkins might just fit the bill. Hawkins signed a contract with Levy, and it doesn't sound like he had much choice in the matter. Helm asked him “How long did you have to sign for?” and Hawkins replied "Life with an option" That said, unlike almost every other artist who interacted with Levy, Hawkins never had a bad word to say about him, at least in public, saying later “I don't care what Morris was supposed to have done, he looked after me and he believed in me. I even lived with him in his million-dollar apartment on the Upper East Side." The first single the group recorded for Roulette, a remake of Chuck Berry's "Thirty Days" retitled "Forty Days", didn't chart, but the follow-up, a version of Young Jessie's "Mary Lou", made number twenty-six on the charts: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Mary Lou"] While that was a cover of a Young Jessie record, the songwriting credits read Hawkins and Magill -- Magill was a pseudonym used by Morris Levy. Levy hoped to make Ronnie Hawkins into a really big star, but hit a snag. This was just the point where the payola scandal had hit and record companies were under criminal investigation for bribing DJs to play their records. This was the main method of promotion that Levy used, and this was so well known that Levy was, for a time, under more scrutiny than anyone. He couldn't risk paying anyone off, and so Hawkins' records didn't get the expected airplay. The group went through some lineup changes, too, bringing in guitarist Fred Carter (with Luke Paulman moving to rhythm and soon leaving altogether)  from Hawkins' cousin Dale's band, and bass player Jimmy Evans. Some sources say that Jones quit around this time, too, though others say he was in the band for  a while longer, and they had two keyboards (the other keyboard being supplied by Stan Szelest. As well as recording Ronnie Hawkins singles, the new lineup of the group also recorded one single with Carter on lead vocals, "My Heart Cries": [Excerpt: Fred Carter, "My Heart Cries"] While the group were now playing more shows in the USA, they were still playing regularly in Canada, and they had developed a huge fanbase there. One of these was a teenage guitarist called Robbie Robertson, who had become fascinated with the band after playing a support slot for them, and had started hanging round, trying to ingratiate himself with the band in the hope of being allowed to join. As he was a teenager, Hawkins thought he might have his finger on the pulse of the youth market, and when Hawkins and Helm travelled to the Brill Building to hear new songs for consideration for their next album, they brought Robertson along to listen to them and give his opinion. Robertson himself ended up contributing two songs to the album, titled Mr. Dynamo. According to Hawkins "we had a little time after the session, so I thought, Well, I'm just gonna put 'em down and see what happens. And they were released. Robbie was the songwriter for words, and Levon was good for arranging, making things fit in and all that stuff. He knew what to do, but he didn't write anything." The two songs in question were "Someone Like You" and "Hey Boba Lou": [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Hey Boba Lou"] While Robertson was the sole writer of the songs, they were credited to Robertson, Hawkins, and Magill -- Morris Levy. As Robertson told the story later, “It's funny, when those songs came out and I got a copy of the album, it had another name on there besides my name for some writer like Morris Levy. So, I said to Ronnie, “There was nobody there writing these songs when I wrote these songs. Who is Morris Levy?” Ronnie just kinda tapped me on the head and said, “There are certain things about this business that you just let go and you don't question.” That was one of my early music industry lessons right there" Robertson desperately wanted to join the Hawks, but initially it was Robertson's bandmate Scott Cushnie who became the first Canadian to join the Hawks. But then when they were in Arkansas, Jimmy Evans decided he wasn't going to go back to Canada. So Hawkins called Robbie Robertson up and made him an offer. Robertson had to come down to Arkansas and get a couple of quick bass lessons from Helm (who could play pretty much every instrument to an acceptable standard, and so was by this point acting as the group's musical director, working out arrangements and leading them in rehearsals). Then Hawkins and Helm had to be elsewhere for a few weeks. If, when they got back, Robertson was good enough on bass, he had the job. If not, he didn't. Robertson accepted, but he nearly didn't get the gig after all. The place Hawkins and Helm had to be was Britain, where they were going to be promoting their latest single on Boy Meets Girls, the Jack Good TV series with Marty Wilde, which featured guitarist Joe Brown in the backing band: [Excerpt: Joe Brown, “Savage”] This was the same series that Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent were regularly appearing on, and while they didn't appear on the episodes that Hawkins and Helm appeared on, they did appear on the episodes immediately before Hawkins and Helm's two appearances, and again a couple of weeks after, and were friendly with the musicians who did play with Hawkins and Helm, and apparently they all jammed together a few times. Hawkins was impressed enough with Joe Brown -- who at the time was considered the best guitarist on the British scene -- that he invited Brown to become a Hawk. Presumably if Brown had taken him up on the offer, he would have taken the spot that ended up being Robertson's, but Brown turned him down -- a decision he apparently later regretted. Robbie Robertson was now a Hawk, and he and Helm formed an immediate bond. As Helm much later put it, "It was me and Robbie against the world. Our mission, as we saw it, was to put together the best band in history". As rockabilly was by this point passe, Levy tried converting Hawkins into a folk artist, to see if he could get some of the Kingston Trio's audience. He recorded a protest song, "The Ballad of Caryl Chessman", protesting the then-forthcoming execution of Chessman (one of only a handful of people to be executed in the US in recent decades for non-lethal offences), and he made an album of folk tunes, The Folk Ballads of Ronnie Hawkins, which largely consisted of solo acoustic recordings, plus a handful of left-over Hawks recordings from a year or so earlier. That wasn't a success, but they also tried a follow-up, having Hawkins go country and do an album of Hank Williams songs, recorded in Nashville at Owen Bradley's Quonset hut. While many of the musicians on the album were Nashville A-Team players, Hawkins also insisted on having his own band members perform, much to the disgust of the producer, and so it's likely (not certain, because there seem to be various disagreements about what was recorded when) that that album features the first studio recordings with Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson playing together: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Your Cheatin' Heart"] Other sources claim that the only Hawk allowed to play on the album sessions was Helm, and that the rest of the musicians on the album were Harold Bradley and Hank Garland on guitar, Owen Bradley and Floyd Cramer on piano, Bob Moore on bass, and the Anita Kerr singers. I tend to trust Helm's recollection that the Hawks played at least some of the instruments though, because the source claiming that also seems to confuse the Hank Williams and Folk Ballads albums, and because I don't hear two pianos on the album. On the other hand, that *does* sound like Floyd Cramer on piano, and the tik-tok bass sound you'd get from having Harold Bradley play a baritone guitar while Bob Moore played a bass. So my best guess is that these sessions were like the Elvis sessions around the same time and with several of the same musicians, where Elvis' own backing musicians played rhythm parts but left the prominent instruments to the A-team players. Helm was singularly unimpressed with the experience of recording in Nashville. His strongest memory of the sessions was of another session going on in the same studio complex at the time -- Bobby "Blue" Bland was recording his classic single "Turn On Your Love Light", with the great drummer Jabo Starks on drums, and Helm was more interested in listening to that than he was in the music they were playing: [Excerpt: Bobby "Blue" Bland, "Turn On Your Love Light"] Incidentally, Helm talks about that recording being made "downstairs" from where the Hawks were recording, but also says that they were recording in Bradley's Quonset hut.  Now, my understanding here *could* be very wrong -- I've been unable to find a plan or schematic anywhere -- but my understanding is that the Quonset hut was a single-level structure, not a multi-level structure. BUT the original recording facilities run by the Bradley brothers were in Owen Bradley's basement, before they moved into the larger Quonset hut facility in the back, so it's possible that Bland was recording that in the old basement studio. If so, that won't be the last recording made in a basement we hear this episode... Fred Carter decided during the Nashville sessions that he was going to leave the Hawks. As his son told the story: "Dad had discovered the session musicians there. He had no idea that you could play and make a living playing in studios and sleep in your own bed every night. By that point in his life, he'd already been gone from home and constantly on the road and in the service playing music for ten years so that appealed to him greatly. And Levon asked him, he said, “If you're gonna leave, Fred, I'd like you to get young Robbie over here up to speed on guitar”…[Robbie] got kind of aggravated with him—and Dad didn't say this with any malice—but by the end of that week, or whatever it was, Robbie made some kind of comment about “One day I'm gonna cut you.” And Dad said, “Well, if that's how you think about it, the lessons are over.” " (For those who don't know, a musician "cutting" another one is playing better than them, so much better that the worse musician has to concede defeat. For the remainder of Carter's notice in the Hawks, he played with his back to Robertson, refusing to look at him. Carter leaving the group caused some more shuffling of roles. For a while, Levon Helm -- who Hawkins always said was the best lead guitar player he ever worked with as well as the best drummer -- tried playing lead guitar while Robertson played rhythm and another member, Rebel Payne, played bass, but they couldn't find a drummer to replace Helm, who moved back onto the drums. Then they brought in Roy Buchanan, another guitarist who had been playing with Dale Hawkins, having started out playing with Johnny Otis' band. But Buchanan didn't fit with Hawkins' personality, and he quit after a few months, going off to record his own first solo record: [Excerpt: Roy Buchanan, "Mule Train Stomp"] Eventually they solved the lineup problem by having Robertson -- by this point an accomplished lead player --- move to lead guitar and bringing in a new rhythm player, another Canadian teenager named Rick Danko, who had originally been a lead player (and who also played mandolin and fiddle). Danko wasn't expected to stay on rhythm long though -- Rebel Payne was drinking a lot and missing being at home when he was out on the road, so Danko was brought in on the understanding that he was to learn Payne's bass parts and switch to bass when Payne quit. Helm and Robertson were unsure about Danko, and Robertson expressed that doubt, saying "He only knows four chords," to which Hawkins replied, "That's all right son. You can teach him four more the way we had to teach you." He proved himself by sheer hard work. As Hawkins put it “He practiced so much that his arms swoll up. He was hurting.” By the time Danko switched to bass, the group also had a baritone sax player, Jerry Penfound, which allowed the group to play more of the soul and R&B material that Helm and Robertson favoured, though Hawkins wasn't keen. This new lineup of the group (which also had Stan Szelest on piano) recorded Hawkins' next album. This one was produced by Henry Glover, the great record producer, songwriter, and trumpet player who had played with Lucky Millinder, produced Wynonie Harris, Hank Ballard, and Moon Mullican, and wrote "Drowning in My Own Tears", "The Peppermint Twist", and "California Sun". Glover was massively impressed with the band, especially Helm (with whom he would remain friends for the rest of his life) and set aside some studio time for them to cut some tracks without Hawkins, to be used as album filler, including a version of the Bobby "Blue" Bland song "Farther On Up the Road" with Helm on lead vocals: [Excerpt: Levon Helm and the Hawks, "Farther On Up the Road"] There were more changes on the way though. Stan Szelest was about to leave the band, and Jones had already left, so the group had no keyboard player. Hawkins had just the replacement for Szelest -- yet another Canadian teenager. This one was Richard Manuel, who played piano and sang in a band called The Rockin' Revols. Manuel was not the greatest piano player around -- he was an adequate player for simple rockabilly and R&B stuff, but hardly a virtuoso -- but he was an incredible singer, able to do a version of "Georgia on My Mind" which rivalled Ray Charles, and Hawkins had booked the Revols into his own small circuit of clubs around Arkanasas after being impressed with them on the same bill as the Hawks a couple of times. Hawkins wanted someone with a good voice because he was increasingly taking a back seat in performances. Hawkins was the bandleader and frontman, but he'd often given Helm a song or two to sing in the show, and as they were often playing for several hours a night, the more singers the band had the better. Soon, with Helm, Danko, and Manuel all in the group and able to take lead vocals, Hawkins would start missing entire shows, though he still got more money than any of his backing group. Hawkins was also a hard taskmaster, and wanted to have the best band around. He already had great musicians, but he wanted them to be *the best*. And all the musicians in his band were now much younger than him, with tons of natural talent, but untrained. What he needed was someone with proper training, someone who knew theory and technique. He'd been trying for a long time to get someone like that, but Garth Hudson had kept turning him down. Hudson was older than any of the Hawks, though younger than Hawkins, and he was a multi-instrumentalist who was far better than any other musician on the circuit, having trained in a conservatory and learned how to play Bach and Chopin before switching to rock and roll. He thought the Hawks were too loud sounding and played too hard for him, but Helm kept on at Hawkins to meet any demands Hudson had, and Hawkins eventually agreed to give Hudson a higher wage than any of the other band members, buy him a new Lowry organ, and give him an extra ten dollars a week to give the rest of the band music lessons. Hudson agreed, and the Hawks now had a lineup of Helm on drums, Robertson on guitar, Manuel on piano, Danko on bass, Hudson on organ and alto sax, and Penfound on baritone sax. But these new young musicians were beginning to wonder why they actually needed a frontman who didn't turn up to many of the gigs, kept most of the money, and fined them whenever they broke one of his increasingly stringent set of rules. Indeed, they wondered why they needed a frontman at all. They already had three singers -- and sometimes a fourth, a singer called Bruce Bruno who would sometimes sit in with them when Penfound was unable to make a gig. They went to see Harold Kudlets, who Hawkins had recently sacked as his manager, and asked him if he could get them gigs for the same amount of money as they'd been getting with Hawkins. Kudlets was astonished to find how little Hawkins had been paying them, and told them that would be no problem at all. They had no frontman any more -- and made it a rule in all their contracts that the word "sideman" would never be used -- but Helm had been the leader for contractual purposes, as the musical director and longest-serving member (Hawkins, as a non-playing singer, had never joined the Musicians' Union so couldn't be the leader on contracts). So the band that had been Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks became the Levon Helm Sextet briefly -- but Penfound soon quit, and they became Levon and the Hawks. The Hawks really started to find their identity as their own band in 1964. They were already far more interested in playing soul than Hawkins had been, but they were also starting to get into playing soul *jazz*, especially after seeing the Cannonball Adderley Sextet play live: [Excerpt: Cannonball Adderley, "This Here"] What the group admired about the Adderley group more than anything else was a sense of restraint. Helm was particularly impressed with their drummer, Louie Hayes, and said of him "I got to see some great musicians over the years, and you see somebody like that play and you can tell, y' know, that the thing not to do is to just get it down on the floor and stomp the hell out of it!" The other influence they had, and one which would shape their sound even more, was a negative one. The two biggest bands on the charts at the time were the Beatles and the Beach Boys, and as Helm described it in his autobiography, the Hawks thought both bands' harmonies were "a blend of pale, homogenised, voices". He said "We felt we were better than the Beatles and the Beach Boys. We considered them our rivals, even though they'd never heard of us", and they decided to make their own harmonies sound as different as possible as a result. Where those groups emphasised a vocal blend, the Hawks were going to emphasise the *difference* in their voices in their own harmonies. The group were playing prestigious venues like the Peppermint Lounge, and while playing there they met up with John Hammond Jr, who they'd met previously in Canada. As you might remember from the first episode on Bob Dylan, Hammond Jr was the son of the John Hammond who we've talked about in many episodes, and was a blues musician in his own right. He invited Helm, Robertson, and Hudson to join the musicians, including Michael Bloomfield, who were playing on his new album, So Many Roads: [Excerpt: John P. Hammond, "Who Do You Love?"] That album was one of the inspirations that led Bob Dylan to start making electric rock music and to hire Bloomfield as his guitarist, decisions that would have profound implications for the Hawks. The first single the Hawks recorded for themselves after leaving Hawkins was produced by Henry Glover, and both sides were written by Robbie Robertson. "uh Uh Uh" shows the influence of the R&B bands they were listening to. What it reminds me most of is the material Ike and Tina Turner were playing at the time, but at points I think I can also hear the influence of Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper, who were rapidly becoming Robertson's favourite songwriters: [Excerpt: The Canadian Squires, "Uh Uh Uh"] None of the band were happy with that record, though. They'd played in the studio the same way they played live, trying to get a strong bass presence, but it just sounded bottom-heavy to them when they heard the record on a jukebox. That record was released as by The Canadian Squires -- according to Robertson, that was a name that the label imposed on them for the record, while according to Helm it was an alternative name they used so they could get bookings in places they'd only recently played, which didn't want the same band to play too often. One wonders if there was any confusion with the band Neil Young played in a year or so before that single... Around this time, the group also met up with Helm's old musical inspiration Sonny Boy Williamson II, who was impressed enough with them that there was some talk of them being his backing band (and it was in this meeting that Williamson apparently told Robertson "those English boys want to play the blues so bad, and they play the blues *so bad*", speaking of the bands who'd backed him in the UK, like the Yardbirds and the Animals). But sadly, Williamson died in May 1965 before any of these plans had time to come to fruition. Every opportunity for the group seemed to be closing up, even as they knew they were as good as any band around them. They had an offer from Aaron Schroeder, who ran Musicor Records but was more importantly a songwriter and publisher who  had written for Elvis Presley and published Gene Pitney. Schroeder wanted to sign the Hawks as a band and Robertson as a songwriter, but Henry Glover looked over the contracts for them, and told them "If you sign this you'd better be able to pay each other, because nobody else is going to be paying you". What happened next is the subject of some controversy, because as these things tend to go, several people became aware of the Hawks at the same time, but it's generally considered that nothing would have happened the same way were it not for Mary Martin. Martin is a pivotal figure in music business history -- among other things she discovered Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot, managed Van Morrison, and signed Emmylou Harris to Warner Brothers records -- but a somewhat unknown one who doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Martin was from Toronto, but had moved to New York, where she was working in Albert Grossman's office, but she still had many connections to Canadian musicians and kept an eye out for them. The group had sent demo tapes to Grossman's offices, and Grossman had had no interest in them, but Martin was a fan and kept pushing the group on Grossman and his associates. One of those associates, of course, was Grossman's client Bob Dylan. As we heard in the episode on "Like a Rolling Stone", Dylan had started making records with electric backing, with musicians who included Mike Bloomfield, who had played with several of the Hawks on the Hammond album, and Al Kooper, who was a friend of the band. Martin gave Richard Manuel a copy of Dylan's new electric album Highway 61 Revisited, and he enjoyed it, though the rest of the group were less impressed: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Highway 61 Revisited"] Dylan had played the Newport Folk Festival with some of the same musicians as played on his records, but Bloomfield in particular was more interested in continuing to play with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band than continuing with Dylan long-term. Mary Martin kept telling Dylan about this Canadian band she knew who would be perfect for him, and various people associated with the Grossman organisation, including Hammond, have claimed to have been sent down to New Jersey where the Hawks were playing to check them out in their live setting. The group have also mentioned that someone who looked a lot like Dylan was seen at some of their shows. Eventually, Dylan phoned Helm up and made an offer. He didn't need a full band at the moment -- he had Harvey Brooks on bass and Al Kooper on keyboards -- but he did need a lead guitar player and drummer for a couple of gigs he'd already booked, one in Forest Hills, New York, and a bigger gig at the Hollywood Bowl. Helm, unfamiliar with Dylan's work, actually asked Howard Kudlets if Dylan was capable of filling the Hollywood Bowl. The musicians rehearsed together and got a set together for the shows. Robertson and Helm thought the band sounded terrible, but Dylan liked the sound they were getting a lot. The audience in Forest Hills agreed with the Hawks, rather than Dylan, or so it would appear. As we heard in the "Like a Rolling Stone" episode, Dylan's turn towards rock music was *hated* by the folk purists who saw him as some sort of traitor to the movement, a movement whose figurehead he had become without wanting to. There were fifteen thousand people in the audience, and they listened politely enough to the first set, which Dylan played acoustically, But before the second set -- his first ever full electric set, rather than the very abridged one at Newport -- he told the musicians “I don't know what it will be like out there It's going to be some kind of  carnival and I want you to all know that up front. So go out there and keep playing no matter how weird it gets!” There's a terrible-quality audience recording of that show in circulation, and you can hear the crowd's reaction to the band and to the new material: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Ballad of a Thin Man" (live Forest Hills 1965, audience noise only)] The audience also threw things  at the musicians, knocking Al Kooper off his organ stool at one point. While Robertson remembered the Hollywood Bowl show as being an equally bad reaction, Helm remembered the audience there as being much more friendly, and the better-quality recording of that show seems to side with Helm: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Maggie's Farm (live at the Hollywood Bowl 1965)"] After those two shows, Helm and Robertson went back to their regular gig. and in September they made another record. This one, again produced by Glover, was for Atlantic's Atco subsidiary, and was released as by Levon and the Hawks. Manuel took lead, and again both songs were written by Robertson: [Excerpt: Levon and the Hawks, "He Don't Love You (And He'll Break Your Heart)"] But again that record did nothing. Dylan was about to start his first full electric tour, and while Helm and Robertson had not thought the shows they'd played sounded particularly good, Dylan had, and he wanted the two of them to continue with him. But Robertson and, especially, Helm, were not interested in being someone's sidemen. They explained to Dylan that they already had a band -- Levon and the Hawks -- and he would take all of them or he would take none of them. Helm in particular had not been impressed with Dylan's music -- Helm was fundamentally an R&B fan, while Dylan's music was rooted in genres he had little time for -- but he was OK with doing it, so long as the entire band got to. As Mary Martin put it “I think that the wonderful and the splendid heart of the band, if you will, was Levon, and I think he really sort of said, ‘If it's just myself as drummer and Robbie…we're out. We don't want that. It's either us, the band, or nothing.' And you know what? Good for him.” Rather amazingly, Dylan agreed. When the band's residency in New Jersey finished, they headed back to Toronto to play some shows there, and Dylan flew up and rehearsed with them after each show. When the tour started, the billing was "Bob Dylan with Levon and the Hawks". That billing wasn't to last long. Dylan had been booked in for nine months of touring, and was also starting work on what would become widely considered the first double album in rock music history, Blonde on Blonde, and the original plan was that Levon and the Hawks would play with him throughout that time.  The initial recording sessions for the album produced nothing suitable for release -- the closest was "I Wanna Be Your Lover", a semi-parody of the Beatles' "I Want to be Your Man": [Excerpt: Bob Dylan with Levon and the Hawks, "I Wanna Be Your Lover"] But shortly into the tour, Helm quit. The booing had continued, and had even got worse, and Helm simply wasn't in the business to be booed at every night. Also, his whole conception of music was that you dance to it, and nobody was dancing to any of this. Helm quit the band, only telling Robertson of his plans, and first went off to LA, where he met up with some musicians from Oklahoma who had enjoyed seeing the Hawks when they'd played that state and had since moved out West -- people like Leon Russell, J.J. Cale (not John Cale of the Velvet Underground, but the one who wrote "Cocaine" which Eric Clapton later had a hit with), and John Ware (who would later go on to join the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band). They started loosely jamming with each other, sometimes also involving a young singer named Linda Ronstadt, but Helm eventually decided to give up music and go and work on an oil rig in New Orleans. Levon and the Hawks were now just the Hawks. The rest of the group soldiered on, replacing Helm with session drummer Bobby Gregg (who had played on Dylan's previous couple of albums, and had previously played with Sun Ra), and played on the initial sessions for Blonde on Blonde. But of those sessions, Dylan said a few weeks later "Oh, I was really down. I mean, in ten recording sessions, man, we didn't get one song ... It was the band. But you see, I didn't know that. I didn't want to think that" One track from the sessions did get released -- the non-album single "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?"] There's some debate as to exactly who's playing drums on that -- Helm says in his autobiography that it's him, while the credits in the official CD releases tend to say it's Gregg. Either way, the track was an unexpected flop, not making the top forty in the US, though it made the top twenty in the UK. But the rest of the recordings with the now Helmless Hawks were less successful. Dylan was trying to get his new songs across, but this was a band who were used to playing raucous music for dancing, and so the attempts at more subtle songs didn't come off the way he wanted: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Hawks, "Visions of Johanna (take 5, 11-30-1965)"] Only one track from those initial New York sessions made the album -- "One Of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" -- but even that only featured Robertson and Danko of the Hawks, with the rest of the instruments being played by session players: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan (One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)"] The Hawks were a great live band, but great live bands are not necessarily the same thing as a great studio band. And that's especially the case with someone like Dylan. Dylan was someone who was used to recording entirely on his own, and to making records *quickly*. In total, for his fifteen studio albums up to 1974's Blood on the Tracks, Dylan spent a total of eighty-six days in the studio -- by comparison, the Beatles spent over a hundred days in the studio just on the Sgt Pepper album. It's not that the Hawks weren't a good band -- very far from it -- but that studio recording requires a different type of discipline, and that's doubly the case when you're playing with an idiosyncratic player like Dylan. The Hawks would remain Dylan's live backing band, but he wouldn't put out a studio recording with them backing him until 1974. Instead, Bob Johnston, the producer Dylan was working with, suggested a different plan. On his previous album, the Nashville session player Charlie McCoy had guested on "Desolation Row" and Dylan had found him easy to work with. Johnston lived in Nashville, and suggested that they could get the album completed more quickly and to Dylan's liking by using Nashville A-Team musicians. Dylan agreed to try it, and for the rest of the album he had Robertson on lead guitar and Al Kooper on keyboards, but every other musician was a Nashville session player, and they managed to get Dylan's songs recorded quickly and the way he heard them in his head: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine"] Though Dylan being Dylan he did try to introduce an element of randomness to the recordings by having the Nashville musicians swap their instruments around and play each other's parts on "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35", though the Nashville players were still competent enough that they managed to get a usable, if shambolic, track recorded that way in a single take: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"] Dylan said later of the album "The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up." The album was released in late June 1966, a week before Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention, another double album, produced by Dylan's old producer Tom Wilson, and a few weeks after Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. Dylan was at the forefront of a new progressive movement in rock music, a movement that was tying thoughtful, intelligent lyrics to studio experimentation and yet somehow managing to have commercial success. And a month after Blonde on Blonde came out, he stepped away from that position, and would never fully return to it. The first half of 1966 was taken up with near-constant touring, with Dylan backed by the Hawks and a succession of fill-in drummers -- first Bobby Gregg, then Sandy Konikoff, then Mickey Jones. This tour started in the US and Canada, with breaks for recording the album, and then moved on to Australia and Europe. The shows always followed the same pattern. First Dylan would perform an acoustic set, solo, with just an acoustic guitar and harmonica, which would generally go down well with the audience -- though sometimes they would get restless, prompting a certain amount of resistance from the performer: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Just Like a Woman (live Paris 1966)"] But the second half of each show was electric, and that was where the problems would arise. The Hawks were playing at the top of their game -- some truly stunning performances: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Hawks, "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (live in Liverpool 1966)"] But while the majority of the audience was happy to hear the music, there was a vocal portion that were utterly furious at the change in Dylan's musical style. Most notoriously, there was the performance at Manchester Free Trade Hall where this happened: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone (live Manchester 1966)"] That kind of aggression from the audience had the effect of pushing the band on to greater heights a lot of the time -- and a bootleg of that show, mislabelled as the Royal Albert Hall, became one of the most legendary bootlegs in rock music history. Jimmy Page would apparently buy a copy of the bootleg every time he saw one, thinking it was the best album ever made. But while Dylan and the Hawks played defiantly, that kind of audience reaction gets wearing. As Dylan later said, “Judas, the most hated name in human history, and for what—for playing an electric guitar. As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord, and delivering him up to be crucified; all those evil mothers can rot in hell.” And this wasn't the only stress Dylan, in particular, was under. D.A. Pennebaker was making a documentary of the tour -- a follow-up to his documentary of the 1965 tour, which had not yet come out. Dylan talked about the 1965 documentary, Don't Look Back, as being Pennebaker's film of Dylan, but this was going to be Dylan's film, with him directing the director. That footage shows Dylan as nervy and anxious, and covering for the anxiety with a veneer of flippancy. Some of Dylan's behaviour on both tours is unpleasant in ways that can't easily be justified (and which he has later publicly regretted), but there's also a seeming cruelty to some of his interactions with the press and public that actually reads more as frustration. Over and over again he's asked questions -- about being the voice of a generation or the leader of a protest movement -- which are simply based on incorrect premises. When someone asks you a question like this, there are only a few options you can take, none of them good. You can dissect the question, revealing the incorrect premises, and then answer a different question that isn't what they asked, which isn't really an option at all given the kind of rapid-fire situation Dylan was in. You can answer the question as asked, which ends up being dishonest. Or you can be flip and dismissive, which is the tactic Dylan chose. Dylan wasn't the only one -- this is basically what the Beatles did at press conferences. But where the Beatles were a gang and so came off as being fun, Dylan doing the same thing came off as arrogant and aggressive. One of the most famous artifacts of the whole tour is a long piece of footage recorded for the documentary, with Dylan and John Lennon riding in the back of a taxi, both clearly deeply uncomfortable, trying to be funny and impress the other, but neither actually wanting to be there: [Excerpt Dylan and Lennon conversation] 33) Part of the reason Dylan wanted to go home was that he had a whole new lifestyle. Up until 1964 he had been very much a city person, but as he had grown more famous, he'd found New York stifling. Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary had a cabin in Woodstock, where he'd grown up, and after Dylan had spent a month there in summer 1964, he'd fallen in love with the area. Albert Grossman had also bought a home there, on Yarrow's advice, and had given Dylan free run of the place, and Dylan had decided he wanted to move there permanently and bought his own home there. He had also married, to Sara Lowndes (whose name is, as far as I can tell, pronounced "Sarah" even though it's spelled "Sara"), and she had given birth to his first child (and he had adopted her child from her previous marriage). Very little is actually known about Sara, who unlike many other partners of rock stars at this point seemed positively to detest the limelight, and whose privacy Dylan has continued to respect even after the end of their marriage in the late seventies, but it's apparent that the two were very much in love, and that Dylan wanted to be back with his wife and kids, in the country, not going from one strange city to another being asked insipid questions and having abuse screamed at him. He was also tired of the pressure to produce work constantly. He'd signed a contract for a novel, called Tarantula, which he'd written a draft of but was unhappy with, and he'd put out two single albums and a double-album in a little over a year -- all of them considered among the greatest albums ever made. He could only keep up this rate of production and performance with a large intake of speed, and he was sometimes staying up for four days straight to do so. After the European leg of the tour, Dylan was meant to take some time to finish overdubs on Blonde on Blonde, edit the film of the tour for a TV special, with his friend Howard Alk, and proof the galleys for Tarantula, before going on a second world tour in the autumn. That world tour never happened. Dylan was in a motorcycle accident near his home, and had to take time out to recover. There has been a lot of discussion as to how serious the accident actually was, because Dylan's manager Albert Grossman was known to threaten to break contracts by claiming his performers were sick, and because Dylan essentially disappeared from public view for the next eighteen months. Every possible interpretation of the events has been put about by someone, from Dylan having been close to death, to the entire story being put up as a fake. As Dylan is someone who is far more protective of his privacy than most rock stars, it's doubtful we'll ever know the precise truth, but putting together the various accounts Dylan's injuries were bad but not life-threatening, but they acted as a wake-up call -- if he carried on living like he had been, how much longer could he continue? in his sort-of autobiography, Chronicles, Dylan described this period, saying "I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses." All his forthcoming studio and tour dates were cancelled, and Dylan took the time out to recover, and to work on his film, Eat the Document. But it's clear that nobody was sure at first exactly how long Dylan's hiatus from touring was going to last. As it turned out, he wouldn't do another tour until the mid-seventies, and would barely even play any one-off gigs in the intervening time. But nobody knew that at the time, and so to be on the safe side the Hawks were being kept on a retainer. They'd always intended to work on their own music anyway -- they didn't just want to be anyone's backing band -- so they took this time to kick a few ideas around, but they were hamstrung by the fact that it was difficult to find rehearsal space in New York City, and they didn't have any gigs. Their main musical work in the few months between summer 1966 and spring 1967 was some recordings for the soundtrack of a film Peter Yarrow was making. You Are What You Eat is a bizarre hippie collage of a film, documenting the counterculture between 1966 when Yarrow started making it and 1968 when it came out. Carl Franzoni, one of the leaders of the LA freak movement that we've talked about in episodes on the Byrds, Love, and the Mothers of Invention, said of the film “If you ever see this movie you'll understand what ‘freaks' are. It'll let you see the L.A. freaks, the San Francisco freaks, and the New York freaks. It was like a documentary and it was about the makings of what freaks were about. And it had a philosophy, a very definite philosophy: that you are free-spirited, artistic." It's now most known for introducing the song "My Name is Jack" by John Simon, the film's music supervisor: [Excerpt: John Simon, "My Name is Jack"] That song would go on to be a top ten hit in the UK for Manfred Mann: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "My Name is Jack"] The Hawks contributed backing music for several songs for the film, in which they acted as backing band for another old Greenwich Village folkie who had been friends with Yarrow and Dylan but who was not yet the star he would soon become, Tiny Tim: [Excerpt: Tiny Tim, "Sonny Boy"] This was their first time playing together properly since the end of the European tour, and Sid Griffin has noted that these Tiny Tim sessions are the first time you can really hear the sound that the group would develop over the next year, and which would characterise them for their whole career. Robertson, Danko, and Manuel also did a session, not for the film with another of Grossman's discoveries, Carly Simon, playing a version of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down", a song they'd played a lot with Dylan on the tour that spring. That recording has never been released, and I've only managed to track down a brief clip of it from a BBC documentary, with Simon and an interviewer talking over most of the clip (so this won't be in the Mixcloud I put together of songs): [Excerpt: Carly Simon, "Baby Let Me Follow You Down"] That recording is notable though because as well as Robertson, Danko, and Manuel, and Dylan's regular studio keyboard players Al Kooper and Paul Griffin, it also features Levon Helm on drums, even though Helm had still not rejoined the band and was at the time mostly working in New Orleans. But his name's on the session log, so he must have m

Quonset's Steve King joins the show to discuss the results of a just-released economic impact report.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Audio Introduction presents background on Bob Hope's incredible contribution to boost the morale of our soldiers during World War II and beyond... He and his colleagues entertained the troops all over the world. His Christmas Specials on television were extremely popular. (Photo: Marilyn Maxwell and Bob Hope) Stand-up Comedy, Music, Comedic Skits... entertaining the Naval men and women at Quonset Point in 1945. This is a very good show. It will be stored in the Music/Comedy/Variety playlist. Bob Hope passed away on July 27, 2003. He was 100 years old.

Steven King, Managing Director, Quonset Development Corporation, joins Dan for a discussion on workforce and economic development expansion at the port.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the fourth episode of the Ranchlands Podcast, Duke III and I headed up to Denver to meet with our friend and renowned artist Duke Beardsley. Beardsley is a sixth-generation Coloradan who grew up splitting time between Denver and his family's eastern Colorado cattle ranch. For as long as he can remember, Duke has been drawing and painting scenes from the American West– ranchers, horsemen, anglers, plants, landscapes, and more. And over his career as an artist, he's developed a one-of-kind approach to art that captures the west in a contemporary style that is completely his own. Beardsley has been a fixture in our community for many years. His unique brand of western art appears all over our ranches– from the walls of the Chico Basin headquarters to the huge door of our Quonset. And perhaps more importantly, he's been a trusted friend, collaborator, and mentor to many different generations of the Ranchlands team– especially Duke and Duke. Those who call Beardsley a friend know that he brings optimism, humor, and creative energy to every interaction and relationship. So we're thrilled to bring you this conversation that highlights his connection with our community, his deep friendship with the Phillips family, and his fascinating approach to art and creativity. --- Duke Beardsley: https://www.dukebeardsleystudio.com/ Episode Notes & Links: https://ranchlands.com/blogs/podcast/4-duke-beardsley --- TOPICS DISCUSSED: 2:50 - How Beardsley first heard of Ranchlands 6:14 - Duke's first thoughts upon meeting Beardsley 7:47 - Beardsley's background in ranching 9:00 - Beardsley's first impression of the Chico Basin Ranch 13:00 - Shared love of hard work and rough conditions 17:45 - What Duke has learned over the years from Beardsley 21:06 - What Beardsley has learned from Duke 23:09 - Why Ranchlands attracts interesting people 25:57 - Learning from the great Cam Schryver 28:19 - How Beardsley “found his voice” as an artist 35:20 - Background information on Duke's Lineup Riders 39:50 - Duke's thoughts on Beardsley's creative process 41:57 - How and why Beardsley takes the road less traveled 44:02 - The value of stepping outside of your own little world 48:18 - Advice to a 25-year-old with dreams of living a creative life 54:00 - Why should a life-long city dweller care about the land, land stewardship, and conservation? 56:15 - What is a common misconception about ranching or agriculture that you'd like to correct? 57:03 - Can you name a few resources that have played a critical role in your understanding of land and land stewardship? 58:40 - When it comes to conservation and land stewardship, what is giving you hope? --- ABOUT RANCHLANDS: www.ranchlands.com Ranchlands Mercantile Ranch Stays Ranchlands Meat Stories Questions or comments? Email us at podcast@ranchlands.com!

Pictionary, booking TV talent, & how to properly review Penn's new book, Random.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this minute of Joe Johnston's 2011 film ‘Captain America: The First Avenger,' Rogers wonders if the dummy grenade is a test, Colonel Phillips thinks he's still too skinny, Agent Carter looks on in growing affection, and Erskine shows a bottle of Schnapps to Steve.

Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) re-broadcast of Bob Hope. The program originates from the Quonset Point Air National Base in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. The cast sings, "The Life of Jerry Colonna." The AFRS music fill is a band remote from 'The Ice Terrace Room' in New Jersey by Louis Prima and His Orchestra with vocals by Lily Ann Carol. The is believed to have aired January 23, 1945. Features: Barbara Jo Allen, Lily Ann Carol, Frances Langford, Marilyn Maxwell, and Louis Prima and His Orchestra. NOTE: Marilyn Maxwell had extra-marital affairs with both Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope, while all participants were married to others. Unfortunately, she died young at age 50 from a heart attack. My other podcast channels include: MYSTERY x SUSPENSE -- DRAMA X THEATER -- SCI FI x HORROR -- COMEDY x FUNNY HA HA -- THE COMPLETE ORSON WELLES. You can subscribe to my channels to receive new post notifications, it's 100% free to join. If inclined, please leave a positive rating or review on your podcast service. Instagram @duane.otr Thank you for your support. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

“Let's go deep in the woods!” Rolf would say to his mother and by his tone you might think he was about to enter the Yukon. But the three-year-old was standing in his back yard in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. The Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis just a few miles away.Rolf, bundled up in his snowsuit, was about to venture off into a relatively small collection of trees in an adjacent lot – which for him was the same thing as the great boreal forests of North America. Recognizing his early attraction to the outdoors, his mom took this photo and prominently displayed it. Soon enough they enrolled Rolf in a camp at the end of the Gunflint Trail in the true woods of northern Minnesota.Like previous Wonder Guides, Doug Wallace and Mark Hennessy, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has been an intimate part of Rolf Thompson's life and work ever since.  Much of that time he was focused on the central goal of a connecting young people to the great outdoors – and helping the YMCA do that more effectively. Rolf was the Executive Director at the two YMCA camps in the BWCAW, Widgiwagan and Menogyn. He was also the Executive Director at Camp Manito-Wish in Wisconsin. Later he would become the executive director of the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minnesota, which now hosts more than 18,000 visitors every year.  Rolf has also served on the board for the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness. The main mission at the center of it all for Rolf is to connect young people to the wilderness experience.I was one of those young people, about 15 years old, in the early 80's when I first met Rolf at the YMCA's Camp Menogyn in northern Minnesota. He was another in a long line of men and women who simply existed in canoes, tents, and on trails with no effort.  One who spoke about Alaska and Quetico Provencial Park as if that were normal.  Rolf and his colleagues showed us how to snowshoe and cross-country ski through the woods to a frozen lake where we could build Quonset huts out of snow that you could actually sleep in.  Call them mentors, guides, counselors or simply ‘slightly older cool guys and gals doing cool stuff.'  They were always encouraging me to attend the next camp.  To go a little bit farther. To try coming up to the BWCA for winter camp. These role models were a critical force in my outdoor education and instilled in me the desire to continue to explore the great outdoors. Everyone Needs a Mentor One of Rolf's most important mentors is Sigurd Olson. Continuing to encourage his affinity for nature, Rolf's parents gave him Olson's signature book, Listening Point, when he was in high school. Years later Rolf would have the great pleasure of meeting his mentor and having him sign his book. “Dear Rolf and Carol, someday you will find your listening point and know the same deep satisfactions I have known in mine. Best wishes, Sigurd F. Olson”Listening Point is a real place on Burntside Lake in the BWCAW. The quest for Sigurd to find it was a real one. The rocks, prevailing winds, coves, sunsets and views had to be just so for Sigurd to invest his time and money to make it his retreat. But once he built a small cabin there and settled in he did exactly what the name says. He listened.  He found inspiration at Listening Point but he didn't do his work there, he simply was there. Olson called it his “place of discovery.”Rolf and his wife C.J. call their cabin and property in Stone Lake, Wisconsin, their listening point. My family and I were welcomed to their cabin in the summer of 2021 and while my girls and wife explored the lake shore and water, Rolf and I got to sit and reflect on the inspirations and stories that shaped Rolf's life.Much more is in this episode along with the 3 x 3 Main Street Challenge and There's No Planet B.

14VERONICA'S ROLLER-SKATING LESSONS were held at a big, drafty indoor rink, a Quonset hut made of corrugated metal. The metal had rusted in spots, and from these spots brown and orange streaks ran down the corrugations. The parking lot was mostly mud, with a clamshell island here and there, and Veronica's mother cursed under her breath as the car pitched across the lot, tossed like a boat on a day when the bay was choppy. The entrance was a plywood shed stuck onto one end of the metal building. Over it was a sign that had once been brightly painted in red and yellow. The paint had faded and peeled, so that the appearance of the sign belied its claim:               FUNTIME ROLLER RINK     The door was loose on its hinges. The girl at the ticket counter was chewing gum and reading a comic book. Veronica's mother passed a card to the girl, and the girl cut a notch out of it with a conductor's punch. Then she looked at me. I had brought ninety-five cents with me. Neither my mother nor I had had any idea what it would cost me to rent skates and skate for a while with Veronica, so my mother had told me to call and ask. I hadn't wanted to do that, for a reason that persists to this day: I don't want to appear to be ignorant of the ways of the establishment I'm patronizing. I dislike calling a restaurant, for example, to ask whether they will accept a personal check as payment for a meal. If the answer is yes, I become convinced that when I write out my check at the restaurant, the waiter is sure to say, in a voice that carries to the dimmest and most intimate corners, “Say, I'll bet you're the guy who called this afternoon to ask whether we take personal checks, aren't you?” And if the answer is no, then I'm sure that when I pay with cash or a credit card, something in the way I handle the money or the rapidity with which I produce the card will bring on that booming voice anyway. So, rather than call the Funtime Rink to make the inquiries myself, I got Raskolnikov to call for me. Armed with the information that he procured, I was able to push my ninety-five cents at the girl with some confidence, bothered only by the small fear, which I have never outgrown, that between the time I have learned what to do at the establishment and the time when I actually walk through the door, all the rules will have changed; if I attempt to pay the restaurant bill in cash, the waiter will look at me with shock and embarrassment and whisper, “I'm sorry, sir, but we no longer accept American money.”    “What is this for?” asked the girl.     “Rent skates,” I said. “And skate for an hour.”     “Oh, that's just right,” she said. “It comes to ninety-five cents.”     “Yeah, I know,” I said, relieved, pretending a familiarity with roller-skating that I did not have, hoping that the girl would assume that I frequented other, larger, more glamorous roller-skating rinks and was, therefore, familiar with the going rates.     “Oh, you must be Peter!” said the girl, clearly not deceived. “Your uncle called this morning to find out how much it was going to ‘set you back' to go skating here.”     “My uncle,” I said, trying to smile.     “Yes, he told me it was your first time skating, and you wanted to impress your girlfriend, and he wanted to make sure you had a good time. Is Veronica your girlfriend? Veronica's a really good skater. Is she going to teach you? I'm sure she can teach you a lot.”     “I really just need practice,” I said, weakly. I started for the door that led inside.     “How did your uncle get that nickname, Rascal?” the girl asked.     “Oh, it's a long story,” I said. I kept on walking.Have you missed an episode or two or several?You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you've missed.You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” “Call Me Larry,” and “The Young Tars,” the nine novellas in Little Follies, and Little Follies itself, which will give you all the novellas in one handy package.You'll find an overview of the entire work in  An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. It's a pdf document. Get full access to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy at peterleroy.substack.com/subscribe

This week's episode of The Hate Napkin is being produced from a Quonset hut in the capital of Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar (formerly Burma), where sound engineer Pauly from Bali dodges junta gunfire and secretly harbors lust for the West. Co-host Arik is safe and sound in the capital city of Columbia, South Carolina. Co-host Garrett, however, remains bunkered in his bomb shelter, just in case the ghost of Sherman appears. And special guest, Carla from Burnt Korn, Alabama, shows no fear flipping patties at the local DQ whilst surrounded by MAGAs. Your mission, Team THN, should you choose to accept it, is to travel deep inside the anals of hate without self-destructing. I mean, there's a lot of nasty bile down here! Achtung, baby! We begin with a confession by Arik. He has a chronic problem, if you haven't noticed. And the only way he's going to deal with it is by sharing it with the ma—Carla swoops in: “Two can play at this game! I hate co-hosts who interrupt!” Pardonus Interruptus, folks! It's an interruption intervention, as only Team THN can manage—given that Carla has new teeth and can hardly speak, and Pauly from Bali is afraid to speak with the Myanmar secret police hot on his tail. Carla adjusts her new pearly whites, steps to the plate and knocks one out of the park: Bad House Guests. Pauly from Bali agrees: “There's nothing worse than when Gandhi shows up for a few nights, and suddenly you can't find any of your slippers or saltshakers.” Also, that promise that he'll lay in bed with your virgin daughters and not have sex with them tends to fall on deaf ears. The second Pauly from Bali expresses his disdain for the “lowest-bidder” gig economy, Arik swoops in in full interruption mode with an infernal fast food ride-share tale. “FOLKS, DON'T TIP UBER DRIVERS WITH CHEAP-ASS WEDGES OF BURGER KING CHOCOLATE PIE! A HUNK OF HERSHEY'S DOESN'T PAY FOR GAS, RIDE-SHARE INSURANCE RIDERS, AUTO REPAIRS, GROCERIES, BILLS, ETC.!” THN PSA: If you're bored at home with nothing to do, throw on some khaki pants and a red shirt, head over to Target, and go up to people with manscaping kits: “Excuse me, sir, you look like someone who needs a good ball shave.” --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thehatenapkin/support

This week's episode of The Hate Napkin is being produced from a Quonset hut in the capital of Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar (formerly Burma), where sound engineer Pauly from Bali dodges junta gunfire and secretly harbors lust for the West. Co-host Arik is safe and sound in the capital city of Columbia, South Carolina. Co-host Garrett, however, remains bunkered in his bomb shelter, just in case the ghost of Sherman appears. And special guest, Carla from Burnt Korn, Alabama, shows no fear flipping patties at the local DQ whilst surrounded by MAGAs. Your mission, Team THN, should you choose to accept it, is to travel deep inside the anals of hate without self-destructing. I mean, there's a lot of nasty bile down here! Achtung, baby! We begin with a confession by Arik. He has a chronic problem, if you haven't noticed. And the only way he's going to deal with it is by sharing it with the ma—Carla swoops in: “Two can play at this game! I hate co-hosts who interrupt!” Pardonus Interruptus, folks! It's an interruption intervention, as only Team THN can manage—given that Carla has new teeth and can hardly speak, and Pauly from Bali is afraid to speak with the Myanmar secret police hot on his tail. Carla adjusts her new pearly whites, steps to the plate and knocks one out of the park: Bad House Guests. Pauly from Bali agrees: “There's nothing worse than when Gandhi shows up for a few nights, and suddenly you can't find any of your slippers or saltshakers.” Also, that promise that he'll lay in bed with your virgin daughters and not have sex with them tends to fall on deaf ears. The second Pauly from Bali expresses his disdain for the “lowest-bidder” gig economy, Arik swoops in in full interruption mode with an infernal fast food ride-share tale. “FOLKS, DON'T TIP UBER DRIVERS WITH CHEAP-ASS WEDGES OF BURGER KING CHOCOLATE PIE! A HUNK OF HERSHEY'S DOESN'T PAY FOR GAS, RIDE-SHARE INSURANCE RIDERS, AUTO REPAIRS, GROCERIES, BILLS, ETC.!” THN PSA: If you're bored at home with nothing to do, throw on some khaki pants and a red shirt, head over to Target, and go up to people with manscaping kits: “Excuse me, sir, you look like someone who needs a good ball shave.” --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thehatenapkin/support

Hot Rod Blues, Episode 9, Skittles Paint and an Irish Breakfast The guys make a visit to Shawn Brereton's home bar for episode 9 of the HRB Podcast. With no special guest, the guys update everyone on what they've been up to since the last time alone. They start out talking about the epic episode 8 with legendary Memphis Rodders Marshall Robilio and Eddie Wilbanks. After talking about how they used to roll the start at their drag races, it brings up the subject of import roll racing. Javi mentions an S2000 that has a Model A body, which brings up Shawn B's friend who has an LS-swapped S2000 that he made into an Exocet-type of vehicle. The guys get to telling stories about garages and the lack thereof. Then the conversation turns to having to Maguyver things together on the road and how Raymond Godman drove his cars after becoming a paraplegic. Finally, they start updating us on what they've been up to at Steel Rose. Mike tells that the Camaro should be leaving shortly and they just received an El Camino that they plan to make into a dedicated motorcycle hauler. The UTE is seeing a lot of work, but still has a way to go seeing there are so many handmade pieces on it. The handmade aspect turns the conversation to how much things cost and what you are paying for - in any business. Shawn Y explains his sign business and they start talking about the building that he and Javi have bought together. They are in the process of getting the building in shape to move in. The building is a Quonset-hut-style building that was built back in the war era and was once a plastics plant that pressed records for the recording industry in Memphis. This reminds Shawn B that his car was originally painted in a Q hut and leads him into the story of the paint jobs the ‘55 has had over the years. Any talk about paint always leads to everyone talking about different colors to paint cars. Shawn B talks about his trip to Lone Star Throwdown and how cold and wet it was. He shot 4 trucks for features in Classic Truck Performance. He also got a call from Mustang Hub to shoot a Mustang up in Nashville. He also got the green light to shoot another Mustang GT500 in Memphis. He'll be heading to Las Vegas for Musclecars at the Strip next! He's got plenty on his plate. Lastly, they announce that the Memphis Legends show will benefit Camp Light this year. It is an amazing place that helps special needs children in Virginia much like the Victory Junction Gang Camp. They finish with a teaser of episode 10 which will feature the one and only Preston Davis. Stay tuned, it should be epic! The Hot Rod Blue Podcast is co-hosted by Shawn Brereton of Auto Enthusiast Network, Mike Abbott of Steel Rose Metal Co, Javier Augustine of Bomber Steel Customs, and Shawn Young of Kingfish Metal Works. Now recording in video and audio formats, you can find the Hot Rod Blues Podcast on the following platforms: *YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCozk... *Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0QzICR2... *Rumble - https://rumble.com/c/c-1338572 *Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hot-rod-blues/id1601533698 *Google - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy83YTRjYTkzMC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw? sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjph6SW6Yn2AhUUgYQIHfWBDK0Q9sEGegQIARAC *Stitcher - https://listen.stitcher.com/yvap/? af_dp=stitcher://show/675190&af_web_dp=https://www.stitcher.com/show/675190 Follow the podcast on Facebook @HotRodBluesPodcast (https://www.facebook.com/HotRodBluesP...) --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/shawn-young2/support

John Sherman is a bouldering legend. His nickname “Verm” (short for “Vermin”) is where the “V” in our bouldering grade system came from. We sat down in a cave in Hueco Tanks and talked about what bouldering was like 30+ years ago, early climbing shoes, highballing before crash pads were invented, out-of-body experiences, and how some of the boulders got their provocative names.Check out Chalk Cartel!chalkcartel.comUse code "NUGGET" at checkout for 20% off your next order!Check out Crimpd!crimpd.comOr download the Crimpd app! (Available for iOS and Android)Check out PhysiVantage:physivantage.com (link includes 15% off coupon)Use code "NUGGET15" at checkout for 15% off your next order!We are supported by these amazing BIG GIVERS:Bryan Fast, Leo Franchi, Michael Roy, David Lahaie, Robert Freehill, Jeremiah Johnson, and Scott DonahueBecome a Patron:patreon.com/thenuggetclimbingShow Notes:  thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/john-shermanNuggets:0:08:00 – Recording in a cave in Hueco Tanks, and the Triple Crown of roof cracks0:12:54 – Experiencing what climbing was like 30 years ago, and early climbing shoes0:19:24 – What brought John to Hueco for the first time, falling in love with the bouldering there, and Mike Head0:27:30 – John Gill, the legitimization of bouldering, and four technological advances in gear that changed climbing forever (sticky rubber, cordless drill, crash pads, and cams)0:35:35 – What Hueco was like in the winter of 19820:39:42 – A day in the life back then, and making the first “crash pads”0:45:14 – Chalk, and why sport climbing was the end of climbing as Verm learned it0:47:47 – Using the same terminology to describe different ethics, and doing ‘See Spot Run' ground up without crash pads0:55:03 – Geckskin0:57:15 – Historical tidbit (the Swiss guides)0:58:04 – More context about ‘See Spot Run'1:02:24 – Adding layers to the bouldering experience1:07:49 – The definition of “Kehl-geling”, and John's out-of-body experience when climbing ‘The Thimble'1:20:00 – Why John wears two chalk bags when he climbs, and wanting to climb like Alex Sharp and Andy Parkin1:23:59 – Wearing a helmet bouldering, and John's New Jersey story about hitting his head1:35:00 – Patron question from Aiden: What inspired you to write Stone Crusade?1:41:57 – The Fiesta XXX Drive-In, and getting boulder problem names from a sex toy magazine1:47:36 – How ‘Daily Dick Dose' got its name, and living in the Quonset hut1:52:44 – How John got the name “Verm” (short for “Vermin”)1:53:46 – Patron question from Carmelo: Are we ever going to see Old Man Lightning?1:54:54 – Patron question from Craig: Which bird most represents your personality?1:56:32 – Why California Condors are John's favorite birds, and individual personalities

This is the seventh of the #WFH interviews and blogs that were started during the 2020 pandemic.Earl Parson is an architect practicing in northern Arizona, from his home base in Prescott and also the property he's developing near the Grand Canyon, outside the town of Williams.Earl attended Washington University school of architecture in St Louis and then SCI-Arc in the early '90s after which he practiced in Los Angeles for 20 years before relocating to Arizona about two years ago. He specializes in Quonset hut homes.Parson Architecture | Clever ModernsCustom Residential Architecture & DesignQuonset House & Prefab Specialistwww.parsonarchitecture.com www.clevermoderns.com Link to blog post:https://inmawomanarchitect.blogspot.com/2020/08/wfh-vacation-with-earl-parson.html

The biggest names in Hollywood and Broadway recorded for AFRS during the war years, The American Forces Network can trace its origins back to May 26, 1942, when the War Department established the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS). The U.S. Army began broadcasting from London during World War II, using equipment and studio facilities borrowed from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The first transmission to U.S. troops began at 5:45 p.m. on July 4, 1943, and included less than five hours of recorded shows, a BBC news and sports broadcast. That day, Corporal Syl Binkin became the first U.S. Military broadcasters heard over the air. The signal was sent from London via telephone lines to five regional transmitters to reach U.S. troops in the United Kingdom as they prepared for the inevitable invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. Fearing competition for civilian audiences the BBC initially tried to impose restrictions on AFN broadcasts within Britain (transmissions were only allowed from American Bases outside London and were limited to 50 watts of transmission power) and a minimum quota of British produced programming had to be carried. Nevertheless AFN programmes were widely enjoyed by the British civilian listeners who could receive them and once AFN operations transferred to continental Europe (shortly after D-Day) AFN were able to broadcast with little restriction with programmes available to civilian audiences across most of Europe (including Britain) after dark. As D-Day approached, the network joined with the BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to develop programs especially for the Allied Expeditionary Forces. Mobile stations, complete with personnel, broadcasting equipment, and a record library were deployed to broadcast music and news to troops in the field. The mobile stations reported on front line activities and fed the news reports back to studio locations in London.---------------------------------------------------------------------------Entertainment Radio Stations Live 24/7 Sherlock Holmes/CBS Radio Mystery Theaterhttps://live365.com/station/Sherlock-Holmes-Classic-Radio--a91441https://live365.com/station/CBS-Radio-Mystery-Theater-a57491----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The biggest names in Hollywood and Broadway recorded for AFRS during the war years, The American Forces Network can trace its origins back to May 26, 1942, when the War Department established the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS). The U.S. Army began broadcasting from London during World War II, using equipment and studio facilities borrowed from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The first transmission to U.S. troops began at 5:45 p.m. on July 4, 1943, and included less than five hours of recorded shows, a BBC news and sports broadcast. That day, Corporal Syl Binkin became the first U.S. Military broadcasters heard over the air. The signal was sent from London via telephone lines to five regional transmitters to reach U.S. troops in the United Kingdom as they prepared for the inevitable invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. Fearing competition for civilian audiences the BBC initially tried to impose restrictions on AFN broadcasts within Britain (transmissions were only allowed from American Bases outside London and were limited to 50 watts of transmission power) and a minimum quota of British produced programming had to be carried. Nevertheless AFN programmes were widely enjoyed by the British civilian listeners who could receive them and once AFN operations transferred to continental Europe (shortly after D-Day) AFN were able to broadcast with little restriction with programmes available to civilian audiences across most of Europe (including Britain) after dark. As D-Day approached, the network joined with the BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to develop programs especially for the Allied Expeditionary Forces. Mobile stations, complete with personnel, broadcasting equipment, and a record library were deployed to broadcast music and news to troops in the field. The mobile stations reported on front line activities and fed the news reports back to studio locations in London. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entertainment Radio Stations Live 24/7 Sherlock Holmes/CBS Radio Mystery Theater https://live365.com/station/Sherlock-Holmes-Classic-Radio--a91441 https://live365.com/station/CBS-Radio-Mystery-Theater-a57491 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

After all that, it's time to reconnect with the team. At the Quonset hut the whole team makes a plan. You know what they say about plans, right? Featuring Hunter O'Guinn as Tayn Waaka, Jacob Mockbee as Yitzak Samir, Tyler Gilbert as Tyson Gahris and Wes Johnson as Strom Alexander. Directed by Ryan Gregg Nights Black Agents is written by Kenneth Hite, using the GUMSHOE system by Robin D Laws and is published by Pelgrane Press. Our intro and outro were written and recorded by Stephen Hoshaw. Contact us at roleplayinggrenadepod@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @rpgrenadepod or Instagram @roleplayinggrenade. If you like what we do give us a rating or a review or just reach out and say hi. We'd love to hear from you.

2:43:06 – Frank in New Jersey, plus the Other Side. Topics include: Expanded candy liquor horizons, The Wheel of Time, The Tomorrow War (2021), Movie Movie (1978), Video Phase 2022, the Tape Land project, our Doctor Who fan film from 1985, Beublin A. Richardson – Season 1 (1991) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQjeqZPmMq8), time cop dream, Video Game Connections documentary, the […]

2:43:06 – Frank in New Jersey, plus the Other Side. Topics include: Expanded candy liquor horizons, The Wheel of Time, The Tomorrow War (2021), Movie Movie (1978), Video Phase 2022, the Tape Land project, our Doctor Who fan film from 1985, Beublin A. Richardson – Season 1 (1991) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQjeqZPmMq8), time cop dream, Video Game Connections documentary, the […]

Aloha friends is Robert Stehlik. Thank you for tuning into another episode of the blue planet show.  on the blue planet show. I interview Wingfoil athletes, designers and thought leaders. And I asked them questions, not just about wing foil equipment and technique, but I'm also trying to get to know them a little bit better, their background, what inspires them and how they live their best life. You can watch this show on YouTube for visual content, or you can also listen to it as a podcast on the go to search for the blue planet show on your favorite podcast. I haven't come out with a new blue planet show for awhile. It's cause I've been super busy. You might've heard that. We took over a new shop in Haleiwa on Oahu's north shore, formerly known as tropical rush. We just opened there and I've been super busy, getting everything set up. It's really exciting, but it also, it takes a lot of time. So I haven't had as much time for the YouTube channel and the blue planet show, but I've been waiting for a long time for Alex  to come onto the show and he finally had some time to do it. So I got a great interview with him. Alex is nutty about wing foiling. He's coming out with GoFoil Wing foil boards and wings. And of course he plays such an important role in the development of the sport. He basically invented the foil that allowed Kai Lenny to do downwinders on a big long board. And basically kick-started this whole sport of foiling in the surf and now with wings. So thank you for that, Alex. And without further ado, this is the interview with Alex. All right, Alex Aguera. Thank you so much for joining me on the blue planet show. So how are you doing today? Doing great early in the morning, over here. How are you doing Robert? I'm good. Yeah. So I'm on here on a Oahu. You're on Maui, nine o'clock on a Wednesday. So yeah. So tell us, let's start a little bit with your background. Where did you grow up and how did he get into water sports and like early childhood to start from the very beginning? For getting into water sports, it started when I was let's see about 14. We went on a family vacation. I grew up in Clearwater, Florida, by the way. And. We went on a family vacation to the Virgin islands, British Virgin islands, and we're going to be on a sailboat and, do the bareboat charters where you travel around to each of the islands. And it's, it was just a fun, two week trip in the, in a place where we'd never been in places that were super clear water like that crazy, it was just fantastic. But anyway, the captain of our boat, we had hired a captain who would sail us around to the, for the first week. And then we were on our own. The second week, the the guy would put this wind surfer in the water at this one place where we first started called Soper Sol and Tortola. Any of, they would start sailing around with him and his other captain, buddy friend, on this funny looking sailing craft that, ended up being one of the original. Baja style windsurfers. So this would be for the original windsurfer was some of the first boards that oil swipes, or it may, and it looked like a big, giant, long board made out of a fiberglass. But anyway, when we got back to Florida after the chip, my dad wanted to check this out as a possible, get the kids doing this. Cause we were riding motorcycles and stuff at the time you wanted to get us off of motorcycles. So he calls up Hoyle Sweitzer, which was windsurfing international or whatever. They called themselves. At that time, this was really early. This is like 1975. And oil tells him, he goes, Hey, I'll sell you six of them and make you a dealer, so it was like, okay, we were the first dealer and in Florida and it all started from there. We started wind surfing right in 1975. And that's how I got into all these other sports that have evolved since then. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. Foil Schweitzer is Zane Schweitzer's grandfather who basically invented the sport and had the patent and everything. Yeah. So your dad became the first either the first wind surf dealer in Florida. Yeah. Like district nine or whatever, what are they? I can't remember fleet nine or something, the, for the ninth, one in the United States. So that's when the books were still made out of wood and stuff like that. And the bowl we're still out of wood. There was a daggerboard was still out of wood. We hadn't progressed to, a composite looking white daggerboard yet. And we hadn't invented harnesses yet foot straps or anything. Okay. And then, okay. And then what happened next? After that, we Pursue to get better and better at wind surfing. And my dad started to be the distributor for the Southeast United States. And we were really in the winter and our whole life changed from, he was working at Honeywell, which is one of the firms down there in Florida. He was a engineer. And then he switched over to just going to be wind surfing. We're going to go all in, into this wind surfing thing. So from there, we add a whole bunch of people in Florida that we were the original Florida wind surfing crew. We called ourselves the fearless flying Floridians there for a couple of years. And it was a real close crew there in the Clearwater Sarasota area that we always raced against each other. And we just got better and better. And then pretty soon we were doing well in the national and world championships. Awesome. And then. How old were you when you did that kind of the racing and your first world championship? I guess? My first national championship was the following year. What Hoyle used to do back then was we would do these big district championships. There was like maybe five or six throughout United States and whoever had won their district championship would get a free trip to the nationals. So the nationals then following year in 76, I'm 15 years old, a win, a free airfare to Berkeley, California, where we're going to do the nationals. And I traded it in for money to buy a bus ticket and pay for my hotel when I'm over there. So just imagine you're 15 years old, you're traveling in a Greyhound bus, cross country. Get over there, you rent your own wind surfer back then they would have, rental packages where you just come in, rent your own gear and then raise. So at 15, that was quite an experience, to have my parents to be able to let me go, all the way across the country and do that all by yourself was, looking back at it now back then, seem oh, that's okay. I can do this. We'll look back at it. Now. I was like, God, I would never put my kids through that. But that was a fantastic Regata because. What happened was, so it was 76. We're at Berkeley. We had a lot of wind and stuff, but as first time I get to meet Mike waltz and Matt Sweitzer, who were like the gurus back then of windshield, because they had a thing called the windsurfing news, which was like a little paper back, like a magazine, the early wind surfing magazine was a paperback called wind surfing news. And it was always the swipe tours and like waltz and this and that. So we get over there, meet Matt and Mike can win or goes for his first championship with all the boys. And Robbie Nash does his first championship. All the boys, he, so little 12 year old blonde kid comes in from Kailua. So it was like, all of us got together for the first time at that time. And he was Robbie Nash is two years younger than you about, okay, so you were 14 and then there's someone even younger than you showing up. Yeah. Yeah, that was, how did you do in that? Oh, I got beat up. It was blowing really hard. And in Florida where I learned, I was just learning to race around and, barely get planing kind of conditions, which we have in Florida coming up to that summertime, you get to Berkeley, it's blowing 20 to 20 fives, sometimes gusting 30 and one of the races. And I don't think I got across the starting line. I got beat up. I was just rag dolling. Cause you only had one, one sail and it was pretty big. I probably weighed 125 pounds at the time. And I remember there was these divas, these sisters, the SWAT tech sisters. There was Susie and Martha and The girls just beat up on me. I was getting whooped up on by girls mad. It was like, oh, bad. It was, I was humbled when I went there, but watching some of the stuff that was just then evolving because Robbie had come over and he started doing this railroad thing, it's the first time any of us see a rail ride. And I was like, oh my God, what is that kid doing? Who is that kid? And then by the time, the week it ended max White's here. And I think Mike had picked it up and Ken were all doing railroads by the end of the week. They had figured it out. But when you first saw that, I was like, what the heck? That's something new. And then we did one of the, I think it was, could have been the very first freestyle event there. And. The guide who Dennis Davidson, who was one of the original Kailua windsurfers was putting a little teeny fin on his board. He was doing these super fast tax and stuff. And we were like, wow. And he ended up winning the very first freestyle. Oh. And then again, so that's awesome. And so then how did that progress it, you became a professional windsurfer, right? Yeah. That that was many years later in about 1980, started getting paid to do wind surfing races by wind surfing international and oil spikes or, and we would go over to Maui for the first time. We were going to do the Pan-Am world cup was a real big race. It was for high wind and it was in Kailua. And the first year I didn't go to, it was in 79. There wasn't any wind. So they had to race in Waikiki. The next year, oil flies us out. I spend six weeks on Maui practicing with Mike waltz. He had told me, Hey, you gotta come over here and see this place. If it blows all the time, he had just discovered Okinawa, within the last six months. And he goes, there's nobody around the wind's blowing all the time. There's waves. So my brother and I went over there and hung out with Mike for about six weeks. Then we went to Kailua to do the first real pan Emmerich's. It was blowing hard and it's like the windiest day you've ever been in Kailua now is what we experienced for a whole. And we were like, oh my God, this place is gnarly. We were scared to death coming from Florida and seeing that kind of stuff. And that was one of the very first, big, high wind regattas and wind surfing history. Wow. Cool. And you said your dad was an engineer at Honeywell. So did you ever get any like formal education as an engineer or any kind of like that kind of thing? Or is it, are you just all self-taught on the side? Yeah, on that side, it's been mostly self-taught. I went to, some business classes in community college after I got out of high school, but I moved over to Maui after that 1980 trip. I was like, oh, I'm selling everything. I'm moving to Maui. As soon as I can. It took me about a year and a half to be able to pull it off. Then I moved back in 1982 to become a professional. Nice. Yeah. And then, so how was that getting started on Maui in the eighties? That was something, it was great. We were, I don't know if Paya very well, but back then there was, it was hardly anybody in pyuria. There's no traffic light. We rented a place. It's right next to where mana foods is now, back then, there wasn't any model foods yet, but we rented a Quonset hut there. That is where they still store some of their, use it for storage of some of the stuff that the store. But anyway, there was at some time, six of us staying in this Quonset hut for 250 bucks a month rent. So we're all paying like 40 bucks a month rent and living in Maui, nobody around we're going to hokey every day and just having a blast, nobody around on the road, everybody you saw on the road was a windsurfer. You knew everybody. It's like now it's all tourist going by. Yeah. Molly has changed a lot. I lived there in the nineties or late eighties and early nineties. I lived in Peggy too, like really close over there. So I remember those days we lived in a basement apartment, which is super cheap, but yeah. And then driving old Molly cruisers rusted out cars, all that. And then, and then at that time, when surfing was developing really rapidly and changing and stuff. And did you start making equipment back then already? Or how did that, how did you get into business that business? I used to, I was sponsored by high-tech surf sports and Craig Masonville, who was the original guy for high-tech used to shape all of my boards. And we were riding the old asymmetrical, wind surfing boards that we used to ride at hook. I want a couple of the big contests that hook keep a riding those. And then I was always on the pro world tour for wind surfing. And eventually it was hard to get the boards that you wanted, because I had to start working for my French guys Tega and they were making me boards and then Craig was making me boards and it was hard to get boards on time sometimes through the high-tech factory. And I said, oh the heck with this, I'm going to try and start building boards myself. So in 1989 was probably the first time I was racing on one of my own boards. I remember racing in the Gorge and doing really well on that. And at the high-tech surf summer series I won a couple races on my own board and I was all proud. I was like, oh yeah, I might be able to do this. So that's how long ago I started. Yeah. Nice. So those are, slalom racing boards is, were your first boards you built? I got the first boys were slalom racing boards. The way boards is a little bit more technical cause it's easier to break those. So the first law and boards, I didn't have any sandwich on them. They were just covered with carbon and I had some elaborate process for stretching the cloth over it and wetting it all out and keeping the rock or shape, and then learn how to do vacuum bagging and sandwich construction after that. Yeah, I was working for hunt Hawaii in those days and he, we were, he was still building boards with using polyester as in, but then I guess at that time it would switched over to Potsie. So is that, what do you use the proxy or polio? My first boards from Masonville were always polyester. Then we started switching to a poxy in about 1985. I've got a slot onboard that Dave calling on, who was the laminator for high-tech back then we started experimenting with styrofoam and carbon fiber, and I raced the first one in 1985. I think it was. And that's where we're like, oh man, this is white, stiff and strong. And we're like, the lightness was just incredible compared to polyester. And I won the Gorge the second year in a row on that board. And I won the Japan world cup that year and in the spring on that court. But we learned a lot of things about, styrofoam construction goes back. We would just sink the boxes into the styrofoam. And then by the time I had finished the Japan race, my deck box had collapsed into the board. There was a big hollow spot inside. Okay. We were learning a whole new phone core and what to do with it. There was a lot of learning in that. Luckily the board stayed together until the race was over. Yeah. Classic. And then use like vacuum bagging and all that kind of stuff too, or just regular later. Yeah. When I started, I got my first vacuum bag bored by this guy, Gary efforting, who was a, you might remember him. He was the guy that made Hypertech in the Gorge and him and Keith notary would do these. They called it a clam sandwich or something where they were doing vacuum bagging. But Gary and I, he was a friend of mine because we all grew up in the same area in Clearwater, Florida. And he was showing, he made one of my original 12 foot long boards that we used to raise some world cup. And he was using this new aircraft technology called sandwich, construction. And he was the first guy that I saw doing sandwiches on boards. And slowly I learned how to do all of those process. A lot of it was trial and error, but eventually I was, I had retired from the pro wind surfing tour and started running the probe windsurfing tour. And then at the same time as being the race director, I started building boards for top guys like Kevin Pritchard and Mike abou Zionist. And those were all, they had to be super custom, super like sandwich boards. Wow. Okay. And then I guess when tiding came around, you got into kite surfing or yeah. W what happened there? The kite surfing, it was it was funny because we were sitting over here. We're all wind surfers. Layered was still a wind surfer. And he started playing with this kite and my other buddy maneuver Tom from France was starting to experiment with this kite thing and we'd see him at home Keepa. The guys were takeoff with these funny, real bars and all kinds of weird hiding stuff and start sailing this kite and go cruise down the coast, and ended up down at Kanawha or wherever. And I'm like, wow, that looks pretty interesting. What the heck is that? I didn't want to do it until somebody got back to the beach. They started out, I'm not really into this down winter and you're out there, on this thing, out in the blue water, with the, whatever could go wrong in palette around with the shark. So okay. If you could get back to where you started, that's what I finally started getting into it now. I don't know, in 97 or 98 or whatever, somebody was finally making it back. But what really got me into it was flash. Austin had moved over from Florida. He was lived in Daytona and he came over and he was this new kite guru guy. And I would watch him jump and he's  25 feet in the air and just hang in there and then come down real soft of flashy to have great Ky control. He still does. And I was just watching that going, wind surfing. If you jumped 25 feet in the air, you come down hard. I don't care what kind of stuff you're doing. It's that there's an impact. So I was like, I really want to do that. That's what really got me interested in kiting was watching flashed land softly. I'm like, okay, now I want to go boosting. So when you got into D did they still have those reels where you had two reel in the kite, if you get, if you drop it in the water. Yeah. Those guys were still using that, but I'm Brett lyrical and all those guys had their kite reels and I'm like, no, I'm not playing with that. Cut real. Does they look like you eat it? And then there's all this metal and stuff in your face. I started out with one of the two line whip, mocha kites, and then progressed to a two line Nash guy. And then eventually we started making four line kites and it got a little bit easier, those original to lion whip because, and stuff, they were all that was around, but they were a little bit dangerous. There was a lot of accidents in those early days. It took a while before at least five years before the kites got, safe enough to where, people weren't hurting themselves so bad anymore. Yeah. And then I guess around that same time the strap crew I guess layered and restaurant, all those guys started foiling, right? Torn, foiling and jaws and stuff like that. So when was the first time you tried foiling and how did you get into that? Foiling. I didn't try foiling until much later. Those guys were all into these BNN, bindings and strapped into this little board and everything weighed about 60 pounds. It seemed and big aluminum, mass and just super heavy. And then of course, these guys were real right. They were like, Hey, we're going to go to jobs. We're going to ride out or spread, it was like, you're all in, or you're not, and I'm like, they're like, Hey Alex, you got to try this. And I'm like, no way, man. I'm not going to be strapped into that tank and going over the falls. And that looks dangerous. But those guys there, they really were into it at the time. And we were all towing too at the time. With, our little tow strap boards. And I remember one day we were out at Spreckels mill and rush Randall is towing around. It's pretty small for tow day. We like to tow it. It's eight foot plus, and have some fun and it's four feet occasionally. And you're waiting for a set, but rush is going around in circles, just on his foil, cruising around at least doing backflips, going out with this thing while he's getting pulled with the checks. And we're like, man, what the heck? Russia's having a lot more fun than we are. So that was one of the first times where I really looked at it and go, wow, this could be fun. But for me to actually get into it myself, I was kite foiling at the time I had start, this is a, it was a funny story because I had stopped kiting for like about five years, Jesse Richmond, who was the world champion at the time. And his brother, Sean, they were like the best or kiters on Maui. And Jesse goes, Hey, you got to start making some kite or some tight race boards for us. I'm getting beat by girls out on the course. We just started this tight racing thing. So Jesse got me into kiting again. So I built a few boards. Then I had to test them with those guys. And that's how I got back into kiting then. So this lasted for. Maybe three years of kite racing. That was the one that we had the big, three fins on it. And you're, racing up when, so then my buddy in Martha's vineyard, we started foiling back then they were riding all kinds of funky foils, but it was the early days of foils. Most of them came out of France back then and he goes, Alex, I need you to make me a kite foil board and I'll trade you this foil, you got to start getting into foiling and you I'll trade it for a board. So I did this with my buddy, Rob Douglas, he's the world speed record holder for kiting back in the day. And he goes, okay, we're going to do a trade. So that was my introduction into kite foiling. And he gave me this foil that he had already beat up. He weighs about 2 35 or breaks the heck out of everything. And it was all wobbly and I had to keep fixing it. I was breaking it and stuff, and that's how I got. My first initiation into foiling and how to build foils. Cause I was always fixing it. And then I started making my own wings, and that's that was, started me all into foiling. Yeah. And on those foils for kite, for them back then were tiny, right? Really small wings and really long mass and so on. Or is that kind of what you started on? That's what we all started on because back then it was the same thing with layered in those guys. We had these really thin foils cause we were only interested in speed. We wanted to go faster and faster. Nobody wanted to make something to go slower. So everything back then it was, they were small, they were thin, everything was like the fast race foils were less than, 13 millimeters thick. They were, 14 or 15 millimeters was a fat foil. So that's what that's what we used to do. Yeah. And then at, and did you, when you made your own fuzzy, like CNC of them out of G 10, or what kind of how did you make your own foil? Basically what I did in the beginning was I would take some existing foil that I had, and then I would reshape it and try to figure out how to make molds. So I was making molds and figuring out how to do that. It was a whole different process. I was used to building boards and sandwich, construction, vacuum bag now on a changed to, Hey, you got to learn how to make molds and make these wings. So it was a big learning curve. I've made a lot of mistakes. I burned up a lot of molds. I did all kinds of crazy stuff. It was just like learning to build boards. You've got, there's a big learning curve, but that's what I ended up doing. And I would take some of the wings that I got and that I wanted it bigger or smaller or whatever, and I would reshape them and then make molds off of them. And then when did you actually start your business? The gold foil business and started making foils to sell? Like when was that? Yeah, and I think for Gofoil, I probably was in maybe 2013 or 14. First I put the, a name on my kite foils. Then I went to Vietnam to have my buddies over there at kinetic T. I taught them how to build the foils and then I changed it to go for it. I had this idea I'm over there with the boys in Vietnam and it, they don't speak English, super well. So I'm telling them, what do you guys think about this name? It's like gold foil, just go for it. They'd were like, yeah, I don't get it. I had to go for by myself cause I couldn't get anybody to confirm that, Hey, that's a good idea at the time, but I got my buddies over there to make me the logos and stuff. And that's where I came up with. The name go foil was when I first went over to Vietnam and started putting it in production that's way before any of the foils that everybody knows as gold foil. Now. So the kinetic factory was making your first kite surfing. Foils. Yeah. So the ones in production at first, I was building it all here, custom and I started building boards and the foils over there at Connecticut. Okay. I'm gonna, I'm going to screen share a little bit here. And then at some point He made a foil for Kailani. And then he posted this video that kind of took, I guess now it has over 5 million views, which is just amazing. But can you tell us a little bit about the backstory behind, behind this and how that all came about? There's a long story behind that, if you want to go into it, the, we want to hear all about it. Okay. In the beginning, this was about maybe eight months prior to this Kai was riding my kite foils and we decided that we were going to put one of them on his one of his standup boards. So we put a Tuttle box and one of his, I think he had an eight foot standup order, 76 or something at the time. And we put the kite foil on it and he was going to go stand up foil. And I never really heard back from Kai about it. He comes back about six or eight months later and he goes, Hey Alex, we gotta redo that thing about going down, wind foiling again. And I go what happened with the first foil? And he goes it's dangerous and there's not enough lift. And it was really hard to ride and I'm like, okay let me think about it. And I'll try and come up with something. We'll try it again. So what ended up happening was I spent two weeks taking one of the old kite foils that I had that I really liked that had the most lift and I kept changing it. And adding on, I had this idea that we got to rethink all of this, that, thin foils is not what you need to get going under your own power. We need something that's going to be a slower foil that can lift up more weight, at a slow speed. And I'm thinking shoot, these big aircraft planes that are lifting tanks and stuff go by having bigger thicker wings and different foil sections. And I started trying to mimic that on one of my kite foils. So I would build it up Bondo and AB foam, reshape it and glass in and kept playing with it. And about two weeks before I finally said, okay, you've done enough remodeling here. Cause you're never going to get it. Perfect. You have a little bumps here or whatever, and you're like, okay, let's try. So I call up Kai or I sent him a text and Kai is oh, I'm in LA, I'm on my way to Europe. I'm doing the indoor in in Paris with Robbie. We're doing, it's a wind surfing indoor. Okay I'll try it out and see how it works. So I go down to sugar coat, which is here on Mallee, which is a kind of a bumpy funky way when it's fairly big. And it's like head high Peaky sets all over the place and kind of gnarly, for trying to foil for the first time I go out and say, what the heck I'm going for it. And actually Jeffrey and fin Spencer are in the water surfing and my dentist Barclays in the water. So we've got all these guys witnessing me going out there and trying to kill myself. So I go out big standup paddleboard, or what did you put the foil on? Yeah, I had made a board that was. I think it was eight, six or nine foot was my standup board. I put a total box in it about 24 inches from the tail and I'm thinking, okay, this should be good. Where I want to stand on. It will give me a little bit of lift. Cause I moved it forward compared to what I do on my kite foil. And I use the kite mass though, which is 38, 39 inches tall. I've got this new front wing, which ended up being the original Kaiwei. And so I put that on there, go out. I had a tail wing that I didn't like for kiting, cause it had too much lift. So I used that for the sup foil to cause I needed more or less. So I'm like, okay, I'll try that. See if it works, get out there. All of a sudden I rise up and I'm like, I got plenty of lift and then I roll over and I'm looking at these wings in my life because I'm on this giant mask, and it's just, I kept looking at the wings. After about five near misses of hitting that wing with my face. I go into the beach and I'm thinking to myself now I know what Kai's talking about now. I know why it's dangerous to the masters too tall. So I go back to the shop, cut the thing in half, I cut it down to 18 inches or something and go back to lower lowers it. the next day. And actually take my GoPro and film myself writing. I remember I went over an Eagle Ray or something that day got a nice video and I'm going like, at times almost 50 yards, I'm like, whoa, I could do this. And it was just like amazing. And a couple of my buddies were in the water and saw that fuck buck saw it and Jerry Rodriguez saw it. And these guys were just like, they couldn't believe it. They're like, oh my God, he's doing it. But anyway, is this on your YouTube channel? I put it in Facebook back then Facebook. I put it in Facebook. I've got it somewhere. I can find it. I don't think I ever put it in YouTube. I don't know. I might've. Yeah, but you go that far back, but yeah, I tagged Kai on it and then Kai saw it. He goes, oh, wow, man. I've got to try that as soon as I get back. So he was all stoked. And then when Kai came back, you put Khan on the same board, the same thing. And it's hard to describe right now. We take it for granted that, what are you watching Tom Brady? I couldn't believe that's ridiculous. But anyway while I'm a big fan of the Tampa bay Buccaneers, so he's brought it back to my town. So he's like my hero. He was always a hero for me, but now he's like a super hero, but anyway, Comes back jumps on the same equipment and it's hard. Describe the first time you see a guy who's foiling and he goes, past the peak goes way out to the left, comes back across the peak goes way over to the right and keeps going back and forth. And you're looking at them going, what the heck is he doing? It's just, it was mind boggling to see somebody do that for the first time. And I was like, oh my God, what the heck is going on here? Maybe we have something here. And, Kai is just a freak. He was just doing stuff that was, unbelievable at the time. And I was just like, oh, maybe I should make a patent out of this. This is it. It was just like a revelation seeing something like that for the first time. Yeah. And that, the first foil I got we jet my friend, Jeff Chang, and I'd tried it on a kite foil at first, be behind a jet ski and stuff. And we were really struggling in same thing. Like almost killed ourselves, falling into the foil and stuff like that. But then when we got the first Chi foil, that was like, oh, this is so much easier, but it's funny because at that time, the Chi foils seemed like a huge foil, but now it's actually a kind of a small foil. Most people start on a much bigger flow. Yeah, exactly. That's a really small foil. Now, getting back to the story, how that evolved to your video. Okay. Kai was just riding in the waves that sugarcoat doing this stuff. Henry Spencer took a video of him that was like the first time where you see this going crazy. And then he starts going. He goes, okay. We got to, I got to talk to Rob. We got to put this on one of my downwind boards because we tried it on my downwind board, the same board that we were riding in the surf, and I'd go out there with Kai. He has his 12, six, his regular, Nash board. We're paddling down. When I cannot get up to save my life, no way, especially on a Chi foil. So he goes, Hey, let me try that. Give it to Chi and Chi proceeds to get up like seven times on the way down to sugar coat, like immediately, even on that standup board. And I'm like, the kids are free. He just paddles his weight to strength ratio is just off the chart when he's battling. So he's all over the place. We get all the way down to sugarcoat. He takes off from the outside, which is like at least a hundred and 150 yards outside. And he cruises all the way into the beach and it was like, wow, this is something he spends the next week, trying to talk Robbie into being able to turn one of his Nash boards and put a total box in it. So I go, okay. We'll do that. Just keep talking to Robbie. See if you can pull it off. Eventually Robbie gives him the, okay. Okay. You're going to do it on that board and blah, blah, blah. So we put a tunnel box in at 48 inches. Cause Kai says, that's where I stand. I think that's going to be the good place to put the tunnel box. So we put it in there. I get this text he's down at the Harbor practicing and he goes, Houston, we have a problem. And then he goes on to describe that I'm going plenty, fast enough to get foiling, but the tail is hitting the water and I can't get up just because the total box is so far forward, his tail would drag and bring him down again. So he goes, okay, let's put a tunnel box at 24 inches. Like it is on the other board. And w we should be able to get up and I go why don't we just cut the tail off, and see about it. Like in this video, you can see how I cut the tail off of that board. Put like little diamonds. Yeah. So the next day he shows up at the shop with the board, I said, yeah, we'll put the fellow box. And he goes, Hey, I think you're right. Let's cut the tail off and just leave the total box where it is. That'll give me less bored after he thought about it overnight. And then within about two weeks, he makes this crazy video of him just jamming down the coast on this. And one of the, one of the scenes from the video that really caught my eye was Dave Kalama. And Jr is his cousin are in a two man canoe, which is two man Outrigger, which is the fastest boat. Usually in Maui the pattern and he goes right by them and it was just like, oh my God, what is going on there? It was just amazing. It was like, oh, we've got possibilities now. Yeah. They always screws. That's the dream to be able to just surf the open ocean swells and just be able to keep going indefinitely. And then something that layered had always talked about, we always played volleyball and we were always around together. We always played at Brett's house and layered would always talk about that going. I think we're going to be able to just cruise for miles down the coast on one of these foils. And then, like 10 or 15 years later this is what we. Yeah. That's amazing. And then, yeah. And then what happened after that? Pretty soon after that, Nash started making foils as well. So how did you feel about that? I did not feel super stoked about that. And it was like, Hey, we've got it. All right here. You could just, we could build it for you to put your logo on it and you can go from there and then I could make some money out of it. And Robby was, he's always, do it all yourself and keep it inside the company. And they wanted to do it all ourselves and Mickey, he had told me one day he goes out, he really going to be bummed if we do this all by ourselves, because Rodney wants to do it himself. And I'm like I'll be bombed, but we'll still be friends. And I guess you did, you did that with star boards for awhile, right? You put the Starboard's logo on or co-branded with Starboard's was starboard logos as well. We had done a lot of them were just go foil and a lot of them were starboard Gofoil. So there was both of them were branded at the same time for a while. There we were in the early days we were connected with starboard. And then you got a patent on the, on your foil design. So how come you never, did you ever try to enforce that? I Obviously like now there's so many companies making foils. Is there any way, like anything you ever were able to do with that patent or was it just not feasible? He never really pursued it. If there was a lawyer out there who wanted to pursue it, and work at his, work on his dime and then split it, 90, he takes 90% of the profits. We get. Then we could do something, but it's something where, you don't really want to jump into that game unless, it's financially feasible. We've got patents on the patent that all kinds of aspects of, the surf foiling and stand up for healing. And basically as being, a new thing and, thickness of foils being thicker than the norm and all of that. So there's a bunch of aspects to the patent, but we never really pursued that to where it gets expensive, and you'd rather, nobody wants to take that on, and get their own money. You would do a 90 10 split, huh? Split. Get that out there. That would do it. Oh, rate is 8% is royalties that all the companies should be paying you, they could get 90% of the 8%, but yeah, that's just one of those things in the beginning, we went for that patent to, it was like, wow this could really be something big. And is it a utility patent or did design patent, do you know? I'm not even sure which one it is. It's the more expensive ones and that's a utility patent. That means that, that means it doesn't have to be like, even if it's not an exact copy, if it's the same concept and yeah. Basically. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we went for. And we have a big time patent lawyer firm that did it, but it's hard to enforce, obviously you have to prove that it's and he was going to chase it, on their own diamond set of you paying for these lawyers because the lawyers and all that gets expensive, we've got the patent and the us China and. Australia, we didn't pursue the other countries because you got to pursue every country separately. And then how, and then how did you, did it evolve? Like I know in the early days, like everybody wanted to buy foils and there, you couldn't just couldn't get them, like you couldn't make them fast enough. And like, how did you ramp up production and what kind of issues did he run into? Yeah, you're in the early days, you, haven't a lot of problems with how to construct this and how to keep it from breaking in me. I always making wind surfers in the early days. I really hated warranties that will end up ruining your business. You do all of this work and then you got to give the guy another board or fixes board or whatever. So in the beginning, we didn't even want to put out the product till we were pretty sure that we weren't going to break it. So that stalls your production and stuff. And then once you do ramp it up to get, full on production going, then you end up, you have to watch out that things are evolving so fast to not make too much of the, something that might be outdated by the time you get it, because it takes a long time for these factories to build our stuff. What happened with us, which was unique with us is that my two brother-in-laws build canoes over in China. My one brother-in-law owns the factory because he got burned by some Chinese factory he was working with. So he decided to do his own us own Chinese factory. And then he got asked to jump through all the hoops to do that. But anyway, they were making the canoes. And he makes a bunch of different models that you see around in Hawaii and the manager of the factory, my other brother, a brother-in-law Michael Gamblin is my other sister's husband that owns the factory. He's the genius behind, put it all together. He's the guy that I do all the CAD work with and building the foils and the wings and stuff. He's really super smart. And he's, can pull all of this stuff together. It has the drive to do it where people go, oh, wait a minute. That's way overwhelming. I'm not going to do my own Chinese factory. That's going to be too many things to overcome. But anyway, what happened was I had been building stuff in Vietnam. And it was getting to where it was hard to get stuff out of Vietnam fast enough. And I was seeing that these foils you're going to need a lot of these are going to need thousands of these things, cause it's in hot demand. So I asked my brother-in-law Michael, Hey, do you want to start building these at your factory in China? And I showed him the video of Kai and the 5 million views. He's oh my God. He just went by Dave Kalama and junior on the two man. Okay. We're all in. Let's do it. And that's how it started. And now it's a whole family business and we build all of the main hydrofoils in China at his factory. So I guess in the beginning, like I remember the first one I got it started to crack right by the mass of base, like between the base and the Tableau box. And then also on the fuselage. That's, those were the main points where a lot of. You had a lot of issues, right? Yeah. You have issues like that in the beginning where there's a, it's a process of trying to get your carbon fiber loaded, just right. The direction ability or, you're 45 degree angles and how much materials in there and, the compression, there's a lot of issues that you had to overcome. I like the first one I got we got one from the factory in China comes over and we had all of the fiberglass or carbon aligned in the wrong direction. And I snapped the front wing right off writing, riding. All of a sudden my front wings gone. And it's just a matter of, you've got to have fibers going the right way and the 40 fives and everything to work perfectly, especially with prepregs is a whole different animal where there are layers and layers put together in the middle. Okay. So they're made as a union directly. Think of it as the strands are uni directional. Like these are the strands are the carbon. Each sheet is like this, you can align it like this or whatever. And you cut these all, put them in the wall in a certain way. So there was a lot of learning curves to get, not all right in the beginning and how much should be here and how much should be there. And where are the weak points and all that kind stuff. Yeah. We went through all that too. So very frustrating to get stuff back that just breaks, right? Yeah. I know. Warranties. Yeah. And then again, then, sorry. And then and then what happened then? The develop, what was the development after that? Like how did you ramp it up and become a global brand. In the beginning, it was easy because nobody else had any foils. So we were, we went globally right in the beginning. And we were selling shoes couple thousand or 3000 foils in those first couple of years, just because we were the only guys who had foils. So that was easy. So then we got around worldwide, fairly easy in the beginning, then it becomes harder and harder because you've got, 10 guys get in, want to make foils. And you've got 20 guys who come in and then you got 50 guys. You've got people you'd never even heard of or trying to build foils. And everybody wants to jump in on this bandwagon. It's like the early days of wind surfing or stand up, everybody jumped into the show to try and be. So that makes it harder. So you've got to, you've got to keep up really good quality. Don't you don't want warranties to come back to ruin the business, but at the same time, you're trying to make faster stuff or easier stuff or, whatever and try and keep progressing is the way we try to do it over here. Yeah. And then, so you got into more high aspect, foils and fast, faster designs, thinner foils, smaller for us and so on. What do you, what are you working on now? It's like your latest latest designs and what's, what do you see for the future? What we're going to do in the future is we're going to try and weave the last couple of years, we've gone into speed and try to get faster and faster, and we've made a bunch of. So the wings to go a lot faster because in the beginning, everybody was hitting on us going, oh, your oils are outdated. They're so slow in this and that and blah, blah, blah. So then we worked on our speed. So now we've gotten to where we were like about the fastest foils out there. So now we want to try and get back to, without losing some of that, you'll have those lines of fast, easy foils to ride, but then something that is really easy to ride it, doesn't accelerate on the turn, something that's a little bit user-friendly for the intermediate type guys, the guys that are really advanced and ride. These are NL wings, which are super fast and, tourney and everything. But the the intermediate is get a little bit, shy away from that. It's we're going to make the GL is a really good one for winging it for the intermediate people, but I'm going to try for next year to make something that's super easy. So we're going to have a different line. We'll have three different lines, basically. So are you making a foil that's specifically designed for wing foiling or are they all all around foils for Steph prone, foiling, standup foiling and wink foiling, or depending on the size of the wing or like how, yeah. They all can cross over. So we're finding out that, you want one, that's supposed to be erasing foil. Okay. So we're thinking downwind or are racing for wings or or towing falls into that category. If you're in really big waves, you need some super fast and Then you have the other wings, like the NL, which are great for stand up. They're great for surfing the smaller ones, prone surfing, but they're really good for winging also. So it's funny how all of them, you can almost do every one of the sports on each one of those wings. It's just a different style of riding you have to do, or a different size riders, weight, might like the bigger wing where the smaller guys like, oh my God, I can't write that thing. I need a little tiny thing. But all of them seem to cross over. I can tow on, on different size waves on any of the wings I can wing on any of the wings. I need particular amount of, a lot of wind for the small toe wings, but on the Raceway. Like when I'm paddling downwind, a lot of the wings crossover to me, paddling downwind too. So there's, it's funny. They all have their moments and can crossover. Yeah. So I guess the same design just in different sizes works for different things. I guess when you're Don flooding, you probably needed a little bit more surface area, a bigger wing, to keep going. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Cool. Yeah. And then how did you get into wink foiling? What I know you were one of the early wing furthers. You were on an ozone and stuff like that. Posting videos of you riding at lanes and stuff like that. So how did you get into that? A wing foiling started with the way it started over here was flash. Austin was always tightened down there with us and riding. Type foils and stuff just decided to put together this funky wing thing with some windsurfing battens and some old kite material and just put this whole thing together. And he goes, Alex, I need one of your foils. I think I can get distinct foiling. And I'm like, what are you talking about? He goes, yeah, I've been hiding down at the sewer plant, try and testing this thing. So get him a foil on it. He comes up there, we take pictures of them. These are the first things we see of the new of evolution of Wingfoot and where it started. So we kite and rode this thing at the same place where Ken winners, right next door to us, he does all of his kite testing there too. And then Ken saw him one day and he's oh my God, what is that? I'm going to put that in production. I'm going to build a couple of those and we'll start doing experimenting with it. So Ken takes it from there and puts the boom on it. Cause Ken's an old time windsurfer and he just liked the book. And the very first wings that I tried were kin winners, duotone wings. And that's how we first learned. Alan could, is got me down there one day. We were down there with Alan at canal and he goes here, go try it. And then I proceed to get up and cruise around. After about 10 minutes I was riding it pretty well. Cause I already had, was really good kite for her. So it was easy for me to learn, oh, I used to be a windsurfer and then my wife tried it and stuff. And then from there it was like, oh my God, this is fun. So the first year I went to the Gorge with, it was maybe three years ago and I was on a, do a tone. And then I got to try ozone for the first time they had a couple ozones there at the show and they gave me one of those. So then I was using the ozone and the duotone at the hatchery and just having a blast. I was like, oh my God, this is fun. It's like the early days of wind surfing. Where were you working? Everybody was super stoked and feeding off of each other. And it's just a bunch of fun between everybody and they're all talking about, Hey, what are you writing? What I'm I learned this, what should I do? I'm having problems with this. And it's like the whole same atmosphere of the early wind surfing days. Yeah. And people are very open about sharing their ideas and their knowledge and what they learned is pretty cool. That it's not as close hold as in some other disciplines, I think. Yeah. And then what, so what are the like behind see those two boards and like what is, what are you working on now? What are you latest products and yeah. Tell me what you're up to. Latest thing now is we'll be getting in our boards from the kinetic factory. I worked with the kinetic factory again that used to build my kite boards to start making a wing boards. Their full sandwich, Connecticut is known for making. Some of the best boards in the world, as far as the factory goes, they're super solid. They, anybody who's gotten any new Jimmy Lewis boards in the last five years knows that they're built very well. So we get a container of those come in. Yep. That you can see the they've all the boards and the first container will have a total and a plate. There's all kinds of foot straps placements. You can see that has a handle there in the middle. And just the typical things that you need to have on a wing board, as you could see how the volume of this is in a pretty volume forward on my boards. I like to have a lot of volume up forward when I'm winging, because we're going shorter and shorter board. And you have a tendency when you're standing up forward, the board goes underwater. So like you come down off the plane and then all of a sudden the front goes under. It does a summary. So as you can see some of these, can you show us yeah. Maybe pick one up and move that chair out of the way. I'd show us the shape a little bit. Yeah. Let's look here. This is 105 liter board is five, six, and you can see how we have a lot of thickness up in the front of here. Cause we get the five, six you get up forward. If you have the traditional theater noses that look really cool, they sink on their water. When you stand up here, basically we move the flotation of forward. It's a little bit bigger, fuller outline up forward as compared to the tail. So it's reverse of what a lot of the boards are. That bigger tails, a lot of float in the back. I like to have the full rotation of forward. We've gone shorter and shorter, and it's easier to stand on something when it's like that this one you can see has the traditional, like wind surfing style footsteps. This is 45 degrees here, and I have one strap in the back. I like to ride wind shift and style. It's really easy to switch your feet and stuff. You go from strap. A lot of people are coming from surfing background, have a problem with switching your feet. And so then you have foot straps that can go straight. Like you're just going to go one direction. So it has the answer it's for going riding with just one set or footsteps, or you've got the list surfing style where you can switch your feet and go forward and start to learn how to go both ways. Because if you get in a problem where you're trying to get up and really like when TOSA. You're crossed up on your bad tack. It's hard to get up like that. And it's hard to go up wind like that. So if you do get into light winds, it's easier to switch your feet better to learn in the beginning, because once you start going just tow side all the time, you never switch feet again. The deck is pretty much flat. Or do you have like concave in the deck? Any kind of, I don't like on caves so much. I want everything to be a flat platform for my feet and nothing weird. And I don't concave too, because. I'd rather, if you fall on it, I want it to be flat and not have a little bit of a rounded edge to hit your shins or your knees or whatever. I'd rather we're getting back on is easier on a slide deck. I find it. And you don't hit your elbow or whatever on that hitch. Yeah. Yeah. Like I used to ride on Connor. Baxter's, downwind board, he's got this big scoop out, all those star wars at the Umar and I'd fall on that thing. I'm like, oh my God. And he has whacked myself with this heavy concave. So it's cut that system. I don't like that. So I figure if it works, don't make it all fancy. Like the same thing with the bottom sheets are real flat so that it has an easier release to pop up when you're planning it real light. Is it a, if slat all the way to the nose and you have a little bit of convex in the nose, it was pretty much flat. The holes in soft rails, the rails in the back towards the tail of the board would have been, it's a little bit round here and you have a little bit of a kick in the last, behind your total box and your plates. And can you show that the profile, the contour, like you said, it's a little bit thinner in the tail than in the notes. No. They're about the same thickness, but now are thicker in the front and thinner and the thickness keep about the same thickness. So don't go crazy with, making a super sick. I don't like the way that feels when I'm winning. I want a lot of float up for, because most of the time on these short boards, like this board is my four, six. I tow with this and I wing with this and can kite with this also. But even with this board, it was one of the things too, when you're out of your boards you want the bone flow to be about the same so that when you sinking it, especially on sinker, it seems evenly because more of my boards, I have a pretty big it's a little bit thicker in the front than the back. And I float like this and I go down and it's hard when you're sinking like that. Not really far forward and concentrate on the nose going down. So there's all types of, trial and error and into figuring out what really feels good for me. Always made my own board so I can go ahead and, make a board that week and test it again. But I don't make custom boards anymore for other people, but the family still gets nice. Thanks for showing us that I'm going to show the screen share again real quick. Oh, sorry. Let me let me go back to that. So are you going to show your bottom here? You can see all of what the, oh, you got the measurement for where to place the foil and the bottom handle. Yeah, I guess guide there. So like you use your, this is how far you are from the tail and the measurements. And then if you like your plate in certain position, you remember what your number is to go, okay I like it at, seven inches or whatever it is for the plate title of course goes in just one place. When you got a, a nice. It's nice to have a handle on a wing board because getting in and out of the water is much more for me. And then on the deck, you don't have a handle though. So I don't like the handle on the deck because when I'm stepping all over the place and my toe gets in there, I've had a couple of problems with almost breaking my toe, like having all the dash. Yeah. But then I guess when you're carrying them without the foil attaches, it's off balance, but you can, I guess you can still carry with that bottom, but you could still carry it. It feels a little bit nose heavy, especially on the bigger six oh board, but you can always, the smaller words really. Yeah. Not that hard to carry it. Yeah. And I was going to show the different sizes you have available here. I guess you have a 46 by 44 liters, five oh, by 87 liters, five six by 106 liters and then 600 by 134 liters. So four different sizes. And when are those going to be available? Next week, I think container arrives next week could be the following week. I don't know how much we get stuck with, trucking and customs in Honolulu. It's already in Honolulu. So I'm just going through the, the process of getting it over here. Nice. And then, oh, I think I had this on here too. So tell us a little bit about the co also making your own wings now, right? Is that Craig, is this one of your prototypes? This is one of the prototypes. This is the actual version of the three. Which will it'll have stripes on it. It's got all the logos and stuff, and I moved the windows closer to the middle strut on the production style, but I've been using this thing since I want to say February or something, it's the the quality of it feels really good. I haven't stretched it out, and it hasn't blown apart. And I put it through some tail this day is probably, a regular 25 to 30 knots. And just imagine some of the days where we're 35 to 40 and I'm still using that week. So they're built super solid. And what I like about my wings is what we did was make the bladders a little bit bigger to make them stiffer. So when your sheet in with these things are not moving all over the place, like some of the wings, we got a little bit more of a, it feels like a windsurfing sail you shoot in, and it doesn't move all over the place. Yeah. And that makes them more powerful too, I'm, the Armstrong rings are like that, that they're really thick flatters, which make it more rigid and powerful. It seems yeah. It looks like you made the wing tips pretty squared off. So you have less of a wing span to, is that one of the things you were working on or, just maybe talk us through the different prototypes, you try it out and what you've learned from trying different things. We did with this is basically our, we call it our elliptical style. It's more of a standard style, but we do bring the wingtips closer together than some of the wings. Cause you'll notice how on, F1 or Armstrong have pretty long wingtips and you have a tendency to touch those in the water very easily. So my wing tips are broadened together a little bit more on that. Ellipticals. So you got a little bit more cord in the middle. So think of it as a longer strut in the middle shorter wingspan, just to make it easier to turn without touching your tips. Then we have a square model, which is the one that I was writing at home keep. Or the one day you might've seen that with the square model is better for really light wind so that when you're, you get on those bigger wings and you're having problems pumping, to get up. So they like you're, you just want to get foil, like that one, that's the square model. You see how that one's way more square than that elliptical style you just saw. This looks almost a little bit more like a, that slick wing at a new Ken winners. S duotone one. Yeah that closer to a slick, whether you score off the ball just so that what I like about this is I do a lot of windsurfing style wave riding, hurting like that. When I call it cheating in, you can keep the tip further up out of the water, but the main advantage of this one, forget all this hotdogs and stuff that I'm doing here is when it's really light. When you have problems pumping up to get onto a foil, it's a day where you're out. It's Hey, I wonder if I can get foiling today, and you go to the pump, and you keep touching your tip in the water and it stops the whole progression of trying to get up. You got to start all over again. So the square tips are made for that to where when you pump it, it's easier to pop up the foil and have a lot less problem of the wing tip touching while you're trying to accomplish them. That's the biggest advantage of these square model. So the square models are made in the bigger size. It's like a four or five, a five, five and a six, five. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And that's one of the things about some of the earlier designs is when, you think you could use a bigger size to get it going in lighter winds, but then then the wing tips were so wide that you couldn't really create a lot of power with it because of it has, because it's like the wingtips is drag and you can't really bring it vertical. You give you that forward power, this just lifts up, but you can't really get that forward momentum with it. That's where that, I think the square design makes a lot of sense. So you actually have two different wing designs or is it just by size or how does that work? You can wing styles, but it's by size where they convert over to the other ones. So by elliptical side, Those 2, 2, 2 7, 2 7 is like a main state here in Maui. Everybody, when they get lit up over here, the two seven is really nice. I ride the three, five, and then the four or five. So those are the ellipticals. You got 2, 2, 2 7, 3, 5, 4 or five. Now the square model, like you saw in that last video is a four or 5, 5, 5, and six five. So it's more towards the higher end because when I, those ones don't loft is easy. They're a little bit more unstable if you're just luffing and want to cruise down the coast and, hi, I win. So the medical ones, I like a little bit better for that. And my feedback from my riders that, you've got to get it, some of the intermediate and beginner riders, because feeling stuff that's different than you and they get on it all the way out. This elliptical is way easier for me to. In handled. But when you get into that day, when it's six to eight knots and you cannot get foiling, like even my wife, she was, didn't like the square model, having all kinds of problems with it. And I'm like, I put her out in it's fairly windy. Then we have one day where it's not very windy. She goes out with the four or five elliptical and she kept touching the tips and she's getting all upset. And I go, okay, here now try the square model. She goes, gets right up. She was like, oh, okay. Now I get fantastic. So those wings you have available now for sale, you have them on Maui. No those are all prototypes as everybody who are having problems, getting wings, those will probably show up in September. If we're lucky. I said, yeah, we're going to start building them in August and we're going to ship them in September, then. Nice. Oh, my shipping, do they have to go in a container or do I get a good rate to air freight them then what we won't know until we actually have the product and see how you take the ship. Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. The whole pandemic thing and like what, how did it affect you and your business? I know shipping has been a nightmare, like getting stuff shipped in containers and stuff like that. But other than that, like how did the whole pandemic workout for you at Maui? The pandemic here on Maui, it was we're out in the, to where, there's not as many people over here, they shut down the islands, nobody was loud and, people didn't want to leave because they couldn't get back in type of thing. So I was in Florida when all this happened, we were doing a tour over there and demos all over the place. And then they're like, Hey, they're going to shut down the state. We got to fly back to. On a mad rush to get back home. And then I stayed there for a, since last March. No. Did I go anywhere? I think I went to a wahoo last month when they finally opened it up to where I could go without all kinds of tests and get my nose probed and everything. I went anywhere. Maui is they closed down the beaches. We're not allowed to go to canal hall. They closed it all down and that's where we were all winging it from. But you're allowed to go to the Harbor. So you go to the Harbor and what ended up happening was everybody had nothing to do and started learning how to go when they closed down the canoe guys, because the six man canoe, as you're too close to quarters and they wouldn't let them do a six man canoes and they have all the lessons and stuff from the teaching and races. So they closed down. Basically the canoes were. The wing foiling, and then the wing Oilers just took over. There was no trap boat, traffic, and all, there was a bunch of wing boilers and all of a sudden you've got kids and grandmas and old windsurfers who had, and wind surfed in 25 years coming back into the water. And it's, it was just crazy. There's some days there was 50 or 60 people down there and it's still going on down there now it's started a whole, a whinging. This COVID started a winging revolution on a big community down there. Yeah, that's awesome. And then more recently you had that you had a gold foil get together at that at a big house over there. And I know my friend, Derek, Thomas Saki went over there and stuff. And talk a little bit about that. That was great. We do this usually once a year, we have we rent we have a friends that have the access to the house down. Yeah. And he lets us go into it for a weekend or whatever we're trying to do. So we do go foil weekend and i

Eric Bowman could never have imagined the path his life would take for him to become a fine art painter. He wanted to go to art school but the prospect of spending two years in a junior college taking courses that had nothing to do with art - well, that was something he couldn't stomach. And so began a surprising journey with many side trips and destination stops and the serendipitous meeting of people who would forever shape the way he creates art today. In this edition of the Artful Painter, Eric talks about his choice of subject to paint: often a solitary figure or two situated in a vast, cinematic  landscape. He talks about his Quonset studio, his design and painting processes, and tells us about the unexpected encounters with people who would influence his path to painting fine art. As you listen to his remarkable journey on becoming a painter, you will be enthralled by Eric Bowman Following a Circuitous Path. Links: Eric Bowman Website: https://www.ericbowman.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericbowmanart/ Other mentions: Tim Solliday: http://timsollidayart.com Rick Griffin: https://www.rickgriffindesigns.com/biography About the Artful Painter: Website: https://theartfulpainter.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CarlOlsonArt This page may contain affiliate links from which I earn a small commission. When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Good News: The butterfly species, Duke of Burgundy, is on the rebound in the UK thanks to the conservation efforts of the organization Butterfly Conservation, Link HERE. The Good Word: A somber and dark sonnet from Gerard Manley Hopkins. Good To Know: A lovely bit of trivia about Costa Rica! Good News: A development group […]

You're listening to the Westerly Sun's podcast, where we talk about the best local events, new job postings, obituaries, and more. First, a bit of Rhode Island trivia. Today's trivia is brought to you by Perennial. Perennial's new plant-based drink “Daily Gut & Brain” is a blend of easily digestible nutrients crafted for gut and brain health. A convenient mini-meal, Daily Gut & Brain” is available now at the CVS Pharmacy in Wakefield. Now for some trivia. Did you know that the Quonset hut was invented at Quonset Point? They're lightweight prefabricated structures made of corrugated galvanized steel with a semi cylindrical cross-section. Based on the Nissen hut introduced by the British during World War I, hundreds of thousands were produced during World War II and the military surplus was sold to the public. Now, here are a few events today that we're looking forward to. Today at 10am, Join the Clark Memorial Library for a virtual story hour with Miss Chamoni. You'll need to register your kids ahead of time. To learn more and sign up, head over to clarklib.org/calendar. And today at 5:30pm, join the Stonington Free Library for a virtual discussion of The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. It's an Amazon Editor's pick and what the Christian Science Monitor called “a beautifully written, sublime piece of fiction”. Pre-registration is required for this event. For more information and to register, send an email to ivyhope@stoningtonfreelibrary.org or head over to stoningtonfreelibrary.org for more info. Looking for a new role? We're here to help. Today's Job posting comes from Sound Design in Montville, CT. They're looking for full-time and part-time landscapers. Most work is plant related with planting, mulching, stone, trimming and weeding. Extensive xxperience is preferred. Pay starts at $15 per hour. If you'd like to learn more or apply, you can do so by using the link in our episode description.  https://www.indeed.com/l-Westerly,-RI-jobs.html?advn=3241986032515510&vjk=85fc52d1d4106409 Today we're remembering the life of Ruth Cullen, affectionately known as "Sis". Ruth grew up in West Haven, Connecticut. She was a 1957 graduate of West Haven High School. Her distinguished 40-year financial career in banking began in high-school when she worked part- time at Union Trust Company in New Haven. During her tenure, a time of bank acquisitions, her positions included Vice-President of Financial Control, Vice-President of Commercial Loans and General Ledger. She was respectfully and affectionately referred to as "Ma" by the numerous officers and staff who reported to her as she was known for her nurturing leadership style.  She retired in 1995 as Vice-President and Assistant Comptroller for Wells Fargo Bank. A truly wonderful woman, about whom many would remark, "If you knew her, you loved her." Ruth's greatest love was her devoted husband, Ed, and their family. Together they shared a love of travel and embarked on numerous trips to Europe, "Sis" gathering many friends along the way. She would knit clothing for gifts as opposed to buying them, cook from old recipe books. She enjoyed gardening and entertaining as a gracious hostess. Thank you for taking a moment today to remember and celebrate Ruth's life. That's it for today, we'll be back next time with more! Also, remember to check out our sponsor Perennial, Daily Gut & Brain, available at the CVS on Main St. in Wakefield! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s the debut of Sudden Impact! Chris Jericho and Lance Storm had a great first pro match working against each other, but when it came to their second match, and first as a tag team, it was a completely different story! CJ gave this match 1 star in his own record keeping, and Lance hates this match so much, he didn’t want anyone to see it! Watch the match on Chris Jericho’s YouTube channel (https://youtu.be/Hu4XGJiATjo) and listen to this episode as Chris and Lance recount the circumstances leading up to them taking on veterans Ed “The Savage” Langley and Steve Gillespie in a Quonset in Strathmore, Alberta, the in-ring situation that created their “safeword” strategy, the controversial “Ric Flair Ball Shot,” and the story of Lance’s black boots with the lifts in them! Plus, they tell the tale of the Black Mamba, the curse of Les Thornton, how they jack-knifed the truck & trailer hauling the ring, and why Chris Jericho nearly quit wrestling at this point.

It's the debut of Sudden Impact! Chris Jericho and Lance Storm had a great first pro match working against each other, but when it came to their second match, and first as a tag team, it was a completely different story! CJ gave this match 1 star in his own record keeping, and Lance hates this match so much, he didn't want anyone to see it! Watch the match on Chris Jericho's YouTube channel (https://youtu.be/Hu4XGJiATjo) and listen to this episode as Chris and Lance recount the circumstances leading up to them taking on veterans Ed “The Savage” Langley and Steve Gillespie in a Quonset in Strathmore, Alberta, the in-ring situation that created their “safeword” strategy, the controversial “Ric Flair Ball Shot,” and the story of Lance's black boots with the lifts in them! Plus, they tell the tale of the Black Mamba, the curse of Les Thornton, how they jack-knifed the truck & trailer hauling the ring, and why Chris Jericho nearly quit wrestling at this point.

Nashville’s Music Row is as complicated as the myths that surround it. And there are plenty, from an adulterous French fur trader to an adventurous antebellum widow, from the early Quonset hut recordings to record labels in glass high-rise towers and from “Your Cheatin’ Heart” to “Strawberry Wine.” Untangle the legendary history with never-before-seen photos of Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, Kris Kristofferson and Shel Silverstein and interviews with multi-platinum songwriters and star performers. Authors Brian Allison, Elizabeth Elkins and Vanessa Olivarez dig into the dreamers and the doers, the architects and the madmen, the ghosts and the hit-makers that made these avenues and alleys world-famous. Elizabeth Elkins is a professional songwriter and writer. A military brat, she holds degrees from the University of Georgia and Emory University. She has written for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Creative Loafing, Art & Antiques and many others. She is president of Historic Nashville Inc. and the author of the upcoming Your Cheatin’ Heart: Timothy Demonbreun and the Politics of Love and Power in Nascent Nashville (Vanderbilt University Press).Vanessa Olivarez is a professional songwriter and vocalist. A Texas native, she was a Top 12 finalist on the second season of American Idol and received a Dora Award nomination for her work in the Toronto, Canada production of Hairspray.Together, Elkins and Olivarez are Granville Automatic, an alt-country band that has been featured in the New York Times, USA Today and the Bitter Southerner. Their songs have been used in numerous television programs and films, and they have written songs recorded by more than seventy-five other artists, including Billy Currington, Wanda Jackson and Sugarland. They were the songwriters in residence at the Seaside Institute’s Escape to Create program (Florida), where they wrote a Civil War concept album, An Army without Music. Their 2018 album Radio Hymns focuses on the lost history of Nashville, and the 2020 follow-up, Tiny Televisions, was inspired by Music Row stories in this book. You may have seen their videos on CMT. The pair live in Nashville, Tennessee, and regularly tour across the United States.While not a musician himself, Brian Allison was born and raised on stories of country music. His father, Joe, was a producer, songwriter, radio personality and pioneer, and without his stories, this book would not have been possible. A professional historian, museum consultant and writer, Brian is the author of two other books for The History Press, Murder & Mayhem in Nashville and Notorious Nashville. He lives in Nashville.

Eighty-four-year-old Eve Ewing made her first trip to Baja in the back seat of her father's plane in 1952. Her father, the legendary Oceanographer Gifford Ewing, would fly his plane down annually to perform an aerial census of the California Grey Whales as they calved in Scammon's Lagoon. In those days, they landed right on the salt flats of Guerrero Negro. There was no town, just a grouping of five Quonset huts. Ewing's father would fly on to the village of Bahia de Los Angeles, where he would spend the night at Casa Diaz—owned by his friend Antero "Papa" Diaz. On one of his many trips, Gifford Ewing brought the first short-wave radio to LA Bay -an important gift for Papa Diaz. In 1963, when the Meling-Alford mule train arrived in LA Bay, their second stop from Tecate, half the riders left the arduous expedition -Gifford Ewing, who had flown to LA Bay to meet the group, used that radio to call his daughter for reinforcements and needed supplies. My dad radioed me and said, "a whole bunch of their people are pulling out of the expedition, do you want to join them?" Eve jumped at the opportunity and quickly began rounding up the supplies they requested. She had just a day to round up 50 pounds of horseshoe nails, 25 pounds of dehydrated eggs, pack her saddle, stirrup covers, chaps, and long underwear -and get to Tijuana, as soon as she could. The Baja legend, Francisco Munoz would fly her down to LA Bay meet the riders. The Meling-Alford Expedition eventually made it to Cabo San Lucas. However, Ewing didn't make the entire trip. When the group arrived in La Paz, she learned that her mother had suddenly died, so she flew back to California to be with her family. She's returned to Baja many times over the years, leading over fifty mule trips and visiting one hundred cave painting sites. Deciphering those paintings has become her life's work. In this rambling conversation, Ewing reflects on moving to La Jolla in 1945, becoming a cowgirl, and the arduous 1963 -1964 mule ride. She says it was the warm and welcoming rancheros that kept her returning year after year -and the cave paintings. I have to say, with Eve Ewing's warm welcome and her trove of stories, I need to come back and record with her again very soon! A few clarifications, Charles Scammon, the namesake of Scammon's Lagoon, was a US citizen and was born in Maine. Guerrero Negro was named after the whaling ship The Black Warrior, that was wrecked on the sand bars of Frenchman's lagoon. Thanks to David Kier for the clarifications! For more on the cave paintings of Baja, click here For more on Eve's last mule ride in Baja, click here For more on Eve's father, Gifford Ewing, click here

Giving away free schematic plans as a lead magnet, building custom furniture, and adopting the developer-architect model to build, then rent out his own projects has allowed Earl Parson to grow Clever Moderns into a thriving practice. What's more, he has done this within the "micro niche" of the Quonset hut.

Fanless Sports, Contact Tracing, Spotify/Joe Rogan, Apple Glass and much much more by regular hosts Wade Mariano, Tres Finocchiaro and Gunnar Kennedy. Image 2020 rixproducts.com #sports #jre #appleglass #quonset

Philip Kafka has made a big splash since arriving in Detroit during the last decade. He’s helped open two of the city’s most celebrated restaurants, Takoi and Magnet, and he’s the developer behind the Quonset hut development “True North,” public spaces and retail storefronts popping up in a once-sleepy pocket of the core city neighborhood. Now, he’s looking to expand his development. Kafka joins us for a wide-ranging discussion about his plans, his love of trees, and his unorthodox approach to real estate development. If this is the first time meeting our show, we’re on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-detroit/id1220563942 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1Yhv8nSylVWxlZilRhi4X9 And although the show will always be free, our members help make it available for everyone else. Become a member on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/dailydetroit

News and More: 5G is coming, and it's going to change everything. Including the Canby Municipal Code and planning regulations. Changes are also coming to the county's search and rescue efforts, as Sheriff Craig Roberts announces a new, unified team. A unique store in neighboring Aurora is closing its doors at the end of the month. Canby Conversation: Today, we feature the story of the Oregon Trail Pitchpipers, Canby's a cappella singing group dedicated to preserving barbershop-style music. Their history in our community dates back to 1965, but for this year's show, they'll be going back way farther than that: to the founding of the country. Tickets to The Pitchpipers Present: "Songs of America," may be purchased here. After the Break: The Oregon Trail Pitchpipers treat us to a sampling of their upcoming show on March 14 at the Canby Fine Arts Center. (Who knew "God Bless America" had more than one verse?) And, finally: A mysterious meteor, an immigrant fire chief, an Army surplus Quonset hut. It's history of our beloved Wait Park, on Canby Then.  This Week's Sponsors: Canby Foursquare Church, Health Markets, DirectLink, Advantage Mortgage, Wild Hare Saloon, Retro Revival Music in this episode: https://canbynowpod.com/music-credits/ Please support our show! To listen without ads, and ensure we can continue to bring you important news and amazing stories you can't get anywhere else, join Canby Now Plus today! For details, visit patreon.com/canbynowpod.

You can’t visit San Diego without going to see Bird Huffman at Bird’s Surf Shed. And that’s exactly what Niki Hurren and Joe Walsh did in this week’s episode of Get Out and SURF. Located in a hidden Quonset hut on W. Morena Blvd, at the crossroads of Bay Park and Linda Vista, and within striking distance of every surf spot between Black’s Beach and Sunset Cliffs… welcome to Bird’s Surf Shed. Bird keeps over 1000 surfboards in the Shed, some of which are for sale, many of which you can ride if you just say please. Hear stories about the infamous local surfboard craftsmen of the area, the origin and resurgence of the fish, and the fine line between being a surfer and owning a surfing business. Thanks for listening, pura vida! Email Get Out and SURF any questions, comments, show ideas, etc. getoutandsurfCR@gmail.com This podcast is brought to you by Witch’s Rock Surf Camp. http://witchsrocksurfcamp.com DON’T FORGET! Go to Instagram, post your best sunset/sunrise photo with the hashtag #ShowUsYourSunset, and make sure to tag @getoutandsurf @witchsrocksurf and @sambatothesea Every month someone will win a free Witch’s Rock Surf Camp t-shirt. At the end of the year, one of these monthly winners will win the grand prize: a free trip to Witch’s Rock Surf Camp in Tamarindo, Costa Rica

On this episode of The Bartholomewtown Podcast, Bill Bartholomew sits down with Steven King, Managing Director of Quonset, a sprawling business park and commercial port which has seen significant growth in a diversity of industries and, according to a recent Bryant University report, is a major economic development driver on a statewide scale.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/bartholomewtown?fan_landing=true)

Rhode Island business leaders and politicians are always looking for the businesses that bring jobs to the state. This week, The Public’s Radio political analyst Scott MacKay takes us to an Ocean State success story.

Michael Pohorilla, 95, of New Albany flew 35 combat missions over German-held territory as a first lieutenant and Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress navigator in World War II. He was based in Great Britain as a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps’ Eighth Air Force. The 10-man crew on his bomber ranged from 18 to 22 years old, “barely out of high school,” he said. “When you’re young, you think you’re invincible. ... Just a few microseconds in combat and you become very, very humble,” he said. “God was my co-pilot, no question about it.” Pohorilla was born in eastern Pennsylvania and graduated from Girard College, a 12-grade school in Philadelphia that had about 1,600 students when he attended. “I got a first-class education there,” he said, consisting of college-preparatory classes in the mornings and vocational classes in the afternoons. The vocational classes covered such topics as carpentry, electrical work and printing. “The philosophy was, when you left the school, you could earn a living,” he said. “It was a school far ahead of its time.” A fellow Girard student who was a year behind Pohorilla was Russell Johnson, who also became a bomber crewman. A bombardier and navigator in a B-25 Mitchell bomber, Johnson flew 44 combat missions in the Pacific. Long after the war, Johnson became famous portraying Professor Roy Hinkley in the TV comedy “Gilligan’s Island.” “He was a nice guy,” Pohorilla said. Pohorilla was a 17-year-old listening to a football game on the radio when he learned the Japanese had attacked the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941. The New York Giants were playing a Sunday afternoon home game at the Polo Grounds when Pohorilla heard background voices on the radio mentioning an unnamed general and the mayor. “You knew something was going on,” he said. An announcer soon told listeners the news that Japan had attacked Hawaii, Pohorilla said, “and that was it.” His father was a World War I veteran, injured during a poisonous-gas attack in France, and his two brothers served in the Navy in World War II. At age 18, Pohorilla said, “I saw everybody around me was going” into the military. Pohorilla wanted to be a pilot, he said. “Flying was the thing to do back in those days. ... I was interested in flying,” he said. First came Army basic training in Miami. “Basic training was tough,” he said. After training in Florida, he next was posted at several locations in the south. “The south was a bit of culture shock,” he said, because of a level of segregation he had not seen in Pennsylvania. “Separate drinking fountains and the like were kind of alien to you growing up and what you were used to,” he said. Next came the military’s aviation cadet program, designed to produce at least 100,000 pilots a year. “The future, of course, meant invading Europe. We also had a lot of air crews required for the Pacific area, as well,” Pohorilla said. The training was patterned after the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and “the discipline was pretty harsh. ... We had to toe the mark until we finally started to get into airplanes and start flying a bit,” he said. He made his first solo flight at Souther Field near Americus, Georgia, and in May 1944 received orders to ship out for England. He was based with the 385th Bombardment Group, stationed about 40 miles east of Cambridge. He and seven other men lived in a Quonset hut, a prefabricated structure made of corrugated steel.  It was equipped with a pot-bellied stove, which, he said, “never got us warm in England.” Using a 30-gallon oil drum, some copper tubing and used motor oil, the men improvised a drip system to feed oil into the stove. After that, “the pot-bellied stove was red hot at times,” he said.  Not long after his arrival in England, the Germans began sending V-1 flying bombs across the channel. The “buzz bombs,” as they were known, carried 1,000 pounds of explosives powered by a crude jet engine, Pohorilla said. The V-1 wasn’t very accurate, he said. The Germans’ goal was to “hopefully, knock out something but (mostly) to frighten the population.” Although buzz bombs hit his base once or twice, he said, the Americans’ morale was unaffected. “They sounded like a real freight train coming by, real loud,” he said. “As long as you could hear that noise, you knew we were safe. ... When the noise stopped, then it headed for the earth. ... Loud boom afterwards.”  A typical bombing mission started at 5 a.m., Pohorilla said. While the Royal Air Force bombed cities at night, “we bombed specific targets. Our mission was to destroy the industrial complex, and we did a pretty good number on that,” he said. The Americans made daylight raids, concentrating on such targets as German railroad yards and Germany’s synthetic-oil industry.  At the time, Pohorilla weighed 135 pounds, he said. His flying gear included four or five layers of clothing, an armored flak jacket, a heated suit and flight coveralls. After he put it all on, he said, he weighed about 160 pounds.  “I looked like the Michelin Man (and) waddled around,” he said.  Flying at 25,000 feet, he said, was a challenge. “We were fighting Mother Nature as much as we were fighting the enemy,” he said. At that altitude, the temperature was 40 degrees below zero, he said. The crew wore oxygen masks and were told that without the masks, their life expectancy would drop to about two minutes at high altitude.” Every five minutes, the plane did a crew check. Crewmen responded by saying, “Tail gunner, OK. Waist gunner, OK. Ball turret, OK,” etc., he said. During one crew check, Pohorilla failed to respond because his oxygen mask had frozen and he passed out. The bombardier rushed over and turned Pohorilla’s oxygen flow to 100%, and Pohorilla regained consciousness. Pohorilla’s unit made repeated attacks on plants where the Germans had converted coal to synthetic fuel. One of the larger such plants was near Leipzig, Germany. The plant was protected by about 500 anti-aircraft cannons when Pohorilla’s unit bombed it in September 1944. When his unit returned in November, he said, the Germans had 1,000 such guns at the site. “So it’s inevitable on the bomb run that you’re going to get hit. And we did get hit,” he said. The right starboard engine – one of four on the plane – was disabled, he said, but the plane stayed in formation. Pohorilla said the B-17s usually flew in formations of 32 to 36 planes, providing two significant advantages. One, he said, is the formation could bring to bear a total of 420 .50-caliber machine guns against any attacking fighter planes. The second is it allowed the planes to place their bombs in a circle only 1,000 feet wide. Along with the formation, Pohorilla’s plane completed its attack. But because it was flying on only three engines, it was burning its fuel at a high rate. The formation next headed west, with plans to turn north over the Ardennes forest – along the Belgium-German border – to return to base. Because of its low fuel, Pohorilla and his crewmen threw everything out of the plane “that wasn’t nailed down,” he said. The pilot decided to head west, with hopes of making it to Dover, England. They didn’t make it. When it was clear the plane couldn’t cross the English Channel, the pilot ordered the crew to prepare to bail out. By that point, the plane was only 1,000 feet above the ground, making a parachute escape a risky proposition. When the crewmen refused to jump, Pohorilla told the pilot he’d have to land the plane. Without lowering the landing gear, the pilot crash-landed in a freshly plowed beet field in Belgium, with “dirt flying all over the place,” Pohorilla said. With its fuel exhausted, the plane landed without a fire breaking out, and the crew jumped clear with no injuries. Picked up by a British truck, the crew was taken to Allied-controlled Brussels, where they were billeted in a hotel. “We were there for three days. I can’t remember a damned thing, but I know we had a hell of a good time,” Pohorilla said. The crash occurred on the plane’s 18th mission, which meant the crew was only halfway through its 35-mission tour. The Eighth Air Force originally sent airmen home after 25 bombing missions. When long-range U.S. fighter planes became available to protect the bombers, that limit was increased to 30 and then 35 missions, Pohorilla said. Because of his success, he was part of a group known as the Lucky Bastard Club – an informal group based on the statistic that the average life expectancy of a bomber-crew member’s life was 15 missions. His crew was given a week off back in England, making several sight-seeing stops, including a night at an old manor house outside Oxford. “I stayed in Lady Evelyn’s room that night,” Pohorilla said. “Lady Evelyn wasn’t there, though, unfortunately.” If his plane had crash-landed three weeks later, he said, it would have had to fly over the Battle of the Bulge, which by then was in full swing. With one exception, the crew on Pohorilla’s plane survived the war. One gunner, 18 years old, was flying as a substitute on another B-17 that had gone down with its crew. Pohorilla completed 35 missions and returned to the United States in February 1945. “It was big relief, of course,” he said, but he still was qualified to fly, and Germany and Japan were not yet defeated. The Germans’ surrender was announced in May 1945 and the Japanese surrender in August. Pohorilla earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, married Ellen in 1947 and had two sons. His wife died in December 2000. Among his postwar employers was Rohm and Haas Co., a chemical company founded in Germany. Pohorilla is a VFW member and on the board of directors of the Motts Military Museum in Groveport, which, he said, helps educate visiting groups of school students about history. His decorations include the Air Medal with silver cluster, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with three battle stars, the Presidential Unit Citation and the World War II Victory Medal.  His advice to veterans is to “marry a good person. I married a great person. Keep your mind busy, your body busy. ... Just stay active and be a good citizen. Love the country.” This podcast was hosted and produced by Scott Hummel, ThisWeek Community News assistant managing editor, digital. This profile was written by Paul Comstock.

In which the U.S. military builds hundreds of thousands of weird half-cylindrical shelters out of corrugated steel, and Ken reports on what they would look like with stained-glass windows. Certificate #35704

Craig Green and Cleo Keller of Contemplayful Singing visit Solidarity House, talk about community and music, give us a new theme song, and teach us other tunes.* Amanda discusses the challenges of getting social services in Wyoming. Jason talks about restoring the house's iconic tower and turning the Quonset hut into a studio for restorative art. You can learn more about Contemplayful Singing at http://www.contemplayful.com/. The music and words of MaMuse can be found at http://www.mamuse.org.

For this episode of The Art Of Construction, we're speaking with architect Earl Parson. His firm, [Parson Architecture](http://www.parsonarchitecture.com) is based in the central Arizona mountain community of Prescott, creating distinctive, one-of-a-kind homes for clients in Arizona and nationwide. They are specialists in creating one-of-a-kind Quonset hut based structures and Quonset Houses for DIY homebuilders and makers.  Join us as Earl takes us on his journey to embracing the industrial aesthetic and elemental simplicity of the [Quonset hut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_hut) to transform them into beautiful, functional residences for his clients and DIY builders alike.   Links  * [Quonset Hut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quonset_hut)  * [The Pantheon](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=the+pantheon&t=osx&iax=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Ftraveldigg.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F06%2FPantheon-Rome-Inside-Photo.jpg&iar=images&ia=images)  * [Parson Architecture](http://www.parsonarchitecture.com)  * [SCI-Arc](https://www.sciarc.edu)  * [ICF (Insulating Concrete Form)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulating_concrete_form)  * [DIY Quonset Dwellers Public Group | Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/quonsetdwellers/?ref=pages_profile_groups_tab&source_id=1740428779518898)  [Clever Moderns](https://www.clevermoderns.com) * [Resources](https://www.clevermoderns.com/quonset-hut-home-resources/)  * [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbZyE2RuXGrj8hpi5TF1PSA)  * [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/CleverModerns/)  Earl Parson Social Media Links  * [Instagram](http://instagram.com/architectearl)  * [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/ParsonArchitecture)  * [Houzz](http://www.houzz.com/pro/earl-p)  * [Parson Architecture Blog](http://www.theblog.parsonarchitecture.com)

How do I take every thought captive? I was excited when I saw this question on Facebook, because I realized someone understood they needed to think differently. She realized that her thoughts were problematic. So what do we do? Let’s go to God’s Word. 2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV tells us to do that. “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” This is one of my husband’s favorite stories and it happened while he was serving our country in Vietnam. I think he loves to tell it because it gives everybody the heebie jeebies! He was working long, hard 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. He was repairing airplanes in boiling hot open-ended Quonset huts and the glaring heat on runways. Sleep was precious. At the end of a long day, Wayne climbed into his top bunk and pulled up the sheet. As he pulled up the sheet, he felt something begin at his ankles and run along the outside of his leg. When it got to his waist he grabbed it. Yuck! The room was dark but he could feel it wriggling and writhing frantically in his hand. With one swift move, Wayne flung the lizard to the other side of the room, rolled over and went to sleep.   Just an inconvenience? While it is true the very thing that is one person’s inconvenience is another person’s nightmare. How we deal or don’t deal with situations makes all the difference in the world. What happens to you is less important than what you do with what happens. What you do with what happens can make you strong or destroy you. Oh, by the way, that little minor distraction never bothered Wayne again. He dealt with it and it was over. He didn’t worry about it crawling up his leg again or if there was another one on the mattress. Wayne just went to sleep. Take every thought captive. We need to take every thought that contradicts the word of God captive, like a policeman takes a thief captive. The Voice (VOICE) version of 2 Cor. 10:5 articulately explain our role in taking captive every thought. “We are demolishing arguments and ideas, every high-and-mighty philosophy that pits itself against the knowledge of the one true God. We are taking prisoners of every thought, every emotion, and subduing them into obedience to the Anointed One.” Wayne didn’t even look at that lizard. He wasn’t going to fight with it. It didn’t belong on him. End of story. There are some thoughts that don’t need analysis. You just need to replace it with truth. Surrender. As I was studying  and meditating on Scripture I thought to myself, “in order to correct wrong thinking I need to surrender my opinion to God.” Then I took that thought to Scripture to discover if that was really what God wanted me to do. I was so confident that my thinking was correct.   But, when I searched the Bible I realized that surrender was used in the context of what a person does when they lose a battle and they have lost all hope. They choose to surrender because it is the only choice they have. Instead, God wants us to submit our thinking to Him and embrace His better, broader and more perfect thoughts. Let me explain what He taught me. When we were touring some of the national parks out West, especially Yosemite, we stood in beautiful meadows and looked up in awe at tall, tall walls of solid granite. We saw peaks of mountains poking into heavy clouds and the dazzling gleam of sunlight dancing off the face of wet granite. We saw blue lakes, like mirrors, reflecting wavy green trees, golden leaves and gleaming, white mountains. A hand hewn Sanctuary Honestly, I felt like I was standing in one of God’s hand carved sanctuaries. It was magnificent. As I humbled my heart in HIS presence, I began to worship Him, the creator of it all. It was more than beauty that wowed me…it was God that designed and fashioned it all. In His great wisdom, He put processes in place that would be perpetual! Seeds. Seasons. Water Sunlight. And from that place of worship, recognizing that His ways are higher than my ways and that He knows way more than I know, I simply submitted my thinking to embrace His. From that place of submission I make room to receive what He had for me. I exchanged my human reasoning for His Truth. Do you see the process? Examine. Expose. Embrace or Exchange. Philippians 4:8 NLT And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Like a Spat   Your mind is like the tiny oyster larva called spat. They float freely in the water until they find a suitable permanent home, then it produces a very strong cement to attach itself to another oyster shell or a pylon standing in the water. But, sometimes it cements itself to wrong things like a bottle that washes ashore killing the oyster. (God’s amazing creations never cease to amaze me!)   If spat survives, it matures into a soft mollusk that lives inside a hinged shell. When the mollusk opens its shell, its gills filter food and oxygen from the water.  The oyster eats whatever is in the water that comes through its open shell and it can become polluted in the process. NOAA, What is spat?, https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/spat.html , 6/25/18. Filter Feeder Your mind is a filter feeder and like the saying goes, “Garbage in. Garbage out.” (GIGO) Your mind processes what it gets, often with unintended results. It will process a lie the same way it processes truth. Lies, hatred, frustration and anger are toxic to your brain, but that’s the only choice your mind has. If you want it to work right, then give your mind truth, pure input and excellent information. Focus Focus your thoughts or like the spat, cement yourself to the right thing. Because Jesus is truth, establish His Words as absolute truth and base your life on that truth. Establish boundaries. The fence surrounding a playground does more than establish boundaries. It gives children a place to play safely. When you establish boundaries tied to your values of what you will watch on TV, of what you will and will not read, of what you will and will not listen to, then you are well on your way to thinking right.  Establishing boundaries include what you say to yourself. Just because you are an adult doesn’t mean you can fill the precious real estate of your mind with garbage. Because you enjoy something doesn’t mean it is good for you. Toxic thoughts will sabotage your best efforts. Fear, self-doubt, negative self-talk and abusive name-calling will stop you in your tracks. They are thieves that rob your energy and productivity. Use a filter. After I boil a chicken for my gumbo, I remove the chicken and pour the broth through a sieve, which filters any little pieces of bone or fat that would ruin the texture and taste of my gumbo. Become responsible for what you think, hear, see and say by paying attention to your thoughts. Paul established a filter for thoughts in Philippians 4:8 (https://biblehub.com/philippians/4-8.htm) Is this thought… true? right? honorable; to others, to me, to God? pure? lovely? admirable? If it won’t go thru this filter, then it doesn’t get to stay in my mind. It gets replaced with a healthy, life giving thought. Have you ever felt sad and thought to yourself, “What’s wrong with me?” If you answered yes, you’re not alone. The writer of Psalm 43:5 did that exact same thing. Psalm 43:5 NLT – Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again--my Savior and my God. This verse shows us how the psalmist redirected his thoughts from discouraging, sad thoughts into questions. Why? Why am I sad? Then he refocused his thoughts and words to reflect the goodness of God. What thought troubles you? Examine it in the light of Scripture and prayer. What does Scripture say? Do you have peace in your heart? Ask Holy Spirit to guide you to truth. Seek God’s wisdom.

Juliana and Heidi talk about friendship, Interlochen Arts Camp and moving 54 times. Juliana is a Gemini Sun, Taurus Moon and Aries rising.

In this episode I will get you more up to date with the goings on at OCC and an OCC Year In Review, remembering some of what happened last year. So on with Episode 28 OCC update. As usual I left the last episode with some unanswered questions. Once again our trusty generator was not so trusty, refusing to start. Three days before my next visit we had a major snow dump in the city. I think I shoveled the walk 3 maybe 4 times that day. It just kept coming. The next day, taking my life into my own hands, and on summer tires, I ventured out onto snow clogged streets in an attempt to get a new battery for the generator. Two positive things were in play, 1- the generator supplier had just got a new shipment of batteries and 2- they had moved closer to where I lived in the city. Even though they were closer it was a sketchy trip but a new battery was acquired. My main country vehicle was now in the shop, undergoing major surgery for the foreseeable future, so I was going to use our other vehicle which was good but not as solid as my main one and it was running summer tires. I keep its snow tires at OCC and figured all I had to do was get in to OCC and put on the snowies and the return trip would be no problem Giving a couple of days for them to get the roads cleared, up by OCC, I loaded up our vehicle with all the snow emergency stuff I had, traction mats, shovels, tow ropes, come-along, kitty litter, snow shoes and on and on.. and off I went. Oh yeah, I had the new generator battery too. As I got closer to Our Country Cottage it became clear there wasn’t anywhere near the amount of snow we had got in the city. I didn’t need any of the emergency stuff I had packed at all. Sort of like when you carry an umbrella it doesn’t rain. But better to have it and not need it than, need it and not have it. Arriving at OCC I didn’t even need to clear the drive, just drove straight in. On my last visit I had turned the boiler off so the batteries would not be drained. With the days getting shorter, not much sun, and that pesky gen not starting I though it was the prudent thing to do. I hadn’t accounted for the sudden season change we just had. Now, with winter coming early in the city and temps dropping all over I was genuinely concerned that OCC might have frozen. A quick check inside OCC revealed the batteries fully charged and no frozen toilets. The living room was at 12 C just on the power of the sun. I turned the boiler on. Outside I checked to see if the gen would start. Nope, it had not magically fixed itself while I was away. A quick battery swap and she fired to life with little effort. The solar control panel showed the gen charging at 5.2 KW but with no load at all and the inverter light was off. I guess with the OCC batteries fully charged the gen was just supplying power to the boiler, etc. Hadn’t seen that mode before. After about ten minutes or so, I put the gen into Auto at the generator and it stopped right away. Then, at the solar control panel, I pressed manual start and the gen started right up, so I put it in Auto and the solar control unit shut it down with the usual cool down routine. And with no internal fan fail errors, all seemed to be working normally. Snow tires were put on the vehicle ready for the next big snow dump here, or in the city. Before I left I checked that the boiler was heating where it was supposed to be heating and, again, all looked normal. I took the opportunity to drop the defective battery off at the generator supply shop on the way home. It might still be under warranty. Rrright. Two weeks pass and I am back to check on things. What little snow there was, was just about gone. Good thing I had the snow tires on. Looks like the generator had run a couple of times since my last visit. A good sign. The propane was just under a half. It was over a month till my next visit, this time with my main country vehicle and its newly rebuilt heart. It now ran smooth and quiet. The main reason for the rebuild was a tick/ knock that had developed over the years, sometimes being so loud you could not hold a conversation by it while it was running. It was to the point that I was expecting something to come flying through the hood whilst on route to or from OCC. It was all good now. After having received an invoice for propane, earlier in the week, I checked the tank gauge to make sure it was my tank they had filled and sure enough it was up to 80%. 80% is the max you are allowed to put in these propane tanks. It allows for expansion etc as the outside temperature changes. I had brought with me some driveway markers that I found on sale and I devised a tool from a cast-iron pipe, a cap and a piece of felt, to drive them into the ground. I was going to place them around the turning circle and at the edge of the drive where I slipped off with the vehicle or tractor before. Yeah, well just a bit late. The ground was frozen. I tried one and it stands as a crooked testament, on the far side of the turning circle, that time and frozen ground wait for no man. Next season. The OCC batteries got topped up and data logs and solar control logs were taken. A trail cam SD card was also swapped out. Mental note. Need more distilled water. When I left the batteries were fully charged. Over the next week I was contemplating the pending shorter days and colder weather conditions. I had not improved our generators living conditions, IE I had not built it any sort of enclosure to help ward off the cold. I kept thinking of last years gen failures to start due to extreme cold. I think I have mentioned once or twice, how fast this summer seemed to pass. One minute I am mowing grass and putting tasty weed killing salt and vinegar on the vegetation and the next minute up to my boots in snow, not being able to drive a thin road marker into the frozen ground. A decision was made and seven days from my last visit I am at Our Country Cottage to basically shut her down for the season. I will still have to go up every so often to top up batteries, check data logs etc, but the terror of the frozen toilets and drained OCC batteries with its, “Power Has Been Lost”, emails will be abated. The biggest part to shutting Our Country Cottage down for the season is draining the water out of the place. First let me explain that I had picked up a couple containers of RV antifreeze, when they came on sale, a month or so ago and have been waiting, in the utility room, to be pressed into service since then. I started by draining the pressure tank then worked from the highest elevation down. So with the well pump off and the pressure tank draining into the sump, I started with the upstairs bathroom by opening all taps. You can hear the water getting sucked out of the pipe by gravity. I then turned off the water feed to the toilet and flushed it I then filled the tank with antifreeze and flushed again. This replaces all the water in the toilet workings with antifreeze. I pour a bit of antifreeze in the sink, tub and shower drain to replace the water in the traps. Downstairs, I do the same in the downstairs bathroom. I also turn the tap on in the kitchen sink and put some antifreeze down that drain too. Our washer dryer machine has a small lint trap that also has to be drained. And lastly the outside tap gets opened. A bit of an experiment this time. I didn’t drain the domestic hot water tank or the pre-heater tank, heated by the solar collectors on the roof. I figured that they were below ground, in the utility room and therefore should not freeze. I am also leaving the solar collectors running to heat that little radiator in the back hall. I had inadvertently turned them off last year when I shut the boiler and the thermostat, not realizing they were on the same breaker. Live and learn. Again as an experiment I decided to leave the boiler on and turn the thermostat off for the living room. The thermostats for the bathrooms were left on. I hope to see a big reduction in energy usage. Last year I was trying to keep the temp above freezing in the cottage for the winter but the gen failed and I shut the boiler off. This year I am trying to limit the heat in OCC so that the generator would run less while keeping it online. Give it a shot, anyways. I collected all liquids and took them back to the city. My next visit was three weeks later. The batteries were at 90% and the living room was at 10C. Just a bit above where it would have been if I had the heat on. The bathrooms were at the thermostat setting temperature. Good stuff. The generator had run just over fifty hours since my last visit. Now normally that would be a good sign. From previous years anything under 100 hours a month, this time of year would be great. But this year the weather had been particularly mild, so I am not sure whether I am winning or loosing. The only thing I can say is that I am glad I have collected all the data I have over the years. Stuff like generator hours run, data loggers, gen logs etc along with the notes I make for each trip. It might seem useless at the get go but it gives me lots of info to go over to see if OCC is on track or not. Well at least it does most of the time. When you have a year that is warmer, in this case, than the norm it kinda makes you think a bit more. I changed the oil and filter in the generator, back bladed about a third of the drive, more for me than the drive, and collected the solar control log and the generator log. When I left the batteries were fully charged. I had been driving for about fifteen minutes when I got the feeling that I hadn’t put the generator back into auto after changing the oil etc. And, no, I hadn’t taken a picture. It was too risky to leave it in manual as the gen would not be able to start if it needed to and the batteries would drain and I would get a terrifying “Power Has Been Lost” email. I turned around and went back. Sure enough it was in Auto. So it would have been fine. I took a pic. As it turned out that was the last visit of the year and a good place to conclude this episodes OCC update. And now for the first time ever The Our Country Cottage Year In Review A lot of things can happen in a year. Good and bad. A lot can also get forgotten. So this is my attempt at collecting all of the highlights and lowlights in this episodes OCC YIR. Info collected from over 60 pages of notes, hundreds of pictures and revisiting previous OCC podcasts, distilled into YIR. The year actually started with OCC sending my power lost emails. Very cold temperature had caused the gen to fail then the heating system started acting funny. Heating areas that shouldn’t be heated and not heating areas that should. So that’s how it started. This is how last year breaks down, hmmm, poor choice of words… seventeen- 1 day drop ins one- 7 day, 6 night visit one- 4 day, 3 night visit five- 3 day, 2 night visits The first solo overnight stay (2 nights) by my partner And 4 overnight (3- 2 night and 1- 1 night) stay while I wasn’t there. And one unexpected, furry, overnight guest in the garage. I went off the drive, getting stuck, half a dozen times, about 50/50 between my vehicle and the tractor, one time both on the same day. I almost went off the road several times. That included, heading toward the ditch and the wheels just catching at the last moment, and heading to the ditch and managing to stop just in time and backing away slowly. I had to snow shoe in once, almost walking off the road because the lighting was so flat I couldn’t see where the edge of the drive was. And I fell a few times but my standing up procedure, in snow shoes, improved greatly. The batteries were topped with distilled water 8 times. Trail cams collected 17 times. Solar control records collected 17 times Temperature data loggers collected 6 times Generator logs collected 6 times The generator oil and filter and the house water filter were both changed 3 times. Weed killer strategy was changed after finding out how bad the commercial weed killer was. The homemade stuff turned out to be not as effective as I had hoped. Something to work on. The solar equipment had its fan problem, but was easy to fix once it failed for good. I still get corrupt files from the controller from time to time. Not a big concern. A section of the loft deck railing, failed and was fixed. This gave us the incentive to check the rest of the railings, which exposed several other places that were missing a screw or two. The tractor mower grass chute duck tape repaired for less than a tenth of the cost of a new one. The generator gave me some problems, not starting when it should and starting when it shouldn’t. The heating system had issues as noted above along with the hot water not being so hot. A new BBQ assembled and working but not without issues. The old BBQ recycled. Some good meals were BBQ’ed after all. The Quonset got its skirt flap covered with gravel after being held down with only snow for several months. I had some very relaxing moments, too. Waiting for the six o’clock fox to show up, Casually looking out the window and seeing deer elk and moose, etc. Just being able to take wildlife pics from the living room couch is so cool. Listen to some good music with some good adult beverage while watching the trees in the valley. Gazing at the stars slowly revealing themselves in the sky as the sun set. Then there was the time I captured a solar eclipse with my camera, indirectly, from a quickly improvised pinhole projector. Well those are most of the highs and lows of last year. Nothing major. Our Country Cottage present a completely different set of challenges than I encounter in the city. As they say, a change is as good as a rest. For more details check out episodes # 23 – 27. Gad, I averaged less than 1 podcast a month. When I started I thought I would be able to do at least 2 a month. Heading the list of things to do this year are 1-An enclosure or something for the generator And 2-Pull the shoulder of the driveway back up. These two things, alone, would help with two big issues, the generator reliability and sliding off the driveway, getting stuck. At the moment I am not sure how to do either but I will give it a good try this summer. Then there is that weed thing, that trap door thing, that other thing etc etc etc. So that’s Our Country Cottage, Year In Review done and dusted. For those of you that check out our website, there are some changes coming. The foundation that it was built on has changed, so, the site will change as well. I will attempt to do this in the next week or so. Dare I say that this might include new pictures, no I better not. Tune in next time for episode #29 and another OCC update. How is the new year treating OCC so far well at least the days are getting longer. For pictures, and more info, you can visit our website at www.ourcountrycottageanarrative.com If you have any comments, questions or if you would like to be added to the “Friends of OCCaN” Our Country Cottage a Narrative, mailing list, you can email me at John@ourcountrycottageanarrative.com. Members on the mailing list will get website and podcast updates as soon as I do :). If you are on the “Friends of OCCaN” mailing list and had enough, just send me an email at John@ourcountrycottageanarrative.com and you will be released. The Our Country Cottage a Narrative podcast is on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Play so you can subscribe there and get the podcast downloaded automatically when they get released. Till next time….

In this episode I will get you caught up to date with the goings on at OCC and ITB, In The Beginning, well, this might be the last one. Lets start with probably the most action packed ITB yet. ***In The Beginning, Month 27, October *** ITB is the part the podcast where I use pics, my log book, texts and emails along with any other mind jogs I can find to give you the most accurate recollection of the creation of OCC. I even referred to an old check book record this time. Looks like we had five, three day trips, to Our Country Cottage this month. In the last ITB I had noticed a boom loader, or Zoom Boom had been parked by OCC ready to go. The first day of the month did not disappoint. The crew arrived early and went to work moving all the construction extras to a predetermined area near the Quonset, away from OCC. This included leftover bricks from the masonry heater, lots of dimensional lumber, siding, trim, metal roofing and about 50 lengths of powder coated rebar that for some reason was grossly miscalculated for the deck railings. Keep in mind that all this stuff was bought and paid for and on site. To toss it out would be a great waste of material even though there were no plans to use any of it. As long as you have a place to put it so you aren’t constantly looking at it or tripping over it. With 160 acres or so, we had room. It did take some time to organise it and move it and the contractors doing it were on the clock, so it did cost a bit. But, it got done and tarped over, out of the way. The following day a dumpster was dropped off and the grounds started to get cleaned up. Concrete pathway slabs were being placed on the ground at the base of the deck stairs. Two loads of gravel were dropped of and spread in front of the garage and around the turning circle, making it look much more like a real driveway. OCC hadn’t looked this good, well, ever. A few days pass and I return to find the septic guy back to finish off the septic mound. It needed to be covered with dirt and the ground leading to it required tidying up too. The next morning the contractor returned and started using the zoom boom to add the bits and pieces of trim and siding that had been missed for any number of reasons. The following day saw the zoom boom being put to great use installing decorative cedar beams in the gable ends of the roof. Interesting story bout these inserts. They were on the detail drawing, as part of the building and the material was on site, but the contractor tried to convince us not to do them for some reason. If it was up to me I probably would have let it slide but my partner insisted that they should be done. And done they were and in retrospect I am glad. The detail, it added to the roof, really helps make the looks of Our Country Cottage. I think the contractors were as fed up as we were and just wanted it to end. While they were doing that I was laying some rubber patio squares in front of the generator and propane tank. I had built up the ground so I would be well out of the mud when checking either one. They also looked way better than the shipping pallets that they replaced. Less rustic. By this time it was the middle of the month and I was back for another 3 day visit. The contractor was painting the edge of the metal roof where it had been cut so it wouldn’t rust. I was looking at the tractor and contemplating the winter, snowblower rear blade, conversion. I was told that the mounting brackets for the mower and the snow thrower could co-exist but in order to have both mounted at the same time longer bolts were required. After careful measurements taken and sketches made in the log book, I picked up the required hardware from the local dealer the next day. The following day I mounted the brackets permanently and did the winter conversion. I took copious amount of pictures for future reference. Just before I headed back to the city I noticed some corrosion on a pipe in the utility room. Five days pass and I’m back. In the utility room I notice water on the floor by the pressure tank. Looked like the water was coming from around the pressure relief valve. So with that and the corrosion I found last visit, I arranged for the plumber to come out for a visit. It was at this time the contractor passed me a pile of invoices reaching back six or so months for work that he had done for me outside the building contract. For the most part. Stuff like moving the construction extras down to the Quonset, gravel work, sidewalk paver work and finishing stuff not on the OCC contract. There was also stuff that was on the contract, like those roof details and installing the blind in the skylights. The blinds that were to be factory installed but weren’t. I made notes. The zoom boom was picked up and the grounds were smoothed over and everything was looking nice and tidy. Very encouraging. The final visit of the month was yet another three day visit. The plumber came out on the first day and replaced the leaking pressure relief valve and redid the joint where I had noticed the corrosion on the pipe. A picture taken that day, show the grounds all cleaned up, even the dumpster was gone. The next day I busied myself putting an insulating blanket on the domestic hot water tank and putting those pipe insulating foam tubes on all the pipes I could get to. On the last day of my visit the contractor came out and we did a walk around of Our Country Cottage discussing potential problem areas on the, yet to be installed, eavestroughs. He then returned his set of keys to the property. We shook hands, a few awkward goodbye moments passed, and his part of OCC was done. I won’t lie, I still get a bit emotional when I think about it. We had been through a lot together. Yes there were the days, weeks and even the odd month when he wasn’t working on OCC but still. I run into him every so often, in that small town nearby, and we have very pleasant conversations. Well that was my last day of the visit for the month but it wasn’t the last day of the month. The next day, the last day of the month, one of my trail cams caught a hardware panel truck pull up early in the morning. Three people got out and proceeded to swarm all over Our Country Cottage and the garage installing the eavestroughs and downspouts. From about 9 in the morning to about fifteen minutes after five in the evening, with hardly a noticeable break for lunch the video revealed ladders going up and down and moving all over the place, people on the ladders, the roof and in and out of the truck. A long section was put on with the braces every 16 inches appearing, sequentially, as if by magic. A very impressive day of work caught by trail cam and very effective. I have had no problems with any of the eavestroughs or downspouts since. Well you still have to clean them out every so often. Squeaking in on the very last day of month 27, two years and three months or 810 days, into a project that was supposed to be “240 to 300 days” long. I just dug out the contract. Our Country Cottage was now solely in our hands and our responsibility. Yikes! So that wraps up the ITB, In The Beginning, section of this episode and future episodes. The contract was completed for the most part with only the final payment to be made. I will talk a bit about what that involved next Episode. *********Now on with an Our Country Cottage Update********* Just give me a minute…. OK I’m back… If I remember correctly I was telling you bout the domestic hot water supply not being up to snuff. I started off this next visit trying to figure out what was going on. I was draining and refilling tanks and noticing things that I thought were abnormal. Thinking about it and redoing the process, not a lot made sense. The grass needed cutting anyways. Three or four hours later, I was done. Did some laundry and called it a day. Next morning I used the trimmer and cleaned up the grass around the cottage, garage, propane tank and generator. Looked much better. I noticed that I had not received my usual cottage email to tell me that all was OK. I get them even when I am at OCC. Now would be the time to fix it if anything was wrong. But first, on a hunch, I called my parner back in the city to check my computer and see if I had left my email program open. And sure enough I had. When it is open from time to time it will automatically download my email and when this happens at my main computer I have it set up to delete the mail from the server. If it is deleted I won’t see it on my phone when I check it. Problem solved. It also turned out that the hot water issue was, in this case, easy to fix too. After talking to my supplier of the solar hot water pre-heater I was told the best way to clear any sort of blockage, aside from using some form of cleaning aid, was just to run water through the system by, say, turning on both showers for five minutes, several times. This I did and the hot water improved greatly. This is one of those things that if used regularly would not be a problem but, as this season is turning out, infrequent visits can cause problems. The other idea in the back of my mind is that the boiler is micro-processor controlled. This lends the possibility that it tries to optimize itself by remembering behaviour. With it being turned off for a while and sporadic usage the optimization could be not optimum. To correct this I have started leaving it on with the domestic hot water turned up as well. Might be a case of the device being too smart for my own good or it has nothing to do with anything. Fun to think about anywayz. That being said I had a great, hot, long shower the day I left. Back to normal, maybe. That week end our two adult kids went up to stay at Our Country Cottage for a couple of nights. During that time, my partner went up for a day trip with a friend. All went OK with no problems or issues reported. On their last day, they even sent me a pick of the solar control display and the well pump switch in the off position. Good stuff. I take these pictures myself when I leave. The amount of times I have turned around and gone back to check the pump switch or even to see if I remembered to close the garage door. I tell you, it is a lot easier to take a quick pick to refer to if needed. The funny thing is that the act of taking the pic fixes it in my mind so I rarely have to look at the pic. I am almost completely over my anxiety of having people at OCC when I am not there. That first trip without me was a ruff one. Anywho…. The next trip up to Our Country Cottage and the last one for the month, I was all set to try a new, homemade weed killer. Weeds just love to grow in the gravel and drive around the cottage and it is a constant battle to keep them down. It is downright dangerous to use the edge trimmer on them. Rocks go flying all over the place. A face shield is a must. The hard hat I wear while using the edge trimmer and on the tractor has both hearing and face protection. I arrive with a new spray unit and the ingredients to do some major weed damage, but first, upon entering OCC I notice the solar control panel is looking strange. Only the top and bottom lines of the display are there. The space in between is blank. Gad. Now what? Unplugging it and plugging it back in reset it and all seemed normal. The error log, however, reveals several “Internal Fan Failure” errors that have seemed to correct themselves and carried on. Hmmm. With that running circles in my mind, a batch of weed killer was made. Vinegar, salt and a sup son of dishwashing liquid. The kitchen smells like fish and chips or maybe that flavour of potato chips when the bag is freshly opened. Not necessarily a bad thing. In short bursts. Mental note, get a new wooden spoon. That smell is not leaving anytime soon. With some effort the new sprayer was assembled and filled with, what I hoped was, weed death. The reason I was so excited about this concoction was that up to this point I had been using a commercial weed killer that my family gave me killer attitude every time the subject came up. First indications were amazing. The plant leaves turned brown and started to look sickly within a couple of hours. More vinegar was put on the shopping list. So while the weeds were taking their last, um, photosynthesis cycle I moved into the garage to try to fix the mower side discharge chute on the tractor. When I was at the dealer last I asked how much a new one would be and was told around $250. I calmly stated I would see what I could do with $50 worth of duct tape first. I had the tape, extra heavy duty, triple thick duct tape at that. A little back history. The chute I am about to try to repair is a spring loaded, heavy duty, plastic chute, mounted on the side of the mower deck, that was slowly disintegrating over years of mowing that kilometre of fun that is our gravel drive. It had redirected anything from gravel to goodly sized rocks that hid in the grass. After about an hour of using a metal scraper to remove the years of build up, I was ready to apply the tape. And tape was applied. The broken edges regained their strength and the holes were patched. I used black tape to match the original colour, so it looked good too. The test will come the following day. The next day arrived and buoyed on by the continued wilting of the weeds from the previous days spraying efforts, two more batches of home brew death were administered in other areas. And now for the mower chute test. It held up pretty well, but a couple of larger rocks did some damage in the taller grass. Really got to clean up those rocks. I think some more tape will do just fine. And the after mow shower was nice and hot, too. The last two days of this visit I changed the cottage water filter, weed wacked, greased the skid steer ready for action and did some minor chores during which time I noticed a rather large moose on the south of the clearing. And yes I did use the new BBQ without any animosity this trip. I only had two visits to Our Country Cottage the next month. There was some personal stuff going on in town that took my attention and would affect me more than I realized at the time. Anyway…… So my first visit had me doing some data collection to figure out what was going on with the “Internal Fan Failure” errors. I had found out it could be one of two things, a failing fan, or a software issue. The first course of action was to verify the current version of software. Which I did. I had the new version of the software ready to go but when the time came a few questions popped up that I needed answers for before I proceeded. I had had bad experiences doing this before resulting in me reverting back to the old version of software to make things work. I didn’t want to do that again. The solar display panel was behaving itself so nothing more to do till I got a reply. My enthusiasm for my home made weed killer quickly ended when I saw weeds where I had sprayed. It could be my imagination but they looked like a meaner type of weed, more pointy things etc. I had brought more ingredients for several more batches but I didn’t bother. Thought I would give it some more time to kick in. Oh well. I then collected all the trail cams. One hadn’t been collected since last year, two others had last been collected six months earlier. To my surprise all the cameras were still working with plenty of juice left in the batteries, even the one that hadn’t been checked for well over a year. It would take a while to go through the one or two thousand (if not more) of pics on each camera. OK, of the three I am telling you about, #1 had 2068, #2 had 2400 even and #3 had 3276 pics. I will look at each one, note the frame and what was captured. I quick look at one found a night shot of a cougar close to the solar panels, within days of a visit. The next day I noticed that the railing around the entrance to the garage loft was not right. The railing around OCC were made with an upper and lower bar of cedar with the verticals made of black powder coated rebar. A very rustic cottage look. On one side of the entrance railing the lower bar had dropped letting the rebar fall out at odd angles. I managed to raise the fallen beam while inserting the nine or ten lengths of rebar back in position, one at a time. A few pieces of wood were put underneath to keep it in position till I get some more screws. I noticed that screws had been put in only from the top on this section and the wood had just been pulled through. Most of the other railing sections had screws put in the side as well as the top making them much stronger. I did find a few others with just top screws and I am planning on adding the side screws when I get them. A few extra strips of duct tape were put on the side chute of the mower deck and I gave the kilometre of fun a quick mow along with the clearing around Our Country Cottage. That night the new BBQ and I resurrected our differences. I put my steak on and turned the controls down from full on. The temp dropped quickly to almost off like it had run out of propane. I had half a thousand gallon tank. Thought there might have been a kink in the BBQ connecting pipe, so I rerouted that, I even called the propane supply place to see if inadvertently clipping something under the tank with the edge trimmer might do something. I did some more tests and it heated up to max, no problem. My supper turned out fine. I reported to the propane people that all seemed OK but one of them came out the following day just to check things out at the tank end. And all was ok there, too. It wasn’t till almost the end of the month that I returned for a three day visit. The weeds were growing with abandon and the weather was cold and rainy, so no mowing was done that trip. The software did get updated and seemed to be working fine for the most part. Time will tell. This was the first visit to OCC where I did not put on old clothes or coveralls and do some messy stuff outside. I took time to smell the roses, ignoring the large nasty looking weeds covering the gravel, and the rising clover and grass down the drive and in the clearings. I had brought those screws to fix the deck railings but I didn’t bother. I read a book, listened to music and reacquainted myself with some software I had been meaning to get back to. Every so often a deer or fox would catch my eye out the window. One of my better stays. Now you are right up to date with the goings on at Our Country Cottage. Tune in next time for Episode #27 and see what is happening at OCC during the lazy crazy daze of summer. Was the fan error just a software glitch, will the deck railing get fixed, will the duct tape hang in there? And now that ITB has finished, its time to see how the final numbers were resolved and what got shuffled off the table and why? If anyone knows of an eco friendly weed killer, please let me know. You can email me or leave a comment on the web site. I really don’t want to use that commercial stuff if I don’t have to. For pictures, and new ones coming soon,(yeah, right) and more info, you can visit our website at www.ourcountrycottageanarrative.com If you have any comments, questions or if you would like to be added to the “Friends of OCCaN” Our Country Cottage a Narrative, mailing list, you can email me at John@ourcountrycottageanarrative.com. Members on the mailing list will get website and podcast updates as soon as I do :). The Our Country Cottage a Narrative podcast is on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Play so you can subscribe there and get the podcast downloaded automatically when they get released. Till next time….  

In this episode Our Country Cottage finally breaks free of winters grip, entering the summer months while In The Beginning, ITB, reveals some progress. ***In The Beginning, Month 26, September.*** ITB is the section of the podcast where I do my best to remember, through pictures, my log book, texts and invoices, well basically anything I can get my hands on.During this period of little getting done, it seems I also did little with my log book. That is to say sketchy notes. The second month of year three of the creation of Our Country Cottage started with our contractor calling to say he won’t be back for another two weeks. If you remember, the previous month we didn’t see him at all. So you could say, things are looking up. It appears that the month was broken into three, and a bit, trips. The first trip was generally rainy and cold. I tried out the in floor heating for the first time but didn’t keep it on for long as there was hardly any sun. A fire was built to take the edge off. There was a trip to a nearby town to check on cell phone boosters. My partner came up for a day and we went to visit friends in the area. The next trip up wasn’t until the middle of the month. We were definitely at the peak of fly season when I arrived, running the fly buster 2000 down a couple of times trying to clean up. The “spray and go away” tactic was then employed. Put out a good fog of anti fly stuff and go to town for supper. The shop vac was used to collect the, um, remains upon return. My log book indicates that, between visits, there were warnings and errors along with low levels and generator start faults reported by the solar control unit, but all appeared normal. Hmmmm. The next day Our Country Cottage had its first official guests for lunch. A good time was had by all even with the flies peaking in number in the afternoon. Ahhh country living. The dishwasher was run with a full load for the first time. I recorded the time and power used for each cycle it went through. Bottom line the batteries were at 99% at start and at 98% upon completion. And this was after sunset! Finally, the following day saw some Cottage items taken off of the to do list. The electricians showed up early and went to work. Among a long list of things done was, a wall switch in the mudroom to turn the well pump on and off. This was really handy as up to that point I had to flick a breaker in the utility room. I never leave OCC for any length of time without turning the well pump off. My reasoning is that if anything fails, only the water already in the tanks would escape. They ran an Ethernet cable from the generator to the utility room so I could get data inside OCC. Network cables were run from the utility room to the loft, over the garage, and to the kitchen. They fixed the ac plugs in the master bedroom that were not working. They installed heat tape in the drain in front of the garage. They installed all cover plates missing and installed the tracks for track lighting in the loft. By the time the electricians were done, most if not all of the electrical deficiencies were taken care off. Best day in months. Five days pass and we are back at OCC again, this time to receive the new furniture that we had been shopping for in the city over the past little while. Here is a bit of a cautionary tale. When the truck showed up the head dude proclaimed that they didn’t realize how far they had to come yahda yahda yahda. They wanted more money than the original estimate, of course. Always get a firm cost in writing for these sort of things and be very clear what is expected etc. etc… In our case we thought that we were covered but the trucking company was hired by the furniture company was an independent and a few loose ends crept in. Not being totally heartless and seeing that they put the furniture in OCC where we wanted it, including a very heavy piece in our upstairs bedroom (they worked hard) we settled on a price. It seems there is always something with moving or delivery costs. When I had the new cover for our Quonset delivered to our city house, the driver wanted to just push it off the back of his truck. When I insisted he use the power tailgate he told me it would cost more, well at least he did up to the point I produced the invoice clearly stating the use of his power tailgate was included. OCC was coming together. My partner and I spent the next little while tidying up and putting things where they belong. Like the futon, that was being used as a couch in the living room, could now be shifted to the back bedrooms as intended. Our contractor showed up, briefly, to drop off his work trailer. Great stuff, I thought, we are definitely getting some momentum going here. Well not so fast. Early the very next morning he was back to get his trailer as a problem had cropped up over night on another site. But we still have our furniture! Another five days fly by until OCC sees us again on the last day of the month. Our contractor and his trailer are back. There is also a large boom loader and a skid steer on site. There is still leftover construction material and garbage all over the site, but with prospects of things getting cleaned up, dare I say soon…. So with positive thoughts in mind, that evening, I sat on our new couch with a fire on one side and four or five deer grazing on the other. Scotch, anyone?   ***Now on with the OCC update*** When last we spoke I was having difficulty just getting down the drive, in fact, the last reported visit had me snow shoeing in. See Episode #24, the details are too painful to go into again. It was actually so painful that it took me almost a full month before I could convince myself to go back to Our Country Cottage. 28 days pass and my partner and I return to OCC. There are bare spots on the driveway. Gravel showing through, a very welcome sight. There was still plenty of snow in the woods but the drive was drivable. When we got to the cottage I turned on the heat trace that was in the drain in front of the garage. This would start the thawing process going so that water from the melt would go into the drainage system. I ran the well pump to clear any sediment build up. Remember I had turned the water off to the cottage and put RV antifreeze in the toilets and traps. When I ran the pump I hooked up a hose to the bottom of the pressure tank and drained it directly into the sump. The house was still turned off and the hose connect point was before the sediment filter, so it wasn’t clogging up the filter for no reason. While this was going on my partner was vaccing up the flies, etc. The batteries were topped up with distilled water. Make a note, need more distilled water. The generator had run less than an hour in the past 2 months. A quick check on the progress of the heat trace in front of the garage showed the ice had thawed around the trace and water was flowing. Once you get it started it will improve by itself so I turned it off and we left. Two weeks pass and I go back to OCC for a one day visit with the main intent of turning the water to the cottage back on. It had been a while since the temperature had dropped to freezing for any duration so I felt safe. When I got there the batteries were fully charged and it was 21C in the living room. I changed the water filter and turned on the water. This I did with all the taps open. I then went to each tap, starting from the lowest (outside hose tap), turning them off as water started to flow, to the top bathroom taps. I reasoned this would be the best way to get the air out of the system. There were no apparent leaks, verified by running to all the places leaks might happen to check and the pressure seemed to hold, once all the taps were closed and the toilets filled. The true test would be to see if the pressure would hold over time. At the base of the pressure tank there is a pressure gauge that shows the pressure in the tank and, with the valves open, the cottage water system. I took a note of the reading, wrote it on a piece of masking tape and stuck it to the well pump switch to check next visit. I turned the pump off and left. The next visit to OCC was about ten days later, but for the first time, it wasn’t me. One of my adult kids with a friend was going to camp on the property but ended up inside OCC instead. Detailed instructions on various aspects of OCC were passed on, along with, what was for me, the most important. Check the water pressure before doing anything. This was done and the pressure hadn’t dropped at all. The cottage water system held, as in, not leaking. OCC could hold its own water. Ok OK…. The only thing was that the domestic hot water was not turned on. So heating water on the cook top was the way to go. Their visit went without incident and the place was left in great shape, as I found out when I went for my next visit only a couple of days later. This trip was to be a full week long and had been planned for a while with the purchase of a new BBQ to replace the one up there that was on its last legs. Best recollection was that it was over 20 years old, and not easy years. Dragged across gravel pads, knocked over by marauding cattle (OK I think it got bumped off of the deck by a cow, once). Basically, an inexpensive BBQ treated with little respect. It was time. The new BBQ came unassembled in a box that just fit in the back of my vehicle. When I arrived I found the batteries fully charged, 25C in the living room and thanks to the previous visitors, no flies to vac. Happy, happy. I backed my vehicle up to the deck on the south side of OCC with the tailgate down, which lined up perfectly. After pumping up the tires on the hand truck I slide the BBQ over the tailgate straight onto the hand truck. With the aid of some improvised ramps I rolled it into the sunroom ready for assembly. That night I went to the nearby town for supper and supplies. The next day I started the BBQ assembly. It didn’t go well. I could blame the instructions but I seemed to be doing everything twice, once the way I though the instruction said, then once the correct way. I gave up about half way through. I decided that I would change the tractor from winter, snow thrower, rear blade mode to summer, mower deck mode. This was one of the harder conversions I remember doing. Things weren’t lining up. Clips and pins were hard to get out and in. Hmmm, first the BBQ now the tractor, maybe it was me. Well I got it done and tested. A little late in the day to start mowing so time for a nice hot shower. I had turned on the domestic hot water when I arrived the day before so should be good to go. Firstly it wasn’t very hot, in fact barely warm and low pressure to boot. Hmmm I turned the temp up on the hot water tank. That night, sitting on the couch I saw one maybe two red foxes go down the toboggan run. The next day started with great expectations of a BBQ supper on the new BBQ. Meat was taken from the freezer to thaw. I had some maintenance to do on the tractor and mower deck, grease etc. Then on to the first mow of the season. Three hours later I was ready for another shower. It was a bit better but still not great. It was now time to finish off the BBQ assembly. It went a bit better than the day before but took much longer than expected. In fact by the time it was complete and I heated it to 600 degrees for 20 mins to burn off the manufacturing coating, let it cool and season the grills, I was done and the meat went back in the fridge. Not happy. But the evening red fox did cruise by, allowing for some quick pix from the couch. The next morning the batteries were solar charging at 6 AM. I love this time of year. I got my camera ready for the, now deemed, six o’clock fox. While the red fox was a regular show in the evening it was also a regular show in the morning, too. He or she did not disappoint, and I got some good pics given he or she was only in view for less than a minute. The domestic hot water was becoming an issue and I started doing system flushes while observing pressure irregularities. I noticed that while draining hot water from the hot water pre-heater it would start off great then the pressure would drop substantially. I called my plumber and he suggested a blockage might have formed, but I couldn’t figure out where. I came to the conclusion that the pre-heater might be giving me grief and made a note to call the supplier from the city when I got back. I spent the rest of the day picking up bits and pieces in a larger nearby town. The following day I finished off the Quonset cover. If you remember, last year we changed the cover on the Quonset. The Quonset is a metal frame structure covered with a heavy duty fabric of some kind. Where the fabric meets the ground there is about 2 feet of material that rests on the ground that you can put dirt and or gravel on to seal the bottom of the walls. I hadn’t put the dirt and gravel back on the skirt as it was late in the season and I figured the snow would hold it in place till I was ready, and it did. Some of the work I could do with the skid steer and some I had to do by hand with a shovel and rake. I finished off by smoothing out the ground with the skid steer and I and the Quonset were done. After moving one of those metal fire pits from the Quonset to the cottage with the skid steer I had one of the better showers of my visit. Long and hotter. Maybe the hot water just needed using more. For some reason I couldn’t bring myself to used the BBQ that evening. I did manage to get some more fox pics later on though. The next morning I decided to treat myself to breakfast in town. When I opened the garage door the box that the BBQ came in, the large heavy box that I had carefully placed on the woodpile, was on its side on the floor. I then began to notice other items that had moved. A tire had rolled out from its resting place to the tractor, another box on its side. Then I saw him. A black furry being with a pointy nose about the size of a small house cat. It wasn’t a house cat. More like a wood chucky kind-o-thang. I approached with caution only to have him run under the stack of firewood. I tried to flush him or her out by making noise but nothing so I headed off to my breakfast while leaving the garage door open. When I got to our gate I realized I had forgotten the empty diesel containers I was going to take with me to get filled. So back I went. A close inspection under the log pile and with a look around a bit it became clear that he or she had taken the opportunity to escape. Fare enough. This time I’ll close the door. Well I would, if I could. For some reason these critters love to chew on wires and the wires that connect the safety beam at the bottom of the door had been broken. Five to ten minutes later, with the wires twisted together I was able to close the door and go to breakfast. The remainder of the day was spent getting the old BBQ ready for its final road trip, back to the city and back to where I had bought the new one from, with a promise that they would recycle it for me. I mistakenly started the process in the sun room, soon realizing that it was a dirty nasty job, with spiders, that would be best done in the garage. As I was dragging it down our gravel drive to the garage, a wheel came off and the BBQ took a header, spilling its lava rocks, grills and racks as a last comment to its last moments. Lovely. That evening I had my first supper cooked on the new BBQ. I think I might have had a few adult beverages to take the edge off, too. The last day of the visit was overcast and rainy. The box, that the new BBQ came in, was ideal for transporting the old one back to the city. A few cuts here and there and it slipped into the back of my vehicle perfectly. Batteries were topped up, a trail cam SD card was swapped, logs were taken and the solar control info was collected. I headed back to the city. Before going home, the old BBQ was dropped off at the BBQ place for recycling. They also took the modified box. Good stuff. Still have a few more visits in the old log book to tell you about, but am going to save them till next time. So tune in for Episode #26. Will I get the domestic hot water figured out, will there be anymore furry overnight guests in the garage and will my relationship with the new BBQ continue to improve, adult beverages aside? Also, ITB month 27, will my proclaimed optimism be rewarded or kicked to the curb like so many times before. At this time any promises of new pictures on the web site seem unfounded. Apparently I lie. For pictures, and new ones coming soon,(someone has hope) and more info, you can visit our website at www.ourcountrycottageanarrative.com If you have any comments, questions or if you would like to be added to the “Friends of OCCaN” Our Country Cottage a Narrative, mailing list, you can email me at John@ourcountrycottageanarrative.com. Members on the mailing list will get website and podcast updates as soon as I do :). Find out when I get the new pix posted. The Our Country Cottage a Narrative podcast is on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Play so you can subscribe there and get the podcast downloaded automatically when they get released. Till next time….

This episodes OCC update will get into why power was lost on the last day of last year and what has been going on with me and my relationship with Our Country Cottage. In The Beginning, ITB month 24, will close out the second year of OCC construction. I am beginning to think that doing ITB is not helping my attitude towards OCC. I don’t know if it is cathartic, with a positive effect, as I thought it would be or it’s just dredging up all those memories and reopening the wounds, so to speak. For now we’ll go with the first one,  Sooo In The Beginning, month 24, July. This is the part of the podcast where I try to figure out what went on during the construction of OCC by going through pix, texts, emails and the log book I kept. It appears the log book was the first to be neglected when things weren’t going well. Unfortunately, that is the exact time when notes should be taken to help in the future. Human nature I guess, well at least mine. Case in point, I have sketchy follow up notes to an ant invasion I went through. One day I showed up and found them crawling all over the living room and sun room floor. I stepped out of the sun room onto a mat outside on the deck for a breather and to plan what to do. Looking down I noticed the whole mat was moving, absolutely covered with ants. I don’t know what happened next, notes not there, but within a day or so I returned ready to unleash chemical warfare. I had an outside pesticide that I sprayed the full perimeter of both the cottage and garage twice a year. I also have a gentler pesticide I spray inside round the base boards and windows  etc. This one also helps keep the fly population down as well. I tried a more natural method using borax mixed with sugar and soaking cotton balls with the solution. Not very effective I am sorry to say. Again sketchy notes. The one note I have is that a hand held vacuum previously nicknamed the “fly buster 2000” was renamed the “ant buster 2000”, for a time. Anyway, on with In The Beginning I was starting to stay over a bit more regularly and beginning to get routines established. Topping up batteries, collecting data logger info, collecting power system info and collecting trail cam images. In the beginning, as this was, everything seemed very complicated and took a lot of time to do. As time passed I got more comfortable with things, to the point where it’s not that big of a deal. Just got to get through the early days. The beginning of the month had me hanging ornate mirrors, my partner had sourced, in the bathrooms. Made it look a bit more complete. The grass was patchy and garbage still was spread out. Trying to mow the drive I got the tractor stuck in the ditch. With the mower deck on, there is not a lot of ground clearance, so when you drop a wheel off the side of the drive, you are stuck. I had to walk back to the cottage to get my vehicle to tow the tractor out. Then I drove my vehicle back to the cottage and walked back to the tractor. Did I mention the drive is a kilometre of fun? On the positive side of things, the damp corner had dried up in the crawl space and the track lighting had been installed in the loft over the garage. We were then out of town for a week and I did not make it back to OCC for several days after that. Upon my return it was obvious that nothing had been done. The grass needed cutting again but at least the ant problem looked like it was under control. I went to a nearby small town for supper and picked up some supplies along with an AC tester. You know the kind. You plug it into a wall socket and lights come on to tell you if all is OK or not. When I got back I checked every socket in the place. Good thing too, I found four in the master bedroom that didn’t have power and marked them with blue tape. Barn swallows had built a nest at the top of one of the deck posts, under the overhang. They were very protective of the nest and would dive bomb you if you got too close. I could stand about a arms length away from a corner post and they would actually fly between the post and my head. I could hear the air crack from their wings as they did so. Some times I could feel the air move on my head, they were that close. Ahhh, country life. During the last night of the visit I was treated to an amazing show of lightning. I managed to take some very cool pix and will try to get some put up on the web site soon. Back in the city, we went furniture shopping for Our Country Cottage. Pix were taken and a budget was agreed to. Again, your phone is your best friend while shopping. A pic of the item, another of the price and maybe several while holding up a tape measure for the major dimensions. My last visit of the month started off all too familiarly. Nothing had been done. There is a note in the log book that I called the project head to see what was going on. No note was made for the response. I measured the upstairs closet for a shelving system and assembled a set of rolling shelves for the pantry. The pantry had the only access to the crawl space, through a hatch in the floor. So the pantry has to be vacated to get to that hatch. The rolling kitchen shelves made this easy to do. The next day my partner came up and we started setting up the place. Glasses, cutlery, dishes and pots-n-pans were put in their new home in the kitchen. Towel racks and toilet paper holders were installed. And with the items they were meant to hold put in place, the bathrooms were done. The last day of the month and the visit had me playing with the generator. Starting it from inside the cottage and seeing what happened and again leaving it not knowing if an error that was generated was a problem or not. And you thought the generator only generated power. Well it generates power and errors along with frustration, relief and a full range of emotions. Who knew! The rest of the visit finished with me trying to figure out my laundry machine. Next ITB will start year three, as we careen to the completion of OCC. Just kidding. Now on to another Our Country Cottage Update When last we spoke, the cottage just informed me that, on the last day of the year, power had failed. I was in no rush to go up as I had drained water and put antifreeze in problem areas. I assumed, for some reason, the generator had failed and without intervention would not try starting again. There could be a number of reasons. Out of fuel, low oil pressure, a broken starter, like last year. And a pile of other reasons I have yet to become acquainted with. But bottom line was, the generator was not, generating. The cottage emailed me several times, telling me that power had failed. I knew this was the cottages way to tell me it was trying, that is, the solar panels would charge the batteries and when they got to a certain level the power would turn back on. The boiler would then turn on trying to heat OCC but without the gen running or enough sun, esp at night, the batteries would drain and the “power lost emails” would be sent. Two days after the first email I went up to see what was going on. When I got there the sun was shining and the garage door opened when I hit the remote. We had power. The batteries were only at 53% and were being charged by the sun. The boiler was on trying to get heat into the place. I turned the boiler off to give the batteries a chance to charge. I then turned my attention to clearing the drive of and I quote from my log the “ deepest/heaviest snow of the season.” Once done it was back to figure out the gen problem. Propane was at 29%, getting low but still plenty. The oil level in the gen was OK, too. There was an “Over crank” error on the display in the gen. I found out that this means it tried to start and didn’t. It would try three times and if still not running would throw the error and not try again until looked at. I cleared the error and hit the run button. After a few seconds it fired up and ran. Inside OCC the system controller showed the generator was charging the batteries and all was happy happy. As to why the unit failed to start a couple of days ago, well the temperature that night got very cold, actually down to -38 C. The generator uses low pressure propane to run and when temps drop that low, so does the propane pressure and there probably wasn’t enough pressure to feed the beast. Temps go back up, pressure goes back up, and no problem. Well until it gets that cold again, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I calculated that the gen had about 122 hours on it since its last oil change so I took the opportunity to change the oil and filter while I was there. Mental note, pick up more filters. Handy tip, with a felt pen, write the hours and date on the filter after its installed. This way you don’t have to go through piles of notes and scrap bits of paper to find out when to change em. I also take a picture of it as well. When I left the batteries were at 78% and being charged by the sun. As the forecast was for warm temperatures, I decided to leave the boiler off to give the batteries a chance to fully charge. Three days later I am back for another one day drop in along with 6 new shear bolts I needed for the snow thrower. (See last episodes OCC Update.) The batteries were at 98%. Good to see. The sun was shining brightly so I turned the boiler on. Now the next part is a bit confusing for me, still. There were heat zones that should have been calling for heat but weren’t and zones that shouldn’t have been calling for heat but were. I ended up physically disconnecting the thermostats that shouldn’t be calling for heat and were. Yup took the wire right off them suckers. Then I reset the thermostats that should have been calling for heat but weren’t. That got em going again. By the time I left the boiler had turned off and back on by itself and the batteries were at 86% and being charged by the sun. The cottage behaved itself for the next 10 days or so with the emails it sent me reporting temperatures well within the expected range. I decided to drop in to see how things were going. When I got there the sun was shining and the batts were at 90%. The living room was at 12 C. Not bad at all. Oh yeah, I had also remembered to bring up a six pack of generator oil filters. It was so nice out that I decided to clean up the drive a bit. Run the blade down both sides, which moved snow into the center then one pass with the snow blower down the middle and done. All in all a very pleasant task, this time. Something told me to look into the battery water levels. I had notes that said it was about due. Well with the extra energy being used to heat OCC the batteries were very thirsty. Good thing I checked, good thing I listen to those little voices in my head. OooKaaayy…. Then on to see what the gen was up to. Propane was down to 20%, better give the propane guys a shout. The gen had 52 hours on it since last checked and a quick look at the dipstick revealed the oil was down to half. I topped up the oil and moved inside. I collected the Solar Power system data. Or at least tried to. The transfer hung up again. I had suspected one of my SD cards was flaky even though it passed all the tests I gave it. I knew this was the problem card because I had put a question mark on it with a felt pen. This one will not be used again. In fact I took a pair of clippers to it and cut it up when I got as much data, as I could, off of it, back in the city. The following day, back in the city, I called the propane guys and told them we were down to 20%. As it turned out they had already visited about 2 or 3 hours after I left the day before. The invoice was emailed to me the next day. Good guys. Two weeks pass before my next visit. Batteries were at 100% and the living room was at 13 C. Remember that I set the thermostat to 9.5 so anything extra is passive solar gain. The drive needed clearing and I figured it was time to collect the trail cam cards by the drive. I couldn’t remember the last time I had done so. (a quick check tells me it was last May. Where do the time go. Gad) I decided that they both might need a new set of batteries, Ya figure! Well one was still taking pics and one had only stopped three weeks prior. New batts all around anyway…. The day started to go sideways. I got the tractor stuck just outside the gate. The better part of a kilometre to walk back to the cottage and get what ever I needed. Didn’t want to do that so hand digging the snow packed underneath the tractor and using my large winter gauntlets, one under each front tire for extra traction ( it was the rear wheel that got sucked into the ditch) and about a half hour later, the tractor clawed its way back onto the drive. Drive cleared, trail cams serviced, I checked the generator. The propane had been filled but it was already down to 54%. The normal fill is 80%. Did the gen run that much. What the… There was another 40 or 50 hours on it, but… I topped up the oil and carried on. Putting the tractor in the garage I finally took those shear bolts off the bench and put the in the tractor tool box. My notes told me that the temp loggers were just past due, so I had to do them. One small problem, there was a sizable mound of white stuff on the battery room hatch. When I tried to shovel it off it became clear that it was mainly ice. Getting pretty frustrated with the way the day was turning out I dug out the handle and with one mighty yank flipped open the hatch sending the ice mound off the side. Just to add to things, one of the loggers needed a new battery. This sort of stuff never happens when you have time. A new one was retrieved from the utility room. And the crowning touch to the day. When I leave I take a series of pics, one of the cottage with the garage that shows the garage door is closed, another of the solar panels and the drive, and various others including the Quonset etc. Well, this time while taking a pic of the solar panels the front wheel of my vehicle got sucked into the ditch and I was stuck for the second time that day. I keep traction pads in the back for times like this. The traction pads are pieces of gnarly hard rubber bars held together by heavy cable and rolled up in a case thingy for storage. Even using two of these it took 20 minutes, hand digging and eventually using one of the cases under a third wheel to get out. This was the last thing I needed. So I have a set of these for the tractor as well but I have yet to figure out how to carry them on the tractor. One thing I did learn, though, was that after you use them they are full of ice and snow and need to dry out before you roll em back up into the case. So I am now trying to figure out how to mount two of them, unrolled, on the tractor. Since then I have picked up two collapsing compact trunk shovels. One for the vehicle and one for the tractor. I know, I have to figure out how to mount that to the tractor, too, but digging packed snow from under a vehicle, with your hands, gets old very fast. And before I finish off this section, that propane level being so low after fill up was bothering me, a lot. Back in the city I checked the propane invoice for the amount delivered, along with info from my first ever fill, did some math and concluded that the tank wasn’t filled to 80%. I called the propane people and confirmed that it was only filled to 60%. At the time of delivery the cost of propane was spiking a bit, so in hopes of saving me money they didn’t fill it. The thinking was that the price would come down and I could top er up then. Well that wraps up the first month of the year, but wouldn’t you know, another “Power has been lost” email and a big dump of snow greets us for next month. Oh, and my printer broke. I’ll tell you all about it in episode #24 of Our Country Cottage A Narrative, along with ,ITB, looking at the beginning of year three, month 25, of construction or, what ever you want to call it. Will anyone show up? Before I go.... Lately I have been thinking of OCC more as Our Country Chore than Our Country Cottage. And it’s true that going up for one day at a time doesn’t leave much time to smell the roses after you shovel the snow to get in, clear the drive, try to understand why the mud room is nice and warm while the living room is cold. And that stupid SD card… I keep reminding myself that this is probably the hardest part of the year to get through. Cold, snow and minimal sun aren’t really conducive to off the grid solar powered fun. Our generator hasn’t helped much either. Yes, and like I said about doing ITB, it isn’t relieving any of the grief that building the place brought as I thought it would. Well at least not yet. Maybe it’s like antibiotics. You have to complete the whole prescription to get the benefits. At this point I see less than a year of “medicine” left to go. On the plus side looking through all the pics for ITB and seeing the lush greenery and remembering the warm sun with no lack of power does help. Just look past the garbage and mud, etc. And it was fun to go through the seven or eight months of trail cam pics I collected (ten to eleven thousand of them). I saw deer grow up and a cougar with a growing offspring. Deer sticking its tongue out at the camera, a fox catching dinner. I saw snow come and go and come back again. I also took some time to look through lots of other warm sunny OCC pics. It is so nice when it is nice. You just have to remind yourself, over and over, of the good times. The bad times will take care of themselves. For pictures, and new ones coming soon, and more info, you can visit our website at www.ourcountrycottageanarrative.com If you have any comments, questions or if you would like to be added to the “Friends of OCCaN” Our Country Cottage A Narrative, mailing list, you can email me at John@ourcountrycottageanarrative.com. Members on the mailing list will get website and podcast updates as soon as I do :). Find out when I get the new pix posted. The Our Country Cottage a Narrative podcast is on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Play so you can subscribe there and get the podcast downloaded automatically when they get released. Till next time….  

Episode 84: In which we ponder the meaning of “Quonset.” Roll a random character to Play-Along with the Fallout Roundtable: Fallout New Vegas: https://tinyurl.com/NewVegasGenerator Fallout 4: https://tinyurl.com/Fallout4Generator Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/asapodcasting T-Shirts!: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ASAPodcasting Support us on Amazon, where funds benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, a cause near and dear to the hearts of ASAPodcasting: http://amzn.to/1cylrSK Contact the show: thefalloutfeed@gmail.com http://www.asapodcasting.com/#/the-fallout-feed/ Twitter: @thefalloutfeed FB: facebook.com/groups/askyrimaddictpodcast Twitch: twitch.tv/asapodcasting Forum: ASAPodcasting.Proboards.comSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/asapodcasting)

In this episode Our Country Cottage reaches out to say it has lost power, the solar control unit stops logging and snow. In The Beginning, ITB, Month 23, June, standing water and a walk through inspection. In The Beginning, month 23. ITB is the part of the podcast where I collect all my emails, texts, logs, notes, pix etc to try to give the best recollection of the early days of OCC, Our Country Cottage. It seems to be getting harder and harder to figure out as the changes are getting smaller and smaller and sometimes none at all. I have vivid memories of arriving at the site and finding nothing had been done. Finding no one there was now getting common place but there was always hope that you just happened to miss them and stuff was getting done anyways. The next few months seemed to be the worst. Shure I had spent my first nights there but always in the back of my mind I had to be ready just in case someone showed up to do work. At this point OCC really didn’t feel like ours, yet. If you recall I ended last podcasts, ITB, still at OCC on my first two day stay. The beginning of a new month had me trying the downstairs shower for the first time. There seemed to be plenty of hot water, as I took my time with no signs of it cooling off. Happy, happy. Toast and coffee for breakfast and I took notes as to how much power the coffee maker and the toaster took. Outside was muddy and wet. I had planks on the mud to get to the generator and propane tank. I put down a couple of those wooden shipping pallets, one in front of the gen and one by the propane tank, to stand on. A rustic look for sure. With the grass and weeds starting to show an interest in growing I started looking into what it would take to convert the tractor from the winter snow moving configuration, to the summer grass lowering configuration. The tractor had been delivered in winter mode, with a promise the dealer would send someone out to help with the first conversion. Manuals were read, pix were taken and some loose ideas were mocked up with the idea of putting the heavy attachments on moving dollies so that I could wheel them around easily in the garage, once they were taken off of the tractor. The garage offered a nice smooth cement floor. And thus ended my first ever stay at OCC. I was back for a one day visit, 4 days later. There were signs of snow and standing water, still. I topped up the batteries and took the data from the temperature loggers. There was an increase in temperature in the utility room that coincided with me turning up the temperature on the hot water tank. Another 4 days pass and I was back for another overnight stay. Things were greening up, but there was a lot of mud to contend with. That damp corner, in the crawl space, was back adding urgency to getting the land, outside, to drain better. That will have to wait till we get a dry patch. If you think things get messy when to walk in mud, try driving a tractor through it while attempting to move some of it with a blade. It could only end badly. On the bright side, I got my first deer pics standing in tall grass to the south. Capped off the day with some moon images. The next day the project co-ordinator and the site supervisor were up for a walk through and to see what was left to do. This produced three pages of notes of items such as, marks on floor, dings in cabinets, missing light fixture or two, rusty roof edge, missing bits of siding, footings for deck stairs, broken window trim and on and on. Like I said, three pages of stuff. The project head had his own list which ended up with 17 or 18 items to be seen too. Some overlapped. His form was titled the Pre Delivery Inspection form. PDI for short. There was a place for the builder and a place for the home owner to sign. Neither were filled in that day. He did take those skylight blinds, that were the wrong size, with him, though. Handy tip, take pictures of paper work, use your phone, you then have a date stamped copy to refer to. I ran the dishwasher for the first time after turning on its water and setting a few things. On the last day of this visit I saw a red fox cross from the south and through the mud to the parking area. It was this day that I did the first load of laundry in our combo washer/dryer unit. A lot of manual reading and informed guesses got the job done. It actually produced some dry, clean items. A week goes by and I go up for a one day visit. The generator hadn’t run for awhile so I decided to start it manually for exercise. It fired up right away but was not charging and produced a “Start Fault” event. I cleared the error and put it back into auto. The gen stopped by itself five or ten mins later. Not sure what to make of it I left it. The site supervisor and helper showed up to drop off their work trailer and promised they would start working, again, the following day. It had been a while since much had been done. Another week passes and I am back for a longer stay. I managed to get pix of a large woodchuck on the stack of leftover bricks from the fireplace. Yup, leftover bits a pieces from construction were still scattered about adding to the ambiance of Our Country Cottage, in the mud. If you remember when I purchased the tractor I was told that they would send someone up to help me with my first conversion from winter to summer mode. That is, replace the snow blower and rear blade with the mower deck. Now, at the time of purchase, I was still under the impression that all I had to do was drive off of one and drive onto the other. Those TV commercials made it look so easy. And yes, I have to admit, there was a lot of wishful thinking going on there. With the passage of time and the reading of manuals etc, I became more aware of the reality, that it was much more than that. Good to their word, the actual guy that sold me the tractor, was the one that came up to show me how it was done. Try to get that in the city. I had already removed as much as I felt comfortable doing in prep for the visit. So the actual snow blower with its hydraulic lift kit and the rear blade were out of the way on customised movers dollies. The smooth cement of the garage floor made pushing these thing around easy. The salesman/tech arrived on time, with his own tools and went to work removing the driveshaft extension and a couple of mounting brackets. He then hung the auto connect unit for the mower deck and adjusted it. It was now time to drive the tractor onto the mower. He instructed me how to line it up and then drove it on, can’t remember if he did it or I did it, but it hooked up with no problem. There were some other minor adjustments but that was that. When I engaged the blades, it sounded like a jet engine spooling up. Needless to say I wear a hard hat with hearing protection while mowing. Already to mow the next day but it rained. It was while I was sitting on the couch watching the rain fall that I saw that red fox approach from the south again. This time I was ready and got some great pix while sitting on the couch. You can’t beat wildlife photography that you don’t even have to stand up for. I had been running my emergency alert system for a bit with various degrees of success. During this wet day I started looking into the code to see if I could make it work better. Being very power conscious I checked the performance and found it was running the main processor at 100% and consequently using more power than it needed to. OK it doesn’t use a lot of power anyway but every bit you can save helps. Bottom line, with the addition of a couple of lines of code added I got it down to 35%. At last, the last day of the visit I got to mow our one kilometre of fun. Pix were taken of the tractor and its new appendages along with pics of the drive with freshly mowed sides and centre. I also noticed that the baseboards and window trim in the loft over the garage had been installed. That wraps up ITB for month 23, a soggy June for sure. Now on with OCC, an update. With two and a half months since my last update, in some ways a lot has happened and in some ways not so much. The last podcast has my partner and I loading up the utility trailer with trash ready for a dump run. It wasn’t clear when a run to the dump could be done as the weather was getting colder and colder and chance of snow getting greater and greater. A flash of inspiration told me to put the loaded trailer in the garage ready to tow. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Anyway, my alert system told me one cold morning that Our Country Cottage was colder than norm. It was down to 2 and a quarter degrees C, just above freezing. I decided to go have a look. When I arrived I found the mud room was warmer than the livingroom along with the master bedroom being toasty as well. The thermostat in the living room was showing the temperature well below what it was to but it was not calling for heat. It was like the zones swapped. Very confusing. I checked and readjusted the settings for all the thermostats. That seemed to kick them into action and they were now calling for heat. Not very reassuring. I built a fire to help get the temp back up. There was snow on the ground about 4 or five inches. Didn’t have the time to clear the drive but I did use the roof rake to get about three inches of snow off of the solar panels. Always amazes me that the snow collects on them at that steep an angle. I topped up the batteries with distilled water and then collected all the data I could. The data loggers and the solar control system logs. I found that the logging for the system had stopped about a week earlier. Great, again with no data for the time period I need. Packed up and headed back to the city. Two days later and another alert system email. This time no power. Did the generator fail, again? So back I went. A nice sunny day. The batteries were down to 38% and the solar panels were charging at 7.2 Kilowatts. That’s the rated max for the array. Good stuff. The solar control reported that the generator had a “Fault No AC” error (IE generator was running but the system did not see any power). That being said the temperature inside was OK. Outside the gen showed no errors and the oil level was good. Propane was good at 68%. Hmmm. In the battery room I found the input breakers from the generator were tripped. I reset them and went back into OCC. At the solar control panel I pressed the manual start button for the generator and it fired right up. The only thing I can think of is that every so often different demands on the system line up and draw just a bit more that those breakers can take. It happens so infrequently (this is the second time ever) I don’t mind living on the edge. I collected the data again. This time the controller had been logging. Starting to suspect a certain SD card as causing the problem. The gen was still running when I put it back into auto and with the batteries at 69% continued to run as I left. Nine days pass with no more heart stopping emails, only the good emails telling me that the inside temps are holding ok. I decide to go up for a couple of nights. Another nice sunny day. My fave. The batteries were at 79% and being charged by the sun. Yes, the generator had stopped. After building a fire, I vacuumed OCC for the first time in a long time. I then plowed the drive. Back in OCC, wearing long undies and a tuque, I built another fire and had supper. Going to bed that night was a challenge. Even with long undies on, the bed was very, and I mean, very cold. The next morning brought snow and another chance to clear the drive and the panels. Oh joy. The last day of this visit had me topping up the oil in the generator and checking the propane level. 62% ok. This visit was somewhat miserable with the weather being mostly grey and overcast and not being able to stay warm inside. Also, with the trash trailer still parked in the garage my vehicle had to stay outside in the cold and snow. I was starting to think of where else I could put it in the future. Anyway, it didn’t help. With a masonry fireplace, a three day stay is not enough. The real heat was probably starting to happen the night I left. That’s probably why I was staying a week at a time before the gen broke last year. It was just over two and a half weeks before I went back again. I took up some more distilled water and topped up the batteries. I also checked and topped up the generator oil and noted the propane was down to 58%. Two days later, a break in the weather gave us the opportunity to take the utility trailer out of the garage and to the dump. Over eight hundred pounds of recycling and trash were disposed of. The empty trailer was then stored in the Quonset freeing up space in the garage. There was another longer delay before I would return, almost two weeks. Prepping for the holiday season had some part of that I guess. Anyway I had decided that OCC was not going to interrupt my xmas and to that ends I decided to drain OCC of its potential toilet tank bursting water and add RV anti freeze to the tender parts. The driveway, that kilometre of fun, demanded to be cleared again and at a point far down the drive I broke a shear bolt on the snow blower. The purpose of the shear bolt is that if the snow blower jams because of ice or rocks etc the bolt would break before the impellers would bend or the snow blower transmission would strip out. A lot cheaper and easier to replace a small bolt. Anyway, I had to go back to the cottage for the tools I needed to make repairs before I could carry on. I now had only one spare shear bolt left. Mental note, get more. While driving back I had an epiphany! Why not keep the two wrenches required to change the shear bolt in the tool box that is on the tractor? How many years has it been? Well that’s where the tools are now! Gad. When I left the batts were at 100%, propane at 51% and I topped up the generator oil again. Our Country Cottage was well behaved during our merry making days, but on the very last day of the year I got an ominous “Power Has Been Lost” email. Dah Dah daaaaaaahhhh! So, this update does bring you up to date to the end of the year. Tune in next episode to see what the New Year brings to Our Country Cottage. Also in the next episode, ITB, In The Beginning, month 24, will anything get done, will there be progress to the completion of OCC. For pictures and more info, you can visit our website at www.ourcountrycottageanarrative.com If you have any comments, questions or if you would like to be added to the “Friends of OCCaN” Our Country Cottage A Narrative, mailing list, you can email me at John@ourcountrycottageanarrative.com. Members on the mailing list will get website and podcast updates as soon as I do :). The Our Country Cottage a Narrative podcast is on iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play so you can subscribe there and get the podcast downloaded automatically when they get released. Till next time…. Happy New Year and don’t forget to smell the roses.

  In this episode I will tell you about getting to a project that was some five years past due and In The Beginning, Month 22, almost 2 years in, and still going at it. And an OCC update, well, brings you up to date. ITB, month 22, May. In The Beginning, is the part of the podcast where I recount the birthing pains of Our Country Cottage. Pictures, emails, texts and my log book have given me a memory refresh to present the most accurate information of the time. 22 months in and the big things are pretty well done and now we get down to the details. One important detail that happened this month was that we got Our Country Cottage’s “Occupancy Approval” certificate. Basically a piece of paper that lets us legally occupy Our Country Cottage. Any who, on with the ITB blow by blow. When I left Our Country Cottage last month ITB 21, the weather was warming up and most of the snow had gone. Remember, I got my boot stuck in the mud. My first trip of month 22 found the snow was back. I even had to plow the drive. The generator was showing 29.5 hours on the clock. That was double what it was when I left last month. Well, at least it was working. Inside, I noticed a stack of blinds in the sunroom. Now just in case I didn’t mention this before, we have two skylights in the living room and three skylights in the sun room. There was an option to have blinds installed during manufacturing, ready to go. I thought blinds were a good idea as it would give some control to the amount of sun coming in, also they would provide a bit of insulation while closed. You guessed it, the blinds came separately, and not only that, some were even the wrong size. Keep in mind that all these were delivered 22 months ago and only now just being found out. Emails to the project co-ordinator, measurements taken and retaken and discussions over, did I pay, should I pay, would I pay, and who would pay to have them installed. It took a while to sort out but the correct size replacements did show up. Installation came later, several months later. Back outside I had had a propane line run from the tank to the front deck so that a BBQ could be set up. I figured with a thousand (actually 800 gallons) of propane already there, why futz about with the little tanks. The pipe had been run and came up in the most likely place I would position the BBQ and terminated with a locking tap and end plug. I took pics and measurements hoping there would be an easy hook up thingy. I will check out the BBQ store in the city, when I get back. Handy tip. Instead of trying to balance a pen and paper on some dubious writing surface to make a note of your measurements, grab your phone with one hand and hold the tape measure with the other hand, next to what your are measuring. Align one edge with the nearest inch or centimetre and take a pic. Not only do you have a record of the measurement but what and how you measured it. A pic is worth a thousand words and much better than a crumpled piece of paper with some chicken scratches on it. My next visit I had made arrangements to meet up with the generator tech at Our Country Cottage. But before he showed up I was busy digging in the dirt again. This time it was not as muddy. It was by the battery room hatch where I was told the end of a buried pipe was. This pipe was run at the same time the propane line was run and was to accommodate any extra wires I wanted from the generator to the cottage. The one I had in mind was a data cable that would relay generator info inside the cottage. With the aid of some software that I had purchased with the generator there was the promise of internet communication and maybe even email updates. Anyway, back to the pipe end. What I remember of the pipe unearthing was me kneeling on a bit of plywood, digging a hole with a garden trowel and being very relieved when the red cap on the pipe came into view. I exposed some more pipe and covered the hole with said piece of plywood, ready for the wire to be run. At some point during the digging the generator guy showed up. Now, the generator was running fine but a few of the extras were missing. The extras that would making starting in the cold easier, battery blanket, pre-heaters etc. These items either didn’t, or couldn’t, be transferred from the previous gen. There was also an inside cover that was broken during installation, that needed to be replaced too. I was hoping to get an Ethernet cable run from the generator to the cottage. Turned out that he wasn’t equipped to run the wire but the other stuff was taken care of. Oh, and this was the visit I got my finger caught in the garage door, slash, room divider, while I was showing it off to the generator tech. Please see Episode#15, Doors and Dividers, for the gory details. The following week, when my finger had settled down a bit, I found myself at Our Country Cottage doing the first water test of the well. Samples were taken and had to be delivered to a collection station that I would pass by on the way home. I didn’t have that much time to spare. Just enough to notice the depressing, soul sucking, and boot sucking, mud that surrounded Our Country Cottage. In fact after I dropped off the water samples I started looking into grass seed at a farm supply place. Aside from grass seed, these farm supply places are full of neat and strange things us city folk rarely get to see. After browsing through the horse medication and grooming supplies and talking to someone, I was offered pasture grass seed at a good rate, along with several other types and mixes of seed. The topic of grass seed had come up between my partner and my self before. There was an option of seed containing all local and natural varieties, almost an artisan mix, very environmentally correct to say the least. I often wondered if used that we would be just supplying a high end, gourmet, birdfeed. I was also looking into what it would take to spray seed on. You know, like by the highway. Bare dirt is sprayed with some kind of green solution and some form of grass appears a short time after. Did I mention, mud is depressing? The next few day visits only seemed to emphasize the mud issue with the last bits of snow disappearing into pools of standing water. Pools of standing water I took pics of so I would know where to work on the landscape to get the water flowing. I couldn’t even think about doing anything till it had dried up. I kept busy by clearing out the loft over the garage etc. It was about this time that the locks were made operable on the doors and sets of keys were to be had. That was a nice diversion from the mud and the ever more growing awareness of the garbage and debris previously hidden under the snow. At the end of the month and bolstered with the water test results being a go, I decided to stay overnight for the first time. The fridge was turned on for the first time. The stereo system was set up. Gotta have tunes. The second futon was setup in the living room as a couch while the first one was in the back bedroom as a bed. Can’t remember much from that first night but an entry in the log book noted the futon was not kind to my back. Next morning I was up early and turned on the domestic hot water. After about an hour I had my first bath, watching birds land on the peak of the roof of the sunroom while soaking in luvly hot water. The rest of the day I spent moving furniture, etc from the shed down to the cottage. This included kitchen table and chairs, an old waterbed frame, a home made side table, and an old BBQ. On one of these trips I met a young deer heading toward the cottage. Later that day, while I was setting up the BBQ, a couple of motorcycles rolled up and parked. They were from the flooring/tile company and had come up to correct some grouting problems. Our experience with this company wasn’t the best. In fact I wouldn’t have been surprised if they hadn’t have showed. Anyway they did what they could and left me playing with the BBQ. I managed to get the necessary propane fittings to go from that propane pipe on the deck to the BBQ. The pictures really helped me get the right stuff. All hooked up and with soapy water I did the bubble test. No bubbles, no troubles. Barbecued pork chops for supper along with a can of beans I had to open with a multi tool. That night I woke around 2 am to see an amazing display of stars, far from the city lights. Now, that wasn’t the end of that stay but it was the end of that month. And now An Our Country Cottage Update. I promised to tell you about my longest stay yet this season at OCC. and about a long overdue project that got done so lets begin. Mid to late summer brings lots of unwanted guests to OCC. Flies appear from every where and for some reason wasps showed up in the downstairs bathroom. I think they built a nest in the bathroom vent. Gad. Any who with a little chemical help, most if not all of these intruders are x intruders, intruders that are no more, leaving their remains littered on the floors, showers, tub, window seats and window ledges. Sometime I will find areas with just wings and legs, you know the picnic leftovers of our arachnid friends. Insects are one of the truths that were revealed to me early on in the OCC process and I have become much more tolerant and a lot less freaked out by them. Lets face it, when you put your cottage smack dab it the middle of their home, you will get “guests”. So after cleaning up after the “guests” I got down to that long overdue project. The Quonset. Way back, back before OCC, when we just had a trailer and a skid-steer, we put up a Quonset to house my big boy toys. It is 24’ by 24’ in size with a metal tube frame and a fabric cover, complete with a roll up door. If I recall the fabric was supposed to last somewhere between 5 and 10 years. We were now going onto 17 years, and it showed. Stitching was letting go and the door was just barely holding on. The fabric had become quite thin in places with lots of pinholes. We got our moneys worth for sure. Back during the construction of OCC, I realized the cover would have to be changed and I ordered one from a company, out east, that makes these replacement covers. It had been sitting patiently at various locations for the past 5 years. In the garage in the city, then the garage in the country, then in our utility trailer in the Quonset. A year or so ago I actually unpacked it for the first time and discovered there was no easy to follow instructions. And to my dismay the roll up door was not attached to the wall like the original. Lots of questions and lots of searches online trying to find any info or picture on this kind of cover. The original cover had pockets that the frame work went into during assembly, not really an option for a replacement cover. The replacement had straps through grommets that laced the cover to the frame instead. I ended up calling the replacement cover company for any help they might be able to give me. They were abit surprised that the door wasn’t attached, too. I really didn’t expect much from them, as it had been several years since the order was placed. I felt lucky that they were still around. The Quonset cover is in three pieces, two end sections and the main cover. I consoled myself with the concept that it could be done in sections, leaving the door till last, if I couldn’t figure out how to attach it. I pressed on. You can imagine that a 24 by 24 storage space will accumulate some stuff over 17 years and it did. My first task was to empty the Quonset out. During the trailer days we had built a couple of decks to sit on so we weren’t always dealing with gravel and mud etc. These decks have been basically abandoned since OCC took over. I repositioned these decks to put that 17 years of stuff on. I had three sections, stuff to go back into the Quonset, stuff to put somewhere else and garbage. The utility trailer, with the new cover still in it was positioned by the decks, just across the drive from the Quonset. The bottom of the Quonset cover has a flap that has to be weighed down with dirt and or gravel, to make a seal from the weather. After 17 years this original gravel and dirt seal turned into a grassed over berm. Several hours of careful skid-steer bucket work managed to scrape back and expose the flap. I did get caught a couple of times, ripping several feet of the flap before realizing what was going on. Our youngest and her friend came up and stayed a couple of nights during all this. They helped me position the trailer and other heavy things. The day of, my partner, our eldest and a friend came up for the big day. Thankfully the wind was co-operating. It was a long and hot day. There were times I didn’t know what to do next. Some preconceived ideas worked, some didn’t. Everyone pulled together and it got done. I am thankful to my family who recognized when I was starting to loose it and called timeouts when needed and put up with my project attitude. A project with uncertain outcome, but an unmistakable need to be done had been weighing on my mind for literally years, was now done. Just some tweaking, adjustments etc, easy stuff remained. The next day, when our youngest and her friend left, I was joking that I put a fresh blade into my utility knife for a clean cut. Yeah well within a half hour of them leaving, while cutting a slit in a pocket of the cover to put a strap, I partially removed about the top third of a finger. I remember looking at it and thinking, “That’s not good”. So be careful of what you say. And as far as the door goes, once everything was more or less in place, a method for attaching the door with some ratchet straps became apparent and worked out very well. So, sometimes, just going ahead with no idea other than it will be fine, works, sometimes. The rest of that visit had me trying to adjust the Quonset cover and other light tasks while favouring my finger. Putting tools away, tidying up and laundry, that sort of stuff. Just over two weeks passed before I went back up to Our Country Cottage. My finger had settled down and the Quonset need some work that I was unable to do with a damaged digit. The visit didn’t start out well. I was cold and it snowed. When I arrived I plugged in the cold weather stuff for the generator. Battery blanket, block heater etc. This will give it a fighting chance when the temp drops. Fires were built and flies vacuumed. The next day there was snow on the panels and the batteries were down to 70%. The gen was set to start when they reach 67% but I couldn’t wait. In manual mode, I started the gen from the solar control unit with no problem. Once it was running for a while I put it back on auto. In two and a half hours the batteries were at 90%, the level the system was set to charge to, and the generator turned itself off. A good sign. I have the generator stop at 90% because the closer the batteries get to full charge the less the generator charges. It tapers off. IE at 98% the system will only be asking the 20 Kilowatt generator for less that 1 Kilowatt. It is not worth putting the hours on the gen for that. So far I found that the 90% level is a good trade off. Now this is also the reason I couldn’t wait any longer to run the gen in the first place. I was giving the system a chance for the solar panels to charge the batts the rest of the way, and I needed daylight to do that. So its 2:30 pm and the batts are at 90% and we still have several hours before the sun sets. The following day was also cold and overcast. Another fire. I busied myself tidying up and sorting boxes of documentation. Documentation that was collected from the beginning of OCC and beyond, err, before. All the manuals for appliances, equipment, snow rakes, pressure tanks, pumps, Ikea assembly instructions, everything. The living room was a mess. Papers and stuff spread out over any and all flat surfaces. If I wanted to sit down I had to move something. One tricky thing is trying to figure out how much heat is enough. Like I said I built a fire in the morning cause it was cool and there didn’t look like there was a chance for much sun. That evening, when the masonry heater started radiating the energy from the morning fire, it was so warm, I was in a t-shirt and spending my time at the kitchen island, away from the heater. When I woke the following day the batteries were at 79% so I ran the generator manually again. Remember, I am still trying to regain confidence in this thing since it failed last year and froze OCC. I put on a load of laundry and went to the Quonset to finally do what I originally came up for. Snow was holding the flaps down. I managed to put on the extra straps that were needed and adjusted the fabric panels so that everything was square. Then I cinched up the ends of the Quonset and snugged everything down. Just have to put the gravel/dirt back on the flaps and take care of all the stuff on the deck that came out of the Quonset. All that stuff was covered with a large green tarp so I wasn’t overly concerned about leaving it for a while. Besides, it was covered with snow. I think I took the next day off. My log book only indicates there was a clear sky and that snow was covering about one third of the land that I could see. There is also a series of pictures on my phone documenting the work I had done on the Quonset the day before. Hey I deserve a day off. After my day of rest, I managed to get all the papers and stuff covering the living room sorted and put away. Clear flat spaces again! You have no idea… I then decided it was time to convert the tractor to winter mode. Off with the mower deck, on with the drive shaft extension, front hydraulic unit, snow thrower and rear blade. Everything gets greased before it goes on. No problems this time with the exception of the four hydraulic couplers that had lost their color identifier caps. They fell off when I did the conversion in the spring. The blue to blue, red to red, yellow to yellow and black to black got replaced with a little trial and error and we are back in business. The last day of this visit had me topping up the batteries, mental note - get some more distilled water, swapping the SD cards from one of the trail cams and collecting the logs from the solar control system. Since day one I have been using a net book for these collections. For those of you that are unfamiliar with net books they are a cheap, under powered, under resourced laptop. Lately mine has been giving me more and more problems. I have to carry an external card reader with it because it is so old the built in reader won’t recognize anything over 4 Gig. The USB port takes about 5 to 10 minutes to recognize the data loggers and the unit is so slow I don’t try to read the solar control logs until I get back to the city. I have waited over an hour for anything to pop up. This trip was the last straw with the net book. I vowed to get a new laptop when I got back to the city. OK I had been looking into it for over a year now and had been through a couple of back to school sales and those Dad day, Grad day, sales and everything in between. I started watching those email sales announcements closer and closer. About 2 weeks later, my next visit was with a family friend, who just happens to be an arborist. When you own a natural piece of land with trees on it you have to keep your eye out for potentially dangerous trees. Dead trees that can fall across your drive or on you during a wind storm or just when they decide to. Anyway I had noticed about three dead trees down by the Quonset that could inflict major damage to life and property if they decided to fall. Another had fallen in the spring across the drive. I think I mentioned that one in a previous episode. Dead trees are very dangerous to fell by yourself. Handy tip. Don’t do it, don’t even try to do it. The trunk could be rotten and you would have no way of controlling the direction of fall. Also limbs of a dead tree have a tendency to break off and fall on people at the bottom of the tree while they are being cut. They don’t call them widow makers for nothing. Our arborist had a slingshot contraption that he used to launch a line high up in the tree of choice to haul up a heavier rope to guide the fall. I held onto the rope at a suitable distance while he cut and wedged the tree. I could feel the tree react through the rope to everything he did at the base. I was also keeping a close eye on the branches at the top, just in case. One tree he managed to dislodge a sketchy branch with the slingshot thingy. In all cases I could feel the tree give up and start to fall toward me as he worked his magic. They all fell in the desired direction with out me having to do much at all. Two smaller trees were dispatched, down by the gate, without my help. The day went without incident and I learned a lot. Before our next visit I had found a good sale, ordered and received a new laptop. Setting up a new puter is a challenge on its own, so suffice to say, after several days and several Scotches later, we were ready to go. I keep the snow tires for one of our vehicles at OCC. I figure if I am up there and get a major snow fall … well you know. Some don’t agree but ... The next trip was another day trip and my partner came with. Flies were vacuumed. Snow tires were put on. Computers were tested and all went well. Collecting data had never been so easy or speedy. Oh yeah, I was worried that the week prior to coming up the inside temps were getting a bit cool, a couple of times down around 9 degrees C (48 degrees F) or so. I had not checked the thermostats since OCC had been back in operation so I took the opportunity to check and reset them. They were set to 9.5 degrees so all seems ok. I noticed that one of the temperature probes was by a window. I think I pushed it over so it wouldn’t keep getting caught in the cupboard doors. I repositioned it to a more central position in the kitchen. I also noticed that the generator had run a couple of times since my last visit. A good sign for sure. And examination of the log files showed no abnormalities. A week later and my partner and I were back at Our Country Cottage this time to sort out and clear off the deck from all that Quonset stuff. It was a long day but we managed to get the trailer loaded with garbage, etc, ready for a trip to the local dump. And all the other stuff got taken care of as well. The decks have been cleared! And that brings you up to date with Our Country Cottage. Again I am having to remind myself to take time and smell the roses. It is hard to do while all your concentration is on spreading the fertilizer to get them to grow in the first place. Getting the Quonset done is a large weight off of my mind, also I don’t have to look at those dangerous dead trees and speed up as I drive by anymore. Only small things are left to do, so maybe a rose smelling trip is in the near future. Next time Episode #22, will roses be smelt? And ITB month 23 is still wet and muddy but now the grass needs to be cut too, and does anything get completed on Our Country Cottage. For pictures and more info, you can visit our website at www.ourcountrycottageanarrative.com If you have any comments, questions or if you would like to be added to the “Friends of OCCaN” Our Country Cottage A Narrative, mailing list, you can email me at John@ourcountrycottageanarrative.com. Members on the mailing list will get website and podcast updates as soon as I do :). The Our Country Cottage a Narrative podcast is on iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play so you can subscribe there and get the podcast downloaded automatically when they get released. Till next time have a good one.

If you’ve driven on Mendenhall Loop Road, you may have seen the huts. The rusted steel half-circles look a bit like mini-airplane hangars.

Jim Cuddihy with career advice ~ "I tell kids all the time, interns that come into my office, people who want to get into the business: 'When you wake up in the morning, you better want to go to work. Figure that out. Do something that you love.'" Jim Cuddihy - Executive Vice President MASN A Ockershausen: This is Andy Ockershausen. This is Our Town and we have a special, special delight to have a guest that has made such an impact on the greater Washington area at both Home Team Sports, Comcast SportsNet, and now with MASN. We'll get into that later, but right now I'm gonna say hello to Jimmy Cuddihy, the man from New York who took over Washington by storm. Jim Cuddihy: Great to be with you, Andy. One of my heroes since I moved here to D.C. in 2001. On Moving to Our Town A Ockershausen: I love your story. When you first arrived in the city, your wife and your two little children, at the time, got lost and ended up going by Georgetown Prep. Jim Cuddihy: You know, it's- A Ockershausen: The hated rival of Gonzaga Eagles at this point. Jim Cuddihy: Kind of ironic, right? My little guy's like five years old and we're looking for houses. This is the first time they've moved down; I'd already been here a couple months. And we see this beautiful campus and we pull in and there's a rugby game going on. I played, I had coached, I love the sport. A Ockershausen: It's your life. Jim Cuddihy: I take a picture with my son and the ball's half as big as him, right? And he goes to school, they do a father's day present where they do cardboard cutouts of tools. And he cuts out a saw and he puts the picture in there and he writes, "To the best dad I ever saw." A Ockershausen: He's five years old? Jim Cuddihy: And to this day, I still have that in my office and he turned out to be a fantastic rugby player, Gonzaga High School, and now the captain of Saint Joe's University rugby team. So it was ironic, that that young of an age, he- A Ockershausen: Jimmy, it is all do to his experience at Georgetown Prep. Jim Cuddihy: That's right. A Ockershausen: Prep- Jim Cuddihy: He wouldn't want to hear that. A Gonzaga guy wouldn't want to hear that, but you're right. A Ockershausen: But your career has been in broadcasting, but you grew up in New York City and I love hear you telling stories about the guy ... The guys you grew up with all became an important part of the city. Cops, firemen, workers, whatever they did, and you moved on. But you grew up in that atmosphere. On Growing Up in Stuyvesant Town, New York City Jim Cuddihy: Yeah. And those guys. . . And those guys are still my best friends. We grew up in a neighborhood ... Really one of the only communities in New York City called Stuyvesant Town. On the lower- A Ockershausen: I know it quite well. Jim Cuddihy: Yeah. It's on the Lower East Side from 14th Street and 1st Avenue to 23rd Street. A Ockershausen: High rise. Jim Cuddihy: High rises. And they built them in the 50s for the returning war veterans. A Ockershausen: Correct. I remember that. Jim Cuddihy: So this kind of neighborhood, you would run home from school, drop your book bag down, and you'd go right out and play until 6:00 or 6:30 until it was dark. And sometimes your mother would open up the window- A Ockershausen: Yeah. Parks and recreation on site, correct? Jim Cuddihy: We had 15 playgrounds and every playground had a specialty. A Ockershausen: Was that a project of an insurance company? Was that Metropolitan Life? Jim Cuddihy: Yeah. MetLife owned it, yeah. That's right. That's right. A Ockershausen: I know a lot about it because my brother-in-law was a firefighter. He was a fireman then. After the war, when he came back, there was no place to live. They lived out, someplace at Floyd Bennett Field. Jim Cuddihy: Yeah. Right. A Ockershausen: There's little Quonset huts out there. They couldn't find a place. Jim Cuddihy: Stuyvesant Town is rent controlled and my parents moved into a five-be...

Episode 0033 - Shops Garages and Orange Cones Everything garages are discussed as Lefty is putting in his own.  Lighting, flooring and even size.  Some garages are bigger than others.   Show Notes: 2:01 Craftsman tool boxes https://www.craftsman.com/products/craftsman-home-series-6-drawer-tool-center-with-bulk-storage-panel-door?taxon_id=2230   2:41 Craftsmen concerns https://consumerist.com/2017/01/05/craftsman-tool-lovers-worried-for-brand-after-900m-sale-to-black-decker/   7:04 Tool box rant episode - Episode 10 http://bsquadhotrod.libsyn.com/episode-0010-rear-ends-and-tool-box-rants   9:26 Magnet labels http://www.sears.com/craftsman-magnetic-label/p-00965518000P?sid=IDx01192011x000001&gclid=CjwKEAjw387JBRDPtJePvOej8kASJADkV9TLSnTyr0ngn_LLAP3bwYlNLoAoGce7fr4glU9qfQVbpRoCSQfw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CNO5_rj4pdQCFcWVfgodsdkCIw   http://www.staples.com/Staples-White-Warehouse-Labels-Magnetic-Strips/product_SS1085020   10:05 [Solution] How do I deal with Multiple tool boxes? (from Lefty) Deal with it!!!! (from Train)   11:52 22x26 prefab building http://www.carport.com/shop/garages/22x26-one-car-metal-garage-building/   13:15 40x60 prefab building http://mbmisteelbuildings.com/metal-buildings-for-sale/40x60   13:28 4 inch trolley https://www.harborfreight.com/2-ton-push-beam-trolley-60509.html   13:50 Chain hoist https://www.harborfreight.com/2-ton-manual-chain-hoist-60719.html   14:02 Lifts and multi car storage https://www.bestbuyautoequipment.com/4-Post-Lifts-s/290.htm   15:14 Overhead light with speaker http://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-Electric-40-in-LED-Brushed-Nickel-Shop-Light-with-Bluetooth-Speakers-Bright-White-4000K-3500-Lumens-50-Watt-Plug-In-54569141/207077391   Floor finishes Epoxy floor paint http://www.homedepot.com/p/Rust-Oleum-EpoxyShield-1-gal-Battleship-Gray-Concrete-Floor-Paint-Case-of-2-260725/203582385?cm_mmc=Shopping%7cTHD%7cG%7c0%7cG-BASE-PLA-D24-Paint%7c&gclid=CjwKEAjw387JBRDPtJePvOej8kASJADkV9TLrJ2SQ0ocblOSJG3bTe1htzhz826yb1H0pzWgVmeSAhoCYyDw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds   18: 39 Garage floor tiles http://racedeck.com/?crtag=value&gclid=CjwKEAjw387JBRDPtJePvOej8kASJADkV9TL6_3di8zdrsU3lpXPtOpSwwcqTckB8tFexCNF0l7-IBoCRTPw_wcB   19: Garage floor roll out mats http://www.rubberflooringinc.com/garage/index.html?slc=21256&utm_source=google&utm_term=&utm_campaign=&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=s_pcrid_142710152819_pkw__pmt__pdv_c_pprd_21256&gclid=CjwKEAjw387JBRDPtJePvOej8kASJADkV9TLdOq9r5OB4kZ1cnrO_u_jEJJW4yqYeqpWMizO6y3VExoC_d7w_wcB     20:08 Power tool caster feet http://www.homedepot.com/p/HTC-Products-Universal-Mobile-Base-HTC-2000/204316440?cm_mmc=Shopping%7cG%7cBase%7cPLA%7cD25T%7cPowerTools&gclid=CjwKEAjw387JBRDPtJePvOej8kASJADkV9TLQ0ge9f_jTLtOSOYHz-2kwwI7qr_eFDUwtjOwMBqL5BoCW_Dw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds   32:21 Quonset hut building http://www.quonset-hut.org/   46:24 Pop up beer fridge http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3298132/Is-world-s-best-plant-pot-Garden-ornament-rises-lawn-reveal-incredible-hidden-BEER-FRIDGE.html     Thanks for listening, downloading and subscribing.  For questions, comments or complaints please e-mail us at: Hosts@BsquadHotrod.com Twitter and Facebook - @Bsquadhotrod And if you really want to help us out give us a review in your podcast app of choice.

Live from San Diego's Circle of Hops (yes, that's a thing now), the Garage Hour goons - with everyone from .45 Phil, Chef Jeff & Ms. Karen, to the Diesel Ayatollah and our newest cohost, Vinnie the Screw (or Drywall Vinnie - we can't decide) joining Hostus Maximus Justin Fort - chat up Helix Brewing's primary and head keg wiper Cameron Ball about his luscious selection of finely crafted beers.  From there, it's all gearhead: bullets and tornados and flooding, but hey, it's got beer and guns.  And trucks - surely someone said "diesel" at some point. We free Cam Ball's taste buds from beer jail for long enough to try a suite of his finest ales, including his Pale, the piece of art that is Galaxy Rye, Active IPA, the latest - and most subtle - batch of Stoner Moment, a creamy Honor Not Inner stout on nitro, while .45 Phil gets outside of the last keg of the sublime Pumpkin Basic.  Beer vibes included beer honesty and beer fun, which then detours into why home stilling might blow up your garage. There's also .45 Phil's dissertation on Laotian HVAC guys in San Diego (way more interesting than you'd think), hot places from Thailand to Iraq, making an FAL run like you plan to take over a small third-world nation, FAL and Luger ergonomics, RIPs for recently deceased SEAL Team 6 SSgt Bill Owen, tarps, flooding at NASSCO, what kind of ruckus is a Helix ruckus, bone tours, and America's newest anarchist, Uncle Donald, and how he plans to go tiger mom on the state of California's gun banning troglodyte horde in Sacramento. Should be a show.  We certainly are - grab some Garage Hour, and we'll see you in the garage.

Live from San Diego's Circle of Hops (yes, that's a thing now), the Garage Hour goons - with everyone from .45 Phil, Chef Jeff & Ms. Karen, to the Diesel Ayatollah and our newest cohost, Vinnie the Screw (or Drywall Vinnie - we can't decide) joining Hostus Maximus Justin Fort - chat up Helix Brewing's primary and head keg wiper Cameron Ball about his luscious selection of finely crafted beers.  From there, it's all gearhead: bullets and tornados and flooding, but hey, it's got beer and guns.  And trucks - surely someone said "diesel" at some point. We free Cam Ball's taste buds from beer jail for long enough to try a suite of his finest ales, including his Pale, the piece of art that is Galaxy Rye, Active IPA, the latest - and most subtle - batch of Stoner Moment, a creamy Honor Not Inner stout on nitro, while .45 Phil gets outside of the last keg of the sublime Pumpkin Basic.  Beer vibes included beer honesty and beer fun, which then detours into why home stilling might blow up your garage. There's also .45 Phil's dissertation on Laotian HVAC guys in San Diego (way more interesting than you'd think), hot places from Thailand to Iraq, making an FAL run like you plan to take over a small third-world nation, FAL and Luger ergonomics, RIPs for recently deceased SEAL Team 6 SSgt Bill Owen, tarps, flooding at NASSCO, what kind of ruckus is a Helix ruckus, bone tours, and America's newest anarchist, Uncle Donald, and how he plans to go tiger mom on the state of California's gun banning troglodyte horde in Sacramento. Should be a show.  We certainly are - grab some Garage Hour, and we'll see you in the garage.

[image: 20161217_arts_post-134_2,left,300x390,5852f415280b1e0339fc7fb2]Ever been in an American Legion hall?They're not fancy, but for a certain generation they're as familiar as the corner taproom. They're the place to go for a chat, cheap drinks and of course, monthly bingo — not to mention the assurance of finding people who've experienced military service.Legion membership is shrinking nationally, but one hall in Northeast Portland — an old Quonset hut with a dropped ceiling and scuffed floors — found revival by embracing new people and new voices.American Legion Post 134 on Alberta Street has become a home for all kinds of new voices. In the course of one evening, the audience heard a blazing variety of personal stories and essays, as well as poems and songs. Some writers are vets. Some aren't. Post commander Sean Davis holds book release parties for veterans who are publishing their own work. The post even has its own small press and published an anthology of war stories. 
[image: 20161217_arts_post-134,right,300x390,5852f395ba7639033f073981]So how do you convert a failing American Legion post into an oasis of community and expression, where veterans rub shoulders with queer kids and street people mix with art curators?We recently sat down with Davis, who — as you might remember — ran for Portland mayor last spring. He teaches writing at Mt Hood Community College and is the author of a memoir called "The Wax Bullet War." We were joined by Amelia McDanel — another Legion member, a Navy veteran and MFA grad of Antioch University-Los Angeles — who oversees the Legion Readers' series at the post.Read the full story: http://www.opb.org/radio/programs/state-of-wonder/article/portland-american-legion-post-134/

Summary Tanya is explaining to Mrs Quonset that she’s being sent back to Los Angeles on the next flight, as Mel looks on. “Yes, my dear, ” says Ada, “I was afraid of that. Well, I would like a cup of tea first, so I’ll go now and you can tell me when you want […]

Summary Tanya Livingston sits in a chair in the Trans Global Executive Lounge, while Mel sits opposite Mrs. Quonset on the sofa. Mrs Quonset continues to explain the methods she uses to stow away on planes. She says she gets past the stewardesses because “they’re always talking to the men.” “I just show them my […]

Summary Tanya Livingston sits in a chair in the Trans Global Executive Lounge, while Mel sits opposite Mrs. Quonset on the sofa. Mrs Quonset is explaining the methods she uses to stow away on planes. “I like to get to the airport early enough to get me a boarding pass,” says Ada. “But our boarding […]

Summary Tanya Livingston sits in a chair in the Trans Global Executive Lounge, while Mel sits opposite Mrs. Quonset on the sofa. Mel is trying to explain to Mrs. Ada Quonset that what she’s done is dishonest. “You’ve broken the law,” says Mel. “You’ve defrauded Trans Global.” Mrs. Quonset nods. “Well, don’t you realize they […]

Thomas and Rupert Nevins drive to a Quonset hut to pick up the wooden pieces for assembling the do-it-yourself recording sound booth. Also inside the Quonset hut, is something that catches Thomas's attention. For more info please contact slumberlandpodcast@outlook.com Written, recorded and performed by Tom Mansell. The sound design in this episode owes thanks to Freesound Project contributors Alvinwhatup2, martinimeniscus, freesoundjon01, eelke, hintringer, zaneclampett, robinhood76, loveburd, rambler52, kemitix, bsung88, kineticturtle, meatleg, and Jovica. Thank you for listening to Slumberland!  

Mad Genius presents the debut episode of what we hope will be a long exploration of the sense of place. Resale Records is a used vinyl store in Madison, Wisconsin. Owner Eric Teisberg opened shop in the late '70s, using a Quonset hut that once housed a car repair business. Nearly 40 years later, Eric looks back on his work and life with a frank assessment toward our changing relationship with music.