My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on August 24, 2008

We spent Friday and the weekend moving kids to college and tacked on a day celebrating my father-in-laws 83rd birthday in western New York. All in all was successful trip but it was a long weekend. While returning we stopped to fill up at the Mt. Gilead renewable fuel Sunoco station on I-71 (exit 151 between Cleveland and Columbus Ohio. Prices were a bit higher than other interstate based station as we did see $3.49 regular gasoline and $4.03 diesel.

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Posted By RichC on August 23, 2008

As mentioned earlier, there is a great country airshow in Waynesville Ohio this upcoming weekend. (Red Stewart Airfield) Also for those camping out under the stars or just flying (or driving) to the airport on Sunday morning our EAA Chapter (284) will be fixing a pancake breakfast.

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Posted By RichC on August 22, 2008

I’ve commented on the handy free service called Jott before, and am giving their new Twitter Jott Link a try — not that I spend much time using Twitter. After two years in Beta, Jott.com has move to an advertiser and pay-for-services model. As more and more subscription based Internet components arrive, I’ve become less and less inclined to pay for extra services. In an off the top of my head accounting of the subscription services on top of my ISP, I’ve opted for: 1) Personal Webhosting beyond company servers, 2) Flickr for images, 3) Sugarsync for back-up and file availability, 4) an old USA.net email service that I can’t seem to let go of, 5) Skype out, and 6) an email junk filter account that I’ll eliminate — it is unreliable. If you use Twitter, give the Jott link a try.

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Posted By RichC on August 21, 2008

North Carolina TDIClub member “coolbreeze” may bring his new 2009 Volkswagen Sportwagen TDI to the TDIFest over Labor Day weekend – thread. If he does, it will be the first one most of us will have seen. Crossing my fingers that you can make it Bruce!

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Tags: sportwagon, tdi, tdifest, volkswagen

Posted By RichC on August 20, 2008

My son had an end of summer cookout and bonfire (sorry for the lack of focus above) this week for he and his good friends head off to college this fall; most will be parting ways and heading in different directions. As a parent, its been great to know my sons core group of friends, many for the last 13 years, and I couldn’t be more inspired by this generation of ‘decent’ young people. There are far too many negative stories about America’s youth and its good to experience the opposite: bright, considerate and genuinely nice kids to be around (although they are 18 now — perhaps adults is a better choice of words?).

Taylor and Jessica

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Tags: bonfire, friends, lakota, school, taylor

Posted By RichC on August 19, 2008

Another circumnavigation record falls … this time its a trip around the world in a “whirlybird.” Scott Kasprowicz and Steve Sheik set a new world record for the fastest trip around the world in a helicopter. They circumnavigated the globe from LaGuardia Airport crossing the Atlantic, traversing 20 countries, 12 time zones and 49 states in 11 days, 7 hours and 3 minutes. This feat beat the old record of just over 17 days.

“We just approached our schedule very aggressively, we didn’t let anything stop us or slow us down,” said Kasprowicz, 55, of Middleburg, Va.

Breaking the record meant forgoing some luxuries, including food, sleep and showers.

“You’re in the cockpit on a good day 18, sometimes 20 or 21 hours,” said Sheik, 38, of Baltimore. He said he and Kasprowicz ate mostly trail mix and granola bars.

“Bathroom breaks [were] never really a problem,” Kasprowicz said because of frequent refueling stops. The helicopter made more than 80 stops over the course of the trip and the crew got the average refueling time down to 12-14 minutes.

The record-breaking feat was almost derailed when the helicopter was delayed in Russia for a day due to airport closures and a strict air traffic control system.

The crew flew for Alaska on Friday night, narrowly escaping being grounded in Russia for the weekend.

To do it, they chartered an aircraft and arranged for three 55-gallon drums of jet fuel to be flown onto St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea. “We got out literally by the skin of our teeth,” Kasprowicz said.

“We really had to push hard to make up for that lost day in Russia,” Sheik said. “By the end of the trip, we really just had to sacrifice rest and sleep.”

The pair holds the record for the fastest helicopter flight from New York to Los Angeles, and, on this trip, also broke the record for the fastest trip from New York to London.

“It was a great adventure and we’re really glad to be home,” Kasprowicz said, adding that he was most looking forward to “a good sleep on a real bed.”

LINK

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Posted By RichC on August 19, 2008

Automotive sales and production worldwide has slowed a bit this year as economies slow, but the production of Volkswagen vehicles in China continues to grow. According to Automotive News, sales are up 23.2% for vehicles build in the communist country, with over one-half million vehicles produced. This number move very close to VW’s production in Germany and actually trails in number of vehicles built by a mere 3,000. If production continues at this grow pace, China will be the largest producer of VWs in the world … perhaps by year end?

Volkswagen cars currently have nearly 20 percent of the market in China and with the introduction of up to 14 new models in the next 2 years, should continue to dominate. VW executives expect the Chinese market for their vehicles will grow from 5.6 million units to 10.3 million over the next 10 years, proving once again that China is a major economic producer and consumer in this 21st century.

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Posted By RichC on August 18, 2008

Fay, currently designated a tropical storm, drenched the Florida Keys on Monday. The rains flooded roads and created a handful of possible tornadoes as it moved north according to emergency management officials. Whil

The storm killed at least five people in the Caribbean according to news reports, but there were no reports of injuries or deaths, just flooding in the Keys.

Corey Walton, a hurricane support meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center, said Fay — a diffuse storm without a clearly defined eye — was moving north at about 14 miles an hour, and could become a Category 1 hurricane before striking Florida’s west coast Tuesday morning.

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Posted By RichC on August 18, 2008

I really wanted to take off early today and head home to just lounge in the pool, but the pile of work to be done is not getting smaller. The summer is getting away from me and don’t see much slowing down before September.

First, we’ll be moving my son to college over the weekend (and celebrating my father-in-laws birthday). This is my son’s first year to college so the 9th floor dorm move in along with thousands of freshmen is sure to be a zoo. After that, we move my daughter back to medical school, although she’s pretty much ready and will have her car (a VW TDI of course) and is moving back into the same apartment. Once that’s done, then comes Labor Day weekend. For this I’m going to need to be ready for two big events: The annual Fly-In, Airshow and Pancake Breakfast that my EAA chapter is involved in, and then the North American TDIFest being held in Mason, Ohio. Our CinciTDI group is hosting the TDIFest OH8 this year and its a big task to arrange not only the accommodations, but the activities which are important for a successful event. Perhaps its just normal to feel a bit of pressure?

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Posted By RichC on August 17, 2008

Once again TV in our house was tuned in to watch the 2008 Beijing Olympics on Saturday night. We were anxious to see Michael Phelps swim again — and swim he did. This time Phelps did it with his American teammates — Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen and Jason Lezak — in the Men’s 4 x 100m Medley Relay winning another American gold medal … the 8th for Phelps making it a single Olympic games record. This final gold medal for Phelps left him near speechless after the finish and gives him a total of 14 Olympic golds — Phelps now stands alone in sports history with the most Olympic gold medals.

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