Thursday, July 3, 2014

Couple O' Things


Christmas in July - Surly attended some type of grinding seminar at Norton and brought me back an oilstone and tee shirt as a belated Father's Day gift. The previous owner of the Sportster sent along an old magazine with a road test of the XLCH 1000 for '73. I also picked up the wrist pin circlips that were on order from the Motor Company. Hope to get back on that project at least a little bit this weekend. Not much more patriotic than spending a little quality time on an old Harley Ferguson. The weather's supposed to be lovely for at least three days straight - might be a good time to get a little more house painting done too. Never a shortage of things do be done.

We had another big wind storm blow through earlier this week - winds something like 80 mph reported. Lots of trees down and poles snapped off. The damage probably would have been much worse had it not been for the big storm that took my new barn down a few years back. That one culled much of the herd. I was without power for about ten hours but my new emergency plan worked well. I've got a battery powered light in the basement now, I was able to pump water for the animals and toilet flushing and I was just about ready to fire up the generator when the power came back on.  Should definitely look into getting a transfer switch installed instead of running extension cords, however. Fortunately no real damage around the shack for me this time. 

My buddy Kevin sent me this link from the Washington Post about how teachers in the US have it tougher than teachers in other industrialized countries and  suggestions to improve things. If you read this blog due to an interest in teaching, go read it. I especially liked the fact that US scores on an international test have gone down every year that No Child Left Behind has been in effect. I should also point out some of the suggestions for improving things are quite good, too.

Happy Independence Day to everyone. 

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."



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