Well not as adventurous as flying an Osprey, but took the day to restring my Les Paul and Ovation. Still have the Fender 12 string and Ibanez bass to go.

Of course, this means I absolutely have to take time to do some serious playing.

Enjoy the journey.

eal51 in western CT

Well I removed my old garage door and installed a new one....what a job !. Nothing was standard about this installation. Not sure who installed the old door & opener but it was not done properly, things out of square and had to a make & shape special off set sill out of 2X4 PT to keep water from comming in during rain. The house & garage are brick so if things are off a little it's not as easy as a wood framed structure to make adjustments. Anyway got it done in 2 days working alone and looks great.

Duke,

My entire brick garage is out of plumb. No sign of cracking or damage, I think the masons must have been drinking too much on that job back in 1922. The carpenters squared things out - so there are triangular wood framing on either side of both doors.

Glad your project was a success.

1*Mowing for 41 years? Geez, you must be pretty tired by now. 2*Time for a break!
2*Don't know much about the Bolens, but that BX23 sure is a sweet tractor.
I spent the day helping my neighbor mow his 700+ acres of orchards, using my
3*Mahindra 2615 HST, in exchange for him ripping a pasture I have that's solid clay, using his
4*40-year-old D8 Cat. Only hit 97 today, so not a bad day under the trees.
>>

Marineguy,
Go to www.youtube.com and search videos for "crosswind". Watch any of them, Some truly amazing stuff. Of course the famous V-22 crash is on there along with lots of others, but I prefer to watch pilot skill oriented sutff like the cross wind approach/landings. I left aerospace in 1991 but had the pleasure to work with Bell/Boeing as a research engineer during the V-22 prototype days in the mid 80's. Thanks for your service.

My day certainly didn't include mowing grass. I have to set aside 4 hours for that.

I work in the heating industry and now is the time when I have to get the automatic coal stokers assembled and ready for the winter season. After that I have to get my own wood boiler ready for winter.

Wow the V22 looks like a big fan ,with double blades to keep me cool in Vt ,we had nasty storms blow thru last afternoon/evening ,no power due to downed trees ....so we had to eat at Pizza Hut in another town,came home to complete darness ,so we went to bed ,Today is beautifull,I took my two labs for a nice long walk to the beach ,let them swim ,and now I'm home ,eating cheesburgers for lunch ....I have a few small projects to do ,and then relax...I'm gonna sieze the day ! slowly....Jim

Clay,
It's an absolute riot to fly. Because it's soooo automated, "The learning curve is steep," as we say. But once you get it, it's relatively easy to control. I'd say they're worth every penny of the cosmic sticker price, but my little brain isn't really capable of conceptualizing 80 million of anything. Is one V22 worth as much as 10 Beverly Hills Mansions, two F/A-18s, 8,000 X700s, or 8 billion swedish fish? Sure.

VMM-263 is absolutely ready to deploy.

Just so we're not off topic, I should mention that helicopters are actually the ultimate leaf blower. One time I was flying cross-country in a flight of eight CH-46s (Vietnam era tandem-rotor helicopter being replaced by Osprey) when we had to set down in some uncontrolled airfield due to low visibility. Not having enough ramp space to park the 85' helicopters, we set down in the grass abeam the runway. Unfortunately, they had just mowed it (when it was probably two feet long), and we kicked it all over the runway. They weren't too pissed off, however. We did buy 5,000 gallons of jet fuel (at the non-contract rate). When the weather cleared they asked if our last aircraft could be so kind as to do a hover taxi from approach end to departure end, which we did.
Not

Not sure where that Not came from at the end of that post. It must have been an incomplete thought that got lost in the text.

Well, i didn't blow any grass on the neighbors yard, but i managed to aquire an old Speedex tractor that runs and drives, Given to me by the owner, who thought it wasn't worth what i charged her to get it in running condition. Then i removed the old tired, worn out engine from my Snapper Hi-vac rider, and replaced it with a much better one. Have to finish that tomorrow, although i'm not exactly poor in the mowing machinery section.
Sold a good used push mower today. Only 2 left. And after supper, a guy called for me to pick up his tractor, and to install a new deck spindle! He thought there might be a problem, because it was spitting out little ball bearings! Oh, yeah!
If i don't move at least 3 tractors, i'll be standing them on end for winter storage, out in the old garage. hopefully one of them will fall down and squash that durn groundhog that has dug the garage floor up so bad! And, thats what i did today!
RJ

marineguy: Semper Fi

twelvegauge
USMC 1959-1963 (not brown-shoe days, but was issued brown shoes and a bottle of dye)

Went from AC installer to lawncare to Auto body shop.
Finished up installing 2 25000 BTU window air conditioners in a mobile home.
Mowed most of the back yard with the BX23. Sill have some back there up on the hill to finsih mowing with the CC GT2554.
Installed a new license plate bracket on my Step Mother Inlaws 93 buick that got damaged in a hit skip accident in the Wall Mart parking lot a while back.

twelvegauge,
Believe it or not black boots are history in the Corps. Now the ground side wears tan suede and pilots wear brown leather.
Let me know if you're ever in the area and I'll be glad show you around the base.

Marineguy,

Today, I read in the local newspaper, some of the Army's boys in a Black Hawk made a landing in one of our NYS corn fields. No further news reported about the matter.....

Hey marineguy!
I didn't know you were a pilot! If you want to land an Osprey in MY yard I don't care WHAT it does to the grass as long as I get to go for a ride and maybe a little stick time! I am building an experimental homebuilt right now (Challenger II). Strictly low and slow stuff but I find that kind of flying fun. Can go with floats, wheels or amphibious landing gear. The Osprey looks like a total panic! I spent a little time with Jet Rangers in the Yukon Territories when the pilots were kind enough to let me try (I worked for environmental impact scientists for three summers when I was a kid) but never anything like the Osprey! Mind you there has never BEEN anything like the Osprey before.

Actually, I was referring to dress shoes. Thinking my aged gray matter might have led me astray, I searched answers dot com, which said that the conversion from brown dress shoes to black happened under President Kennedy. I think they're wrong. Further searches turned up references to spit-shining combat boots, which Marines never did. I heard a Gunny say "Shiney boots are for show, which ours ain't. They're for kicking ___."

Marineguy,
If you read this, I don't know whether you can say, but I had heard there was some problems with the Osprey wrt not being able to maintain lift under some circumstances especially during transition from forward flight to vertical? I don't know whether this was real but it sorta made sense since there is a theoretical limit to have fast a chopper can fly.

Cjsm,
The worst thing that can happen in a helicopter is for the transmission to seize up. We have chip detectors which alert us to an impending failure, and the procedure in any helicopter (or tiltrotor) is to LAND IMMEDIATELY. That's how multi-million dollar helicopters end up making precautionary landings in cornfields.
All I can say is if you wake up to the sound of a US Gov't helicopter landing in your pasture, you might as well start shopping for your dream tractor because you will be HEAVILY reimbursed, especially for the hydraulic fluid and engine oil which will inevitably find its way to your soil. And the crew will most likely be spending the night in the famous Boeing Hilton (or Sikorsky Hilton in the case of the Blackhawk).

Lakeguy,
Sorry, I think the Pacific Northwest is a bit out of our local flying area. I have about 100 hours in a Jet Ranger (Navy TH-57), which I got as part of my flight training in Pensacola, after 140 or so hours in a 550hp Beech turboprop (T-34C). That's why the Osprey is such a good fit for Marines. Unlike Army and USAF helo pilots, we all start out in airplanes, then go to helicopters. The new lieutenants who are selecting V22s straight out of Pensacola actually start on single-engine turboprops (T-34), then multi-engine turboprops (C-12), helos (TH-57), then tiltrotors (V-22). Talk about a well-rounded flight education!
The V22 produces lift in the entire 96 degree range of the nacelles. At 90 it's all prop, and at 0 it's all wing. In between it's a gradual transition guided by the flight control software. From 60 down to 45 degrees it's pretty much 50/50. The most powerful helicopters are limited to less than approximately 180 knots due to the advancing blade tip approaching the speed of sound (known as compressibility). This does not affect the V22 because by around 150 knots the rotor tip path is perpendicular to the direction of flight. On takeoff, once the nacelles get on the downstops, you "autobeep" the rpm from 100% to 84%, advance the throttle and get pushed back in your seat as you either climb at 5000 fpm or accelerate straight and level to 260 knots (300mph and up depending our your TAS).
Were you able to hover in the Jet Ranger? A lot of folks think that's the hardest thing about flying a helicopter; it's not. Most pilots master it by their third flight. The hardest thing about flying a helicopter is landing on a ship pitching 10 and rolling 15, on a moonless night, in high seas of the North Atlantic. Most days I can't believe I get paid to do my job, but on those nights, I remember thinking they couldn't pay me enough to do this again--but somehow I always did.
Landing in a talcum-powder-like LZ at 4am to pick up a critically wounded Marine, with Hajis taking AK-47 pot-shots at you on short final, desperately trying to get him to the CSH South in Baghdad is a bit of a bear as well.

Marineguy,
My hat's off to you and your fellow marines. Thanks for the job you're doing. Dad was a sergeant, went to Korea and from what I gather saw a fair bit of action although he would not talk about it. Wounded and recovered. One thing I do remember though was the sense of family he had with fellow marines. I'm the kind of guy that shakes lady bugs off leaves before I put them through the chipper so I chose a different path and went to med school. Keeps me humble though to think of what he went through. Came back from Korea and went to Rutgers University. Had to let him in 'cause of the GI bill. Went in with an eigth grade education and came out with a Masters and a 4.0 average.
No, I never did hover in the Ranger. The pilots would come pick us up and if you didn't get up (from laying on the tundra) some liked to hover with the skid a few inches above your face until you moved!
The Osprey sounds like a great ride! Makes sense that the Marines would train their pilots to fly most anything. They seem to have the same philosophy with soldiering. ALL personel are trained to shoot.
I find crosswinds and gusts challenging enough but I can honestly say I've never had a doubt about whether my landing strip was where I had left it! You definitely live an interesting life.

well if we're talkin bout the 16th, I left the green&yellow machine in the garage, took the green and gray machine to the local Hooter's and looked at the little orange shorts and Victoria secrets push ups whilst sipping on me root beer soda....twas a rough day...a href="http://photobucket.com"; target="_blank">{{gwi:333437}}

Installed a CB Radio on my craftsman.

So you could check on the whereabouts of the Smokeys, before driving the tractor down to the bar?

I have spent Saturday evening (8/18) and all day Sunday "restoring" our computer. The power supply went out the morning of 7/29 and took a portion of the "muther" board with it. I just got it back morning of 8/18. This was my first experience at doing a full system restore and I will not pretend that I enjoyed it. Between my wife and myself we have bought 18 different software programs over the last few years. It did not seem anywhere near as tedious and aggravating when I installed them one at a time over the years as it has been installing them all back-to-back. I hope I don't have to repeat this any time soon. I'm glad that some of you guys had some decent fun.

That'll get you a DUI in the state of NC (if you're on a public road--heading BACK from the bar). I guess if you had the PTO engaged you could injure someone... or scalp someone's lawn. You'd definitely want good tail lights for that adventure.
You can, however, still ride a horse drunk as a skunk (the rider, not the horse) in my state. I guess the legislature assumes the horse knows the way home.

Lakeguy
After wrecking my 140hp Ninja at age 19, sliding 175' across the asphalt on my bare forearms, spending two weeks in surgery/recovery, and deciding physicians are demigods (they have that aura about them in SoCal), I started out my freshman year pre-med. Then I realized 1) I don't like being around sick people or hospitals, and 2) I lacked the academic discipline to be a doctor. So I got a degree in underwater basket-weaving (journalism) and found a job where being somewhat reckless with little fear of consequences would be a tremendous asset (nothing like seeing "Imminent Danger Pay" on your pay stub). And here I am. So far... life doesn't suck.

Here is a link that might be useful: nc dwi

Marineguy,
That link cracks me up!
You and I have another thing in common. I ride a Honda Valkyrie.
Physicians are a problematic group. Trouble is that some of them become a "legend in their own mind". You spend most of your life in a hospital and/or with your face buried in a book. If you're not careful you can become emotionally stunted. I remember one snot-nosed med student (I preceptor students sometimes) a couple years ago reading the riot act to this poor old guy about smoking. He was talking to him like a child. I grabbed him by his collar and hauled him outside of the room. I informed him:
1)The guy already has cancer so as far as I was concerned I didn't care if he smoked cigars and had a six pack every day.
2)The old guy had stormed the beaches at Dieppe and seen most of his friends die. As far as he was concerned every day was gravy.
As they say, life is tough, no one gets out alive. We're all in the same boat. All we can do is help each other out along the way.
P.S. What's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?
One's a scum sucking bottom feeder and the other's a fish.

I'm just sitting here, watching it rain and thanking my lucky stars, that I never bought a JD, which would need to be fixed, before the lawn is ready to mow again.

I never imagined there could be so many tractor problems, until I started monitoring this list. Is it a coincidence, that both, JDs and money are GREEN?

Marineguy, are you saying that it's legal to ride a drunk horse in NC? Out here in the southwest, and up into the midwest, we have loco weed, which horses will sometimes eat. The horse will seem drunk - shakes, falls down, can't get up (and, unfortunately, sometimes dies), and would be a real hazard to ride.

On another note, why are skunks such drinkers? And how did dogs get to be such liars? I understand "dead doornails", although I never did see a live one. And does "dumb as a rock" mean that rocks are really stupid? Besides that, who ever decided that dirt is ugly? Are loons really crazy? The list goes on .... So many imponderables ... or are they ponderable? I wonder ...?

Well, anyway, Semper Fi. I, too, wore the globe and fouled anchor (back in the last century).

Is there anyone else out there that has put a cb radio on there lawn tractor.

I've got three in the garage. I was thinking of installing two of them for stereo. Will I need one 8 foot whip antenna or two?

Came home today to a party thrown by my mother-in-law (she doesn't live with us but likes our yard, don't ask). Surprise! It was fun! Based on her personality I had expected a repeat of the bar scene from star wars. I have to hand it to her, she throws a good party. I had been complacent and left my garden tractor in the yard but guess what? The tractor doubles as a seat, conversation piece, table.

Murrayfan,
No, but I was at the auto parts store the other day and they had some compact green neon lights, like they put on lowriders. I gotta tell ya... I was tempted!

No CB radio on my tractor, but I did hang a car stereo with antennae and headphones on the back of my seat.

The fact that the antennae gets a distant AM station that I like, better than the radio headset I have on the John Deere, makes me choose the Wheelhorse for the 1 1/2 hours of trimming the lawn, before I go down to the lower field with the JD.

I don't see how the CB would be useful unless you spent a lot of time sitting on the tractor with the engine off.

When I'm mowing, I'm really not anticipating a conversation with a passing trucker.

I'd use walkie-talkies or my cell phone if I thought I had to "phone home".

What am I doing today? - looking out the window watching rain drops fall, wondering about the long days ahead to get back on schedule - love working in the landscape business - doing my own schedule except when mother nature shows me whos really in charge.

But if it didn't rain, what fun would the landscape business be? Then you'd just be a rock gardener.

Its just fun to talk to other people. Where i live it is verry rural.

My Craftsman is too loud for a CB. I think I'll get some earphones that double as hearing protection. I've used noise cancellation headphones but alas, no music.

I always wear hearing/eye/foot protection while using the weed whacker, but my tractor isn't that loud.

It's not the engine. It's the constant sound of the frame cracking! Oh well, bends easier so it goes around corners easier now!;^)

Lake,

you got me LOL!!

Yeah, I noticed a touch of deja vu myself. Watch out for flames.

I was supposed to have airplane sex today (aerial refueling practice) but the KC-130 fell out. So I went home. Saw that Chemlawn came today, and left their little "keep off the grass" sign sticking in the lawn. Then it poured. They always seem to spray the lawn when there are severe thunderstorms forecast. I wonder how much actually washes away, and how much just goes straight through the sand during those torrential downpours (the ones that come down in sheets). Funny I don't remember agreeing to a contract, but they've sprayed four times this summer. Seems like I'm paying as much for my lawn as I'm paying for cable.

Well, if Chem-lawn works, you'll have the choice of watching the lawn grow or TV.

Someday, you should make it a point to fly in a "Super Connie". Problem is, there aren't too many flying anymore ... I don't think.

Super Connie's are BEAUTIFUL! I guess they are starting up ltd passenger service in Europe with them again.
On another note:
http://www.roadsideattractions.ca/superconnie.htm

Well, since this thread is a "little" off topic, I had my first colonoscopy today. Wooo-hooo, turning 50 is a pain in the @ss. No pun intended.

Well, like I say to select patients (with a twisted sense of humor like mine):"This doesn't mean we're goin' steady."
Did it go OK?

thanks for asking, two polyps and some diverticula. according to my doc, not that unusual, but.... (no pun intended again), I get to go back in three years instead of 10 like my wife.

musta had adenomatous polyps. you won't miss them at all. Good job!

I think Orville Wright got to fly in a Constellation before he died. That's pretty amazing that he got to see his spruce and cloth Wright Flyer evolve into an intercontinental airliner in his lifetime.

From Wikipeida: