Processing your own oak boards

We are blessed with an abundance of hardwood and we lost several giant oak trees during the drought last year. This Oak tree is almost a yard wide, and the rings indicate that it was about 160 years old when it died, probably born right before the Civil War. The ole Oak has seen a lot of history . . . .

I spent over $3,000 on emergency tree-age for it a few years back, but the elderly patient died anyway, (most red Oaks only live to be 100-150 years old, so I don’t feel too bad).



But now, I get my money back in lumber!



Most hardwood planers are only 2 to 3 feet wide and cost over $25,000, so I’m just going to haul the dried boards to the mill again for final finishing. A according to Travis and Dallas, this mega log weighs over 5,000 pounds, and it’s too heavy for my biggest excavator. It’s gonna be a real treat loading-up this hummer for the trip to the mill. . .

I’ve harvested several great cedar trees and a giant persimmon, and they are now ready for planing. As a follow-up to my post on processing your own hardwood lumber, I finally harvested the old persimmon tree, and I’ve got several more giant Oaks out on the back 40, enough for a whole new house. The persimmon came out great, a very fine blonde hardwood:



Now, I’ve got the issue of extracting the fancy burl from the stumps. They are too big to hand saw, and I don’t want to waste fine burl due to kerf lossage from a chain saw, so here they sit:



This Oak stump has the most promise, but she’s massive, I don’t know where to start:



We dearly love burl, but I cannot figure out how to slice her up:



Cousin Mac has some ideas, and it looks like I have no choice but to slice the stumps up into 24 inch slices. The big question is how?

The Jet TV Toy

My all-time favorite toy was “Jet TV”, an electromechanical precursor to today’s video games. Jet TV was very popular in the early 1960’s, quite sophisticated, even by today’s standards for mechanical devices.

For nostalgia buffs, the Jet TV has become extremely rare today, and you cannot find them at any price:



I think that I know why they are so scarce. I remember spend hundreds of hours playing with the silly thing, and eventually my curiosity got the best of me, and I dismantled it . . . .

Designer horse shoes

Our blind folks are very creative, creating custom designer horse shoes for their seeing eye ponies, check it out:

designer horse shoes

This is Cheryl with her guide horse Confetti. Confetti is wearing designer dress shoes to match her gown, very elegant.



Of course, the blind folks cannot see the shoes, and I don’t complain, even when they might look a tad “silly”.

Personally, I think that designer cowboy boots for horses is over-the-top, especially with spurs, it's so wrong:



We were at a restaurant last week, and a lady had a Yorkie with designer shoes. This is a bit too much:

Jennifer Burleson graduates Magna Cum Laude

Another scientist joins the fold

Congratulations go out to our daughter Jenny on earning her Bachelors of Science degree in Business administration (BSBA), graduating Magna Cum Laude with a GPA of over 3.9!

Jen has obviously inherited my brains, but I’ll forgive her 3.9. Everybody needs a few B’s to keep them humble. . . .



Jen was also inducted into the prestigious Beta Gamma Sigma honor society and Mu Kappa Tau national marketing honor society! With a degree in marketing, I expect her to be quite the saleslady.



She has snagged a good job as a junior systems analyst, and her future looks bright! I hear that her boss is teriffic. . . . .

Her brother Andy finished up last year and he continues to study for his MBA, just like Dad:



I just hope that she has her priorities correct, and understands the importance of making grandchildren.

As I see it, after spending enough cash to buy a new Mercedes, we have a right to be selfish, and she needs to re-pay her parents for their kind generosity!

Yard Beer: a yard of Ale

I've stayed in many Colorado resorts and the Broadmoor is far-and-away our favorite spot for a yard beer.



A very popular spot in the early 1900's, they even have a Maxfield Parrish original oil paining, very art deco:



It's quite a place, and they are dog friendly with their "Pitty Pat" club, an amenity which Noel appreciated:




They even provided a room service menu for Noel:




The Broadmoor also has an amazing colection of entique liquor bottle, many from the 1800's with the booze still intact:





A Yard of Beer

One of my favorite places at the Broadmoor resort is the Golden Bee, an authentic 19th century British pub which was relocated from England to Colorado Springs. It has a great Victorian feel, and they continue the tradition of the "yard beer".


The Golden Bee - A genuine British Pub in Colorado

True to their name, a yard of ale" is three feet tall. Designed for British stagecoach drivers, the yard-long beer glass was used to allow safe drinking and driving:

"The glass had to be long enough to hand to the driver without his having to leave the stagecoach. The design of the glass meant that the stagecoach driver could drive without losing control and drink at the same time. He could also have his glass refilled without letting go of the reins."

At 64 ounces, a yard of ale takes awhile to finish, and it's quite impressive when served:




The yard beers are somewhat tricky to drink, especially after about 48 oz, the most difficult part comes into play, the tipping-up of the yard beer to get the remaining beer at the bottom of the bulb:




See my other notes of the Baoadmoor hotel:

http://www.dba-oracle.com/golf_travel/broadmoor_resort.htm

The perils of home driving ranges

Despite lesson from a competent PGA master pro, I still suck at golf, although I'm dedicated to become proficient.



We build our home practice hole to avoid the embarrassment from watching people run away when we get on the tee box.



I hit so many wild shots that the squirrels run for cover when they see me on the fairway.

Even thougn we have a tee area, I decided that it was less effort to just go outside and launch some balls directly from under the car port:


Don't try this at home

Now, the farm hands run when they see me come out holding a golf club, and for good reason. Last week, an errant ball careened off of a column and trashed one of the glass doors. I like the "frosted" look, but Janet disagreed:



Now, I've been banned from hitting balls at my own home! But I'm a persistent fellow, and I'm determined to master golf.

I've been practicing religously for a year now, and I can barely break 100, but there is hope for me yet. . . . .

How to hire a genius

I’ve always been fascinated by the whole concept of “intelligence” and how IQ is measured and applied when byou want to hoire someone with a genius IQ.

Today’s measures of intelligence are sadly lacking, and the standard Simon Binet IQ tests only provide a rough guestimate of functional intelligence, making it tough to verify genuis during a job interview.



The average IQ is artificially adjusted to 100, and the average college student has a SB IQ of 120, while the typical graduate student clocks-in between 125 and 135.

The threshold for genius is arbitrarily set at 140.

For below average intellect, clinicians used to use the terms moron, imbecile and idiot, but these terms have become offensive over time, and have been replaced with more politically correct labels:

• 141 > - Genius or near genius
• 120 - 140 - Very superior intelligence
• 110 - 119 - Superior intelligence
• 90 - 109 - Normal or average intelligence
• 80 - 89 - Dullness (Moron)
• 70 - 79 - Borderline deficiency (Imbecile)
• Under 70 - Feeble-minded (an Idiot)

In my line of work (guru computer consulting), it’s my job to find the most intelligent people in the industry, people with IQ at the genius level, but identifying genius is fraught with challenges.
Hence, we have one of the most difficult job screening processes in the database industry, and we look for evidence of genius (graduating from schools that have a high number of geniuses, evidence of extraordinary achievement), but we must balance this with the social and interpersonal skills that are often lacking in extremely smart database experts.




In the geniuses I’ve known personally, they often suffer from a variety of neurotic disorders including borderline personality disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Asperger's syndrome.

Genius employees are easy to spot but very difficult to formally define. Even today, we don’t understand the machinations of the human brain, and we have not come far since the 1880’s.

One of my favorite books about genius is Dr. Oliver Sack’s masterwork: “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”, a great investigation into the mysteries of the human intellect.

Click here to read my full notes on hiring geniuses.

Scout & Cuddles in New York

We just returned from a seeing-eye pony training sojourn in New York City, and it’s always great fun to training the guide ponies in New York.

Noel the dog gets jealous on the attention given to the ponies:



Fortunately, there are many hotels in NYC that accept ponies as guests. See my list of Horse Friendly Hotels in New York City.

We started by working Scout and Cuddles in Times Square:



If a guide animal can manage Times Square traffic, they can guide anywhere. It's the ultimate test:



We thought that this "My Little Pony" display was especially appropriate:



Scout is not only potty-rained, but he will “go” on command (the secret words are “bombs away”), very handy in New York, where there are limited relief areas:



We run into all sorts of fun people, and here we are with Jane Goodall:



While there, Dan & Cuddles and Janet & Scout appeared in the Fox Morning show, live national TV.

They all started in "Makeup":



Even Cuddles got groomed:



We also got to meet some celebs, can you guess who this fellow is (between me and Janet)?



Here is a video snippet from the story:

Scout and Cuddles – Live in New York!

American Outdoor Folk Art

As aspiring rednecks, we want to fit-in to our rural community, and we have been debating the merits of using lawn decorations.



Travis Carter - American redneck folk artist

Janet and I support the arts, and we are happy to help aspiring folk artists, such as Travis Carter with his bold "doe bell" creations. The "Assquatch" art movement is taking hold, and investment quality American butt art is in high demand.


But it's not just deer butts. Creative American artists are finding their voice with a variety of hinnies:



Outdoor American Folk Art

The goal of my research is to find a uniquely American rustic redneck art form. Lawn ornaments sometimes come with negative commutations, and they make a bold statement about you, so great care must be exercised. It's well known that different cultures have difference taste in lawn art.

You also have to sensitive to cultural "poultry stereotypes", and their nationalistic connotations (e.g. "Ever hear old joke about the Flamingo's who to moved to New York and put little plastic old people on their front lawn?")



A little research shows that the styles on 21st Century American lawn folk art ranges the gamut from simple to ornate. Here are some distinctly American lawn art forms:


Redneck Outdoor American Folk Art

Janet and I set-out to hit the road in search of investment quality yard art. In Montana we came across this great place called "Aluminum Critters".

No highfalutin bronze here, just re-cycled engine blocks, carefully melted and re-cast of southern American folk artists ( i.e. "Mexicans"). Once painted with a faux bronze paint, they kinda-sorta look like bronze, and at a fraction of the cost.

They have the best select of folk art lawn pigs that I've ever seen. We had to get this wonderful American folk art horse statue.

It's "green", since the metal comes from chop shops in Mexico, who melt-down engine blocks for the aluminum used in their art. As you can see, the base of the statue is a pre-cast well-cap, so we don't need to waste no money on something fancy.

The art is done locally and the molds are shipped to Mexico for casting, so it's a distinctly American art form. They also ship anywhere in the USA, with no extra charge for shipping additional items, quite nice:



Click here for my full research on 21st Century American Folk outdoor art.

Tips for relocating to the south

We have a town around here called Cary, an acronym for "Container Area for Relocated Yankees".

Redneck artist Travis Carter provides this great advice for relocating Yankees:



In the South: If you run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in a four-wheel drive pickup truck with a tow chain will be along shortly. Don't try to help them, just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.

Don't be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store....do not buy food at this store.

Remember, "Y'all" is singular, "all y'all" is plural, and "all y'all's" is plural possessive.

Get used to hearing "You ain't from round here, are ya?"

Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later on how to use it.

Don't be worried at not understanding what people are saying. They can't understand you either.

The first Southern statement to creep into a transplanted Northerner's vocabulary is the adjective "big'ol," truck or "big'ol" boy. Most Northerners begin their Southern-influenced dialect this way. All of them are in denial about it.

Be advised that "He needed killin." is a valid defense here.

If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It doesn't matter whether you need anything or not. You just have to go there.

Do not be surprised to find that 10-year olds own their own shotguns, they are proficient marksmen, and their mammas taught them how to aim.

In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush green lawn is to pour gravel on it and call it a driveway

AND REMEMBER: If you do settle in the South and bear children, don't think we will accept them as Southerners. After all, if the cat had kittens in the oven, we wouldn't call 'e m biscuits.