Anne on the Deck of Our New York Vacation Home
Anne at NY Vacation Home
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Tag Archives: New York
Tooling Around
Wall of Tools
The discussion at work this morning was all about tooling, which in no way sounded or looked anything like the above wall of tools. Pictured is a subset of the tools, about a third of them in all, from the Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, NY. [Hammondsport is obviously a conjunction, but is it the conjunction of Hammond and sport or is it Hammonds and port?] Nestled in a backroom of this eclectic museum is the woodworking shop. In this shop volunteer craftsmen both build accurate reproductions and restore historical artifacts to their original luster.
A second shop, a metal shop, is located behind the wood shop in an outbuilding and is presently consumed with the restoration of a P-40 Tomahawk. This WW II era plane is most likely the signature aircraft type in the Curtiss line. In 1940 it was most famously piloted in China by the expat American group the Flying Tigers, in their war against the Japanese. Below is pictured the airplane, which still shows the pale ghostly outline of the plane’s characteristic shark’s jaw paint scheme. This is one of two Tomahawks that collided in midair towards the end of WWII and then sat in a Florida swamp for over forty years until both specimens were purchased by the museum. Now they are trying to take the best from each, plus liberally adding newly manufactured replacement parts, in order to reconstruct one bird for static display only. Neither the crash nor the years of neglect have been kind, so there is a lot of work yet to do. The older gentleman who was working on it when we visited asked me if I thought that he would see it finished. I think that he already knew the answer to that question when he asked it. “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” – Greek proverb
Wreck of a Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk
Lifelong Friends
Anne at Watkins Glen
We’re back in the Lou again, now better known as greater #Ferguson. We are both back in town now. Pluto has once again successfully hauled Persephone’s ass back to Hades. Woo Hoo! It will be a hot time in the old town tonight! Our first step on yesterday’s sixteen hour road trip to perdition was a road sign in mid-Ohio that announced that we had just entered the Ohio River valley. Anne had left the watershed of the Saint Lawrence River for the first time since June. The second sign came later, when we entered the Central time zone, although we did dance back-and-forth between the Eastern and Central time zones and across the IN/IL state line a few times, when we stopped at Illinois Exit #1 and bought our last tank of gas in Indiana last night.
I went to work this morning and managed to show up on time. Don’t ask! Two of my younger colleagues, who were also on vacation last week, were no-shows today. After getting coffee in the cafeteria, there was none left in the house, I checked-in and found that my services were no longer required on the job that I had been working before I left. So, I was in-between jobs as they say. This lasted until ten, when my boss saw me and I was assigned to write BOE. Don’t ask, when I figure it out, I’ll let you know, maybe. Anne took one more day off today. She like my much saner than I younger colleagues knew that rushing into work all exhausted is just not the right thing to do.
Regarding #Ferguson, last Thursday HR had sent out an email telling everyone to be nice and shut up, or else. Consequently, there was very little discussion of what has been occurring only a couple of miles way. What has occurred in Ferguson has been a tragedy for all involved, maybe more so for some than others, but I’ll not be the judge of that.
Finally, I’d like to thank again our good friends Alice & Chris and Nink & Bob for showing us such a good time during this last week’s vacation. We both enjoyed the Finger Lakes area, the great home cooked food and most of all the company. Let’s not wait sixty years before we do it again.