This afternoon’s show was an add-on for me.   A few years ago I saw a marionette show of a prince fighting dragons to save his love on stage, and I was offered an opportunity to see Cinderella by The Colla Marionette Company of Italy.  It was terrific.   I was mainly fascinated by the movement, expression and operation of the puppets.  There was a live 6 piece orchestra and about 15 artists who made the puppets move.   I can just imagine the public enjoyment Cinderella being performed like this in the 1700’s and how fancifully it must have seemed.  Like someone today going to a movie. 

Lots of kids laughing, fun music, interesting costumes made this event my favorite so far.     Next year I will plan to see all the productions by this amazing stage company if I can.  After the show, patrons were allowed to go behind stage to see the overall operation.  What fun!

I am presently taking a break from working on the plane so I had an opportunity to get a few projects done around the house.   I wanted to improve my cooking oil system to simply the off loading, filtering and pumping into the car.    Traveling up to Summerville to pick up some more cooking oil, I met Gerheart (a buddy from church) who is my “source”.  Gerheart is also burning cooking oil in his Mercedes car and while closely following him to his shop I  was almost overwhelmed by the strong smell of fryer grease.  I had to back off a 100 ft or so from the car for some fresh air.

He has a small storage/processing  system set up in a storage building facility he owns.  It is a kluge of hoses, pumps, filters and drums, what a nightmare.   As an engineer this system would drive me crazy.  I am sure all this  just evolved over time and while it works,  the system can certainly be improved and simplified.  Using plastic hoses and moving pump hoses between containers just doesn’t cut it with me.     We are planning to collaborate (which probably means, he buys and I do the work) on improving the collection / filtration / storage process as to make it easier on both of us.  Once the improvements are completed, it should make the processing of oil very easy and quick.

The bootie….60 gal of cooking oil.  Now I have to filter it at home…

Tonight’s presentation was at the Simons Art Center at the College of Charleston.  The performer was  Leszek Mozdzer who is a jazz pianist  with the fastest hands I have ever seen.  He was excellent and played a lot of inventive and unusual compositions.  What I liked was how he put objects on the piano strings such as books, drinking glasses, pushed towels under the string stops.  The objects totally changed the sound of the piano and gave it a synthesizer effect.  Very good.

I just got back from the dance and can say it was ….most interesting…  There was 7 dancers (4 female, 3 male) a simple empty stage and for the first half, I didnt know what to make of it all.  The second half was better and I think the music was better too.  I enjoyed looking at the gal’s buns and marveling on how all the dancers moved.  Lots of fast twitch muscle’s for sure!  I couldn’t figure out what the stories or message was but it was fun to watch. 

While I was watching the dancers jerk around and move, I thought: “there’s the reason I dont date younger women, they are so spastic and move around too quickly”.   There is no way I could keep up with them.    Way too much energy! 

Give me a older gal with a walker.  Now that’s my speed!

Overall 1 thumbs up…

 This is the first weekend of the International Spoleto Festival.  

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From Wikipedia
Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the world’s major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due Mondi (the Festival of Two Worlds) in Spoleto, Italy. The annual 17-day event showcases both established and emerging artists in more than 120 performances of opera, dance, theater, classical music, and jazz.

When Italian organizers planned an American festival, they searched for a city that would offer the charm of Spoleto, Italy, and also its wealth of theaters, churches, and other performance spaces. Charleston was selected as the ideal location.
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 For YEARS, I viewed Spoleto as an inconvenience, just some art show happening downtown.   Every year,  I would hear about it daily on “Spoleto Today”  (PBS radio), read about it in the newspaper, see it on TV but had NO interest in it.   I avoided Spoletoas much as possible and the only time I actually ventured downtown during the 2.5 weeks of the show was with visiting guests.    Spoleto, who needs it?  Bah…Humbug he said with a scowl!!

It is surprising that now, I am a volunteer usher for the festival!  I just love Spoleto.  It changed when I because a volinteer usher.     I heard about volunteering, signed up about 3 years ago.   

I just have to dress smartly with a white shirt and tie, help guests to thier seats, be polite and show up early for that show..   How easy is that!  The advantage is I get to see lots of shows I would never normally select or even have an interest in seeing.    I getting some  “public exposure” of a good kind.   

I have been exposed to some great shows and real crap.   Yes, CRAP!   I felt sorry for those who had to pay.    Just ask me about the ancient Japanese sliding screen show.   Talk about not making a bit of sense!     Or the one person show (Japanese again) where the geisha turns out to be a guy dressed as a woman.   I wondered why the geisha gal seem so flat chested….    Maybe I should swear off Japanese performance….cant seem to understand them.

I have also seen some unbelievably good shows too.  The Italian Marionettes were fantastic.  Little puppets of all kinds which told a fantasy story in exactly the same way one would have seen it in the 1700’s.  The high tech entertainment of the past complete with dragons (fire breathing), marching army’s, witches, all wrapped up in a love story.    Sounds like something we would see today on HBO. 

So here is the deal…..   Over the next 2 weeks, I have about 8 shows that I am assigned to.   After I see them I’ll let you know what there were and if they were good or crap.  

I have one today, May 29th I’ll see Gallim Dance studio perform “I can see myself in your Pupil”   Huh? What the hell?  Hey, I didnt pick it, it was assigned to me by the staff.    Of the 8 shows, I only could choose 3 shows for my “wish list” and indicate to the staff I was available for assignment on other days.   Trouble is I can remember what I chose, but I KNOW I did not pick this one.    Exposure…just what I need.

Today, I did some extensive walking around the city people watching.   Tourists come to Charleston to check out the city, I go to Charleston to check out the tourists.   I think it was even busier today, because a Carnival Cruise ship was in port.  

Lots of walking therefore lots of pictures.    I have grouped them as much as possible.  I am going to try and go into Charleston city center (all of 8 miles away) to take pictures….  Enjoy.

These is a small arts show at the park.   Look closely at the painted pictures, especially the shrimp boats.    Surprisingly, they are photos of painting, printed on matted paper (to look like stretched canvas) put into a frame, and then the “artist” uses clear RTV to high light things such as rigging, cable, etc., different things on the print.  It really looks good, and is an easy way to make a print look like a painting…. so easy a caveman can do it!

I have been looking for an egg plate for a long time and purchased a beautiful ceramic red deviled egg plate from a vendor….      They had a bunch of different colors, so I just put the fake eggs on different trays, asked a few passing women for a group vote on which presentation (with the white and yellow eggs) looked the best.  The all chose the red one.   Bet they enjoyed spending my money.

I enjoy making deviled eggs and taking them to parties.  Easy to make, lots of my “secret” doctoring to the recipe and who doesn’t like deviled eggs?  I like competition and it is fun to see which plate empties first when other people also bring their egg resipes to a gathering.   I rarely take any home.

These pictures are from Calhoun park.  There was a strange marching band dressed in strange costumes.  Reminded me of Fantasy Fest in Key West…. 

The entrance to the “old slave market”, not because they sold slaves, but this part of the city used to be an old creek which was filled in to build a farmers market where the slaves could go to buy fresh vegetables. 

The cruise ship dominates the skyline at the end of the market.

Personal grip… I hate power poles.  I have written (and have had published) 3 letters to the paper about improvements in the market street.

You can see the effect I had on the higher powers of the city……

My favorite store in the market… free samples of pecan pralines at the candy store.   A small bite, just the right size.

Lunch was at Toco Boy, a great little eclectic tex-mex restaurant.  I have never been there when it has not been crowded.  Sort of a college after hours type of place. 

The trellis is made out of concrete rebar.  The creative use of materials in unusual ways is the hallmark of this restaurant.

Nice place… I’ll be back.

The car is running on waste vegetable oil (WVO) now!   Funny thing happened with I first tried the newly installed system.  I switched it on and the engined died a few seconds later in an intersection.  It took about 5 minutes of cranking to get the engine running back on diesel again.  I thought “CRAP” all that effort and the freaking system doenst work!    While driving back home with a sense of dread, I tried one last time and thought something wasnt right becuase I noticed NO difference at all between the WVO or the diesel!  There must have been some air in the system which caused the car to die, because now it works great!

I took the Sherman over to some friends house and most of us agreed the exhaust smells like steak on the grill.  It is hard to identify the odor, but is does smells good to me!

I had a slight problem with leaking anti-freeze with my installation.  I thought I had a bad heat exchanger (made in China).   Turns out the fitting were leaking.   Some teflon tape (I never like to use it) ended up fixing the leak.  I retested the core in some water under pressure to make sure all was well before the re-installation.

I had 42.1 miles on the car and the odometer stopped working….  CRAP.    The car is in the shop now which gives me a change to make a few more parts.  I have some ideas for increasing the efficiency of the WVO heating system and making an electric pre-heater for the oil.  I want to raise the temps of the WVO and reduce the time it takes for switching the engine over to WVO when the engine is cold.

Friday,   

I had a chance this morning to kill a few hours before the flight back to Charleston at 3 PM, so I drove up the coast on highway 1 from Long Beach to the LAX airport.   What amazed me is how beautiful this area is!  Scenic over looks of the beach, unspoiled rolling hills.  Just incredible!    

The amazing thing is this is just west of the BOQ a few miles.  In LA!!

When we took off it was interesting to see the beaches and hills I had driven past this morning from the air.     

In the center of the picture is where the BOQ was located.   

These are some louse pictures from my cell phone which had to be used since my camera was packed away.  All the more reason to buy a “smart phone” which has a decent camera/internet/ text capability.  I bet it can even be used to talk human to human.   

After extensive research I have settled on the purchase of a HTC EVO on the Sprint Network.   

HTC EVO on the Sprint Network

 Soon, I’ll be able to consolidate all my carry around stuff (phone, camera and iTouch into one piece of equipment.  That’s the great new, the bad news is Sprint has not released the phone yet, nor is there a price on it.  It will be coming out sometime (hopefully) in May at a cost of (hopefully) $200 with a 2 year contract.   Sprint also has a great $69 plan which gives you unlimited everything with 450 minutes of talk.  It has unlimited talk for cell to cell call, so if I go, watch with the EVO watch out because I’ll be calling your cells whenever I can!   

A few more hours were spent just tooling aound LA with my trusty Garmin GPS and then it off to the airport for a quick trip home…   

WEATHER DELAY……….    

The trip home was indeed the longest one I have ever had.   The flight was weather delayed from LA to Atlanta and we missed our 10:45 pm Charleston connection by 10 minutes.    I was treated to a not so pleasant room at the Comfort Inn (at my own expense) for the night.   This is the first hotel I have ever stayed at that I checked the bed for “critters” before retiring.   Maybe thats why they assigned me a KING sized bed….for unexpected guests.     

Saturday morning, I arrived bright and early at ATL and found the flight was delayed again by an hour.   Bottom line, the flight was 12 hrs longer than planned.        

Years ago I remembered an art exhibition at the Atlanta airport.  The art deco strobe lighting is now gone but the African art is still on display.  Beautiful rock carving from Zimbabwe.    

Surprisingly, at the gate waiting for my plane, I ran into an old friend from the Aero Club who was heading back to Charleston for reserve duty.  John Nevitt.  He flew at the Aero Club an worked his way up the experience chain and is now a first officer for an airline.  Loves flying, but it doesn’t pay the bills, so he is also a reserves and has a small business on back in Louisville, KY where he now lives.   Times in the airlines are tight!   John and his wife Peggy, who out ranks him in the reserves (he is enlisted, she is an officer).  I wonder who gives the orders in John’s house?

Here is a Nick Nugget for you.   The hardest part of any trip is the first mile down the road, the best part of a trip is walking in your front door.  

Sure is nice to be home.

After leaving Chino (about 35 miles NE of LA), I drove south (25 miles SSW) on some flowered covered hill sides to Lake Forest to have dinner with David Orr which was a real treat since we never formally met.

Snow can be seen in the mountains!

I first contacted David about 12 years when I first started looking for a canard airplane.  David keeps detailed lists of canards (engine size, builders, current owners, general history, build quality, condition, paint job, etc)  and connects buyers and sellers for a small fee.  The experience and detailed records of planes he maintains is invaluable for a canard buyer.   He asked a lots of questions about what I intended to use the plane, my needs, price range, etc and recommended a SPECIFIC LongEZ with a 0320 (160 HP) engine.

Naturally being cheap and not wanting to pay the Piper, I bought a Varieze with a C90 engine in Florida (later sold).

I then hooked up with Tweety in 1997, a 0235 (108 hp) LongEZ  .   After living Tweety for 150o hrs,  an old cranky lady who moved at the speed of grandma driving on the interstate I finally decided I had enough!  I gave her a heart transplant and installed a newly overhauled IO-320 and downdraft cooling, oil heat, new interior and now she is one “bitchin” nice (as Pat likes to say)  perfect lady.  Responsive, sleek, economical, thrifty, wonderful plane.   It only took me 8 years to get back to the type of plane David originally suggested.   David knows canards and I take my advice, I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE you to avail yourself of his his “canard finding” service if you are looking for a nice Bird.  In the end, you be happier and have a much better canard experience!

David has a beautiful home on a man made lake.  Fortunately it was too cold for him to take me on his electric boat. What a mistake on both occasions.

A nice dinner at a Thai restaurant, and a trip (12 miles NW) to his hangar to check out his latest plane.  A Berkut, which is a really nice fast bird (has an O-360 in it)  Right now she is in primer awaiting a good painter.

An interesting bottom cowl outlet for the oil coler  IF you have updraft cooling.

Time to drive another 24 miles WEST back to Long Beach and the BOQ.    I drove about 95 miles today…did I say LA is big, BIG city?