Today Jack, David and I worked a car wash at Farmer’s State Bank for the High Plains Little League. Yes, it was 33F, snowing, and raining but we were there with about 20 other families and a continuous line of cars just waiting to be attacked by all those cold, wet Little Leaguers with sponges.

During one break in the line, I took my car through to help keep everyone active and moving in the cold. The pictures are from my cell phone.

The reason for the madness? Proceeds from this event are going to Garrett Ross, an 8 year old boy on Jack’s LL Rangers team who received his first heart transplant at 7 months, and his second in 2008. He’s been fighting with some complications and the whole community is pulling for him. His family’s story is here.

Cowboy Up for Garrett!

With the 19mph winds turning today’s soggy 37F into a bone-chilling 27, the weather here would’ve been more conducive to Football than Baseball, but the High Plains Little League Minor Rangers & Twins toughed it out in Falcon for their first game of the season.

Slugging their way through what could have arguably been called the “All Time Best Game in Little League History”,  the Rangers’ catch of the Twins’ last inning pop-fly would ensure this one went into the books as a tie.

These are some tough little dudes for sure, but we’ve also got to appreciate the coaches, ump, scorekeeper and a myriad of other volunteers who could’ve been warm and comfy at home on a day like today, but chose otherwise and decided to give their valuable time to making sure these kids have an opportunity to:
“Play Ball!”

Click to Play Video

While organizing some files, I came across a directory of the “Insider” newsletters that I published for a couple of years in real paper & sent out to about 3,500 people every 45 days. Those files revived many good memories of our initial transition to Colorado, a transition that many of you helped make a very pleasurable experience.

Having been able to try something new that I’d had no experience with whatsoever in an area where I had no contacts was a daunting experience at first; but the realization that one could do quite well simply by doing the right thing and treating people decorously was another real-time reinforcement of a closely held belief system.

The company in which I had developed many good relationships here has since changed hands and no longer exists, but fortunately some of those relationships continue to grow.

The actual layout may or may not be a bit off depending on your program and/or version, but here’s a sample of a couple of those newsletters:

Volume 03 Issue 01

Volume 03 Issue 03

I’ve been getting asked a lot of questions about the Wind Turbine lately. Friends, neighbors and readers in general are wondering what’s been up with it. Since I’ve formed the blades, next next step will be fiberglassing them before they get mounted to the hub and the hold-up is with that fiberglass work.

My intent was to get the garage insulated, sheetrocked, painted and heated this Winter, but due to my transportation issues, I’ve been unable to finish it.  While I’m not opposed to laying some paint on a firewall in mid-20 degree temps, I’m not about to take any chances with the blades of a rotating wind-driven PMG not curing properly.

I’m still as excited to see it completed as when I started it and after getting the blades on, all that will need to be done is wiring up the rectifier & such and then mounting the machine on a tower.

I appreciate the questions & all the interest and I look forward to posting more progress with it when the appropriate time comes.

Stay tooned.

From Norm on Jan 31 @ 8:04PM:

I actually got a little time to work on the ‘51 this weekend.

After setting the upper cowl section on the lower sections I found that there was a misalignment between them.  Although I expected some misalignment the difference was a lot more than I had planned on.
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