The Dilbert Future by Scott Adams Third time and still way too funny, as well as being almost too true 1421 by Gavin Menzies
Possibly a bit over imaginative, but a good read A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
A great airport book - huge concepts boiled down into two minutesnapshots - a good read Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond
One of the better books I've read recently that tries to explain why it is some areas of the world became dominant and others didn't. As good a set of explanations as any. Lords of the Horizons, by Jason Goodwin
For anyone interested in modern China, and more specifically doing business in China, this is an interesting introduction which will leave you with as many questions as it answers ! Riding the Waves of Culture, by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner
Excellent ! The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
Translated by Samuel Griffith - a good read. The Secrets of Consulting, by Gerald Weinberg
This may be a bit far fetched in some areas, but otherwise is an amazing book and well recommended to anyone with even a half ounce of curiousity ! The Stories of English, by Davis Crystal
A fantastic book with a whole chapter on the origins of the American expression "yo'all" - must be read to be believed ! The Untied States of America, by Juan Enriquez
An excellent read - highly recommended ! Who Says Elephants Can't Dance, by Loius Gerstner
I just spent the morning in Nanton which is about a 45 minute drive south of Calgary, at the not so small Nanton Lancaster Society museum which features one of the few remaining Lancaster bombers from the Second World War. This plane (FM159) was in service with the Canadian Air Force till 1958, and after being decommissioned was purchased in 1960 for $513 to be used as a Nanton war memorial/tourist attraction and it then sat outside for the next 31 years ! Since 1991 it has been undergoing restoration and this has been very much a community led project – currently the engines are progressively being restored with two in service now, and a third under repair.
When my Dad was here for a short visit a few weeks ago, I took him down for a look, and we were slightly disappointed to discover that the Merlin engine run-up would be happening just after he flew home ! Luckily, another engine run-up was scheduled for today, so I made certain I made it there in time to take it in. I’m not sure where else in the world you can stand within 40 feet of a real WWII Lancaster bomber, parked on the side of a major highway, with its engines running – but you can do that here, and its great ! I shot a short video which can be seen below - the strobe effect you see with the propellers is due to the slow sample rate of the camera and not because they are made out of rubber ! Enjoy !
I’ve been spending a few days preparing several items for the Calgary CVMG club ‘powder coating day’ this coming Saturday. Should be interesting as I haven’t actually seen this done before – other than on television of course ! I hope to have two motorcycle frames ready to go – both are Suzuki’s, one being a 1973 GT750 and the other being a 1977 GT500. I’ve spent the past few days disassembling and getting them stripped down, taken lots of photos and bagged and tagged many of the smaller bits and pieces, nuts and bolts.
Today I spent some time washing off the accumulated dirt and oil from 30+ years of use. I had briefly thought of doing this in my driveway using my pressure washer, but very quickly rejected the idea as it would flush small amounts of oil and grease down the storm drain. Instead, I took everything over to a local Shell car wash as they (supposedly) are set up to keep this sort of debris out of the storm water system.
I’ve touched on Shell’s marketing folks and what an odd lot they are previously. Some time ago (before I retired !) I had suggested to the same brilliant marketing folks at Shell that keep closing filling stations so you can’t find one when you need one, that they start to consider the value of putting Shell’s name on the roofs of our buildings. When you consider the number of people using the various free mapping services offering satellite photos that show tons of detail, you would think it would be a no-brainer. A few companies have actually done this in the USA, and Microsoft offers this capability in a virtual fashion with Tim Horton’s coffee shops and Petro-Canada filling stations in some parts of Canada using their Bing mapping service. In the photo to the right, you can see the Shell station and car wash I used – or at least you can now that I’ve pinned a label on it with an arrow ! Imagine how it would look with a big Shell pecten on the roof – this of course hasn’t happened. As I may have mentioned previously, our marketing folks border on genius in much the same way that hammers do – not very much at all actually, but I digress ……
The parts are now all freshly washed, and tomorrow I go over to the good folks at Consolidated Compressor here in Calgary to sand blast all the bits and pieces. I wrote about them previously here , and this time I will be using their indoor glass bead blasting cabinet for the smaller items and the outside sand blasting stations for the two frames. I have to admit, for someone like myself who doesn’t have to do this sort of thing for a living, there is a certain fascination about watching the old paint, rust and anything else that happens to get in the way and isn’t firmly attached get blasted into oblivion – it promises to be fun ! If all goes well, I’ll have Friday to blow out any bits of grit and make sure everything is ready to go for the main powder coating event Saturday morning.
