3.23.6
I think I’m starting to look like the music I’ve been playing!
3.14.06
My little truck is running great, but it is losing oil at an alarming rate. Doesn’t leak on the ground at idle and isn’t blowing it out the tail pipe. Must be a gasket leak on the back side of the engine where I can’t see it! I could get discouraged, but then I remember what a nice day it is and there are people in the world with real problems!
3.12.06
As great as things are, I’m feeling melancholy. My long time friend, Faz Husain died. Joe Golder called and told me. I cried so hard I got a terrible nose bleed.
Faz Husain
Faz and I were friends from our school days. He moved to Ypsilanti from Patna, India when his father became a professor for Eastern Michigan University. Later he ran his own pizza place simple called ‘Faz’s Pizza’. It was a landmark for many a hungry college student. Eventually, the pizza place was torn down.
Faz opened a successful pizzeria on the west side of Ann Arbor, MI. He and his wife purchased a nice home in Ann Arbor. During summer, Faz liked sleeping in the basement where is was cooler. Unfortunately, during this past summer the basement became contanimated with black mold. Faz inhaled too much of it and it destroyed his lungs.
I saw Faz in August the day he catered for the funeral service of a good mutual friend, Billy Kruse. The last time I saw Faz was ironically when he catered the annual Kruse Gravel Pit Christmas party. Faz was fine in August, but by Xmas when I saw him again, he could hardly walk and was talking about lung transplant. That never happened. Now, less then four months later, Faz is gone.
Guess ever more frequent heartache is a price of longevity until you either die or all your friends are gone.
3.11.6
Has gotten summer like here near Raleigh. I’ve been taking apart old log barns to rebuild at another site for use as a pickin’ shack.
Mountain Harbor Hiker's Hostel
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I just came back to Raleigh from the very N.E. tip of TN and western most part of VA. I went up that way to do some volunteer work on the AT.
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Sleeping Loft
Drove my little VW pick up to the mountains to do some volunteer work on the Appalachian Trail (AT). I was hoping I’d be able to keep up, but believe it or not, I was the youngest person on the crew! So the pace was quite manageable for me. It was a beautiful day. The Eastman Hiking and Canoe Club of Kingsport, TN maintains 133 miles of trail from Damascus VA to Spivey Gap, TN.
We hiked into the mountains to begin construction on the first hiker’s shelter built on that section (133 miles) of AT in a generation. They are building the first new hiker’s shelter in that area in about a generation. I got to help clear the site.
Common Area
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Bucky and I stayed for a couple nights at a B&B called Mountain Harbor on Roan Mountain, TN. Besides the B&B, the owners also fixed up the top of their barn into a really nice hiker’s cabin, complete with a nice galley and a wood stove. The night I arrived, there was still some snow on the ground and Bucky and me were the only ones there. By mid morning, the weather was perfect for tail work.
Bucky waiting. "Are you ready?"
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The barn is still in use. In the ground level there are horses! All night I could hear them moving around below us.
Mountain Harbor, Roan Mountain, TN
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Spent some time in a cute little town called Damascus, VA. There are no stop lights in town, but 5 trails, including the AT cross through there. A very pedestrian friendly place!
3.5.6
The places I liked most lately were in the mountains. Weather wise from here it is about 10° cooler and less sunny. I really liked the people and music of Townsend, TN (S.E. of Knoxville), but the air pollution was BAD! The same inversion that makes the Smokies smoky also traps and compresses bad air moving in from western cities as it tries to rise up and channelize through the passes. On the NC side of the mountains the air is better.
Currently, I’m looking at Damascus in S.W. Virginia. It’s a little town on the way to nowhere. There are 5 trails, including the AT that pass through town, so it’s very pedestrian with a population of about 1000. Damascus, VA a pretty good web site if you want to check it out. I don’t think there are a lot of jobs there. To learn more about the area, I’ve joined one of the hiking clubs that maintains a section of the AT— 133 miles from Damascus south into N.E. TN. I figure I’m probably never going to hike AT, so I’ll maybe I can help build it instead. Between that, finding some action for my bass, and hanging in the VFW, I ought to be able to figure out what’s going on.
3.1.6
Changed Injector Pump
Changed the injector pump on my VW Rabbit diesel pick up today. I’m getting pretty good at changing injector pumps. The injector pump is one of the few parts that have not been replaced or rebuilt. Since I started out with 5 pumps, I figured at least one should be good to go for a while. Right?
Got diesel fuel all over me. Seems like no matter how much I wash, the smell won’t go away. Oh well. Had to be done…
I want to drive the truck up to the mountain and do some volunteer work on the Appalachian Trail (A.T.).
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