Wow, where did May go, and I have no entries for that whole month! Well, I can only blame it on School. It has been very busy with 3 classes, but I will finish next week and hopefully you will see more writings from me then!
Nothing else has been going on. The weather has been nice for the spring. I bought a used riding lawn mower this year. The past three years, I had a service taking care of the lawn, but since I am not traveling much anymore, I had to let the service go. I was looking to buy a new lawn mower, then decided to see if I could find a decent deal on ebay for a riding mower. I did! I found a Craftsman 19.5HP 42″ deck, 6 speed for $350. The motor sounds solid and doesn’t smoke or anything. The transmission could be a little better, it is sometimes hard to tell what gear you are in. Cuts nice (after I sharpened the blades a bit), and works great. The guy also gave me a utility cart with the mower, and I find that is nice for hauling the tree clippings, etc. from the back yard to my truck. I am enjoying the mower.
I did go to Sweden in May for a week. This time of year is nice there. Still cool enough to wear a light coat most of the time, but daylight was abundant. I had daylight from about 4 am until after 10 pm. That always makes it nicer than in December when it is cold and dark all day! I was in a conference, so they had evening activities planned. That made for a busy week. One day we went to one of our team members house for a cook out. Then walked along the ocean afterwards. The second day, we had our meetings at Volvo Penta’s test facilities. At lunch, Penta took us on a 55′ boat. It had the new IPS system, which gives the boat 30% more power or fuel savings. The IPS system uses a joy stick when manuvering in a harbor. This allows precise control of the boat. You can even move the boat sideways using the joy stick. I got to try it out, it was really cool. That evening we went to the Amusement park in Gothenburg and had dinner there. The third night, they had a bus pick us up and drive us about 1 hour north of Gothenburg. There we boarded a sail boat and sailed back toward Gothenburg for 2.5 hours. That was very nice and peaceful. The last night I was there, most of the team members had already left. Asa Backman invited me to her house for coffee and cake, and she took me around a part of Gothenburg I wasn’t familar with. That was very nice.
Well, I better get back to my studies. I plan to write another entry under the College topic today, so check that one out also.
