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Post by CTW Admin Larry G (GuglioLS) on Jan 31, 2008 16:54:59 GMT -5
***Tell the CTW about yourself***
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GuglioLS
Administrator
Jinma354 LE
Posts: 1,276
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Post by GuglioLS on Jan 31, 2008 23:08:13 GMT -5
Bio for Larry G: I "grew up" near Cleveland Ohio. I now live in New Mexico on 20 acres, about 25 miles south east of Albuquerque. It's in the foothills of the Manzano Mountains at 7000' elevation. I purchased the property in 1977 got married in 1982. My wife Esther and I built the home you see in the pictures - from start to finish it took us about 18 years to get it where it's at today. It went through many phases and alterations over the years. We have twin 21 year old daughters. I've got two older sisters and a younger brother. I've been working for PerkinElmer instrument for 30 years. My education is in Electronics and Optics, when I first started out I was involved with Laser weapons research and development (star wars) for the Air force weapons lab on Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque. That projected was a 3 year contract. Soon after I transfered to a different division of the company and got involved with analytical instrument service - Atomic Absorption Spectrometers, and Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometers. Basically the stuff I work on analyzes elements, the periodic table of the elements like Cu, Ca, As, Au, Pb, U, Th, Hg just to name a few. The customers applications are metallurgy, environmental, Bio, chemical, etc. The instruments are sensitive and cannot be moved, so I travel to customer sites installing, training and repairing. I work out of a home office so when I don't have any service calls I am at home "Working" like mowing the "Corporate Lawn" or painting the "Corporate Kitchen" building the latest Corporate tractor mod HaHaHa - I sure hope they don't read that part or my cover is blown. Hobbies are Tractors, Tractor mods, Motorcycles, Wood Working, Metal Working and fabrication. Here is a pic of our home looking to the N.E. And one looking to the N.W. Here's a space photo of our home site layout: And one a little farther out to show the entire property: My tractor was a crate job. My dad and I put it together. Here is a shot of when I got it home: I purchased a Jinma 6" wood chipper with it. Here is a shot of my Dad helping get the chipper off the tractor crate. I made that huge chain hoist frame. It took us two days to get the tractor together and here it is ready to roll: I later installed a Koyker 160 front end loader on it and have since made many mod you may read about throughout the forum: In addition to the 354 Jinma, I have a 1953 Ford NAA Golden Jubilee - its a 50 year anniversary addition of the Ford tractor. I think it's considered a antique collectible tractor? I installed a backhoe on it. I also have a 40 hp Komatsu D20A-6 bull dozer to complete my collection: I purchased and use the Jinma because of it's low cost conveniences like Power steering, 4 wheel drive, ROPS with canopy and fuel efficient Diesel power - it's a keeper. I mow about 5 acres of flat land with it, use it in 4WD to climb a huge hill while pulling a trailer to cut and collect dead down firewood from our land. I also use it to plow snow and move dirt around as needed. It's one fine investment that I am happy I made. I hope to see many of you post a bio of yourself to break the ice and to get to know a little more about each other. My hope is that we all address each other on a first name basis and "sign" your first name to the end of all your posts. Welcome aboard to Chinese Tractor World! Larry
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3RRL
Administrator
Huge Kama
Posts: 2,027
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Post by 3RRL on Jan 31, 2008 23:56:36 GMT -5
Hi, I see Larry took the initiative to start a thread where ALL members can introduce themselves to the rest of the board. It would be great if each of you can share a little about yourselves as well, your land and family, your work, and of course your tractor and how you use it. Our group is growing all the time and some of us may have some special talents that the rest of us can learn from. We all live in different locations and climates. Pictures would be great as they add so much. I think it may end up being an interesting thread. I have shared in many threads about my tractor, the improvements and modifications, and even shared a lot about myself and my family. I have a website that my wife Loretta has put together. It is not up to date, but will show you a lot about us and our rural property. www.natureswildchid.com/ThreeRiversIt would be great for all members to share a little. I currently live in Southern California and I'm a retired mold maker. I am (was) a mechanical design engineer and precision machinist. We bought some land in 2003 in Three Rivers, CA near Sequoia National Park, in the foothills. I have KM554 Kama tractor, 55hp, 4wd with several implements. I keep and use it on the rural 27 acres maintaining and building road and trails, working a food plot, mowing fields and grading for the house we want to build. I have also used it to help my neighbors with their roads and trenching. We have a campground on the property and try to visit every-other weekend. It is about 250 miles from where we live now. We hope to move up there permanently in 2008. Here is a picture when I first got my Kama in August, 2005. And this is the campground at our property. Now, a little more about me... I see I did not mention that I was born in the Dutch East Indies on the island of Java in 1950. My parents, their parents and as I am, are Dutch-Indonesian. We were forced to go to Holland in 1952 when the Indonesians had a revolution to have their own country...kicking out all the Dutch. Before that, during WWII, both my Mom and Dad were in Japanese Prison camp. My Dad was in Burma for 5 years working on that road and railroad until the end of the war. My Mom was a school teacher and my Dad was ex-military then a Inspector in the Dutch Police. Then in Holland is where he served an indentured apprenticeship and became a Tool & Die maker. We lived in Holland for 5 years, then immigrated to the US in 1957. We arrived in New York, went through Ellis Island...the whole immigration thing. Then after 8 weeks in New York, the Episcopal Church in California who sponsored us had a home for us to move into. So I grew up here. We all became Naturalized Citizens in 1962 except my oldest brother who became a citizen in 1960 because he was in the Marine Corps. When I got here I didn't speak a word of English but finished the last month of 1st grade here and they passed me. When I was in Holland, I can still remember ice skating to school on the frozen canal in the Winter. Over the Summer in 1957, I learned to speak better English....it was hard. Both my parents and my older brothers and sisters all spoke English already. They learned it in school. Dutch was like English here...a pre requisite, but so was 2 other languages. Most everyone took English first then German or French or something as their 2nd. I can still speak Dutch and some German I took in school. Anyway, I grew up in Whittier, California and graduated from Whittier High. I played football and baseball and was almost signed by the Cincinnati Reds in 1968 but my Dad wanted me to go to college so I went to Northrop Institute of Technology. I dropped out after 2 years because of a Soccer injury!! Then went back to Rio Hondo Jr. College to get an AE...not worth much but the education I got at Northrop was invaluable. I played football (weak side linebacker) and got into weight training. After school I sold Insurance for several years before getting into the Mold Making trade through my brother. Then opened my own shop and built it into a 35/40 man tool room and sold it in 1996. I'm married for the 3rd time. I have 4 kids with my 1st wife, 1 with my 2nd and her 2 step children, and now Loretta's son. So I have 8 kids altogether and 10 grandkids from them. Loretta and I went to High School together and re-met at our 35th reunion and then got married 1-½ years after that. She still works and I do part time in my garage shop. We will fully retire in a couple of years when the house is completed. I look forward to build tractor stuff and repair things (like a handy man) for the small community of Three Rivers. I am building a small shop up there and will have all my machines and tools for that. Rob-
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Post by CTW Admin Larry G (GuglioLS) on Feb 1, 2008 1:46:58 GMT -5
By accident two "New Member" threads were started. Larry posted in one, and then seen this one thinking his post never posted.... Now after discovering the issue we deleted one of the threads, then merged all together into one.... Sorry for any problems this may have caused.
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FLICK
CTW Expert
DF-354
Posts: 201
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Post by FLICK on Feb 1, 2008 2:26:09 GMT -5
I live in Tasmania, Australia... Tasmania is an island to the south of mainland Australia with a population of about 500,000... I've lived here since my family moved from the UK when I was a baby. I started an industrial instrumentation/electrical apprenticeship at a zinc refinery when I was 16, once my apprenticeship was completed at 20 I went onto 12 hours shifts as a shift instrument technician, most the work was fault finding and breakdown repairs on analytical instrumentation and a vast range of process measurement and control equipment .... very interesting work, definitely couldn't call it boring... I purchased 35acres of land when I was 19 but only kept it for a couple of years, it was a bit far out of town so ended up selling it to buy a house in the suburbs... I purchased my current property in 1998 and ended up selling my house to pay off my mortgage and quit work in 2000... I then moved into the 30' x 60' shed on the land which I'm slowly transforming into a house... I'd like to build a house out of stone eventually, but I doubt I'll make a start on it for 10 years or so, the shed will do for now... I purchased 13 angus heifers when I first got the property, I had grand plans of breading them, but due to lack of rain and lack of feed I ended up selling them... Here's my 180 acres, it's about 10 miles from Hobart (Tasmanias capital)... It's about 1 mile long... Most of it's fairly steep, it ranges from 330 feet to 1500 feet above sea level, it faces north so I always have the sun. (being in the southern hemisphere the sun's in the north) (380k aerial photo) This is a pic from the other side of the river looking south, the boundaries I've marked in red on this pic are roughly correct, but not quite right... Here's a pic of the view from the middle of my property looking north: I purchase a 1956 Fergie FE-35 in the late 90's, it did a good job considering it's age but is very tired, I haven't started it since I purchased the DF... I mainly used it with a 6' sickle bar mower to cut the grass a couple of times a year, and to do a bit of grading. In late 2006 I bit the bullet and purchased a Dong-Feng Eastwind DF354 with SL-FEL and 4in1 bucket: Great tractor, does a good job... (It's just a pity the Australian DF dealer is terrible, lol)... I can't think of much else to say so that will do Matthew.
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Post by bracabric on Feb 1, 2008 11:00:19 GMT -5
I live in Santiago, Chile, South America to where I emigrated some 4and1/2 years ago, a country I have grown very swiftly to love and care for and am very proud of. It is the success story of South America with a democratic government and very good finances, Chileans are 2% of the Latin American population but 10% of the economic activity and Santiago is a very modern (glass hi-rise) city of some 7/8 million people. There are still poor areas of Santiago but these are rapidly being developed. The apartment we have is in the area of "Las Condes" between the east of the city and the Andes mountains and is a good quality area with all modern conveniences and wonderful views of the snow capped mountains. The mountains form a very physical barrier most all the way between Chile and Argentina. Chile is a very long country (about 3000 miles) but quite narrow and the Pan Am highway (Ruta 5) runs the length of the country from the driest on earth in the north, the atcama dessert, where there are several observatories because of the dryness and air quality all the way down to the Beagle channel in the south which is boarded on the other side by the Antarctic. The glaciers are beautiful but the sea rounding the bottom of America is very fierce. I was born 1n Derby in the UK 1944 brought up in north Oxforshire where my parents had a 400 acre mixed farm and when I finished my education (I specialized in economics) I joined my father and farmed with him for a couple of years. As this was not exciting enough for me I joined an oil company as a property negotiator where I essentially negotiated the purchase of property (mostly filling stations ) ands obtained planning consent from the appropriate authority. I worked over the years in this capacity or marketing for Gulf,Campsa (Spain) Burmah-Castrol (now part of BP) VIP, and Oxydental. In the late'70 I thought I could do it better and bought a couple of filling stations of my own and left the oil companies employ. These lasted with indifferent success until the early '80s when because of my divorce they had to be disposed of. Having no means of income I tried the antiques business with much greater success than the petrol business . It took about three years to learn how to make a living and I then started exporting containers of furniture all around the world, USA,Canada,Australia, Japan. It built up over the years to the point that we were doing eight 45' containers a month and that takes a lot of finding. at one time I literally got off the ferry from France in my 7and1/2 ton truck, drove to the warehouse, unloaded and drove back to catch the ferry back to France more or less continually for two years. In late 2001 I had contact with a dealer in Santiago (a lady) looking for a supplier and I always keen to have new clients got in touch, well as they say things got a lot more complicated , resulting in me moving to Santiago and setting up home with the aforementioned lady , definitely one of my better moves. I have a son by my ex wife who is now 31 and still lives in the UK (Bristol) who seems happy for me and to whom I have offered many plane tickets to come and have a look, all without success. I returned to the UK a couple of years ago and was pleased when the plane took me back to Chile, I could not live there now.I do miss beautiful Herefordshire (Cattle, Cider and Hops ) in the west of England where I spent my last 25 years but there is no comparison for me. About two and a half years ago, I was looking in the local Paper and also online and found a small farm out by the Pacific for sale at what seemed a reasonable price, it was about 85 acres and rather run down and I bought it. I have spent a good deal of the last two years trying to get it in order, to the effect that I now have a wooden house there with the necessary conveniences and am about half way round doing the ring fence which was pretty much shot. The land looks something like this, In 2006 I bought a Jinma 354 which I am very pleased with along with a post hole auger, a brush hog and disc harrows. All this joined the fleet of my Nissan twin cab pick up, Toyota Corolla saloon and Chinese motorbike (I have just bought a larger motor bike as well). I am very actively "retired": and enjoying life to the full. As a teenager I had to fix my own cars and did a short course at a local college in agricultural engineering all of which is standing me in good stead now.I found several old steam engines here in Chile and sent a couple of containers of them Back to the UK but have kept a couple for myself as you can see below, Dick
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3RRL
Administrator
Huge Kama
Posts: 2,027
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Post by 3RRL on Feb 1, 2008 11:06:12 GMT -5
Excellent! Members from all over the globe (one from outer space, Larry with vastly differing backgrounds. This is a special thread indeed. Very interesting! Rob-
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Post by bracabric on Feb 1, 2008 11:33:59 GMT -5
Mathew, out of interest (for me ) where did your parents migrate from in the UK? Dick PS Wonderful post as are all the others you have put on, must have been up all night!! Thanks very much !!
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FLICK
CTW Expert
DF-354
Posts: 201
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Post by FLICK on Feb 2, 2008 22:32:05 GMT -5
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GuglioLS
Administrator
Jinma354 LE
Posts: 1,276
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Post by GuglioLS on Feb 3, 2008 0:08:13 GMT -5
Your the first person I've ever met (other than people I worked with) that would have any idea what a Atomic Absorption Spectrometer is......No kidding - there are not to many of us on the face of the earth who work on these things. Did you guys ever use a graphite furnace? (part per billion detection limit) You would not believe the improvements in instruments over the years . The ICP-MS has sub part per trillion detection limits. The software features are now out of this world and auto-samplers are super high speed. OMG, That looks like an old Varian flame AA - is that correct? Did you ever have a "flash back" on it? (burner head blowing off) lol Looks like you had your hands full wiring and plumbing up everything and keeping all that stuff going. Here in the States the flame AA is on it's way out and is being replaced by the Inductively Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometer (ICP-OES)The liquid sample is nebulized through the center of an argon plasma, the emission lines of ALL the analytes are separated by two gratings, then go to a detector array for instantaneous and simultaneous analysis of just about any element in the periodic table. The whole process takes just a few seconds. Even better than the ICP-OES is the ICP-MS (mass spectrometer) The detection limits are sub part per trillion and it can determine the ratio and abundance of Isotopes. Such as Pb 206, Pb 207 & Pb 208. There are several species of Arsenic and Selenium some are harmless while others are poison. So using a ICP-MS with a Liquid Chromatograph can determine if the Arsenic or Selenium is good or bad. Sorry I got carried away a bit I guess Rob is right - we are from Mars or outer space or something like that Larry
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FLICK
CTW Expert
DF-354
Posts: 201
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Post by FLICK on Feb 3, 2008 15:20:11 GMT -5
Larry: OMG, That looks like an old Varian flame AA - is that correct?yes it's a Varian.... I guess they are getting pretty old now, I took the photo's about 10 years ago, (they were installed in the early 90's).... Here in the States the flame AA is on it's way out There's a good chance they are here also, but as I haven't worked for nearly 10 years I have no idea... lol Matthew.
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Post by baknblack on Feb 6, 2008 9:57:14 GMT -5
Ha ha, I also work in a lab and maintain equipment.
We have and have had.
XRF, XRD, Calorimeter, colorimeter, laser particle sizer, sulfur analyzer, gamma neutron activation on line analyzer, and at one time we had a fuels lab with an ICP and GCMS. And I almost forgot When I first came to work here in 1981 we had an old flame AA unit.
I work for the only cement plant in Kentucky. It produces 1.7 million tons of cement annually. When I first came to work it was a small company but, has been sold 2 times since. It's now owned by cement manufacturing giant Cemex, out of Monterrey Mexico.
I have an AAS degree in electrical engineering, 48 yrs old, 7 way bypass surgery at 45, lol.
Dwayne
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3RRL
Administrator
Huge Kama
Posts: 2,027
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Post by 3RRL on Feb 6, 2008 12:33:56 GMT -5
I have a micrometer, does that count? Rob-
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Post by baknblack on Feb 6, 2008 13:22:43 GMT -5
yes that counts, lol.
I wish I had your skills.
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Post by Mrs3RRL on Feb 6, 2008 13:45:25 GMT -5
Well, I guess it's my turn, now.
I'm a native Californian, although I did live in Washington State for 4 years as a kid.
I was a single mom for 25 years, until Rob and I got married (see his post), and then I went from a 'newly freed mom with an adult child', back to being a mom for a pre-teen (albeit part-time).
Rob and I are almost complete opposites in most things - He's Republican, I'm a Democrat; I was (note the past tense) very uncomfortable around guns, he had 12 in the house; I'm vegetarian, he's a big game hunter. I'm an artist, he's an engineer. I 'live' in shades of gray, he 'lives' in black and white. If asked how far it is to a location, I'll tell you how long it takes; he tells you the specific distance - down to the foot or inch, if he can.
Yet, obviously, opposites attract, and together we discovered we did have the same dream - to live in a rural area, and be somewhat self-sufficient.
We bought our property in Three Rivers 4 years ago, and it's been one adventure after another, ever since. We knew nothing about roads or wells or solar systems or tractors ... but we learned, and we love it. I won't post pics of the property, because I see that Rob already did that.
When Rob first got Huge Kama, I thought "oh no, just another 'big boy toy'. But Huge Kama has more than paid for himself. He was just too big for me to handle, though. So now, Rob has bought me my own 284 Jinma, HoneyBee. Thanks so much to Scott (FlyHiFlyLo) for making that happen. HoneyBee shared a sea container with Scott's Hornet. And, if you click on the CTW Photo Gallery, and then on the Jinma pics, Scott was kind enough to put a pic of HoneyBee in there.... it's the one with the swingset in the background!
So now, Huge Kama and HoneyBee can share the joys of working the land together.
I"m glad to be part of this forum.
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