Austin Area TW Chapter (all gens welcome, even T4Rs; heck, just make it a Toyota and we're good)

West Carrollton, '98. Lived in Kettering last couple years before I joined the military. I still go visit frequently.
You were up near Wright Pat. I love that museum. Went to the RC airshow during my last visit in 2019.

It is strange. I have met a lot of people from Ohio since I moved here and specifically from the Dayton area. I had a coworker at my previous job who was originally from Kettering. His son had just purchased a house about 2 blocks from my mother's house at the time. Crazy small world.

 

Problem with panels is if it gets covered with snow, you gotta get out there to remove it.

 

I am really interested in some portable power. I thought it would be nice to have something small that I can add/remove from the truck as I needed. I looked at the GoalZero stuff but was little sticker shocked. I figured a DIY solution would probably be the way.

My hobby supplies provided some temporary lighting during our power outages. I made a few DIY lights with clear tubing, LED strips and lipo's from my RC stuff. It lit things up nicely for us.

 

Had a girlfriend who was class of ‘88 at Fairmont. She ironically drove a Fairmont.

I was TDY back to Wright Patt in 2008 - I almost cried at how much industry had gone. My grandfather was an engineer with GM, and his division isn’t even there anymore.

Meanwhile, we can’t build new housing here fast enough. I just wish they’d build roads to them first.

 

I feel you. My younger years were lived near the GM plant. My dad worked there at the time and my great grandfather was an engineer at NCR (another diminished industry of Dayton). The loss of GM, Delphi and several other companies destroyed the area. A company called Foyua recently purchased the GM facility to manufacture glass. It brought a couple thousand jobs back and really boosted the community. I am in the networking field and almost all of the fiber optics I use come out of Moraine/Kettering. I have also been seeing more electronic components manufactured designed/manufactured in Dayton. It's not trucks and blazers, but it is something.

 

That’s awesome. I always thought one of those massive manufacturing facilities that Panasonic or Lytton vacated could easily be converted to pharmaceutical manufacturing. Sure would be nice if we weren’t dependent on medicines coming from Malaysia, the Philippines, or China.

 

Mornin ​

 

Howdy Chaddington

 

How ya doing my brother?

 

Just trying to recover everything at work...they been shut down since last Tuesday and we've been recovering everything in phases. Only downside is having to be on standby on days off for the next couple weeks. But I'll take the extra pay for now!

 

Nice nice, I'm sure that's a double edged sword. We so buried with work I don't see us catching up till after summer.

 

One of my customers, in Austria, was "you've been offline all week". I explained no heat, no electricity, no running water. He thought I was kidding!

 

I'll take a little discomfort, and stay here in the US.

 

Crazy times. ​

 

Indeed.

We might be seeing more of these types of scenarios in the future. I might have to invest in some snow tires and chains. Steelies I will be lookin for, or maybe get those trd pro rims I've been wanting and use my old 1st gen rims for the winter season...

 

We now have a snow shovel

 

Thats def helpful. I rather a dry and safe driveway than a wet and iced driveway. I felt bad for the little girl that hopped off her daddies tailgate onto grandma's driveway but I wonder why the hell he didn't shovel it. She landed on her knee. Big ouch, especially when the driveway was iced.

 

Trivia for the younger generation. Austin, TX, had a ton of machine shops. Little Mom and Pop businesses making gears, rods, and all sorts of precision matching. We were home to IBM's Selectric. That the origin of Austin as "High Technology."

Paul Torn was one of them. At his peak, he employed something like 200 machinists. Downsized, and produced high-end Pasta Machines (parts went to Italy), finally wound things down in the 1990s. I bought my LeBlond Lathe and Index Milling Machine from him in 1995. I sold the lathe and still have a couple of projects to finish with the mill before selling it.

I plan to get two sets of chains in case of another ice storm to help transport hospital personal. I suspect we will see a repeat. My pool damage is worse than I thought; it froze and split everything. For now, I have the pump and filter, and that is about it to prevent a huge mess, but even the top of the pool plaster cracked and popped off. Not a simple repair.

 

Wow, that sucks about the pool.

My first real job out of high school was as a machinist in the lathe department at Owatonna Tool Company, in Owatonna, MN. I made a lot of chips, until Reaganomics put a huge damper in the auto industry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTC_Tool_Company

 

OTC was good stuff to help handle those jobs without making a mess of things. My first set of pullers were OTC.

I didn't realize it was the "Owatonna Tool Company"