First Night in a Week

This is the first night back on the boat in a week. I had cataract surgery in my right eye. I took 5 days to get back to a semblance of normal and two pairs of glasses. Lenscrafters=$255 with discount and Holicki Eye Center=$35. The glasses still do not feel comfortable but at least they were wearable.

Monday the truck rear brakes went out so I immediate took it to the dealership and they fixed it pretty quick for $225 with turned rotors. They lasted a very long time so I am happy with the fix.

My flying multiengine instructor helped me lubricate the door on the hangar today. He did all the work because I had eye appointments all day. Thanks Bill! The check will be in the mail.

After the surgery

Here I write after the cataract surgery with a big, thick patch on my right eye and reading glasses perched on the very tip of my nose. Sort of a cumbersome way to write this blog but necessary given the circumstances.

I went in as an out patient and was on the street by 11:30. By request they put me out like a light so I can relate nothing until I awoke about 10:55. At first I felt just fine but then a creeping headache made itself known. Not real bad but sufficiently strong to make itself known and unwelcome. It reminded me of hypoxia headaches and maybe it was because they told SAM I had breathing difficulties. The patch was not as bad as I had imagined it to be but still it is hard to put up with until it is removed tomorrow PM. The told me I could prerform any duties I felt like and there were no special precautions except to leave the patch on and do not rub the area.

Tomorrow we get to see the results and I hope they are good. I have been used to perfect pilot vision all my adult life so anything less will be a disappointment. Right now I am reading a good sailing book by Tristan Jones – Saga of a Wayward Sailor. The things that man survived are amazing. I’ll write more later as it is taxing to concentrate and focus the sight.

Cataracts

Tomorrow AM is my cataract surgery. I am not sure why I have this problem at such a young age but it must have something to do with staring at a monitor for all those years. My programming buddy has the same problem. Strange is it not?

Working on the boat

Having no electronics to fix, we are back to the brightwork that was started last season. Underneath the cracked

Can you believe this?

Today SAM and I were out on the lake sailing. It was pretty rough and the seas were taking a toll on both of us. I was tired of the battle and so I hauled in the bit headsail and pulled around into the wind to lower the main and staysail. After some effort we did a 190 and headed for the harbor beacons. On the way in a spider came into view of my left eye. I swatted at it and flipped my glasses and wouldn’t you know they went overboard. I am now using a poor substitute. Somewhere I have an almost exact duplicate of the lost pair and we will have to go home to find it.

The portable A/C unit is not really working too well. It has not quit running since we arrived back from our misadventure on the water today. The air is cool but it is not cooling very well. It is supposed to be a 12K BTU unit. It was only 85 today and it was barely keeping up.

On the good news side, the wind system indicator works and calibrated ok. The old depth indicator was connected to the seatalk buss too and all are talking with the Raymarine 6002 a/p control head. I am pretty much finished with the new equipment and wiring it up for this year. Oh yes, I have one intermittant short to troubleshoot and fix this summer, then I am finished.

Sick grandchild & boat

We are on vacation for the week. Many things have happened p some big and some small. DJ our oldest grandson is visiting us from Germany. He has been here a few weeks and living long hours. He came to us with Strep Throat and a severe ear ache. We took him to the clinic as he had not seen a doctor. Ok, we got a lot of pills and mouth wash and he took them and slept for 24 hours – minus 4 hours for necessary living items like food and other things.

A day late we are now at the boat and I am writing this before bed. DJ felt so good he has stayed in the club house watching TV. Two bits says that he is sick again within two weeks. Oh well, what can you tell a mid age teenager? Not too much if I remember correctly.

Today on the way up here I heard a strange noise in the truck and then the fan motor sounded funny. I think I blew a blade off of the blower fan for the warm/cool air. It sounds bad. One more thing to fix.

I fired up the portable A/C unit on the boat and it works sort of. The big test will come when it is hot outside. For a 12,000 BTU unit it seems sort of anemic. It was expensive too. Like $400 off the net. I can buy several good 6600 BTU window units for that money. What gives?

No internet today!

The Mediacom HS Internet went out two nights ago and was out for a day and a half. SAM called in desparation saying the internet was out and what was I going to do about it. I suggested calling Mediacom and this was done. They said it was a known issue. Somehow it got fixed and most of the servers came back OK. However the virtual host machine did not and it needed rebooting today. Therefore, faithful readers it was not my fault the sites were not up. I guess I am down to two 9’s reliability.

I have been working diligently on the boat and record these feats in the youngsunowners.org blog. I should take this one more seriously but it is hard to get to all the writing that needs to be done.
maybe I should record the work in both blogs.

Last night on the boat it was pretty windy and wet. By morning it was cool too. I slept reasonably well and only woke up once – the head and a glass of water. SAM says the boat A/C came in and so did the two books I ordered from Amazon, The Ultimate Passage cable for the wind indicator came in too, I installed the wind indicator display tonight and also the cable for the mast head equipment.