TB’s & Oval Beach

The afternoon was puncuated by TB’s, blue skies and higher winds.  After the second in-room dinner we went to the beach to watch the sun go down.  However, it went under the cloud insteaqd just after 2000 hrs so we returned to tohe hotel and spent a relaxing 20 minutes in the hot tub.  Then came the even better hot shower.  I am ready for bed now.

No Splash Today

We awoke, lazily, to the sound of wind and rain from our hotel room.  It was a little bit later than we had envisioned – 0930 – because the clock in the room was not “sprung” forward so 0830 was 0930.

Anyway, we really had nothing to do until the boat was to have splashed at 1500.  Well it did not splash and will not until it is the second boat in tomorrow.

Right now we are in a thunderstorm and that should add a little water to the river.  No justice – the whole country is flooding right now and we do not have enough to float our boats.  Boo Hoo.

Tomorrow afternoon we go to Muskegon to look at some slips that are priced right if we cannot float at Tower Marine.  The look real nice and we are one day farther North to our summer cruising grounds.  Moore later…….

New Generator

I found a Honda EU2000i generator on Craigslist so I sent an immediate email and sure enough the guy emailed back and then I called him. He said it was available so I Paypal’d him some money and then we drove up to Grand Rapids yesterday to pick it up. It did start real easy and was quiet just like advertised so it should work on the boat for our purposes while cruising. Now I have to clean it up a little and it should be ready to go. While in GR we ate at the Olive Garden and enjoyed our soup n salad. Afterwards we drove back home to Indiana.

The Boat

The better half and I spent most of the week at the Best Western in Saugatuck while coating the bottom of ye old Inspiration with three coats of VC17M, applying a dab of epoxy and talking with slip manager John at Tower Marine.  On Tuesday evening Brian was so kind as to re-open the storage building so we could get to the boat and the slip ladder.  After retrieving it, we went to slip 42 and installed the ladder.  To our great consternation, we found the water even lower than we left it last year.  Considering we were 8″ into the silt last Fall we were alarmed.  A quick meeting was arranged with Manager John the following morning and it was promised that the slip would either be dredged or we would be moved to a deeper slip on the center dock, west side.  We were relieved.

Wednesday morning and without the usual panic, we casually removed the gear from the truck and carried it into the heated storage building.  The setting up the lights and equipment (lots of protective poly tarp on the nearby boats) was without incident and the application of the VC17M proceeded with a 6″ foam roller using the vertical pattern.  Painting day 1 ended without incident and we had time to go back to the hotel before dinner at SBC.  We used one quart of VC17M.

Day 2 was a repeat of day 1 except horizontal pattern was used.  It looked pretty good by the end of the day.  Yours truly applied a little quick set epoxy to the aft vertical  portion of the rudder to fill in the little nick we caused at the end of the season when we removed the boat.  This area got special attention and about 5 coats were applied.

Day 3 started off OK but ended with testy verbosity as is to be expected with three days of hard work.  All equipment was loaded into the truck after the third coat of “the brew” and final inspection and log book entry. We were finished by 1330 hrs and went down to Oval Beach for lunch which was really good while we watched the empty but calm sea.  I drove to US-131 S rest area near Kalamazoo and then SAM took over and I immediately too a nap.  We got back to home around 1730 and re-introduced ourselves to the comforts of home.

Covering the bottomside

We finished the sailboat first coat of VC17M antifouling below water paint.  Two more to go.  We also installed the ladder on the dock at slip 42 but found ominously low water levels.  We will be on the bottom at the beginning of the season!  It only gets worse from this point.  We have a meeting tomorrow with the marina to see if they move us to a deeper slip (if possible ) or we move to a different marina.  We like it here but necessity is a necessity.

Soup n Salad n Bees

We had a soup & salad benefit at the church tonight from 5 – 7. A lot of friends and family came and we had a great time talking to everyone. All the soups were great and so was the salad – I added the spritzer flavoring JKM brought home last Christmas. SAM & I closed down the place with Pastor Moore and Naughtons.

This afternoon was spent studying up on beekeeping and figuring out how much money it would cost to get in at the level I want to participate: about $1.5K more or less. With two hives it would take 2 good years to pay off the investment. I figure this avocation would keep me out of trouble, get me outside more and make a few $$ besides. I have always liked bees but never got around to it since I studied it heavily in the mid-70’s: I still have the book by A.I. Root which was the bible of bees back then. Now the internet has supplanted the book and the information age is upon us via smart phone and desktop. Check out this link – http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com/

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–Qf5MaSINY&feature=player_embedded

Amazon Cloud: music, video, other

Today I just read that Amazon has just created a “cloud” based music portfolio system. Since I love the cloud this is music to my ears – so to speak! Hey, if I pay for a song on “whatever system like Amazon” then I own that song rights just like if I had a vinyl library. The cloud is what contains that library and it should be inheritable and non-volitile. My opinion is that the music and video industry are self-destructing because their model is incorrect. The cloud is the future and digital is the future so why fight it? That is reality 2011 and for several decades beyond.

Speaking of that – I just logged into my library up by the boat and “signed out” a book. The system was modeled after a library book. One book I wanted was 5 people deep t check it out! How antiquated. How about a system where unlimited books can be checked out but the author & et. al. still get paid their rightful share? As Pappy Shaw would say – Pretty Poor!

End of non-coherent rant..

Bees, Bees and Bees

I have always loved bees.  I am not sure why this is but it must stem from early childhood.  My paternal side were city slickers – more or less.  My maternal side were small town & farm people.  Perhaps I heard one really inertial story – my grandpa used to tell stories for hours – or perhaps it was a long forgotten story or visual cue that has inspired me.  Anyway, while I was still on the farm I read several books on the subject of Bee Keeping, one was by A.I.Root, and really wanted to do this but never had the time, considering I travelled, had the live stock and “generated” the feed for such beasts too.  I m sure my children could add their side to this story too.  Perhaps we should do this – a collections of rememberances…

Here is a link that conveys the less glamours side of bee keeping.