Charles W. Moore

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/

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.

Tsunami Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=c3rqPPJPwLg

Too Many Distractions

I must be getting old and even more lazy than I have been.  But then again, it may be the distractions…..

I now have a Droid 2 and it has kept me more than occupied for the past two months.  I have installed a lot of apps and, of course, I must know how the work.  All my sundry emails come into the Droid so I get buzzed every few minutes all day.  A lot of my apps deal with sun/moon, marine weather & water conditions, weather conditions and winds.

I am disappointed the Droid does not play Flash and Java via the browsers – I have FF mobile, Opera mobile and the installed browser.  None will play the Sailflow WindFxAni, which is a Java animated wind flow forecast, and thus it is worthless as a wind prognosticator.  Many others have voiced this complaint too so it may be coming if the corporate legal boys do not get too involved.

As a parting shot – Boy am I glad I am retired,  all you poor slobs working to pay taxes when, for example only, GE with sales of $5.1B paid no taxes.  Are we daft boys? Corporations must pay their fair share.  Men, we simply cannot keep passing along corporate tax breaks while the dwindling middle class gets breaks too.  Legislators, beware GOOOH is out to get our house back and put in order.

At the beach

We went to the beach today for an hour walk today on the beach.  Quite nice since the storm of two days ago washed up lots of treasure’s.  By our return the Starbucks coffee cup was full.

After that it was to Burger King and other shops.  All-in-all it was a nice sunny great day with moderate temperatures.

I have my smartphone programmed to Craigslist in the Kayaks, Honda Generator and Kindle areas.  I WANT MY KINDLE!

Moore later………

James Randi’s Homeopathic Medicine

The Big Snow

We were pounded by a big snow of 12″ more or less and high winds that produced drifts in excess of 4′.  Then yesterday another 5″ of the white stuff arrived just to add a interest.  Of course, the driveway is not plowed nor will it be in the near future.  The snow is packed and we could probably make  an igloo if we wanted.  It might be kind of fun to try.

As a youth, I read one of my Dad’s Book Oft The Month club books called Kabloona.  The book related the experiences of a man who lived with the eskimo’s and traveled across Canada with them.  I still have the book and may read it again for the 4th time.

However, I now await a Kindle to re-read the book.  Who knows what will happen with regarding that subject.  Marc, my son, added some birthday $$ to my Amazon account so I can afford to get it.

My birthday is past but Martha, Sharon and I will go out to Sonny’s for an early bird meal this afternoon.  One more birthday past with the feet above the ground is sufficient reason to celebrate ad since this is Sunday there is even more reason to rejoice.  Moore later………

Web Work

I have spent the day adding content to the Angola Assembly of God website and losing some more money on my latest Cloud Computing acquisition’s.  Boo Hoo – the story of my investing life – buy high and sell low.  Well, not really, as I usually ride the stocks to the bottom and lose everything.

No one at AAOG church really understands how much time it takes to do creative manipulations with the pictures they send me and want “put on the site”.  I have to admit I am not the best at artistic renditions but I have improved and like playing with the layouts.  I could spend days doing this and usually do.  I like to make collages of different shapes and then put them into a blank picture that has a transparent background.  They will fit in almost any site that way.

The temperature is in the high 30′s today and it is raining with a few spits of snow.  There goes the snow and my X-C ski course.  Oh well, I cannot ski anyway as I am too sore from the backache I received in my header I took skiing last week.  SAM is upstairs banging around in the kitchen so that probably means I will get something good for dinner tonight.  Yumm – Moore later…….