WEEK 23 2008
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First Post,
17 March 2002
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Saturday
- Tired and dragging a bit all morning, but finally got off to Home Depot by noon.
Needed: a scraper, putty knifes, paint containers, sandpaper, sanding
blocks, acetone, mineral spirits, tack rags, paint/varnish remover, and
such like for the boat. Well over a hundred dollars worth of stuff.
When the illegal live-aboard in the next slip departed I thought he had
taken a lot of my painting/varnishing stuff. And, indeed, a lot is missing,
but not quite as much as originally assumed. When I got to the boat I
had to re-organize and clean up before starting work, and I found a few
tarps, a (leaking) can of old Petit varnish, a rusty putty knife, empty
teak cleanser bottles, and so on.
No sign of the palm sander, which is what I was really looking for.
The idea was to do a bit topsides, and bit below. So I had to clean the
deck to keep the dust down, because it was filthy, and clean below, for
the same reason. Which mean cleaning, and vacuuming, whereupon I
discovered that my shore power cord was pulled out, and power cords to the
slips on either side of me were in place, using my dock box. I went
down to the marina office - they knew about it and assured me that we
were all supposed to use slip F-24's power and were all charged the very very very
minimum. Hmmm. Of of concerns about galvanic action I don't keep the
shore power attached, save when needed (running, say, a vacuum or palm
sander), so it's fine with me, but the boats on either side - big
powerboats - always have them attached.
Anyway, the sanding below (side of cabinet) is mostly done, but I didn't
get to the actual varnish/paint application. Ran out of time and energy.
Tomorrow.
Emptying out the dock box, because it was full of bits of left over
stuff from the previous owner and it was needed for the
solvents/paints, I found the foot pump for the Avon inflatable. Well,
I've been
meaning (for nearly two years!) to see if that dingy holds air, so I
hefted it off the foredeck onto the dock and set about inflating. No
big deal, really, except that it probably weighs 75+ lbs and is
unwieldy, both inflated and uninflated. The foot pump did it's work in
a matter of minutes, about 200 pumps each side. When leaving, about
8:00pm, it was still pressurized five hours later, so I guess it's in
good shape. It'll be interesting on Sunday, when I get back down to the
boat, to see how it held up overnight.
An issue: it's 9' long, too big for the foredeck when inflated. It was
left sitting cross ways on the safety lines overnight, but that's
not an option when sailing or even for long term storage. I'd love to take it out to the
islands as a means to get ashore, but it'd have to be towed. I can keep it uninflated, but I
suspect that's not good for the seams. Also I need oars, or a small
outboard. If an outboard, then the dingy needs to be registered with
the state.
Friday 6 June
2008
Friday
- working. I was supposed to have an assistant, but he couldn't make
it. But, since it was easy work I just went out on my own. Put in about
10 hours or so. It was a little less stressful than usual, oddly
enough, I suppose from not having to oversee an assistant all day.
Saw a duck, with two ducklings. Saw a cat, lurking about the same spot, later in the day:
Maybe the cat explains the fact of their being only two ducklings,
rather than the usual half dozen? He was a scruffy character, not
particularly afraid of me, but not inclined to let me get within 20
feet of him either.
I'm planning to spend the weekend down here in Ventura, and do some
work on the boat. It's been months - since last year - since I spent
more than a few hours working on it. I'd rather sail, but the
maintenance needs doing :-(
I'll do some painting and varnishing, there is always a good feeling when you get some of that done.
After getting home I spent a couple of hours helping my landlord move
some stuff. He's a nice guy, I was glad to help, but I didn't get to
bed until nearly midnight.
Thursday 5 June 2008
Thursday
- my friend Tim mentioned that the caption to this weeks 'Picture
of the Week' was wrong. Indeed, that is a brick bank building in
Martinez, not the polar regions of Mars. Then again, anybody could make
that mistake.
Nicer weather - not much wind. Probably enough to sail, but I've somebody to work with tomorrow, so none of that...
Wednesday 4 June 2008
Wednesday
- someone I know mentioned they had the same problem with their Verizon
phone, that of going dead in out-of-service areas after only a few
hours. They solved it by turning the phone off...
A long day. Out in the flood plain in the blasting afternoon winds. Still getting over the shin splints from Sunday's hike.
Tuesday 3 June 2008
Tuesday
- a nice day. The marine layer kept it cool until midday, and even then
a sweater was wearable. Not much wind.
I ran into the old Verizon out-of-service-area hobgoblin again. When
out of contact the new phone - just like the old - runs the battery
down in just a few hours. I suppose it's broadcasting continuously,
hoping to hear from a cell tower. If human ears could hear in the
gigahertz EM bands, we'd hear it piping away from the back pack:
"Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco..."
Anyway, it was stone dead by the time we got back home. Fortunately it didn't lose any data.
Sailing.
A couple of sailing blog pages:
- Zac
Sunderland and Intrepid.
A kid who wants to circumnavigate the world in an Islander 36...at 16
years of age.
- Whitworth and Crozier in Berrimillia. In their 60's, I think.
Monday 2 June 2008
Monday
- up at four, back to work. Not a lot to say there.
My friend called back to say that the old UNIX stuff was coming back,
and we briefly discussed parallel processing as applied to
finite
difference codes. They hooked up the Linux machine and it seems to be
working fine, so that's good.
Sunday_1 June 2008
Sunday
- lazed about in the morning, much to the delight of the cats. In the
afternoon my brother and I went for a hike in the San Gabriels.
Originally we were going to do a hike out by Mt. Waterman, but decided
that we didn't care to drive so far. Instead we opted for Strawberry
Peak, a shortish hike, only 3.3 miles each way, and a thousand or so
feet of elevation. The weather cooperated, and what would have been a
dry and hot hike later in the season was a nice stroll along a well
maintained trail almost all the way.
Almost. The last mile being an extremely bad trail, near vertical in
spots, quite narrow and passing through avenues of thorns and cacti.
Ouch. Even though I was wearing long pants, still the occasional needle
punctured me.
Nonetheless, it was fun, and the view from the top, 6600' or so, was
stupendous. Despite the haze we could see Mt. Wilson observatory across
the way, and the hills and mountains fading away to the north. They say
that Strawberry is part of the front range, which I suppose means that
it fronts the LA basin.
I was huffing and puffing - my brother never broke a sweat. Bah.
We're thinking of the Grand Canyon again this fall, south rim to north
rim, so I need to get back into shape.
