It's My Blog

What is a blog?  What is the purpose?  Who is it for?  Why write it at all?

I've been wrestling with deciding the purpose of my blog.  I guess most things are subjective and personal, so I've decided I'll write whatever I like in it.  Such as good days, bad days, feelings, or whatever comes to mind.  I think about writing it or updating it but then I think, who's going to read it anyway or I'm to tired or just to lazy and it's not that important at the moment.  The conclusion........It's for me, if others wish to read it........that's great.  I'd rather be hated for who I'am.....then  loved for who I'm not.  A blog should be personal and not what others expect but what's on a persons mind or what they may wish to share.  It should not be critiqued or dissected or spell-checked, it's neither good or bad.  My entire life I've always maintained that whatever one does with their life, they should do it for themselves not for others.  Do what makes you happy inside, be you.  If your a contrarian (yes it's a word even though spell check doesn't recognize it) 

con·trar·i·an

kənˈtre(ə)rēən,kän-/

noun

noun: contrarian; plural noun: contrarians

1. 1.

   a person who opposes or rejects popular opinion, esp. in stock exchange dealing.

adjective

adjective: contrarian

1.

opposing or rejecting popular opinion; going against current practice.

then be proud of who you are or what you do.  As the old cliche goes, it's for the good the bad AND the ugly.  So, with that being said, I'll write whatever comes to mind in here.  It may be for sharing an experience, a place or a time.  It may be related to our boat, it may be related to my life or about the person who cut me off in traffic......who knows.

Life doesn't always turn out they way you want it to and sometimes it will throw the proverbial lemons that everyone makes metaphorical lemonade out of, I prefer iced tea personally.  Life is what you make it and luck plays no part in it, there's no such thing as "luck"  So don't let the distance between where you are and where you want to be determine the path your life travels.  The greater that distance, the greater the overwhelming feeling you'll never close the gap, or the feeling of hopelessness or discontent.  Focus on the goal or the result and try to find the positive experience of the journey along the way and it doesn't matter what "they" say, the journey isn't always the best or most pleasant part. There's no guarantee the destination you are aiming for is where you'll want to be when the train stops.  Sometimes the things we think we want aren't what we really wanted when we get them, that's OK, grab the bucket list and hop on a different train.  Douglas Adams said "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I may have ended up where I needed to be" Life is made up of all these platforms that we choose to get on or get off of.  Just go where you want to be!  Life is far to short to waste it on despair if it's time to jump on a different train, end that chapter and start a new one.

 Hell, buy a new train, bicycle, maybe a race car or God forbid........maybe a boat!

 

        

cAPITAL lETTERS!

It's been a long couple of months.  The weather has turned a lot colder and we are beginning to wonder if we should have brought a snow shovel.  Last night I was up sick at 3am and it was rough.  All day a turning stomach, headache and just the "run over by a train" feeling.  The show must go on though.  Many questions but few answers, time will tell.  There is still that strange part of me that believes I should be at home working.  When you arrive somewhere you thought you wanted to be, it seems odd that there is always a little voice telling you maybe you should be at home, maybe you should be more responsible, is it just home sickness or is it fear of the unknown.

That's what's so weird about following a dream like this.  If you listen to the little voices you will always find a reason why not to do something.  You will always justify failure or lack of motivation or an abundance of fear.  Then there's the other little voice that says you have conquered much bigger things than this, you have overcome bigger obstacles and you have always persevered in the end, not truly knowing what motivated you to completion in the end.  Was it spite, was it stupidity, was it pride or was it sheer determination.

We are told constantly how exciting and fortunate we are to be in such a position of choices and options.  Those are the comments that reinforce the feeling I really am crazy.  I could be sitting at home in front of the big screen TV accomplishing nothing other than consumption of large quantities of junk "couch potato" food and filling my intellect with brain junk food from the LED screen calling my name each time I come in the door and kicking off my shoes.  I know it's not healthy but the wrong part of my brain tells me I deserve it, relax it's been a long day or night.  TV and the like has sure corrupted the human psyche into believing it deserves to be a part of daily life. Why is that?

"STUFF" is the other corruption of the human mind.  We deserve that new car and we need that new motorcycle and big TV and cruise and fishing trip and new sled and.....and.....and....  We were there once,with the new custom built home, fancy truck blah blah blah, all surrounded by status.  One day we realized, hey!, that's not whats important.  Family,  your kids and little things.  We won't be around forever.  One day your 20, the next your in your 40's and no matter how you explain this to your own kids, they can't wrap their brains around it.  Neither could we when we were that age.  We thought we would live forever, were invincible and we would never get old.

Follow your dreams, don't be afraid to act like a child with your child even without your child, play outside, shut off the TV, enjoy your life, your friends, your kids or your favorite hobby.  Life is far to short to spend it acquiring things you can't afford to impress people you don't even like.  Learn what benevolence is or what humility is.  Turn off family guy or the simpsons and no I didn't capitalize either of those, they aren't important enough in life at all to warrant capitals, I've never even watched them.  Did you ever notice an iphone corrects words like walmart or iphone and inserts a capital "W" or capital "I" but doesn't capitalize God, seriously?  Even my spellcheck while I'm blogging is capitalizing them as I type.  That's messed up steve jobs, if God doesn't deserve a capital you sure as hell don't!

Don't let the world or "they" dictate what should be important or what should have a capital, decide for yourself.  In the end, we make the difference, we can change the world.  One letter at a time.

     

Is There Life?

I haven't been blogging in here as I spend most of the time on the website.  I have a lot to say but don't have the energy to say it.  Same ol same ol............running around all the time or working on the boat.  At the end of the day it's off to the communal parking lot shower, walk down to the slip, have dinner, work on the computer, maybe watch a movie then crash.  Up again, rinse, repeat.  Seriously, what in the world caused this lack of common sense to tackle such a venture.  I could rant today about money but that's a rant for another day.  I dunno, I dunno, I dunno is all I can come up with, it's like my brain is in a perpetual state of denial or disbelief.  Give me strength? give me sanity? give me anything to maintain and/or acquire some sort of logic from all this.  I dunno, I dunno!

Are We In Yet?

This one will be quick.  We have been getting back to our room around 9pm eating dinner, doing puter and paperwork, unwinding then getting up and doing it all over again.  Tomorrow is the big day..........the proverbial sink or swim.  The boat gets launched and back in the water tomorrow.  Still have lots to do and waiting for parts as usual.  Hopefully the hurricane will miss us and we can head out asap.  If not we won't be able to leave until next week after the hurricane passes.  Here are a few pics of what we've been up to since my last post.  This blogging thing is a pain in the rump!

We designed, ordered and installed!

Bow Decals

Extrusion From Hell FINALLY Installed

Prepping Engine For Launching Tomorrow

Night All!

A Day In The Life

Get up!........Get Up!.........Get Up!
Nope, that's not the wife or the teenagers......even funnier (they don't get out of bed until the very last second)  That was my back, slapping my conscience mind because of the state it's left in each morning after another night in this hotel bed.  Peeking out the curtains to see if it's raining, grab a cup of the brown coloured liquid they call coffee that's a major part of what the hotel calls the grab-n-go complimentary breakfast.  A hot bowl of a gooey flavourless substance called instant oatmeal while watching the weather channel.  The whole while 50 things going through my brain trying to see into the future as to how this day will play out.

Grab the keys, planner, work shoes, teens and cat and head out to the truck (not always in that order)  Head to Bacons Sails & Marine Supplies.  Arrive at Bacons, see Collin, Gavin, Grant and look around for Rob (haven't seen Gary for a few days).  We know all these names as we make our daily trip there almost every day.  Talk to Rob about battery banks, do we want 6 volt or 12 volt?  6 of those or 2 of these, amp hours, recharge cycles, prices, warranties, how long to order, when would they be in and what are the core charges?  The whole time Grant popping in the picture while him and I are discussing LED lighting choices for the mast Tri-Colour, or warm or cool for the anchor light and the port and starboard nav lights, what are the watts?, oh wait, it doesn't say they list them in lumens.  The kids pop in to interject for 3 minutes trying to match up the heavy wall 1 1/2 inch hose pieces they found in the back room, no wait I think they are 1 5/8 inch, no they won't work, that seems pricey for such a short piece, ok, ok, I'll talk to Gavin and see if he can adjust the price.

Hmmm, what else, oh wait we need to check into a replacement for the completely destroyed VHF antenna, most new ones are male ends, ours is a female end............of course it is, it`s much more difficult to than simply grabbing one of those.  Need a new plan, do we cut the cable at the top of the mast and put on a different fitting or do we spend a ridiculous amount of time searching for a replacement that will work?  Hey there's a as new manual bilge pump on the shelf for 115.00, oh wait, we need a rebuild kit for the manual bilge pump, that will be 39.00 for the kit and a new seal for 12.00, ok go ahead and order it and put that one back on the shelf.........wait, wait, you need the washer kit as well to rebuild your old one and that's another 49.00.  Ok ok grab that one of the shelf again and forget ordering the rebuild kits.  Hey! we need to find a new shroud anchor for the flag halyards, 4 new stanchion bases, yes we need those ordered to.  Just put the 4 stanchions in the new storeroom you had built for our stockpile of parts, sails and odds and ends we will be picking up that we don't have room on the boat for at the moment for the flea market look of tools sprawled everywhere.

Well these are 445.00 each and yes you need 2, those are 39.995 and you need 4 of those, oh and 20...count em 20 tubes of 4200 for the aluminum toe rail installation (the aluminum extrusion that costs 1000.00 ( yes 1000.00)) for a 34 foot piece and we need 2 of em to replace the 15 foot piece of broken teak toe rail they want 3000.00 to 4000.00 to repair and replace.  Oh and btw the tubes of 4200 are 15.79 x 20, just for caulking!  Don't forget the 560.00 for the new anchor and the 275.00 to have the sail cleaned from all the bugs that moved in and sold condos in our sail for 4 years while we were gone.  A new outboard @ about 2500.00, bimini replaced for another 900.00, 2000.00 to pay the marina bill and have the boat put back in the water.  THE LIST NEVER ENDS!

Jump back in the truck and head towards the marina, half way there....."oh crap we forgot about the filters"  It's almost 2:30pm and we still have nothing accomplished on the boat yet for today.

This is the 1st half of our daily schedule.  I'd type the rest of the day but now I have a headache and this post would be 15 pages long, oh and it's 11:16pm.  This is just an example of each day since we made it back to Annapolis to rescue our boat and lose our sanity.........I'm stressed just typing it.

"Livin the dream man.................livin the dream!

Hey...That's my truck down there!

Me at the top of the mast about 75 feet off the ground!

It's starting to resemble a boat!

Aluminum extrusion

Engine room

The First Blog!

Well here it is.  The first blog.  While I've always considered myself pretty tech savvy, blogging or face-cracking (what I call peeps who live on Facebook) has never been on my bucket list.  However this adventure we are on seems to cry out. Blog, blog, blog.  Some-days I'm sure it will give me laughs, others frustration and lastly some days a sense of accomplishment.

I'm sitting here, in a hotel room with every muscle I own and some I didn't know I even had writhing in exhaustion, pounding away on a keyboard on a tiny table by a tiny light.  Mustering up the energy to type this took a lot of convincing and bribery to my sub-conscience mind that it would only take a few minutes and maybe......just maybe someday someone may even read it.

Just to get up to speed quickly we have been in Annapolis now for approximately 4 weeks preparing our sailboat Sparta ready for her first major undertaking.  What an adventure it has proved to be.

Ok that's enough for my first blog.  My sub-conscience is whispering "this will take a lot longer than a few minutes, so catch it up to speed another night".  So for now, it looks like that's what will have to happen.  Maybe a paragraph each blog to slowly explain the whole story would be a much better idea.