I just swam a 4000, spent an hour varnishing the boat, then scrubbed all the grime off the bathroom floor. As long as I'm on this little manic kick, I might as well do this too. So, uh.. Long time, no talk! How's it going?

To tell the truth, the last four months have been a grey (or "gray") and dreary blur. Well, these last couple months anyway, when fall started up with a vengeance. Before that.. I can't remember now. There were some weddings, I started building a boat then I bought another one, didn't wind up taking another two weeks on the Lady Washington, Polish Festival, and then the sun disappeared. I spent the summer waiting for summer to start, is what happened. And now it's over.



(Also, they're building a condo behind us and construction starts at 7 AM. So we've been a bit sleep deprived.)

The little boat's almost done: I'm just about done with all the woodwork, started painting, now I need to figure out the rigging and put the sails together. Since I'm sewing them together by hand, it might be spring before I'm done. In that case, I should just throw something together out of polytarp just to get the sail plan and rigging sorted out and make sure she floats before putting too much work in.

And the big boat is a Thistle, a 17 foot open boat named Sparrow. (A fellow Coot pointed out that the name comes from Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons.) We've been out on her a few times and had a lot of fun, a couple times on the Willamette and a trip up to Timothy Lake on Mount Hood. Here's Molly's photos from Timothy Lake.

What else? Swimming, yep—now that the pool's open I'm back on that, getting ready for next spring's 2K race. The 4000 was my personal distance record, finished in 55:40, just a hair under 1:24 per 100. I need to get my pace up—aiming for under 1:20—but when I push harder it seems like I just get more tired and don't go any faster. I should probably be doing intervals instead of distance, but it's more fun to say I swam farther than I ever have before.

Correction:

Molly just pointed out that "sparrow" and "swallow" are, in fact, different words. So the boat has nothing at all to do with the stories. But I hear they're very good, anyway.