www.opaque.net/~dave

Another boat floated

2008-09-13T00:19:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Molly and I went out to Sturgeon Lake on Sauvie Island to launch the new canoe, a fairly simple stitch-and-glue build that nevertheless took a ridiculous amount of sanding. The result of all that sanding is a very attractive little canoe (if you overlook all the places in the fiberglass that didn't quite come clear). We had a bit of an adventure before we could float the boat, though: First, we get to Sturgeon Lake and find a mud flat. We were there a few weekends before in the dory with Molly's mom and there was enough water to float, though I did dredge up mud with the oars a number of times and it felt like the boat was dragging in places. I'm not sure if the river level's gone down or we just caught low tide. So we head back to the general store to ask about another place to drop the canoe and about half a mile out the engine just stops. It turns over fine, but won't start up. I try all the tricks I knew for getting it started, and no luck. Finally, I call my Dad to ask about problems they've had with the Landcruiser in the past--I remember it always had problems with vapor lock. He runs me through all of the things I tried, still no luck, then he has me open the hood and check for spark. Molly turns the key, and no spark in the cap, but a big spark over on the side: the cap had fallen off the coil. Plug it back in, and it starts right up. Now I know how the ignition works!

The guy at the store directs us to the north side of the island, and we put in at McNary Lake and start paddling out. The canoe is very shaky, like the first canoe I built, and Molly suggests that we're too high in the boat. We beach and I unscrew her seat: much better. After a while, I take my seat out, too. I'll glue new stringers in just above the chine and see how that does. We're weaving all over the place and I worry that it's somehow a design flaw in the boat, but I realize we've got a tailwind pushing the stern around; on the way back it's much better, even pulling against the wind.

That first canoe never got another chance, unfortunately--maybe I just needed to lower the seats. Still, it made a nice planter:

Austin to PDX

2008-06-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

We've been back for a week now, and easily settling back in to work and home. It's still not quite summer here, but the weekend should be nice--the first of many nice weekends, we hope. If not, we'll just pack up the car and head back to Austin. (I joke!) The drive back was much like the drive down: a lot of sitting in the car, watching scenery go by. Plenty of scenery, though--we drove through Santa Fe, Arches, Death Valley, and Yosemite along the way. I may write more about our Austin adventure later, or maybe not. In the mean time--or in stead--here's my photos from Arches:

Another year, another 2K

2008-05-07T21:05:00.000-07:00

A couple weekends ago Laura and I swam the Capitol 2K, as we did last year. And just like last year, I got third place in my division. But it was a very different race this year—not just because it was my second time instead of my first, or because I have better goggles and could actually see what was going on around me. Here's some interesting (okay, interesting to me..) comparisons in the results:

The divisions were split in half: last year, I was 30-39, this year 30-34. There were 14 swimmers in mens' 30-39 last year; 11 in the 30-34 group this year.
Overall, there were fewer swimmers. Attendance was down about 10%.
Also, not many returns from last year. Of the names I looked up, only about a quarter of the swimmers this year did the race last year.
Those that did, however, swam about 2 minutes faster than last year. (The weather was much better, for one..)
I was only around 30 seconds faster.
Last year there was a gap of a few minutes between the guy ahead of me in my division and over a minute behind me. This year, second was 16 seconds ahead and fourth was 13 seconds behind.

I think this will motivate me to get in better shape for next year, and to remember to keep pushing harder. Just a little bit faster and I can get second place. Just a little bit slower and I don't get another cool little plaque to put on my desk.

Austin!

2008-04-29T21:37:00.000-07:00

So, after a month lost in Carlsbad Caverns, we've finally arrived in Austin!

No, not really. We've been here on West Annie Street for three weeks now, though it seems longer than that. Or maybe shorter.. No, three weeks: that's about right. Long enough to settle down, fall into a routine, and for the wide-eyed gasping novelty to wear off. But not nearly enough to do many of the things we'd planned. If the story opens with us driving out and establishing a home here, this is the end of the first act. Tomorrow I get back behind the wheel and drive to New Orleans, where Molly's been for the last week. That's always been the midpoint of our adventure: 'Nawlins, then drive back Saturday and I swim the Cap 2K again on Sunday. After that, another few weeks before the calendar tells us we have to fly back to Portland for a bit, return to Austin, then drive back home.

I'd like to be back home, off the calendar. But I might like having two homes, too.

Austin v. PDX

2008-04-06T09:04:00.000-07:00

A comparison:

Photo dump: Carlsbad Caverns

2008-04-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this from the Motel 6 in Carlsbad, New Mexico. We did the walking tour at the Caverns yesterday, and here's the proof. Today Scott and Kaki and I will be touring Spider Cave; Molly and Sky and Egan are off at Slaughter Canyon right now. And tomorrow night we'll be in Austin!

Back to Gray

2008-03-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

So where were we? The 16th? The rest of the trip was uneventful, in a good way. No more scary food, no getting lost or kicked out of the country. On Sunday, Cabel and Steve headed back to the states, leaving Mike and me to fend for ourselves. We did some sightseeing, bought presents for everyone back home, took it easy—a nice break from the constant running around at the beginning of the trip. The flight back was similarly uninteresting: We took off, eight hours later we landed. I've been feeling listless and tired since we got back, and I can't tell if it's recoil from a week running around constantly engaged, jet lag, or the miserable weather here.

Next Monday we're leaving for Austin, driving south through California, across Arizona and New Mexico, through the sage and brush of West Texas, into the rolling Hill Country that still feels like home.

3/13-15: Photo update

2008-03-14T01:57:00.001-07:00

The last few days have been mercifully uneventful compared to the first two—if we'd kept going at that pace, I'd be a gibbering wreck right now. We've seen and done a lot of things since the last post, but I don't have many stories to tell that aren't just "and then we did this." So I'll just do a photo dump here (many thanks to Cabel's Fancy Zoom) and give a brief outline of events. Click a photo to zoom!

3/13: Visited Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damarcy at Namco Bandai. While having coffee after lunch we met the guy who created Pac Man! In the evening we went to Muscle Park and Sega Joypolis.

3/14: Visited the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Gibli Museum. Met Kohno-san at his web company, then we all went to a not-very-impressive British Pub for Steve's birthday. Amusing story: we ordered the "Party Platter", an assortment of their fried appetizers. It arrives with salsa, guac, and sour cream, none of which have anything to do with the foodstuffs on the plate.

3/15: Went out to Kashiwa to hang out with Noby and Kaori and the boys at their apartment. Lunch at Bikkuri ("Surprising") Donkey. Dinner at a cool sushi restaurant where you order on a touch screen at the table and your order is routed to your table by a network of conveyer belts.

3/12: cont.

2008-03-13T00:24:00.000-07:00

Next, we're off to Namjatown. We were warned that Namjatown was no Disneyland, and no kidding: It's sort of like the Enchanted Forest of Tokyo, but built by one of the largest game companies in Japan instead of an eccentric with endless truckloads of concrete. But we weren't there for the second-rate amusements, we were there to kick ass and eat gyoza. And we were all out of ass.

Gyoza Stadium isn't so much a stadium as a collection of food stands in the traditional Japanese style. There's ten or so little huts, each a counter where a friendly lady takes your order and a small kitchen in back where the chef does his gyoza thing. It's very confusing at first: Each has a giant menu describing, in Japanese, what their gyoza's all about. (I can spot the kanji for gyoza, and that's about it.) So, dozens of choices, all indistinguishable from each other. Usually I'm fine with not being able to read menus because I can just ask for something by name—but here I can't exactly say, "I'll have the gyoza, please!" After a few minutes of total befuddlement, I realize that there are picture menus next to the counter, so I can at least point. They were all delicious, of course.

The other fun thing was we found the Miracle Fruit Cafe. "Miracle fruit" is an odd fruit (a drupe, I'll have you know) that blocks the sour receptors on your tongue. Suck on some miracle fruit for a few minutes and it changes your perception of taste. We ordered the experiment kit, which comes with test tubes of different liquids, slices of lemons and limes, plus other things like kombu and stinky dried fish. I didn't get good tongue coverage, so some sour slipped by, but straight lemon juice tasted like lemonade. Lemon and lime wedges, wonderful. Vinegar still burned the throat, but the initial recoil was gone. Tomatoes and tomato juice were sweeter but still tasted like tomato. The rest was still god awful dreadful.

So, feeling sick with a stomach full of vinegar and lemon juice, I learned something: Your tongue is the guardian of your stomach, and deserves respect. Don't play tricks on it, and don't drink lemon juice.

We had a quick stop at the hotel, then it was off to I-don't-know-where to meet a guy for dinner, a Coda fan, really nice guy who works at Sony Playstation on the PS3 web browser. We picked him up at his office and saw the swank Sony digs, then went off in search of the restaurant he'd picked, through the bitter cold, and faint with hunger. Okay, it wasn't that bad, but we were sure glad when we finally found it. It turned out to be a traditional Japanese place, though I'm sure it's much more nuanced than that, that it's a particular style from some region and era of Japan—these layers of meaning are lost on me. (I was, I admit, disappointed that it wasn't curry. I still haven't had curry this trip.)

But back to the rambling: We've been on our feet for two days straight (and I'm sure the lack of sleep hasn't helped) and now we have to wedge ourselves under the table—and there's no cheater pit for your legs like in American "authentic" Japanese restaurants. My legs instantly fell asleep and sent out shooting pains to complain about their treatment. Despite that, and the embarrassing outgassing of my socks, the food was really enjoyable and the other Japanese guys our host had invited were all great company. When we got to the main course, gas grills were brought to the table and a stew was set cooking. It looked and smelled good, and I was pleased with my ability to eat and even enjoy unrecognizable foods. And then I saw the bowl of egg-shaped things, random sizes but all pinky-white. The guy next to me: "Do you know what these are? They're baby eggs! Unhatched eggs!"

I always feel I should be open to new experiences, and Japan has a great way of giving to them to you with no effort whatsoever on your behalf. The trick is to not think about it, I told myself; just open your mind and experience it. Also, it's probably just like a hard boiled egg, no problem. So in it goes, chew, and there's the surprise: it pops and some kind of.. liquid floods my mouth.

I should have expected that. Japanese food has a cruel sense of humor with us foreigners.

Luckily, I didn't gag like I did last time I was in this situation, and once the proto-proto-chicken fluid headed down my throat past the cholesterol-loving part of the tongue, I found it was actually really good. (Mike agreed, and thanked me for warning him about the surprise.) After this, there was a bit more food—though nothing so dramatic—and the rest of the meal followed its pleasant, congenial path while my lack of sleep started catching up again. I felt like a kid out past his bedtime, and I just wanted someone to carry me home.

Finally, at last, we were done. I prised my poor, useless legs out from under the table and beat the life back into them. I shambled out, we said our goodbyes and very-nice-to-meet-yous, and we packed ourselves into the subway car, stuffed like a sausage with the hordes of people just now getting off work at 11PM.

3/12: Lag

2008-03-12T07:55:00.000-07:00

As I was fearing, I woke up at 5 AM this morning after a few hours of off and on sleep. Mike's a snorer, I should have remembered that. Must get earplugs today. Starbucks wasn't open (yes, I'd go to an honest to gosh Japanese coffee shop before Starbucks, but there don't seem to be any..) for another hour, so I walked around Shinjuku, down to Yoyogi and back. The streets were empty save for a few straggling drunk kids and the advance team for Tokyo's assault on the day: Sidewalk sweeping old ladies, white-gloved cops, and delivery guys. Seven AM, and back to Starbucks.

I've never sat in a Starbucks before, typing away on my MacBook like a cliche (I'll have you know it was straight coffee, not a venti soy whatever), but I'm in Japan so I think I'll get away with it. Also, a couple hundred yards from me are dozens of Japanese who really should know better lined up to buy Krispy Kreme donuts by the multiple dozens.

When everyone else finally woke up we went to the amazing and terrifying food level of the enormous Takashimaya department store to hunt for breakfast: random filled dough products, selected entirely on appearance instead of ignorant examination of their labels. One turned out to be tuna fish, which I really can't stand, so I gave it to Mike and we popped in to a corner store to find a replacement. Now, as I mentioned last time, people here seem to have an obsession with packaging that I find a bit excessive. So when the lady at Takashimaya put each bread item in its own little bag, then the pair into yet another bag, I thought I could offset that the tiniest bit at the convenience store: The kid rang up my two items and pulled off a plastic bag from the rack; I said I didn't need a bag, idimasen ("don't need", as far as I know); he nodded, turned around, and threw the unopened bag into the trash.

Well, at least he saved me the trouble.

There's plenty more to the day, including the most disgusting yet delicious thing I've ever eaten, but it's late, I've had somewhere around four hours of sleep in the last 48, and I'm starting to have odd physical dissociation sensations. So,

To be continued..

3/11: The Longest Day

2008-03-11T16:52:00.000-07:00

By the clock, I woke up on Monday at 9-something and got to bed around midnight, 38-odd hours later. It was really only a 20 hour day, but I was near hallucinating by the end of it. Half of the day was spent on an airplane. Here's the first of what will no doubt be many pictures of weird signage, from the airplane head:

"Cups below. BUT DON'T FILL THEM WITH WATER!"

The first thing I learned today, which I should have remembered from China, is that if you ask a question in Japanese you'll get an answer in Japanese. And you won't understand a word of it.

Second thing I learned is that Tokyo is no place for throwing stuff away (which is funny, considering the Japanese obsession with maximizing the packaging-to-contents ratio) or for using a laptop on your hotel room bed. There are apparently no public trash cans anywhere in the city, and the only electrical outlets in this room are over at the desk. Curses!

a short video.

Big in Japan

2008-03-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

Mike (left, above) and I are at the airport, waiting for our ten-hour flight to Tokyo here at the beginning of a very long day. When we land, it'll be tomorrow evening. We'll have another very long day next week, but we'll land before we take off. (I know that's a cute way of putting it, but it's still always fun.)

I brought Pez dispensers for everyone!

Reports to continue through the week..

Catching Up

2007-10-18T23:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Can't Talk Now

2007-08-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

Building a boat. I'll call you when I'm done.

Get your June in

2007-06-27T22:13:00.000-07:00

There's only three more days of International Accordion Awareness Month and National Dairy Month. So go play a polka and eat some ice cream! Or just drink a glass of milk and be aware of accordions. Most importantly, be aware of how the word is spelled: I-O-N, not I-A-N. (Some posit that "accordian" is the feminine spelling, but I don't buy it.) I did pull out the 120 bass one evening at the beginning of the month—probably the first time all year—and everything came back fairly easily. I'd like to spend more time playing, but there's lots of other things I'd like to spend more time doing also. Updating my web journal isn't one of them, however.

The month started with Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftan paying their now-annual visit to Portland for the Rose Festival. I spent the first weekend helping out with tourists, but it was wasn't quite the madhouse it was last year: then, we had a shortage of crew and people were waiting three hours in line to come see the ships; this year, they had a whole mess of Evergreen students for crew and they were charging five bucks to visit instead of asking for donations. I don't think there was a line all weekend. The evening sails were all booked, which meant, what with the full crew, that I didn't get to go sailing. I'm hoping to get on for another two weeks in September, but we'll see what else is already planned then. Don't want to miss the Polish Festival!

My birthday was on the 7th, and I think we just went out for wings instead of doing anything fancy. I'm saving the party for October, for my 33 1/3rd birthday, one third of a century old. A pretty good first third, I think.

The next week was WWDC, where we found out that Apple had come up with a really sweet way to make apps for the iPhone: you build a web page. Hey, thanks! The rest of the conference was great, though: lots of review of stuff they released years ago but am only just learning. (Bindings are finally starting to make sense!) Good to see lots of old friends, as usual, and I didn't eat too much horrible food or drink too much. Mostly. Oh, and we won another Design Award..

I talked Molly into taking the dinghy sailing class I took last summer at Willamette Sailing Club with me, to see if she'd take to it or if I'd have to find some other attractive woman to go boating with. Either she had an even better time than I'd hoped or she's a much better liar than I thought. We haven't had a chance to take Ellen the dory out again, but there hasn't been much incentive from the weather.

And, most recently, I've started demolishing the house. It's fun! The previous owners had framed in a couple of walls in the basement to make small rooms: one for growing pot, according to the neighbors. That room almost has more outlets than the rest of the house, so it's not too surprising. I've wanted to turn it back into an open basement since we moved in, so I finally just started pulling down drywall and knocking down framing this weekend. It looks great: light comes in from the windows now, air can circulate and help keep the mold down, and we can reseal the foundation walls. Also, I realized with the construction going on around us, this is a perfect time to have someone come in and get rid of the six inches of gravel the previous owners put around the house. We might have a real yard some day!

So, yes, June. June has been good.

Season Closer

2007-05-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

I swam in my first open water swim last weekend in Austin, the Capitol 2K in Town Lake. I think the best thing about it was seeing the look on native Austinites' faces when I said I was going to swim/had swum in Town Lake: instant, visceral horrification. The reason is, nobody EVER swims in Town Lake (which isn't really a lake but just a chunk of the Colorado River)—but the reason for that is it's illegal, something about strong currents and sewage runoff. When did a little fecal coliform bacteria ever hurt anyone? Oh, right..

Anyway, this being my first open water swim, I had no idea what to expect. I knew there would be a swarm at the beginning, and I'm happy to report I didn't get kicked in the face and I didn't feel any noses break on my heels. It felt like I kept a pretty good pace despite not having a wall to turn off of every 25 yards. And I only got one mouthful of water when the wind kicked up some chop.

I radioed my number ahead, and Molly spotted me as I went under the bridge:

I finished in 38:16, 55th overall out of the 211 that finished (8 didn't finish in under an hour and were disqualified), and third place out of 14 in the 30-39 Mens' division. If you cull the high schoolers who were competing in the state Open Water Championships, that's actually 27th. So forget I said 55th. I can swim 2K in 30 minutes in the pool so I was a bit disappointed with my time, but I just got an email telling me I get some kind of token award for third place—that makes me feel better. I'll do better next year (if only because one of the guys who beat me was 39 this year).

It's odd that the participants skew to older: Both the Mens' 40-49 and 50-59 categories had more than twice as many entries as mine did. The two guys I fought to the finish line (one of 'em beat me because I tried to swim around the finish line marker—I need new goggles) turned out to both be 40-49 and got fifth and sixth place. Laura thinks it's the midlife "oh crap I have to get back in shape" push, and I can't think of any other explanation. Whatever it is, I sure hope I can still keep up with those guys ten years from now.

Launching Ellen

2007-04-30T15:18:00.000-07:00

There's still a bit to finish up the dory, but she's got a coat of paint on the bottom and I couldn't stand to wait another two weeks to get her in the water—plus, it might be July before we see another day like this. I wanted to see what adjustments needed to be made for the final product so we threw the dory on top of the LandCrusher and drove up to Vancouver Lake to see if she floats.

Floats, indeed! Molly took the first turn at the oars and I sat back and ate brie and crackers. Not a bad life.

The boat's named Ellen, after Molly's grandmother who recently passed away. She's quick and very easy to balance: I could stand up without any trouble. Molly wound up perched right at the edge of the seat, so the oarlocks need to move forward a few inches. Other than that, everything seems to be perfect.

After a return to shore to visit the bathroom, we traded places and I took over the propulsion, taking us across the lake to the island. We found a swarm of very large mosquitos there and then we quickly rowed away. The water was a little choppier on the way back, but the dory handled it with no problem—no surprise, considering this is the same kind of boat fishermen used to take out into the ironically-named Pacific.

So, now we have a boat! And when summer comes, at long last, we'll spend long hours floating around doing nothing in particular.

Now if only it had a sail..

Wiki-jaded and Dory

2007-04-11T22:35:00.000-07:00

(I know, I know: two posts in the same week. Don't worry, I won't hurt myself.)

Wikipedia has fallen from grace in my eyes. Of course I know it's full of errors and half the pages are written by anime fanboys and you shouldn't ever believe what you read, but I never thought about all the people with good intentions and poor reading comprehension. It's about asparagus: We ate asparagus the other night and, as often happens after one eats asparagus, the topic of asparagus pee came up. I'd read somewhere that some scientists had discovered that everybody produces asparagus pee but only some people can smell it, or something like that--so I checked Wikipedia to verify that. The asparagus entry reported that, in fact, a study showed that some people produce it and others don't, and some people can smell it and others don't, and there's no correlation between the two. I read this out to Molly in my "isn't that interesting" voice and proudly filed away another piece of useless trivia I can blurt out at an inappropriate moment. Except I started to wonder about that--no correlation? That's certainly odd--and I did what I've never done before: I followed up on the reference. I read the article summarizing not a single study, but two: one examining production of the suspected agents in asparagus pee smell and another, completely different, study looking at detection. Both found variation, and neither had anything to do with the other. (At least, not that the article indicated.) Someone misread the article and added an incorrect summary to the Wikipedia page, leading the innocent reader to believe something totally false. If not for me--ME!--endless generations of mankind would labor under the mistaken impression that there's no correlation between asparagus pee-ers and asparagus pee smellers. The correlation is not known to be zero, it's simply not known.

For the record, I both produce and detect. Molly does not detect, but I know she produces.

With that out of the way, a dory update: I've faired the outside as much as I had the patience for, put a couple coats of primer on, and turned her upside down--er, right side up. Then I made a water level and levelled her out perfectly square and even. Cut and fit the ribs, then worked out a design for a removable center seat so that we can put in a sliding seat later if desired. Glued the ribs, and tonight I put fillets (glue along the seams) on the ribs and seat pieces. Today my package from Duckworks arrived, containing the oarlocks and sockets along with various sailmaking equipment that I won't be using any time soon. To do: bow and stern seats, fair the lumpy inside fillets, sand, sand, sand, rails outside (leaving inside until we know we've got the oarlocks in the right place), bow deck with a handle, cut a handle in the transom, primer, sand, primer, sand, paint all over, and she's ready to float! We might have her in the water weekend after next at this pace. Weather depending, as always.

Stuck on land

2007-04-10T23:52:00.000-07:00

The Lady Washington web site says they need volunteers for the spring, through the Rose Festival, but their volunteer coordinator told me today that they've got a bunch of Evergreen students on the schedule now--no room for Sailor Dave. Damn Greenies!

Laura told me about the Capital 2K, an open water swim in Town Lake at the beginning of May, right before Molly's birthday. I swam 2500 tonight at a not-so-great pace of somewhere around 1:22 (depending on how far off my count was), which would be 30:37 for the 2K. That actually beats all of the results from last year's Mens 30-39 category, but open water is very different from pool swimming. We'll go down for the swim and for Molly's birthday, and get the hell out of Portland.

I thought winter was the worst part about Portland winters, but it's actually spring. The daylight, the blooming trees, the occasional warm day have done nothing to ease the misery of the Portland winter--if anything it's worse, taunting and teasing us, reminding us that we won't get more than a few sunny days in a row, a week if we're lucky, until July. The winter is cold and dark, but you deal with it. Spring gets your hopes up then drops the rain and sleet and grey clouds all over them.

Neither of us want to face another winter--or spring--like this again, so we'll be migrant workers: we're spending the dark months in Austin next year, maybe March through June. I'm not quite sure how we'll pull it off, but we will. For our sanity, we have to.

Quick update

2007-03-28T21:49:00.000-07:00

It's another list-of-things post! Busy go-getters like me can't be bothered to write full paragraphs, you know. Soon, I won't even bother with punctuation.

We ate at the Claim Jumper in beautiful suburban Clackamas for Steve's birthday lunch today. NEVER eat at a Claim Jumper. Just.. trust me on this.

I swam two miles straight last night. Was aiming for 3000 yards, then figured I might as well go for the two (land) miles. I didn't check the time, but it felt like I kept my pace going through the whole thing, around 1:20 per 100.

I'm looking for something to replace Blogger and Flickr so that I have everything back on my own damn server again and I'm not part of some dreadful "community". What's the point of having a machine running (up 941 days) over at the server closet if all it's doing is serving mail? The GWT Google Toolkit looks really swell, and means I might not have to learn any stupid DHTML and Javascript and deal with browser bugs. Yeah, good luck.

I just glassed the skeg on the dory, which means we're just about to the fairing process. Then I have to figure out what to do on the inside, then paint, finish the oars and install their hardware, then we're good to go. I'm sure I'm missing something there..

After the endless frustration of Lost in Blue and my solemn oath to never play a game like that again, I fell victim to my masochistic streak and got the sequel. And, surprisingly, it looks like they ironed out a lot of the difficulties of the first one. You still spend a lot of time fishing and collecting firewood, and the girl will still starve to death in a cave filled with food and water, but I'm building a treehouse! A treehouse! Awesome!

Done with flickr

2007-03-06T00:12:00.000-08:00

Somehow, I just can't bring myself to sign up for a yahoo account in order to keep using flickr. I already HAVE a yahoo account, actually, that I set up to join a mailing list, but I don't feel like I need to put any more eggs in that basket. I've got my own server whirring away in the closet (I hit 1000 days uptime in a few months!), so I can do the hosting myself no problem. It's starting to bother me that all of this stuff is over there on their drives, not on my own machine. What else does flickr do for me? The interface is snappy, but hasn't changed at all in the last two years. I'm getting tired of the white background. There may be some things I could do with the API, but I left web development for a good reason: it's a pain in the ass. The social aspect of it was fun at first—I even went to a couple of the local meetups and met some cool people—but now it just seems noisy and impersonal.

So that's the reason, one of the reasons, I haven't posted in a while. I have a couple things in the queue—floating the canoe, starting on the next boat—but I have to figure out a new workflow: I'm done with flickr.

Setting the bar, resetting the bar

2007-02-16T11:34:00.000-08:00

Just like with my spice challenge, I set a goal and hit it too soon to feel much accomplishment. Last week I swam my 2000 at a pace of 1:22.5 per 100, so I set a target of 1:20, figuring it would take a few weeks. Nope, hit it last night. I'll go ahead and call out 1:15, even if it's a bit too hardcore. Better to have something to work for than a goal which doesn't mean anything.

And about the spice training: last time I went to PK I had 10 stars, and it was just about right..

Holy crap, I'm tired

2007-02-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

..but good tired.

On Thursday's mile (just under 25 mintues) I still had plenty of go left at the end so I decided I'd change up to a sea mile on my swims, add another 200 yards. But today my masochistic side took over and I did 3000 yards straight. Total time: 43 and a half, an overall pace of 1:27 per 100.

Yesterday I went back to the hardwood store, and I remembered to bring my tape measure this time. Bought enough marine plywood to build Molly's dory and some extra for starting on the cutter, and boards of mahogany, spruce, and fir for various bits. I never thought I'd pay $50 for a piece of wood.. I can start on the dory as soon as Canoe Two is out of the shed. The rails are on and I put on a final coat of epoxy tonight. Just have to slap on a few coats of urethane and she's ready to float.

I feel like I've said that before..

Shoot me

2007-01-30T22:43:00.000-08:00

I saw a faint streak of color in the sky when I left work at 6 tonight, and I now have hope that I'll make it through this miserable winter. It's sunny for a change, but windy and cold. How long until spring?

Until then, I'm passing the time with swimming and reading about boatbuilding: my mile tonight was back to just over 25 minutes, and I know more about the manufacture of sailcloth than I ever wanted.

We had the pile of cinderblock and the remaining old wall hauled away last week and built the new wall over the weekend. Much better!

I got a prescription for statins to help my slightly high cholesterol, but I ran it through the laundry.

I need to take more photos.

And.. that's all I can think of right now.

Boats for 2007!

2007-01-21T20:14:00.000-08:00

The wood store won't be getting another shipment of marine plywood for another couple weeks, so I'm getting the shed straightened out in preparation. Today I tore out the disgusting old workbench: not only was it too high and too deep, useful only as a very inconvenient place to dump junk, but it was covered in grease and dirt from the shed's previous life as an auto shop. In its place, I built a cute little bench-slash-storage bin:

I tried ripping the panels with my new table saw, but it kept getting wedged. Not sure if the fence was crooked or I wasn't feeding it straight, but I had to go for the circular saw on that. Hrm. It's disappointing to get a new tool and not be able to solve every problem with it. (Now I'm dying for a chance to do a compound miter cut.)

So what's next on the boatbuilding agenda? Now that the weather's cooperating a bit, I can get the rails on the canoe that's been sitting in the shed unloved for the last few months, put on a final coat of epoxy, and see if she floats. This one's going to coworker Ian since I don't really want a boat that I can't sail, and I'll need lots of space for one that will.

Specifically, this:

I found my boat! Turns out there's a couple lunatics down in New Zealand who have designed exactly the boat I want to build: a miniature cutter, straight out of the 1800s. Lots of lines and sails to play with, my very own tiny tall ship. I hadn't seen anything like this on a dinghy scale (because, well, it's just silly) so I'd resigned myself to doing everything blind—building a hull based on other designs, designing the rigging from what I can find in books, hoping I put the mast in the right place—and wasn't looking forward to spending whatever it's going to take to build the thing just to discover that it's hopelessly broken. I'm more than happy to put up $90 on plans drawn by people who might know what they're doing.

Know more than me, any rate.