Flying – a new category
Clearly my interests have taken a new direction. Actually, I rarely have a new interest, as I have had so many in the last that I might call it interest recycling. For example, I was a student pilot about 27 years ago, making it to about 45 hours of flight time before my flight logs and all were stolen from my car.
If you are a reader of this blog, know that you can concentrate your reading on any category that interests you. Simply look for the category list to the right and click on the word that matches your interest.
On the Oregon coast… with my boat
I’ve come down to the Oregon coast, thanks to my old friend Peter, who moved down to Manzanita, Oregon when he retired from the job I have now.
I’ve spent the first full day of my vacation shopping, writing on the beach, cooking, and doing some boat work! I took the cabin with me and did some painting. Above you can see a video of the painting I did, and see the view from the house. Amazingly nice view. The forecast was for rain, but….
Running out of time, but progress made
Running low on time, but made good progress on half the cabin.
Father’s Day… real and imagined.
Sunday, Father’s Day 2009.
A quick movie of my boat. Lot’s of work done on it today. A floor and one wall is actually lookng like a wall!
Another weekend with pretty good balance between should do and want to do. That’s one of the goals of life, isn’t it? It’s certainly one of my goals for every day.
I am out on my small front lawn again, typing into my Alphasmart. The grass out here has less surface space than the bed of a pickup truck, really just enough room for a couple of Adirondack style chairs, but it’s nestled into a small garden that’s filled with at least 40 different kinds of plants, ranging from strawberries to rhodies to a maple tree. No lawn mowing sounds filling the air in the neighborhood this evening, just the sounds of Alex working on his sneakbox boat and neighborhood kids running about. Nice sounds, happy sounds.
Above me I just noticed that the berries on our two story tall Oregon Grape are starting to make the transition from a dull flat green to a brilliant blue. I might make Oregon Grape pancake syrup again, a treat I’ve only made the time to enjoy once before. That’s the sort of thing that fills my “bucket list”, something sitting on the cusp of ordinary, but perhaps not quite. My lifestyle is amazingly far from self sufficient, but it’s something that holds a certain romantic appeal to me. By that I mean the notion of self-sufficiency is far more attractive to me than the reality of the day to day work and somewhat restricted faire should I ever have the discipline to truly pursue it. Besides, there are forces conspiring against me. Karen would rather have the color of the berries in the garden than on her flapjacks some weekend morning.
I was up by 5am today, as our dog is somewhat befuddled by the deck project, as her normal pathway to urinary relief has been removed for a few days while the contractor builds a new deck support structure, and Alex’s rather clever attempt at a temporary deck just isn’t what she’s used to. She is a creature of habit, a slave to the familiar really, and changes such as these mean she’d rather claw at the side of the house than simply jump up on the 4 foot square deck that Alex built. It was my turn to cater to her needs, so I let Karen sleep, rescued the dog from her self imposed backyard exile, and slipped into my jetted tub.
I may as well admit to all that I often sit in my tub for an hour or more, and I do with my computer! It’s a rather large but affordale contractors reject, one that simply needed some of the jetting plumbing replaced. I felt rather clever and frugal that day, now something like 20 years back. I lay a board across the tub and rest my battery powered laptop there, the world at my fingertips as the bubbles churn about me. Decadence defined, and just quirky enough that I don’t think I have admitted this to anyone before, a rather odd circumstance given how I seem to revel in the unsual most other moments in my life.
Then it was breakfast with the family, including Alex’s girlfriend Claire, a nice, though amazingly shy girl. She is certainly welcome at any family events, as she loves my son, and that’s the only requirement she need meet at this point.
My Father’s Day presents were all given with thoughts of my boat project in mind, lights for quiet evenings writing or reading while at anchor on some secluded bend in the river. I had asked for miniature candle lanterns, but tehnology has transformed candle lanterns so that they also include strategically placed high intensity LED lights, perfect for reading the screen of my wife’s Kindle or this Alphasmart. My famly also added in a FreePlay light that can be wound to renew the charge, a few minutes of which can give several hours of blinding light. Or so they claim.
Time to try them out, and my Kelly Kettle as well.
It took about four minutes for the water to start boiling. I know the camera was a bit jerky, but it gives you the idea.
While I was filming Alex asked me what my father would be doing right now if he were still alive. Alex never met my father as he died of a heart attack more than 25 years ago, at least five years before Alex was born. It’s a queston I’ve often daydreamed about as well, especially in relation to my kids. He would have been so proud of them both, just as I am. I can think of three or four things that were central to my father’s sense of life that would shape his choices for this day, were he alive.
First off there was his desire to do well for his family, though his journey toward that goal would prove to be awfully complicated and difficult at times. His mother was evil. That’s all I’ll say about that today, other than to add that shortly before he died he went to visit her for the first time in about twenty years, and the first words out of her mouth were, “you’re still ugly”. So much pain there for my father, and one would guess there’s pain behind the anger of my grandmother as well. He was dead within months, while she hung on for a few more years. We didn’t go to her funeral, if there even was one. Anyway, he would be with his family, of that there is no doubt.
Music was also key to my father’s enjoyment of life. As I sit here typing this Alex is down working on his boat, singing. And Jessa has done SO much with music that would give him such joy. He would be absolutely thrilled with her.
And we was a man who enjoyed using his hands, making things. He built the house I grew up in, made stained glass windows and carved many statues as well. Sadly, his house was torn down, the victim of high land prices on Mercer Island, though the money from the sale of the land supported my mother in a high quality home that helped her through, as best it could, her dementia. When she died, there was also still enough money left to give each of his children a chance to either pay off their bills or, in my case, build a few dreams.
To answer Alex’s question… my father would be down in the driveway with Alex, showing him how to work on his boat. He would, if he were living, be in his element, helping his grandson work with wood. He would have spent time earlier in the day watching Jessa rehearse at her play, or more likely, begging her to play her bass.
But he is dead, and he didn’t spend the day with us. I know that nothing would please him more than knowing of the day I’ve had, capped off with his grandson’s question.
There’s something joyful, and something painful in that question for me. As I shared with Alex, I spent father’s day with my father through memory alone, as I have done for almost as many years as I spent with him while he was living. Strange that I’ve never thought of it that way before. Sobering and sad somehow, yet a part of the natural cycle of life as well. Sorta. Karen still has both her parents, and the math isn’t likely to play out in the same ratio for her.
Going to head in now and upload all this, once I’ve cleaned up all my gadgets!
Turned over
You can see the side wall with window. Right now it’s the outside showing to the inside, but that’s just to give you an idea of what I’ve done.
Click on pictures to get a larger view.
So a friend popped by so I didn’t do work tonight, but we did flip it over.
Oh… and my Kelly Kettle arrived!
Comes complete with a pan to put on top.
Perfect for the little Mini Shanty. Just collect sticks from the river bank!
Mini Houseboats
More Work, bottom almost done.
The image above is just a reminder of what I am working toward.
Walt Whitman – Here the Frailest Leaves of Me.
HERE the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting:
Here I shade and hide my thoughts—I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.
I got a disc at work, KING FM, that features that poem as the lyric. The most beautiful piece of music I’ve heard in some time. Listen to an excerpt I really have never enjoyed poetry before this.
More time spent this weekend on the Mini-shanty. This could actually work! I’ll wait a day or two for the final filler epoxy to set, then I’ll paint. I am thinking of NOT using epoxy as a first coat, using instead some high quality paint.
Then, I’ll do some sanding and small scale filling on the sides, then flip it over. Then I’ll put in the floor and start building the super structure.
I’ll probably take the cabin with me when I go on vacation to the Oregon coast and work on it there, as I am running out of time, and have some big plans for the cabin design. Think gypsy vardo.
http://gypsywaggons.co.uk/ukvardos/wooden/wd75.jpg
http://gypsywaggons.co.uk/ukvardos/museums/york%20mus%205.jpg
I don’t think I can or would do all they have done, but that is the idea. We shall see how much I can/will do.
Later
I am sitting out in the front yard right now in one of our adirondack chairs, my whippet Lucetta at my feet. Actually, he is grazing for long grass amongst the garden plants. Alex is taking down the old aluminum blinds that we bought 20 years ago. They served the purpose well, but had gotten so dinged up in places that we had to replace them. They’ll be coming with the new blinds in the morning.
About this time of night a series of seaplanes fly over the house. They spend the night up north in Kenmore, but drop off and pick up passengers to the southeast on Lake Union. The other sounds in the neighborhood include a gas mower across the street, and the songs of the birds singing at dusk. My wife Karen is with our daughter Jessa at the dance performance featuring one of Jessa’s friends.
It’s been a good weekend, with a wonderful balance of time with Karen, the kids, and time to myself… a real rarity. Saturday morning we went to breakfast with an old bassoon playing friend of mine. We went to Cornish Music School together and both played in the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra. He is a vet, playing bassoon only part time, now, though often that includes gigs with the Seattle Symphony. He just got a new vet job working at a spay and neuter clinic as their medical director. I think it’s a wonderful job for him, but there are the usual personnel problems.
Saturday night we ended up going to a cat art fundraiser for his clinic. We were going to buy some art to support him and his new job, but decided to forgoe getting any new “stuff”, and opted to donate cash instead.
Today Karen and I worked together in the garden, then I spent hours on my boat.
Shantyboat Technology
So how is it I can type this story while sitting out on my front lawn? No, it’s not a laptap, it’s an Alphasmart 3000, a small keyboard designed for schools. It has a small 4 line LCD screen, and does nothing but act as a word processor and a calculator. With the rechargable battery on board I can type for 200 hours before I run out of juice. Starting takes 3 seconds, without the usual computer boot up. They are available on Ebay for about $59 dollars each, though I got two for $89. One of them seems to have a good battery, but the other one needs to be replaced. I have taken one out on my shantyboat before, as it allows me to type out my thoughts without fear of running out of battery. I am sure you could recharge this thing on a very small solar recharger, or just take it on a trip to the library, charging it up in some corner while you browse for books.
Speaking of books, I wouldn’t have many out on my boat, as I would certainly go with the amazing technology of the Amazon Kindle electronic book. While they cost about $350, they would allow a library on board that would literally sink a small small boat, as Kindle can hold about 1500 books. Amazon has dropped the price on many electronic books, with NY Times best sellers going for $9.99 or less. If that is too rich for your budget, you can get thousands of free public domain books for your Kindle online at places such as Project Gutenberg. I like that I can be out on the river, reading a book, and suddenly decide that I’d like to read a book on a new topic, and have it on my Kindle within a hand full of minutes. The Kindle has a cell phone of sorts built in, and allows you to shop and download book samples for free. The same technology allows you to wake up every morning to any one of dozens of newspapers from across the Country and around the world. To save power you should turn off the wireless device unless you are downloading or shopping, as the device stores books, and only uses electricity as you turn a page. Once the page is “turned”, the text display uses no electricity. I am sure that future generations will allow email as well. There is the option for limited web surfing on sites such as CNN and the BBC. Again, perfect for a nomadic life on the water. Oh, and it can hold and play music and books on tape. Pretty slick. You can also load your manuals for things like your stove, outboard, and electronics onto it. Slick, slick, slick.
Alex is working now on his new boat, his sneakbox. He has sanded off most all of the varnish and fiberglass resin, which was only on the bottom for the most part. He plans to paint the bottom and varnish the sides and top. He’s removing the cockpit trim right now, a project that could be far harder than he imagined, as the old brass screws have been in place for decades! He is trying to be very thorough, but he may be doing more than be can get done in time for the boat show. He’d like to show it at the Center for Wooden Boats the weekend of July 4th.
For the first time in many years I will not be going. Instead I will be driving a friends fire engine in a local parade. Many years ago I used to own a 1940 Mack fire truck, one of the smaller models they made, though I think it was still about 24 feet long. Fire engines are cheap to buy, but they sure aren’t cheap to keep up, which is part of the reason I sold mine. Besides, after you have a fire engine for a few years, driving in parades and the like, it actually gets a bit old. Parades are fun, but only for the first dozen times or so!
I just felt a drop of rain or two, so will head in. Time to see how easy it is to transfer text from this to my website!
(It was simplicity itself, taking less than a minute to download the text into this blog.)
Great progress
Alex’s new boat. I think you would call it a sneakbox.
Image from my boat trip in the Escargot/Shambala the other day. I like nestling into a tree on a sunny day.
I’ve forced myself to go down and work on my boat…many times now. ONce there, I have a good time, but my mood has been rather poor of late.
It’s Work,in part. Maybe home,too. Sigh. I’ll say more another day. Can’t right now. Happy to have a job, and a job that pays ok, but…
Hull looks like a hull now. If I put it in water it would float! It might leak, but it would float! Two more weekends of good work and I could be ready to glass and or paint. I haven’t decided if I want to glass it or not. Makes it heavy… and all that sanding! But it does protect it.
New Pictures After a Weekend of Work
The boat is unside down. I’ve installed the sides, the bow, the front deck and supports, some rear supports, the center beam, and the first layer of transom. Click on the pictures to get larger views.
SO much done!
I got a lot done today. It’s amazing how much it looks like a boat now! And my mood is so much better. I’ll take some more pictures tomorrow.
Alex found a cute little boat for $200. We are going to go take a look at it. It’s a 10 foot plywood skiff or something. It may be too big for him to cart around, but he is sure excited about having “his” boat! I’ll update you later.
Bryan
