fdsailor.blog-city.com — June 2004
9:39 pm - Weekend mission accomplished
It's Monday evening, and we're just winding down a three day Memorial Day weekend. The stated goal of this weekend has been to move from "spring mode" (and spring activities) to "summer mode" (and summer activities). Pure and simple, we can't do everything all the time, and we must change our patterns with the seasons. Now that May with its bird migration is pretty much over, it is time to turn out attention to our summer weekend mode of camping, sailing and generally lounging around by the lake, at least on Sunday.
But getting there the first time is part of the fight. Friday night was ice skating, and not much else. Saturday was a rather busy day, or at least the latter part of it. We started by sleeping in a bit, then worked to get the house and yard into shape (read "weed"). We then went canoeing with J's dad A visiting from Russia, followed by some sight seeing. Fun was had by all, even if I couldn't understand what G and A were saying. We paddled in the river area just south of Irondequoit bay, which was really peaceful - a great place to canoe!
On Sunday we finished up all of the things that had not gotten done yet, generated a list, checked it twice, and then packed to camp at the yacht club. We went down, met K & K, and generally chilled. There was no wind, so we didn't sail. After dinner and a litre of wine we crashed in the tent. The birds work me up in the morning (LOUD!), I enjoyed it for a while, then started my day. Today, Monday we were supposed to sail in the Memorial day handicap race, but the rain and wind won - with very little interest, cool temperatures (17C), rain and a 18+ mph wind, racing was cancelled.
This afternoon (in the rain) we went to visit K & K's new house - and this house is actually both new to them and really new on an absolute term. And it is beautiful, guys, regardless of whatever color the walls end up! Congratulations and good luck in your future trips to Home Depot!
Tonight I made Chili - lots of it (7 L). I got a bit carried away with the Chili pepper, and it is pretty hot. We will eat it for dinner tomorrow night, freeze what will fit in the freezer and (if there is any left) give the rest away.
Oh, one other newsworthy item - on Friday, we started doing some Russia scheduling, and extended our trip by 2 days. There were just too many things to do, and too many places to visit. N and T - I will be talking with both of you soon to make some specific arrangements.
Last week my running obsession tended to overshadow my diet non-obsession. We need to change that. As for running, I am going to try to keep doing it at least some to find out what it is good for. Racing with thousands of people is sort of amusing!
That's all for the moment - as always, more as it happens!
10:04 Suggestions for reading this blog
First of all, in this blog, of course the most recent entries are first, so it is sort of like reading a book from the back to the front. If one is "starting from scratch", it works much better if you start in the past and progress towards the present. To do this, you click on either the calander or archive section.
One thing that is not ideal is how this site archives old blogs - instead of getting a list like the main page, you instead get a list of links to individual entries. But what if you want to go to the "next entry"? Where is the "next" button?
Well, as it happens it is there, but hiding (not my fault). Once you look at an entry, at the very top there are some really small << H >> signs - use the arrow signs to navigate to the new blogs (i.e. previous and next), and use H to return to the blog "home" page, which lists the recent entries normally.
Hope this helps, and enjoy your reading. One final disclaimer - this blog does not have a spell checker, and I am lazy and don't proofread that well. So please forgive me in advance for all the bad grammer and spelling.
11:31 PM - Wildlife night
Couple 'a cool things happened tonight. First, while coming home from a walk / ice cream, we saw yet again a small fox kit. Now, I don't know if this is our standard fox or not, since it was on a road about 2 miles from the normal place we see the other fox kit (and we tend to see that fox every 3 nights or so, always walking around in the road - almost hit him once, and now drive very slowly). But the behavior seemed familiar - you see the eyes in the shoulder, then as you approach the fox trots into the road. This time (s)he outdid himself, however. First, said kit had a rabbit in its teeth - the rabbit seemed about half the size of the fox. And when it ran into the road, it then decided to trot (no hurrry!) down the double yellow line for about 100 feet, as we followed 30 feet behind. It wandered over to the other side of the road, stopped and stared at us, then doubled back along the shoulder towards the car. I rolled down my window and watched it from about 20 feet away, and then finally left it so it could eat dinner.
Then later tonight G found a great moth - a prize to anyone identifying it (leave a comment). The moth, of which you only get "underside" views, has a wingspan of about the width of my (male) hand (10 cm) - i.e. darn big moth, but not in the Luna category. I got several photographs:
Really cool antenna system, and really scary body. Whoever identifies this moth gets a free trip to Saskatoon, SK sometime this winter!
12:53 pm - Moissanite
OK, time for a truly random topic. It is time to check in on the state of artificial or imitation diamonds. Until recently the solution was cubic Zirconia. CZ, as long as it is clean and unscratched is indeed mightly hard to distinguish by eye from a diamond. However, it has several weaknesses - it is softer (harder than glass, but less than, say, sapphire) and it's index of refraction is somewhat lower than diamond. An expert can tell pretty easily, and there are widespread devices that measure thermal conductivity which can tell instantly.
Enter a new artificial gem called Moissanite. Unlike CZ, this stone is virtually indistinguishable from a diamond, including by index of refraction (~2.4) and hardness (9.3). In fact the only reliable method is by using a special thermal conductivity meter. In fact, it is rumored that even as we speak many people think that they have diamonds who really have Moissanite.
In case anyone is interested, here are some links for as long as they work:
That's all.
http://www.jewelrysupply.com
and http://www.moissanite-stardust
and http://www.tradeshop.com/gems
11:22 pm - The fox is still around
On my way back from Wegmans I saw the fox kit again. But this time I saw him at a distance, and hence could see where he come from, and why we always seem to see him in the road. Pure and simple, as my car approached from a distance he was lying down in the middle of my lane in the road. As I approached he slowly got up and then trotted into the bushes as I went by. I looked at the spot where he had been - nothing there - so he wasn't eating something there, etc - just taking a rest! Not a survival strategy. He mom was supposed to teach him this stuff - hope she is still around..
Did yardwork tonight - after moving tree branches for 1 1/2 hours I logged the exercise into my palm and found "you can still eat 1150 calories today and still meet your goal" - and this after dinner. Well, I celebrated with about 450, and declare the day a success.
K - a reminder - DO HOTELs then email me!
11:27 pm - Sailing, finally...
By 5:30 AM, the sun was out and several wrens were singing their hearts out. GOOD MORNING, ISN'T IT A FINE DAY? GEE, I THINK ITS A GREAT DAY. HELLLLLOOO! YOU, THE SLEEPING ONES - WAKE UP. RISE AND SHINE! Along with about 50 other birds with essentially the same message. Urr - where am I? And boy, aren't those birds loud? Hmmm. Grrr. Oh gee, I seem to be in a tent - does that make sense? Did I go to sleep in a tent? Boy are those birds loud - this can't be a dream...
Here we lie in a tent at the yacht club, where we crashed last night at 11, and not wanting to get up at such a silly hour in the morning, if you call this morning. Well, the birds weren't going away, but I did have a pillow to stuff my head in. Finally awoke at 8:15 to the cell phone ringing - it's K, worried that "I may not be awake yet", and should he come down to race? Oh yeh, I think - that's why I'm here - I knew there was a reason...
I walked down the the waterfront, and there was a nice, gentle SSE wind at about 6mph - perfect for the first sail of the year. We set up the boat and it looked a bit windier out, so I put on a spray top. K did not, because, (as he put it) - "I don't get wet like you do, since I am out on trapeze, and only my legs get soaked". Well, once we were on the water the wind had suddenly (out of nowhere) built into the upper teens and occasional forays into the lower 20s. Since I was "getting my sea legs", we delayed launching the genoa, during which (when K was NOT on trapeze), he got soaked head to toe. He thanked me for this bracing experience, but wisely didn't complain too much, since he knows I get this all the time while he is staying dry on the wire. Finally the genoa goes out, the boat takes off, and we are launched for the season. We meet up with out tuning partner (S and W), and we sail for a bit - more survival than pairs tuning, but there we were anyways. On the first tack K (my crew) looks back and notices that in S's boat the "pointy end is no longer up". The centerboard was pointing towards the sky instead - not fast. They climb on the boat, struggle, and finally have it ready to right. However (and this is normal, unfortunately) the sail, though horizontal on the water's surface, was upwind, and sure enough, as soon as they righted the boat it promptly capsized on top of them. 30 seconds later they are back where they started, if you don't count their personal energy level.
This time they try to right it with the infamous "flying waloosa" technique - more amusing to watch than describe. S on the centerboard, belly down, reaching his arms to W, who is standing on the gunwhale and leaning backwards. Fun, but didn't seem to be working well. Looked more relaxing for S then for W, in the meanwhile.
Enter K the frogman. K takes off the trapeze harness, I sail behind the capsized boat, and splash in he goes. He later told me that the lake is not very warm :-). With three their boat rights and stays that way. I regain my crew, and S sails back into shore to put on a wetsuit - he was quite cold, but still was "talking sense" so was presumed not very hypothermic.
20 minutes later they came back out (this time with better attire) and we had a good tuning session in the decreasing breeze - upper teens quickly turned to a wonderful 12-15, then 8, then 6 then... 0. We paddled in.
Oh yeah, minor thing - during this period I was steering upwind coming out of a tack and the "feel" on the hiking stick felt really light. And worse yet, I moved it and nothing happens to the boat's course. Hmm - a quick look confirms my suspicions - it is no longer attached to the tiller and the boat is steering itself (and sure 'nuff, is presently thinking that another tack would be fun). I dive in an grab it in time, so no flips for us. Now, about that boat maintenance program...
Came home, ate dinner, then did some yardwork. I then went running (3 miles, zone 3, i.e. heartrate 130 - 148, which is simple, aerobic for me), and went to Wegman's.
All told, it feels that slowly everything is starting to fall into place, and that we are making ground on winning back the house mess, the yard, and our lives. Next challange on deck - my Mom goes into surgery this week. MAJOR surgery, which has us all a bit scared. K my sister (sorry, too many K's around) will attend, and I will be on deck, handling logistics as things come up. And after that, we have to get serious about planning Russia.
Speaking of Russia, we haven't forgotten you guys in St. Pete's, and N, thanks for your comments! And N and T, we will call you sometime soon! I know that our part is easy - we just show up, but you guys need to do the planning thing. So we will talk.
So never a dull moment here, although a few dull moments would actually be quite welcome. There is lots of other stuff going on, but I will save it for another time.
Finally, about the mystery moth. K, my dear sister, writes the following: "that moth a few entries ago is a polyphemus, one of the largest species in the country." And boy, now that I know that, I really wish I had gone to the other side of the window and looked at the top of the wing - for a link to what the full moth looked like, see http://www.fcps.k12.va.us
9:15 Crazy, crazy week
Gosh this has been a busy week - probably sets some sort of a record, and not the sort of record one want to set. I am sorry I have not blogged sooner - there was simply no time or opportunity.
On Tuesday, I went to my Mom's house to drive her to the airport. This went uneventfully, but still took essentially all day. But it was a major accomplishment, delivering Mom to Mayo (a several hour flight away) before she became so sick she couldn't fly. And it really was "touch and go" - I didn't know if she was going to make it until the actual day she flew out and I got her on the plane. Literally just in time, I suspect.
G also left for NJ to see her Mom and siblings on Tuesday, to return this last Sunday. So Wednesday was my only night to do just about everything around the house - pack for a trip myself, clean the house, and veg a very little bit.
On Thursday I flew to Washington on a 6:30 AM flight, which meant waking up at 4:30 am. The trip went fine (long days, though), and I returned on Friday night just before midnight. I quickly dropped into bed and....
...woke up next morning at 7 to drive to a 5Km running race on the runway at Rochester International (yeh, right) Airport. Yup, you guessed it, they close one of the runways, and you run up and down it, for a total of 3.1 miles. I ran with my sailing partner K. The race went well, and I did better than I probably had any right to. My goal was to run at an average pace of 8 minutes a mile or better. I achieved that goal and then some (which I will attribute to the really flat course). The stats are as follows (I will leave off the graph this time):
Mile Split Tot.T Ave Pace Ave HR
0.5 3:41 3:41 7:20 129 (bad HR connection)
1.0 3:55 7:36 7:48 172
1.5 3:55 11:32 7:55 172
2.0 3:59 15:31 7:53 175
2.5 3:59 19:30 8:00 177
3.0 3:41 23.12 7:14 182
3.1 0:20 23:31 6:17 187
Average resultant pace was 7:35 per mile. I finished in the top third of the runners overall, and in the top half of my age group. So I can't complain. And most importantly, I didn't injure, although I was pretty useless until about 3 pm that afternoon.
In the late afternoon I packed, gathered my "boat tools" and went down to the club. I pitched a tent, worked on the boat (FD's always need something to be fixed, and today was forestay takeup and removing the (unused) traveler cars. I went to Wegmans for dinner, and sat outside eating and drinking a glass of wine (it was about 20C out). I followed this with an Abbot's cone, and life was good. I tented and awoke to birds.
On the mother front - on Thursday (while I was in Washington) they amputated my Mom's right leg. A tragic thing, yes, but it was absolutely clear that this was the right thing to do. She came out of the operation and immediately began to feel better than she had been. And being my Mom, she has already started to "move on" with her new situation. Long recovery ahead, but in some ways she is going to (hopefully) be healthier than she has in the last three years.
Back to Sunday. Wind south at 17 - good stiff breeze. A bit more than I would really desire, but the boat is still controllable in these conditions as long as nothing unexpected (read: helm or crew mistakes) happens. We got out into the lake, unfurled the genoa, and ZOOM, we took off (the FD is the fastest 2-person boat upwind of all the international sailboat classes). We settled in (K leaning back on trapeze and starting to relax) when BANG, the sky fell. K describes it as "I didn't really know what was happening - it was as though either the genoa became uncleated or the trapeze broke, but then I noticed I will still attached to trapeze - but really close to the water, in fact, sort of dragging through the water". Well, I had a better view, and it was immediately clear that the genoa halyard broke - indeed, the genoa itself came down. Well, the genoa keeps the mast from falling backwards and down - normally there is about 250 Kg of force (and yes, I know, a KG is a unit of mass, not force, but you don't really want newtons, do you...no, I didn't think so...) on the genoa halyard. So the mast starts falling down. There is a forestay, however as a backup in this very event. This came into play (indeed this was one of the things I had fixed the day before), and the mast remained standing - just leaning back about three feet further than normal. There was some deck damage as it tried to pull out, however, and of course the genoa halyard itself disappeared into the mast, so I get to thread it through again (not my favorite job - takes lots of time, which is what I don't have).
Refusing to get depressed about this, we took out a pair of Lasers instead, and enjoyed a wonderful practice session / sail. Stayed out for several hours, and it was glorious.
So this week's back to normal for a change. We will try again to plan Russia, and apologize for ignoring this. But as you see I have some good excuses, and this is what primarily matters :-)
9:13 pm - the Bird Seed Lady
In the movie "Amile" one of the continuing threads of the film concerns the great mystery on why a particular man's photographs keep showing up in instant photo booths. As the film continues this issue never seems to be resolved, until finally near the end, "aha" and the story is known.
Well, I have had my own mystery. As I take walks during lunch at work, a find numerous small areas of birdseed on the sidewalk. Sometimes there is none, and sometimes there is a bit every 10 meters or so. Curious.
Who puts this here? Is it sort of a community thing, does the town do it, does a man with an occasionally leaky bicycle basket ride home from Wegmans and leak seed? I figured I would never know for sure.
But yesterday, I return from a walk, cross the street, and meet an old woman slowly waddling down the sidewalk with her cart - going to Wegmans, it seems. Then she stops, reaches into her bag, and sprinkles bird seed. Ah - the bird seed lady! I address her as such-- "Oh wow - its the bird seed lady!" She is not surprised at all - as though I was the twentieth person to call her that today. She simply replies "well, someone has to do it - I don't know what the birds would do without me". I smile, thanked her, and walked on, not telling her that the birds would do just fine as it happens. But she is happy, and the city has thousands of European sparrows living off welfare. As a result, the sun keeps rising each morning - one more person to keep the world spinning.
11:34: Gift card guys - say it ain't true!
I just got back from Wegmans, and saw something that was rather amusing. First of all, remember - it is past 11 pm, which pretty much puts and upper age limit on who tend to shop at that time (myself excepted, obviously). Well, I look down the card isle - normally this isle is completely, 100% women, picking through the cards. It is a NO GUY area - guys aren't found in feminine hygiene, and they aren't found in the card isle. Just one of those simple facts of life that keeps the world balanced in a a way.
Well, tonight, I was very surprised to find 6 or so late-teen GUYS there, picking out Father's day cards, with occasional glanced to the side to ensure no one was watching. Still, this just somehow didn't seem natural. Then I noticed that there were two or three woman - were these the "guards", ensuring that their boyfriends (or male subjects in general) were doing the "right thing" and buying cards? I looked for enforcement devices - you know, whips, cattle prods, stun guns - couldn't find any. So I guess I'll never know if the guys were then on their own volition of not....
11:50 pm - Sailing, Russians and life
This last weekend for me at least revolved around boats. Since last week we had so effectively put the FD out of commission, this Saturday was devoted to fixing it so it works again. It was a good day for boat work - rather cool, too windy to really want to sail. In general everything went fine, repair wise - still some things to do, but we got to where we needed to.
Sunday we raced two races, albeit with only two boats (the third main boat is out with an injury for the next month). We won both races, but believe me, we certainly tried hard to lose the first one - TWICE. After the first beat yours truly called a very controversial jibe on the first reach. Reaches are not supposed to require jibes, and sure enough, I regretted it as soon as I had done it - just don't ask.... Once we got pointed in the right direction we sailed a rather good set of reaches, and made up our distance, passing the other boat on the second reach. We then sailed a terrible beat in the shifty westerly winds (10 gusting 17). As a boat in another class behind us observed - we seemed to be going very fast, just not in the right direction! WE redeemed ourselves on the run, catching perhaps 20 boat lengths in a wonderful run, planing all the way. We rounded outside the other boat, but they had a genoa jam and we sailed to a win.
The second race went much better - the shifts seemed to be hitting well, our boatspeed was pretty good, and we didn't flip, despite a spectacular effort on my part when I caught the tiller in the end of the boom, wrapped around the outhaul - gee couldn't have done that if I tried. It took two hands to get it back as I steered by kicking the tiller with by feet. K was wondering why the boat was going in random directions as it tipped and spilled him all over,but her has figured out I don't do this for jollies.
So that was the weekend. One other point of news that has not made this blog yet. To make a long story short, G and I agreed to host an exchange student this coming school year, through the ATAD program. Once paired with a student ("M", sorry I can't list it out), we were immediately disappointed that the local school said that it had enough students for this year and that we were out of luck. This was a major bummer. So last Monday I wrote up a "fact sheet" on why the school should change its mind, enlisted help from the ESL teacher, who knows us well, and made an appointment with the principal. I don't know if any of this was necessary or not, but the next day we were told that they changed their minds. So thanks to whatever god(s) there are up there - M will come in the fall, barring other unforeseen obstacles. We have already exchanged emails with her and I think we all will have a fun and productive year together. (And if you ever read this M, "Hi" :-) !!)
Oh yeah - I went running tonight, and had another small "first" - I ran 5 miles (8 km) non-stop. It was not a very fast 5 miles (50:11), but it was not designed to be - the rules I had set were to stay in heartrate zone 3, which is 130 - 148 for me. And most of the time this meant between 145 and 149 or so, as I don't naturally run slow. So I am happy, and it leaves me beliving that 10 km (just the run, not the race) is possible.
Time for bed.... 'night all!
