I have a dilemma. There is a good chance that I have some quality work here in Oriental starting in mid-May. To live here and be able to cook I would need to bring the boat back up. To bring the boat back I would need to get the truck to Pensacola and pick up the dinghy. After delivering the dinghy to Palatka I would have to leave the truck there and make good time up the waterway and then train back down and retrieve the truck. The job isn’t even a sure thing so it could be a lot of trouble and miles to hit a deadline that doesn’t exist. If the boat wasn’t under an oak tree then I might leave her down there and just try to find an apartment here. Maybe today will shed some new light.
-
Another fine mess
-
Beautiful weather
These crisp, clear mornings couldn’t be any nicer. The Saturday market was in full swing and boats were moving around in the harbor. I processed some of the “stuff” that has been in and out of the truck so many times lately. I also did a little sewing that will wrap up the truck in canvas to keep the insides dry.
There is some intriguing work on the horizon that may or may not happen but is at least causing some excitement.
-
Mongo like food
My dinner at the Paling’s house last night has kick-started my appetite after a really fun bout with stomach flu. On top of that I have work to do tomorrow and possible the rest of the month. The pine pollen has turned the whole town green but heavy wind followed by rain should improve some local sinuses by the weekend. Matt and Douglas returned from Charleston today so I moved from their place into the guest basement of the Stevens.
-
There now…
…that wasn’t too hard. I pulled out of Lake Como at 3pm with the truck crammed to the brim and drove all night, arriving here at 4am. The first thing I did was dump a load of laundry in Sailcraft’s coin machine. It has been good to see some friends and I look forward to seeing some more. It is hard to believe this truck has covered the miles that I have asked it to. I better take the rear axle apart soon to find out what all the noises are about. My netbook needs a little attention too because I am having to hammer the U key.
-
Wifi Wasteland
I made it to Palatka and spent the first day and a half working on Spark’s motor but I got her going and now will tackle the storage building. I have very few opportunities to get online but may make a run to Oriental soon.
-
Travel plans
By 9pm last night I had everything sorted out. A women named Desire runs a new service to Miami and was going to pick me up Monday morning at 6am to make a 10am train to Palatka. This morning I got a call from a guy that had advertised on Craigslist for passengers to help drive to Iowa and is leaving tonight at about 5pm. That puts me into Palatka at 2 or 3 in the morning but seems like the best option. I will finish up this morning at the dive shop and then run Edana’s car to the marina and pack what I have down here.
Apologies to those that where upset with the Rush post. I have just as many conservative friends as I do liberal friends and when you attack their guy I think they feel attacked themselves. The message was to think and not believe everything you hear. I will do the same.
-
Leaving the Keys
Anybody going to the train station in Miami? All the rental cars are taken this week with the student vacations in full swing. The bus passes through here but it drops you in Miami after the train has left. I posted to a ride board on the internet but haven’t heard from anybody. Working here at Amy Slate Dive Resort has been traded out for two nights lodging which ends tonight. I may leave everything somewhere and walk.
-
Background noise
I cleaned a boat today with the voice of Rush L. blasting from across the canal. I fully understand why some people need him and it is fine that he has a following but why the heck do you need to sing it from the rooftops? Tattoo him on your chest, print him on your tee shirt, eat what he eats but please give the rest of us an opportunity to listen when we want and only when we want. If he was reporting on the news around us I might be able to stand it but constant bitching does nobody a bit of good. He said today that he loves the country. Where is the love in his words? It seems like he hates half the country. Think for yourself people!! Do the research. Don’t listen to either of the extremes, left or right! Go to sources with the least agenda. Ask yourself if the dialogue is bringing us together or tearing us apart. If he is successful we will forever be half a country and that might not be good enough to survive in this world. Any other form of input that only tells half the story is usually considered brainwash. Again, this goes for the libs too.
-
Curved by Design
This is a little place brought to you by Curved by Design that looks pretty comfortable. One of them on their website had stairs leading to a bedroom. I understand “round” is hard to furnish but I would still love to have one. The interior shot looks like it is from a bigger model but it still shows the quality.
-
Last night was on fire
I heard popping sounds last night that I thought was a St. Patrick’s Day celebration. It was my first night renting a room in the backyard of a friend of a friend’s house in Key Largo. It turns out the sounds and smells were coming from the restaurant and bar next door. Snook’s was burning!! There are charred chunks of the building right out from my door so there could have been some exploding going on. I didn’t even get up because I had no idea it was such a major fire. My dreams the last few nights have been full of adventure so I never know what is real in the middle of the night. Brenda owns this house and said she has pictures so I will see if I can post something soon.
-
Traffic Report
There was a car accident down here. A woman was trying to get herself all shaved up for her new bikini and was shaving while driving. She was in the drivers seat and her ex-husband was reaching across from the passenger seat attempting to steer the car. They were on the way to the woman’s boyfriends place. Did you follow all that? Here is the link.
-
Early retirement
I have had two jobs this week that are going to help me get back to north Florida soon so I can make an attempt at moving the boat to the Keys. The first one was washing a boat and that should repeat on Friday. The second was computer work and that could continue too, later this week. Jen and Edana have week long classes starting this Saturday so I had better do something because my home away from home is going to sea.
-
Tavernier Tiki Tribes
This is a good group of people. Captain Jen has been teaching sailing down here for 12 years on her Morgan 41. The marina has two active tiki huts with one called the Zen Tiki and the other wanting to be called the Con Tiki because of the convicts that make it their home. Both groups are so friendly and generous and I have been lucky to witness their cooking wars. Yesterday I went to Amy Slate’s Dive Resort because Amy and her brother were my backyard neighbors when I was a kid. It was a blast to see Amy and Justin after so many years. I had forgotten that I used to tie her to a tree during lightning storms. What a guy! She should take me diving and then push the coffee maker overboard for old times sake. I think the boat needs to be down here to see what there is to see on the Florida Bay side of the Keys. Nights are still in the 40’s but normal temps are coming next week.
-
The Keys
I am in the Keys for a little while.
It has taken a couple of hours to upload a couple of photos so this post will be short. We have been here since Thursday and this shot was from one of the schooners in Key West. Yesterday three of us went to Ft. Lauderdale to walk the megayacht docks. Afterward we went to Coral Gables Sailing Club and ate some tacos with a friend of Bret and Edana’s. -
Everyone Deserves A Roof
I saw this on the Tiny House Blog.
The EDAR, a cross between a shopping cart and a pop-up camper, is a step up.
EDAR (Everyone Deserves A Roof) provides shelter to the homeless in an innovative cost and usage effective way. The EDAR unit is a purpose-specific, special four-wheeled enclosed cart, very roughly reminding one of a covered shopping cart. Check out the website.
-
Decluttering
“If you’re tempted to keep something because it was expensive, remember the difference between value and cost. Value is what something is worth. You spent a lot of money on it. To throw it away would mean admitting that the money was wasted.
Now you need to think about the cost. What is it costing you to keep this item? How much space? How much energy? What about the peace of mind that comes from having a clean home full of things you use?
You made a decision to purchase this expensive thing that you never use. Now, if you keep it, you’ll be throwing good space after bad money.”
–Peter Walsh, It’s All Too Much
-
An excerpt from Computing Across America, 1988
The Greatest Risk
© 1988 by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research LabsEveryone has at one time or another shrunk from a growth opportunity because with it comes the Unknown. The Unknown! What’s out there, anyway?
Disappointment? Derision? Danger? Defeat? Death?
Those are all bad, certainly, but none of them are nearly as bad as nothing. None of those things can possibly be worse than the horror or Complacency that creeps like a psychic tapeworm into the mind, demanding a steady diet of the bland to let it propagate and infect those nearby. It’s insidious, evil, and epidemic in America. It slithers out of TV sets; it crawls from the pages of popular media. It hides in classrooms and slips unnoticed into vulnerable young brains.
And it does all this while masquerading brilliantly as knowledge and truth. Complacency is the adulterant of passion, the assassin of curiosity, the lobotomizer of life itself.
A friend’s mother once listened to me talking excitedly about my upcoming journey and shook her head in protective maternal fright. She summed it all up without even realizing it: “But honey, there are things out there… there are things out there we don’t even know about!”
Right on.
It’s possible to have growth without risk, but it is growth of the slow, vegetable kind, rarely yielding those magical breakthroughs that make you light up with understanding. It doesn’t take anything quite so radical as an epic bicycle trip to do this, of course, only the courage to risk the Unknown. Any kind of Unknown — be it intellectual, geographical, cultural, scientific, physical… whatever.
Because the greatest risk of all is taking no risk. That’s the one that can really get ya, the death worse than fate.
So. Curious about something? Restless? Hungry for knowledge or change? Got a dream?
Go for it.
-
The Cup
Monday could be the first race of the America’s Cup. They are taking place in Spain again this year and the coverage on television may not even happen. Both boats are multihulls and the speeds are scary fast.
-
Seven forces of decline
The guy that started Outward Bound had his own thoughts on when things went bad. His seven forces of decline that effect the modern world were the decay of:
- fitness
- care
- skill
- initiative
- self-discipline
- imagination
- compassion
He felt like we were shielded from the true forces of life and the lessons contained therein. Engagement with nature was no longer considered civilized and the combination of all this put us on a path to “spiritual death”. This was some good stuff taken from an article in Wooden Boat Magazine.
-
Music in the park
For over twenty years Pensacola has had free concerts in one of the downtown parks. People bring tables for food, wine and beer and a relaxing evening is had by all. It seems like something is happening all year long. A couple of nights ago they closed one of the malls and had a tux and gown party with booths representing the local restaurants and many open bars.
Buy Local
